Sense: A Fantasy LitRPG Saga (A Touch of Power Book 3)

by Jay Boyce

  “Morning, Mommy!” her little ones called out brightly to her and she spent a moment watching them flutter around, their colors sparkling in the dim room. She hadn’t ever recharged her light fortress after sucking it dry, and as she looked around the room, she realized there was something else missing. The makeshift beann cage she’d made was completely gone. There were really only two possibilities. Someone robbed her, or Jessica and Kaylee were cleaning the room and noticed her neglect of the animals. She hadn’t been super good about remembering to feed them, and she hadn’t touched their droppings at all. It’d probably started to smell.

  Thinking about it...she realized she had no idea if, when, or where her little ones were using the bathroom. Probably on the trees, or maybe when she let them wander. In any case, she hadn’t found any tiny messes, so she wasn’t going to question it. Besides, if her beann had been stolen, they were gone. If Jessica and Kaylee took them, there was nothing to worry about. However, until she knew for sure...she decided not to put any of her new clothes into the closet. Better safe than sorry.

  Locking the door behind her as her little ones settled in her hair, she bounced down the stairs, jumping from the halfway point just because she could!

  CRACK.

  She winced, looking down at her feet and realizing she’d broken the floorboards. Instead of smooth wood, there were now two foot shaped indentations that radiated out, the boards sticking up out of the ground on the other end. She glanced up only to see every eye in the room on her, and she could feel the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. She suddenly felt like Mr. Incredible when he was breaking everything because he couldn’t control his own strength.

  “Jade? What just happened?” Raphael was obviously the first to recover as he spoke, questioning her. They’d obviously looked over when they heard the noise and saw her standing in broken wood looking guilty.

  Looking at all the expectant faces staring back at her, she couldn’t help it. She made the jedi hand motion as she spoke with the tiniest thread of compulsion, “Nothing to see here, forget this happened and go back to your business.” Raphael stepped into her space, but behind him she threw up an illusion of the stairs as if nothing was wrong, then threw up a thin wind wall to cut off sound as she sighed in relief while Raphael stared at her incredulously and she gestured to the footprints, “I jumped, and apparently that means if I’m not careful, I’m going to break things.” She frowned, staring at the wood. “It’s like the world is telling me I’m fat.”

  She carefully stepped away from the damaged area as Raphael inspected it while he laughed at her. “You’re not fat. But we’re going to need to get a carpenter to come take a look at this.”

  Frowning, she nudged the displaced boards with her foot. Now that she wasn’t standing on them, they fell loosely back into place. However, if anyone stepped on them, they’d probably break further, which was an issue, since this was a main walkway for the place. Seeing them laying flat, however, gave her an idea. Didn’t the construction workers always place a metal sheet over things they weren’t working on but didn’t want people to hurt themselves on?

  Pulling out a chunk of metal from her ring, she flattened it into a thin sheet, then placed it down over the wood, making sure it was balanced on boards that weren’t broken. She even sloped the edges so that it was more like a small bump and not an abrupt edge that would trip people up. She gingerly tested it until she was satisfied it would hold up under normal foot traffic, then looked back up at Raphael, who looked amused. Defensively, she asked, “What are you looking at me like that for?”

  Pointing at her perfectly sculpted stopgap measure, he merely said in a lazily amused voice, “Did you realize you’d used silver?” She blinked, then stared down at her creation, only now realizing she’d made it out of a much more valuable substance than she’d intended.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake…” she grumbled angrily under her breath as she mashed the silver back together and shoved it into her ring once more. This time she actually paid attention to what metal she was bringing out, making sure it was the much more common iron before recreating her stopgap. Once she was done, she gestured to it, asking a little testily, “Better?”

  Grinning cheekily, he nodded. “It’ll do until we can get someone here. Thank you.”

  Growling, she shook her head, “It’s my fault it’s broken, so I should do what I can to fix it, obviously.” She was about to say more when Jackson ran into her wind wall, stumbling back a little, obviously perplexed that he’d hit something in empty air. She quickly dismissed both wind wall and illusion, smiling apologetically at Jackson as he rubbed his nose. “Sorry about that, Jackson. We were having a private conversation, but we probably should’ve moved away from the stairwell.” Okay, so she was bluffing like nothing else.

  Jackson seemed to see right through her, but he smiled while he scrunched his nose as if trying to make sure it was still working properly. “No problem, Jade. I suppose I should’ve figured out what you were up to when you told us to forget and then promptly walled the space off.”

  Jade’s smile fell as she tilted her head, asking quietly, “How did you…”

  He laughed. “You didn’t put a whole lot of oomph into the order. I think most of us decided it was easier to go along with it than get on your bad side when you were obviously embarrassed by whatever you’d just done.”

  Groaning slightly, Jade covered her eyes with her hands for a moment before mumbling through the obstruction, “Right. I’m going to go hide in the kitchen now.” Nodding to the two of them and noticing that most of the people in the room were still sneaking furtive glances at her now that she’d appeared again, she half ran to the kitchen. Rushing through the door and leaning against it as she closed it quickly behind her, she obviously surprised Kaylee and Jessica, who’d turned to see who made the commotion.

  “Jade, good morning!” They happily greeted her, and she smiled wanly back at them, walking over to the table where Jessica was working on chopping vegetables. Sitting down with a huge sigh, she absently watched Jessica before she replied.

  “Morning, girls. Can I hide in here for a bit?” Then, remembering what she’d originally wanted to talk to them about, she asked, “Oh hey, do you know what happened to the cage of beann in my room?”

  Jessica set down the knife, wiping off her hands as she looked at Jade with concern. “What happened? And yes, we do. I took them up to the roof and put them in the shed so they would stop making a mess in your room, and so I could feed them a little easier. I figured the fresh air would be better for them. Is that okay?”

  Wanting to do something helpful, Jade pulled Jessica’s chopping board of veggies over and picked up the knife, concentrating on cutting the veggies into the exact same size Jessica had been. “That’s fine, I just didn’t know where they were. I’ll find somewhere to move them though, so you don’t have to take care of them.” She needed to make a zoo or something. Somewhere she could keep both the beann and the fellacai. Maybe she could make a whole new building for the contractual magic class to use? She hated seeing the animals in such tiny cages…

  It seemed she needed to make a few calls.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – Rain

  “Jade, give that back. You need to eat.” Jessica finally registered that Jade stole her workstation, but she grinned impishly and shook her head.

  “Nope, I’m helping. Go find something else to do. I need to practice my cooking, and this helps my knife skills too.” It didn’t, however, leave her with an extra hand to hold the mirror and make calls. It was too bad she didn’t have something like mage hand to do her will… She paused, knife suspended midair as she thought over the implications. What was mage hand? She’d always pictured it as pure mana…

  Focusing her mana, she thought of the shape she wanted it to take, forcing it into being. Ever so slowly, as she resumed chopping, little sparkles began to accumulate in front of her. She lost the shape and it dissipated a few times before sh
e realized she needed to keep a tiny mana string attached to it in order to keep it supplied. Happy that she’d gotten it to work, she did a quick perusal through her stat screen to see if anything changed with her new mana control. It wasn’t until she got to S that she found what she was looking for.

  Special Magic

  Beginner 3

  53%

  Wait, what? Special magic was always a foggy concept, and she’d even gone so far as to think she replaced it with gravity magic. But what if that wasn’t the truth? What if special magic was simply pure mana manipulation? Could anyone do it? Did the people who’d gotten it before even realize what they were doing? Was that why no one figured it out and let everyone else know? Or perhaps they wanted to be special, and thus kept the knowledge to themselves...she didn’t know.

  “What’d you do to make the wind sparkle like that?” Kaylee’s voice was a little longing as she caught sight of the glowing hand Jade held in front of her on a string.

  Deciding that in this case, honesty was the best policy, because anyone with magic theoretically should be able to use it, she replied, “I just found out that special magic is pure mana manipulation. This hand is nothing but pure mana, attached to me through a string so I can keep supplying it, but the hand is just...mana. And now I have special magic in my profile.”

  Both of the girls dropped what they were doing to rush over and study Jade’s magic. She knew the girls were supremely interested in being mages, so she should’ve realized that they would be fascinated. Playing with the hand a bit, she waved it at the girls, then sent it to pick up a runaway veggie and bring it back to her. As she did so, the mana drain intensified for a moment, and she realized it was probably only as strong as the mana she pumped into it.

  Kaylee was staring with singlehanded intensity at it, before she glanced down at her own hands, her face scrunched up in concentration. It took a bit, but she eventually got a small string to come out of her fingers. Her face lit up with glee, and she reached for the vegetables, poking them with the mana to make them move. She laughed with childlike joy when it worked. The string disappeared when she obviously pulled up her profile, looking through, then stared in wonder at Jade. “I got it too.” Her voice was nothing more than a reverent whisper.

  Reaching over to hug her friend, she said happily, “Good job! If you keep practicing it, it should help with your magic!” She paused, sniffing the air as she asked curiously, “Is...something burning?”

  “The pancakes!” Jessica and Kaylee both jumped into action, bustling through the kitchen to save the food. Jade went back to chopping after she flicked a mirror out of her ring and into the waiting mana hand. Holding it up so it would show her face, she poked a little string of the mana from the hand into the mirror to try activating it, and she was extremely pleased when it worked. The mirror misted over, calling the other side.

  About twenty seconds later, the call was finally picked up, and a very tired looking Eamonn looked like he’d barely rolled out of bed to grab the call. Actually, if the pillows behind him were any indication, he was still in bed. She stifled her giggles at his crazy hair as she greeted him, “Good morning, Eamonn, I’m sorry for waking you.”

  He blinked owlishly at her, squinting a bit before he sighed and shook his head. “I’ll live. When you get to my age, you sleep when you can!” He ran a hand through his hair, obviously feeling that it was out of its mad scientist place. Seeming to focus back on her, and obviously only still half awake, he asked a little querulously, “Well, what is it you needed?”

  She winced slightly at his wording. Did she only ever call people when she needed something? Well, kinda, yeah… Sighing, she blew the hair out of her eyes as she continued chopping and explained, “When I was on the hunt, I captured a group of beann.” His eyes widened and he’d sat up, obviously paying a lot more attention now that she’d said something that peaked his interest. “I don’t want to keep them down here, so I was thinking if there was space at Dracona, I could set up what my world calls a zoo. You see, in my old world…” She explained all about what zoos were like, how the animals were treated, and even her idea about having that be the new contractual magic headquarters.

  Eamonn listened enthusiastically, waking up more and more as he asked questions about what zoos were like. She’d had to make some of it up, given that she’d never been to a zoo herself, but she’d seen movies! It wasn’t a hard concept. She could tell Jessica and Kaylee were listening raptly as well, though they didn’t disturb her and were going about their normal breakfast business. They took turns going out to the common room to deliver food to the other students, neither wanting to miss their eavesdropping opportunity.

  When they were finished, he looked thoughtful. Finally, he nodded. “We will, of course, need to run this by the queen. However, I think it’s doable. I’ll probably need a day to make sure we get everything ready and to ask for a bit of help. Will you have time to come up to the campus tomorrow?”

  She hesitated. Finally, she shrugged as she said dejectedly, “I have no idea. Apparently, I’m supposed to be meeting with the delegations a lot, so I really don’t know when I’ll have a free moment. I’ll ask and get back to you as soon as I know.” He nodded, and they talked a few more logistics, like making the glass thick enough that the animals wouldn’t be able to easily break it. She was considering whether she could enchant it as well. She hadn’t tried enchanting anything much yet...unless her ring counted. It probably did. Ah well, how hard could it be?

  He bade her farewell and told her he’d call her later to check on the status. She flicked the mirror back into her ring, finally letting the mana hand dissipate as she looked down and realized she’d finished chopping everything in front of her. She may or may not have chopped a few things too finely in her absent mindedness, she realized belatedly. “Uh… Did I ruin these?” she asked tentatively.

  Jessica walked over, looking at the finely chopped veggies as she giggled. “No, it’ll be fine. They’re just going on salads later anyway.” Taking the veggies away, she instead plopped a large plate of pancakes, eggs, and sausage down in front of her as she urged, “Now eat; you need to get going soon, and you’d best not do so on an empty stomach.”

  “You’re the best. Thanks again for everything.” Jade beamed brilliantly up at her as she dug in, watching as the girls went back to their prep, occasionally taking food out and returning swiftly. She was dawdling and she knew it, but she checked her pocket watch with resignation. It was still only 7:15, but she knew she needed to head to the gate. Cleaning off the last of her plate, she stood up, walking it to the sink, where Kaylee grabbed it from her.

  “You’re off then?” It was more statement than question, but Jade answered anyway.

  “Yeah, I shouldn’t be late to the gate.” Kaylee nodded in understanding and Jade gave her a quick hug, catching Jessica as she was walking back into the kitchen. “I’ll see you girls later.” She hugged her too, and she was happy that both girls were acting more normal when she did that now. In just two weeks, they’d become accustomed to her need for physical reassurance. She was tickled to do it. There were studies that said people needed physical contact or they could die from neglect. Since that was the case, she was surprised she hadn’t died from that on her old world. The most touch she’d experienced was from doctors checking her or the nurses washing her. She’d been too delicate for much more than that. It was something she relished here.

  Exiting the kitchen, she waved to those who noticed her as she made her way to the door. “Jade! Wait up!” She paused as she heard a slightly panicked voice call out to her, turning around to see Will hurrying to catch up. As soon as he reached her, he grinned impishly, “Can’t let you leave without me!”

  Laughing as she opened the door and he followed her outside, she decided to rib him a little. “What, did you purposefully wait until I was leaving so you could hitch a ride?”

  His eyes went wide with unconcealed excitement as he said unremors
efully, “I figured it was worth a shot. Victor and I are the only siblings who haven’t gotten to fly with you!” She raised a brow, because of all the siblings, he was the only one who didn’t NEED her to fly. He practiced wind magic, and he’d been there when the whole class tried it out. He’d even managed to do it himself. Blushing a little, he sighed, “I..um...I haven’t really been able to do it. I don’t dare go too high in case I run out of magic, and it’s a lot harder and more dangerous without whatever you do to reduce people’s weight.”

  He’d obviously been talking to his siblings, but she hadn’t considered that her using gravity magic made it much easier for her. Plus, he was right in pointing out that other people didn’t quite have the giant mana pool that she did. It seemed she wouldn’t have to worry about flight path congestion for quite a while, at least until people figured out the trick of it or practiced enough. She began walking in the right direction, Will following silently as she thought. With him next to her, she didn’t bother changing her appearance, giving up on the thought of brushing up against anyone. Actually, if she couldn’t get siphon targets, why shouldn’t she just fly?

  She was pulled out of her thoughts when a drop of water hit her nose. Flummoxed, she stopped, then glanced up, realizing she hadn’t needed to adjust to the sunshine when she got outside. A giant grin stole across her face as she remembered the storm and saw the droplets of water pouring down. The streets immediately began to clear as Will cursed under his breath, pulling up his hood.

  Uncaring of the fact that she was getting wet, Jade held her arms out to the side, palms up to catch the water as she laughed and twirled beneath the sudden downpour. Will ducked beneath the awning of a nearby building and was watching her like a crazy person. “Jade, get out of the rain! You’ll catch a cold!” She paused, giving him a look until he realized how silly that sounded. First of all, she could dry herself off instantly, and second, she could heal herself even if she did catch a cold!