Side by side, Riala and I were walking down the dirt path used by the workers on a daily basis. The edge of the woods was about one thousand meters from the wall and a path had been cleared, to go deeper into the forest, with a buffer between the path and the trees on each side.

At first we were running, then jogging, and finally we slowed to a quick walk, while gawking at all the trees around us. Neither of us had ever seen a tree up close. It was a sight to behold and we had to raise our heads to see the treetops, some of them dozens of meters from the ground.

As we made our way further east into the woods, side-paths led up north and down south in regular intervals, seemingly splitting the forest into rectangular areas. “Why don’t they just start at the edge and gradually make their way deeper down?” I wondered to myself. Surrounding yourself with trees like this seemed risky.

‘If trees produce beasts, maybe there’s a minimum requirement, and splitting them up like this gives the workers a larger buffer. Otherwise they would always be working right at the edge.’

“Hm, maybe,” I responded without thinking about it.

“Huh?” Riala said, visibly confused about my random words.

I should probably get this over with.

“Right... Listen, there’s something I haven’t told you yet. I can talk to my Calling.”

Riala tilted her head and looked at me with curiosity. Either she didn’t understand the implication or she didn’t care. “Can I talk to it too?”

“He can hear you, but I’m the only one who can hear him.”

“What did he say?” she asked.

I forwarded Miles’ theory to her. We hadn’t seen a single beast yet, so he might very well be right, but we still had to be careful, because we didn’t know how many beasts we were supposed to encounter in the middle of the day.

Riala looked up at me, thinking about something, when she suddenly waved at me “Hello, Tomar’s Calling!”

I chuckled. “His name is ‘Miles.’ He says ‘Hi.’ I just wanted to explain it to you, in case I ever say something out of nowhere or if it seems like I’m talking to myself.”

“Okay!” she said, contently.

‘That was easy.’

Yup. Life is so much easier to accept when you’re younger, I thought.

“Can I touch a tree?” Riala said, the topic seemingly already gone from her mind. I wanted us to keep moving for the moment, however.

“Let’s do that later. I want to test something myself, but we have to get further away from the town first.”

Since Riala didn’t seem to have a problem traveling with a crazy person who is talking to himself, I decided to bring up the god to Miles.

“What do you think was up with that god?” I said.

“Dunno,” Riala said after looking up at me.

“The question was meant for Miles,” I said with an awkward smile. “Hm... How about this, when I’m talking to Miles I’ll put a finger to my head, okay?”

“Okay!” she said and kept walking.

It can’t be normal how easily she’s accepting this...

‘It’s hard to tell,’ Miles said. ‘She was too much talk and no action. I was expecting more resistance from a “god.” She didn’t want us to leave, but I don’t think she would’ve actually helped us.’

“Hmhm, I’m thinking the same thing,” I said with a finger to my head. “The way her presence didn’t affect us... Do you think it was the mana?”

‘Since Riala wasn’t affected either, that’s a reasonable assumption.’

The white light hadn’t looked like the mana we were exuding, but maybe that’s what it would look like if you had a godly amount of it.

“When I first told you about gods, you said you didn’t believe in them. What do you think now?”

‘Let me answer that with a question. Originally, you told me these gods had a presence that would make their power obvious to anyone around them. But this one didn’t affect us at all. Do you think she was an omnipotent being?’

I had to admit, the question had crossed my mind as well. People worshiped them, and the priests told wondrous stories about the gods’ many acts of kindness towards us “lowly mortals,” but this encounter felt strange. She didn’t do anything, we didn’t feel her godly presence, and she got flustered by Miles.

“I think I’ll wait until I see another one to decide that,” I said.

‘Heh, spoken like a true Researcher.’

After walking and talking for about twenty minutes, we couldn’t see the town’s walls anymore and took a turn to head south. The workers had done a good job clearing paths to walk on. I had expected to already be trudging through dense forests by this point, always on edge about beasts. However, just ten minutes later we did reach a dead end.

“This is it...” I said, slightly worried. I double checked the scripts on mine and Rialas hands. “If you see anything, you tell me. And if a beast comes close to you, you use that script, got it?”

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She was clearly picking up on my worriedness, as she looked a little scared herself now. “Will we be okay?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, feinting confidence. “With these scripts we are more of a danger to the beasts than they are to us.”

At least I dearly hope so...

Riala nodded, and with that, we took our first steps into the thicket.

***

“Welcome back, sister,” a glowing white light said to another, smaller one, amidst a vast nothingness.

“Thank you,” the other light said.

“You’re not even going to deny it?”

“I have no reason, brother. I'm right, and if the council still doesn’t see that, then so be it.”

“Why are you so obsessed? It’s just a human.”

“Did you not even listen? It’s two! And not only did they awaken, they’re using it! Now they even left their town! Please, brother, explain to me why I’m the only one who’s worried here!”

“Because they’re just humans. They’re going to die, and soon. Your own fate on the other hand is uncertain. The council is waiting for you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very much so. I’m here to escort you.”

The two lights started to disappear into the air.

“Mark my words, brother, these two humans mean trouble for all of us,” the smaller light said before they were both gone.

***

As the sun disappeared behind the horizon and night fell over Alarna, shadows started to sneak through the town. Ignoring the citizens that were making their way home, the shadows moved towards a specific destination, the eastern gate.

Meanwhile, after an eventful day, the two guards stationed at the gate were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the night shift, so they could finally make their way home.

“I still don’t understand why they went outside, that’s a death sentence,” one guard said.

“Maybe they were going to be executed. And they just wanted to see the Wildlands one time in their lives!” the other said, mockingly, with a longing expression on his face.

“Haha, I would prefer dying with a noose around my neck instead of getting ripped apart and devoured by beasts.”

“Oh well, to each their own. I’m just glad we got the gate closed before anything tried getting in.”

That’s when two shadows appeared from behind the house closest to the gate. The eyes of the guards went wide upon noticing them and they immediately took up battle stances. From atop the wall, a bell started ringing. When reinforcements arrived just minutes later, the shadows were nowhere to be seen and the town gate stood wide open, with the two guards lying in pools of their own blood.

***

As it started getting dark, traveling had become difficult amidst the dense trees that let very little moonlight shine through. We had found a clearing in the middle of the forest, up against a small cliff face, where we decided to make camp.

The first few minutes inside the actual forest had been terrifying. The tiniest noises had me on edge, even if we caused them ourselves. I was constantly looking in all directions, to make sure we were safe, but after a while I relaxed just a little bit. By all appearances, we were alone. The only thing we saw was a bunny, which quickly ran away when we approached, making the excited Riala pout. When absolutely nothing happened, she started touching every other tree for a while, amazed by them just standing around like this. Admittedly, I was fascinated as well. If people could just go into the forest to get themselves a tree, we wouldn’t have to pay for firewood anymore. The proof of concept was the free campfire in front of us now.

After a small “dinner” of bread and dry meat, I was sitting at the fire, with Riala lying by my side. We had been running and walking the entire afternoon and even though I had carried her part of the way, she was exhausted and already dozing off. I was getting tired as well, but it was difficult to surrender to sleep.

‘You do need to rest.’

“I know... But what if something happens in those few minutes until you take over?”

Without shelter, the only idea we had about staying safe was to never truly rest. Or rather, to have Miles take the night shift. The delay worried me, however. I figured we were both thinking about the possibility of me just giving full control over to him, but neither of us spoke of it. I was nervous enough about the whole situation anyway, and we didn’t know what would happen to me if we did that.

‘It’s too bad we don’t have earth magic,’ Miles said with a chuckle.

“What’s that?”

‘I guess I haven’t mentioned this yet. In my world we have stories about something that is similar to scripts, called “magic.” What we are doing with the blue stones could be called water magic. And if we were able to manipulate earth, we could possibly make ourselves a makeshift shelter.’

“Hm... but we’re not manipulating the water, right? We’re just producing it. Wouldn’t earth magic just be like shoveling dirt then?”

‘Heh, I guess. Unless there’s more to the scripts that we don’t know about yet.’

Miles was a step ahead of me. While I had been entirely focused on this one script we had been working with, he was considering what lay beyond. Other scripts, other applications, maybe entirely different effects. I didn’t see a way to move forward yet, not without another divine instrument to study, but his idea sounded very interesting. As I thought about this, I finally succumbed to my sleepiness and nodded off.

***

Tomar had fallen asleep and I took full control over his body for the first time since the other night. Riala was sleeping soundly as well and with a careful look around I confirmed that we were still alone.

After about six hours in the Wildlands we had yet to see a beast. False advertising? I thought, but maybe there were other explanations. When I had talked to Tomar about the beast that attacked me and Riala, he was just as surprised about its unusual behavior as me. For one, it didn’t attack us at first. It appeared more interested in watching us than in doing a taste test. Especially when it spoke, and told us that we were “smelling funny.” Tomar had never heard of beasts being able to talk or about them watching people. What made this even more mysterious, was that the beast’s behavior couldn’t be explained by our mana, as it had happened before the cube exploded.

I thought back to the “god,” who had been able to hear me. That certainly seemed like a godly ability, but what if the beasts could hear or feel me as well? Maybe they could smell it? The two beasts I had seen looked kind of wolf-like, and dogs are said to have remarkable noses. It seemed possible. The thought that we might actually be surrounded by beasts right now, who were curiously sniffing at us from a distance was kind of disturbing in its own right, however.

I looked at the trees at the edge of the clearing where we had tested some scripts earlier. Depending on the unevenness of the bark, writing scripts on trees was a challenge, and we had more failures than successes, but we did manage to draw water from some of them. It wasn’t nearly as much as from a water source or ourselves, but more than enough to use as drinking water. Not to mention that we were surrounded by trees. Using them as weapons would prove tricky, however. The output wasn’t high enough to produce a water stream like the second one we had used on a beast.

Ideally, we would be able to do more with the water than just blast it out with varying degrees of force and volume, but as much as I wanted this to be a magical fantasy world, where we would fling spells left and right, the Omega scripts were too simple, too one-dimensional. An input and an output. An out... and an in?