Sweaty, tired and thoroughly cold, I stumbled back into my apartment, a small part of me cursing out Mrs. Wu as I went. That smiling face of hers, as she ordered me to perform one set of exercises after the other, while having me describe the effects my strikes would have, if the training-dummy was an actual human, never letting up, driving me to exhaustion and beyond. By the end of our two-hours session, my mind had started to drift in and out of focus, the dummy becoming a blurry outline and my strikes stopping to be conscious efforts, instead simple, conditioned movements. I wasn’t even certain that I had been using words to describe my efforts, as requested, or if I had started to grunt instead, no longer capable of forming words.

The tea Mrs. Wu had served me after a shower had helped, returning the sapience to the drifting animal that I had become, only for her to give me yet another task. Luckily it was only a simple set of forms, something I might have been able to perform in my sleep. Yet, with the lingering exhaustion, it had been a challenge, though, despite the challenge I had noticed that my movements felt strangely sharper, a little more polished. And that was despite being dressed in street-clothes, ready to leave. Afterwards, she had reminded me that the training was to be used in the real world, that I would have to realise that I should always be ready to move, always vigilant and ready to defend myself. Or ready to kill, if that was required.

After some food and yet another shower, taking my time and letting it wash away as much of the exhaustion as I could, I dropped back into my capsule, logging back into Road to Purgatory. There was the usual, brief sensation of falling, before settling back into my Avatar, the sensation almost akin to waking from a dream. Letting my senses spread outward, I realised that it was already night-time and Lenore was comfortably sitting on a chair, completely asleep. Not wanting to wake her, I simply let myself relax, my Hallow being the most comfortable space for me. With a little bit of focus, I could even change the space, to an extent, allowing me to lie on empty air, as comfortable as any bed I had ever heard about. The remaining exhaustion from training was more than enough to quickly send me into a deep slumber.

In the morning, when Lenore woke up, the echoes of her mental activity woke me up as well, fleeting dreams of flying fading under the dawning day. From what little I remembered, I was almost certain that I had shared in Lenore’s dreams, riding the wind through the darkness.

“Good morning.” I greeted her, the curious sensation of stretching without a body one I couldn’t ever get used to. “Anything interesting happen yesterday?” I asked, after she returned my greeting. From her non-verbal response, I could tell that she was still somewhat tired and immersed myself in the stream of consciousness that was flowing along, her memories of the previous day flowing over to me.

Nothing really stuck out, just an overall relaxed day in town. The others had visited a couple craftspeople, making sure that their equipment hadn’t suffered from continuous use, commissioned some quick, magical repairs for a bit of coin and done some supply-shopping. It was utterly mundane, but from Lenore’s memories, I could tell that they had needed it, to get rid of mental exhaustion.

Noticing that, on the nearby bed, Sigmir was waking, too, I pushed myself out of Lenore’s Hallow, landing without much of a sound. Olivia must have heard me nonetheless, she had been getting up from the bed on the other side of the small room and her head instantly spun around, following the sound.

“Good Morning.” I greeted both of them, getting the expected replies and even a quick kiss from Sigmir. Listening to them tell me about their time the day before, we headed down to get some breakfast, meeting up with Adra ans Rai on the way. The plan for the day was to quickly move out, towards the valley where we would be able to find the lichen and return the next day, to meet that other group. Given that my research had been inconclusive, I was somewhat curious if they would be Travellers or if it was a mere coincidence, but that revelation would have to wait for the next day.

Moving with a clear, nearby destination was somewhat different from our usual way of travel, instead of either following the ancient road whenever possible or navigating by aerial or magical reconnaissance, we now had an actual description, with landmarks that we could look for and navigate by. There wouldn’t be a case of suddenly finding out that Lenore had missed a chasm from the air and we had to either cross it or move around it, nor would there be a case of Adra’s ability to commune with Plants sending us down a sheer cliff, simply because she hadn’t noticed that the plants she had been communing with were creeper-vines.

Now, we just had to keep a lookout for curiously shaped trees, rock-formations or guess how far we had travelled. It was a different kind of challenge and we made a bit of a game of it, trying to see who of us managed to spot the landmarks first.

With the landmarks our trip was easy and relaxed, we didn’t fully let our guard down, but compared to travelling through the Dorrian Mountains, the short trip to the valley was a walk in the forest. Literally.

Having taken our time in the morning, we didn’t quite make it to the valley during the day, instead we had to camp out, as we were accustomed to. Adra and Rai used the opportunity to do a bit of hunting, recruiting Sigmir and Ylva to help them along, their senses and natural abilities eclipsing even the magical advantage Adra had, let alone the mundane tracking-skills of Rai.

In the meantime, Lenore and I experimented with the unexpected transforming-property of the skull,focus, trying to find out how, or why it worked. The problem was, we had no idea. There didn’t appear to be a reason why it changed its shape and moved onto Lenore’s skull if I tried to take it with me into my Hallow and no other item had acted in that way. On further experiment, it even happened if it was stored within my Magical Bag, completely refusing to enter my Hallow.

Given its classification as an Artefact, whatever that entailed, we tried to see what would happen if Lenore tried to take the Crown of the Northern Wind with her, when shifting into her Hallow. The result was most curious, though the effect didn’t affect the Crown, it simply appeared on my head, but the Blades of the Northern Wind, which had been frozen to the crown, changed.

They turned into a necklace, the blades shrunken to barely the size of a finger each, and connected by simple Ice, wrapping around my neck. Removing them, either with Ice-Magic or by mundane means, simply meant they shifted back into their normal form, taking about a second to grow but doing so almost inexorably. It made me wonder, what would happen if I tried to stuff one into a tight crack, how much force would it exert to regain its size? I wasn’t about to test it, just in case it would destroy the blade, but it was an interesting question.

The next step in our experiments was to see if there was Astral Power involved, and if so, how did it appear. I wasn’t able to smell anything, and tasting the air only gave me the usual sensation of forest, though there was the taste of the Dorrian Mountain’s necrotic wind in the air but with the effect occurring on me, Lenore was able to leave her Hallow and watch.

To see nothing.

There didn’t seem to be an active, magical effect at play, the item simply changed, without any overt Astral Power involved. Neither Lenore or I had the slightest idea what was going on, our entire understanding of Magic had been based on the idea that it either occured due to Astral Power being applied or Divine Working. But unless Artefacts were inherently divine working, that understanding went out of the window.

Frustrated, Lenore and I pushed the question from our mind, simply accepting it and moving on. There were other things we could work on, for example that Anti-Magic Shell we had recently witnessed, or the abilities Rai had gained after crossing the Second Divide. At least those might be something I could understand, hopefully.

But before that, I could hear Adra and Rai returning, and it was my turn to prepare dinner.