‘True magic and shamanism’ was one of the books she had been given, and the first she had read. After stocking up for winter Arvog and Ves'ra had retreated into their hut, and she turned towards the books in her pack.

She looked at her familiar and smiled, the moment the first snow started falling three days ago he lay down on their bed and had slept ever since. Not that she wondered - she felt the call herself, to just lie down, sleep and wake up once the snow passed.

She wouldn't be doing that - it was easy enough to resist if you knew about it, and she’d be stupid to waste the three free months - but the temptation was there. Ves'ra returned her attention to the book in her claws, she had to admit she had never thought of the things the book spoke about, the first page alone was enough to give her hundreds of new ideas for her magic:

There is no inherent difference between mages and shamans, the only way they differ is their approach to magic. A shaman lacks the view on the world to ever become a true mage,

they cast magic in accordance with reality, imitating the natural phenomena that spawned their awakening.

Mages, in contrast to that will try to cast their magic despite reality, trying to surpass the natural limits cast upon their aspect.

That, of course leads to true mages being more powerful than their counterparts, and is largely the reason why civilisation spread as much as it did - our enemies, while more powerful in theory, simply lack the tools to fight the more creative mages.

The book further went on by detailing fights between mages and shamans, diving in the differences between the two. The book was perfect for her - and it had been right - she had been unknowingly limiting her magic to things possible in nature, even if close. She hoped she’d have thought of going beyond nature sooner or later - she already noticed her ice started to lose effect on the more powerful monsters and would have had to search for a way around that.

‘True magic’ as the author of the book called it seemed like a good answer, so Ves'ra summoned a sphere of energy - still her prefered method of testing magic, even after creating her core, just like the hut she was in it reminded her of easier times, of times where she and her band would stalk through the forest, looking for easy prey to hunt. She drew water from the air - a simple affair now, even without using her elemental energy.

Next she froze the water into a spike, like she did so many time in her life. Now for the tricky part - she'd never tried to further change the ice - charge it with spells, sure - but never change it.

It would have to change, normal ice was too weak to pierce the fur or skin of her prey anymore. Ves'ra created another sphere of energy, changed it into elemental energy, infused it into the icicle and willed it to change.

To be more stable.

She could feel something change, deep within her. Like a dam broken she could feel her energy change, transcend what was, into a higher state.

She laughed in glee, it was glorious, perfect. SHE WOULD RULE ALL!

No! That wasn't her! Ves'ra clamped down on the elation that came from the depth of her soul. She looked inwards, and could see what happened. The bunch of memories still at the edge of her awareness were closer now, easier to find and harder to ward off.

She grimaced, she'd have to take care of that now, she shouldn't have waited as long as she did.

Ves'ra opened her eyes and looked at the icicle floating in front of her - it looked perfectly normal, like any other icicle she'd ever formed, but she felt, knew, it wasn't.

Her eyes fell upon the block of ice on the other end of the hut - she'd prepared it to test her mage-ice. The icicle sped off, no faster than normal, and hit the block of ice. The block broke like glass, loudly shattering into a thousand shards. She was satisfied nonetheless - there was a icicle right in the middle of the mess she made - and it looked just like it did before.

Ves'ra allowed herself to laugh despite herself, oh the possibilities that opened up, how often had she hated nature for holding her back, not anymore, it was time to hunt.

Well, once winter was over, no sane kobold would want to go out now.