“You sound like you almost expected monsters to be outside the mines.”
“There have been rumors, but you needn’t concern yourself with them just yet.”
I felt like I was on the verge of learning more about what Amelia was actually doing out here, but just then I felt a powerful disturbance to my Mana pool. It was as if sudden warmth radiated at me from behind. My spine crawled with the sudden awareness of something powerful nearby.
“What’s that?” I said, spinning to scan the clearing. I didn’t see anything.
“What’s what?” Amleia asked.
“Don’t you feel that?”
“No, I don’t feel… oh, wait, yes, I can feel it now, but I’m not sure…”
Suddenly, we heard a low growl from behind us. It sounded like another large animal was stalking through the undergrowth.
“Another boar?” Amelia’s fingers whitened as she tightened them around her book and the Beast Cores.
“Quick, let’s get undercover. There!” I pointed to a large tree trunk which lay on the ground where it must have fallen years and years ago. Grass and ferns had grown up all around it, and we vaulted over it and crouched down.
We both looked out from behind it in time to see a bear lumbering into the clearing. Like the boar, this creature was bigger than a regular bear. Curled horns stuck out from the sides of its head. As it breathed, smoke trailed from its nostrils. It was clearly another Magical Beast.
The bear dropped to all fours and sniffed about on the ground. It snorted. A small burst of flame rushed out of its nostrils and singed the grass. Then it sniffed again, looked up in our direction, and reared suddenly up on its hind legs with a roar which sent flame gouting from its mouth and nostrils.
This monster was bigger than the boar I’d fought, and I’d only managed to take the boar out by stabbing it with a heated blade. Would heat harm a fire creature? I strongly doubted it. His flesh would be less sensitive to heat than the cold monster’s had been. Nor could I get close to the monster because of the flames it shot from its mouth.
I looked at my tattoo and thought about what Amelia had said. The spear element of my tattoo apparently represented projectile spells. If, as she said, my tattoo was some magical symbol which gave me the power to cast spells, then maybe the spear component could allow me to shoot projectiles? The whole concept seemed outlandish. Then again, before today, I never would have thought I could heat a knife blade with my mind.
“Get ready to run,” I whispered to Amelia. “I’m going to try something.”
She reached her hand out as if to stop me, but we both knew the monster could probably sense us by now and there was no use in hiding. Amelia made sure of her grip on her precious book and checked the Beast Cores where she’d stowed them in a leather pouch at her belt. When I was certain she was ready to flee, I stepped out from the tree and held up my left arm, brandishing my knife in my right hand. Then I pulled on my Mana and channeled its rippling flow into my left arm.
The monster sighted me and roared. Flames burst from its mouth and streamed behind it as it started to lumber toward me, reared up on its powerful hind legs. I pushed the Mana through my arm and out onto my hand. There was a crackling, and a glittering light appeared above my palm. Excitement flooded me as the light expanded and became a sphere of flame about twice the size of a man’s fist. I held a ball of fire neatly in my palm. The monster slowed, looking warily at me and snorting orange flame and smoke.
“That’s incredible,” Amelia whispered from beside me.
“I’m not done yet,” I said through my teeth as I struggled to contain the fireball in my hand.
I wasn’t sure whether a fire Beast would be harmed by a fireball, but it was the only spell I had in my arsenal, and that left me with no other choice. I didn’t know exactly how this would work, so I simply tried imagining hurling the ball and drew back my arm.
The tattoo on my arm flashed orange, and the spear passing through the flame lit up. The monster loped toward me, now only ten feet away. I thrust my hand forward and spread my fingers wide. The ball of fire flew through the air from my fingers.
It burst in the monster’s face with a hiss. Some smoke went up as it singed the Beast’s fur. The bear stopped for a moment, disoriented. The fire dissipated, and the bear snorted, shaking its head. It turned its face toward me again. Besides a few scorch marks on its fur, the fire had barely harmed it.
Oh, fuck.
“Time to run, Amelia!” I turned and grabbed her right arm. The Beast roared again and started forward.
But Amelia pulled her arm from my grasp. She lifted her hand and threw a stone. The monster was closing in on us. The stone struck it in the face, and a flash of blue light exploded around us. The shockwave from the blast hurled me backward, and I felt a wave of cold air rush over me. Amelia landed on the ground beside me, having been thrown by the shockwave as well.
I looked up and saw the bear frozen still, about a yard away from me. It was literally frozen solid. In a patch about three yards across, all the ground was covered in ice. The ice-coated area stopped just before my feet, which I was grateful for. I had been blasted with ice once already on this trip. I didn’t feel like having that happen again.
“You threw a Beast Core?” I could hear the incredulity in my own voice. What I’d thought was a stone had been a cold Core.
Amelia
