Chapter 11: Cave Diving

Wyn groaned, wiping a cobweb from her face. She held her sword in front, the flames lighting up the dark cave. The cavern was massive, and empty. Far away, a stalactite dripped drops of water onto a puddle, the ripples the only sound in the cave, save for the footsteps of the two adventurers.

“We shouldn’t have taken this commission…” Wyn groaned. Each shift of her sword sent massive shadows crawling around the wall.

“What is the issue?” Magus asked.

“Tons of issues!” Wyn complained. “It’s dark, it’s wet, it’s just creepy!”

“We can always turn back if you want.”

“Ugh, I’d love to…” Wyn waved her sword, illuminating more of the tunnel ahead. “But we’ve already taken the commission. We can’t just turn back now.”

“Why not?”

“We just can’t.”

Quietly, the two venture deeper into the caverns. Every once in a while, the silence was cut by the squeaks of a bat, or the scuttle of some bug on a rock. Fiddling around in her pockets, Wyn fished out a pinpointer. She stabbed it into the rock, only for nothing to happen.

“Figured…” She let out a sigh. She tossed the pinpointer to Magus. She placed her palm on the ground, sending a burst of mana through. The rock underneath her palm crumbled into sand. This time, the fine sand shot through the tube, a half formed map of the cavern projecting through.

“Seriously? How much sand does it need…” A second burst and a fully formed map of both the cave and the ground above emerge. “You think that’s enough?” Wyn turned to Magus as she slipped the pinpointer back into her pocket. A wave of her hand and the sand flowed into a pouch, which she stuffed next to the pin pointer.

“There was clearly enough sand.”

“I meant,” Wyn groaned. “Do you want to go deeper?”

“If you wish to.”

“One of these days, you’ll have to make a decision for yourself.” Wyn gave Magus a knock on the head.

“I make plenty of decisions on my own.” Magus retorted, to which Wyn merely rolled her eyes.

The two ventured deeper, the caverns turning into a winding maze of intricate tunnels. The cavern seemed to grow the deeper they went. So wide that the light of Wyn’s flaming sword no longer reached the ceiling. That didn’t mean that the world around them was pitch black. On the cave roof, a thousand tiny dots lit up the darkness, dotting the ceiling like tiny stars. The deeper they ventured, the more dots there were. Wyn found it quite beautiful. She had half a mind to fly up there, see what the lights were. The gelatinous slime that sometimes dripped from the ceiling dissuaded her from such a notion.

As the two ventured forward, Wyn found herself growing a bit disappointed. She had expected a cave as large and vast as this to be filled to the brim with monsters. If not that, perhaps the territory of one really big, really mean monster. Yet she found no hide nor hair of anything remotely dangerous. She shook the thought from her mind. Peaceful is good, she chided herself. A drop of slime dripped onto the back of her hand.

“Ew, gross!” She desperately waved her hand, trying to shake off as much of the goo as possible. At that moment, another drop of goo fell directly atop her already gooped hand, causing even more shaking. As soon as her hand stopped, a strand of slime shot from the ceiling. Before she could say anything, she was dragged to the ceiling, screaming.

Magus reached out, but whatever grabbed Wyn sprang her away before his hand could reach her. Her sword clattered to the ground, the light extinguished, leaving Magus in pitch darkness.

“Wyn?” He picked up the sword. Pouring as much mana into it as he could possibly spare, the flames sputtered to life. A spark was all he could achieve before the flames died.

“Up here!” A small cry reached Magus’ ears.

“Gross gross gross!” Wyn muttered nonstop. The entire ceiling was covered in a thin layer of the thick slime, constantly dripping down onto the ground. She was surrounded by the tiny little lights. They reminded her of tiny eggs, or perhaps basic eyes. The slime coated her entire body, sticking her to the ceiling. She tried to pry her arms free, but the quickly slung right back, stuck to the rock. She could hear Magus crying out under her, desperately repeating her name. It reminded her of a mewling kitten. She’d laugh, if she weren’t in such a precarious situation herself.

“Soaring wings!”

Air burst out around her, sending the goo exploding out around her. Yet, instead of a controlled descent to the ground, the spell sputtered and died, sending her plummeting. Even that was short lived though, as immediately, strands of slime shot out from the ceiling, yoinking her right back to the ceiling. Wyn groaned as she tried to free herself again. Once again, her spell immediately sputtered and died, sending her to free fall, only for the slime creature to stick her back to the ceiling. She poured as much mana as she could into the ceiling. A pillar of stone jutted out, launching her towards the ground. Yet, even that began to crumble and disintegrate, and she was snatched back up. After laying there, attached to the ceiling, she quickly realized the issue. This creature was eating her mana. A sigh escaped her lips. Great, a second Magus.

Magus swung the sword aimlessly in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. He could barely make out Wyn’s silhouette stuck to the ceiling, as she repeatedly bounced up and down.

“Wyn? Are you okay? What are you doing up there?” He shouted.

“I’m trying to get out of here obviously!” Wyn shot back. “But this thing, it’s eating all my mana! I can’t sustain any spells!”

Magus scrambled around, looking for some way to scramble up the wall. But the walls were straight, without many footholds to grab onto.

“Don’t touch the falling slime!” Wyn desperately shouted. “That’s how they get you!”

A sudden idea popped into Magus’ mind. He made his way to just underneath Wyn, reaching out his hand for the dripping slime. Just as he thought, once some slime dripped onto his hand, he was immediately hoisted to the roof, slamming on top of Wyn.

“Oof!” Wyn gasped, breathless. “I just told you—!”

“Give me some of your mana.” Magus interrupted.

“Wha— fine!” Mana flowed between the two. Straining his arm, Magus waved, forming four balls of fire. They launched into the roof, the explosions caving in the entire roof. The two plummeted to the ground. Magus, borrowing some more mana, formed a small cushion of water underneath, absorbing the impact. Taking the water, Wyn began to wash off the slime, while Magus lay on the ground, completely winded.

“So even that counts as a barrier, huh.”

Magus only groaned in response.

“That was reckless. What if the entire cave caved in?”

“It’d be fine. I could blast us out of the rubble.”

“Right, but what’s the point of mapping out a place if you blow up the place you’re supposed to map?”

“You should have thought of that before getting caught by that creature.”

“You’re right. My bad.” Wyn rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’m curious. That slime thing ate away all the mana I was using to sustain my spells. How come they didn’t with you?”

“That’s what I don’t get.” Magus answered. “Why do you need to sustain your spells with mana?”

“Well obviously, if I don’t they’ll fizzle out.”

“Because my spells fizzled, as you can see.”

“Just where did you learn sarcasm from…”

“I wonder.” Wyn pushed her palm against Magus’ chest. “Cast that again.”

Magus obliged. With a wave of his hand, four fireballs emerged in the air. Instead of flying into the roof, though, he instead launched them against a faraway wall.

“Hmm,” Wyn pondered. She did the motion herself, creating four fireballs in the air. As soon as she cut off her mana, the fireballs immediately petered out. She clutched at her head in frustration. “How?”

“I think I see the issue.” Magus pointed at Wyn. “You are casting it all in one big step, from igniting the air to forming its shape to launching it in a direction.”

“Well, yeah? That’s how you cast spells.”

“Right, but you can also break each step down into one spell, and automatically have each spell cast the next spell. That way, you imbue all the mana necessary at the first step, and you won’t have to worry about fluctuations in your control.”

“No way…” Wyn gaped. “There’s no way. That’d mean you need to create 10 different spells to cast a single spell. It’s one thing to modify an existing spell, but creating an entirely new spell… creating a single spell is most magus’ lifetime work!”

“Right, but these spells are extremely simple. Perhaps the reason it's so hard for your maguses to create spells is because they’re trying to brute force every step into one.”

Wyn’s mouth gaped open and closed, like a fish trying to breathe, but she couldn’t come up with a retort. She withdrew into herself. She sat cross legged, her hands in her lap. Her eyes were closed, concentrating. Creating a new spell wasn’t easy, typically.

But a fireball was a basic spell, one she already knew all the steps for. She could already imbue her mana into the air, igniting it into flame. But for them to become a new spell, she had to give each step their own name, their own definition.

Magus was right. A simple, single step spell wasn’t hard to make at all. Already, she could create a spark in the air. If a spark was in the air, she could make it grow into a fireball. And once the fireball was in the air, she could launch it. The tricky part was imbuing spellcasting into a spell.

“Come, we’ve ventured far enough. We should return to the guild.” Magus shook Wyn’s shoulder. It was in one ear, out the other. Over and over, she tried to integrate her spells together, but it wasn’t working.

“Wyn, we should really get a move on. We also should report this strange creature to the guild as well.”

“Mhmm. Yeah, I’ll be right there.” She mindlessly muttered. Wyn felt as though she had traveled back in time. Back before magic was a weight of expectations on her shoulder. Back before magic was more than just magic. Back when casting even just a spark was an achievement to be proud of. Back when her father—

Wyn stood up. “Let’s go back.”