Moose wasn’t watching her any longer so she slipped back to the place where it had made the disks.


    All through the time they had spent in the watery place, Moose had kept its eye on her. She wasn’t sure why, Moose had never paid her that much attention. Maybe it was making sure she didn’t break anything in the garden?


    That attention became even more clear when Moose had used the big magic near the end.


    She was surprised at first. When Moose touched her head, she had been thinking about her home and hadn’t expected it. Once Moose started to rub her head and the tingles began again, she understood that something was happening. She had thought Moose was just giving her more magic. That she didn’t have enough or wasn’t growing it fast enough.


    All of that was forgotten when the noises started.


    Even her mind hadn’t known what to do. With noises so close, she normally would want to run away. To escape whatever was coming. But these. These noises were far worse than anything she had heard before. Her body refused to move and her mind was filled with nothing but the noise. It pushed out all her thoughts and made it hard to do anything but hear more. It was only Moose and the head rubs that let her do anything at all. All she managed to do even then was to cling to Moose and hope it was strong enough.


    It wasn’t until the heat from clinging to Moose started to loosen her body that she realized there was nothing coming for them. That Moose wasn’t giving her more magic. Everything had been Moose from the start. It had used some great magic to make a wall between them and the garden.


    It wasn’t like what happened at the lair. The small magic there was quiet and the wall closed up fast. It was only a small piece and didn’t seem difficult to do. Moose only needed a moment before the magic was done and the opening closed. Here? Here it was very different. The magic took a long time to finish and Moose seemed to need the magic in her for some reason.


    No, the reason was obvious.


    The wall that formed before her was enormous. Far larger than even Moose. It filled the entire tunnel with its bulk. She doubted even a monster as large as Moose would be able to break it. The tunnel as well was much larger than almost anything she had seen before. It was clear that this was where Moose spent its time. And where other monsters that could compete with Moose also lived. She could see no other reason to use all that magic on such a big wall otherwise.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    How terrifying must the monsters here be, to compete with Moose?


    She didn’t want to find out. If this was what it took for the garden to be safe, then she would rather not stay here. Not have to deal with the reasons it needed safety in the first place. She made sure to cling to Moose for the rest of their walk. She didn’t recognize any of these tunnels and didn’t want to risk being separated. She didn’t think she could survive here on her own, especially with her light curse. She would be easy prey.


    She should have been far more wary when Moose used magic on the room that brought them here. It had been strange, but she was more curious than anything. How had Moose made the same opening in the wall lead to different places? That would be an amazing power to have. To use it to make the opening in her home lead to Moose’s lair. She would never have to walk the tunnels again. Simply appearing where she needed to go.


    But maybe there was a reason. Maybe if Moose did it, other monsters could do it too. If Moose used the magic, other monsters could find it and appear where Moose had been. It would be a good reason. Even Moose couldn’t be everywhere at once. At least she didn’t think so. Even if another monster couldn’t defeat Moose, they could just wait and do whatever they wanted when Moose wasn’t there.


    She would need to memorize exactly where the opening that brought them here was. If other monsters could find it because of the magic, she needed to stay away from it. To run if she heard any noises coming from that direction. After what she had seen, her life might depend on it.


    Even after they had returned to the tunnels she remembered, she had stuck to Moose’s side. She had no idea how the magic worked and didn’t want any mishaps. It wasn’t until Moose started to make more disks that she stepped away.


    It was hard to watch what was happening when she was that close and she wanted that spell.


    It was clear it was complex magic. Not as big as what had been done in the tunnel, but more difficult to do. At least from what she could see. Whenever Moose made a wall, there wasn’t much hand movement or concentration. It seemed that making a wall was simple but took a lot of magic. This seemed to be the opposite, not much magic but a lot of hand movement. Still, it would take more time to memorize it exactly. She didn’t dare try more magic in front of Moose. Even if she was protected for now, if Moose found out she could do lots of magic at some point, it might not give her enough. Or it might not give her any. She didn’t want Moose to know what she could or couldn’t do until she was ready.


    Experimenting on her own was different though.


    Once the disks were finished, Moose set them on one of the surfaces in the food place and went to the wall. Where it then proceeded to make words pop out. Again. Maybe that spell should be something to study as well. To simply make words appear anywhere would be a great help in learning them.


    As Moose had stopped paying close attention to her after it had set the disks down, she used the distraction caused by the wall words to return to where Moose had made the disks. If she could learn to make the disks on her own she wouldn’t need to worry where Moose had gone.


    ‘Moose used its hands like this, right?’