Journey Through the Underdark - Eric EarthScorn Book 1 - Chapter 30 (Patreon)

Relaxing in the huge wagon, with Sasha snoring cuddled up next to him, Eric tried to figure out why he was so relaxed. He was calm. Comfortable. The coiled spring of tension which had been wound tight inside his chest for months now was finally unbound. The question was, why?

He wasn’t under some kind of magical control. Despite the monstrous and straightforward behavior of Mary, it was apparent to anyone paying attention that she had more subtle magical abilities she could use. If not directly, then Eric wouldn’t put it past the UWC to hand out mind-control devices to their agents. Even with that being a possibility, it seemed unlikely that either he or Sasha had been caught in some kind of mental magic effect. Even if she could control him with some sort of mind magic, they likely would still have known they were under her control.

It also wasn’t that he thought Mary was suddenly his friend. She was friendly enough, even if she was hiding inside her stone shell and hauling the wagon along. Eric knew that if the UWC wanted him dead, her fist would be flying toward his head seconds later. She had casually made it clear what happened if you attack the UWC.

Death.

Eric let his mind wander over the day and tried to pinpoint the moment the tension fled. It wasn’t one point; it was stages of relaxation. The first moment of relaxation was the quick visit to the showers to get cleaned. Mary waited outside the shower room, keeping everyone out as well as Eric from escaping. The next was the stop for food, then clean clothes, and then finally the ride in the wagon. Everything said that Mary was taking Eric’s security seriously, but more, she was taking him seriously.

She was a hardened agent of the UWC, frightening to the common soldier and wizards alike, and when she looked at Eric, he could see someone to be careful around. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she wouldn’t be turning her back on him either. The soldiers and wizards of the fortress hadn’t taken him seriously, but they had been afraid. Mostly of how they thought he was a human weapon delivery device. Eric hadn’t taken their assessment seriously. He knew he wasn’t carrying some deadly magical tool, so their fear hadn’t upset his view of himself. The commander could only see Eric as an obstruction to further wealth, an obstacle that would quickly be able to brush away. He had been wrong.

But Eric trusted Mary’s assessment of violence and threats. She had to live with them regularly. The UWC agent wasn’t just a wizard. She was a wizard who had seen combat. Real, up close, violence. If she took him seriously, then that meant there was something to take seriously. With that in mind, Eric reconsidered his time in the Underdark.

A month of travel, even on the surface, could be a death sentence without protection. Bandits, sickness, weather, getting lost, even stopping in a town for rest could end with your death if some of the inhabitants thought they could get away with it. Eric knew more than a few of the hunters of Tintown had things that bore a striking resemblance to items that those passing through town had been carrying. Everyone knew what that meant, but few wanted to comment on it.

The Underdark had monsters and magic. It was a place where even a floor of sand could mean death. Yes, Eric had survived mostly because of his bond with Sasha, but that meant little. She would fare better on the surface with his assistance, and they both would thrive together where they might die apart.

With that thought, Eric sent a sense of love and care to his partner and ran a hand down her scaley skin as her sleeping purr deepened.

An unusually large bump drew Eric from his thoughts. Twisting his body while trying to keep his legs still as not to disturb his friend’s sleep, Eric looked around to see what had caused the sudden bounce. Behind them, a pair of men were hastily attempting to reset a log that had been blocking the road. They had pulled it away when they noticed Mary coming, but were now resetting it.

“Are they bandits?” shouted Eric, thoughts of silence for the sake of Sasha forgotten.

“Yeah, I talked to them on the way out,” Mary said, while her stone legs kept pumping along.

“But…you didn’t stop them?” Eric asked, with his mind replaying the fate of the commander.

“The UWC, by treaty and oath, are forbidden from interfering with the internal politics of other kingdoms. I couldn’t even report them. If they hadn’t let me through when I told them I was with the UWC, then I could have done something. It’s why they pulled the log out of the way. Hindering my way counts as interfering with a UWC officer during their duty, then I would have killed the scum,” Mary said, her voice rising slightly at the end.

The wagon slowed, the slightly bouncy hectic ride now turning more sedate. It was still fast, but Eric wasn’t worrying that a large bump would drop him back onto his tailbone inside the wagon.

Looking around and seeing that nothing had changed, Eric tilted his head slightly before continuing the conversation.

“Was that why you were racing along? Hoping they were still there and would stop you, so you could claim they interfered with you?” Eric asked.

Mary was silent for a while, the accusation annoying her even though her stone countenance hid it, but she eventually answered the young boy.

“Yes. But since they didn’t block my way, I can’t do anything about it. I’m willing to kill a couple of thieves, but I’m not risking Soul Burn or death just for some thugs.”

“What do you mean?” Eric asked, the conversation suddenly turning fascinating.

Eric leaned into the next turn as the wagon’s speed started to ramp up again since Mary returned to a slightly faster pace.

“It’s why everyone thinks UWC agent’s are fanatics. The UWC only accepts soul-bound oaths. Bend the oath, and it can cause Soul Burn. Outright breaking the oath is usually a death sentence. A pretty big chunk of UWC operatives retire after screwing up somehow and suffering Soul Burn, so I can see why they think we’re all nuts,” the last came out in a bitter tone.

“Seems smart to me,” Eric said. If you had a way to force people to follow their oaths, with built-in punishment, then it sounded stupid not to use it.

“Yeah, well, normally soul-bound oaths are only used for the wizard-apprentice bond. It’s supposed to be sacred and blah blah blah. Mostly it’s just that they see the power of the UWC, and they don’t think about why it works. Without the soul-bound oaths, the governments and kingdoms would rip it apart,” her tone had moved beyond bitter and on to deeply jaded.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation, her fake stone head dipping as if she was focused on the road ahead, though Eric could tell that she was curled into a ball in the chest area. Wondering about how her magic worked, Eric turned to his new pack and pulled out the manacles he had stuffed into it while everyone else was still scrambling to deal with the commander’s death. It wasn’t likely that the next commander of the fortress would come looking for it. While Eric didn’t have fond thoughts for the loops of restraining metal, they still represented a wealth of magical knowledge, and he would use whatever he could to gain power.

Eric had decided in his little stone room that he would take any scrap of magic available and make it his own. It might not always be useful, but it might also mean the difference between life and death. Even the air cleaning device had turned out to be vital to keeping the air breathable in the little stone cubby. He had almost ignored that device after learning the light rune, thinking it was just as useless, but it had turned out to be vital. Even the light rune, something he did not need since he could see in almost any condition, had helped diagnose how the manacles worked. The indicators built from the light runes activating under low mana conditions had been the final link that helped him figure out how to escape the cuffs.

The rune Eric was most interested at the moment was the one which gathered small amounts of mana from around the cuff. It wasn’t very efficient. The draw was minuscule. It looked like even a few minutes of the draw wouldn’t be able to support his Fire Blast spell for a second, but it might be able to help him maintain the light spell. Trying to tie in the gathering rune to his light spell worked, but the moment he snipped off the end of the line connecting the spell to himself, the structure became unstable and fell apart. It wavered and wobbled, the light stuttering, but eventually, the whole thing failed.

Trying again, the back of the wagon bouncing along ignored as he studied, Eric carefully formed the gathering rune as close to the light-emitting rune as possible. Still, the spell became unstable when he trimmed the connecting line away. This time though, Eric could see that the extended connection between him and the runes was the culprit. The third time did the charm; Eric had a light that floated along disconnected from him and gathering mana from the environment. That was until the land dipped slightly, and the ball of light continued along at a height above where Eric’s head would be if he were standing in the wagon.

Mary’s fake stone head turned for a moment, and then a small pulse of mana flew from her chest, impacting the light spell and ripping it apart. Eric’s jaw dropped in surprise at that. Her construct had formed in the chest area, and then she had thrown it at the light spell, she hadn’t kept a line of connection between her and it. It had reminded Eric of the Flame Burst spell he had disconnected from his hand, but different in some other way as well.

“Try not to leave spells like that floating around. It can scare people seeing something like that. Might cause issues if they report a creature sighting to the local Hunter Clan. I don’t want to get mixed up in that just for a favor to Judy,” Mary said, her voice coming out almost teasing.

Eric wasn’t sure what she was trying to tease him about with those words. It had sounded like she was referring to a well-known story or tease, but he couldn’t guess what it was. It was another thing that pointed to there being a world of culture and beliefs away from the Kingdom that he did not know. Eric had known that escaping into the outside world would come with new ways of seeing the world, but he could tell it would be a struggle to understand these little in-jokes and saying, cultures and viewpoints.

After another hour of riding, not even stopping to eat lunch, they passed a few crossroads, and from there, their travel shifted to fits and starts. The trio began to come across other wagons and people walking along the road. They even passed a carriage that they had to swerve around, the movement startling the driver. While Mary did slow as they passed, she quickly ramped up to the speed of a trotting horse. That she was able to keep this pace up for hours on end was impressive. It made the trip quicker than Eric had ever thought he would travel. Yet, he would have liked further time to think about his plans and to let the idea of being free to settle into him.

Despite his new sense of calm and feelings of capability, he was still unready for the meeting with Ms. Terms and the UWC. Mary, though, wanted to be done with her mission, and with her pace, they were soon pulling into a town where Judy, and a UWC chapter house, waited.