“It’s actually really hard to do this,” Erika muttered as her [Smith Flesh] twisted and sculpted Kara Hammerfall’s arm. “I can’t affect the bone with the same spell, so I have to line it up, including all the splintered shards, using your flesh then after pushing them together I use … ah yeah… I use [Restorative Draft] to fix up the inflammation and internal injuries and finally I use a second-tier spell called [Regrowth and Resurgence] which finishes you off good as new.”

Erika hadn't gotten a chance to use [See Within] on Kara but she didn’t need it, the [Smith Flesh] spell included in it the magical senses needed to see and control the resultant changes and the rest was decently easy. Erika never intended to be a clever woman, the rather old-fashioned name for a vitki life shaper focused on healing, nor did she aspire to be an alchemist or a chiurgeon but she was a natural life shaper, the first part of her soul that ignited, so her best was still pretty good.

Kara flexed her arm and smiled, Erika tried not to stare at the rippling bulging muscles… it was so much easier when you were seeing inside of someone, everything inside is gross but wrap it in skin and suddenly hormones happen.

“Thank you so much.” Gushed Kara wrapped her newly healed arm around Erika and hugging her to her chest. “It feels amazing! Not even the slightest pain, the Clans wish they had healing like this…”

Erika nodded, not noticing Kara’s suddenly conflicted expression and trying not to suffocate, a moment later Kara seemed to realise and released the coughing vitki from her inadvertent joint lock.

“Oh, my apologise lady Eri… Erika… thank you.”

Erika didn’t really mind and just nodded with a smile. “I'm glad your alright… be more carefully in future all right?”

“Nope.”

The response was immediate and made Erika purse her lips and frown at Kara who grinned back. “If I did then that draugr might have injured you, I couldn’t bear that.”

Erika found her face heating like a camp fire and looked away. “Oh, shush you.” She muttered.

Trying to think about something else Erika busied herself unwrapping the last bandages from Kara’s arm as the warrior herself kept rotating her arm and marvelling at it, Erika thought she saw a hint of redness on her face as well but she couldn’t be that lucky right? It had to be some kind of misunderstanding… regardless she’d finished her job and saved her saviour which was never a bad thing. Fate might have broken with the twilight and the Wyrd might be gone now but honour still meant something as far as Erika was concerned.

Stepping out of her wagon Erika walked over to the edge of the singing cliffs, throwing the wadded-up bandages off she watched them tumble away in the breeze before raising a finger to point at them. The mass of linen and blood stood no chance as a gout of purple acid hurled itself from her finger and struck it in the dead centre, Erika hadn't used the elemental nature of a Life Shaper much… but after the fighting? After being so helpless? She’d decided she would learn. [Acid Arrow] was a simple application of principles she already understood, Erika still couldn’t make new spells but her mother had insisted she learn ever one she could from her library, Erika was more and more grateful for that as the days trundled by.

Erika sighed and looked out at the view properly, she should take a moment to enjoy it, the Singing Cliffs were a realm renowned beauty spot after all. The Great Clearing had no mountains but it did have divides, depths and dips. The shimmering white of the singing cliffs lined both sides of the largest one, a gash in the earth more than a day’s hard ride in length, in its depth a river roared the sound of water echoing over and over bouncing off the shining slate until it became an endless susurration like a choir chanting in the depths.

The lip of the singing cliffs was a carefully maintain road along which the caravans crept, somewhere behind them a mass of killers and bandits were still following them forcing the delvers to rest in shifts, the caravans stopping only long enough for the droogs to rest like that were now. Erika tossed a handful of feed to one which lazily caught it, nodded at Helga who waved at her from the box and then walked back along the length of the caravan till she stood concealed in the half shadow cast by its bulk.

Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a strip of half rotted meat, dull white fur could just be made out around the sickly stinking green that covered the ragged torn off end of the thing.

“That’s a warg ear, isn't it?”

Erika yelped and fell over, a few moments later she was glaring up at a laughing Reidar who helped her to her feet.

“Its not funny.” She scowled at the man who was forced to wipe a tear from his eye.

“Of course, lady vitki, not funny at all.” He grinned.

Erika stuck her tongue out at him and slumped down in the shade again as Reidar settled down next to her, his hands dancing across his array of charms.

“Bad luck to sit in the shadow at noon,” he said side eyeing her. “Worse luck to carry a piece of a lokispawn along with you.”

Erika glared at him and turned her nose up. “I need it for magick.” She said the now go away and shut up unsaid but echoing.

Reidar nodded, his green hair flopping to-and-fro, but he didn’t seem convinced. “And what magick is that?”

Erika sighed and deflated. “I… Kara got hurt saving me, the ambush… I need to be stronger, so I'm going to Graft this piece of warg.”

Reidar changed the charm he was fondling but nothing else. “You don’t know that that means do you?” Asked Erika.

“I do not.” Reidar said without a hint of shame. “Bad luck to lie to a vitki.”

“Hel damn it all,” muttered Erika. “Ok look you know the stories of life smith vitki’s? How we can turn into giant monsters?”

Reidar settled down some more and nodded, even as relaxed as he looked Erika noticed he still kept one hand on the Rumbler in his thigh holster and one eye peering back up the trail they had followed.

“Flesh shapers can turn into huge beasts ay, wings and claws and limbs all over the place.

Erika tried not to glare as he said flesh shaper but the rest was right. “That grafting, you take the divine helix from a monster and graft it into a special sort of storage inside yourself after that you can transform your body into the grafted things body and eventually you can merge multiple grafts together into what we call a Warform.”

“And why don’t you have this yet? Seems like… ow.”

Erika slapped Reidar around the ear. “Stop interrupting and I’ll explain, my mother said not to start grafting till 3rd tier so that I could get some of the best monsters to graft… you have limited space to store grafts inside your soul and its really hard to change them so your mostly stuck with whatever you pick… but I need power now, so I'm going to graft this bit of warg which will let me use their power.”

Reidar wiggled a bit and stretched. “Ok, seems good… it can’t mess with your mind, can it?”

Erika stared at him for a long moment, for the first time ever Erika realised just how little normal people knew of magick. “Is that why you’ve been bugging me? You think it might make me go crazy.”

Reidar blushed a little at her tone and Erika laughed. “Oh oh… that’s sweet of you Reidar, really it is, but that not how this works… it’s like asking why a fire doesn’t cool you down. Grafting takes the power of a monster and infuses it into you, nothing else.”

As Reidar blushed and looked away Erika took the ear in her hand again, brushing the dirt and rot off as well she could, it didn’t need to be alive… grafting didn’t even need good condition, just the divine helix intact.

[Graft: Warg] Erika willed, telling the story to her magick, running odium through her soul, pulling it out of her well and letting it rage through her body, she told the story of consumption and monstrosities, creating the tale in her mind of a creature that became so much more than it was before.

A few moments later the glow faded, the ear turned to ash and Erika looked around in awe.

“Ok… Wargs have way better eyes than I thought.”

“..dy…vitki?”

Erika looked up at Gunhilda, when had she arrived? And smiled. “Wargs have terrible hearing, can barely understand you, but these eyes… I think they can see heat? Is that what I'm seeing?”

With a effort of will she activated [Form of Me] and became herself again, shaking her head and panting slightly, casting tier 2 magic back to back like that wasn't something she should do, not as an apprentice at least.

Erika didn’t care though, her grin was a gimlet shining in the shadow, she wouldn’t be weak again.