Looking around, I nodded to myself, deciding that the area I was in was well suited for my purposes. For the latter half of the day, we had walked through a harsh, craggy area of broken rocks and small trees, sticking out of a thin layer of soil. The simplicity and roughness of the landscape was stark, yet strangely beautiful, despite the fact that the snow had mostly melted away after the weather had changed from freezing cold to the wet and warmer weather we had in the last couple of days.

Above me, high in the surprisingly cloudless sky, was the bright, silvery disc of the moon shining down upon me, while I looked back up. As I stood, I felt a strange kinship welling up in me, a feeling of solitude that I couldn’t quite place. The others were nearby, I knew that, but I had asked them to keep watch, allowing me to delve the Astral River on my own but somehow, I felt closer to the moon in the sky than I felt to them. Alone, merely reflected into a different world, to soothe my loneliness.

As soon as the idea crossed my mind, I banished it, focusing on the present instead of dwelling on the past and future. Using a bit of magic to strengthen my legs, I jumped onto a smooth bolder, easily making the two meter leap, landing on my feet before freezing the wetness on the rock and brushing it aside, leaving a nicely dry and cold seat for me.

After sitting down, I closed my eyes, focusing on my breathing as my mind went into the calm, floating state of meditation. It was a familiar process, emptying my mind of one thought after the other, until nothing remained but the regular flow of air, into and out of my body. And then, even that vanished and my mind was in the realm between, floating on nothingness, on perfect stillness.

For how long I remained in that state of no-thought, I didn’t know, most likely only a few seconds, before my mind yearned for activity, for thought. My mouth might have curled in a wry smile, my mental expression certainly did, amused at the fact that I could calmly sit for hours alone in the privacy of my mind or in discussion with Lenore, but when trying to turn off that constant stream of thought, my subconscious quickly rebelled, demanding activity.

Following that feeling, I took the simple step of allowing one thought in, allowing it to take up as much of my mind as it could, the perception of the Astral River around me. At first, I had needed the rune-stones I had started with to tune my mind to the feeling of magic, now, I was able to simply feel the constant presence of the Astral River around me and by focusing on it, I was able to swim in its magical currents.

As I delved into the stream of the Astral River, the ethereal existence of the Astral River was filling my mind, my senses trying to map what I was experiencing into something I could understand. I was getting better at understanding what my magical perception told me, the ability I had gained some time ago helping greatly, allowing me to get a better feel for the different streams of the Astral River that was flowing around me.

There was a stream of wind, smelling of spring and change, another that was the stoic, slowly-changing solidness of earth, providing a foundation for the river and the world, allowing the changing seasons to play out. A bit of fire, leaving the bad taste of smoke and ashes in my mouth was woven between them, its strength waxing, was riding the wind, letting it carry the warmth of spring around the world. And finally, flowing between it all, streams of water, giving live and fueling growth and bringing life.

Those were the strongest streams, there were others and one of them, calling strongly to me was a stream, tasting similar but different from the water-stream and the wind-stream, a mix of both, but changed by something else. The stream of Ice, shining with the cold, silvery light reflected from the moon, beckoning me to dive in, to let it flow around me and enjoy the cool, crisp feeling it gave off.

The Ice Astral Power inside me, joined with the stream outside, flowing through me and I let myself flow with it, my mind slowly leaving my body and streaming into the Astral River itself. Part of my mind kept myself tethered to my body but most of me was swimming in the endless stream and I was getting strange impressions, short flickers of images and feeling that I could hardly grasp or understand. There was something that looked like a sand-desert shrouded in freezingly cold darkness, another image was of a desolate, frozen wasteland, illuminated by the sun but barely experiencing any warmth, a stark mountain, cuttingly icy winds sharpening the cliffs into knife edges. It was a feeling of total vastness, a feeling of knowledge but my mind was simply not made to comprehend such absoluteness, causing me to shrink back, in order to keep my mind from shattering under the weight of knowledge.

It was beautiful and part of me considered that losing my mind to gaze upon the absoluteness a price worth paying but self-preservation managed to pull me back from that edge, even as I wanted to tumble over it.

Instead, I focused on the singular stream I was in, looking at the concepts and information that was contained within. I knew that the Liquid Moonlight-Rune that I knew was complete, yet incomplete, that there was a greater rune that contained the Rune I knew. So, using the Rune I knew, I started to look for concepts that felt similar, that might allow me to get a bigger picture.

In my mind, the simple pattern that I could draw in a few seconds with just a couple of strokes of my finger formed and as I focused on it, details started to filter in from the Astral River surrounding me. Feelers started to stretch out, interlinking patterns started to form as I tried to let the rune grow into what it should be. I was awed at the complexity of it, getting a slight grasp that what I was seeing and understanding was still a simplified version of a greater truth. I felt my mind start to struggle as it tried to comprehend what I was seeing, trying to contain the truth that was revealing itself before me.

Finally, after the surroundings of the rune I knew started to grow, I understood my mistake, I was trying to comprehend more than I would be able, I was reaching too far, stretching myself too thin. What I was trying to understand was more than a single additional rune.

Taking a step back, I let my mind wander, knowing that I had exhausted a great deal of mental strength and needed to recover. As my mind was flowing through the Astral River, I stumbled over a memory, a memory of me, or rather, an impression my spellcasting had left in the Astral. It was intriguing, to watch myself from the outside, to follow the way the Astral Power had been shaped by me, shaped into a powerful weapon to strike at my enemies. It was the massive spell I had used to attack the centaurs after Rai and I had weakened them with poison and my different perspective allowed me to watch as the artifact used by the Centaurs was activated. The change in perspective allowed me to get a better understanding of the way the artifact worked, as the medium I was watching from started to shake, to quake as chaotic waves of Astral Power were discharged from the crystal.

It was a curious experience and I started to get an idea how I might be able to prevent myself from being affected as bad, if I was ever exposed to such a tool again. At the same time, I realised that there was something with the Mist I was using, that there was more to be understood, if I only cared to look.

Intrigued, I let the Mist-Rune well up in my consciousness while letting the Astral River flow through me, allowing the knowledge contained within stretch the Rune I had been using for so long, to complete it.

What I found was remarkable, a furtherance of something I had talked about with the wolves, how the smallest ice-crystals could be formed and controlled, creating something that I understood as Diamond Dust, microscopic particles that I could control, small enough to ride on the smallest breeze but, if used in the right manner, sharp enough to shred a foe, if I so wished. They were, in a way, small enough to be both, solid and liquid, the phase depending on very little, mostly orientation and linkage.

My understanding was surging and the simple Mist-Rune had allowed me to grasp something bigger, something that I would need to study a lot deeper, as it might allow me to gain understanding in different magics, the duality of liquid and solid a remarkable feature that sparked my interest. Just what would I be able to learn if I continued that way? I just didn’t know.

Sadly, around me the light started to dull, the streams of air and fire gaining prominence as the burning heat of the sun started to replace the calm and gentle light of the moon, making me realise that my time was up and I should return to the world around me. Slowly, I pulled back into my body, opening my eyes to see what little ice and snow there was around me glitter in the first light of dawn.

A new day had come, forcing away the loving embrace of the night.