Felix blinked awake, squinting against the early light that spilled across an unfamiliar sky. The clouds were a murky shade of purple, edging toward gray as they floated lazily by. And that smell—he winced. In the groggy haze between waking and dreaming, he tried to make sense of it all.

He lifted his head, catching a glimpse of his jeans, smeared with streaks of dark mud… and something else. Manure. Felix groaned, pushing himself upright and taking stock of his situation. His hoodie was dotted with flecks of straw and dirt, and a distinctly unpleasant stench hung around him.

“So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?” he muttered to himself, trying to scrape the worst of it off with the edge of his shoe. “Could’ve just dumped me somewhere clean. Or with, I don’t know, a welcome mat?”

Glancing around, Felix noticed he was in what looked like the center of a village. Low, thatched cottages lined the edges of a small square, their windows dark and unwelcoming. The village was waking up slowly, as a handful of people moved along the dirt paths connecting one cottage to another. He noticed a few of them glancing his way, some with mild curiosity, others with open suspicion.

“Well,” he said, dusting himself off as best he could. “Might as well find out where I am. Or… if this is even real.” The idea that this could be a particularly vivid dream flitted through his mind, though something told him this was too sharp, too real, to be anything his imagination could come up with.

A voice startled him from behind. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Felix spun, coming face-to-face with a young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with wiry limbs and freckles dusting his face. The boy’s expression held a mix of amusement and curiosity as he looked Felix up and down, noting the mud-streaked clothes and bewildered expression.

“You could say that,” Felix replied, resisting the urge to ask where exactly “here” was.

The boy grinned. “Follow me. You look like you’ve been through it, and Melara will have something for that.” He tilted his head in a direction that Felix assumed meant “come on,” and turned down one of the winding paths.

Felix followed, taking in the sights of the small, quiet village. They passed clusters of people talking, some exchanging goods at small open-air stalls. As they walked, he noticed villagers lighting oil lamps with the flick of a wrist or sending small gusts of wind to clear dust from surfaces. Magic. It was everywhere—woven into their everyday lives like it was as natural as breathing. Felix watched, half in awe, half in disbelief.

Finally, they reached a modest cottage, covered in a tangled mass of ivy, with smoke curling up from a small stone chimney. The boy knocked on the door, and after a moment, a warm, gravelly voice called, “Enter.”

The door creaked open, revealing a cozy interior filled with shelves upon shelves of dried herbs, jars of powders, and bunches of strange, colorful plants hanging from the ceiling. At the center of it all was a woman with graying hair, her eyes sharp as she took in the sight of Felix standing awkwardly in her doorway.

“Lost, are you?” she asked with a small, knowing smile.

Stolen story; please report.

Felix shifted under her gaze, unsure of what to say. “Yeah… you could say that.”

The woman nodded, gesturing for him to sit by the fire. She handed him a steaming mug that smelled faintly of mint and something sharper, more earthy. Felix took a hesitant sip, feeling the warmth spread through him, calming his nerves just a bit.

“So,” she said, settling into a chair across from him. “What brings you to Tirrow Vale, stranger?”

Felix hesitated, wondering how much to tell her.

Felix shifted on the rough wooden stool, glancing between the mug in his hands and the woman watching him with an expression that was somewhere between curiosity and patience.

He cleared his throat. “Honestly, I’m still trying to figure that out myself. One moment, I was at home, and then I ended up here. Completely… unplanned.”

Melara nodded slowly, as though this were a normal occurrence. “Magic can be unpredictable. Not all who tamper with it understand its consequences,” she said, her eyes studying him carefully. “Have you ever felt the stirrings of mana within you?”

“Mana?” The word felt foreign on his tongue. He didn’t want to admit that his knowledge of magic came mostly from gaming and fantasy novels, but he figured honesty couldn’t hurt. “I mean… I’ve read about it, I guess, but I’ve never… felt it, if that makes sense.”

Melara leaned forward, her gaze sharpening. “Perhaps now would be the time to learn. You carry a faint presence within you, though it’s raw and unshaped.”

She reached into a small wooden chest beside her chair, retrieving a simple pendant—a smooth stone on a cord. “Take this,” she said, handing it to him. “It will help you focus. Magic, or ‘mana,’ as you may call it, is the life current of all things. Those who can feel it can harness it, though it requires training. A steady breath and a clear mind are the first steps.”

Felix took the pendant, its weight solid and grounding in his palm. He wasn’t quite sure he believed everything she was saying, but he couldn’t deny the strange sensations he’d felt since arriving here—the faint warmth pulsing beneath his skin, the odd buzzing at the back of his mind. Maybe, just maybe, there was something to it.

Melara continued, “Close your eyes, take a slow breath, and let yourself relax. Focus on the pendant. Imagine it as a bridge between you and the current within.”

Felix closed his eyes, doing his best to follow her instructions. He inhaled deeply, feeling the air fill his lungs, and then slowly exhaled, trying to let go of the tension knotted in his shoulders. As he did, he focused on the pendant’s cool weight in his hand, its rough texture grounding him.

He waited. At first, there was nothing, just the silence and his own breathing. But then… a faint warmth began to stir, trickling from his chest down to his fingertips—a barely-there sensation, like a low hum vibrating through his bones.

The feeling caught him off guard, and he almost lost his focus, but he steadied himself, keeping his breath even. He focused on the warmth, letting it flow through him like a gentle current. It was faint, flickering like a candle’s flame, but unmistakably real.

A smile tugged at the corners of Melara’s mouth. “There it is,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Felix opened his eyes, blinking as the warmth faded. He looked down at his hands, half-expecting to see some sign of the experience lingering there, but there was nothing—just his fingers curled around the pendant, as ordinary as ever.

“That was… different,” he said, not quite able to put the sensation into words.

Melara nodded approvingly. “You’ve taken your first step. Mana circulation is the foundation of all magic in our world. With time, you’ll grow stronger, more attuned. The Grimoire of Realms, if that’s truly what you hold, will demand that you understand it fully.”

At the mention of the Grimoire, Felix felt a strange flutter in his mind, like the echo of a distant thought. Though he couldn’t explain it, he sensed the book’s presence within him, waiting, as though watching his every move.

“You’ve done well,” Melara continued, standing from her chair. “But this journey won’t be without challenges. Rest here for tonight. Tomorrow, you can meet Oswin—he’s our village rune-keeper. If anyone can help guide you, it will be him.”

Felix nodded, still absorbing everything she’d said. “Thank you. For… all of this.”

Melara inclined her head. “Get some rest. Tomorrow holds much for you to learn.”