Chapter 19: Mana's Edge
The stone arch of Southbrook Dungeon's second level bit cold into Hannah's shoulders as she stepped through, Mimi at her side, Bart and Mike flanking them like living shields.
Ren's presence hummed low in her skull—impatient, sharp—his red eyes a fleeting glint in the torchlight only she could see.
The past three days had been a grind of Mimi's lessons: mana siphoning, basic incantations, the smallest flickers of magic that felt more like static than power.
Hannah's fingers still tingled with the ghost of a failed fireball, its embers singeing her palm an hour prior; a clean spell had left her cloak stiff and overbleached, the mana she'd poured into it unspooling like frayed thread.
She was a fighter—hard, fast, used to the weight of a dagger and the sting of monster claws—not a mage, not someone who spent hours cross-legged on a tavern floor, whispering words to make light bloom in their palms.
The frustration coiled in her chest, hot and tight, a fist she couldn't unclench, and Ren fed on it, his growl a low vibration in her bones.
'You're tiptoeing,' he rumbled, as she flexed her mana-sore fingers around her dagger hilt. 'Magic isn't a flower. It's a tooth. Bite down.'
"Quiet," Hannah muttered, her voice tight enough to crack.
Mimi shot her a curious glance from the corner of her eye, but didn't press—she'd grown used to Hannah's quiet half-conversations over the past three days, chalking them up to the hyperfocus of a self-taught fighter, the kind that talked to themselves to stay sharp in the dark.
The guild's torchlight guttered on moss-slick stone, casting jagged shadows that skittered like living things across the walls, and the air reeked of iron, rot, and the faint, sickly sweet stench of goblin musk—thicker here, cloying, clinging to the back of the throat like spoiled honey.
This level was darker than the first, the corridors twisting into blind corners, the floor pocked with pits hidden by loose stone and thin layers of moss.
The dungeon breathed here, slow and cold, and Hannah's hunter's instinct pricked at her skin, a primal warning.
She'd felt it before—when wolves circled, when orcs lay in wait, when something hungry and cruel was watching from the dark, biding its time to strike.
"Stick close," Mimi said, her staff glowing with a faint blue wisp—Light Weave, her simplest spell, third-ring, barely enough to push back the dark a few feet.
The light trembled in the air, unsteady, and Mimi's brow furrowed as she fed a little more mana into it, her fingers white on the staff's oak grip, carved with faint, worn runes of protection.
"Second level goblins aren't just skirmishers. They're cunning. Traps everywhere—tripwires strung with poison thorns, pressure plates that drop you into pits of acid, false walls that lead to nesting dens. And they hunt in packs. Never just one. Never."
Bart grunted, hefting his new iron axe—forged with a cut of Hannah's monster gold, its edge honed to a razor sharpness that glinted in the faint light.
A fresh scar sliced across his jaw, pink and raw, a souvenir from the alpha orc Hannah had helped him take down three days prior, and his armor was dented at the shoulder, the steel still scuffed with goblin blood and grime.
"And they don't just kill. They play. Learned that the hard way last winter.
Lost a lad—sixteen, first dungeon run, fresh from the farm. They didn't tear him apart quick. They tied him to a stone pillar, cut his tendons so he couldn't run, and left him for the cave lizards.
Found what was left three days later. Nothing but bones and tattered cloth." His jaw tightened until his teeth creaked, and Mike's bowstring creaked in response, the thin man's fingers white on the yew wood as he tensed, his eyes scanning every shadow,
every crack in the stone, every nook a goblin could hide in. Mike's left arm was bandaged with rough linen, a fire goblin's spear having grazed it in their last fight, and his face was gaunt, the dark circles under his eyes a testament to how little sleep the guild's warnings of strange monster behavior had let him get.
He'd lost his sister to a goblin raiding party five years prior; Hannah saw it in the way he flinched at the sound of their high cackles, the way his arrow never wavered when he aimed at one.
Hannah's stomach twisted into a tight, cold knot.
She knew cruelty—knew what monsters did when they thought they had the upper hand, when their prey was weak and trapped.
She'd seen it in Toby's wide, terrified eyes when the orcs dragged him away, in the way the wolves had circled the wounded traveler on the road to Bennington City, nipping at his heels just to hear him scream,
in the goblins that had charged the bridge like they were following orders, their eyes empty and hungry, their spears stained with the blood of farmers and villagers.
Cruelty for cruelty's sake. It made her blood boil, hot and fast, and the mana in her chest stirred, a faint golden thrum that prickled at her fingertips, a spark of something wild and unyielding.
Anger, Ren had told her once, was a fuel—raw, unrefined, but powerful. She'd always used it to fight. Now, it made the magic wake up, like a beast roused from sleep.
Mimi held out a hand to Hannah, palm up, her blue Light Weave dimming a little as she shifted her focus from the dark to the lesson.
"One more time. Mana channeling. In through the nose, out through the fingertips. Don't force it—third-ring magic is about flow, not strength.
You're trying to grab it like a knife, to pin it down. You have to breathe with it. Let it move through you, like blood through your veins."
Hannah nodded, pressing her palm to Mimi's.
Her skin was warm, calloused from years of gripping a staff, and Hannah closed her eyes, breathing deep,
the stench of goblin musk and rot fading into the background as she reached for the warm thrum of mana in her chest—the irregular gold light that Mimi called noble clan magic,
that Ren called something older, something wild, something that didn't belong in the neat, ringed magic of human mages.
It coiled sluggishly at first, thick and unyielding, nothing like the smooth, silvery mana Mimi wove, the kind that slipped through her fingers like water.
Hannah's jaw tightened, her fingers curling into a fist against Mimi's palm, and she felt Ren's irritation spike, sharp and hot.
'Stop fighting it. It's yours.'
But she couldn't—not when every instinct she'd ever had screamed that magic was a weakness, a distraction, something that made you slow, something that let monsters get close.
She was a fighter. Fighters didn't glow. They struck. They killed. They survived, with steel and speed and nothing else.
But Mimi's voice was soft, steady, in her ear, a lifeline in the frustration, and Hannah forced herself to unclench her fist, to breathe, to let the mana drift instead of grasping for it.
Slow. In through the nose, filling her lungs, the cold dungeon air stinging her throat, sharp and clean under the rot. Out through the mouth, and the mana moved with it, a warm trickle down her arm, to her wrist, to her fingertips.
A faint gold glint bloomed where their palms touched, soft and bright, like sunlight through honey, and Mimi's blue Light Weave flared, sudden and bright, the wisp exploding into a small orb that lit the corridor ten feet in every direction, the torchlight paling in comparison, the moss on the walls glowing green in its light.
"Perfect," Mimi breathed, pulling her hand back, her eyes wide with wonder.
The blue orb dimmed back to a wisp, but it was steadier now, no longer trembling, no longer threatening to snuff out.
"You're a fast learner—faster than any third-ring mage I've ever taught. Your mana's wild, unbroken, no one's ever trained it to fit in a box, to follow the rules of the rings. That's why it's irregular. But it listens. It responds to you, to your will. Now—let's start with the small stuff.
First: Spark of Light. It's the easiest offensive spell there is—just a little burst of mana, sharp enough to blind a monster, stun it for a second. Enough time to strike, to get away. Watch."
Mimi held up her free hand, her eyes closed, and a tiny blue spark bloomed in her palm, bright and sharp, like a shard of starlight.
She flicked her wrist, and it shot forward, hitting a stone wall with a faint crack, leaving a small black mark, the stone singed.
"Incantation is short—Lumen Ignis. Just two words, old tongue, easy to remember. Channel the mana to your palm, make it tight, not loose. Don't pour too much into it—you'll burn yourself, raw mana searing your skin. Just a flicker. A spark."
Hannah nodded, copying Mimi's stance, her dagger hanging loose at her hip, its leather sheath rubbing against her thigh.
She closed her eyes, breathed, and reached for the golden mana, whispering the incantation in the back of her throat, the words feeling foreign on her tongue, thick and heavy, like stone. Lumen Ignis.
The mana coiled in her palm, tight and hot, a little sun in her fist, and she flicked her wrist, and a spark shot forward—not blue, but gold, bright enough to make her wince, hitting the stone wall with a crack that echoed down the corridor, leaving a charred mark twice the size of Mimi's, the stone black and smoking.
The force of it sent a jolt up her arm, and she stumbled back, rubbing her palm, which tingled like it had been stung by a nest of bees, the skin pink and warm.
"Whoa," Mike said, his voice low, from where he stood at the front of the group, his bow at the ready, an arrow nocked and resting on the string.
"That's not a spark. That's a bolt. Third-ring incantation, fourth-ring power. Never seen that before."
Mimi's mouth fell open, and she stepped forward, staring at the charred mark on the wall, then at Hannah's palm, her fingers brushing the pink skin gently, like she was afraid to break her.
"Your mana is dense. Way denser than any third-ring mage. That spark had the power of a fourth-ring Light Burst.
You didn't just channel it—you amplified it, without even trying. Your irregular magic… it doesn't just follow the incantations. It feeds on them, makes them stronger."
She shook her head, a little smile tugging at her lips, tired but bright, and she stepped back, gesturing to Hannah's palm.
"Let's try healing next—Minor Mend. It's a support spell, heals small cuts, scrapes, bruises, broken skin. No incantation, just touch and mana.
Good for patch jobs in a fight, when potions are scarce or too slow. Hold out your hand—the one you burned with the fireball earlier."
Hannah held out her right palm, the skin pink and tender, a faint silver scar already forming where the embers had singed it days prior, the flesh still tight when she flexed her fingers.
Mimi pressed her fingers to it, and a soft blue glow bloomed between their hands, warm and tingly, like sunlight on skin after a cold winter.
The pain faded almost instantly, the pinkness dulling to a faint flush, the tightness in her skin melting away, and Hannah stared, a little stunned.
She'd always relied on healing potions—bitter, syrupy things, expensive to buy from the guild apothecary, the kind that left a metallic taste in her mouth and only half-healed the wounds, leaving scars and aches in their wake.
This was gentle. Fast. Useful. A weapon that didn't cut, a shield that didn't block—something that mended, that saved, that kept the people beside her standing.
"Now you try," Mimi said, pulling her hand back, her own palm glowing faintly with leftover mana.
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To be continue