ALL NOVEL Chapter 48: Follow the Squirrel
At her birth, Illunia knew little but possessed a burning desire to learn. Knowledge became her domain, and she sought to experience all that existed. While the other gods were born into the void that became the Arcane Realm, Illunia was born into a world rich with wonders to explore. She traveled throughout the Realm, exploring planets, stars, and moon before returning to Kaltis, for here the gods still labored, creating new wonders each day as they kept the Wardens company.
-Unnamed Dwarven Text
—
Kole slept late and was woken by his second roommate rummaging through his bag.
“Scram!” he shouted, throwing his pillow at the creature, which vanished as the pillow passed through its unoccupied spot before returning an instant later. Then, as if mocking him, the rat leapt off the desk and walked lazily out the door with a hunk of bread in its jaws.
“That was my breakfast,” Kole said weakly.
Before leaving, he checked the door to Zale’s home and confirmed it still lead nowhere.
He closed the door and said “Zale’s home.”
When he reopened it, the wall remained.
“Breakfast,” he said, trying again to no avail.
***
With the frequent free meals from Zale, and the constantly free board in the form of a magical bedroom in the library, Kole didn’t feel as bad splurging on breakfast that day. Except, it wasn’t breakfast, at best it was brunch and the kitchen staff shot him rude looks as he walked in just as they were switching the food over from one meal to the other. He shelled the copper and a half—three times the per meal cost he’d budgeted for when he’d begun to save for this adventure. Though in hindsight, his estimates had been extremely off.
After the quick meal, Kole set out to find Rakin. He planned to spend the day studying but wanted to check in on his friend. There were a few infirmaries in the school, he just had no idea which one would have Rakin.
First, he made his way to the martial college’s infirmary. This one mostly dealt with cuts and broken bones, but with Tigereye having been present at the incident, it was possible he was here. Kole asked at the front desk.
“I’m sorry, patient records are not available to the public,” the female halfling student working the desk said.
Kole sighed and was planning how to sneak in invisible when the student continued.
“But, I can tell you there is no one by that name here.”
Kole left and checked with the school in the crafting college next. This one specialized in alchemical remedies—both in treating alchemical mishaps and using alchemy to treat everything from infections to chronic illness. A male gnome student worked the desk here, so busy in his own studies that Kole had to check to see if he was invisible when the student didn’t respond to his presence.
“Excuse me,” Kole said louder.
“Oh, sorry! I was reading this fascinating account of a man whose skin turned into glass. How can I help you today?”
Fascinating… Kole thought, repressing a shudder.
“I’m looking for my friend Rakin. He was in an accident but I don’t know where he went.”
“I’m sorry…” the gnome began but then stared closer at Kole, squinting as he examined his face.
In a lower tone, he asked, “Wait, you’re Amara’s friend right?”
Kole nodded.
“I thought so, but all you tall folk look the same. I’ll check if he’s here.”
The gnome exited through a door behind the desk and Kole took the opportunity of his absence to turn invisible and run around the counter. He skimmed the list of entries in the last day. It was full of students with horrific alchemically induced traumas, such as missing skin, or dissolved bones, but no mention of Rakin.
Kole returned to the other side of the counter and turned visible just as he heard the gnome’s soft footsteps approaching the door.
“I’m sorry your friends not here,” he said as he stepped out.
“I checked the martial infirmary. Do you know where else he might be?”
The gnome thought about it for a moment and said, “There’s the temple on campus, but that only takes the most grievous injuries, mostly tending to the townsfolk free of charge. You could check the conclave.”
“The conclave?” Kole asked, “Where is that? I’ve heard it mentioned but never seen it.”
“The big tree on the green. You just walk through it and bam, you’re in the grove.”
Kole examined his face for signs of deception, but he seemed to be in earnest.
“Walk? Through a tree?”
The gnome waved his hands in front of his face, wiggling his fingers, and said, “Magic!”
***
Twenty minutes and two corroborating conversations later, Kole stood in front of the massive oak tree that dominated the green. Plenty of people lay and played games in its shade, but no one attempted to step through it while he watched. Working up the courage in front of this potential embarrassment, Kole walked to the tree.
He wanted to turn invisible, but he couldn’t exactly hide that ability out in the open like this. And, if he did step through he would be outed at once as having the spell. And as he’d learned growing up in a town full of Mirage Knights and Illusion primals, the usefulness of invisibility is inversely proportional to the number of people who know about it. Every shop and store back home had means of detecting the invisible, and the spell had only been selectively useful.
Instead, he tried something new. His conversation with Zale about her Sound canceling aura got him thinking about his own primal abilities—well, ability. He could make people ignore the presence of an object without making it invisible.
Could I do the same with myself? He wondered.
Suddenly vanishing in a crowd could garner undue attention, but simply becoming hard to focus on? By definition, no one would notice. He’d tried hiding objects in the palm of his hand with Zale. If she wasn’t expecting it, her eyes would lose focus, briefly before seeing it again. Out in public, with lots of things to distract, he should just disappear.
Kole reached out to his seldom-used primal connection to the Font of Illusions.
When casting Invisibility, which was a sorcerous spell, he’d manifest part of his mind in the Arcane Realm, just outside the Font, and reach within to draw power out into him and the world. Drawing on the Font through his primal abilities was different. It was like waving an arm he didn’t always remember he had.
No, Kole reflected. It’s like using a gangly tail I don’t know how to control, and can’t see moving because it’s behind me.
Groping blindly with his primal appendage, Kole grabbed the power and pulled some into him. Instead of pushing it into an object as his instincts dictated, he let the power build up in him. As if water flowing into a sandy hole in the beach—an analogy Kole had not ever personally experienced—the power filled his body. Once it was full, he dropped the connection.
He looked around. No one was looking at him, but no one had been looking at him before either. Testing the spell out, Kole approached a couple eating a meal on a blanket nearby. Once he was a few feet away, he felt the slight draw of Will as the magic drew on the Font to divert the attention of the girl. She looked up, right at him, and then looked away, as if she’d not seen him. Kole stopped a few feet away and waited. No one saw him, but eventually, the couple both kept looking over their shoulder, subtly aware something was there, but never noticing him. With each glance, the drain grew exponentially, and satisfied with the results Kole ran away towards the tree.
The Will drain had been intense. Walking to the students had cost nearly nothing, but once they started looking, it had been as if he was casting Invisibility constantly. The whole exercise had drained half his Will.
Confident that he at least wouldn’t embarrass himself, Kole prepared to walk through the tree. He touched the trunk lightly, preparing to enter, but as soon as he touched the bark, he was sucked in. His concentration on his primal spell vanished as he felt squeezed all over, and then suddenly he was in a brightly lit forest grove, being menaced by a pair of bark-armored dryads wielding vine whips and wooden spears.
“What is your business in the grove?” they asked in gentle tones that didn’t match the raised weapons.
“I’m looking for Rakin,” Kole said, hands held out in front of him showing them to be empty—which he reflected was not exactly a reassuring posture for a wizard.
The two relaxed.
“Welcome, friend of Doug. Please follow the squirrel.”