“So, what happened?” I ask my sober helpers, now that only superficial wounds remain.

“We were eating breakfast, Hanna” the young man gestures to the heavily injured girl.

“-went to- err, potty break. We heard her scream for help, and David and Eivind ran off towards the sound.”

One of the other boys picks up where Mr. Sober left of. “We run over there and this, this insect THING is draggin’ Hanna along the ground. David charges the thing and when it drops her, I just grab her and start moving to the camp as fast as I could.”

He pauses and holds a hand to his head. “Uhh, some of the others came, and one of them had a big branch.”

Mr.Sober continues “At this point we mostly realised what was going on. He put down Hanna. The others came back, apparently they’d scared it away.”

He shows a dark smile. “It came back though, with another one. We had branches and were alert, so we saw them in time. We formed a line and held them off while some of us just whacked the damned things. It felt like an eternity, but eventually one of them fell, and the other ran. We made really sure it’s dead, though.”

He looks over to the Tåke by my side. “We were discussing what to do with the wounded when one of those came by. I ran off, but then we heard barking and stuff, so we thought they were gonna attack us. Then you came here.”

He waves his hand over the area. It looks -rightly- like a battlezone.

I glance at my clock. “The chopper should be here in less than ten minutes, I think.” We need to make sure they can find us.

The campsite is fairly open, but there is enough trees that it could easily be overlooked.

“Have any of you tried this magic stuff?”

“Yeah.””Yes””Of course” The group murmurs. Mr.Sober speaks up.

“We were playing around with it yesterday, but after people drank a little they couldn’t use it. Even today they can’t use it.” He clarifies.

I take note of how he spoke. “They? You didn’t drink?”

“Ahahaha” he laughs disarmingly. “Designated sober guy. Hilde is sober too, she doesn’t drink.”

I nod. While they might have technically broken the law, at least they aren’t irresponsible. Actually, thinking back to the flasks I saw, I think there was some harder liquor. But they are somewhat responsible.

“Can you make light?” I demonstrate by making a glow on my hand.

Both the sober people demonstrate their ability. And I nod approvingly. “You think we can make that visible from the air?”

“With this fog? No chance.”

I blank at the answer, but realize there is actually a pretty dense fog here. My Mist Aspect affinity must’ve gone up. I whistle to call in the wolves. I then focus on the mist and use magic to do the opposite of what Tåke taught me to: To remove the fog.

The wolves get my intent and helps with the process. A minute or two later the mist has been completely removed. I can see/sense that there is a thin layer of fog on presumably the entire forest, but most people should be able to see decently well. And in a hundred meter or so diameter around us, there is no mist.

I turn to Mr.Sober, who seems to have dropped his jaw. He’s not the only one in a similar state. “What?”

He blinks and closes his mouth. “At first you went see-through, like a ghost, then I couldn’t see you at all. Then the mist started disappearing and suddenly you were back. How’d you do that?!?”

I shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know. And the wolves did most of the work.”

He seems confused at my answer. “The wolves?” He looks around. “Those are wolves, huh.” He clarifies: “Until you got rid of the fog they looked like a particularly dense patch of mist in the vague shape of a beast.”

He takes a short pause before starting to ask questions: “How do you control them, anyway? Do they just do what you tell them to? They seem to understand what you want even if you don’t speak…”

I raise my hands to stop him from firing off more questions, then tilt my head. There is the sound of rotor blades, still far. Doesn’t seem like anyone else have heard it.

“I don’t control them; I have a class called [Pack Leader(non-beast)].”

“A class?” “There’s classes?” “[Pack Leader(non-beast)], what’s that?” people ask.

I grin. “Think about it. If you focus on the name, do you get this nagging feeling in the back of your head? Focus on that.” I pause for a moment. “Chopper’s almost here, though.”

Judging by people’s reacting, they get it. I grab the ornamental stick I made. I already know how to make it glow, now let’s see how bright I can make it. I turn my back to the other as not to blind them, then squint and insert mana.

It immediately starts to glow brightly, but the burning smell indicates it won’t last long. I do a magically assisted throw, and it flies a couple dozen meters before succumbing to gravity.

It seems to have done the trick, though, as the chopper is now rapidly approaching. The others have started hollering and waving, and soon it lowers a stretcher with two air-medics.

I quickly tell them the status of our wounded and they praise my handling of the situation, not stopping for a moment before loading poor Hanna onto the stretcher(back down, ouch!).

When they have lifted her up, the chopper takes off, leaving one medic with a significantly better equipped first aid kit than me. While she changes some people’s bandages, I ask her a question:

“You saw the forest from the sky, right? When I walked today it seemed - still seems - like it’s bigger than before.”

She does not answer immediately, but soon finishes her current ‘patient’. “I’m not much around these parts, but it seems like all the lakes were bigger at least. I heard the Upheaval was much worse away from cities, was it bad?”

I tilt my head “Upheaval? The thing tonight? I didn’t get a wink of sleep until six in the morning; constant shaking and howling winds. I think my back it pretty bruised as well, from lying down.”

I roll my shoulders. “I’m alive though, and got five abilities and two classes. Ahh, in case you haven’t read about those yet, it’s like in games. For example I can lead these wolves.” I point at Tåke, ever present by my side.

She looks from me to Tåke and back. “Did you hit your head?”

“Huh?” I look at my beastly companion. “Oh.”

With a little bit of mana(my pool is getting a little low) I create a little bit of mist and try to mimic her.

“You can turn invisible!?!” The medic gapes at me.

“Clearly not, if you can see me-” I drop the spell, and sense Tåke also drops hers. “But she can, apparently.”

One of the Defenders decides to chime in. “She was visible all along, but sometimes the wolves seem to just POOF disappear? But not really, if you look closely you can see ‘em.”

“Well that’s helpful to know.” I say as a matter-of-fact, “And now I can do that as well. Actually,” I turn my attention to the now familiar notification. “I might’ve learned more skills.”

Ability Learned: [Wood Carving] With skilled hands, a piece of wood can be carved into a thing of beauty, utility, or both. Ability Learned: [Healing Touch] A mage can not only harm, but also heal.

This is one of the first healing abilities most mages acquire. Ability Learned: [Imbuement] Many things can be done by infusing objects with mana in the correct ways.

This is not the ability for that; imbuement is simply the skill to pour mana into an object.

But even so, being skilled at this means less losses and more precision, finally no more exploding rocks!

‘Har har! Exploding rocks, he says. Rocks don’t explode!’ Possibly the first magic viral video and meme; the second day after the Reveal people got a clear reminder that magic is neither understood, nor harmless.

“Healing skill, crafting skill and ‘no more exploding rocks’ skill.” I state and promptly hear snickers; someone’s seen the video.

We return to the more serious topic of getting home (and in some case to a doctor/hospital). After a few minutes of discussion and communication with the hospital, it is determined that we walk to the nearest road; a trip which should take no more than fifteen minutes.