1.31 Travelling and Tunnelling
Walking a hundred miles, as it turned out, was exceptionally boring. Vicktor quickly developed several ways to ease the tedium. They walked along no obvious path, stepping over roots and stones. The trees were tall and old enough to reduce the underbrush significantly. The occasional fallen tree allowed for patches of sunlight to grow.
Victor occasionally used his mage-sight to study his surroundings and the soil beneath him. Most of the birds and squirrels were mundane, but every so often he would notice one that glowed red, a remarkable beast.
"Hey Master Tosk, how did that squirrel become a remarkable beast? I understand that they can pass their magic down to their children, but then why aren't all beasts magical? Why are there still simple beasts?"
"This isn't taught in the Academy except for certain specific plant mages or breeders of beasts. It's a similar reason to why beastkin exist at all. Magic is mutative, especially when uncontrolled by a sentient mind, it tends to affect the possibility inherent in the soul of all living beings." He stepped over some large roots and continued.
"The soul yearns and the body follows in its wake. Some beastkin variants have emerged independently numerous times, all able to interbreed with all of humanity. The soul of a beastkin is only different in how it sees itself. Perhaps if a group of them decided to isolate themselves for tens of thousands of years, there might be some genetic drift, but that is unlikely."
"Oh... so why are there still simple beasts? Some of these seem so non-magical that they might never have had a magical ancestor. Even all members of humanity have some trace of magic in and around them"
"Well the first and most obvious is that humanity has more complex social systems. You might still date the neighbor's kid even if he has green scales instead of pubes?" Then Master Tosk pointed to his own face. "I'm one such case, my mom, and dad are both mundane humans. You are similar, no? Mundane born from beastkin parents?"
"I guess so?" Vicktor didn't like talking about his parents.
"Its a bit more complicated, but that's for a different day. Being a green scaly weirdo hasn't stopped me having kids of my own, but that was a long time ago to some."
"Ahhh, okay... can we talk about what Master Zert told me?"
"Later. When it's time." Master Tosk made a long sigh.
Vicktor was too shy to continue his questioning. Master Tosk didn't seem the sort to talk unless he was asked a specific question, so Vicktor fell back to listen to Nora and Alar talk about the forest tactics they had been taught. He was in a much better mood to listen today.
They stopped for lunch at the top of a windswept crag, in the distance and a little to the south there was a part of the forest that seemed to grow taller than its surroundings. It was hard to tell exactly by how much.
Vicktor grabbed a piece of jerky and ate while he practiced stretching his mage ruakh. Now that he knew he had a second one, it would be much easier to increase his mana capacity.
"Are we going in there?" Nora pointed at the large trees before using her sharp canines to rip apart a strip of jerked auroch.
"Our destination is in there, but there's a reason we are going a little bit out of the normal way first."
"What's the reason, Master?" Alar asked, still pecking at his own jerky.
"Just a few tests for all of us. Some for you three, some for me, and a few for us as a group." Master Tosk said, looking intently at something Vicktor couldn't see. He switched on his mage sight, but saw nothing distinct except for a handful of trees dotted the landscape emitted mostly reds, a few oranges and one or two yellows. He tried to look at the nearest one, but it was easily a mile away.
"What are those trees? Why do they have higher than ambient mana?" Vicktor asked, causing Nora and Alar to flick theirs on too.
He tried to avoid looking into their eyes, but the perfect voids in his fellow apprentices' eye sockets caught his attention for a moment before he looked back over. Master Tosk's eyes were unchanged, the slit yellow eyes looked normal in the noonday light.
The strain on his mind was beginning to take its toll, pressure in his skull built. With a thought, the vibrant double-sight returned to normal. He was getting somewhat better at holding both in his mind at the same time.
"Alive as most plants are, sentient as most plants too. Anything green, blue, indigo, or violet is sentient enough to have a conversation with or at least understand your words."
Master Tosk sighed and turned fully to the three apprentices.
"Please do not have conversations with sapient beasts, animate objects or intelligent plants unless you are their level of power or higher."
"That bad? Even just a tree?" Nora asked.
"A tree that has overwhelming power over everything between its canopy and roots. It's not common, but it does happen and they tend to have consumed magical beasts to get that strong. There are a few intentionally created ones with inscriptions, but that is for high tier plant mages."
"Like Master Wilk? Isn't she building some kind of city tree?" Alar asked with wonder in his eyes.
"She is, although that stupid sapling hasn't even chosen a name yet. I do plan on inviting all my former students to the grand opening, new cities are very rare after all. Master Wilk spent a hundred years creating a new species and it's been three hundred years of caring for that sapling. Who knows how much longer it'll need."
"Can we go?" Alar asked, with even more wonder.
"I'll keep an eye out, not quite sure if she's forgiven me yet, her materials are quite impressive though. You've seen some at Princep Talia's workshop, and more than likely you'll be able to hold some soon enough."
Alar was about to ask more questions, but Master Tosk put up a scaled hand. "Later, we should get going. Alar fly low around and see if you can find a stairway down the crag within a thousand feet."
"Yes Master." Alar took to the skies, first going to their left. He didn't go more than a few hundred feet up in the air.
"Nora, figure out generally where we are going to end up with four more hours of walking.
"Yes Master." She pulled her bow off her shoulder and began to look in various directions with the rangefinder that Princep Talia had given her.
"Vicktor, let's see what you can do."
"Yes Master. But how?"
"There is no path down miles in either direction. There's an open contract to build a way down for wagons here. The builders guild normally wouldn't spare the resources on such, there's already a way down five miles to the right, but a noble found out about an interesting series of caves that he wants to explore. Saving him half a day's travel in each direction is worth something." Master Tosk said.
"How much?" Vicktor asked.
"About double your hazard pay for this little adventure. You aren't allowed to claim construction of this by the way. The four of us will get a 'finders fee', since you aren't a unioned rector yet. Honestly it's basically nothing in the grand scheme of things. Especially since they would need to hire enough high tier Mage or Chosen to protect the workers. An earth Mage strong enough to make this alteration and strong enough to defend themselves is prohibitively expensive, even for nobles and their side hobbies. But your name positively entering a noble's head is a good thing. Even better if he finds something useful or interesting down there." Master Tosk said.
"Am I even strong enough to do this?" Vicktor walked towards the edge of the crag. He was just above the tops of the trees below. His senses also helped to judge the distance. "This is easily fifty feet."
"It's worth a shot." Master Tosk smiled at him. "I believe in you!"
Vicktor didn't really believe in himself at the moment, it was too much rock to move, even if he turned the rock to sand and let gravity do the work he would--
"This is going to be fucking loud isn't it" Vicktor said to Master Tosk.
"Absolutely, incredibly, ear splittingly loud'" the lizardkin responded in a raised voice with a smile.
"Any ear protection?" Vicktor asked. Master Tosk just raised up his green hands to his ears to cover them.
"Nora!" He yelled. Nora quickly sprinted away, reshouldering her bow and covering her delicate pointed ears.
Vicktor waited a minute, before placing the tip of his staff on the ground, jammed his shoulder into an ear and used his free hand to cover the other. He began to work, his staff began to glow slightly as he tried to pull in ambient mana to replenish his quickly depleting reserves.
At first, nothing happened, the crag stayed stationary, then after a full minute, a thirty by twenty foot wide section of rock began to slide downwards, grinding loudly against the fresh cut. The vibrations of the grinding stone reverberated through his bare feet and up into his core.
The hundred ton slab of rock continued to slide, until suddenly, the slab tipped upwards before falling onto the soil below with a giant smack. It was not as loud as he expected, but it felt like the whole crag shifted as the stone landed, thumping into the soil below.
"Just a few more!" Vicktor yelled, he could see Alar flying above them, Nora was barely visible in the trees hundreds of feet back, she seemed unhappy. Master Tosk just smiled and kept his hands on his ears.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Sections of rock began to fall into place, all progressively getting smaller and smaller until finally, a long thin passageway was carved into the crag. With a few flickers of intent, Vicktor melded the cut slabs to be one piece, before trimming jagged edges into sand and moving the sand around to seal any large gaps. It was utterly exhausting work. Vicktor doubted he would have been even able to do this a month ago. His progress hadn't been fast, but it had been progress.
Once the rumbling and sound of whipping sand was replaced with only the heaving breaths coming out of Vicktor's chest. Master Tosk began to clap.
"Good work lad! Good work!"
Alar flew down, landing on tired claws. He seemed almost or if not more tired than Vicktor did from Alar's extended flight.
"Nora!" Master Tosk called, surprising everyone, "how far can get in 4 hours?"
"Originally I would've said twelve miles or so, minus however long it took to find the staircase. So I think around there." Nora pointed at a general area in the distance.
Nora continued answering, "But with the two of them as tired as they are, we'll be lucky to get ten." Nora seemed a little disappointed.
"Congratulations, you have all passed your first practical tests. Nora, good estimation of distance and time. Alar, excellent job staying in the air for that long. Vicktor, excellent thinking, efficient in terms of cuts and making use of gravity. Your actual efficiency with the cuts was low though, you should have maybe fifteen percent of your ruakh full, but instead you are completely drained. We will chat about this later."
"Yes Master", the three said in unison.
After a few minutes of admiring the straight new crossing, they continued onwards towards the point Nora had called out.