Seras Streams
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Chapter 6: Returning to the Mortal Realm
🕑 Added 2024-11-15 01:50:53 +0000 UTCReality snapped back into place around Tristan as the white vanished and he once more was in the muddy cornfield. In the same circle he had left from. It was some time in the night, and the stars above were visible against their deep, blue and black tapestry. The five moons, called the Fingers of Night, were all aloft in their formation. Deep, silvery spheres that had always fascinated Tristan when he was a child.
Felicity tapped his head with her paw-claw, “Hey, dingus. Let’s get one thing strait; we are not friends. Okay?”
Tristan nodded curtly, “Fine by me.” He began making his way out of the corn field and back to the road, following the path of trampled vegetation. He saw the corn he had stepped on in his approach, and it looked slightly rotten. “How long passes in the Fey Realm compared to here?”
“Same amount of time,” Felicity said with a sigh. “Makers of old, I’m going to have to teach you everything about the place you come from, aren’t I?”
No, I actually am pretty book smart about the Mortal Realm, Tristan thought. Just not other Realms…except in regard to the dangers of the Elemental Realms. Those were the places where dragons came from, and his grandfather had made sure in his manual to write down every danger signal, every sign of something being ‘off’, that he could find. “Let’s just focus on traveling, okay?”
“Right. Turning invisible.” There was a small mirage of magic at play in the air…but Felicity was still there.
“What gives? I can see you.”
She sighed, “Ugh. Like teaching a baby! Elves and fairy dragons can see fairy dragons and Elves. Regardless of spells at play.”
Good to know. Tristan got to the main road and looked down the stretch leading back to the main town. The sun was high overhead, signaling that it was noon. The scent of stirred-up mud and the fields of crops wafted gently through the warm breeze. Which was surprising, because it was the eighth of Thawing Season. “Do Elves have more tolerance for temperature?”
“Winterbloom didn’t give you the hint you needed? Cold weather will never bother you. You could be naked in the snow and be just fine.”
Tristan let out an unintentional chuckle at that, “Who would ever go naked in the snow?”
“Your ancestors, that’s who.”
He began trudging along the road towards the town a few hours away. “Okay miss know-it-all. Tell me what each spell type my Elf side does.”
Over the next few hours Felicity delivered a detailed explanation that completely absorbed Tristan’s attention as they traveled. Every different spell type he had access to as an Elf. And he knew that the ones she did not speak of were not available to him due to the race restrictions.
Illusion was the first one she raved about. Spells of that type, she explained, were able to alter reality slightly by putting a ‘shroud’ over it that would distort how the senses perceived something. The easiest, and least mana-intensive of the senses to trick was a person’s sense of sight. Followed by hearing, smell, taste, and finally touch. “The touch-based illusions are all Ninth and Tenth Order spells, because at that point you’re fabricating reality in a way.”
“Can you break an illusion?”
“Sight-based? Yes; you just touch them, and once your mind processes that it is not really there, then you can see through it. Like when you hold your hand right in front of your face and you can sort of see your palm, and sort of see past it. Hearing, smell, and taste are all trickier to unveil; except by lengthy exposure. Touch is the most difficult one, and requires a lot of sustained contact. Sight and touch illusions layered on top of each other are very good for disguises!”
After illusion came flora. The ability to control plants. At the lowest Order, it was simple plant growth. At the higher Order spells, one could give plants a level of sentience. “It is how the ancient Elves created all of the plants in the Fey Realm. Being able to grow plants is really, really useful.”
“I’d imagine so,” Tristan replied as he continued to be sucked into her dialogue. “Being able to grow plants would help out farmers immensely.”
Next was enchantment. Felicity’s voice went grave and more serious when discussing this spell type. “Enchantment has to do with manipulating minds. At the lower Orders, it involves tricking people with simple misdirection. At the higher Orders, you can quite literally control people’s minds and replace their memories.”
That seemed nefarious and very evil to Tristan. “Do people do that often?”
“Not as often as you would imagine, given the power,” Felicity replied. “That is because no enchantment can last longer than a day. Ever. And, as soon as the effect ends or is removed, they know exactly who used the enchantment on them…visually, at least. They’re given a flash of who did it.” She giggled, “And that’s why you use visual illusion spells, then enchantment! So that when the enchantment ends, they see the illusory version of you. Also it can be great for tricking people and pulling pranks!”
Smart, but it sounds really, really vile. Controlling other people? No thank you. Maybe in an emergency, but I think I’m staying away from that as much as possible.
Next, she spoke of fortune. A very subtle spell type that would just make someone luckier. “It is nebulous in its efficacy,” she said with a bit of a disappointed sigh. “But at the lower Orders, it would let you have a better shot at winning a game of dice. At the higher Orders, it would increase your odds of surviving a barrage of arrows on a battlefield.”
Useful if it lasts a long time, Tristan thought. If you could cast it in the morning and have it last the whole day.
As the sun began to set, Tristan saw the outlying buildings of a hamlet. There were a few silhouettes of figures he could see in the distance, and checking his pocket, he grimaced at realizing how short he was on funds. A few electrum, and a handful of silver coins. Enough to stay a night on the floor of a family who wants to open their house to a stranger. Then, a realization hit him. Crap, I look like a full-blooded Elf now!
Elves in the kingdom of Bhant were rare and regarded with great suspicion in the Human-centric kingdom. “Felicity, I need a way to hide my appearance.”
“Oh, mister powerful Elf needs me to teach them a spell? Only if you praise me.”
“Come again?”
“You heard me. P-r-a-i-s-e me. Say something flattering. And, it has to be sincere.”
“I like your wings. They’re very pretty. Stunning, even. Any lady of the court would be proud to have you perched on their head.”
“Well…okay, that works. Repeat after me. And as you do, I want you to channel your mana from your core through your entire body. And, you have to envision what you want to look like. This is a First Order spell called Disguise Form. Naamioi muotoni niin, että näytän joltakin, mitä en ole. (Disguise my form so that I appear as something I am not). You also need to make the following gesture with your hand.” Her claw-paw turned into a human hand, and she passed it over her face with a small, circular, scrubbing motion.
Tristan nodded and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. Picturing his mana core in his chest, he felt the thrum alongside his heartbeat. Trying to coax it, he instinctively flexed his muscles, and felt the mana trickle out of the core and into his limbs. Repeating the phrase, he pictured his body the last time he saw it in a mirror, two years ago.
There was a pulse of silverly light that he saw behind his eyes, and crackling lines of icy-blue seemed to spark inside his mind. He felt a slight exertion, as if he had sprinted up a small flight of stairs. And the mana core he was visualizing in his mind’s eye, that small sphere, lost a little bit of its luster.
Opening his eyes, he looked over at the still-invisible Felicity, “How’s it look?”
“Revolting,” she replied with a giggle. “But that’s because you look like a Human. Your Elf body is much better.”
“Thanks for the backhanded compliment,” Tristan ruefully replied. “It’s still a bit of a ways off. And you have a few more spell types to tell me about. Oh, before that – how long will this disguise last?”
“No more than two hours.”
So I have to repeat it a few times later on. He stopped in his tracks and began repeating the gesture and whispering the words without giving them any air.
“What are you doing?”
“Practicing,” he replied.
“Right here? On the muddy road?”
“No better time than the present.” He continued the gesture and repetition. For a solid five minutes, ignoring Felicity’s dejected, heavy sighs. When he was sure he had it down in his memory, he continued walking towards the hamlet. “Okay, you had a few more spell types to tell me about. And it’s still about ten minutes until we’ll get into town.”
“Imbuement and artifice.” She spent five minutes explaining each, as they had quite a bit of depth to them. Imbuement was the practice of infusing one’s mana into an item for a limited use; such as a potion, scroll, or other consumable that would then be inert once it was used.
Artifice was like the enhanced version of imbuement. Creating items that had permanent effects tied to them; not consumed upon use. However, they would only work at the lowest capacity unless a person infused their mana; pushed their mana into the object.
“Your armor and weapon are items of artifice,” she finished.
“I know that,” Tristan replied as they reached the edge of the buildings and began to draw looks from the various townsfolk. “Can they hear you?” he whispered.
“No. Only fairy dragons, pixies, faeries, and Elves can hear or see me. But, they will notice you talking to nothing and think you’re c-r-a-z-y crazy.”
Noted. He walked over to a woman who was sitting on a slightly raised, wooden porch, knitting a blanket as she watched the small going-ons in the town center. Her attention immediately went to Tristan as he began angling in her direction, and she stood up, went inside the building, and vanished from view.
A burly man emerged a few moments later. A Human with deep, brown hair like the mud caking Tristan’s greaves, and eyes that were a soft, gentle brown. “You’re that knight that came through town not too long ago,” he said in a gruff but enthused tone. “End up finding what you were looking for?”
Tristan nodded and made sure to put on his most charming smile and demeanor. “I did, thank you for asking. I see you have quite a large house here. Did you build it yourself?”
The man grinned, “Yup. Built it up with my brother.”
“Would you by chance be open to accepting coin for the privilege of sleeping in front of your hearth?”
The man’s chest rumbled and he grinned, “Sure. A knight like you has to have a pretty bit of coin.”
“Two silver coins?”
“Make it three, and I’ll throw in a seat at our dinner table. The wife cooked up a lovely barley stew. And my brother caught a nice, juicy rabbit to add.”
Tristan grinned and bowed more deeply, “You have yourself a deal.” He produced the coins from his pouch and walked up the porch, handing them to the man. “If you have a spare rag, I’d rather not drag the road into your lovely house along with me.”
The man turned around, went inside, and emerged with a wet rag, handing it to Tristan, “Appreciated. What did you say your name was?”
“Tristan. And I hadn’t said it yet. May I know yours?”
“Call me Wilson. My wife is Gina, and my younger brother is Parson.”
