The roar of the flaming maelstrom drowned out every other sound in the forest and the backdraught from the suddenly igniting whirlwind slammed into Faye, throwing her to the ground.

Blinking awake a few moments later, the roar of the fiery maelstrom having died down a little but not completely, Faye sat up, horrified.

Her spell had interacted with the mana and dust in the other mage’s spell in a completely unexpected manner. Fortunately, it meant that the whirlwind of dust, rocks, and other forest debris was no longer powered. Unfortunately, it meant that as her sight cleared Faye saw that the [Ice Walls] Gavan had erected were damaged and half-melted.

Even as she watched, those walls disappeared as Gavan’s control over them commanded them to part. He stepped out with a wary expression. Faye sighed with relief as she saw him.

She came to her feet and looked for the other mage.

It was not until she saw a feeble movement from near the centre of where the maelstrom had been that she realised the enemy mage was lying on his back in the middle of the charred, blackened forest floor.

Faye approached, warily, holding her sword on her shoulder, ready to cut down.

The mage was covered in ash. He coughed weakly. Noticing Faye, he tried to move but could not.

“Heh,” he coughed out again, “it seems that you are too strong for me.”

Faye frowned. Anyone else she knew that had been in the centre of that firestorm without protection would have been beyond recognition afterwards.

“You attacked us,” she replied, “would you care to tell us why?”

The man looked toward Gavan as the other mage stepped into view on his other side.

“Your mana…” the charred mage said, his eyes widened and darted between them.

“What about it?” she asked.

The man did not say anything but continued looking between them. After a few moments, Gavan spoke.

“Our mana does not match the poison mana spread around this forest. Neither, we know now, does yours.”

The mage coughed again, his weakened lungs trying hard to clear his airways. “No, of course… of course not.”

Faye scowled. She took her eyes from the downed mage and scanned the surrounding area. [Mana Sense] told her nothing.

“He’s not the poison mage,” Faye said. “Shit, but that was loud enough that the real poison mage knows we were here. Just what were you thinking?” she asked the man lying on the ground.

He looked up at her. “Th… that I would be ridding a scourge from the land.”

Faye grimaced but looked up at Gavan. “Are you going to heal him?”

At her words, the defeated mage looked up at Gavan with hope. The ice mage seemed to embody his chosen element for a moment as he stared down at the broken man.

“I have not decided, yet.”

“I am—,” he said, breaking off to cough again, “truly sorry. We thought we had no choice.”

Faye shook her head. “And your friend paid the price for that. Dammit, if that poison mage is still around…”

Gavan sighed, and his icy exterior broke. He lifted his hands and cast the healing spell.

Faye looked down at the injured man as his wounds began knitting together. “You’re incredibly lucky he’s a nice guy.”

Half an hour later, the earth mage, Gerrec he said his name was, had recovered enough to no longer lie on the ground in immense pain.

They walked over to the body of his friend and companion together. Faye felt awful as they watched Gerrec take care of his ally’s body, lying him out straight rather than crumpled over in his death pose.

He attacked us, we were defending ourselves.

In this world, it was as if everyone went around with small nuclear bombs in their pockets. There was no place for half-measures. No half-hearted attacks or defences. You either made sure you were safe or you died. It was a shame that this archer had died before speaking to her or Gavan.

She hardened her heart to the guilt as it rose up again. This was not something she would beat herself up about. Gavan looked at her closely as she sighed.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Not sure. He wasn’t an enemy… not really. But we killed him.”

“He attacked us. We acted on the information we had. He was about to kill you.”

Faye blanched. “True. But…”

“He would have hated this,” Gerrec interrupted. He was grinning, but the sadness she saw in his eyes was still there. “His killer remorseful about the act. Would have thought it was a waste. You succeeded. He failed. That is enough.”

Faye shook her head. “I cannot accept that. I never used to think I was a killer.”

The mage’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He shrugged. “I think we are all killers. Especially those of us who venture outside of walled fortresses.”

His words prompted Faye’s next question. “Why were you out here together?”

Gerrec paused and looked at them, from Faye to Gavan and back. “I guess that you are both registered adventurers, then?”

Gavan nodded. “Out of Lóthaven.”

The other man shrugged. “No idea where that is. Von and I were treasure hunters, mostly. Scouting out remains in the wilderness. Tell you the truth, we were heading away from here when we came across the mana.”

As they talked, Gerrec erected a small burial mound over his friend, then with nary a word, he sunk the mound beneath the forest floor. Faye was about to say something, but Gerrec beat her to the punch.

“Nothing will get at his body that should not.”

The man was powerful. That much was obvious. He moved the earth and rocks around like they were nothing. It was only the anomalous interaction between their mana that had caused him to fail.

“The mana you saw,” Gavan said, “where did you first see it?”

The mage thought about it for a while, staring blankly at the spot where his friend’s remains had disappeared below the burial mound.

“Hard to say. We saw something similar on a beast far to the north, months past. Thought nothing of it, other than the fact that we were surprised something so strong was wandering around.” The mage shook his head slowly. “I have no idea what we were trying to do… It was Von’s idea, something about being the folk heroes of the local towns. Wanted the glory.”

“Why didn’t you tell the Adventurer’s Guild?” Faye asked.

The man shrugged. “Like I said, we wanted the good will of the people to ourselves.”

Faye nodded.

Looks like they paid a tall price for the chance at glory.

“Well, if you saw it to the north,” Gavan said, “then it is likely a Primalist was the culprit.”

“I agree,” Faye said. “We can only hope they’re no longer in the area. I’m worried that if we spend too long here…”

Gavan nodded. “Agreed. Gerrec,” he said, addressing the mage, “the Steading could do with your help. They’re not fighters, but they have been attacked. Lóthaven, the Guild town nearby, could also use your help. It is, of course, up to you. But I think that if you stayed in the area you could be a valuable and valued member of the community.”

Faye thought the mage was not convinced. He clearly wanted to get away from the area as much as before, judging by his expression. Before he could say no, though, Faye jumped in.

“No need to decide now. Let’s check the area further. Did you see any other signs of a camp, or trails, back here?” she asked.

Gerrec shrugged. “I’m not the tracker. That was Von’s job.”

“I found the trail here with the mana, more than with traditional tracking,” she replied. “How about we all look for more poison mana?”

The other two shrugged and agreed to spread out, looking for more of the insidious mana.

Once Faye was on her own, she covertly studied the earth mage as he went about his assigned task. She did not expect too much duplicity from him, but there was always a chance. The man followed various animal trails for a little while, not finding anything.

A few minutes into the trail, Faye was convinced the man knew nothing about tracking — or was laying it on extremely thick on the off-chance that Faye would do exactly as she was.

Bloody hell.

If she started thinking like that, she could tie herself into knots thinking about all the possibilities. She was not that twisty in her thoughts, so it was always hard to imagine other people that were and their justification for the things they did never came to her easily.

She left Gerrec to it and moved off at a tangent to scout her own area of the woods. As before, there were small traces of the mana dotted around, but nothing that indicated more than a vague presence at some point.

Half an hour later, she turned and started back, making a wide oval of a search pattern.

She was approximately half-way back to the ambush site when she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

It was not a trace of mana, but there were three large boulders gathered together in a clump. She was reminded of the shelter she had found in the wilderness before she had come to Lóthaven, months ago. She wondered if perhaps the Primalist had used this as shelter.

She angled her path toward the boulders. They lay a little outside her path back to the ambush site and were around half an hour’s walk from the Steading. Though it looked like a random assortment of rocks and boulders, Faye drew her sword and readied herself for something to jump out.

The woods were relatively quiet. A few birds, here and there, but nothing like the sounds she would have heard in a true forest. The boulders were amongst the trees, but with how few trees there were around it was almost as if the boulders took up the majority of space in a clearing.

Around the boulders was an open area of grass. It was an uneven field, and there were no signs of anything disturbing the ground.

“Not a great sign of a secret camp,” she muttered to herself.

Of course, she was here now so she would explore it properly.

There were three large boulders, each placed at the points of a triangle which left a trio of paths into the centre of the rocks. Faye walked between two of the boulders and slowly made her way into the gap. The ground fell away rather sharply to create a depression between the boulders, which was odd.

She did not get the impression the space was manufactured.

But what if magic did it and made it look more natural?

Walking forward a step at a time, she made she that her senses were fully attuned to the environment.

By the time she was in the centre of the three large boulders, she was below ground level. It looked like each of the other two paths just led back up and out of the small, cramped space.

She stepped forward to crane her neck and look around the shallow bend. Her foot landed on a smooth piece of stone embedded in the ground and with a sudden flash of light, Faye found herself blinded.

When the light faded away and she could see again, Faye was astonished to find herself standing on a smooth area of stone that had been carved into with symbols and writing that she could not decipher. The boulders were gone, as were the path she had taken.

Instead, she was in a fairly spacious room of stone. If she had to guess, it took up the same space as the boulders had. On each wall was an embedded rock, a crystal perhaps, that glowed a soft green light into the space.

She breathed out calmly, but slowly shuffled around with her sword at guard.

There were no signs of human, or monster, habitation of the room but she did not want to risk it. It was not every day that she found herself teleported somewhere unknown.

Okay, it happens way more than it should have any right to… she thought.

Her [Mana Sense] told her that there were no living things nearby, as well, so she sheathed her sword. There were objects laid out on the floors of the space. She moved over to the first jumble of items. Stepping off the stone platform, she realised it was raised a few inches off the ground, and the ground of the room was packed dirt.

The items she had seen were strewn about, as if the owner would return any minute. There was a sleeping roll, a small ring of blackened stones and ashes of a fire and leaning against the wall was a small sack. Inside the sack were a few supplies, but as she looked, her [Mana Sense] told her they were crawling with the same mana bugs as the Steading’s supplies.

“Okay,” she muttered, “psycho’s camp has been found.”

There was no reason to leave this behind unless they had thought someone would come to find it and end up eating the food here. It was an awful trap. Akin to leaving a bear trap in the middle of a path and never checking it.

A sound behind her made her spin around.

Someone was standing on the stone platform, and for a moment she could not quite make out who it was.

“Who are you?!” the woman screeched, then without waiting for a response, jumped towards Faye.