Ah. My face is really cold, so are my hands. My back is nice and warm at least. Rather, it is a bit too warm. I drag my eyelids open and am immediately assaulted with a pounding headache, like somebody drove a sword into my skull. I wince and shut my eyes again.

This time I open my eyes considerably slower and the once black world now fades to white. White?

A strange scene is before me, the world has gone totally white. As my eyes start readjusting, I notice that it is not completely white. The trees all around me are more of a pale brown color than the deep mahogany I remember. The white ground has tufts of grass sticking out here and there and they seem to shimmer in the light.

There is not much light, the sun has started its descent over the mountain. Some time has passed since the battle. My mind is getting clearer and my vision sharper now.

The scenery around me is that of a literal ice-world. The sparkling tufts of grass appear to be frozen solid, into literal ice. There is only a clump here and there sticking out of the snow that blankets the ground. That’s right, it’s snowing, no wonder I’m so cold.

Many trees have been snapped in half, or completely uprooted and scattered about. The ones still standing have wispy sheets of ice trailing off them, It’s like a super strong wind came through here and then literally froze the air itself in place.

I turn over to the sole source of warmth on my back. A fire, someone started a fire. Jessica is also lying next to the fire. I quickly sit up and lean over to check on her.

“She’s fine,” A voice calls out to me, “Just resting.”

It’s Hardoen. He is sitting here by the campfire with his palms stretched out, seeking its warmth. Sarah is also here sitting next to him with her arms folded around her legs and her chin resting on her kneecaps.

“I woke up first, well after Sarah started the fire. I used cure and healing spells on all of us since then, so we should all be fine.”

“I thought you were out of energy to be casting more spells,” I enquire.

“Plenty of time has passed since then and minor healing spells and debuffs don’t really need the same kind of juice as healing spells that grow back body parts,” he says while pointing to my hand.

“What happened here, I think I saw more slimes chasing us just before I passed out. Are we safe?”

“She happened,” Hardoen points at Sarah, which seems to cause her to momentarily flinch nervously.

I stare at her expectantly. She seems to be waiting for Hardoen to continue, but he’s gone back to warming his hands and summarily ignoring her. When she realises this, she sighs and buries her chin even deeper into her legs.

While staring at the ground solemnly, she answers: “I’m a S’vantic.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I respond.

She looks up at me with a look of surprise. Then she carries on explaining. “Do you know the fundamentals of how sorcery works?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, um, a sorcerer channels their life force, or as it used to more commonly be known as, mana, into their skills and this allows them to cast spells. The same is true for any type of spell caster, not just sorcerers. For classes with more physical based skills you expend stamina, a different kind of life force. These days this is often all just referred to as your energy, even if they are different things, they have the same result and similar effects.”

She pauses and continues her explanation, “A spell caster recharges his life force by draining ambient magical energy that exists in the world all around us. This is accomplished via your mana gate. Generally speaking it is an automatic process that you don’t even have to think about. A person's mana gate also automatically closes to keep him or her from being boiled alive, which is what happens when your physical being is oversaturated with mana.”

“S’vantics have an abnormality, whereby their mana gates do not connect to the ether like other people, they instead connect somewhere else. Most people believe it connects to the world the monsters originally came from, or if you will, the ‘demon realm’.”

“The mana that enters us from that world is many times more potent than in this world, as a result a S’vantic sorcerer is able cast spells many times more powerful than a normal sorcerer. But it comes with a big problem, the mana from the demon realm is really evil stuff. It’s always seeking to take control and cause harm. As a result any spell other than really small ones carry serious risk of going out of control.”

Well that explains a lot of what happened earlier.

“Only the most learned and skilled S’vantics ever master control over high level spells. For this reason our presence is not very welcome in most groups of adventurers. We’re simply too dangerous to have around. I must be honest I thought you guys might already have known I was S’vantic, we are common knowledge and are easy to identify.”

Sarah lifts her staff up for us to see. “These runes carved on the base of my staff are very simple runes that are designed to limit and restrain the mana passing through it. Every sorcerer is trying to make his or her spells as powerful as possible, only a S’vantic could ever possibly have a use for runes like these, in fact it’s a very basic requirement for us.”

The magic lesson seemingly at its end, I take a look around. Everything was frozen or blasted outwards from our current location. To do all this, it must of been one hell of a spell. “So I assume you’re responsible for all this?” I ask her.

She nods.

“I thought you were a fire sorceress?”

“Ah, no, um-,” she fumbles over her words a bit, “You see, most sorcerers can only channel their magic into one of the elements. It is exceedingly rare to find a sorcerer that has the ability to channel into more that one type of element and rarer yet for you to find one that has actually mastered it.”

“I didn’t know you were so talented.”

“Ah no, that’s not what I meant at all!” Sarah blushes profusely, “I have absolutely no mastery over it, I um, um, just got really lucky is all. It’s a miracle we’re not all icicles right now. I might have on rare occasion the ability to channel into water sorcery, but have absolutely no talent or ability for it, or at least nothing compared to my fire sorcery. It would be suicide to even attempt it.”

I sigh. She clearly did attempt it regardless. Hence this frozen wonderland and the lack of any slimes around us. “So what’s the status of the slime army?”

Hardoen answers, “Sarah got quite a few of them, but the cave system is apparently more extensive than what the quest giver knew about and there should be many more slimes left still.”

“Well I vote for not fighting anymore of them,” I exclaim. They all seem to be in agreement.

I notice Jessica waking up. She looks very confused.

On the way back, we were rather silent, with only a smidgen here and there of the occasional small talk. I of course reiterated everything that had been said about Sarah and S’vantics to Jessica, with Sarah doing a lot of nodding and the odd correction or clarification where needed.

It took us quite a while to get out of the ‘ice world’, at least a half hour. The sheer scale and power of the spell she cast is just unbelievable. I know she said she got lucky and that this is according to her explanation, the true power of magic from the demon realm, but man that is some serious power and some serious luck.

“So, um,” Sarah breaks the silence, “I feel kinda bad about what happened.”

“What do you mean?” Jessica asks, “From what I hear, it sounds like you saved us.”

Hardoen coldly explains, “What she means, is that she is the main reason we were in such danger in the first place. Yes, we were not well equipped to deal with slimes as a party, I’ll be the first to admit that, but if we had a sorcerer that did have control of her spells and did not have to hold back, then things would likely have turned out very differently.”

“Ye- yes, that,” Sarah mutters while seemingly trying to shrink back into her own shoulders.

“Isn’t that a little harsh?” I ask.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that she’s a bad sorceress or that I don’t want her in the party, actually I don’t mind at all having her around.” Sarah’s eyes seemed to go wide with that last part. “A S’vantic sorceress fails a bit in the traditional sorceresses roll in a party, but they are very powerful in their own right. I’m sure if we were to come up with a proper plan and chooses a quest accordingly they could be very potent.”

“You mean I can stay?” Sarah’s eyes were practically tearing up at this point.”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Hardoen replies, “The thing I took issue with was you not telling us such vital information, even if you were afraid of getting kicked out of the party, we all could have been killed for that little bit of dishonesty.”

Sarah tears of joy are now seemingly back to tears of misery. “I know, I’m really sorry about all this. It’s just, I- I got kicked out of my last three parties, even though they were relatively successful quests, but people get really freaked out when they find out I’m a S’vantic.”

At this point she’s practically sobbing and I feel kind of bad, “So I don’t really mind either if we stick together you know.”

Sarah stops sobbing and gives my a genuine, radiant smile. “You know,” She says, “I still feel really bad about all this, how about I treat you all too dinner?”

Hardoen immediately replies, “I will not say no to that, I am flat broke after all and now we won’t even be getting paid, since we didn’t actually finish the slime eradication quest.”

Those words froze my heart. “So we’ll also have to take you up on that offer, when I said we were broke I meant as in we don’t have a single copper to our names”.

“Um, does that perhaps mean that you don’t have any accommodation tonight either?” Sarah asks.

All I can do is scratch my head and look away in embarrassment.

“You guys can stay with me tonight if you want,” Hardoen offers, “I’m currently staying in a stables, I’ve rented it out for a few days. they are much cheaper for us nomadic types compared to accomodation at inn’s, as long as you don’t mind such conditions.”

“No, not at all, we would be really grateful,” I jump at this opportunity of course. It’s not the best thing in the world but Jess at least won’t be sleeping under a bridge and will be with the two of us.

“Actually,” Sarah interrupts, “The room I’m currently renting isn’t very big, but I think it would be fine for Misty to stay there with me tonight. I mean- I don’t think it’s a great thing for a girl to stay in a stables, or what I’m trying to say is- ah- only if you want to that is.”

Jessica answers enthusiastically, “I would love to, that would be great!”

I sigh. She sure dumped me fast. Well at any rate, I am glad. “Thanks Sarah, it would really be a big help.”

With that, we all set off for the inn Sarah was staying at. They apparently also doubled as a tavern, with drinks and food being served downstairs and rooms for rent upstairs. The place was apparently quite rowdy even at night, which meant it wasn’t very popular as an inn, but Sarah said this makes the rent a bit cheaper.

By the time we finally arrived at the ‘inn?’, the sun had already set. Sarah beckoned us over to a table with four chairs. “You guys have a seat. You can order some drinks so long if you want, just tell them to put it on my tab.”

So tabs are a thing too? Interesting, I suppose she is actually staying here and probably for a while now, so I guess it would not be unusual to have such a facility available to her.

Sarah then turns to Jessica, “Misty why don’t you come with me quick and I’ll see if I have some spare clothes for you to wear.”

“Ah- thanks I’d really appreciate that,” Jessica quickly responds and then follows Sarah upstairs. Her pants was still all torn up and she had been for the most part holding it together with her left hand, to keep the important parts out of sight. I was truly grateful to Sarah she really has helped us out bigtime.