“Pip! Is that you?” A voice called from the tree’s canopy.

  A young tigerkin man dropped from the canopy, landing with a thud in front of the group. His leather armour was white and trimmed in the same blue as Pip’s uniform.

  “Ah, yeah. These are our new visitors.” He gestured towards Felix and Menium.

  ”Oh, hey, nice to meet you, I’m Jaxen. I'm in charge of watching the clearing to make sure no one sneaks out without their babysitter.”

  ”Jaxen! What are you saying?” Pip turned to Felix and Menium.

  ”Please disregard him, sir. He just has a poor sense of humour.”

  ”Ah, it’s fine. I read the leaflet on the way here. It says pretty much the same thing, just phrased a little more diplomatically. You’ll still watch our stuff, right?”

  ”Yup, don’t worry about it, our current group seems pretty chill. I don’t think they’d rob ya even if I weren’t watching. How long will you guys be staying?”

  Felix pretended to think about it.

  ”I’m not sure. It depends on how useful the formation is.”

  The guard looked at Felix and Menium a little more closely.

  “Huh, neither of you have fire or water affinities. Are you studying formations?”

  Felix gestured his hand in a so-so gesture.

  “I hit a bit of a rough patch on my path. A senior suggested that studying natural formations might help me get through it. I’m just getting started.

  Jaxen looked surprised.

  “If you’re just getting started, why are you visiting a grand formation? Aren’t you biting off more than you can chew?”

  Felix pretended to be confused at the question.

  “What do you mean? Wouldn’t it be the easiest to see what’s happening with the mana if there’s lots of it being moved around?”

  Jaxen actually burst out laughing, leaving Pip looking absolutely mortified. Even Felix, who knew why he was laughing, started feeling a little awkward after the laughter went on a little longer than seemed appropriate.

  ”Sorry, it’s just. We have a formation master staying here right now, if she hears what you just said…”

  He had a hard time holding himself back from bursting out in laughter again.

  “I still don’t understand what’s so funny. Did I say something wrong?”

  Felix asked, trying his best to pretend he didn’t know what was so funny about that.

  “Ah, it wouldn’t do to tell you. Go study the formation, it won’t take you long to see why what you said is ridiculous."

  Felix thought about it for a second before he nodded.

  “Would that be alright with you, Pip? If you don’t mind, I'd like to check out the springs first.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  That night, Felix and Menium sat around the campfire with Jaxen and the two other visitors to the formation. A wandering monk named Abbot Vala was the formation master he’d heard about in the afternoon. The other person was a Traveller with a steam affinity who’d lived off and on at the resort for a few years.

  Felix was still frowning even hours after their return. He thought the formation would be beyond him, but he didn’t expect it to be that bad. The springs were beautiful, crystal clear pools with steam gently rising from them. The mountain view was so serene that even Menium didn’t kick up a fuss, instead just relaxing in one of the pools while Felix wandered around trying to figure out how it worked.

  Seeing it he’d never have guessed there was a formation responsible for the pools. That was the problem. He thought there would be something to observe, something he could add to his Inner World that he could observe once he knew more. But there was nothing like that.

  “Stop frowning. You think Soren would spend years here if the mysteries of this place were so easy to solve? Even those masters working for the retreat still probably haven’t learned all there is to learn about this place. Why do you think you would figure it out on your first day?”

  “It’s not that, it’s just… I thought there would be something. I can’t even tell there’s a formation.”

  Abbot Vala shrugged.

  “That’s why they’re called natural formations. When you or I cast a spell, we use our understanding of mana to form an intent and communicate it to the mana. Normal formations are similar. The communication method is different, but we still use our intent. That’s not true for natural formations.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “They’re more like a mana tide than a spell. Something convinces the mana to behave in a certain way, maybe the mountains shape the wind, and it begins to sing. Maybe the plants and water move in a way that makes the earth tremble. It’s why these formations are so valuable to Travellers and why the Alliance forces the retreat to let us visit. These formations can reveal things about mana that you’d otherwise never understand.”

  Felix’s brow furrowed again as he took in the information and related it to what he knew. In the end, he let out a sigh.

  “Does that mean trying to study a formation I don’t have an affinity for is a waste of time?”

  Abbot Vala shook her head.

  “It’s not that bad, try to find smaller formations, the smaller they are, the easier they are to understand.

  “I once visited a natural formation that consisted of a single patch of flowers. Their petals grew in a way that made the light mana behave strangely. Even without a plant or light affinity, figuring out that formation was quite easy. Anyone with solid foundations in the art of formations could figure it out with a few hours of study.”

  Felix nodded.

  “I guess I won’t be hanging around for very long then, I’ll spend a couple of days exploring the rest of the retreat and see if I can find a boat going west. Otherwise, I’ll probably need to head back to the arcology and look for a ride from there.”

  The rest of the night passed with everyone around the fire sharing stories and food. With Felix knowing he wouldn’t need to ration his supplies, he took on cooking duty for the rest of his short visit to the retreat. Jaxen was so impressed with his cooking that he ended up sneaking some ingredients from the retreat’s kitchen to help him cook even better meals.

  They even managed to drag Pip into joining them one evening.

  For the next three days, they explored the caves, mountains, springs and waterfalls during the day. While they spent the nights enjoying the company of their fellow visitors.

  Felix got a few recommendations for formations to visit from Abbot Vala while he learned more about the retreat and steam mana from Soren. Felix didn’t slack, as by the end of their stay, he’d managed to impress both of the older Travellers with the information he’d hoarded during his time in the Feywild.

  By the end, they’d both volunteered to give him their token information so they could write to one another. He didn’t even have to find a ship to travel on, as Soren offered to get supplies a little early and drop him off along the way.

  A favour that ended up saving Felix a lot of time. Most of the traffic to the retreat was to deliver supplies from the arcology. Apart from the fact that Felix had come in on the last supply boat, and it would be a while until they received a new shipment, any ship he boarded would head towards the arcology.

  With Soren giving him a ride, he not only saved the time it would have taken for the next ship to arrive. But also the time he’d have spent sailing in the wrong direction, back to the arcology.

  On the last day, Felix wanted to return to the dock workers to tell them about the loophole he’d found. Only for Soren to let him know that they already knew.

  “The offer of help was genuine, but the retreat pays them to help casual visitors. If people knew you could claim to be studying the formation to take a free holiday, it would be bad for business. So they pay the dock workers a little extra to give those people a place to stay and help them find their way back.

  “It’s how I learned of the loophole. If you’re serious about studying the formation, then they’ll tell you about it. Honestly, their policy towards Travellers is pretty good. I’ve heard of places that treat us far worse.”

  When they got to the Golden Dock, Felix felt a familiar pang of shame when they brought him his creaking cart. They’d been kind enough to clean it, though he felt it was more out of consideration for their beautifully polished floors than for him.

  Fortunately, Soren didn’t mind. He didn’t even flinch when they brought over his boat. Admittedly, it wasn’t as nice as any of the others parked on the docks, but it didn’t scream poverty with the same volume as Felix’s creaky cart. It took a mere three days to travel to the nearest town by ship, yet it saved Felix close to a month.

  Felix paid back the favour by buying the ingredients to cook Soren a proper meal before he returned to the retreat, even packing a little extra for the journey back. After Soren left, leaving Felix and Menium on their own again, they returned to the familiar routine of life on the road.

  The going was slow, with the roads having seen barely any maintenance near the town they landed in. They even encountered a few beasts on the road, having to fight off a pack of wolves who thought them easy prey a week into their journey. Fortunately, with Menium’s help, they were easily dispatched.

  As rough as their travels were during the day, the nights were some of Felix’s favourites. Once Menium went to bed, Felix could lie back and watch the Feywild's aurora slowly drifting overhead. On darker nights, he’d watch the distant Scattered Stars through the faint mist of his breath and think of home. On brighter ones, he’d lament the fact that he’d never found an instrument he liked that could be played with just one arm.

  Eventually, their journey brought them to the next town, and then the next. Four towns and two months of travel later, the roads started improving, and on some nights they’d find friendly travellers on the road to share a fire with.

  It was longer still until Felix arrived at his next natural formation. He used the information he’d gotten from Abbot Vala and the inconvenience of travelling back to the arcology to plan a more direct route to Caelwyn.

  At their current pace, he’d make it there in another four months, cutting two from his originally planned route. The new route also changed his planned formation stops from two to four, with the last one slightly west of Caelwyn.

  Time marched on, and so did Felix. He visited a small grove where leaves didn’t fall to the ground but instead drifted between the trees as they broke down rapidly. He visited a cave where the temperature remained constant regardless of season or weather. He visited a valley where a storm had raged for centuries.

  At each stop, he would carefully examine the formation and try to pick apart how it worked. With each stop, he realised just how out of his depth he was, taking the grand formation as his first stop.

  None of the formations was simple in its method, and even after he understood how they worked, he had no idea how anyone could create one. The formations weren’t created by the flow of mana, and the flow of mana didn’t create the environment that let them continue their function.

  Instead, the two worked hand in hand. The storm shaped the valley, and in turn, the valley shaped the storm. Just trying to think of how you’d go about setting up a natural formation left Felix with a headache. How could you create a storm and a valley at the same time while having both working in perfect harmony?

  It wasn’t just the valley. The other formations were just as complicated in their own way, with the grove having so many elements working together that Felix still wasn’t sure he’d found them all when he left.

  All he could do was add as much detail about the formations to his Inner World as he could, hoping he could make sense of them later. Not all things were as futile as a little over four months after his departure from Ilmaréth, Felix finally made it to the gates of Caelwyn.

  He had a very hard time acting as if it were just another town after he spent months hiding his tracks and carefully moving towards it.

  If you like the story, please support it by rating and following! (￣??)

  You can read ahead on or support the story by checking out the e-book on