“Yes, let’s talk magic. You said that you wiped out a burrow of Snowbolds and I noticed a few slivers of memory, can you elaborate?” Lenore asked with a chuckle.

“It was just after coming to Mundus, so I was weak in level but had a couple of interesting ideas. I caught two snowbolds and used their life-force to fuel my spells. It was one of my first, real workings with Blood Magic, I tried a few things before, but nothing on that scale.” I started to explain, remembering what I had done back then.

“The snowbolds had a burrow and hid inside whenever there was conflict, so I sealed the exit and used a cold mist to disorient and harm them, I sat there for hours, lost in my meditation to maintain the spell. My hope was to turn their own burrow against them, causing them to be lost in their tunnels, slowly dying from my magic. If they had been less cowardly or more intelligent, I would have died that day, but I guess I took a risk and it paid off.”

“That sounds promising, how about we do this?” Lenore asked and started to explain her idea.

A few hours later, I returned from the discussion within Lenore’s Hallow, taking in the real world again. My legs felt a little wobbly, while my mind had been in the Hallow, my body had sat cross-legged in the snow, not that the cold bothered me, but sitting still had caused my legs to fall asleep. Lenore’s ideas had been good, now, I only needed to regain my Astral Power. I reached back and noticed that the growth had been quite good, there was maybe a hand-width missing to my old length, maybe a little more, so it should be finished soon. Drega’s food and the blessing she had added to it had been most helpful.

I looked around and noticed that Adra was no longer in camp, instead Rai was nearby.

“You are back? What can you tell me about the village?” I asked him, speaking softly.

“Yes, Adra switched off with me about an hour ago. I haven’t seen anything remarkable about the village or the people’s behaviour. They just go about their business, mostly staying inside. Most of what I’ve seen were people going to the outhouses. There were a few who looked like they might have been adventurers at some point, but I’m not sure, not from the distance.” he explained, painting the picture of a perfectly normal village, going about their day in late winter.

“Interesting. I wonder just why those fools decided to make of play of being bandits. They had to have known it would be hellishly dangerous.” I shook my head, deciding, once again, to now worry about it. For once, Lenore would take the lead.

“We will watch them for another day or two, before attacking. I want to avoid getting a nasty surprise when we do.” I told Rai, before walking over to Sigmir, cuddling in. Those two days of delay served a few purposes, one was the avoidance of problems during our attack, one was the idea that, if anyone tried to catch up to us, after our departure from Kolyug, they would follow the road, not traipse off into the wilderness to some random hamlet. It added a small layer of safety to us, making me less twitchy. The bad feeling I had ever since fighting against the Infernal Bear had receded quite a bit over the last day, letting me think more rationally.

In the privacy of my mind, where only Lenore could perceive me, I had even admitted that I might have overreacted with Kelgorn, that there really had been no evidence to his treachery. While I was reasonably confident that I had been right, I was not certain. And after considering things calmly, I had to admit that there were perfectly ordinary reasons for the events that I had strung together; what I had seen as a prepared ambush might have been just a normal adventurer group that happened to camp in our path. It was unlikely, and maybe I had overreacted in a state of hypervigilance, brought about by the insecurity of not having my powers, but, deep down, I knew I would do it again. It was something Lenore had reminded me of, that I had to keep my wits, vigilance and yes, my ruthlessness, if I wanted to keep the whole party safe.

But the past was just that - the past. I would have to make sure not to get in such a situation again, especially not without my magic.

For the next day, we kept stayed in the camp we had made, rotating the observation of the small hamlet between us, and really, when it was my turn, I couldn’t spot anything that wasn’t perfectly ordinary. But then, even bandits had to eat and be ordinary, it wasn’t as if they could be out, raiding, fighting, ambushing all the time. My current guess, based on the overall fitness of the villagers and the fact that their youths had attacked us, was that during the winter months, when hardly anyone was travelling anyway, they were just normal villagers and the rest of the year, they had a lookout near the road, to take care of caravans and collect resources for the winter. It was the only thing that made sense to me.

Finally, during the second night in camp, I felt a change within me. As momentous as the change was, it was lacking in fanfare, but, from one moment to the other, my Astral Power stopped seeping away, drained to fuel the growth of my hair, it simply started to flow as always. I luxuriated in the feeling, it was as if a thirst I had not known to have was quenched, a burden lifted.

I let out a sigh of relief and Sigmir looked at me questioning.

“It’s back. My power is coming back.” I told her, with a wide smile.

“Thank the ancestors. You’ve hardly been yourself the last couple of days.” Sigmir answered, giving me a kiss filled with relief.

“Yes, I noticed. I just felt as if part of me was missing, my magic is what allows me to stand next to you, to guard your back, to be worthy of you.” I tried to explain, but she cut me off.

“Nonsense. Your magic is part of you, sure. But what’s that about being worthy? Even if you would lose your magic, never being able to cast a spell again, we would be together. Don’t you remember my words? From now, forevermore? Nothing in this world could change that.” Sigmir impressed upon me, her arms hugging me tight against her. Her words felt good, but despite them, I knew that I wouldn’t want to be a burden on her. My pride wouldn’t allow that.

“Thank you.” I simply said instead, giving her a soft kiss, “But now, I have something to do in the village.” I continued, slipping out of her embrace.

Now that my magic was back, I had things to prepare, so my first step was talking to Adra.

“Your spell to conceal tracks, it also hides smell and muffles sounds, right?” I asked her, even if I was almost certain about the answer.

“Yes, it does. Why?”

“I have a few things to do in the village. Can you cast it for me?”

Adra frowned for a moment but nodded.

“Sure, wait a second.” she stood and started mumbling the chant I knew. After a minute or two, I felt the sensation settle around me and added my own spells, now that my magic was back at full power.

“I will be back.” I told the others, hiding a giggle when I affected an Austrian accent for it, and was off.

Cloaked in shadows, in the darkness of the night, hidden by my magic, Adra’s magic and my, by now quite decent, stealth-skill, I entered the village. Sneaking in was a joke, the only reason I needed to be careful was that I didn’t want them to know I had been here.

It was obvious that it was not built to withstand attack, the only defenses in place were sturdy doors, to keep wildlife out until people could arm themselves. But doors that would protect from wolves or, maybe, with a lot of luck, from a bear, wouldn’t protect them from magic. Not that anything would happen that night, no, I was just placing markers, as strange as it was. And not even markers for attacks or anything like that, no, what I was placing were essentially cameras. I had plans for the villages demise, or rather, the footage of it, but to have that footage, I needed some assistance. I had sent a message to Pantheon and they had come through, giving me a few invisible orbs of observation, as they were officially called, that would record during a specified time-frame. There were a few limitations, mostly that I couldn’t look at the material until twenty-four hours had passed in real-life and that I had to do the advertisement, but that was all fine for me.

I had a plan, after all.