Thanks to Gwen's crocodile tears, the rest of the morning passed without incident. Elvia and Yue picked out their horses and quickly took up riding thanks to Tommy. Rhodes came through and shouted the girls a luncheon of Roo steak and heirloom vegetables. Tommy was asked to join at Gwen's behest, but the jackaroo insisted on eating alone on a hay bale. Social status, Gwen was reluctant to admit, was far more ingrained in this world.

Gwen's gaze fell over Tommy. While the rider dug face-first into his Roo back-strap, she felt the germination of a remarkable idea within her mind.

Tommy was by all accounts, an indigenous bloke.
Gwen, was by all accounts, tied to the Rainbow Serpent.

Discretely, she excused herself from the table and approached the jackaroo from an angle where he could see her walking up shyly, hands tucked into the pockets of her riding pants.

"Hey Tommy, can I ask you something for a minute?"

"Sure thing, Missus Boss, what do you need?" Tommy swallowed, his face full of happiness.

"Remember when I asked if I could come and see how your people lived these days, out in the Wildlands? Are you up for that offer still?"

"Sure thing Miss, but are you sure you want to go see? It's no picnic Miss, I gotta say, the old mob, they're not much for the civilisation."

"How so?" Gwen inquired.

"Not too sure myself Miss," Tommy confessed. "Old bickerings. Bad Eye. Our _guman_ don't like it when we leave the Spirit Land. He says we are losing our young folk."

Gwen tried her best to recall the names she had heard from her vision.

"So Tommy, does the term _Pintupi_ sound familiar to you at all?"

"Yeah Nah, I got nothing."

"How about _Purtardi, Triinya?"_

"Not even a dingo of an idea, Missus Boss."

_"Karli Karru? Muruntji? Wimparraku?"_

Tommy whistled smartly.

"You speak the old tongue real glib."

"Any of those familiar?"

"Some of the words sound familiar. Are they nations, maybe? I am not so sure."

"How about the _Yirriti?"_

Tommy's brows raised an inch, stretching his leathery face.

"How do you know that, Missus Boss?" His voice filled with wonder. "They are old stories me Gran used to tell! The _Yirriti_ people were the old singers of Spirit Magic!"

Gwen's eyes formed two smiling half-moons.

"Do you have one of those where your people camp, Tommy? A Spirit Singer?"

"Aye, old Goolagong, she be the singer of the mob, the _Tjukurpa—_ Spirit Walker, ya know, the Dreaming."

Gwen stopped herself from punch the air.

"Tommy, I want to take my friends and I out there for a few days, we want to be back on the 30th or the morning of the 31st, do you think we could make it? I'd very much like to speak to your shaman."

Tommy counted the days on his finger, puckered his lips and made a sucking sound.

"I think so, Missus Boss, we take the horses to the Gate, my mob usually camp about a day's ride through the bush. They're usually camped around the Goorangoola, easy to track, just follow the water."

"Well Tommy, if you can spare a few days for us, I'll make sure everyone gets together a nice bonus for you. Think of it as a quest request from us!"

Tommy's grin was split ear to ear.

"Glad to help, Missus Boss, Tommy is best for mish!"

"Thanks, Tommy." Gwen gave him her best smile. "You're the best."

"Shucks!" Tommy laughed. "You embarrass me, Missus Boss! I'll let Mr Rhodes know!"

Gwen returned to her friends with the good news. She was already thinking of team-building exercise. A few mildly exciting encounters fighting Roos and Giant Goannas should smooth the antagonism between Yue and Debs.

Tommy returned with more details once Rhodes gave him the thumbs up. The jackaroo mapped out a lovely picture of Outback extravaganza. Once they exited the Singleton Gate, they'd take the old fire trail through untamed Green Zones until Goulburn Pass. With any luck, they should run into his tribe, south of Barrington, then Gwen could get some answers, and they would be back on the night of the 30th.

The girls squealed and gushed. An Outback adventure! Four days and three nights in the bush, camping under stars! Fighting Kangaroos and God knows what, eating bush tucker and building up their friendship. That was the stuff brochures advertised.

Ever the helpful manager, Rhodes offered to drop off the horses at the Shield Gate by Singleton. All Gwen and the girls had to do was meet Tommy at dawn.

Having now planned their activities for the next few days, the girls wanted to stock up on appropriate attire for four days of rough riding. Thankfully, Cessnock was having a Boxing Day Market. Tommy borrowed Rhodes' jeep and acted the girl's chauffeur.

At the market, the girls enjoyed themselves. This time, each of the girls had resources to spare. Elvia had LDMs and HDM given to her by her father; Yue was currently in possession of a small fortune; Debora was flush with cash from their prior Roo expeditions, and Gwen was the benefactor of a sugary Opa. Arm in arm, the girls roamed from store to store, building rapport through the ancient and revered female bonding ritual known as retail therapy.

The girls returned to Surya's by nightfall, where they shared a nip of sweet Moscato with the old Enchanter. After a few glasses, Surya queried Elvia and Yue about their families, curious as to the lineage of Gwen's closest allies. Elvia's heritage was within Surya's expectations, but it was Yue's lineage that truly surprised him.

"Your father is an Evoker with tier 2 Water, but you're tier 5 Fire?!" Gwen's grandfather was shocked by the odds.

"Yeah, and my mother is an NoM!" Yue declared proudly.

"That's... amazing." Surya raised his glass in a toast. "To beating the odds!"

Yue tapped Surya's flute and drank her fermented grape juice. Gwen watched the bottle like a hawk. After her last debacle, she wasn't going to give Debora or anyone another opportunity to get tipsy and handsy.

"That said, be careful out there. It's only the Green Zone, but call me if something, anything, goes wrong."

"Yessir." the girls concurred.

Gwen capped off the busy night with a kiss for her grandfather; then they were off to prepare for their Great Outback adventure.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

At dawn, Tess drove the girls out on the four-hour-long journey to the Shield Gate at Singleton. Gwen inquired about what had happened to that Wollombi Shield Gate they had investigated, but the Apprentice knew scant more than Gwen herself.

"They're still looking into it." Tess avoided yet another pothole with a deft swivel of the wheel. "Who knows, the Tower usually takes care of these things. I can tell you the station is re-garrisoned though."

Gwen glanced at the rearview mirror. Yue and Debs were getting along better now. They didn't make small talk, but they at least left one another well alone. Elvia was napping away in the middle, her face angelic as always. Hopefully, the trip could build some rapport between Yue and Debora.

When their car finally stopped, Tommy was already waiting with the horses. "Ready to go?"

The girls bid Tess goodbye and saddled up.

Tess produced a Lumen-Recorder and asked the girls to line their horses up.

"One, two, three - Doggies! Beautiful! Have fun!"

True to his word, Tommy knew the lay of the land like the back of his hand. Even as they ventured off the main road, the jackaroo seemed well aware of their heading.

Quickly, the flat terrain of stunted shrubbery turned into rolling hills and vast, open prairies full of wild grass and early summer flowers. On a ledge, they watched a herd of Roos, a hundred or more, hop across the sweeping plains like a school of synchronised fish. Yue wanted to immediately Fireball them, but Tommy stopped her, teaching her that these were not monsters but creatures of the land. He instructed the girls that they should only kill what they could eat, and that senseless killing was disrespectful to the spirit of the nation.

Yue was disappointed but agreed to abide by Tommy's wisdom. She was a stranger to these lands, while Tommy was their host.

Past noon and past Yengo, the plains came to an end, and the hilly rockscape of the Barrington Tops began. Unlike the tectonic mountains of Europe, these hills and valleys were eroded sandstone, flats weathered by the flowing of water, shaped by the aeons.

Riding through a gully, the girls marvelled at the wonder of the bush, its white-barked forests of gums and its verdant bursts of Waratah and Banksia. There were Blooming Dogwood as well, juxtaposing the Flame Trees that turned their surroundings into founts of blood.

It was late afternoon when they finally found the estuaries that flowed from the Tops. Tommy returned some half an hour later, relieved that he had discovered signs of his people's encampment.

By now it was getting late, and the girls settled in for their first night on the bush. After a supper of oats, spiced jerky, and buttery damper, the conversation turned to who would occupy whose tent.

"Let's draw straws." Gwen had anticipated a dispute, and so made moves to absolve the conflict. She felt no desire for Tommy to sleep out in the open while she or Debora took a tent for themselves.

"Okay, I am with Debs."

With sleep sorted, the foursome dimmed the Dancing Light. As their eyes adjusted, the sky came alive with celestial bodies burning bright.

"Tommy, can you tell us some stories about this place?"

Tommy gazed up at the stars dreamily, his expression unreadable.

"Sure thing, Missus boss." The jackaroo cleared his throat. "Long ago, in the time of the never-never, before there was the Dreaming, the world was flat, bare, and cold. The Rainbow Serpent, _Almudj,_ slept under the ground with all the animal tribes in her belly waiting to be born. When it was time, she pushed up, calling to the animals to come from their sleep. She vomited forth the land, making mountains and hills, then scattered water over the earth, making rivers and lakes. She made the sun, the fire and all the colours. Our nation loves Almudj, because she is a great protector, bringing the wet season each year, allowing life to multiply, appearing in the sky as a rainbow. Our nation also fears Almudj, for she also punishes invaders."

"Thank you Tommy, that was wonderful." Gwen's eyes refracted the milkyway above. Here in the Outback, the sky was heart-achingly beautiful, so overwhelming that she felt insignificant, minuscule, irrelevant.

"Was that the serpent we saw during the Field Trip?" Debora asked.

"I don't know," Gwen lied.

Yue and Elvia also gazed upon the magnificence in silence, trying to picture a serpent sailing through the night-time sky.

Gwen spent the night brushing off a wayward hand that kept sneaking its way into her sleeping bag. Half-awake, she listened to Debora's muffled breathing, unsure if the girl was awake or if she was naturally a nocturnal grabber.

When dawn came, the insomniac sorceress, finally asleep, felt something tingly on her face. Drearily opening her eyes, she was met with Debora's face hovering an inch away, her amber eyes gazing longing into her own.

"Morning," Gwen said cautiously, not moving a muscle.

"I wish days like this would last forever," Debora muttered strangely, her voice full of melancholy.

Gwen didn't reply for fear of inciting Debora. Instead, she reached out and squeezed her friend's hand reassuringly. Debora's hair, which she had cropped around the time of the Field Trip, had astoundingly returned to shoulder length. In the dappled light of the early morning, her friend was uncommonly comely. It wasn't the striking, exotic manner in which Gwen's appearance was head-turning, but a wholesome, girl-next-door appeal that Gwen could never affect.

Gwen propped herself against the bedroll while Debora dressed in the cramped space of the two-women tent. An Earthen Transmuter, Debora's toned musculature was well-defined beneath her honeyed-skin. Compared to herself and her well-visible ribs, Gwen reminded herself that she needed to eat more.

Gwen waited until Debora left before she changed, slipping into a long-sleeved cotton shirt, and her full-length riding pants. Emerge from the tent into the morning light; she buckled on her boots.

There was a delicious smell of sizzling bacon. Tommy was making breakfast, aided by Yue, who excelled in survivalist cooking thanks to Alesia's deadly culinary ineptitude. Together, the girls shared tea and coffee, then saddled up for the ride to the Indigenous encampment.

"Oi! _Appa!_ It's me, Tommy Kuranga, how are ya?"

"Niiyalang!" replied an elderly man, "What's with the puk _komans?_ You bringing _migloo_ girls home now Tommy?"

Gwen and the girls dismounted as they approached the settlement.
The word settlement was perhaps, an inappropriate observation, for they were looking at a dozen humpies made from sticks and cross-hatched gum leaves, forming rudimentary burrows where one or two individuals could shelter from the sun or rain. Comparatively, some distance away, modern-material tents replaced the traditional humpy.

The man Tommy had spoken to was a 'bushman' as Gwen would put it, but he had on jeans and a red t-shirt faded by the sun.

As they strolled into camp, Gwen noted that almost all the residents of the settlement were wearing modernised clothing. There were little signs of the classic, Indigenous appearance that she had come to expect from her old world.

Feeling ambivalent, she attempted to rationalise the scene before her, realising the idiotic expectation brought by her subtle prejudice. Just because they were in a magical world, she told herself, it didn't mean the indigenous folks strolled around naked and in body paint.

"Good afternoon Sir. I am Gwen Song, and these are my friends, Yue Bai, Debora Jones, and Elvia Lindholm," Gwen spoke to the old feller who had accosted their party.

Discretely, Tommy led the horses away while Gwen introduced her and her friends.

"Ha! Old Jurangi is no 'Sir'!" the old man hollered, studying the girls, his eyes lingering a moment longer upon Gwen than the others. "Call me Jura, that's what the old stockmen used to call me. You Migloo are a long way from home!"

"I am sorry for disturbing the peace, Jura," Gwen replied respectfully. "I was wondering if it is at all possible to speak to your Spirit Speaker."

"Goolagong? You want to see the old lady?" His voice took on a tone of caution. "You want to _malp kee'AN_? Or perhaps you are more interested in the _ngeen-wiy_? No?"

Gwen blushed.

"I don't understand what you mean," she confessed. "My apologies for the inconvenience."

Jura looked over at Tommy, who was brushing down the horses and unsaddling the camping gear.

"Well, I better get you mob settled then." Jura pointed to a clearing beside the rest of the camp. "Help yourselves."

Gwen led the girls over to the clearing and materialised their supplies.
Jura's eyes almost popped out of his sockets.

"You _migloo_ Magic?" Jura spluttered, suddenly alarmed. "All of you?"

"Yue and I are Evokers, Debora here is a Transmuter, and Elvia is a healer."

Debora placed a hand upon the earth and incanted a Minor Stone Shape. The ground rippled and warped before flattening out. Likewise, she planted the tent pegs by wrapping the stone around the spikes.

_"Ngench pekan!"_ Jura spat alarmingly. "Ooo this proper cheeky Tommy! Bringing us trouble!"

Gwen watched the man stalk angrily off toward their jackaroo, proceeding to slap the young man on the head.

"Gwen—" Yue questioned. "What's happening?"

"Are we unwelcome?" Elvia said worriedly.

"Yeah, we don't exactly share a nice history with these folk," Dobora noted, observing Tommy ducking this way and that, trying to avoid the older man's slaps. "You know that we chased the savages out and took their land, right?"

Gwen nodded uncertainly. Old Jura had seemed perfectly fine until they started using magic. "Is there a taboo or something about modern magic?"

"I don't know about these days," Debora answered. "But when the Purge came through in the 70s, the Indigenous people were caught up pretty bad. It's all in the history books, Gwen, don't you recall junior high?"

"I was preoccupied," Gwen replied. She didn't even remember those classes. Yue knew about Gwen's family circumstances, but Debora had not.

The commotion seemed to have alerted the rest of the camp. Men, women and children all emerged from their tents to see what compelling drama was unfolding at the settlement's edge. In a few moments, the girls were surrounded by at least a hundred of the Indigenous folk, pointing and speaking in their musical language.

Elvia hid behind Gwen demurely, hiding herself using Gwen's stature. Yue stepped up aggressively, as did Debora, who looked ready to fight. Gwen swallowed nervously as the gathering crowd came closer to inspect the intruders. She could see in their eyes that not all of them were curious while some, Gwen gulped, looked very much hostile.


"Oi! You mob! Hang off!"

Just as Gwen considered the merits of restraining Yue as to avoid a diplomatic incident, she was interrupted by a croak that silenced the murmuring crowd.

The group opened a path. From between the crowd, an indigenous woman with the bearing of a fertility goddess emerged. She was twice the width of the girthiest of the men, with dense breasts that hung low against a portly stomach, naked but for a modesty shawl. Yet, there wasn't a feeling of corpulence that one perceived when perceiving a woman with three chins. Instead, there was an indescribable vitality to the woman. Most imposingly, the woman's body was vivid with ochre markings and white lines.

The woman, Gwen figured, was Tommy's Spirit Walker, the tribe's Dreamer— Old Goolagong.

"Ma'am." Gwen placed a hand on Yue's shoulder. "Allow me to apologise. I hadn't realised the trouble our intrusion would bring."

"Pay them no mind, _puk komans_ of the _migloo_ tribe." Thankfully, Goolagong was well-versed in English.

"They're young, bored and restless, there is little to do here but hunt and forage, meaning the mob often become greedy for excitement."

Old Goolagong turned to her people.

"Go home! No more embarrassment for our guests!"

Muttering, the tribesmen dispersed.

"Allow me to introduce myself." Gwen made a courteous bow, the sort a junior Mage would use to greet a Master. "I am Gwen Song, a student of Evocation. Here is Yue, likewise an Evoker; and Debora, a transmuter, and finally, this is Elvia, our healer."

"Five for a mob, isn't it?" the old man asked, looking around. "Not to mention Tommy is no Migloo magician."

"Ah, we're here to broaden our horizons; not to quest."

The Spirit Walker glared Jura, who looked guilty. "Honest mistake! We have trouble with migloo magicians on mish before. That is why you get eye."

Old Goolagong came closer, from her markings, the girls could smell wildflowers and loam.

"They say you wanted to speak to me. If you are not on a mish, what can old Goolagong do for you?"

"Well." Gwen summoned her courage. She couldn't speak about her relationship with the Almudj, but the Geas did not prevent her from asking about the Mythic from an entirely different angle. "I was very much interested in the history of the region, especially regarding the Rainbow Serpent."

Out of the girls, Elvia was the most articulate. She quickly explained what they saw that day of the Field Trip, about the rampage of the Rainbow Serpent in the Royal National.

"I see, I see." The woman chuckled.

Her gaze swept over the students, stopping at Debora. The Transmuter seemed to take note and hid behind the others. Toward Yue or Elvia, Goolagong possessed little interest, reserving the bulk of her attention for Gwen.

"You know Almudj?" Goolagong said. "I sense that the Dreaming is strong in you."

Gwen's blood grew instantly cold. Goolagong had better not accidentally triggered her Geas! Feeling her skin crawl, Gwen grinned awkwardly, then shook her head unconvincingly.

"Only from stories, Ma'am," Elvia replied for Gwen, unsure why her talkative friend suddenly clammed up.

"No matter. We talk in the shade." Goolagong motioned for the girls to move toward her humpy.

"I'd be glad to," Gwen replied.

The party followed, all except one.

"I'll stay here," Debora replied, her face a barely hiding her displeasure. "I am not feeling well."

"Are you alright, Deb? Was it something we ate? Motion sickness?" Elvia inquired puzzlingly. Gwen was also puzzled. Along the way, Debora had been the most fortified of them all. "Maybe— heatstroke? I'll stay with Debby."

"Alright." Gwen nodded at Elvia. "Debs, are you sure you're fine?"

"I am good." Debora shot Goolagong an unfriendly glare. "I just need to lie down a bit. You go ahead. I'll be fine with Evee here."

Gwen looked at Yue, who shrugged. Yue wasn't close enough to Debora to give a toss. Of greater interest to Yue was the bulbous woman with a gut full of exotic stories.

"Okay. We'll be back soon," Gwen replied gently, giving Debora a quick hug. "Take care."

Old Goolagong sat under the canopy of a humpy that barely reached her sitting height, appearing as though a female, earthen Budai.

"Please forgive the mob for their suspicions." Goolagong inclined her head. "They do not mean harm, only desiring that you leave us alone."

"It's my fault for not announcing our arrival," Gwen said. "Please, if there's any way we can do to amend our intrusion, please say so."

Goolagong's mouth opened to reveal rows of yellowing teeth.

"Let's hear why you are here first. Jura tells me you and Tommy came to see me direct. You want to know about the Mother Serpent, Almudj?"

Gwen framed her questions very carefully. "Yes, specifically, if there are any stories of the Serpent being able to communicate with people. Like through dreams and such."

"Oh?" Goolagong's eyes made two half-moons. "Why would a migloo girl want to know about the Mother of the Unformed Land? Especially a magician with her European magic?"

"Academic reasons," Gwen lied, pondering the sensitivity of her embedded Geas.

"What do you know so far?" Goolagong asked instead. "How do you know Almudj?"

Gwen grunted. Now she felt the oppressive grip of the Geas distinctly weighing upon her mind, pulling at her heart.

"Yue, I need you to hit me with a Flaming Hand, just a small one."

Yue looked at Gwen with an expression of incomprehension.

"Trust me. I know what I am doing. I need to show the elder something."

"Gwen, are you barking mad?" Yue's expression suggested she was questioning her sanity.

"Yue, please," Gwen affirmed her request.

"Alright, I hope you got a health pot ready." Yue raised a hand. "Flaming Hand!"

A burst of flame erupted from Yue's hands, enveloping Gwen like the tongue of a malicious salamander.

But just as the flame reached its target and began to scorch Gwen's clothes, a shimmer enveloped Gwen's body, manifesting a few millimetres above her skin. The flames washed over their intended target, but there was no yelp of pain, only a stink of carbon monoxide.

"Your sleeve is on fire," Yue observed drily.

Gwen quickly patted out the yellow flame. Her arm was unscathed, but her blouse was ruined.

A Message spell boomed next to Gwen's ear.

"Are you alright? What was that!" It was Elvia, communicating directly across the camp via line-of-sight.

"We're fine Evee, just testing out something." Gwen terminated the spell after reassuring her friend.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Did you see?" Gwen asked.

"I saw," Goolagong said.

"What did she see? What did I see?" Yue asked puzzlingly. "That was Resist Elements, right? What's so strange about that?"

Then Yue's mind seemed to have caught up with her eyes.

"Wait, did you even chant an incantation?" Yue looked over her friend. "But that's impossible. Are you an Abjurer, as well? Gwen— what's happening exactly?"

Gwen turned her head, pulling back her hair to form a ponytail. Both Yue and Goolagong gazed at a shimmering scale now embedded at the base of her neck.

"A Magic Item? What does it do? Absorb Elements? Why fire specifically?" Yue yelped. "Did you Opa make it for you? Bloody hell, if I had an Enchanter as a grandfather..."

Old Goolagong, however, had turned ashen, her dark face grey as the blood drained from her face.

"You have met… Almudj?"

Gwen said nothing.

"Now I see why you wish to Dream. You wish to speak to Almudj. That is fine, migloo magician Gwen."

"I do."

"That is fine. But first, I would ask a task of you. If you do this for us, then I will share with you the Dreaming, and from your dream, you may speak with Almudj."

Gwen nodded.

"A Quest!" Yue instantly perked up. "I love Quest. What does it entail?"

"A monster hunt," Old Goolagong intoned carefully. "I fear it is a dark beast that…"

"We'll take it!" Yue's grinned from ear to ear. "Just point us in the right direction!"

Old Goolagong looked at Gwen, making sure she consented, likely confused the migloo was so eager to help. Gwen knew, of course, that Yue's intentions were as pure as they come. She wanted to fight, and that was that.

"A darkling beast," Old Goolagong continued. "We are troubled by Wanka, the greater Spider who lives upon the salt-lake, whose barks echo through the night, and whose children come to hunt us when we are weary and alone."

"Hold up." Yue's complexion paled. "Did you say Giant Spider Wanker?"

Gwen felt the same. A Spider. She wasn't good with spiders, but Yue was on a whole other level. There was a time when they were at Yue's house, and upon seeing a common Huntsmen on her roof, Yue had launched her mug toward it, showing the two of them with tea and ceramics. The huntsmen had then escaped unharmed, disappearing into the roof. Yue had been so afraid that she insisted on her father driving her to Gwen's apartment to spend the night.

"Wanka, a barking spider that…"

"It barks?!" Yue's voice took on a heightened pitch. "Like woof! Woof?"'

"More like this…" Goolagong made a horrific sound akin to an angry wombat dry-humping a bush turkey.

Yue swooned.

"Yue gonna be okay?" Gwen held her friend upright.

"Sure." Yue steadied herself, her voice trembling. "What's a spider or two? Just burn it all down."

"So." Gwen turned back to Goolagong. "A favour for a favour?"

"For Almudj, yes." Goolagong's met Gwen's own. "I, too, am interested in this connection you have. A migloo girl and Almudj - how strange, What could it mean?"

"I can't offer something else instead?" Gwen turned to Yue, who was already staring into the middle distance. "Crystals currency?"

"Do you see another magician around here?" Old Goolagong laughed. "You want an old lady to go and fight a giant barking spider? Do you think I could outrun its sixteen legs?"

"S-Sixteen!" Yue'a eyes glazed over.

"No no, we'll manage," Gwen said. She was confident that in a Green Zone, even a giant spider wouldn't be so excessively powerful as to be beyond tier 5. More so, she was optimistic this Wanka creature was no match for Caliban and Ariel.

"When do you want this done?"

"We can begin the ceremony tonight if you return. The salt lake is only two hours away by horse."

Gwen nodded. She begged for more details on the arachnid, but the old Spirit Walker had not seen it herself either. Her people knew only its whereabouts and some lore. From what Gwen could gather, it should be a giant wolf-spider.

"We need a guide for the salt lake."

"Tommy should know the way." Old Goolagong pointed to the young Jackaroo brushing down the horses.

The girls retreated to an isolated area of the camp. Debora professed to be feeling better, while Gwen informed them of her progress, giving each the choice of accompanying her.

Elvia agreed before Gwen even finished.
Unsurprisingly, Debora wasn't thrilled.

"It's not right," she said. "We shouldn't be helping these people."

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked, her voice more curious than critical.

"They're not a part of our society. These savages rejected our ways decades ago. They need to live with the consequences."

"A bit harsh?" Gwen was genuinely surprised. Was Debora a racist? That was certainly unexpected. Then again, Gwen thought back to their youth. Debora did consistently make fun of Yue's English when they were in junior high. She also called Yue a boat-person when anti-refugee sentiments were trending. As a typical "Aussie", Debora lived on the South Coast, and the folk there were very particular about "their" beaches, churches, and suburbs.

"Not to mention." Debora bit her lower lip. "I heard they practice Necromancy."

Elvia's eyes expanded to reveal the full extent of her brilliant blue iris.

"That's Spirit Magic." Gwen had done her homework with her Master. "It's not raising the dead or anything, more like ancestral worship, storing memories in vessels, magic circles, animalism, that kind of thing."

Debora's expression told Gwen that she didn't believe a word.

"Debs." Gwen felt guilty for saying so, but she wasn't about to entertain the prejudices of Debora's misconstructions. "You can remain here if you want."

"No," she said quickly. "I'll come with, you guys need a Tank, right? We're a team now."

Yue and Elvia didn't disagree. It was Gwen who had announced that they were a team now, and it would have to be Gwen who rejected the ambivalent Debora.

"Agreed." Gwen reached out and gave Debora a reassuring pat on the knees, relaxing her jaws. "Think of it as a monster hunt, nothing more."

"Well, shall we get going then?" Yue asked impatiently. She was keen to see the spider roasted and done. Just knowing that a barking spider was near was giving her the creeps.

Gwen materialised the girl's bandoleers, organising two healing potions and two mana potions, as well as a single vial of antidote per sorceress. Yue went and fetched Tommy, who was relieved that finally, he could ride out of camp and be away from the 'mob' incessantly mobbing him for details on the girls.

As they travelled, the girls pooled notes on the nature of arachnid-based magical creatures. Gwen surprised the girls with her knowledge, explaining that it was implausible that a Barking Spider, even one with a name like Wanka, could be a web-dweller.

"It's either an ambush predator, like the tarantula or the trap-door," Gwen said expertly, drawing upon her otherworldly knowledge. "OR, in the worst-case scenario, a jumping spider. They are SWIFT. My suggestion is that once it emerges, concentrate on limiting its movements."

Debora announced that her Spirit possessed tremor sense, which she could achieve by channelling a minor stone shape in a radius of a few meters around them.

As for Gwen, she could discreetly cast Detect Magic and Detect Traps somewhere along the way.

The party arrived at the edge of the salt lake some two hours later.
As the girls focused on buffing, Gwen refreshed her BB cream and took the opportunity to summon Ariel. Once her companions were distracted by the showman marten, she activated her detection spells.

With mana-charged eyes, Gwen then scanned the blazing white horizon, seeing nothing of note as yet.

"Let's leave the horses with Tommy."

"No problems, Missus, I take care of the hoses."

As it was the dry seasons, the entire lake was encrusted with salt, forming a smooth white plain of desolation where nothing lived. Gwen was now even more convinced that the Barking Spider was a voracious hunter. If it lived in a place without prey, then the spider must be an active hunter. No wonder it fed on the indigenous tribesmen.

It took another half an hour of wandering through the salt flats for Yue to discovered a barely perceptible trail.

"It's going this way," Yue announced. "Medium-sized prey, probably a Roo. Looks fresh. The salt here gets moved about pretty quickly."

The party followed the trail. Except for Debora, whose body was doubly fortified by earth and Transmutation buffs, the girls were feeling the moisture loss that occurred thanks to salt and sun.

"Halt." Gwen raised a hand as the girls drank from their canteens. She had felt her Divination tingle, and so scanned their surroundings. Not far, she sensed a trace of mana unique to Magical Creatures.

"Can monsters use magic?" Gwen inquired. She wasn't too confident if monsters used spells or merely manifested phenomenon directly.

"They can," Elvia chimed in. "Some monsters have innate magic."

Gwen felt another tingling in the air. She channelled more magic into her eyes, feeling the strain impressed upon her eyeballs. There were motes of Transmutation here and there, as well as motes of indistinct elemental mana.

"Elemental Air!" Gwen hollered suddenly. "That's why it's fine living on the salt flat! It's an Air Element spider!"

Voo—VOOMPT!

As if answering her call, a sudden eruption of silk exploded all around them.

A massive web, previously buried underneath the girls, tore through the cracked surface of the salt flat and enclosed them like a parcel.

"Minor Stone Shape!" Debora struck the earth, instantly summoning a massive dome of sand around the girls, creating an overhead barrier.

Yue formed a circular gesture with both her hands.

"Wall of Fire!"

A ring of fire torched the space around the girls. Where the enclosing web touched its membranes onto the flames, it instantly ignited, leaving behind ash and foul-smelling gloop.

'Thump!'
A foreleg shaped like a scythe punched through the sand barrier, stopping only a few centimetres before Gwen's face.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Gwen screamed. "How strong is this thing?"

A whirlwind of salt began to envelop the girls, smothering the Wall of Fire with salt crystals. Before Debora could react, the limb withdrew from the wall.

Gwen tasted the magic in the air; the motes were thick with Transmutation.

"I think its Hasted!" she warned the others. "Everyone, crowd around Evee in a triangle formation. Yue, shrink the ring of fire! Debs, I need you on your tremor sense! Focus on defence! Elvia, Bless and Aid! Give me a jolt of healing in ten seconds!"

The girls moved into position as the whirlwind of salt obscured all vision.

"Ariel, fire at will. Caliban, get underground!" Gwen commanded. She felt her vitality drain as her Void fiend shrouded itself with secreted mucus and wiggled underground, coiling its body like a spring.

A few seconds later, Elvia's jolt of vitality flooded her conduits.

"Are we waiting for it to strike?" Debora shouted over the roar of the salt-storm.

"Yeah!" Gwen shouted back. "Its too fast, if we don't alpha strike it, its probably going to flee."

"I'll play bait! I am sure I can handle a hit or two."

"Wait and see," Gwen advised.

"What about me?" Yue asked. "This wanker is too fast!"

"Wanka," Gwen corrected her friend. "Use Scorching Rays on its legs. Try to target as many as you can! Warding Bolt! Call Lightning!"

Her persistent spells targeted indiscriminately, but hopefully, they could be triggered quickly enough to slow down the Barking Spider.

Outside the sand barrier, the salt storm was beginning to subside. The girls knew that if the creature were to strike, it would have to be very soon. The question was, from where would it come?

_"GGGNNARK!"_

There was a roar - a crude, inhuman bark - an indescribable howl of guttural rage uttered by an arachnid, using its chitin to vibrate the air.

"Here it comes!" Debora announced the tremor from a distance. "Four O'clock!"

There was an explosion of sand some fifteen meters out, then a giant white mass, too fast for the eye to follow, descended upon the Blackwattle party.


Wanka moved like mercury slipping through air.

Debora's hands met in the middle, causing her sand dome to expand. Gwen did her best to track the spider, but before she could utter a second warning, it landed on top of the semi-dome barrier— its salt-encrusted body bypassing Yue's Flaming Wall with only a fistful of singed hair.

With the sound of screeching metal, its forelegs descended once again. This time, Debora's Transmutation was far too slow to adapt to its supernatural velocity, Debbie was apt, but she was no Abjurer.

In the blink of an eye, Gwen spontaneously activated her Abjuration shield. With repeated use, even her stolen talent was reaching the tier of a sufficiently awakened Sigil; what she now lacked was the tenacity, strength and formal education.

Wary of what might happen to her friends if she used void, Gwen evoked her lightning, manifesting her non-newtonian barrier, feeling her mana reserves deplete.

_CLANG!_

There came the sound of a violent collision, followed by blinding flash of mana congealing were the blade-like legs struck.

Crack! Fractures split the snowdome shielding from edge to edge. For now, Gwen's Shield held, but for how long they could not know.

"Fuck!" Yue swore, echoing Gwen's thoughts.

"Shield of Faith!" Elvia wasn't an Abjurer. Her shielding spells were underpowered, but right now, every layer helped.

Debora's sand finally caught up, but Wanka effortlessly extracted its limbs from the grip of her silica. The Transmuter howled with frustration. Her control was still insufficient; she required higher tier spells to snare the beast.

"It's too quick!" Debora wailed. "Shit!"

Gwen felt her Warding Bolt and Thunderstorm both fired, but the air elemental Spider was highly resistant to lightning.

Gwen's mind spun. Debora's sand was too ponderous; Gwen's lightning was ineffective, and Yue's fire was too slow to get a good hit on the sixteen-legged spider.

"If we can hold it still..." Yue concentrated on maintaining her Wall of Fire.

"We need to slow it down somehow," Elvia yelled.

"I am going to Flashbang it!" Gwen shouted. "Directly on top of us. Deb! I need hardcover for the party!"

"Nine O'clock!" Debora preempted the attack by gathering up the sand around them to form a dome. "Here it comes!"

Gwen watched the sand creep over her mana shield, enclosing the girls in a semi-sphere of darkness. At the last moment, she reached out and conjured through her Evocation Sigil an over-channelled Flashbang spell.

_BUNG!_ Erupted a muffled blast.

There was the sound of something scribbling on the surface of the sand shield; then Gwen's Shield shook. Debora grunted as she held her barrier, withstanding the shockwave rippling over its surface, flaking off pieces of sand and revealing the glassy mana dome below.

Something trashed wildly somewhere distant from their position. Debora collapsed the sand shield with a wave of her hand, revealing before the girls a white blur of blades and limbs the size of a combine-harvester.

True to Goolagong's word, Wanka was a spider with an extra set of limbs. Its armoured body erupted in white bristling hair flinging salt this way and that as it spun in circles, lashing out with its forelimbs. From a safe distance, they could see that it had four retractable limbs which lashed out with scythe-like forelegs. Every time it attacked, the legs punched or pawed the air, like that of a mantis-shrimp.

Two bolts of lightning, one from the conjured cloud and the other from Gwen's warding bolt lashed out overhead and struck the beast squarely, showering the spider with sparks.

The creature spun and oriented itself towards the girls.

"Flashbang!" Gwen front-loaded a sonic explosion directly before the creature, motioning for the others to shield the eyes. Once again, Wanka thrashed and spun.

Gwen recalled that wolf spiders felt for pray with sensitive hairs on their forelegs, likewise relying on their incredible vision. If so, her Flashbang must be a hell of a sensory overload.

"That spell is such a cheat," Yue stated wryly. She moved her hands and cut loose the mana she had spent the last few turns gathering.

"Scorcher!"

A total of six rays shot out from her hands, slicing into the blurring white mass. There was a scream of pain, then two limbs flew from the panicked spider, one skittering and rolling away while the other was flung violently through the air.

"Flashbang!" Gwen shot off another spell as the girls held their ears.

"That poor spider." Elvia looked away. "It's in so much pain."

"Fireball!" Yue shot off her best spell, watching the small dot of fire zoom towards the spider. Upon impact, it's collated energy lashed out, rapidly expanding until it reached its maximum blast range. The force of the blast was enough to rip off a whole section of the spider's chitinous carapace.

"Wait up." Gwen halted Yue before she could fire off another blast. "Caliban needs to feed."

They watched as a lump of soil moved underfoot towards the spider, now skittering weakly, too damaged to escape. There was a wet sound as Caliban emerged under its abdomen. With a crunch, her creature pierced through Wanka's carapace, invading its body.

The spider's legs shot out with an expression of indescribable pain as a parasitic netherworld worm dug through its guts in search of Creature Core. There came a second thunk! Then Caliban broke free from Wanka's face, its serpentine form steaming with ichor and purple bile.

"Shaa! Shaa!" it announced satisfyingly.

"Holy shit, Gwen." Yue hadn't seen Caliban in action before.

Elvia's face turned pale; she held her mouth lest she lost the battle to contain her stomach contents.

Debora was about to say something witty at the other two girls, but a sudden tremor beneath them sent her off balance.

The vast white expanse of the salt-flat suddenly cracked, tectonic plates of salt shifting and moving as something huge began to break through the crust.

"Fuck!" Yue dropped to her knees, losing balance. "What the hell is that?"

"Jump!" Gwen grabbed Elvia by the waist. "Now!"

Debora instantly reacted, she hadn't worked with Gwen for a month without building at least some rapport. She tackled Yue at the waist and activated her Jump spell.

The two girls, each with a companion, leapt away from their standing positions. Gwen activated Feather Fall on her ring and used her an incanted Feather Fall on Elvia. Conversely, Debora used her Jump for horizontal movement; dashed herself and Yue some ten meters away from where they had stood only a moment before.

A set of forelegs three metres in length extended from the broken salt. Gwen winced and looked down. She was bleeding profused because one of the claws had nicked her calve. When the pain finally travelled up her nerves, Gwen almost fainted. Her left leg as a mess— where Wanka had struck, it had cut her to the bone, exposing the white tenders still connecting her muscles.

"Elvia!" Gwen called out. She wasn't sure how she would react. Their present engagement was the first time she had been wounded in a battle with a monster. She couldn't even imagine what would happen if they didn't have a healer.

Below her, the sudden vertical movement had disorientated Elvia, but Gwen's sudden cry of alarm jolted her from her confusion. Placing both hands on her friend's thighs, the petite Cleric incanted her best spell.

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"Cure Moderate Wounds!"

A gush of positive energy channelled through Gwen's body, instantly stitched her wound, mending the flesh and inflicting her with an itch that was impossible to scratch.

Gwen moaned. The pain and the itch were exquisite, caught between two extremes, she didn't know whether to scream or cry.

By now, she knew her Warding Bolt and Call Storm had fizzled.

Some distance away, Debora was coughing up blood. She had used her own body to shield Yue, tanking the kinetic energy of Wanka Two's rebar-like forelimb. Only now did she realise a claw had bitten her Bronze Flesh, possibly cracking her collarbone.

Conversely, Yue had been sent skidding half a dozen metres, disorientated but safe.

"Fuck, the small wanker wasn't Wanka!" Yue shouted at the girls, stating the obvious. "This big tosser is Wanka! Wanka TWO!"

Gwen meanwhile, still had ten-odd seconds of airtime. Below her, the spider was trying to pull itself from the encrusted earth. From the fissures, she could see that it had made a tunnel system beneath the salt lake, constructed its lair somewhere deep and terrible.

Within the scope of her Detect Magic, the creature's mana signature burned. It was tier six; or at least at the apex of five. The smaller spider must have have been its mate!

Gwen felt a kink of fear wrecking her spine. If they didn't kill it here, they could all die!

"Debora!" Gwen called out. "Immobilise it! Don't let it get out!"

As the spider's head emerged, Gwen dropped her Signature Spell in front of its sixteen scintillating eyes.

"Flashbang!"

The creature shrieked, but her spell was visibly less effective. The bigger the monster, the better its resistances.

"Shape Earth!" Debora grunted between ragged breaths made more painful by her bruised body. Sand quickly filled the space where it had tried to scramble up from the earth, preventing the creature from breaking through the crust of salt.

"Yue!"

Yue poured the rest of her mana into an alpha strike.

"Fucking Fire Storm!" she screeched forth her most potent Evocation, making a motion that mimed the pushing of some great force toward the earth.

Above the behemoth spider, a swirling cloud of fiery tempest formed and began to rain down streaks of hissing fire, stabbing into the trapped Wanka.

The spider's bristling hair was immediately aflame, sheets of encrusted salt sliding off its carapace from the impact, exposing its chitinous shell beneath.

"Ariel!" Gwen commanded, and the sliver mongoose fired a blast of barbed lightning into the Wanka's face. A second later, the spider's bulbous body grew vivid with crawling electricity, electrocuting its target.

"I can't hold it!" Debora cried out; she almost OoM, her glistening skin white with encrusted salt. Unlike Gwen, Debora had not undergone a nutrient-rich diet of crystals and Wild Land beasts to boost her reserves.

"I am almost out as well!" Yue's face was dripping with salt and fatigue. She had barely reached Tier 4, meaning her fire variant of tier 4 Ice Storm overtaxed both her mind and her still-developing body.

"Lightning Blast!" Gwen attempted a coup de grâce.

Wanka Two ignited. Dozens of lightning bolts channelled one after another into the thorax of the spider. The first few were guided by Ariel's bristles towards its eyes but danced over the carapace harmlessly. The next few fared better, penetrating deeper into the spider to wreaking havoc upon its nerves.

Smoke began to pour from Wanka Two's face. If spiders could scream, it would probably be shouting incoherently right now.

"Haa—ha—" Gwen panted, likewise dripping with perspiration.

_WHAM!_ Wanka broke free.

The girls' screamed, Gwen included.

Ariel made a heroic dash for the creature, but it was too slow and too small. Wanka shot straight toward Gwen and Elvia, its bulbous body a mass of salt-encrusted hair, its legs blurring as it raked against the earth, breaking through the salt and finding purchase on the rocks beneath.

"Caliban!" Gwen sent out a mental command before calling for help. "Elvia! I need vitality! FILL ME UP!"

Next, Gwen wrapped her arms around Elvia, crouching to minimise her profile.

"Void Shield!"

Gwen had never made a non-newtonian Void Shield before, though now that she did, she felt instantly hollowed out, With a supreme force of will, she kept herself awake. They had overestimated themselves. As a party, they were still too inexperienced. They had no Abjurer, and they had no Flight. Their talents made them too arrogant, had they were going to pay the price.

The truth was, a party of synergised Mages with Flight and Earthen Shielding would find no trouble with Wanka. They could tank it; they could kite it, they could grind Wanka to dust. Comparatively, Gwen's party had two glass canons, two summons who couldn't tank, an off-tank, and a healer who has yet to learn AOE healing. They had insane damage output, of course, but if the first strike should fail, what then?

Gwen felt dull thuds striking her Shield.

In her arms, Elvia moaned as her life energy drained away, stolen by the connection between Healer and Void Mage.

Outside, Yue watched helplessly as the truck-sized spider barrelled towards her friends. She was out of mana and felt a helplessness that she had never experienced when she was with Alesia.

She could see Debora being caught in a sudden panic as well. Debby had said that she could be their tank - but reality had proven her insufficient and ill-equipped. Transmuters could do many things, but they could not fill the irreplaceable role of the Abjurer.

Then suddenly and without warning, Gwen transformed into a ball darkness, drinking all light.

Wanka itself seemed to realise the horror it was imminently facing. It tried to halt its momentum, but it was too fast, too heavy and too committed to its own brazen, rage-filled charge.

The girls watched as the creature skidded, limbs akimbo then barrelled into Gwen's Void Shield. Its sword tipped arms scraped the surface, but made no sound.

It was eerie. There was the sound of Wanka's limbs crashing against the salt, but where it had struck the Shield— there was only a silken silence.

The impact was worse than Gwen had thought. She felt both her mana and her vitality drop like a stone down a deep, dry well. Had Elvia not been here, she would have likely fallen unconscious, her body acting out to save itself from the consumption.

Her master was right.
The Void Shield was too dangerous.
It was a mash-up of antithetical abilities and synergies.

Even if she won, it would be a pyrrhic victory of old, winning a battle by a hair's breadth. But what if her foe survived? Would a weakened, drained, and devastated Gwen be able to continue to protect her Evee?

But luck was on Gwen's side. Now bereft of its sword tipped forelegs, Wank Two had lost all fineness.

"Urrrnk! Hurrrrnk!" The spider's mandibles moved insanely, making that sound which Old Goolagong had said was an angry wombat humping a cockatoo, or was it a kookaburra?

"Caliban!" Gwen called out again, hoping to God her Lovecraftian companion had made it.

The spider tried to orientate its body but grew grossly unbalanced by the loss of its limbs. Compared to Wanka One, Wanka Two now appeared ponderous and slow.

Gwen watched the ground beneath it crack open to reveal Caliban, a dark dart against the white salt. With an audible "crunch!" Her Familiar punching into the abdomen of the second creature.

It was over, Gwen grasped their present danger. She and friend only needed to survive for the next fifteen seconds or so.

Elvia's self-sacrifice had restored at least half her vitality. As Caliban made its way through the creature's innards, Gwen felt another hit of vital energy fortifying her trembling body.

"Debora! Pillars!" Gwen called out as she sailed through the air towards her companions. "Evee, hang on! Jump!"

Gwen's miraculous survival filled her party with renewed energy. As commanded, Debora placed her hands upon the now shattered salt-lake and incanted, erecting dozens of pillars to obstruct their foe.

Wanka seemed to know that its life would soon be forfeit. Something was slowly but inevitably making its way up to its cephalothorax, obliterating its organs as it went. When it reached its Core, Wanka, Queen of the salt lake, would be no more.

The spider charged at the girls, pushing past the pillars. Its massive body was crashing and tearing through Debora's barriers like paper. Drawing on a second wind, the girl fought back with Magic Missiles and cantrips. Gwen especially forcing out a few more Flashbangs to try and slow it down.

Then, mid-strike, the spider halted. All of its limbs give out at once.
There was a wiggling of the carapace around its head. Gwen felt her Kirin amulet grow hot.

"Shaa! Shaa!" Caliban triumphantly emerged, its purple body glistening with spider ichor and gore. It was utterly engorged with Wanka's life force, its obese girth glimmering gluttonously.

"Good work Cali!" Gwen hailed the creature as it leapt from the carcass.

Ariel slinked before Gwen expectantly.

"You too, buddy!" She stroked Ariel's fur as it purred, turning over and over.

Caliban approached and began to convulse.

"Oh God, what's it doing now?" Elvia swallowed the vomit rising in her throat, her face a mask of fascinated horror.

With a sticky hurling motion, Caliban spewed out two mana cores twice the size of a fist.

"Oh!" Yue reached out to take a core. "Fingers crossed for SPIDER SPIRIT, YO!"

The girls held their breath.
Nothing.
There was no Spirit inside.
Yue tried the second Core.
Nothing.

The triumphant atmosphere instantly grew cold. Debora's luck of the Irish aside, the odds of finding a spirit was near-impossible.

"Still, a Core this size, at least two-three hundred HDMs?" Yue appraised their loot expertly. They talked a lot about money during their jungle adventure, especially adventure spoils. "They usually shatter, you know. Good work, Caliban!"

Caliban wiggled disgustingly.

Gwen touched the amulet beneath her blouse. As before, at the corner of her eye, she recalled something moving from the carcass towards her. The mirage appeared to have to dissipate halfway, leaving only a vague, benevolent feeling of warmth. She would have to question someone about the charm someday, Gwen realised. But, her father seemed to know nothing about it; and she doubted he would have given it so freely had the lazy Morye known of its boon. What would Opa think? She wondered. He had said nothing when she had worn it openly. Did her Kirin amulet appear to others to be a non-magical object? Merely a keepsake?

"Pop it in the bag," Yue said to Gwen. Gwen performed as Yue had asked, stowing the cores in her Storage Ring.

The girls watched Yue go over to the spider and began to hack off its limbs.

"What are you doing?" Elvia inquired, her blue eyes wide and innocent.

Yue extracted a length of crystalline flesh as thick as her arm from a split leg.

"Fuck yeah," she sang. "This wanker's a real beauty."

The girls could see she was salivating.

"..." Gwen nodded to herself. Wanka was a giant Hokkaido deep-sea crab, wasn't it? Waste not— want not.

Debora looked like she was about to hurl. She was strict meat and three vegetable kind of girl. Elvia, conversely, never in her life imagined that a 'land crab' like a spider could be edible.

"Crab party!" Yue announced cheerfully, presenting the legs to Gwen one by one. "You got more room in there?"

Gwen nodded.
She had enough room.
She also liked to eat crab.


Tommy was waiting for the girls to return at the edge of the salt lake.
The smile on his face froze as details emerged with the girls' bedraggled state.

"How was it?" worriedly, Tommy asked. His Missus Mages had left as cool as cucumbers and returned beaten to within an inch of their lives. "Did you find Wanka?"

Gwen's right boot had been slashed in half; her leather riding pants ripped beyond repair. Debora's tanktop was torn and shredded; a smidgen of blood dashed across her chin and chest. The other two girls were worse for wear as well.

"There were TWO wankers." Yue was too tired to bother differentiating between annunciations. "The second wanker ambushed us."

Tommy made an 'o' with his mouth.

"All good." Gwen walked over to her horse and rubbed its snout. "We nailed them both, got their cores right here."

She raised a hand and flashed her nondescript ring.

"That's wonderful!" Tommy uttered, a broad smile appearing on his face. "I knew there was no way Wanka could stand up to you, Missus Boss."

"Well, let's get back. I could do with a lie-down," Gwen intoned with a distinct lack of vivacity. Even with Elvia's positive energy supplements, she felt drunk with fatigue.

The journey back to the camp was sullen and silent.

"I am sorry, everyone," Debora disrupted the silence when they saw the camp in the distance, her voice uncharacteristically demure. "I wasn't a good defender. I endangered all of us."

"Don't be like that, Debs. You did your best. We couldn't have done it without you," Gwen said. "You took a hit for Yue. Not to mention you kept us safe from the Wanka One just fine."

"I overestimated myself." Debora exhaled. "Now I know why every team needed an Abjurer."

"Yeah, we need to find a proper Abjurer for the 5v5." The rawness of Yue's criticism turning Debora's face a shade darker.

"Yunnie." Gwen raised her pitch an octave. That was rather rude even for Yue.

"What do you think, Elvia?" Yue tried to shift Gwen's ire elsewhere, but their companion remained silent.

The girl rode in silence until they reached the camp, where Old Goolagong was waiting for them.

"Welcome back, I'wai, heroes of the tribe. I sense you are successful."

"We almost died." Debora dismounted. She turned to face Old Goolagong with an unfriendly expression. "Did you know there were two of them? What were you planning? Did you hope we'd die there?"

"Debora!" Gwen warned her friend.

"You shouldn't trust them!" Debora seemed far more hostile than her usual self. Before they could answer, Debora fled towards their tent in a huff.

"Is Debs hale?" Gwen asked Elvia.

The little girl nodded.

"I healed her earlier. Debs had a minor fracture in her shoulder and severe bruising. She's fine, now."

They watched Debora zip up her tent with sullen violence.

Gwen didn't know what to think. How uncharacteristic. Debora wasn't acting like the happy-go-lucky girl-next-door she knew. It was a facet of her friend she had never seen before.

"I told you she's a racist? Remember? I told you as early as junior high," Yue groused vindictively, thinking of yesteryears. "Remember her favourite Asian jokes? The one about us eating dogs?"

Gwen and Elvia looked at Yue. That would have been a far more convincing argument if she didn't dismember Wanka.

Gwen opted to forgo riposting Yue's accusation. Instead, she calmed her friend by placing a hand on her shoulder. Gwen felt older than the girls, her temper less prone to wild assumptions and snap judgements, and that it was her duty to keep the peace.

Thinking of Debora, Gwen felt that the athletic late-teen wasn't so much a racist as one who was under a lot of undue stress. As an armchair psychologist, she would suggest that Debora suffered an inferiority complex. In failing to deliver the same performance as Yue, she looked to blame Goolagong.

But Gwen didn't feel right indulging Debora just because she was feeling down. The girl needed to grow both as a person and as a Mage, what good was a powerhouse who couldn't control their temper? They'd just be a danger to themselves and others.

"Leave her be, Yue." Gwen patted Yue's legs, telling her to chill. "We're not all built the same way, walk a mile in Debora's shoes sometimes and I am sure you'll come to understand her frustrations."

"Hmmph!" Yue grunted.

Old Goolagong said nothing.

"We begin ritual at nightfall, get a nice big bonfire going! We make _corroboree!_ But first, let's get you settled into some bush tucker! Nothing like it in the cities."

"Alright!" Yue rubbed both hands together. "I got some bush tucker for you folks as well."

"Gwen." Elvia pulled at Gwen's sleeves. "Should I go check up on Debora?"

Gwen shook her head. Feeding into Debbie's wants only empowered their misery. In Gwen's experience, it was better to let girls get over it on their own, then praise them for their wisdom in achieving a change of heart.

"Let's go." Gwen hooked her hand into Elvia's elbow. "I've heard interesting things about bush tucker. Let's see what they have."

Already there was a stacked and smoking bonfire when the migloo magicians arrived at the corroboree. The girls watched with fascination as fellow tribesmen painted the dancers with meticulous care.
Gwen was hoping to see some authentic bush-magic but was disappointed when a lanky indigenous man produced flint and tinder and sparked the woodpile. He gave her the evil eye before leaving to join the others, evidently untrusting of Migloo magicians.

"I wasn't sure what I expected." Gwen looked around awkwardly when Old Goolagong asked her what she had expected.

"Why make magic when rocks will do?"

Gwen shrugged. Why indeed.

The older women in the camp made dinner while the younger women served. As guests, Gwen and the group didn't need to participate in the making of supper itself.

Yue however, dug a cooking pit for herself.

"The one thing Debby is good for, and she's not here," Yue commented sardonically. "Typical."

"..." Gwen and Elvia said nothing. Sometimes, only silence was golden.

Yue quickly arranged the wood into a hollowed piled.

"Conjure Flames." Yue moved her hand this way and that, carefully controlling an arcane flame to char and dry out the wood.

"Can't you cook directly with magical fire?" Gwen asked.

"Tried, taste like crap. There's just something about elemental fire that ain't right."

The girls watched as Yue stirred the wood until the charcoal smouldered.

"Pan please, and butter - all the butter, garlic too."

Gwen materialised them and handed it over. They watch the butter sizzle in the pan. A crowd of the locals had also decided to venture over to see what she was doing.

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"Crab please."

Gwen materialised the bundle of 'crab' legs. The indigenous folks marvelled at the size of the 'seafood'. It would be a rare treat for them, their home being so far from the ocean.

Yue roasted the legs first to burn off the hairy bristles, watching the shell turn a vivid red. With its mystical energies gone, the carapace easily cracked, the juicy flesh expanding as it cooked. She then sliced off generous chunks of aromatic white meat and sizzled it in the butter, sending out a delicious scent.

Gwen drooled.

With the first pan of 'Wanka de garlic' served, dinner began in earnest. The irresistible scent of 'crab' flesh drew the locals from far and wide, lining up around the girls for a slice of the rare treat. In exchange, they brought bush tucker, bushels of bush tomato, cucumber, and sweet berries that had an acidic zest. Others brought sweet potatoes and other unnamable root vegetables, which made a lovely addition to the meal.

Old Goolagong poked at her generous portion of flesh with suspicion.

"What is this? I never imagined sea creatures be so large!" She muttered to herself. She placed a chunk into her mouth and savoured the taste.

"Wonderful." She allowed the sweet flavour to roll over her tongue. "What do you call this?"

"Wanka." Yue waved a section of the empty carapace in the air. She'd found that it was easier to directly cook the flesh in its shell by smothering it in butter, achieving an extraordinary crispy layer that crunched indulgently with buttery oil.

Old Goolagong dropped her plate.

"Shit!" She stammered alarmingly, her eyes bulging. "You're eating a greater spirit of the earth?"

"We." Yue smiled innocently at Old Goolagong. "We are eating a magical creature. Not earth, by the way, Wanka was an air element, can't you feel it in the flesh? It's fluffy and light."

Old Goolagong looked conflicted. She had never wasted food; it was a matter of respect. Timidly, the Spirit Walker tried her best to eat her portion, her tongue greasy with guilt and trepidation.

Gwen wasn't fussy herself. If there was one thing she needed after a Caliban session, it was copious amounts of food. There was her etherial hunger of the soul, which hungered for a sustenance of the spirit; then there was the physical hunger, which sought nourishment from nature.

With dinner done, it was now time for the metaphorical main course.
Old Goolagong gathered the girls next to the bonfire. Already, the beginnings of a corroboree were in the process. Patiently, she explained that the dance was a language, a law, a story, and a place; it was all of these things and together, it was the Dreaming.

"We will sing the song of Almudj, _Singing the Snake_ , and it will come to visit you in the Dreaming."

"Right." Gwen nodded.

"Well, off with it."Goolagong gestured to Gwen's chest.

"With what?" Gwen inquired innocently.

Goolagong pointed to her impressive nakedness, gleaming with a sheen of dark sweat between the risen moon and the flickering firelight.

"Glyph, markings, magic words, to send Almudj to you, _migloo_ girl!"

"Aww, hell yeah!" Yue slapped Gwen on the buttocks. "Get DOWN girl!"

"Oh." Elvia blushed flamingo pink from her dimples to her collarbones.

"Seriously?" Gwen blanched and burned.

Goolagong nodded.

Gwen looked at her friends expectantly. Thank God Debora wasn't here.

"I need to keep my... private garments on," Gwen said flatly, that was not up for negotiation, not with her friends and the tribe here.

"Your choice, don't blame me if Almudj dismisses you for a rock." Old Goolagong shrugged. "You _migloos,_ all that talk and bluster."

Gwen began to remove her top, three pairs of eyes stared intently.

"Do you guys have to gawk so much?" Gwen inquired, even her navel was blushing.

"It's for your good." Yue bit into another length of crab leg, chewing loudly. "Keep going."

"Oh. My. God." Elvia was covering her face adorably, peaking out between her fingers. "Gwen! You're as white as snow!"

"She's the whitest _migloo_ I'd ever seen," Goolagong noted, her brows wiggling like two caterpillars fighting for dominance of her face.

Gwen could see that her ghostly paleness had brought curious eyes from all over. Thankfully, they weren't interested in her nakedness; they were taken by instead by her ethereal visage.

"A Spirit!" someone cried out in alarm in the distance. "There is a _migloo_ ghost!"

Gwen didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

With one pull, she removed her singlet like clotted gauze. She'd preferably get it over and done with than suffer the indignity of Yue's running commentary that followed each item of clothing. If Yue had dollar notes, she would have probably offered it.

"Jesus, Gwen!" Yue suddenly cried out, the 'crab' leg stopping at her lips. "Girl! You need to eat!"

Gwen was now down to her undergarments. The girls could see her very modest bust, but it was Gwen's ribs that shocked them, for they were obtrusively visible under her pale skin, as were her hip bones.

"Fuck me, you're a skeleton," Yue blurted. "I've seen you eat, hows that possible?"

"It's the Void Magic," Elvia said quietly.

"I know how powerful your Void Magic is, but Gwen - you gotta take care of yourself!" Yue uttered in dismay.

Gwen nodded. Before she awakened, her body was skinny but athletic. Now she looked as though she had gone through a string of obsessive crash diets. Her waist was so thin that it made Elvia's torso seemed full-bodied.

"Is that an effect of the Void spells as well?" Yue poked Gwen's stomach, where her skin was like a sheet of ivory, shimmering in the firelight with a pale nimbus.

"I think so," Gwen replied. Being quarter-Chinese and one-eighth Indonesian, she should possess a natural tan. Now Gwen burned at the slightest touch and had to avoid direct sunlight. She felt like an Eastern European vampire. Gwen thought about Elizabeth. No wonder they thought she was one of the undead.

"You _migloos_ ready? The moon is going to sleep soon!" Goolagong vocalised abruptly. She had prepared the paints, the salted red pigments, the white ash, the dark amber, the yellow ochre, the orange blossoms collected from wildflower stalks. Now all these girls wanted to do was talk! "Skinny is skinny, at least you haven't starved to death. It happens, you know, when the land is dry! Come, _Migloo_ girl! I need to put some colour on you before my mob thinks there's a Spirit in their midst."

Gwen presented herself for Goolagong's inspection. Her legs were okay, having retained their feminine shape. The worst of it was when Yue whistled lasciviously, giving her flashbacks to Kwan's party.

"Well, looks like your body's nutrients head downstairs before it fortifies up top," her friend noted expertly. "Double the butter!"

"I think its a matter of nutrients, not fat," Elvia added.

Gwen took off her boots and felt the softness of the red earth under her feet, its particles of fine, dried clay shifting between her toes.

"Alright, let's begin." Goolagong dabbed her fingers into the pots of pigment and began to colourise Gwen in the sigils of the Dreaming. The dyes weren't slimy, as Gwen had anticipated, but powdery. Goolagong first dapped on the sap of a plant Gwen could not name, then began to draw intricate patterns over her thighs, her stomach, making her way across Gwen's body.

"That needs to go," Goolagong said drily.

Gwen was already numb with embarrassment. She obediently removed the last vestige of civilisation from her torso.

Goolagong continued. Gwen's arms were painted and dotted to represent her body's ley-lines, channelling the spirit toward her heart. Her torso became spotted with two lines of ochre with a red line bisecting her bosom, curving around the swelling of her breasts.

"You two, come here," Goolagong commanded, telling Yue and Elvia to put their hands into the white powder. "Slap! Like this!"

Goolagong slapped Gwen's thigh, leaving behind a ghostly white handprint.

"HA!" Yue slapped Gwen on the bottom, twice, leaving behind two ghostly hands.

SLAP!

Gwen gritted her teeth and held back kicking sand in her friend's face.

Elvia was kinder than the mischievous Yue, she gingerly placed a few handprints on Gwen's stomach, her thighs, and her back, uncontrollably blushing as she performed her duty.

"Finishing touch! Almost done!" Goolagong said finally and went to work on Gwen's face.

The old Spirit Singer's fingers blurred, dabbing Gwen's brow, her cheeks and her neck with markings that spoke of her pure spirit, of her desire to seek counsel with Almudj, the great serpent mother of the land.

"Done!" Goolagong exclaimed proudly, examining her work. The migloo girl looked the part at least - if one ignored her glistening white skin. "Now go dance, go join the corroboree."

"I am sorry, what?" Gwen had thought she had heard something entirely impossible, like being asked to dance naked while covered in indigenous markings.

"Fool girl! You are Dreaming! Not dreaming!" Goolagong laughed. She pulled herself up and took Gwen's hand in the process. "Come!"

Yue's eyes were gleaming. O how she wished that she had brought a Lumen-recorder. Sucks to be that Debora, Yue thought, she doesn't know what she's missing.

Elvia tightly clutched Yue's arm, living vicariously through Gwen, too afraid to join.

Gwen meanwhile, couldn't possibly dream of what her friends were thinking. She moved into a mass of moving dark bodies dripping with the sweat of exertion. The old Spirit Speaker joined a part of the circle, pushing Gwen before her to the astonishment of others around them.

"What do I do?" Gwen was still covering her breasts with her hands.

"Follow the music; just move!" Old Goolagong laughed, moving her arms and following the music without apparent effort. "Let it come to you!"

Gwen slowly moved her hands from her chest and tried to follow the music. She stumbled here, wobbled there, flaying her arms urgently with graceless, incoherent fumbling.

Even Yue was embarrassed by Gwen's gangly display, driven to tears by her exhibitionism. Elvia's expression was likewise between sympathy and cringe, her face caught between the theatrical masques of tragedy and comedy.

Gwen felt the tempo rise along with the temperature.

There was a sense of dizziness that was beginning to replace her self-conscious nakedness.

Round and round the corroboree went, circles within circles.
There was a sudden clap.

_"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi_!" uttered old Goolagong, slapping her thighs.
To her surprise, Gwen followed suit with the rest of the dancers, not missing a beat.

_"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi!"_

The didgeridoo reverberated, the chanting sticks striking a staccato beat. The world around Gwen became less defined, the edges of figures above and below blurred.

_"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi!"_
 _"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi!"_

There was a sudden sound of thunder.
Gwen was now covered with a sheen of white sweat, sweltering in the yellow firelight, her perspiration soaked into the markings upon her skin, they seemed to glimmer, burning with colour, becoming more vivid, pronounced, more striking with every move.
A sudden fermata.
A pause.
A lull in the movement.

"It comes! Almudj comes to Dream!" cried out old Goolagong. Gwen crumpled, exhausted from the dance, breathing heavily, the swell of her small, white breasts panting for air.

Yue and Elvia listened with fascination as a sudden thunder rolled across the sky. There was a green glow in the distance, then a cascade of colour washed over the cloudless heavens.

"Where did that come from?" Yue looked at Elvia, who had no answers for her.

"Look there!" Elvia pointed toward the sky, her own eyes gleaming with anticipation.

They lifted their chins and saw a scintillating, brilliant Aurora Australis unfolding across a backdrop of the Milky Way. The gathered crowd observed the scene before them, agog with awe and wonder.

Cradled in Goolagong's arms, Gwen began to Dream.


_Almudj!_
 _The rainbow snake_
 _see it take wing_
 _the wind_
 _and water fills the rivers and gullies_
 _and billabongs;_
 _Almudj!_
 _see it brings forth_
 _all life_
 _the valleys_
 _and water fills the dry earth_
 _Almudj!_
 _see it brings forth_
 _all life sleeping_
 _Almudj!_
 _Kin!_

Gwen opened her eyes.

The cobalt sky was so blue it hurt her eyes.

"Kalinda!" Old Tjupurrula was lying against a tree, his skin covered with dots and spirit that guided the lifeforce within his body, signifying his place as Singer for the tribe. "Go and sing, let the snake know."

Gwen moved her lithe and athletic figure over the red clay. She watched her long legs effortlessly cross the distance between her feet, space disappearing as though she was gliding. She raced across the scorching earth with her feet, barely touching the smouldering sand.

She entered a cavern, her bare skin glad to be resting on cold volcanic shale. The was a pool here, its waters crystal in clarity.

"Almudj! Almudj!" Gwen heard herself call out.

A serpentine head appears from the pool, formed almost entirely of crystalline water. It begins to materialise, becoming more distinct with each passing second. There was a flicker, a blink of an eye, and Gwen was looking upon the familiar face of the Rainbow Serpent, the very one she had encountered at the Royal National, in a cavern not too dissimilar from this one.

"O Almudj." Gwen felt herself kneel. She opened her arms and noted in the reflection that she was entirely naked, her skin wet with sweat that had soaked into the lines of spirit Glyphs adorning her bosoms, her stomach, her arms and thighs. Her face as well was crowded with Glyphs that allowed her to commune with the mother serpent.

The serpent's head floated closer; it's forked-tongue, as thick as her arm, flickering faster than her eyes could follow. When Almudj tasted her skin, she felt the coldness of its pink appendage taking in her scent, revelling in the warmth of her hot, sun-flushed flesh.

Gwen opened her arms, the serpent moving its head toward her. She pressed her body into the side of its enormous head, feeling its dry, warm scales that had the texture of fingernails, watching them shimmer and shine with a rainbow's hue.

"Kin!" A voice inside her head gave the scent of a brewing storm. "You are safe?"

"I am safe, Almudj," Gwen replied, in a voice that was her own and not her own.

"You are weak. You are hollow." There was the smell of rotting gum leaves after a summer squall.

"I missed you so much, Almudj." Gwen heard herself reply to a conversation that existed out of sync and out of time.

"I am alright," Gwen replied, but her dream persona said nothing. She was merely borrowing the memories of another.

"Usurpers come!" Gwen felt such disgust, as though thurst into the rotting mud of mangroves.

"Impossible, Tjupurrula said they could not come here! They couldn't get past the ley of the Dreaming!" Gwen's alter persona uttered with naive disbelief.

An explosion rocked the cavern, broken slabs of shattered shale to fall from the ceiling, peppering Gwen with shards of dagger-sharp fragments. A wayward stone sliced into her forehead, releasing an arterial spray of blood all over Almudj's shimmering scales.

Her glyphs of dreaming were despoiled by the blood, breaking the flow mana between each symbol. With the severing of her connection, Gwen felt as though ripped untimely from a womb.

There were figures of men and women in cowls— Mages, shouting incoherently at the cavern's mouth. Another spell rocked the cave; someone had altered the structure of the cavern's natural supports, and the roof began to collapse in earnest.

There was no pain, only a feeling of falling as darkness overwhelmed Gwen's alter-ego.

A sudden rage filled Gwen, a fury so primordial that she felt her skin split and the magma blood within flow out in molten chunks.
Outside, the ground split, the heavens roared, the earth shook.
Old Tjupurrula roared with laughter, even as the last of his life's blood flowed into the red earth.

_Kapi Kapi Kapi_

Almudj had awoken.
Almudj did not like strangers; it is known.
Almudj will attack strangers.

Yue and Elvia watched as Gwen's body suffuse with a viridescent shimmer, indicative of the atmospheric phenomenon they had just witnessed.

The Glyphs glowed as well as her body, nude but for the paint that provided questionable modesty. All she had attired was her underwear, her storage ring, and her nondescript jade necklace.

That and an ordinary necklace they had seen Gwen wore since the start of their senior year, only now, it was no longer mundane. The jade Kirin seemed to bath in the green stream of energy that shimmered over Gwen's body, glowing with a dim, benevolent light as it went about its mysterious function.

"That's positive energy, life force, Essence." Elvia did what she could to clarify the phenomenon.

Gwen moaned, her friendly watched without words as her body suffused with new life. With every pulse, Gwen's limbs grew supple, her breasts grew full, and her complexion regained some of its natural colour. Their friend was still anorexic and diminished, but at the very least, her health appears restored.

"Shit, if I knew you could get bigger tits just by getting a paint job and doing a nuddy dance, I'd be in my birthday suit in a second," Yue informed Elvia. "Evee, I think you just missed a once a lifetime opportunity."

Elvia placed a hand on her petite bosom. She certainly did not begin the day expect to go full frontal.

"How about that, huh, Gwen told me it was from her dad."

"The amulet?"

"Oi, she's waking up!" Yue pointed to Gwen as the sorceress stirred, pushing herself from the red sand.

Gwen was indeed waking up. She seemed disorientated though, for her bodily movements were gangly and awkward, more akin to a marionette.

"Almudj?" Old Goolagong performed a double-take. "That's impossible! Gwen's a migloo!"

The Spirit Walker had seen possessions before; it wasn't that uncommon. In her tribe, Spirit Walking was a good omen, demonstrating that the serpent liked a particular Singer. A possessed body meant that they had an opportunity to directly commune with Almudj, to plead a cause or to ask for a boon.

There was also another instance where Almudj possessed a Singer. That was when the tribe would be under attack, and the Spirit Speaker had to invoke the taboo request for the Mother Serpent to bring death upon her enemies. She was reminded of the old Yirriti saying, 'the Snake is proper cheeky. It will attack invaders. It will return the bodies of the invaders to the earth.'

Old Goolagong had never performed that dreaded rite before, but she knew an angry primordial spirit when she saw one.

" _Baardanginy woort koorl! Woot koor!_ " She cried into the night, alerting her tribesmen, she then turned to the girls. "Run! Run as far as you can!"

As if to demonstrate her point, Goolagong herself scrambled on all fours, abandoning the girls as she dug her heels into the red dirt, fleeing faster than a whipped dingo.

The remaining two girls regarded one another.

"Did she say run away?" Yue asked puzzlingly.

Elvia never had a chance to reply, for she felt the sudden gathering of mana within Gwen. It wasn't the skin tingling electricity to which they were accustomed. What they felt now was something bigger, something far older, something that etched into the land and the sky.

"Run!" Elvia grabbed Yue and pulled her aside.

Gwen raised an arm and pointed her hand toward some distant target. The girls followed the vector of her long, elegant finger.

"Debora?!" Yue's eyes were so round as to be throbbing. "What the fuck did Debora do to Gwen?"

"Debbie!" Elvia's scream rang through the night, a piercing trill of nightingale lost in the dark distance. "RUN!"

_"BARBANGINY!"_ Gwen called out to the heavens, and there was a distant thundering despite the clear, cloudless sky.

There was no commotion from Debora's tent.

"Shit!" Yue cried out, her chest filled with conflicted emotions. She didn't like Debora, she wanted her to go away, but she certainly didn't want Debora to die. "She's not going to make it!"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Elvia could do nothing either. She just hoped that whatever was happening, there would be enough of Debora left for her to heal.
A crash of thunder rolled across the sky, a tidal wave of sound that seemed to crack the heavens itself.

The gathering mob watched with horror as a blade of green lightning, scintillating and glowing with multi-coloured hues, ionised from thin air, as though send down from the Milky Way itself. It instantly struck downwards, towards the area where the girls had set their tents - where Debora was presumably still sullenly sleeping.

There was a pinpoint flash as the lightning connected, then an explosion.

A shockwave rippled through the epicentre, violently pushing away the red dirt in an expanding ring of dust.

Humpies became uprooted, boulders the size of human heads rolled. All vision became choked by dust and a reddish haze.

"Debora!" Yue expanded her Flame Barrier, her shield was a wet paper bag against pinpoint attacks, but she was at least capable of holding back a blast wave. Explosions were her bread and butter after all.
Elvia faired better beside her. She could generate a Shield of Faith, a self-replenishing shield spell that was composed primarily for those capable of channelling from the Positive Plane. The incantation served as an alternative for non-abjuration casters, having greater strength, resilience, and regeneration than the average Mage's shielding incantation. The cost was horrendous mana-drain.

Following the explosion, Gwen seemed to regain her senses. She reached behind her head and pulled out a shimmering something. Yue and Elvia observed Gwen falling to her knees, gasping and panting as the dust cloud roved over, swallowing the duo with a carpet of debris.

"Debbie!" She called out, forcing her body to move. "Yue! Elvia! Help Debora!"

Gwen had felt the last mote of life fade from her alter-ego, crushed by the fallen chunks of shale. She felt the anger of Almudj like a rising tide, like the tectonic movement of the earth. As a force of savage nature, Almudj burst forth from the cavern, its scales shimmering and refracting violently in the hot gold hush of noonday sun.

There were Mages - invaders and usurpers, fleeing before Almudj like ants, throwing ineffective spells that cascaded across its scales.
Almudj's rage reverberated, cascading towards every horizon. There was a glimmering hue of chartreuse and lime burning in the atmosphere, bright enough to be visible in the light of day, then a burst of Aurora Australis burst through the heavens.

An emerald storm swept the shuddering earth.

With the ejaculation of the first blast, she felt the consciousness of Almudj fall from her cognisance. For a moment there, she had taken on the skin of the serpent, felt its frustration and anger.

With the release of all that pent-up energy, she had shed that skin and regained her mind.

That was when she saw an emerald shard slash through the night and strike the area where the girls had their tents.

"Almudj, no!" She cried out, shock and horror overwhelming her in an instant. "Debora!"

"Invader!" A voice cried out within her mind, boiling with seething anger, the smell of bushfires thick and heavy as it spoke. "Usurper! Kill it!"

Even semi-conscious, Gwen instinctively knew what she had to do. She reached behind her neck and dug a finger into the scale embedded at the back of her neck. Both willing it to dislodge and gripping the gift with her fingers, she ripped the thing from her neck.

The disconnect came suddenly and violently. Gwen felt as though she had been severed from the world. At once, she fell from somewhere warm and filled with light into icy darkness.

In the distance, the thunderous fulmination landed.

As a lightning Mage, she knew how much power had gone into that blast. It far exceeded her capabilities; it was a force of nature, not conjured from the Elemental Plane of Lightning - it was a manifestation of old creation when the land was young.

"Debbie!" She called out, forcing her body to move. "Yue! Elvia! Help Debora!"

By the time the girls had gotten to the site, there was nought but a smouldering crater two metres wide and half a meter deep. The sand and silica beneath had already become glass, mangled and hideously molten.

The camp was gone.

The tents were vaporised, shredded, torn to smithereens.

"Fuck!" Yue uttered in disbelief. "What the fuck just happened?"

"Gwen?" Elvia approached, lowering her shield. "What happened to Debbie?"

Gwen couldn't answer her friends, not coherently, not at this moment. She still couldn't believe what had just occurred.
Did she attack Debora? Had she called that lightning?
No, that was not Gwen. That was Almudj.
Yet, it was Gwen who was accountable nonetheless. She had taken the girls here. She had wanted to speak to the Spirit Speaker. She was the one who endangered them.
And now Debora was dead? Just like that?

Gwen felt a chilling wind freezing her all over despite the shimmering heat still hanging over the air. She was sticky with the cold sweat of disbelief. She wanted to rewind the moment, to redo and reload the last minutes of her surreal reality.

She dug her hands into the earth, still hot with the bombastic energies of the blast.

"Debbie—" Gwen began to wail. "I am sorry, I am so sorry—"

"Fuck!" Yue couldn't believe her eyes either. Did Gwen just blast Debora to kingdom come? Did her friend just murder their non-mutual friend in cold blood? For what reason?

"Gwen…" Elvia's tears were bubbling from her luminous blue eyes, falling over her face like a string of pearls. It had happened all too fast for her to comprehend rationally, but she understood the immensity of the traumatic moment with dreaded clarity. "Debbie…"

"Jesus Christ!" A voice exclaimed behind them, ascending from a lower section of the plateau, "What the hell happened here?"

"Debbie died!" Elvia's words escaped her quivering mouth before her eyes could accurately register who she was seeing.

Debora was dripping wet from head to toe, on now her toned silhouette was covered with a layer of red dust that plastered to her skin like clay.

"I died? That's news to me," Debora answered, water dripping from her face. "I was taking a dip at the billabong there, and there was this sweet Aurora, then a huge blast shook the camp so I came as quickly as I could."

Yue regarded Debora with mixed feelings. She had to admit when it came to it; she preferred Debbie alive and Gwen un-traumatised.

The girls turned to regard Gwen, who was striking the earth and bawling her eyes out, howling incoherent cries of grief toward the heavens.

"Debbie!" Gwen screamed with a pitch that struck their ears with a ringing tinnitus.

Good—God! Gwen exhaled. She had never felt so exhilarated to see someone so alive and well. Leaping from her kneeling position, she ran towards Debora, arms and legs akimbo.

Yue and Elvia watched Gwen embrace Debora bodily, hugging her so hard as to press her own body onto Debora's.

"What's happening?" Debora still seemed to be somewhat confused. She looked as though she was about to protest Gwen's motives with a little teasing. Then Gwen pulled Debora close and squeezed the words out of her lungs.

Gwen violently kissed Debora's still wet forehead.

"Whoa, hello!" Debora struggled to break free, grappling against the softness of Gwen's unexpected gift.

Gwen pulled herself back, wiping tears from her face.

"See, I told you guys you shouldn't be doing primitive magic with these people." Debora placed a hand on her waist and struck out her hip critically. "Look at Gwen. She's butt naked crazy."

Then Debora's jaws fell through the floor. She just realised that beneath all that body paint, Gwen was in fact in a state of complete undress, her modesty preserved by nought but the meagrest layer of cotton.

Without resistance, Debora leaned in for another hug, resting chin on Gwen's shoulders, smeared Gwen's paint across her face.

Yue and Elvia felt a tingle of awkward discomfort.

Elvia watched Debora's arms fold arch over Gwen's perky buttocks and wrap around her narrow waist. She didn't like that Debora was taking such liberties just because she almost died. After all, she didn't even get injured; it was all a misunderstanding.

"So what the hell happened?" Yue was more interested in why Gwen had suddenly turned a green and psychotic.

The rest of the village was now returning to the fold. From the expressions of shock and fury, they did not take to Gwen's actions to mean well. Gwen had disrupted a consecrated ritual. The corroboree was the sacred rite of the land, its rules and history, its stories and its legends. Now, these migloo magicians had once again destroyed their home, disrupted their camps, interrupted their Dreaming. Without the corroboree, the bora ring, the encampment would be prone to invasion by the evil spirits of the night. They would find no peace, only more displacement and uncertainty in the Green Zone.

The girls backed away from the gathering mob, now seething with a wave of dark anger/

"I think we better get the hell out of here." Gwen heard Yue mutter beside her. "Are the horses still alive?"

"Tommy?" Gwen incanted into a short-range Message spell. "Tommy, are you safe? Loudly whistle if you are!"

There was a loud whistle from not far.

"Whistle twice if the horses are alright. Otherwise, we're leaving on foot!"

There were two shrill whistles.

"Alright, to Tommy!" Gwen grabbed Elvia, and the group began to make their way towards the edge of the forest escapement. The tribe silently glared as they escaped, but choose not to pursue in fear of retribution from the migloo Mages.

"Dancing Lights!"

Gwen summoned some visibility once the girls were a safe distance away from the now destroyed campsite. Tommy soon reached their sides with the horses.

To their surprise, Old Goolagong was with him.

"What… what happened?" Gwen questioned the old Spirit Speaker as soon they were close enough to speak. "I felt the serpent take over my mind for a second. It was so angry, so overwhelmed with grief."

Old Goolagong shook her head.

"Can you tell Old Goolagong what you saw in the Dreaming?"

Gwen materialised the serpent's scale in her hand. She had stowed it in her ring after the incident. She couldn't just dispose of it, after all, this was three months of Opa's work, even if it did bring on something that had overwhelmed her ego briefly. Again Almudj, her mind was a gum leaf caught within a whirlpool, bore away into the vast psyche of a being far older than herself.

"Missus Boss," Tommy intoned with the utmost respect, his eyes bulging from their sockets and his dark face several shades redder. He licked his cracked lips respectfully, taking in the moment as best as he could, burning it into his memory. "Would you like Tommy to lend you a shirt? I know it's hot, but you butt naked, your migloo skin def get burnt come sunrise."

Gwen spun and ran a distance before materialising a pair of shirt and shorts, slipping into them with haste, heedless of her grimy body paint. She returned with a face smeared with faint hues and rubbings, her white shirt a technicolour of earth.

"I saw… Kalinda? Someone— was called Old Tjupurrula? They were in a cavern. I think Tjupurrula was tired. He was resting outside. Kalinda went into the cavern. There was a pool, Almudj came, then there was an explosion. Mages came, they collapsed the cavern, then Almudj was angry as Kalinda died…"

Gwen blurted out the entire ordeal without pausing for breath. She too wanted to know what the hell just happened. Old Goolagong didn't seem to have the answers she was looking for; she was instead as cryptic and mythical as ever.

"Almudj will attack strangers," she replied. "It knows a usurper when it sees one."

Goolagong turned to regard Debora.

"Oi, fuck off with your Necromancy," Debora snapped back. The girls sensed earthen mana channelling through her as the sand around them began to swirl. "This old bitch is trying to blame it on me now, Gwen, she's trying to blame her dodgy magic on you. I told you they couldn't be trusted."

Gwen placed herself between Debora and Goolagong.

"Debbie, calm down, please."

"No, this has gone on long enough. I am sick and tired of this bullshit. If you want me to leave this old witch alone, promise me we're leaving right now. We're going back to civilisation and leaving these savages to their own miserable fucking lives."

"Alright, Debs," Gwen promised with a sigh. "We're leaving."

Gwen bowed.

"I am sorry, Goolagong, I don't blame you. Please forgive us for ruining your encampment and disrupting the corroboree."

Old Goolagong glared at Debora but spoke instead to Tommy.

"Tommy, take care of the guests, take them home," she commanded, turning to Gwen. "Thank you, Gwen, who sings of Almudj, remember that Almudj is your friend, it is kin, not enemy."

Goolagong had stressed her final word.

Debora looked as though she was about to launch a catapult spell towards the old Spirit Speaker.

They watched Old Goolagong disappear over the hill.

"Good riddance," Debora spat distastefully.

Tommy said nothing. Gwen didn't blame the young man. It was how Mages treated NoMs, not to mention people from the Wildlands.

"This way Missus Mages, we need plenty of lights for night travelling. We make for highway, maybe get picked up from there, faster."

"Alright, Tommy." Gwen touched her face, feeling the caked dirt in the fine sediment of the red earth. "Let's go home."

She still had the New Years party to deal with, the monster that was her mother to be slain. Her mare gave its harness bells a shake, for there were many miles to go.