Once I had an agreement with the Thane, the conversation shifted back to the dwarves and into dwarven, making me a passive observer. They made a plan that Helmaic would lead his man back to their town, while Gwynlyn, with a small group of guards, would remain at this place to escort my group and me back to the Ashenforge, as their home was called. It was interesting that Gwynlyn would remain behind, despite the wounded amongst the dwarves, but maybe they wanted the group staying behind to have communication, or there were other reasons.

It didn’t take them long to make their plans and afterwards, Gwynlyn let the magic powering the scrying bowl fade away, visibly relaxing. I wasn’t able to get a real impression about the amount of power left in her body, not without drawing blood and tasting it, which wasn’t something I was ready to ask for, not for such a small matter. But her demeanor hinted that powering the bowl, especially for a slightly longer duration, took a lot out of her, far more than I’d need to scry on a nearby place. Once again, I wished for a controlled environment in which I could experiment with those questions, to nail down the rules governing magic. I had ideas which variables might be involved but there was simply no way to control the different factors I suspected to form a working model. Not that the trouble would stop me from hypothesizing or experimenting, it was just something to strive for, once the beta was over.

“Morgana, a small group of us will remain here for the next two weeks, guiding you back to Ashenforge, the ancestral home of our clan. If you are delayed for longer, you need to find the way yourself, so let me describe how to get there.” Helmaic explained, pausing for a second before continuing on. Ashenforge wasn’t too far away, maybe a day’s march if everyone was healthy. I was quite confident that we’d be able to find our way, especially with Lenore scouting from overhead, so the arrangement was fine with me.

Helmaic and Gwynlyn remained behind for a little longer, with Gwynlyn asking questions about me, apparently trying to get a better idea who I was. I answered politely and honestly but tried to reveal little that hadn’t been shown on the Forum or in the highlight-reels. Soon, Gwynlyn seemed to give up and the two local dwarves excused themselves, leaving me with Dargira. We returned to our previous conversation, at least for a bit, before I felt the exhaustion creep up on me. I could feet that Lenore had already gone to sleep in her Hallow and I knew that I’d soon lose my mask, if I didn’t get going. I tried to be polite in my dismissal and Dargira luckily got the hint. A quick thought dispersed the furniture I had created, leaving a glittering coating of diamond dust in the area.

Looking at the cottage, I noticed that someone had solved the door-problem in a simple way, they had hung a blanket in the doorway, creating a simple covering that should keep in some warmth without preventing us from quickly leaving, if necessary.

Adra was still awake when I walked in, the others had already retired for the night, not that I blamed them. We had marched quite far and the battle had added to the exhaustion.

“What are our plans now?” Adra asked, speaking very softly.

“We were hired to investigate the swamp, Deadmire, they call it. It seems that the changes are recent, so hopefully we’ll be fine. If we manage to clear it out, there’ll be a nice bonus.” I explained before a yawn tried to break my jaw.

“It will be dangerous but I agree, it could help us gain a lot of power, especially Lenore and me.” Adra admitted, looking a little sheepish. “Go to bed, I’ll keep watch for a while, you can take the last watch in the morning. Sigmir will wake you up.” she added, making a waving motion towards the spot where Sigmir was already fast asleep. I gave Adra a small smile, before stripping some of my clothes off and snuggling up to Sigmir, wrapping our blankets around us. Once my head was placed on her upper arm and my eyes closed, I was out like a light.

Early in the next morning, Sigmir gently shook me awake, making me grumble a little in discomfort but, when she peppered small kisses all over my face, there was no way I even wanted to try to stay asleep.

“Good morning, love.” she softly said once my eyes were focused on her, adding a gentle kiss to my lips.

“Good morning. That might be the best way to wake up.” I admitted with a smile. I returned the kiss before pushing myself up and putting on some clothes, using that nifty magic trick from the Grandmother’s Grimoire to make sure they were clean.

“Do you want to catch some more sleep?” I asked, looking over to Sigmir.

“No, I’ll stay awake with you.” she answered, looking quite content and happy.

“Let’s go outside, no need to wake those two.” I gestured to the spot where Rai and Adra were sharing another blanket, sleeping in a quite comfortable embrace. When they had begun, it was to share warmth but by now, I was quite sure that there was more of a connection. It made me wonder, Kallista, the dryad back in Neyto who looked so very similar to Adra, had been convinced that Adra was some sort of a reborn version of her old partner. Would those feelings return at some point? What about memories? What about the new personality and the feelings associated with it?

Shaking off those strange, most likely unanswerable questions, I followed Sigmir outside, quickly creating a wide bench for the two of us, facing towards the east and the foothills, glowing with a faint shimmer of pre-dawn light. It was a beautiful sight, the still dark sky above filled with glimmering stars while dawn was but a hint in the distance.

Without a single word, I created the runes necessary to form fresh Ice, using my Ice Magic to form it into a wide love-seat and cushioning it with Diamond Dust. Sigmir grinned at the causal ease with which I was now creating furniture, even the cottage the day before. It was, quite frankly, trivial for me but I just had never considered it. Sure, I had made myself a comfortable seat at times, when I had prepared to perform large feats of magic, treating the act of creating a throne as a sort of attunement to my magic and the ritual, using it as a mental focus of sorts but there really was no reason not to use my magic to make things comfortable for us, even on the road.

Thinking about the cottage, I focused on the magic still lingering in it, once I was sitting next to Sigmir and comfortable. The magic was still there, only slightly faded and I realised that I’d be able to strengthen it, not quite to the point of permanency, that would require a continuous source of fresh power, but I’d be able to make it last for a month, maybe two, unless it was destroyed by outside forces.

As I thought about it, I realised that it might be a good idea to try it out. I was reasonably sure that the key to mastering Ice Runes was in the interplay of the different parts of the magic. There was the material, Ice, Hard Ice, maybe Diamond Dust and Liquid Moonlight, and ultimately Eternal Ice, but that was only part of it. Then there was the thermal part with the runes for Chill and Cold but there had to be a stronger one, higher up there, a more powerful rune. And finally, the temporal parts, which I had the hardest time to understand. Stillness, the ultimate lack of motion, magic so cold that it froze time itself, that had to be part of Eternal Ice. It was in the name afterall. I only had the slightest inclining, partially due to the lessons the Grandmother had taught me, but even they had been vague at best.

Maybe the key to that temporal part was to figure out how to make permanent structures out of ice, anchored to the world in a way that didn’t require constant influx of Astral Power or maybe a way to link the ice itself to the Astral River, letting it sustain itself that way.

Closing my eyes, I let myself drift to the edge of the Astral River, acting as a conduit that channelled more and more freezing cold Astral Power into the cottage, slowly turning the structure from Ice into Hard Ice. I had done that before, only on a smaller scale, so it was easy, it only took a lot of power with such a large structure.