We were fleeing. Not that the others would have called it that, but to me, it was flight, plain and simple. After telling Sigmir that we needed to get away, she had, once again, simply picked me up, called out to the others and started running. I felt her use her own abilities to boost herself, moving fast enough to outrun most horses. In my weakened and drained state, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up, not even the five minutes she kept that pace before slowing down for the others. They could reach such a speed but only hold it for a short time, unlike Sigmir, who was able to run like the wind for hours on end. Or, maybe saying she was running like an avalanche was more fitting.

But even after slowing down for the others, the pace she set was murderous, long strides beating the ground into submission as she followed after Ylva, who was scouting ahead. Knowing that I would slow down the group, I was stewing in my powerlessness, angry at the world in general, lacking a specific target for my displeasure. The bear - who had caused the fire that burned my hair - was gone, dying in horrible pain due to the experiment of a magician I could only call insanely brilliant and brilliantly insane. I had no doubt that he, or she, was crossing the fine line between genius and madness on a regular basis, most likely multiple times a day.

I wanted to hate that magician for his experiment and the assumption that he was more powerful than me, by a long shot, which was the reason for our flight. If only I were stronger; strong enough to deal with the brilliant mind behind the enchantment on the fiery gem Adra had harvested from the bear’s corpse. Recalling the magic she had seen, I tried to find out more, to gleam some understanding. It was beyond me, but not as far beyond me as the ancient roadways or the enchantments the Grandmother had in her house. With those, I had felt like a child that knew how to do basic maths, trying to understand some strange, esoteric quantum theory.

With the enchantment on the gem, the notation was different from what I was used to and the resulting streams of magic were complex but not totally incomprehensible. It was a shame, really, that I was unable to get close to the gem, the Everburning Ember, as Lenore’s Identify had called it, without being in pain and taking damage, just from the disgusting Fire Astral Power that it radiated. Maybe, once I had my magic back and was able to use it to shield myself, but for now, that gem was poison to me.

“We should take Kelgorn out, if he works for the bandits or that spellcaster and attacks us, or even gives away information about my status, we would be destroyed.” I mentally pestered Lenore, not for the first time, to help me use the backdoor into Kelgorn’s mind and eliminate the threat. It irked me, being forced to beg for power from my magical companion, but my own Astral Power Storage was fully depleted, everything had flown into fueling the growth of my hair, and even what I regenerated was directly funneled there. I was able, with great mental difficulty, to grasp drops of Astral Power and hold onto them but so far, every time before I had enough to do anything with it, my concentration had wavered for a moment and the power had been siphoned off.

“You shouldn’t directly resort to violence, just because you are scared. He hasn’t done anything suspicious, and both of us have watched him, what would the others think if you suddenly start murdering party-members?” Lenore softly rebuked me, trying to be the voice of reason. But there was an unpleasant feeling between my shoulderblades, making me wary of him.

After two hours of running, Sigmir slowed down and the others caught up, breathing hard and winded.

“What’s going on?” Adra asked, a sentiment mirrored on Rai and Kelgorn’s face.

“That gem you put in your back, think for a moment, what does it mean?” I asked, freeing myself from Sigmir’s embrace.

Adra frowned for a moment, in incomprehension.

“It was placed there, obviously.” she stated, seeing the obvious but not thinking it through to the end.

“Yes, almost certainly by another spellcaster. A spellcaster with enough power and knowledge to create the thing, subdue the bear without killing it and implanting the crystal in such a way that it strengthened the bear, maybe even made it cross the first divide. Take all that together and you have a spellcaster with a lot more power and curiosity than ethics, and yes, I know that it’s a little bit ironic coming from me, but I have no desire to meet such a spellcaster without either a dire need or a safety net in place. We have neither, so I wanted to get away from the experiment as soon as possible.” I explained, keeping an eye on Kelgorn if he reacted in any way to my description. I was reaching a little but I could easily imagine that the bandits in the area worked for a spellcaster, possibly providing muscle in exchange for the odd spell or two. It would explain a few things, like how a group of bandits had managed to take down a complete caravan and why their raids had little pattern, what if they were just out to acquire human, or rather sapient, resources for the experiments. I was not sure what was less likely, two factions that I would call evil in the same area or one faction, led by a spellcaster. I was planning to explain my reasoning to Lagor, the Guild-master/clerk in Kolyug, right after giving him the gem, collect the reward and get the hell out of the area.

In any way, it might just be a bit of paranoia that made me suspect Kelgorn, but, as the saying went, just because you're paranoid doesn’t meant that they aren't out to get you.

“Now, that’s a pleasant idea, some mage with even less morals than you and more power. Tegi, all over again, only this time without being seriously weakened.” Adra groaned, undoubtedly remembering her rather precarious situation when we had first met. “You should really take those examples to heart, reckless magic experimentation will come back to bite you.” she continued.

I kept quiet with my take on that, thinking it was the opposite. If you wanted power as a spellcaster, you needed to experiment. Of the truly powerful spellcasters I had met, all were either monsters, like Tegi and the unnamed mage that had conducted the experiment on the bear, or were forced to live under the protection of the Grandmother, basically staying in exile for one reason or the other.

What I was taking from that was, grab as much power as possible, while moving around and avoiding to draw too much attention to you, too soon. It wasn’t as if there was a truly free flow of information; the Naga had some kind of information exchange through their ocean-magic, of that I was aware, but I doubted that they used it for anything trivial, like the odd village vanishing or some strange monster appearing. That meant, as long as one didn’t make extremely stupid mistakes, or worse, talk about the research one was undertaking, there shouldn’t be anyone able to realise what was happening, even if the odd atrocity occurred.

“Possible.” I allowed Adra’s warning, in order to hide my own thoughts on the matter. “We should return to Kolyug as soon as possible, to report the demise of the bear and our discovery. It should net us some kind of bonus, don’t you think?” I asked, trying not to sound too mercenary.

“Yes, that would probably be for the best. I can’t believe that anyone would do something that insane.” Kelgorn agreed with me, making me question if I my idea was a good one. Was there an ambush prepared between us and Kolyug? But in our state, an ambush was hardly necessary, even if he didn’t know about my current magical impotence, it should be relatively easy to get enough forces into position to assure success.

I also noticed that he was eyeing me a little suspiciously, as if he was suspecting that I was wary of him, it made me itch to take him down, but before I could even ask Lenore, she refused.

“We should make camp, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. Fighting the bear has been exhausting, especially whenever it shot those flames at us.” Adra suggested, after stifling a yawn.

I looked at the others and saw that all of them seemed more or less sleeping on their feet, so I just nodded, while Sigmir agreed verbally. The only wrinkle was that I rejected making a fire, fearing that it might lead enemies to us and that the presence of the enchanted gem in Adra’s bag was slowly leaking out, making me uncomfortable the longer we stayed in an area. That led to splitting up, with Sigmir and me sleeping a distance away from the others. I preferred it that way, not just because of the gem but because I was feeling uneasy in the presence of the others. I was not sure why but once I was back, safely encircled in Sigmir’s arms, I started to feel better and more relaxed, until sleep took me.