"Impressive." Says someone from behind.

I spin around and wear a smile seeing the figure's loose posture and open smile.

They wear ragged black robes with their hood pulled back leaving their face unveiled. He has short, cropped ginger hair with a smattering of freckles on his ruby, red cheeks and wide parting lips.

They stand straight and tall with wide shoulders bearing the dignity of one familiar with the nobility. His arms are forward and his palms open and facing upwards his head tilting and eyes focusing on us, it is unclear if he is paying particular attention to one or both Gareth and me.

"But, what are two fellow magi, doing hunting rabbits. Surely skilled spellcasters such as yourself performing bindings and…" he pauses for a moment.

"Keen senses is that, yes, most useful range than the typical fire, ice and lightning a leaf in a forest wouldn’t you say?" he asks snatching a leaf using some form of telekinesis from a near pine tree.

"You are most gracious; we are August and Gareth of Killi." I say.

"We are hunting rabbits, but such is our fortune. Low beginnings to high reaches as they say." Says Gareth.

"Indeed. However, I wonder how capable the two of you are? Perhaps you would be interested in joining the Circle? It pays well better than hunting rabbits. But first, let me see power. Demonstrate your Will!" He declares and flickers up the index and middle fingers pressing together while his thumb, ring and little finger curl into his palm.

Suddenly the weight of my body gives out and I find myself floating upwards spinning in circles. The sensation of the spinning and sudden weightlessness sends my head pounding and baffles my senses and I begin to feel nauseous in my stomach.

I don’t know what happens over the next twenty or so seconds, but the spell fades and I begin to plummet.

I cast the portal and find myself in a different submerging in water, I am in a different dimension from my own.

I have no time to ponder such details.

I begin to form a second portal while kicking hard desperately trying not to sink. There is water as far as the eye can see.

I’m going to die here.

My concertation breaks and I slip under the water, my eyes stinging from the contact and the pressure to breathe but being unable is horrible.

No, no.

I push and push and break the surface gasping for breath.

My body feels heavy and my eyes sleepy even as energy courses through my limbs they start to feel dull like I should just let go. I begin the casting for the second portal again knowing I am running out of time.

Two seconds pass, three, four, five, six.

Just sleep.

Eight and I cast it and fall into the portal I land back on the ground soaking wet with a puddle of water in the forest with the Magi and Gareth still duelling circling each other Gareth with his sword drawn trying to close the distance.

Gareth is bleeding heavily the wounds are thankfully closing due to augmented healing, I presume.

Gareth tries to move forward but the Magi with an arm forward holds him in place his face still as he concentrates and starts to treat the fight seriously.

The Magi grunts and takes a half-step forward thrusting the arm forward and pushing and sending Gareth flying back into a tree the bark cracking from the force of the impact and Gareth slumps trying to gasp back in air knocked out from the shock of the telekinetic attack.

I am already forming a barrier during the entire attack and a few more seconds pass and I cast it on Gareth.

Then I run behind a tree to form one for myself.

I am already burning through my spells. I blast of magic smashes into the tree sending splinters flying and causing the top half of the tree to fall over which I scramble out of the way.

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Too busy crawling on my hands and knees I let go of my half-formed barrier spell. Ducking behind another tree I glance back, and it appears it looks like the tree was hit by lightning.

"Enough of this Magi, let us go. You have proven your dominance." Gareth shouts out.

"Shut up, we can beat him." I call back. But how?

Then a hear the growl.

I look to my left and see a jackal charging toward me. A dog-like creature about knee height with grey fur and sharp looking canines. It leaps up from four paws for my throat as my mana bolt connects and kills it instantly.

Then it is floating.

The Magi is using telekinesis.

Grabbing the dead jackal, he squeezes its body crushes the blood bursts and he pulls the bones of the creature and uses them as flying weapons, the spine like a sword and the rib cage like knives.

Gareth deflects the Jackal’s spine as I roll out of the way of the weaponised Jackal’s ribs which strikes with enough force to puncture through the tree.

I feel a burst of pain as one of the splinters be it bone, or wood cuts through my skin and creates a shallow wound across my shoulder.

Meanwhile, Gareth has already cut the Jackal spine into pieces in a flurry of slashes. The Magi gives a half-smile and pulls me towards him.

I feel an agonising stomach pain as my internal organs struggle to stick as they are in the process of being willed out of my body by this brutal Magi.

Gareth slashes his blade, but the Magi manages to raise a block and the sword embeds deep into the bone of the Magi’s forearm.

The Magi releases me, and I sag to the drag clutching my belly in shock.

The Magi holds Gareth using telekinesis in one hand and uses the other to keep me to the ground.

We are beaten. He caught us off guard and we overwhelmed but his superior spellcasting. At least we hurt him. Death with dignity.

"Well done, the two of you fought well. You will make fine additions to the Circle. If you choose to join."

We give no reply, my eyes are downcast in shameful defeat.

Who is this person who starts a fight they know they can win doing mortal injury as some sort of test?

"I am Lord M. Le Fey. For the magi on the path to power the Circle meets at Thorn’s Tip." He declares and walks away disappearing among the trees.

I lie for a while rolling over onto my back on the dirt of the forest floor shrubby tickling my left hand. The sunlight peeks through the canopy like spears of light but the shade covers my body.

"Are you alright?" asks Gareth.

"No. You?"

"No."

I focus on my breath for a time. I see Gareth standing over me hand stretching out to help me up. I take it feeling the callouses on his hands as he pulls me up.

"What now?" he asks his wounds fully healed and he looks fresh like having woken up from a long rest.

"Let us half some food, wait what happened to the Jaguar?" I ask.

"Oh, it died while you were floating. He snapped its neck, I get the impression he was toying with us."

"Fuck."

"I’ve got some bread we can eat. Your right we eat first we can decide what to do later." He says with a calming smile and pulls out a loaf of bread which he splits in two and passes one half to me.

I take it, feeling its hardness, wet it slightly then tuck it in chewing hard with each bite. The hard stale bread goes down with a lot of chewing and we eat in silence.

When I heard adventuring life was dangerous, I did not think of rogue magi able to disembowel at will.

I may as well be back at the academy being humiliated by Dragon’s Wing.

Who is this Circle?

And is it worth the risk of joining a seemingly dangerous and likely illegal group if it means growing in power and becoming flush with coin?

Gareth will never agree.

"Do we join this Circle?" I ask, plainly, staring him in the eye.

"Of course not, if anything we should tell our old Professors at the academy about them." He replies without hesitation looking me back in the eye.

"I thought you would say no."

He smiles in response and I nod and lose myself in the thought of the possibility of what if?

"Let get to it, may as well bring back a few rabbits before we return." I say.

Killing Rabbits is easy with Gareth’s augmented senses assisting him in his tracking.

Further, mana bolts are a sure way to get clean kills as well though hitting is frustrating and difficult.

After the first few failures, we slow down and start treating this more like a hunt and less as a battle with humanoids.

We stalk, we keep upwind and tread quietly and slowly.

It is a tiring afternoon after a long morning and as the sun starts to come down and the orange light colouring the sky, I say we should pack up and start to head back beginning the summoning of two Gavilk horses.

The two blue balls of mana launch from my hand after many seconds and land from them two Gavilk horses appear. One has a dark blue coat that almost blends in with the shade as the little light left begins to fade. The other has a coat that is red but darker than blood with black eyes and a red mane.

As we ride through the forest both of us cast a light spell in our palms, on the back of the red horse note it looks like burning flame made flesh as it rides flowing mane rising as we gallop against the wind. We slow down as we clear the forest line and come out onto a dirt path leading to the main road.