The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (56 page)

With the last of my
business in Hell taken care of, we went to meet up with Lilith at the
court. She was sitting atop her throne with a smile, with Levy in her
lap. For some reason, Lilith was wearing a pink robe with lavender
flower patterns..
A copy of the one from the
statue?
I glanced to Levy and she nodded with
a smile. Levy herself was wearing a simple black dress, like a child
would wear to a fancy dinner.

“
Lilith, we’re
ready to depart. Thank you for putting us up for these past days.”

“
Oh, don’t
worry about it. What was it you said to me last time? This much is
only natural now, right?” Lilith smirked, and raised one of her
hands. “I’ll put you on the coast of that island you
wanted. Once you want your ship, just open a gate in the water and
I’ll have it sent through.”

“
I understand. Wish
us luck.” I bowed politely to her, and she laughed.

“
Oh, I doubt luck
will be a factor. I heard of your inner demon, and I must say I
approve. Don’t be a stranger, now!” And with that, she
snapped her fingers, casting a silent spell on us. Thankfully, it
wasn’t the same hellish teleport that she used the day we
arrived. This spell wrapped us in shadows from head to toe, blocking
all sight and sound. For a few moments, my world was shrouded in
darkness. It sort of reminded me of something, but I couldn’t
quite remember what.

When the darkness cleared,
I was standing next to Denise on a wide beach that went on for miles
in either direction. There was neither port nor town, no signs of
civilization at all. Thankfully, there was one thing that was here.
Standing behind Denise, a large ball of shadows quickly rose and
dispersed, revealing the trusty steed Midnight! Of course… I
had forgotten about him again. I really needed to quit doing that.

You forgot about me
again, didn’t you?
Midnight glared
accusingly to me. I shook my head to deny it, of course, telling him
I had just been very busy with various matters. He scoffed and turned
his head away.

Really, this horse is
too smart…
I shook my head again, and
we walked towards the interior of the island, which was a dense
forest surrounding a large mountain. The trees near the forest
started off as palm trees, but the area’s originally inland
nature quickly became apparent when we got a little further inland.

“
Okay… so how
do we want to do this? As long as there is some good hunting, or
maybe even a dungeon, we can stay here until Kev is ready to go, or
until we get bored.”

Denise nodded, “Okay,
but do we want to make a camp or something? This island is too big to
explore all in one day, but it would be best to have at least one
camp we could secure. We don’t know what kind of creatures
could be living in this island.”

“
Agreed. Been a
while since I used this spell, but he’s good for easy labor!
Calling the ape!” A green circle appeared on the ground in
front of me, and the large forest ape rose up from it.

“
What.. do.. you
want?” It spoke slowly, still unable to properly talk despite
my magic giving it the ability to do so.

“
We need help
constructing a camp.” I pointed to an area just a bit away from
us, which was surrounded by bushes and just barely large enough to
fit a small campsite. The trees were densely packed around it, making
the terrain difficult to navigate for any large monsters. The ape
just looked at it passively before resigning itself to its task.
Next, I called out my iron falcon.

Yes? What do you need
today, Master?
This one’s personality
was much better than my other summons, so even when I gave it a
tedious job like using its wings to cut down long branches for the
ape, it didn’t complain at all. In the meantime, I began using
my Wall of Clay spell to make three sides of a small hut, which took
up most of the space in the clearing. With what was left, I made an
open stall for Midnight.

After the branches were
brought to us, I tied them together with vines for a makeshift roof.
I did the same thing for Midnight’s stable, and quickly enough
a campsite had been constructed. After that, it was getting late
since most of our time was spent in Hell, and we settled down to camp
without seeing a single monster--or any animals for that matter-- on
this island.

Given that we hadn’t
been camping for a while, and had been staying in the safety of Hell,
the Unity, or an inn, I had completely forgotten about casting my
usual Alarm spell on the area. So, I was quite surprised when I was
shaken awake in the middle of the night by a quiet Denise, who held a
finger up to her lips.

Taking the message, I
nodded, looking around. I didn’t see anything unusual, but my
senses aren’t as good as hers. I was tempted to cast Scan, but
the glow from that spell would be as bad as talking. It was, of
course, at this time I realized my blunder, shaking my head.

Denise slowly got up to
her feet, using her bracelet to retrieve the bow Nightshade. The
shadows twisted around her arm, manifesting the bow of darkness in
her hand. Finally, I heard a faint noise from the forest, the sound
of a twig snapping under a footstep.
She heard
that and it was enough to wake her up?
I
debated whether she had some kind of light sleeper power, but
apparently that was just all her.

They’re coming
for me..
That thought wasn’t mine, and
suddenly my eyes shot open. Damn the consequences, they were not
taking my horse! The Scan spell activated immediately, and I saw that
there were dozens of short people around us, completely surrounding
our camp. They were holding crude spears or stone axes, covered in
mud and wearing little more than loincloths and tribal masks.

With their formation, I
couldn’t make out who was the leader. Instead, I whispered to
Denise. “I’m going to try to scare them off..” She
glanced at me, seeing the glow in my eyes and nodding. Kneeling down,
I placed my hand on the cold stone, spreading my magic out through
the ground. If it weren’t for my high earth affinity thanks to
my Nature Magic, I doubt I would have been able to pull something
like this off.
No time to make a new spell, so
I just have to do what I can..
I pushed as
much magic as I could into the spell I wanted, both aided and
restricted in my options thanks to our surroundings. “Nature’s
grip.”

When I spoke, vines lashed
at the surrounding force from all directions, pulling some off the
ground and throwing them into the trees. Others were pinned by roots
that sprouted to grab their feet. Suddenly, the quiet forest was in
an uproar, the tribal army cutting at the roots and vines to
hurriedly get away.

Denise smiled next to me,
but never put her bow away. “Nice spell.”

“
Thanks.. I guess
this will be the perfect chance to get stronger Nature Magic, huh?”
She nodded to my question. “You get some rest. I’ll set
up an Alarm and keep watch while working on it.”

She hesitated for a
moment, but then laid back down, her bow vanishing back into the
bracelet. I got up out of the shack and cast a quick Alarm over the
area, letting it extend just past the tree barrier. Then, I went over
towards Midnight. “You alright, there?”

He nodded to me.
They…
were coming for me.

“
Are you sure?”
When he nodded again, I felt compelled to ask. “Do you know
what they are?”

Don’t know, but
their eyes were visible through the trees. They kept watching me.

“
I understand. I’ll
be staying up for a while in case they come back, so you can rest for
a bit.” He nodded reluctantly and got down on his stomach,
bending his legs to lay down.

I don’t like this
place.

“
If you want, we can
have you go back to Hell. I’m sure Lilith’s people would
be happy to look after you until we are done here.”

This time, he shook his
head, looking up to me.
I’ll stay. If
you can put up with this danger, then so can I.

“
See, now that’s
the arrogant horse I remember.” I grinned, and Midnight
whinnied. Moving back towards the shack, I made a small bench against
its wall, keeping my Scan spell active.
Judging
by their appearance, they would be a sentient race. Tribal, but
sentient. They were also organized and using stone weapons. Though, I
doubt they would be able to speak the human language. No, it’s
possible that they might not even have a real language. This island
has not been explored since the kingdom was cast into the sea, so
they have been all that time without outside contact.

Deciding to get to work, I
began thinking about what kind of spells I’d be needing to help
me deal with the situation. It would be nice to get a barrier set up
to protect the camp at night, but I had other priorities before I
dabbled with a new magic. First, I need either area spells, or
stronger single target spells. I was still using only basic attack
spells in my Nature Magic, and if this island had anything that could
threaten us, I’d need something more.

This was my first time
creating an advanced spell, so I referenced the ones I already had in
order to identify the patterns. Coincidentally, the patterns in the
diagram for an advanced spell lined up with those for enchanting.
Except there was no need for an outer circle, because the diagram was
formed in the mind of the caster. Granted, some of my spells still
had them, but I suspected that was more for when they are drawn on
the ground.

Now, the lines in the
diagram for a spell link runes together, rather than bringing the
magic to the center. This seems to cause the magic to deviate along
the course, and perform two actions at once. Like the Hellfire Aura
surrounding my body while being careful not to damage it. Examining
the runes, I even saw that that spell should allow me some control
over the aura itself. But I can’t test that in a forest.

Using my Sculpt Earth and
Stone spell, I began drawing a practice diagram on the ground for a
spell I wanted to create. Given our surroundings, I could only use
plant or earth spells for this. Maybe light or darkness, but these
guys didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing in the dark.

I had the basic circle
drawn, but what kind of spell to create was eluding me. There were so
many possibilities that it was hard to come up with something
specific. For right now, I decided to go with a single target plant
spell. Something that could attack a target with lethal force beyond
what my current spells could produce. Even if I had taken on that
so-called King of the Forest outside Grazel, that thing didn’t
seem nearly as strong as my wolfman summon. Likely it was a weaker
variant created with the magic of the mana trees.

So, separating this spell
into stages. First, I put in a function similar to Nature’s
Grip, which caused roots and vines to grow and grab a target. Of
course, this was only the innermost level of the spell. I had learned
from enchanting that a diagram may either begin from the inside
traveling out, or the outside traveling in. For this spell, I was
using the former method.

After my Nature’s
Grip layer, I added a twist by putting in something else I learned
from enchanting. Recently, I had received a skill that allows me to
bestow negative enchantments called curses. For the second layer, I
put in a curse of life drain that emanated from the vines, and cycled
that into an enchantment that would strengthen the vines holding
them, or even repair damaged ones.

This should be enough,
right? I feel kind of bad creating a curse spell, but it’s not
like I plan to use it all the time.

Figures, even something
like this has already been done before.
Okay,
I need an area spell as well. An earth spell would create too much
damage in the forest, so I guess we’re doing nature again.

This time, I worked on a
much larger spell that I should be able to activate anywhere in this
forest. But to get what I wanted to work right, I had to make another
simple spell first. I quickly erased my earlier diagram, and wrote
down five runes. Wind, Condense, Direct, Contain, and Edge. I was
shortly rewarded with another message, granting me the spell Wind
Blade.

Now I could get back to my
big spell. First, the inner layer designated the target as leaves
within a thirty meter radius of the spell’s target area. The
next layer caused those leaves to rotate, while granting them the
Wind Blade ability, turning them into airborne knives.

Finally, the outer layer
was designed in order to let me control the leaves. If it was just a
matter of having them converge on the area, I could have reversed the
order of layers and used this as the center. However, I wanted to be
able to avoid including Denise in the spell if she was in melee with
the enemy.

Just then, from the corner
of my sight, I saw movement beyond the trees. It seemed a lone
tribesman was coming towards the camp, with a spear in one hand and
an axe in the other. Deciding that it was best to stop him from
getting any ideas, I held my hand out in his direction. Naturally, he
wasn’t using a spell like mine to see through the trees, so he
wasn’t able to see it coming when a nearly invisible wave of
air slipped between the forest heading in his direction.