TRC - Searching for the Sky Ch. 18

Kal looked between the two men for a moment. "Wait a second... how did I become the asshole here?" Snorts of barely controlled laughter erupted from the hooded figure on the other side of the room and the small woman standing on her shoulder.

---

Kal shook his head as they left the butcher's. Menk left some time ago with a roast from the mage's personal stores. With as much as he had bought, it didn't even dent his stock.

His copying of the runes had been spot-on down to the smallest detail, but double-checking had taken some time. He eventually flipped up the hood on his cloak as customer after customer came in looking to make purchases and the butcher explained that the young wizard was the reason he had nothing to sell. The hood didn't save him from those with nasty comments but at least kept him from the hateful glares cast his way.

Ria and Sera seemed to think the situation was extremely amusing, probably because it was entirely self-inflicted on Kal's part. He offered to sell some of what he'd bought back to the butcher, but the man just laughed and assured him that the people getting pissy with him weren't going to die from eating a dinner of potatoes for a couple of nights. The butcher did ask to buy back a little bit of his stock when a particular farmer came in a short while later. He explained that the man's plot was one of the furthest out, so he only made it into town about once a week. A sickness had taken most the family's livestock that summer. Were it not for that, the man would likely never set foot in his shop.

"You seem to care an awful lot about us little folk for a mage," said the butcher, seeing the look of sympathy on Kal's face.

"Only a few years ago I was a farmer working the land, just like him," he began folding up the parchment with his copy of the rune. "It's amazing what finding the right woman can do to a man," he said with a smile.

---

Around an hour before midday they were finally leaving the small town, passing new construction as houses and storefronts were built to satisfy growing demand. Looking off to one side, Kal saw the creche that the butcher had spoken of. It appeared to be one of the newer buildings.

The mage slowed to a stop as he watched the children play inside the fenced area.

"Everything alright?" asked Sera.

Pushing aside the feeling of guilt welling up inside him from not being home with his own kids, he pulled his eyes away and looked at the gorgon instead. "Yes, but a thought occurred to me. When I get this city in the sky up and running, we will likely need something like a creche for any monster girls who have a trade that they can't bring their child along with. That means a large variety of different types of foods I'll have to have on hand or at least have access to. Adalena will be on a diet of leaves until she matures, and not just lettuce or cabbage but tree leaves specifically. If you ever decide to have a daughter then she would need a constant supply of meat, same as with Dax and her pack's daughters."

Sera could only faintly detect what he was looking at but it wasn't hard to figure out what he meant. "I think you're overthinking this one, Kal. From your descriptions of other monster girls, the need for something like... that..." instead of attempting the unfamiliar word, she held a hand out toward the area where the children were playing, "will be few and far between. Even if you do need one, I'm certain that feeding them won't be as big of an issue as you think."

Kal smiled down at her. "You're right, now isn't the time to be worrying about it. The road ahead looks to be straight as far as I can see. How about we give ourselves some extra time at the end of the day. Why don't you crawl up on my back and we'll see what kind of time we can make off a couple of mana crystals."

"I'll take your word that the road is straight," she said moving behind him. "You could just teach me to ride one of those four-legged things so many of you humans ride on."

"A horse?" Kal shook his head as he squatted down. "The people you've seen riding horses have been doing it for years and make it look easy. As smart as you are, I imagine I could teach you the basics in about a day and get you proficient in three or four." Once she had climbed on and he had adjusted her arms so she wasn't choking him, he stood and continued speaking. "But doing this means we don't have two extra animals to feed and care for. Personally, I don't like the idea of leaving them outside at night, easy meals for big predators when tied like that and the tent is mostly soundproof so we wouldn't be much help unless we set up watches during the night. We could bring them in after dark but then we'd have to clean up any messes they made."

Sera wrinkled her nose at the idea, the beasts certainly weren't shy about doing their business wherever was handy.

"My thoughts exactly," said Kal, seeing her expression out of the corner of his eye. "Hold on tight." Instead of using his own reserves, the mage drew from one of the four crystals he kept in a pouch and pushed the energy into the haste and stamina rune. After taking a moment to spin up, the image of the haste rune shone brightly as it activated and sent them streaking out of town.

A farmer watched with wonder as they passed by his cart faster than a horse at full gallop. With a shake of his head, he flicked the reins to get the horses moving again. The woman had been reaching back trying to grab the hood of her cloak from where it had flipped back. It was no wonder as to why, she had to have had the strangest hairstyle he'd ever seen.

---

Kal made the mistake of trying to speed things along for the second day in a row. He hadn't realized that the soles of his boots were wearing thin from all the traveling and were no longer up to the task of dealing with the extra speed. When his boot decided to come apart, Kal managed to slow down without falling over and dumping Sera with significant help from his healing rune. A couple of the sharper rocks left some nasty gashes in the bottom of his foot as he attempted to stop.

"This is what I get for being greedy," he grumbled, after walking back and picking up the paper-thin sole to his boot. The rest of it was still hanging loosely from his foot and ankle.

"There's one of those caravans coming towards us, maybe they will have some?" suggested Sera.

"I'd imagine with them being travelers they probably have some spares. It may not be fun, but even if they have some that are a size too big, I'll have to make do until we can get to a proper cobbler and have some new ones made."

---

It was another hour before they finally met up with the small caravan. They had passed a number of these two or three cart merchant groups so far. One often carried the troupe's food and supplies while the others contained their wares. Unfortunately, they weren't interested in stopping for a single customer wanting a pair of boots. Kal wasn't happy about doing business from the back of a moving wagon and his face was a mask of annoyance as he limped along behind it. He especially wasn't happy that it was the lead wagon. If he tripped and fell, he'd go right under the hooves of the horse team behind him. The man left his wife to drive the cart as he came back and laid out the mage's options. He wasn't heartened by what he saw.

Sure enough, the largest of the man's offerings were nearly a thumb's width too short when he compared it to the sole of his old boot. Everyone in the caravan had an odd tint to their skin he hadn't seen before and were about a hand shorter than he was. A couple of the items in the man's wagon caught his eye as his ability to see magic highlighted them, most importantly though was a pair of boots the man hadn't set up with the rest.

"What about those?" he said pointing.

"Those are too expensive for the likes of you."

"I doubt it, let me see if they fit."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too expensive, you can't afford them."

"How much?"

"Five gold."

Kal was taken aback, but not too far, there were still horses uncomfortably close behind him.

"What makes them so special?"

"Those are magic. Make you run all day and night and fast as a horse."

Kal shook his head, "No, they don't. They aren't nearly powerful enough for that, but they might fit me," he said holding up the detached sole.

Scowling, the man turned around and called out to his wife, speaking in a language he had never heard before. "How much did we pay for these boots!"

"One gold."

"And what are they supposed to do?"

"I don't know other than they are so light it feels like wearing slippers and they shrunk to fit my feet."

Nodding, the man turned back to Kal. "Oh no," he said when he saw the huge grin on the mage's face.

"One gold, five silver and not a copper more for a boot that fits anyone and is only a bit lighter than a normal one." The magic coming from them didn't seem strong enough to justify even that kind of price, but he was a little desperate at the moment.

"How do you know our language?!" cried the man.

"Perhaps you aren't the first from your land I've met. Do we have a deal?" His comment wasn't entirely false, their language did sound a lot like that of Ikuno's homeland, though he hadn't heard Ikuno speak it enough to be certain.

"Damn you and all of your ancestors!" he growled as he went back into the wagon to fetch the footwear. By the time he returned, Kal was waiting with the gold and five silver in his hand. Once the exchange was made, Kal stepped out of the caravan and let it pass by until he saw Sera walking patiently behind the last cart.

"Found something I take it?" she asked.

"Yep, now to find out what exactly I paid for. Ria?"

A couple of seconds later the sprite formed next to the bag on his hip and flew up to his shoulder. "How can I help you, Master Kal?"

The mage grumbled for a second about the honorific but let it pass. "I got some new boots and I know they are magic. I was hoping they might be something you've seen before," he said, holding them up.

Before answering. she gave him a questioning look, to which Kal just raised up his bare foot. He'd removed the remnant of his old boot before coming to meet the caravan, tossing it off into the woods and only keeping the sole.

She regarded the new footwear for a moment before saying, "Yes, I recognize them because whoever my owner was at the time was extremely excited to get them. Unfortunately, I never saw them used so I don't know what they do. They are called Boots of the Traveler if that's any help."

"That's appropriate at least. Let's see what's inside here." Kal held a boot up in front of his face and filled himself with magic as he peered intently at the footwear.

Something was wrong, nothing was happening.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind before trying again.

Again nothing. His body was full, it felt like every nerve ending was vibrating but something was missing. As he relaxed and opened his eyes, he saw Ria floating in front of his face with a worried expression. While more out of confusion than concern, Sera had even lifted one side of her blindfold to look at him.

"I can't do it," he told the sprite, his expression mimicking that of the tiny avatar.

Ria gasped, her hands going to her mouth.

"Can't do what?" asked Sera, still unaware of what all the alarm was for.

"I can do some things that most other magic-users can't."

"Considering your lineage, it's likely that you are the only one with your sight," said Ria.

"Sight?"

"I can see the flows of magic," explained Kal. "I used to be able to flood myself with energy and it allowed me to think and move faster as well as see better, especially when it came to magic. I'm worried that my brush with death may have taken that ability from me."

Ria shook her head. "No, you were closer to dying when Ikuno attacked you and it came back afterward. For that matter, did you ever lose it?"

"But Ikuno used her lifeforce to save me." Looking at the ground his eyes darted back and forth as his mind flipped through possibilities. "However," he continued after a few seconds, "she used her lifeforce to repair my body, my own life was still intact. After our encounter with the wisp, you said you gave me back everything that felt like it belonged to me, yet I still felt... no... feel like something is missing. I'm guessing the will-o'-wisp 'digested' a portion before you showed up and saved me." He couldn't hide the look of disgust on his face at the idea.

A speck of light floated around him from the bag on his hip. The sprite grabbed it and the wispy flames coming off her brightened as her body grew.

Understanding her intention, Kal held up his hands and took a step back. "No, Ria. I appreciate it, but I don't want another person's lifeforce inside me. We also don't know if having someone else's life energy will prevent me from ever getting that power back. However, we do know that if I wait a while, I'll eventually get back to normal. For now, I'll just have to hope that my improved vision comes back then."

"Are you sure? Your... mana form, or whatever you want to call it, gives you a significant advantage. What if something happens that you need it? Also, I understand your feelings about having another person's life inside you. I'm still not completely comfortable with the idea."

The mage shook his head, "I'll make do. I'm more worried about it being like adding oil to a cup of water. It may fill the cup, but the oil will never turn into water."

Sighing, the sprite shrank as she gathered the energy from the wisp between her hands and sent it back to her bag.

Kal turned his attention to his new boots. Careful inspection, which meant holding his head up against the bottom of the boot and staring at it, revealed a mending rune that pulsed weakly every few seconds. The lightness enchantment in the heel looked similar to his featherfall rune, but the image was too blurry to make out and overlapped with two other spells. Looking at it from the side revealed they were each at different levels and something surrounding them seemed to be disrupting his vision. He guessed this was caused by whatever powered the runes since he didn't see any crystals anywhere.

"They should certainly be durable considering they are constantly getting repaired," He tossed the boot up into the air and caught it again, "and they are surprisingly light. It doesn't look like they lied about that aspect."

Setting the boot down, he brushed the gravel and dirt from his foot before slipping it into his newest piece of clothing. Before he could reach for any of the three buckles, one across the bridge and pointing back toward his heel and two going up the leg, all of them pulled tight and locked into place on their own.

"That certainly seems handy," said Sera. She wasn't terribly fond of wearing boots, but the trip from their campsite near the dwarven stronghold to the town they had just left showed her their importance.

Standing, Kal wiggled his foot around. "Nice," he said, before reaching down to undo the laces on his other boot.

---

Kal had his new boots propped up on a second chair as he sat in the tent's library and paged through the spellbook in his hands. He'd skimmed through a number of them since they stopped for the night but had yet to find anything related to the peculiar runes he got from the butcher.

A soft shuffling of feet across the carpet behind him was followed by a breast with a strip of emerald scales beneath it being shoved into his face.

"Oh, no," he said, leaning away. "The last time you smacked me in the shoulder."

"That's because you weren't paying attention to me," said Sera, letting the front of the tunic fall and cover her again. When they stopped for the night she had developed the habit of stripping off her traveling clothes and donning one of his tunics to wear as a nightshirt before they retired for the night.

Plucking the book out of his hands she laid it on the table then stepped over his legs. Straddling him, she sat down in his lap. "It's late, come to bed." Despite her words, the gorgon reached up and put a hand on either side of his face. Kal noted that the serpents making up her hair all moved out of sight and laid still. With a look that bordered on fear she pulled him forward and gently pressed her lips to his.

They sat like that for a long time with Kal's arms going around her back and holding her tight. Occasionally their tongues would dance in each other's mouths but for the most part, they just kissed and enjoyed the moment of closeness.

When she pulled back, fear and embarrassment shone in her eyes. That had been very different from any of the other times they had kissed. "I... um..." she stammered, suddenly unsure of what to do next.

She was silenced by a finger over her lips. Lifting her off him, Kal stood and scooped her up in his arms before walking back to his bedroom.

"Well damn," whispered Ria from her place on the edge of the library's table. Though she knew that they wouldn't mind if she looked on or even joined them, after watching for the last few minutes she felt this was a special moment between the two and it didn't feel right to intrude. She was contemplating returning to her bag when Sera's first soft moans came from the bedroom. Smiling, the sprite leaned back on the table and reached down between her legs. Perhaps she'd join them in her own way.