Before I had even opened my eyes, I knew something bad had happened. I was too warm and I couldn't feel a good chunk of my body. The wind blew around me and carried the warmth furiously. Trying to open my eyes proved futile, as fire gracefully filled them anytime I tried. I tried to stand up and immediately fell back down, my feet and hands were gone and only stumps remained.
I was experimenting with sage and liquified anger, I didn't think that it was dangerous. Sage, liquified anger, mandrake, and a diamond. What had happened to cause such an extreme reaction? I've been doing alchemy since I was a child, I couldn't have done it wrong... I hoped.
Despite my dismemberment, I could feel my magic inside, strong as ever. The ever-expanding green, infected with darkness, burnt, marked, and rotting from outside magic. Even without my hands, as long as my mind remained, my magic would hold.
A tilt of my head, and the wind and heat stopped immediately as I conjured up a shield and guarded myself. Once I pulled myself over, I knew what I was sitting in and what was clogging my eyes, nose, mouth, and throat.
"San—" I coughed before I could finish. Sand poured from me as I used what remained of my arms to stand up. Now that I was standing up, I balanced on one hoof and used the other to wipe away sand from my eyes before I looked around.
Would you believe it, more sand? Miles and miles and miles of sand. After the confusion of where I was had subsided, I got my first look at the green thing in my peripheral vision. I had thought it was an insect at first, but I saw my arm when I went to clear my face.
My arm was not dismembered, but transformed instead. A horse's hoof greeted me along with it's three brothers. I was covered in dirty, sand-covered, green fur, and my hair had turned into a lighter shade of green. With two small ears, a new tail, and a body ten times smaller than what I was previously used too, I hesitantly tried to stand up as a horse would, on all fours.
With the fear of looking stupid to a crowd that isn't there, I walked north with the magical shield following me closely. The crowd that wasn't there didn't laugh, so my walking on all fours couldn't have looked that bad.
"I thought deserts were s-supposed to be h-hot." I said as I shivered under the cold moon light. I had been walking for hours and it was now deep into the night, my only companion being the sand, and my shield keeping the sand and myself separate. It wasn't too long after I found a large rock structure jutting out of the sand.
I gasped at it's size, it looked as though it was alive, with two large structures for it's arms, and the front looking almost like a face. "It's a lot bigger than the university grounds back home, with a little renovation, this place will serve as a perfect shelter until I can find out how to get home."
I ran as fast as my horse legs would carry me, hoping to find a cave entrance, when I found none, I returned to the front, and decided to carve out my new home.
"You think a lack of an 'inside' will prevent me from living inside you, rock? You fool."
The prospect of being out of the desert for a while was enough for me to forget about the cold in the air as I chose to focus on the work in front of me for now. There would be time for worry later.
By morning I had a decent sized room and a hallway, by the time night had arrived again, I had multiple rooms with a branching hallway. On and on I carved with my horn lit, the sound of chipping and cracking stone being the only companion to keep me company.
"I could be here a while," I pondered out loud. My years of wealth had left me a tad spoiled for space, so despite only needing a small room, I carved out most of the rock into many rooms.
What really struck me as odd was when I was half way through the cave, but managed to chip through it and back out into the desert. I thought that my calculations may have been wrong for a moment until I saw this open space room surrounded by rock walls.
"Oh, it's a--" My mind struggled to find the word. The top of the enclosed area was burnt and circular. "What even happened here." I asked no-one before I shot the remaining portions of roof off. This enclosed area was quite large and with a bit of time and magic could be of use to me.
"I'm glad I figured out a way to manage my hunger and fatigue by absorbing my own magic, or I'd have been a goner." I said as I smoothed out the last of the walls. At least now I wouldn't have to worry about getting scratched by my own wall.
"Now all I need is some lumber to build some proper flooring." I turned to head further into the cave before I had an idea.
My eyes narrowed and I stopped moving. "There's no lumber in the desert, but that doesn't mean I can't grow lumber." I said before looking back in the direction of the enclosed area.
"A shield spell with runes should be able to keep the sand off of it, a little terraforming to turn the sand to soil, and some enchantments to help seeds grow." I trotted back to the enclosed area and prepared myself for the spells.
My horn lit a deep green before the tip grew a dark purple. I could tell from the glow on my cheeks that my eyes were mimicking my horn, and a quick slam from my hoof released a deep THUUUUM sound from the soft sand below.
A bright green shield with deep purple swirls grew from the enclosure at the same time as the sand began to turn a dark brown, then a light green. I laid down extra runes for precaution, as I couldn't risk anything I intended to plant here dying. Before my magic was done, I forced more of it into my horn and overloaded the soil with life magic. Grass soon grew out of the soil, as my horn began to smoke.
In a moment of tiredness from having done so much in such little time, I laid down and hugged the magically infused soil. When an insect began crawling on me, I knew it was time to move on. Shaking myself off, I relit my horn and began gardening.
While I didn't need food to survive as long as I consumed my own magic supply, I was in a better situation now and began growing plenty of fruits and vegetables.
"Apples, oranges, peaches, pears, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, lettuce, tomato, olives, potatoes, cherries, carrots, corn, wheat, and cocoa beans." I read off as I walked down the garden. "I'll be eating as a ... well not a king, but as someone befitting my status as a wizard."
An exiled wizard, I reminded myself mentally. The sun was setting, it had only been roughly a day and most of my plants were already fully grown. I pulled off a peach with my magic and held it in my hoof. It looked perfect, not a single blemish. It was soft, plump, and juicy looking so I went and took a bite only to promptly spit it out.
It was the perfect peach, but it needed to be sweetened. "Blegh, needs sugar."
Looking back over the garden, I said to myself, " I imagine all of you will need sweetened, accursed sweet tooth." Re-lighting my horn, I began sowing sugar cane seeds and as soon as I thought I was done, I began sowing more, then more, then more.
"ok, that's got to be enough. Not even I can go through this much sugar in between harvests." The sugar cane was simply a small square when I first finished, but now it is a sprawling and branching mess, what land wasn't used for anything, became land for sugar. When compared to the land used for lumber, dyes, cotton, and even the alchemy ingredients, those fields were miniscule compared to the sugar.
With a belly full of fruits, vegetables, and sugar, I harvested the quick growing lumber and began to work on building proper flooring for my new home.