They made camp in one of the designated spots next to the main road. The rune roads had sped up their travelling, but it would still take them some time to get to Waterviel.

  The camping spot was already cleared and Ratface was again struck by the difference in the Lady’s lands. A spot was set out for where they would sleep, and Abigail had shown them how they could heat the ground underneath them. It was the same for the cooking area. One of those stoves was set up. More primitive than the ones in town but still better than a fire. There was even a spot where you could get water to come out.

  It was impressive, but it took something out of the camping. It was like something was lost to the air. Tiffany seemed the most bothered by it. She’d gone deeper into the bush around them just to connect better with the land.

  “Their land feels so curated,” she’d told Ratface, “It’s like plants are only allowed in specific places.” She’d stomped away afterwards, and Albert had slunk after her when she took too long. His feet had barely made a sound as he moved. As a group most of them prioritised stealth. Abigail and Tiffany were the loudest and even then, Abigail was quieter than she should have been in all the armour.

  She’d grabbed Ratface when it was apparent the other two were going to be a while.

  “We might as well get started teaching you while we wait,” she’d said. They were hunched over the stove.

  “Rune magic is at it’s heart relatively simple,” she told Ratface, “this stove is a good example of how they work. At its heart, all Rune magic boils down to energy and intent.” She pointed to the first rune. “This one is almost ‘air’ but it’s more accurate to say its atmosphere. It’s asking for the energy from around us to power the spell. If we weren’t in the Lady’s lands, then this wouldn’t give the spell enough energy for what it’s wanting to do.”

  “That’s why your armour has its own cores?” Ratface asked.

  “Yes, and so much of the runes on my armour are just dedicated to charging the armour and the cores over the day. I’m constantly pulling a small amount of energy from a bunch of different sources to keep it charged.” She moved onto the next rune. “This one here means heat. That’s basically what the stove is asking to do. If it was only those two runes then the stove wouldn’t be as useful which is why there are so many other runes around it.” She traced a line of runes surrounding the stove top. “These ones here are telling it to only heat the metal. While these ones-” she gestured at the runes surrounding heat “- are telling it the intensity of heat that you want.” She frowned as she read those ones. “This is actually a terrible way of doing this; rather than having several different runes dictating different levels of heat, they’ve just repeated the word for intensity. It’d be like if I said ‘very very very warm’ when you asked me how hot I wanted something. The wording is unclear. I don’t know why it’s made this way.”

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  “Cheaper maybe?”

  “That or it was made by new student. Anyway, focus your eyes so you can see the circuit.” Ratface did so and Abigail turned the stove on.

  Sure enough, the rune for atmosphere pulled in mana from the air around them. It also pulled it in from the heat from the sun. Ratface said as much.

  “The sun is an excellent source of energy, which is different from mana. You can use either to power basic spells, but mana is more efficient, though usually more difficult to harness. If we weren’t in the Lady’s lands, then we’d be using the sun as a major source of energy.” She pointed to one such rune on the shoulders of her armour. A quick prod told Ratface they were warmer than the rest of it.

  The energy and mana were pulled in and directed around the stove. The lines connecting them gave it a path to follow until it got to the next order of ‘heat’. Abigail turned the stove up and Ratface saw what she meant by the problem of intensity. The spell itself seemed to be confused by what it was being asked and the more they turned up the intensity, the more the heat it provided fluctuated as it tried to interpret the runes.

  “I can see what you mean about the heat,” Ratface said to Abigail.

  “That sight of yours should make rune magic infinitely easier for you. Most pupils can’t see the scope of magic.” She smiled at her own joke. Ratface fought her own smile from showing. Goblins were a big fan of puns; you couldn’t be called Ratface and not enjoy word play. Well, Suncat did her best to not enjoy it but that was just because she was a grump.

  The magic in front of her kept moving and Ratface frowned. It was like too little was coming in for what was asked for. The higher up Abigail turned the stove the more the magic around fought it.

  “The magic, it’s getting slower,” she said, “it’s like… like it doesn’t know what you want, like it barely understands the runes.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened.

  “I’m surprised you can see that so easily,” she said, “what you’ve just described is true of all rune magic and part of why it’s considered a worse type of magic to others. Runes are meant to be the language of the world, but our runes work as more translation. The reason for this is simple, even if it’s disputed,” she said. She turned the stove off and looked over at Ratface. The others had joined them after a while. “Humans aren’t of this world, we either invaded or were kidnapped.”

  Silence met the comment. Everyone knew that the elves claimed everyone else were guests on this world, but it was one thing for them to say it, and quite another to see the results of that in the world.

  “With that in mind, you mentioned that elf used goblin words to power a spell, right? Well, it’s about time we did an experiment on that.”