It continued like that for a while. Edwin was keeping watch, scanning the dark forest for movement and listening for sounds, tensing the few times an animal wandered by. Every few minutes, he heard the pebble drop only to be picked up again.

Walter’s great passion had always been rituals, the magic of the Pioneers. It was powerful and versatile, enabling a single mage to achieve incredible feats. But it was also situational, requiring sometimes excessive amounts of preparation time and expensive materials. Aside from rituals, there were two other types of magic: Spells and Conversions. Spells were complicated mental projections that allowed the caster to summon the same complex effects that simple rituals could, but without the necessity of building a circle. They did, however, require the mage to spend weeks learning them by heart, committing every little step to memory perfectly, as spells going awry could be dangerous to the caster. Walter had known a few of the most basic ones but hadn’t cared to spend more time on spells beyond that.

He had been very interested in some of the more intricate conversions, though. Conversions were the simplest way to use mana, the essence of magic that mages accrued in their cores. The flame conversion for example, often considered the most basic of all, expelled raw mana from the body while converting it into heat. Every person understood heat, so it was not uncommon for young mages to figure out the flame conversion even before they received training. It was simple, useful, and dreadfully boring.

There were other conversions that were simple in principle, but complicated and nuanced in practice. Those were the ones that had caught Walter’s interest, leading to him spending quite a bit of time practicing and trying to improve them. Even early in his studies, before his ritual genius was discovered, his capability had landed him a spot on the research team that later found the method of half-linking. Telekinesis converted mana into incorporeal projections that kinetically influenced the real world. It was widely agreed to be one of the most complex conversions, and as such was often used to show the interplay between conversions and the mind. If a mage tried to create a spell or ritual that caused the same effect as telekinesis it would be prohibitively complicated to the point of impossibility.

In principle, magic could create any effect a mage could properly define. Mana didn’t have a mind of its own, however, so the more convoluted the effect, the harder it was to describe in a way mana could ‘understand’. Conversions worked because most of that work was done by the caster’s subconscious. A linked levitated object had to be held by a sheet of magic with an elaborate, three-dimensional shape, while the inertia of it had to be tunnelled through a tube created of yet more magic and evenly dispersed into the ground around the mage – even while the object was being moved, changing its position in relation to the caster and the forces that had to be dispersed. No mage could keep up with all of those separate processes simultaneously. But their subconscious could. Even without Walter’s trick, something he’d discovered after the research team was shut down due to one of the researchers gravely injuring themselves, most of the linking was done by the caster’s subconscious: The changes in position, inertia and size of the dispersion area. He’d simply added the bridge itself to the list.

Walter heard a gasp behind him and turned around. Salissa was staring in wonder at the pebble that floated just above her palm. It rose, slowly spun in a circle, then sped up, zipping around the camp almost too fast to see. Then it returned, dropping into Salissa’s still outstretched hand.

“It works!” She whispered, wonder in her voice. “I started to think it was all a prank.”

Edwin smiled, quietly stepping around his sleeping companions and crouching next to the girl.

“It does indeed. You will see, now that you know that it’s possible it will become easier quickly. But that will have to wait for another time. Achieving it for the first time took you a while, and you’ll need to get some sleep if you want to be alert for tomorrow. Why don’t you wake Bordan while I keep watch?”

Her excitement over the success had made her forget her tiredness but the mention of sleep apparently made her remember it vividly, causing a jaw-cracking yawn. There was a lot of quiet shuffling while the two traded places, Bordan waking easily upon being shaken.

“How is it?” He asked Edwin while Salissa slipped into her bedroll.

“Quiet.” He answered. “Nothing to hear or see. I let Salissa do some magic practice, I could easily enough watch the entire area and I figured it was fine as long as she was awake in case we got attacked.”

Bordan grimaced but said “I guess that’s alright. It would’ve been better if you’d both watched, but as long as neither of you slept it’s fine.”

With that he walked over to the other side of the little camp, sitting down and looking downhill. The watch went by quietly, the minutes seeming to stretch with nothing to focus on but the sounds of the nightly forest.

--- ----- ---

Bordan’s watch finished without incident, as did Leodin’s, and when the sun started to peek from behind the horizon, the party gathered their belongings and resumed marching towards the budding light. They had long since left roads and even hunter trails behind, making their way across untouched country. Heading straight east, they were hoping to find one of the roads near Mason’s Wood and follow it to their destination. The sun fully rose, slowly making its way across the sky as the adventurers trekked through fields and forests, always keeping a watchful eye out for monsters. A further day’s travel from the Clawed Woods there was less danger, but nowhere in the duchy’s north was safe.

Some time in the afternoon, Salissa fell back to walk alongside Edwin.

“I have a question.” She said quietly.

“We have plenty of time and not much else to fill it with.” Edwin replied.

“I was thinking about telekinesis, and how best to use it in a fight. I’ve got it figured out, but I thought you might have a few ideas you’d like to add.”

Edwin suppressed a smirk.

“Sure, I can think of something. There are several ways to use telekinesis in combat. The most efficient one is to throw things. You take a projectile, and while it’s near you, you give it a lot of speed, shooting it in the direction of your enemy. Because you only use one burst of magic, and because you only use telekinesis while the object is right next to you, it takes very little mana. The downside is that it’s less accurate than directing the projectile the whole way.”

“That’s what I thought.” Salisssa nodded.

“Another way is to levitate an object and use it in melee. If something attacks you up close, you could pick up a rock, a branch or small tree, a fallen weapon or anything else that can deliver a blow. Then just whip it at what’s coming for you. The same way, you could also use it to block your attacker, or pin them against the ground, a wall or something else. Because it’s staying near you, the mana drain will be manageable. That should be more of an emergency measure though, unless you want to buy some armor and join me on the front line…?”

“Uhm, I think I’m good.” Salissa said.

“As you wish. Really, just remember what telekinesis allows you to do: Imbue an object with a lot of speed or hold it still even against effort. You can solve many situations with those two capabilities – as long as you can use them quickly.”

“I’ll practice more.” Salissa said with determination. “Just as soon as we’re not walking.”

“Good.” Edwin nodded appreciatively. “And a wise decision not to try to train while we’re moving. One thing at a time.”

Salissa snorted. “I would, but you can’t link if you’re not standing still.”

Edwin didn’t respond, and after a few steps she shot him a sideways look. “You can’t, right? I mean, you need a connection to the earth for it to work.”

“Correct.” Edwin replied with a wry grin. “However, with enough practice you can learn to alternate the path the link takes through your body each time you lift your foot.”

Salissa looked at him with big, round eyes, and Edwin waved a warning finger at her.

“Don’t try it until you can establish a link easily. It won’t work, and it might slow down your progress on top.”

When the sun finally began to sink again, the adventurers started to get nervous.

“Did we miss it?” Bordan asked, worried.

“No.” Leodin replied, his voice certain. “The direction is right, and we would’ve noticed it if we’d crossed a road. We’ll reach it soon, I’m sure.”

As it turned out, he was correct. A little over an hour later, the party rounded a thicket and stumbled onto a dirt road, wide enough for a cart.

“Thank the gods.” Bordan said with a sigh. “Alright, if we kept the direction, we should be north of the village. Let’s pick up the step and try to reach it before darkness falls fully.”

The road wasn’t anything to write home about, but not having to look out for roots, burrows and underbrush while being able to go in a straight line made travelling much easier and faster. They didn’t reach their goal before dark, but not long after the last glow faded behind the horizon, the adventurers walked up to the wooden palisade of Mason’s Wood.