ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 65: Finding Solace In The Woods

Chapter 65

Finding Solace In The Woods

Alexa needed time to think, she was on an all time high of personal emotions and she knew that any minute her high would come crashing down. Worse, she had so many things to work through, to plan for. How did things get this far?

First thing was first, she needed to get away from this school. Why did she need to get away from this school, well the list of reasons were growing the more she thought about it, but the main reason was Mr. Mackie the head of security was a deep agent for the elves. Not only that but he was a believer, not someone who was converted. Not someone who was under the afflictions of vampirism, or another binding curse. No, he well and truly believed.

Alexa had seen the religious zealotry boiling deep within the man’s gaze.

She had seen the way his hand twitched as he readied himself to cut her down. Worse he was so much faster and stronger than her, that she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against him. Her only chance at survival against an opponent like Mr. Mackie was to strike first, and strike hard with magic.

Otherwise, if he was prepared. If he was ready for her, or worse if he was waiting for her, then she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance. She knew from just watching him move that he was far faster than the Dire-Werewolf that she had been fighting, and she could not hit him with a spell to save her life. Only when he made the mistake of grabbing her did she even have a chance to land a spell.

No, she needed to make plans and contingencies.

She needed to be herself, her true self, because right now, she was dealing with too many what ifs.

If she was in her rational state of mind, she knew she could focus on making cold, calm, and collected decisions.

Breathe.

The thought was forced to her, and then she found herself doing just that, breathing.

She had started walking, and just kept walking in a random direction out of the nurse’s room.

First she needed to find out who was involved in this, how deep did it go? Were her parents involved in this as well?

No, get out of campus.

The thought came to her, and she realized it was her calmer self, her real state of being speaking to her, guiding her.

At first Alexa wanted to protest, but then nodded to herself as she thought better. She did need to leave campus, at least for the moment. She had already known, but the thought was confirmed by Clara St. Brown, another elven zealot, that Mr. Mackie could detect her wherever she was on campus.

This meant if she wanted to work in privacy, she would need to be off campus. So that made sense, get to a place where you feel safe, then think things through.

As she got close to the southern edge of campus, she both saw and felt the edges of magic being pooled together to form a protective dome over the campus.

Seeing the magic, Alexa first wanted to go through and be away as quickly as possible.

Leave a note in elvish: Practicing Magic.

The thoughts were once again her own, and not her own. Once again, her calm and rational side made a good point. Leaving a note would let Mr. Mackie know where she was going and why. If she just left, then he would obviously come for her. Not leaving a note might also be suspicious, but wanting to leave campus to practice this new form of magic, well that made sense.

Realizing her mistake, she focused on growing a stump of a tree that had the elvish runes for Practicing Magic, etched into it.

With her note in place, she forced herself to calm down, as she left the barrier.

Tingling.

An unpleasant sensation not unlike walking through spiderwebs cascaded over her whole body for a second, then was gone. The second she was through the barrier, she wanted to run, but instead forced herself to walk slowly. Running would be the sign of a guilty conscience after all.

Poof.

She felt the surge of energy as Mr. Mackie appeared right on the other side of the barrier. Seeing him, Alexa pointed to the tree stump note she had left. The minute he looked to the stump, she turned and began walking deeper into the woods.

Tremble.

Her emotions were high, as there was so much going on that she didn’t know what to do. She really didn’t know what to do if he came after her, fortunately the note seemed to have been enough as, she felt him leave a second later.

Poof.

Long sigh.

Emotions were a lot, while she knew that the moment she entered battle, her broken emotions would take hold and help her focus. Until that point when she entered battle, her regular emotions were going all over the place. She didn’t know if this was a direct cause of how much essence her body had channeled recently, if this was a state of her mind trying to keep hidden daggers from piercing her back. Or if this was the depth of that good old emotion, paranoia that she had read so much about.

The only thing she knew for certain was that her emotions were all over the place.

But now that her first hurdle was gone, and that she was alone. She continued moving until she found a spot in the woods that called out to her. As soon as she entered the space, she felt a natural oneness with the area. In her mind she recognized the place as a spot where lay lines converged and formed a natural point of power.

With the spot of power, she felt a natural calm sensation fill her body and help her alleviate her mind. Feeling somewhat at ease for the first time since leaving the dungeon, she sat down and tried to focus.

As soon as she sat down, she felt a strange cold wetness from frozen frost seeping into her very torn leotard. She made a note that she needed to change as soon as she got back, but for the moment this time was hers.

She was physically tired, mentally exhausted, and above all cautious.

There in the woods, she realized that for the first time, she felt vulnerable. Not since her time as a child being abducted by the necromantic vampyre, had she ever felt so powerless to stop anything. She had been outclassed and beaten by a Dire-Werewolf, she had found out that elves had not only infiltrated the school with sleeper agents, but also the government as well. Given Mr. Mackie’s background, she assumed that there was a good contingent of sleeper agents within the military.

Then the obvious thought, if there were elves, then logically there had to be sleeper agents for the Orcs and dragons as well. She knew Captain Johnston had been touched by dragons. At least that is what she was now thinking to herself.

Honestly, she felt lost. No, worse, she felt pathetic. She knew she was weak, especially compared to the people who had already gained their levels. Idly she knew here parents were considered high leveled for state sponsored heroes, but they had nothing on Mr. Mackie and others. Well other warriors who were not pampered magic users, the substitute teacher she had faced off against was weak. Alexa knew that if she entered the military, she too would likely be coddled the same way as the other mages were. Though that was a far distant concern.

Right now, Alexa had to do a few things.

First, she had to wait for this stupid high to be over, so she could be herself. Her real self, the part that would just act and move without constantly worrying about contingencies and plans within plans.

Focus on magic.

Once again, a deeper thought came to her, and she knew it was her normal self, coming to the surface to help her.

“Right.” Alexa found herself saying, as she focused on what she could change.

For the moment, the only thing she could directly affect were herself, and her environment with magic.

Realizing that, she took a deep calming breath, then let it out as she held out her hand to focus on the new magic she had been given, the magic of Creation.

Holding out her hand was a sign of weakness, one that would go away as her tier rating rose, but one she found herself going to now. With her hand extended she focused on the basic steps of magic. Creation was a rare form of magic, and one she had never seen or heard referenced before. Given the way Mr. Mackie reacted to her saying the word, she wondered if there was actually a true concept that would explain this foreign feeling of power.

The magic was such a foreign concept to her. Even with the knowledge from the different tiers of Creation shoved into her mind, she could not fathom the final forms.

In her mind she knew the initial stages, how she could create simple one element blocks of creation. From there, she would be able to combine two elements on the second tier, four elements on the third tier and so on. Finally, by the end she saw the creation of stars and whole universes. Honestly, that was part of what was throwing her off about this whole school of magic. She had seen similar things when first given Nature, Healing, and Wind magic. She saw how she could create life from nothing, which was what she had done now multiple times. The only difference was the scale being shown with Creation magic.

From her mind, she almost thought that at the higher tiers, if given a large enough pool of energy, she could create her own solar system. Of course, that was just a pipe dream, but it did show the limitless potential of the school of magic.

Focusing her mind, she started with something simple. She first focused on iron. Why iron? She didn’t know. Iron was a transition metal, and for whatever reason she felt that it would be one of the easier elements to create. Also with it being a metal, she could see clearly if and when she had succeeded in its creation.

Focusing on the concepts that were thrust into her mind, she held out her hand and nothing.

Opening her eyes, she looked to see if she could find anything from her first attempt, but again was left with nothing. At first she wanted to get frustrated, but she realized that was likely why she was already having troubles with magic, her one true saving grace thus far.

She also knew that it was her emotional state right now that was causing so many problems with her form. Her mind was too everywhere. Mentally she called this a bad trip.

She had heard the term before, usually related to drug addicts who took too much and started having bad hallucinations. In Alexa’s case, she knew she wasn’t hallucinating, but she felt this time still constituted a bad trip.

Focusing, she first decided that centering herself and her mind would be the most important aspect of getting calm. Normally this wasn’t an issue but given how her body was practically thrumming with surges of energy, she felt that first calming herself would be important.

“Okay, since I have time. Let’s come up with a list of things to do.” Alexa said out loud, then realizing she likely sounded crazy being a girl in a ripped blood covered leotard out in the woods, she decided to continue her self-monologue, but in her head.

“First thing first, no more of this,” Alexa thought, as she mentally gestured to, “out in public. This means, no more consuming crystals outside of dungeons. Also, this means that I will need to wait inside dungeons until this state clears up.”

With that, a slight burden rose from her mind as she continued to go through her courses of action.

“Second, be ready for when Mackie finds out about my status with the elves. I was lucky today, as he does not seem to know my current status with them. Once he does, I can expect a knife in the back at best. At worst, I can expect him to turn me into the elves as some form of reward. That means, the moment I think he knows, strike first and strike hard.”

Again, coming to that mental note Alexa nodded to herself.

“Third, I have a few hours before my parents get here. I need to find out what factions they went for, if they undertook the Trials of Ascension, at all.”

“Fourth, I need to figure out who is on what side, and if there are any more people like me. People who chose the path of humanity. Surely someone else had to have, right?”

“Fifth, well I don’t know. There are likely a lot more factors I can do. I should probably check with Sarah Stevens, the daughter of the British Prime Minister, see if she knows where her father stands on this whole spectrum. Maybe if I am lucky, he hasn’t chosen a side? No, likely too much to hope for. At the very least, I can expect some of his guards to have chosen a side. Though he should be coming back here to pick up his daughter shortly before the integration.” Alexa thought the last part as she realized the 90 day necromantic quarantine session would end right at around the New Year. “Maybe I could convince Sarah to get her father to come and visit her earlier, so he would be here during the New Year? No, I think he would be the type of father who would be here, without cajoling, at least for the appearance of being a doting father, if nothing else.”

With that Alexa, felt she was close to working through most of her concerns. There were just a few major points she needed to work on.

“Sixth, I need to take Mr. Mackie up on his promise to let me finish my Trials of Ascension. I also need to make sure I finish all seven remaining stages before the first of the year. Let’s see just under nine weekends between now and the end of the year. Meaning even factoring in two weekends that get botched or missed and I should have enough time to complete my task. Though I need to prepare to do them in the first seven weekends, as I don’t know how long Mr. Mackie will be on my side.”

“Seventh, well I can assume that on the New Year, we will have a full Integration. I should also assume that other armies managed to make it through the different portals. I am still not certain if the rift that we saw, the one that caused the dragons, elves, and orcs to appear before us was caused by my draining the natural energy that was flowing into the dungeon, or if something else was happening. In any case, I should assume more enemy armies are already here on Earth, and that more will come on New Year’s day.”

That was it, with that, the tension that had been flowing within her mind, tying her thoughts in knots was gone. For the first time since exiting the dungeon, she felt she was once again in control. She had a plan, and a list of things to watch out for. Now all she had to do was prepare.

With that a malicious smile filled Alexa’s face, as she realized if there was one thing she was good at, it was preparing. Also, finding more excuses to train harder was always a plus.

Finally ready to actually focus her mind, she looked down at a spot of clear dirt before her and willed a bar of iron into existence.

No hand gestures, no spoken chants, just sheer willpower being used to create something out of nothing. Or to be more accurate, to convert the intense and highly volatile energy of mana, into a solid form.

Shh.

Slowly pieces of metal began to form and grow in a slithering form that reminded Alexa of when she first learned to draw. The lines were uneven, the form was twisted, but the most important thing happened, the metal was there.

Breathe.

Finally after a long moment, Alexa took a breath and paused as she reached down to pick up her handy work. Given the shape and twisting spiky structure, she thought the piece of metal would be more brittle than it was, but oddly enough the strip of metal that resembled a prickly caterpillar was solid. A quick shake even confirmed the form.

It wasn’t pretty, not by a long shot. Also the item that she had wanted to create into a giant brick of ore was little more than a two inch twisted shape of metal and cord. Still, it was a start. Even just holding the piece in her hand, she could feel the last few traces of energy pulsing within the piece. Energy that proved that the piece of metal shouldn’t be here.

For a moment, Alexa thought about breaking the piece and starting over. Only after a second’s pause did she think about putting it off to the side for now, as a memento of where she started this journey from. As soon as she thought about this, she remembered the dungeon from her hometown, Bottomless Gorge. The dungeon that seemed to have remembered her, or at the very least had provided her with her same practice room, when she had asked. Remembering the dungeon, Alexa mentally made that a place she could run to, if things got bad. As a dungeon, she figured that it would be exempt from most of the faction wars that seemed to revolve around the orcs, elves, and dragons.

Also, given the way that the school’s dungeon seemed to be an anchor point needed to get an army to traverse the universe, or wherever the orcs, elves, and dragons came from; she figured that dungeons would likely be considered special in some way. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt this way, but it was something she was fairly confident was a thing.

With that minor distraction complete, she went back to focusing on creating iron.

The second time was not much different than the first. She realized the spikey protrusions were the way the element wanted to be formed, as if a form with multiple spikes was only natural for the item. From there, she worked on working with the natural formation of the element and turning it slightly.  Slowly over time she found the spiked lines slowly giving way to smoother lines, which finally gave way to a shape similar to the one she imagined in her mind.

It wasn’t until the sun started to rise that she realized a few things.

First, she was no longer under the influence of power crystals. Alexa felt she should be happy about this, but instead just felt the same hollow numbness inside her to reflect this to be the case. Second, she realized that somewhere in her diligence, she missed the system message letting her know she had improved.

Your control of School: Creation Magic has increased to Tier II.

That was it, the only notification that she had actually accomplished anything, but that alone was enough for her to feel that this entire night was not a complete waste of time.

Getting up to her feet, Alexa began to move. In all there were five bars of iron, though bars was a generous term. Only the last came anywhere close to resembling a true bar of iron and even then it was more of a small squarish stone than a bar. Still Alexa felt she had come far in her practice, especially after just a few hours of practice. Making a mental note to continue practicing each night until she was a master, she started to leave. Only to stop herself at the last minute, seeing the first attempt she tried.

Picking up the flawed piece, she thought about discarding it as a waste. But then, at the last minute decided to keep it, as proof of her work.

With that, the still beaten and blood covered Alexa made her way back to campus, where she would finally take a shower and begin to take on the new day.

Poof.

Mr. Mackie appeared next to her, as soon as she entered the campus grounds. Seeing her state, he paused.

“You increased your magical tier?” Mr. Mackie asked, a little perplexed.

Alexa just nodded, then holding up her first attempt, she threw it to him, as she continued to walk away.

Mr. Mackie just stopped and stared at the piece, then almost as if he forgot something important, he blurted out. “I put your things in a bag on your desk, in your room.”

Alexa hearing that nodded her head, and gave a thank you wave over her shoulder without ever turning to Mr. Mackie.

This time Mr. Mackie stared at Alexa Thyme and saw that her disposition had changed since she entered the woods.

Extremely Tall Female (Alexa Thyme): Rank: Baroness: Emotional State: Suppressed. Status Effect: None.

Seeing that her status effect was now missing, Mr. Mackie knew that she was back to normal. He wondered what it was that caused the normally stoic Ms. Thyme to have such an adverse reaction to any status effect. Especially one that caused her Emotional State to be Paranoid.

Regardless, of the reason, Mr. Mackie’s orders were clear when it came to royalty. He was to protect them and serve them at all costs. Still, he could not help but wonder what she had done to earn such an outstanding rank. It had taken a mountain of bodies both in the dungeons and outside to earn the rank of Knight Captain. Though to be fair, Marcus had never taken down a dragon, let alone seventeen. Seeing the death and destruction left in her wake, Marcus felt confident in his backing of a true chosen champion. One who would help Earth integrate easily, once the true integration began.

Then he looked down at the piece of metal in his hand and wondered exactly what this new class of magic was. Was she a Metal mage of some kind? Shaking his head, he could only wonder and prepare. He made a note to be extra vigilant for any other forces that might have been able to use the thinned veil on Halloween to enter Earth early.

He had contingencies set up to warn him of such breaches. He even had his old command begging for him to come back, now that they found him. Yet he had ignored all of that, as he felt he found his true mission, his true purpose for why the great oracle had assigned him to come here to this backwater area. She had seen that an important figure would come, one that could change the course of the world. Now that he had seen Alexa Thyme in action, he was certain of three things. First, that his oracle had been correct. Second, that Alexa Thyme was the person he was meant to either protect or kill. Third, that he would lay down his life to protect Alexa Thyme so she could fulfill her true purpose on this world.

Holding the piece of metal, Mr. Mackie stared at it for a moment, then clutched it carefully in his hand. This was but the first sign of change. A sign of change that he would help bring to this world, one where he would be rewarded for his service and allowed to once again see his son.

Clutching his hand around the spikey metal construct, Marcus Mackie said, “this is for you Kelvin. A sign that our sacrifice has not been in vain, that we will once again be reunited.”

Then with that, he disappeared, before anyone grew too suspicious of his absence.

Poof.