Trenn stood in the center of Lady Yradone’s private glade, a wide circle ringed by a silent audience of giant mushrooms. They were colossal things, their mottled caps swelling to his hip and cresting well above the Regent’s silver-and-gold braids.

  Lady Yradone and her three acolytes stood at the four cardinal directions, their deep blue robes absorbing the faint light. Trenn stood in the center, a man at his own magical audit, and had no idea what to do with his hands, or with Skate.

  An awkward formality settled over him. He was about to have his soul psychoanalyzed by a Gnomish hedge mage, and he was standing there, holding a rock.

  With a casual motion, he lifted the grey sphere and settled it on top of his head.

  Skate’s surface became pliable. Its dense mass molded to the curve of his skull, with a confused buzz, it settled and sank until it transformed from a simple ball into a smooth, fitted, and ridiculous-looking grey helmet.

  A low, joyful purr of pure bliss began to vibrate directly against his scalp.

  The acolytes began to chant. A low, melodic harmony of wordless notes rose from the circle, making the air hum in sympathy. Upon this musical foundation, Lady Yradone began to weave her incantation.

  Her voice was a calm, melodic alto. As Trenn listened, a profound realization dawned on him. His own power was a gut feeling, an instinctual push. It was a kick, a shove, a frantic plea from his soul that reshaped the world.

  But Yradone’s magic was different. It was a formal petition, a structured request made not to her own power, but to the power of the glade itself.

  As the final command settled in the air, the glade answered. The giant mushrooms began to sway in time with the chant. It started as a gentle rock, but the rhythm built, the swaying growing more energetic, their wide caps tracing lazy circles in the moonlit air.

  From the gills beneath their caps, a fine, shimmering powder began to fall. It was a silent, glittering snowfall that caught the spectral light like a cloud of ground diamonds, each mote a tiny star.

  The edges of his vision softened and blurred. The steady chanting of the acolytes became a pressure against his eardrums. The solid ground beneath his feet turned to liquid sand. The entire moonlit glade dissolved into a swirl of impossible colors, plunging him into the silent, grey abyss between moments.

  He was on an alien beach, the setting sun a fiery blaze on the horizon. At his feet, the round, grey rock hummed with an expectant, playful energy.

  Standing beside him, as if she had been there all along, was Lady Yradone. Her silver-and-gold braids did not stir in the briny wind.

  “This is the moment,” she said with a calm voice. “The first spell.”

  Trenn’s body, a puppet to the past, moved on its own. He lunged, a raw cry of anguish tearing from his throat as he kicked the rock with all his might.

  “A powerful Arcane Charm,” Yradone observed, her tone one of deep, scholarly appreciation. “Instinctual. Pure. It created a bond that endures. A perpetual connection.”

  The world fractured. The sound of the waves stretched into a low, droning hum. The wet sand beneath his feet turned to shimmering, unstable glass before dissolving entirely.

  The roar of the ocean became the roar of a waterfall. The salty air was replaced by a cool mist that tasted of moss and wet stone. He was at the cliffside, the sun-dappled rock face a living mural of vibrant pink and yellow as the Giant Moths pulsed with gentle light.

  His own mana reached out, a silent, invisible tendril of influence.

  “You’ve bound a second,” Yradone’s voice echoed beside him. “A testament to the strength of your Charm spell.” She turned her head, her ancient eyes meeting his. “But be careful, Trenn. Your soul is a river. You can divert it to many streams, but the more streams you create, the shallower each one becomes.”

  The mist thickened, and the smell of damp earth and pine replaced the scent of wet stone. The cliffside melted into the emerald twilight of the forest. He was prone in a thicket of ferns, Mara a silent shadow to his left. His senses detached and stretched, the world became a tapestry of sound as he spied on the grumbling Goblin patrol.

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  “Clairaudience,” Yradone identified, her voice now tinged with a flicker of excitement, like a naturalist discovering a rare species. “And the Translation spell that allows you to comprehend their speech.”

  She paused, the pieces of the puzzle clicking into place in her mind.

  “Charm. Clairaudience. Translation.” Her voice was filled with a sudden, dawning clarity. “Like most Wild Mages, your powers have a theme. A central pillar around which they are built,” she paused.

  “Yours is Communication. Communication with people, with things, with concepts…”

  Yradone’s form seemed to grow more solid, her gaze turning from the memory to Trenn himself, into the core of his being. A frown creased her ancient face.

  “And there it is,” she breathed, her voice filled with a profound awe. “Your Mana Attunement. So obvious it's practically screaming at me: Sound.” She tilted her head, her focus intensifying. “There’s something else. At least one other frequency; electricity? No… water? Ice?” She shook her head, a flicker of frustration in her eyes. “It’s difficult to say. The Sound Element is too loud. It obscures the secondary, fainter hums.”

  “What does it mean?” Trenn asked, the words feeling foreign in his own mouth. It was the first time he had spoken in the vision.

  “Mana Attunements are fuel for spells,” Yradone explained, her focus returning to him. “They change their nature. It empowers them.”

  My amulet. Tyndral said it was attuned to Darkness. When I cast my clairaudience through it, it becomes Clairvoyance as well. When I cast my charm… it doesn’t just create a bond, it lets me possess my target.

  The final, earth-shattering piece fell into place. The amulet served as a filter that attuned his Mara Radiation with the Darkness Element.

  The vision began to fray at the edges, the forest thinning into a swirl of grey. He looked at the Gnomish regent.

  “Can you teach me?” he asked, his voice raw with a desperate, burning hope. “How to control it? How to use the Sound Element?”

  A warm smile graced Lady Yradone’s lips, a beacon in the dissolving world.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice a promise. “You’re one of our Heroic Goblinslayer, after all.”

  He was walking back through one of the main thoroughfares of the Burrow. The echoing clang of a distant forge was the heartbeat of the sleeping city. He was supposed to be heading back to his quarters, back to the promise of a soft bed.

  "Absolutely not! The discussion is over, Ezy!" That was Captain Kae’s voice, her cheerful boom replaced by the flat, non-negotiable tone of a commanding officer.

  "It's not over!" A younger, more fiery voice shot back, laced with profound frustration. "You saw what happened to the caravans! The Bee-Riders are scouts, not infantry! They can't hold a line! My Stompers could have held that line!"

  Trenn slowed his pace, curiosity overriding his exhaustion. He stopped short of the tunnel's mouth, hidden in the shadows.

  "Your 'Stomper' is a resource-intensive folly!" Kae retorted, her voice sharp with parental exasperation. "We have a fleet of loyal, flying mounts that require nectar and a place to rest. Why would the council divert a year's worth of brass and steel to build a dozen lumbering ground vehicles?"

  "Because it would have worked!" Ezy’s voice cracked with the sheer passion of her conviction. "The Goblins couldn't have swarmed it without taking spinning metal fists to their faces. They definitely couldn't have brought it down with rocks! It would have punched a hole right through their lines!"

  There was a weary sigh from Kae. "It's a fantasy, Ezy. Your project has been denied. Let it go."

  "No!" the younger Gnome shot back. "They don't believe in it because they haven't seen what it can do. They mock me. They mock my work. But they can't mock the word of a hero."

  A prickle of unease ran through Trenn.

  "The Wild Mage," Ezy declared, her voice ringing. "He's the one who broke the Goblins. He's the Hero of the Hive. If I can prove my Stomper is a match for him—in a friendly duel, for the whole Hive to see—they'll have to take me seriously! They'll have to listen!"

  "Ezy, that is the most absurd, disrespectful—I will not have you bothering our guest with your workshop fantasies! He has been through a war! The last thing he needs is to be your sparring partner!"

  "But if you asked him—"

  "The answer is no! I will not ask, and you will not go near him. Is that understood?"

  Trenn stepped out from the shadows and into the mouth of the side tunnel.

  Captain Kae and the younger Gnome—a darker-skinned version of her mother—froze. Ezy’s face went pale, her jaw slack with a mixture of horror and a flicker of desperate hope. Kae looked tired, a mother caught in an impossible situation.

  Trenn looked directly at the young, defiant inventor. He saw the passion in her eyes, the fierce belief in her creation against all opposition. He understood that look.

  A slow, curious smile touched his lips.

  "I'll do it."

  The words dropped into the tense silence like stones. Ezy’s jaw snapped shut. Kae’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  Trenn's smile widened.

  "But I’m not going to go easy on you."

  What was the one detail about the Hive that made you go 'whoa, that's cool'?

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