Around midday, Erwin's group of four saw off the adventurers. Kynos, who had read about hydras, wondered if they would all return.

They restocked their packs with supplies out of the wagon at the quartermaster, then Erwin declared that everyone had the afternoon off. He immediately shut himself in his room at the inn, madly copying his memory of the past few experiments onto parchment. He spent an inordinate amount of time drawing pictures of enlarged goblins with sharp rocks as well.

Otto went to the local smithy to hammer out the dent in his shield, and would be found relaxing in a field nearby as the smithy worked, softly whistling an original melody to himself.

Kynos and Elise browsed the few shops in town, but they were all no-nonsense vendors that dealt mainly with adventurers and had nothing that would interest the two children. Eventually, Elise decided to practice with her demilune while Kynos attempted to figure out how to properly master his Variable.

They sparred for a while, but Kynos tired while Elise seemed to grow stronger as the hours passed. In truth, she was starting to use her weapon more like the versatile tool that it was, instead of a glorified sharp stick. She had almost managed to scratch Kynos by transforming her weapon mid-swing at one point.

Elise twirled away with her weapon as Kynos sat down to stared at the orb in his hand. With a quick thought, it became a thin but sharp rapier, and another turned it into a silver string. The string form was as sharp and took less mana, but was harder to control than his own shadow wires. Kynos whipped into the stump of a logged tree, leaving deep hairline gashes. He then sliced off a piece of wood by transforming his weapon into a small razor.

He was beginning to understand the limits of the Variable as it was. Though he could will it to any shape and repair it instantly when the shape was damaged, it was limited to the amount of metal that was in the original orb, and that much metal just wasn't enough for a sturdy halberd or a large and thick shield. It was also lacking weight, meaning that anything which couldn't be pierced would be problematic to smash.

Kynos had tried to merge it with other metal before, but aside from mutilating what was once perfectly good tools, there was no success so far. Frustrated, Kynos poured more magic into the tool than it needed, causing the metal to writhe on his hand. One particularly violent movement startled him, as it had looked like some dark mass was trying to break through the Variable.

Hoping the tool wasn't broken, Kynos stemmed his mana flow. He breathed a sigh of relief as it returned to a silver orb.

They met in a tavern for dinner again, and all agreed to an early night so they would be fresh when setting forth the next day. Erwin was eager to get back to the goblin nest to record more observations, and he wanted to see the aftermath of the treant grove as well.

If they were lucky, he would even be able to catch up with the hydra extermination group.