What that boils down to right now is that I collect information and give it to the Commander. He then makes tactical and strategic decisions which he gives to Bethany to relay to the front line leaders. And the great thing - the thing where magic gives us a strong advantage - is that Bethany can communicate directly with any designated leader on the battlefield.
So I don’t even need to be near her to pass information. I can roam the battlefield as a scout and tell her what I see. She tells the Commander and then the Commander’s orders go through her to all of us down here on the sharp end of the stick. Honestly, it’s better than radio back on earth. Bethany can’t be jammed.
She is, however, our weak spot. If she gets knocked out, a lot of things will go wrong. So we have two whole squads dedicated to protecting her. We also have to train for the situation where she does get knocked out anyhow. Just in case.
They know about Murphy’s Law here as well. Although they call it Azazel’s Caveat.
Excerpt from Saki's journal
Symbols have meaning. That's what scripts are. A collection of symbols which have meaning. Individually and collectively. Logographic, syllabic, phonetic, whatever. There are a lot of ways to classify types of symbol sets but they all serve the basic function of communication.
I have studied languages - written language in particular - my whole life. I was considered an expert in the old world, despite my youth. I’m already learning the written languages of this world.
I think that's why I am blessed with the affinities of an Enchantress. Enchantments and Wards are types of Seals, which are symbolic representations of spells.
How well a Seal works depends on how precisely the symbols are defined and how they are combined. More symbols means more precision. More languages means more precise ways to combine symbols. There is a cost to knowing more, but I know how to pay that cost. It doesn't scare me.
I am gaining proficiency in casting spells, but I am limited to sign language. To one symbol set. Today I will begin studying Seals. I will learn how to bring my extensive knowledge of dozens of symbol sets into play. I will be the greatest Enchantress this world has ever known.
Do I sound arrogant?
That's because I am. Proud, arrogant, strong, willful, Saki.
“I just don’t get it,” the girl complains. “You’ve got this huge space for your Hoard, but I can barely make a bottomless bag that holds more than a regular bag.”
The dragon laughs, “You need to learn some patience.”
“Patience! Ha! I’ll have you know that I’m the most patient human in … in … this entire room.”
“You’re the only human in this room. Nothing to brag about there. Puny things, humans.”
“Who you calling puny? You … you … big … annoying … thing … Can you pour me some more of that wine?”
It seems that someone has been becoming acquainted with the demon known as alcohol.
“My point is that you will learn how to do these things in time. You’ve only been learning magic for what, three weeks? It takes study and practice. So you need patience. And you’ve had enough wine for now.”
“Three and …” the girl pauses to count on her fingers “... a half weeks. Ha! See? A long … ish time. And you’ve got, like, twenty-six barrels of wine over there.”
“The point of calling it a Hoard is that you hoard things. Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to see my old buddy the dragon. Haven’t you been missing me?”
“Not in the least. You don’t even know my name.”
“You never told me. My name is Kari. They call me the Tiny Giant! Because I’m small … ish. And yet also big!”
“Very well, Kari. My name is Alonso. And I would like to point out that I am a loner.”
“Alooonsssoooo… Not what I was expecting in a dragon name to be honest. And how can you appreciate being alone if you never spend any time with others? Gotta have that oppositional polarity thing … contrast! You gotta have contrast.”
The dragon gives a deep heartfelt sigh. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a quest or a trial or something?”
“A Trial. I’ll get to it. They don’t go away if you ignore them. I’ve tried. I hadda talk to you because I need some tips on being a Dragon. Capital D - Dragon, that is. Now that I am one.”
“How did you get to be a Dragon?”
“By right of conquest. And also by … that mental rule-following thing … logic. That’s it! By right of logic!”
“I can’t wait to hear this one…” the dragon mutters to himself. “Okay, I’m listening. Explain!”
“Well, you see, dragons are the strongest and greatest of all creatures anywhere.”
“Hmmm. I agree.” The dragon puffs out his chest proudly.
“Last time I was here, I kicked your ass!”
“You punched me in the nose, actually. Twice.”
“Nonethe … more? No. That’s not it. Oh! Nonetheless! I defeated you in a righteous battle.”
“You broke into my house and assaulted me for no reason whatsoever! How is that righteous?”
“Can you just listen? I swear, it’s like you feel you have to make a comment on every single word I say. It’s hard to make a logical … thingy … with all of these interruptions.”
“Okay. Where was I? Lessee … dragons greatest … kicked dragon’s ass … Oh! That’s where I was. QED! I must be a dragon! Because of the law of dragons are greatest says only a dragon can pummel a dragon in such a decisive way as I pummeled you!” Kari gives a big smile upon delivering the conclusion to the promised proof.
“Oh dear. Well I’m not a logician so I will provisionally accept your claim. Especially if it will make you go away sooner. I proclaim you to be an Honorary Dragon.”
“Woohooo! Rarrr! I’m a Hhhonorable Dragon! But I’m not leaving yet. Not before I get my Dragon tits. I mean tips. Oooops! That was one of them whatchacallem slips.”
“All right. I’ll give you some Dragon tips. Rrhem! Tip number one: dragons are fundamentally lazy.”
“I can believe that. You haven’t moved since I met you,” mutters Kari.
“Dragon tip number two: there can only ever be one Dragon in a room. Capital D - Dragon, that is.”
“But…”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“No buts. Shut up and listen. Dragon tip number three: It’s usually not necessary to figure out who the capital D - Dragon is. Fighting takes a lot of energy, which violates tip one, and most of the time it just doesn’t matter.”
“Okaaayyy…”
“Dragon tit number four… Oh crap! Now I’m doing it. Rrhemm! Dragon TIP number four: You don’t have to hoard everything. A sample of everything, sure. Unusual things, collections of things, unique things, interesting things - all fair game. Knowledge can be hoarded because you can share it and still keep it, people come looking for it, and will trade other hoardable stuff for it.”
“Well…”
“Shush. And my final, most ultra-important tip: Don’t hoard anything that is so dangerous people will hunt you down and kill you for it. Especially anything meant for the Gods, used by the Gods, claimed by the Gods, or - critical point - designed specifically to kill a God. Not worth it. That kind of stuff turns you into a dead dragon - big D or little d - ultra-quick.”
“........”
“You may now speak.”
“Alonso, you’re the best! I’ll take your advice to heart, believe me.”
“No you won’t. You’ll ignore everything I said.”
“You know me so well.”
“You can leave now.”
“Sure thing Alonso old buddy. I’ll be back to visit!” Kari turns to leave before the dragon can protest the idea of further socialization.
Then she turns back, “Uh... You forgot to teach me how to make an extra-di-men-shun-uhl space.”
“A what now?”
“A big space inside a little space. Like your cave here.”
“I never intended to teach you…”
“Oh, COME! ON! Just give in already. I’m tired of talking, the wine is wearing off, my head hurts and I got stuff to do.”
###
Kari slips the book into her not-quite-bottomless-yet back-pack and slings it over her shoulder before thundering down the stairs. Now that she has something good to read she wants to get the Trial over with and get a cup of tea.
Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, she faces a simple wooden door. Laying her hand on the handle, she hears, “State your name for …”
“Yeah. Yeah. Karina Saraiva. Whaddaya got? Let’s go!” she exclaims, pulling the door open.
“In this, your third Trial, you must find that which is lost.”
“Great. Got it. See ya!” she says, and runs through the door.
Into a world of wonder!
Not! It’s actually a path leading to the entry of a house in a residential neighborhood. The door slams behind her and she turns to see it disappear with a puff of purple mist.
Turning back around, she finds herself confronted by a fox … y looking woman. She is taller than Kari, slender, with orange red hair and sharp features. Her attire is similar to what the maids at the castle wear for work. Kari is stunned speechless for a moment as she stares at the fox ears on the top of the woman’s head and the fluffy fox tail sticking out from her skirt in the back.
“Are you the baby-sitter?”
“......”
“Hello! Are you the baby-sitter the agency sent over? Come in. Quickly! I have to get to work.” The woman turns and leads the way into the house. Kari, still entranced by the fluffy fox tail flicking back and forth in front of her, follows wordlessly.
“Okay. I’ll only be gone for about four hours. Ember just had lunch and has laid down to take her nap. She’ll be up again in about twenty minutes. She’s a handful so you have to keep her occupied or she’ll get into trouble.” The foxy lady rushes forward with her instructions. “There’s food in the kitchen. Ember’s snack is already prepared on the plate by the stove. Chicken and chips. There’s other food in the kitchen. Help yourself if you’re hungry.”
With that the woman runs out the door, leaving Kari feeling like she’d been pounded soundly with a pillow. Whatever that means. She moves around the house quickly, finding the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom where a little fox-girl is sleeping on a small bed.
“Find that which is lost,” she mumbles to herself, giving a desultory glance into the corners and opening a few cupboard doors to see what’s inside. “Hope I’m going to get a few more clues…”
With nothing better to do, Kari goes into the kitchen and makes some tea. Before long, she hears a rustling from the bedroom and looks up to see a pair of bright dark eyes looking at her from either side of a rather sharp nose.
“Who’re you?” asks the owner of the eyes, who you may have guessed is the little girl Ember.
“I’m Kari,” replies Kari.
“Why are you here?”
“Your mother had to go to work. I’m the baby-sitter.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Not a baby? Then what are you?”
“I’m a girl.”
“Okay. I’m the girl-sitter. Which works out two ways, because I’m a girl who is sitting and you’re a girl who is being sitted … upon.”
“When’s Mama coming back?”
“She said four hours.”
“Okay.” And the girl goes back into her room. Kari picks up her cup of tea. The front door slams. Kari drops her tea and rushes to the front of the house just in time to see a little fox tail running down the street. With a curse, Kari grabs her back-pack and gives chase.
Ember quickly reaches the corner and turns out of Kari’s sight. Putting on a burst of speed, Kari slides around the corner a few seconds later, narrowly missing a horse trudging down the lane pulling a wooden cart.
Kari curses again and races down the road. Very quickly, she comes to a busy market. There are people everywhere. Fox people, bear people, cat people, rabbit people: all with the ears and tail to match. It’s like a fuzzy wonderland. But there’s no little fox girl.
Kari rushes around frantically, but with no success in her search. Finally, after the thirteenth time someone shouts at her, she draws up short and tries to catch her breath. “Okay. Find that which is lost. I had it once already, doesn’t that count?” she mumbles to herself. “Although I don’t suppose she was lost the first time I found her.”
Someone bumps into her, a giant bear-man, reminding her that she’s standing in the middle of a busy walkway. Stepping in between a stall selling pickled vegetables and a stall selling suspicious-looking elixirs in glass bottles, she closes her eyes and tries to remember.
“Okay, so I do my hands like this and say these words … mumble mumble mumble mumble… Right! That’s it! Okay, here goes!” Making odd hand gestures and chanting words in a strange language, Kari makes magic happen. Kind of.
A spark and fizzle sort of magic that doesn’t seem to achieve any result. “Dammit! I could have sworn… Maybe it was … mumble mumble mumble.” A few seconds later, she tries again. And again. And again. Finally on the fifth try something happens. A small holographic weathervane pops into existence over Kari’s outstretched hands. It’s shaped like a tiny running fox dressed in a calico dress. Spin, spin, spin, slow, stop, reverse, stop.
The pointy nose of the fox is pointing off to Kari’s left. She looks around and then heads that direction. Slowly so as not to lose control of the magic. Very soon she comes to the far edge of the market and stops in front of a bakery with a selection of small fruit turnovers on display in the window.
Just in time to hear a crash and a bang as the back door of the bakery slams open and shut. A string of curses follows just as Kari’s magical pointer gives a jerk and reorients and swings to the right as if following the progress of someone running down the back alley on the other side of the bakery. Kari takes off to follow.
Variations on this sequence of events are repeated time and time again as the afternoon goes on. Ember, who really does seem to be quite the handful, visiting different people and establishments and then running off before Kari can catch up. As the sun starts to go down, Kari begins to worry. The streets around her are starting to take on the characteristics common to the wrong side of town.
At last, Kari finds herself in front of the door to a pub. A door with a couple of rough old men playing checkers to one side and a large unfriendly woman leaning against the door frame. The magic fox pointer points right to the door. Kari climbs the two steps and goes to enter.
“No kids allowed,” the woman says.
“I’m not a kid. And I’m looking for a kid,” says Kari. “She’s inside here.”
Kari expected a denial. Typical story-line at this point being a kidnapping and the establishment in front of her being a front for a ring of slavers.
What she got instead was a chuckle. “Oh you poor thing. You must be Ember’s baby-sitter.”
“Girl-sitter,” Kari corrected absently. “Is she inside?”
“Yeah. She ends up here every day sooner or later. We hold her until someone shows up. Go on in.”
Kari enters to find exactly what she expected to see. A run-down, slightly grimy, pub. There’s a few folks with their nose in pints at the bar and a scattering of folks at tables. There’s a grim no-nonsense looking man behind the bar and a portly woman running the tables taking orders and delivering dishes of food and cups of whatever.
In the farthest back corner is a table with six disreputable characters. That includes Ember who is staring intently at the cards tightly held in her young fist. “I’ll see your three and raise you two,” she says, reaching down to slide five pieces of candy forward into the pot.
“Too rich for my blood,” says the dog-eared man to her right while three others also throw in their cards.
The one woman still holding cards slides two more candies into the center of the table. “Call.”
Ember lays her cards down to a succession of groans as the final player throws her cards down in disgust. “How the hell do you do that?”
“Keep playing, Helen. Eventually you’ll figure it out,” the young fox-girl says haughtily. Looking up, she spots Kari standing in the center of the taproom. “Looks like I gotta go. I’d say I’m sorry for taking all your candy and leaving, but …”
“But you’re not. We know.”
Combining the candies in the pot with the pile of candies in front of her, Ember pulls open the flap of a large pocket in her dress and sweeps it all in. Without saying a word, she takes hold of Kari’s hand and leads her away.
###
Kari once again stands in front of Ember’s house. “It’s probably best if we don’t mention this to my mother.”
“Agreed. I just took you for a walk.”
“That’s exactly what I remember happening.” Ember steps into the house and as Kari goes to follow she disappears in a shower of white sparks.