CH: 17 New Spell (Patreon)

Edited.

Sage of Humanity. I will start posting this story on RR as soon as I get to chapter 21. So a month, maybe less.

Chapter 17

New spell

“Six hours.” Lily thought, looking down at her phone-message-thingie. Looking around the bunker she was stuck in, she felt bored as she took another bite of the food she had bought from a vendor. There were a bunch of them walking around the bunker selling food and snacks. People, she noted, appeared to be used to hiding in the bunkers. They certainly didn’t seem to be freaked out about the current situation. Some seemed sad, but for the most part people just looked bored.

“They’re going to yellow light us soon.” A woman said as she walked up to a small group. Lily was not part of the group, but she was close enough to overhear what they were saying.

“That was fast. A bloom like this usually lasts longer than this.” Said a thin man who was dressed all in white.

“Yeah, according to what I heard, some caster burned down a nest. He set the whole street on fire.” The woman said, sitting down to the man in white on one of the bunks.

“Lucky accidents.” The man in white said with a chuckle.

“Lucky accidents.” The woman said with a nod.

“At least we didn’t get titans this time.” The man said. Lily looked over at him directly instead of looking out of the corner of her eye. He was looking down at the floor.

“We did.” The woman told him. “That nest that the caster supposedly cooked was a titan nest. At least that’s what the troopers at the door told me.”

The man in white swore in response. “That must have been one powerful caster. You think he was part of Washington's crew?”

“Maybe, don’t know.” The woman said, as Lily watched her unwrap what looked like a sandwich from the bag beside the man in white. “What I wonder is why a caster like that was wandering around like the rest of us. On Main Street of all places.”

“Out shopping?” The man asked, then for some reason he and the woman started laughing. Lily turned away, not sure why they were laughing. She was also a bit embarrassed as she just realized they were talking about her. She was proud, but also embarrassed.

Lily looked down at her grimoire then dismissed it. At first she was excited to get her thoughts down on paper. She had created a plan for what she was going to do when she got back to her apartment, including some random drawings she was going to use for her rune experiment.

She also put her thoughts down on why she thought it was the correct choice, in case she needed some inspiration if it failed. Just because she thought she was on the correct path didn’t mean she was. She did find it helpful to write to her future self why she was going to do something when she was looking for a new direction. Sometimes just reading why she thought it was correct helped inspire new ideas.

The problem was that it had only taken her about an hour to put her thoughts into her book. She had been mostly sitting on her assigned bunk since then trying to figure out something to take her mind off all the waiting she had been forced to do. She had considered herself an expert on waiting when she was still in her hellhole, but now that she thought about it she hadn’t been. She had always been experimenting on something or looking for new spell balls. Here she couldn’t do either.

She had spent a while exploring. She had found that the bunker she was in had four floors and each floor was huge. The first floor, which she had been assigned a bunk in, was full of people who looked like they could fight. Everyone had weapons and armor with them. The second floor was made up mostly of unarmed people, but here and there she spotted some people who had weapons that look a bit less used than those the people in the first floor had.

The third and fourth floors were filled with older people and people with kids. There were a lot of kids down there too. They mostly stayed with what Lily assumed were their parents, but there were still bunches of them running around. The one thing that surprised her about the kids was that even when they were playing they were very quiet. She didn’t remember much about children, but what she did remember was that they tended to be very loud.

She did spot Captain Gudion and Dougie again. They were standing around the door with the armed guards. They seemed well known and liked. They hadn’t seen her or at least if they did they didn’t show it. She didn’t want to intrude on them so she kept on walking as she explored the bunker.

She had finally found a shower curtain for her shower. An old-looking woman on the fourth floor had been sitting near the stairs with a large carpet with stuff for sale on it. She had a baby asleep in her arms. The woman looked far too old for that baby to be hers, and Lily hoped that she was just babysitting. If not, then she really didn’t want to know what had happened.

She looked through the stuff and found a simple, white, cloth curtain that the old woman said had been treated with an alchemy solution so that it was waterproof. She said it was guaranteed to be waterproof for ten years as long as the buyer didn’t add anything else to it, like another alchemy treatment or an enchantment. Lily agreed the price and bought the curtain. She stuffed the curtain into her backpack and moved on. There were a few others who were selling stuff on carpets, but nothing that interested her.

Though she did stop at one that sold real magic wands. The wands were cool, but very limited. They were designed to be used with the spells Lily had created. They helped speed up the process of the System-assisted spell casting. In other words they sped up the process by which the System shortcuts were used to create the spell balls then moved those spell balls into the proper order. For someone who did it manually, the wands were useless. She did learn that someone on Earth had created them and the System recognized it as a profession now. The wands, she found, were really expensive. They cost a thousand credits each, while some of the prettier ones were much more.

“You should get this one.” The lady who was selling the wands had told her. “It goes with your caster’s hat.”

The wand that the woman offered her was grey and looked like a drumstick except without the knob thing at the end. The wand was the same color as her hat. It did look, at least to Lily, kind of cool, but she had no use for a wand. She shook her head and gave the wand back to the woman.

“It is beautiful, but I can't use it right now.” She said, trying to be polite.

“Oh, I understand, but it won’t be long until you can. You won’t be able to get it at this price after today. I’m only selling it at this price because you have such a beautiful hat that matches the wand. I won’t be able to sell it this low in the future.” The woman said, still trying to get the sale. “How about I throw in a wand holster? It matches the wand and is made from real dester leather so it won’t wear out for decades. It’s worth at least five hundred credits on its own, but I’m willing to throw it in with the sale of the wand, but only for today.”

“No, thank you.” Lily had said, a bit annoyed at the persistent woman. She really had regretted stopping at the woman's carpet at that moment. She turned and walked away. She kind of expected the woman to call her back, but the saleswoman let her go. Lily had been grateful as she made her way to the next carpet where someone had set up things to sell.

That had been hours ago, but now she was back at her bunk and listening in on other people's conversations. The man in white and the lady were still talking, but they were talking about hunting. They were discussing the best bait for some kind of beast they both had hunted in the past. Lily only understood the man thought the meat of some kind of fish was better, while the woman thought a lure that had been treated with an alchemy solution to create a lure effect was better. Apparently the fish was more expensive while the lure did something to the beast that lessened the resale value. Lily really wasn’t interested, but she didn’t have anything else to do so she shamelessly listened in.

“Condition yellow.” A loud announcement went out over the speakers. “Condition yellow. It is highly recommended, if you are going to leave the bunker, you do so in groups. Adventurers who are willing to escort people back to their homes, you may now proceed to the front and sign up. I say again, condition yellow. That is all.”

The two people stopped their discussion and immediately got up and started walking towards a line that was forming by the door. Lily hesitated for a second then got up and went to line up behind them. The line moved along at a surprisingly fast pace. Before long, Lily found herself at the front of the line in front of a man who was behind a tall desk.

“Escort or guard duty?” He asked as she stepped up to the desk.

“Ah, guard duty.” Lily told him.

“License, please.” He asked, holding out his hand.

“What license?” Lily asked, frowning.

“Adventurers license.” The man explained, giving her a frown. “You cannot sign up for guard duty without one.”

“She can if she is apprenticing to someone.” Captain Gudion said, coming up behind the man at the desk.

“Gudion.” The man behind the desk said in obvious disgust. “Is she apprenticed to you or someone in your group?”

“Nope, but I know her master.” He said with a grin at the man's obvious discomfort. “I can vouch for her.”

“Fine.” The man said, writing something down on his desk. “What’s her name and her class, and where is she going?” He asked the Captain, ignoring her.

“Name’s Wilson, and tier 1 mage with high mana and multiple combat spells.” Captain Gudion told him.

“Mage.” The man behind the desk responded with a snort. “What kind of combat spells?”

“Greater flamethrower, Mobile barrier, and a few others.” Lily replied, feeling nervous.

“Greater flamethrower is a tier 4 spell. No tier 1 mage can cast that.” The man behind the desk responded, his disbelief very evident on his face and in his tone.

“I’ve seen her dual cast it several times in a row.” The Captain said, sounding smug.

“If you say so. It’s your head.” The man behind the desk said, looking at the Captain.

Then he turned to her. “Where are you looking to go?”

She gave him her apartment building and he frowned. “That’s across the affected areas. Fine. Here’s your assignment, apprentice.” The man said, stressing the word apprentice. “Get your license next time. You might not have the good Captain to back you up. Just so you know, I’m going to report this to General Washinton. He takes a very dim view of diplos in this city.”

“What’s a diplo?” Lily asked.

“Next!” The man behind the desk shouted, ignoring her question. Lily quickly got out of the way. Captain Gudion walked up to her and smiled.

“Saw you heading up here, thought I could help.” He told her with a shrug. “That guy was the king of toilets.”

“What?” Lily asked, confused.

“Ah, it means he thinks he’s in charge. He’s not. He’s just a flunky.”

“Thanks.” Lily said feeling grateful for his help and confused by what he said. “What’s a diplo?”

“A spy.” The Captain said with an even bigger smile. “The System doesn’t like when people screw each other over, but doesn’t care about cities doing it to each other. Well, as long as no one gets too hurt. The System loves to encourage people to get stronger. But you have to be careful not to screw a city over too much or the System comes down hard on your city. Diplos are a great way to get info on a city for opportunities and making sure it doesn’t get so bad that the System steps in, but they are not well-liked.”

“You think I’m a spy?” Lily asked, shocked.

“God’s, no.” He replied. “You’re way too obvious. No diplo would expose themselves to help someone else’s citizens like you did. You’re much stronger than what your status screen says, so some people are going to question you. Dougie knows diplos. I trust his judgement when it comes to that. He says you're not a diplo, and I believe him.”

“Okay.” Lily said, feeling unsure about a lot of things, but really not wanting to out herself as a former Sage. She wondered if there was a way to hide her title, if or when she got it back. She made a mental note.

“That is not to say I’m very curious about you, I am, but I’m not willing to be that guy. If you’re willing to talk, I’m here.” He told her. “Just understand, while I am a mercenary, Quebec is my city. I will not betray her.”

“As long as Quebec treats me right, I’m not it’s enemy.” Lily replied thinking about Lowell. “Plus, I like it here, but I’ve been wrong in the past.”

“I understand.” He said as a smile came back to his face. “I’ll let you be. It’s been fun.” He told her, but the way he said fun sounded odd. It sounded kind of like how people say fun in English, not French. Shaking her head, she looked down at the paper the king of toilets gave her. Then she wandered off to find the man who’s name was listed as the leader of the group she was to join.

There were a bunch of people calling out for their groups. She heard a guy calling out the name on her paper and she quickly wandered over to where he indicated his group should meet up. She walked up to him and handed him her paper, after seeing a man with a bow do the same. He took her paper and frowned.

“Apprentice?” He asked. He shook his head and, not waiting for her to explain, he continued. “I guess it’s too much to hope that your master or mistress is coming too?”

“No.” She replied feeling guilty with the lies.

“At least you’re a caster. With some high tier spells, at that.” He said, smiling as he read the paper. “You get a full caster’s share, which is six shares out of the net of whatever we get, as long as you prove useful. Otherwise, you get one share. We vote if we think you’re a liability. Tie goes to you. I get the captain’s share, which is thirty percent of the net. If you use a potion or something on this run then we will pay you back, but ask before you use it, or we may vote not to pay you back. If you don’t like it, then you can leave.”

“That sounds fair.” Lily told him, feeling that it really was a good deal.

“Now we just wait for the rest of our group and the ones we are escorting.” He told her, waving behind him where a bunch of other very well-armed people were waiting.

She went over to stand next to a woman who was dressed out in leather and metal with an ax attached to a thin metal shaft, and an oval shield. There were two other guys with similar-looking shields standing on the other side of her. There were a few others with various guns sitting or standing around them.

“Nice hat.” The woman with the ax said, with a smile. “Very pointy and… expensive looking.”

“Thanks.” Lily said, smiling. “I got it as a gift.”

A couple of people started to snicker. Lily looked at them suspiciously, not sure if they were making fun of her or if she was just being paranoid. She decided to just ignore them. She waited as a few more very well-armed people came and joined their group. The one guy that stood out was a guy armed with a thin sword that he carried casually on his shoulder. He got a lot of attention from the group she was with.

“Master swordsman?” Someone from behind Lily asked the dark-skinned man with the thin sword as he walked up.

He ignored the comment and sat down, leaning against the wall. His sword rested on his thighs as he sat cross-legged. He pulled out a funny-looking bottle from behind him and took a drink. The bottle looked oddly like a snowman with three fat balls squashed together with a metal cap on top of it. The bottle was light brown and had a very thin, loose, red rope running down it. Lily hoped it was water, but feared it might be something alcoholic. The last thing she wanted was to fight alongside a drunk guy. He took a deep drink before he put the funny-looking bootle away.

It wasn’t long after that when the non-combat people started showing up. Some of them were armed, but it was obvious that they weren’t there to fight. Most of their weapons looked too new and shiny. A lot of people had bags or backpacks. Some were ridiculously huge. There was a skinny woman in a dirty, blue dress who had an overstuffed backpack that stuck up about two feet above her head. Oddly enough she carried it without any apparent problems.

The crowd of noncombatants looked about half the number of the group she escorted to the bunker, but they looked less helpless to her. There weren’t any kids in the group, for example. She did notice that there was a pregnant woman with them, but the woman carried a spear alongside her. The point of the spear was huge. The blade could almost be called a short sword because it was long for a spear blade. On top of that, the woman moved the thing easily, even in her condition.

“On your feet!” The leader of the group, who Lily had talked to, called out. “I want two shields up front and one in the back. Melee, I want an equal number in front and behind. I hope I don’t have to tell you to stay behind the shields. Caster and swordmaster up front behind them. You’re free to roam, sword, but watch where you go. Guns to the sides. Spread yourselves equally. I do not want to see a lopsided formation. Keep your egos under control or I’ll fine you. Noncombatants to the middle. Keep up or we will leave you behind.”

“We will have stops along the way, but I will not take suggestions on where to stop. Noncombatants, if we get close to where you want to go, you may leave. You can stay with us until our final destination, but we will not escort you to your front door. Adventurers, you are required to stay until we get to our final destination. If you leave you will get reported to Quebec and you will not get paid. This is a good way to get rep with the System and get a decent payday. Don’t screw this up.” He told them.

“Adventurers will leave the bunker first then form up around the noncombatants. We will head down Main Street for as long as we can. We may have to make a detour to avoid any remaining infested. I’ll decide when and what direction we are going to go.” He said, sternly.

“When we leave here, I am in command. I will take your suggestions, but I will make the decisions. If you don’t like it, leave. If you cause problems, I will leave you behind. I am willing to go in front of Quebec, are you?” He asked, his gaze sweeping over the crowd of the adventurers and noncombatants alike.

“If I go down, then the swordmaster will be in command. After that, it will go by tier and level. Stay together, and keep each other safe. Anyone have any questions?” He asked them. No one did and, after a few seconds, the leader of the group led them towards the front of the bunker.

Outside, Lily quickly found a spot next to the guy with the thin sword. In front of her, six people with various hand-held weapons quickly found their places. Most of them carried swords, but one guy had a fat-looking metal bat. It reminded Lily of the red, fat, plastic bat that her brothers used to have. In front of them, two of the people who had shields stood right next to each other. The woman with the ax stood to the right, while a guy with a spear took the left-hand side.

“Hi, my name’s Lily, Lily Wilson.” Lily said to the guy next to her.

He turned towards her and looked at her for a few seconds, making her nervous, before he finally spoke. “Markus Turner.” He replied, giving her an unreadable look.

“Nice to meet you.” Lily replied and held out her hand for him to shake. He shook it, giving her an even stranger look, then something in his expression changed. Right before he let her hand drop, he gave her a smile. It was a faint smile, but Lily got the feeling he didn’t smile that often so she was happy getting it out of him.

Lily quickly cast Mobile barrier with her right hand while, almost at the same time, she started casting Greater flamethrower with her left. She anchored her barrier spell onto her chest as she finished the spell on her left hand. Like always, she held off setting it off until she had a target. As soon as her right hand was free, she quickly started casting Greater flamethrower with her right hand. Seconds later, she was as ready as she could be.

“Fast.” The dry voice of Markus said from beside her.

“Thanks.” Lily said with a smile as she held all three of her spells.

“Onward, march!” The leader of the group, who’s name Lily still didn’t know, yelled. The group started moving forward at a much faster pace than the group she had been with when they had made their way to the bunker. She didn’t find it too fast, but she did notice it was a bit faster than before.

She found it odd that he yelled out march because no one was in step. In the movies, whenever someone had yelled march, they all started to walk in step with each other. Everyone was walking like normal, but no one was trying to be in step with anyone else. She shook her head and told herself to focus. She saw Markus give her another look. She quickly looked at him and gave him a smile in return. His expression didn’t change, but he did turn back to look forward. Feeling embarrassed, she turned back to look for any danger in front of her.

They walked for roughly fifteen minutes without any signs of danger. Lily was starting to get bored. They had walked past the spot where she dropped her Timed fireball in the road. She reflected on what she had once upon a time considered a failed spell.

She had created it back in the days when she still thought she could punch through the white wall that surrounded her hellhole. The spell was supposed to explode outwards at a specific time. Instead, it exploded once when it hit the target then again after five seconds. She had named the spell before she tested it so she had been stuck with the name. It wasn’t the only spell she miss-named either.

The spell had reduced the surrounding buildings to rubble for about a quarter mile from where it landed. She felt bad about all the damage, and hoped no one was inside the buildings when the spell went off. If they had been, then she knew that the odds of them getting out were pretty slim. She felt a deep well of sadness in her chest as she prayed silently that she hadn’t killed anyone. She blinked a few times to keep the tears from falling.

“Damn, that must have been a crazy powerful spell.” One of the melee guys in front of her commented. She ignored the comment as she looked down. It wasn’t just because she felt both proud and guilty at the same time, but also because the street was a mess. The street was mostly gone and what remained was a melted mess. She had to watch where she was walking so she didn’t trip.

Five minutes later, she was still looking down feeling guilty when someone yelled out, “Titan!”

She looked up and saw one of those giant moss-covered things pulling itself out of some wreckage. She acted automatically and let the spell in her right hand go. The stream of fire flew over the crouched melee people as well as the two shield people, and hit the giant thing in its chest. She goosed the spell as soon as she saw what it was, so when the spell hit the thing it nearly instantly consumed the giant. Then she nearly killed the swordmaster.

She had no idea when he jumped, but, less than a second after her spell hit, she saw him falling from right above where her spell was consuming the giant. She cut her mana off, but she feared she was too late until Markus did something impossible. He appeared to land on something invisible just above the flames, with one foot, before he used the invisible thing to leap back towards the group. To her shock he landed right back beside her. He landed in a crouch and slowly stood up.

“Nice spell.” He told her with a nod.

“Thanks.” She said, feeling shocked at his amazing abilities.

“I’ll stay out of your way next time.” He told her.

“Okay.” Lily said, nodding.

“Okay, show’s over!” The leader yelled. “Forward, march!” Lily hadn’t realized that they had stopped, but started walking with everyone else.

That was the last titan that they saw, but Lily did have to toast a bunch of moss-covered people and a few infected people. The infected, she learned, were monsters who used to be people but succumbed to the spores and became zombie-like things. She overheard that, while most of the time they were just crazed dead animated by the dumb fungus inside them, sometimes they could be animated by something that was smart enough to plan and somewhat think intelligently. Luckily they didn’t meet with any intelligent infected. Only stupid ones, which Lily incinerated well before they became a threat.

She was the group's primary fighter. She killed most of the threats well before they became a danger. A couple of times Markus had to do his amazing thing of jumping and attacking something if Lily was busy. She could have used her other hand to kill them most of the time, but held her spellfire back because Markus had already jumped.

His skill amazed her. He once stood on a tiny pole sticking out of the ground like it was nothing as he sliced off the head of a moss-covered man. It seemed like he could balance on pretty much anything, even air. She, of course, toasted the corpses to make sure the cloud of brown spores didn’t become a problem, but he still killed them in the first place.

They stayed on Main Street as Lily and Markus kept everyone safe. The street they were on was pretty wrecked, even after they passed the quarter-mile where her big spell had finally petered out. Most of the white tables were broken and things were slung all over the place. She did see a few people loot the fallen goods, but that stopped when the group-leader-guy told them that the next person to do that would be left behind and reported to Quebec. That stopped most of them, but she still saw a few bend down and pick up nearby items.

They passed Jules' diner and, to Lily’s surprise, it appeared undamaged. While the wreckage was starting to lighten up, there was still some around the diner. The diner and the building itself were completely fine with no signs of any damage. It stood out and there were a few comments about Jules’ diner surviving until the end of time. Lily peeked inside as they passed the place, but it was dark and she didn’t see anyone there. It made her realize that she was hungry again. So she pulled off her backpack and took out a few sandwiches she had bought in the bunker. They hadn’t been attacked in a while so she felt safe. She offered one to Markus, who shook his head, so she put the sandwich back into her backpack.

It wasn’t long before they found the first signs of life. They came upon a barricade manned by youngish-looking people. They waved them through and moved part of the barricade out of the way so they could pass. Lily spotted the tall, dark-haired man that she had seen the girl mooning over in the courtyard of her building. He had a bandage around his head, but he still had his sword out and was manning the barricade with everyone else.

They passed her building, but they didn’t stop. In fact, they hadn’t stopped once during the trip. Lily assumed it was because they had been attacked so many times that the group leader hadn’t thought it was safe to do so. She did wonder why he didn’t try to find a safer route, but then again Lily or Markus had killed pretty much everything they had come across. She guessed he felt safe with them. She did wonder about the noncombatants, and if they were okay taking the main road with all the infected attacking them after he told them he would detour if they came across them. She somehow doubted it.

They kept going until they entered a large intersection with a statue in the middle and came to a stop. “This is as far as we go.” The group leader called out. Lily looked back and noted that not only had they not lost anyone, no one left either. “Thank you for your support, I wish you well. Adventurers, your pay will be deposited into your System account. If you wish to stick around, I’m going to take another trip through the mess soon.”

“Can I have your contact listing?” The dry voice of Markus asked. Lily immediately felt herself blush.

“I mean, in case we want to group up with each other again, sometime.” He asked as Lily looked down.

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Lily said, feeling really awkward at misunderstanding what he had asked. She mentally cursed herself out for reading the situation wrong, again. She accepted the piece of paper with his contact, then sent him a very brief message on her phone. He accepted her friend request without doing anything. She looked up briefly, then realized he had his message going right to his nanos. Feeling very hot, she turned away and nearly walked into the group leader who was right behind her.

“Just the woman I was hoping to see.” He said to her as she came up short in front of him. “I was hoping you would be willing to do another run with the group.”

“No, thanks.” Lily said, shaking her head. She really wanted to go to her apartment and see if her defenses held up. She turned around to see if Markus was going to stay, but he was gone. Shaking her head, she turned back around to see the group leader still there.

“I can up your shares to twenty percent net, if you’re willing to run with us again.” He said with a big smile.

“I need to head home to make sure everything is alright.” She said, shaking her head, no.

“That’s okay. May I have your contact listing, as well? I run with a tier 3 group. We need a caster, and you were awesome today.” He asked.

“Not right now.” Lily told him, as she started to move around him. She really wanted out of this situation. She didn’t like how pushy the man was and felt trapped.

“That’s okay.” He said from behind her. She looked back, but to her relief he wasn’t following her. “Until we meet again.” He called out from behind her.

“Yeah.” Lily said, lifting her hand in goodbye as she started walking quicker.

It didn't take all that long to get to her apartment building. The guy who normally guarded the entrance was sitting there behind a wooden desk. There was a line of people waiting in front of him. She got in line and waited like the rest of them.

The line moved pretty fast and it wasn’t long until she was standing in front of the guy. “Visiting or a resident?” He asked her.

“Resident.” She told him, hearing the sounds of a large crowd behind him.

“Room?” He asked, then let her go once he found her name on the list in front of him.

The courtyard, she found, was full of people. There were more people than she could ever remember being there before. She spotted a few wooden barrels that had lines in front of them with people holding large mugs. Looking over the crowd she noted a lot of people were drinking from those mugs, getting drunk.

She saw several people with musical instruments hanging out in random places surrounded by a heavy concentration of bystanders. The crowd was too loud for her to hear the music, and it was too crowded for her well-being to get closer so she left, wanting to be alone. She cursed when she saw that the elevator was shut off with a sign on it telling people to take the stairs.

The stairs were also crowded with people. Most of them were just hanging around sitting on the steps, but there were a few people who were using it to sneak some alone time with someone they obviously liked. They weren’t doing anything too graphic. Most of the people were in their own worlds, kissing their boyfriend/girlfriend. There were some who were a bit more aggressive, but nothing too outrageous. Lily avoided looking at them as she ran up the stairs to her room.

The floor's balcony was full of people talking and drinking. There were a few rooms with open doors where people were partying that she passed on her way to her own room. The door to her room had a couple of people sitting outside of it drinking. They weren’t in the way, but they were sitting across from her door talking to each other. Lily quickly unlocked the door and went inside.

The moment she closed the door, she sighed in relief. The noise shut off like someone hit the stop button. Her defenses kicked in and the activities outside were silenced. Happily, Lily dropped her backpack and shucked off her shoes. Then she grabbed her shower curtain and went to the bathroom and hung it up. Then she stripped down and had her first shower in a very long while.

Afterwards, she came out and got dressed in a set of light clothes she had bought while she was living in Woburn as pajamas. She was too wired to go to sleep so she decided to see if her idea of a random shape would work to create a rune. She summoned her grimoire and looked over what she wrote while she had been in the bunker.

She took out her old, makeshift knife and carved a random symbol onto a wall. Then she went to add mana to it, all the while trying to picture a rune. It failed when she tried to seal it, but, unlike the other runes she had created, the random shape just leaked mana at a crazy rate until it evaporated, leaving the symbol she had carved undamaged and without mana. She quickly noted what happened in her book then started feeding more mana into the carving, adding the intent of another rune to it. It also failed, but she wasn’t undetermined. She waited until all of the mana was gone from the carving before she started the process all over again.

She had lost count of how many runes she tried to create and was thinking of giving up and going to sleep when it happened. She just finished adding mana to the random shape she had carved and was trying to force the intent of one of her power spell balls into it. It was one of the ones which added more power to the spell whenever she used it. Something clicked in the world. The click wasn’t something she heard, but something she felt - like something had come together or fitted in place.

The spell ball lit up and the mana didn’t fade. A quick glance beyond the rune showed her that she had finally done something right. She could see thousands of the power spell balls behind the rune bouncing around and contained in the random shape. Then she heard her double’s voice as they system spoke.

You have created a new Rune. Name your Rune.

Lily screamed in happiness. She jumped up and started marching around her bedroom swinging her hands in the air like an idiot. She didn’t care. She did it. She created a rune. She stopped and leaned back as far as she could and screamed out her happiness. When she was done she named her eune.

Do you want to name your new Rune, Power Rune: Alpha?

She was feeling cocky with her success as it was the first power spell ball she had tried. She had about a hundred more to try. She was going to name it Power Rune A, but felt alpha sounder better, and cooler. She accepted it, but felt nervous immediately afterwards as doubts creeped in. What if, she wondered, if it was a one off? What if she was wrong and that was the last rune she ever created? What if she didn’t really understand what was going on, and she just got lucky with this rune?

Do you wish to share this spell with the rest of humanity?

She mentally agreed. “What’s done is done.” She thought to herself.

Taking a deep breath, she carved another random rune. She made sure it didn’t look anything like the first rune. Then she spent time going over her dictionary in her grimoire making sure it wasn’t like any other spell ball. Only once she was sure did she start to carve it into the wall. She also made sure it was far enough away from her first rune that they wouldn’t interact. She couldn’t bring herself to remove the first rune from the wall, even if it wasn’t doing anything. Several failures later she had another success.

Do you want to name your new Rune, Power Rune: Beta?

Do you wish to share this spell with the rest of humanity?

She mentally clicked yes to both. She went with Beta just to follow along with the theme she had created. It was the second power spell ball she had created so she thought Beta was a good way to differentiate the two. As far as she knew, there really wasn’t any difference between the power spell balls except how they fit into spells. They all did the same thing, as far as she had been able to figure out. She had a feeling some were more powerful than others, but she didn’t have any proof.

She repeated the process and caved a new random symbol on the wall. Then she went through the rest of the power spell balls. Time went by slowly as she failed one after another until she got to the sixth power spell ball. This one she named Power Rune: Charlie. She wanted to stick with the Greek letters, but couldn’t think of the letter for C or even if the Greek alphabet had a C in it. She just shrugged and named it, hoping for the best.

It was the last rune she created that night. She tried a few more, but they were failures. Telling herself she needed a break, she laid down in her bed for a quick nap. The nap turned into something longer and she woke up the next morning. She made herself take a shower and eat before she went back to her work. It was nine AM when she created her fourth rune and her first active rune. It was one of the spell balls she used in her Cleanse spell, as well as a few other spells she used to clean things up. She named it Pure.

She created one other before lunch, then a staggering six more before she forced herself to stop for dinner. She ate the last sandwich she had bought in the bunker. It didn’t taste all that good, but she was hungry and she was running out of food. She really didn’t want to stop to get something to eat. She really regretted running out of mushrooms. She wouldn’t be in this position if she had taken more time to go food shopping.

That night she went through nearly all of the spells she had in her book, and while the results weren’t great she did create thirty-five more runes. Her total for new runes now came to forty-six. The last nine hundred spell balls each failed to become a rune. It irritated her she had no idea why she had such a low rate of conversion. She had only one more speel ball to try and she was very leery of trying it.

She looked at the page with her universe spell ball. The one made her lost in that strange underworld of the universe. The place where the turtle had found and rescued her. She hated that world, and the last thing she wanted to do was return there. She was not sure which place she hated more, her hellhole or that underworld of the universe.

Still, she wanted to keep going. She knew it was very late night or early morning. She was too tired to look, but that random symbol was still carved in her wall calling for her to try and turn it into a rune. Cursing herself, she knew she had to try. She had to know if it was possible to turn such a powerful spell ball into a rune. Taking a deep breath, she started pushing mana into the symbol carved into the wall, trying to force in the intent of the universal spell ball.

Right away she knew something was different, as it sucked in mana like crazy, trying to fill the carved symbol. It sucked in nearly half her mana before it snapped together and she got the notification that she had created a new rune. She smiled as she looked at the new rune, which she didn’t feel had nearly as powerful a feeling coming off it as the spell ball version. She was thinking about a name for it when an idea popped into her head. It was the way the rune sucked in mana.

She stood up and, ignoring the notification asking her if she wanted to name the rune, she tore apart her room looking for something very specific. She didn’t find anything that she could use so she ran out to her living room. She looked around, still not seeing anything that she felt she could use. Then she spotted a dirty dish in the sink. Feeling giddy, she ran and got it out of the sink. She carved her new rune into the wooden bowl then added the Power Rune: Alpha next to it, trying to create a runic spell. It failed, but she wasn’t deterred. She repaired the bowl and tried with the Beta version of the rune. This time it didn’t fail.

She ignored the new notification as she watched the bottom of the bowl become very dark. She took a deep breath then reached in with a spoon. The spoon kept on going into the darkness, far deeper than it should have. Then she let it go and the spoon dropped into the darkness and disappeared.

“Yes!” She yelled, throwing up her right fist in celebration. She went to put her hand into the darkness, but common sense overcame her stupidity. She went back to her room and found what the people post invasion called lettuce. She then carefully tipped the edge into the darkness, then pulled it out. It looked ok. She touched it and it felt normal. She dipped the lettuce almost all the way in and pulled it back out again. The lettuce looked fine. She then let the lettuce fall into the darkness completely letting it go.

“This is stupid.” She muttered to herself as she lowered her hand towards the darkness. Biting her lip, she pushed a fingertip into the darkness, ready to pull it out at the first sign of pain. It felt a bit warm, but otherwise nothing else happened. She pulled her fingertip out and let out a sigh of relief, as it looked fine. Then she dipped more of her finger into the darkness. This time she felt something inside. She pulled her finger out and noted that everything felt fine and looked normal. Then she reached her whole hand in.

She felt the piece of lettuce sitting just inside the darkness. She pulled it out and looked at it and her hand. They looked ok. Aside from the warm feeling that came from inside the darkness, nothing else seemed to have happened. Hoping she wasn’t exposing herself to radiation or some magical equivalent, she reached in again.

She didn’t feel the bottom so she pushed her hand further in, sinking part of her forearm into the darkness. It looked really weird sinking so much of her hand into such a small thing as a wooden bowl. She got almost to her elbow when she felt the spoon she had dropped earlier. She ignored it and pushed a bit more into the bowl and felt something smooth under her fingers. She ran them across the smooth surface and found the edges of her runic spell. The smooth surface went further out to the sides than it did downwards.

If she had to guess, she would think that from the top of the darkness to the bottom was about two feet. The sides were something like three or so feet from the middle of the darkness to the edge. She had to sink her entire arm into the darkness to feel the sides. She had no idea how long her arm was, so what she found was only a guess.

Then she remembered something about the lettuce and the spoon. The lettuce was floating near the top while the spoon was at the bottom of the darkness. She frowned as she thought about it. She had an idea why, but she wanted to test it. She grabbed a few things and tossed them into the darkness at the bottom of the bowl.

Then she thought about the hair clip she had thrown in as she reached into the darkness with her hand. She found it right away, floating near her hand. She let it go and thought about the sock she had thrown in and, like the hair clip, it was floating by her fingers. What was more important was that the hair clip was not. She let go of the sock and, without pulling her arm out, she thought about her hair clip again. She pushed her hand in a bit more and found it floating just below her hand. The sock was not. Then testing it one last time, she held onto the hair clip while she thought about the sock. Pushing her hand once more into the darkness she quickly found the sock. Cheering, she pulled both objects out of the darkness and tossed them on to her bed. She then went back to her notification and named her new rune Bottomless and her new runic spell Bottomless storage space. Then she shared them both to the rest of humanity.

She was still high from her discovery and was looking at the rest of the runes trying to think of more runic spells to create when someone knocked on her door. She got up, still holding her bowl, and went to her door. She opened it and smiled when she saw both Jules and her wife Amber.

“Hey guys, you’ll never guess what I just did.” She said excitedly.

“Thank god, you're alive.” Amber said and stepped in to give Lily a big hug. Then she pulled back and looked at her. “There better be a good reason why you don’t answer your messages. I left you dozens of them. Are you ghosting me?”

“What messages?” Lily asked, confused. She went back into her bedroom and got her phone. She pulled up her messages on it. Aside from a bunch of System messages, there weren't any messages.

“See.” Lily said, showing Amber as both women walked in. Amber made a beeline right to Lily’s phone but Jules stopped at the door to look around. Lily ignored her and looked over Amber’s shoulder to see what she was doing.

“You idiot. You have it on System messages only.” Amber said looking down at the phone. “Here, see I left you… why do you have so many unread messages?”

“More importantly.” Jules said, making Lily look at her. “Are these runes? I don’t recognize any of them.”

“Oh, yeah!” Lily said happily. “I created forty-seven new runes and one new runic spell. It’s awesome.”

“The fuck?!” Amber said, dropping the phone on the bed. Lily was not sure if she did it on purpose or if she dropped it by accident. She didn’t care all that much as she turned so that she could watch both women looking around at all the glowing runes on her walls. Bouncing on her feet happily, she watched as both women looked at what she had done.