Petrichor.

The Calden Fields stretched endlessly in all directions, all grasses and skies, long lakes and rock outcroppings and blazing sun. Home to Traverse, Harviston, Burden’s Bluff and some dozens of other settlements of all sizes. Winds moved, clouds rolled, and people carved paths all over the surface of the land. Farmers. Ranchers. Merchants. No matter their ancestry or background, the people of the Fields were the simple laborers and great providers of the grand enterprise that was the Zandrian Empire, and the Fields themselves were the backbone of the nation in every respect. They comprised nearly all of the southern half of Eastern Matryoshka, and were the true symbol of all the vast scale and prosperity that the sovereign state was known for across Psedhara.

Under the 15th of Taluum’s clear blue sky, two strong horses pulled an open carriage with three weeks' worth of supplies down the Grain Road, flanked by another four riding horses. Taking what was for many of them their first time this far south, the Vagabonders were in high spirits as they set out on their first journey as a party. Abel elected to remain in the carriage so he could continue to study his pocket watch, while Seneca watched on in confusion and mild amusement. Lagging just behind the vehicle, light conversation echoed around the road as Pax and Elias taught Kishori how to ride her horse. And despite his utter lack of animal handling experience, Eden forged ahead of the party on his scent. It was an objectively perfect day outside, yet the young sorcerer could smell the rain on the air.

Petrichor.

“So what, you tell the time and do magic with that thing?”

“In theory, Seneca, that is correct.”

“Okay, so how about in real life?”

“In real life I found the watch two days ago, and I cannot as of yet determine its precise purpose or origin.”

Sen stretched, hands and gaze up to Nera. “Alright, but how many notes are there to take on the world’s tiniest piece of metal?”

“It is actually many tiny pieces of metal, with some incredible properties. I can identify what alloy each piece is made of, what hand each of the external gears controls, the length of each hand, the nature of the abjurative enchantment on the casing, how many internal gears I can hear inside without breaking the apparatus… Many things. And that is to say nothing of the meaning of these words.”

“Limited Series?”

“My current theory is that there is a series of similar watches that interact with each other when they are brought together.”

“Huh. Yeah, that does seem like some wizard shit,” Wren commented from the front bench.

Abel looked curiously at the man. “Have you dealt with many wizards in your days, Mister Doomas?”

The title hit Wren like a wave. “Yeah, a bit. Not a magic guy myself, obviously, but everything I do know I learned from an old friend.”

“What was their name?” Kishori called from the back.

“Mariposa,” Wren said sullenly.

“That’s…” Abel started. “A very unique name. May I… May I ask her surname?”

Wren thought for a long and quiet moment. “Laurent. Her name was Mariposa Laurent.”

The young wizard sat in a similar silence. “I see. I hoped I might recognize the name.”

“Ah, fair. On that topic, can I ask where you studied, Abel?”

“At first, the University of Higher Arcana in Highhaven. I was accepted as a young boy, and remained for many years before voluntarily leaving along with some of my peers.”

“So what, you’re a dropout?” Sen snarked.

“Only technically,” Abel said as he flipped through his spellbook. “There is no set number of years a prospective mage must attend the school. Rather, a collection of a student’s mentors and instructors graduates them when deemed appropriate, which can take many decades in the case of some. Those who make it to graduation without burning out are automatically offered sponsorship by the Empire as part of the Imperial Arcane Concorde, where they either remain in Highhaven or are assigned to a town in need of an arcanist.”

“What happens if all your teachers hate you?” Sen asked, shockingly invested.

“Then good luck,” Abel lamented, picking up her usual tone. “I agree, the system is largely stupid.”

The Highhaven-born knight moved his horse in line with the cart. “So did you get tired of not being graduated?”

“No, though I surely would have,” Abel sighed. “My proclivity for the discovery of new magic rather than the dedication to one of the established traditions made me an ‘unideal student’. No, two of my good friends were graduating, and both hated the idea of being saddled to the Empire, especially the diviner, whose twin was not graduating with her. So our whole collection of friends left before any of us graduated.”

“How many?” Ki spoke up.

“Nine, including me. One for each tradition, plus me and Margot, my necromancer friend.”

“Necromancy? Badass,” Sen said.

“She uses it to heal.”

“Is this the group you were separated from?” Pax asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry, that sounds… real intense.”

“We’ll find them in time,” Elias offered.

“So, you really know this stuff, huh?”

Eden was craning his neck at an angle that looked painful. He had been listening from the front of the park the whole time, still following his nose down the highway. But he desperately wanted to talk to the wizard. The tall and dark man was clearly a vast wealth of knowledge of the huge arcane strength that welled inside Eden, his burn scar both fresh and well-worn was mysterious and powerful. Eventually, Eden had to abandon his call, at least for a moment.

“I suppose,” Abel chuckled.

“Take front, Pax?” Eden asked. “I wanna talk magic and shit.”

“On it!”

“Alright, so can you teach me?”

“Abel furrowed his brow, and flipped to the very first pages of his thick tome. “In part, probably. How much do you know?”

“Lightning go zappy.”

“Ah. Well, I can teach you the nature of magic, and the components of spellwork, basics like that.”

“Start with the first one,” Wren suggested. “This is important info for all of us in this career, by the way!”

“Right. Eh, where to start…” Abel faltered, intensely aware of five sets of eyes and ears on him. “Right, so, your magic seems to come from within, yes?”

“Huh? It doesn’t always?”

“Not at all. Magic permeates all of Psedhara, the Material Plane at large, and all its surrounding realms. When you perform magic, you attune to some aspect of magic in the world. And while it seems like a cheap answer, largely anything is possible if the magician is imaginative and powerful enough. Power comes with practice and experience; imagination, eh, this is harder to define and teach. But, if you at least know how wizards — and perhaps more importantly other less scholarly casters — categorize acts of magic, you should be better prepared to grapple with them.”

“The traditions you mentioned, right?” Kishori asked, raising her hand cutely.

“Correct, that is one of the main two systems of categorization. Although, I suspect it is the other of the two that will be more beneficial for you, Eden. But, for the sake of us all being on the same page, I’ll go over the traditions first. Importantly, these are merely tools for interpreting what you see magic do, not a fundamental system that the universe recognizes, no matter what crusty old fucks in ivory towers may tell you. Anyways.

“The seven scholarly traditions are as follows: Divination, effects which assist the caster in knowledge acquisition; Abjuration, effects which block or counter both physical and other magical things; Captivation, effects which magically inure a target’s mind to the caster, or some other source of their choice; Illusion, effects which deceive others’ senses and obscure truth; Transmutation, effects which turn one material object or even person into another; Conjuration, a similar school which conjures objects and creatures from magical energy itself; and Evocation, effects which are also made of pure arcane energy and are made to deal damage, usually to people.”

A stagnant silence came over the party when Abel finished as they all took in the info dump with varying degrees of success.

“Well, I hope the other way isn't that dense,” Seneca joked, despite having clearly paid the most attention by the lack of glaze over her eyes.

“So, I guess my magic is evocation? Mostly?”

“Yes, Eden, I believe so. That is historically common among those born with innate magical talent.”

“Uhh… Okay. Could I do other stuff?”

“Given time, absolutely. Though you will likely find specializing in just a few applications to be more rewarding, with less diminishing returns.”

“Okay… So what’s the more beneficial thing?”

“Chromas. Five colors that are associated with different types of magic and spellcasters in the world. If you happen to know the original five colors of Psedhara’s dragons, then you know the five Chromas; Blue, Red, Green, Black, and White. Nearly every practitioner of magic falls into just one of these camps. Blue magic is the practice of arcane traditionalists and scholars, all things tricky and scientific, like illusion and divination. Red magic is roughly just evocation, harmful and powerful. Green magic is naturally the magic of, well, nature; summoning animals, embracing the world, and recognizing the metaphysical connections that exist between physical locations. Black and White magic are opposing forces, representing positive and negative energies from the naturally divine Outer Planes, where the gods live. They are light and darkness, healing and corruption. Good and evil, basically.”

“Good and evil aren’t so binary,” Wren interrupted. “Still true about the magic, but I’m just sayin’, if you ever meet an angel or a devil, don’t automatically assume its intentions based on its plane of origin.”

“You’ve met angels?” Eden proclaimed.

Wren shrugged.

“Well anyways, that’s good to know about I guess,” Eden said, looking back at the wizard. “Definitely simpler. So you think I’m a red mage or something?”

“Precisely.”

“Okay. Good… Wait, so what do I do now?”

“Hmm… Well, my friend who is an evoker speaks of… spoke of the ways in which he channels his power, but he always imagined it in a very esoteric manner. He cares a lot about the astral pathways between the planes that are the source of arcane power, but I do not imagine that is very helpful to you.”

“Holier-than-thou,” Seneca muttered after clearing her throat.

“Nah, he’s right,” Eden laughed at his companion.

“Eh, sorry… I did have another friend who was a more general red mage. He was adamant about closing his eyes and concentrating on the movements of his physical form. His body in the wind, the beating of his heart… He would say he could feel individual fragments of thoughts firing around in his mind. It is like an instantaneous meditation, the way he moves and acts. So I suppose my advice would be to focus on your body, or your mind, or your heart. Think about your fire, or your lightning, as an extension of you.”

“Okay.”

The Vagabonders all watched as Eden’s arms fell limp at his side, and he allowed his horse to continue forward on its own instinct. He attempted to feel his body as a passive thing, the way it was pushed around by the Taluum winds, and thought he was doing well. But his nose itched, and the skin on his forearms was too cold, and he could see the bright sun through his eyelids. He tried his mind next, which was calm for a moment, but quickly became saddled with all the anxieties he had about not being able to perform. Lastly, though he had little hope, he tried thinking about his heart, and found it only beating, at which point he was lost about what to do.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

It’s useless, Eden thought to himself. If I think about my thoughts, my hands tremble. If I try too hard to still my hands, my heart palpitates. And the more I think about my heart, the more my mind races. Abel’s friend must have some crazy concentration to focus on just one at a time.

Mind. Body. Heart. He could never focus on just one. But… Perhaps all three.

Eden halted his horse. He felt the gales of wind beating against him, the intensity of his heart, and his thoughts pinging around his brain with abandon. He didn’t attempt to block any of it out, but instead thought about every aspect of himself that he could identify as all part of the same system that was him, like solid ground and storm clouds and the lightning that tethered them together, and the thunder and rain that came along with them.

The horse stirred, so Eden lifted himself over and off of it. The rest of the group slowed and stopped when he made no attempt to catch up.

“E?” Seneca called out. “You good?”

The sorcerer didn’t respond, but stood in place, breathing in and out, feeling his body in the flow of the fields. The wind pulsed around Eden as if he himself was the epicenter of its movement, the eye of an unseen storm. As the only one truly attuned to it, Abel could see ripples of arcana following the wind and swirling around the burgeoning mage.

“The power is yours,” he whispered on the wind. “Use it.”

With Abel’s words, spoken like an invocation that Eden could not yet comprehend, the sorcerer lifted one of his arms and thrusted it west in a clenched fist. Several dozen feet away, where a low rock wall stretched out north to south along the Grain Road, the stone was met with a thunderous boom as a deafening soundwave erupted from Eden’s fingers and lashed out at a large, load-bearing stone, shattering it and collapsing a portion of the wall.

“Holy shite, E. Hell yeah!” Seneca exclaimed, hopping off the carriage to clap her friend on the back. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you cast a spell while you weren’t in imminent danger!”

“Well, I think it’s the first time I’ve fully intended to cast a spell in the first place,” he responded, looking vaguely shell-shocked at the pile of destruction.

“You wouldn’t know it,” Abel sighed. “The skill of an innate spellcaster truly cannot be overstated.”

“How do you mean?” Wren asked, similarly looking west.

“I have seen mages cast similar effects. He appears to have jumped straight into his second Circle, without any real issue. For someone brand new to their power, that is impressive.”

“What’s a Circle?” Elias muttered, fixating on the way Abel didn’t seem to feel the need to explain it.

“They’re like the levels of how powerful a spell is,” Kishori leaned over to explain, nearly toppling off her horse in the process. “Casters normally work their way through unlocking their Circles pretty slowly.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven. I’ve never successfully accessed above my second.”

On the road, Eden and Seneca were still standing around, looking at the gap in the stone wall. Her eyes occasionally flitted back and forth between the wall and the far-off forest it bounded; his nose curled up as if catching a particularly pleasant aroma.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Eden asked her.

“You wanna blow up more rocks?”

“Not quite. Hey Wren‽”

“Yes?”

“I think we need to go through those woods. Can we?”

Wren peered at the distant trees with an abnormal intensity. “Any reason why?”

“I smell the rain again. It’s coming from in there.”

“And how sure are you that your nose can be trusted?”

“More than anything,” Eden responded, still looking strangely into the middle distance.

“Hmm… Alright then. Getting close to nightfall anyways. How about this? Eden, I want you to keep practicing that shatter spell, break up more of this wall. Then the rest of you can move the cart and horses into this clearing.”

“Uh, I dunno how many times a day I can do that,” Eden replied trepidatiously. “I may only have a couple more goes in me.”

“Then you’d better not miss any shots.”

“Okay, so what are you gonna do?” Seneca asked from beside Eden.

“Well, I was just thinking that I’m not really in the mood for any of the food we brought.” The older man pointed towards the dense forest. “You wanna come hunting with me?”

Sen’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Let me grab my bow.”

As Sen hopped into the carriage to grab her things, Abel approached Eden to give him more tips, and Pax trotted over to Wren, still on his horse. “Anything you want me to handle while you’re out?”

Wren furrowed his brow. “You’re a pretty perceptive kid, yeah?”

“Uh huh, I like to think so.”

“Good. Then I want you to keep your eyes and ears on the treeline. Don’t let anything go unnoticed.”

“Sure thing. Can I ask why?”

“That forest is… not normal. I can handle anything Sen and I encounter, but I wanna check it out before heading in with the whole troupe. And if anything comes out while I’m in there, I need you to see it before it sees you. Make an assessment as quick as you can, ask Elias or Kishori if you don’t recognize it. If you don’t think you can fight… Run.”

“What kind of forest is this?”

“One that’s holding something,” Wren said as Seneca walked up to them. “You two see how thick the foliage on the trees is? The density of the shrubs along the treeline? The way you can barely see ten feet into the woods?”

“Yeah,” they replied in unison.

Wren curled up his nose in an attempt to catch the same scent that Eden did, but came back with nothing. “If I was a betting man… I would say those woods are a barrier. The walls around a portal, or worse, a creature. I’ve known sorcerers in the past, their senses tend to be supernaturally attuned to whatever magic has lodged itself in them. But without knowing what sort of being has marked Eden, it’s impossible to say what that means for the contents of this place. Despite that, we owe it to both him and ourselves to delve in.”

“Are you telling me we get to go monster hunting?” Seneca asked excitedly.

“Hopefully not. But come on. We’re losing daylight. And Pax?”

“Yes?”

“I’m trusting your eyes to catch something, and your feet to carry you fast enough. Got it?”

“Absolutely, Wren.”

Longbows in hand and fingers rifling through their quivers, Wren and Seneca hopped over the stone wall, and began the short jaunt across the grassy field to the treeline itself. True to the older man’s word, Sen found the edge of the forest to be incredibly hard to parse. The slayer stood back and let her inspect it first, and watched as she lowered a hand to a low, thick bush. The half-elf pinched a leaf tight between her thumb and forefinger, and lowered her nose to smell it. Her emerald eyes darted to peer through the green, and she could see maybe two hundred feet into it; no part of the forest floor was clear of underbrush, and smaller trees and other large flora made up a vast majority of the airspace between the floor and canopy.

“Are you a good climber, Wren?”

Wren unsheathed his gladii. “I’m more of a trailblazer, truthfully.”

“Fair. You’re gonna be slower, though. Wanna boost me up onto that branch over there?”

Wren huffed. “Sure.” As the pair set about their entry into the forest, Wren watched Sen operate as if on autopilot. “Where’d you grow up, kid?”

Seneca straddled the thick branch, and prepared her bow and an arrow in a single hand while she steadied herself against the tree with her other. “Middle of the woods. Like these, honestly. Supernaturally thick. Magical.”

“Where?”

Seneca faltered. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Meaning you don’t want to tell me,” Wren sassed, carving into his first bush, and beginning to carve into the forest.

The rogue was quiet for another moment. “Move quick, boss. Forest’ll swallow you up if you don’t keep moving.”

As Seneca leapt gracefully from one branch to another, Wren took a dozen steps in, and immediately heard the underbrush whipping to return to its pre-carved state. “Not my first enchanted forest, kid. Good to know it ain’t yours either.”

For the better part of ten minutes, Wren and Seneca continued without speaking, making as little noise as possible as they parsed through the dense foliage. Even as the vines crept towards him, triggering a wariness that wasn’t quite claustrophobia, Wren felt obvious, clumsy, and seen. He could easily have slinked into the shadows of this place, but feared if Seneca lost sight of him. Meanwhile, every so often, when he would look up to the branches above him, Seneca was nowhere to be seen; he would only find her when she would purposefully break a branch off from her path and toss it to the side, or mimic a birdsong in an attempt to draw attention to herself.

“Guess you weren’t kidding about being good at this,” Wren said, something just above a whisper.

He could practically hear Seneca smile. “Like I said, I grew up in woods like these.”

Wren maintained a noisy silence that told the rogue he was expecting her to say more.

“Oh fine. I grew up on a large, uninhabited island some unfathomable miles away from the nearest civilization. The only other people were my mother, father, and an old drakun woman who largely wanted nothing to do with us. Happy?”

“And if I don’t believe that?”

“Feel free to, but that’s the answer I’m giving,” Seneca snarked. “And even if it wasn’t true, I clearly know my shite, so what’s it matter where I grew up?”

“Doesn’t,” Wren said, keeping his head down. “Sorry. Just wanna get to my kids, you know? And… You obviously don’t owe me any information, and I’ll stop prying. But for what it’s worth, you don’t have to be defensive around me. I get the feeling you’ve been dealt pretty shit hands in life; it doesn’t matter anymore. You don’t have a free pass to do whatever you want, but I know how things are. Nothing you could have done in the past matters more than what you want to do in the future.”

The woods went quiet. She couldn’t tell whether it was from the stagnance she allowed into the air, or something more sinister, but it was far too quiet for Seneca. It was like sailing in brackish waters. It was like the moment you start processing a great loss. It was like the calm before the storm.

BOOM!

Rushing in to fill the silence, thunder assailed the pair from on high, the tether from storm cloud to earth invisible, leaving only the deafening sound.

“Quick fucking storm,” Seneca shouted.

“Shit! Can you get above the canopy, Sen?”

“On it!”

Like climbing the rigging of a ship, Seneca deftly swung up the trees until she could finally see the evening light piercing through, and risked going further so that she could get a perfect view of the area. The world was beautiful from this angle, all horizon and bleeding sunset against the dense verdant land, undeterred by a shockingly light stormcloud. Sen basked in it for another thirty seconds, waiting for the second boom. When it came, nearly knocking her off the tip of her evergreen mast, it was again without a visual component, like some god had ripped the lightning away, or deigned only to throw down the shockwave.

She swiftly hopped most of the way back down. “Due north, Cap’n! I can scout ahead!”

Wren couldn’t see Seneca, she was too high up and obscured by the leaves. “I was wrong… This place doesn’t hold a monster… Yet. The others are probably going to come find us.”

Seneca thought about all of her new friends. “No shite.”

“Alright. Then yeah, go find the portal! Don’t shoot at anything you can’t kill,” Wren said quickly, before adding: “And don’t fucking jump in.”

The swashbuckler only laughed “You’ve got it, boss.”

When he heard the branches above him shake as Seneca darts off, Wren sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. As he spun his twin gladii in two tight, rotating circles, cutting down the underbrush for him to move through, he felt the arthritis come around waves. When he took in a deep breath, his chest ached gently upon letting it out. His ability was withering; the woods were growing thicker. His problems grew. His pain grew. His worries grew. And now the damn grass grew.

“These damn kids better be worth their weight in gold.”

~ * ~ * ~

BOOM!

“Another good shot, Eden,” Abel remarked with a smile. “Got another one in you, you think?”

Eden huffed, and allowed Abel to guide him to the side as Elias began to drive the wagon into the clearing. “Shit, uh… No, man, I think I’m tapped. Is that normal?”

The wizard smiled knowingly at his new friend. “Absolutely. Mortal bodies aren’t meant to handle arcana endlessly. It takes great practice and time to even approach entering each Circle, and far more to work in them continuously.”

“Well, you were studying for years! You’ve gotta be pretty damn far, right?”

“Eh. Truthfully, I don’t think I’m much farther than you. In all my experimentation, I have only accessed my third Circle, and only briefly. It is a very long road.”

“Wow…” Eden sighed, looking a little disappointed. “Will it take me that long?”

“I doubt it, Eden. Your power is quite promising.”

“Hey!”

At the beck and call of someone, the casters looked west, where Pax was standing tall on a bench on the back of the cart, gazing out to the sky above the treeline. High up in the crisp blue sky, dense clouds were mingling and clumping together, growing darker and darker by the second. With his keen eyes, Pax could see them form a sort of condensed donut shape, puffy and gray with a hole in the middle. Just like…

“Those weren’t there a second ago, were they?” Kishori asked rhetorically.

“Figure that storm’s coming this way?” Elias asked, very much wanting an answer.

“It’s not a storm,” Eden said, more serious than he ever tended to be.

“Then it’s a sign,” Pax suggested. “See how there’s no other clouds in the sky nearby, just a ring, over the forest?”

His friends all nodded.

“Remind you of anything?”

Eden gasped as the scent he’d been noticing all day invaded his senses, rushing toward him with the first burst of thunder from the west. “When Mars fell!” He could feel the wind taking over his body.

Pax nodded. “Someone else is about to fall. We’ve gotta go.”

Elias looked a little unsure. “You don’t want to stick here? Wren can get him and Seneca out easy enough. They probably aren’t even that deep yet.”

“If it’s anything like Mars-” Pax started.

“We gotta go!” Eden shouted, echoing Pax’s sentiment as he took off sprinting. Before the others could so much as blink, the wind had carried him halfway across the clearing, and Abel hadn’t noticed him gathering arcana.

“Shit, that was fast,” Pax said with a light, nervous chuckle. “I’ll catch up to him, I should be able to bounce above the underbrush! You guys, get all your supplies and meet us when you can! The woods aren’t actually that big, just head straight and hopefully you’ll find us.”

Without bothering to wait for their approval, the hermit bounded off the carriage, did a tight roll on the ground, and pushed hard off the balls of his feet to chase after his friend.

“Keep things safe!” Kishori shouted out to him.

As Pax dove into the thick woods after his more reckless friend, he intended to do just that. All around him, the plants seemed to reach out as if to grab him, to hold and to keep. They weren’t hostile, or even quite otherworldly; he felt as if they were stretching towards whoever stepped in the woods not to touch them, but to let them know the forest knew they were there, and… To keep them safe. Like all things, Pax felt a kinship with the woods.

She is close, the voice in Eden’s mind bellowed softly, warmly. He barreled through the woods at a mile a minute, wind at his back, but not at his command. I have chosen her just as I have chosen you. He couldn’t bound above the underbrush, so he let the brambles poke and prod and stab into him as he ran. She will guide you whenever you desire guidance, if only you listen to the wind. Each step he took towards the center of the wood, Pax following just behind him, the scent poured into his nose clearer and clearer. The gate will be open for just a moment, and she will arrive. You must protect each other, Eden. It is a terrible, powerful world, and without each other, you are alone.

Eden faltered for a second, causing Pax to almost crash into him with his incredible speed, but he kept running. He had not heard the voice many times in his few weeks of waking, but this was the first time it ever uttered his name. It was like proof that he hadn’t been marked by mistake. Proof that he was real, and so was the magic. Proof that even if he felt aimless, something, or someone out there had a plan for him, and cared that he was safe.

“I don’t know who you are, but… I’m coming.”