We spent the rest of the night below the same tree we had used before, relying on its position and the previous measures to keep us safe. Adra asked to be exempt from keeping watch, as she needed some time to digest the energy she had taken in during the fight, directing it to do what she wanted it to do. I offered Sigmir and Ylva a chance to sleep first and sat down to a silent vigil.

A few steps away, Adra sat in a meditative pose with a strange, white branch in her lap. It was a long branch maybe two meters in length and almost as thick as my thigh, unworked as if she had just broken it off a tree. But the branch looked quite familiar, just like the crystalline trees surrounding Neyto, so I knew that it was most likely a gift given By Kallista. The fact that she only used it now hinted that she either needed to cross the divide before using it, or that she was using the power she had gained to work the material, as I doubted that it was ordinary. In fact, the pose and the process she was using looked similar to the way she had created her current armaments from ordinary wood. Her mouth moved slowly, as she chanted under her breath, keeping very quiet to not disturb those who wanted to sleep.

Rai had fallen asleep on the stretcher, exhausted from the deep wound and the subsequent, rather brutal, healing. He had come through in an unexpected way, he had come with us to prove his courage, to demonstrate that he was no coward - and to me, he had done just that. When I had assigned him to guard my back, as I kept the mist going, I had not expected that he was actually required, relying on my own perception and the mist-barrier to keep enemies at bay, but the nymph-stalker would have managed to get to me, if he hadn’t had the courage to engage a vastly stronger foe. Even before, he had demonstrated good qualities, at least after his time of reflection followed by Jongarn’s torture. Maybe torture did work after all, even if not for procurement of information, but to get rid of an ingrained sense of entitlement. Something to keep in mind.

My watch passed without incident and once it was time, I woke Ylva and let myself slip into a trance, searching for the new rune I could understand. The crystal in my chest gave off a feeling of comfortable cold as I dove into the flow of the Astral River, surging around me. It felt easier, clearer, compared to before, easier to make out the different streams and to find the parts connected to Darkness. The rune condensed almost instantly, based on the Curse-Rune I knew, or rather, the curse rune made up part of the Magic-Rune. This rune encompassed more than only curses, allowing me to use it for beneficial magic, but at the same time, it was weaker than the curse-rune when it came to negative magic. I had a feeling that this rune might be one of the most flexible, allowing one to use magic to affect magic or to generally bolster almost any spell by strengthening magic as its medium. At the same time, it might just be the most ineffective rune, as only a small part was truly ‘fitting’ at any one time.

I spent some time in communion with the River, letting it flow around me and just relax my being into it while keeping myself from flowing away. But I knew that I should get some sleep, so I eased out of the river and regained my senses. Adra was still in her own trance, softly chanting at the branch in her lap, the stick had changed a little, getting slimmer, it had lost half of its diameter and I doubted that she would be done soon. No, the branch would turn into a spear at some point. Ylva was a comforting presence close to the edge of the camp, keeping vigil, so I slipped into Sigmir’s embrace, an even better place to relax, compared to the Astral River, and let myself go, instantly falling asleep. I woke for a moment when Sigmir was woken for her watch, but, once again, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make; a short disturbance in my sleep was easily endured for the comfort of sleeping in her embrace beforehand.

In the morning, a short glimpse showed me that Adra was still not done with her spear. The shaft looked about ready, but the blade and tip were only in a very rudimentary shape, making it look like a quarterstaff with a quashed end. During breakfast we considered our next steps. We had finished our quest and only needed to return Rai to Adernas and his father to get our reward. At the same time, I had a small desire to hunt down as many nymphs and dryads as possible, they were simply good EXP allowing to strengthen us all, especially Rai. He was a lot lower-leveled than us, and I wanted to help him, to reward the remarkable turnaround he had undergone. At the same time, Adra reminded us that we had avoided giving the nymphs any idea just who had killed their leader, I had feared that the dryad may have used magic to pass on an image of us, but Adra assured me that magic to pass messages took some time to cast, something the dryad didn’t have, so if we managed to keep them in the dark, there should be no further retribution against Adernas, at least as long the people of Adernas kept quiet about our attack.

The others agreed to my suggestion - to stealthily make our way back to Adernas but, at the same time, take out any small group of nymphs and dryads we came upon.

Once we were done eating, we broke camp and started our journey.

As we started walking, Sigmir covertly showed me the command crystal, asking if I wanted to show Rai our mounts, but I gave a slight shake of my head, rejecting the idea. I trusted Rai, but for one thing, we only had two mounts, and for another, I wanted to keep something up my sleeve, just in case something went wrong in Adernas, in case I had missed something.

“Lenore, would you mind to fly overwatch for a time?” I mentally asked my partner.

There was no verbal reply, just a short feeling of cold air, penetrating my feather-coat, when she let me know what she felt about my idea, literally. But there was an undercurrent of acceptance, and she left her Hallow to reappear on my shoulder. After blustering her feathers for a moment and giving me a soft slap on the back of my head using her wing, she flew off, doing as I had asked. I had to smile at her antics and as she flew off, she sent me an impression of wind lifting up her wings, a feeling that I had felt a few times before and always enjoyed it, because I associated it with freedom and lightness.

Those of us who were unable to fly had to trudge through the valley we had made camp, keeping an eye out for possible tracks or ambushes that Lenore had missed, while once more being under the cover of Adra’s concealment-spell. It felt stronger; passing the divide had given her a boost to every part of her being, just as it had done so with me.

When we came closer to the exit, Lenore told me that there was a multitude of tracks leading out of the other valley, the one hosting the nymphs and dryads, but no living being were in sight. Once we got to the mouth of the valley we were in, I saw what Lenore meant. The snow was trampled and disturbed on a large scale, in great opposition to the previous state, undisturbed and traceless as they had habitually used magic to cover their tracks. Obviously, that had changed in their flight after our fight, giving me an assurance that they were not waiting in ambush somewhere close. At the same time, my paranoia did not allow me to relax my vigilance, just in case an elite-group had prepared an ambush using the chaotic tracks to lull us into a false sense of security. But, once again, my paranoia proved pointless and we passed the area without incident, continuing our way towards Adernas.

Some time after our midday break, which Lenore had spent in her Hallow, sending me annoyed thoughts, Lenore spotted a small group of nymphs, roughly coming our way. After a small discussion, we searched for a good spot to ambush them, they were our enemies after all. Once we found a good spot, close to the slight depression the other group was following, we prepared ourselves, once again using magic to conceal us and to boost our first strike. There was a brief discussion whether we wanted Rai, and maybe me, to take a secondary position to attack them from the rear using stealth after Adra and Sigmir engaged, but it was rejected, deciding on a simple formation of Sigmir as vanguard, providing melee-cover for Rai and Ylva and Adra and I covering their backs using bow and magic, respectively.

After a short wait, our prey was in sight.