Magical Theory 101.

Taking in a big breath, I psyche myself up. Had I been avoiding this, procrastinating by joking around with my family? Absolutely. The truth was, I was still a little shaken from my experience unlocking Mana Manipulation. The quest had turned out to be easy to complete, but I could still recall what the price of failure would have been. The thought of being trapped inside my own mind. Frankly, it was terrifying.

I shake my head, clearing the unhelpful thought. As I return to myself, I notice how the atmosphere round the camp has changed. It doesn’t take a genius to see that everyone is nervous. Mum is wringing her hands, watching me intently, and I've spent enough time with Ash over the years to know she was just as worried. She was simply better at hiding it. I shrug. It was now or never. Putting this off for any longer wasn’t doing anyone any favours.

“Here goes nothing.” I close my eyes, a weak smile on my face, then focus on channelling Mana Sight. Even though my eyes are closed, I can still see my HUD. It's because of this I know the Ability is active. As I watch, my Mana begins to drain at a rate of 5 per second. ‘I haven’t spontaneously combusted, so that’s a start?’ Ever so cautiously, I peel my eyelids open… then frown in consternation.

Absolutely nothing is different. Mum still stands in front of me, watching me anxiously, and the small sounds of movement from behind suggest that Ash is now standing right behind me. A glance over my shoulder confirms my suspicion. I watch with growing amusement as I see her arms quickly drop to her sides; her face the very picture of nonchalance. ‘Was… was she ready to catch me if I fell?’

Deep down, I’m flattered by the gesture. That being said, I absolutely would not miss this golden opportunity to fuck with her. Cancelling the Ability to conserve Mana, I look over towards Mum. Our eyes meet, and I wink at her. Her brow furrows in confusion, but before she can open her mouth and give the game away, I pretend to stagger back a step before slowly pitching backwards as if I were just about to keel over. In an instant, Ash’s body supports my own, her right arm looped under mine and across my chest, supporting me.

I allow myself to be held for a second before I look over my shoulder and come face to face with a clearly worried Ash. I flutter my eyelashes at her, then in my very worst upper-class lady voice I say, “My hero.” Her expression undergoes several transformations, going from anger to exasperation, then amusement, before settling on mischief. Before I can do the smart thing and get my weight back under me, she drops me.

My arms pinwheel as I attempt to regain my balance, but even my improved Agility isn’t enough to save me. I had gone too far for the sake of my bit and was about to suffer the consequences. I land on my ass with a solid “oof.” Looking up from the ground, I see Ash practically wetting herself with laughter, whilst Mum tries and fails to hide a grin.

Ash, bent forward with hands on her knees, finally pulls herself together. Still grinning, she looks down at me and says, “You totally deserved that, you ass.” I grin back and shrug, she isn’t wrong after all. Clambering back to my feet, I say, “Well the good news is, I can use Mana Sight no problem.” Both women nod in response, then Mum tentatively asks, “And the bad news?” “Other than slightly dusty armour and a sore bum? I’ll get back to you on that.” A small part of my brain is nagging me, letting me know that I'd missed something. Earlier, when I had turned off Mana Sight, something had changed. I just wasn’t sure what.

I turn on the Ability, then turn it off again. ‘Yup, there it was.’ It's a minor change, but once I notice it, it is hard to ignore. The easiest way to describe the change was in terms of a TV display, every time I turned on the Ability, it was as if someone upped the brightness setting by a single notch. It was subtle, barely noticeable, but once seen, it couldn’t be unseen.

‘What's causing that, then?’ My mind chews over the problem for a time. After said time, I’ve still got nothing. I’m about to shrug, give up, and call it unimportant when a memory from yesterday springs to mind. It was from back on earth during the mad dash for us to pack. I had just absorbed that toiletry set. ‘What was it the notification had said?’ I click my fingers as the memory came back fully. ‘That’s the badger! Ambient Mana! That what this is!’

I smile smugly at myself for all of three seconds, before realising this revelation, as groundbreaking and interesting as it was, didn’t help me in any way, shape, or form. Deciding to just move on, I look over to Ash and ask, “hey, any chance you could cast that haste spell?” She shrugs, then nods. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

I focus, activating Mana Sight, then gesture for her to proceed. As her hand works through the arcane gestures, my eyes widen as I see thin, wispy grey tendrils of what presumably must be Mana flow from all over my sister’s body, before gathering above her hand. I watch, fascinated, as a large portion of the gathered Mana splits off, shaping itself into what can only be described as some sort of incredibly complex rune or glyph.

The rune is three dimensional, and to my untrained eye looks like a mess of flowing lines about the size of my balled fist. I have just enough time to marvel at the design before the remaining cloud of Mana splits into three. Two portions of the Mana collect in front of the first glyph, further away from Ash, whereas the last forms closer to her. These balls of Mana shift, before also taking on the appearance of more runes. These runes, however, are considerably less complex than the first.

I have little time to study these new runes, as in the next instant the casting is complete. The only time that Ash’s hand directly interacts with the column of glyphs is at the very end of the spell. She presses her flat palm up against the closest rune, before drawing her hand back. This gesture seems to be the trigger for the spell, and I watch in **** interest as a rush of grey particles spill from the end of the column before collecting around Ash’s arms and legs.

“Ash, can you do me a favour and wave your arm about for me?” She looks at me funny, but complies all the same. I totally miss the odd look, so enthralled am I by the swirling particles surrounding her. As her arm moves, the particles form eddies in the air, seeming to pull her arm from the front, then swirl around and push from the back.

Over the next couple of hours, we spend as much time as my Mana pool will allow studying these runes. By casting spells of various Spheres, we quickly theorise that the first rune to form represents the sphere of magic being used. Grey tendrils converted to form the air rune, swirling cinders to form the fire rune, and so on. This rune was always hellishly complex, but I found that I somehow understood the Life and Water runes on an intrinsic level.

Over the rest of the morning, I begin compiling a list of all the secondary runes used in our spells. We could guess the function of some through repetition, but others remained a mystery. For example, we soon worked out that the first rune in the column was probably the modifier that determined if a spell was ranged, on touch, on self, or the like.

Before we knew it, however, it was lunchtime. We ate a quick lunch, packed up the camp, then took our first step into the unknown. We had discussed plans on which way to go over lunch and it was decided we would travel down downhill in the hopes of finding a stream, or even better, a river. The plan was to follow the waterway in the same direction as the water flowed, hoping to come across civilisation.

As she wanted to develop ranger style Skills and Abilities, we decided that Lisa would take point. Mum followed along behind Lisa, ready to jump ahead and tank if needs be. In the middle of the pack, the resident healer (me) and our specialised long-range combatant (Em) walked side by side in companionable silence, whilst Ash took up the rear.

I have to admit; we were a little on the jumpy side. Early into our hike we had a bit of a scare as we crossed paths with another of the creatures that had attacked our camp last night. It saw us and immediately charged, screaming bloody ****. It got about two metres closer to our group before it was struck by two shards of ice, a glob of darkness, and a ball of fire, followed belatedly by an earthen spike. the little bugger never stood a chance.

Lisa took the opportunity to explain that we could loot the creature, a method she had discovered this morning when she examined our late-night visitors’ body. Apparently, you could still do things the old fashioned way, and would generally receive more loot at a higher quality, but that required time, and would probably involve at least one Skill.

That being said, Looting was its own Skill, one that improved the quality and amount of stuff you got when looting something. Normally, we’d pile stuff like that on one person (I, for example, had already been designated shopping bitch because of my slew of Charisma based abilities), but this Skill came with an hour-long cooldown, meaning that clearing up after any large-scale engagements would take forever with just one person. A looting rota was formed, and we moved on with our lives.

We only ran across one more of those creatures, and this time Ash had the foresight to Analyse it. After the incredibly brief fight, she told us in an exceedingly casual voice that the beast was a screamer, doing her very best to maintain a straight face. We all rolled our eyes at the joke, and Em smugly checked her notifications to call Ash’s bluff. Turns out, the creature was known as a Screamer Beast. Wild.

To everyone’s great relief, we came across a stream a couple of hours into our hike. We followed it for another couple of uneventful hours, marvelling at the scenery and plants around us. Everything was lush, green, and full of life. The chirping of distant birds and sound of creatures rustling in the undergrowth surrounded us, and we marvelled at a forest apparently untouched by the corrupting influence of people.

Everything was hunky-dory for a time as we followed the stream, Lisa excitedly pointing out the tracks of various small animals that used the stream as a water source. Then she suddenly came to a stop, squinting at a clump of bramble-like plants about 30 metres in front of her. “Hey, Lisa, what’s wrong, honey?” Mum asks, clearly concerned.

Lisa's eyes widen, and she says, “Everyone, get ready to defend yourselves!” The urgency in her voice shocks us into action. As a group, we summon our weapons. Our heads turn on a swivel as we search our surroundings for threats. Lisa slowly steps back, arrow nocked to the string of her bow, as Mum rushes forward to take her place in front of the group.

I visually search the hedge, desperately trying to spot whatever had Lisa so on edge. When I see what has her so spooked, I have to fight the urge to take a step back in shock and revulsion. Poking out from under the thicket is a foot shod in a crude leather wrap. Most legs are generally connected to something, this one isn’t. A few centimetres of leg poke out the top of the wrap, before it just stops, cut off around mid-shin. Black blood still oozes from the wound.

My eyes are drawn away from the gory sight as the hedge rustles, before first one head, then another, pokes out of the thicket. The revealed creatures are dog like, with beady little eyes, and heads covered in coarse brown fur. They bare their sharp teeth at us, strings of saliva dripping from their gore soaked muzzles, and a low growl fills the forest as the creatures eye our party hungrily. They step further out of the thicket, revealing their full, terrifying bulk. Imagine if you took a hyena, grew it to the size of a tiger, then pumped it full of steroids until it could bench-press a car, that’s what we were dealing with here.

I fire off my Analyse Skill, hoping that it would help somehow, but I got a bunch of question marks in return. In fact, the only piece of information my scan gleaned was the creature’s species. These things, apparently, were Lesser Wargs. Things are silent for a moment as both parties eye each other wearily. Under my breath, I hiss, "Ash, cast your haste. Mum, your aura. Everyone else, focus fire on leftie when they come into range. Lisa, care to kick things off?"

As I speak, my hands flow through the gestures required for my Ice Shard spell. The twang of a bowstring breaks the relative silence as Lisa fires her first shot. As if on cue, the Wargs roar, before they begin to charge.