Playing with Elle felt nice, as if they were still at home. Her eyes had lit up when he'd joined her and the other kids. After playing hide and seek for a bit – which was a great way of learning of each and every nook and cranny in the camp – he walked with her on his shoulders.

He'd thought about not talking to her about things, but decided against it. She deserved to be treated with respect, not pity, "How are you doing?"

Elle pulled at the hem of her shirt, "It's okay. But I miss Lisa. And the teachers."

"Remind me again, who's Lisa?"

"My friend! You dummy. We used to play together at daycare."

Right.

He tried to console her, "Oh right, I remember her... Dark hair and no front teeth, right? Maybe she will sail here too."

"Yeah... That would be great," she commented.

After playing for a while, he felt invigorated, but glum. He didn't know if things would ever get better for the children. Maybe if they managed to set up a large camp here, with more people from Exodus. But that would mean they had to sail back and forth to look for stragglers.

He went and helped the others insulate the cabins by patching up any holes and then using moss to fill the gaps between the twigs.

Thomas had been working hard to make his, Erend's, and Elle's cabin into something liveable ever since he was done with the pyre. The insides were lined with a primitive clay in addition to the insulating moss. No cold winds would bother them when it was time to sleep. Furthermore, he had been working on the roof when Erend and Johann had called him over to the smithy.

Erend thought about finishing his father's work, but he honestly had no idea what the man had been doing, so he figured he'd leave it.

After a few hours of manual labor, the group sat gathered in the middle of the camp. They took stock of the provisions they had left, and inspected the remains of the goblin's foodstuff. They weren't in any rush to gather more, but it wouldn't last them more than a few weeks.

Anya opened for discussion before divulging her own plans to the group.

"We should form a hunting team. It would help us get a better idea of our surroundings and could help with scouting for dangers," Charles suggested.

"I agree. And traps. We need traps and better defensive measures around the camp. Maybe a moat to line the wall," Johann added.

"If we want to store food for a long time we need to build a drying rack and an earth cellar," Mary chimed in. "And cooking facilities would be nice."

"Those are all good points," Anya started, "but there is one thing we need above all. Manpower. The orcs won't be able to get to us using the tunnel as it is now, but there's no telling if they'll expand it. Or if they already know where it leads."

"That means we need even more security measures rather than manpower," Johann countered with his arms held crossed.

"Traps and moats will only get us so far. If the orcs we saw decided to attack, we would be helpless. Even with vastly improved security."

"So we're doomed? We escape the city, cross the ocean, and we're still doomed...?" Bernard sighed. He looked tired.

"We're not doomed. In fact, you'll be instrumental in avoiding it. How many men do you need to sail back to Exodus?"

Bernard's jaw fell at that, "You want me to go back?!"

"I do. We can trust the people of Exodus. If you sail to the fort you might even be able to convince the nobles and soldiers to join you."

"If they come here they'll try to take everything over. Just like at the fort," Carl protested.

"Unless we're strong enough to oppose them."

"And how do you expect us to grow that strong?" Johann asked.

Anya pointed at Cordelia and Erend with a smile, "We've got two casters in our midst. They just need to grow, and quickly. Johann, you've seen what a skilled wizard is capable off. The soldiers will listen."

"Umm. I'm sure you know this, but a wizard needs study material to grow," Cordelia tried not to sound condescending.

"I know. Luckily we have a few con tools here and a whole fort of unexplored rooms on the other side of the tunnel."

"You can't be serious!" Erend exclaimed.

"I am. And I want you to go back with me."

"That's not going to happen," Thomas growled.

"Dad, relax!"

Anya held her hands out in defeat, "Look, I know it's not perfect. But it's the best chance we've got at growing strong fast. Erend's proven himself capable enough. Besides, I would be right there with him."

Johann chewed at a piece of dried meat with a tired expression, "So. What do you propose?"

"It all depends on Bernard."

"Gods be damned. Alright!" the old man relented. "At the bare minimum I need two people to help me. The trip's going to take a fair bit longer with limited manpower. Double the time to get there, same time back if we manage to convince any of the poor sods to join us."

Anya smiled at him, "That sounds doable enough. Who do you want to bring?"

"Mary to help me steer and Albert for the heavy stuff."

Albert let out a resounding groan, bringing everyone's attention to himself, "What? The anchor is heavy as shit."

"Does this work for you?" Anya asked Albert and Mary.

Albert agreed reluctantly with a grumble.

"What about food here, will you be alright without me?" Mary asked.

"It's alright love. I'll keep everyone fed," Peter reassured her. That seemed to set her mind at ease. She agreed to the terms with a nod.

"Then it's settled," Anya announced. "We'll set the ship up with enough supplies to last you both trips. Might take a bit of hunting and gathering, but we should be able to have everything ready within the week. Johann, I'll leave building the defenses to you. The rest of us will scout out the area and do some hunting in the coming days."

"What about us?" Cordelia asked with a point at herself and Erend.

"I count you among the rest of us, so you'll join us for hunting. That being said, you and Erend will have to split your attention. You'll practice casting back at camp when the rest of us are building."

"That's an awful lot of pressure to put on young shoulders," Johann commented.

"Eh. They'll manage. Won't you?"

"We'll have to," Erend answered with a shrug.

"Good man. Anyway! Time for bed. It's been an exhausting day."

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

The group scattered. Erend spent the night channeling, and practicing his source manipulation together with the gray elf once more. He wondered why she could remember him. Was she really just a vision, or did she have some say in what happened in the dreams? The battlefield hadn't been anything like this. It had always played out the same way, on repeat.

Maybe me not dying is the difference? he wondered.

Erend woke up to the sound of a hammer slamming against metal. Elle still loudly snoozed away next to him. She'd always had trouble waking up.

He figured he'd let her sleep in. Wasn't much point in waking her up anyway. She didn't have anywhere to be.

Erend stretched and got dressed. He strapped his new sword at his waist and hanged the bow over his shoulder.

Most were still asleep, despite the hammering.

They're all probably exhausted.

He figured that if it wasn't for his newly strengthened body, then he would be too.

"Morning dad," he greeted as he entered the smithy. The air inside the smithy burned his lungs as he breathed it in.

Thomas wiped the sweat from his brow, "Morning. Is Elle up yet?"

"No, she's sleeping soundly still."

"Hopefully she'll sleep long enough for me to get some work done."

"I'm sure she will... What are you working on?"

"Breaking down the armors you brought back. And trying to learn how to work the metal. It's more durable than normal steel. I need the heat to shape it."

"Need any help?"

"No I'm alright. You've got plenty of other things to do."

"Mind if I practice a bit here?"

"You don't mind the heat?" Thomas asked, the surprise evident in his voice.

He did mind, but the prospect of spending some time with his father convinced him to endure it, "Not really. So?"

"Alright then. Just don't break anything, alright?"

"Who do you take me for?"

Thomas chuckled.

Erend got to work, trying to figure out how to be as gentle – but firm – with his source as the gray elf was. He'd felt the activation of spells become easier with every training session, but then again, they were simple spells, and weren't meant to be tough to cast. At least he supposed they weren't. There was no reason to give a complete beginner hard spells after all.

The morning passed him by in a flash. Every time he practiced with his source it felt like the flow of time around him sped up, there was never enough time to make any noticeable headway.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to face it.

"Oh, Cordelia. What's up?"

She stood with her hands suspiciously clasped behind her back, "Show me how you cast."

"Can't we have breakfast first?"

"Here," she said and presented him with a neatly arranged plate. Breakfast. "Now show me. You promised."

"Alright. I'm not really sure how to explain it. But I can sort of feel the source. Depending on how I move it I can cast spells."

Cordelia looked at him with wide eyes, "And? Is that all?"

"Kind of?"

"But every wizard worth a damn can feel the source!"

"Can they? You forget I'm completely new to this whole thing."

Cordelia groaned, "You're useless! At least show me how you cast."

Erend chuckled at her outburst, he really was quite useless, he realized, "Here. Give me your hands."

Taken aback, Cordelia took a step away from him and asked, "Why?" with a suspicious look.

Erend rolled his eyes, "Just do it."

Warily, Cordelia sat down in front him and gave him her hands.

"Close your eyes."

"No way, I don't like you like that!"

Ouch.

"That's very presumptuous of you. It's for casting, nothing else."

Cordelia's cheeks flushed red, "Oh," she said and fidgeted with her hair.

Still a bit wary, she closed her eyes.

Erend began channeling his source like he did with the gray elf. It thrummed to life, permeating his body – even the air in his lungs. He focused, trying to push it into Cordelia while still thrumming.

With a gasp, Cordelia threw herself away from him.

"What the hell was that?!" she demanded.

"Source. How I use it to cast."

"That's not how it should feel! Why is yours vibrating like that?"

"It's just how I get the spells to cast. Isn't yours the same?"

"No ... Not at all..."

"Can you show me?"

"I've got no idea what you just did, so no. But mine feels way less... violent?"

"Yeah, I've been working on that. Trying to make it a bit less unruly."

Cordelia fell silent and regarded him with puzzled eyes.

Erend scratched his head, a little uncomfortable with being stared down, "Uhm..."

"Oh, sorry."

"It's alright. Can you show me your spell now?"

"Right. Sure. It's quite simple really. The glyphs act as a middle hand. I provide the source. The glyphs shape it."

"Like a con tool?"

"Yeah. Sort of. Except the material used is the source itself. The only thing holding my spells back is the source I can draw in, not the amount of source the material can circulate."

"I see. Can you show me the glyphs?"

"Do you want to see the whole circle or can I just draw them for you?"

"You can draw them? You know what they mean?"

"Sort of. It's part of an ancient language. I've only got the most basic words down."

"Okay. I'd love a drawing of them then."

Cordelia nodded, "Come with me," she said and lead him out of the smithy.

She took him to the center of camp, where she grabbed a piece of coal from yesterday's bonfire. They didn't have any paper, or parchment to draw on, so she settled for a wall inside the cave.

"Cool. Like a caveman," Erend commented as she began drawing the glyphs.

Cordelia cringed at the comparison, "Please don't call me that."

Erend chuckled, but didn't respond.

The glyphs made little sense to him. Foreign letters of a foreign language. Otherworldly.

"This one means 'unstable'," she said and pointed at the first. "And this one, means sharp. I think."

"And these are the ones you use when you cast?"

"Yeah, a bunch of them."

"How does it work?"

"It's mostly mental imagery," she said and activated her spell. Her hand instantly became covered with the white circle. "When you form glyphs with source you have to imagine what you want it to do. Many glyphs have the same meaning, but some are better for certain tasks than others. For example, 'unstable'. The word can mean to make something less stable – that's how I envision it. It gives my spell some more impact, pushing the target backward. But some use it to destabilize the balance between two spells, someone's mood, and much more."

Erend knitted his brows, "You mean to tell me that skilled wizards can brainwash people?"

"Of course."

"Then why don't they rule everything?"

"They sort of do. In a sense."

Erend didn't understand. Cordelia sighed.

"They basically control the markets. And they are forces to be reckoned with on the battlefield."

"What's stopping them from creating a faction of only wizards and sorcerers?"

"Practice takes time and money – lots of it. If they were to create a faction of their own, the casters wouldn't be special in it. Meaning that their personal earnings would go down, so that's not an option."

It made sense, in a way. The people who needed con magic were, after all, the common folk who couldn't cast. The wizards' ways of making money would be drastically smaller in a society of casters.

Anya barged in the cave, "Where have you two been?" she asked. Her face immediately took on a mischievous grin. "Have you got anything to tell the rest of us?" she asked and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Cordelia froze up.

"I liked you better when you didn't joke," Erend sighed.

"Ouch! We're going hunting. I want you both to join."

"Do I really have to?" Cordelia complained.

"Yes princess. You really have to. You can be in Erend's group if it makes you feel better," she teased.

Without missing a beat, Erend agreed, "Oh! Great," he exclaimed with a smile.

Then she can tell me more.

Cordelia was taken by surprise once again, "Wha- What?"

Anya let out a whistle, "Smooth. Come on then."

The groups were divided. Erend, Charles, Cordelia, and Anya was sent out together. At this point Erend basically thought of Anya as his babysitter.

"How old are you by the way?" Erend asked as he dodged a branch.

Anya, who walked in the lead, froze up.

A sore spot, eh?

"Why would you ever ask a woman that?" Charles wheezed at him.

Erend plastered a dumbstruck expression on his face, "What? Is that not allowed?"

"It most certainly is not!" Cordelia chimed in.

"... Does it matter how old I am?" Anya asked.

"Not really. I was just wondering since you seem to want to hang out with us young people all the time."

"You little shit. From today onwards, we spar daily again."

Worth it.

The four of them walked for a few hours, memorizing the nearby terrain and marking trees with symbols should they ever lose their way. Before moving out they had divided up the forest into three different zones. Triangle meant near the camp. Square meant middle layers. Circle meant that you were leaving the established perimeter.

Being stuck with a group of seasoned guards was handy when it came to things like this. They really liked having organized systems for everything, making navigation and stuff easy.

Charles, uncomfortable with silence as ever, decided to strike up conversation as soon as he felt Anya's lethal aura died down. "So. A bow, huh? Are you trying to be me or what?"

"Dad thought it would be handy in a forest."

"He's right about that," Anya commented glumly. "Lots of spots to set up an ambush."

"And it's easy to move around with. Just strap it across your chest and you're good to go!" Charles added proudly.

"Think you can teach me how to shoot?"

"Of course."

Anya grumbled in dissatisfaction, "Just don't neglect the sword."

He wouldn't. He liked the sword, and he really liked magic. It was just a bit circumstantial when he could use it with his limited repertoire of spells. Though he was sure that would change in the future.

"Looks like you'll get to practice sooner rather than later," Anya whispered and pointed.

A hundred of so paces away from them stood a deer, stuffing its face with purple berries.

"We won't be able to go further without alerting it," Charles announced. "Sorry. I think I'll take this one."

"Of course, don't worry."

"Observe," Charles added and gently pulled an arrow from his quiver. He took aim with his new bow of dark metal. His scapula pushed together, his brow wrinkled. The bow bent without so much as a sound. Erend had thought it would be heavy to pull the string, but Charles semed to manage without much effort.

He released.

The arrow pierced through the air with an almighty roar. In the distance, Erend could see the deer's ears twitching. It jerked its head up, but before it could flee, the arrow pierced clean through its chest. It fell lifelessly to the ground.

Anya raised her brows and whistled, "Clean kill. Good shot."

Charles stood dumbstruck and looked at the bow in his hands, "This thing is amazing," he mumbled.

"The arrow was loud as hell though," Erend commented.

"It really was, we should probably collect the deer before anything else comes," Cordelia said nervously.

Charles shrugged it off, "Nothing came when we fought the goblins, I doubt anything will be different this time around."