Her mind was muddy and despite a considerable struggle she could not get her eyes to open. Even worse, she couldn’t quite feel her own body and even the act of breathing almost brought her to the brink of total exhaustion.

Barely conscious she realized that the hit against her head had most likely at least partially paralyzed her. She…had become a cripple…

Her mind reeled as she tried to fight the murky sensation that obstructed her thoughts. She…she was still in a fight... Micha…he… For a moment Ina’s mind recovered from the shock and a chaotic mess of thoughts overwhelmed her feeble consciousness.

She had no way of finding out if Micha was still alive. Heck, was she even alive herself? Could this state as a vegetable truly be considered a life? And what happened to the dryads? Did they think she was dead and had moved on? Would she just starve to death in this forest or would some hungry predator find her defenseless body and end her misery?

Despair overwhelmed her thoughts and she slowly descended back into the murky darkness of exhaustion. Just as she was about to lose consciousness again, she heard faint footsteps and the rustling of dry leaves.

The…dryads? Had they come back to check if she was really dead?

Ina…could help but feel relieved. Dying a quick death through the hand of a dryad was many times better than to die of dehydration or being ripped apart by wild animals. Voices rang out. Suddenly more footsteps rang out from all around her.

“…th…..uman……we ca………”, at first she could not make out what they were saying. But from the high female voices she guessed that it was dryads who were speaking.

Fighting the murky sensation enveloping her mind, Ina once again struggled awake and concentrated on the voices around her.

“Threaie metri’ce thriocate indraes murdik.”, a female voice spoke in a hushed, caution tone. Ina could not understand the language that was being spoken, but she could tell that it was a form of elder speech.

“…Cernui herias thriocties idrea zrokin…”, the reply came from a much deeper, male voice. From the way the man enunciated, it was quite obvious that this elder language was not the speaker’s native language.

Which meant…it was a human. There…. was a human here…

Hope rose in Ina and she relaxed a little. If there was a human here…maybe she would not die after all...

As she relaxed her overstrained mind, exhaustion once again overwhelmed her now lax consciousness and darkness enveloped her mind.

…

“….this girl…I want her.”, Theon said with a patient voice as he looked the impressively built woman in front of him in the eyes. He knew that there was no point in being frustrated with the dryads. They were a headstrong species, easily irritated and hard to placate.

But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be reasoned with.

The dryad leader, a beautiful slender woman with dashing crimson colored hair, narrowed her eyes and stared at the human in front of her. She knew this pesky intruder in their forest and she was well aware that it wouldn’t be worth fighting the mage over a half-dead human girl.

But her pride as Iranae, chieftain of her tribe, did not allow her to back down so easily. At the very least she had to argue for a while to save face. Thus, she lowered her bow and stored her black feathered arrow in a woven quiver on her back.

Lifting her head again she looked in the human’s calm green eyes.

“You have intruded into our territory and yet you have the audacity to make such demands to the very Iranae that you have slighted with our intrusion? Does the arrogance of the Idrean know no bounds?”, the three dryads behind her, their raised bows still pointing at the man face them, supported their leader’s words with vicious stares.

Theon suppressed his urge to grin. Dryads truly never changed, even after all these centuries they still expressed their arrogant dismissal of the human species at any opportunity that they were given. Well, to be fair the same was true for the elves, beastmen and the humans themselves. Every species on the continent was eager to prove their superiority to the others.

Of course, he knew that the Iranae was only arguing for the sake of saving her own face and he didn’t mind playing along.

“Excuse my intrusion. It was not my intent to infuriate you or your kin. But you should understand the desire to protect and preserve one of your own, don’t you?”, he struggled a little with the pronunciation of the dryad language, it wasn’t really something he had had the chance to practice a lot in the past decades and his accent had become quite thick.

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The dryad showed a faint smile and crossed her arms in front of her bountiful chest. Just as most other dryads, her clothes were woven out of various plants and would perfectly disguise her anywhere in the forest. At the same time, it was what the priests in human kingdoms would call…promiscuous.

“If you understand your fault. How can you still ask for the girl? Are you humans really this shameless to make demands even when you are clearly in the wrong?”

“I admit that I intruded into your territory”, Theon replied with a cold smile

“But if you care so much about territory, maybe I should consider doing the same next time you choose to retreat from the humans to the south through my domain?”, his sharp green eyes narrowed even more as he waited for the dryads response.

A displeased frown had wiped the smile of the dryad’s face and she struggled to hide her anger. After a moment’s hesitation, she simply turned around and walked off. The other dryads, not in the least fazed by the short exchange between their chief and the human mage, followed her, but not before one of them lifted her bow and shot an arrow into the thick woods.

A muffled scream rang out and then died down. The human youth that had hidden himself underneath a bush died with an arrow through his neck vertebra.

Theon’s face twitched but he did not act. This was the dryad’s way of showing him who was in control of this part of the forest. Sighing deeply, he got on his knees and picked up the half dead girl.

Then he turned around and left the area.

For a mage, it was not hard to travel through the forest. In fact, he technically didn't have to travel. Opening a portal was easy enough for somebody who had studied the magic arts for over two centuries.

Mumbling an incantation, a shimmering sheet of light appeared in front of him. As he stepped through it, the spell began to collapse and once he had walked through the portal, it simply faded away.

He stepped onto a stone floor. Immediately, the lively forest sounds disappeared, only to be replaced with oppressive silence. The warm afternoon sun shining through the lush foliage of ancient trees was exchanged for the flickering light of torches that lined the cold walls of the hall.

This was his home. Or rather this was his dungeon.

Theon showed a wry smile as he suppressed an indescribable feeling rising up within him. Sighing deeply, he walked towards a lonely golden throne at the end of the hall. His steps echoed through the vast empty hall only to be swallowed by the oppressive silence of the dungeon.

He grimaced and lifted his free hand, shifting the girl in his arms to rest on his shoulder. With a snap of his fingers, he invoked a spell.

Light coming from suddenly materializing chandeliers immediately filled the grand hall, followed by soothing music played by a small orchestra in the corner of the room. The illusion was completely impossible to differentiate from reality and it broke the all-consuming silence of the hall.

But Theon’s frown did not disappear. In the end it was only an illusion. A small trick, that while appearing to be real, could never truly become real.

He was sick of the illusions. He was sick of the intricate golden throne, sick of the endlessly burning torches, even sick of the orchestra that he created every time the loneliness and silence threatened to overwhelm him.

Thinking that he looked at his girl in his arms. The frown on his face disappeared, only to be replaced by concern. He did not have to check to tell that the girl was almost dead. Her left leg was completely shattered, she had lost too much blood and her neck had been broken during her fall.

She was more dead than alive and even the most talented medicii of the continent wouldn’t be able to save her. Luckily, he was not a medicus.

He walked through a door located right behind the illusory golden throne and into a smaller room. There was nothing in the chamber. Nothing, aside from a single red orb floating at the very center of the room. Faint, white light radiated from this orb and flooded it with blinding radiance..

Theon looked at the orb and an unreadable smile appeared on his lips. A strange aura rose up and began to intensify. Terrifying. Raging. Domineering.

The girl in his arms began to tremble, her body reacting to the incredible amounts of power emitted by Theon’s body. He immediately regained his senses and retracted the aura, his brows furrowing.

He mumbled a spell and, behaving as if it was a liquid, the white light began to flow towards the mage. Closing his eyes to concentrate on his task, he manipulated the condensed mana in the form of the light and carefully injected it into the girl’s body.

Strong fluctuations began to disturb the air and the entire room began to vibrate. Theon’s brows furrowed even deeper and he had to kneel down and place the girl’s body on the ground. His body distorted as more energy rushed through him and into the girl.

Taking out some strange items and mysterious materials sealed in tubes of different sizes, the mage began to mix some sort of red pigment with a few shards of translucent stone, that he pulverized with a burst of mana, before adding in a strange viscous black liquid. He made sure that the concoction had properly blended before dipping a small brush into it. After brushing some strands of hair off her forehead, he carefully drew a strange symbol in the form of a circle on her forehead.

Immediately, the pigment dried up and some of the white light rushed into it, lighting it up with an eerie grayish shimmer.

He did not waste time and tore open the girl’s jacket and blouse below, exposing her upper body. She had a nicely shaped figure and good skin, only blemished by a couple of scars that were scattered all over her. The mage did not stare and instead continued to draw a second symbol on the skin right between her breasts. It too, immediately attracted mana and lit up.

Now Theon turned even further down. He gently pulled down her trousers a little, exposing some pale, rosy skin before drawing the third and final symbol onto the skin. Once he lifted his hand with the brush, the third symbol lit up and, invisible to the eyes of anyone who was not learned in the ways of magic, connections formed between the three symbols, allowing mana to flow through them and repair the damaged tissues.

Having completed this final part of the procedure, he stood up, his forehead glazed with sweat. He was clearly tired from the spell he had performed. This body was not capable of controlling and manipulating the vast quantities of mana that his original body possessed and even just healing the girl had taken a great toll on him.

He flicked his fingers, creating an illusionary chair on which he sat down to rest.

Looking over to the girl on the ground, he sighed. The spell he had cast should heal her but only time would tell if it worked. Unfortunately time was one of the few things even the sorcerers and mages could not hope to control.