Teaching my students was getting more and more interesting. While their practical skills were far from mine, their imagination and ideas were providing a constant challenge, making me question what I thought I knew about magic and oftentimes giving me a new perspective to consider.

Things got even more interesting when I demonstrated my sorcerer-ability to define and teach spells, largely regardless of affinity. Well, I could teach the spell to all of them but the use of it, that was another question. My first attempt was a simple, three-rune formation of Cold, Mist and Concealment with a bit of defining Ice-Magic thrown in that I turned into a verbal mnemonic spell accompanied by a simple gesture. It became a short verse, invoking the Cold Mists of Winter to conceal your flight, and interestingly, the words that flowed from my tongue came out in ancient Jötun. Or at least I was pretty sure it was ancient Jötun, I wasn’t cognizant of the slip in language, but when the others tried to repeat after me, their tongues had some trouble. They all managed to do something, even if that something was mostly wasting Astral Power but they could work on it in their own time.

But the spell made for a good first step, at least for me. It was something I hadn’t really considered on Mundus, when I had treated Road to Purgatory as a game, with fixed rules and a deliberate balance. But here, there were no devs that made sure things remained balanced, here, I could try to exploit things to my heart’s content.

When the verse was spoken at the required calm and measured pace, the three runes I had used to define the spell appeared in the air before me, forming their formation. Once it was completed, it took about a second longer than I needed to draw the formation by hand, a quick, twisting gesture brought the three runes together and activated the formation, spilling out a cloud of mist, concealing the area. It would be useful as a smokescreen, or maybe a distraction, at least against sight-based enemies.

But what I was interested in was the question, would I be able to cut things down even further? From a full verse that took a few seconds to recite to something more akin to a single word, maybe just a gesture or even a thought? Complex magic that I could use while moving sounded like an incredibly useful tool. The current version didn’t work, the spellcaster had to remain within arm’s reach of the formation or it broke, but maybe if I worked at the spell some more? It was a project worthy to be on my list, quite high on it in fact.

In addition to my realisations regarding my long-neglected class abilities, I managed to gain the Wind Magic ability. I wouldn’t be able to do too much with it, at least for now. it just took a lot of Astral Power for relatively minor gains, making it yet another work in progress. Maybe once I gained a higher skill-level, or more general levels or worked it into a type of magic I was better with. Still, I made progress, more magic to work and play with was always welcome.

The other magic abilities, to say nothing of the Runic Masteries were still out of reach by the time the sun was setting but it had been a successful session nonetheless. All of my students were progressing, all starting their own journey on the Arcane Path. It was an odd sensation, to feel pride not for an accomplishment of my own, but for the future accomplishments of my students.

But I had a quest to complete, so I wasn’t about to linger once the sun was no longer a threat. It had been cloudy the whole day, so I might have been able to dart between more solid shadows but I wouldn’t do so without a great need. The Curse of the Sun was a pain, though luckily one I could work around. Somebody without my affinity to Darkness and the Night would have been seriously screwed but for me, it was an inconvenience and not a terrible major one, at least during the winter. There was more than enough night to get things done, giving me the day to sleep or practise indoors.

My original plan for the night had been to train my other students if they were interested, but with the quest, that plan was shot. So, Silva and I set out as soon as the sun was gone and moved through the city. It was quite interesting just how much faster we could move if we didn’t actively go hunting Shattered, or searched for good spots to bait them in. With my cloak and a concealment spell around Sivla, we had mostly free reign, the only Shattered able to perceive us were the more powerful ones.

And ‘more powerful’ didn’t mean a serious threat. On the way out of the city, we only came across two enemies able to perceive us and those two were level a level twelve Scorched and a level fourteen Shattered. I considered leaving both to Silva, she needed the training but decided to support her against the Scorched. Not because she couldn’t handle the thing but because she’d get singed by it and I had no interest in having my furry pillow get singed. Luckily, a thick layer of cold mist was more than enough to dampen the thing’s flames to the point of impotence, allowing Silva to take it apart with ease. The Shattered was a bigger challenge, but only because I was just watching, allowing her to play with it on her own. She won, but needed a bit of healing afterwards, the effort enough to push my Blood Rune Mastery to fourteen. I hadn’t been healing a lot, so using it for that still gave me good levels.

When we got to the outer parts of the cities, Silva and I slowed down. Neither of us knew what was out there if there were enemies we had to be cautious of or something like that. We had been travelling the city for the last few days, so we roughly knew what haunted the dark streets but these bare fields? They were unknown. The unknown meant potential danger and potential danger meant we had to be cautious.

My concealment magic remained strictly in place and we kept a bit of distance between us, just a few metres in case of subterranean attackers. It was unlikely that any moles or insects or something like that had grown large enough to threaten human-sized prey but unlikely didn’t mean impossible.

I considered walking through the shallow ditch next to the road but a single look at the stagnant water and muddy ground in it made me discard that thought. No amount of cover or concealment would be worth trudging through that, not if I didn’t even know whether I needed it either. Without any threats, there was no need to make things harder on Silva and me.

Whenever the road got close to anything that might provide concealment for threats, Silva and I became even more vigilant, carefully sneaking and constantly checking whether anything was hidden between the shrubs, behind some tree or in some sinkhole. Just because the night was peaceful and quiet out here didn’t mean it would remain that way. We noticed a few things hiding in the grass or between shrubs, but when Silva went to check, whatever was there simply fled, skittering off while trying to remain hidden. I managed to Observe one of those hidden beasts, learning that it was a level six fox, making me unwilling to even try hunting that thing down. Just now worth it.

I could vaguely see the light in the distance, glinting through some distant trees, so I wasn’t worried about getting lost, just about the terrain between the light and us.

When we were maybe twenty minutes away from the farm, a gust of wind hit me straight in the face. There was a weird scent carried by the wind and an itching sensation tickled my nostrils. Worryingly, Silva didn’t even react, meaning that what I perceived as scent here, was actually magic.

Sniffing the air, even briefly tasting it, allowed me to realise what it was that had alerted me. Death, but neither the fresh, somewhat wet, scent of a bloody death in battle, nor the sickly sweet scent of rot and decay that came with the decay of bodies. No, what I was smelling was a deeper, grave-like scent of dust and endless silence. To me, it was harsh and foreboding, given that I had only smelled something similar in two places. One was the Barrow Den, the place where the Grandmother buried the bones and souls of her enemies, the other had in the Dorrian Mountains, where endless wars had created a Wild Magic zone that spawned countless Undead. And now, I was smelling it here, though this was far weaker, thinner, even with my diminished senses.

Regardless, I was relatively certain that somewhere ahead, the dead weren’t quietly resting in their graves.