My tower was a welcome sight as I flew towards it. I hadn’t come directly home, but instead had flown in several circles and changed my wardrobe midair. It wasn’t my finest moment to do so, even hidden inside a cloud, and the lack of propriety had left my cheeks burning with shame. Still, I feared something from that horrid jungle country might be able to track me by scent alone, and had an air elemental carry my travel robe all the way to the western mountains.

I had made a quick stop in Eiston along the way to inform the Duchess what I had seen, not that I expected her to be able to defend against such threats. She did seem to accept my warnings with the due diligence of a good leader, though she proposed that I marry her daughter for some reason I couldn’t fathom. It made for an awkward end to that conversation, but I hoped that I convinced her of better opportunities elsewhere well enough.

The travel also gave me plenty of time to consider a new authority, and I thought deeply regarding all the options that might be available to me. I had only been at the third tier of necromancy and nature magic when I merged them into my Elementalist class, so I feared I wouldn’t be able to learn the intricacies of the advanced spells in those fields quickly enough to combat any of the threats I had seen. I wasn’t certain they would be worthwhile, even at the height of the fifth tier. The giants of root and vine I had seen combating the Pestilence seemed a good representation of the height of nature magic, and they would most assuredly have fallen to the broodmother.

I yearned for the lost knowledge of spellcraft related to space or time, yet beyond simple spells in those fields, I had even less of a foundation there than I did with necromancy and nature magic. I had studied enough space magic to create my own bags of holding, but when I had considered using similar magics to increase the inside of my tower, I found the intricacies for those enchantments to hold complexities beyond what I imagined. The spellwork to expand a simple room’s size would take several years of constructing the enchantment. Time magic wasn’t even a real consideration. There were no spells that I knew of in the field, only written hypotheses concerning the potential. It would make my experiments infinitely easier if I could quicken the rate time affected them, but again I didn’t know if there was anything in either field that could help against the monsters I had seen. I certainly suspected there was, but it was too important to risk my limited chances.

Likewise, I knew much more about defending against charm and mind magics than I did about using them. Certainly, mind magic had an excellent appeal. If the circumstances were different, I could imagine using either to plunder the knowledge of other magics from other mages with great enthusiasm. I was tempted to choose mind magics anyway because of its potential to allow me to learn spellcraft from others. Only the knowledge that there was still a third Authority I could choose later stayed the decision. That and I knew where my strengths were.

I was an Elementalist first before I became a wizard. I could be more, I knew I could be much more, but elemental spells were what I was comfortable with. I dismissed wind magic first. While it was the key to my Tempest spell and held great possibilities in regards to combining it with other magics, I didn’t consider it ideal for attacking such monstrous beasts. Likewise, water would be an excellent field for many foes, but the way the Pestilence looked when I saw them infesting the ocean made me pass on this option as well.

I had narrowed down my choices to fire or lightning. Both fields contained enormous offensive spellcraft, many of which I was already familiar with. The more advanced spells would be quicker for me to understand and use. Of the two options, I favored fire. Fire could burn away the Pestilence in great waves and I felt it would be the best suited to combat the monsters’ innate regeneration. Yet I didn’t choose it for a very simple reason: there were already several fifth-tier Pyromancers. I knew that given time, I could raid their towers and take their knowledge for myself. Why would I use the opportunity that the doors of knowledge within an Authority granted me on something I could gain another way?

No, it made much more sense to choose lightning. So, as I landed on the rooftop of my tower, startling my guards when I dropped my invisibility, I headed directly towards my laboratory. It was near midnight and most of my staff would be asleep. I longed to sleep in my bed as well and to eat a freshly cooked meal instead of travel rations, but I knew my time was limited.

I passed by a startled Pyl, the necromancer pacing my library with a tome in hand. I ignored the cracked door on the next floor down where my two assistants were busy in the same room. I passed an empty first floor, where someone had decorated the two statues with garlands of woven flowers. The kitchen was dark and quiet. My goal was to gather supplies in my laboratory to summon a lightning elemental.

I was mostly confident I could find the corridor of magic for the Authority on my own now, after my earth elemental had led me to the earth one. That didn’t mean I wanted to risk wasting time if my confidence was misplaced. There was too much at risk to become overconfident.

Yet, despite the determination I felt in my goal, and the seriousness I carried myself with, I could only come to a halt as I came across the unexpected.

When I had last departed my laboratory, I had left the remains of the mushroom man atop a cloth-covered wooden board, its body cut open and held that way with four long, thin metal pins. The tome I had recorded the details of its innards was left open on an illustration I made detailing what I'd found inside. I had planned to revisit it after the body had dried a bit to continue to record how time affects the corpse.

On that very table, in the very place I had expected the project to be, I saw something else instead: four mushroom men. All four were standing and very much alive. Each one wore a bit of the cloth that had once covered the board around their bodies like a robe. In their… well, they weren’t hands, but the things at the end of their arms were almost hands, they each held one of the pins in the same manner that I carried my magic staff. Even more startling, one of those little mushroom men was pointing and gesturing towards the illustration I had detailed in the book while the other three nodded as if in understanding.

I cocked my head to the side, as my mind worked to take in the unexpected. It wasn’t long, though, before the four noticed me, and they all hustled to stand headcap to headcap in a line on the table facing me. As one, they lifted their pin-staffs and pointed them in my direction. They held them like that for a long moment, and I wasn’t certain if they were imitating me casting a spell. I fine-tuned my wards so that the wards wouldn’t kill them in response in case they were, but I never looked away.

The standoff between us was only a moment before the mushroom man on the right swung its pin down and to the side as it bowed. The next one followed, and then the two after that as well. I may have forgotten to close my mouth in surprise for a moment, but they held their bowed positions as if waiting for my response. Uncertain how I should respond, as they didn’t speak and I wasn’t certain they could understand me if I did, I clapped instead.

Clapping, as one might or might not know—I certainly didn’t before now—is the correct method to respond to mushroom men’s bows. They rose and began to gesture towards me with their arms in a manner that felt like it would go well with speech, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what they meant.

Instead, I pulled the wooden board from where it rested beside them on the table and held it before them. They were hesitant at first, but they climbed onto it after a short silent discussion. Slowly, so they didn't slide off, I carried them down to return them to the dungeon. I wasn’t certain the impact such a change would have on their people, but I would ensure that my assistant Phillipe monitored them tomorrow to record any changes.

When I returned to my laboratory, I could only chuckle and shake my head as I gathered the ingredients necessary to summon a lightning elemental. It was as I held those ingredients in my hand, I felt a sense of relief. The stress and fear of my trip south had rattled me more than I had realized, and I knew that I shouldn’t be summoning any elemental or assuming any new Authority without resting first. With a pleasant resignation, I took myself to my room to sleep.

I would assume the Authority for lightning tomorrow.