Once Lenore had landed, she gave me a gentle, mental push to leave my Hallow, so she could return to hers. Mentally reaching out, I looked out, making sure that I had an accurate mental image before pushing my mind out, pulling the rest of me with it. It was a strange feeling, a brief state of incorporation that I wanted to explore and understand more, and after a moment of vertigo-inducing travel, I was back out, this time sticking the landing. Before I could fully orient myself or get up from my kneeling position, Lenore hopped onto my shoulder, vanishing into her Hallow.

Suddenly, I felt a surge of emotion from her, relief and excitement, combined with a feeling of sudden exhaustion and lethargy, making me think that she had been running on an adrenaline-high ever since we attacked the raptor in the air and she was now feeling safe and crashing from it.

“Do you think it would be possible to directly switch from my Hallow to your Hallow? I mean, could we simply switch places, without both of us being outside at the same time? What are the limits there?” I mentally asked, thinking about the possibilities. There were so many of them, most of them practical. Even just directly switching had interesting applications, what happened if we timed the switch, which took a moment of time, in such a way that it happened in exactly the moment a blastwave rolled over us? Could we dodge explosions that way? Even if not, the ability to pretend to shape-shift between my normal, elven Avatar and Lenore’s avian form would be quite interesting, offering great potential for shenanigans.

The idea to have Lenore fly down as a Raven, land in front of another Traveller and, seamlessly, turn into my Avatar was just too cool to not explore. Even just footage of flying around would be good to post, without telling anyone how it worked, I was reasonably sure that there was little footage of flight yet, a few wizards had made videos but they were shaky and relatively short, with low altitudes and rushed landings. Lenore, on the other hand, was able to fly freely, just like the bird she was. But I would need more than just the footage of one flight, even if being the death from above was excellent.

I felt Lenore pick up on my thoughts, pushing the idea of using our Hallows to our advantage, curious what else I had in mind. Being able to cast spells while hidden in my Hallow, with Lenore flying overhead, letting death rain down from a secure position would be quite useful, especially against simple beasts that relied on their powerful, physical bodies to fight. It wasn’t like a bear, no matter how big, would be able to suddenly sprout wings to come after us in the air. Another idea that I wanted to explore was to load me up with equipment and supplies before shifting into the Hallow, reducing the load we had to carry. It wasn’t as important as it might be, thanks to our magic bags. There were still uses for such a trick, for example smuggling things into a city, but if wasn’t necessary for general carrying purposes.

There were so many possibilities to explore and potentially exploit that I wasn’t quite sure where to start. After waiting for Lenore to calm down, she suggested to start with a smooth transition between our respective forms, figuring out if the idea to pretend the shapechange was even possible. If there was some sort of cooldown or even just a need for the one who housed the Hallow to be fully corporeal, some of the ideas wouldn’t work at all.

I mentally prepared the same processes I would prepare if I wanted to shift into my Hallow while Lenore was present and gave her a gentle, mental push, letting her know that I was ready. I felt her flow out of her Hallow, trying to figure out the moment in which I could trigger my own switch. It took me until she was fully materialised and sitting on my shoulder to find the correct spot within her and begin the transition. Where before, there had been a short feeling of vertigo, now I was feeling as if I had been put into the spin cycle of a washing-machine. The experience was unpleasant and when I finally got my bearings within my Hallow, I realised that Lenore hadn’t fared much better. She had failed to catch herself when her perch disappeared, tumbling onto the ground in a graceless heap, looking a little like roadkill.

“That was unpleasant. We’ll have to train a lot, if it is possible at all.” Lenore told me, using our connection, as she pushed herself up. She looked a little disheveled and I could feel from her thoughts that she needed to preen herself before being able to fly.

“Let’s try it the other way around?” I asked, carefully pulling myself together, while trying to observe the connection flowing back to Lenore. The key to making the switch work was to understand how our essence, or whatever we wanted to call it, was flowing between the two of us, For now, neither of us had a clue.

I felt her give me the signal to initiate the switch and did so, letting myself flow out, not even trying to get into a standing position or anything complex. Instead, I opted for a kneeling position, with both shins and hands on the ground. It was barely above simply flopping onto the ground like a dying fish, but it should allow me to catch and correct myself, even if the position came out flawed.

Going out wasn’t much more pleasurable than coming in was, at first it felt normal until I felt myself take form on the outside, when suddenly a powerful impulse was flowing into me, disrupting the small semblance of control I had and making my Avatar’s body twitch and flop around, as if having a seizure. It only lasted a second or two but it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat. On the other hand, I could feel Lenore in her Hallow and it seemed she was shaken and stirred, in a similar state of as I had been earlier.

“Definitely more practise required, if we want to do these switches quickly.” I muttered, pushing myself up and brushing off what little dirt was sticking to me.

“But not now. That was enough for me, let’s wait until we are both in better shape again.” Lenore added, with a slight cringe a moment later, when she realised the inadvertent pun.

“I agree. In addition, I want to make some food for the others, now that I have an actual kitchen to work with.” I added with a grin, before walking back towards the guest-quarters, feeling quite elated, despite the failure with the pseudo-shapechange.

Back at the guest-quarters, I had to smile. The others had set up a comfortable position on the roof, looking very much like they had been there for most of the day and had been basking in the sun. The sun had abandoned them but they had yet to move.

“You look comfortable.” I said with a grin, as I walked up. Sigmir looked up and gave me wide smile, while Adra merely held a hand up and waved. On the other hand, Rai stood up, showing the proper respect for his teacher.

“I did what you asked me to. What do you plan to do with that dough?” Sigmir asked, pushing herself up to properly greet me. Now, we would have to see if my instructions for making pizza-dough had been adequate, just as I had to figure out how to replace the ingredients I didn’t have. But first, Sigmir pulled me into an embrace and a tender kiss showed me that she had missed me.

It turned out, either my instructions had been spot-on or Sigmir had Italian blood in her heritage and was magically inclined to create pizza-dough I had to cheat a little, in order to create a rolling-pin but my Ice-Magic was easily up to the task and soon, I had a set of pizzas in the oven, getting baked over a wood-fire. The sauce wasn’t quite what it was supposed to be and the cheese wasn’t really what I would normally use but I had hopes that the pizza would be good.

“This is… glorious.” Adra moaned, biting down on another slice of pizza, making me chuckle at the sight. There was a string of pizza stretching away from her mouth, while Rai had some sauce smeared over his face. Similarly, Sigmir had a wide smile on her face, as she reached out to grab another slice, while I stood, to get the last pizza from the oven. Apparently, the four large pizzas I had made were just enough for us.

When I walked back into the living room, carrying the last pizza, the three of them looked up, licking their lips, looking like a pack of starving wolves, despite the fact that we had polished off three pizzas already. But their looks made me smile, as it looked like my experiment with pizza had been a tremendous success, as evidenced by the three levels my cooking-skill had gained in the process.