I blinked a few times, mind working to figure out where I was. Slightly lumpy bed, sparse blanket, and I could tell there were others in the room with me judging by the snoring. Ah, that’s right! We were in the garrison after a night of partying. That was a fun time, as Bribis brought out some of the good stuff for the caravan. With no need to keep a watch posted, all of the guards were able to partake as well. I started to stretch, only to freeze midway.

“Ah. Hah. Ah. Hah.” I was panting with pain, as my left calf had decided to cramp up. Taking a moment to gather my courage, and clutch my pillow to help smother any noises, I slowly started to flex my foot. NO GOOD! ABORT! I whimpered into my pillow as I rolled back and forth in agony. It took what felt like an hour, but was most likely closer to a minute, to calm down enough to try my next trick. Reaching back, I started to gently massage the muscle that a cramped up into a rock hard ball just below the knee. It was slow going, as any sort of real pressure would send pain shooting through my leg.

A few minutes of gentle massage, and the rock had loosened a bit. Enough that I could flexing my foot again. Back and forth. Slowly. A few inches at a time. I sighed in relief as I felt the last of the cramp work its way out, and reluctantly let go of my pillow.

“My Lord?” I looked over to see a pair of blue eyes staring at me, full of concern.

“Sorry Elendria.” I whispered back. “Leg cramp.”

She nodded, then asked, “Need me to cool down the muscle?”

“I’m good, thanks.” I said. “Let’s go get some breakfast.” She nodded, and we rolled out of bed to head downstairs. I grunted through the first few steps, still working out a bit of the aches. Elendria was right there though, helping me get through the limp.

“Thanks.” I panted, eyeing the stairs warily. “I think I’ll be ok here. I’ll go slow, and use the rail.”

“And I’ll be right here, just in case.” She said in that tone women get that brooks no argument. Not that I was about to do that. We made our way slowly, though I did gain a bit of confidence as we progressed. Just as we reached the bottom, a disheveled Carrigan and Loreley walked out of her room to stare at us.

“You are limping.” Loreley declared, obviously glossing over the elephant in the room. “How did you manage to injure yourself in bed?”

“Judging by Carrigan’s state, I figured you could guess a few positions.” I immediately replied, unable to keep the reply quiet.

“HAHAHAHAHA! OOF!” Carrigan started to laugh, only to get an elbow and a glare from Loreley. A glare she swiftly turned on me.

“It’s just a leg cramp.” I waved off her concern. “I’ll have a banana with breakfast the next few days and be just fine.” I started to head to the cafeteria, only to have them join our group.

“Bananas? Why those?” Loreley asked, and I cursed myself. Of course an herbalist was going to want to know the reason why you were treating a simple cramp with fruit.

“They are high in potassium.” I said with a shrug. “Diets low in potassium can lead to muscle cramps. Since I had nothing but broth for a few days, I’m probably lacking a few things.”

“Are you questioning my broth?” Came a rather chilly response from behind me.

“Not at all.” I quickly said. “It kept me alive. But no broth can really provide everything the body needs, surely you realize this? Frankly I’m glad that the only thing I’m still suffering from is a small muscle cramp.”

“Very well.” Came the response, along with a chuckle from Carrigan. We all got breakfast, and I was glad to see that they had eggs to order. I missed eggs, and the caravan didn’t really have the room for live chickens.

“Can I get two eggs, basted medium.” I said to the cook.

“Basted?” He asked, confused.

“Sorry, you probably call them something different. Cook them until they are almost done without flipping them, then add a ladle full of hot water and put a cover on it. The steam from the water will finish cooking the egg, and leave the top of the yolk a purple color.”

“Ah, you mean steamed eggs! I can do that!” He said with a smile, pulling out a small pot lid to cover my eggs. “I’ll bring ‘em out to your table since there aren’t that many people up yet.”

“Appreciate it.” I said with a nod, sitting down next to everyone else. Seems like everyone had different ideas for breakfast. Elendria and Loreley had gone for a more fruit heavy breakfast, though Elendria had a few sausage patties.

“Going full carnivore Carrigan?” I asked, getting a chuckle from Loreley. He had a small pile of sausage, a slightly larger pile of bacon, and half a slab of ham.

“You know it.” He said before taking another bite of bacon. “We don’t always get the good stuff while traveling, so I take advantage when I can. You’ll see soon enough. Besides, meat helps with recovery.”

“Heh. I thought it would be fluids you needed.” Elendria chuckled, and I snorted water out my nose.

“Ow!” I cried out, frantically wiping my nose as we all laughed. The cook gave us a weird look as he dropped off my eggs, but that was fine. I was used to being part of the weird bunch.

“Sean, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Loreley started. “Would you mind answering how high your constitution is?” The other two froze, but I had a feeling she was asking from a diagnostic purpose.

“You don’t-“ Elendria started, but I interrupted her by patting her hand.

“It’s alright. She’s wanting to know because of my passing out for so long.” I said, and got a nod from Loreley. “Without my profession it is only at ten.” I said, and everyone sucked in their breath.

“No wonder you had issues.” Loreley muttered. “Look, you really need to boost that. Spellcasting takes its toll on the mind, but it also affects the body. If you don’t have a proper foundation there, you could pass out in the middle of a battle and die.”

“I am starting to realize that, and have been making strides to change it. What would you recommend?” I asked.

“Nothing short of twenty to be honest.” She shrugged. “Most mages stop at fifteen, but you seem to attract trouble from what I’ve heard. Better to boost it that little bit more.”

The rest of breakfast was uneventful thankfully, though I still had a bit of an ache in my calf. I was fairly certain it would stay for at least a day, most likely two. As we were all packing in to the caravan to leave, there was a commotion at the gate. We all turned to watch as the reinforcements arrived.

Most were wearing worn armor, though in the middle of the formation was a small group dressed in ornate robes. Each rode what looked like a bighorn sheep, though instead of hooves they had a toed foot with claws. Judging by their sharp teeth, vegetables probably weren’t on the menu either. Their leader immediately headed toward Gronig, but we kept to ourselves. Gronig had promised that we wouldn’t have to deal with the reinforcements, any report they would require was already filled out. As they were breaking down their mounts and preparing for their stay, we headed out.

“So.” Carrigan said once we were on our way. “How are you progressing? And are you going to start up practice again?”

“Yeah. I won’t push it today, but will probably get back into the swing of things tomorrow. How long are we going to be on the road?”

“Two weeks.” Bribis said over his shoulder. “It isn’t the distance so much as the mountain trails. Probably going to have a few skirmishes with bandits, so try and keep at least half your mana available.”

“Don’t worry too much.” Carrigan said. “Bandits don’t try too many caravans this large. Too much of a chance of finding mages. How close are you to finishing water?”

“I need to max out two novice spells.”

“That’s it? You could finish it today. What do you have so far?” Carrigan asked.

“Water stream, piercing magic missile, and minor elemental imbue.” I said, double checking my skills list.

“Hmm. Not bad. See if you can learn bubble. That just summons a sphere of water you can move around. Great for putting out campfires and drowning enemies. Water stream may be good for cleaning, but you want a bigger output sometimes. The small version of the spell is gush. It’s probably putting water out about this big around.” He said, making a four-inch circle with his hands. “Careful though, it really burns through mana.”

“Thanks.” I said with a nod. “Are there any buff type spells that fall under water?” I asked.

“Hmm. I’m more of a destroy them with extreme prejudice type of guy, so I didn’t pay too much attention to the buff spells. What about you Bribis?”

“I only know earth magic. Sorry.” He shrugged, and we all turned to Elendria.

“Oh? Now you think to ask the girl?” She snarked at us. “I don’t know if you deserve my help on this.”

“It’s not like that.” Carrigan started.

“Then how is it? Hmmm?” She asked, and the temperature dropped a bit. “I am a master of ice magic. That means I had to start with water. Everything I do requires knowledge of water magics.”

“And you absolutely should have been our first thought.” I said, sliding an arm around her. “Is there anything we can do to make it up to you?”

“Not playing fair my Lord.” She growled, but let the temperature return to normal. “I will forgive you, but you need to help me too. I want to know what your world knows of ice.”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot about the specific forms of ice, but I can tell you a lot about temperature. Would that be worth your forgiveness?”

“You are far too easy my Lord. Yes, that will be acceptable. As a good faith gesture, I’ll tell you the two buffs I know. Elasticity is the first one, and it is a journeyman level spell. You infuse your targets skin with the surface tension properties of water. While it won’t stop a direct hit, a glancing blow is more likely to simply deform the skin slightly and let it recover instead of damaging you. The other is called Acid Sweat. Nobody is sure, but taking acid from your muscles lowers stamina drain.”

“Huh. Sounds like lactic acid.” I said, and everyone stared at me. “Look, biology was never my thing, but everyone who has ever worked out knows about lactic acid. When you do strenuous exercise, you produce lactic acid. I don’t remember the why, just that it does. But it leads to muscle fatigue and cramps. The more intense you are working, and the longer you are working, the more it builds up. So if your spell is removing it from the body, you will be able to last longer.”

“Wouldn’t acids, I dunno. Melt your skin or something?” Carrigan asked.

“Not necessarily.” Bribis said. “If it were a mineral acid, sure. Those are nasty. But there are organic acids that are edible.”

“Bribis is exactly right.” I said. “A weak acid like lactic acid wouldn’t do much to your skin. If you left it on there, it might cause a rash eventually. It sounds like a great trade-off for warriors. Besides, I’m sure their constitution is high enough that the acid wouldn’t hurt no matter how concentrated it became.”

“So this acid is what causes muscles to weaken over time when you are using them?” Elendria asked, sitting forward. “Do you know how to detect it? If I could get my magic to target it, we could jump that skill up a tier. It would be more efficient, and last longer.”

“Sorry. If you can get some of the sweat, I could probably help you out. We could neutralize the acid. What disappears would be the acid.”

“Alright. We can work on that some other time.” Carrigan said. “I’m honestly more interested in your thoughts and knowledge on ice.”

“I thought you were fire and air?” I asked, confused.

“I am!” He said with a chuckle. “That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy learning new things. I could have spent a week debating Loreley back there about all sorts of things.”

“Alright, just don’t make any moves on me. I don’t swing that way.” I chuckled, getting a laugh out of him as well.

“Swing that way? What does that mean?”

“Blasted worldly idiom.” I muttered. “It means I’m attracted to women, and only women.”

“Ah, ok then. Fear not my friend, we are of a mind on this.”

“Excellent. Ok, so. Do you guys remember the water molecule I made?” They both looked a little confused, until I created a magic hologram in front of them.

“Oh, those things. Yeah, I remember, but what does that have to do with ice?” Elendria asked.

“Well, I don’t remember the exact forms, but there are a lot of different ways to make ice. The easiest, and what you normally find, is regular ice.” I made a hexagon with oxygen atoms, rotating things around so that each oxygen had one attached hydrogen pointing to the next tier of atoms, and one pointing to a neighbor.

“Ok? So ice is this repeating structure?”

“Yep. Now, if you form it under different circumstances, namely higher pressure, you can change the structure.” As I spoke, the forms shifted. Instead of a hexagon, I made a rhombus. Then it shifted to a cube structure. Extending only one side made a rectangular structure. I altered another side so that none matched. “These are all separate forms of ice. I’m not sure of the benefits of each one, but you could definitely try and make them. Some are denser, and would make a better armor. Something you’ll just have to play around with.”

“Hmmm. I will see what I can do.” She said, studying the models. “Did your people name these different types of ice?”

“Yeah, but it won’t help you any.” I said. “They went with a number system. Ice one through ice however many they ended up discovering.”

“That’s annoying.” She grumped, crossing her arms.

“Sorry.” I said. “Wish I could help more.”

“It’s alright. I’ll try condensing the ice, and see what happens.”

“So. Buddy. Got any fire tips?” Carrigan chuckled.

“Sorry man. I already told you most of what I know about fire’s requirements. If you don’t mind, I’m going to try and finish off my water practice.”

“Sure thing. Not like I could practice fire magic on the move anyway.”

Though he tried to act put out, I could tell Carrigan was still riding the good mood from earlier. I decided to work on the bubble spell for now. It started out simple. Summon a glob of water. The hard part was keeping enough mana in there that I could move it around and manipulate it against the pull of gravity. After an hour of frustrating struggle, I decided that I could live with it if it wasn’t a perfect sphere. Instead it started looking more like a floating slime, flat on bottom and rounded on top. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to control as many blobs as I could, though I kept them small. By the time we broke for camp, I was up to four blobs that I could control within three feet of me.

“Not bad, not bad at all.” Carrigan said, walking by me as I struggled to maintain control. “But how are your reactions?” He chuckled, sending a wave of air at them. I had just enough time to widen my eyes in horror before I frantically tried to reestablish control. Three ended up exploding and drenching me, while the fourth rocketed into the ground.

“Damnit Carrigan.” I growled, using a quick cantrip to remove the water from my clothes.

“What? You don’t think someone will take countermeasures against your spells?”

“I fully expect that, just not when I’m trying to learn a new spell.”

“Bah. Adversity is good for you, or something like that. At least it was water and not fire.” He countered as he walked off. Bastard. Still, he had a point. Most of my training was individual, and I would eventually need to practice against others. Shrugging, I headed off to the far side of the latrine to try out his other suggestion for a spell. Gush.

“You are the greatest at understatements, you know that?” I growled out as I plopped down next to him, eating as fast as I could. I was still a bit famished from my ordeal, and admittedly was getting rather grumpy.

“What are you talking about?”

“Gush? Oh, it really burns through mana. I’ll say!” I said, emphasizing my point by pointing my fork at him. “Whoever heard of a novice level spell draining ten mana per second?”

“I told you!” He said, but I waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah. You told me. You just didn’t give me a reference point. Even with my mana pool, I can’t maintain a gush spell for much more than two minutes. That’s ridiculous.”

“Alright, next time I’ll give you a more detailed warning.”

“So how much mana did you burn through?” Bribis asked, even though he hadn’t lifted his head from his dinner through the whole conversation.

“A hundred.” I answered. To my shock, Bribis dug into his purse and tossed a silver coin to Carrigan!

“Damn. If you had only held it for five more seconds. Guess the shock factor wasn’t that strong.” He chuckled.

“You knew!” I growled. “And you were betting on me?”

“Hey, it’s nothing against you.” Carrigan said. “You’ll find betting is incredibly popular on caravans. We have to find our entertainment somewhere.”

Rather than lashing out, I sat back and stared at him for a second. Thinking it through. “Damnit.” I said with a sigh. “I suppose you do have a point. Is there anything else about me everyone is betting on?”

“Can’t tell.” Bribis immediately replied. “That could influence the bet.”

“Great. So there are, and I’ll just stumble across them.” I went back to my dinner, eating through an annoyed silence. Once everyone had fallen asleep, I started with a new bit of practice. I had decided that at night, I would go through at least half of my spirit and try a few things. The first would be summoning it, as right now it took nearly a minute just to get a small sphere. Once I could reliably summon it, I needed to know how to interact with it. Once I could control it, then I could add it to my spells and boost them.