As the sun beat down on us, we arrived at the vast plains that stretched far south of Alarna, just as we had planned. The journey had been uneventful, and my mind had continuously wandered to the beauty of this summer day, until I realized that, according to this world’s calendar, it was technically already autumn. This was wholly unnoticeable to me.

I wondered what winter would look like in these lands. I was once told there was little to no rainfall in this region, so I doubted there would be any snow, but apparently the temperatures would drop a little. Before that time came, we would need to improve our housing situation. At the very least we would need proper doors, windows, and blankets. Though I didn’t foresee any issues if we continued at our current pace, and half of my mind was occupied by thoughts of ways to fix doors to a frame with leather straps while we were waiting for the mods’ arrival.

Unable to tell with certainty when exactly they would get here, we felt two trees and rolled their trunks away from the forest to create make-shift benches, on which we sat. The mood was relaxed and the Fighters even engaged in card games, while Aelene read, Hati lazed around, and Riala and I continued our lessons. All that was missing was a picnic basket, and anyone would’ve been fooled as to our reason for being there.

It was during this time that I was struck by a peculiar development within our group. Our numbers had more than doubled in size, and some of our newer members were natural skeptics. Grym and Aelene in particular used to question my words at every turn in the past. In this situation in particular, with the threat of a beast army looming over us, I had expected them to voice doubts and concerns, no matter how much I tried to rationalize it away. But to my surprise, every single one of them appeared carefree, at ease in the moment. They joked and made small talk, enjoying each other’s company without a care in the world. It was as if they had all taken on my own carefree spirit.

Throughout my life, I had often preached the benefits of remaining calm in the face of adversity, but this was rarely met with understanding by others. It wasn’t as simple as telling someone to relax and expect them to simply follow your advice. That’s just not how it works. However, even in this situation, our group was undisturbed. I enjoyed this for a time, until a gnawing feeling of unease crept up on me.

Why are they acting like this?

I mulled over this question, but no satisfactory explanation came to mind. While I wanted to believe that my arguments had been persuasive enough to quell their fears, the tranquility of this scene I found myself in felt unreal. It was like a scene out of a children's movie, too perfect to be true. I couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of our enemy arriving and being so confused by our peaceful demeanor that they would lose the will to fight.

My mind was jolted from its musings by a sudden voice calling my name. “Miles!”

Startled, I looked up to see Riala standing before me, a sheet of paper clutched tightly in her hand. “I’m done!” she exclaimed, waving the paper excitedly.

“Ah, good,” I replied, casting aside my concerns and taking the paper from her. She had done a good job penning this practice script, but a fatal flaw caught my attention. “Can you explain to me what you think this script does?” I asked, holding the paper up for us to examine together.

Riala’s face fell as she realized the purpose of my question, understanding that I wanted her to find an error. Instead of following my instructions of going through the script step by step, she went ahead and attempted to find her mistake on her own, scrutinizing each symbol. With a smirk, I waited patiently as she worked. One minute passed, then another, until she finally admitted defeat.

“I don’t see it,” she said with disappointment.

“Let’s go over it together. Trust me, it helps,” I advised.

She sounded hopeful when she replied, “Can’t I just run it and see what happens?”

I chuckled at her cheeky request. “You know this lesson is about writing and understanding scripts without testing them every step of the way. Imagine you were to make a mistake and create a script that could harm or even kill you. You need to be able to catch such bugs ahead of time.”

Riala let out a sign and agreed begrudgingly. “Okaaay,” she said and began explaining. “I set the input and the output, the direction, the speed, and the vector thingies. Then I start the first script with the conversion and use it for the second script. After that I go to the next one...”

She rushed through the initial setup that she had done a hundred times before, confident that she hadn’t made any errors in this part of the process. Though everything was in order this time, I made a mental note to force a bug in there some time, to teach her that even small mistakes in boilerplate code could have dire consequences.

As she neared the end of the script, where the actual error lay, Riala’s furrowed brow betrayed her growing frustration. “Once the water is moving, I hit it again and again here until it makes a circle, and then I go over here and do it in a different direction. And back to the first one, and so on,” she explained, before turning to me with a suspicious look at having reached this point without finding any issues. “Are you trying to trick me?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I said with a smile. “You just need to follow the operations a bit further.”

Confusion was written all over her face. “Huh? But it’s the end.”

I watched as she turned back to the script slowly, scanning it again. “Hm... It makes the circle go up and down... And left and right... Up and down, left and right, up and... Wait... Oh!” Her eyes widened in realization. “It keeps going forever. Oops,” she said, giggling in embarrassment.

A grin spread across my face as I congratulated her. “Well done. It wouldn’t have been much of an issue with this script, but if you seriously cranked up the output, it could’ve drained your mana in a heartbeat. This is difficult to catch in Omega, so you must pay close attention to it.”

“What is it like in other languages?” she asked, curiously.

“Let’s see... You’d probably do something like this.”

While Riala would presumably never need to know more programming languages than Omega, I had begun showing her different languages, to aid in her education. Picking up the quill, I rewrote the script in pseudocode, turning the problematic area into two very simple loop instructions with clearly defined runtimes. Riala was astonished at how straightforward it was.

“That’s unfair,” she protested, pouting. “This is so much easier!”

I chuckled, knowing exactly how she felt. This part of the language really wasn’t well designed. “Yea. It might help if you picture such a loop in your mind before writing them in Omega. Just set everything up before you enter it.”

Riala gave me a determined nod. Typically, this was the sign that she would not make a particular mistake again, and she didn’t for the remainder of our lesson. I watched with a satisfied smile as she fixed the bug and continued on to the text script.

***

The hours flew by as we enjoyed ourselves, my mind too scattered to stay focused on a topic for long. We finished our lessons, came up with new scripts for tools, watched Emeryn get obliterated at cards by Berla and the others, and dedicated a considerable amount of time to petting the fluffy wolf in our midst. But as the sun began its descent, I noticed Hati’s body grow tense. His senses on high alert, he raised his head, fixing his eyes on the horizon to the south. Soon I could make out a faint rumbling noise. Quiet at first, it quickly grew louder as the first wolves appeared in the distance. With a quick command to prepare, I sprang to my feet.

From one moment to the next, all eyes were on the beasts, as they noticed us and corrected their course to head straight for us. The air filled with the sound of their feet pounding the ground. As we stood in a line, the sun casting our shadows long, I couldn't help but feel a rush of adrenaline.

With a quick nod to Riala and Aelene, we took a step forward, away from the others. We were going to stick to what we had witnessed to work before for now. When the mods were less than two hundred meters away, we unleashed our auras. As predicted, the beast army stopped in their tracks upon coming face to face with this display of power. However, unlike last time, they weren’t deterred for long and began to charge again just seconds later.

Three beasts in the front began growling and appeared to literally bark orders, their group splitting into three. My hope that we would get another chance to have a nice talk first was quickly dashed, but this was within our expectations. It would’ve been careless of them not to attack us immediately this time. So it began.

Seemingly uninterested in the others behind us, the three groups of about twenty beasts each came at us from different directions. Standing defiantly, we didn’t move until they were about to attack. At my signal, we raised our arms and shot large water streams into the black clusters of monsters. At this distance, they barely had a chance to evade, and our attacks were a direct hit on at least a third of them. Swallowed by water masses, they vanished in an instant.

A follow up attack took out a few more, but as we continued they became more careful, stepping back and eying us threateningly. With the initial attack over, the others joined the fight in a protective circle around us magic users. The fight was reminiscent of our previous encounter with the mods, with our capable Fighters holding them back, and precisely fired water streams decreasing their numbers at a rapid pace.

With every wolf that fell, it became more evident that we had grown stronger. We were more skilled, had a better understanding of our powers and the enemy, and we had more allies. Additionally, Aelene was able to use water thanks to the blue stones Reurig had brought, adding to our fire power. Though it was not yet easy, we were dominating the battle. Their attacks could barely even touch us.

A wide grin spread across my face as I shot down another moderator. First test phase complete, I thought.