As Sophie led Acacia back to the shrine, she realized she had gone quite a bit further down the path than she expected while lighting the markers. She felt a little bad for leaving Elowen for longer than she intended, but they were heading back now anyway.

A light breeze rustled through the trees, and Sophie could hear the sounds of small animals scuttling around in the foliage along the path, but she didn’t see any sign of the little dragon creature from earlier. She had seen it several times now, and she was sure it would be friendly if she could just get it used to her. She had always wanted a cat, after all, and even though she had never had the time to dedicate to getting one back in Seattle, having a cute, little, stray dragon creature seemed way cooler –

“It’s quite a walk, isn’t it?” Acacia noted, interrupting Sophie’s musings, as they strolled along the path.

Sophie shrugged. “It’s not so bad when you get used to it.” She felt like she could enjoy it, especially on a nice day, like today. It was a huge improvement on walking through the crowded streets in downtown Seattle when everyone all got off work at the same time. It hadn’t been that long since her last commute, but the memory already felt sort of distant and hazy…

“It’s the dark that’s the real problem,” she continued, frowning to herself at the combination of worrying thoughts. “That’s why I was out here today, actually. I’ve been working on lighting up all of these markers.” She gestured to the border where all of the little stones she had lit up earlier still glowed blue. It was nice seeing all of them along the path now – even if she hadn’t been able to figure out the distance channeling problem, yet.

“Ah,” Acacia replied. “I was wondering what you were doing. And here I thought, you were heading into town to pick up some more baked goods,” she said teasingly.

Sophie laughed. “I probably need to soon, actually. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s anything actually dangerous in this forest, would you?”

Acacia looked thoughtful at the question. “You know, I don’t really think so. Even though we haven’t had a working shrine for awhile, the Adventurer’s Guild does send out groups fairly regularly to check on the surrounding area. There’s also a small Town Watch, but they mostly keep an eye on things going on inside the gates. Of course, you can never really be sure, but I doubt the forest is teeming with corrupted beasts or something.”

Sophie felt relieved, especially after the conversation with Elowen from the night before. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ve been a bit worried walking along the path by myself, especially as it gets dark.”

Acacia nodded. “I can’t blame you. I’ve never come up here myself, but it seems like it would be especially creepy at night.”

They finally made it to the end of the path with the stone steps in view. Elowen was waiting at the top with a small frown on her face and her hands on her hips. To Sophie’s relief, Elowen’s displeased expression faded a bit when she noticed Acacia, and she made a motion as if to step forward, pausing when she hit the edge of whatever held her to the shrine.

“Oh! A guest?” she asked, blinking at them curiously.

Sophie paused at the bottom of the stairs and nodded. “This is Acacia,” she explained and then turned to Acacia, who was looking at her with a confused expression. “Acacia, meet Elowen. I know you can’t exactly see her at the moment, but she’s standing right at the top of these stairs.”

Acacia glanced to the spot indicated and then back at Sophie. “Oh! Should I –?”

Sophie nodded encouragingly, leading her up the steps. “Here, let’s all go up to the courtyard, and then you can show Elowen what you brought.”

Elowen floated around them curiously as they made their way into the courtyard. Acacia glanced around with interest. “Wow, I’ve never been up here before. It’s really lovely.”

Sophie didn’t think lovely was quite the right word for it, yet, but it was definitely looking nicer than it had been when she first arrived.

Acacia pulled a small box out of the bag she was holding. “I brought something for you,” she said, but she seemed unsure what to do with it. She held it up in the air. “For you, Elowen, I mean.”

Elowen was currently a few paces behind Acacia, although the other woman obviously could not see her, and Sophie had to stifle a laugh. She made a gesture for Elowen to come forward, and the spirit made her way over.

“For me?” Elowen asked, floating closer to Acacia and peering at the box. “Is it a present?”

“It is,” Sophie confirmed. “Acacia brought you a gift.”

Elowen spun delightedly, and Sophie accepted the box for her. She opened it up to show Elowen what was inside. There were little cubes of cake covered in a glossy frosting, topped with tiny leaf decorations, nestled carefully in thin blue tissue paper. They looked fancy even by Sophie’s definition.

“These look amazing,” Sophie breathed. “You’re like some sort of professional or something,” she teased.

Acacia rubbed the back of her head. “Ah, well. I didn’t actually make these. Hollis does all of the little sweets, like this.”

Sophie glanced up in surprise at that. She wondered if he was the one to thank for her chocolate croissants, then.

Elowen clapped with sheer joy. “I just love them! They’re so pretty!” She spun around and then held her hand over the box as if she wanted to pick one up for herself. “It’s nice that she brought them for me, even if…” she trailed off, her excitement dimming slightly.

Sophie understood. Elowen couldn’t try the cakes in her current state. Sophie wasn’t actually sure if Elowen would be able to eat them if she was corporeal either but –

“Why don’t we try burning one?” Sophie interjected. “As an offering. Elowen is really excited about the gift, but she can’t exactly try one.”

Acacia looked intrigued at the idea. “Burn one? I had honestly thought you were joking when you mentioned it the other day, but I decided to bring them just in case. Can we really?”

Sophie nodded. “I was totally serious! I think we should try it. It would be more fun if Elowen could actually taste one.”

Elowen looked thoughtful at the idea. “I don’t think it would work if you just burn it, though. You would need to be able to channel mana into the fire. But we haven’t tried that yet…”

Sophie considered that for a moment. Channeling into fire shouldn’t be that different from channeling into stone, right? But – right – she couldn’t actually touch the fire. There was that whole distance channeling problem again. Drat.

She suddenly felt annoyed at herself for not being able to figure it out yet. To compensate, she tried to exude confidence instead.

“Oh, it’s fine! I can totally do it!” she reassured Elowen. She turned to Acacia holding up the box. “Elowen says it will work if I channel mana into the fire.”

Elowen crossed her arms. “That’s not what I said! Honestly, I don’t think you’ll be able to manage it at all, given your current capabilities.”

Sophie waved a hand at her. “Sure, I can. Here, let’s just try one. It can’t hurt to try, right?”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure,” Acacia said, looking skeptical. “Is this something people actually do? We haven’t had a shrine here, and I only visited the one in Sentus to get my class…”

“It is, actually. I used to receive burnt offerings often in the past,” Elowen explained, although Acacia couldn’t hear her. “There’s even a dedicated place to leave them over there.” She gestured to the area in front of the shrine where the Bard left the silver the other day.

Sophie motioned for Acacia to follow her and made her way over to the spot that Elowen indicated. Indeed, there was a short, metal structure with a lid on it. Sophie lifted the lid to find something that looked an awful lot like a very shallow barbecue grill – a simple metal grate covering a long, nearly flat base filled with old ashes and bits of burnt wood.

“Elowen says we should be able to try here,” she said. “And that people totally did it in the past. This is apparently the dedicated place to do it.”

Acacia glanced at the box of cakes and then at the grill-like thing and shook her head hopelessly. “Alright,” she said. “I guess you’re right. We might as well try if she’d actually be able to taste one.”

Neither of the women had very much confidence in Sophie, and she was suddenly very determined to prove them both wrong. Her first real challenge in this new fantasy world! Disregarding all of the other challenges, like even figuring out how to channel mana in the first place, of course. But this – this felt like a boss fight or something.

“Hmm, we’ll need some sticks, maybe,” she said. “And a way to manually light the fire since neither of us can manifest it, right?”

Acacia nodded. “Right, I can’t manifest fire, either.”

Sophie handed Acacia the little box of cakes again. “Okay – do you mind holding these for a moment?”

Acacia dutifully accepted the box, and Sophie gathered all of the things they needed to start the fire from the kitchen while Elowen floated around excitedly.

“We should probably clean this at some point,” Sophie half-apologized when she returned. She brushed the grate off as best as she could with one of the sticks.

“It is rather disgusting,” Acacia agreed, peering down into the little grill.

“It’s okay!” Elowen insisted. “Oh, I do hope it works!” She looked so pleased at the mere idea of the whole thing that Sophie thought it would be worth the effort to clean this out and do it more regularly if it did work.

She set to making the fire, with some helpful instructions from Acacia who was much more of an expert at that sort of thing than she was. Once she finally got it lit, she brushed her hands off and turned to Elowen. “Okay, so, how do we do this?”

“You’ll have to focus your mana into the flame,” Elowen explained. “Obviously, you can’t touch it, but you can try putting your hand closer if it helps. Once you feel the connection and the flame is high enough, you can place the offering in. It must be burnt using mana for it to work, though, so you’ll have to keep the connection steady…”

Sophie nodded. “Okay,” she said, trying not to think too hard about how all of that sounded a lot more difficult than what she had tried previously with the mana stone.

At the very least, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage placing the offering in the fire and trying to hold the connection to it with mana. She still hadn’t managed distance channeling with the mana stone, so it was going to take all of her focus to even have a chance at this. She turned to Acacia, instead. “I think I’ll need your help. Can you add one of those little cakes to the fire when I give you the signal?”

Acacia grinned. “Of course,” she agreed. She opened the box again and pulled out a cake. “Ready when you are.”

Sophie turned back to the small flame at the bottom of the shallow metal basin, feeling the weight of both Acacia and Elowen watching her expectantly. She carefully held her hand out as close as she dared. This wasn’t like channeling into one of the stones at all. She couldn’t let herself falter, though – Elowen was relying on her. She seemed so excited about the idea of trying the offering. Even if it was just a small thing, Sophie almost felt like this was some sort of test.

First, she stared into the flame, trying to get a sense of – well, of anything. She couldn’t get a read off of it at all though. Instead, she closed her eyes, finding the mana within herself again, just like she had earlier when working with the markers. She tried to imagine the feeling of putting her hand on each marker and letting mana run through it.

She felt herself breaking out into a sweat, but it was almost there – just at the tips of her fingers. Just a little bit more. She tried to reach out to it further, her hand getting a little too close to the flame and she pulled back quickly, her eyes snapping open. Darn.

Acacia made a small sound next to her, almost a gasp, but Sophie shook her head. “It’s okay,” she said. “Let me try again.”

What else had she done with mana? The Level Stone in the courtyard. It felt like it wanted more mana, like it could accept all of the mana in her core and still not be satisfied. Did the fire feel that way, as well? Even without touching it, could she establish some sort of connection to it?

She went through the process again, her eyes open this time, her palm as close to the heat of the flame as she dared. She imagined pushing her mana into that heat and the near-burning sensation when she had gotten too close previously.

And then she felt it.

A small connection at first, but it was there, like the beginning of a thought in the back of her mind. The fire did want more mana. In fact, it felt like the fire was much more ravenous than the stone. She felt an Understanding begin to wash over her as she solidified the connection. The fire jumped higher, ever so slightly, but noticeably enough.

Elowen clapped excitedly next to her. “You’ve got it!” she said.

“Okay,” Sophie replied, feeling oddly breathless with the effort. “Okay, I think it’s ready for you, Acacia.”

Elowen nodded her agreement. “It is!”

Acacia reached out to carefully place the cake in the fire, as Sophie tried to hold onto the connection. She wasn’t even really channeling her mana into the fire at this point. Instead, it felt like the fire was consuming her mana. She felt herself draining much more quickly than previously, but she just had to hold on until the cake burnt completely. It would be pointless otherwise. She couldn’t give up now.

Elowen made a sudden, startled sound of happiness, her eyes widening with delight. “Oh! I think it’s working!” she said.

Good, Sophie thought, but somehow she couldn’t manage to say the words aloud. She wobbled a bit, her knees growing too weak to hold her up anymore, and she finally dropped the connection with the fire.

She felt Acacia’s hand land on her arm, and she heard the baker say something, but it came out warbled and incomprehensible.

Her ears were ringing, she realized, and everything was suddenly far, far too bright.

And then she slid into darkness.