I blinked as I found myself back in Eternal River, my own face flushing blue as the seconds ticked by.

  What?! Why in the world had I left? I hadn’t even really shaped the spell! Sparks, I needed to control instinctual magic better if that was going to keep happening. Kinthek might start thinking I was messing with him. But… that would require doing something like that again. Probably more.

  I found myself conveniently sitting on the ground beside my desk, which was perfect for ramming one’s head into. If anything it might get those ideas to bounce themselves around more…

  I blinked as a voice sounded out behind me, “Eliax? Sparks, I know reading and stuff is mind-numbing, but hitting your head like that is a much faster way to get brain damage!” Fora peered over me, eyes wide with humor and excitement.

  “Didn’t you say… that you wouldn’t come stop by until you got through the closed gates?”

  “I did say that.”

  I sighed, sitting up and getting into my chair before looking over my desk for a schematic I needed to get to that engineer soon. Getting that done would probably give me more motivation on my more pressing problem. “So why are you here?”

  Fora moved so that she was behind my desk, right in front of me, crouching down so I could see her face, “We just got there! Isn’t that great! I wanted to bring a feast for the others so we can all sit down and breathe for a day or two.”

  I regarded her, “I don’t have a feast on hand, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “But Eliax, that’s the problem. I’ve decided we really should have a feast on hand! Food doesn’t really go bad in dimensional storage, it wouldn’t be that hard either to just make a new one whenever we have time. We could have portable feasts! In fact, I was thinking about it and don’t you agree that it would be so sparking smart if we sold those to people? I bet plenty of rich families find themselves in need of an emergency feast all the time.”

  I massaged my temples. There wasn’t really anything wrong with the idea itself. But… “I don’t have time to talk about this right now, Fora, wouldn’t it be better once you think about it more anyway? I’m busy. Please leave.”

  She rolled her eyes, picking through a pile of dimensional bags in the corner of my tent, “Seriously though, emergency feasts. Wouldn’t that be so awesome?”

  “It would be more awesome if you let me finish what I’m in the middle of before throwing another pointless project at me.” I glared at her, and then at the desk, grabbing the page I’d been after.

  I teleported away before she could object, or get offended and run off. It was hard to get the last word with Fora though. As I materialized in the City of the Lesser Moon, she connected with my open mind and just started yelling. Predictably, I didn’t like that, shutting her out entirely.

  I shook my head as I walked out of the alley and down the early morning street. Time to look for that engineer.

  --

  I returned to the caravan less than an hour later, finding the area a mess of activity. People were taking down tents, packing up wagons, chowing down their breakfasts, and cleaning their blades.

  When I’d left they’d been still waking up, but now they each seemed to have their own drive, their own goals. Miraculously, the packing sped along. They clearly had a lot of experience with this.

  Several of the traders noticed me appearing out of thin air, unfortunately. It was a good thing that I didn’t give a salty dragon’s backside whether or not they knew my abilities, because it would have been very difficult to cover that up now.

  I sheepishly waved at the two traders staring at me, one of them I hadn’t seen last night, a red-haired woman with a strange aura about her. The other was that perpetually disappointed-looking birdman—I’d been just as surprised yesterday to find bird people as I’d been when I’d found the keepers.

  I focused on my table though, finding that… yes. Someone had moved the crystal. Sparks, were they idiots? At least they hadn’t done anything with my table, that was the only table I’d been able to find that was big enough to actually use but small enough to still fit in a dimensional bag.

  “Where did the crystal go?” I snapped, glancing at my two onlookers.

  The woman tilted her head at me, “Ashevian said that if you came back, we were supposed to tell you to go talk to him.” There was an inflection in her voice though, I really wasn’t sure what she was trying to say with it.

  I nodded, walking over to my table and picking up one end. “I suppose I’ll find him then.” It was a bit tricky to maneuver into the bag, but after a few seconds, the sturdy table was being pulled inside. I turned back toward the woman, who was watching me with curiosity and not a little awe, “Where did you say he was?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The woman smiled at me, “Say, that can wait a bit! What’s your name? I can introduce you to everyone, Kinthek said he hadn’t done that properly.”

  I gave her a flat look, “Eliax.”

  “That’s beautiful. I’m Filfinde.”

  I blinked at that, noticing a common root. It was my own fault for being so curious though. It probably would have been better if I’d just kept the annoying smalltalk going… “Like Filel’fanat?”

  Filfinde blushed at that, “Ah, yes. I’m from there.”

  “Huh.” I contemplated getting some information for Fora, but decided I was still annoyed at her. “And then you sold your soul…” I paused, looking at her, taking in the massive amount of magic concentrated around her face. “For a better nose?”

  This time she grinned, “We can’t all have good reasons like Flame. It was the only solution!” Her grin transformed into a smirk, “But Atharian probably felt like it was a waste, he gave me a bit more for it than what I asked for. That just means I not only got a smaller nose, but a far more effective one too!”

  I blinked. Finally realizing that her nose was quite small. I’d… been talking about effectiveness in the first place. It might not be wise to admit that. “I see.” I finally responded, “Is it odd then to be able to smell so well?”

  Filfinde nodded, “Yes, a hundred times yes. Especially at first. It took a lot of practice to even figure out half of what it was telling me.” She smiled happily and then turned to the other onlooker, “This is Branix, he’s one of the Niortak, all the way from Arendi.”

  Branix nodded, his eyes calculating, but remained silent.

  Filfinde passed him by, apparently used to this chilly reception. It seemed like she wasn’t all that fond of him. It wasn’t the same kind of silence I often cultivated though, Branix seemed more like a noble than anything. It was the look in his eyes that said it all.

  My guide walked around the area, pointing people out, stating a fact or two about them, and getting their attention so they could apparently come over and start interrogating me.

  “That’s Teizen, she once hid a few hundred tiny bears in all our equipment. And she really likes annoying Branix and Taenseva.” I hadn’t met Taenseva yet, but I understood why someone might want to annoy Branix. My inner Fora agreed with Teizen’s existence. “She also apparently annoyed someone really important on Arendi, which is why she’s here.”

  Teizen leaned off the top of the wagon, looking at me, “I stole a whole load of his floating snails. When those things are bred right, they sell so well.” she sighed, “and yet I was betrayed in the end, cast out and— Stars, did you just roll your eyes at me? Do you want to fight? We can fight.”

  I blinked at her sudden change in tactics, it was a lot like Fora, except… somehow more calculating, purposeful. Two long thin blades of pure light appeared beside her, floating in the air menacingly.

  “OH MY GOODNESS ARE THOSE FORCE SPELLS?!” I thrust myself into the air with a short teleport, landing beside her so I could peer at them better. Suddenly my goggles were on my face and I was grabbing at them, staring at the far too familiar rune with a glee that was almost impossible to hide.

  Teizen screamed in surprise—very rude of her—and bounced backwards, the force spells moving with her. I hadn’t realized there were kinds that could move after being cast! Sparks I needed a better look.

  I zoomed in with my goggles, since the Niortak in front of me wasn’t likely to let me come closer.

  “Stars above! What do you want from me!”

  I flicked the goggles up, deciding I wouldn’t be able to figure out much more, if she was reacting like this, “I just want to look at your force spells! I’ve never seen ones that can move independently! How do you do that? It’s a racial thing, isn’t it? All niortak do that? What’s the story behind it, are there any cool legends that say where they come from?”

  Teizen relaxed marginally, still eying me warily, “Kinthek didn’t say you were so spontaneous. That’s usually my thing.”

  I paused, frowning as a presence that wasn’t quite me faded to the back of my mind. That had kind of felt like Fora. Like the rare times when both of us had worked for one goal. It couldn’t have been me who’d done that. Could it? At least, not entirely? I tilted my head at Teizen, feeling my posture change almost imperceptibly. “Sorry, I think I was excited. That doesn’t usually happen.”

  Teizen shook her head, looking up at the sky, “Stars, if you want to look at my wings, just ask.” She summoned them again, but this time they didn't shape themselves into blades. I suspected this was their natural shape.

  “You can change the shape at will, correct?”

  Teizen nodded.

  “But doesn’t that take a lot of concentration?” I held up a hand, casting my own force spell above it in the shape of a small disc, “I can really only change the size, and I can’t even make it move. It’s fixed in place. I once saw a dragon move one in a fight, but I just assumed it was dragons cheating at everything.”

  She was blinking at the disc though, her eyes surprised, “Stars, A Suiki who can pull a table out of a bag, use Niortak abilities, and apparently teleport?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again, that was what she’d called me yesterday. “Yes, I’m a very odd person, but what is that? A Suiki? I’ve never heard that term before.”

  “Hah? Is that not what you call yourselves? Or… are you some other race? I know I heard that Suiki have four arms, but you look just like them.”

  I tilted my head at her, “Well, I suppose I might be related to them, I assume they’re on Arendi?”

  Teizen nodded, “My grandfather would always tell me stories about them. They’re hard to find and harder to talk to.”

  I had a vague, familiar feeling from this. Perhaps Fora had heard something and forgotten to tell me the whole story? Sometimes some of her memories would just… appear though, so maybe she’d just forgotten to tell me in the first place. Or more than likely just assumed I knew already. I nodded to myself, “I suppose I’ll have to track them down at some point then. Thanks.” I glanced down at Filfinde, who was waiting patiently, “I’d like to look at those better later on, I think we should probably be done for now though.”

  Teizen seemed amused about something as Filfinde dragged me off to meet someone else.