This is the furthest I’ve been outside the city since I was a child, as well as the furthest I ever remember being outside the city. I’d always heard that the further you got from the city the thicker the forest got, but I never knew how much of a jungle it became even a mile or so out. At least I get plenty of use out of the sword by hacking through the endless web of vines and overgrowth. Bridget helps, but I’m standing in front, so I have to deal with the brunt of it. It’s what I’m getting paid for anyway, so no use being bothered by it. As we walk Bridget strikes up a conversation. “I never saw you do that intangibility thing before. I mean I assume it’s an illusion, but it looked like you went intangible.”

  I shrug before taking another swipe at a particularly annoyingly placed clump of vines. “I mean, I’m an illusionist, if it looks like I did something cool it’s a fake. In that case he was just grabbing at an illusion rather than where I was actually standing. It takes a decent bit of setup, and I can’t do it on other people without even more setup … otherwise it could actually be useful for protection, and my magic couldn’t have that.”

  She laughs. “Well on the bright side you’re the one who got that magic, I’m pretty sure any assassin would kill for magic like that … literally.”

  That gets a chuckle out of me at least. “Fair, I don’t know how Light and Dark Mages use Illusions, but a Dark Mage Illusionist could be incredibly scary.”

  I take a moment of rest after finally hacking through the clump as she responds. “I think you could be scary if you actually let yourself. Illusion magic gets a bad reputation just for being indirect, you just need to play to your real strengths.”

  Where is this coming from all of a sudden? “I’ll … keep it in mind. Really I’m only limited to not fighting magical beasts, it’s just that that excludes almost everything the average guild quest could ask for.”

  “Well yeah, because that’s everything the church would pay to have help dealing with, but my hiring you for this is effectively a guild quest, just slightly less official. You’d probably do better with this sort of work, where bandits or wild animals are the biggest threat. Just something to consider. You’d also do great with a team, being able to control your enemy’s attention has to be useful.”

  I get to work on the next set of vines. “In theory, but you can do about the same thing with any defensive magic just by being bait. Not to mention, in those cases you can directly defend your allies as well. All that from a type of magic that’s usually considered a touch too niche to actually have on a full team when you’re going to be working with a Light Mage every other mission anyway.” I may have gotten a bit too emotional there. I’ve been told all that more than enough times to not need to be reminded.

  “I think it depends on the group, but just keep it in mind. We should be clear of the worst of this underbrush soon. These vines mostly grow in areas people have tried to clear out before, so it’ll thin out to mostly just trees once we’ve cut through them. Really they should just carve out a path one of these days, but there’s a lot of worry it would let magical beasts walk straight into the city.”

  Well I could see how that would be an issue. I can put up with a bit more hacking at least, apparently carving symbols in metal is a good way to build endurance ... who knew?

  An hour or so later the vines do clear up a bit, we don’t exactly find a clearing, but there’s enough space to walk around without hectically swinging a sword around. I work a crick out of my arm, I haven’t used a sword this much in the rest of my life combined. I probably haven’t even held swords for this long before, but it’s hard to say. Bridget is the first to break the silence. “Sweet, we made good time. Do you have a light?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  It’s really not all that dark to be honest, but maybe that’s just me. “Here, stand still for a second.” I weave some illusion magic around her for a few seconds attaching it to follow her. It’s a bit of a complicated trick, but it’s not like I could accidentally hurt her if I get it wrong. After some fiddling a ball of light starts floating behind her right ear.

  She turns trying to look at the light source and it moves to stay behind her ear. “Huh, neat. That’ll take some getting used to, but it’s definitely helpful. You know you should make a bunch of eternally glowing rocks if you ever need a quick profit.”

  I shrug. “Well I can’t exactly sell things like that anymore, but even before most people just preferred to bring a torch. Plus since all the cost to make them was labor the guild tried to keep that from becoming common since they were paying for the entire thing.”

  She starts scanning through the plants in the undergrowth. “Huh, well it’s nice to not have to hold a torch either way. I’m mostly looking for burn root, but anything with a decent bit of magic in it will sell eventually.”

  I crouch down a bit and start looking, at least the search should be fun.

  A few hours in we’ve found what seems like a good supply of magical plants. I didn’t really ask for an exact goal so I guess we just keep harvesting until she’s got enough. I’m interrupted from my thoughts by the sound of something walking through the forest. I look up and freeze as I find myself locking eyes with a bear. For some reason while Bridget also looks up, she doesn’t look remotely as scared as I feel. “Well Jezebel, you’re up. You’ve got this.” She even gives me a thumbs up.

  Alright, something that can scare off a bear. It needs to be big, and not need to produce an effect I can’t duplicate. With a mental shove a loud noise starts snaking its way through the forest, the bear looks towards the sudden sound; a replication of trees cracking under a monstrous weight, and of the ground being torn up and hurled with inhuman force. I let it settle in people’s minds as it gets closer, just for a second longer than it takes to register that the sound’s there, and enough time to realize that the only things that could make it outstrip the size of anyone here by several magnitudes. It also buys me the time to properly set up the more complicated parts of the illusion. As the bear takes a few cautious steps back I go for step two. A serpent’s head the size of a building bursts through the forest, seeming to cause a pair of trees to go spiraling into other trees with a pair of cracks. In reality the illusion covered up two trees, and two illusions split off from the point where it would have impacted. The serpent rears up as if it’s about to lunge forward, and hisses. The light catches the dirt trapped between its scales in just the right way to punctuate its sheer indomitable size as it opens its mouth revealing twin fangs each the size of my whole body. It’s truly awe inspiring how … the bear’s gone. The bear’s long gone actually. Ugh, I know that was the point but … pearls before swine. I let the snake linger for a few seconds just admiring the work I did getting its scales to shine just the right way, and how its teeth come to a needle point, and how if you look at just the right way you can even see the hollow tips where it would inject poison. Still, I’d best get back to work. I let the serpent slither back into the forest before vanishing as a bit of idle vanity.

  Bridget just brushes the dirt off her knees. “You’re pretty good at that. If I hadn’t known what that was I’d be absolutely terrified.”

  I look away from her, the compliment is a bit nice to hear for once. “Thanks … I practice it a lot in my off time. It’s really fun just as a hobby trying to get perfect representations of different creatures. In theory I’d really want to see what they actually look like in real life, but on the other hand … there's no way that would be even remotely safe.”

  She gives a bit of a laugh to that. “Well glad to see you haven’t gone completely mad with power. You looked so entranced with that illusion, I thought you were going to kiss it.” She gives up on any semblance of normalcy, and just starts openly laughing.

  I roll my eyes. “Let’s get back to work then. It feels like we were making good time.”

  She wipes a tear from her eye. “Let’s.”