The moment I recognised the formation of birds for what it was, a gigantic group-casting, survival became my first priority. The simplest way, running away, was sadly not feasible; the narrow valley we had traversed to come into the basin we were now in was acting as a funnel, the wind-speed already reaching levels strong enough to rip the flesh from our bones. No, getting away would not be easy.

The others were searching our surroundings, while I tried to come up with a way to at least delay the inevitable attack. There was just one way that either Lenore or I could think of, from the top of our heads. Weaken the birds’ magic by diluting it. They moved the air with their wind-magic, so add something into the air that they have to move in addition but cannot influence with wind-magic and their magic should weaken.

Raising my hands, I drew a magic formation focusing on mist and blizzard, not trying to meet their power head on but simply weakening it to buy the others time to find some sort of refuge. At first, I let a huge amount of magic flood into the formation, my eyes shining icy-blue in tune with the magic and the surroundings were bathed in dense white mist while the winds started to chill and small snowflakes and shards of ice were added. Not necessarily positive, at least not for Adra and Rai, both of whom were susceptible to cold-damage, but the pressure exerted by the wind-magic battering us down was lessened.

But what I was planning was not a footrace, it was a marathon, I needed to hold the storm at bay until the others had some place for us to hide out until the birds hopefully tired themselves out and we could get away. Or… something.

With the storm howling around me, I looked for a calm centre within myself but in the storm I needed to move to be still. So, I started to move. Hesitatingly at first but quickly I remembered the times I had stood in a storm before, following the rhythm of the storm, dancing with the winds. No longer was my mind focused on pushing back the raptors’ magic, my mind relaxed into the magic, letting my own flow freely, mixing with theirs.

I was dancing in the storm and the storm was dancing with me. No longer was it an uncontrolled battering, hammering down upon the world, it had changed, turned into a true tempest. It was still lethal and I had no doubt that we would all die without shelter but somehow, it mattered a lot less than before. There was a sense of lightness, a sense of freedom that surrounded me. It was intoxicating.

Lenore joined me in my dance, adding her own touch to our movements and I felt something strange, feathers were sprouting where normally hair was growing. I felt closer to Lenore than ever before, our minds mingling and merging, united in our tempestuous dance. In one moment, I was myself, earthbound and wingless, the next moment, I was soaring on raven wings, flapping them in tune to the winds around me, letting them take me where they wanted. The next moment, I was earthbound again, my movements full of sorrow about the lost freedom, the lost excitement.

But not even my powerful resistance to ice and cold was able to ward of the brutal cold or the tiny ice-shards that lacerated my exposed skin. It was an exquisite pain, sharp and cold but mingling with it was the sheer ecstasy that was the magic around us. I felt my mind, my soul pull at their bodily shackles, trying to soar into the sky, unbound and untamed, joining the storm to ravage the lands.

Suddenly, I was ripped from my dance, my mind pulled firmly back into my body that was carried through the storm. The howling around us increased, as if the storm was raging against the one who had taken me away from it, angry like a scorned lover. My mind was still reeling, swaying like a reed in the wind, tumbling like a leaf, whirled around by the storm.

But my body knew the touch of the one who had taken me and instinctively pushed back against the battering storm that tried to pull me back. If Sigmir was taking me somewhere, I would trust her to do the right thing.

The wind around us was suddenly cut of and we were in the darkness and a deluge of blue screens forced my mind back into focus.

Experience gained For interfering in a great magic working and causing it to backlash against its casters, you gained Experience: 24540 EXP gained. You reached level 54 Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Rune-Mastery [62/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Magic [70/100] Skill increased You increased your skill: Astral Meditation [48/100] Companion Ability gained You gained the Companion Ability: Avatar: Raven’s Shadow (incomplete) By fully merging with your spirit-companion, your body temporarily takes on some of their characteristics and abilities. The ability is currently incomplete due to the lacking strength of you and your companion. Title strengthened Your title Tempestuous Dancer has been strengthened. You danced with the storm and the Storm danced with you. Using dance to empower magical workings costs less stamina and strengthens the workings it fuels with the power of the blizzard. In addition, when you dance, the winds join in, protecting you and your dance. Dungeon entered! You have entered an instanced Dungeon, the Morainian Cave. Only those of your party can enter this dimension from the outside. You are the first Traveller entering the Morainian Cave. For the first three days, you gain the Dungeon Traveller-Buff, granting Bonus EXP. Dungeon Explorer in effect.

“Are you alright?” Sigmir asked, while I blinked, looking around, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Yes, I think so. Where are we?” It looked like we were in some sort of narrow gap between frozen rubble. But there was a bit of a structure, similar to a tunnel going further down, into the mountain or, more likely, into the moraine. I wondered what kind of enemies we would face, if there was even a theme. I just hoped it was not undead-spiders.

“Rai found it. We didn’t know that it was a dungeon before we went in. Now, we can either go forward, gaining strength or hope that the storm does not rip us apart.” Adra explained.

“What happened to you, out there?” Sigmir asked, still looking worried.

“I magically dueled with the complete flock. There was no way I would be able to meet them head on, magically, there were far too many birds. But, I was able to tilt the playing field a little, making them work harder and pay a lot more for their magic. Not sure how long the storm will rage, They fed a lot of magic into it and I added quite a bit of my own.” There was a vicious smile on my face. I had succeeded to a higher degree than I had anticipated, I had originally only wanted to slow them down, but judging by the message, I had to have caused their magic to recoil to the point that a couple of them got ripped apart. Now, if we only had been able to collect their corpses, it would likely allow us to turn in the quest from the guild as soon as we got back into town. We would have to keep our eyes open on the way back, maybe even dig a little in the fresh snow.

I tried to feel Lenore but she seemed to have been affected even worse than I had been and was now completely exhausted, sleeping in her Hallow. Most likely due to the difference in divides between us, I assumed the Raven’s Shadow was similar to the berserk-state Sigmir was able to use with Ylva, where she now grew silvery hair that looked very similar to Ylva’s pelt. It made me curious what a full avatar-state would be like, would I get wings? Would Sigmir go full-on werewolf? Hopefully, I would be able to find out during the beta.

But for now, we had a fully unexplored dungeon to explore.

“Let’s rest before we head further in. I spent all my Astral Power outside and I would rather be at my best, we have no idea what awaits us in here.” With that, I seated myself, merging with the Astral River and letting its flow wash away my exhaustion. Hopefully, Lenore would awaken soon, I wanted her magical vision to guide us in this unfamiliar darkness.