As promised, Cam woke Ted up with a knock on his door, at the disgustingly early time of 6.15am, an hour as awful to wake up at in this world as it had been in the previous. He had also failed to bring a hangover potion with him, and so Ted had to drag himself out of bed with a headache and bad mood. Ted was pretty certain that hangover potions had to exist, but when he asked at the desk of the inn, the man behind the counter just looked confused and offered him some water.

He’d managed to spend 30 Centrals last night, which didn’t feel like a lot of money, but was also over 30% of the money he’d had left. Grumbling, he headed outside, to see Cam sitting on the front of the wagon, Jenny already hitched up to the reins.

‘Aren’t we stopping for breakfast?’ Ted asked, squinting in the sunlight as he looked up at the man.

‘We’ll have breakfast on the road, my friend.’ Cam said, cheerfully. ‘We need to get moving, we want to get to Brookfields by early afternoon.’

‘We do? What’s there?’ Ted asked, climbing on to sit next to Cam on the wagon. Cam passed him a thick sandwich, filled with some bacon equivalent.

‘A big, dirty town, filled with thousands of people.’ Cam said. ‘Good food, but that’s about it. If we arrive in the afternoon, we should be able to get our business done, and leave first thing in the morning.’

‘We?’ Ted asked.

‘You’re more than welcome to get off and stay there, and organise a Portal to the Front when possible.’ Cam said, looking over at him, as Jenny started gently pulling the wagon back onto the road. ‘But I’m continuing east, and I’d be happy to have a companion alongside.

‘That would be fantastic.’ Ted said, enthusiastically. He really wasn’t in a rush to get to this fabled, uncertain warzone that this world seemed to revolve around, and he felt like he’d learnt more in the last twenty four hours with Cam. He took a bite of the sandwich, pleasantly surprised to find it similar to the bacon it looked like, but with a slight tang that balanced the salt. It was exactly what he needed to help with the hangover.

‘Good!’ Cam said, twitching the reins to nudge Jenny into a trot. ‘I’m happy to hear it. That way we can continue training as well, if you’re happy to. I am sorry for yesterday; I should have caught you before you exhausted yourself. Still, it was a good lesson in itself; I suspect that was the first time you really tested your mana limits?’

‘Yeah.’ Ted said, thinking back to his time at Basic. ‘I guess I never really paid attention to it; using the Techniques just felt instinctual, and we were never really pushed to use it to the point we ever ran out.’

‘Well, it’s one more thing to add to the list.’ Cam said. ‘How’s the sandwich?’

‘Excellent.’ Ted said, mouth full as he finished it off.

‘Good. It’s no magic potion, but a jaga sandwich always helps me out after a heavy night.’ Cam said, taking the last bite of his own.

‘A jaga?’ Ted asked.

‘It’s a herd animal they have everywhere around here. Looks a bit like a yak, but with less hair and a few feathers.’ Cam explained. ‘You’ll see a few on today’s trip; there are a lot of farms towards the outskirts of Brookfields.’

‘And a lot of brooks?’ Ted asked, jokingly.

‘How did you know?’ Cam asked. Ted looked over at him, and saw that he was teasing.

‘And where we’ve just come from was a small town surrounded by black moors.’ he said, slowly. ‘Is everywhere named something so unoriginal?’

‘You mean you weren’t impressed by Benn’s trip towards Highcliff Meadows?’ Cam asked, innocently. Ted facepalmed.

‘It didn’t even register.’ he said.

‘It’s pretty common, though not everything is named that way. I certainly don’t know who chose the names, but at least you can generally work out the name of the place by the scenery.’ Cam said. ‘I’ll let you guess before we go to the next town.’

‘Thanks.’

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They continued companionably on their drive, the conversation more free flowing than it had been on their first day. Ted found himself dropping the guards he’d been maintaining since the first day, and was even willing to tell Cam about his life before arriving in the new world. His real life.

‘I grew up in the north, and I used to be called Theo.’ he explained. ‘Actually, I still am called Theo, but no one here will let me be.’

‘When I Identify you, it says ‘Human, Ted, GateKeeper Level 1.’ Cam confirmed.

‘It tells you all that? I only get your name when I identify you!’ Ted said, surprised.

‘My Identify level is far above yours, my friend.’ Cam said. ‘But for Identifying people it’ll take you a long while to get more than a name.’

Ted sighed. ‘There’s just so much to bloody learn.’

‘You’ll get there.’ Cam replied. ‘Why don’t you tell me about what you learnt with the magic sensing yesterday? We never really got round to discussing it last night.’

‘Well, I got the Fire Magic Skill, somehow.’ Ted said.

‘Yes. Now how do you think that happened?’ Cam prodded.

‘Well.’ Ted said, taking a moment to think. ‘It’s a bit blurry. Because of the passing out, and then the alcohol. But I remember being able to see the magic in the ball as a kind of wave. And it kind of helped me see my own light magic as a different type of wave. So when you told me to try and counter the magic in the ball, I just tried to force them together, in a way that would cancel out.’

‘Very good.’ Cam said, approvingly. ‘Everyone perceives magic in slightly different ways, but the way you’re describing is pretty common, and an easy one to analogise. You can think of magic as energy, shown as waves. A wave with a different wavelength, amplitude, and frequency, will effectively be a different type of magic. How would you describe the frost magic energy?’

‘I mean, spiky? Cold?’ Ted said. ‘Sounds silly’

Cam laughed. ‘No it doesn’t. And you’re right, or at least, that’s a common perception of it. Not that it matters, but it gives off an effect that feels cold, reminiscent of its physical effect. In any case, to counter it, you need an opposing wave, which is what you tried to create. And what opposes cold?’

‘Well, heat, I guess? Fire?’ Ted said, walking the path Cam was leading him down.

‘Exactly.’ Cam said. ‘Through blunt force you managed to learn how to make your Light magic into Fire magic, using the Frost magic as a kind of inverted mould.’

‘That… actually makes sense.’ Ted said, thoughtfully. ‘So does it work that way for all magics?’

‘Well, for the elemental basic magics, certainly, to a degree. But not all magics have polar opposites, or even easily identifiable energy signatures. But you can learn a lot from using your eyes, ears, and your new magical sense. Remember how I said that the whole world was imbued with magic?’ Cam asked.

‘Yeah, you said even the animals and the plants were basically magical now.’ Ted said. ‘Does that mean I should be able to sense them?’

‘You should; or, you will when your Magical Sensing level gets high enough. But it’s all more complicated than the simple frost ball you saw yesterday. The energies are more like harmonies, than single waves. But the better you can sense them, the better you can understand them, and the better you can use them. There are some Classes that focus entirely on this, though they’re very rare.’ Cam said.

‘Like a druid style class?’ Ted asked.

‘Exactly; very nature focused, and they can get very, very powerful. Eventually. But you have your own route too. We’ll have you well grounded in magic in no time.’ Cam told him.

‘Amazing.’ Ted breathed. ‘And I’ll be able to learn some magic spells as well?’

‘I should think so.’ Cam said, confidently. ‘Everyone is capable of learning some basic magic in most elements. They like to keep the melee classes away from it in Basic, to keep them focused, but in reality there’s very few who don’t have the capabilities. And you’re a magic based Class, so the more you learn, the easier it will be to get you learning the more complicated stuff. I have Fire Magic, as well as all of the other basic elementals. I’ll be able to teach you a Technique or two.’

‘I just don’t understand why people aren’t doing this all the time!’ Ted said, thinking in wonderment at the idea of lobbing balls of fire or spikes of ice around. ‘It sounds so cool!’

‘Well, like I said, most Skills and Techniques fade if you don’t use them; I try to keep most of mine up to a decent lick, but my Camouflage and other stealth based abilities are shadows of what they once were. I’m more disciplined than most, but I can’t make myself go crawling around in bushes at night just to keep that number high when I have no intention of ever going back to war! It’s the same with most. Most of us here are… retired, I guess. We did our time, whether it was six months or thirty years. The ambition drops.’ Cam explained.

‘Though perhaps, not with everyone. You’ll definitely see some youngsters throwing spells around in Brookfields, especially the ones with flashier spells or Classes. Some of the clubs get a bit… explosive by the early hours.’

‘They have clubs there?!’ Ted exclaimed, before catching himself. ‘Nope, you know what, I’ve said I’ll stop questioning things. It’s a religious world where people go out to night time raves. I’m on board, it’s okay.’

Cam laughed his easy laugh. ‘Just start thinking of it like a normal country that happens to be at war, and you’ll kind of get it. Like South Korea, always on a war footing, everyone has to serve. But they still have to live, you know? Even my country had national service.

‘So yes, we have night clubs. But please don’t tell me you want to go to one.’