“On a winding road a mysterious man in a straw hat lay in a cart staring up at the blue sky,” I said to myself as I reclined above in empty space left by the few areas of the cart that weren’t covered in sealed sacks containing coarse grains.
“The mysterious man baking under the heat of the sun reached his hand into the air before performing a few arcane gestures,” I recited while wiggling my fingers in several arcane shapes. “Moisture coalesced into a ball that__ gack,” I spluttered as a sudden orb of water appeared from my fingers before flying into my eyes.
“All right back there Marvin,” the man sitting at the front of the carriage said as he pulled the reins tighter for a moment. Julian was a farmer and friend of my family and I gave him a gesture telling him not to worry as he turned around raising his identical straw hat to reveal a tanned and wrinkled face fairly common around these rustic parts. “Yah haven’t gone and got the Sun Madness now have yah lad.”
“Alright, just miscast a water summoning spell,” I said as I wiped my eyes furiously. “I maintain the fountain in the village for almost a decade and yet I still occasionally mess this up when I take it too carelessly.”
“You shouldn’t be using magic carelessly in the first place,” the older man, Rusk was his name, said turning his head back to the road and moving that peculiar motion that indicated the oxen to pick up the pace.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “You’re just copying Elder Tegram now aren’t you? He was always particular about that wasn’t he? If I’m going to go to a school for magic then I have to practice and what better way to practice then by doing it carelessly. If I can do that then whenever I’m careful I’ll definitely get it.” I was being a bit facetious when I said it. Of course I take my magic seriously but creating a simple mouthful of water was one of the things that I had mastered years ago and shouldn’t malfunction by now.
“But it doesn’t help if you kill yourself boy,” Rusk said. “I’ve already told your father that this undertaking is foolish but he wouldn’t listen.”
“The old man probably took it as one less mouth to feed,” I said lazily, not really wanting to get into it. “You know winter is coming up and all that represents.”
“But that doesn’t mean there weren’t other better options,” Rusk said. “I have some friends in Emberhearth. If you want I can try and get you an apprenticeship.”
“No it’s fine,” I said firmly. “It’s been my dream for ages to learn actual magic and if I have to travel a bit out of my way to do so then that’s fine.”
“Lad, the city of Elasarin is not just a bit out of your way.” He turned back to the road. “It’ll be first sunfall soon,” he continued. “I’m staying with my nephew and his wife tonight. Would you like to spend the night with us? Just provide some water in exchange.”
“That’s perfect,” I said as I lay back further into the cart. “Providing water is the least I could do for the old bread and salt.” Rusk’s nephew was the local miller and possessed a decent reputation in Emberhearth.
“Precious little salt in Emberhearth,” the older man said. “But the bread around those parts is pretty good. Fresh from the mill and we’ll have a new batch tomorrow.” He gestured back at the many bags containing wheat harvested from their home village; ready to be milled. “We’ll be there in a fraction of a turn. Just sit sharp and we’ll start seeing the traffic.”
Rusk’s words proved prophetic as the winding road that the cart travelled along soon joined up with a larger straighter road on which there were a few instances of foot traffic that matched the direction of the cart and exchanged a wave or a word or two as it passed them. I just reclined more into the cart disposing of the obligation to make conversation. While this road was not one that I travelled often I had gone by this route more than a couple of times when I helped transport wares sold by my family. To my mind this was still part of the backwoods that constituted my home and the smell of domestic animals reinforced my idea of our place on the outskirts of civilisation.
Idly I reached out with my hand contracting two fingers and twisting it slightly in an arcane gesture trying to cast one of the few spells that I actually did learn. I closed my eyes expectantly only to open them a second later as no signal jumped out at me. Carefully with tenderness I pulled out my shard of Magite examining the small chip of stone, before returning it to some place in my sleeve. Right now that was my most precious item marking me as one of those that studied the arcane arts and giving me the potential to perform magic.
“We’re in town lad,” my ride said, but he needn’t have bothered. While Emberhearth was by no means a large town, it was not much grander than my home village in fact; the noise of civilisation was still firmly present and the trample of feet as well as the various activities and discussions made me just aware that I had just arrived at a conglomeration of humanity. I lifted my head just above the level of the wagon before giving it a once over. The town looked pretty much the same as it always did bar a few seasonal changes but this time there was a sombre mood throughout the town. Normally this type of mood was reserved for a failed harvest or a mass monster outbreak or something worse and so I sat up straight lifting my hat and scanning the crowd for any idea of what may have gone wrong.
Focusing on the field given off by my chip of Magite I immediately recast the spell that I had previously; although I had no real expectations of any different results. To my great surprise this time my Detect Magic spell actually pulled out a positive reading and I got a whiff of the arcane although faint and far out of the spells effective range. Not even waiting for Rusk to stop I stood up and immediately leapt out of the cart carrying my bag as I went.
“Hey where are you going?” Rusk asked as he glanced back to see his passenger departing. “Changed your mind about staying over,” he said frowning somewhat.
“Just spotted something interesting,” I said truthfully. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
“Precious little interesting happening in Emberhearth,” Rusk said. “You’re just looking to get out of offloading the wagon.”
“You know me so well,” I lied, waving as I headed towards the source of the magic I detected. I got a few curious looks as I walked along but there was likely enough traffic through this particular town a new face wasn’t too unexpected. I travelled down the main street of the town and then took a side road as I tried to head to the location as good as I could with my lacking knowledge of the town’s layout.
Thankfully the town wasn’t big and I soon arrived at the source of the residue, a rather innocuous house with a pair of guards standing outside. They were probably the only two assigned to this town by the nearby City of Ankswerh, the closest city; they were clothed in red thigh-length tunics with metallic mail covering their chests and other vulnerable parts.
As I stepped closer I noticed that they were talking to a rather haggard looking pair of villagers who were standing at the threshold of their house, a man and woman who looked rather distraught for some reason, likely linked to the arcane residue. Loud words were exchanged as I walked closer and I hung back for a bit trying to get some context for the situation.
“How can she just go missing,” the man said his voice full of hollow anger. “No beast can do this so it must be one of those new travellers. Just arrest them and hold them until they confess.”
“And I’ve told you already we can’t do that,” the guard on the left, the shorter one said tiredly. “There is no evidence against them.”
“Could it be the goblins,” the townswoman said wiping her red-rimmed eyes.
“We are over four hundred leagues from the nearest goblins,” the guard on the right said firmly. ”That’s five hundred leagues where every goblin would be killed on sight. If there were goblins I would have to report back to Ankswerh to call in the army. You may be distraught but mind your words.”
“Don’t talk to my wife like that,” the other male said looking for a moment like he would get physically aggressive with the guards and I decided at this point to step in.
“Hail and good eve,” I said adopting the traditional greeting of this portion of the world. “Can you tell me what happened here?”
“This is Ankswerh’s business. This doesn’t concern you,” the guard on the right said gruffly. “Keep moving along.”
“I just sensed some magic and thought I could contribute my limited expertise,” I said watching as that immediately got their attention. The two of them exchanged glances before they once more looked at me with new eyes. A slight glow of hope also appeared within the eyes of the troubled couple and I felt my determination to help increase.
“Are you a wizard,” the one on the left asked with a note of caution in his voice.
“Just an apprentice for now,” I replied truthfully. While I wasn’t formerly classified I knew that I still fell short of the requirements needed to be classified as a wizard. I probably wasn’t even that strong of an apprentice considering that I could only reliably cast four cantrips. I was still a fair way away from learning my first tier one spell.
“Hmph,” the grumpy one said again. “I’ve seen a few apprentices around and they tend to be mostly useless wastes with an overinflated sense of their own skill. Just what makes you so special?”
“I’ve never met them so how can I know how I differ from them,” I said getting slightly annoyed at the hostility. “Can you explain what has happened here or is it top secret?”
“Our Lily was taken,” one of the house residents, a middle-aged woman said. “Please Mr.Apprentice can you help find our Lily.”
“We can__” the grumpy one said before he was cut off by the other guard.
“Child went missing last night from her room,” he said sternly. “There was no sign of forced entry. This is the fifth instances of children going missing from the town within two weeks. We have sent word to Ankswerh but no reply has come as of yet. Any knowledge you may have on the situation will be gratefully appreciated.”
“Five in two weeks,” I said gritting my teeth as I came to the realisation of why the town looked so gloomy. That was horrifying but I could see why they wouldn’t prioritise it. “Ritual or monster,” I said out loud. “Have there been any new people staying in this village over the past two weeks for the entire duration.”
“None, we have already checked,” the guard said. “All new entrants are merely passing through the village. Of those who entered the village there were only two newcomers who were part of reputable trading companies. They would never leave any wizards who accompanied the caravan unannounced. I assume you know how it is.”
“True,” I agreed furrowing my brow. Villages and smaller towns tend not to take kindly to wizards sometimes and as a result most caravans would be upfront so as to prevent a later problem. I think there was a law about it in the kingdom but I wasn’t a lawyer or a merchant… or a wizard yet I reminded myself. If it wasn’t a wizard however then there was only one option.
“A monster,” I stated before I pulled out a black book from my knapsack drawing looks of interest from the guards. I know what they were thinking but this wasn’t my spell book. Elder Tegram gave had given me a gift of the diary he kept when he was a young man. I had spent more than a few nights reading the contents and I had discovered that it contained a list of encounters that he had as well as his attempts to categorize all the monsters he had fought when he was an army wizard.
“Yes but what type of monster,” the polite guard said. “We suspect that the creature may have some way of phasing through walls as none of the windows were opened.
“Monsters that can actually phase through stuff are generally rare and unusual,” I refuted. “Most of them that can do that are ghosts and stealing children is not really a ghost thing. Also I’m fairly certain that none of them I know of register under Detect Magic. Maybe some form of shapeshifting?”
“So it could enter in small cracks,” the rude guard said. “Hey did we check the chimney?”
“We did but it’s small so we discarded it,” the guard who I had been talking to said. “Georny can you go check again.” The guard didn’t say anything but nodded as I flipped through the pages of the book. I didn’t make conversation as the guard slipped past the couple and entered the room. The combination of traits was twinging certain strands of my memory and I found myself flipping through the pages of the book almost ritualistically as I recalled certain evenings of sitting with an old man around a fireplace. Soon enough the rude guard returned with a look of contemplation on his face.
“It smells like rot and damp,” the second guard said as he returned talking both to myself and the polite guard.
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“The smell of swampy water,” I clarified more to myself as a niggling memory presented itself to me and I flipped through the book to a particular page. “Stolen children, swampy water and observable by Detect Magic speak of one particular creature.”
“Going to give us a name or just keep us hanging on,” the polite guard said and I coughed with embarrassment as I turned the pages a few times more in an attempt to locate the page.
“Have you ever heard of a Gynevine Specter,” I said slowly as I found the correct page and started to read.
“I have not,” the polite guard said.
“Gynevine as in the battlefield?” the rude guard asked. “Wasn’t that a massacre inflicted by the goblins nearly five decades ago.”
“The massacre went both ways,” I said boiling down the highlights of that particular church fire. “In the end from the marshy ground a new spawn of monster were recorded for the first time ever. Gynevine Specters are creatures that target the weak and helpless and they made their presence known by dragging almost half of the wounded soldiers to a watery buffet.” At my words the lady burst into tears and was immediately embraced by her husband.
“They can’t be that common if we haven’t heard of them,” Mr. Polite Guard said. “The smell of rot is not that uncommon for monsters to display. Is there any other evidence do you have that this is the monster we are looking for.”
“It’s not the smell of rot, it’s the smell of a swamp,” I clarified.
“He’s correct about that,” the rude guard backed me up. “Definitely smells like that place to the west.”
“Well that’s then the location is pretty self-explanatory,” the polite guard said tapping his shoulder in contemplation. “There’s a place of slow moving water just under two leagues from the outskirts of the village. If there habitats are truly as you have told me then the monster will almost certainly be there. Any more advice on the creature before we head out,” he said decisively.
“The creature is one of the rare creatures that show up using Detect Magic,” I said. “The creature has the ability to turn its body into mist and fog making it very hard to hit. Lastly the creature is apparently very vulnerable to fire. It’s the most reliable way to kill it. A single wizard with a few good fire spells could probably easily take care of it.”
“I don’t suppose you specialise in fire,” the polite guard said without much hope in his voice.
“I can create a spark about one times in two,” I responded causing him to sigh.
“Fine, I’ll go write up a directive and then we can go and investigate. You’re coming,” he said, his words more a statement than a question. Not that I cared in this instance. This sounds like the sort of interesting thing that I would normally go out of my way to participate in.
“Of course, how else would you track down this thing,” I said. “I’m just going to go and drop off my bag and pick up some stuff. Where should I meet you?”
“At the road entering the town,” the guard said. “Be there in a turn.” He nodded before turning around and taking the other guard, Georny, with him leaving me awkwardly standing next to a sobbing couple. I wasn’t really good at comforting people so I uncomfortably left the couple and headed to drop off my bag at Rusk’s nephew’s house and pick up one or two things while I went there.
“Hi Rusk,” I said opening the door to his nephew’s house. The town wasn’t very large and it took only a slight questioning before I was able to track down the house.
“Marvin,” the older man said. He was sitting at a table with his nephew in a conversation with what must be his nephew; a man who looked like a younger more handsome version of Rusk. To the side his niece in law was apparently making some tea. “I see you came just after the unloading. So what’s your excuse boy?”
“I’ve been drafted,” I said causing his eyebrows to rise. “My skills have been enlisted to assist in a certain situation. I have about half a turn to before I have to go,” I said as I slipped of my bag. “If I die give my spell book to somebody who will appreciate it.”
“You’re not going to die,” Rusk said his voice barely more than a whisper but I almost felt a chill through my spine at the serious tone of voice. “What do you need,” he said his voice lightening slightly as he gave me a regarding look.
“I do not have much in my house that might help,” Rusk’s nephew spoke up. “I’m just a miller after all, but if there is something I can do to help your survive then just ask and I’ll give it a shot.”
“You might just have a crucial component,” I said surprised and more than just a little overwhelmed to see him offer before I even had the chance to ask. “I might have to trouble you for something in particular.”
xxx
It was just a bit past first sundown when I arrived at the outskirts of the town to find the two guards ahead of me. There was still about a turn more before second sundown would arrive but the place we were heading to was doubtlessly more than a turn away. As I approached the two guardsman they immediately ended their conversation and both turned to look towards me.
“Just on time,” the polite one, whose name I still didn’t know, said. “We’ll move pretty fast from now on so inform us if you cannot keep up. We’ll be relying on you to locate the creature when we get close enough so you should ration your usage of spells. Maybe once every five minutes while travelling and then as close to constantly as possible when we are in the actual mire.”
“I understand,” I said adapting my tone to the seriousness of his voice. I had practiced the spell Detect Magic for probably a few hundreds cycles at this point and I could execute it near constantly. It was at the advice of Elder Tegram my most practiced cantrip of the precious few that I knew and one that I could the most out of any of my cantrips.
As I followed the polite guard I felt the field created by the Magite thrum and I made that half gesture with my left hand feeling the surrounding domain warp in a specific way before pulsing outwards and returning a negative response to myself. I practiced as I walked; continuing towards my goal of eliminating all gestures required for that particular cantrip as I have already done with the required spoken words. Elder Tegram said that he had met powerful wizards who were able to cast spells with a thought and if I couldn’t do that with a mere cantrip, a tier zero spell, then I had no right to strive to become a powerful wizard.
“Do you think the child could still be alive,” the grumpy guard spoke up as I was trying to extend the range of my Detect Magic. The question was directed towards me and I took a few moments to think on the situation before I had to admit my ignorance.
“I do not know,” I stated. “It didn’t kill the victim when she was sleeping so it may be keeping her alive for now but…” What I didn’t say was that very few of the people attacked at Gynevine were ever recovered alive.
I let my voice trail off as the realness of the situation reasserted itself within my mind. Five people, five children, had already gone missing and they might all be dead. We might be dead soon if this confrontation doesn’t go well. I had been on deer hunts and I had even killed a wolf, albeit with the assistance of a family friend, but I had never hunted a monster before. Butterflies swirled within my abdomen and I couldn’t quite decide whether I was nervous or not when a sudden ping snapped me out of my self-reflection.
“Its close,” I said in a low voice bringing the group to an immediate stop. I placed my hand on the polite guard and pointed off in the direction that I picked up the signal before recasting Detect Magic and focusing on that spot. The creature was moving away from us at a steady clip directly towards the location of the swamp. Both suns had fallen below the horizon and the darkness in this place was pervasive except for a brief spot of illumination offered by the torches.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” the polite guard said and our already decently swift movement became a gruelling burst towards the location of the swamp that caused my tendons to burn and forced me to take deep breaths just in order to maintain the speed of these two guards wearing metal armour. Barely a minute later I found my feet sink into ankle deep water and the signal stopped moving which I quickly communicated to my associates.
The polite guard held up his hand in a gesture that told me to slow down before he took a few steps forward not breaking the surface of the water. The creature was dead still, just sitting motionless in the middle of the swamp but without Detect Magic I would never be able to see it. I followed the polite guard and we moved at a crawl towards the location of the creature. We had only just got to fifty feet away from the creature’s location when a large pair of glowing yellow eyes opened and locked onto our position and I almost took a reflexive step back at the scorn contained in those yellow orbs.
In under two breaths faster than I could react the Specter screeched and lunged towards the group. It was fast and as I stepped back to put some distance between us I felt my heel catch on a particularly hard clump of mud and I tripped landing on my butt in the mud. I struggled up from the water gladly noting that my bag was still dry looking towards the fight when the two guardsmen were fighting against the creature.
I barely caught any glimpses of the being that seemed to shift from steam to smoke to solid in under a second, always avoiding the torches of the guards but slipping through the swords. It looked less like they were fighting a creature and more like they were waving their swords in defiance of the elements. I immediately cast a Detect Magic spell and instantly winced as I realised just how far off the guard’s strikes were.
A pair of yellow eyes suddenly appeared turning towards me and focusing an evil glare on my person. I scrambled to my feet cursing my ignorance. Third rule of Detect Magic; if it was observable by magic of course it would be able to detect my own usage of magic. I stepped back scrambling for my bag as that thing flowed around the swords of the duo before it burst into air charging towards me. Its lightning fast charge was stalled by a torch thrust from one of the guards into the air causing the creature to reform briefly before it lashed out with a clawed shadow hand that connected with the guards drew trails of blood through the air.
That guard fell back into the water and I watched as his companion stepped between the Specter and his fallen comrade. Unfortunately that left nobody to stand between myself and the monster. But that brief moment of pause given to me was enough for me to grab a parcel from my bag and fling it at the being. Cruel claws manifested from the wind and it instantly shredded my parcel into shreds; releasing a minor explosion of flour. The beast screeched as it swirled around turning into wind then mist but unable to shake the ground wheat from its gusty presence as the minor specks were buoyed along by the creatures movements.
I snapped my fingers trying out a semi-unfamiliar cantrip, and frowned as it didn’t work. Still with a cool head I reached into my bag to pull out a handful of burn dust only to pale as I realised that the stuff had been soaked through rendering the volatile substance useless for my purposes. Scrambling backwards as the thing shook itself more and more vigorously I suddenly saw one of the guards standing there looking at me while holding out his blazing torch.
“Hit the ground,” he yelled with vigour and I grinned in a mix of terror and excitement before I dived backwards and into the muddy marshy water. My head was underwater and I desperately summoned more and more water straining the Create Water cantrip while using Shape Water to layer the stuff over and over myself as I had done for most of my life. It felt almost therapeutic; a return to the earlier days where I maintained the village fountain that provided my home with vital water. I had repeatedly begged for the job and taken every opportunity to practice, adoring the feel of water appear according to my will.
Even underwater I couldn’t mistake the sign of a burning torch impacting the flour granules floating in the air. Nor did the water muffle the screams of the creature as it burned revealing a silhouette that was shaped like a very tall and thin human form. It melted as it strode forward towards me bleeding sludge and filth as it decomposed. It made it halfway to me, about seven arms body lengths, before it collapsed and started to fall apart its fracturing body starting to split apart in the murky water.
“Eventually I pulled myself out of the watery swamp and that was pretty much the end of my role in the story,” I said taking before taking a bite out of my loaf of bread. I was sitting in Rusk’s nephew’s house recounting the story of how I joined two guardsmen to take down a Gynevine Specter. The reactions at the table ran the gamut from awe to disbelief although there was significantly less disbelief then there would be if I hadn’t displayed the Writ of Military Reward I had received for my participation tonight.
“What happened to the Lily girl,” Rusk’s nephew said as he put down his plate of food.
“They found her wounded but alive,” I said casually. “She was sick but they think she will make a full recovery. They are having a group come from Ankswerh in the next week to investigate and the standard grouping should include a priest who will fix her right up.” My words caused the tension to leave some of my listeners but not Rusk.
“Your mother would try and kill me if she knew what you were running around doing,” he said grumbling. “If you plan on doing this all the way to Elasrin then your luck is going to run out. You very nearly died today if your recounting is true.”
“It’s mostly true,” I admitted. “I exaggerated a few parts but in essence that is basically what happened. I got very lucky. I will avoid doing something like that again.”
“Give him a rest Uncle,” Nephew said to Rusk before he turned towards me. “Because of you a young girl gets to see her parents again and we don’t have to live in fear. I would fall to pieces if little Betty was taken.” He patted the head of a young girl at the table who he had introduced as his daughter causing her to squirm away from the patting and pout.
“Yeah, I’m cool,” I said smiling wide causing Rusk to grimace.
“Stop encouraging him,” Rusk said shaking his head. “His instincts for danger are already busted we don’t need to make them any worse.” That was a bit unfair but I couldn’t really fault him. Rusk had offered to take me to Emberhearth so I suppose he felt responsible for me up to a point. It would be…inconvenient for him to explain to my parents that their son had died.
We chatted for a while longer and I got asked to tell the story again by the daughter Betty which I did, refining the story to make it more exciting for the younger child. The Nephew and his Wife actually offered to put me up for a few more nights, but I gently refused and the talking eventually wound down as people turned in for the night. Betty went to sleep with her parents and Rusk got the spare room leaving me alone in the lounge with a few sheepskin blankets of rather well make for the type of town we were living in. I hadn’t seen any sheep outside of the town so they must have traded from somewhere.
As I lay alone on the floor I sighed. I had put on a brave front during dinner but now that I was alone I was still shaking with the realisation that I had almost died. My cantrip hadn’t worked and the burn dust had somehow got wet despite my best efforts. If it hadn’t been for the assistance of the guard then I would have been killed and all my efforts over the years would have disappeared into nothing. How embarrassing would that have been to die in the first step outside of my house? Who ever heard of the farm boy who wanted to be a wizard and then died at the first stop outside of his village?
But still I saved a life tonight. Those few words had a majesty and weight that couldn’t be denied. It stirred a warm feeling in me that the girl would have a future. I was out of my village saving lives which was more than some of those that lived in my home could say. I stretched my body before I pulled the blankets over myself and cast the first proper cantrip I ever learned from a book.
“Dancing Lights,” I whispered moving my hands in a gesture of great arcane significance. I smiled as two glowing orbs of light appeared under the blankets bathing the world in a soft white glow. I pulled out the second book that Elder Tegram had given me; a well-made book with a black cover and gold lettering. It looked far nicer than anything else I owned which was because technically I didn’t own it.
This was Tegram’s backup spell book that he had created when living in the village and contained copies of all the spells the old man had learnt throughout his life. Although it was hard to decipher at some points and spells of every tier were strewn everywhere it had been a great help in the past month that I had owned it allowing me to learn both the Shape Water and Dancing Light cantrip and gave me some tips on improving my mastery over Detect Magic which was the only cantrip I had learnt prior to that besides the Create Water cantrip which I had long mastered as the sole provider of water to my village. Smiling at that I turned to a page with the heading Spark in messy, sloppy handwriting and began to read.