The serene fragrance of the Earl Grey in Gwen's hands unravel the knot possessing both her body and mind. Instructor Alesia was here now, and all would be well. Beside her, Yue toasted a sandwich, while Elvia absently dangled her legs over the edge of a tall stool.

The door to the bunker opened with a groan. Gwen saw the familiar figure of Debora push past the heavy door.

“Hey, guys.”

To Gwen’s surprise, Debora’s usual coldness became instead one of touching relief. She then noticed the injuries covering Debora’s arms, including a purple blotch that extended from her chin to her ear.

“Deb! My God! You’re hurt!” Gwen set down her cup of tea and moved towards her friend and rival. “Elvia! Give us a hand!”

“Thank God, you’re all safe...” Debora smiled, wincing as she did so.

“Healing Word!” Elvia incanted, placing a hand over Debora’s neck and shoulder. Positive energy suffused the Transmuter for a moment, casting a pale green glow as her bruises eased, becoming faint imprints.

“Thank you.” Debora exhaled appreciatively before turning to Yue. “It sure is handy having a healer on the team, hey?”

“Hmmph!” Yue breathed out from her nostrils. She had loathed Debora since day one. The surfie girl was typical of those living in the South Shire, always looking down on migrants.

“So…” Debora sat beside them, crossing her tanned legs. “We had about… oh ~ a hundred and thirty kills today.”

Her eyes met Yue’s, and Gwen caught a spark sizzling between them.

“That’s very impressive,” Gwen concurred. "I’d say we're at a century, tops.”

“Oh?” Debora immediately flashed her teeth.

“I don’t know about that…” Yue retorted with a smile of her own. “Sure, we ran short of Gobs, but we also had… oh, a tier 3 Wind Wolf, and then a - what was it? A tier 4 Wombat.”

“A… Wombat?”

“Yeah,” Yue replied uncertainly, realising her lack of panache.

“A… combat wombat?” Debora smirked.

Yue's face grew red.

“Henley!” She summoned her second. The Diviner materialised as if by magic. He had been listening to their conversation in the background, amusing himself with the girls' rivalry.

“Do that thing that you do,” Yue commanded.

“Yes, Ma’am!” Henley turned to Debora with a twinkle in his eye.

“Tis was a terrible and dreadful beast!” He began as Elvia began to chuckle. “Stay a while Debora, O traveller from another team, and listen to the tale of the epic battle that unfolded the moment Team Seven returned to our base camp…”

Henley was a good storyteller.

The breakroom burst into hearty laughter, chuckling with delight as Henley retold the tale with outlandish exaggerations. Despite all that had happened, the accommodating atmosphere was a good lubricant to ease the friction of their disastrous trip.

"Gwen killed it, by herself?!" Debora blinked her eyes at Gwen.

Gwen returned a coy and modest grin.

Debbie... Gwen recollected. In the past, she had cut off all contact. Later in life, when the night was still, the shallow philosophy of shower thoughts took over. There was always the occasional fantasy of a ‘what if’ scenario. What if she hadn’t left school? What if she had graduated with her friends? Attended the same universities?

“Deb…” She began, her friend turned to face her with luminous, amber eyes, a smile brightly blooming upon her face. “Deb, I want to let you know that…”

'Crack!'

The tremor that cracked the concrete bunker came on like a whiplash. The students felt it simultaneously, the momentum of moving earth sending them tumbling from their seats and balling into one another. Debora fell forward onto Gwen, who lost her balance, slamming herself against hard concrete.

“Get out!” Someone called from somewhere in the room, “Earthquake!”

A chunk of the bunker dropped from the ceiling, narrowly missing Gwen’s head.

Gwen’s mind was a chaotic scramble, she wanted to expand her Mana Shield, but it was too dangerous with Debora lingering over her. Unlike Instructor Alesia, Gwen's Lightning Shield could sizzle Debora right there and then.

“Bronze Skin!” Dobra grunted, pushing herself from Gwen and shielding her friend from another wayward chunk of fallen concrete. “Gwen! Follow my lead! Enhance Fortitude!”

Jun had made a moving dome of ice over Elvia and Yue; the trio was already moving.

“Gwen, over here!”

“You guys go! Deb’s got me.”

Yue met Debora's eyes, neither giving way.

“Get out now!” Gwen spat.

Thankfully, the steel doors of the bunker fortification remained intact enough to be opened, thanks to a few Abjurers creating a passage, the students could escape without complication.

“What the hell is that!!!” Someone screeched, pointing southward. Gwen turned to see a mountain, a damned MOUNTAIN, moving in the distance.

They felt the earth shift again. Another supernatural tremor passed the clearing. All around them was the chaotic sound of crumbling structures and the falling and snapping of Gum Trees, whose twisted forms were sending down an avalanche of leaves and branches.

“Where’s Instructor De Botton?” Gwen shouted over the din. “Has anyone seen Alesia?”

Gwen's answer came in the form of chaotic and panicked of students. The night was dark, and the waxing moon barely provided enough light to see. What happened to all the lights? Gwen realised. There used to be lumen globes all over the camp.

“Dancing Lights!” Gwen incanted, shedding light onto the anarchy. Around her, panicked students roved chaotically, moving like headless flies.

They're making it worse, she realised. Gwen had experienced earthquakes in the old world before and knew the protocol for emergency measures. The greatest danger existed directly within, and outside buildings, at exits and alongside exterior walls. In a place like this were branches weighing twenty odd kilos were falling like rain; it would be best to steer well away from the bush.

“To me!” She began to holler. “Everyone, gather on me!”

No one listened.

“TO ME!” She called again, louder this time, her vocal cords straining to their limits, but only a few students stopped to run toward her.

“They’re not listening!” Yue cried out over the din.

“THUNDERCLAP!”

Gwen incanted a basic cantrip. In the next moment, a loud 'CRACK!' resounded over the area with a burst of brilliant white electrical light.

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“To me!” she screamed at them, wishing that she had a spell for voice projection. “Move away from the buildings and make for the clearing! Stay away from trees!”

Two dozen or so students followed. Gwen took them towards an area of the camp clearing that seemed to offer the largest zone of safety from falling objects.

“Where are all the instructors?” Yue asked bewilderingly, her voice beginning to grow hoarse.

They looked toward the main building.

Gwen's heart dropped forty fathoms. The two-storey concrete shed had collapsed into a pile of loose rubble, great slabs of cement jutting this way and that. The instructors had been having a meeting- Oh my God! Her heart skipped a beat. Was Alesia in there?

“Oh… no…” Elvia cried out in dismay and panic. “We need to help them!”

“Count me in.” Debora joined them, her bronze skin gleaming under the glow of Gwen's Dancing Lights. “I should be able to move the slabs with a few Enhancement buffs.”

“Alright, Jun! You stay here with the other students, Henley, can you detect people under the rubble or something?”

Henley was bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He looked at her weakly. The boy's face was full of fright and terror; his eyes glazed over.

“Elvia, give him a hand with that bleeding.”

“Got it! Healing Word!"

“Who else? Who else can help us? Speak up!”

The students remained silent, their eyes wide with incomprehension.

Shit, they’re just kids. Gwen crushed the disappointment rising from her chest. Her mind turned away from the students, huddled like a gaggle of frightened geese, thinking instead of Alesia, Instructor Boone, Mr Richardson and the others.

“Elvia, Deb, you’re with me. Yue! Can you help Jun control the situation here?”

“You got it, Boss,” Yue replied, firing a few blasts of fire into the air to attract any stragglers. “Evokers! Give me Dancing Lights! Abjurers! Form a perimeter and yell if you see something coming that’s not human!”

As she crossed over to the building, Gwen continued to shout into the gloom.

“Who else can help? I need Transmuters! Which one of you is an Earth Elementalist?”

There were no answers to Gwen’s desperate enquiries. Looking at her two companions, she was glad beyond relief that Elvia could heal and Debora remained calm and collected. She needed them now more than ever to be lucid and competent.

The trio made it across the clearing.

“Enhance Strength!” Debora self-buffed, then tried to lift the rubble while Gwen and Elvia stood heart-in-mouth a safe distance away. The wreckage was deceptively small, yet even a tiny slab of reinforced concrete was over a ton, far beyond the enhanced strength of a junior Transmuter, and a teenage girl at that.

“It's too much!” Debora turned to look at them with an expression of pure despair. “It's too heavy for me!”

“Oh, Gwennie…” Elvia’s face was now streaked with tears. Their poor Instructors, did any of them managed to get out? Surely they couldn’t have all perished!

“We…we have to find the other students.” Gwen forced her mouth to move. Now wasn't the time to play the waif. There has to be an adult here to take command. “The instructors would have placed our safeties as the top priority. We need to do the same..."

“THANK GOD you’re all alright!”

A familiar voice called out from the darkness. The silhouette of a middle-aged man in an Instructor’s sports uniform appeared from the edge of the clearing.

“Mr Crusoe!” Tension melted from Debora's limbs. Gwen knew that he was Debora's homeroom teacher and that Debora was his favourite.

“Are the others alright?” Gwen and Elvia asked simultaneously.

“The others are with me, but we’re going to need your help.”

“What’s wrong?”

As Crusoe came into the light, they could see that he was bleeding all over. His uniform was torn here and there and covered with leaves and dust. Dark blood was oozing over a graze near his abdomen, sending a clotted cascade of dark maroon down his track pants.

“Sir!” Elvia cried out, moving immediately to heal him. “Cure Minor Wounds!”

“Thank you, dear.” He coughed, patting Elvia’s head kindly. “I still need your help though.”

Crusoe gestured towards the woods that extended into the darkness.

“I am afraid instructor Alesia's pinned under a fallen tree, we managed to get her out, but we need a healer before we can move her.”

Gwen's chest constricted, Alesia's injured?!

“Of course!” Elvia agreed readily.

“I’ll come with.” Debora followed.

“Are you okay now sir?” Elvia kindly asked the ageing Instructor.

“Thank you. It’s just this way, about a few hundred meters, follow me and be careful of any Magical Beasts that may still be in the area.”

The party moved with as much haste as could be mustered. In the distance, they could see the opening of a pyrotechnical display that seemed to light up the heavens itself. There was a titanic struggle happening, wherever and whatever that creature was, and the resultant phenomena was a reddish, scarlet glow that seemed to consume the night sky.

That illumination! That colour! It was a unique, singular shade of red!

Suddenly, Gwen paused in her thoughts.
No one in their party had cast anything, but she could feel the flow of the air around them change and the composition of elements in the area shift, modified by an arcane current.

“Halt!” Crusoe’s voice echoed through the woods despite the persistent falling of leaves and branches every time the ground shook. “Did you feel that?”

“Yeah.” Gwen readied a spell.

Debora renewed her Bronze Skin, moving closer to Gwen, acting as her Shield.

“Elvia, stay behind us,” Gwen commanded. The little blonde girl narrowed her profile.

“Debora.” Crusoe scanned the area around them carefully, speaking his next words carefully. “I want you to restrain Gwen, right now.”

To Gwen’s unsuspecting confusion, her friend reached out and caught her by the arm, whipping Gwen around so quickly as to utterly disorientate her before driving an iron knee into her gut, sending her down onto the path.

“Deb! W-what are you doing!” Elvia called out in alarm, her mind robbed of meaningful judgment.

Debora's grip had the consistency of a steel vice, wrapping around Gwen's neck before pulling Gwen upward, half choking her and driving the air from her oesophagus. The Transmuter's other arm twisted Gwen's wrist behind her back so tightly as to make Gwen’s mind hot with agony. Through the pain, Gwen realised that without the ability to gesture and invoke, she was incapable of casting spells.

Crusoe’s face transformed from a kindly old man to one full of menace and malice.

“It’s a shame the tier 4 Fire is not here, but the Transmuter's a nice catch.” He said to no one in particular. His gaze moved up and down the bodies of the two girls, smacking his lips as he did do.

“Sir?” Elvia still had not realised the crisis of the moment. "Mr Crusoe?"

“Run Evee! Run!” Gwen managed to squeeze out between Debora’s fingers, “He’s not Crusoe!”

To her dismay, the small girl did not run. Elvia did not want to leave behind her friends.

“Good girl.” ‘Not’ Crusoe stated approvingly, dispensing with silent spells. “Dominate!”

In an instant, Gwen realised what had happened to Debora. That spell! It was one of the forbidden Schools of Enchantment. They had learnt about it in Spellcraft. The mental manipulation inherent to Enchantment was censored and was only available to law enforcement specialists. This man before them wasn't a Tower Agent, meaning he was something far more dangerous.

Elvia's eyes began to glaze over.

No! Not Elvia! Not on my life, you piece of shit! Gwen's mind rioted.

For once, she was glad that she had terrible control over her conduits. Tapping into a torrent of raging emotions, her Evocation Sigil activated as before, triggered by not by expertise but by trauma. A flood of electricity poured from her skin, ripping through Debora’s body, dispelling her Bronze Skin and ravaging her innards as the hysterical charge sought to ground itself.

Debora collapsed where she stood behind Gwen in a shower of gold-white sparks, falling senseless to the floor like an untethered marionette. Gwen wanted desperately to kneel and check if her friend was still alive, but couldn't afford to ignore Crusoe, who was staring at her slack-jawed.

“Gwen?” Elvia’s voice was quivering and weak. Good, Gwen breathed out. The Dominate had not taken Evee.

Their Instructor once told them that mind control effects worked best on unsuspecting individuals. The more conscious a person was, the less likely they were to be affected. In that manner, it was very similar to the School of Illusion.

“Debora…”

“Evee…” Gwen placed herself between the Mage and her friend. “Evee, I want you to run back to camp as fast as you can, tell Yue what has happened.”

Elvia’s face had been full of hesitation, but Gwen’s steadfast demeanour quickly dispelled her reluctance. The Gwen in front of her now felt so different, so determined and powerful. In the pale glow of the distant fire that illuminated the horizon, her figure was like that of a giant!

She would have to go, Elvia convinced herself. She owed it to Gwen to make it back to Yue and tell everyone what had happened here. That was the duty which Gwen had bestowed upon her.

“Oh, it’s not going to be that easy…” Not Crusoe intoned nastily. “Dominate!”

This time, the Enchantment was directed toward the Lighting Mage. Gwen's senses were suddenly thrust into wool. She could feel the will of an alien malevolence invading her conscience, trying to change her perceptions.

Then... nothing happened.

It was exactly that. For what Gwen felt in her mind seemed not to happen to her personally, but rather someone else. She understood the phenomena, but her mind remained unmolested nor affected. She was less a victim and more like that of a scientist watching the spread of ink in a container, recording its colouration and displacement.

Elvia had by now made a short distance down the Fire Trail, and would soon be out of sight.

Crusoe beamed at Gwen with an aura of sadistic delight.

“What did you do?” He spluttered, his tone full of marvel. “How did you resist my spell? You're not wearing a Mind Shield ring.”

Dominate was a tier 5 enchantment! How does a Tier 2 Mage with a single school even begin to possess the mental fortitude necessary to resist his compulsion?

“You are whetting my appetite more and more, Gwen Song.” Crusoe’s pitch rose dangerously, “You might be my catch of the day, after all.”

Gwen felt cold sweat drench her back. This man is incredibly dangerous! She thought to herself, thinking of a dozen scenarios where she could somehow buy time for Debora, but also escape herself.

The man began to change, and Gwen felt her stomach churn as the Illusion over his face dispelled entirely, revealing - a cowl? The figure in front of her wore the indistinct shape of a robe that seemed to distort her vision, almost as if she was staring at a faint shadow in human form. The dust around him began to twist and form into small vortexes, becoming tendrils extending from his body.

“Well then.” The man savoured the dramatic reveal. “Let's get our freak on, shall we-”

“Guiding Bolt!” Gwen caught the man before he could finish, smothering his form with purple energy and motes of positive mana. She can't believe the stupid idiot still thought to deliver his stupid villain’s diatribe. She then pushed her conduits to full-throttle, committing her entire mana pool.

“Blast Bolt!”

The world went white.


The immediate vicinity of where Gwen’s lightning had struck combusted into flames, the dry bark of the surrounding Blue Gums combusted, bathing the locale in a hazy glow. The coral cinder juxtaposed beautifully with the blue arcs that continued to ionise and flood over the cowled form of the Mage, swallowed by a cascade of plasma.

Eat this you piece of shit! Gwen grunted, feeling that distinct exhaustion associated with mana depletion. Her full-to-OoM channel lasted a good half a minute, ranging up to thirty strikes drawn by the positive energy, increasing in intensity until the final Blast Bolt was almost a solid beam of white-hot electricity.

The light faded.

The ground was a mixture of charcoal and molten silica.

Gwen’s eyes adjusted. She saw a dark dome emerge from beneath her point of impact. The cowled Mage within could just barely be seen, one hand raised above his head, manifesting a Shield constituted of swirling black dust.

Her bosoms seized.

The cowled Mage dispelled his Shield. She could see that he had not weathered her attack well. There was smoke cascading from the arm that had cast the Shield, and a thin trail of blood dribbled from the cowl's shadow.

“Now you’ve done it.” The Mage intoned, his voice no longer one of mocking joviality, but one of deep annoyance. “Why is it so hard to hold a conversation with you people?”

“Dust Devil!” The man's voice grew hollow. Gwen watched in horror as a breeze of black dust roved over her position. She tried to put up a Shield, but even her best attempt collapsed in a shower of sparks. The storm enveloped her, seemingly possessing a life of its own, taking her from the ground, thrusting her into the air. In the next moment, she was flying, overwhelmed by a feeling of free fall before slamming into the ground so hard that her jaws clattered.

Gwen moaned, her bones tenderised by the Mage's brutality. She couldn’t breathe, her chest wracked with unbearable pain.

But the Mage wasn't done with her yet. She felt the dusty tendrils wrap around her wrists, pulling her bodily upward, crucifying her against an invisible cross. Where the dust had touched her tracksuit, it disintegrated entirely. The sand-like motes of dark energy cut into her skin, releasing streams of warm blood.

Gwen grew faint at the sight of blood.

And that wasn't the worst of it. An invisible gaze within the hideous cowl licked all over her body; the very same feeling she had felt from strangers whose eyes lingered as she walked home late, magnified a hundred times over.

Oh fuck. OH FUCK. OH FUCK OH FUCK. Panic washed over her. Mayhap there was an instructor that survived and could come to her aid? Where was Alesia? She was so powerful, so peerless, surely she of all people could not perish in something as mundane as a collapsed building! Perhaps Elvia could bring help? No! Gwen would prefer they stayed at the camp. There was safety in numbers.

She needed to buy time, to delay.

“What… what do you want from us?”

“Now you want to talk?” The Mage faced her with the dark void of his cowl.

He regarded his quarry, studying her for the first time. The Lightning girl possessed the body of someone older, though she was evidently only fifteen-sixteen. The spell that she had cast at him, it was glorious, beautiful, possessing great affinity. What's more, he was impressed that after all that had happened, the girl remained so collected. Mayhap it had something to do with the same reason she resisted his Dominate? Probing her was going to be a real hoot. What strange secrets, what memories, hid in her crevasses?

He commanded the Dust Devil to send out an additional tendril, picking up Debora and elevating her bodily by the torso. Where its dusty tendrils caressed, Debora's clothes disintegrated, sending out a small trickle of blood.

“Still alive, nice.” The Mage nodded approvingly. “We’ll walk and talk…”

The trio began to move through the woods. Gwen noted between teary visions of clenched agony that the man was levitating. Gwen herself was painfully lifted a few inches off the ground, her arms and collarbones aflame against the weight of her body.

“Who… who are you?” Gwen spoke between clenched teeth. She could feel a sort of delirium coming on. She was losing blood.

“I am Edgar.” To her surprise, the man was entirely forthcoming.

“…” Gwen winced. Edgar? You’re Edgar from the Edgar, and your plan is to Edgar?

They were moving quite briskly now, and Gwen felt the pit of her stomach sink. In the distance, there was more rumbling. A few branches that fell towards them disintegrated into dust.

“Why… why are you doing this?”

“Why does anyone do anything?” The man chuckled.

“What?”

“One's modus operandi! The raison d'etre!”

Big words, Gwen noted. The man didn't lack in education.

“We’re just students on a field trip…” She just managed. The pain was too much for someone who'd never broken a bone in either of her lives.

“If you want to know, I'll tell you everything,” Edgar continued all on his own. “You see, we are the…”

But Gwen was no longer listening.

“… what a terrible listener.” Edgar snorted, giving Gwen's clammy cheeks a pat. “I guess the bloodletting was a little excessive. I need our little lamb at just the right state of tenderness.”

She must have lost consciousness, Gwen realised.

She quickly self-assessed. Her tracksuit was in tatters, barely holding together as it were. The apparition secured her waist and torso with a tendril, another wrapped around her ankle, supporting her weight, splaying her like a cheerleader doing an X. Taking note of her surroundings, she saw to her dismay that Debora was still unconscious, dangling like a humanoid fruit behind them a few feet away, likewise hoisted in the air.

They were deep into the bush now, where the landscape grew rugged, filling with sandstone and short shrubbery, with only the occasional Blood Gum languishing in waterless crevices. They soon arrived at what looked like a chasm, cut into the sandstone cliff like an axe wound.

“You up yet, Sleeping Beauty?” the sardonic voice of Edgar asked. “I know you are~, or do you want Dusty there to wake you up like Prince Charming?

“Where… are you taking me?” Gwen opened her eyes unwillingly. She had better do something before they go into that cave. God knows what was going to be in there.

“Where indeed?” Edgar seemed to have regained that scornful composure of his. “You should be glad. We’re going somewhere safe- from that.”

He pointed to the right: in the far distance and through the sparse foliage of the trees, Gwen could see a gargantuan thing roving across the landscape. Or rather, she could see the landscape itself moving as though a living thing. Now and then, she caught blossoms of crimson explosions.

Gwen blinked.

That colour! That mana signature! It must be her instructor. It must be Alesia! She was still alive! She was fighting that thing! Trying to deter it from moving toward the city!

Gritting her teeth, Gwen fought back the Dust Devil's hold.

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“Thunderclap!”

She charged her single-incantation cantrip with every drop of mana she had regenerated. Her spell launched into the air, erupting into cacophony and colour, blossoming into a blue-purple electric-lotus.

The faceless cowl of the Mage waited for her below.

'Clap. Clap. Clap.'

Even the man's clapping was sarcastic.

“You think the Scarlet Sorceress has time for you at a time like this?” Edgar snorted. “What, are you her apprentice or something?”

Gwen averted her eyes.

'Smack!'

A slap backhanded her face.

Gwen made no noise but mum.

They moved once more. The trio slowly levitated down to a ledge that overlooked a ritual of carnage.

Oh God. Gwen felt her spine turn to jelly. Is Edgar looking to sacrifice her Temple of Doom style?

To Gwen, the magic-circle meant nothing, consisting of dozens of concentric rings of engravings and glyphs, at the centre of which was an egg-like object, akin to a menhir stone.

Regrettably, they were indeed heading down toward the site of the ritual. With every meter of descent, the taste of bile grew stronger. She was a consultant! Not Indiana Jones! She can't possibly expect to wiggle her way out of a fucking Dark Ritual!

“Don’t be choking on me now,” Edgar conversed with a friendly tone. “This won’t hurt at all, not if you cooperate.”

The depth of the cavern glowed with amber. By now they had reached the bottom, reaching a stone table Transmuted from the dark stone of the cavern. Edgar carelessly deposited Debora’s unconscious body, letting her ragdoll onto the surface. He then examined the Transmuter, tearing away at the shredded uniform until Debora was left without modesty. The man's actions, Gwen noted, lacked a certain passion. Instead, Edgar gave the impression of a butcher examining a fine cut. Finally, the Mage placed a finger against Debora’s neck and felt for a pulse.

“Good grief, Gwen. You’re merciless,” Edgar ridiculed his captive. “Your friend's rightly fuck up.”

“Will she…” Gwen had to ask.

“Who knows?” She watched as he extended a hand, materialising what appeared to be a healing injector, then placed it next to Debora.

“For your friend,” he said. “If you behave.”

She felt the tendrils of force around her body go slack. The apparition faded into a pile of grey dust, cascading from her clothes. Edgar moved toward another table and gave the surface a friendly pat, a man beckoning an unwilling cat.

Gwen nursed her tender wrists; her eyes darted between the man, the table, and the healing injector. For a split second, she imagined herself taking it and injecting herself, giving her a better chance to escape this place.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Edgar mocked her indecision.

Now burdened with shame and guilt, Gwen moved demurely toward the ‘examination’ table, the exact opposite of where she could feel comfortable.

Edgar pulled back his hands as if to show his best intentions.

“Let’s not rough you up anymore, shall we?”

Gwen swallowed hard. Maybe she could self-destruct, take him with her? She wondered what would happen if she willed her conduits to overload. Was that possible?

Slowly, agonisingly, she removed her tattered jacket, pulling it with the tattered T-shirt over her head. She was down to her panties when she heard Edgar sniggering.

“What are you doing?” He asked, trying to hold his laughter.

“…” Gwen's face caught on fire. “You said…”

“I have no interesting in that sort of thing,” Edgar answered mirthfully. “You are a lucky young woman. There are those of us who'd eat you alive."

To her surprise, he materialised a robe not too dissimilar from the one he wore and threw it towards her.

“Cover yourself. Don't catch a cold now.”

Gwen was beginning to become very confused.

What the hell is he doing? Why was Edgar playing nice?
She covered herself. The robe was velvety and warm, hanging onto her body like the softest silk. The villain had good taste in textiles at least, if not style.

“So, Gwen…” a swirl of dust seemed to materialise underneath the man, and he made himself a stool composed of compressed particles of dust. “Tell me about yourself.”

She gazed at him blankly. Her thoughts were a mess. Why are you asking me these things? Aren’t you guys terrorists or something? You attacked us! Unleashed that thing! Why are we even having a cordial conversation in the first place?

“Don’t want to answer?” He asked, and looked over at Debora, whose chest was barely moving.

“My name is Gwen Song…” Gwen began - and spoke a little about her school, her life in the city, her divorced parents, saying whatever would satisfy the man so that he would finally inject Debora with the healing potion.

“That's all very fascinating,” Edgar said finally, “but what’s your modus operandi? Your raison d'etre?”

“My ... my reason for being?” Gwen wondered. It was getting hard to think; she wanted to sleep.

“That's right, tell me what you want, what you desire. Why are you a Mage? What do you think Mages are born to do?”

“I… I don’t know.” The barrage of questions was making her head throb. Not knowing the answer, she spoke the truth.

“Come on,” Edgar demanded. “Surely you don’t think that you of all people, whose talent exceeds a hundred thousand souls, was born to be... a wage slave? Do you? Think on it. Ask yourself.”

Gwen found herself in a deep state of introspection far more readily than she thought possible. What did she 'really' want? Gwen wanted a comfortable life. She wanted prestige and a great deal of wealth and parents who gave a shit and to reconnect with her brother and a seaside house and two cats and a dog-

“Those are easy goals.” Edgar’s voice grew sonorous, filling the emptiness of her mind. “You could have them effortlessly with your talent.”

“Yes…” Gwen realised her goals were indeed shallow. She could easily reach them with her talents and her drive.

“You should aim for something bigger, greater, something more suited to yourself, your very own personal legend.”

Her surroundings now seemed to fade into nothing. Gwen appeared to be alone with this friendly man who was speaking to her so endearingly, even Debora’s comatose body faded from her awareness.

“What would that be?”

“Firepower! Firepower! and more Firepower!” The man’s voice took on that strange tone which Yue loved to use, that childish passion with which Gwen loved so much. “You could be just like Instructor Alesia, a goddess of destruction, respected and worshipped...”

“That would be lovely,” Gwen replied dreamily, a stupefied expression of satisfaction on her face. How curious, she thought to herself. The man's voice was stereophonic!

“How happy that would make you,” the voice continued. “You should do it.”

“I could…” Gwen repeated.

“Would you… like me to help you?” The voice implored. Edgar disappeared, and Gwen was in a place that she knew very well. It was the Cognisance Chamber! Oh, thank God! She was safe! The Field Trip was just an Illusion.

She was free floating in that space of absolute freedom; she could see the glow of her Evocation sigil with its nebular of lightning.

"Let me help you."

“I want you to help me,” Gwen repeated after him.

“Let me in,” the voice intoned.

“Come in… come in…” Gwen declared dreamily.

“Invite me...”

“I want you,” she repeated more forcefully this time. “I want you beside me.”

Suddenly, she could feel Edgar right beside her, his own astral body swirling with a malevolent dark light, flickering with motes of Elemental Dust. Comparatively, her own astral body was long and lithe, a work of art, a beautiful crystalline sculpture swirling with bottled lightning.

“Beautiful,” Edgar spoke with a tone bordering on reverence. “You should be proud of your potential. You're special.”

"I am special." Gwen giggled.

He moved to touch her, and though Gwen knew that there was something wrong about the intimate act, she still wanted to accept Edgar as her companion. She closed her eyes, feeling the shame of being touched for the first time. Edgar’s hand moving from her naval toward her left breast, were the heart resided, and where the light of the astral body was brightest. Her ego pulsed in turn, growing dimmer.

Though the Enchanter's fingers rested upon the globe of Gwen’s breast, there was no flesh to be depressed, nothing to be groped nor prodded. Instead, his fingers sunk into the fabric of her soul, moving past the membrane of her Astral Body.

“My God…” Edgar’s voice cried out in ecstasy. “What is this? There are two existences here!”

A wild excitement shook Edgar to his core. It was a phenomenon that he had never seen before. The girl was a priceless specimen! A prize to curry the highest favour with his Mistress.

Edgar paused.

He felt suddenly assailed by a sudden feeling of mortal danger. His Astral Form startlingly experienced a sense of vertigo, an impossible feeling in the immaterial world of the mind. He quickly retracted his hand from the girl's Astral Body but found that he was stuck.

"What?"

With a push, Edgar willed himself to manifest via the third-eye, to observe what the hell was happening. To his shock and horror, his Astral Body had become inundated by dozens of leech-like slugs, darker than black, meandering hungrily, looking for a way in.

"What the fuck is that?!" Edgar spluttered.

His real body broke out in a terrific sweat.

Before the Enchanter could react, Gwen’s unconscious anima tapped into something tenebrous and formless. Tens of thousands of black, writhing worms flooded into her Astral Form.

How could her body withstand that? He marvelled.

But this was no time to be lollygagging. Whatever was manifesting in here was bound to be happening out there. He gathered his will, then pulled, feeling the stuck hand sliding free, send out sparks of lightning where he had penetrated before. The pain was exquisite, though Edgar didn’t care, his Element existed in opposition to hers and could withstand whatever she could throw at him. What he feared was that black conduit that was now manifesting within her body - that was a mystery he wasn't keen to toy with.

"!"

His world went dark. In the next instant, Edgar was back in his body.

“Aaaarrrgh!” a cry of unimaginable agony echoed across the cavern.

The Enchanter fell backwards as if propelled by a spring, one hand clutching his wrist. A spurt of arterial blood covered Gwen and the table upon which she sat.

His hand! His right hand! Shit! SHIT! FUCK!

Edgar lifted the stump to his face.

It was gone.

No, more than gone. It was GONE.

It was as if his right hand had never existed at all, neither in the material nor the immaterial. Gritting his teeth, Edgar stumbled toward Debora, grabbed the healing injector, and slammed it into his wrist.

'Psssht!'

The flesh mended, the bleeding staunched. Edgard looked at a perfectly sealed stump, its plane of tissue as smooth as unscarred flesh and as natural as the day he was born.

A sudden rage overtook Edgar. He felt such hatred for this girl before him as he had never felt for anyone nor anything in his life. Not the nanny that had denied him his Vid-Casts. Not his father who had found him disgusting and wanting. Not even his poor mother whom they said died when he was born, inheriting the ire of his father and his estate.

He pointed towards Gwen with his remaining hand.

“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust…” He began, incanting the most powerful spell he possessed. A spell that would take a terrible toll on his own body for his inability to sufficiently control it’s power.

“Horrid W-”


The cold invasion of Edgar's hand thrusting into her Astral Body was like being penetrated by a rusty sword; its serrated edge mangling her flesh as it inched deeper.

A helpless spectator, Gwen watched the usurpation of her mind and body.

For a moment in time, she wanted nothing more than to end it all, to summon all the Lightning in the world, then go out in a blaze of brilliant plasma.

For all she knew, she could wake up in her old world; like waking from bad Midsummer Night's dream. Conceivably, she had exhausted her hour upon the stage, and could now be no more.

Then she felt it - that all too familiar sense of vertigo, and saw the gathering of black motes of dark matter within her body coalesce into lithe leeches, attaching themselves like tenebrous white-blood cells to the intruder.

Edgar's Astral Form suddenly panicked, struggling to pull free. With a sense of schadenfreude, she willed herself to hold on, to keep the man bound and tethered for the creatures to ravage. Here was her Astral Soul, it was hers alone, and she forbid him to leave without paying a toll in blood.

Slowly, the little motes coalesced, filling her mana conduit. Gwen instinctively sensed the opening of another Gate. Her Evocation conduit tapped something else, something existing in the space between spaces.

"!"

A tenebrous matter flooded through her body.

'Shield!"

With a surge of will, Gwen coalescence a mana shield formed of cracking black energy.

A Void Shield.

“Aaaarrrgh!”

The scream deafened her ear; she blinked, then was back in the Material world.

Her body slumped.

She knew this feeling; it was one she had experienced it before. Dizzy with vertigo, she attempted to orientate herself, keeping her eyes on Edgar who now screamed like a gutted pig. The bastard reached for the potion injector he had placed before Debora.

You lying sack of filth!

She saw him inject it’s precious cargo, bewilderingly manipulate the stump that was now his right hand, then turn to her with pure malice. Edgar began to chant, his voice thick and full of agony, his invocation dark and foreboding.

Gwen bodily pushed herself onto one side, freeing her arms for spell casting.

Come on! Come on! Her body moved as slow as molasses.

The man was down to his last few phrases now; he was pointing toward her and Gwen had no more time to think. She recalled the first thing that came to her mind and channelled the dark energy filling her conduits like eldritch ice.

“Blast Bolt!” She invoked, though what materialised wasn't the white-hot plasma of Elemental Lightning, but a dark, crackling line of nothingness, of the absence of things, a jet black bolt rendering reality itself null.

The last of Gwen's vitality drained out with the spell. The lid of her eyes turned to lead. Her body, now thinner, frailer, almost skeletal, collapsed onto the stone table, a husk of its former self.

“Horrid W…!”

Before Edgar could even complete his spell, he heard the familiar sound of Gwen’s desperate casting of her signature spell. He chose to ignore it, knowing full well he could recover.

"Blast Bolt!"

Before his final Major Incantation, a bolt of dark energy violently stabbed into his flesh.

His invocation shattered, it’s magic falling apart. Something had just mangled his astral body, damaged the conduits of mana that existed metaphysically within his corporal and incorporeal form.

Edgar looked down. He was surprised to find that he was now sans leg, sans a part of his torso and sans an arm. In the next heartbeat, spurts of blood gushed from all three wounds.

A mote of mana, built by contingency into an item that he had always worn around his left index finger, activated instantly.

The glyphs of a Teleportation, its destination pre-set, activated below him.

“NO!” Edgar cried out, “Leave me here! I can take her! I can take her!”

But the spell could not heed his cry.

In the next moment, Edgar was gone.

With Edgar now out of range, the runes and glyphs surrounding the menhir ceased to writhe, fading into the darkness. One by one, the barriers dispelled.

Not far from the monstrously large Egg. Gwen lay lifelessly on the table; her body pale and lifeless.

Slowly, a pulse of pale light could be seen. Morye's gift palpitated as though a throbbing heart, sending out tendrils of green energy, searching for that which would sustain its hostess.

It found sustenance not too far away, conveniently in the form of an ancient egg. A green haze poured from the amulet, taking advantage of the invasive glyphs carved onto the menhir's surface, providing a penetrative channel into the life that existed within. The life force within was ancient, rich and nourishing, and so, the amulet drank deeply from the egg’s interior. It would only need a sliver of this energy to sustain its owner, who was merely a mortal. As for the excess, its long atrophied Soul Well could use a windfall.

A viridescent glow then suffused Gwen's shrivelled dermis. Her anorexic, shrunken form began to heal. Her sallow cheeks began to fill, returning to their usual plumpness. Her many injuries mended miraculously, as natural as if Elvia had suffused her with a torrent of Positive Energy. Gwen's heart, which only moments before had the weakest of palpitations, began to beat with vigour. Her limbs restored to their slender, athletic self, her skin taking on a healthy glow, more vibrant and youthful than ever before, as supple as if she were a babe.

'Badump!'

Gwen inhaled as the amulet became once again dormant. She was hungry for life, hungry for air!

Alesia threw away the fourth potion injector.

From below, she resembled a goddess of flame, resplendent in her flickering regalia. Even her hair was a flowing mane of scarlet fire, swarming with firefly embers.

But even with all her abilities pushed to its utmost limits, Alesia felt powerless in front of the Mythical Serpent.

She had tried to manage her cooldowns, alternating between health and mana potions, but her body was at its alchemical limits. With each additional injection beyond the first, the effectiveness halved.

She could see the camp from her vantage point now, that was how close the creature had gotten. Another minute or so, and the thing would ride roughshod through the vicinity. It needn’t even a direct hit; a near miss would utterly churn the camp to dust, burying those kids under a mountain of soil and debris.

'Bung!'

A firework lit up the top of a nearby hill.

Yue! They’re alright! Alesia's agitated palpitation returned to a state of placidity.

She once again faced the creature below her, its scales the hue of rainbows, like the petrol sheen of a pigeon’s neck.

Why was it attacking? Alesia wondered - though she realised 'attack' was hardly the right word.

A creature of yore did not 'attack' in the manner that baser creatures did. Like the seasons, they were driven by instinct beyond human ken, their very existence brining unfathomable terror to the Frontier cities. Beings such as these were neither benevolent nor malevolent, no matter how often humans anthropomorphised their existence.

When humanity had been young, they had worshipped these Mythical beings. Many cultures still do: the Shenlong of Chinese legend, the Quezacotl of the South American Empires and even the Ice and Fire Giants of Icelandic lore were among that number.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

This serpent was such a creature, a land God as old as time. Even harassed by fire and sulphur, it had chosen to ignore her, its impervious resistance beyond her assault.

That somehow made it worse.

The creature before her had no designs on her students. It wasn’t even aware of them. She had no idea why it was moving toward the city and could only guess as to its goal.

No matter it’s motive though, it was her prerogative to try and divert the serpent's path.

A dagger materialised in her hand, an exotic blade with arcane designs of engraved flame that seemed not of terrestrial origin. Its handle and pommel were encrusted with rubies the size of pigeon eggs, a priceless artefact by any measure.

“O Efreet, Spirit of flames, heed my call…”

A mandala appeared beneath Alesia’s feet, three circles bisecting to form a triplicate, revolving faster and faster until it tapped into the Elemental Plane of Fire. The air around Alesia instantly ignited, falling below in flaming sheets, turning the bush into a sea of fire.

As she gathered her will, intense heat from above and below fed into the mandala, collating and condensing the energy into her manifesting invocation.

A moment of silence reigned - the calm before the firestorm, then the flames on Alesia’s body, the combusting air, the forest fire below, extinguished simultaneously.

“Maximised Firestorm!”

The Cores shattered, sending jagged shards of splintered stone into her hand. Alesia winced, watching the egg-sized Creature Cores, harvested from rare adult Salamanders, burst into incandescence.

The sky began to churn and turn, birthing a small sun from the accumulated energy taken from the Plane of Fire. The serpent below raised it’s head to regard this new celestial object, its vision so similar to the ochre sun setting upon the outback bush.

Fire fell, first in drops, and then in sheets, and finally in cascading torrents. It struck the rainbow scales of the serpent, marring the brilliance. The rest of the storm followed, quick forming into a vortex of fire touching down in the path of the creature.

Finally, the serpent noticed her. An immense head, the size of a small hill, rose to regard Alesia, a tiny mote blazing in the sky.

She could feel it’s attention focusing on her, and the burden of that attention was like molten lead pouring into her mind, almost banishing her to the earth below,

“Move!” She screamed at it. “Move, or be Purged!”

The firestorm raged and twirled. Alesia could see that it was peeling off some of the serpent’s scales.

“Move!” Alesia raised her hand and threw a hapless fireball toward its face, where it harmlessly slid off.

The serpent stopped.

To her shock and surprise, it paused in its movement.

It then reared upon its serpentine neck and rose into the heavens, an impossible thing twenty kilometres long and the width of a football field, rising to meet her.

So this is how I die. Alesia moped sadly. I haven’t even had a boyfriend yet.

She wondered if her Master would teleport the Tower in time. Only a superstructure like that could deter a mythic being.

A Message spell blazed beside her ear.

“Alesia! What’s your status! We’re just past Gate 47, and we can see it all the way from here! What is it doing?”

“I think I pissed it off, Jonas.”

“What?”

“I THINK I PISSED IT OFF, JONAS,” Alesia screamed into the Message device.

She felt ridiculous. Her Master had made her a peerless Combat Mage, and now she was going to die, saving some nobody-kids from a government school. Still, there were worse ways to go.

To die duelling a Mythic being, a creature that had existed since time immemorial and epoch primordial.

If nothing else, it's a kick-ass memorial plaque.

“Come at me!” She screamed at the serpent. Flanking it from the right, hoping to direct it towards the ocean. “Come get me, you big ugly worm!”

Another Message spell burst into audibility beside her.

“Alesia! Alesia! For fuck’s sake, stand down and fly towards us.”

“You’re slow as fuck Jonas,” Alesia shouted into her Device as the Serpent gave chase. “It’s your fault if I die, and I am going to haunt you!”

“Alesia… please…”

“Ohhhh shit its fast! It’s fast, Jonas! How does something that fat even move this fast?” Alesia was having fun now, pivoting with a combination of Haste and Greater Flight, changing directions here and there as the serpent tried to bop her with its snout.

“Alesia, don’t die!”

“I am trying, Jonas! It’s a fucking Mythic being! Not a dog I am trying to dodge. Stop distracting me!”

'Bung!'

She became distracted.
A thunder cap resonated loudly from a direction south of the bushland, exploding in the air as a brilliant blue-purple electric-lotus.

Gwen! Alesia's breath caught. She dipped low, avoiding the mythic Serpent and gliding close to its scales. The creature was beautiful up close, gorgeous, like flying beside a scintillating sheet of chromic colour.

Why was Gwen's signal so far from the camp? She didn’t know the answer to her question, but Alesia did understand the meaning behind the firework. Gwen was in trouble, a great deal of trouble - and she was calling for help.

“Alesia!” yet another Message spell bloomed into resonance beside Her, the voice of her decade-old partner, Jonas. “I… I LOVE YOU.”

“Not now Jonas!” Alesia shut off her Message interface with a wave of her hand, dodging the serpent again and leading it off course.

I am coming for you, Gwen! Just hold out until I get there!

“…”

Jonas and the team moved toward the Mythic serpent at the utmost limit afforded by their unmapped Teleportation Circle. The furtherer they had gone from the city though, the less precise the teleportation became. Still, it was much faster than Flight and much safer than taking ground transport during an earthquake.

“Good news?” The Abjurer, Taj, asked nervously, watching a Jonas’ grey-blue eyes grew moist.

“She hung up,” he replied.

“My condolences," the Transmuter, Paul, sadly remarked as he finished the next glyph. “It’s done! Hold on to your hats, here we go! Teleportation!”

Gwen rose from the dead with the resplendent vigour of uninterrupted rest. She felt no sense of distress or anxiety, only an unnatural serenity.

Her most immediate memory surfaced in her mind. Frantically, she looked toward where Edgar had fallen. The only evidence that her assailant had been there was a floor full of dried blood clotting in the dust. Not far from her, lay the unconscious form of Debora.

"Debs!"

Gwen leapt from the table and ran towards her friend. Gingerly, carefully, Gwen placed a finger under Debora's nose.

Nothing?! No! Was her friend dead? Gwen stared slack-jawed at the Transmuter, whose body remained ravaged by Gwen's lightning. She placed her fore and index over Debora’s neck. Thankfully, she felt a faint pulse.

Gwen looked around the room for something that could help. To her surprise, she found the injector with which the Mage had used in haste. Thankfully, there was still a sliver left.

I hope this is enough! Gwen reminded herself that Edgar had staunched bleeding on a hand stump with this thing.

She slammed it as instructed into Debora’s thigh. Immediately Debora’s complexion took on a fairer hue, leaving behind the deathly pallor she had prior, healing the electric-burns that wracked her dermis.

“Debora! Debora! Can you hear me?” She spoke into her friend’s ear, though she received no response. To her great dismay and anxiety, Debora wasn't breathing.

SHIT! Gwen forced herself to remain composed.

Gwen recalled her First Aid training; as a manager, the certification was mandatory. She began by massaging Debora’s chest, doing repetitions of thirty odd or so before checking and moving on to C.P.R. Gwen then tucked Debora’s head back, opening the airway of her oesophagus, pinched her nose, and placed her mouth onto Debora's, sealing her lips. She blew two quick breathes, waiting for Debora’s chest to rise and fall before releasing her nostrils and repeating the action.

'Cough! C-cough!'

"Debs!"

An indescribable happiness tingled Gwen's insides.

[You. Life Bringer?]

A stray thought intruded into Gwen mind, halting Gwen in her tracks.

“Hello?” Gwen asked the empty room around her. “Is … is anyone there?”

She looked toward the dozen or so corpses that still littered the area around the menhir.

Oh, shit - is one of them rising from the dead?

[You know the song to sing the dead?]

The voice in her head asked again.

“Where are you? Who are you?” Gwen commanded the room, feeling silly for doing so.

[Here] The voice said.

Gwen looked towards the centre of the room, where only an egg-shaped menhir stood.

[Release me]

“You are… a rock?” Gwen approached the menhir, sensing a kinship that she had felt only for someone like Percy, her brother.

[Remove my shackles]

Gwen knew innately that the voice meant no harm, as a child knew their parent to be benevolent. Gwen approached the menhir and pryed off the spent mana stones, stamping over the magic circle.

As she wreaked havoc, she felt the presence within the menhir grow stronger, until finally, she felt elated, as though a weight had been removed from her chest.

Suddenly, she felt the coolness of falling rain, smelled the fresh loam of upturned earth, heard the quiet cascade of billabongs and the yawning of blood gums as they grew.

[We are grateful]

“No worries…” Gwen spoke to the menhir, now increasingly appearing to her like an egg. “Are you… alright? Are you an egg?”

[We are kin.]

“Thanks.” Gwen felt absurd, carrying out a conversation with a salient stone egg. She searched her mind, scanning through memories of the Creatures Class and wondering what creature the thing could be. An Earthen Troll? A sentient spirit from the Plane of Earth?

[Gift for kin?]

Gwen looked around her. More than anything, she was worried about Yue, about Elvia. Did Elvia escape? Did she meet with Yue? Did they evacuate?

“Can you get me out of here?” Gwen asked the egg, wondering if it would sprout legs and arms.

[A simple thing]

"Right."

[We cometh]

Gwen looked around her, doing her best to ignore the fact that there were real life dead bodies of actual human beings here and there, trying to keep herself from going insane.

There was... nothing happening.

About half two kilometres in, the snake gave up.

Instead, it changed directions. A shimmering glow began to suffuse the length of the serpent, illuminating the heavens with a blast of chromatic aurora australis. Much to Alesia's shock, the mythic being began to shrink, moving towards some location buried in the valley below.

That’s where Gwen’s signal was!

She gave chase, though the snake was the swifter of the two, its size giving it an impossible advantage even as it rapidly shrunk, leaving vast swaths of the landscape devasted beneath its girth. Alesia marvelled at the manner in which it eventually became the size of a city-tram, making for what seemed to be a cleft by the side of a sheer sandstone cliff.

She watched the thing slither into the gully, knowing that she had to follow.

More tremors shook the cavern. As Debora had done for her before, Gwen opened up her feeble Shield, hoping that it would be enough to keep them safe.

She then gazed at the silent egg.

What did it mean, it was coming?

'Crack!'

A chunk of rock the size of a sedan fell into the chamber.

Then she saw it, a serpent with a head the size of a sedan, slithering through the cavern’s mouth above them, meandering down towards her, its forked tongue darting this way and that, tasting the air.

"FUCK!" Gwen swore. Misfortune loves company.

The thing was huge, so it would take at least as much energy as she had poured into Edgar. She felt confident though, for some reason, she was brimming with mana.

[Do not strike. We arrived]

There was a scent of Grevillea flowers.

Gwen looked towards the egg, and then back towards the snake.

“You’re a snake?” Gwen asked bewilderingly. A sentient, talking snake!

“Gwen!” A voice with the cadence of archangels resonated across the cavern. Gwen looked past the serpent to see the angelic form of Instructor Alesia, garbed in a gown of fire, her hair flaming as anything, leaving behind a swarm of fireflies. She was resplendent, no wonder they call her the Scarlet Sorceress.

She’s alive! Gwen cried for joy. Oh happy, happy, Day!

But of course, there remained the matter of the glittery snake even now tasting the air.

“The snake with you?” They both asked in tandem.

Their eyes met.

The snake looked at Gwen.

Gwen looked at Alesia.

Alesia looked at the Snake.

The Snake looked at Gwen again.

It hissed.


A salmon pink tongue, forked and quick as a whistle, darted from the serpent's lip-sheath as it hissed.

“It's not with you, Alesia?” Gwen intoned carefully.

“It's not with me. No,” her instructor affirmed warily, drifting a few feet away from the snake, keeping a safe distance in case it decided to no longer be so amiable.

[Friend?]

Its breath was eucalyptus after the rain.

“Friend,” Gwen said out loud, glancing up toward the snake, and then at Alesia.

“Yes.” Alesia’s brilliant eyes refracted the light from her flaming hair. “I am your friend, Gwen.”

“I meant the snake.” Gwen’s eyes moved between the two. “It’s friendly, I think?”

Friendly?! Alesia spluttered. That thing just took out half the Royal National! On her fly-in, she could see kilometres of catastrophic damage, carved like channels into the landscape. If that was its idea of friendly, what would it do if it were hostile?

“How did you call the Snake here?” Alesia enquired.

Gwen shifted her gaze to the egg beside her, as did Alesia.

[Protect!]

The snake began to move, sliding its body down the slope effortlessly, making for the centre of the chamber. Gwen stepped back, avoiding the loosened debris. Alesia drifted downwards, following the serpent, wary of its alien intention.

The pair watched as the snake slithered toward the stone egg, fascinated by the manner in which it unhinged its jaws to wholly encompass the menhir.

'Crack!'

There was a sound of splintered stone as the bottom of the egg broke from the floor. The snake then hoisted the egg, which must have weighed several tons, into its fleshy maw.

It swallowed.

The egg slid into the creature’s undulating oesophagus, after which it reconnected its lower jaws. Bit by bit, the egg moved past serpent's neck and gullet, shrinking until its torso was as flat as it had ever been.

[Safe keeping.]

Again, the serpent's thoughts were accompanied by synaesthesia, this time the salty brine of the southern sea.

Then, to their surprise, it coiled unto itself, lowering its head until it was almost at eye level with Gwen. Alesia promptly placed herself between Gwen and the serpent, shielding her student with her fiery form.

[Up.]

Its glare was the midday sun.

Gwen regarded the helpful serpent: mount it? Ride it? She looked towards Alesia, who was equally clueless. Either way, they couldn't lollygag in the cavern forever.

“Instructor, Debora is still unconscious.” Gwen pointed to her friend’s body still upon the table, where the only sign of her still being alive was the faint movement of her chest. “Can you help her?”

“Maybe we should get you out first.”

“I’ve got a ride.” Gwen turned back to the serpent, admiring its immensity. In such proximity, she felt a resonate kinship. Unconsciously, she extended her hand and patted the snake’s snout.

Though its scales glistened wetly with a petrol sheen of prismatic chroma, the texture felt akin to fingernails: smooth, dry, and unexpectedly warm, like touching hot sand at the beach.

“Gwen! What are you doing!” Alesia spluttered, beyond alarmed. Stupid girl! That's a mythic level beast! Not a riding drake! She could see it now, the Serpent enraging, growing instantly to a length of twenty kilometres, smashing the both of them into smithereens.

But Alesia was glad to be proven wrong. Without incident, Gwen persisted in climbing on top of the creature, shimming her body forward until she could grip onto two protruding scales close to the snake’s head.

“…” Alesia was reminded of another one of her Master's advice: expect the unexpected; watch, then speak, not before.

The snake rose into the air, its body levitating soundlessly, slithering with incredulous dexterity and balance through the chasm until it reached the top, laying its head flat against the cliff’s edge. Alesia watched as Gwen slid off the creature, back onto solid ground.

[It is done.]

The cavern filled with the sound of shifting sand.

Gwen touched the serpent again. Its eyes had that distinct, single slit unique to reptiles, but the surrounding iris was a swirl of rainbow hues changing colour across a light-fantastic. Within, she saw the figure of a girl held intact within a prismatic lens.

Beautiful, Gwen exhaled. The serpent's orbs were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen across two lifetimes.

The salmon pink tongue extended slowly, moving towards Gwen’s face. She closed her eyes.

Alesia returned, cradling Debora below her chest, secured with both arms.

The tongue was as thick as Gwen’s thighs at the base, tapering until the forked split. It darted a dozen times in quick succession: tapping her hair, tasting her cheeks and caressing her chin, each touch but a split second.

[Kin.]

The empathic link was joyous. For a moment, Gwen saw a vision of blooming dogwood.

“Gwen…” Alesia guessed at the link between the two. “Assuming it’s not hostile toward you, what does it want?”

It was an answer she needed to know. In the Tower's records, only the priests of old and venerated religions, the outlandish folk that lived in the Wildlands, and specialised Creature-Conjurers, could communicate with Mythic level beings without having their minds turning the consistency of creme-fraiche.

“What do you want?” Gwen asked the serpent with the effortlessness of asking when’s lunch?

[Rest.]

The smell of loam and earth accompanied by its flickering tongue.

“It said it wants to rest,” Gwen reported to Alesia, who wore still her flaming Regalia, burning away at her mana reserves.

“You sure it’s safe?” Alesia asked. She was running on fumes. The Efreet transformation was peerless - but required a vast reserve of mana to maintain its flaming phenomena.

“Yes,” Gwen answered reverently. “It means us no harm.”

Alesia landed beside Gwen, carrying Debora. The flames surrounding her extinguished.

"WOA, Ma'am!"

To Gwen’s surprise, her instructor was left stark naked, exposing dozens of cuts and scrapes, as well a purple-bruise stretching from her left hip to her right lumbar. Steam rose from Alesia's elementally tempered body, instantly evaporating any perspiration.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Ma’am.” Gwen's chest tightened. “W-what happened to you?”

“Rough night.” Alesia gave Gwen a wry smile, materialising a red robe from a ring and wrapping herself within the silky kimono. Other items of clothing appeared, all in shades of maroon, cherry, pink and carmine. She was still in the midst of hurriedly covering her shame when the salmon pink tongue of the serpent dashed towards Alesia, who froze as it tapped her cheek.

[Not Kin.]

Gwen wrinkled her nose. There was a textured stench of mangroves at low tide.

[Usurper.]

With a flourish, Alesia reappeared in maroon trousers, a camo t-shirt, and combat boots.

“Why’s it looking at me like that?” She nervously asked Gwen. She had already burnt a several months worth of Magic Items in HDMs and had no desire to consume another outfit.

“It’s saying that… you’re are a usurper,” Gwen passed the snake’s sentiment toward her Instructor, she wasn’t sure what that was about either.

“One sec.” Alesia gave Debora's cheeks a light slap. "No luck, we need to get her to a hospital."

“Levitate!”

She set the body of the young Transmuter to float.

“She might still be glamoured.” Alesia placed a hand over Debora’s face and pulled open one of her eyelids. The pupil within was fully dilated, displacing Debora's amber iris. "Did you say, 'usurper'?"

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I guess all humans are usurpers when it comes to these nature-types. Just make sure it stays away from us.” Alesia covered Debora's indecent body with a towel, then studied Gwen, whose hair and face was matted with dried blood. “So, you wanna tell me what happened here?”

Gwen related her tale, omitting nothing that she knew, not even the part when she had sent out a bolt of darkness to cut Edgar in twain. It was about time that someone finally knew, someone she trusted and could help her decipher its mystery.

"Alesia... do you know if the others are alright? If Elvia made it?" Gwen inquired with a tone full of anxious agitation.

To her disappointment, Alesia shook her head.

"I can tell you the basecamp is safe, but I haven't see Elvia." The pained look on her student's face made Alesia want to reach out and comfort her, but there was still a snake scenting Gwen with its forked tongue.

Just as Alesia tried to assuage Gwen by suggesting she try calling the girls on her Message Device - a Message spell bloomed beside Alesia's ear.

“Alesia! You still alive?” It was Jonas, her partner.

“Yeah, I am fine.”

“Oh thank God!” The voice choked.

“Where’s the snake?” another voice inquired. "It disappeared entirely, all I am seeing are new valleys.”

Alesia looked over at Gwen, who stood beside the Mythical serpent with a hand upon its snout, caressing it with the vacant expression of one stroking an oversized house cat. There was a decision to be made here, a judgement call with ramifications well beyond her ability to speculate. She had seen the damage the serpent could cause first hand, but she had also observed that it had no intent nor hostility toward humanity. If they attacked it with the full intention of destroying it, what would be the cost? What would it be like if a Mythical being decided to bring to bear all its power? Would the skies turn dark and the seas boil? Would the ground split asunder and swallow Sydney whole? Most importantly, if she was to tell her companions, tell the Tower, that this beast of times immemorial was harmless, that it would far prefer to 'rest' - who would believe her?

“Alesia? You still there?”

“Don’t know where the Snake is,” Alesia replied. “What’s your ETA to my loc?”

“We are inbound, ETA two minutes.”

“I’ll meet you outside, look for my flare.”

“Ma’am?” Gwen wondered why Alesia had lied.

“Can you ask the snake to hide somewhere?” Alesia demanded of her student. “I got four very serious people incoming in about a minute, and they are not going to like this at all.”

Gwen turned to the serpent, who seemed to have read her intent at once. It slithered outside the cavern, its hues changing until it became transparent, fading into the night as though a wisp of air the breeze had brought in. Gwen looked down toward her hand that only a moment ago had touched the beautiful, mysterious thing, and saw that in her palm was a scale, scintillating like an opal.

[Gift for Kin]

The glow from the scale was that of golden wattles in full bloom.

The serpent was gone, its presence erased by some force unknowable to mortals like Gwen and Alesia, fading into the dark emerald sea.

“Hold on to that,” Alesia advised her apprentice-in-name. "That's going be a top-notch ingredient for a Magic Item."

Gwen tucked the scale into a pocket in her cloak.

They listened to the wind, making sure that the serpent was indeed gone.

“Gwen, listen to me very carefully.” Alesia turned to her student, her face completely serious. “I may have just initiated something so stupid, so irrational, that if things go south, the both of us are probably looking at exile or execution.”

“You have?” Gwen gagged at the unexpected turn.

“When this is over, I am going to take you to see my superior. Until then, you are to speak to no one about the serpent. You have not seen it, have not felt it, you have certainly not spoken to it.”

Alesia extended a hand and fired off a crimson flower.

“Say nothing, understand?"

Gwen nodded.

The flight of Mages that landed at the mouth of the cavern came in full-fledged combat gear. In the uncertain darkness before the coming of dawn, they were four pinpoints of illumination that spontaneously grew larger, descending with terrific haste but landing like felines.

In the next moment, Gwen marvelled as the men hailed Alesia with open-palmed salutes.

“Ma’am!”

“At ease,” Alesia dismissed them casually. The men's bodies immediately lost their rigidity.

A man with dark, bushy brows and a thick mutton chop fell in beside her.

“Are you alright Alesia? What happened? Wheres the snake? Are you injured?”

“I could use a bit of a touch-up.” Alesia lifted her t-shirt to reveal the bruise marring her toned abdomen, looking like a purple worm writhing across her pale skin. “Do your thing, Jonas; my pots stopped working after the fifth one.”

“You’re too reckless…” Jonas grimaced, carefully extending a hand. "Excuse me."

“Cure Moderate Wounds!”

Viridescent energy suffused Alesia’s abdomen; Gwen's instructor tensed as the regenerative itch of mending flesh tickled her bones before letting loose a long, tender breath.

“Had to hold that in,” Alesia joked casually. Gwen blushed with the guilt of not having realised the extent of her instructor’s injuries, amplifying the anxiety of not know how her friends had fared.

“Are the others alright?” Gwen blurted to Alesia's companions. “The students I mean, we were at the camp, near the entrance of the Zone.”

“As far as I know,” one of the men, their Abjurer, replied. The British-Indian man was Taj, a stocky soldier with wet, olive skin, a neat goatee and a hawk-beak nose.

"Is Elvia alright, did she make it back?" Gwen persisted, but the man shook his head.

"Don't know who that is," It was Jonas, the medic, who answered Gwen. "Assuming they're fine, they'll be transported back to a Forward Operating Base."

The healer then dropped to one knee to examine Debora.

“Best we get this one to a hospital ASAP though,” He advised. “I can restore her here, but she’s going to need more than field-dressing. Paul, give me a hand.”

Paul introduced himself to be the Conjurer-Transmuter of the group, whose job was to translocate the members via means of Shared Flight, Teleportation Circle, and Conjure Object. The unassuming, middle-aged man that reminded Gwen of an accountant.

"I'll Message ahead to Sydney," the youngest of the group joined in before turning to Gwen. “B-B-Billy. It’s a p-pleasure.”

“Billy stutters when he’s nervous,” Alesia apologised to Gwen. “Why are you nervous Bill?”

“S… she… er…” Billy pointed to the visible gap between Gwen's robe.

Gwen pulled Edgar's cloak tightly around her chest.

“Oh…” Alesia felt like an idiot. She had neglected to offer Gwen a pair of shirt and shorts.

“Attention!” Alesia commanded, and the four stood ramrod straight. “About face!”

The men turned, looking outward toward the newly minted landscape of the Royal National Frontier.

From her Storage Ring, Alesia materialised casual items of clothing for Gwen.

“They're dead if they peep, so get changed.”

Gwen struggled into her new clothes, discretely transferring the scale into a pack pocket.

Alesia knelt to make sure Debora was decent for transportation.

“I'll take the cloak, we’ll send it in for analysis."

Gwen handed over Edgar's robe.

“At ease,” Alesia said after a minute or so, and the men turned to see to their surprise, a girl very nearly the height of Alesia, if not a little taller.

“H-H-Hello.” If anything, Billy's stutter had worsened.

“Come on Bill,” Taj joked with a lopsided grin. “It's not like you haven't used your Scrying for less than honorable purposes. That's what you Diviners do, ain't it?”

“Hey!” Alesia barked at the unruly soldier. "Leave him alone."

Billy’s eyes were moving between the ground and Gwen alternatively.

“What's Billy's job?” Gwen sidled closer to Alesia.

“Communications specialist…” Alesia said without a hint of sarcasm. "Two years out of Defence Force Academy."

Paul, Billy and Taj stayed behind to inspect the ritual, or at least what had remained of it. Jonas meanwhile, offered to escort Alesia, Gwen and the comatose Debora toward a Forward Operations Base set up midway between the Shield Fort and their original base camp.

“You flew before?”

Gwen shook her head.

“You’ll love it.” Alesia smiled encouragingly. “Just hold on tight.”

“Ready?” Paul asked, then opened his gate to the Elemental Plane of Air. “Shared Flight!”

“Be safe!” Taj called out to Alesia. “No detours! Please!”

Gwen felt an uplifting current suffuse her surroundings, not in the manner of a breeze about one’s body, but a sense of buoyancy. As they rose into the air, she realised she had underestimated magical flight. There was no feeling of texture, of inertia or resistance. Instead, she floated - and immediately began to summersault uncontrollably.

Two revolutions later, Alesia grabbed Gwen’s hand and stabilised her tumbling. Gwen had the feeling that the moment her instructor let go, she would float away like a child's balloon.

"Let's go!"

The sudden acceleration filled Gwen with instant dizziness. Her body was screaming to be back on solid ground.

"Oh!" Gwen inhaled a briny breath of morning air.

She was seeing for the first time, the curvature of her new world.


A marigold disk signalled summer sunrise, diffusing a perpetual splendour across the curvature of the eastern coast.

To Gwen’s right was The Coastal Trail, where the emerald bush gave way to jagged ochre rocks awash with foam, assailed by milky white shoals of water that frothed like milk against ochre cliffs. The South Pacific extended beyond, changing hue from aqua to ultramarine, then suddenly dropping off into the dark depth of the continental shelf.

To her left were sundered hills and muddy lakes, the aftermath of the Mythic's passing, leaving behind bleeding canals of upturned earth. Even now, trees toppled into newly formed ravines, moved by underground reservoirs emerging from the pressure of crushed sandstone crumbling in hidden caverns.

Elvia.
Yue.
Everyone-
Gwen wasn't sure whether it was the anxiety making her nauseous, or the vertigo of flying a hundred meters freely through the air.

Did Elvia make it? Her mind churned with distress, not even the adrenaline of weaving through altitudes high and low could distract her mind.

“Alesia… do you think…” Gwen tried to speak, but her voice was barely audible against the blustering cacophony of moving air.

A Message spell bloomed beside her ear.

“I am activating a Private Message spell.” Alesia’s voice resonated in her ear. “What’s wrong Tiger?”

“I am worried about Elvia, and the others,” Gwen replied, noting the spell was two-way. Her schools' device was a simple thing, incapable of complex Divination algorithms.

Alesia squeezed Gwen’s hand reassuringly, hoping it would relieve some of Gwen's stress.

Unconsciously, the duo accelerated, Alesia's uncertainty feeding more mana into the Flight spell. The boost solicited a curious glance from Jonas, who then matched their new velocity.

“Gwen, I know you are worried about the girls, but you must also consider your circumstances,” Alesia replied solemnly. “Promise me that you will tell no one, not even the girls, about the serpent, and about your new elemental abilities, it will only put them in danger.”

Gwen observed the weight behind Alesia's proposal.

“I promise,” she answered her Instructor.

Hovering beside her protegè, Alesia mulled over troubling thoughts of her own. Though the crisis at hand appeared resolved; it had left them far more questions than their resolution could provide.

Alesia recalled that, in final moments of her encounter, the Mythic had possessed little to no interest in making further ingress towards the city. Instead, it had withdrawn toward Gwen's last location. In hindsight, Alesia guessed that it probably had something to do with Gwen wounding the Mage who called himself Edgar. As for what Edgar's part, the ritual provided a clue. In so far as sealing mandalas went, the ceremony was elaborate, requiring esoteric knowledge of the arcane spellcraft.

Then there was the fact that wounded Mage had escaped while missing half his body and two of his limbs. A Teleportation Contingency Ring set to one’s vital signs was beyond precious. Alesia had one herself, though she disliked equipping it for the reason that once triggered, it took her out of combat and back into the Tower. As Efreet Form drained her vitality, it would be ludicrous if she Teleported away at the initiation of a Firestorm. That was why she preferred Contingency Healing Rings and single-use items like the Dimension Door Gem.

Additionally, the price of a Ring with a Contingency trigger tied to a long-range Teleport would cost just over five thousand HDMs, enough to buy a building in the heart of Sydney's CBD. Ironically, that wasn’t even the worst of it, for there were very few Enchanters in the world capable of creating such an item. For both Alesia's and her brother-in-craft, their Contingency Rings were heirloom objects brought over from Europe. A Mage in possession of such a thing, therefore, couldn't be just anyone.

Finally, there was Faceless - but what was the terrorist like him doing in a place like this? Was he after her? Was he involved in the serpent's rampage?

There were too many unanswerable questions assailing Alesia at once, though for now, an additional problem stabbed at her bosom.

How would her Master receive the kitten she just picked up?

The basecamp came into view.

Now bathed in the light of dawn, the destruction wrought by the prior night became self-evident. The bunker had collapsed like a crushed tent; its iron supports bent and twisted. The main building, where the instructors had last met, was being excavated by what looked to be AMSA Engineers.

The trio landed: Alesia and Jonas gracefully, Gwen with a heavy thump that jarred her knees.

A Mage in a fluoro high-vis vest splintered from the group to intercept them. He was hailed by Jonas, who lifted a flap in his jacket to reveal an emblem.

The scowl of bureaucratic annoyance on the Mage's face immediately turned into a look of wariness.

"Greetings," the Mage wrung his hands before managing a 'Sir!' nervously.

"Foremen, give me a sit-rep," Jonas was a different person when not talking to Alesia, Gwen noticed.

"The excavation's almost done," the Foremen replied. "But there are bodies down there. We're waiting for the Coroners."

"Bodies?" Gwen's voice quivered. "What bodies, whose is it?"

The Foreman eyeballed the teenage girl, challenging her presence before meeting Jonas' eyes.

"Let's take a walk." Jonas tiled his head to their left. The two then moved towards the excavation site.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Gwen wanted to follow, though a tug from Alesia obstructed her.

"No." Her Instructor's hand was firm. "You don't need to see this."

"But..." Gwen felt her stomach knotting. "Sergeant Boone... Mr Thomas, and Mr Dylan..."

“I am sorry," Alesia insisted, her hand like a vice grip. She already felt guilty that Gwen had dealt with Edgar. In the future, as a Combat Mage, the girl may very well become familiar with the morbid reality of mangled corpses - as for now, she would prefer a less damaged protégé.

Despite Alesia's best intentions, however, Gwen struggled to reconcile with the reality in front of her. These teachers had taught her for half a year! She knew them by names, their idiosyncratic quirks, their mannerism, their likes and dislikes! Mr Boone liked to talk about his military days; Mr Thomas owned two cats; Mr Dylan had a fiancee-

"Don't you want to find out if Yue and the others are safe?" Alesia demanded mercilessly.

Gwen nodded.

"Then let us find out." They rose into the air again. "Your friends should be safe by now at the F.O.B.”

Jonas caught up with them a few minutes later.

"Alesia..." He consulted his partner.

"You can tell her, Jonas," Alesia asserted. "She's a strong girl."

"Four dead,” Jonas declared gravely. "Boone, Evans, Thomas, Dylan."

“Five," Gwen added after a moment of silence.

Alesia saw that the girl's knuckles were white with tension. Gwen was right, of course. Alesia recalled the mangled body of Mr Crusoe.

"Five," Alesia confirmed. "Crusoe's still somewhere out in the woods."

"Jesus." Jonas spat, taking another gander at Gwen. "Were they after the kids?"

"Probably." Alesia did not want to reveal any more to her partner before she had a chance to speak to her Master.

Jonas nodded and said no more. His leader was evidently in an evasive mood.

They flew in silence until the sea of emerald came to an abrupt halt. Below, the landscape transformed into the low, stunted shrubbery of the tablelands. In the distance, they could make out the F.O.B.

About two kilometres out, an Aerial Mage unit in digital combat jackets and winged jackboots intercepted the trio. Again, Jonas opened a flap on his coat; after which they were allowed to pass.

Gwen scanned the camp until she found a spot where dozens of humanoid dots in black, white and grey tartan congregated.

“I see them!” she uttered breathlessly.

"I'll drop you off." Gwen's urgent desire to be immediately amongst her friends brought a smile to Alesia's lips.

"Jonas, can you take Debora to the triage centre?”

Jonas withdrew without complaint.

When Gwen and Alesia alighted in the yard, they became surrounded by a ring of students whose faces were livid with excitement.

"Oh my God! Did you see that?"
"She flew in!"
"I wish I could fly."
"You'd have to be a Transmuter!"
"Wow, instructor Alesia looks amazing as usual. "
"Is that Gwen?!"
"Ergh, there she goes, stealing the Daylight."

An abrupt loathing for her peers engendered in Gwen's chest. Don't they think of anyone but themselves? Your friend, Debora almost died! Your Instructors lie mangled underneath concrete slabs!

"GWEN!" The voices she had desired to hear more than anything for the last twelve hours echoed across the levelled dirt of the temporary base.

"Evee! Yue!" Gwen broke from Alesia to dart past a crowd of stickybeaking students.

"Ah! My face!"
"She stepped on me!"
"That bitch!"

The girls meet one another halfway.

Three at last! Three at last! Gwen's heart soared.

"All for one!" She exclaimed in a moment of uncontrollable jubilance.

"We missed you so much!" Yue was hugging Gwen's waist and pushing her head into her bosoms. "Holy SHIT, I was so worried! Elvia told me what happened, that you tried to save her, and you fought that Crusoe FUCKER alone!"

Elvia was no longer in control of her emotions, tears the size of sultanas falling from her luminous blue eyes, "I am sorry Gwen... sob... sob... I ran away... I ran away Gwen... I was scared... "

"Oh, Evee... it was the right thing to do. I would have been in greater danger if you hadn't gone!"

The three of them squeezed into a crushing huddle.

"What happened to Debora?" Elvia asked between her choking sobs.

The euphoric moment deflated.

"She'll be okay," Gwen muttered. She hoped to God the healing magic of this world could mend lightning strikes.

“I’ll be back for you in the evening,” Alesia shouted over the din of squealing teenagers. Gwen waved to her Instructor, wanting to say another word of thanks before she left. Instead, her Instructor's ultramarine eyes reminded her to say nothing. Taking to the air, Alesia flew toward the command tent, worshipped by supplicating students cooing at the incredulous sight of superhuman flight.

With the spectacle over, the girls retired to the limited privacy of temporary shelters that had been set up by Army Engineers. The trio entered a tent where Bunks were placed four by a dozen, with heavy curtains dividing each section.

“How did you escape that horrid Mage?” Elvia asked, her eyes puffy and swollen. “Did you… did you…”

“Instructor Alesia saved me,” Gwen told a technical-truth.

“I saw that titanic battle in the sky between Alesia and the Snake!” Yue began excitedly. “Did you see it, Gwen? It was incredible.”

“I was pretty deep in the woods by that point.” Gwen wracked her brains for salient timestamps. “I could only see the fireworks over the tree lines.”

“It was incredible!” Yue continued as if she was the one that had confronted the Serpent, describing in detail spell after spell, only a few of which Gwen had heard of before.

“What about you Evee?” Gwen asked, wondering how her friend had fared after their separation.

“I ran the way we came…” Elvia recounted. “I saw your lightning spell go on and on, so I ran as far as I could until I saw Yue’s fireworks back in the clearing.”

“Anyone tried to stop you?”

Elvia shook her head, sending out flailing strands of flaxen hair.

“There were a few Goblins and some other magical beasts who were trying to flee the Snake, but they left me alone.”

“We must have wracked up another hundred or so kills.” Yue beamed proudly. “The officer who saved us told me that we had done well and that we’re going to be commended for our bravery. My very first medal, Gwen!”

“Did you find any of the Instructors?” Elvia cut in suddenly, “Mr Crusoe turned out to be that evil Mage, does that mean…”

Gwen felt a pang of guilt, though her friends were old enough to face the truth.

“Alesia said Mr C was dead long before we met Evil Crusoe…” Gwen answered with a tone of forlorn sadness. “As for the others… Mr Dylan, Mr Thomas, Mr Boone, and Mr Evans; they found their remains in the main building.”

“…”
“…”

With that, conversation died.

Elvia dug her face into Gwen's chest, wracked with quiet sobs. Yue stared at the ceiling, her thoughts unknowable. The three of them laid in one bunk, quietly observing the slow rotation of a whirlybird as it pumped out the rising heat of their bodies. Elvia was the first to fall asleep, her constitution too weak to sustain a night and a day of activity and distress. Yue likewise shut her eyes, the tension of Gwen’s absence displaced at last.

Gwen looked up at the ceiling, where the scaffolding expanded like a spider web across the rectangular canvas, thinking of Alesia’s warning, and the uncertain future ahead.

Was this a regular event in this world, or was it a one-off catastrophe? In her old world, she had experienced, on television, the horrors of September 11, though as a Sydney-sider, the precipitous moment of 21st-century history had felt unreal, more akin to a movie.

Likewise, she had known no violence. Sydney was a haven of middle-class mediocrity. No mass-shootings, no serial murderers, no mass-poverty and virtually no violent crimes beyond the occasional domestic dispute.

Until today, the idea of someone she knew suddenly dying was something that had never occurred to her. Gwen realised she had never experienced the death of someone she knew in any private capacity: not a family member, nor a friend, nor someone in her social orbit.

Now suddenly, five teachers who had taught her for half a year suddenly ceased to be; gone, disappeared, evaporated into thin air for no reason, no particular purpose nor goal.

They had not died for some grand act, they had not died to save their students, or made a last stand. They died randomly, purposelessly, became collateral.

Would her death be the same? Gwen wondered. A chance encounter with malevolence - then no more? Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow, then nought but a dusty death?

Gwen's eyes grew heavy, mesmerised by the whirlybird's ceaseless rotation, closing slowly until the undertow of troubled sleep took her.