Dan tried to stretch the stiffness out of his neck while walking the trapline. It had been two weeks worth of Twilight’s extended days since he fled Morganville, and he was absolutely sick of sleeping on rocks. True, he had found a cave, more of a crevice really, but a bedroll of fur only did so much. Every time he woke up, it was the same series of aches and muscle strains until the nanites got around to healing the minor pains inflicted by a night of restless sleep. Even when the soreness was officially healed, Dan could still swear that he felt some stiffness and lack of mobility.
So far, he had fallen into an easy routine. Maintain the trapline of pits and snares made from corded plant fiber and scout for monsters. Return to his cave and practice magic. Repeat. Only once or twice did he have to deviate from that routine when he saw parties of adventurers. He didn’t know if they were ordinary groups on quests or scouts out looking for him, but after Nora’s betrayal, he wasn’t going to risk it. Luckily, the cave was located in an isolated valley nestled in the foothills before a truly imposing set of mountains. So long as he kept his activities largely in the valley, no one was going to see his activities unless they actually climbed one of the specific hills ringing the valley.
The limited mobility did hamper his growth. He only occasionally ran into monsters, and usually only monsters of a lower rank. At this point, he barely even felt the rush from taking their mana. Really, if he hadn’t trained in woodcraft at the Thoth Foundation, he probably would have been in a lot of trouble. Right now, he was mostly feeding himself from the trapline, and he was thankful that, even on a new world, game trails still looked more or less the same. The snares mostly caught creatures he referred to as “jackalopes” because they resembled rabbits covered in horns and spines, while the pit traps caught larger game such as the faux-pigs and white deer. Of course, Dan didn’t actually know the names for any of the things he was eating, they just more or less looked like their Earth equivalents.
It wasn’t all bad, though. The extra time to focus on magic had already paid dividends. He gained three levels of gravity affinity as well as two new spells. The first, “Lightning Stroke,” generated an arc of electricity that could travel about fifteen feet. It could stun like Shocking Fist, but unlike the rest of his spells, it actually dealt a fair amount of damage by using the electricity to superheat a fist-sized chunk of whatever it struck. Dan’s experiments had left the rock wall outside of his cave pitted with small holes and cracks. It might not be enough to directly kill an opponent, but for the first time, he could actually deal serious damage at range without having to awkwardly change from his sword to his short bow. The spell’s only real downside was that each casting ate up a significant portion of his mana. Air was still an excellent insulator, and he hadn’t been able to find a way to increase the efficiency by which electricity passed through it. Instead, he simply fell back on brute force, directing enough electrical mana to overcome that resistance.
The second spell was another utility spell, but one that helped every aspect a small amount. Called “Gravitational Easing,” it only took a trickle of mana, but it reduced Dan’s weight and the weight of everything he carried by about 10%. It wasn’t really enough to have a major effect, but in the handful of battles that he had fought with monsters since fleeing Morganville, it noticeably improved his speed and maneuverability. Even better, it allowed him to patrol and climb the walls of his valley with much less strain.
At the moment, the weight reduction was a godsend. Between sleeping on hard rocks and spending the entire night staring at the ceiling of his cave while something prowled just outside the sanctuary runes, Dan wasn’t exactly well-rested or in good cheer. He sighed. Maybe he’d be in a better mood if the valley was actually anything to look at, but the trees on Twilight were tiny and a drab, grayish black.
Apparently whatever chlorophyll analogue they used just didn’t have any sort of coloration, and the thick, rocky soil prevented them from growing all that large. He would leave it up to the taxonomists to determine whether the six-to-seven-foot plants were tiny trees or large bushes, but the only thing he could conclude was that having a bunch of leaves around at head level was intensely annoying.
After confirming that the third snare had nothing in it, Dan changed course and headed towards the small river running through the center of the valley. Once again, he lamented being stuck here alone. The first couple of days hadn’t been terrible. He had a goal in his mind of training his magic, making himself stronger, and returning to Morganville with a level of power that would make even Nora’s employers take him seriously.
Then, as time passed, he could got more and more stir crazy. He only had so much mana to train with, and when it ran out, boredom began to overtake him. The entire situation wasn’t helped by the large tracks and claw marks he kept finding outside of his campsite after each night. Dan was pretty sure something was hunting him, and without a local guide, he had no idea how dangerous it might actually be.
It really was a shame that Nora turned out to be some sort of cross between a spy and a press gang. Having someone to talk to while he tried to stage his very own training montage would have certainly made everything easier. He sighed as he pushed some gray leaves out of his face. Sometimes, right when he was on the edge of snapping, he could almost hear her voice as the wind rustled through the valley.
Tracks her voice seemed to float towards him from the river.
God, he really needed to figure out some way to get some social interaction into his life. If things kept up at this rate, he’d end up talking to a volleyball.
No… end at water. He could barely hear her over the rustling of the leaves.
Dan frowned. This wasn’t how things usually went when he heard things. Usually, there was some sort of speech about how things would get better, and that she would listen to him in the future. Then, her voice would change into Annabelle’s or his mother’s. He was also beginning to suspect that the System’s nanites weren’t completely filtering out some sort of hallucinogen in his diet. Those jackalopes mostly ate mushrooms. It would make sense.
He laid down and crawled the last two hundred or so feet to where the plants ended and the river began, wincing as the rocky ground bit into his hands and knees. Peering through the grey bushes, he saw Nora standing next to Andrea and the two thugs he had disabled in the adventurer’s guild.
“Could he be living somewhere in this valley?” One of the men asked. “We’ve already lost and found his trail three times. I’m not even sure we’re following the right guy at this point.”
“The tracks approach the river, and then they stop.” Nora shrugged as she replied. “They’re at least ten days old. I’m mostly proud that I was able to follow them at all across this sort of terrain. He might be here, and he might not. He had enough of a head start across the wasteland that, without a scent tracker, there was almost no chance of us finding him.”
“Nora,” the man who had spoken previously turned to her. “I know you were in a party for a little while with him, but it goes without saying that if you side with him, I will skin you. I was willing to follow your recommendations and try to get him to join the guard until he attacked us. No one attacks Morgan’s guards and gets away with it. If one of the surrounding kingdoms found out, we would be a laughingstock.”
“I know my job, Geoff,” Nora replied, crossing her arms. “I still don’t know how he figured out that I was using the charm skill on him. I’ve wracked my brain, but I have no idea why he bolted. Frankly, that just makes me more inclined to try to get him to join up. The Alliance of Free Cities has a decent number of heavy hitters, but no one with the weight to actually stand toe to toe with an archmage or an Imperial Knight. Right now, we’re surviving off of political savvy and luck. Daniel Bird has enough potential to turn that around. It would be criminal of us to waste it just because he wounded your ego.”
“This isn’t about ego,” Geoff sputtered. “He’s a destabilizing element. If anyone finds out that we’re harboring a human who can cast spells like an elf, everyone will band together to attack us. Blazes, even the Tellask themselves might intervene. You’ve seen how much damage a couple of their retired army sergeants can do. Can you imagine a full contingent of house soldiers or a couple of knights?”
“Drop it, Geoff,” Andrea stated evenly, her eyes on the water of the small river. “If Daniel resists, we kill him. That’s always been the job. If he doesn’t resist, we take him alive. He’s full of tricks, as we all found out, and I would prefer to not lose my head because he surprised me. Morgan can decide what to do with him when we bring him to her.”
“He took me by surprise!” Geoff was definitely sulking now. “He’s tiny. In a stand-up fight, I would cut him in half.”
“Since when do magi get into stand-up fights with melee types?” Andrea snorted. “He’s small, but that makes him fast. All he has to do is tag you and activate that ability, and you’re on the ground again. Maybe this time, he doesn’t bother running away and instead he puts a knife in your throat.”
“He can’t touch me if I use my Bulwark skill,” Geoff bragged, glaring at Andrea. “It’s not as good as some fancy spell shield, but no one under rank 4 is going to be able to get through that while my mana lasts.”
“He might not be able to touch you,” the other man chimed in for the first time. “But you won’t be able to move. The skill will help out the rest of the party, but you’re hardly going to be able to win a duel while immobile and unable to swing your sword.”
“Well fuck you, too, Brandon…” Geoff began, only for Nora to cut him off with a hissing sound.
“Put it back in your pants boys,” she whispered, gaze flicking around the river. “My hunter’s sense skill just triggered. We’re being watched, and next to a river, that could be anything. There are a lot of nasty predators stalking the water sources in the wastes, and I’d prefer not to end up as one of their dinners.”
She drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it as the rest of the party prepared itself for combat with practiced ease. Andrea’s maul was immediately at the ready, but Geoff’s two-handed sword and Brandon’s axe and shield were just behind it. All of them took a step back from the edge of the river and took up defensive positions around Nora as she continued to scan for the threat.
Her eyes widened as a flash of light from Dan’s chainmail betrayed his position. She raised the bow in a smooth motion and unleashed the arrow directly at him.
