Chương 20: Chapter Twenty

"That was you?" Stella exclaimed as we sat around the campfire that night.

"I was wondering what was going on. Mondor just said it was a good chance to practice my Mana Sense. But I still couldn't figure it out." She complained. Beth watched and smirked.

"I was able to figure it out near the end." Stella pouted.

"It didn't look any different with Mana Sense than it did without. Your mana is very… cyan Lyra." I nodded around a mouthful of stew.

"Yes, even my healing potions are colored by it." I had found two more herbs as we traveled, and would brew them up tomorrow as we traveled.

"Hmm. Must be a demon thing. Normally, they're clear." Beth continued. I nodded.

"Mine were clear too, before I Became. But I don't know what color my mana was until afterwards. Maybe my Mom or Dad could say, but I doubt it."

"Hmm. Why not?" Stella asked turning more towards her stew after neither of us responded to her pouting.

"They adopted me about a month ago, after I Became. Before that, I only saw them a couple of times a year when the caravan visited my town." I took another bite of the stew, savoring it. The meat practically fell apart when touched, and the potatoes were soft and absorbed the meat broth in a wonderful way. My thoughts drifted back to the pampaw fruit that I had sustained myself on growing up and only appreciated the stew more. Stella and Beth looked at each other.

"I didn't know you were an orphan." Beth commented while Stella fidgeted. I nodded.

"My parents died when I was ten. A couple of mist wolves got past the town's hunters during a beast tide…" I shrugged.

"I've been alone ever since." I was staring at my stew as I admitted it.

"Things have gotten better though. I have a family now. And my first… friends." I stared at my now empty bowl waiting for them to reject me while thinking about the orphans in their town which they hadn't been mean to so I could prop up my hope. I didn't have to wait long. Stella practically exploded with questions.

"What do you mean your first friends? Why didn't you have friends in your hometown?"

"I was an orphan." I shrugged.

"I think they were insulted that I didn't starve to death. I managed to feed myself on my own. The only times the other kids wanted to include me was if they thought of a way to make my life harder." Stella sat back down, having stood up with her questions.

"Oh… Your home town sounds…"

"Horrible." Beth finished, a surprising amount of venom in her voice.

"What's horrible?" Mom asked sitting down beside me.

"How are you girls doing?" She asked as a follow up, her own bowl empty. She wordlessly took my bowl and added it to her own.

"Lyra was telling us about her time before you adopted her Mrs. Toordor. I'm glad you did. That town sounds horrible." Beth was nodding as Stella talked.

"It sounded like they were horrible to her." Beth added.

"Just because they couldn't do their jobs and her parents died because of it." Stella looked like she was trying to crush her own bowl. And Mom took the bowl out of her hands to Stella's surprise. She added Beths a moment later.

"Yes, it did not seem they deserved her." Mom said causing me to blush.

"But that is done with. I'm glad you girls are able to help her."

"Of course." Stella declared immediately.

"No problems. We're friends after all." Beth agreed.

"Good, now watch." Mom pulled on mana and I saw her form the runes for a spell. This one was more complicated than Faerie Fire. It had three blocks of runes structured in what I assume to be sentences surrounding a central rune. After a moment she ignited the spell and the dishes became spotless.

"It's the spell Clean. And it's the next spell you're going to learn Lyra." I leaned forward intrigued. Stella pouted.

"I still can't see anything."

"You'll get there." Mom encouraged.

"It took Lyra three days to figure it out. So don't feel as though you need to rush." Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Really?" Beth said a pleased smile on her face.

"I managed to figure it out in a day."

"I guess I know who to go to for help once classes start." I quipped as Stella, eyes wide nodded. Beth smiled ruefully.

"I guess all my free time is lost." I giggled. We talked for a bit more before conversation circled back to the Clean spell.

"Could you hold the spell like you did before?" I asked Mom who complied with a raised eyebrow. I looked at the rune-form then put my own mana over hers and started tracing. My mana didn't seem to affect hers at all, leaving a smoky brown blob of mana. I started tracing the runes.

"I've never thought to do that." Mom commented quietly as she watched me.

"That would certainly make learning things easier on a master-apprentice level." She murmured to herself.

"What's going on?" Stella asked.

"I'm not sure. Will you explain what Lyra's doing Mrs. Toordor?" Beth asked watching raptly. Mom started explaining as I messed up, let go of the mana, and started again. Even tracing these things is hard. Especially when I don't know what they mean. I frowned, but didn't interrupt mom as she was talking. Overall, it took me seven tries and fifteen minutes before I managed to create a single usable spell. This was going to take a lot longer to learn than Faerie Fire.

I didn't try to cast the spell more than once, and when I did, I targeted myself. Taking a bath in Bella's Inn felt better, but it removed all the crud and sweat that had accumulated on me throughout the day. Knowing what days without a bath felt like, I was very motivated to learn this spell. Despite it not being up to Bella's standards. We went back to chatting, and Mom cast Clean on the two before we separated to our respective sleeping areas.

The next two days went by before I knew it, having managed to brew three new healing potions and learn the runes in the Clean spell. The thing that was bothering me with it was how those runes were connected to form sentences. It simply wasn't making sense to me how if you connected an earth rune with an external rune with what amounts to two slashes and a squiggle it meant 'filth' and if you connected it with two squiggles and a swish it meant 'throw'.

But the next town was coming into view, so I will be able to do something else for a little bit. We rolled up to the town like we had before, and I expected a similar reaction from the locals, but it seemed a commotion was already underway in the town square. From my position next to Dad in the driver's box, I could see past the people who were surrounding what appeared to be a grotesque canine of some type.

They were arguing emphatically, and I was trying to understand what was being said in the racket, but Dad tapped my shoulder.

"Go get Neera and bring her up here." He reined the wagon to a stop as I hopped down and scampered down the line to where Neera was riding. When we got back, Dad had gotten down handing the wagon to Mom and he was talking with an older human man with deep lines gouged into his face. He was scowling, and it made him look like a particularly pudgy baby. I tried to keep the smile from my face as Neera looked at the corpse.

"What do we have here?" She asked, toeing the thing.

"Little Mark found this guy in his farm this morning. Was able to get his crossbow into it. But it's not normal around here. And it's not the season for beast tides. So, it shouldn't be around here." The old man said looking for all the world as though this creature was here solely to inconvenience him.

"Is Little Mark here?" Neera asked and looked at the group.

"That's me." A man stepped forward. This was weird. Why was Neera the one talking and not Dad. Normally, I only see Dad talking to the townspeople unless someone is selling something. And the playfulness that had always been in her voice was absent.

"Did it have a shard?" The man looked around uneasy. Clearly at odds with himself over answering truthfully or lying. Apparently, he thought he should be honest because after a moment he nodded, and handed it over reluctantly when Neera asked to see it.

"Tier three." She said, and Dad cussed. I wanted to ask if that was bad, but I didn't want to draw attention to myself so I stayed quiet.

"The ambient mana is low in the human lands. The only way we could see something like this is if it grew up in a dungeon. Either deep in a low-tier dungeon, or near the entrance of a mid-tier one." Neera started but the old man interrupted her.

"There is no dungeon near here." He grumped.

"It's clear you think that." Neera commented, handing the shard back to Little Mark. Is that actually his name, or a pet name the old guy uses? Sucks to get complete strangers calling you that if it is.

"Can you take me to where you found this?" He nodded, picking up a boxy contraption laying by his feet. It took me a moment to recognize that it was his crossbow.

"A moment." Neera said, turning to Dad.

"I'm going to need two more fighters to do this safely assuming the worst." Dad scratched his chin.

"Go down the line and ask. I'll back any decision you make with regards to who can come. As far as healers..." Dad frowned.

"I'll go." Mom said, handing Boyan to me after stepping off the wagon. Dad sighed.

"It's for the best. A healer on hand can spell the difference between life and death. Besides, you know better than most that I'm not defenseless." Dad was holding his hands up in surrender before she finished talking.

"You can't blame me for worrying." He said as Neera wondered off down the caravan.

"No I can't." She said, stepping into him for a hug. I distracted Boyan as they talked quietly among themselves. I tried very hard not to listen. As Neera returned with Fennor and Leon.

"Ready Mandy?" She asked prompting Mom to quickly kiss Dad before parting, her tail slowly unwrapping from his leg as she pulled away.

"Lead on." Neera said looking at Little Mike and the six of them started walking out of town.

"Don't worry. It's not as dangerous as Neera is letting on. She's just being cautious." I nodded but frowned. None of what I saw said 'not dangerous' to me. But there wasn't anything I could do about it, so I let it go. Though I held onto the worry that was twisting my gut. Even if I couldn't let that worry show. I bounced Boyan cooing at him. I guess that's what it's like to be a big sister.