“What in the…?!” An intense voice ripped me from my focus, making me realise that I had zoned out. Sadly, the surprise meant that my hands shook for a moment, spilling the liquid I had been pouring into a different beaker, causing it to land on the table below and starting to enthusiastically rip the heat from it, freezing it instantly.

The sudden hissing and cracking caused Mal next to me to drop the vial in her hand, shattering on the table, introducing a secondary reagent into the already troublesome mix and I helt Lenore give out a cry of warning, bullet time activating instinctively. Falling backwards, I instantly projected a set of Ice-runes, willing a wall of Ice into existence between Mal, myself and the mess glowing in bright colours in Lenore’s magical vision. Even in Bullet Time, the world seemed to shift into a slower gear and I had the illusion that I was seeing the air distorting from the shards of frozen glass that shot away from the magical discharge, before piercing into, or shattering against the hastily put-up wall.

“Ouch!” Mal landed next to me, mostly on her behind, while I stumbled, barely catching myself on my arm.

Two pairs of angry eyes flicked over to the door, where the mouth of a dark-skinned humanoid was hanging wide open, staring at us. From the descriptions given, it was obvious that I was looking at Jakyl,

“Why are you interrupting?!” Mal next to me flared up, jumping to her feet and looking very much like she wanted to tear the interloper apart.

“I called out!” He defended himself and I could see his violet eyes flicker back and forth, going from the mess on the table, to the wall of Ice before landing on Mal and me, only to flicker back to the table.

“Gods, I need a do not disturb-sign.” Mal complained, some of her anger dissipated but when she turned back to the table our experiment had been on, I could see that her hands clenched into fists.

With a wave of my hand, I dispersed the Wall of Ice, turning the invested Astral Power into Liquid Moonlight and forming it into a small orb, so it could peacefully disperse back into the Astral River.

“Look at it from the bright side. We now know that a combination of hyper-cooled metal, Ice-Astral-Power and a solution of Fire-biassed salt causes an energetic release of energy.” I spoke up, sniffing the air around the table, my tongue flicking out to parse the magical elements in the air. There was definitely some fire left, alongside something acidic, likely due to the solvent Mal had used to dissolve the salt, which couldn’t be done in water, as even mundane water was water-biassed in the magical sense. While I hadn’t seen it myself, the combination was apparently quite energetic on its own, though not as nicely explosive.

At my words and actions, Mal stepped up next to me, ignoring Jakyl at the door and inspecting the mess on the table, shards of broken glass, small puddles of smoking liquid and even a couple hard grains of some unknown substance.

“True, we should try to figure out what happened here. Not quite how I wanted the experiment to go, but them’s the breaks.” she muttered, gently prodding one of the piles of glass, only to realise that it was fused together.

“Don’t ignore me!” Jakyl complained from behind us, causing both of us to turn around, staring at him.

“What else?” Mal angrily asked, her voice almost a hiss.

“What is going on here? Why is she here?” he asked, pointing at me. In that moment, I could feel the disturbing feeling of ‘Observe’ creeping around my body, subtle, yet pervasive. The moment I felt it, I instantly pushed back, smothering it in Darkness, before pushing a spike of Mind-Magic through the established connection, not powerful, just enough to give the user a taste of the Solitude of the Dark Moon.

“Stop that!” I commanded, as Jakyl stumbled back, the lash of Mind Magic catching him unprepared.

“Could I trouble you to make introductions?” I asked Mal, hoping that she could clear up any misunderstandings, or whatever drove Jakyl to act the way he did.

Mal let out a sigh, before calling out, “Mibo, Myra, Gilo, if you are here, come over.”

Shouted acknowledgement came from the front of the house and I could see that Jakyl was staring at me, a frown on his face. It didn’t take long for the rest of their team to assemble and I got a good look at them. Gilo, the halfling, was even smaller than me and just as petite with a pair of clear and curious eyes that took me in for a moment, before focusing on the mess on the table behind us, amusement shining in them. The other two Daimons were taller, though not as tall as Jakyl, broad in the shoulder and with an air of restrained strength around them. Not as brawny as Sigmir, nor as sinewy as Adra, but a mix of the two. One could have taken them for humans, if not for the horns on their forehead and the shade of their skin, a graphite-grey no human could achieve without weird make-up.

Once they all stood in the door, crowding the narrow opening, Mal explained that the Guild had assigned a second group to the upcoming mission, to ensure success. The rewards wouldn’t be lowered, it was simply to make sure an important mission would succeed and for that, the Guild was willing to pay out double the amount. It would lower individual experience-gain, simply due to the higher number of people, but that wasn’t considered a problem, especially as the inclusion of the Clerics already meant that any battle would be counted as large-scale, with the EXP-reduction inherent to that.

I was introduced as part of that other group, a spellcaster and someone who was working together with Mal on some research, while the rest of my group would be introduced the next day. I could feel the eyes of the natives studying me for a few moments, but there wasn’t that intrusive feeling of ‘Observe’, only a quiet measure before they nodded in acceptance.

“Anything else?” Gilo asked, her eyes going to the table behind us and a grin appeared on her face.

“Don’t come in here and disturb me while I’m working?” Mal asked in response, a bit of the earlier anger returning.

“As you asked us before.” Mibo nodded, before he and Myra turned around to leave.

Gilo, on the other hand, came in, looking me over at close range once again, before giving a happy nod of acceptance.

But while the three natives took the whole affair with little concern, Jakyl looked as if he had bitten into something sour, his face starting to distort the moment Mal had explained that the Guild had changed the quest on them.

“This is such bull…” he muttered, just loud enough for Gilo to hear him.

“No, it’s reasonable.” she chided him, not snarling with anger but there was a certain disdain in her voice. “You need to remember, not everyone is able to come back after they die. For us, this is our one life, we are not chosen by the Gods like some Travellers are. And even if we ignore the fact that death is a very real possibility on this Quest, can you take responsibility if we fail? Even if we manage to protect the Clerics, if they don’t manage to complete the ritual, the next time the purification can be attempted, it will be more dangerous by an order of magnitude. Sending only one group, if two are available, would be utter foolishness.”

With that Gilo focused back on Mal, giving Jakyl no opportunity to answer.

“Now, what fun thing did you try here?” she asked, poking the shards of glass on the table.

Mal gave me a glance, which I returned with a shrug, before we started to explain that we had been experimenting with differently biassed materials. Once Mal had managed to get over her surprise earlier, and had taken a close look at the Liquid Moonlight I had been drinking, she had concluded that it was essentially Ice-attuned Astral Power, not highly concentrated and condensed but still quite pure and useful for experimentation.

Given that I wasn’t about to try creating Eternal Ice, let alone allow her to experiment on my Crown of the Northern Wind, we had settled on testing the effects my Liquid Moonlight could introduce into her Alchemy.

The morning of experimentation had turned into an afternoon, and at that point, Jakyl had interrupted as. On the plus-side, his interruption had managed to bring my attention to my log, making me realise that it had been incredibly productive. My alchemy had jumped from a lowly five, gained by playing around with a couple of magically attuned plants during my travels, to a fifteen, the value of concentrated and systematic experimentation obvious.

Not wanting to disturb the group further, I suggested clearing up, promising that we would meet at the Guild the next day, to set out for our mission.