“What’s a bag of holding?” Philip asked, looking curiously at Anika.

  “It’s a magic bag that fits way more on the inside than it looks like it can from the outside.” Anika replied, figuring that describing it as an extradimensional space housed within a bag like she would in D&D may not be the best way to communicate the concept to someone like Philip.

  “Yes, that is effectively what my satchel is.” Leka answered the original question, Philip having beaten her to asking for a definition. “We have a variety of ways to create spatial pockets, both through applications of Space magic as well as magical item crafting. This satchel has three separate spatial pockets.”

  Leka opened the bag to show Anika. The main bag was divided into two large compartments, and the front had a small pocket that was covered by the flap of the satchel when it was closed. With the two larger compartments, there was a static-like haze obscuring vision into the pocket itself. With the smaller exterior pocket, there was no visible gap that Anika could see.

  “How does it work? How do you find items you put in there without emptying everything?” Anika had never actually stopped to consider the logistics of pulling items out of a small extra dimensional portal before, as the actual mechanics of getting the item you want from a giant space never seemed to be important for game mechanics to cover.

  “There are different types of spatial pocket enchantments. Some are just like a big bag you have to dump out all at once. That is the type of enchantment I have on the two main pockets. It’s cheaper, and when you are just harvesting from a dungeon, you don’t need to sort things out. I have one pocket for monster and animal products and one for plant products, just to make it easier to sort later. The front pocket has a more expensive enchantment that integrates Aether and Spatial magic. For that, you think about the item you want as you put your hand in the bag, and it fetches that item. The front pocket holds smaller items and has a smaller storage capacity due to the advanced skill required to create it.” Leka put her hand in the front pocket and pulled out a small bottle filled with a shimmering, prismatic liquid to demonstrate.

  “Okay, that is pretty cool!” Anika was tempted to find out more information on the magical crafting Leka mentioned – what types of items it encompassed, how the system worked, whether she could learn it – there were so many mechanics to consider, but decided there may be a better time to pepper someone with crafting questions. She didn’t usually go for the main crafter kind of role in games, but usually there were crafting skills that were very beneficial to maximizing effectiveness in combat, so maybe there were similar skills here she could explore. The bottle Leka held also had potential – it was clearly some kind of potion - and she couldn’t resist asking about it.

  “What’s in the bottle? Can I see it?” Anika held out a hand, hoping Leka would let her handle it so she could inspect it further.

  Leka handed the bottle to Anika. Lily immediately stretched her little webbed feet up her leg, like a cat asking to be picked up, and tried to look at the bottle, “Ooo I wanna see too!"

  Anika took the bottle and held it out where Lily could see it as well, inspecting it while Leka answered her question.

  “This is a Camouflage Potion. It’s one of the ways we, as trainers, can monitor our trainees without interfering.”

  “How does it work? It doesn’t make you invisible, does it?” Anika figured if it was an invisibility potion, they would just call it that, so she was curious about how it worked if it didn’t actually make them invisible. She had never seen Leka lurking nearby, but at the same time, she hadn’t thought to look, not knowing that something like this existed, so perhaps full invisibility wasn’t necessary.

  “The Camouflage Potion is a relatively inexpensive potion that creates an aura that distorts light and reflects colors in the surrounding area. It actually mimics an ability you will get from your mixed Water and Light magic. The Potion is not as powerful as your Obscuring Mists ability will be, as it only works well on stationary targets, and it doesn’t work well when wearing armor. It also works best when the colors of the person or what the person is wearing is near what they are trying to camouflage into.”

  Anika looked down at the Degeta woman, once again noting her dark tan skin. She hadn’t actually paid much attention to what Leka was wearing before, but now noted that she was wearing regular clothing in shades of green and brown suspiciously close to the color of the trees they had been fighting around. The green was similar to the grasses of the dungeon’s meadows, and even her red hair was the color of the flowers in the meadow. She could have easily followed them between stands of trees and watched, up close and personal, blending into the background by standing still.

  “Ah, that’s how we didn’t notice you around.” Anika said, raising the potion bottle closer to her face, admiring the rainbow liquid as it reflected light from all around, before handing the bottle back to Leka.

  “I’m curious how much better the ability I get will be… Obscuring Mists, you said?”

  “You will learn it at level 13. It will allow you to shroud yourself and your allies. As you increase in levels, it allows you to shroud a larger area and has increasing effectiveness. At higher levels, it is effectively invisibility.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty cool.” How many times had Anika, as an introvert, wished she could just turn invisible and not have to talk to people. She intended to ‘practice’ that skill a lot.

  “Alright,” Leka clapped her hands, having already placed the potion back in her satchel. “Enough chatter for now, we are going to head back.

  “Don’t we have more monsters to kill?” Philip asked.

  Anika was interested in gaining more experience, but she also felt like she needed more information. She had a million questions compared to Philip and was determined to learn everything she could. Her survival as a hero depended on it. She couldn’t just say no to helping people, even if she hadn’t been given a choice when being summoned here, and besides, who could resist magic powers? Even if it required the kind of strenuous physical activity she avoided quite effectively back on Earth, she was willing to push some boundaries.. It was different when magic was on the table. Magic changed everything.

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  Anika nodded along with Philip’s question, “Right, don’t we have to defeat the whole dungeon? I know you said there isn’t a dungeon boss here, but isn’t there some… objective or other thing we need to complete? Or something…?” she left the question hanging, as silence stretched for a few seconds before Leka spoke again.

  “Well, there are many types of dungeons, but none prevent you from leaving at any time. You will be able to return to this dungeon in the future, as well as beginning to explore the other dungeons in the area,” Leka answered. “The goal for today, however, was to get you acquainted with basic dungeon structure on our world and the basic systems you will gain access to when entering these zones. While we do not know a lot about other worlds, but our understanding is that our dungeons and magic systems work differently than you may be used to.”

  “Or we aren’t used to anything at all,” Anika muttered.

  “Right. In your case, Anika, this is all a new experience. But there is still more to introduce you to, and we at the temple generally prefer to take our meals early and spend the evenings in quiet studies, practice, or contemplation. That means there is still much to do at the temple before the evening meal so that you can make the most use of your time in the evening.”

  Anika was torn, as part of her was interested in learning more about magic, crafting, dungeons, and the world in general - but, the other part of her was already physically and mentally exhausted by the toll of the day. She was realizing this more and more as the adrenaline of battle was wearing off. Thinking of spending the rest of the evening in studies or practice did not fill her with joy when she could feel the fatigue setting in. She may be a nerd who loved school and subjects like math and science, but she also equally enjoyed rest. And games, of course, which is how she normally spent her evenings. She really hoped that there was some kind of leisure activity in this world that she could enjoy, or she may go insane before she hit level 10.

  “I feel like I’ve already learned a lot today… but I guess there is still more to learn.” Anika conceded, stifling a yawn brought on by the realization of her exhaustion.

  “You need to learn how to use your magic!” Lily chimed in.

  “I thought we did that earlier. I’ve cast Splash a lot today.” Anika replied, slightly confused.

  “No, your other magic!” Lily sounded both excited an exasperated at once

  Anika thought back to her character sheet, remembering her early thoughts of magical water whips and such when reading the Abilities. She quickly mentally flipped on her character sheet and double checked the abilities.

  Manipulate Water: Control 1 cubic ft water. This amount scales with personal power, ability expertise, and level.

  Manipulate Light: Control 5 ft radius light brightness/dimness. Area of effect and potency scales with personal power, ability expertise, and level.

  She remembered thinking about those abilities when she first read them, but then she read about the spells and got distracted. Leka had mentioned them earlier today, but then moved on to instructing her in Splash. At the time, part of her thought that maybe the manipulation element was manifested solely in spells, but reading again they were clearly a separate ability she had. It seemed odd that there would be spells separate to an ability to manipulate the element directly – why would you need spells when you could just control water? It was like two magic systems in one. But maybe there were limitations to the Manipulate ability. Maybe Manipulate couldn’t actually do damage and was more of a utility?

  “Oh, right, I’m supposed to be able to ‘manipulate’ water. And light.” Anika replied, realizing Leka was looking at her as if she had said something and she hadn’t responded, which was entirely possible given her distraction by her own internal thoughts. And checking her character sheet.

  “So, you’ll be teaching me more about how that works when we get back to the temple?” Anika looked at Leka, trying not to wince at the stare she was getting, the kind of exasperated stare a teacher would give a student who had been napping in class.

  “Manipulating is easy!” Philip interjected, and Anika watched as a chunk of dirt rose from the ground in front of her and started to spin around like a mini tornado.

  “Oooo!” Lily excitedly watched the spinning cyclone, batting at it like a cat playing with a new toy. The cyclone, in response, started circling around Lily, the dirt maintaining a tight rotation with no dust flying off it like you might see in an actual tornado. Lily spun around to follow its movements. Philip laughed as he watched Lily play with his creation.

  “As Philip is demonstrating, there are many ways to manipulate the elements. Not all find it as easy as Philip, however.” Leka nodded, seeming satisfied with Philip’s manipulation of his element.

  “How hard can it be? Shouldn’t magic be the same for everyone?” Anika wondered.

  “Different people have varying levels of aptitude towards magic, and many have difficulties applying their will to the shaping of their power. Using elemental abilities takes patience, diligence, and practice. Using spells is generally easy, as there is a predetermined shape to the magic that simply needs to be engaged. Your personal capabilities will still shape the success of spells to some degree by allowing them to grow stronger and faster as well as allowing the wielder to shape them beyond their default form. Any spell can then, in turn, become far more powerful and adaptable in those who have a higher innate skill and who are more dedicated to their practice. In a word, discipline.”

  “Ah, so a spell is like running a program someone else wrote, but abilities allow you to write custom programs! I thought it was weird that there were both spells and abilities, as it seems like you should just be able to do the spell with the ability, but if some people have trouble with the mechanics, that makes sense.”

  Leka gave Anika a confused look at her use of ‘programs’ to explain the magic system, but quickly pushed forward with her explanations. “There are some theories that casting spells was an evolutionary necessity for those with lower magical ability who couldn’t defend themselves with raw manipulation of elements alone. Of course, no one truly knows how these magical systems came into being, except, perhaps, the Gods. That said, you were chosen to come to this world for your high magical potential, so you will hopefully find magical manipulation easy, like Philip.”

  Philip was continuing to play with Lily, the mini cyclone had risen into the air to become a whirling twister of sand and dirt, reminiscent of an earth elemental from lore that dashed and darted about two or three feet in the air. Lily leapt after it like a child trying to catch a butterfly. Philip had a huge grin on his face as he tracked the swirling sands with his eyes and occasionally twitched his fingers in sync with the movement of the magic. Epona had joined the fray from her spot on the ground, creating pockets of air that springboarded Lily higher in the air when she jumped, causing Philip to quickly move his earthen creation away from Lily to keep it from her grasp. Lily chirped and trilled in delight as she bounded through the meadow on her personal springboard. Anika couldn’t help but smile at the scene, quickly deciding that elemental manipulation was a skill she would practice quite a lot to join them in the game.

  Leka clapped her hands twice. “Philip, Lily, enough of that, it’s time to head back to the temple. Anika and I have an appointment in the water training room!”