In the end, it was a small group that gathered in the cold at the eastern gate to see them off. Faye knew each one of them, if not well then enough to be touched they were present. Expressions ranged from ebullient to morose. Faye could not help but grin at the way Ailith was trying to cheer up the Administrator with half-nonsense phrases and sentences.

Faye turned to Taveon. The old man was smiling, but she could see the emotion behind his eyes. He was concerned.

“Don’t worry about me, old man,” she said, grinning. “You have to look after yourself. There’s lots more to tell you.”

Taveon nodded. “Of course, I… well, I just wish that we were not sending you out on this mission.”

Faye shrugged. “I would have volunteered anyway, probably. Someone has to do it. Plus, Gavan’s coming with, I’ll be alright.”

He looked over at the mage, who was saying his goodbyes to Arran.

“Yes, he will be a valuable ally on the road ahead.”

Gavan and Arran nodded and embraced, before turning and approaching Faye and Taveon.

“Well,” Arran said, “looks like our team is moving onto bigger things.”

“I’m sorry we’re splitting the team,” Faye replied.

Arran grinned. “Normally, it goes against team rules to split the party. In this case, there’s nothing else we can do. You two go and raise the alarm. Get us the help we need. I think we’re all going to be calling you saviours in future.”

Faye nodded. “Exactly, so let’s start now. As your saviour, I demand you keep the town ticking along in my absence.”

Arran laughed. He nodded and slapped a hand on her shoulder. “I can do that.”

Next, Maggie stepped up close and wrapped Faye in a massive hug. Faye returned it.

“I’m going to miss you,” Maggie whispered into her shoulder. “Please come back safely.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

Maggie stepped back, scowling. “Promise to be safe.”

Faye grinned. “I promise to try. You know me, running out into danger and drinking magical poison…”

“It was not poison!”

“So you say, but really, we both know you were just trying to get rid of me for your nefarious purposes.”

Maggie let out a laugh that was half-sob. She smiled through the tears welling in her eyes.

“Taveon will tell me if you give mana poisoning to anyone else, okay, so be on your best behaviour.”

Taveon nodded gruffly. “Aye, that I will.”

“Take care of yourselves,” Ailith called out. The Administrator was looking no better for Ailith’s conversation, but at least she had been distracted for long enough that they were able to say their goodbyes.

“If you please, Adventurers,” the Administrator called out, “it is time you are on your way.”

Faye nodded and swung the backpack they had arranged for her onto her shoulders. It was heavy but masterfully packed, so the weight was evenly distributed. It settled into place easily.

“We will be back, okay? You lot better be here when we return.”

The Administrator’s worry rolled off her in waves. She nodded, regardless. “Safe travels.”

With the sun starting its shallow climb through the sky, Faye and Gavan set a steady pace. The road ran out of the eastern edge of the town and followed a fairly even gradient for many miles. The eastern territory of Lóthaven ran low to sea level, plains that spanned many hundreds of miles. From what Faye had been told, the fertility of the land got steadily worse, the further east you travelled.

There were a few Steadings out this way, she knew. But, unlike the Bann Steading to the north of Lóthaven, these were pastoral farms and relied on animals for their living.

Well before they reached the Steadings, however, they needed to breach the woods that surrounded the town. That was going to be much easier than the last time Faye had ventured into the trees, because they were sticking to the road.

It was not what Faye thought of when she thought ‘road’, of course. There were no advanced road surfacing techniques here. Simply packed dirt. Occasionally, there would be sections of somewhat even rocky patches that provided surer footing in inclement weather, but would be a nightmare for carts, she imagined.

The first few hours of walking passed by easily. Both Faye and Gavan were content to allow the miles pass by in companionable silence. Faye practised her [Mana Sense] skill, as she had on the journey through the mountains. There were more flows of mana here than on the rocky, starved mountainsides in the west.

“Gavan, where does mana come from?” Faye asked as they passed by a particularly dense knot of mana that flowed around a copse of trees at the side of the road.

Gavan looked over for a moment before nodding.

“Yes, there are some that say it comes from the land itself. Living things.”

Faye cocked her head. “But humans use mana. Do we also produce it?”

He stayed quiet for a moment. “In my experience… no. I do not believe so.”

Faye looked at her own hand in [Mana Sense]. It had a very faint colour to it, showing that there were motes of mana still attracted to her skin. Grabbing hold of the mana in her core and pulling it to her hand made the mana flows concentrate and deepen into more vibrant colours of red, orange.

“Have you given any thought to your path?” Gavan asked.

Faye was pulled from her thoughts of mana and for a moment her brain had to backpedal.

“Uhh,” was all she could say, but Gavan’s words filtered through a second later. “Oh, uh, path, as in with skills?”

Gavan nodded.

“Not a whole lot,” Faye replied. “I don’t really know what’s out there, what’s available. The plans I have made so far have been to get my hand on a sword that was better suited to my fighting style.” She patted the hilt of her new sword, belted at her hip. “And, of course, I wanted to expand the number of spells I have access to. So far, I have three. They all use the same element.”

“There is nothing inherently wrong with that,” Gavan said with a shrug.

Faye nodded. “Okay, I can accept that. Specialisation obviously has its benefits. Your ice spells synergise well.”

“What does synergise mean?”

Faye blinked. “Oh, sorry. Uh, they go well together.”

“Ah.”

“But what happens if you come across something that is immune or resistant to ice spells?”

Gavan gave her a strange look. “I have only once come across such a monster.”

“Really? Only once? What did your spells do against it?”

He went quiet again for a moment, gazing off into the distance.

Faye had to be careful. She knew that there were similarities between this world and the fantasy games she had played back home, but if she treated this like a game — making assumptions about how the world worked — then she could get herself killed.

Some games would give every creature an element, but if that was not the case here…

“My spells have a physical component,” Gavan said after a moment. “This usually means that the magical damage is given to the target through it, but in the case with the ice wolves, it was the primary method of attack.”

Faye nodded.

“There are stories of places where monsters with the affinity for an element are much more common,” Gavan said. “Until that day, I had always assumed they were just stories. I had never met someone to say they were real.”

Faye hummed. “Maybe they don’t frequent this area?”

Gavan nodded. “That is certainly true. We have no idea where that dire wolf came from or why it was here.”

“Brought the snows with it, didn’t it?” Faye asked.

“Indeed. It was early for snow, but everyone accepted it. It must have stalked the town for over a week.”

Faye’s belly rumbled and she placed a hand against her gambeson.

“Ugh, okay I’m getting hungry. Fancy a quick rest for lunch?”

Gavan looked up at the sun. It had reached its zenith, despite how low in the sky it was. Soon it would head down into the west, bringing the darkness of winter afternoon with it. There were clouds in the sky, but none that threatened rain.

He nodded. “A quick rest for food. We should try for a few more miles before nightfall.”

Night fell quickly. The temperature dropped, too, but neither of the adventurers felt its effects too keenly. In truth, it seemed to Faye that Gavan was more affected by the cold than she was until he muttered something.

“What was that?” she asked him.

“Spell for the cold.”

“You’re cold?”

“Not anymore.”

She chuckled. “I guess I deserved that. I don’t feel all that cold though.”

Gavan hummed. “Your class gives you toughness.”

And a few things clicked. “And yours doesn’t,” she muttered. It was obvious. She had not thought about it. “So, when Arran and Ailith were giving you grief about not training with us as much, it’s because of your class. It doesn’t match the attributes of our classes.”

Gavan shook his head.

“Not in the same way. More than makes up for it in magical strength.”

Faye nodded. It made sense. Her class had switched from one that was focused on melee combat and all physical attributes. Now, she was a hybrid. She was happy that it had seemingly powered her magic up a few notches. It made sense that the same reduction in physical stats she saw with her class change are even more stark with a pure mage, like him.

“Do you not worry about someone getting close with a sword, or even a dagger?” she asked. As she was talking and thinking, she was also pulling some wood together and with a careful application of her mana, she was able to ignite it.

“Of course,” Gavan said. He was pulling out their food supplies. “It’s always dangerous, but more so for mages. We tend to get targeted first.”

Faye nodded. “Makes sense. You’re capable of putting out so much magic that you’re the most dangerous one in a group, right?”

He shrugged. “Depends how you define ‘danger’. Someone like Arran is capable of a targeted, quiet strike much more than I am. Most of my spells are big. Obvious. He just needs a blade in the dark.”

“Not that he would do that,” Faye said. “He would challenge them to an honourable fight.”

Gavan laughed. “He probably would.”

They ate some of their rations. It was hard, durable travel cake. They complemented it with some small, tart berries. The fire gave off a small plume of dark grey smoke, and Faye watched it rise into the sky and float this way and that.

Her thoughts wandered back to the spectre. It was amazing what a difference it made to have gotten rid of that bane. Despite the trouble the townsfolk were in, the potential danger on the road, the fact that she was in a world she knew extraordinarily little about with no discernible way home.

None of those things felt like too much, anymore. Each one was a problem, but they were more manageable now. The ones she could do nothing about, she left alone. Maybe a solution would present itself eventually, perhaps it would not.

Before, that felt so insurmountable she was drowning in the mires of worry and anxiety that came with it. The worst part was she had not realised that she had felt that way until it was lessened by removing it.

No, the worst part was that I felt that way before I came to this world.

It was in the confrontation with the spectre that Faye had realised her darker thoughts and feelings stretched back much further than she had thought. A part of her recognised that, even now, there were the seedlings of those same feelings rooted deep in her psyche. She would have to deal with them, eventually. For now, she was revelling in the fact that there was no longer a malevolent magic that was inflaming those seeds into masses of corruption in her mental health.

They had stopped by the side of the road, near the copse of trees that were brimming with mana. To their north and east, the direction they were currently travelling, the trees faded out rapidly to reveal rolling plains and hills, dotted here and there with bushes, rocks, and other landscape features Faye was used to.

But as she stared out over the land, musing on her problems, it became apparent that there were ones much closer at hand.

She slowly got to her feet.

“What?” Gavan asked. He scrambled to his feet, turning to try and see whatever Faye was looking at.

“I’m not sure…” she said, but she pointed out at something in the distance. “What is that?”

The grass here was a pale green, bland yellows of dead grass mixed in, and it grew only a foot or so from the ground. That meant the shapes moving toward them were low to the ground, maybe a foot and a half, and were probably not bipedal.

“I can’t see from here,” Gavan said, but he brushed off his robes and made to clear away the rest of their gear. “But if they’re coming straight at us, they’re likely not just animals.”

Faye nodded. “Okay. Time to test out the new sword, then.”