Damien shook his surprise off as Henry retreated back into the depths of his mind. Sylph gave him a curious glance, but he just shrugged with a slight smile.

“Let’s get this over with. It would suck to decide to do this, only to find out we missed the window by a few minutes,” Damien said.

“Right. Let’s gather what we need just in case we need to leave immediately,” Sylph suggested. She paused for a moment. “And let me know if you need a quick escape from the quest. I’ll find a distraction.”

“Thank you,” Damien said, their eyes meeting for an instant before they both glanced away. He grabbed his travel pack off the ground and took his toothbrush and soap from the bathroom, tossing them into it. He took a small flask of water and emptied it onto the ground before turning the shower on and filling it with healing water.

Sylph gathered her own meagre belongings and the two of them headed out of their room. They walked down the mountain and through the town, arriving at the treasure pavilion after several minutes of travel.

The guards at the buildings entrance stood to the side as they entered. Auntie glanced up, her graying hair falling down over her oversized spectacles. The short woman brushed her hair away and hopped out of her chair.

She adjusted her glasses and squinted at them. “The two of you here for the special quest?”

“We are,” Damien said.

“I see,” Auntie said. “Come with me. Jake, watch my desk.”

One of the guards nodded to her. Auntie flicked her hand and the massive golden door behind her swung open soundlessly, revealing a long stone hallway lit with small orbs of light caged within metal lanterns.

She led them into the hallway and one of the guards closed the door behind them. Damien and Sylph exchanged a glance, but Auntie was moving fast enough that they didn’t have time to dally.

Auntie took them past several heavily reinforced doors in the walls, not stopping for an instant. After several minutes of walking, she abruptly came to a stop before a plain metal door. She pressed a hand against it and the door let out a creak as she pushed it wide.

“There’s a portal in this room,” Auntie said, a small frown crossing her features. “It’s already set to take you to the right location. The rest of the team is there already, but I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”

“Thank you,” Damien said. Sylph repeated his words and the two of them stepped past the woman and into the room. A small arc sat in the center of the stone room, dark energy twirling faintly in its center.

“Take care, kids,” Auntie said, making eye contact with them. “Don’t get hurt doing something stupid.”

She slammed the door closed before either of them could respond.

“Well, that isn’t ominous at all,” Damien muttered. He glanced back at the portal behind them. “Shall we?”

Sylph nodded. The two of them walked forward and stepped into the churning energy. The world twisted and wobbled around Damien. Darkness rushed forward and enveloped his vision.

Damien’s skin prickled as his body was plunged into what felt like ice cold water. He gasped and the liquid rushed into his mouth and filled his lungs. His stiffened limbs failed to respond to his desperate attempts to struggle and his mind went blank.

Something tickled Damien’s cheek. His body felt heavier than ever before. His nose twitched and he slowly opened his eyes. Warm sun beat down on him, illuminating the grassy field surrounding him in golden light.

Damien laid on his back. His travel pack had fallen several feet off to his side, and Sylph was draped across his chest like a human shaped blanket. Her head slowly rose as she shook off the confusion.

“Sorry about that,” a male voice said from behind Damien. A hairy hand passed over his vision. Sylph reached out and took it. The person pulled Sylph to her feet, then gave Damien the same offer.

He grabbed the man’s hand. The world shifted around him as he was effortlessly lifted into the air and plopped down on his feet. A large man with a dense beard and heavy metal plate armor that covered his entire body gave Damien a wide grin. He brushed some grass off the boy’s shoulder.

“The two of you are probably feeling a little disoriented. Sorry about that – the long range portal technology isn’t the most fun, but it’s the best method for traveling long distances. It’ll wear off soon enough.”

Damien and Sylph both nodded. Damien’s mind was still spinning, and his full train of thought had yet to return to him. He rubbed his forehead and grabbed his travel pack from the ground before slinging it back over his shoulder.

“I’m Gavel,” the man said. “The rest of the team is waiting in the village just over the hill. The spell isn’t perfectly exact, so we try to send you into the grass somewhere instead of plopping you through some poor sod’s roof in the village.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Damien said. His lips felt thick and his words were fuzzy, but at least his brain had started to chug along again.

Gavel chuckled and started walking across the field. Damien and Sylph followed after him. They reached the top of the hill a few minutes later. A village rested in a small valley below them. It was on the smaller side, with only two dozen houses of varying size. Almost all of them were one story, aside from a large building in the center that looked to be two.

From what Damien could tell, all the buildings were wood. The town was empty aside from three people who stood around a well and a few animals grazing in pastures.

The three of them headed down the sloping hillside. When they reached the bottom, Gavel made a beeline for the group – which consisted of two women and a man. All of them wore light armor. They turned to watch as the three of them approached.

“Ah. The two of you would be the students that Whisp talked about, then?” A woman with long dark hair asked, waving to them.

“That’s probably a safe guess,” the man beside her said. “How was the teleportation?”

“Not fun,” Damien said. A lot of the fuzz had left his mind, but he still felt a bit sluggish. “Is Dean Whisp going to be here as well?”

“She’s already on the job,” the second woman said. She had long blonde hair with dark streaks running through it. The woman adjusted her leather armor and rolled her eyes. “She’s trying to find the monster without us. Like a single person could find them.”

“Dean Happenstance could have,” the first woman said.

“Happenstance is still somewhere in the Barren,” Gavel said. “We’re on our own for this mission. How about you all introduce yourselves?”

“Shoot, sorry. I’m Tenbi,” the dark haired woman said. “The woman beside me is Yaga.”

The blonde woman raised her hand in greeting.

“And I’m Volt,” the man said, giving them a wide grin.

“I’m Damien, and this is Sylph.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet both of you. You must be quite the students if Whisp invited you along,” Tenbi said. “We don’t usually get tagalongs.”

“I’m not entirely sure why she invited us, to be honest,” Damien said, hiding a frown. “What exactly are we supposed to do against a powerful monster?”

“Find it,” Gavel said, putting a hand on Damien and Sylph’s shoulders. “This is strictly a recon mission for the two of you. You will not be engaging the monster. In fact, you should avoid even interacting with it. All you have to do is help us figure out where it is.”

“Why do you need students for that?” Sylph asked curiously.

Volt curled his lip in disgust. “Because the damn thing is hunting younger magic users. We don’t know why, but it’s a master at hiding. We can’t find it on our own. Our best efforts have led to nothing. If the two of you go into an area where it’s active, you can lure it out. We’ll be only a short distance away, and all you’ll have to do is notify us the moment you find it.”

“How do we do that?” Damien asked.

“Slow down, bud,” Tenbi said, giving them a smile. “We aren’t all like Whisp. You and your friend need to take a little bit to readjust and relax after the teleportation. We’ll fill you in after dinner, okay?”

“We’re paying,” Gavel added, guiding Damien and Sylph towards the village without waiting for a response from them. The roommates exchanged a baffled glance but said nothing as they were herded into one of the larger buildings with a small pillar of smoke rising up from its chimney.

A table had already been set with half a dozen plates of food. The smell of rich grease tickled Damien’s nostrils and he had to keep himself from drooling. The food looked delicious. It wasn’t quite as fancy looking as the food in the mess hall, but Damien suddenly realized that the teleportation had left him famished.

He and Sylph shot over to the table and pulled out wooden stools next to each other, pulling food over and chowing down eagerly on it. The four older mages chuckled and sat down beside them.

After a few minutes of stuffing his face, Damien rocked back with a relieved sigh. He wiped the grease from his face with a napkin and sunk down a little in his chair. Sylph looked a little more dignified when she finished, but only slightly.

“Good?” Gavel asked.

“Very,” Damien said. Sylph nodded in agreement.

“Glad to hear,” Gavel said. “I’m not much of a chef, but I’ve picked up a few things. Now, are the two of you thinking a little more clearly?”

“Yes,” Sylph said. Damien voiced his assent as well. The cobwebs had almost entirely been brushed out of his mind, although a bit of the haze still remained.

“Good,” Gavel said, rubbing his hands together. “Now we can start the boring stuff. This mission is classified as secret. That means the two of you must not speak about anything that happens during it to anyone. Is that understood?”

They nodded.

“Our goal will be to locate a monster, or group of monsters. We aren’t sure yet. They’ll be referred to as Targets just in case any of us slip up in public and say something aloud. Our goal is to locate the Target or Targets, and then kill them at any cost. The two of you will simply be seeking them out.”

“By acting as bait?” Damien asked.

“That’s an ugly term,” Tenbi said. “Maybe scouts would be more appropriate.”

“Scouts, then,” Damien said, sitting straighter in his chair. “How are we supposed to hold off a dangerous mon – a Target?”

“So far, it’s only gone after untrained mages,” Gavel said. “The two of you are near the top of your class. You should be able to hold it off for a few seconds, which is all the time we’ll need to get to you.”

“Does it have some way to detect how much magic we have?” Sylph asked. “How would it know if it was attacking a trained mage or a kid?”

“There’s a possibility it has high intelligence,” Gavel said, shifting uncomfortably. “We aren’t certain how it determines who to attack. That being said, we can’t wait around and hope we get lucky. It’s already killed or kidnapped over fifteen kids.”

“So we wander around in its territory and hope it attacks us,” Damien said. “Then what happens when it does? How do we contact you?”

“That’s where I come in,” Yaga said. Her voice was a harsh whisper that grated on Damien’s ears. She gave him a sharp-featured smile. “My magic allows me to listen and view things from a distance. In order to make it easier on my magic, you’ll have a keyword to say that I’ll be listening for. The moment you say it, I’ll locate you.”

“And then I’ll teleport the team right on top of your position,” Volt said, giving them a cocky grin. “As long as you’re within a thousand miles – which you will be – I can be there within moments.”

“Seriously?” Damien asked, his eyes widening. “That’s amazing.”

“Don’t feed his ego, please,” Gavel said. “It’s big enough already. But, when we arrive, the two of you will retreat immediately. We’ll take on the Target and kill it, then find you afterwards. You will not engage it under any circumstance. We don’t want to turn fifteen casualties into seventeen.”

“Don’t annoy the scary thing,” Damien said. “Got it. But how do we even start looking?”

“We’ve found that the Target seems to follow a circular pattern,” Tenbi said. “It goes in rings around several large cities, preying on anyone in the fields after night. It seems to strike methodically. Judging by it’s previous attacks, it should actually be attacking a city about fifty miles to the north of here within the next few days.”

“So we wander around the outskirts of the city and hope it goes after us?” Sylph asked.

“Yep,” Volt said.

“What if it doesn’t?” Damien asked. “It could go after another kid instead.”

“Then the count goes up to sixteen,” Yaga replied. “And then we go to the next town and try again. We’ve already spent several weeks trying to hunt this creature, but it’s evaded us every single time. We’re out of options – hence why we’re asking children to do our fighting for us.”

“Well, if we can help, we’ll do it,” Sylph said. “What’s the keyword?”

“Pickles,” Yaga replied. “You’re not going to be talking about them normally, but it’ll be easy to remember.”

“And Yaga has a horrible sense of humor,” Tenbi said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, I think we can remember that,” Damien said, rolling his neck. “When do we start? And what about Dean Whisp?”

“Immediately after we give you supplies,” Gavel said. “And Whisp is going to lock down the area so that the monster can’t escape us. The moment it shows its ugly face and Volt teleports us, she’ll stop all the spatial magic in the area. There’s a good chance it’ll try to run when we show up, and we can’t have that happening.”

“That makes sense,” Sylph said. “What are the supplies?”

Gavel rose to his feet and walked over to a large backpack on the ground at the far side of the room. He picked it up and tossed it to Sylph.

“It’s got rations, two bedrolls, a tent, some fire starters, bandages, and even two basic healing potions. You shouldn’t have to use any of the healing supplies, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. We don’t have a dedicated healer on the team – but that shouldn’t matter for you. Just make sure you don’t engage the Target.”

Damien and Sylph nodded. Damien felt fear and excitement knotting in his stomach. Henry had been silent the entire time they’d been here, but that made sense if Whisp was in the area.

“Come on then,” Gavel said, giving them both a grim smile. “Let’s go kill our Target.”