“Permanent? It can't be undone?”

“Well, yes it can. Permanent forms stay until someone changes back, while temporary ones like the elemental water form she applied to your arm will revert without mana.”

“Oh. Good. Will she be fine?”

As if to answer she groans and reach a hand towards her face. When it weakly falls, slapping her in the face, she just makes a whimper. “Nuu I wi’ifai…”

“I think she'll be fine.” He says, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

Her belly is steadily rising and sinking at least, and while she is a bit… blobby, she isn’t getting more blobby. Perhaps to prove him right, she opens her eyes. “Ju-ooo-ain! Offm’tun. Beeh.”

I stare at her for a moment before turning to the wolfkin, who looks as confused as I am.

“What?”

“Aaa, fubbih!”

Before I can decipher the mysterious meaning of what sounds a suspiciously lot like swearing, the feeling of mana hits my head. It’s a lot… fainter, weaker, than what Lara usually does; it stops even without me ‘actively resisting’, as she calls it. She’s staring at me expectantly. So it is this her magic? As practiced I carefully let down my defences.

My head throbs heavily. Bag, that pocket. Crystal. Another throb, then I resist the magic. What was that? Telepathy? Should I…? I reach for the bag, left outside the trial circle. She’s still giving me that look. Let’s see, this pocket here and- There’s three crystals… one is probably enough.

I throw it to her, realising only once it’s airborne that she might not be able to catch it. And indeed, it lands in her chest, rolling for a moment before falling into her cleavage. I didn’t mean to do that! It seems to be fine, however, as she clumsily grabs it. There’s a moment of no change, and then her entire body solidifies, as she reverts to human form.

“Ahh, thanks. I- well, fucked up.”

“Are you okay?”

She sits up, unsteadily. “Yeah. Just, ugh, headache. Will need to meditate. Regain mana.”

“Good.” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else, then turn to the wolfkin. Wanna explore the rest of this place?”

As he points out, there’s not that much more to explore unless we find a way to open the huge door. He shows me what Lara called the dormitories. I can kinda see what she means, but not really. Other than that there’s only the flooded hallway, and I can’t hold my breath for long enough to actually explore it.

The wolfkin turns into a mermaid “Merman!” and dives in to explore, though. Left alone and with nothing new to explore I try the move patterns by the dormitory door again, getting a lot further this time, then go through the usual breathing exercises.

A while later Lara and a huge man I assume is the wolfkin in human form enter the room. They stop and wait for me to finish the last few moves of the exercise. As soon as I’m done I hurry over to Lara. “Are you okay now?”

She waves her hand dismissively, but even her smile is less energetic. “Not even a flesh wound. I have enough mana to safely get you to the surface, at any rate.”

That’s a good point. In the heat of things I didn’t even think about how I’d get back to the surface. I do have the breathing mask, but as useful as it is, I don’t know if I would bet my life of it working. How deep are we, again?

We chat a bit as Lara slowly brings us to the surface, but it is clear she’s not in the mood for walking. The other man is with is, opting to experience Lara’s method of getting to and from the Water Temple.

“Doesn’t this use a lot of mana?”

“A bit. More than most other things I’ve done.”

“What if you run out of mana?”

She gives him a look. “You could just shapeshift. Unless you were stunned, I guess. But nah, I got mana crystals. Tons of mana.”

About five minutes after exiting the temple we breaks the surface. As the forecast had predicted it’s pouring down, giving the forest a dark and dreary look. She unceremoniously drops us on dry land then says she’ll “go snuggle some wolves to feel better” and runs off as a wolf.

“Does she do that often?” The other guy asks me, both of us now drenched by the rain.

“Do what?”

“Run off like that?”

I shake my head. “I dunno. She’s always been happy or at least energetic, or at least seemed like it. Not that I know her that well, I first met her five days ago.”

“Oh.”

There’s not much more to say, so we split off to go home. Well, we have to take the same path to get back to the city and neither of us wants to spend more time than necessary in this rain, so we end up in the awkward situation of saying bye and then running next to each other.

This road goes straight to the parking lot at the edge of the forest, so why did Lara use that little trail forest, anyway? Well, probably to try to make it harder for me to follow her. We say bye (for real this time) and then I head home. Mom nearly has a fit when I enter the house completely soaked, insisting that I must take a warm shower. Not that I need the prompt.

When contacting Lara she told me she wanted to relax for a few days, but suggested that I try to see if I could make a breathing technique for the [Tidal Dance], pointing out that the wood breathing technique not only has the wrong element, but also does not move in the steady push-pull way the tidal dance does.

She makes a good point; the [Bending Birch Breathing Technique] seems… not weaker, but... It feels like it is not as strong as it could be, after I got the other ability. I wonder if that’s because of the element or something else. I really hope using one ability doesn’t mean I can’t learn others.

I got the tree breathing technique (that name is a mouthful) when Lara had shapeshifted me, but I can’t shapeshift on my own. After seeing what happened to her in the Water temple I’m not sure I want to be shapeshifted like that. The other guy told me the changes she did to me was temporary, though. I guess it did look a bit different.

With my slowly developing ‘mystical abilities’ I feel like there’s not much Water… aspect? Affinity? -in the city. Wait, were those different? Either way, I go to the little lake from yesterday. It’s easy enough to get to, and since its surrounded by forest I don’t think anyone will see me. Especially not with the weather being only slightly less dreary.

Like when I learned the tree-breathing, I do the regular breathing technique from the aikido class. However, while it feels like there’s more Water here, I don’t feel that same… inspiration I had back then. Also, I’m glad there’s no one around to see me.

Since that failed I switch to practicing the new ability. [Tidal Dance: Tidal Pull] actually lets me move water with the pull motions of the dance. The [Water Bending] the others used looked pretty cool, but this is definitely a dance. A slow dance, too.

Given the name that makes sense, I guess, but I probably still look silly. It’s also annoying that I can only move water on the pull motions; while I can do a long move and hold the water for a little while, it just splashes back as soon as the push phase starts.

And then there’s [Water Mirror]. It’s cool that I can make the water totally still and reflective, but I have to move both my hands in circles over it. Since I can’t hold the water vertically or anything I have to lean over the lake, too, almost causing me to fall over the first time I tried.

Wait, how come I can hold [Water Mirror] constantly, but not [Tidal Dance]? It doesn’t work unless I use both hands and slowly rotate them around… Can I do that for tidal pull, too? Just pull in circles?

I repeat the tidal pull dance. Yes, that could work. I breathe in and out a couple times and, on the third in-breath, pull a part of the water. Instead of switching over to the push movements I pull it up, splashing it against me when I breathe out. Cold!

I consider stopping here and just going home, but I’m already wet so I might as well continue. I try once more before switching to alternating between pulling with my left and right hand. It works, but I am faced with a dilemma as I realise it will just come closer and closer.

The solution comes in form of one of the basic steps from that spot by dormitory corridor, which I do more or less in reflex, pulling the water around my body, flinging it behind me. Huh.

Using that trick I soon find out that I can move more or less freely around while pulling the water towards me, but I must look like an idiot doing that exaggerated ‘pull rope with alternating hands’ mime. Not to mention my control isn’t exactly perfect.

Emboldened by success I get better and better with each failure and mistake, and soon I can move a beach ball sized blob of water with the grace of, I don’t know, but it’s not really graceful. It takes me no closer to being able to push the water, though.

I sit down and think, before quickly standing up and doing exercises to stay warm. The summer warmth is slowly leaving, already. Maybe I should go home, my clothes are wet. Wait a minute, can I pull the water out of my clothes?

Yes, I can, buuut it’s a good idea to take them off first, to avoid losing my balance. That’s useful, at least. With a lot drier clothes, I experiment more with [Water Mirror]. It looks a bit like what Lara did to walk on the water, but smaller and a lot more reflective.

I wonder if I can learn a way to walk on water, too. I doubt I can do it by pulling the water towards me, though. All right, let’s find a way to do this!

After… how long has it been? After a while, progress was made. I came no closer to pushing, but I learned [Tidal Breathing Technique] at least. It’s about deep breaths. Very deep, slow breaths. Lara was right - it works a lot better with the tidal dance. It even feels like some of the essence I pull in has a water affinity. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but it’s different, at least.

I don’t know I would achieve that, but in addition to finding a way to push it’d be nice if I could breathe underwater and go to the Water Temple on my own. I feel like I could do a lot more moves now. Walking on water would be cool, too.

Satisfied with today’s progress I try to find the wolves den. It was easy to get to the fog, but Lara was right when she said it’s hard to find the way unless you stubbornly follow a map. After checking my phone’s GPS a couple times I got a pretty good idea of where is is and walk towards it, constantly looking at the phone.

If I look up for even a second while walking I would suddenly be moving the wrong way, but I can finally see the outline of the sheds. The last time they growled at me, so I should probably try to be sneaky. Or maybe it would be a better idea to make some sounds so that I don’t surprise them?

Or maybe I’m overestimating my sneak ability, because one of the wolfkin approaches me with two wolves in tow. If they don’t want me here I’ll turn and leave, probably even run, but I want to explore that dungeon entrance or what it is, and maybe even see some of the puppies.

There seems to be less wolves around today, or maybe I just can’t see them from here. The wolves seem wary of me, but the wolfkin walks up to me.

“Uh, hi?” I say, not sure if I’m expecting an answer.

I get one in the form of… a sound which at least doesn’t sound angry, and then it leans into my face, causing me to scramble away in surprise. Uhh, wait, that’s how Lara greeted them? Did I insult it with a faux pas now? I’ve never been fond of dogs getting too close, but it’s… fine, isn’t it? Yeah. Let’s… take a step closer.

It comes closer again, and I steel myself for being licked or touching its gross and wet nose, but instead I get what amounts to a poorly aimed hug. That was… not so bad. When it makes another sound I realise I reflexively hugged it. It stands there like a socially awkward teenager, before even more awkwardly returning the embrace.

A moment later we both let go and step back. Is that one a male or female? My eyes flick downwards as I ask myself, but like the other wolfkin its crotch is actually covered in cloth. This one has a kilt. Some of the others has a simple loincloth; I don’t know if the difference mean anything.

With my question unanswered (do I want to know?), I tentatively step towards the tribal camp only to be stopped by the two wolves. They’re not growling, instead jumping at me with lolling tongues.

“No!” I yell, pushing them away. Crap, will they be angry and attack me now?

One of the let out a sorta-growl, while the other one just turns around and leaves. The wolfkin gets down on all four, a pose which looks a lot more natural for them than for humans, and nuzzle the remaining wolf. This seems to please it, judging by its tail, and it to turns and leaves.

So… what now? I’m left with the awkward teenager wolfkin, and- oh, it’s leaving too. I almost feel offended by that, but then smile at myself for expecting them to be, I dunno, civilized? I shake my head and instead look around for the dungeon door while making sure not to go too far from -or close to- the sheds.

The constant looks I get remind me of that time we went to that poorer part of that one egyptian city. What were we doing there again? I don’t remember, but I remember the stares, as if we were some exotic creature, gave me nightmares for days.

Eventually I find the door, only wandering off from the camp once. No greeting party the second time, maybe because they already know of me. The entrance looks somewhat proper, made of roughly but not poorly made stones, forming an arched doorway.

On the inside, however, the cave -it is little more than a cave- appear dug into hardened dirt. Along the walls are unevenly placed, glowing… stones? There’s a noticeable slope, and not far in a living room sized room connects directly to the tunnel.

I decide not to enter it given the lazy stares from the resting wolves in the room. Are they lying on pillows? Come to think of it, there’s a lot of that fabric, covering the entrance to the huts, being used for their ‘clothes’ and now these… pillows. It looks a lot like the fabric Lara uses for her clothes and bags. Where does she get all of it from?

Further down there’s an intersection. There’s some sort of room with a tilted floor, the lower part of which is filled with water, and the path splits in two. I go down the smaller of the two, seeing the end of it while the bigger leads to another intersection.

This one stops after about twenty meters, and halfway there it branches off. The branch has quite a few smaller rooms. Most are completely empty, but two has some basic furnishing and that fabric hanging over the entrance. I barely peek into those rooms, as it feels like intruding on someone’s privacy. One of them has a quite… strong smell.

The most interesting room has an actual, proper door. At least I think it’s a door; it has no handle and no visible mechanic to open it. There’s even a gray-colored banner with some symbol on it in front of the door, but I don’t recognize it. Out of curiosity I give the door a solid push, but it does not budge.

I find nothing else of interesting in that part of the cave, and so I return to the intersection, only making a mental note to ask Lara about the strange door. The main corridor turns out to not be much more interesting; it has four large-ish rooms, all of which are empty save for one… wolf?

The wolf has beige scales and is lying in a sort of crevice on the wall, at my chest level. It gives me a squinting glance when I pass by, but subsequently ignores me. The intersection I saw earlier is a stub, neither of the three branches go more than a couple meters.

Well, there’s another little pool of water at the corner between two of the branches, and now that I think about it those seem intentional, given the channels leading to them. With nothing more to see here I return to the surface.

I walk around, trying to see some of the puppies. The adults don’t let me close, until three slightly bigger and a lot less unsteady puppies barrel into me. If I scream like a girl in the forest and there’s noone around to hear, did I have a girly scream? Of course not!

Despite the mostly playful bites and almost baleful glare from the mother, the short time I get to pet and play with them is a very relaxing. I can see why Lara went here after yesterday. I could do without the slobber, though.