23) Worked stone

  I set Nemo to gutting the rat creature open with its own knife only to have Viola interrupt me. “Hold up Fell. We don’t want to upset Missus Goat any more than she already is.”

  Hmm? “Fine, I’ll have Nemo and Caesar drag the body into the kitchen.”

  I felt the Fairy's hand start tapping the top of my Core. “Who’s Nemo?”

  “The Undine, and can you keep Missus Goat in her room, or haven’t you bonded her yet?”

  Viola lifted her hands from my Core and stared down at me. “Bonded?”

  Hrmph. “Check your notices.”

  As the Fairy began excitedly holding a one sided conversation with herself over the pros and cons of trading for the ability to bond animals over keeping the ability to dry soil, something she had used to deal with something called root rot, I tried to peer out into the hallway outside the library’s door to direct my Summons.

  While a good foot of the hallway on the other side of the door was now part of my Dungeon, everything beyond it was lost in a gray haze. The further away anything was, the less I could make it out.

  I guess this is what happens when your ability to see things is entirely magical rather than a squishy bundle of flesh, goo, and nerve endings.

  But still, I think I got the better part of the deal. For all my shortcomings, I had gotten a seeing Gaze Fairy.

  And Caesar, whose eyes I could look through as the Undine set to work.

  “Are you listening to me Fell?” Viola was partially bent over to fit in under the shelf above, but she still had her hands on her hips as she glared down at my Core.

  To be honest, “No.”

  The Fairy looked a bit shocked, then gave me an evil smile. “That’s alright, I’ll start over from the beginning.”

  And she did, somehow taking even longer to say the same things all over again, but this time ending with, “So now that I’ve explained everything, what do you think I should do?”

  As tempting as it was to say, “Whatever the Pit you want.” I had the feeling I would have to pay later on for saying anything of the sort. So instead I said, “I don’t think root rot is something you are ever going to need to deal with again.”

  Viola snapped her finger at me. “True, but it would be nice to kill off mold by drying it out. But Taming is even better. I’m a going to take it… But then we’re going to need to find a way for me to get past the door so I can get to Missus Goat without having to open and close it over and over again.”

  True. “On it.”

  For now, the power to shape the very earth itself was mine. From the power of the Earth Serpent, Earth Shape.

  For one point of magic, I slipped a thin layer of stone from above the mantle over the doorway and dragged it downwards as part of a plan to eventually cover the entire doorway with a solid wall of stone.

  And shaping that little bit of stone took me well over a minute. During which time, Viola asked me several variations of “On what?” and “Are you doing anything?”

  Trying to push more magic into the spell didn’t help, either in how much stone I could affect or how quickly it worked. The only good thing is that I was regaining magic nearly as fast as I could spend it to shape the stone block.

  And I didn’t get bored.

  But I did get annoyed. Summoning the Skeleton back into the library, I had it open the door to unleash the bored Fairy, then sent the Skeleton to go menace anyone trying to come up the steps. This time, having it stand off to the side out of sight until someone made it at least halfway up.

  My hope was that as it stepped into sight, it could use its Aura of Terror, and that might send someone falling down the steps and landing on the glass shards.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  During all of this, my Undine had pretty much completely taken the Rat creature apart, only to find out it didn’t have a Core at all. “Odd.”

  My Fairy rode into the library on the Goat’s back. “What’s odd?”

  I didn’t like the way her pet was eyeing up the various books, ledgers, scrolls, and other paperwork in my library. “The Rat creature didn’t have a Core.”

  She tapped her finger up against her lip. “He must have been pretty young then, most Ratlings will end up with a Core by the time they are adults. At least in a city. Chaos tends to flow towards thinking life. Unchosen races do better in the wilderness. Less people around.”

  Right, some races that could reason and even use tools had never been chosen by a God so that they could get a class. “Why was it after me then?”

  The Fairy flew up to hover in front of her goat and began shaking her finger at it. “No Missus Goat, no eating anything in here. Besides, you don’t need to eat anymore. Got get one of Nicnut’s shoes if you just want to chew on something, and I’ll get you some more water in a little bit.”

  The Goat made a horrid sound, then pranced out. Good, the Fairy can control it.

  Viola nodded to herself in satisfaction, then spun around in the air before landing in a relaxed, reclining pose on the shelf in front of my Core. Once again counting on her fingers, she listed all the reasons she could think of for the Ratling showing up. “One, he was scouting for his clan. Ratlings like to work in groups, and they can’t stay in one spot for too long without attracting trouble. Two, someone hired or otherwise set him on us. Or, three, he had business with Nictob and knew where to look for him.”

  Her second reason, that someone had sent him, disturbed me. “Pick which side you want to be on Viola, because I’m closing the door.”

  After explaining to her that I was working on making her an entrance above the door, she pondered which side made the most sense for her to wait on. But ultimately, the Fairy decided to go fill the Goat’s trough with water and wait with her Tamed Goat for now.

  The Skeleton pushed the door shut and set the bar before I resummoned him on its other side to again take up his guard post at the top of the stairs.

  While I worked on the hole above the door, I set the Earth Serpent to raise a lip of stone to close up the gap below the door, as well as to block the bottom of the door from swinging into the library. As I worked at the top, I noticed that by having both of us work the same magic, my magic pool began to slowly empty out.

  But when I cut the Serpent off from drawing on my magic, it began to use up the magic I had spent to summon it, and then vanished, without the magic returning to me.

  I guess I did learn something new every day.

  Speaking of which.

  You have gained a Skill rank in Tactics

  Tactics 1

  You have gained another skill rank in Summoner’s Lore

  Summoner’s Lore 3

  You have gained a Skill rank in Geotheurgy.

  Geotheurgy 1

  ...Hopefully, all of that will help me with things later on.

  While me and the Serpent worked at the stone, the Undine searched the Ratling's belt pouches. I found a few chunks of chalk, a stoppered clay jar of some thick goo that I found to have a scent strong enough to be repulsive to Nemo's nose, and a thick, oiled bag with clumps of moss that proved to be slightly luminous when the Undine opened it up underneath Nictob’s cot.

  At least I got something out of the Ratling.

  Halfway through widening the hole through the stone, Viola flew over to where Caesar was napping in a ring of flame floating above a circle inscribed in the kitchen brazier.

  “Fell, we got more of those rat guys heading this way.”

  I hadn't gotten an alert from Blinky. “How far away are they?”

  The Fairy flew over to where Caesar was lying coiled up in the middle of the constantly burning low flames created by a ritual inside the kitchen brazier.

  “Close, they just came within the edges of how far we can share my Gaze from the same direction as the first one.”

  That surprised me, not that more Ratlings were coming for me, but that Viola had decided all on her own to keep watch for me… For us.

  “Let’s do what we can before they get here. Good job Viola.”

  She gave Caesar a big grin and did a little dance that involved a lot of hip shaking for some reason.

  Such a confusing creature.