“I found something!” Rai called out, pulling my attention away from the log I had just checked and towards him. He was walking back towards us, from somewhere across the road, making me curious.

“What did you find?” Adra asked, obviously knowing more than me.

“I checked the spot where those guys waited and found their tracks. Want to check out their hideout?” He asked, grinning a little.

It was a good idea - I had to admit that. The bandits we had taken down had been rather incompetent, ill-equipped and low-leveled so I was not too afraid of finding their hideout, I doubted that they would be part of some competent force, which I suspected the spellcaster who had created the bear would lead. Or, maybe, it was an unrelated force - that was entirely possible.

However, the most likely possibility was that they were simply a small-time gang and we could find some loot in their hideout.

“We should definitely go check that out.” I agreed, hoping to find something useful. “Lead the way, Rai, Adra.” I told them, while focusing on my own stats for a moment. I wanted to distribute my two points into Intuition, which I did with but a thought. Bringing Intuition to thirty, I gained a new ability, according to my previous actions.

Special Ability gained You gained the Special Ability: Improved Magic Perception For having Intuition of 30 or higher, you gained the skill Improved Magic Perception. Improved Magic Perception increases your sensitivity to magic, allowing you to get a better understanding of the magic you encounter.

On first glance, it sounded rather simple and I was quite happy to try it out on the first target I got, simply to see the difference. And there was a great target, right in front of me, a magic roadway which I had studied quite intently, trying to wrest some of its secrets away from it.

Lenore had gathered herself to the point that she hopped onto my shoulder while I mentally shared my new ability with her, which she welcomed. As I walked closer to the road, I was able to perceive the smell of magic earlier than before and was even able to sniff out the complex mix of powers interwoven into the road. I was still far from being able to unravel what each flow did, but my resolution, for lack of a better word, was much better. It got even better when Lenore went into her Hallow and shared her vision with me. It seemed my new ability worked on the shared perception as well and when I focused on a part of the magic weave, I was able to make out more details. Sadly, in this case it only meant that I was shown how broad the sky was, but even then, I was looking at a masterpiece of magical engineering. Understanding the whole while looking at a small part was impossible, but I could get a vague idea that there was a keystone somewhere, or multiple keystones, possibly linked together to form the network.

Before either Lenore or I could delve deeper into the magic, possibly losing ourselves in the study of it, Sigmir gently pushed me towards Rai and Adra, who had checked the tracks Rai had found and were ready to follow them.

That part was rather easy, even I would have been able to follow these tracks, it hadn’t snowed since the group had been through, so the snow was trampled on a clear path. We walked for maybe ten minutes, Rai and Adra moving up front, training their stealth, with Sigmir and me following behind. Even I tried to train my non-magical stealth, with some success, I gained another point in the skill, but I was greatly looking forward to regaining my magic. And it wouldn’t take much longer, especially with Lenore crossing the first divide and adding even more regeneration to the pool I was drawing from.

Rai and Adra waited for us, crouching behind a small brush, gesturing for us to keep quiet, which we did. Then, they gestured to take a look and I saw a single orc, standing next to two relatively small, harnessed elk. The tracks led right up to the spot and in the snow around them were a few contraptions that I identified as snow-shoes. Some more gestures and Sigmir stayed where she was, while the rest of us circled around, making sure that even if the orc tried to run, it would be pointless.

Roughly at the same time, we stepped forward, making the orc jump in surprise. When the orc tried to ready a weapon, Sigmir suddenly leapt forward, slapping it from their hand, into the snow.

“Stop that!” she growled, looking rather menacing, with her axe still stained with the blood of the other orcs.

“Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way… Or, if you try to be smart, there’s the even harder way...” I started, pulling the orcs attention to me. Now that I was closer, I could make a guess about their sex and realised that it was another orc female, not that I really cared. Around that moment, she noticed Rai and Adra approaching and must have assumed that I was the weakest link in our formation, as she tried to bowl me over. I tripped her while stepping out of the way, causing her to land in a tangle of limbs.

“It seems you are looking for the hard way. Don’t claim I didn’t warn you.” With those words, I gave her a kick into the side, causing her to hunch, before kicking her again, this time causing her to flop onto her back.

“You will tell us what you bandits were up to, preying on people travelling the road.” I announced, after drawing my athame and letting the sun glint off the edge. “Or, you could try to stay silent and I would have to hurt you. Honestly, I don’t really care which way you want this to go, you telling us about your hideout would be useful but there are quite a few magical hypotheses I want to test. It is entirely up to you.” I explained, feeling my mouth curl into a smile.

Instantly, the orc decided that confession was good for the soul and her mouth turned into a bubbling brook of information, as she spilled everything she knew, no matter how inconsequential. Not only about the bandits, if we could even call them that in hindsight but also about every naughty thought, every unkind word and every even slightly questionable action. I would have cut her off, maybe literally, but it was just too entertaining listening to her ramble on about the tusks of some guy or how she used to steal honey from the village beekeeper.

It turned out, what we had taken down as bandits were, infact, just a group of stupid youths from a nearby orc-village. At first, the group had been going out for fun, after their chores were done. That had turned into trying to hunt, the guys trying to impress the girls, until one of them had the great idea to scare travellers on the imperial road, maybe rob small groups.

I had to facepalm at that, I doubted that any travelling group was stupid enough to be vulnerable to an attack as they had tried on us; they would have to had insane amounts of luck to take enough people down with their shoddy archery to win any serious encounter. The only reason they had managed to hurt Lenore as badly as they had done was that she was hit right as she left her Hallow; a moment of vulnerability, combined with the fact that she was generally not physically strong, had conspired with an incredibly lucky shot on their part to hurt her. And the shot was truly incredibly lucky, as it had been fired before she left her Hallow and would have missed altogether if not for her coming out. ‘Luck’ could hardly describe it.

It took quite a while for her to wind down and once she did, I was almost feeling bad for the way her friends had died. They had been stupid kids, the equivalent of idiotic punks hanging around at a street-corner shouting obscenities at passing cars. Well, almost. As I was about to turn around, simply leaving her to her own devices, Lenore left her Hallow, hopping onto my shoulder.

“It might be problematic if she told lies about us, claiming that we attacked her friends.” Lenore explained, using her version of my voice to speak to all of us.

Just as I was about to as what she had in mind, she hopped into the air, beating her wings harder than I had seen her do and a strange, dark gas-like effect, almost like a dark mist or dark wind was streaming from her beating winds as she hovered in the air, quickly enveloping the sobbing orc. The orc twitched for a moment, before stilling and I noticed a message telling me that I gained a small amount of EXP. But, as I watched, the orc started twitching again, just a tiny bit, almost impossible to see. Lenore landed on my shoulder again and I felt satisfaction over our bond and when I looked closer at the orc’s corpse, I felt magic emanating from it. I would have to talk with Lenore about her actions and new abilities.