I rapidly began to excavate the edge of the green circle.

  Inside my glade, the shovel felt lighter, cutting through the magic-infused frozen earth as if it was a hot knife going through hot butter.

  I grinned maniacally as I pulled off my torn leather tunic and obliterated a section of my glade, piling the earth into the tunic, examining it up close.

  It still felt very warm, even when it was disconnected from my domain, seemingly not losing any of its power.

  It was as if the complex amalgamation of various minerals and organic matter, with traces of silica, alumina, and iron oxide intermingling with decaying plant material and the remnants of microscopic organisms were now somehow suffused with an unknown form of energy that… tinted it purple.

  As I crushed the earth with my fingers, it felt nothing like frozen soil was supposed to feel like. I wondered whether a witch's domain projected some kind of non-debilitating radiation, perhaps akin to the nuclear force that governed the behavior of subatomic particles. Except, rather than causing harm, this energy appeared to empower my body.

  I marveled at this strange phenomenon a bit longer, enjoying the warmth it provided my fingers.

  Then, with renewed vigor, I dug more fervently at the edge of my circle, carving out chunks of the violet-tinted, verdant soil and piling it carefully onto my tunic.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," I announced to an audience of dead trees, ruins and falling snow, "behold the world's first mobile domain! Patent pending."

  I looked at the uneven pile of earth, wondering if the souls of Ioan’s ancestors trapped within were judging me for this potential witch-ethics violation. Whatever, I wasn’t a witch, I was a warlock. The ethics committee could shove their complaints where the sun didn’t shine!

  Soon I had excavated a sizable portion of my domain—the maximum amount of soil possible to fit onto my tattered leather tunic. I padded the soil down with the shovel so it would not accidentally escape during transit.

  The pile looked absurd, a mound of slightly violet soil. I relocated a few flowers to it just in case the flowers had some magical property too.

  "Alright," I declared, grabbing the corners of my tunic. "If I die, please tell the Academy of Witchcraft and Warlockery that this was for the greater good of magical research."

  I took a deep breath and stepped beyond the boundary of my mutilated domain, bracing for the now-familiar wave of agony. It came, but less intensely than before.

  As I dragged the tunic behind me across the snow like a questionable sled, I discovered that the crushing fatigue and hunger didn't intensify as quickly. The pain remained constant—uncomfortable but bearable—as if the enchanted earth I dragged behind me were creating a sort of buffer zone, a portable extension of my domain's protection.

  "Well, I'll be damned," I wheezed, staggering forward. "Domain to-go. Perfect for the warlock on the move. Accept no substitutes!"

  Five meters. Ten. Fifteen. The discomfort of a starved and half-dead teen remained steady.

  "Is this what progress feels like?" I panted, aiming my trek to reach the nearest house. "Or just a very slow and embarrassing way to die?"

  Halfway to my destination, I paused to assess my condition. My muscles burned, but I wasn't deteriorating at the exponential rate I'd experienced earlier. The math had changed—the equation now included a constant factor of "magical dirt on a shirt."

  "Take that, e^x pain function," I gasped triumphantly. "Ioan's First Law of Magical Soil Dynamics: Pain equals e raised to steps divided by domain proximity, minus one tunic full of glowing dirt."

  The joke made me feel marginally better about my situation.

  A particularly strong gust of wind nearly toppled me, sending snow swirling around my face. I clutched the corners of my tunic more tightly, suddenly terrified of losing even a single grain of my precious cargo.

  "Don't you dare," I hissed at the wind. "I did not nearly die for a shovel just to have my magic dirt blown away by some meteorological inconvenience!"

  Thankfully, my magic soil was mostly sticky and moist clay and small, purple-tinted pebbles and not easily dispersed sand.

  The ruined house loomed closer, its half-obliterated stone and wood walls promising shelter and, hopefully, resources. My breathing came in ragged gasps, but I pressed on, dragging my ridiculous burden behind me like a very determined snail.

  "Almost... there..." I groaned. "Nobel Prize... in Domain Relocation Theory... is definitely... mine..."

  In another few meters I was over the threshold of the torn-off door and inside. Great success! I carefully leaned against my mobile pile, panting furiously and regenerating my strength.

  I noted that the house looked like it was violently torn apart as if a massive… something punched right through the walls and ceilings.

  The interior was a jumble of broken furniture, rubble, ashes and scattered possessions. I left my magic pile in the corner and stepped through the debris, gritting my teeth, mindful of the creaking floorboards beneath my feet. My breath fogged in the frigid air.

  Against the nearest wall I discovered a large wooden chest, miraculously intact despite the devastation surrounding it. The lid was secured with a simple iron latch rather than a lock—apparently the villagers of Svalbard hadn't been particularly concerned with theft. Or perhaps the chest's contents weren't valuable enough to warrant security measures.

  I approached cautiously, wincing from the stabbing persistent discomfort radiating through my body. The magical dirt in my tunic a few meters away provided enough of a buffer to keep me functioning, but barely.

  "Please contain something useful," I exhaled as I lifted the heavy lid with a groan.

  To my immense relief, the chest contained clothing—thick furs and woolen garments that had been spared from the dragon's wrath. I pulled out a heavy fur-lined coat that seemed designed for someone much larger than my current teenage frame, along with several layers of wool undergarments, thick mittens, and a woolen hat with earflaps.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Jackpot!" I exclaimed.

  More clothes became revealed under the coat–undergarments, pants, gloves and boots.

  I rushed back to my magic pile and stripped off my still somewhat damp, freezing clothes and quickly donned the wool undergarments, layering them one atop another until I resembled a misshapen, overstuffed doll. The fur coat came last, engulfing my slender frame in its voluminous embrace.

  "I look like a penguin that's attempting to smuggle several smaller penguins," I observed. "But at least I'll be a warm penguin."

  There was also a sturdy, large leather backpack nestled at the bottom of the chest, its straps worn but intact.

  "Time for a more dignified approach to domain relocation,” I grinned, hefting the pack to examine it. It was surprisingly spacious, with multiple compartments and sturdy stitching. Returning to my tunic-pile, I carefully transferred my precious cargo of violet-tinted soil from it into the largest compartment, making sure not to lose a single grain.

  "Sorry, ancestral souls," I muttered as I packed the dirt, managing to fit all of it into the backpack after some struggle. "Economy backpack class is the best I can offer at the moment."

  With the backpack filled and secured on my shoulders, I felt an immediate improvement. The soil's proximity to my back seemed to strengthen its protective effect, creating a more consistent buffer against the debilitating effects of being away from my original domain.

  With my newfound mobility, I decided to explore the house more thoroughly.

  The structure appeared to have been struck by two distinct types of damage: conventional fire and something far more sinister.

  One section of the house bore the familiar charring and smoke damage of ordinary flames likely caused by tipped torches—blackened wooden beams, soot-covered walls, the acrid scent of burned furnishings. This was normal, comprehensible destruction that aligned with my understanding of combustion chemistry.

  But the other section...

  "What in the hell happened here?" I uttered, approaching a portion of the wall that seemed to have been... melted. Not burned, not shattered, but liquefied and then resolidified, the wood, stone and fabric warped into impossible shapes, frozen in mid-drip like a surrealist painting.

  The damage pattern didn't follow any natural convection current. It radiated outward from a central point, creating rippling patterns similar to the strange fire I'd observed in the village.

  Cautiously, I extended my hand toward the warped surface, keeping a safe distance at first. Even without direct contact, I could sense something emanating from the damaged stones—not heat, exactly, but a kind of disturbance that made the hairs on my arms stand on end and prickle.

  "Is this some form of residual effect?" When my fingertips finally made contact with the warped surface, the effect was immediate and alarming. A searing sensation shot through my hand, not like ordinary burns but something deeper, as if the very cellular structure of my skin was being unraveled. I jerked back with a yelp of pain, staring in horror as the outermost layer of skin on my fingertips began to peel away like tissue paper.

  "Shit, shit, argh. Definitely not standard thermodynamics!" I hissed, cradling my injured hand against my chest. The pain was already subsiding, but the visual evidence was unmistakable—whatever cursed energy lingered in the dragonfire-damaged sections was still actively destructive to living tissue… like radiation.

  I shuffled backward, putting as much distance as possible between myself and the affected area. My mind raced with hypotheses and potential explanations. If normal fire was the oxidation of carbon compounds, then dragonfire appeared to be something else entirely—perhaps a form of directed energy that attacked organic molecular bonds specifically.

  "Is it radioactive? Enzymatic? Some kind of targeted molecular dissolution?" I wondered aloud, examining my peeling fingertips. The damage seemed superficial, limited to the epidermis, but the implications were troubling.

  This wasn't just destructive power; it was selectively destructive. Just as the eldritch flames had ignored most non-organic materials, this residual energy seemed programmed to break down living tissue while leaving other substances intact.

  I pulled a single ginger hair from my head and dropped it onto a warped section of the wall from above. The hair hissed upon contact and twisted as if it was alive. Then it grayed and turned into ashes.

  What the shit? Was my hair... alive somehow? Or did it writhe like that because dragonfire-affected material changed it chemically from within?

  I glanced at my backpack, suddenly anxious about the proximity of my domain soil to this unknown energy. If dragonfire could disrupt molecular or cellular structures, could it potentially neutralize or corrupt the magical properties of my portable glade?

  "Note to self," I muttered, backing away from the melted, glassified wood, "avoid dragons until I've developed a comprehensive theory of magical thermodynamics. Or possibly forever."

  Once sufficiently far from the melted section of the house, I pulled off my backpack and shoved my damaged hand into the earth. It instantly felt better, warmer, the prickling sensation slowly fading away.

  Venturing out of the back of the house, I discovered a massive print in the earth, an indentation of gargantuan, clawed paw about 5 meters wide.

  Yep. There was definitely a dragon here. A very big, scary dragon. The witch was indeed honest about that, unless she created these footprints with some kind of specific gravity-magic bullshit.

  Searching through the center of one of the houses, I discovered a circular, slightly singed metal cover beneath the pile of ashes and debris. With considerable effort from my arms, I cleared the lid and managed to pry it open, revealing the hidden depths of the well below.

  Descending a sturdy wooden stairwell, I was greeted by walls lined with ceramic and glass jars brimming with pickled vegetables and salted meats, a veritable treasure trove of sustenance.

  I immediately pried the nearest jar open, feasting on pickled cucumbers and drinking the juice. The feelings of dizziness, hunger and thirst lessened.

  I attacked smoked fish and pickle jars with greater valor, until the needs of my body were met. Then, I wondered why the villagers hadn’t thought to seek refuge in cold wells, or even flee into the surrounding forest when the dragon attacked.

  Maybe a couple of them did? Maybe they would emerge from one of the house wells and shame me for my thieving ways? No wait, the witch said they were all dead to make me a hero of legend…

  I sighed.

  I could only speculate as to whether the attack had occurred under the cover of night, catching the villagers off guard, or if there was some other, more sinister reason behind the apparent lack of survivors such as the dragon hunting down everyone except for a solitary teenage boy that fell under the river.

  If the Yaga knew when the dragon was coming with her future-seeing mojo, why didn’t she simply tell the villagers to leave or hide inside their cold wells? This was definitely a point to the theory that Grandhilda allowed everyone in Svalbard to perish on purpose, to magically manufacture a hero that could slay the monster through the sacrifice of blood and life.

  I emerged from the food well and cautiously walked around the village, undulating between giddy excitement of discovering more things and panicked gloom of being the only living person in this cursed, dragon-irradiated place.

  I tried to focus on the silver lining.

  Being a witch, it seemed, was easy, especially if I could transport a section of my domain in a simple knapsack. What originally appeared to be a debilitation was now my advantage.

  Could it really be this simple? Was it really possible to simply dig up all of the enchanted soil, compress it to save space, and then carry it with me in a large cart?

  Thoughts raced through my mind as I considered the implications of this newfound power, thinking back to the process of creating compressed earth blocks. I remembered that in Portland cement, typically, a pressure of around 3,000 psi compressed the original material volume by about half. Technically, even a planet like Earth could be compressed into a black hole with a diameter of only 1.77 centimeters.

  Smirking at this amusing fact, I knew that, unfortunately, I didn't have the power tools necessary to compress the soil.

  Another thought came to me–were some sections of the soil more magical than others? Was Earth-type magic, or whatever it was that Yaga specialized in, better contained in some particular elements such as the roots, plants or specific rocks?

  This question definitely needed to be thoroughly investigated, but first I had to secure my domain against potential dickery.