The less said about the cave Lenore found for us, the better. It barely qualified as a cave, merely a large hole in the cliff, giving us a little shetler, but once we all were inside, it was… cozy. Very cozy, to the point that Adra and Rai essentially ended up sitting on each other, while I considered retreating into my Hallow, so that only Lenore took up space.

“Are you sure the Manticores won’t find us in here?” Sigmir asked, looking skeptically out of the narrow entrance. The entrance itself was within a crag of the cliff, giving it some cover, but it wasn’t perfect, some sky was visible from most of the cave, so most of the cave was visible from those stretches of sky. If the Manticores were at just the right angle and looked down, we would be in trouble.

“No, not really.” I quietly admitted, trying to figure out a way to keep us safe. My first idea was to cover the cave in a cloak similar to the one I had used during the night, but that would leave me drained during the evening, if not earlier, making movement during the night impossible. A frown appeared on my face when I realised that there was a way, though not a pleasant one.

“But I have a way.” I added, pulling out my athame and moving to the opening of our wonderful cave. Wihtout explaining, I cut myself into my hand, drawing concentrating to channel Astral Power from my hair into the blood slowly seeping out from the cut. That way, the pain normally involved with Blood Magic was massively reduced, though it took a little longer to regenerate the Astral Power within my hair, compared to the Astral Power in the rest of my body.

Using the infused Blood, I re-created the cloaking I had used during the night, using the shadows around the opening and in the cave itself to hide us. It wasn’t a perfect solution and wouldn’t last the whole day, but it was a start.

Once I was done, I let out a sigh of relief that the dice had come up in my favour. When using Blood Magic, there was always the chance to draw Nethersprites into Mundus, especially due to my Defiler-Title that greatly increased the amount of Power I gained with it, but at a cost.

Shaking my head, I focused on different things, namely the fact that we were forced to hide and sneak around. It annoyed me on a deep, almost primal, level, irritating me to a degree that I hadn’t quite expected. Trying to fight the Manticores in the open was suicide, of that I was aware, but at the same time, there had to be a way to fight them, even at our level. I wasn’t willing to accept their superiority, even if they had the ability to deny Lenore and me the skies.

“Say, Adra, how high up can you accurately hit a target?” I asked, stepping back from the entrance that was now shrouded in shadow, making the cave almost completely dark.

“I never tried.” she admitted, not needing to ask the reason for my question. My eyes flicked over to Rai, considering the way he had managed to shift the two of us into that realm of shadows, wondering if we could pull Adra with us and keep her safe and hale within. If so, we might be able to sneak to a high vista that got us into range of a flying Manticore, allowing Adra to shoot it down. Maybe there would even be a way to add some of my Ice, or some other carrier for my magic, to her arrow, allowing me to effect the struck Manticore with something nasty, making it fall even if the arrow failed to strike it from the sky.

The idea to take the skies from the Manticores, to make them afraid of flying and ground them in their eyries until we had long left appealed to me, not to mention killing them would be a decently good source of EXP.

“Didn’t we want to make them think we were still in that other cave?” Rai asked, his voice a little subdued but curious. At his question, an annoyed growl escaped my throat, not annoyance at him, but at the fact that he was right. If we started to hunt the Manticores, that whole “sneaking around”-thing would have been pointless. Before I could get deeper into the idea to hunt down the Manticores, Sigmir suddenly reached out, pulling me into her arms and onto her lap.

“No need to get all agitated.” she whispered in my ear and I could feel calmness radiating from her. For a moment, a part of me wanted to struggle but the moment she gently kissed my lips, any such thoughts vanished and I let myself get drawn into things. She truly was my rock, the place where I would always find a place to land and rest, protected and shielded from anything that wanted to harm me.

“Love, I think I can understand why you want to fight them. You love the open skies and to fly with Lenore, don’t you? Getting forced underground, even if we are within the darkness you adore, it goes against that, right?” she asked, her voice gentle and when I looked up, into her eyes, I could only smile, slowly losing myself in the feelings she radiated. It was as if I could see a solitary, windswept mountain reflected in her eyes, moonlight shining on its rocky slopes.

“I’m calm now.” I admitted, realising that trying to battle the Manticores willy-nilly was an incredibly stupid idea, born from frustration and a bit of exhaustion.

“Good. Now, why don’t you close your eyes and sleep a bit, I was able to rest within my Hallow, while you kept us hidden the whole night.” Sigmir suggested, her hand gently stroking my hair, quite possibly noticing that its normal sparkle, caused by the Astral Power stored within, was gone.

For a moment, I wanted to protest, tell her that I had rested on Ylva’s back, essentially sleeping the night away, but when I opened my mouth to do so, a yawn escaped me and I realised that I actually was rather tired. Spellwork was exhausting, especially when it was a spell that wasn’t designed for such work. Maybe, after resting, I could come up with a way to lessen the burden the Cloak of Shadows placed on me. So, instead of fighting against my exhaustion, I simply let go, placing my head against Sigmir’s chest and closing my eyes. Maybe I would dream of flying and the open skies.

If I dreamed, I sadly didn’t remember it when I woke up a few hours later. The first thing I did after waking up was move around a little, to limber up my muscles after sleeping curled up on Sigmir’s lap.

“You’re awake.” Sigmir whispered, her quiet voice making me realise that the others were still sleeping, with Sigmir keeping watch.

“Mhm, yes. Seems I was more exhausted than I thought.” I admitted, getting a nod in response. Neither of us wanted to disturb the others, so I simply rested my head on her chest again, and focused inwards, on my magic. Could I improve the efficiency of my magic cloak? Or was there another way to facilitate safe travels with the Manticores flying above?

The first idea springing to mind was that I still had a bit of Manticore-Blood, stored in icy shells stored in my magic bag. Was there a way to use it to our advantage?

Using it to target the Manticores from which I had taken said blood was trivial, but useless as those were already dead. But was there a way to target the rest of them, similar to the way I had used it to track them before?

The more I considered it, the more I liked the idea, despite the fact that it was impractical. The less focus I had within my spells, the more power they would need, so to craft a curse that afflicted one Manticore, I would need but a fraction of the power I needed to craft a curse that afflicted all of them. And that was assuming perfect efficiency without any losses for scaling up the magic, which was almost certainly impossible.

The realisation made me a little sad, having the ability to end a whole lineage, maybe even eradicate an entire species was both an awesome and a scary prospect. The gamer within loved the idea, remembering the genocide I had perpetrated against the Snowbolds so long ago and the incredible amounts of EXP that had given me. If I somehow managed to pull off something similar, only this time targeting a powerful species like the Manticores, my level would likely shoot up. Or I would get struck by divine punishment, smitten by the ban-hammer of the Gods.

The idea made me giggle for a moment, before I focused on more immediately relevant things, namely optimising the Cloak of Shadows for the night. Genocide would have to wait until I had some form of external power-source or a lot of living resources for my Blood Magic.