“Ready,” she said, holding a spear of ice over her shoulder, ready to throw.
“Throw it now,” I said.
She hurled the spear forward at the patch of gravel. I threw my fireball half a second later.
The ball of fire whooshed forward and grazed the spear. A puff of steam hissed into the air, and the spear splashed against the ground, totally melted.
“Well, we can make a monster really wet,” Amelia said wryly.
“Might be good against cats?”
Amelia laughed. “Let’s try again.”
We tried a couple more times, but with no better luck.
“We’ll obviously need to practice this some more,” I said. “I still have a good feeling about the possibilities.”
“We’ll just have to wait for my Mana to regenerate first; I’m feeling a bit drained,” Amelia said.
We continued to practice as we walked, waiting in between for our Mana to recover. We both started to recover Mana faster as we practiced concentrating. Focusing on our Mana pools seemed to increase our recovery rate.
The results were a little better each time, making the puff of steam a bit larger. I was excited by the progress since we could use the combination to blind an enemy temporarily. I got better and better at aiming my fireballs and regulating the size of them. I was confident that I could throw fireballs at the dirt of the road in front of us without sending them into the trees to start an accidental fire.
I also practiced trying to hold more than one strand of Mana in my arms at a time, but that skill continued to elude me for now.
The landscape was changing, the trees becoming thinner and the ground becoming hillier and rockier. As the sun reached the middle of the sky, we stopped at the foot of a hill overlooking the road. The ruins of a stone tower stood at the top of the hill.
“I suppose that was meant to keep travelers safe,” I remarked. “Doesn’t look like it would do much good now.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Amelia. “Its upkeep must have been neglected for some reason.”
“Oh well, it makes for a nice view,” I said. “This seems like as good a place as any to take a break. Are you hungry?”
Amelia nodded, and we walked off the road a little way until we came to a flat expanse of ground where we stopped to eat. From here, we had an unobstructed view of the hill and the crumbled remains of the stone tower at the top. The sky was quite clear, nothing but birds and a few small clouds to see. Not much to hear either. We hadn’t passed any other travelers so far that day. That was a good thing really, since the road was frequently used by slavers. Neither of us were particularly keen to risk being recaptured by a slaver caravan.
As we ate, we watched the top of the hill. The toppled stones stuck out like teeth against the horizon. I heard animals moving in the undergrowth around the base of the hill.
“Do you hear those animals?” I asked Amelia. “I’ve never been this far north. Do you think they could be magical Beasts?”
She shook her head. “I doubt it very much. Those two we stumbled upon yesterday were likely the only ones for miles around.”
“What makes you think that? Didn’t the Librarians send you to investigate Beasts that had escaped from the mines?”
“They did, but there were only one or two firsthand accounts of escaped monsters. Those reports were from three months ago, so perhaps the number of monsters has increased. Still, we won’t be taken off-guard; our sensitivity to elemental magic will notify us whenever a magical monster is near.”
It was this same sensitivity that had led to Amelia and I being captured by slavers, the special ability that was used to detect the location of monsters in the mines.
“Those clouds seem to be forming quickly,” Amelia observed as we neared the end of our meal.
“Whoa, you’re right.” I looked up at the top of the hill. Above the tower, a stormhead seemed to be gathering.
“Is that natural?” Amelia asked.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. What could be causing it?”
We watched for another 30 seconds or so as the clouds grew. They were heavy and dark, but they seemed mostly to surround the top of the tower. They swirled in a vortex toward the tower top, but where we were sitting, the sun continued to shine.
I shuddered a little as a sensation arose in my mind. It was the same feeling I’d experienced when we’d stumbled upon those monsters yesterday.
“Did you feel that?” I asked Amelia as I scanned the area for magical Beasts.
She was looking around fearfully. “I felt it,” she said, then she reached out and grabbed my arm, pointing to the base of the hill. I looked to where she was pointing and saw the monster.
About 100 yards from where we were sitting, a great brown creature lumbered up the slope. It was a fire bear, like the one I’d fought yesterday. Curling horns protruded from its head, tapering away to cruel spikes. Gouts of flame and puffs of black smoke leaked from between a mouthful of sharp teeth. The creature flexed long claws as it reared up on its hind legs for a moment before continuing up the hill. Its red eyes were fixed on the storm-wreathed tower.
“There’s another one,” I said.
Amelia looked where I pointed. Another bear had emerged from the edge of the treeline and followed the first. If anything, it was bigger and more evil-looking than the first.
To our amazement, the two bears were followed by a group of three monstrous boars. Again, these were very much like the one we had fought the day before. They were bigger than regular boars. Spikes protruded from their backs, and freezing mist puffed from their noses and mouths, leaving a
