Rory headed back to the rear of the palace. A couple of Arie’s friends were patrolling the area, suspiciously looking at the soul of a Rockback slowly ambling past. Rory had figured he’d be alone, and he was looking forward to the privacy to conduct his experiments without needing to explain things to anyone, but he didn’t want to chase his new potential audience away.

They had been shunned enough.

“Hello, there,” he said. His voice startled them, and they suddenly looked away as though trying to find an exit. Rory decided not to sigh. They weren’t making this easy. “You don’t have to go anywhere. I’m just here to test something with a new Sigil. You’re free to stay and watch.”

Rory took his Sigil and staff and strode forward, but then stopped. “Oh, I don’t think I caught your names…”

The former Neophytes looked at each other. The one on the left then turned with strange expression and said, “I’m Carolyn.”

“Angus.”

Rory nodded. “Nice to meet you, Carolyn and Angus. Did you have breakfast?”

“We did.”

They both said it at the same time. Rory blinked, but neither of his guests seemed to think anything of it.

“Good.”

Rory left them to watch if they so desired. He was curious to see what sort of effects he could add to the Sigils already Warded into his staff.

His Sigil of Harmonic Blizzard could pick and select its targets, either preserving or destroying, including focusing on such minuscule and abstract things like magic. On the other hand, his Sigil of Frozen Lightning didn’t have too many things added on top of it, from what Rory remembered.

Rory waved his staff in the required motion to activate the wintry storm, sending out the blizzard in a wide area around him. He didn’t pick any specific targets. Instead, he activated his Weaving and targeted the white lines on the storm around him, soon obtaining a Sigil of Harmonic Blizzard in his hand. The icy, white-and-blue Sigil was cold in his hand.

He brought out a Sigil of Lifedrain and combined it with the Sigil of Harmonic Blizzard. When he was done, the new Sigil showed the same image of a storm cloud with ice falling out of it, but with a green tinge added to the icy blue picture.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Draining Blizzard. Bad enough that the freezing cold that rips your lungs out is an ever-present danger, now you’ve added a slow, soul-sucking effect as well. Look at you go.

[Cerulean VIII] allows remote summoning a draining blizzard in a 58-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Atmosphere

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Cerulean VIII [0%]

Efficiency: High [71%]

This was good. Great, in fact, though Rory wasn’t going to be wholly satisfied until he saw it in action. That just meant he was going to have to find a way to get on the next excursion outside.

But it wasn’t enough yet. Viv had brought up an excellent point. He needed a Sigil option that could actually act as a hard barrier against ranged attacks, or anything else that was able to barrel through his blizzard.

He wasn’t sure what he could make, however. A solid barrier of ice would be in keeping with what he already had, though he had to figure out how he’d go about summoning it. Sigils of Earth summoned earthen ramparts and barriers, but—

The Sigil of Barricade was one idea. No, he didn’t mean to take it from Sue. She deserved to keep it, and more, after all she had sacrificed. Rory could simply use his Weaving on one of her summoned barricades and get the Sigil from there. But the thing that worried him was whether it would be compatible with this Draining Blizzard he had Woven.

Only one way to find out.

“You seem troubled, Rory,” Carolyn said. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Rory said with a smile. It was nice they were concerned enough to speak out, considering they had been silent so far. “I just need to get some more Sigils to test things.”

“What are you testing?” Angus asked.

Rory had been intending to walk past his rapt audience, but the question brought him short. “I want a Sigil that can help me create solid barriers. There’s already a Sigil that specifically does that. Just going to go get it.”

“None of your current Sigils do that?”

“Sadly, no.”

Angus looked at the spot where Rory had summoned his blizzard, noticing the snow and ice that hadn’t disappeared yet. Wouldn’t be long before they disappeared before melting, but they had been there a while, now that Rory observed it properly. Maybe making Sigils stronger meant their effects lasted longer.

“Strange,” Angus said. “I was under the assumption the blizzard could build a barrier of ice and snow, considering how ferociously it acts on everything.”

Rory considered. “That is a good point…”

“Sigils improve when you raise their Tiers, correct?” Carolyn asked. When Rory nodded, she went on. “Perhaps you simply need to make it stronger before such an option appears.”

“That’s also a good point.”

Rory checked the Sigil in his hand. That achievement a few days ago had alerted him that this staff and the Sigils within it had crossed into the Cerulean Tier, finally. But he checked it again anyway, just to see if there had been any improvement.

Staff of Deadly Winter

[Cerulean III] allows [Cerulean III] Sigil use. Bonus to wintry or necromantic Sigils.

Stats

Type: Weapon

Rarity: Mythic

Tier: Cerulean III [0%]

Efficiency: Extreme [91%]

- Sigil of Rending Blizzard

- Sigil of Frozen Lightning

-

-

It had risen two Tiers since he had last checked. But something else about it niggled at him. That line about the necromantic bonus wasn’t something he had checked out properly. He had Evelyn perform all those resurrections, but it seemed if he had done it, the effect would have been stronger. That was another thing to consider.

“Alright, I think I know what I have to do,” Rory said.

“You do?” Angus and Carolyn asked. “Wonderful!”

Once more, they talked together perfectly naturally, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the behaviour. Rory decided it would be rude to point out how creepy it was. Instead, waving a temporary goodbye, he headed to the main hall.

He found Sue dozing against a column. Rory was loathe to wake her, and he begged May’s forgiveness for doing so, but he gently shook Sue by the shoulder until she was groggily staring at him.

“What do you want?” she asked, voice weak once more.

“Good morning,” Rory asked. “How are you healing up?”

“Is that what you really came here to tell me?”

“No, but I’m asking anyway because I care. So, how are you?”

She looked him square in the eye, and Rory didn’t flinch or look away. He knew she had a lot of pain to deal with and a lot of trauma to recover from. Not shying away was the least Rory could to, no matter how she intended to express herself. It was his duty to accept it.

“I’m fine,” Sue said.

Rory frowned. He considered pushing it, but then thought better of it. “Alright. I’ll go away. But I did come here because I needed your help.”

“What help could you need from a cripple?” Her eyes widened as she came to her own conclusion before Rory could answer. “You came to take away my Sigil, didn’t you?”

Rory looked at her a long time. He didn’t take his eyes off hers, keeping his expression neutral. After a while, her darker eyes looked away.

“It might help to remember that we all want to help, Sue,” Rory said quietly. “Even if none of us have an easy solution yet.”

“I wasn’t looking for an easy solution to this.”

Sue seemed to wrestle with something, then cursed loudly, which brough on a coughing fit. Both Rory and May helped her steady herself as the fit slowly passed. Once she had calmed some more, a concerned May helped her drink some water.

“Alright, fine.” Sue pushed the bottle away with her good hand. Her voice was grindy as though she had been drinking sandpaper instead of water. “I have been wanting an easy solution. That’s not wrong of me. We’ve got Sigils. We’ve got all these amazing powers and abilities, but no one knows of a way to get me to a point where I can be useful again? Where I can live again? Are you kidding me?”

Rory swallowed. Sue’s voice had risen with every word, and after she had finished her little tirade, half the hall was looking at her while the rest pretended not to. Sue flushed and looked down.

He wondered if she was hiding tears. She shouldn’t have to. She was right, after all. With all these magical Sigils they had access to, the fact they still hadn’t figured out a way to properly help Sue was a failing on their part. On Rory’s part. Maybe he had been busy with other things, maybe he had been waiting for Sue to heal up some more, maybe there had been too many things going on for him to keep track of.

Excuses. Valid or not, they were all excuses.

“I’m sorry, Sue,” Rory said. His voice was choked but he didn’t want to ask May for a drink. “I had a plan to take care of this. To take care of you. I thought it would work, but…”

“What plan?” she asked after a while.

Rory had no idea how she would react, but he had no intention of lying or hiding things, so he told her. “I wanted Arelland to grant you one of the suits the elves use. That way, you’d have all the mobility you could want without having to worry about using your actual body to move.”

Sue gasped. “That’s… insane.”

“I’m sorry. I was going to suggest the idea to Arelland, see how amenable he was to it and if it even was possible. For all I know, the elves might have strict rules about not giving it to outsiders, especially humans. I thought it was worth a shot, but there’s been no sign of Arelland himself for a while now.”

Sue didn’t raise her head. Rory looked away, finding that while most of the people in the hall had left or were at least looking away, a couple of them were staring unabashedly. He glared at Leo, Leanne, and one of the former Neophytes until they all looked away too.

“What did you need help with?” Sue asked quietly.

Rory stared down at her, then smiled. “I need you to use your Sigil of Barricade for a second.” He went on to explain how his staff had risen a Tier and now he needed to figure out how to fill up its slots. One of the ideas was summoning a barrier of ice, which was where Sue came in. “I need to use my Weaving on it.”

Sue sniffled. Rory gave her some space and looked away. A moment later, a shimmering light-purple barrier materialized a few feet in front of him. Rory looked to his left to find Sue staring ahead, her good arm stretched forward with the Sigil of Barricade glowing on the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” Rory said, then used his Weaving on the wall to get a Sigil of Barricade. He put it away for now and looked at Sue. “I’m sorry I didn’t figure something out for you as soon as I could. I… didn’t know what I could do, and I still don’t, but I haven’t thought about it as much as I could have. For that, I apologize.”

“It’s alright,” Sue said, clearly struggling to control her voice. She didn’t say anything more for a while, and Rory thought that was the end of the conversation, but then she spoke again more clearly. “I know you guys would help if you could. I know you’ve been busy. It’s selfish of me to be so obsessed over my injuries.”

“It’s not selfish at all. I don’t know how I’d be acting in your situation.”

Sue took a while to nod. Rory pressed her shoulder in an encouraging way and left, nodding to May as he did so. As much as her condition bothered him, he needed to take things step by step. Hopefully, as he took care of things he needed to, he’d come across what he could do about Sue.