Unbound Soul Side Story: Darren's Exciting Day (Patreon)

Tylor clambered onto a cart, and from there to the roof of his shack, tucking himself into a small overhang where beams crossed at the peak. His position was slightly obscured, but was still plainly visible from the road, which would normally make it a very poor choice for a game of hide and seek.

Games of hide and seek when Darren was seeking were not normal.

"Ninety-nine. One hundred! Here I come!" counted Darren, his eyes flitting around as he glanced at six distinct hiding places, regardless of what stood between him and them. The other kids in the village knew that hiding from Darren was impossible. The trick was to find hiding places that his young body couldn't reach, which was why three of those six were on top of shacks. Two others, younger and smaller than Darren, had squeezed themselves into tiny crevices that he hopefully wouldn't be able to follow into.

The sixth stretched the definition of a hiding place, perhaps deciding he'd prefer to play tag. An eight-year-old boy by the name of Glen, he was simply running away from the village at top speed. Darren focused on him first, because chasing him down later after he'd run further away would get too annoying. Besides, even Darren's mana sense wasn't unbounded, and there was a chance he'd get out of range.

Darren harboured some amount of envy for his brother, who could travel the length of a street with a single step, or teleport from one side of the world to the other. He was determined to gain those abilities for himself one day, but for now, he had to make do with creating a tailwind.

In fact, the competitor didn't even try to get out of range, coming to a stop not far outside the village. Darren caught up in no time, tapping the frozen child, who was staring up into the sky.

"Got you!" called Darren, adding, "What's wrong?" when the older boy didn't react.

Glen still said nothing, but silently pointed into the air.

"Wow. That's a big bird," commented Darren, before frowning. He couldn't pick it up with his mana sense at all, which meant it was far away. But if it was far enough away to be out of Darren's detection range and still looked that big... "Umm... It's scary big..." Darren added.

Without another word, both children turned and fled, but the 'bird' was faster, and soon entered Darren's range.

Darren stopped dead, turning to face the mass of mana he'd just picked up. Fire! Stronger than anything he'd ever felt! Stronger than his brother. Stronger than Richard. Stronger than the mage who came to pick up the harvest each year. But it was controlled. From the moment he felt it, he knew it wasn't a fire he needed to fear. It wouldn't burn him. It was a fire that was there to protect.

"Why did you stop? Come on, it's getting closer!"

"It's not scary!" exclaimed Darren, conjuring flames of his own and sending them rushing into the air.

Glen backed away, but was unwilling to abandon Darren, watching fearfully as the enormous creature landed. Wasn't it... a dragon? Why was a dragon here?

He crashed to the ground in front of the pair, before lowering his head to look at Darren.

"Hmm, it appears you are the one," he rumbled. "You appear younger than I expected, but nevertheless, I have come to ask for your aid."

"You need help?" asked Darren, watching the wisps of radiant red and brown mana dance around their master. "But you're so bright!"

"Yet I am limited. I am given to understand that you are not. Will you offer your assistance?"

"Umm... I need to ask mummy."

The dragon blinked slowly. "Yes, you truly are young. Very well. I shall speak to your guardian."

"Okay! I'll show you the way!"

Darren turned around and started walking back towards the village. Glen followed stiffly, elbows and knees barely bending as he repeatedly glanced at the enormous dragon plodding behind them.

"Mummy!" called Darren, opening the front door. "We have a visitor."

"A visitor?" asked Lucy, looking up from her sewing. "Is it someone from the institute again? Come on in."

"Umm... Our door is too small for him," said Darren.

In fact, the street was too small for him, but Kranakellicium, the [Sovereign of Stone and Flame], had shrunk himself down to compensate. He would have been equally happy to shrink himself down to enter the hut, but an intrigued Lucy was quicker than he was, poking her head out of the door.

"Oh, my! Yes, our front door would be quite inadequate. What can I do for you, Mr..."

"Kranakellicium."

"Mr Kranakellicium," smoothly finished Lucy, barely stumbling over a single syllable.

"I hope to borrow your child, to aid us in dealing with a danger that threatens this world."

"My child?" asked Lucy, assuming he was referring to Peter. "I'm afraid he's not in the village at the moment. I can call him, though."

Kranakellicium looked down at Darren, as if confirming that he hadn't imagined his existence. "He is right there."

"Oh, you mean Darren? Sorry, I assumed you meant my other child. But why Darren? He's only an [Artist]."

"He is an [Artist] because the System denies him his true passion, and it is that exclusion from the System that I seek."

"You mean you want his magic? Same as the institute? Can I ask what for, how long he'll be gone, and who will be looking after him?"

"We want to investigate strange anomalies that are forming across the world. We know the times that they open, the next one due five days hence. We would borrow him early that morning, and return later in the day. You have my word I will not permit him to come to harm."

"Strange anomalies? Why do you think Darren can help? Sorry, I really don't know about this stuff."

Remaining patient, the dragon attempted to explain, but Lucy lacked any point of reference to understand the descriptions. She held up a hand to interrupt. "Sorry, I don't really understand any of this, but I get that it's important. Can I send his older brother with him? He understands this sort of thing. He'll be able to communicate with Darren efficiently and keep an eye on him."

"Very well. You said he was not present in this place, but that you could summon him. Can you do so, and I will inform him of the situation."

Glen, along with Tylor and the other village kids, not to mention most of the adults, some of them running in from far-flung fields, hung around watching the scene with dropped jaws, but the dragon ignored them, keeping his senses trained on the hut as Darren and Lucy interfered with a strange piece of spatial magic that was present within a rear room. A magic that he finally recognised once a small lump of flesh, phasing in from apparently nowhere, started growing.

And so Peter was informed about the mana anomalies, and Darren's aid willingly given, along with the addition of a third member; a beastkin with racial mana detection abilities. As promised, the trio were gathered up five days later.

Darren watched his older brother cling to the back of the dragon, looking as pale as death. Meanwhile, Cluma was racing around, trying to watch the landscape in every direction at once. Didn't that bother the poor dragon? Or was he so big that he didn't notice, like a fly walking around on Darren's clothes.

Not that a fly on Darren was a great example. His mana sense would pick it up instantly. A fly on someone else's clothes, then.

Darren didn't find the forests and plains rolling past beneath him interesting. Kranakellicium was flying too high up, and the ground was far out of Darren's mana sense range, the dull colours of light always so boring compared to the vivid and intricate details of the mana that pervaded the world. From here, he could see the red and browns that looped around the dragon, bursting from his scales and arcing through the air before plunging back in. Had he ever seen a star from close up, he might have described them as coronal loops. He giggled as one rose up in front of him, reaching out to grasp it and letting the warm mana wash through his hand.

Cluma was surrounded by a dark cloud. Through mana alone, it was hard to see the outline of her real body, or perhaps the cloud was her real body. Her body used to be far clearer, and the cloud less dense, but she had changed recently. Had she found a way of escaping her body and joining the flowing mana? Darren had tried to ask her, but she hadn't understood what he meant. But, despite the changes, it wasn't a scary darkness. It was a soft and comforting darkness, that would wrap around him whenever he touched it in a big, fluffy mana-hug.

Peter shimmered, specks of silver and violet mana dancing around him without ever actually moving, vanishing in one place and reappearing in another. Sometimes the silver sparkles would appear where he'd been a few seconds earlier. Sometimes they'd appear where he would be. A pinkish mana traced patterns along his skin, and...

And...

The other mana. The mana that Darren saw for the first time every time he looked at his brother, because every time he looked away, he forgot it. The mana that whispered to him, that promised him a new fire, one that could set the whole world aflame. Take me. Use me. Don't let them know.

But it wasn't his to take. Darren looked away, and once more forgot that fourth colour of mana that danced in the heart of his brother.

Kranakellicium landed in Synklisi, and there on the ground, Darren really did look around in awe. He'd seen the Dawnhold dungeon before, at least from the outside, but that was only a ten floor thing. Comparing it to the great dungeon was like comparing a firefly to the sun. And walking around were hundreds of people, all different. Bright mana danced around many of them, in patterns and colours he'd never seen in Dawnhold. People with wings, extra arms, gills. A street away, his mana sense picked up someone with four legs. He stared around, openly gawking as he followed the dragon into a building. He continued gawking even from the inside. It wasn't as if the walls could get in his way.

Alas, the sightseeing trip didn't last long. Carried by the dragon, Darren was pulled through two separate portals and back into the sky. Portals were always interesting. Another piece of magic which he knew he should be able to do, but couldn't. No matter how hard he looked at them, he couldn't figure out how to copy it.

The mana screamed.

Distracted from his musings about portals, Darren looked around in horror as the mana was dragged away from them into a hole, floating in the sky. Cluma's cloud, Peter's sparkles, Kranakellicium's arcs, all dragged along with it. A thief, taking what wasn't its to take. That was wrong! Darren fought back, stopping it taking more, and as the mana cleared, he realised what he was looking at. Another portal, similar to the pair they'd just travelled through, but this one was different.

For a start, he could see it. The traces of mana being drawn into it revealed layers and pathways that simply weren't present in the portals he'd seen so far.

No, it wasn't that they weren't present. Rather, they were disguised.

Darren answered some questions about what he could see, but he didn't really understand the details of what the others were talking about, so he focused on what he was more familiar with. While he wouldn't have been able to phrase it so eloquently himself, he intuitively recognised this hole in the world as a key. A dictionary with which he could tell which parts of a spell were camouflage and which were functional. While Peter explored the other side of the hole, Darren explored within it, memorising every pattern and fold. Memorising exactly how to recreate it with his own mana.

By the time the hole in the world closed, he knew enough. The rest was a simple matter of practice, but he was good at magic. It hardly took him any time at all to successfully recreate the patterns that made up the hole. To make them better. Clearer. And now that he'd succeeded there, now that he knew about the disguises worn by System spells, how many more could he copy?

He opened a portal, casting his first real spell in the hopes of visiting his brother's old home. Peter told him off for it, but only because of some complicated reason that didn't really have anything to do with Darren. Peter actually seemed very impressed that he'd been able to create a portal of his own so quickly, and said he was welcome to try something different, as long as he didn't try to open more portals to Earth, or do anything dangerous.

Darren smiled, having both the ability and permission to learn some proper spells. Now he just needed to find the best fire mage around to copy from and learn how to make some real fire.

He looked down, remembering what—or rather, who—he was standing on, and his smile grew wider.