I woke as the sun rose again, both in dreams and reality. The dream remained, lingered. It seemed real. It was real. I’d planted a seed, hadn’t I? And now it threatened to smother me.

  Such was the nature of dreams, and the thing which made all dreams—seed or no—real.

  _?Push X?_ Whispers mingled with the sunlight, light and shadow. What they claimed, I couldn’t say, I was focused, utterly, on preserving my spell. The voices would not be denied. Louder, louder, LOUDER. Until it was all I could hear. Rain Coil. Rain Coil. RAIN COIL. RAINCOILRAINCOILRAINCOIL

  It couldn’t be contained. There were too many spells floating around in the void, I wasn’t enough for them. It had to fit. I was made to.

  My recording finished.

  The ground fell away from me as I flew toward the heavens.

  The outside world grew smaller even as the inside world grew, swelling until it could fit the new spell.

  I fell forward, strangely off balance. I was also in agony. My clothing had all shrunk.

  Safe TeleportII

  The pain didn’t stop. I think something was bleeding internally.

  ?Regenerate?

  Nothing happened. I wasn’t holding my spell book.

  Of course I wasn’t holding my spell book, I’d just teleported.

  I activated my rin—right. The teleportation.

  Brace was the first to notice my naked self crawling back toward my pile of gear.

  “Oswic?” She drew her sword, “What is it?”

  “Spellbook. Need. Spellbook.”

  Erin was closest, but Conan was faster. He scooped it up from the pile and shoved it into my hands. I laboriously turned the pages until I found the one I needed.

  ?Regenerate?

  This time it worked. The pain eased almost instantly. I’d gotten out of there in time, before I’d been crushed again.

  I was aware of a room full of people staring at me, three of them women. I lowered my spellbook into a makeshift shield.

  “Conan, if you would be so kind as to grab my clothes.”

  My voice sounded strange to me. Deeper.

  It clicked.

  Something about my spellwork had change me, changed me like Dave had been changed into a shrilled husk, perhaps like how the Shadowmaster had begun weeping sap instead of blood.

  I’d been lucky. Instead of turning into a poplar tree or growing seventeen new pairs of eyes I’d merely grown taller. Normal taller. I didn’t doubt the dark magic would have been as happy to simply increase the length of my legs, or my toes.

  My tunic was in tatters. There was no way I was getting my boots or gambeson back on. In fact, of everything I had previously worn, only my belt was salvageable. Even my ring was too small. That, by far, was my greatest loss.

  The warlock’s ring had also been damaged by my transformation. The band was warped, stretched as I’d grown. I’d not yet figured out what it could do. It, at least, could be fitted on the pinky of my right hand.

  My dress still fit over my head as a scarf as well, so there was that.

  “Attart, do you have anything here which would fit me?”

  “Nothing, though I can make you something.”

  “Trousers?”

  “In exchange for your firstborn child.”

  That was a little steep.

  “What can I get for this jade brooch?”

  I held up my temporary solution to the holes in my gambeson.

  “A tuttensek of equal size.”

  Somehow, she said it without flinching. My own face turned red, whereas Brace and Eric both burst out laughing. At least Cillian had the grace to look horrified on my behalf.

  “What about a robe?”

  “Tell me the nature of the warlock’s ring.”

  I wasn’t about to go exploring the nature of the ring naked, especially not in front of a room full of people. Binding with Tom was the most annoying thing that had ever happened to her.

  “I will grant you a necklace of gold and an earring to match.”

  “A patchwork kaftan.”

  While I’d never been to the Bronze Coast, I knew something of their fashion. A kaftan was a sort of robe, open in the front. I think that was worse than being naked.

  “What if I throw in a second gold necklace and a beautiful piece of star quartz?”

  “A fine pair of boots.”

  That was also worse. I didn’t think I was going to get anywhere dealing with her. Still, I’d give it one last try.

  “A loincloth? A shendyt like those worn by the Delta people in their home?”

  “Haven’t worn one in years,” muttered Eric.

  “A favour, which I may call in at any time,” replied Attart.

  I’d just gotten free of Tom’s three favours, and now she was demanding a fourth. Still, it was the best deal I’d gotten so far.

  “I may refuse the favour if I believe it suicidal or immoral.”

  Attart, ever the lady, kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind me while she approached and stuck out her hand, “Deal.”

  I shook it.

  ***

  It only took Attart ten minutes to make me my loincloth.

  It took the sussurations less time to mount a second assault on my mind. The chamber was larger now, where the whispers were stored, the spell slipped into my mind with ease:

  Acid Colossus

  But the fact it did so gave me an insight into the dark magic.

  It wanted to be used.

  Needed to be.

  I’d been warped, changed, though not disagreeably, from storing too many spells in my mind at once.

  And again, for only the second or third time I could remember, the new spell was a suggestion, not a rule. I could let the Acid Colossus slip away if I so chose. I didn’t need to keep every spell in my mind. Didn’t need to risk turning into a tree or shrivelling into a husk every time dark whispers invaded my mind. I didn’t know how many spells I could safely contain, perhaps their was no safe number, but I knew I was already in the danger zone.

  But I would soon face the ogre.

  I kept the spell. Consequences be what they will.

  The fabric of my shendyt was something called “diasper”, a patterned white on white silk which, combined with my glowing skin and fantastic calves, left me looking like one of the Delta’s gods.

  I kept the thought to myself. Though I was far underground their had already been far too much lightning for my tastes, especially when used against me. I still had to unstick my cutlass from my hand every time I accidentally brushed against it while walking.

  Once “fully” clothed I stood, confident enough to view my changes.

  It was as I’d hoped. I was still myself, only taller. Much taller, half a foot or so. Embarrassingly, after my crushing and absorbing and warping of the Mushroom King, much taller did not amount to a giant, but instead a very tall man. Six feet two inches by Attart’s ruler.

  I bound my belt back around the shendyt and loaded on my waterskin, weapons, and pouch. My shift of swan feathers provided covered my shoulders. I was warm, dressed, and loaded for ogre.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Naturally everything went wrong while I was powdering my nose.

  ?EliminateII?succeeded, but I didn’t need magic to evacuate my bowls. The world turning sideways would have done it for me. An impossible vibration set my teeth on end and my hair on edge. Everything was topsy turvy.

  When reality reasserted itself, it was if nothing had changed. My spell was fine, I was fine, my environs were fine, Attart was still standing beside me, now looking slightly concerned.

  Something had happened. I’d felt the effects of the dark magic twisting reality enough times by now to know it. But what had happened, I had no idea. It was concerning.

  Attart’s casting went without incident.

  “Something happened.” Attart stated it as a fact, not a question.

  “Something. No idea what. The dungeon has been fighting back against me more and more. That was my second spell in an hour.”

  “Do you want more time? We can create more spells. You have several months before you have to find Tom’s mother, right?”

  I could spend a lifetime crafting spells until the ogre didn’t stand a chance. But I didn’t know how long it would take to find Tom’s mother. Building up a stockpile of spells was also a losing proposition. The dark whispers would continue, and my spells would continue to fail me. This morning had been a stark reminder.

  Besides, I already had a plan for dealing with the ogre. If I took the time to guarantee its success, I might never consider myself ready. Fear was my main obstacle, not strength.

  Better to be done with it.

  “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s eat and be on our way. I need to leave before sense re-takes me.”

  ***

  Just as we were about to cross into the room where I’d first met Brace and crew, a harsh white light shone behind us.

  I turned, hand flipping through my spellbook, only to be greeted by the sign of a rapidly dimming stone.

  “Are you following me?” I demanded.

  The stone didn’t deign to respond.

  “Don’t touch it,” I said to Attart, “There’s something strange about those stones, especially that one. The others I’ve met are far more shy.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea. They go dim if they notice you noticing them, and they have a keen sense of hearing. And they steal whatever you touch them with.”

  “At the centre of the glow, did you notice? It looked like they were full of gold and treasures.”

  “Like a calcified will-o’-wisp. I’m not risking it.”

  We moved on. The stone didn’t follow. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. I’d though the rats were after me earlier, and yet I hadn’t seen them in several days.

  Wouldn’t see them in several days?

  My memory had gotten a bit jumbled from the time travel.

  ***

  My shortcut remained marked and took us straight to the staircase. It was much shorter than the previous path had been. Gunhild and I would have never run into troubles had we gone straight rather than right at the fork in the road.

  And then she would have been eaten by an ogre.

  Someone had been looking out for us.

  Someone else was out looking.

  The ogre wasn’t home.

  His wife was.

  “Tasty manflesh comes right to my door!”

  She cried, bursting through said door.

  Her charge knocked aside a plumb bob hanging from the ceiling, a trap the ogres had already disabled.

  Sword Storm III

  The sword caught her charge cold, barely wavered as it sliced into flesh.

  The ogress, now in two pieces, didn’t slow.

  Clothes’s Hanger

  Safe Teleport

  Light flared from my spellbook as I teleported forward. I reappeared a second later, facing the opposite direction. The pieces of the ogress continued to skid down the hall. Attart had waited high up on the stairs, avoiding being anywhere near our conflict.

  Their was colossal crash as the dead ogress slammed into the wall. From further down the hall, halfway between the lair and the stairs, a roar resounded.

  “I smell MEAT!”

  Her husband was coming home, and the path was no longer barred by the volcano.

  It was time to face my fears.

  Lightstep II

  I nearly collapsed in relief when the spell succeeded. The ogre’s mere presence had warped my spellcasting to the point I’d needed divine intervention. If he stopped me now I’d have to fight fair, and I wasn’t sure I could win a fair fight.

  I ran back down the hall, hoping to face the ogre before he could see his wife’s remains. I wanted him hungry, not angry. Otherwise he might start casting his strange magic. I could (hopefully) survive a blow from an eight hundred pound monster, but not a 10,000 pound one.

  I didn’t make it.

  Regenerate II

  I didn’t have time to dodge, but I got the spell off before his club smashed the book out of my hand.

  My middle finger went with it.

  The rest of my hand stayed behind. White light assaulted the edges of my vision, though it hurt less than I’d expected.

  I dove for my finger as the ogre collapsed.

  Lightstep II: The next person to wound the caster dies.

  I’d been betting everything on the definition of “person”. Shorebirds couldn’t bring more relief.

  I was no surgeon, but I lined up my severed finger as best I could with the stump on my left hand and pressed the two jagged ends together.

  Pain flooded through the finger in equal measure with relief through my body.

  Feeling.

  I could feel the finger.

  It was a broken mess, but my spell’s healing was powerful. Every two minutes a month of rich, rest-filled healing went by.

  After five minutes it felt secure enough I shifted to lie on my stomach and elbows on the floor in order to more comfortably grip my hand.

  Ten more minutes passed and the breaks were gone. I’d set the bones as best I could as my finger became more and more secure, and by some miracle I’d set them right.

  “It’s safe now. I’m straight ahead down at the bottom of the staircase. Down the winding corridor, ignore the path on the right.”

  I’d cast Conscience before moving forward. Attart should be able to hear me and see through my eyes. She should already know it was safe, but the ogre had been deceptive before, so I’d told her to wait until I confirmed it.

  By the time she arrived I could use my middle finger again, though it still felt weak. It was growing stronger every passing second.

  Attart retrieved my spellbook, as well as a page which had been torn loose; Push VI.

  “That went far better than I’d hoped.”

  “You lost your finger.”

  “I could have lost my head. But look,” I raised my hand, “I’m not even wounded.”

  “You thought you might die.”

  “I was more confident before the death of his wife made him angry. He hit with a lot more force than I was expecting. Even a creature as big as him shouldn’t have been able to wound me like that. You’d struggle to hurt me with a dagger.”

  She eyed me up and down, “You are half naked. I am sure I could think of something.”

  The ogre fight could have gone a lot worse.

  I led the way to the ogres’ lair.

  “Can you support your own body weight?”

  I’d borrowed a rope from Brace before we’d set out for just this occasion. Mine had been lost when I’d lost my bindle going back in time. The rope was strong, we’d tested it before leaving; Conan, Stovepipe, and Oscar on one end and me on the other. It hadn’t broken, but that didn’t mean we hadn’t weakened it by accident, or that it would survive a full hundred and fifty foot descent.

  “I can—I could,” she corrected herself, “Since my time in the book, I’m not sure.”

  She gestured at her body, “And these changes, I doubt they have made it any easier.”

  A small flair of shame went through me once again. I let it burn somewhere in the background while I dealt with the problem at hand.

  “Here,” I said, offering her one end of the rope, “Grab this.”

  With her arms and legs both firmly wrapped around the rope I was able to lift her off the ground without issue. With the edges of the well helping her she could easily descend.

  “I used to climb when I was young. I was never very good at it, but I have never been afraid of heights.”

  She tried to lift herself on the rope while I kept her suspended. She rose several handspans before dropping to the floor, “I will not be able to ascend more than a few feet before I grow too tired to continue.”

  “We’ll find another way back up. Here,” I handed her the remains of my tunic, “Wrap this about your feet and legs, especially since you’re not wearing any shoes.”

  She approached the hole, “This is a refuse pit, I know it.”

  “It is.”

  She shuddered, but took the tunic, “I better still be trapped in that book with all my ghosts or I will be very cross.”

  She was getting much better about controlling her pronouns. Perhaps Tom’s own ghost was finally subsiding.

  Lightstep Again

  Rapture

  Lightstep Again treated Attart as the caster of the spell, whereas Rapture treated her as an object the spell could act on. She was a more useful spell focus than myself.

  A total of 160 lbs of force was enough to lift her from the ground with my mind, the rope was a failsafe more than a necessity. If we stayed on the fifth floor a day I could levitate her back up the well.

  “Whoah!” she let out a cry of delight as I floated her over to my side, “Higher! Higher!”

  The ceiling here was nearly 100 feet tall. I lifted her to thirty. There was no sense risking a larger fall. Something could always go wrong, hence the rope.

  Attart let out a full bellied laugh, one without the layer of concern and propriety she had maintained since I had met her. One which gave a clue to the woman before the etiquette book.

  I gave her five minutes of swooping and soaring before I lowered her to the ground. We had a time limit.

  “Can all Magi fly?”

  I smiled at her, handing her two bones from the ogre midden, “They will. I am the first to come up with the spell as far as I am aware. Though I suspect the elders keep some secret for the rest of our safety. Perhaps they all fly when we aren’t looking.”

  “What are the bones for? It is improper for a lady to handle such dirty things.”

  “When you get in sight of stone you can use them to make a racket that I can teleport to. Throw them or strike them against the ground. You can also shout, but then I’ll teleport on top of you.”

  She primly tucked the bones into the sash about her waist, “I will see what I can do. Guide me to the well.”

  I grinned and sent her up thirty feet before diving back down to the lip of the well.

  Attart gave a shout of joy as she ascended and a scream of pleasure as she plunged back down. I moved to the edge of the well so I could track her descent. I dimmed my skin in order to better see, she should glow slightly.

  Attart grasped the rope in both hands and lowered herself into the well. She had to work to pull herself down, overcoming the force of my spells. I decreased the lift of rapture until I saw her arms take on a portion of her weight. A handful of pounds, no more, enough to hopefully catch herself if the spell failed.

  Her descent began.