Mark went to his bedroom, put his pillow about halfway down the bed and laid down with his feet resting against the wall. Perhaps not the most conventional reading position but it was one that worked for him. Opening the slim volume, he was slightly surprised that the book was printed rather than handwritten. His judgement of the technology level of the area he was in went up a notch.

“Some notes on basic town magic”, the title pleased Mark greatly. He had learned through his mathematics degree that any course that said basic or simple was going to go into a lot more depth and be harder to understand than if it sounded more difficult. In his first year he had had lectures on basic analysis along with advanced calculus and the calculus had been easy in comparison.

Saying which, the book wasn’t as difficult to understand as he first thought. Whilst the theory that the book went into was further advanced than the wizard had gone it still made sense to him. Fire, Ice, Weather, Growth Magnetism spells were discussed in great detail and gave Mark more to work on. However he knew that he could manage everything that was in the book with practice. It just left him wanting more and for that he knew he needed to move to a city with better and more powerful wizards. Ideally the equivalent of a school for advanced wizardry. He didn’t know whether that existed or whether wizards worked on an apprentice system. He did know that Wizard’s Guild had printed the book and as he knew nothing about this guild he would ask the wizard the next day.

By the time he had finished reading, he was shocked to find that the day had passed and that it was getting dark. He hadn’t been disturbed by any of the others and so he put the book in a safe place and went downstairs to find food.

The others were all at a table and the majority were eating or had just finished. Mark ordered food and drink and listened to what the others were discussing.

Jo and Mike were talking about the orphanage they had discovered and had somewhat adopted. They didn’t know who the original benefactor had been as he seemed to have led an obscure existence. However they were trying to find apprenticeships for the older children as having a wealthy backer opened doors that were not open to the children otherwise. A single gold was needed to buy into an apprenticeship if the child had suitable talents but the orphanage hadn’t had the money to spare. Now several had been placed and they had each stated that they would contribute some of their earnings back to the orphanage. Hearing this the others offered a couple of golds each to help. Mark wondered if he could use his magic to earn more but didn’t know the going rates or whether he would step on the toes of the town wizard. More things to talk about tomorrow.

Emily had spent the last few days exploring the area outside of the town with Julius. The young cat had grown even more and Mark wondered how big he would be when he stopped growing. He knew the size his mother had been but were males a similar size? They would find out and if Mark were to guess it would be sooner rather than later.

Emily talked a little about her link with Julius. They didn’t communicate with anything as complex as words but they were able to share emotions to some extent and she also had a vague idea where Julius was at all times. She also thought that she had at one point when half asleep been able to look through the eyes of young cat. She wasn’t sure about this last bit as it hadn’t repeated.

Charlie and Kajal had been visiting the various churches, temples and shrines around the town. There were a bunch of different gods worshipped by the locals but most had equivalents in the Hindu faith that Kajal practiced. They weren’t exactly the same but there was enough similarity that Kajal had been prepared to learn the local names and talk to the clergy about his powers. His ability to heal was a common trait amongst the local clergy. There were various levels to the skill and there were a bunch of prayers/mantras/chants that helped to focus the different healing skills. The belief was that all of this healing power came from the gods and the more powerful the belief of the individual who had been touched by the gods the more they were able to heal.

By visiting the various hospitals attached to the different religious buildings Kajal had got a short but practical training on how to use his powers. Whilst he wasn’t as powerful as some of the top church people, he was definitely more powerful than any acolyte with his experience. Each church he visited had been helpful in the hope of recruiting the small man to their particular church and Kajal and skilfully avoided showing favouritism and had so far avoided any commitments whilst learning all he could. Charlie who had accompanied him most of the time professed to have no religious beliefs and had shown none of the healing power. However, they had learned to be a decent assistant. Now knowing how to apply dressings, how to triage and how to keep relatives out of the way. The militaristic bearing and aura of controlled violence that seemed to cling to Charlie helped with the last of these.

All in all, Mark gathered that they had all gained something from staying at the town but that none of them needed to stay here much longer. They needed to plan their onward journey and for that to happen they needed to know where they had been told to end up. The next day a visit to a bookshop which had maps was in order but before that a few drinks were going to be consumed.