Mal breathed out. Now was the time for stealth. As long as he left and got back to the village as fast as he could, he would be safe. From then on he could begin relearning novice magical cantrips and show his parents that he was built to be a mage.
Mal crawled out of the cavern and quickly walked back along the path towards his entrance to the Voidland, making sure to wind between the stone spikes that jutted out of the ground and obscure his line of sight with the tunnel he knew was still behind him. He was meticulous and felt the thin bony hands of death brushing against him the entire time, but not once did he see another person. Only when he reached the edge of the Voidland did he divert and move into the trees in the forest, making sure that he was absolutely out of sight from above and around him. He needed to look completely inconsequential, as if there was no chance of him having been there. Even if he was only a baby he would not put it past an enraged magi to assume that his arcana was shapeshifting and he was simply assuming the form of a child to fool them.
Mal wandered through the forest, quickly leaving the area of the Voidland and headed towards one of the places within the forest where he would often play. His mother would probably be worried about him, seeing as he did not show up like he usually did when he was out playing, but he would soon be back and the moment he was home he would be safe. The whole journey only took two hours for him, as he was a lot more sure of his path on the return than he was on his search, but he was still unsettled.
There was something he was missing about his escape. He did not know why but he was still unsettled by what he had done, like he had not completely covered his tracks, but there was nothing that he would not have done if he was in the same situation with or without his magic normally. He stopped and sat near a small brook that ran through the forest and washed his feet in the cool flow, making sure to remove any traces of purple or blue dust from his feet. As he washed his feet his unsettling feeling grew to a new height. Mal was missing something simple, he knew it. It was so basic, and yet it escaped him. In the years that he had been practicing it was obviously something that he had not needed to do, but he had no idea what.
As he watched the brook flush past him he reminisced about his old life, thinking about how he had spent his youth in the Citadels south of where he sat currently. He smiled, as long as he could get there his life would begin to get back on track. He would find new friends, and sneak out to see his lovers, using an anti-detection cantrip to cover his tracks to avoid angry husbands and fathers.
He picked up a stone and raised it to compare with his mass stone. The purple one with the wheel on the left and the brown one with no markings on the right. They were so similar, and yet one stone would help him gain immeasurable power, while the other would do nothing for him. He pulled his arm back to throw away the stone he had just picked up and then stopped. The anti-detection cantrip. He had forgotten about the anti-detection cantrip. It was the one thing all magi learned within their first year of magic. Unattuned to any arcana, the spell was a staple for mischief and the like. It would protect from scrying and most auguries, at least ones without the blood of family, and he had been so powerful in his past life he had made himself a charm that cast the same effect around him at all times. It was no wonder he had forgotten to do it the moment he had touched the mass stone, he had not cast the spell in almost eight hundred years.
Rubbing his hands together to warm them up, he bit his lip in concentration. It was an easy spell to perform, a single verbal command word, with three actions and no material component to go along with it. It took seconds to cast as long as he got it right, the trick would be getting it right in the new body. Standing in a neutral pose he wrapped the mass stone in his wool smock that he wore every day, making sure that it did not leave his body, before taking in a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He relaxed. First was the greeting pose, two fists pressed with knuckles together in front of his chest. Second, the doorway, palms open but facing his chest still, with only the middle fingers on his hands touching. Finally, Mal pulled his arms together and clenched his fists, guarding tight like a boxer for the last somatic component.
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