Abuse of Magic

Chapter 105: The Wasteland

The plan was to teleport to Joseph's old house, and then to travel south as discreetly as possible, to the places his father had set up along the wastelands. He turned to Stella after a couple days of play. Now that he could teleport, he could keep just ahead of Stella for tag to end in a draw. He still couldn't catch Stella either.

"Ready to see my old home?" he asked holding out his hand.

"Of course, Master Joseph," she said taking it.

In the blink of an eye, they were standing in his back yard. It would have been so much easier if he could just look at a map and teleport to a location, but unfortunately, he could only teleport to a place where he had been before, or where he had seen at least.

"That waswow," Stella looked around in amazement.

Joseph only sighed. He had been afraid of this. The king had retaliated when his father escaped, by burning the house to the ground. In the distance they could both see the remains of the town. Even it had been burned to the ground. There wasn't even that much rubble left. As they started walking down the street, looking around at the destruction around them, Joseph realized they had burned everything, gathered the debris together, burned it again, and then scattered the ashes.

"This is needless ruin," Stella said, pausing to look over the destruction.

"They were making a point for any who might return. I'm just glad I don't see any dead bodies or mass graves anywhere. Hopefully everyone who lived here managed to escape."

Joseph felt a little tired after teleporting such a long way, so he sat down on a boulder, that may have once been part of a building, to meditate. Once he felt better, he turned to Stella.

"I have Absolute Direction. Dad showed me on the map where we need to go, so I think I just want to teleport to travel as fast as possible."

"Alright. That would save a lot of time, I suppose." She nodded as if to herself, and held out her hand for him to take it.

A grin broke out over his face as he quickly took it before she could change her mind. He turned to look in the direction they needed to go, then TELEPORT. Stopping to rest for a minute, he saw her looking a little green and swallowing quite a bit. Each time he teleported, she looked relieved that he needed to rest a moment. She seemed to get better each time, but it was obviously not her favorite method of travel. He wondered how she could jump with her version of teleport and not be sick, but was with his. It must be because it was him controlling it instead of her.

The sun was starting to set, and he spied a herd of deer off to the side.

"Stella," he started, pointing in their direction, then teleporting to within thirty feet of them.

As they spooked, she took off, quickly taking one down.

PREPARE GAME, and everything was cleaned and gutted, with the hide gently folded over to the side and the meat already separated into the cuts he wanted.

PURIFY FOOD, and all of the stomach and intestine contents were removed, the parasites and bacteria destroyed.

SHAPE EARTH, and a small dirt table appeared.

EARTH TO STONE, and the table was suddenly a nice smooth stone.

CREATE FIRE had a nice fire burning under the table, heating it up in preparation for grilling.

Stella stood there blinking in surprise. He grinned at her nod of approval.

"I don't have CREATE WATER yet, so we'll need to look for water tomorrow. I hope you don't mind cooking, since I don't have COOK or CREATE FOOD yet. I can't wait to get SEASON so the meat tastes a little better and we don't have to carry around seasonings."

Stella started to laugh. The deer herd hadn't even disappeared from sight as she lifted the first steak to place on the sizzling table.

"You are definitely the best camping partner!" She threw some seasonings on from her purse, and some vegetables that Joseph wasn't sure where she had gotten.

After they had finished eating, Joseph turned the table into a normal rock. They quickly decided there was no reason to sleep on the ground when he could teleport them back to their own beds. The teleport took more energy because of the distance, but the recovery time wasn't three hours and this way they could sleep in comfort.

Returning after their rest, Joseph rested from the teleport, then with his night vision 9 he could see just fine to keep using TELEPORT. As the sun started to rise, they hit a thick woody area, and had to walk. The woods lasted for three days, but each night, Joseph teleported them back to their own beds to sleep, and whenever they were hungry his magic sufficed to allow Stella to heat up the leftover deer. Joseph noted that he needed to learn PRESERVE FOOD at the next possible chance. PURIFY FOOD removed the bad spots, but it was still annoying to watch the food disappear because of waste.

"I don't think the barbarians will be impressed with the deer teeth, Master Joseph," she smirked as they were walking on the third day.

"Well, you are the one who actually killed the deer," Joseph pointed out. "I don't think it would count, anyway. I just wish the system would let me have a storage space, or I could have saved some of the winter wolf teeth."

As he finished talking, the edge of the trees appeared and he found himself able to see for miles again. Taking her hand, it was time to speed up this trip.

About noon on the fourth day, they spied what looked like a long row of trees that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. Just behind the trees, a wall rose up, blocking most anyone from continuing south.

Teleporting to the top of the wall, the looked down on an interesting sight. A small town was set up below them, and on either side of it, fields thick with crops were set up. On the other side of the fields were more small towns. The pattern of town, field, town, continued along the wall, as far as they could see.

Each town was set up with mostly 3-5 story apartments and storage buildings. Beyond the towns and fields, further south, there were signs and a wooden fence. Beyond that stretched the wasteland. Barren and flat to the horizon.