Chapter 16: Chapter 16

The next day was fairly standard. I woke up late in the morning, and Syl was nowhere to be seen. If I had to guess, I would say she was down where we were planning to build our house. I made my way to the stream, and took my morning bath, before making my way back to the campground. 

When I got back, I decided to make myself useful, and set about growing planks for the house. My first idea was to pump a bunch of growth energy into a tree sapling somewhere, but when I tried this, I had no control over how the tree grew. Sure, I now had wood, but if this was all I could do, we would be better off to spend a day or two, and just fell some trees. It would use far less energy, and produce the same results.

Next, I tried to spell the trees into growing how I wanted them. This worked far better, and I was actually able to grow flat planks, with bark that would be relatively easy to peel off. It took some practice, and used far more energy, but in the end, it was worth it.

Over the next few hours, I had grown a decent number of planks. They all needed to be stripped of bark, and there was nowhere near enough, but it was a start. Keep this up for a week, and we might have enough to build a house. I went to bed tired, but feeling extremely proud of myself.

When I woke up in the morning, something felt off. It was intangible, something that logically doesn’t make sense, just a pure gut feeling of wrongness.

I looked around, trying to see something, anything, that could set off my gut senses, but there was nothing. I even checked for unnatural magic signatures, with nothing even mildly unusual showing up. There was a flicker of something reasonably large off in the distance, perhaps a family of bears, but it was on the edge of my vision, and it flickered out after a minute.

Even with this knowledge in mind, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It persisted throughout the morning, and Syl was picking up on it.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. Something feels off, but I can’t pinpoint what, and when I looked around, I couldn’t find anything. The worst thing around is a magical signature about the size of a bear family, and that was easily five miles off.”

“I’m sure it will work itself out. So long as you keep checking, we should know if anything is happening.”

Throughout the day, I would periodically send out my magical senses, and without fail, nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I practiced my magic, and read the book. Eventually Syl made her way back from the construction site, and I set aside my magic. 

“Hey Ashley!” She called out. “Put on a show! We haven’t done anything fun in a while. Surely you could make some magical fireworks or something!”

“Anythin’ for you, me lady” I quibbed.

In all seriousness though, this could be fun. A break from the stress of building a life up from the ground would be nice. I thought about what to do for a minute, then set about making it happen.

I started simple. Burning some magic to create heat, I lobbed that heat into the sky, using magic to really send it up. Once it was high enough, I released my hold on it, resulting in a bang and an explosion in the sky. I tried this a few more times, before moving on.

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Next, I wove a spell in my mind. It would color my magical energy, making it glow yellow as it shot up into the sky. Then it would rapidly break apart, taking on a color of my choosing, and shooting tendrils off in all directions. 

This worked far better, and as the only limit was my concentration, I could send them off quite fast. Before long, we had a spectacular  firework show going on, and Syl was watching in awe.

As the final act, I drastically slowed down the rate the fireworks were going off, and created small globes of light that floated around at random. I pulled the earth up into a small platform, a stage of sorts, and made my way over to Syl.

“Care for a dance?” I asked.

Flustered, Syl managed to stammer out “Y…Y… Yes!”

I took her hand, and led her out to the dance floor. I didn’t actually know how to dance, but as we stumbled around, I got a feel for it, and before long, we were only occasionally tripping over each other's feet.

However, we were interrupted far too soon. A tall, buff man came crashing out of the woods, goons following behind him. He was covered in muscle, and he carried himself like he knew it. There was a self assured air of confidence around him, as if he was certain there was no one who could beat him. He sauntered over, and sneered down at me and Syl.

“Well well well… What do we have here” He leered down at us, his voice gruff.

“Two girls alone, in the woods, far away from civilization, with a substantial supply of fireworks” He continued. “You could fetch quite the pretty penny if we sold you, and there wouldn’t be anyone who would know. Everyone would assume you died, alone in the woods, without anyone to protect you. I must ask though, Where did you get those fireworks? Usually, they are a luxury, costing far too much to take into the woods, where they could get lost. And that’s if you could even afford them. Quite curious.”

At this point, I laughed, pouring magic into my throat to amplify the sound. It rang through the clearing, and I said one thing. “Those weren’t normal fireworks”

I let my magic pour forth, all the elements mixing together, and joining with my pure magic. It was unguided, there was no spell to aid it. It simply responded to my rage. These guys wanted to enslave us!!! I was going to show them, make them regret ever stepping foot in this clearing.

As my magic built fear began to show on their faces. Magic was supposed to be gone!!! And now, alone in a forest, where no one would know if they died, this kid was wielding magic. And quite well.

Soon, I let my magic loose. It all rushed out of me, lighting the entire forest, for as far as the eye could see, up, and then it began to take effect. First, they were forced to relive, from their victims perspective, every last bit of pain, physical or mental, that they had put people through. The fear of enslavement, the beatings, all of it. Then, it locked their souls to this space, and began to disintegrate their bodies. They were fully aware of all of it, unable to pass out from the pain. Finally, when their bodies were completely gone, my magic grabbed hold of their souls, and ripped them to pieces. They, permanently and forever, were gone. No afterlife, no reincarnation. Gone.

As my magic came to a conclusion, I passed out. This was even worse than the utopia back when I discovered my magic.