As expected, she did well at the Technomage Guild's Academy. She had spent her first few years learning much, and the next few years tutoring the younger children. In her last two years of study, she had started helping with teaching duties as she prepared for was also gaining a reputation for her research. As a child, she had been looked at as odd for constantly playing in the labs with the Masters. As an adolescent, she began creating her own experiments and spells under the supervision of the Masters. As a teenager, she walked into the lab whenever she wanted and started creating her magic.

On this particular day, she was working on a spell that was to be her final examination and allow her to graduate a full two years ahead of her classmates. She had been working on this spell for two months. Theoretically, it was supposed to allow a technomage to get from one place to another in the blink of an eye. The wand was given a set of coordinates: the starting points and the destination; and an incantation was spoken over it.

At least, that's what she expected it to do. The experiments had been less than conclusive at first as objects would fail to get from Point A to Point B. It didn't take her long to figure out she had the wrong ingredients combined. Once she got the right combination, she started with small objects, transporting them from her workstation to a shelf across the room.

Slowly she progressed to bigger items.

Today was a very special day for her. Today, she was going to try to move a big heavy cauldron to a different floor in the Guild.

She had never moved anything so large before!

Carefully she set the locations into the wand, waved her hand over the cauldron, and recited the incantation. The room filled with billowing blue smoke. She tried to wave the cloud away from her face, holding her robe to her face as she coughed up the smoke that she had breathed in.

When the smoke finally dissipated, she looked around.

The cauldron was gone. Actually, the room was gone. She was standing outside. And it wasn't outside the Technomage Guild, either.

This place was pretty, though. There was a lake in front of her, a tree-covered land bridge connecting its shores. To her left was a grove of trees. To her right was an open area with smaller clusters of trees.

By now, some of the people had made it to her, trying to make sure she was all right. She assured them she was fine repeatedly, but they invited her to come sit with them and have some water

Finally, she got enough smoke out of her lungs to ask, “Where am I?”

The response was, “Irongate.”