Amara hurriedly made her way home, hoping to arrive before the sun completely vanished and the dark of night crept over. The chilly pricked her skin like tiny needles. To remedy this issue, she began to recite one of the spells on Arinthea’s scroll, a simple alteration spell that could ignite flammable objects. She picked up a handful of sticks and traced a sigil. After three tries, she managed to get a spark and set the sticks ablaze.

The makeshift torch did wonders to ease the cold and made it easier for her to see ahead. As she looked ahead she saw some kids running in her direction and a strange silhouette behind them.

Of course a monster strikes when Marquis is out of town, Amara thought to herself.

Amara picked up a rock and dashed toward the kids. As she drew closer to the silhouette, the torch illuminated its small, lupine frame that was coated in haphazardly placed scales with a twitching stinger in place of a tail. The monster sauntered after the kids, slowly getting closer and closer.

Amara ran off to the side and threw her rock at the monster, hoping to grab its attention. The rock flew through the air briefly before colliding with the monster's skull. The monster grunted and glanced at Amara. The monster then turned its body to face her and started slowly creeping forward. She could feel her heart beating faster than before, but at least the monster’s attention was on her and not the fleeing kids.

Amara suppressed her fear and slowly approached the monster, waving her torch in front of it. The monster in turn raised its stinger and crouched slightly. The monster lunged at Amara and attempted to plunge its stinger into her neck. Amara hastily created a red disk to block its attack, the stinger punctured the disk before getting lodged in the disk.

Amara took the time to immediately back up and began to think of a spell that could let her win. The monster broke free of the disk and charged Amara, Amara conjured another red disk right in front of the monster's nose. The monster collided with the disk and recoiled with a startled yelp. Seizing a lapse in the monster’s awareness, Amara charged and reached out with her right hand. She grabbed the monster by the head and a sigil emerged on its fur, orange sparks began to fly and the monster's head was set ablaze in a burst of brilliant orange light. As the monster shrieked, Amara allowed a weak smile to form across her face. She might have a chance at winning.

However, her confidence was shattered when she felt a massive shot of pain in her right hand. She heard a loud crack as her bones snapped in the monster's jaw. Amara grimaced and her face tightened as she frantically punched and kicked at the monster, trying to free her hand. After a few strong blows to the stomach, Amara pulled her hand free from the monster’s jaws. The monster turned around and sprinted off into the forest and Amara began swatting her tunic with her intact left hand to put out the fires.

After the fire was gone, Amara ripped off a piece of her tunic to use as a bandage. She wrapped the fabric around her bloody hand while biting down on a stick. Her breathing became far more rapid and shallower as she tore off more pieces of her tunic. The brown cloth quickly turned red as she wrapped it around her hand. As Amara continued to wrap cloth around her hand, she noticed two more of the same lupine monsters that bit her hand approach.

Amara immediately stood up and conjured two red disks in front of the monsters, hoping to scare them off. The monsters stepped back before crawling forwards. Amara immediately grabbed a large stick and ignited it while slowly backing away toward Stonehaven.

Right before the monsters lunged at Amara, a streak of purple lightning whizzed by, incinerating the two monsters and illuminating the night sky. Amara looked in the direction of the lightning to see a hooded figure step out from the forest.

“Are you alright, you didn’t get caught in that attack, did you,” the mage paused briefly “...Amara?”

“My hand is broken. And how did you know my name?” Amara said while clenching her teeth.

“Simple divination can be very insightful, and allow me to tend to your hand,” the mage continued. The mage then walked towards Amara with their hands extended. Amara raised her flaming stick in the mage’s direction.

“Who are you?” Amara asked while backing away to keep her distance.

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“I am merely a mage who lives nearby. Now are you going to let yourself bleed to death?” the mage asked. Amara hesitated before lowering her stick and allowing the mage to examine her hand.

The mage unwrapped the cloth on Amara’s broken hand and muttered a few words before a green sigil appeared. Amara’s hand suddenly began to pull itself back together, with the bones fusing back together and the skin repairing itself. In about a minute, her hand appeared as good as new.

“Now that your hand is better, I must congratulate you on your stellar use of magic. Casting an arcane spell that fast is rather impressive given your age. How long have you been practicing that spell?” the mage said.

“I learned it a few hours ago, and didn’t you just obliterate those monsters with a single spell and heal my hand?” Amara asked.

“It only took you a few hours to learn how to cast a spell in seconds and bypass your opponent’s magic resistance, impressive,” the mage continued.

“Magic resistance?”

“You don’t know what magic resistance is, you must be new to the study of magic,”

“I just started lessons two weeks ago, why are you so interested?”

“Just two weeks ago? You must be very talented indeed,”

“Thank you, but I have to ask what you are doing here?”

“As I said I live nearby, I was hunting some monsters for alchemy and you face those monsters and decided to intervene,”

“So you were just wandering around in a monster-infested forest?”

“Yes, though there can be some mildly formidable beast here, the rewards are worth it. Now why would a novice mage such as yourself be out here, even if you are talented?”

“I live close by,”

“I figured so, now I must apologize for arriving late, had I been here just a bit sooner I could have prevented you from getting in this mess to begin with. How about I give you a few lessons on magic as an apology?”

“What?”

“You heard me, I want to teach you some magic. I didn’t help you soon enough, and you have the talent for it. Also, us mages must adopt an apprentice once we accumulate enough magical knowledge, it is an unwritten law of this land,”

“You aren’t going to charge me?”

“Why would I charge my new apprentice?”

Amara gave the mage a puzzled look. Although she was tempted by the idea of learning more magic, she found the offer a bit convenient.

“How about this, I will teach you free of charge for a week, and if you still find the lessons useful, I will keep teaching you. However, if you find the lessons useless, I will vanish never to be seen again,”

“I will have to think about that,”

“Great, now let’s start your first lesson”

“I didn’t even say yes! And it’s late in the evening, what would you teach me?”

“How to find your way home of course,”

“But I already know how to get home,”

“Yes, which will make this a good way for you to practice some basic divination magic. This night, you will get home relying solely on divination magic,”

“How do I do that?”

“First, envision your home, then copy the sigil I am making with your home in mind,” The mage began tracing a sigil in the air, and a glowing white sigil emerged. Amara began to think of her home, with the cool breeze and bread with cheese. She then followed suit and created her own sigil. However, it began to shake just after she created it.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“I should have been clearer, you need to think of your home as a concrete location. You’ll need a more advanced spell to use an abstract idea as a location,”

Amara began to refine the image of her home, thinking of it as along the Sapphire River and along the outskirts. Slowly her sigil became more and more stable until it froze before morphing into a white arrow.

“Good, you’re doing it right, now follow the arrow and it will lead you home. Now let’s meet here again tomorrow at this time,”

Amara then followed the arrow home. Although she already knew the way back home, she found it peculiar how the arrow spun around when she talked through the woods. After about five minutes of following the arrow, she arrived home and went straight to bed.