After my information acquisition in the magic store, we continued walking around Kolyug, partially to sight-see, not that there were any, and partially to restock the few items and products we could not acquire while travelling, salt for one, and quicklime. On advice from Drega, we kept to the merchant and craftsman parts of town, something easily done thanks to the rigid grid-pattern. We were staying well away from the are around the castle, where the the truly wealthy and the rulers of Kolyug were living. It was a little sad, I had asked Lenore to take to the skies, letting me look down from above and at the center of Kolyug. The construction was quite different, still made from grey rocks but far more sophisticated and truly beautiful, thanks to the intricate designs. I’d have loved to take a closer look - maybe even study if the design was influencing the flow of magic through their construction. But no, we’d get away with Lenore flying over it but traipsing through the area would likely make us brush against one of those living there, someone with enough clout to make us serious trouble.

The other extreme, compared to the beautiful area in the center, was the area I’d call the docks, where the walls went out, into the water for a ways, forming a harbour. There, the rigidity of Kolyugian design was somewhat broken up and between the orderly warehouses was what I could only call a shanty-town. Lenore had given me an overhead view after Drega had warned us away from it and after seeing it, my desire to take a closer look was quickly extinguished.

What Lenore was seeing from the air was bad enough, the shanty-town was housing the poor and destitute, the day-labourers and beggars, those unwanted people living out a squalid existence. It reminded me of the famous poem, talking about the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, only I wasn’t sure if they were yearning to breathe free. In a world of magic, where anyone might become powerful by risking their life, how would a class of truly destitute form? It was a thought for another day, once I had seen more of the civilizations on Mundus.

We finished our shopping, even looking at a few pieces of armour and weapons, but none of what they had in stock was of suitable quality for us; only if we took quite a bit of time and had something especially made for us - undoubtedly paying through the nose for it - would we get something superior to our current gear. Adra took the time and sold some of the Querder-parts we had gotten in the dungeon and the few pelts we were carrying with us, getting some extra coin in the process but Kolyug, as much as it was a city, turned out to be a dud, shopping wise. But that was fine, I had no doubt that as we ventured west, we would find other places to shop.

In the evening, we returned to Drega’s tavern and for this evening, I promised myself to stay away from the mead, I wanted to log out and take care of a few things in real life and, while I was curious if there was a psychosomatic response, my body believing itself to be drunk despite only drinking ingame, I decided not to experiment. And I doubted that there would be one anyway, or I would also expect one when dealing with other, serious, poisons and injuries, something that would likely have caused the project to crash and burn long before shipping it to the first beta-tester.

Sadly, Drega was too busy to sit and chat with us during the evening but Kelgorn, the hunter that had shared the table with us, was there and, again, Adra tried to learn as much about the area as possible.

Later, once we were back in our rooms and Sigmir and I had enjoyed ourselves, I logged out, lying in her arms. Outside the game, I, once again, cleared my spam-filter first, mostly just casually glancing at the header before sending it to the digital abyss, but in the unconfirmed-folder was something I thought interesting. It was an offer, an official offer that could be quite beneficial. I had seen the advertisement they had made with Tobiuno as a main-character and they had made an offer that they wanted something similar, with me in the lead, in the near future.

It was quite a good offer, especially if I wanted to increase the name-recognition of Morgana as a brand but I wondered if it might backfire. Looking at the forums and a few streams, a lot of buzz about Morgana was created because nobody had more than a very slight clue about what actually happened when watching the videos, trailers and highlight-reels. Sure, some spellcasters posed ideas based on their own magic but as I came up with my own spells, it was rather difficult to understand them, without the additional senses supplied by the game. And trying to encode the specific sensation of magic into a video seemed completely impossible, it seemed to vary from person to person. I, as Morgana, perceived magic as smell and taste while Lenore perceived it as colours, a skill she was able to lend me. Sigmir, on the other hand, was only able to vaguely perceive magic, as something similar to a sixth sense that gave her goosebumps and raised the hairs at the back of her neck, depending on the severity.

What I wondered was, would I have to reveal more about my magic and if yes, would it cause that buzz-effect of wonder to fade? Like a stage-magician, if I revealed my tricks, would I lose what name-recognition Morgana already had?

Unsure about the details, I responded vaguely positive but with a request of a lot more information about the details, before I would make a final determination.

But thinking about the ways magic was perceived, I looked at the video of us walking through Kolyug, the part where Lenore and I had looked through her sight to study their magic. Interestingly, it was lacking the part that was perceived by Lenore, strangely shifting my sight as I only saw normally through my right eye during that portion, the left holding Lenore’s Hallow and being overwritten by her perception that wasn’t recorded.

Afterwards, I saved the part of me, reading the books and placed it into a private video, something I could look at while ingame. It was almost a joke to allow such usage, I would most likely be unable to use the senses that helped translate what I was seeing in a magic book into the thought-forms and concepts my mind used but it would allow me to take inspiration for my own experiments, something that would help me a great deal. It wasn’t like I needed to take what was written and use it - I made my own magic anyway.

After those tasks, I got myself some food and exercise, noticing that I would have to increase my outside-periods. My customary forms felt more difficult and the bit of muscle tone I had, it was mostly gone. I needed to improve my shape again, not just because of my general health but also because I needed to be in shape to get the same, or maybe even better, results in the attribute-challenge of the character creation. Having those extra points was just too valuable to pass them up, especially if they were linked to something that has a real, substantial benefit, like being fit and healthy.

Otherwise, the stooges had finally stopped posting their accusations - or maybe they had managed to get all three of their accounts banned in the forum, either was fine with me - and I doubted that I would run into them again. And if I happened to do so, well, they had not convinced me of their competence to be a threat. Annoyed me into killing them - maybe even without reason the last time; they claimed they had just been hunting - but still. If they annoyed me again I might just decide that there was value in testing just how good the cut-off from pain and mental attacks was. Lenore and I had done some brainstorming after the inclusion of Ice-Astral Power into all my spells and we had some ideas that were a little dangerous, especially after the snag with my mind-control collars. But Pantheon had undoubtedly very good cut-offs to prevent the stooges from being permanently hurt and if not, better it came out now, instead of once the capsules were in general circulation. First, however, they would have to take another run at me again.