This time, it was my turn to watch Sigmir slowly wake up and I felt a smile creep up on my face, simply because it looked so adorable. Once more, I was struck by the immense contrast, that a person so powerful, so wild, as my Sigmir could look so calm and peaceful in their sleep and upon waking up. There was no tension or vigilance on her face, just a simple contendness, especially when she took note of her surroundings, a smile curling her lips.

“Good morning.” I told her, reaching over to brush some of her short hairs from her forehead.

“Good morning, love.” she replied, before giving me a quick kiss and pushing herself up, stretching as she did. The play of her muscles made me lick my lips for a moment, before I got a hold on myself and followed suit, stretching out as I stood up.

It was still early, barely after sunrise and I had spent a productive night, or as productive as one could be, with a Giantblood twice your size sleeping on you. Not that I complained, it had been an interesting change of pace to be the pillow for once, not the one being held and comforted but the one doing the comforting. Confined in that way, I had focused on those small things that would normally get pushed back to the end of the pile in favour of more flashy and big experiments, those small necessities that tended to accumulate.

For one, I had made sure that the various tools and weapons I had crafted from Hard Ice were still in a working state, which, unsurprisingly, they had not been. While I sheltered my body, and thus my equipment, from the full heat of summer, I didn’t expend the necessary power to keep myself cloaked in a layer of frozen air, meaning that, slowly but surely, even the magically resilient Hard Ice had been melting. Not enough to destroy any of my implements but it had been enough that both my shuttles and my blades had lost their edges, an oversight making me annoyed at myself. The shuttles were a useful tool, my preferred way to fight and support at a medium distance, easy and swift to use, if lacking the punch to decisively end a battle. But even worse, my blades were my last line of defense, what I relied on if I ever got cornered or ran out of magic. They had to be in top condition and I had been very lax when it came to maintaining them, which was the reason for the state they had been in.

I had fixed it, for now, restoring their cutting edges but I would have to make it a daily ritual to make sure my blades were sharp. It just wouldn’t do to rely on them, only to have them come up short in a crisis. If I were to die in this Beta, I would be damned if it was because such a stupid mistake.

Another thing I had done was check the forums, especially when there were a couple notifications, tagging me by name. It turned out that Harms, the orc who had died in the skirmish against the wolves, had given his account of the battle to go with the video published by Pantheon Entertainment and had tagged Morgana in it, maybe to use some of the notoriety I had gained to promote himself. It wasn’t a bad idea, I had been making some waves, getting quite a few followers and people who would happily hate-watch my content in hopes of me slipping up, meaning that he would get some of those, even if I wasn’t in his video, at all.

What I wasn’t too happy about was that he actively described how I had managed to get a locally famous native to see me as an equal, especially when he pointed out how my small group of four had been assigned a role similar in scope as the whole orcish battlegroup, making it look like that locally famous native thought we had similar battle-potential. While I was happy about the promotion, I wasn’t happy that he was embellishing our battle-power, it was a lot more advantageous to be underestimated by your foes. But with his description, that was impossible.

At least he had no idea what we actually had done, limiting his description of our role in the battle, but even just the the information that we had managed to force a small army of centaurs to give up their camp and run straight into an ambush by the orcs was bad enough. I had no desire to make public that I was able to use Mind Magic, especially with the waves the Profile of that bard had made, with his ability to force Travellers to obey for a relatively long time. I had no doubt that the magic he had used had some massive restrictions and caveats, but even then, it was incredibly scary to think about. Paranoia over Mind Magic would be prevalent amongst Travellers, most likely causing a massive overreaction. At least that's what I would do, make sure that nobody was able to mess with my head. So far, I thought that concealment combined with anti-magic taken from my Darkness-Runes was the way to go, it had worked against the magic wielded by the bolotnisa and Tzar Bolotnik. But if it would work against a Traveller, I didn’t know. To say nothing of ways to create a passive defense, something that would work at all times, making it impossible to ambush me and mine, overwhelming me before I ever had a chance to use my magic to defend.

Yeah, I could understand why Mind Magic was feared.

Other than those tasks, I had helped Lenore with her magic, mostly trying to incorporate more Ice-Magic into what she was doing and listening to her explain her thoughts regarding Air- and Death-Magic, how she wanted to combine the two. It was similar enough to what I had been doing, using mist to carry a variety of nasty effects, that I could easily follow, only that her ideas were even more insidious than mine, essentially targeting the lungs of those in her area of effect, binding subtle, necrotic effects to the air people had to breathe. It made me wonder, would it be possible to essentially make the oxygen in the air carry her magic, maybe with a little Blood Magic from me added into her spell, using a physical carrier to circumvent magical defenses before using magical ways to circumvent physical barriers? It would be a way to carry Blood- and Death-Magic right into the veins of someone, where it could work with incredibly lethal effect. Using the power inherent in their Blood to activate the Death-Magic where it could do the most damage. It was an interesting idea and Lenore had quickly understood what I had been telling her about the composition of air but neither of us had been able to put that knowledge to practical use, to target the oxygen in the air. It might simply be impossible or it might require a lot higher ability than Lenore had, to say nothing about me, who was piggy-backing on her ability.

As such, we had shelved that idea for a later date and focused on the effects Lenore already knew about, using wind to carry her Death-Magic.

After we had a simple breakfast, we made our way back to the others. As we approached, it became obvious that Dura Firebringer had done her homework. Before we ever got in sight of the camp, we noticed a couple guards keeping an eye out. They obviously noticed us but didn’t approach, merely giving us a salute when they noticed us looking at them.

Leaving them be, we got to the top of the slope, looking down on the camp and there, too, quite a few things had changed. The camp was still in the mouth of the valley but the only traces left of the centaur-camp was the dusty pit that my spell had created. Everything else had been looted and taken away. At the same time, the orc-camp was in the process of being broken down, a hustle and bustle that made it clear they wanted to leave, soon.

Climbing down the slope, we quickly met up with Adra and Rai, who were standing on the side, watching the goings on.

“Good morning.” I greeted them, as Sigmir and I stepped up. “Did you enjoy your day of rest yesterday?” I asked, mostly curious what they did.

The blush burning on Rai’s cheeks and an amused smile on Adra’s face hinted at the things they had been up to. At the same time, I noticed that they stood a little closer together, not quite holding hands but not far off. It made me wonder, did I want to indulge my curiosity or was it one of those things that I simply didn’t want to know?

“Yes, thank you. It was most enjoyable.” Adra replied, causing the blush on Rai’s cheeks to deepen even further.

“That is good. You will have to tell us all about it.” Sigmir told her, the smile on her face making it obvious that she had picked up on the same things I had and wanted to tease the two of them, or maybe just Rai. By that time, I started to wonder if I had to use Blood Magic to restore circulation to Rai, his blush had spread down his neck, vanishing under his armour.

“Mhm, we can do that as we walk. I think we will head out soon.” Adra nodded, her grin getting even bigger, now watching Rai as well.