Chương 148: 63. Bad Memories

Daani eagerly guides us to the practice range, where some target dummies have been set up, little more than bags of straw—or maybe reeds—mounted on posts. There is a wall at the back to prevent stray arrows or bullets from hitting anybody, but otherwise the safety standards leave a lot to be desired. He fetches a bow from a nearby rack, along with a small bundle of arrows.

"I don't have any skills for bow and arrow specifically, but I've got a general one that supports any martial weapon."

"You're not supposed to tell me that," I remind him.

"Oh, uh... right," he chuckles bashfully.

"Well, I'm sure you won't tell anybody, right?" I sigh.

"It doesn't matter. I'm here to practice magic." That finally gives the teenager pause, but not for long.

"Oh! No wonder Talla likes you! That sounds fun too—she never shows off her magic for us." Talla's combat skills don't really need aiming, and she probably gets plenty of hand-on practice during her ranger expeditions. The rest of her spells are for healing or reconnaissance, which isn't very cinematic.

"What kind of spells do you have?" he asks.

"Beams of light? Can you conjure water out of the air?"

"I don't know yet," I reply with a shrug.

"But it will probably involve fire." I try to tune him out while I focus on my thaumaturgy. Thanks to the new skill from [Adept] my visualization feels sharper, somehow. More real. [Magical Awareness] Increased Awareness when trying to perceive the metaphysical. The most obvious skill to begin with would be [Strong Arm]. The only reason I hadn't tried this sooner is because I didn't want to commit to anything, and because [Explosive Throw] already seems to be an evolution of that skill.

But now, with my more refined understanding, I can—"Hey, are you okay?" Daani asks, interrupting me.

"You're just sort of standing there." I purse my lips.

"I need to focus."

"Doesn't seem like it would be very useful if you have to do that in the middle of a fight," he muses.

"That's why I am doing it now," I grind out through clenched teeth. I'm rapidly losing patience.

"Please don't distract me."

"Okay, sorry." Closing my eyes, I return to my—"Is there anything I can do to help?" I glare up at him silently until he looks away and coughs into his hand.

"R-right, sorry. I'll shut up." Closing my eyes, I return to my meditation, focusing inward as I envision the skills. [Pyrothaumaturgy] and [Strong Arm] fit together easily and naturally. That's both a blessing and a curse. It makes the spell simple to create, but also... simple. There are always other ways to fit them together, but their natural synergy makes it much harder to find them—almost everything slides back into that simple form. It's not a bad form, though.

Close to what I want, even if I was hoping for something better.

"Don't just settle for the scraps Engie feeds you," Maggie warns.

"This is permanent, remember? If you're going to do it, do it right." I'm not sure how she managed to interrupt my meditation like that. Maybe there's still some bleedthrough after last night's event. I'd be annoyed, but she's got a point. I don't have the same talent she does, to twist whatever result she wants out of nothing on vibes alone. But I am good at puzzles, and I think I can find a more satisfying solution to this one.

They are like a sliding block puzzle, where the obstacles need to be moved out of the way in order to get the correct piece out. There are many, many ways to get that piece out, but the result is still the same. But who's to say what the "correct" piece is? In a real puzzle, it would be an immutable fact, but creating a spell isn't just solving the puzzle—it's also crafting it. Can I use the same pieces, but change the goal? I think I can. It's a much harder puzzle, with less room for error.

One wrong move, and I could easily end up stuck in a hopeless branch of possibilities with no choice but to backtrack. But it is solvable, and with a bit of focus, I do just that. [Pyrobolt] Hurl a bolt of pure flame.

"That's it?!" Maggie jeers.

"After all that, you get the most basic bitch fire spell of all time?"

"[Well, I was looking for something simple and reliable]," I reply.

"[But I think this is still a step up from what I might have gotten without your advice, so thank you.]""Sure, whatever."

"Pardon me?" Daani interrupts.

"I didn't quite catch that."

"Our language," I explain.

"Talking to myself."

"Oh right, your uh... skill, yes?" he says, then slaps his forehead.

"Ah! I forgot that you have different names sometimes. I should have asked!" I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh.

"It's Violet. Or Vi. But just Maev will do." If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Alright then, Miss Vi! Is your spell ready yet?"

"It is. Take a step back, I'll try it now." He doesn't budge, watching with wide eyes as I raise a hand towards the targets in the distance. I glance over at him, frowning.

"I said step back."

"I'm sure it will be fine," he argues.

"It's not like you're pointing it at me!" Thinking back to how devastating [Explosive Throw] ended up being, I'm not nearly so confident.

"Just in case. Please?" He sighs miserably, but takes a few steps back.

"Happy?" Good enough. With an effort of will, I draw power from the spell, feeling it gather invisibly within my palm. I take aim at one of the targets in the distance and release that power. A blue-white flash erupts from my palm with a tiny shockwave that ruffles my hair. The bolt darts across the field at a speed that's much slower than Talla's beams of light, but faster than I can throw without a skill.

My aim is off, and it falls short, splashing against the sand in a burst of blue flames that rapidly cool into an uneven circle of crackling orange fire.

"You missed," Daani observes. I shrug.

"That's why I'm practicing." Though I'm not sure why I missed, or how to correct my aim. I'll just have to experiment some more. I start by adjusting my aim upward, but Daani steps forward before I can try again.

"Hold on, I think I know what happened, maybe," he interrupts, nocking an arrow.

"Your spell arcs like an arrow when you shoot it, like this..." He pulls back and fires a weak shot, though the arrow still flies faster than I expected for how little effort he put into it. The projectile falls quickly, sticking into the dirt next to the still-flaming remnants of my own attempt. Then he repeats the motion, this time pulling back harder on the bowstring and angling his shot slightly.

"There's two ways to adjust—more power, or a better angle. The trick is to get the right balance." He looses, and this time the arrow flies cleanly across the range, sinking into the center of the distant target. I frown. I thought he wasn't as confident in his archery.

"This is magic," I point out.

"Yeah, but the projectile looked kind of like an arrow—at least, the way it moved," he replies.

"I figured it might be the same." Hmm. Worth a try, I guess. I angle my shot back down to roughly where it was before and try again, this time holding on to the spell for a little longer to draw more power. It's easier to do now that I can sense some of the magic that the spell provides, but forcing spells and skills to give me more is still not something that comes easily. Luckily, this spell feels like it's meant to operate within a certain range, and I'm still comfortably within it as I loose my second shot.

It feels stronger this time. The spell makes an audible whump as it fires, throwing my hair and cloak back with enough force that I stagger back a step. It flies a bit further, a bit faster, and the splash of fire looks a bit bigger—though it's hard to tell from a distance.

"I guess I can put more power into it," I muse.

"Fucking hell, Vi, you suck at this," Maggie jeers.

"You just blindly empowered the entire thing. You need to isolate the parts of the spell you want to make stronger, or you're just wasting energy."

"I don't know how to do that."

"Do what?" Daani asks.

"Looks like you made the spell more powerful to me! I bet you'll get it in a few more tries!"

"Sorry, I wasn't—" I cut myself off, narrowing my eyes as a realization strikes.

"Daani—those fires are still burning." He blinks.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess. Should we put them out?" We shouldn't have to put them out. There's nothing there but sand. I don't have the words to articulate the problem, so I just ask him a very pointed question." What are they burning?" Daani pauses, the gears turning in his head as his eyes swim in thought.

"Oh! He kinda looks like Talla when she's thinking—that's so cute!" Allie observes.

"Uh... hm," he mutters, unable to come up with an answer.

"We should put them out." I nod, following him out onto the range. I'd normally be concerned about being downrange like this, but nobody else is using it at the moment. We arrive at my twin circles of fire, where I can confirm that one of them is indeed bigger than the other. Also, they are growing. That sort of makes sense. Fire spreads, after all, but it usually needs fuel to do so.

I'd also expect a ring of fire, slowly spreading out as it consumes the top layer of fuel, but these are quite solid circles—each one its own mini bonfire. Even in the sweltering desert heat, I can feel the warmth coming off of them as we approach.

"That's so weird," Daani comments, staring at the crackling fires.

"Is it because of your magic?" I shrug, unable to answer.

"Probably?" He responds with a shrug of his own and starts kicking sand into the fire. I'm about to follow suit when the circle flares up into a larger plume, forcing Daani to skip back, cursing.

"Blood and acid! What the—?" The sand he scattered over the flames not only caught fire, but spread it across a small cone in front of him. Only his quick reaction prevented him from getting burnt himself.

"Well, well, well," Maggie drawls.

"I take back my earlier complaints. I think you made a pretty damn good fire spell." I groan irritably, reaching out to reclaim the magically burning flames with [Pyrothaumaturgy].

"[This was supposed to be a weapon that limits collateral damage]," I complain.

"[Now it's got the potential to be even worse than Explosive Throw.]" I'm careful not to let the name of our skill out as a [Message], since Daani could overhear.

"It's fire," Maggie retorts.

"Collateral damage is sort of its thing. But just think—if you nail someone with this, they're gonna have a real bad time." The smell of burnt fur and melting flesh fills my nostrils, an anguished scream echoing in my ears. It took so long for him to die. He was just a kid—not much older than Daani. I hug my arms around myself and shudder.

"[I'd rather not think about that.]""Oh, right. Uh... s-sorry." Maggie stammers.

"You okay, Miss Vi?" Daani asks. For a second I see the burning visage of the young acolyte on him before blinking it away and shaking my head.

"[I'm fine]," I reply in my language before hastily correcting myself.

"I mean—I'm fine. Just some bad memories." To my great shame, I can't even remember the acolyte boy's name. I'll have Allie remind me later, but for the moment I'm suddenly feeling a lot less aggravated by Daani's presence. It doesn't make up for what I've done, but... I can afford to be a little nicer.

"I can clean up the fire with my skill," I inform him, doing just that with the other circle of fire before it can spread any further.

"Shall we keep practicing?"

"Sure thing!" he replies enthusiastically.

"Anything else I can do to help?"

"Show me more good shots?" I suggest.

"Demonstrations help." He nods, practically dashing back to the firing range to show off his skill with the bow. His cheerful enthusiasm is infectious, which helps keep me from lingering too long on past traumas. For my part, as I leave the scorched patches of sand behind me, I'm a lot more interested in any advice he can give me for correcting my aim. After all, if I'm going to hit anybody with this spell, I'd better be absolutely sure I mean it.