“So, did anything interesting happen while I was gone?” I asked Lenore, as I was looking out from my Hallow. The others were still in Narristo and judging by the surroundings my guess would be that they were replenishing our supplies. Lenore was sitting on the edge of a roof, looking down as they moved around a relatively busy market-square.

“Eh, just a little bit. It seems that Hafta visited the tavern we are staying in last night, got drunk and accused Adra of trying to steal Phraan. Loudly and enthusiastically. Luckily, it seems that the silly pony is unable to hold her drink, to the point that she managed to knock herself out, before things could escalate.” Lenore explained, causing me to laugh when she shared the images. There was something hilarious about a centaur stumbling around like a foal, trying to find their balance while her four legs didn’t quite seem to work as she wanted them to. That she was having a large stein of ale or something in her hand, somehow managing to drink from it as she was cursing out Adra made the whole thing only funnier to me.

“If only I could have been there.” I lamented, thinking of all the times Adra had made fun of me, for getting in trouble during social situations. Finally, the shoe was on the other foot, or maybe the horse-shoe, and I couldn't even be there to watch.

“Knowing your luck, if you’d been there, she’d have gone after you, miss elf.” Lenore chortled, poking fun at me. The sad part was, there was no way I could refute her, I seemed to have horrible luck in social situations. Part of it was due to the traits I had chosen and picked up, but I refused to believe it was all due to that.

“Want to explore a little?” I asked Lenore, who happily accepted. It looked like she wasn’t too excited to hang around town, watching the others buy the various supplies we couldn’t just harvest in the woods.

“Let me tell Sigmir, we don’t want her to worry.” she reminded me, hopping off the roof to glide over to her shoulder. It was a little disconcerting to hear an uncannily accurate imitation of my own voice, while knowing that I wasn’t saying the words, and Sigmir didn’t look too happy about Lenore and I harrying off on our own but she accepted it.

For a bit, maybe an hour, Lenore winged from roof to roof, watching the people move beneath, at times using a small amount of Wind-Magic to have some harmless fun. Small things, like using a gust to cause a skirt to ruffle, or trying to steal the toupee from an apparently image-conscious caprakin. We also explored the town and I quickly realised that there was very little to actually do. I considered switching places with Lenore, using a bit of magic to make it seem like I was a spellcaster capable of transforming into a raven, but even in my humanoid form, there just wasn’t anything exciting. There was an outpost of the Merchant’s Guild, the Hall of the Adventurer's Guild, a couple stores and inns but that was it, nothing that actually drew my interest.

It didn’t take us long to realise that there was only so much mischief we could get up to, before we would turn from an amusing and harmless nuisance into an annoying pest. Instead of letting that happen, and maybe cause trouble for the others, we decided to head out of town for a bit, where we could play around with magic without having to pay attention to our surroundings.

From a little higher up in the air, Lenore’s eyes could see a small gorge, maybe a kilometer from town, rocky and jagged, without a single living thing inside, not even grass or trees growing between the rocks. After another quick look, to make sure we didn’t simply miss some monster, Lenore landed on the largest rocks and we switched, Lenore using a bit of Ice-Magic to create mist to hide our transformation. If we perfected that trick, we would be able to pull off the illusion of shape-shifting.

For the rest of the day, until the sun started to set beyond the horizon, Lenore and I were experimenting with magic, or playing around with it, depending on your point of view. My current project was to perfect the connecting patterns, especially since my conversations with Jendar had given me a curious idea, namely an attempt to inscribe complete runic formations, allowing me to instantly use their magic without the need to instantly project them at greatly increased cost.

So far, that only worked when using Rune Stones, which came with their own disadvantages, normal materials simply unable to bear the strain caused by the runes. But my thinking was that the strain caused by the runes was essentially a side-effect of the inefficiencies inherent to connecting runes. My understanding was that my mind and Rune Magic ability took the runes and forced their connections allowing me to mold the results to a degree but also wasting some of the Astral Power used and that wasted Astral Power was what seeped into the surroundings, manifesting as a tell-tale glow when forming the runes in the air, or eroding the material a rune was carved into, if there was one.

If that understanding was correct, I should be able to eliminate the wasted power with perfected connecting patterns, taking the ability in Rune Magic out of the process entirely, allowing me to rapidly form my spells. The disadvantage would be that, with the elimination of the Rune Magic ability, I would also eliminate the parts of the magic that were molded by my mind, taking away any versatility. It would be a runic formation that could only do a single thing, for example could only launch Icicles of a pre-set size, along a pre-set vector, fixed in direction and imparted kinetic force. For some applications, that would be suitable, not so much for others.

The process of trying to figure out the exact patterns needed was tedious to the extreme, as I had to repeatedly cast Icicles, working as consistent as possibly, trying to alter only a single variable at a time, while Lenore watched the magic take for with her particular vision, trying to fiangle out what changed in the flow, when I changed variables.

Calling the process mind-numbingly boring would be no exaggeration, even I, who loved to follow and figure out patterns felt my mind slowly turn to mush as I tried to cast the same spell for the two-hundredths time, a spell I had been using ever since coming to Mundus.

“Enough!” Lenore finally caved, bored into submission by the incredibly frustrating task. With a mental flourish, I changed the forming formation, adding another pair of runes, turning the simple icicle I had been casting over and over into a playful spray of diamond dust. I would barely classify it as combat-magic, something that would only work against a thinly dressed, cold-blooded reptile or some sort of fire-elemental that was highly susceptible to the cold, not that I planned to use it for anything serious. Just to blow off some steam.

Reaching out, I used my Ice-magic to turn the flurry of snow my runic formation was constantly channeling out into a dancing cloud of Ice, letting it swirl around me, slowly turning with the movement. I could feel Lenore beat her wings, darting through the snow to land on my shoulder, while whipping up a bit of wind that joined the flurry of snow, twisting around us. Spreading my arms, I let more and more Astral Power flow into the still active formation, letting the amount of snow increase more and more, my previously slow, spinning movement turning into a dance, as the wind was moving around me.

I could feel Lenore lead the wind in a counter-movement, trying to disrupt and control the flurry of snow and air around us and started laughing as my own magic moved to counter hers. As I slowly danced in the middle, with Lenore sitting on my shoulder, the air and snow were dancing around us, twisting and turning, each of us trying to take control.

Finally, the power we had bost channeled into our surroundings reached a crescendo, bursting outwards and upwards in a barely controlled explosion, coating the valley we had been training in with snow, some of the powers we had unleashed forming icicles and twisted spires.

Out of breath, I pulled some of the lingering power inwards, forming my Frozen Throne, cushioned with Diamond Dust and my personal insignia, before landing on it in a sweaty, tired mess.

“I love magic.” my exhausted laughter echoed across the snow-covered valley, joined by Lenore’s cawing amusement. After resting for a bit, I shifted myself back into my Hallow, but not without letting my throne burst into a blast of mist, hiding me from any observing eyes, not that I thought there were any. But it was fun, bringing a grin to my face as Lenore was flying back, to re-join the others.