As he walked along the floor of the forest, Osric realized that the moss, which didn’t simply glow but pulsated with a green light that waxed brighter and waned dimmer, didn’t grow in random clumps but matched the ornate lace pattern that the faerie had woven in her cage.
In his world, magic was a force that linked the elemental to the physical, but its power could not be harnessed through simple or ordinary means. All he had learned as an apprentice was designed to give him the ability to use the power hidden from the hands of common men. But in this place, the faerie’s world, magic was as abundant as the air itself, and it pervaded all things, even the moss and the soil. Anyone, it seemed, would be a magician here. But he wondered if his earth-bound powers would be of any use.
Osric looked behind him and realized the path had led him upward, and as the trees grew thinner and sparser, the moss ended at the head of a narrow trail at the base of a dark mountain. The moons gave little light to reveal its expanse, but looking up the mountain, half of the strange stars above were erased by its mass. He turned to look again at the path he had traveled and saw that the moss had stopped glowing, and its pattern had dissolved as well. Taking that as a sign, he stepped onto the upward trail.
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