With the time-sensitive things out of the way, my newly established family retreated into our connection a little. In some ways, it was a weird idea, a family consisting of four females, none of which were the same species, two of which not even humanoid, but at the same time, the connection between us made it feel right. My connection with Lenore was unchanged, at least to my perception, while the connection with Sigmir had a little more bandwidth, for lack of a better word, allowing me to sense her emotions with a little more breadth and clarity. Lastly, the new connection to Ylva was unsurprisingly the weakest of the three, only giving me a sense of direction and an idea of her surface emotions. Still, it was there and felt right.

For hours, we just sat together, slowly getting a feeling for the connection between us all and the effect its newly interlinked nature had on us. Mostly, we just talked about the events that had established the connection, which also served to highlight just how powerful of an effect it truly was. Where before, I had been able to project feelings of comfort and closeness towards Sigmir, essentially wrapping her in the emotional equivalent of a hug, now Ylva could directly feel what I was doing and add her own projection to it, in her case mostly a sense of protection and vigilance. Instead of individuals providing comfort to a friend, we were parts of a greater whole, able to take a part of the other's burden.

Curiously, Lenore privately asked me if something had happened while I had been in the other realm, making me raise a mental eyebrow. It was rare that she asked about the realm where I came from in the first place, I think it was a bit of a taboo in her mind, just like she ignored it when my thoughts strayed to certain aspects of my Reality and the place Road to Purgatory had within it. I had a feeling that deliberate ignorance wasn’t quite natural, as Lenore was otherwise incredibly curious, but I had little recourse in that instance. Which only made her question more curious.

Regardless of normal circumstances, I gave her a rough idea of Chris’ suggestion and offer, though I coached it in appropriate concepts for Mundus. Weirdly, once I had explained it, she quickly lost interest and we focused back on the active conversation with Sigmir and Ylva.

Another thing I asked about was if Ylva’s crossing of the second Divide had changed the way she resided in her Hallow, or if the two of them had experimented with Sigmir forming a Hallow of her own. Given the way Sigmir blushed when I asked about the former, I took a much closer look and realised that the small hairs on both her arms had turned silver, and when I reached to touch, their softness surprised me. In addition, I noticed a shiver running up her hairs from the lightest touch, making me think those hairs were incredibly sensitive.

Which didn’t explain the blush, but the fact it intensified when my eyes roamed over her body, especially the middle of her body, gave me a bit of an idea and put an evil smile on my face.

“You should get used to hiding that nature.” Olivia interrupted our communion, making me realise that I had lapsed in the earlier concealment. Frowning, I re-established the cloak, while making a mental note to either get used to constantly projecting it or find a way to create the effect passively. Luckily, I had Olivia to train with in the wilderness, giving me some time to get the trick down, before things truly counted.

“Thank you, please tell me whenever I lapse.” I asked Olivia, the one who seemed the most sensitive to that particular effect. She gave me a nod of acceptance and continued with what she had been doing, in this case, preparing dinner.

Seeing that made me realise that it was already late, late enough to begin scouting. After telling Sigmir and Ylva about my plans, Lenore hopped onto my shoulder and we began to weave a spell together. The work made me frown, when I realised I still hadn’t replaced the staff I had broken near Neamov when creating the Blizzard as a distraction. It was another thing to do, maybe when hiding the next day. .

For now, however, we had to make do without it. Luckily, we didn’t have to make do without a Throne, we had enough space and I even had a few more ideas to try out, hoping to improve the efficiency of it, as I had very specific plans for the night. By limiting its function, only engraving it with the runes I used for scrying and linking them into the required formations around my personal glyph, it should give me a better focus for that one spell. Lenore agreed, and soon, we were sitting down, channelling Astral Power into the runic formation we had used quite a few times before, only this time, I had created the formation twice, one for Lenore, one for myself. It was an experiment, the idea that I might be able to trigger the newly acquired bonus by delving into an expanded version of familiar magic.

It was difficult to say if my Mortal Hubris kicked in or not, but I thought the spellcasting was easier compared to before. Still, it was a rather strange experience, projecting myself into a corporeal shadow, merely held together by my magic and will wasn’t something I could get fully used to. It was made worse by the lingering feeling of my body but after I had received a rather severe backlash during the last time I had projected my mind outwards, I was experimenting with the process to increase security. Not that I thought the Manticores could harm a mind hidden within the shadows, but it wouldn’t do to underestimate my foes.

Feeling Lenore split from me, her raven wings of darkness carrying her through the shadows cast by the sun setting behind the mountains, I decided to move on my own. For once, I eschewed any form, keeping the construct I was using as a simple cloud, formless and shapeless. It made me wonder just how small I would be able to make the construct containing my mind, but it wasn’t the right time to experiment with that.

Lurking within the shadows always gave a skewed perspective of reality, distances stretching and shrinking at weird times, creatures warping into nightmarish forms without warning, but despite those draw-backs, it gave an impression of our surroundings. In the warped realm of shadows, I quickly covered hundreds of meters of distance, only to need many times longer to cross a short gap, where the shadows stretched in length. As I moved, I realised just how important the connection to my body was, as it gave me what I thought was a relatively accurate idea of the distance I had crossed and the direction involved. Otherwise, I might have gotten lost in the shadows cast by the setting sun.

Sadly, searching visually in a realm of ever-shifting shapes and distances was far from easy. By the time I felt a poke against my physical body, alongside a mental prodding over my connection to Sigmir, I had found a lot of things, but none of them what I was looking for. My search wasn’t exactly made easier by the fact that there was still that feeling of being watched, which could either come from the realm of Shadows itself or from the Manticores that supposedly kept an eye on things from the sky. With the warping shadows being what they were, I hadn’t been able to find them in the twilight-sky.

Returning to my body was a lot easier than it had been before, as I simply let my construct fade into the Astral River, while my mind followed the River’s streams until I returned to my body. As long as I did things slowly and carefully, there was no backlash.

Opening my eyes, I suddenly snapped forward, gently biting into Sigmir’s finger who had been about to poke me again. My lips curled into a grin as I nibbled, making soft growling noises, causing her to laugh.

“Did you find a good hideout?” she asked, once I let her finger go.

“Sadly, no. But maybe Lenore had more luck.” I admitted, waiting for my avian friend to return to her body. Curiously, compared to me, she was less experienced with travelling the Astral River, thus she would likely use the shadow-constructs to return to the cave. As expected, shortly after I had returned, I could make out a darkening in the entrance and moments later, she opened her eyes and stretched her wings.

We quickly compared our memories and perspective, checking if either of us had missed something during the time we had been scouting, before we even exchanged words. Given the way the shadows warped during twilight, it was better to compare notes, so to speak, before our minds blurred the memories even more when trying to make sense of them internally.

“Did you find something?” Olivia asked, now that we both were active again. A quick glance showed that she seemed to have finished dinner, which likely was the cause for Sigmir to call us back.

“No.” I admitted, just as Lenore, using my voice, told her that she had found something.

“We should be able to get there, if we hurry during the night. But it’ll be a difficult marsh, followed by an even more difficult climb.” she added, making me realise why I might have failed to spot the hide-out she found. My ground-dwelling nature coloured my perspective, even when moving as a formless cloud of shadows.

“We should try, who knows when the Manticores will grow bored of watching this cave and decide to get serious about getting us out.” Olivia suggested, having taken my earlier warning to heart.

“Yes, there’s nothing to be gained by waiting.” I agreed, “But first we should have dinner.”