“Welcome back.” I greeted the others, after pushing myself out of my Hallow. “What did you find out?” I asked, after giving Sigmir a hug.

“We received a quest, but it’s a weird one.” she replied, while Olivia and Adra simply nodded in agreement. As she said so, a blue window popped up, sharing the quest with me and I, too, had to nod my agreement after reading it. The quest itself was rated at an easy difficulty and the rewards were practically non-existent, a pay-out of a single silver per hundred destroyed undead. There wasn’t even a promising non-cash reward and it took me a moment before I realized why anyone would take on such a quest, namely that monsters killed in the pursuit of quests didn’t suffer from the experience penalty suffered when killing the same type of monster over and over again.

“It’s just to avoid the penalty?” I asked, a small, private part of my mind trying to wrap itself around NPCs actively exploiting the systems put in place as part of the game. I could easily accept players doing their best to find and use loopholes to meta-game but somehow I hadn’t expected the natives to do the same. One more piece of evidence for the sapience of the natives, something I had emotionally accepted shortly after meeting Sigmir while the pile of pure, rational evidence was growing too large to ignore for my rational mind. But what that meant, in terms of ethics and morality, I wasn’t quite certain.

“Yeah, from what we’ve heard, the experience-gain traveling through the mountains would be utterly abysmal otherwise. They give out those quests to encourage the destruction of Undead in the mountains, to keep their numbers down.” Sigmir explained, and I could only shake my head in wonder.

“Is there anything special you can do to deal with the Undead?” I now addressed Olivia, to make sure our roles were planned-out once we marched into the mountains. I remembered that some divine spell-casters had abilities tailor-made to smite and destroy undead, I simply didn’t know if Olivia had access to those, maybe some sort of spell that facilitated travel towards the underworld for departed souls, something along those lines might fit the Travel- and Freedom-portfolio she occupied.

“No, I’m afraid not, that is the domain of Hades. It will be on you, to send those unfortunate beings on their way.” she shook her head, making me nod in acceptance. Sadly, that meant our set-up to deal with some forms of undead, especially armored skeletons like those we had fought back in the Barrow Den was quite bad.

Adra used piercing weapons exclusively, trying to poke holes into the enemies vital organs, something in short supply when it came to undead. Destroying the flesh of a zombie did help to slow them down, but unless her attacks hit and destroyed the joints of a skeleton, her arrows would simply go through one.

Similarly, Rai focused on swift, light attacks, trying to accumulate damage unless there was an opening to deal a singular, critical hit that would either kill or cripple the enemy. Undead simply didn’t care for the pain he could inflict, their endurance, the stuff of legends. I would have to try teaching him a variant of my devour-magic combination, maybe something that channeled through his blades in an effort to slash the magic animating the undead. That might be the most suitable way to give him something to deal lasting damage.

“Adra, any chance you can switch to supporting us, alongside Olivia? I’m not sure how much your attacks will do otherwise.” I suggested getting a pensive look and a nod in response.

“I’ve got an idea of my own.” Lenore added, speaking within my mind. She also transmitted her idea, a replacement for two of the items I had destroyed during our travels. Back near we had destroyed the staff set with the Crystal of the Northern Wind I had received from the wolves and just recently, when fighting against the Manticores, I had destroyed my Weaver’s Fury, a loss that still stung somewhat. Lenore’s solution was to use the crystal as a center-piece, binding together a set of flying shuttles with a central focus, something worn on my head, near her Hallow, so she could try channeling her own powers into the shuttles. The problem with them had been limited force, Ice-Magic not suited to imbue them with great speed and even less suited when it came to maneuverability. That left their weight as the only metric we could manipulate, decreasing their maneuverability even further, at which point I was better off simply conjuring Icicles and launching them at my foe, especially when I used the Shatter-Concept to increase their damage after the initial impact. Adding Lenore’s Wind-Magic to the mix would mean the maneuverability would increase by orders of magnitude, as would their speed, allowing us to use them to harass and harry, fulfilling their initial job again.

“How could we create such a set? I mean, we’d have to bind the flying Shuttles to the focus.item, so that they all gain the benefit of the Crystal.” I pondered the problem for a few moments, not seeing a solution.

“We’d have to make them in the same process, in one breath, so to speak. One Mind, united in purpose.” she explained and it took me a moment to realize what she meant. If we used our Avatar-Form, we were capable of performing feats of magic far greater than either of us could on their own, as our minds and, to an extent, our powers joined together, forming something greater than the sum of its parts.

“It might work…” I allowed, before quickly warning the others that I wanted to try something out, asking them to keep any curious critters from disturbing me. Neither Lenore nor I had even the slightest idea just how large of an event we might cause, or if it would even work at all. We had our ideas, some vague hypotheses how those ideas might come into practical effect and now, we had to try it out. Experimenting, the root of all scientific progress.

For once, the avatar-process manifested in a slow, careful manner, our minds slowly flowing together without hurry or haste. Joined together, we first created a seat, so we didn’t need to stand while working. The Throne Morgana used for her pondering was reasonably well suited, even if it needed some adjustment to allow room for the wings, with additional support allowing them to rest easily. A flight of fancy prompted us to add some additional symbols, signifying that it was not Morgana who sat the throne, but the Raven’s Shadow.

Sitting, we let ourselves drop into the Astral River, curious about the difference in perception between the memories of our individual halves, each having a different view of how the Astral River manifested. For Morgana, it was a river, streams of power flowing just beneath a thin veneer of reality, while Lenore saw it akin to air-currents, flowing above the reality we normally saw. What was the truth behind either of our perceptions, neither of us knew, but the combination between the two was fascinating. Streams of power, unconcerned with gravity were flowing around us, creating a magnificent sight.

Sadly, we didn’t have time to marvel at the magnificence, we had work to do. Reaching out, spreading our wings, we connected to the streams of Power around us, drawing it in and using the power for our own purpose.

Awash with power, we focused outwards, the Crystal of the Northern Wind floating before us, held aloft by the Astral Power we channeled, one of our wings turning into clear, icy crystal as the Astral Power from the river flooded through, barely contained by our will, the other turning airy and translucent, from the Wind Astral Power flowing through it.

Neither of our halves could spare a lot of attention, the focus needed to channel the immense amounts of power we drew in was incredible, but there was just enough between the two of us to fulfill our purpose.

The first thing we molded were blades of Ice, sharp and light, the wind flowing through them and sharpening their edges until they would rend the air itself, a set of nine, though each set of three could combine to form a greater whole, allowing us to wield three larger spears or nine smaller blades.

Next, after a moment to gather even more power, we turned inwards for a moment, determining the shape of the focus needed. The answer, after brief contemplation, was obvious. To rule the frozen winds of the North, we would need a Crown of Ice, set with the Crystal of the Northern wind.

Again, our power surged from our wings, enveloping the Crystal of the Northern wind in Ice, slowly compressing and hardening it, as it was molded by the ceaseless storm, until only the very core, the hardest and coldest essence of it all remained. Laughing, as the wind swelled around us, we placed the diadem on our head, crowing ourselves Queen of the Northern Wind.