Chapter nine Wicked Awesome (Patreon)

Edited by Aldous

Sage of humanity chapter

Chapter Nine

Wicked Awesome

Lily closed and locked the door to her apartment, and started down the hallway towards the elevator. Woburn had returned not long after breakfast and told her that the Colonel wanted her to join a convoy headed to Lowell the next morning. She hadn’t really had any excuse not to, so she agreed. Right now a part of her was excited to see a new city, but a smaller part didn’t want to go. She liked her new world, and at the moment she kind of wanted to just sit and relax in it.

She had spent the morning before testing out her world. She learned a bunch of things. For one, she knew her river behaved the same way as the forest did. She followed along the water’s edge and, after traveling about five minutes according to her watch, she appeared back at her cabin. While she hadn’t been in the river, she assumed it would be the same.

She spent the rest of the day fixing up her house with both food and other household stuff. It did mean that she spent an hour at the food store getting more food to fill her new home, but it was worth it in the end. She did have to have the store's owner's son help her bring the stuff back, but she tipped him very well for his efforts. He seemed happy for the credits when he left.

Stepping out of the elevator, she spotted the same short, female, dwarven guard she had insulted months ago. Feeling a bit embarrassed, she tried to sneak by, but, to her dismay, the dwarven female called out. Lily bit her lip and, feeling embarrassed, turned around. She gave the guard a smile as she walked towards the desk.

“Ma’am, the building association has tried repeatedly to get you to sign your paperwork. Since you haven't responded they printed them out for you.” The Dwarven guard said, holding out a bunch of papers.

“Sorry, I keep forgetting to check.” Lily replied as she accepted the paperwork.

The guard handed her a weird-looking pen. It was much longer than any she remembered, and it had an odd-looking feather at the top. It wasn’t a quill, as the shaft of the pen was wooden and thicker like a pen she remembered having before the world ended. It just had a feather attached to the top. She wondered if it was so that no one stole it by accident.

She scanned through the document and signed it. It was basically telling her about the fees for the upkeep of the building, and the building association rules and regulations. They were all very basic. There were a few rules she had been breaking. One of them was that she wasn’t supposed to put her trash in the hallway. She grimaced as she read that rule, and made a mental note not to do that anymore. Once she signed where she was told to, the guard gave her a copy, and she was back on her way out the door.

It was raining when she stepped outside. Looking up she smiled at the dark gray clouds. It had never rained in her hell hole. She guessed it was because the raindrops couldn’t penetrate through the wall of light. She did see snow on the ground occasionally though. She never saw it fall, but once in a while, when it was really cold, it would just be there when she went out of her complex. She alway wondered if it appeared out of nowhere like the beasts and the monsters did.

She pulled the hood of her jacket up over her head and ran towards where she was told to meet the caravan. The place she was supposed to meet them was a parking lot near the front of the fort. She cut across some side streets that she had never been down before, marveling at all the new buildings that Woburn was building. They were mostly what she thought to be three or four story apartment buildings. It was a guess though because they were on the side streets instead of one of the main streets. Then again, she could be wrong and they might be office buildings. She just thought it would be weird to build office buildings on side streets.

The parking lot where she was supposed to meet the caravan was across the street from where the military people had stopped when they rescued her. It was a smaller parking lot with a long cement roof-like thing that ran along the left side of it. There was a bunch of military trucks parked under the roof with a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk, which was under the roof-like-thing.

Lily ran to the sidewalk to get out of the rain. She liked the rain, but she was starting to get waterlogged. Once safely on the sidewalk she took off her hood and smiled. Her jacket was not waterproof, but it was better than nothing. Still, she found she had a lot of fun running in the rain. She took off her jacket and cast Repair on it to dry it off then put it back on. Looking up, she lost her smile as she took in the crowd of people.

For one thing she had no idea where to go or who to talk to. It made her hesitate where she was at the far end of the sidewalk. She felt a bit of dread at the thought of interacting with all those people. It wasn’t the first time she felt that way. In fact, she felt the same thing whenever she went out for groceries. It was why she was so happy that the store owner's son had started delivering her groceries. It was also why she almost never went out to eat. She always felt awkward when she went inside to eat at a sit-down restaurant. She had tried it once and survived until the end of her meal, but she hadn’t wanted to go back. Not because the food was bad, because the food was great, but because of how she felt when she sat alone in the restaurant.

As she was eyeing the people at the other end of the sidewalk, a tall woman with pointy ears broke out of the crowd and started walking towards her. The woman had blond, frizzy hair that was pulled back so that her ears were very prominent. She had a huge smile on her face that showed a lot of teeth. She wore military clothes just like everyone else, but carried a pole instead of a rifle. She did, Lily noted, carry a pistol on her hip.

The woman waved as she walked towards her. “Sage Wilson?” She asked, when she got close to Lily. Lily couldn’t help but notice that the woman radiated magic. She wasn’t as bad as Woburn, especially after she juiced him up after she corrected her magic forcefield, but the woman was much stronger than most people she had encountered. She was also not ghostly and was a real person.

“Yes?” Lily replied, unsure about the woman.

“I’m Lieutenant Corrina.” The Elf woman said, still smiling. “I’m so glad to meet you. Your spells saved my, and so many other people's lives, many times over. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Ah, thanks.” Lily said, feeling very uncomfortable. She didn’t feel that she deserved the praise from the woman. Sure, she made sure to share her spells, but she really didn't think it would have this kind of impact. Plus, she was unsure just how much her spells really helped.

“As you can tell, I’m a sorceress.” Corrina said, then pointing down. “And this big guy is Taco, my familiar.”

Lily looked down and blinked. There was a large dog that she had completely overlooked sitting down behind the beautiful woman. He was a big dog, and, even sitting, his head was at the same height as Lily’s waist. The dog was black with a droopy face. While he looked a bit scary, the droopy skin on his face made the dog look bored. Lily found it disarming once she got over her initial fright. As for Corrina being a Sorceress, Lily had no idea what that meant. Not wanting to show her ignorance, she just nodded.

She did wonder what a familiar was, aside from the fact it was a dog. She knew for a fact that she had never created anything like it. Never really thought to try, for that matter. The dog looked at her as Corrina reached down to pet him. Lily took a second to look at the dog through her soul and nearly gasped out loud. The dog was pure magic, made flesh. The strong magic she was feeling wasn’t coming from the woman, but from the dog.

She examined the dog, fascinated by what she was seeing. The dog had real flesh and blood, but she could see the magic flow around it like a second, ghostly afterimage. Looking at how the magic interacted with the dog's flesh, she wondered if the thing was immortal. Then she changed her mind as she realized that the dog didn’t have a mana well. In fact, now that she looked at the dog and it’s master, she realized that their magic was the same.

“It is immortal, as long as it’s master is alive.” Lily thought to herself, as she looked over at the woman. “It might survive for a little while if Corrina died, like a candle burning down until it used everything up.”

“I’ve been assigned to you for the duration of our trip.” Corrina was saying, bringing Lily back to the conversation. As she came back to what Corrina was saying she let her vision return to normal.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I volunteered.” Corrina continued. “I’ve been a sorceress for twenty years now, and I was hoping to pick your brain.”

“Sure.” Lily said, beginning to smile. The woman's happy attitude was infectious.

“Come on, let me show you where you’re going to sit.” Corrina said, then she looked around, making Lily turn behind her trying to figure out what Corrina was looking for. “Where is your luggage?”

“This is it.” Lily said, patting her small bag hanging off her hip. She had seen the leather bag at one of the kiosks along the road. It reminded her of her old messenger bag she got to store her laptop in, before the end came. Her old bag wasn’t leather, but she thought this one looked way better than her old bag.

“That can’t be it.” Corrina said, tilting her head to the side. “Where are you storing your clothes? While you won’t need any food, as it’s being provided, it’s always a good idea to have something in case of emergencies. Let me tell them to wait. We need to get some supplies before we go.”

“I’ve got food.” Lily said, defensively. “And these are my only clothes. They're clean. I use Repair on them every morning.” She had been meaning to go out to get more clothes, but with one thing after another she had just forgotten to. She had her bathrobe that she had gotten a while ago, but she had left it in her apartment.

“You have Repair? Wait, of course you do. You created it.” Corrina said, shaking her head and smiling. “I guess that’s fine. While I too have Repair, I never thought about using it to keep my luggage space down. I’m going to have to remember that. That’s an amazing travel tip. I hope you don’t mind if I steal your idea.”

“Go for it.” Lily said, shrugging, as she followed Corrina, who had turned and started walking towards the convoy.

“This is going to be so much fun.” Corrina squealed. “Have you ever been to Lowell?”

“Nope.” Lily said, following beside the more excited woman.

“I was born there.” Corrina confided. “If you want, I can show you all the sights. This is going to be so wicked awesome.”

“Ahh, there we go.” Lily thought to herself with a warm smile. It was the first time she had heard someone use the telltale word, wicked, in a sentence since the invasion. Even if Corrina said it with an odd accent, it was still the same wordage. Wicked was a word that people in her state had made famous for using as much as they could, and trying to fit it in nearly every sentence as well. She was pretty sure that her people had been using the word in their regional dialect since well before she had been born. It made her feel better to hear someone use it in a sentence again. It made her feel like everything hadn’t ended with the invasion.

“That’ll be wicked cool.” Lily returned with a slight smile. The other woman flashed her big smile at Lily in return.

Corrina led Lily to an armored truck. It was much bigger than the one that she had arrived in. It was longer, with much more seats than the other vehicle had had. Most of the seats were taken up by people dressed in military clothing, but there were a few people like her who were dressed in normal-looking clothes. One thing she did notice, though, was that everyone was armed. While most people had guns, some, like Corrina, had old-fashioned weapons. She spotted a few swords, and in one case a large, wide-edge ax.

She kind of expected the ax’s carrier to be a dwarf, but it was being carried by a normal-looking man in military clothing. The man wasn’t tall or big like she thought he should be. He looked like a normal guy. Not too fit, but not too skinny either. He was youngish-looking, but Lily was too out of practice to figure out his age.

She tried to guess his age to herself anyway. Looking him over, she noted that he didn’t have any white hair that she could see, nor did he have an old-looking face. But at the same time he didn’t look as young as she looked either. Then again she was 111 years old and she thought she looked like she was seventeen or maybe twenty. That made her think that it was much harder to tell someone’s age now than before the invasion.

Corrina turned out to be very talkative. She described her early childhood inside the protected city of Lowell. It sounded like it was much like Lily’s childhood except for the random beasts and monster attacks, as they appeared inside the city every now and then. There was also the occasional demon attack at the walls of the city. Corrina skipped over those parts mostly, saying things like, “You know how it is”, when Lily really didn’t.

She knew and fought beasts and monsters when they showed up, but she hadn’t seen a demon since that first day when she and her brothers ran from them. She also never had a bunker to hunker down in with other people. She had her complex, which was sort of like a bunker, but Corrina made her bunker sound much safer. Lily also hadn’t been down to the bunkers in her building or any of the ones that were scattered around the fort. She really didn’t know how they compared to the complex in her hellhole, now that she thought about it.

Corrina made friends at the drop of a hat. Lily watched as the sorceress started talking to everyone around them, asking about their lives and how they were doing. Lily sat back a little, too intimidated with all the strangers, but Corrina helped bring her into some of the conversations. Lily found herself becoming a bit jealous at how easily Corrina could talk with other people, yet at the same time was grateful she was including her in these conversations with the others.

One of the guys who was dressed in civilian clothes explained why it was going to take five days to travel what otherwise might be a thirty-minute drive. “There are a lot of beasts’ nests between here and Lowell. It’s way too dangerous to just travel in a straight line. So we have to go west for about two days to circle around the Chelmsford and Leominster forests. We’ll stop at Fort Amherst tonight before heading to Fort Brattleboro. From there we’ll head to Fort Peterborough, then on to Fort Nashua before finally traveling south to Lowell.”

Lily's head spun at all the forts they were talking about. She had heard of some of them before, but they had been all towns or cities before. She wondered what else had changed during her time in the hellhole. She also noted that, while there was a dirt road they were following, they weren’t going all that fast. She brought it up to the guy who was dressed in normal clothes.

“Going fast is dangerous.” He replied with a serious expression. “If things go wrong, then you’ll see us pick up speed, but as long as we aren't being attacked it's best to go slow.”

The convoy drove until early afternoon, when they arrived at a fort that looked just like Woburn except older and more worn out. She also noted that it lacked any of her new city-protecting spells. She knew she didn’t have time to set one up as they were only going to stay the night, but she made a mental note to do so on the way back. That made her wonder if any of the other forts had one.

She cast Grimoire and added it to the list to think about. She also made a note to ask if she could somehow get the fort's measurements so she could plan it out before she left. She also added to her list to ask someone whose job it was to see if they could buy everything beforehand. She didn’t want to spend her own money on buying everything. She knew there were taxes, so she knew that meant that the forts and cities had their own money. Plus, if they were rich enough, they could buy generators for Woburn’s advanced magic city force field. She had no problems casting the weaker version, Woburn’s magic city force field, but she really didn’t want to spend all the money on beast core crystals or worse, for the stronger force field, a generator.

“I’ve really got to thank you for that spell.” Corrina said, making Lily look up from her grimoire.

“What spell?” Lily asked, slightly confused.

In response Corrina cast her own Grimoire. It was the first time Lily had seen anyone cast a spell in her presence, and she noted just how differently Corrina did it compared to how she did it. For one thing she understood what her double had said about adding shortcuts to all of Lily’s spells. She noted right away that Corrina didn’t dip down into her soul or pull on her roots to make the magic come to her hand. Instead, it just happened. Lily didn’t see how it happened, but she was sure Corrina didn’t do it herself.

“The System?” She asked herself, as Corrina’s grimoire appeared in her hands. “If so, how did it do it?”

Corrina’s grimoire was much more elaborate than Lily’s book. For one thing, Corrina’s looked like a real grimoire with a light-blue, leather cover. Lily’s looked like her math book from highschool with a glossy cover that had a white pentagram on it. For another thing, Corrina’s book had a lock on it which she opened as she touched it. Lily’s book didn’t have anything to protect her book like that, but she knew the spell and knew that it wouldn’t respond to anyone else if they opened it. While anyone could open it, only the person who’s grimoire it was could read it. Anyone else would just get a blank page if they tried to read from it without permission. That made her wonder why Corrina’s had a lock on it.

Corrina’s book also came with one of those odd wooden pens with a feather on top. Lily used her finger to write in her spell book. She didn’t really write out the letters, she just thought about what word she wanted written down and ran her finger over the page. The grimoire wrote it for her. There really wasn’t a need for a pen, unless Corrina’s grimoire was somehow fundamentally different from hers.

She let herself slip into her soul and look at Corrina’s book, then at her book. Aside from each of the books’ mana coming from different people, she didn’t see any difference. She hadn’t been looking at the spell when the sorceress had cast it so she wasn’t a hundred percent sure the spell balls were the same, but from the way Corrina had moved her hand in the air, Lily was sure it was the same spell. Corrina used the same hand movements that Lily did to move her spell balls around. That didn’t mean the spell balls were the same though.

“I bought the spell as soon as I could afford it, and it’s been a lifesaver.” Corrina continued, as Lily dropped back to her normal vision. “I’m an earth sorceress. And as you must be aware, I needed a broader spell library.”

As she spoke, she opened her book and moved it so that Lily could see what was written in it. “I got your Flamethrower, and Ice fall spells to round out my combat spells with Heal, and Light spells for utility. For protection, I use an earth spirit, but I’m saving up for your Mobile barrier. I read that you can fit the barrier under the earth spirit. I haven't seen anyone doing it, but I read it on a forum. Do you know if it works? I'd hate to buy the spell and not use it.”

Lily looked at the page Corrina was showing her, and saw the spells she was talking about. They were listed with the name first, then the row of spell balls with the shapes inside them. Below that was a smaller version of the spell balls, except with lines to show where they all went. The words were printed like a computer printed them, but there were some handwritten notes in between the lines and in the margins.

The Flamethrower spell was a really old spell. It would send out a thin stream of fire at an object. It was a decent spell, but Lily preferred the much stronger Greater flamethrower. The older spell used a lot less mana, but the newer version was really hot and could kill things much faster. Ice fall was a nice spell that sent tiny icicles down at a target. It had decent penetration on armored targets, but it took a while to cast as it had eighteen spell balls versus the fourteen that Greater flamethrower had. Plus Greater flamethrower used less mana than Ice fall did.

“What was your question, again?” Lily asked as she looked up at the sorceress. She had forgotten what the woman asked as she thought about the spells the sorceress used.

“If I can use the Mobile barrier spell under my earth spirit for protection.” She replied.

Lily had no idea what an earth spirit was. She absently pictured something like Corrina’s familiar and shuddered at how powerful the spirit must be. She couldn’t picture a dog surrounding the sorceress, but knew there had to be other forms that familiars could take. That made Lily think just how powerful the woman beside her must be, if she was able to cast several different spells that were similar if not almost exactly like the familiar who was sitting by their feet.

“Mobile barrier starts and ends about an inch off your skin.” Lily replied. “I’m not sure where your earth spirit would be compared to that.”

“That won’t work. My spirit touches me and projects several inches out from there.” Corrina replied with a sigh.

“Do you know how far from your skin it projects?” Lily asked, thinking about modifying the spell. “You know what, nevermind. I can make it adjustable.”

“You can do that?” Corrina asked, sounding surprised. Lily noted that the man who had told them about their route was also listening in.

Feeling embarrassed, Lily pushed her hair behind her ears before replying. “Yeah. Let me work on it tonight. I’ll get back with you tomorrow morning.”

“That would be awesome.” Corrina replied, jumping up and down in her seat.

“You’re the hidden Sage, aren't you?” The man asked, looking at Lily. “The one they just found eight months ago, right?”

“She is.” Corrina said, reaching out and pulling Lily away from the man.

“It’s an honor to meet you.” The man replied with a big smile. “I’m a wizard and I would love to get your advice on the spells I bought.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Corrina replied. Lily looked at both of them, confused, not sure where the hostility from Corrina was coming from.

“I’m not here for anything untoward.” The man said to Corrina. “And I apologize if I offended or scared you two. To make it up, I would be honored to get you hotel rooms at the hotel of your choice here and at the other forts.”

“We already have rooms booked for the entire trip, but I thank you.” Corrina replied, sounding less hostile.

“Then breakfast in the morning.” The man said with a smile, still looking at Corrina.

“That is acceptable.” Corrina said, nodding. “Jackson’s?”

“I love that place. Let's meet up at six. That’ll give us an hour to eat without rushing before the caravan leaves.” The man replied.

“That sound good to you, Sage Wilson?” Corrina asked, turning to look at Lily.

“It’s Lily, and that’s fine.” She told them both as the convoy turned into the parking lot.

“Honored.” The man replied, bowing a bit. “Please call me Herold, then.”

“Corrina.” The sorceress replied from beside Lily, as the truck came to a stop.

The rain had stopped sometime after lunch, but it was still somewhat overcast. Corrina took her to the hotel, where they checked into their hotel room. The hotel room was a single room with two twin beds. The hotel was nice-looking, both inside and out. It was a three-story building not far from the parking lot where the convoy had parked for the night. A lot of other people, both military and civilian, had joined them on their walk towards the hotel.

Corrina went into the bathroom as soon as they got there and changed, while Lily sat down on the bed that was the furthest from the door. She summoned her grimoire and sat down to think about how to modify Mobile barrier for Corrina. The good news was she didn’t have to do anything except change the intent of the spell. The bad part was she was going to have to change the intent of the spell, which would be annoying. She absently popped a mushroom into her mouth and started to think about how to go about doing it.

She was interrupted a few minutes later when Corrina came out of the bathroom dressed in a nice, white dress with yellow flowers on it. “You ready to get dinner?” She asked Lily.

“No, thank you.” Lily replied, still mostly lost in her thoughts. “I’m not hungry, but don’t let that stop you.”

“You sure?” Corrina replied. “It’s in the budget Lowell gave us.”

“I'm sure, but thank you.” Lily said, getting slightly annoyed that the other woman wouldn’t go away and let her work.

“How about I bring back some food?” Corrina asked, still not leaving. “Do you like steak and potatoes? It’s from a Oneflat. I’ve never had it, but I heard it was wicked awesome. It has always been too expensive, but, if we’re not paying for it, I thought this would be a great time to try it.”

“Sure.” Lily replied, not really paying attention to her roommate anymore.

“Great, I’ll bring it when I get back.” She told Lily.

“Ok.” Lily replied, while she started writing in her book as she got another idea.

Sometime later, Corrina came back with a cardboard box with a slab of meat and some whitish thing that had some resemblance to a potato like Lily remembered from before the invasion. While a potato looked like, well, a potato, the thing in the box looked more like a cucumber except it had a white mash of potato-looking guts on the inside of the green skin. Lily picked up a metal fork that Corrina had brought with her meal and tried the potato. Lily frowned at the taste. It wasn’t bad, but the potato had a sharp, plant aftertaste to it. She put down her spoon and returned to her work as Corrina laid down on her bed and started to read.

Time passed in a blink of an eye and Lily finished her spell, as well as organizing it so her second idea would work. Smiling, she turned to tell Corrina that she was done, only to find her fast asleep. Lily looked at her watch and gasped. It was two in the morning. She had four more hours until she had to be at the restaurant with Herold. She signed and closed her book, letting it fade away. Then she went to bed.

She was woken up by Corrina in the morning. “We’ve got twenty minutes if you want to take a shower.” Corrina said, as Lily opened her eyes. Lily contemplated going back to sleep, but Corrina was making too much noise as she puttered around the room. Lily got up and staggered to the bathroom. The bathroom didn’t have a tub, so she was forced to take a shower. The water pressure was a bit off, and the hot water was mildly hot at best. It made a grumpy Lily even more grumpier.

She quickly used Cleanse on herself when she left the shower, then Repair on her clothes. She walked out of the bathroom feeling slightly better. Apparently, she had spent too long in the shower because Corrina was waiting on her just outside the bathroom door.

“We need to leave now or we are going to be late.” The sorceress told her. Lily nodded as she slipped her feet into her shoes. By the time she was done, Corrina had already opened the door and was stepping out into the hallway.

“Sorry, I hate being late.” Corrina apologized.

“It’s fine.” Lily muttered, following the other woman down the hall.

Jackson’s, the restaurant that they had agreed to meet up at with Herold, was a really fancy restaurant with lots of small, round tables with very white tablecloths. There was a buffet line with a bunch of people dressed in white and black outfits standing at the ready to put food on people's plates. Lily had scrambled eggs and toast, along with some kind of sausage. It smelled kind of spicy, but it had been a long time since she had breakfast sausage so she went with it.

Lily mostly ignored Herold and Corrina as they made small talk. She was too busy trying to wake up. A server asked if she wanted coffee or tea with her breakfast. While she loved the smell of coffee she hated the taste of it. But she rationalized that she needed caffeine to wake up. So she asked for some tea.

The server overturned her cup so it was right side up and poured some steaming-hot water into it. She watched in fascination as he picked up a double-sided metal scooper thing and dug it deep into a bowl full of what looked like black dirt. He then let the double-sided scooper thingy close so that none of the dirt could escape. Then he dipped the now closed scooper thing into her mug.

“How strong would you like it, ma’am?” He asked her as he kept dipping the scooper in and out of her mug.

“Strong.” Lily replied, watching the man work, fascinated. She had never seen anything like what he was doing in her life.

He kept on dipping the scooper thing for about a minute or so then pulled it out. Then he placed it on his tray before moving to Corrina. She had coffee which he just poured from a jug after turning her mug over. Lily was kind of let-down that he didn’t have some other cool way to make it like he did with her tea. She was further let down when Herold also had the coffee. Shrugging her shoulders, Lily went back to eating.

When they all were done eating, Herold leaned forward and smiled. “So did you do it?” He asked, looking at Lily.

Lily smiled and summoned her grimoire. Instead of opening the book she touched the corner of her book with her fingers on one side and her thumb on the other. She gently squeezed and pulled backward away from her book. Several pages came loose and with a flash of light the pages became a very thin book. Smiling, she held the book out to Corrina whose eyes were wide in surprise.

You have modified an existing spell called Mobile barrier. Do you wish to share this spell with the rest of humanity?

After she clicked yes, her double’s voice returned with another system announcement.

You have created a skill book for Mobile barrier.  With a skill book, you may share a skill that you created with anyone who is in good standing with the System.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Herold said, looking on in awe as Corrina accepted the book.

“How do I use this?” Corrina asked, sounding both excited and in awe. She answered her own question as she opened the book. The book pages flipped over like a strong wind was blowing on them. Once the last page flipped, the book burst into fire that quickly consumed it without harming Corrina. Lily looked around as she realized that they had attracted the attention of everyone in the restaurant. She instantly regretted her decision to show off.

“Can you do that again?” Herold asked, looking like he was still in shock.

Sighing, Lily took a deep breath as she gave in and repeated the process. She handed over the second skill book to Herold who accepted it with a hungry expression on his face. He didn’t waste any time and opened the book. She looked over at Corrina who had a huge smile on her face.

“I know Mobile Barrier.” She told Lily.

Corrina stood up and touched her chest with her fist. Lily immediately let herself fall into her soul as she realized that Corrina was about to cast a spell. Lily watched as Corrina pulled out an odd-looking brown clump of mana from her chest. The clump was large, full of mana, but nowhere as large or full of mana as Taco, the sorceress’s familiar, was. The sorceress pulled the clump about a foot away from her chest and then let it go.

Expecting the mana to fade, Lily watched, fascinated, as the brown clump of mana leaped back at the sorceress and hit her in the chest. As soon as it hit the sorceress’s chest it immediately spread outward, covering her entire body in a thin, brown film. The sorceress wasn’t done, though. Lily watched as the mana leaped from her mana well to the sorceress’s hand far too fast to be natural. As soon as the mana reached her hand, the sorceress waved her hand and spell balls formed, and floated effortlessly out of her hand and into the air. Then she stopped for a moment to look down at her other hand.

Lily had no idea when the sorceress had summoned her grimoire, but there it was in her left hand. The sorceress consulted her book then moved the spell balls into the correct position. Lily watched as the spell ball collapsed into one big spell ball and the sorceress released the spell. Like the brown blob of mana, the spell coated the sorceress, but this time with an iridescent film. The film coated the brown film and seemed to sink into it, making the brown film seem to shine like a dimly lit rambow.

She was still looking at the spells that seemed to have combined with each other when Corrina’s voice made her drop out of her soul. “This is far better than I’d ever expected. The spell combined with my spirit. This is so wicked awesome.” Corrina said breathlessly.

She smiled as Corrina quickly closed the gap between the two and hugged her. Not a hugger, Lily hesitated then hugged the other woman back. The hug didn’t feel right though. Lily felt like she was hugging a wall. A warm and dangerous wall, but a wall nonetheless. She also noted that it felt alive.

She didn’t know why she thought it was alive, but it popped into her head when she thought about it.  She dropped back into her soul as Corrina kept on hugging her. Looking over at the brown film she got the feeling that it was looking at her. It had no eyes, nor could she see a way for it to look at her, but she somehow knew that it was. She quickly pulled back from Corrina, kind of creeped out at the feeling.

“That you so very much.” The sorceress said again as she released her spells. Lily wasn’t in her soul so she couldn’t see it happen, but the creepy feeling quickly faded away. On top of that, she felt less magic around Corrina as soon as the creepy feeling went away. It wasn’t hard to figure out.

“Yes, thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Herold said from behind her. “If there is any way I can repay you for this, don't hesitate to ask.”

Lily nodded, feeling way too embarrassed at their compliments. It wasn’t hard to modify a spell. She had learned that many years ago. You just had to know what you want and how to go about doing it. As long as you didn’t change the spell balls, the system didn’t ask you to name it as a new spell. The modification wasn’t complicated, so she didn’t need to change anything except for the modification to the intent. All that took was a few hours. She didn’t think it rated this much excitement.

It wasn’t until she was back in the armored truck that she realized why they were acting so excitedly. It dawned on her that she was the only one who could modify the spell. That gave her an idea. She summoned her grimoire again and ignored everyone on the truck as she organized her thoughts and writings. In no time they arrived at the next fort, but Lily was way too focused on her next idea and ignored Corrina’s and Herold’s invitations to dinner. She worked through the night and through the entire drive the next morning.

Both of her new friends seemed to not want to disturb her and Lily was grateful for that. Corrina kept Lily supplied with food during the night and Herold brought her breakfast at the truck in the morning. It wasn't until they reached Fort Nashua, their last stop before reaching Lowell, that she finally finished organizing her book.

She surprised Corrina the next morning when she asked to go with her to breakfast. Lily couldn’t keep her smile from her face as they reached what looked like an old fashioned, cowboy, western-themed restaurant. Herold was waiting on them and even stood up as they sat themselves. He only sat down when they were seated.

“Ok, spill.” Corrina said, as soon as everyone was seated. “What have you been up to?”

“Ok, I’ve been wanting to do this for a really long time, but never got a chance. So without further ado.” Lily said and created a skill book. She crossed her fingers, not sure if it would work, but to her relief it did.

You have created a new crafting profession. Name the profession.

Lily smiled as she named her profession.

Would you like to share this profession with the rest of humanity?

She agreed.

You have created a skill book for the profession, Spell Smith.  With a skill book, you may share a profession that you created with anyone who is in good standing with the System.

She handed the book to Corrina then created a second one for Herold. She smiled as they both opened the book at the same time.

“Wicked awesome.” Corrina said, looking and sounding shocked as the book went up in flames.