World of Agatha - 6 Light and Discovery

Along the narrow pathways and rocky entrances, a shadowy figure walked, just like a ghost in the land of death. This figure was Morgana, of course.

Five days had passed since her duel with the Bat King. Since then, she had searched endlessly for the exit of this dreaded place. Unfortunately, success evaded her, just like a healthy man would do with the flu. But this was no news. Since childhood, her luck had always been quite poor.

The little time she had to spare was committed to magic practice. Small tricks weren’t difficult to grasp. When attempting to master lesser spells, frequently, all she had to do was to make minor adjustments in the original formula and everything would fall into place.

There were also some easy to spot differences in magical law, witch facilitated her work. Otherwise, her only alternative was trial and error. For instance, one of the key points to keep in mind was that, in this land, elemental particles seemed to be thicker and more unstable.

The result was that when deploying transmute rock in her previous battle, Morgana had to craft much more robust runes. Had she not done so, the whole formation would simply collapse and implode.

Food was also not an issue. With the ample supply of bats and the occasional mushroom, her nutritional needs were properly met. She was also capable of sustaining a bonfire now, which helped both with the taste of food and health in general since cooking killed many types of bacteria.

By this point, however, Morgana had reached a bottleneck on her cultivation process. After all there was only so much she could learn with practice alone. Academic studies played a major role in the power of a wizard. That’s the reason why the most powerful arcane masters Morgana had ever known were men and women with great diligence and devotion to reading, reflecting and experimenting in seclusion.

A strong wizard was both someone who uncovered the mysteries of magic, as much as someone who tempered his or herself in the heat of battle.

One of the possibilities Morgana had considered was to settle a base of operations as soon as she arrived on the surface. Time was needed in order to do experiments and increase her own understanding through methodical observation in a controlled environment.

However, one might be enticed to consider – “Why couldn’t she do that inside the dungeon? Why lose time searching for a path to the surface that might not even exist?”

Well. Morgana had several reasons for the choice she made. For starters the resources underground seemed to be very poor. There were no magical ores besides the glowing rocks and biodiversity was extremely low. Without considering the infestation of bat-like creatures, even the types of fungus appeared to be very few.

This was a terrible work environment for Morgana. After all, even the most talented researcher required proper raw materials to make progress.

The other reason that pushed her towards this calculated gamble could be summarised in one word – “books”.

If there were intelligent creatures on this land Morgana would be a fool if she did not make full use of their already pre-existing knowledge. As long as she could get her hands on their written manuscripts, years or even decades of work could be saved.

“At least I have time. If my body’s poison resistance proved useless against the bat king, I would be very pressed to develop an antidote right now. Fortunately the poison seems to have left my system already.” – Morgana thought happily as at least one of her problems had been solved without effort.

….

The light was the first sign of discovery.

An entire week had gone by since Morgana’s arrival at this place. The search had been long and difficult, but finally an exit to the surface was in sight.

A few minutes before, this hidden path had almost gone unnoticed. Only a very slight difference in the gloom caused Morgana to be suspicious.

Most people wouldn’t have noticed or, even if they did, there was the chance of simply dismissing it as the effect of a greater number of glowing stones cramped together.

But fortunately this wasn’t the case.

The way out was very steep, looking more like a whole on the ground rather than a cave.

However this was not a problem for Morgana. She climbed very quickly, propelling herself up successively with great ease. Her movements looked graceful and very light. It was very difficult to imagine how those jumps could produce such strength, capable of lifting the human body to those hights.

After so much time spent underground, the light hurt Morgana’s eyes in its first contact so she hurriedly covered it with her hands. However, the pain did not spoil her mood, witch was elated.

Her gamble paid off. Not only this world had a surface but she was also able to reach it safely. Many new possibilities were now open and the future looked bright.

However, she couldn’t rest just yet. There was much work to do.