The color of light used in a spell determines what type of outcome the spell will have. For example, blue light is used for warding and indigo light is used for healing

Selena was proud to have been selected to help lead this training expedition. There really wasn’t all that much to look forward to in the expedition itself. All that they were doing was traveling to Nargorn forest, collecting samples of the fauna, then returning to The Academy. If everything went as planned, the expedition was going to be very simple and basic. She was excited because she had been selected as one of the abecedarian leaders. When she had applied, she had expected to get rejected because of her young age. Her fellow leaders were abecedarian warder Edward Smith, who insisted that all of the apprentices call him “'Darian Smith,” and wizard Ferdinandson, who everybody just called “the Wizard.”

The rest of their group consisted of eight apprentices, 2 for each abecedarian and 4 for the wizard, as per The Academy standard. All of the apprentices were over 16 years of age, had good reputations, and were planning on taking their practical tests within two quarters. She was still having trouble with most of their names, but she couldn't forget Robert's, unfortunately.

Robert was a 20 year old 5th year apprentice and he was convinced that he was the best thing that had ever happened to womankind. In other words, he was a jerk and a show-off in front of women. He was, however, a promising mage. As long as Selena kept him away from the two girl apprentices, who were her charges, there wouldn’t be any problems.

On the third day of their journey, as they passed by a village on the outskirts of Nargorn forest, Selena was surprised to detect an abnormally large amount of magic being used for a village, but didn't think much of it at the time. As a younger-than-normal apprentice, her fellow apprentices had often pranked her with various forms of “harmless” magic, like drifting the air around her head to cause her hair to stand up. So, she had taken the time to learn how to use enhancement magic to be able to detect magic around her. Since then, she always kept the spell active as long as there was enough light.

That night they camped out in a small clearing about a kilometer into the woods. The Wizard gave all of the apprentices permission to sleep as long as they could, because there would be hard work for the next couple days. Then, he assigned the night’s watches to himself, Edward, and Selena.

Selena woke the next morning to a comforting silence. She got up and went over to where The Wizard was on watch.

“Good morning, wizard Ferdinandson!” she said through sleepy eyes.

“Good morning, Selena,” replied The Wizard. “We have company.”

He pointed into the depth of the woods, saying, “a full pack of wolves. I don't know if you can see or feel them, but they have us surrounded.”

Selena was instantly alert, not because she was scared of the wolves, but because she was excited. The Wizard had earned his title because of his work with large and dangerous animals, and she knew from his lectures that his favorite animals to work with were wolves.

“I think I will keep them at bay for now, and maybe give the apprentices a little show and lesson once they are all awake,” said The Wizard.

Selena spent the next hour trying to detect the wolves with magic and sight. When she was finally able to detect something, she realized it was because all of the apprentices were up and The Wizard had called the wolves in a little closer.

“Gather round! Gather round!” called The Wizard to the apprentices. “Now I am guessing that none of you have noticed that we are surrounded by wolves.”

At this, the two girls (and some of the boys, but they're not important to the story) started screaming and glancing around. One of the girls spotted a wolf.She pointed at it and yelled, “there's one!” and that was when everything went wrong.

“Everyone, calm down!” shouted The Wizard.

Ignoring him, Robert leapt towards the indicated wolf, yelling, “Don't worry ladies! Robert the brave will protect you!”

The Wizard immediately started running after him shouting, “Wait, you fool! I have everything under—”

At that moment, Robert flourished his right hand at the wolf and yelled “burn.” Instantly the wolf caught fire explosively and, apparently, the rest of the pack with it.

Selena barely had enough time to put up a basic ward before the concussion wave hit her. All of the apprentices were knocked unconscious. She was glad to see that Edward had also had time to protect himself. She looked for The Wizard and was dismayed to see him lying unconscious near the flames spreading from the first wolf.

“Protect The Wizard!” she yelled at Edward, as she dismissed her ward and started towards The Wizard.

As she approached him, the heat from the flames became unbearable. Then, suddenly the heat was gone and the flames had been pushed back slightly. She glanced around and saw a ward that Edward had put up. She was very glad to see he had also used the ward to prevent the smoke from blocking sunlight coming into the clearing. When she caught sight of him, his normally blue robes had turned black from the lack of blue light in the area around him, the blue light he was using to keep the ward up.

As she reached the wizard, she saw a smoldering corpse just outside the ward and realized that it must be what was left of Robert. She pulled The Wizard to the center of the ward and started to examine him. He was covered in burns. She wished that they had a master healer with them. She was sure that this level of injury could be easily fixed if one had the right spell, which she didn't. She only had general healing spells that used massive amounts of light. She started using her small list of general healing spells and was sure that the amount of light they were using would also make her indigo robes appear black.

As she started going through the spells a second time, she detected someone using enhanced drifting coming towards them. “We're saved!” she thought.

Very few mages outside of The Academy were able to use enhancement magic.

She started yelling, “Help us! We are trapped in the middle of the flames.”

She kept yelling until her voice was hoarse. Just after she felt like she couldn't scream any more, the most handsome man she had ever seen came running through the ward.

“Who are...” she started to say, but she was interrupted by him throwing out his arms and very pathetically croaking “snuff,” then collapsing.

It took her a moment to realize what had happened.When she looked up from the fallen man, she was amazed to see that all of the flames had disappeared.

On closer inspection of the man, she discovered that he was not nearly as handsome as her panicked mind had found him to be, and that he was not much more than a boy. He was tall with short-cropped, brown hair and there was nothing extraordinary about him; except that he had just put out all of the flames with a single spell and with very little color distortion to the light.

Glancing around, Selena saw that most of the apprentices were starting to stir and the healing she had performed on The Wizard had worked. She then gave her attention to the mystery man-child who had saved them. She quickly determined he was in a magical fatigue-induced coma. Besides that, he appeared to be fine.

Selena and Edward then checked on all the apprentices. None of them appeared to be injured, so Edward had them start breaking camp to give them something to do while Selena went to watch over The Wizard and the unknown man-child.

Presently, a group of men and women appeared in the clearing. They looked about them at the charred trees and seemed slightly bewildered. As they approached, a younger man spotted the unconscious man-child at her feet and yelled, “Chad!”

Immediately two men started running towards her, the man who had yelled and an older man who had the look of a farmer.

“My son, is he all right?” The older man asked as he ran up to her.

“This man is your son?” replied Selena. “Yes, he is all right. He saved us and put himself in a magfat coma as a result.”

“A magfat coma? What does that mean? Will he be all right?” Asked the younger man, looking with concern at the unconscious man-child.

“A magfat coma,” replied Selena, “is a magical fatigue-induced coma. It means that he used more magic than his body could handle. He will be all right. Depending on his magical endurance, he will wake up some time between three hours and three days from now.”

“As long as he will be all right” said the older man. “I'm Lawrence, this is my son William.” He added indicating the younger man. “And the lad at our feet is my son Chad. He is the one who raised the alarm about a fire in the forest that brought us all here. Now we are here and there is no fire. What happened?”

By this time, Edward had joined them.

“Like I said,” replied Selena, “your son saved us. He put out the entire fire by himself. Though I must confess, it was a little embarrassing to be saved by the word ‘snuff.’”

“I assume,” interjected Edward, “that you all came from a place with beds and food. We could all use something to eat and it would be good to get the apprentices away from here. We would pay you, of course. Also, it would do your son and The Wizard good to be in a bed rather than on the forest floor.”

“Beds, who needs them?” came a voice from by their feet. “Would somebody help this old man up?”

Edward quickly helped The Wizard up.

“Thank you, Edward,” said The Wizard.

“I am wizard Ferdinandson. It is a pleasure to meet you and I would love to know what has happened here. But Edward is right. We should get the apprentices moving. You all can tell me about it on the way to wherever we are going.”

The Wizard's word started everyone moving and they were soon on their way to the village of Fresh Springs.