“Quit being a baby!” the book said as Otto continued walking through the forest with a bag he managed to scavenge from the ruins of the village on his back.

“If I remember the map correctly MiningTown should be north of here… I’ll ask around for the Archmages there…” Otto thought.

“Are you even listening to me?” the book demanded.

Otto continued heading through the forest along the edge of the river, big bags under his eyes from lack of sleep.

“Would you stay quiet already?” he asked the book not turning to face the sack it was loosely thrown into.

“Books aren’t supposed to talk…” he added.

“You need to finish reading the book! That’s crucial!” the book replied.

Otto stopped in his tracks.

“Look… I know you’re not a real person… the book is some sort of artefact, right?”

“It’s eating my soul or something… Right? That’s why it made me make all those artefacts, right?”

“Nobody told you to make them!” the book replied.

“You must have… I should just throw you out right now…” he mumbled to himself seeing the river on his left.

“If I throw the book into the water it’ll sink somewhere, right?”

“It’ll be washed away to some manaless sea, right?”

Otto sounded exhausted, in no small part due to the fact he was.

“You should…” the voice of murky Otto came from the river water.

Otto nodded.

“I should…”

“You don’t need to get involved in all this…” the voice continued.

Otto pulled the sack off his back and peered inside seeing the book there.

On its leather surface stood the two Ottos.

“You have no reason to believe him over me! Magic is a tool, how you used it is your fault alone!” the mini book-Otto exclaimed.

“Face it, if he left the tower on day-one like I wanted this would have never happened…” Murky Otto replied.

“I’m sure there’s something important in the back of the book!”

“How many villages will have to burn to get there?!” Murky Otto demanded.

He looked up to Otto “You shouldn’t need to suffer so much, throw the book away!”

Otto reached inside, pulling the book out.

The two Ottos no longer standing on its surface but instead behind Otto.

“Read it!”

“Throw it away!”

His fingers tightened as he began heading towards the water.

All voices faded away leaving Otto quietly marching toward the river with his book in hand.

“All I have to do is throw it away…”

“If I throw it away the one responsible for the village burning will be gone…”

In the water, murky Otto stood with a recycling bin waiting for the book.

That’s when a loud shriek was heard in the woods, Otto turned to where it came from.

Immediately he charged towards the source of the sound.

“Are you alright?” he called out.

Eventually, he reached a small clearing in the woods where a massive white bear stood on its hind legs like a human.

Its arms hung low; its long claws cut through the layers of fallen forest leaves like a rake.

Otto saw the one being attacked, a young-looking woman with a basket of what looked like mushrooms.

A deep gash leaking dark blood was planted across her arm.

Otto looked to the creature and over to the girl.

He hesitated for a second.

“This… if I save people with magic, it’ll be ok, right?”

“It’ll cancel out!”

“WaterBolt!”

The beast was caught off-guard by the water, it spun around letting out a mighty roar that caused the earth to trembled.

Slowly it got down onto all fours and opened its maw within which appeared a green magic circle.

“F-Fuck!” Otto exclaimed, he jumped behind a tree taking cover from the spell, when he opened his eyes everything the spell effected was coated in a layer of ice.

He jumped from behind the cover of the tree and fired another WaterBolt.

Again, he hid behind another tree as the bear began making its way towards him.

He began speaking quickly, his expression desperate.

“MakeBattery”

“SetElement ElementFire « SetPlace palm « SetSize 3µ « SetName ThisSpell « SetDirection PalmPointOne PalmPointTwo « SetSpeed 30µ « SetLifespan 5 «”

He jumped from behind cover only to be met with the bear mid-swipe.

“Shit!”

With its colossal arm it splinted the tree in two as Otto unleashed his fire spell, the bear’s strike barely missing him.

It was too fast to give him any major burns, though the same thing couldn’t be said for the bear.

The bolt of flames flew into its torso, slowly digging its way deeper and deeper inside as the fat and blood boiled and evaporated from within the monster.

The bear fell backwards causing the forest to rumble once more.

“Thank god it worked on the first try…” Otto thought covering his nose to protect himself from the disgusting scent of burnt bear.

He quickly made his way over to the wounded girl.

“H-hey! Are you alright?!” he asked looking at the wound, it wasn’t bleeding as much as he expected.

“YOU CAN’T DIE!”

“…”

She didn’t reply.

“Fuck!”

He picked the girl up, placing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he began heading north, he desperately hoped he’d run into a town.

As if to make up for what happened earlier that day his prayers were answered, a small village that looked even more shabby than WorkInProgressTown came into view.

He ran into the town looking around for any building that resembled a doctor.

“Is there a doctor in this town?” he asked looking around, all the villagers averted their eyes.

“This girl is badly injured! I can pay up to four silvers!” he pleaded.

He was met with more angry glares until a rock finally few his way.

“We saw the gryphons last night!” one of the villagers exclaimed.

“That’s what you get for keeping criminals around!” another one added.

"You're from that village, aren't you?!"

Otto looked at them with a mix of anger and confusion.

“You people…” he clenched his teeth.

“That’s enough!” a man looking like he was in his mid-thirties stepped out from one of the homes.

The other villagers averted their eyes as the man hurried out.

“You people have some nerve turning people away on such groundless ideas…”

The man gestured Otto to follow him.

They rushed to a small building where a balding man with a black moustache and glasses sat and ate.

“Hmm?” the man looked up from his meal to see the leader of his town, as well as a stranger, drag another stranger into his house.

“Another one…” the man remarked putting his sandwich aside.

Otto entered the room seeing a few other patients, all of them had different parts cut up by what looked like claws.

“This one might actually survive…” the doctor said, he never realised how morbid what he said was.

“You two better get out of here… I’ll do my best to fix her arm up…” the doctor instructed as Otto and the moustached leader of the town stepped outside.

“Interesting entrance stranger,” the town-leader remarked with folded arms.

The man looked Otto up and down for a second seeing that he looked relatively wealthy with the robes and tome.

“Pardon my bluntness, but I’m going to have to ask you for some form of payment for this…”

“How much?” Otto asked, he was prepared to pay with all his remaining money.

“Ten silver,” the man explained.

Otto’s heart dropped.

“Ten?!”

The man nodded.

“The nightbeasts, specifically the bears were tormenting us lately, a lot of our people are injured.”

“They settled in the caves east of here,” he added.

“We can’t afford to use our own medicine on strangers unless you can pay for it…” the man explained.

“…”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the five silvers.

“Here’s five… that’s all I have…” he said uncertainly.

The man looked at the five coins in his hand quietly for a while.

“…I’ll see what I can do… I can’t promise anything…” he replied.

“Right…”

The man turned back towards the doctor’s operation room when he was stopped by Otto.

“What if…-” he began.

“What if I kill off all the bears?” Otto asked, the look in his eyes desperate.

“…”

“We’d just end up with an extra corpse…” the man shook his head.

Otto pointed to the operation room.

“That girl…”

“She was attacked by a bear…”

“And I killed it…”

“I need to help her…”

“If I can kill off the whole pack… we’d be even right?” he asked.

“…”

“Hypothetically, yes…” the man replied.

“Good…” Otto smiled.

He began writing a new variable in his notebook.

“FireBolt…”

“LightningBolt…”