Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent

Tufted with scraggly grass and wind-battered shrubs, the hill rose like a bump on the landscape’s forehead. Fabrisse had named it Reflection Knoll years ago, back when he was ten and decided all significant hills needed names. The name never caught on with anyone else, mostly because the townsfolk of Itakonra Hollow didn’t think a hill with three trees and one ancient mailbox deserved the word ‘knoll’ in it.

The shrine light shone below like fireflies bottled in glass. From this distance, the lanterns made the whole valley seem touched by something sacred, or at least municipally funded. Fabrisse picked his way up the slope with his breath misting in the night air and his pockets clinking with every other step. Behind him, Dubbie trudged in silence, her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders.

When they finally reached the crest, he spun in a deformed circle and muttered, “Perfect. Elemental things definitely happen on hills.”

She sighed, took a seat on a smooth-ish patch of earth, and rubbed at her eyes. “Alright then, great wizard of the knoll. What now?”

“I start gathering,” he said confidently, then immediately picked a wildflower, pinched its stem, and held it up to the sky. “One element done. I have collected the Totem of the Great Wood.”