Abuse Of Magic

William was having to use all of his persuasive powers from the system to cross the borders while he traveled, gathering his people to go with him. He couldn"t tell Selena about the system, but Joseph understood what she meant. The people who he wasn"t sure could handle the trip, were being sent to southern holdings along the wastelands border. It was good that Joseph had already called all of the people north to him in this kingdom.

His father would be bringing what supplies he could get, with him when he got into this kingdom, along with about 14,000 people. Joseph told her to tell him that they had managed to get seed into the ground but it was late. Harvest would be late, but there should be a lot of food once harvest was done.

Once he was done speaking with Selena, he traveled back to his magical s.p.a.ce where the runes were visible. His AMCC had been busy gaining basic proficiency in all of the runes he"d seen, but hadn"t finished the ones he knew, much less the extra nine he found in the ruins to the north. For now, since he already had several FOOD spells, he decided to head there. The world of FOOD was just as odd as he remembered. Some things looked mind blowingly delicious and others looked rather disgusting.

He pictured himself made out of ginger bread to keep it simple, with an excellent frosting job for the accents. Then he started listening to the rune. It only took a few minutes before he could start repeating it back. The inflection, the timing, even how he held himself and breathed through his nose, that didn"t really exist currently, affected the sound. It"s disappointing but he didn"t think he was going to be able to learn how to p.r.o.nounce any of the runes in less than 5 hours. So much intent was packed in even the smallest fluctuations. Each word conveyed the meaning of paragraphs in any of the languages he knew. Still, the subject always, in some way, invoked FOOD, or whatever the rune governed.

When he returned from the magical realm, he was exhausted. Turning to Stella, he saw she was eating a really big cinnamon roll. Next to her was half a plate of chili cheese fries. When did they get the ingredients for that? Should he ask for a bite? Nah, he was good. He had just spent 5 hours staring at food. While he had learned dozens of new recipes, his head was a bit fuzzier than when he left the realm of FIRE last time.

"Wow, Stella. It is really draining to do this. It feels like I"ve been running a marathon. I"m beat. I"m going to lay here for a bit. Wake me in about 15 minutes."

"Yes, Master Joseph."

"We"ll be going to the kitchen once I"m up."

x.x.xxX

"Master Joseph, it has been 15 minutes."

Taking a deep breath, he sat up. Good, he felt better. Heading to the kitchen with Stella, he was overwhelmed with the desire to cook those recipes. FOOD wanted him to learn these recipes for a particular reason. Over a dozen dishes later, he finished and stared at everything he had just cooked. Most of the dishes were incredibly simple and easy to fix, but taking samples of them showed that they were also amazingly delicious.

x.x.xxX

Joseph was at his desk, going over reports and writing orders to send to the other villages. They had finished their meeting half an hour ago, and he was almost done with the paperwork. He may remember everything perfectly, but the others wouldn"t.

"Raindrops on roses and noses on bunnies

The way that they twitch them is so very funny

Tails that are fluffy and soft to the touch

Just some of the things that I love so much

Whenever I"m blue or my life"s in a funk

Or I"m trying my hardest when my hopes are all sunk

I remember a snowstorm with flurries a whirl

And think of my favorite cute bunny girl…"

"Master Joseph…are you singing?"

"Uh, yes, if you heard that. I was mostly humming the tune though."

"That was a rather…odd song."

"Ah, yes, well, the original probably sounded much better, but I like the changes I made."

"Why did you feel the need to change it?"

"Well, for one, I don"t like kittens. I was scratched by one as a child and the cut got infected and hurt for days. Somehow, I"ve just never gotten along with kittens. Puppies don"t bite me, but they still run away. And two, you twitch your nose very well. It"s adorable. So, if I"m going to think happy thoughts, getting to goof off with you on the way to save the world, was one of my happiest times."

"Even though we were desperately trying not to freeze to death, and had to face an ancient incarnation of a dark G.o.d?"

"Yeah, weird isn"t it? Amazing how much better, even horrible stuff is, when you do it with your best friend."

He gave her a big grin before he went back to paperwork. Stella muttered something that he couldn"t quite catch, even with his hearing.

"If you want, I can hum something different, but I"m trying to stay on happy tunes instead of rock or something harder. I"m using it to keep my mood up going through these reports."

"Are the reports that disturbing?"

"No, not directly. I"m not sure we will be able to stay here the full 5 years with the way things are going though."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one, the war broke out, but the problem on the contract is solved. We probably need to go, and either move our people to the central kingdom, or pull our people from the central kingdom. We are tax free here, but the hara.s.sment from the n.o.bles is bothersome and costing time and money. The problem is on hold for now because most of dad"s other towns have already moved up and the last couple are on the way. The central kingdom might try and conscript from dad"s slaves though, if things get worse for them. So, deciding which kingdom to really base out of during the war is going to be up to dad obviously, but it"s still a concern, so I am gathering as much information as possible in order for dad to make a better decision."

"And this has to do with your singing lately?"

"Well, I"m obviously not a very good song writer if you didn"t like what you heard just then," he laughed. "I"m trying to keep an upbeat tune that doesn"t involve love songs, break up songs, or songs just about s.e.x. That actually narrows the list quite a bit.

"I wonder if the previous me"s taste in music was horrible, or if that was all that was available at the time. One life was stuck with patriotic songs to his country for two decades because of the war, so since I don"t really care for his country, those are wasted too. Songs about the open road don"t make much sense here. The religious songs seem kind of odd, because in my previous lives, I was never very religious, and in this life, I was blessed by the G.o.d of magic and don"t know any songs for him.

"I know a number of instrumentals as well, but that doesn"t help a lot in singing. I"m really hoping sound or illusion is in the runes I picked up in the north that I haven"t deciphered yet.

"Oh, and even if dad settles here, until the war is over, there is a decent chance you and I will need to make our way to the Elven lands. META is the rune that controls magic itself, including curses. The system says the only copy still left outside, possibly ruins in the wasteland, is in the royal Elven library. It may be required to heal the wasteland and the world tree. I"m not sure how many people we will be able to take crossing three country borders, but obviously the smaller the group the better and it may end up being just the two of us again."

"Does that mean we get to play more tag?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye and a twitch of her nose.

"Totally!"