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  [colpse]Chapter Seventy-Five - Flower Pig

  I woke up to something pushing my chest in a very rude pce.

  I would have dismissed it, but whatever it arm and moved a little, and it was very distrag. So I slid one eye open and took ierior of the tent. The walls were painted in splotches ht blue where the m sunlight beat against the vas, and as I came awake, I noticed the happy birdsong of a forest ing to life.

  Then my eyes focused and I noticed the prompt h before me.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Friendmaking skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank C costs one (1) General Point

  Had that levelled while I slept?

  How?

  The warm weight on my chest shifted again and I looked down. Awen was hugging me. One arm over my chest, with a hand pressed up on my tummy where my shirt had ridden up and her head was using me as a pillow.

  It was kind of cute. That was, until her mouth worked and I saw a line of drool leak out to stain my shirt.

  I giggled, then giggled harder when the noise made Awen smile in her sleep. The poor thing must have been having a nice dream. Determined not to wake her up, I shuffled to the side, carefully extrig myself from her grip with what little agility I had so early in the m.

  When I finally stumbled out of the tent it was to find Amaryllis sitting by the burnt out campfire, a pen ialon and a metallic tablet on one leg and e lounging oher.

  “M,” I said.

  “You mao pry her off you,” Amaryllis asked as she finished writing a line down on the paper before her. She signed her the bottom with a flourish, then blew across the page.

  “Hmm,” I said. “Yeah. I guess she’s not used to sleeping with people and glomped onto the warmth.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening,” Amaryllis said. She folded the page carefully, then scribbled something on the back.

  “What’re you writing?” I wondered as I turned around and snuck bato the tent. My armour was ying off to one side where I had chucked it off before bed. Once I retrieved it I could start dressing again.

  “A letter to my family. I keep them informed.”

  “Of our adventures?”

  “Amongst other things.” She disappeared the letter and her writing into her ring and then stood up with a groan. Had she been sitting there all throughout her watch? “Hardta the road?” Amaryllis asked.

  “Sure.” It wasly a five-star breakfast, and maybe Awen would be a teensy bit disappointed, but it would allow us to make a bit more headway on our trip.

  Acc to Awen a caravan from Roseo Greenshade took four to five days. On foot, it would take us a bit lohough it ossible we could take shortcuts where there were no roads.

  Once I was all armoured up, we set about ing the camp, pig up our things, and generally getting ready for the day until the st thio stuff away was the tent and the equipment within.

  I crawled uhe fp and found Awen curled up in a little ball under a pile of bs. I almost felt bad for waking her up, but she had gotten her eight hours and then some. “Awen?” I whispered as I shook her shoulder.

  She made a little whining noise and shifted to be deeper uhe bs.

  I ughed. “Awen, wakey wakey, no eggs and hardtack.”

  I wasn’t good at rhyming.

  Awen opened her eyes and looked around before log onto me. “Miss Broccoli?”

  “The one and only,” I said. “We’re going to be leaving soon and it wouldn’t do to leave you behind, would it?”

  “Awa,” she said as she sat up and rubbed at her eyes. “Okay. Let me get dressed and I’ll be with you.”

  I grinned and stepped out.

  A few mier, Awen was ready to go, the tent acked aoofed by Amaryllis and we were off. Pushing through the bush was annoying for a little bit, but as soon as we hit the road it became a whole lot easier to travel.

  We set an easy pace at first, just a fast walk that took advantage of the slight ine ierrain to keep us from getting tired. Awen’s sore feet didn’t make a return that I could tell.

  Once we were through the forest the world opened up into ane pin that stretched out far to the west. The grassy nd slowly turned yellow he horizon. “Is that the desert?” I asked.

  “The sand,” Awen said. “It gets kicked up by the wind and covers parts of the pin. The actual desert is farther away, I think.”

  “.”

  Bored with just walking normally, I started to push mana into my hands, varying the ebb and flow of it, while also making it spin this way and that. It took a bit of focus, but after nearly an hour I had figured it out a little.

  My dad had taught me that when you were learning something new, at first you would improve a whole lot in a short while. Then you’d start to learn slower and slower as you perfected what you learned.

  I imagihat magic was simir, especially when skills came into py. Initially there would be great leaps in ability and such, but eventually you’d hit a point where learning more took more and more time and effort.

  It was something to think on, but not really a problem. I was so close to the very bottom of that learning curve that every hour spent practig probably increased my ability expoially.

  “Hey, Amaryllis, how do I make Light aspect mana, and what’s it good for?”

  Amaryllis eyed me for a bit. She had seemed happy to see me practig earlier so I didn’t think the question would bother her. Also, there was nothing else to do. “Light aspect is one of the stranger ones,” she said. “It’s ceptually simple. Make your mana brighter. At some point you’ll have light or near-light mana.”

  She raised a hand and a ball of mana formed in her palm. It crackled and snapped and hummed, but that subsided as the ball began to glhter and brighter until it was almost hard to look at.

  Amaryllis dismissed it with a wave of her talons. “As for its uses. The obvious ones are all utilitarian. Most harpys have worse night vision than humans, or so I’ve been told. There are some creatures that will be hurt by light mana, but they’re unon. At higher ranks light magi be devastatingly dangerous though. But for all of the speed and accurad power of high level light magic, you’re usually better off just calling down lightning on whatever you want to kill that badly.”

  “I sense a bias,” I said.

  “I notice a ck of practig,” she snapped right back.

  Sn, I got back to it. Light was... bright? I fiddled with my mana, p more into my hands, shifting it this way and that. The light it emitted was bright, but not as Amaryllis’ had been.

  Was I meant to think bright thoughts? Maybe I had to think like a photon or something.

  I really wish I had access to Google. My st physics css was a few weeks in the past, which lenty of time tet a lot of the stuff I had known about eleagic spectrums and such.

  I could have asked Amaryllis for more help, but I had time to figure this out on my own, and maybe magic was like drawing, where if you spent enough time figuring it out without too much help, you’d learn to develop your own style.

  If I couldn’t get my mana to be light mana, then maybe I could at least try something else.

  I started to move my hand in the air while p out thin streamers of mana, kind of like how Raynald had done, but with none of the grace he had. It kind of worked, a more natural besides.

  Pushing the mana out into a more plicated shape while gesturing also felt better and easier. I cupped my hands together by my side, gathered mana within in a swirling ball, then shoved my hands out before me.

  A teeny tiny fireball leapt ahead of me and dispersed in the air some dozeers away.

  That had been a lot easier than making it from scratch.

  Physical ManakinesisF - 35%

  I hummed, then waved my hand in the air in a cuttiure while firing a burst of ing magic. It swept out and pushed against the top of the nearby grass.

  I tried the same with fire aspect mana. It wasn’t quite right, and all I did was waste a lot of mana and warm the air up, but it felt right. Not a spell, not really, but pure elemental mana pushed into the world to do something.

  Physical ManakinesisF - 38%

  And it seemed as if I was on the right track, more or less. “,” I said.

  “Figure something out?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I think so. But magic is plicated.”

  Amaryllis snorted. “Idiot. If it was easy everyone would be using it. I’m impressed you’re even trying, you strike me more as a ‘hit things hard’ kind of person than a ‘light them on fire’ sort.”

  “Awa, I don’t think Broccoli is like that.”

  “I don’t want to light people on fire,” I said. Just the world around me. “I should learn more defensive magic, just in case though.”

  “There are spells that create bursts of blinding light with light aspect mana. Or you could learn some earth aspect spells for defensive uses, but you’re on the far end of that spectrum with your ing focus. I’m afraid that most of the aspects that will be easy for you to use are more intangible.” Amaryllis hummed. “Maybe water? There are some shield spells that use natural water. And air aspect has a few iing spells that deflect arrows or weaker blows. It’s not adjat to ing but near enough.”

  “That sounds brilliant,” I said.

  I bet that air and fire bined really well too. It would be hard to justify using thermobaric spells in the cause of making friends, but I’m sure the use would e up eventually.

  “Awa, miss Broccoli, look,” Awen said, ly cutting off all my glorious daydreams of mushroom clouds.

  I followed her pointing fio a distant patch of the prairies to the west that were covered in colourful flowers. It was a little spot between two hills, protected from the wind ing from the west and probably a nice pce for water to gather.

  “We should check it out!” I said.

  Amaryllis sighed. “It’s not too far out of the way,” she admitted.

  “Good eye, Awen,” I said.

  “It, it was nothing?” the girl said.

  I eyed the dit the side of the road, then decided that I ought to help Awen across. So with a grin I scooped her up in a princess carry and hopped over to the other side before she had even finished squeaking.

  “Moron,” Amaryllis said as she took a running leap and fpped her arms twice before nding by our side.

  “I would have gotten you ,” I said as I lowered a red-faced Awen. Pirl, she must have been embarrassed that she needed help. I would o tell her that I was always there to help if she , and that she didn’t o fuss over it.

  “The day you carry me like that is the day I clip my own wings,” Amaryllis said. “Now, let’s go pie flowers.”

  AnnouAwa, it's Awen!