[Realm: Álfheimr]
[Location: The Deathless Fortress]
Gretchen leapt backward, boots scraping against ground, her dress snapping sharply behind her as heat surged along both flanks. The mana signature hit her a heartbeat later—dense and aggressive, shaped without elegance. To her left and right, fire coalesced mid-charge, forced into bestial forms.
A boar, large and wide, tusks blazing white-hot as it tore forward with a guttural roar. An ox, taller, heavier, its shoulders rolling as it thundered across the ruined ground, hooves leaving melted impressions behind it.
They weren't illusions and they weren't summons either. They were but crude constructs—fire given form and more velocity, sustained by output.
("Predictable again,") Gretchen thought calmly, even as the heat licked her skin. ("And much too linear.")
Her foot tapped the ground once.
