Chương 19: Chapter Nineteen

I wasn't given much work to do over the next couple of days which allowed me to spend a lot of time with Stella. She introduced me to two of her friends. Nathaniel, who was a year younger and planned on inheriting his parents' farm. And Beth, who had evolved into an elf last month and was still the talk of the town since she will be traveling to the Academy with Stella next month. I noticed during this time, that Dad was selling a lot of goods I didn't remember seeing in the wagon.

He was also accepting a lot of goods, which disappeared shortly after the trade. I tried figuring it out for most of the day, but he would simply put the bags of grain or flour in the back of the wagon and when I went to look later it would be gone. I'm pretty sure the smiles Mom and Dad directed at me meant that they knew what I was doing and weren't going to tell me what was going on unless I asked. It became a bit of a game.

I would stick my head in the wagon any chance I could, but only had a real chance when Stella and her friends excused themselves for dinner as Dad was buying five sacks of grain. I wiggled myself into the wagon from the driver's box, and hid behind a crate. When I felt the wagon shift under Dad's weight as he climbed into the wagon and started shifting things around, I jumped up.

"Aha!" I said, pointing at him. He raised his eyebrow at me as he set the grain into one of the crates.

"Yes Lyra?" I saw the corner of his lips twitch into a smile before he smothered it.

"I caught you!" I declared, jabbing my finger at him as he chuckled.

"There's no way all this fits in the wagon. It should be overflowing by now." Dad didn't pause as he continued to move the last of the sacks into the crate.

"You have discovered the secret of dimensional storage." He deadpanned and put the last sack into the crate before waving me over. I came over and looked into the crate. It didn't look like the inside of a crate. It looked like I was staring through a window into a large room. As in, larger than any of the houses I saw growing up, even the mayors. And inside were stacks upon stacks of sacks.

"You can move where the view is, to get at the contents." My eyes bugged out as I peeked into the storage.

"You traded for all of this on this run?" I asked.

"Well, yes. But this is just the grain. That one's the flour, that one's the potatoes, and that's carrots. It's not strictly necessary to separate them, since the storage will keep it as fresh as when it was bought. It also kills all the bugs that might be hitching a ride." I looked around the wagon. There were a dozen crates just like the one he was showing me. The only ones that differed were the three that held our camping supplies.

My brain nearly stuttered to a halt as I realized I had been surrounded by magical items, way more powerful than the cool stick Benna gave me, and had no idea. I literally was sitting on them. And had no idea. I cleared my throat forcefully trying to restart my brain.

"That explains a lot." I finally managed. Dad chuckled.

"Without these, it would be a lot harder for a city like Ederall to exist. It doesn't make enough food for its populace. So, trading with the smaller communities is a must. And with that comes storage and transportation problems, which made a mage a long bit ago invent this type of magic. Pretty much any type of container can be enchanted with it, if you're a good enough enchanter. And there is a personal storage spell that allows you to store a small number of things without the need for a container at all.

But none of that's going to be as easily accessible as reaching into your pocket." He looked at me flicking my forehead.

"Remember that. Keep what you need on you and don't depend on these things for anything critical." I nodded at the lesson and moved to another crate opening it. Potatoes. Mounds and mounds of potatoes.

"We're leaving tomorrow morning. Have you said your goodbyes?" Dad asked moving over and closing the lid I was propping up.

"Yes, though it's more of a see you soon. Stella and Beth will be at the Academy next month." Dad nodded. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"You'll be starting then too, so it's good you've made friends already." My eyes narrowed as I looked at him.

"What's going on?" He blinked at me.

"What do you mean?"

"You have on your 'I'm hiding something' face." I commented crossing my arms.

"I do not."

"You do. What are you hiding." He smirked.

"Where my candy stash is." I harrumphed and moved towards the exit.

"Mom! Dad's hiding something!" Dad's laughter followed me out of the wagon. Morning came too soon, and the sky had turned murky with clouds. Light greys with darker patches that cloaked the land in twilight. I could only grimace at the storm that was approaching knowing that I would be out in it. I grabbed a bowl of porridge and quickly ate while Mom and Dad finished getting ready to leave. Everything was going the same as every other morning, until Stella came over with Beth standing next to her.

Beth was shorter by a hair, but that meant she still towered over me. Her black hair was straight as pins and was tied back in a pony tail. Both of them were wearing travel clothes that left me tilting my head in question.

"Hi Lyra!" My ears twitched at her bright greeting.

"Hi. What are you two up to?" I thought we had said our goodbyes last night.

"We're going to Ederall, of course." Beth said looking at me oddly.

"Didn't we say we are joining the Academy?"

"We did." Stella agreed nodding.

"Yeah, but I didn't think you would be leaving now. They're not accepting new students until next month." Stella and Beth shared a look.

"My Dad got permission if we could join your caravan. It's a little early, but safer with a large group. And we won't need an escort if we travel with you. So, Dad will save money this way." I nodded since it made sense, and a warmth settled in my stomach. They were coming with me.

"You three ready?" Mom asked as she approached us.

"Yes, Mrs. Toordor." Beth and Stella responded in sync. I looked between them.

"Uhm, yeah. I just need to put my bowl away." I said to my Mom's shooing motions. Running, I hurriedly put my bowl away and started to run back, but Mom intercepted me.

"You're out of herbs, right?"

"Yes, I was going to pick more along the way. I will probably have to alternate herb gathering and potion brewing."

"Good. Then you can start practicing your spell. You're able to cast Faerie Fire now, but the system hasn't recognized it yet. So, you need to keep practicing until it does." I looked over at my friends who were standing with Neera who was pointing at one of the wagons. They started walking that direction and waved at me.

"Don't worry. You'll have plenty of time to talk." Mom put her hand on my shoulder.

"After lessons." Friends or magic? It was a harder choice than I thought. But, in the end I climbed into our wagon and made myself comfortable as we started moving. Then I started practicing. It took me about thirty seconds to go through the process of casting the spell. And in the end, I had a fist sized ball of fiery light that floating in the wagon. If I thought about it while I ignited the spell, I could change the shape. I first tried a square, which was weird. Then a pampaw fruit.

And after playing around a bit, Dad suggested if I was going to make something other then a sphere I should make a faerie. The spell was named Faerie Fire after all. So that's what I did. Or tried to do. My faerie was blocky and without much features, but it had wings. A torso and head. It kind of had arms and legs. And the face might just be a small sphere with no features and no hair. But it was still better than a ball! But practice made perfect! And I wanted to see how many of them I could make at a time.

I was up to six before I made a mistake. I expressed my mana before igniting the previous spell. The second mana orb took up the same place as the first one, and stayed put after I ignited the earlier spell making a new faerie to add to my collection. I scratched my head and thought, a smile quirking my lips. I glanced at Mom, who was talking to Dad in the driver's box, then Boyan still sleeping in his makeshift crib. Let's try this. I cast the spell again, not igniting it.

Then overlaid my next spells mana on top of it, using the mana runes of the first spell to trace the runes of the second. I ignited them both at the same time and two new faeries appeared in flowing cyan flame. It only took me twenty seconds to cast the second spell. The night at camp with everyone throwing their Faerie Fire balls at me ran through my mind and I smiled. It's only fair to get some payback isn't it? I started casting the spell one after the other as fast as I could.

Using the previous spell as a means to trace the runes, the hardest part of the spell, before igniting it and using the next one as the template for the next. Twenty seconds became nineteen, became eighteen. Mom and Dad had been engrossed in their conversation for the past hour. By the time the second hour had come around, I was able to cast the spell in five seconds and the burning faeries were flying out the back of the wagon because there wasn't any room inside. I decided to try something else.

Instead of drawing the runes as though I was writing them, I decided to stamp try stamping them all at once. Five seconds became one. One became a thought as I combined all steps into one motion. Skill prerequisites met. Adding spell Faerie Fire. Skill prerequisites met. Adding skill Chain Casting. I giggled and Mom looked back. She had only a moment before I sent my faeries right at her. Every single one.

Her eyes widened and a shield appeared around her, more out of habit than fear I'm sure as a wave of cyan colored people blobs darted past her and into the air causing Dad to yelp in surprise. Mom watched me as the last of the faeries took up position along our wagon, that was already trailing a wave of them.

"The system says I've learned the spell." I commented brightly.