Lasair flopped her bag on the dirt. This spot was as good as any other to set up camp, she supposed. She didn’t have much of a camp to set up, so preparation didn’t take long. She only needed to sweep away any loose rocks and twigs on the ground before throwing down her sleeping bag. There was no need for a fire, as the canopy of trees kept it relatively warm at night, and she couldn’t risk the smoke from her fire being spotted.

She tried to remember that design Sparky made with the pits that made it smokeless, but she’d never really paid much attention to it. She hated to admit it, but Parker was right. It was weird he’d known how to make that fire, and now she was paying the price for not looking any deeper.

After days of journeying long after dark and before sunrise, she felt it necessary to take this night to get a good sleep in.

She could sense she was approaching whatever building the human was holding Sparky. At the speed she was going, she should reach it by sunset the next day. She needed to be in tip-top shape for this mission. She wasn’t just rescuing Sparky anymore. Those rings were of significant importance to her clan and all the others nearby. If the other chieftains found out the daughter of the largest clan had failed in her mission to retrieve them, there would go any chance of the unification her father had worked so hard for.

Even with all the anxiety raking her mind, the days and nights of hiking, along with the very little sleep she’d gotten during them, knocked her out soon after she laid down.

The trek the next day was surprisingly uneventful. As Lasair walked, she could feel the tension in her chest, a combination of her adrenaline and the magical pull she felt towards the location, until suddenly, it snapped. She could no longer feel the draw anymore.

She didn’t need it, though. She peered through the treelines and spotted what looked to be a human cottage.

Very out of place for the middle of the forest. This was definitely her mark.

Luckily for her, whoever had built it didn’t clear out any of the surrounding forest, so the magic would definitely permeate throughout the building.

Lasair wasn’t one for planning, but she felt this occasion required at least a little nuance. Rather than busting in through the door and rushing in to catch the human by surprise, she decided to wait until after she could no longer see any candlelight through the window. That way, she would know the human was asleep.

Then she would burst in to take the human by surprise. There was no way he would be wearing armor or holding a weapon in his sleep, so this would make it much easier.

A few minutes after she could no longer see any light passing through the windows, she snuck towards the door. She went to bash in the door, but it turned out it was either unlocked or had no lock to begin with. This would be easier than she thought.

Until it wasn’t.

The instant she stepped into the house, she saw a light go back on and heard a yell from a few rooms over. Rather than run away, she charged towards the source of the light and noise and busted down the door.

She readied her axe, primed and ready to swing at her target, but the room she found herself in was empty.

Not no furniture empty; it was empty. There was nothing there. It was as if the door to the room had opened up to completely empty space.

She would have been surprised had she not recognized the effect. It was just like when one of the elders began their songs. The world almost seemed to disappear as the story they told took form. Which meant this could be only one thing—illusion magic.

Lasair took a step back from the door and did it just in time, too. The blade of a sword swung down, implanting itself into the ground where she had just been standing. The sword seemed to disappear only a foot back, where the room of nothingness began.

That ambush would have worked, had she not seen much better illusion magic ever since she was a child. The sword seemingly dislodged itself from the ground and began pulling back into the room.

Lasair lunged forward and grabbed the sword blade by the sides, yanking it back and lunging forwards. That attempted ambush had revealed her attacker’s location in the room, and she wasn’t about to let that opportunity go. Once she passed the barrier into the room, she felt her senses get all muddy. She was blinded by the spell put on the room, and something was muffling her hearing. That didn’t matter much, though, as she could clearly feel a body under her. She punched with all her might where she thought the human’s jaw was. She knew she hit right on the mark when the illusion disappeared. Keeping one up required lots of focus, and you can’t do that much with your brain rattling around in your skull. She went for another punch, but the human grabbed her arm and twisted her off.

The sensory overload from the illusion spell filled her senses, as all the things she would have been experiencing hit her at once. Luckily, it was a quiet and dark room, so it did little more than daze her momentarily.

However, that was just long enough for the human to get back his bearings. He dove for the sword, and Lasair took advantage of his exposed back. She stomped down, knocking the wind out of him, and kicked him in the head.

That was almost too easy. At least it answered her question about who would win if he wasn’t powered up by the rings, although she expected a little more of a fight.

Lasair scanned the room for Sparky and the rings. The room was identical to what she saw in her dreams those nights ago, so finding what she was looking for was simple. She snatched the rings off the hook, shoving them into her bag. Then, she found the cage Sparky was currently being held prisoner in. She looked in and saw him, lying still in the corner, eyes closed.

She snatched the cage and held it under her arm and stepped over the knocked-out human laying in the doorframe.

Lasair grabbed the axe she’d dropped when tackling him and raised it above her head, aiming to strike down in his head.

But she hesitated. This would be her first time… Killing someone.

She was only there to get back Sparky and the rings… She didn’t need to kill the human. But if she didn’t, there was no doubt he would chase her...

As she made her decision, the human was suddenly no longer lying down. He was up, sword in hand, mid-swing.

She was barely able to push herself backward before the blade could cleave into her shoulder. Instead, it sliced through her leather tunic, leaving behind a wide gash across her chest. She fell to her back, barely holding on to Sparky’s cage as she fell. Another illusion! He must’ve set it up right after he threw her off of him!

Lasair barely blocked his next swing with the handle of her axe. She didn’t have much time. Her wound was big, and gas was escaping from it fast. She swept the human’s legs, staggering him, and pushed herself from the ground.

She was no longer in condition to fight. She needed to treat her wound and fast. She beelined for the door, the human on her heels. Once she made it out, she threw her axe back at the house. The axe head jammed into the doorframe, holding the door in place as she ran, Sparky’s cage clutched in front of her. It wouldn’t hold him for long, but she didn’t need long. The instant she escaped the building, she was already back in the forest. She knew exactly how to lose someone there, and she was banking on the human not having great tracking skills. Plus, anyone would still be reeling from the hit she gave him, so even if he did, his skills would be at least a little suppressed at the moment.

Once Lasair believed she was deep enough in the forest, she pulled out her water and gauze. Pouring water over her wound to clean it stung, a combination of the exposed nerves and the shock of the cold water. She wrapped the gauze above her shoulder on one side and below her arm on the other, making sure the seal was airtight. Then she wrapped it around a few more times, just to be safe. There was no reason to be stingy on medical supplies when under-doing it meant death.

Now that both the situation and herself were mostly stable, she thought it was a good time to check inventory. She reached into her pocket and pulled out…

Only two rings.

Out of the four she needed.

That was just great. Even though she’d just told herself that was the primary purpose of the mission, she didn’t even bother counting them before she ran off. Not only that, but one of the ones missing was from her own clan. She didn’t like it, but now she needed to go back in.

Lasair leaned down and peered into Sparky’s cage. He lay still on the floor of it, eyes half-open.

“I’ll be back, okay buddy?”

He had no response. It didn’t even really seem like he’d heard her.

That troubled her. Hopefully, he was okay, but she couldn’t worry too much about that now. She readied her axe, and rose from her cover. After a short scan of her surroundings, she noticed nothing out of the ordinary. As she slowly paced back towards the building, the silence of the forest made her even more anxious than it had on the first time. She kept walking, getting closer to where she remembered the building was, but when she approached, she was shocked to find nothing was there.

The building had vanished as if it were never there in the first place. She knew it was the right place. She’d grown up in the forest, and she knew how to not get lost. The only hint left that it had been there at all was the mysterious lack of trees in a small circular area where it had once been.

Lasair sprinted as hard as she could to where she’d left Sparky. If the building was gone, that meant the human inside it had left too! What if he’d been following her and was waiting for her to get off guard?

Once she got back to her old cover, she was relieved to find Sparky still there. She once again looked into the cage, and the poor little dragon’s condition was still the same.

She busted open the lock on the cage and opened the door, nearly tearing it off its hinges. She reached in and lifted Sparky out of it, placing him onto her lap. She inspected him to make sure he had no injuries, and to her dismay, found plenty of them. Minor cuts all over that had almost fully healed, and one gash that seemed to have just closed. A thin line on his forehead confirmed the remnant of a bad head injury. She reached for the scar, and when she brushed against it, he stirred a little, and she yanked her hand back.

After inspecting his head, she noticed a glint from one of his horns. She pushed back his hair and was pleased to find one of the rings was shoved up his bottom set of horns. She checked his other three to see if the last one was on him but had no luck. At least that was one positive, if she could even really call it that. She slid the ring down from his horn, holding it between her pointer finger and thumb. After inspecting it, she was disappointed to find it wasn’t her clan’s, but was confused when she felt its energy flow through her. In her dream, all of the rings had been depleted.

Just then, she felt Sparky start to move in her lap. She quickly gathered all the rings and put them in her bag, anxiously waiting as he finally fully opened his eyes and looked at her.