"Ugh, that is so gross."

 

Fel was dusting off his robe. All manner of ground debris, earth, and green rubbish had decided to make a home of the covering’s folds.

 

The situation was, of course, entirely his fault. His fit with the [Spell]-less fireball, or -as he'd tell his students- ‘raw mana manipulation’, had blasted him onto the ground and the ground onto him. The explosion itself had caused him to skid, following his landing a few feet away.

 

Fel picked at one of the robe's seams, then raised an eyebrow.

 

It barely appeared worn.

 

He'd only just finished brushing away the material, but it looked... off. The robe’s cloth was wrinkled and remained coated in various gifts of nature, certainly, but physical imperfections? There were few to none.

 

His eyes scrunched together, mouth quirking up in confusion.

 

There were no thorns or burs pierced into the fabric, nor were there tears in the seams from where he’d fallen. The only notable marking he could find was a splotchy coffee stain on one of the sleeves. It made no sense, yet the robe underneath was the same as it had been when he'd first woken that day.

 

The end of the thought gave him pause, and he dismissed his inane questioning of the robe. Had it really been the same day?

 

"How long have I been out here, anyway?"

 

Fel wasn't sure. The sun had been about midway across the sky when he'd woken up the first time, and it was evening now. That would mean...

 

"I slept for more than eight hours?"

 

A frown wormed its way onto his face.

 

"Not very helpful without knowing how long I was unconscious after the ritual. I could've been out for days, weeks even!" Fel threw his hands up in the air, then dropped them, feeling ridiculous.

 

He looked down and prodded his stomach.

 

"...probably not that long."

 

 

...

 

"Right! Water!"

 

He began his trudge back to the stump, a short distance away. The walk took a minute, a result of his newly increased tiredness and an unwillingness to run.

 

 

He took a deep breath and shook his head around to clear it.

 

 

It wasn't until Fel's hand slapped against his outer robe, rather than enter a pouch at his waist, that he remembered he didn't have a pouch of materials, much less any metal. He brought his hand up to his face and repeated the previous motion.

 

"Metal. Half of the material needed for the ritual, and I forget that I don't have it."

 

Pulling his hand back across the top of his head, he released a stream of air.

 

"Maybe I can use a stone? Something thermally conductive. A dense rock?"

 

He paused, then shot a hand towards the leafy canopy above him.

 

"Ah-ha! Who needs rocks? The arrows!"

 

He paused again.

 

"...which direction was that?"

---

 

It took a while, Fel's search taking him until he rediscovered — and subsequently tripped down — the gully he'd passed before. Following his climb from the gully's four-foot depths, it was a quick resumption of the trail he'd first traveled. He arrived at his destination soon after.

 

Fel grabbed most of the arrows that had fallen or been shot into the ground and shoveled them under his arm. He tried removing those embedded in the trees as well, but their difficulty stacked against his current haul, and he gave up. When his gaze passed over the blood-splashed bushes, however, he froze.

 

The blood was no longer wet, and a thought came to him.

 

 

He shivered. Had he been there, unconscious when the monster passed? While people shot arrows over his still form and the creature moved just yards away? Fel shook his head. No, a prone body laying on the ground during a fight against a monster? He'd have woken during the battle or not at all.

 

Still, the thought chilled him. Even if he had appeared after the conflict, the previously wet blood indicated that it hadn't been by long. The creature, if it had been driven off rather than killed, might have remained nearby.

 

Fel walked his way back across the forest with a newly increased urgency. Staying near the area seemed like a poor idea.

 

Following his arrival back at the stump, Fel dropped the arrows in a heap at its base. With a quickly imagined mental overlay, Fel grabbed a piece of bark and began to dig trenches into the surrounding dirt.

 

Fel bobbed his head as he worked, a little tune dancing it up in his head. Twice, he tried to use skills that failed to activate. The interruptions were bothersome and disruptive, but unimportant.

 

A circle here, a line there, a limiter looped back in to recycle the flow. The design for this one was simple, as it took only an exterior circle to cut off environmental interference; a caster's circle for constant mana draw; a single reagent intake; and an output. The output was, of course, the stump in which the water would collect.

 

Fel hummed, chewing at his lip in thought.

 

 

The tree bark he'd been using to dig was chucked down the hill.

 

Squatting, he shifted so that his right knee rested against the ground. With one hand, Fel picked up one of the arrows he'd brought back and pressed its tip firmly into the bark. Working to carve a solid line, he edged his way around the stump.

 

When he was done, there was a rough circle engraved on the outside of the wood. He finished the action by carving a thin line down, connecting the circle to a patch of dug-up dirt.

 

The design process completed, Fel used the arrows' heads to slice off two-thirds of their respective shafts' lengths. Discarding the red fletching onto the earth around him, he pressed all but one arrowhead into the stump so that they encircled the divot in the wood. Each arrowhead was angled so that when chilled, the resulting condensation of water would drip into the crude basin at the metal's tip.

 

 

Fel spotted a growth of moss on an old oak just down the rise. Picking up his remaining piece of iron, he walked over and began scraping strips off the tree. He didn't need much, and when he had a handful stacked in his palm, he made his way back. Taking care not scuff the lines in the dirt, he dropped the moss into the reagent intake.

 

Finished — with everything this time — Fel stretched and checked himself over. He was preparing to wait; the ritual wasn’t instant. It wasn’t even fast. The condensation ritual was a cheap, easily accessible beginner’s ritual that did exactly what its name suggested. It condensed water from the air that flowed past over a long period, the largest benefit being the low active mana cost required to maintain it.

 

Groaning, he leveraged himself to the ground and set the arrowhead to the side. Staying in the circle would slow down his mana recovery, but he did need the water and it wasn't as if more mana would solve that problem by itself. So he'd sit inside, powering it with a steady drip while his mana pool regenerated.

 

"Ahh," he let out another small groan and settled himself into the wooden stump, "let's get this ritual started then. The sooner I begin, the sooner I can get a drink."

 

Forming a thin tendril of mana, Fel slipped it into the caster's circle around him. The external ring, a near 7-foot radius circle around the center of the stump, was the first to start glowing. From there, the light traveled across two lines opposite each other on the ring. One of the two wound its way up the stump, encircling the depression in its wood, the other led to the moss. A quarter ways clockwise around the stump's engraving, light flared.

 

 

Built-up mana crackled against an obstruction in the stump's carved lines, with embers shooting out from the point of collision.

 

Fel tensed, leaning forwards away from the stump, arm ready to push himself out of the immediate area. A startup failure wouldn't be the biggest issue -the current ritual being as simple and low powered as one could get- but he'd still prefer to avoid sitting within the ritual as it collapsed on itself. A moment later, the sparks guttered out and Fel peeked around the edges of the stump.

 

He gave himself a sardonic grin and loosened.

 

"Wood chips. Should've checked that."

 

Fel paused.

 

 

A chuckle bubbled its way up at the thought and he responded to himself aloud, a tired smile lightening his face.

 

"A perk of being the older brother and professor then; My habits are formed!"

 

Tucking his robe into himself and curling in his legs -still careful to avoid disturbing the caster's circle outlined in the dirt around him- Fel pressed himself into the bark at his back and prepared to sleep. He stilled for a minute then reopened his eyes and pulled down his glasses to peer into the depths of his surroundings.

 

Empty.

 

Placing the glasses back on his head, Fel gave a last shifty glance at the surrounding trees before closing his eyes once more.

 

The ritual hummed gently into the night around him, his magic seeping out to power it. It was fully dark now, the half-lit moon providing little light without the sun's faded assistance. He was tired, drained really, with his magic reserves only half full. In the end, despite his nerves and recent bouts of unconsciousness, true rest did not take long to claim him.

---

 

When Fel did rise, the morning sun peeking over the trees, it was a struggle. He was having trouble moving. With great reluctance, he pulled open his eyes and looked around, head nodding to the side.

 

 

He flopped sideways, the side of his body dragging across the caster's circle he'd slept in.

 

The line broke with a crack that jolted Fel's heart, breaking through to his addled mind. He pulled back from the stump.

 

Nothing visible happened.

 

"Haa— right, right. Condensation ritual. Water. Not dangerous."

 

With a grunt, he rolled himself so that he was sitting upwards. He felt weak. Weaker even than when he'd fallen asleep. His mana pool was-

 

 

It was a rough sense of things, but that was lower than it had been last night! Fel's eyes shot to the stump. It sat there, a puddle of water maybe a foot wide and half that deep collected in the divot on its surface.

 

 

He pried his butt from the ground and rose. His lack of mana didn't make any sense! The amount of water gained would correspond to a fifth of his mana capacity at maximum, and that was ignoring his natural mana regeneration, which should've topped him up twice over!

 

"The only way I could've lost mana to this would be if the ritual was flawed, or..." Fel's face darkened as a thought came to him. "...or if I wasn't regenerating mana."

 

A hand gripped at Fel's heart. He hoped dearly that it was the first possibility.

 

No mana regeneration meant no mana for rituals. Without the ability to cast rituals, well, he wouldn't be a [Ritualist], much less be able to involve himself in its development and teachings.

 

"If I wasn't a ritualist... with no magic? That's— ha!"

 

Fel's breathing hitched nervously.

 

He walked around the ritual's exterior, looking it over for prints or fallen objects, where an animal or dropped item from a tree may have scuffed the lines. His eyes caught on a small burn mark from the previous night's flare-up of mana, but other than that...

 

Nothing.

 

"No. No, there's something wrong with the circle. That's all, I just didn't find it."

 

Workin his way around the circle, he checked over every inch of the still-intact markings. He poked at the moss reagent, brushed his hand down the carvings in the stump, and eyed every line for an incomplete connection. Each action was completed with increasing intensity until, finding nothing once more, he threw his hands in the air in anger and exasperation. A cold hand squeezed harder in his chest.

 

He could, theoretically, stop-gap an issue of no regeneration with mana potions or collection rituals, but the first was toxic and addictive long-term, and the second incredibly expensive. No, a lack of natural mana regeneration would cripple him.

 

Fel scowled to himself.

 

 

Fel twitched, a muffled gasp sounding out from behind him.

 

He turned, brow creased and eyes squinting as the direction and angle caused him to stare into the still-rising sun. The figure opposite of him, standing just a few dozen yards away, took a step back. Fel's frown deepened— the person's movement angled them further into the path of the morning light.

 

Straightening himself, back cracking, he attempted to get a better view.

 

 

It wasn't pointed at him, but Fel's shoulders tensed as he observed it being pulled back. He raised a hand above his head, palm angled to block out the glare. Nose scrunching, he squinted harder as he attempted to make out the blurry figure.

 

He called out to them, "Who—"

 

 

An impact took Fel in the chest. It knocked him off his feet and slammed his back into the ground. Something crunched. Whether it was the leaves or him, Fel didn't know.

 

Then— a flaring pain. Fel's eyes bulged, struggling down to his chest.

 

An arrow protruded outward.

 

Fel took a ragged breath, then coughed. Flecks of red splatted into the grass. Fel's breathing stuttered— he couldn't take in air. The world was dimming. Flashing. The blood on the ground turned blue, flickering. There was an arrow. He'd been shot?

 

 

Another heaving cough- a new coat of red.

 

His body curled. He gasped for breath.

 

Fel's eyes flickered to the figure on the opposite hill.

 

The person seemed to pause, observing their handiwork. With a jerk, the bow was thrown down and the figure started towards him.

 

Fel's eyes misted in pain. He blinked, head falling back.

 

Then a crunch, a few feet away. He twisted his head towards the sound, teeth gritted as the action shifted the arrow in his chest.

 

A woman. She held a knife in her hand, eyes wide and face white. Her shoulders were hunched, and her feet braced.

 

Fel tried to lift a hand, pulling all the mana he could from his pool in preparation for a desperate cast.

 

"Please—"

 

He tried to stall.

 

The woman lept.

 

Darkness.

 

 

 

And in that darkness, a message: