An Unbound Soul

Lessons over, I returned to the village in a hurry, without even waiting for Henry's weekly trip. Lord Reid had wanted to hire me as a consultant type person for his new research institute, which I didn't categorically decline, but I did have other plans which meant I didn't want to spend the bulk of my time there. Besides, I was seven; not an age at which I should be working in either world. Also not an age I was going to be for much longer; my birthday was in a few days. I'd been paid a couple more gold for my efforts, with more promised if the whole research institute attempt took off. That meant that a visit to the Emerald Nest was suddenly on my list of things to do, although it was going to have to wait until after the tournament.

Birthdays were celebrated in this world with a family meal, or party for the younger kids. Which I guess I was, technically, however hard it was getting to remember that... Presents weren't a thing, or else our village was too poor to afford them. This time I brought back some interesting ingredients from Dawnhold that we didn't normally have in our village, so we should get an interesting meal. Thanks to a bit of good timing with the market, I was even able to bring back some kobold. Trying to get dad to try it after my orc prank was going to be tough, but if I failed, it was only his loss.

Before that, I took a set of fire and ice crystals over to Kari, to explain my idea of using them to bypass affinity restrictions. She grinned suspiciously, then waved a hand over an ice crystal, pulling off a chunk of mana, forming icicles and launching them into the ground. So, theory instantly confirmed then. Now, why couldn't I do that? It looked like I needed more skill levels.

Kari continued to grin at me, obviously picking up on how impressed I was. "I'm afraid I cheated a bit there. That's not a new idea, and it's something I learnt how to do a long time ago. The problem is one of practicality. How do you intend to carry these crystals around in a way in which you can freely access their mana but don't freeze or burn yourself? Anything that contains the heat of a fire crystal also necessarily contains its mana. The other varieties have the same problem."

That was certainly true of bought crystals, but my own could be held in bare hands. Maybe that was why she had succeeded where I had failed, though; my crystals might not have enough oomph to make use of. I dug out my own handmade ice crystal. "Can you do the same thing with this one?"

Kari focused for a bit and then frowned. "No, there's not enough mana there. Maybe with a higher level of control, you could hold and compress it, but I can't get enough of it to form ice. And even if you did have the control for it, it would be too slow to use."

Okay, so my handmade low-level crystals traded one problem for another. When not in use for heating the house, fire crystals were stored in a dungeon stone box, which safely contained their mana. Or possibly prevented raw mana from reaching them in the first place. Could I make some sort of device that restricted the flow of mana into a crystal, but let me pump it full on demand? As long as I was careful to pull out all the produced fire mana, it wouldn't actually heat up. Simplest case would just be a box with a lid, pretty much like what we already used but on a smaller scale. How could I access that in a convenient way? Or I could store the crystal in a pair of rotatable dungeon stone half shells, which would make it easier to mount onto a gauntlet or something. Or pair up two crystals of opposing affinities and hope they canceled out, or mount a fire crystal in something enchanted with fire resistance. Hmm... Lots of ideas. I was sure there was potential there. I'd have to think on it. What skill was used for working dungeon stone, anyway? Was I missing a masonry craft skill? I must be, given that Dawnhold had stone houses.

That left enchantment. I used some of my collected dire wolf body parts to place sharpness enchantments on Dad's tools, and unlike my armour, I could immediately see the mana leaking out. I couldn't tell how long it would last, but it was obviously going to be less than a year. Probably more like a few weeks. That was at least longer than the few days that stat items would last, but it was short enough that I didn't fancy trying to maintain it on the whole village. Was it really based only on material and size? I should have brought more steel ingots back with me to try some steel tools and see if that made a difference. I did at least get one benefit from the attempt.

ding

Skill [Basic Runecrafting] advanced to level 3

Richard was unable to use [Analysis] on the gem set into my ring; it would only pick up the ring as a complete object. It gave additional information on top of my [Appraisal], explicitly stating that it held rank two strength and comfort enchantments, but that wasn't exactly surprising news, given that it increased my strength and had resized itself to fit me.

Remous was better and was able to recognise it by sight, giving a name that I'd never heard before and had no idea how to translate. My best guess was that it was a ruby, but that was only because it was something I was familiar with on Earth that was the right colour. He said it was a rare and precious stone that could only be found deep in dungeons, but it could still have been a chunk of coloured glass for all I knew, given that glass seemed to be a completely unknown material around here. The setting was just as interesting; it wasn't the silver that I'd assumed. Again he gave a name I'd never heard before, and described it as magical silver, something only found in ingot form below floor fifty of high-level dungeons, where barely anyone was able to reach. My Earth fantasy knowledge had prepared me for that one; mythril! Probably. It could just as easily be titanium or something, but with the description of 'magical silver' I couldn't help but get a little excited.

Again I was foiled by the way everything came from dungeons. If I wanted to experiment with enchantment on possibly-rubies and possibly-mythril, I was either going to have to get a lot stronger, or else pay out a stack of money so large that would make the delvers' guild portal look like charity. If they would even sell it at all; given how small the supply sounded, it was quite possible that mythril wouldn't be for sale on open markets.

Actually, there was another possibility that was worth checking; maybe it was literally magical silver? I knew that steel could be manufactured from iron, despite both coming from the dungeon in ingot form in this world. Maybe the same applied to silver and magical silver. Take an ingot of silver and alloy it with... umm... mana? How would that even work? It wasn't as if I had any silver available, and it was too much of a long shot to go and blow a pile of money on some to experiment with, but if I ever had the opportunity, I'd have to try forcing a bunch of mana into some silver to see what happened.

I relayed the information about the tournament to Warren and Angus, but as expected, they had no interest. My parents and Kari were interested, but only in watching my performance. I wasn't entirely sure where the topic of spectators had ended up; I knew they weren't selling tickets or generally advertising, but would bringing in my own friends and family be allowed? Not that any of them could stay in Dawnhold for the whole thing; it was going to last a couple of weeks, which was far longer than any of them could take off work. Maybe they could make a day trip if I passed the round robin stage.

That was a big 'if'. Given that the receptionists were betting on how quickly I'd sign up, I wonder if they were betting on how far I'd get? I had no idea how to rate my chances myself. I knew my skills were good for my level, both in quality thanks to [Determined Progressor] and in quantity thanks to [Researcher] and [Jack of All Trades], but that was really the only advantage I had. My level was low, and I knew my stats were low compared to the average rank two delver. They were older, with the experience advantage that entailed. I wouldn't even be able to use my usual staff and ring, or my new bracelet, being restricted to training weapons and standard armour only.

And so my birthday came around. I helped out Mum with preparation, while her maxed out [Basic Cooking] skill fed her all the knowledge she needed on how to deal with the new ingredients. At least until the point she doubled over and threw up over the floor, with no warning. Dad was out in the fields, and I immediately panicked. Had I brought over something poisonous, thinking it was edible? "Hang on, I'll get you to Richard!"

She waved me away. "It's okay. I'm okay. I was hoping I was over this, but alas not. It was the same with you. It just hits me out of nowhere."

Huh? The same with me? Wait, don't tell me... "Morning sickness?"

Mum just smiled and rubbed her belly without saying anything. I beamed back at her; it looked like I had a birthday present after all, albeit one I'd need to wait for. I also had a sizeable patch of vomit to deal with... "Go and rest in bed for a bit. I'll clean up."

"No, I'll be fine in a moment. Just let me sit down."

I helped her over to a chair and started to wash the floor. As the initial surprise and excitement faded, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of worry, although I wasn't entirely sure why. I wondered how they'd cope with a normal kid after the experience of raising me? Hopefully, they'll get someone a little easier than Cluma. Heck, maybe they'll get another reincarnated person. It wasn't as if I had any idea how I'd ended up here, and even Erryn claimed to be equally at a loss. Maybe it was Mum and Dad who were special in some way. We'd need to wait awhile to find out; she wasn't showing at all. Not that she was wearing a tight dress, but there wasn't much space here and we all slept in the same room, which led to modesty taking a back seat to practicality.

"So, when are you due?" I asked.

"Mid-winter sometime."

"Are you hoping for a boy or a girl? Another me, a Cluma, or something in between?"

Mum laughed, a long and pure sound. "I'll take what I'm given, but if we get a Cluma, I'll be sending you into a dungeon to bring out one of those monsters that use magic to send their prey to sleep."

That sounded dangerous, but as much as I knew she was joking, it did raise another question. Could I bring living monsters out of a dungeon? I knew I could bring out their corpses, so what difference would it make if they were alive? Erryn had magicked up an orc on the surface, so it wasn't as if they couldn't exist there at all. But while it was an interesting question, it was one I didn't feel the need to experiment with. Trying to pull up monsters into the middle of Dawnhold was sure to get me into trouble, if nothing else.

Mum recovered, and we finished preparations for our meal. Dad returned from the fields, and I got to watch the sight of Mum feeding him kobold while insisting he keep his eyes shut. He obviously enjoyed it, and equally obviously had no idea what it was. Then he opened his eyes, looked down at his plate and shrieked like a little girl. Yup, today had been a good birthday.