Abuse of Magic

Chapter 108: Permission To Talk To Yourself

William and Joseph had managed to settle everything. The barbarians would be the guards. When they proposed the idea, they were surprised how well the idea was received. This land was far tamer than what they were used to, and there was no way they could return to the north, with the devastation from the fog. They decided between them, that they would break back into their tribes and would then roam amongst the towns, patrolling. They assured William and Joseph that nothing here would be a challenge after the north.

That night, William finally had a chance to have a serious talk with Joseph again.

"Joseph, I sent far more slaves here than have arrived."

"What do you mean? I thought you could tell when your slaves died and where they were?"

"I can tell when they die, but only a general feeling of where they are. In the north everyone was south. Now I can tell that many haven't made it down here yet."

"Hmm. Do you want me to teleport you to some of the cities we have stopped at, so you can find them?"

"No, I shouldn't show my face in public. The king no doubt has many looking for me. He is far more paranoid than his father was, and I used so many of the points I saved getting through the check points, I don't have enough left to call the scattered people home."

"Wait, how old are you dad?" Joseph suddenly realized, that as a slave merchant, his father wasn't nearly old enough to have known the current king's father.

He looked at Joseph for a moment, before answering. "Joseph, I am 92. Only you and the elves know."

"Wow. You don't lookso mom doesn't know."

"No, she doesn't. I had to hide my age in order for her father to agree to let me marry her. If she found out now, I'm not sure she would believe me, or what she would do"

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Joseph nodded. He knew how scary his mom was.

"Tomorrow, let's go around the kingdom. We can mark out on the map where you feel them, and use it to triangulate the cities where everyone is at. Otherwise, without being able to sense your slaves, I won't be able to find them."

"I am afraid it isn't that easy. There are some who I released from slavery. They either earned it or retired. When I first started, I didn't know that the benefits of being my slave would be so great."

"Then we shall have to do the best we can."

The next day was spent with his father, teleporting throughout the kingdom along his route. There were 12 locations, where his father felt slaves hiding and thankfully none of those locations were in cities.

"I need to learn TELEPORT OTHER before we can rescue them, dad."

"OK, then do that. I don't want you to make GATES from all over the kingdom to this place."

"That might be dangerous if there were other mages able to sense my magic," said Joseph, but then his other mind spoke up, reminding him of the assassins who had tried to kill him and of whoever had released that horror up in the north. Maybe there were other mages able to detect his magic. His father didn't correct him, probably assuming Joseph knew more on the subject of magic, then he did.

This time Joseph left the new Joseph studying other spells, while the Joseph in charge of his body studied TELEPORT OTHER. It took six days instead of two and a half, but William didn't sense that any of his slaves were in immediate peril.

Joseph decided to scout the area where the slaves were, so that he would be able to teleport closer when the time came. He needed to be able to get his dad close, to find their exact hiding spot. He was hoping to rescue everyone all at once, or at least within a few days.

Late at night, Joseph was thinking hard, unable to sleep.

"Stella?"

"Yes, Master Joseph?" Her voice was soft and half asleep.

"I kind of want to get COOK, SEEK FOOD, and then CREATE FOOD and ESSENTIAL FOOD because that would let me literally create food from nothing."

"Ok," she mumbled.

"But I'm worried that I will come across something that is resistant to fire and thus my fire spells won't work so I won't be able to defeat it. I could learn STONE MISSILE or I could learn acid and icicle spells from WATER or lightning spells from AIR. What do you think?"

"I don't think many things will be able to resist your fire spells, Master Joseph." She sounded a little more awake.

"Well, also if I get all of the shape elemental spells, I could learn ALTER TERRAIN and literally move mountains."

"That might be handy after you take over the wasteland."

"If I learn a few more PLANT spells I can learn ESSENTIAL WOOD. It would make our wood items stronger than most metal items, or learn ESSENTIAL EARTH and use EARTH TO STONE twice to make ridiculously strong metals."

"That sounds interesting." Was she starting to get a little annoyed? Probably just his imagination.

"I could also learn to control the weather, but I also would like more healing spells before I get shot by one of those demonic arrows again."

"I would prefer you not get shot master." This time she definitely sounded annoyed, but he missed it.

"Well, then I could learn a few more protection spells, I guess. But I might need more KNOWLEDGE spells too, because I'm stuck for the moment on how to heal the wasteland. Though if I learned more BODY CONTROL, I could eventually alter my voice to be able to speak dragon words directly so that is tempting. I'm just sorry I don't have SOUND yet. I learned SIMPLE ILLUSION but in order to learn COMPLEX ILLUSION I need to learn some SOUND spells. And I can't go farther in that rune really without that yet. But then it's really tempting to learn a few more ENCHANTMENT spells in order to make myself a proper mage staff, too."

"Master Joseph?" Her tone caught his attention immediately.

"Yes, Stella?"

"Good night. If you need magic advice, you should talk to yourself."