The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (25 page)

“
You.. why do people
from your world not take it seriously, fighting here? Is it just
because you don’t truly die?”

I thought about that for a
minute. Although I had told her a lot about how the foreigners work,
it’s hard for me to just say ‘because your world is a
game’... because I honestly wasn’t so sure it was
anymore. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. That’s
likely to be part of it, but for the most part I think it’s
just because in our realm, there aren’t any chances to get such
experience fighting.”

“
Ah.. you come from
a very peaceful place, then.”

“
Yeah… for
some, anyways. There are still wars, but they are only fought by
certain parties, so the people that come here generally don’t
have any fighting experience. Since I’m a mage, even though
we’ve been in so many battles, that fight before was my first
time in close combat.”

She smiled to me at that,
“Well, you did very well considering. And you do have spells
that could easily be considered cheating if you need to make up for
physical ability.”

I laughed at that. “Right,
speed of the iron falcon, defense and strength of the armored bear.
Even experienced warriors would have a hard time beating me with
that, as long as my mana held out.”

“
How many aspects
can you invoke at once?”

“
I.. don’t
really think there is a limit, as long as they don’t overlap.
So, I can’t have the defense of both the iron falcon and
armored bear, but I should be able to combine them until I run out of
energy.”

“
... Such a cheat.”

“
Yeah. But look on
the bright side!”

“
Hmm?”

“
I’m a one of
a kind cheater.” I smirked to her, and she laughed.

“
Oh, you are
certainly that. So, once we’re fully equipped, we’ll be
hiding our real power in front of others for a while… I still
don’t really think any of this will be hard.”

“
Yeah, but that’s
only because we won’t be around others most of the time when
we’re fighting. Our individual abilities might be considered
low, but we’ve got teamwork. Given a few more necessary spells,
and proper gear, I think we could totally handle a dungeon.”

“
Alright. I’ll
trust you with that. But before we get there, you should probably
work on a spell of your own.”

“
Ohh? You’re
giving me advice on spells now?”

“
Yeah, yeah.
Wouldn’t Nature Magic have something for healing? I don’t
plan for either of us to get hurt.. but it’d be nice to have,
you know?”

“
Alright. I’ll
think it over. You’re right that I should learn a healing
spell. I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to get through a
dungeon alone without one easily.”

She smiled at my easy
agreement and nodded. Leaning forward, I wrapped my arms around her
and rested my head on her shoulders to relax while I focused. This
wasn’t an original spell like Customize or Become, so my Spell
Knowledge should be able to kick in if I concentrate on the spell’s
components for a while.

I nodded my head against
Denise’s shoulder after about ten minutes of focusing.
“Alright, it’s done. We ready to set up camp for the
night?”

“
Sure.”

And with that, we did
indeed set about setting up camp, despite it being a couple hours
before dark. After all, I still needed to test my Fusion Summon
spells. We anticipated that I might need to take breaks between them
if I summoned something powerful.

“
Alright. Chant or
no chant?”

“
Seeing as you might
lose control if you don’t? Chant.”

“
Fine, fine. Armies
of empires past, ghosts of fallen kings, imbue these beings with your
power. Fusion summon… wolf and bear!”

I’ll admit, I wasn’t
expecting what appeared next. In the midst of the summoning circle,
was a giant armored wolf, with stone plates similar to the armored
bear. Judging by the mana cost, it wasn’t on the same level as
the wolfman, but was still pretty strong. “Alright. Now, we
start cheating. Become, fusion summon! Wolf and falcon.”

The red circle from the
summoning swiped down along the giant wolf, and when it passed, I saw
a normal sized wolf with steel fur. No mana cost, so it was cheaper
than the other one. “Alright. Next, become, fusion summon, wolf
and eagle.” I went through this pattern for a while, using
Become rather than recasting the spell to save mana, and was able to
learn a fair few of the combinations.

Thanks to that, both
Become and Fusion Summon quickly hit the Intermediate rank, and both
Magical Talent and Summoning Magic went up by a level. Though, I made
a note to never mix the armored bear and giant eagle again, because
the abomination it created looked like some radiation mutant with
five legs, three eyes, and no skin. I quickly marked it down as a
failure before both Denise and myself lost our lunches.

Chapter
12

The next day, we passed
through another small village, and used some of our money to buy a
map of the area. I will admit, I was pleasantly surprised when I got
a system message after looking at the map.

Huh… so studying
maps will help it too. Good to know.
Aside
from that, I noticed something else happened. Once my Navigation went
up, my mental map of the village suddenly expanded to include the
surrounding areas detailed in the map I read.

“
Hey, Denise. Looks
like we’ll be good for a while on finding our way.” I
smiled over to her after we rode out of town. The only quest we were
able to receive was one that would have us making a delivery all the
way back to Rosenheim, so we weren’t able to take it.

“
Oh?”

“
Yeah. My mental map
works better now.”

“
Don’t suppose
that means it’ll find dungeons for us?” She smirked to
me.

Thinking a bit, I sighed.
“Nope. I need to either see the dungeon entrance or read about
it in a map or something before it’ll be added. But… I
had an idea on how to find dungeons.”

“
By all means, oh
great mage.”

“
Oh hush you.”
I grinned to her. “I could try using my divination to…
well… promise not to laugh?” She nodded, and I
continued. “I could ask the ground.”

She tried to keep her
promise, but I could feel her shaking on the horse in front of me
seconds before she bust out laughing. “Oh god, you’re
serious aren’t you?”

“
Yeah.. If I can mix
my nature magic with divination, I should be able to come up with
secret locations like that.”

“
Uh huh… and
just what will you be saying? Excuse me, oh sand, I wish to search
for a dungeon?”

“
Working on that
part. It was either that, or use a broader divination to search for
the strongest monster in the area, but if we do that we could get a
dungeon too big for us.”

“
Yeah, yeah. Well,
either way you’ve got to practice your divination first, right?
I don’t think I’ve seen you use it yet.”

“
I haven’t. My
only spell right now for it requires a pool of water to see through,
and we haven’t exactly hit an oasis yet. Speaking of which..
there’s one about an hour west of here if you want to go. The
map in the village listed it as a good source of fruit.”

“
Really? Why not. I
could always use fresh ingredients.” She turned Midnight in the
appropriate direction and we set off at a slow trot. So far I’d
been using my Customize on our canteens to keep them from running
out, by adjusting their values, but it’d be nice to get
something more fresh.

A little ways before we
came across the oasis, I started to notice something. “Hey,
Denise?”

“
Yeah?” She
asked, looking around.

“
Have you seen any
creatures around here for a while?”

“
You either, huh?”
She shook her head. “Figured there would be several, given this
should be the only watering hole for a half day’s ride.”

“
Exactly…
Mind if I scout a bit?”

“
Uhm.. how?”

I grinned to her, “Always
wanted to learn how to fly.”

“
Oh, you have to be
kidding me…”

“
Calling the
falcon.” I said simply, before an iron falcon appeared perched
on my shoulder. “Merge.” A moment later, I
was
the falcon. And it was oddly uncomfortable.
Instead of arms, I now had wings. I promptly fell backwards off the
horse trying to get my balance, causing Denise to laugh at me.

“
Serves you right.
Well, go on bird-brain. I’ll wait here and keep an eye out for
you.”

I nodded, and tested my
wings again, flapping them a couple times to lift me up before I got
the hang of it and flew off to the west. Everything looked different
from this perspective, so far away and yet still clear. I scanned
from side to side, looking for signs of enemies, or even just local
wildlife, and didn’t find anything.

Soon, the small dot of
green on the horizon grew into the oasis I saw on the map, a few tall
trees surrounding a big pool of water. The trees looking like they
were bearing fruits, so where were all the creatures?
Well…
We’ve already come this far… Might as well check it out.

I circled back towards
Denise, and she waved to me from the back of Midnight. After landing,
I canceled the spell and returned to normal. “Found the oasis,
but no creatures. Guess that means we get the place to ourselves?”

“
See any signs of
why
there weren’t
any creatures?”

“
Nothing. Hell, even
the trees had fruit, so it wasn’t a lack of food. Didn’t
notice any threats that could drive them away, either.”

“
Huh, well.. hop on.
Guess we’re finishing the trip. I’m still suspicious,
though.”

“
Me too.” I
hopped on the back of Midnight, and we made our way to the oasis.

Once we arrived, Denise
led Midnight over to drink from the stream while the two of us
gathered what fruits we could, and then sat down to rest. “So,
Coatin is just a few hours away, right?”

“
Yeah, why?”

“
I was just
thinking.. if there was a big city that close, and this was a common
trade route… There’s really only one or two reasons that
an oasis would be abandoned.”

“
Again, oh great
mage, please share.”

“
I need a new
nickname.”

“
I doubt that’s
why the oasis is empty.” She grinned over to me and I laughed.

“
Okay. Well, either
the water supply is poisoned.” We looked over to Midnight who
suddenly shot up at our words. “Which doesn’t seem to be
the case. Or, there is a threat here that the monsters all want to
avoid.”

“
Which we’d
also be able to see.”

“
Unless it was
hidden.”

“
Come again?”

“
Well, in a desert,
the most likely places you would be to find an oasis would be either
an underground passage that you literally have to fall into.. or a
special piece of scenery, such as this.”

“
So.. you think
there’s a dungeon near here.”

“
I think it is a
strong possibility.”

“
Any way to test
that theory?”

“
Well, we just so
happen to have a pool of water, here.” I smirked towards the
pond that Midnight was drinking from, and moved over to it. “Let’s
see…” Pulling out my grimoire, I turned to my one and
only divination spell. “Eyes that transcend space, search for
the one I seek. Show me the secrets beneath the sands.”

As I held my hand down to
the water and chanted the spell, ripples formed beneath my palm.
Denise quickly moved up next to me, suddenly interested. A circular
section of water, about two feet wide, suddenly darkened, before an
image formed of a stone corridor.

“
So… there is
a dungeon.” I smiled to the image, and tried to figure out the
phrasing for the next part. “Show me the path.” The image
moved, shifting, until it showed… us. From behind, so maybe it
was more accurate to say that it was showing the oasis we were in?

“
Alright.. there is
a hidden entrance somewhere in this oasis… wanna find it?”
Denise grinned to me, and I nodded.

“
Yeah. But, no
entering it yet. Not until we get ourselves better equipped. We’ll
find it so that we can get to it later.”

“
Agreed. Wanna make
it a race to see who can find it first? Your magic or my eyes?”

“
Oh… you went
there. Deal.” I stood up, closing my eyes. “In my eyes,
all things are as one. Scan.” When I opened my eyes, the green
field tainted my vision, showing me everything all at once. I walked
one way around the oasis, and Denise walked the other. Beneath the
ground, I could see a hollow area, but I couldn’t find the
entrance to it for the life of me.
Does it
take earth magic to get in?