Alice charged towards the monster, a massive gorilla creature with exposed bones showing, for an undead this thing was lively, charging back at her with it's massive forearms slamming into the ground it roars at it leaps at her. With a smile the girl unleashes her blade, the blue flames engulfed her overly large and impractical sword... "buckle up", huh? .... strange, anyway like a hot knife through butter the sword cuts clean through the creature's right collarbone and out the right pelvis, the creature hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. Alice looks back, "nothing personal..." though unfortunately, the beast stirs and gets up, staring at Alive with it's lifeless pale eyes, it's rotting flesh falls off but the creature doesn't seem to care, "You want some more then ugly? come and get it" Alice holds her blade out waiting for the creature who seems to spend several seconds huffing in rage for a while, it rears back taking a deep breath before letting out a massive roar that sends a shockwave of wind outwards, the trees shake and the grass is blown over flat, and soon the sounds of other roars sound out in the woods, and they're approaching fast. Alice charges the gorilla holding her blade with both hands she gets ready to strike, holding the blade up she begins her swing which is interrupted as she quickly leans back as another massive fist just barely misses her as another identical creature lept out from the treeline at her. With her blade still in the ready position she swings it downward at the undead gorilla who just lept to strike at her, swinging it down the blade hisses as it cuts through clean through the spine and leaving a massive slice in the earth, the original creature stares her down as the rumbling approaches and soon dozens of creatures were upon her. Alice is agile, creatures leap at her left and right, with quick hops she dodges and occasionally ripostes as she does, but they keep coming, each attack gets closer and closer "buckle up kid!", what was that? Something distracts her, she snaps back to spot another one charging at her she holds her blade and swings in a wide downward arc as a creature lept straight towards her, splitting it in two down the center, as the creature's halves split apart the original one armed gorilla is was already behind it, massive fist already mid punch it collides with Alice's face and....
Alice: "Ow what th-.." She's confused, where was she, she's laying on something hard, is this wood? slowly her mind starts returning to her, she pushes herself up off the floor and looks around to see the familiar carriage again, oh right... The sun shines through the windows now and the treeline is once again above them, have we landed? She gets up slowly and holds her bleeding nose, her face is numb, she must have hit the ground pretty hard, the door handle turns, Alice turns as the bright light gives way to a confused looking Isaac.
Isaac: "What happened to you kid, are you going to hurt yourself every time i leave you alone or something? i told you to buckle up like three times"
Alice: "Ah shut it... where are we right now anyway?"Alice pinches the bridge of her nose to stop the bleeding as she heads out towards the door, Isaac moves and lets her walk out, wow... the trees are different, the oaks and and willows she's used to seeing replaced by tall pines, she wraps her arms around herself, it's cold? "Alright seriously what is this?"
Isaac: "Well we've gone about what would take a boat about half a year of travel soooo... we've traveled about a hundreth the length of the continent straight north north-west away from the coast, we're in the edge clearing of the forest of needles" Isaac raises his arms up and gestures around, the faint smell of pine and the cloudy sky, the climate here is completely different.
Alice: "Seriously, that... thing is seriously that fast? i mean... " She looks around and heads back to the carriage, she grabs her bag from the storage and throws on her coat, it's not quite warm enough for this place but it's better than her current clothes "That all still seems a bit unbelievable if i'm honest"
Isaac smiles as he clicks his tongue a few times, a low chirp sounds out as the serpent crawls along the ground approaching Isaac who beckons her over, the serpent wraps around his torso and leans on his shoulder from behind, Isaac gives Slipstream some scritches and pets.
Isaac: "That's because we have this very very good girl here, trained her myself of course, now then, go explore and look around girl, come back when i call right?" He gives the snake a few pats and off it slithers away into the woods with a gleeful hiss. "So then kid, we're going to do lesson zero, you remember when you ran your mana through that broom?" Isaac pulls out a small belt pouch from his belt and reaches into it... like really reaches into it, his whole arm disappears shoulder deep in a pouch that seems like it could barely hold a rabbit.
Alice: "Uhm... yeah i remember that, i practiced a few times, everything i tried that with like, wood, metal, cloth, all of them kinda melted after like ten seconds or so why?"
Isaac pulls his arm out holding what appears to be a wooden practice sword with a wrapped handle, he tosses it underhand at Alice
Isaac: "Try running your mana through this lets see what you can do kid"
Alice catches it and looks up confused at Isaac
Alice: "I just told you that wood doesn't really survive for that long, you want me to break your stuff already?"
Isaac: "Kid if there's something you need to know about me is that i'm always right, just do it and show me what you got"
Alice rolls her eyes and holds the handle with both hands, she takes a deep breath, her eyes glow a bright cyan as an aura of what appears to be blue flames engulfs the wood, no cracks, the wood seems to hold, Alice is taken aback.
Isaac: "Alright, your mana is the real deal kid, so then, this is wood from a level one magic zone, everything in a non level zero zone has resistance to magic so you're able to infuse it without it exploding in your face"
Alice seems enthralled by the flames, grinning like an idiot as she gives it a few test swings making a few sound effects as she swings and swings it around.
Alice: "This is amazing! i actually get to see what it looks like for more than a few seconds, okay okay cool cool, what's next then?"
Isaac: "Alright calm down kid, that was lesson zero, you can use magic, you look like you're a natural infuser, under wizard, sorcerer, and... unchained yes, the two basic schools of magic are evocation and infusion, under these two the other schools split off from there, evocation is your magic acting outwards on it's own, infusion is your magic affecting something inwards.
Alice finally stops swinging as she looks to isaac, paying sort-of half attention as she keeps glancing down at the wreathed wood.
"Great! so then if this is level zero then, what's lesson one?"
Isaac smiles as he points just behind her, Alice turns to hear a low snarling from the treeline, which she quickly recognizes, she hasn't seen one in real life before, but she has seen the drawings in school, those fangs, that raised prickly fur, a wolf...
Isaac: "Lesson one, don't die kid."
Alice takes off sprinting as fast as she can, her heart pounds in her chest as she panics and runs out into the field, she screams as the wolf takes off after her, luckily they had some distance between them, she runs towards the carriage looking for safety.
Isaac: "Kid what are you doing! stop running you pansy!" Isaac chuckles as he yells out to her"
She barely manages to yell it out as she leaps into the carriage, slamming the door shut, a loud slam as the wolf crashes into the wood, snarling and scratching at the door, Alice feels a bit of relief but her heart sinks as the handle turns lightly, each scratch of the wolf moves the handle a bit, holy shit can these things open doors?!
Alice: "Shut it that's a fucking wolf help me you idiot it's coming inside!"
Alice quickly scrambles up as she grabs the opposite door handle and runs out, slamming the door just as the wolf gets inside, she runs out halfway between Isaac and the carriage and turns to look at the wolf trying to get out again.
Isaac: "Kid if you can't even manage that you have no future honestly, you have everything you need to kill this thing honestly"
Alice: "Everything i need t-.. w-what like confidence and believing in myself or something?" she pants as she barely gets to ask him the question, the wolf bursts out of the door and sprints towards her, there's no use running now it's too close
Isaac: "No you goddamned idiot, you have a fucking sword, just do it already"
Well shit, fuck this, she got this far listening to this old bastard and if she dies now then at least uncle Lucius will kick his ass fuck it, she grips her wooden sword sweating, she's nervous, it's so close now, it's fangs are bared and it snarls at it approaches, the wolf leaps from two meters away aiming to take her down. Alice is too scared to swing, her muscles lock up, all she manages to do is hold the sword out and close her eyes to wait for the inevitable.
A sickening sound as a large force pushes against her arms, she feels something warm spray all over her, she holds her breath... nothing? the smell of copper hits her nostrils as she opens her eyes and looks down at herself. Blood, everywhere, her arms, her clothes, she turns around to look behind her, the wolf is in two pieces on either side of her split down from the top right of it's back to the bottom left of it's stomach, Alice in her panic only managed to put the sword in the way of the leap and it was sliced like butter, she looks like she's in a bit of shock
Isaac: "Lesson one continuing, magic can only be stopped by magic, your opponent's force means nothing as long as you can defend yourself with magic, now kid, how do you feel?"
Alice, looks around, she understood his words but barely heard him, everything's so fuzzy, why is the ground getting closer? poomf, she lands in the grass and passes out, Isaac blinks a few times thinking a bit to himself.
Isaac: "Hey kid... kiiiiiid?.... ah shit, maybe that was a little too much for lesson one."