Mana Mirror: Chapter Thirty Three (Patreon)

We spent at least half an hour combing through the nearby woods, looking for the troll’s cave, when Kene stopped. They turned and looked at me, then nodded to a mossy boulder leaning against a rock face. The moss had coated the rock on all three of the sides I could see, though I couldn’t check where it leaned against other rock.

“Can you cast Analyze Space?” they asked.

“Sure,” I said, sketching out the spell and trickling mana into it. Instantly, the tapestry of space and distance and energy spread into my vision. It reminded me of the way it had been in my own living room some, but it was… Different. The difference was subtle, not like the extreme changes I’d seen when Orykson had been portaling me around the world.

But the moss had spatial energy streaming gently off of it.

“Pointer Moss?” I asked.

“I thought so!” they said.

“But it’s not facing north, it’s all over the boulder.”

“True, but here, look.”

They beckoned me closer, and I looked more intensely. The moss seemed to be straining northward.

“It’s pulling,” I said.

“Meaning it’s probably been moved a lot, forced to change directions,” they concluded. “Help me push it. But just use your good shoulder, please.”

I put my hand next to his and we strained to push the boulder. I found my eye being drawn to the slight curve and definition of the muscle on their arm, and the swirling ink over it that…

I blinked rapidly to clear my head and leaned more weight into the boulder. It slowly lifted and rolled away, revealing a tunnel that it had hidden.

It was a short entry – the troll would definitely have needed to hunch over in order to fit inside, but that was only the entry. The tunnel inside quickly grew wider and larger, expanding until it could fit us both easily. Both of us, or, one troll. A nasty smell wafted faintly out of the hole, and I wrinkled my nose.

Kene let go of the boulder and let out a slow huff.

“Heavy,” they said. “Here.”

They conjured a slightly brighter orb of light over their palm, illuminating a crude path down into the earth.

“This had got to be it,” I said. “When we get out, I’m going to take a sample of the pointer moss.”

“Good idea,” they said, their sharp, darkly stained fingers twitching some as they rolled their wrists. I felt a bit ashamed that I hadn’t been able to help more. They strode into the tunnel, and I followed behind them.

After about twenty feet, the cave spread out further, revealing a space that was roughly the size of my living room. There was a pile of scraps and moss in one corner, which probably served as the troll’s nest, and there was some rotting meat right next to it that made the entire room stink horribly.

I scrunched my nose, then sketched out an ungated spell, and let out a sigh of relief.

“What was that?” Kene asked.

“Scent blocking spell. Not going to stop something with magic behind it, but I’ve had to clean up too many messes at the bakery to not learn something of the sort. Want me to show you?”

“Please,” they said, half sounding like they were begging.

I sketched the spell in the air slowly, and they copied my motions and let out a sigh of relief.

“I’ll definitely remember that one,” they said.

We turned to continue surveying the room, until we spotted what looked like a large iron cauldron, the kind that a witch would use to prepare a potion, or that a chef might use to prepare stew for an entire hotel.

I walked over and lifted the heavy iron lid, and some things sparked in the light of Kene’s spell. We both reached in and began to pull them out, piling them in the center of the room.

Further inspection of the room revealed that where were a few more things stashed inside the nest itself, which Kene had bravely dared to search, and I turned up a handful of loose silver that had been shoved in one corner. We added everything into our growing pile, and once we were confident that we’d found everything, we started to sort.

There was close to a hundred silver, which was the easiest thing to split between us. I wound up with forty-nine silver, and Kene with forty-eight.

The other items were a bit harder to evenly divide. I pulled out a lump of bronze metal that had a strange warmth to it. I could sense some mana coming off of it, probably around second gate in terms of strength.

“Suncopper,” Kene explained. “A second gate solar material. Used by enchanters to make a lot of stuff, and has a few alchemical uses, especially for stuff that’s used to enrich soil.

“You can take it, then,” I said. “You’ve got infinitely more use for it than I do, since I’m not a solar mage, nor am I an alchemist.”

Kene looked like he was going to argue for a few moments, but then thought better of it and took the ball of suncopper.

Kene pulled out a dull gray stone, then tossed it to me. I could immediately feel the spatial mana coming from the stone – first gate, but strong.

“Natural spatial lodestone,” they said. “Troll probably felt the mana and grabbed it from somewhere.”

“That’s great!” I said. “I needed one of these for my staff. Oh, that reminds me, do you have one? I was curious.”

“Did you really just ask me if I had a staff?” they asked. “And here I was thinking that you’d have more tact.”

My face flushed and I coughed.

“You well know that’s not what I meant. I meant a true staff, a magical item that interlinks with your mana garden.”

“I know,” they said. “But I liked the look you got when you were embarrassed. And no, I don’t. It always seemed like too big of an investment. There are other ways to achieve a resonance, if I ever got to the point where I needed to worry about it.”

“Really?” I asked curiously.

“I’m pretty sure,” Kene said with a nod. “Grandmother doesn’t have a staff, but she’s definitely got the resonance. I think she managed it through alchemy, which may be how I’d do it. The Amethyst Mask supposedly has it through his mask.”

I was pretty sure I’d heard of the Amethyst Mask before – something about Kijani’s unification, maybe?

“Interesting,” I said. “Either way, my mentor plans on me constructing a staff, and I trust her.”

“Makes sense,” they said.

I pulled a bottle from the pile next. It was old, green, and there was a spark floating inside it.

I pulled the cork out of the bottle, and the spark flowed out of it, floating into a ball of opal colored fire that hovered gently in the air.

“A peacepyre,” Kene said, sounding interested. “I’ve only seen them a few times.”

“They’re rare?” I asked.

“Not… Rare. Uncommon, maybe? And not usually worth the effort.”

“The effort?” I asked, staring at the opalescent fire and trying to remember what I knew about peacepyres.

“They’re cousins of will-o-wisps,” they explained. “Living balls of fire that burn without consuming fuel or producing heat. They can be trained somewhat, and they’re sensitive to mana. Some people use them to train their mana manipulation skills. But all in all, they’re usually not worth the effort to catch and train one.”

I expelled some temporal mana into the air around me, and the peacepyre floated closer to it. I bent the mana into a river and guided the flame to float over the pile of treasure that we’d gathered.

“Do you want it?” I asked curiously.

“Nah,” they said. “My shop just has normal lights, and if I really need light on demand, I can grab a glowcrystal or just create some myself.”

I considered for a moment and then lifted the bottle to the peacepyre. It flowed back into the bottle of its own accord, but I didn’t put the cork back in. It could leave whenever it wanted, but as long as it wanted to hang around me, I’d be happy to have one.

Kene pulled out a red gemstone that glowed faintly with telluric and solar mana, and took it for use in alchemy. After that came a bottle gourd with a shimmering blue liquid inside of it, an abnegation enhancement potion, as well as a set or jars that had been enchanted with preservative magic, both of which Kene took. Finally, we were left with a small steel ring.

“What’s this?” I asked turning it over in my hand. There was definitely mana coming off of the ring, but it felt… Complex. It wasn’t strong, it couldn’t have been more than second gate, but it was complicated, mixing together multiple mana types in a way that made it hard for me to figure out what exactly they were.

I tossed it to Kene, who frowned and rolled it between his fingers. He pushed a spark of mana into it, but it didn’t seem to react at all.

“Definitely an enchantment of some sort,” they said. “But it reminds me more of draconic mana than human. Interesting.”

He flipped the ring back to me.

“Take it. I’ve no idea what it does, and I don’t especially care to take it to a larger town or city to have it identified.”

We poked through the rest of the items to make sure we hadn’t left anything, and though we found a few more coins, most of the other items the troll had gathered weren’t actually valuable, like a chunk of pyrite.

When we left the troll’s cave, it had begun to rain, fully and heavily, thick lashes of water sloughing off the canopy of trees overhead and splashing down on us. Or at least on me. I noted with envy that Kene’s hat seemed to repel the water to some extent, stopping him from getting too wet, though some did still splash off the ground and onto his ankles.

“We should probably head back!” Kene shouted to be heard over the rain.

“Probably! But my moss!” I responded, pointing to the pointer moss.

Kene nodded and took out a knife from his storage ring to cut a sample, then tucked both of them back into the storage space.

We hurried back into the village, moving as quickly as we could without tripping over ourselves in the rapidly developing mud. The storm only worsened as we drew into the village, and I followed Kene into his apothecary shop.

I was shivering at that point, and even with the water resistance of Kene’s hat, they were looking pretty chilled themselves.

“I’m going to go change out of these,” Kene announced. “Here, I’ll turn the heat on.”

He pointed to a small iron stove and sketched an ungated lighting cantrip. Sparks danced inside the stove, and the wood caught. Kene headed into the back, and then I heard the thumping of feet on the stairwell.

I sat in one of the chairs he had near the woodburning stove and rubbed my hands together. There was the thumping of feet as Kene came back down a short while later, and then something hit me in the side of the head.

It was soft, and as it fell to the ground, I realized it was a bundle of clothes.

“You can use my bathroom,” Kene said. “They may be a bit big on you, but it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Thank you,” I said seriously. “I… Yeah, I probably should have backed a bag or something. Maybe I should look into a storage ring.”

“Look into a bag,” Kene advised. “If you’re not needing to rapidly place and withdraw things, then there’s not much of a point in a ring.”

“Noted,” I said. “Where’d you learn so much about alchemy, enchantment, and healing?”

“I did go through a two-year alchemy certification,” Kene said, “And my… Grandmother. She’s an alchemist and enchantress, as well as a powerful lunar and life witch. She’s been on and off teaching me since I was a kid.”

“Interesting,” I said, and I meant it. “She taught you about healing?”

“She did,” they nodded. A moment later, the doorbell jangled, and someone came in.

Kene smiled, showing his slightly too sharp teeth, but there was something fake about it. After a second, I realized that it was just their customer service smile.

I took the opportunity to head into the back. It was a small workshop, with lots of hanging herbs, a mortar and pestle, and a heating enchantment with several pots and pans over it, as well as a large, heavy, leatherbound book left open on one page. In the corner there was a stairwell leading up.

I headed up the stairs into an attic. It had been renovated nicely, and it had a very open floorplan. I could see Kene’s bedroom, walled off in one part, and resisted the urge to peek through, instead heading to the bathroom. I avoided the mirror as I changed into the clothes that they’d lent me.

It was simple, just a t-shirt and some denim slacks, and as he’d said, they were a bit big on me. I used the belt from the suit, since it was leather, and I only needed to wipe it down, and rolled up the hem of the pants some, and by the time I was done, I wasn’t going to be tripping over myself.

I headed back down to see if Kene was done.