When Sigmir grabbed me, she frantically started to pat and lightly slap my head, before carrying me over to a patch of snow that had yet to be molten, and throwing me into the snow head-first.

It had taken a second to understand her actions, but by the second or third pat to my head, I realised what had happened. Apparently, my hood had slipped during the fighting and one of the hot, burning splinters had landed in my hair, sticking there and finally managing to set it on fire. When my head was stuck in the snow, I felt the soothing coldness numbing my head and started to think clearly again. My hair had been a tremendous asset to me, ever since I had taken the trait that allowed me to store Astral Power in it, increasing the amount of power I had to use by a third. And now, that power was lost, my head was burned and raw and I was seriously weakened.

I pulled my head from the snow and thanked Sigmir, taking her hand to pull myself to my feet before standing next to her, looking at the cloud. Before Kelgorn reached us, I pulled up my hood again, hiding my burned head and carefully feeling my insides, looking for further damage. I found more spots where splinters had taken a burning toll on me, undoubtedly my weakness to fire not doing me any favours when I noticed Adra and Rai stepping out of the forest, moving next to us.

“The bear is dead, right?” Adra asked, looking as confused as I felt.

“We got EXP, so I think so. But how it died? I have no idea.” I answered, looking the others over. They seemed to be less wounded and weakened, at least at a casual inspection. I was just about to suggest a closer look when a gust of wind blew away the steamy cloud that obscured our vision and we saw the bear.

Carefully walking up, the smell of charred flesh was thick in the air and when we got to it, I started to stretch my magical senses into it, similar to how my healing would work. It was harder and easier with a dead body, but in this particular case, finding out what had killed it was child’s play. The flesh was charred, burned from the inside, its magic had not just cooked its flesh, it had roasted the poor animal. I didn’t even want to imagine the pain it had been under in its last moments.

“I don’t think there is any point in skinning it.” Kelgorn said, after he and Sigmir inspected the pelt. I had to agree, the literally boiling and burning blood had damaged the bear’s fur and skin to the point that simply brushing over it caused the hairs to crumble and the skin made me think of roast-chicken, only without the crunchy consistency.

“True. And even the flesh below seems to be spoiled and wasted. Let’s cut off the head to prove its death and get away from here.” I suggested. I was feeling weak and the Astral Power around us was in turmoil, the bear’s carcass shedding a lot of Fire-Type Astral Power.

“You can move away.” Adra told me, before continuing, “I think the bear might have condensed some Astral Power, I’d like to find out.”

“Show me later?” I asked, not wanting to stay in the area. I assumed what she was looking for was similar to the core I was feeling in my chest, ever since I passed the first divide, or maybe more like the cores of Eternal Ice in the elementals we fought in the glacier-dungeon. But I was getting nauseous from the Astral Power in the air, I wanted to take care of my wounds and I wanted to find out if I could do anything about the loss of my hair. Not just because of vanity, even if that was a factor, but also because I wanted the Astral Power storage back.

“Sure. Why don’t Sigmir and you check the bears cave?” Adra asked, while starting to cut into the carcass.

“We can do that.” Sigmir agreed and we walked over towards the cave.

“Give me a moment, please.” I asked after we had some distance and were far enough away from them to be out of sight. By now, my Astral Power had drained to about twenty percent and it was not filling up, making me worry a great deal.

“Lenore, what’s going on?” I asked mentally, seeking her input.

“I’m not sure. The power is seeping out from your skull, at least most of it. I can keep my own power, but I think whatever is in your system, will flow there, unless you actively keep it from happening.” she answered and showed me what she was seeing, thanks to her perspective of the flow of power in my body. There seemed to be no threshold, so soon, I would be unable to cast magic, simply because there would be no Astral Power in my system. Lenore could give me some, allowing me to cast a few spells every now and then, but it was difficult for her to do so and she didn’t really like it.

Together, we could see what was happening, but understanding would need more investigation and more urgently, it meant that I would have to take care of my wounds, before I became unable to do so. Lenore helped with controlling my power and focusing it, allowing me to focus on healing myself, otherwise I might have screwed up, as all parts of my Astral Power were slowly draining, even what I was actively using. It was a rather unpleasant sensation, but with a little time, it worked. Healing the skin on my head was almost impossible, for some reason, the closer the power came to the back of my head, the easier it was to lose it to the draining effect, so, with great effort, Lenore and I managed to get some healing done, but not a lot.

Finally, with the bleeding healed and my vitality mostly restored, I quickly checked Sigmir, but her stronger armour had kept her safe. I would check Adra and Kelgorn later, for now I was relying on the fact that neither of them had looked greatly damaged or asked for help. Rai had been easily safe the entire fight, only using his magic to blind the bear, never actively attacking, due to his persistent lack of ranged-options.

To understand what was happening with my hair and Astral Power, Lenore left her Hallow hopping over to Sigmir’s shoulder, so she could look down on me and assess the problem from the outside.

At first, she just shared what I was looking like and I was shocked. I had tried to mentally prepare myself for the reality but nothing could have prepared me for the reality I was seeing. My beautiful, luxurious hair, glowing with power and magic, it was all gone. A sob escaped my throat and I wanted nothing more than curl up and cry, seeing my head through Lenore’s eyes. The skin on my head was red and irritated, even after the healing I had poured into it but at least there was no scarring.

Lenore switched on her magic sight allowing me to see what the magic was doing, and it seemed as if the Astral Power was mostly just flowing out, as if there were still hairs there, like a bleeding wound, just with Astral Power instead of blood. Looking closer, we were able to detect some Astral Power that seemed to fuel a natural process, being slowly converted into something that neither of us could fully understand but together, we pierced together enough to make a slightly educated guess, instead of just a wild-assed one. My hair was regenerating, slowly, but surely. It was far more complex than any healing I could attempt, but also a lot more wasteful.

That had to be the big drawback for the extremely powerful trait Magical Hair I had picked when creating my avatar, a weakness that could be exploited to weaken me a great deal, in addition to the problems I would face if anyone, ever, got his hands on my hair, without me making sure that it was harmless. It would be even worse than normal blood, second only to blood drawn with blood magic.

Lenore and I hemmed and hawed for a bit until we finally decided that there was nothing we actually could do, so Sigmir and I continued on our way to the cave. When we got there, the smell of animal, of feces and of decaying meat was pugent in the air, but we wanted to know if the reason for its state were in there, so we braved the smell and carefully entered, just in case the bear had a partner or, even worse, cubs in its cave.

But no, there was nothing in the cave but gnawed off bones, mostly from animals but I thought a few looked like a troll-skeleton. One corner seemed to be its toilet - for the times when going out was impossible - something we only gave a cursory glance, until the smell drove us back out, into the evening air.