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"I am a LayMage from the Council of Sorcerer's, and I mean you no harm!" Lucinder called out across the flowing water.

Brook gave the lady mage a look from across the river. Why she had to open every communication with that funny line, she really didn't know. "Well, I'm not, and I might," she said warningly to the gnoll hunters in front of her.

The hooded figures gave each other the faintest of glances. This situation was probably far from what they'd expected to deal with when they'd left the safety of their home earlier today.

"Lieutenant, put down your dagger! Bromor, at ease," Anar ordered with a shout.

"Yes, sir," the goblin replied, putting away her blade, not breaking eye contact with the archers.

The nightmare snorted and tossed his heavy head, his horn and wings disappearing in an instant.

"What are you doing?" Lucinder hissed at the General, "what if they get shot?"

"Well, then, you'll have to give me a crash course in magical healing, won't you?"

Bows were lowered, though still in tight grip at the ready.

"You're travelling through Taur territory, strangers. What is your business?"

"Funny way of saying 'thank you'," Brook muttered.

"We should really find a way to cross the river," said Anar, "I don't think my bag will be much help here."

"I suppose I can traverse us to the other side," Lucinder mused, reluctantly, "or you can get your Nightmare to carry us."

"I'm stuffed full of magic that's ready to use," he huffed, "I can do it! Just... give me some guidance."

"Oh, gosh, well. Close your eyes, and then, you tell yourself that you're already there."

"Okay..."

"But it's more complicated than that! You've got to picture yourself stood where you want to be. The ground has to feel right under your feet, you've got to see your surroundings in your mind's eye."

"General, sir! What am I telling them?" Brook's voice carried over the water.

"Really helps if there's no distractions."

"Lieutenant, we're coming over to you! Just give me a minute."

The archers raised their bows again, impatiently.

"Oh, blimmin' heck," Brook flapped her hands at them to simmer down, "look, we're just passing through, ok? Our fight isn't with you. Whoever you are."

Anar opened his eyes, squinting at the muddy ground beyond the water. Maybe he should just ask his horse to come get them. But then, he was never going to learn anything that way, was he?

He took a deep breathe, concentrated as hard as he could, and took Lucinder's hand.

He opened them to see deep into a pair of green eyes.

An arrowhead was poking into his jerkin.

The taur, sunk in its hood, looked startled too.

Lucinder looked around, amazed. "You did it! Wow!"

"We're deserters from Nisgarant's army, you might have noticed a great big war band churning through your land?" Anar explained, urgently, before the arrow could go off 'thud' into his already damaged chest.

"The rat?" A gruff voice asked. "You're with the rat?"

"No! No, we're going after the rat. We're going to kill the rat," he made a slicing gesture across his grey throat. "Yes?"

After a brief pause, the bows were lowered again. "That rat's scouts raided our larders. Took our food. Helped themselves, they did."

"Aye, nasty scavengers. And they've left a mess for us to clean up for the honour."

Brook cleared her throat.

Anar's ear flicked at the sound, "Lieutenant?"

"Maybe we could try to help them, sir?" she said.

"Excuse me," a polite voice called. "If it's not too much trouble?"

They'd left The Dragon on the other side of the riverbank.

"Is that a reptid?" one of the taurs asked, frowning.

"Yes! Definitely a reptid." Not a dragon. Not. A. Dragon.

"Hmmm."

"Completely harmless!" Anar reassured them, quickly.

"I dunno, ehhhh, lizard folk and us, we don't really get along. Predator/prey, and all that."

"It eats biscuits," Brook said reassuringly. "And drinks tea."

"Really? Funny sort of reptid. Ok. You can pass through our village, though once you leave our boundary there's no telling what you're in for. That rat's army have been carving up the landscape and causing no end of trouble for the towns."

"I'm well aware of what's been going on, believe me. Bromor, fetch our friend from over the river, please?"

"My Lord." With a shiver his wings were back, and he swooped over, offering apologies to The Dragon upon landing. "Sorry we forgot you. If you weren't in disguise, you could have flown yourself across, I suppose." The nightmare said.

"Actually, my wings are only for show. I'm a creature born of magic, a traveller in space and time, a celestial being almost. I have no need to fly. I travel by shifting reality. I tell it, 'this is where I am. I am here,' and it is so. When my magic is functional, that is."

"Very handy. For now, though, just watch the mane, yeah?"

The Dragon climbed awkwardly aboard, careful not to dig its talons into the nightmare while doing so, and hung on tight as Bromor regrouped with the others, and they headed to the taur village. It made polite conversation as they travelled. "So, you're new to this whole 'being a Nightmare' business, then?"

"Yes," Bromor rumbled in reply, "I've not been in close contact to magic before. My Lord's small city had no mages, or if it did, I was never in close proximity to them. It's rather exciting, to be honest. I do wonder what else I am capable of? Do you know what I can do?"

The Dragon rubbed its scaly chin, "Nightmares have family traits. You will be able to do what your sire could. Saying that, if there's been no magical contact for some generations now, you will only discover your talents when it is time to use them."

"Hmmmm." The magical horse rumbled and coughed, mightily, drawing attention from the rest of the group as the village gates came into view.

"What are you doing?"

"Are you alright, Bromor?"

"Cough it up!"

"What was that?" asked The Dragon.

"I thought I might be able to breathe fire."

The Dragon chuckled, "I get that a lot. But I can't, neither. Because I'm a reptid," it added quickly in case anyone was listening.

"What kind of dragon can't breathe fire?"

"Couldn't say," Skecher squeaked, "I'm a reptid."

"Why do you keep saying you're a reptid? Aren't they vicious lizard people?"

Throat clearing and meaningful stares ensued, and Bromor ceased his line of inquiry.

The humble village populated by anthropomorphic bovine folk was not as unscathed as they had thought. Nisgarant's scouts had been through and helped themselves to food and essentials, taking away with them all they could carry. They hadn't been delicate in their operation, neither. Wooden timbers were left leaning at jaunty angles, doors were hanging off splintered hinges, and even the perimeter wall had bits missing.

"We've always kept ourselves to ourselves, been that way for as long as we can remember. Never had anyone just sweep through our land before."

Brook frowned, "be thankful you weren't strategically important, or it would have been much worse."

The village elders asked the big question: what was it the rat actually wanted? What was he trying to achieve?

Anar's answer wasn't what they expected, "he doesn't really know himself," he revealed. "Nisgarant points to cities and they're razed, more soldiers are added to his army, and he simply carries on. If it's power he's after, he's getting it in a very long-winded, roundabout way. If it's collecting treasure hoards, he's not keeping track of what he has very well at all, leaving it in the hands of shady treasurers who are more than likely lining their own baggy pockets. If there's a major citadel on the map that's key to controlling all the kingdoms, I haven't seen it."

"So, what, he's just randomly waging war for something to do?"

Anar shook his head, "that Sceptre he has, it's tapped into his feeble rodent brain somehow. That's the only way I can explain it. Nisgarant is a servant of it, if you will. Wherever it's from, whatever it does, it's not of this world, and it's the true threat to every living thing here."

He saw Lucinder open her delicate mouth to speak, and she immediately thought better of it. She was the one with the knowledge of the dangerous artefact. It had come from the vaults of her employers. He had a feeling that in time, forbidden knowledge would slip. For better or for worse.

The bullock Chief regarded the oddball group with doubt, "and you're planning on stopping him with a bit of magic? Good luck with that. I think you'll need it. You can stay the night, if you're up to the task of fixing the damage his soldiers have done. Our larders are severely depleted, though, I warn you, and you'll have to hunt your own meat if you want it."

The thought of a warm bed was a welcome one, and Anar was quietly relieved that he wouldn't have to supply sleeping bags for everyone and keep a fire going, and stop any rain from falling, while trying to get some sleep himself.

Brook flicked her dagger and set off to hunt rabbits.

The Dragon made itself comfortable and drank tea.

General Warlock set his shoulders back, unfurled his grey palm and strode towards the damaged buildings and structures.

Lucinder followed, guiding him in bossy tones. "I've done this sort of thing before," she said loftily, "when part of campus came down from a storm. The magical wards for weather hadn't been properly maintained, so it was a right mess. Don't try to lift more than one piece of masonry at a time; if they fall, it will do more damage than if you hadn't bothered. When the stone is set where you want it, you need to break your mental bond with it, or you stay connected and then part of your mind will always remain there. Plenty of mages have gone a bit round the twist from connecting with too many objects and never fully cutting the bond. You can't be vague about it, neither, you have to concentrate..."

His hands crackled as the magic flowed. His blood bubbled. Slowly, carefully, piece by piece the outer village wall was patched up. He'd got a bit of a crowd watching him as the tauren folk took advantage of free entertainment.

One of the masonry blocks had crumbled upon falling. It lay in a pile of rubble. He awaited his orders from his tutor.

Lucinder pulled a hand through her golden curls and cleared her throat. "This is trickier. There's two ways we can go about this. The easy way is to compress the pieces and make the block whole again."

"And the hard way?"

She looked at him as though giving an assessment. "We'll do easy for now."

"I'm heading into a war, Luci, and this is just stone. If I mess it up, no-one dies."

She slumped, obviously regretting giving him the choice of two options. "Well ok, the hard way is to change reality so that the block was always there."

"Ok," he shrugged. "I just believe that, do I?"

"But it's not that simple!" she whined. "A lot of what we do with magick, my magick, is temporary. Fire comes, fire goes. Blocks rise, blocks fall. To change reality, that's the sort of power that Skecher has. It involves connecting up mirror worlds for starters."

Mirror worlds! "The Drag-, I mean, Skecher was telling me about that! Fractal universes, dimensional connections, Link somethings."

She nodded. "You find a mirror world with this exact same wall and missing block you want in it, and then link them together. Stone block here, stone block there. It's advanced. Like I say, dragon stuff. They're big on portals, and space and time nonsense." She blinked. "So, to compress all the bits back together into a block and fill the hole, you're going to have to control all the pieces at once..."

"No, no, show me the mirror world stuff. What do I do?"

"Please just start small," she begged. "There's whole books in the library telling of the folly of mages who went too far, too soon."

"You could write a book about me," he grinned.

"And who'd read that?" she replied, drily. "Anyway, you're going to cast your mind's eye out onto the broken stone brick..."

With a sweep of his outstretched hand, the wall was complete once more. His mind was buzzing with what he'd learnt in his impromptu lesson. Making things happen simply by linking this world to another in which that thing had happened. It was crazy. But he'd already done it. His bag gave him everything he wanted because it linked up to wherever it needed to. He'd created a portal. This wasn't something he was ready to say aloud, because it still sounded ridiculous and impossible, and Luci was adamant that everything he did was beyond his abilities, and he shouldn't be able to do it yet with his lack of knowledge. It was like being handed a wooden sword and sent off to play with the straw dummies when you were a battlefield champion...

"You did amazingly. Taking to wielding magick like a duck to water. Let's have a cup of tea, shall we? We've earned it."

We??! He left his choice words unspoken.

One of the huts had graciously been given to them to use for the rest of the day, and Skecher listened as Lucinder told it all about the General's wall-fixing feats. The Dragon smiled proudly but was still clearly struggling.

Anar sat down and placed his hand upon its scaled fingers.

Luci watched. "Can't you just give the magic back?" she asked.

"I don't know," Anar replied, "can I?"

"You are. Gradually. Very gradually," it reassured. "To attempt to transmit it to me directly would be incredibly dangerous. It's a part of your life force now. It's bonded to you.'

"So, it could kill him?" Brook had returned with ingredients for dinner. She lit the fire and began chopping fresh meat.

"Yes. It could kill him."

"Again."

"Magic is dangerous!" Lucinder insisted. "If I had a penny for every time wild, unregulated magic went awry I wouldn't be looking for a job! This is why we do what we do. Rounding up rogue artefacts, putting a stop to unqualified sorcerers flinging fireballs about willy-nilly!"

"Rogue artefacts like the Tricorn-Horn Sceptre, huh. What is the deal with that thing, anyway? It's clear you know more about it that you're letting on. I was stabbed with it, you know..."

The aardvarkian woman sipped her tea, set down her cup and took a breath. "Ok," she said, finally, "but you're not going to like it. It's nothing but bad news..."