Book One - Awakening

Intro

Silence falls over the clearing as the last vestiges of my void spell flicker and spark into nothing. The sprite folds to its knees, before keening face first into the dirt at my feet. I lower my wand as the fairy dust settles on my boots, then nudge its head aside. The buglike eyes stare at me accusingly, even in death, as I work the golden latch on the chest the three of them had been guarding.

"Damn tinkler," I mutter under my breath. The slur alone would've incited the group into violence had they still been alive.

The latch flips open, and I wrench the wooden lid up. Several objects are laced in shadows inside, and I reach in up to my elbow, fingers searching. I grab everything and cram it into my satchel, then clear the corners to make sure I've got it all. I stand, fastening the belt tightly around my waist; for now, the satchel contains everything I own in the world.

Sour crowberries churn in my stomach, the only food I've managed to scrounge in the last four days. Since I'd woken on the hillside, bruised, hungry, and robbed, I'd been trekking across the mountains of Ignus towards my home base on the Shadow Cape. I flex my fingers around the wand in my right hand, feeling the hard band of my mana ring dig into my skin.

These two items were responsible for my survival of a brutal mugging by six skeletons, animated by dark magic. Since I'd woken, I'd cursed myself for having such foolish luck, and blessed the magical objects that kept me alive. As though hearing my inner thoughts, the great mass of boughs and branches beside me groans, like a ghost ship coming ashore. The forest guardian I'd managed to tame just before being set upon had also played a hand in my survival. I place a hand on the branches that make up his arm in an effort to calm him. He settles, but glowing eyes in a wooden face survey the woods around us.

The effort to weave magic through his sentient branches had almost exhausted me to the bone. When at last I'd lowered my wand, my mana almost drained and sweat on my brow, the assailants had seen their opportunity and attacked. I had a dim memory of a roar that shook the trees to their roots and set the fireflies swirling in the night air. The same glowbugs clung to him now, a few alighting every now and then as though checking they were attached to the right tree monster.

I resettle the satchel, wishing for the thousandth time I hadn't lost my broom, or that I could saddle the forest guardian and ride him through the trees. But wishes buy me nothing but wants, and I begin to trek the long walk home.