We spent the rest of the day hiking down the mountains, looking for more Wind Raptors but finding none. During the complete hike, I noticed that only the Wind Raptors were absent, there were still other beasties around. We managed to hunt down two mountain goats and a large Mountain Tiger that was trying to either turn us into lunch or take our kills from us. Luckily, Lenore was still a little unused to the new coldness in her Hallow and had taken to flying around a lot more, keeping herself warmer. The result was that she saw the tiger early and warned us, allowing us to be ready as it sneaked up on us while Sigmir was teaching me to skin a cat, using a goat.

The warning made the fight almost trivial, we all made as if we had no idea that the tiger was there and as it leapt, Adra had been ready to strike, letting the tiger impale itself on her spear. The fact that she only made a single, clean hole into the pelt meant that Sigmir let Rai and me work on the goat, making us show what we had learned while she worked with Adra on the tiger. It was quite the specimen, not that I had a lot to compare it to, but it was imposing to say the least. Longer than I was tall and easily twice my weight, with teeth and claws that reminded me that here on Mundus, the civilised races were not at the top of the food chain. When I mentioned it to Rai, he told me of stories about even larger cats, some of them twice or even three times that things size. Part of me wondered if he was pranking me but he believed his tale, of that the rational part of me was certain.

In the afternoon, we got back to the cave we had originally planned to spent time in, before taking shelter in the dungeon. Sigmir and Adra made sure that the various pelts we had skinned off were in good condition while Rai went to gather more firewood, taking Ylva along for protection. Normally, it would be my job to go with him, but Lenore had decided that we would have to do something about the coldness in her Hallow.

So, I sat with my back to the rocks, feeling the shadows around me. We had discussed what we could try during our hike and the only idea we both felt had a chance to succeed was to shroud her Hallow in Shadows. She was partially a Spirit of Darkness, even if the elements of Death and Wind were far stronger in her, but Darkness was part of her. So, Darkness was what we wanted to use. My mind was long able to accomplish two tasks at the same time and to join with Lenore allowed us to go even further. She brought her own mental processes and we joined them two by two, allowing us to share thoughts on a deep level. If either of us wanted to root through the others mind, there would be no stopping, in a way it was a huge show of trust. But it felt right, we had been together for months now, our minds joined closely whenever she was in her Hallow and our shared fascination with magic had brought us into harmony.

To Lenore, Magic was part of her, an essential aspect of her existence and she was not content with her instinctive ability with it, even joining my forays into the Astral River, trying to learn Rune Magic. She had not managed yet and over the last days, she had decided that she wanted to try something else, to first learn Darkness Rune-Magic and maybe manage to apply that knowledge to Air Runes and Death Runes. We had been unable to make great strides in that regard, her mind worked in different ways compared to mine and Rai’s so it was slow going, the one-eyed leading the blind.

To me, Magic was the greatest and most fascinating part of Road to Purgatory. Only my feelings for Sigmir eclipsed the joy I felt when using Magic and those were an entirely different thing. Both made me feel complete, but my feelings for Sigmir were a different flavour, we both enjoyed learning about the other and walking our path together, a path that was meant for both of us. My path of Magic was a path only for me, Lenore walked on her own path, parallel to mine, but that path of Magic made me feel purpose for the first time in my life. It was a fascinating feeling.

Our plan was to form our split minds into two distinct wholes, both made out of half of each of us, one looking from the outside at the connection between my body and the Hallow, the other from the inside, trying to understand how the Hallow was anchored to it. And that was where we ran into the first snag, my mind was unable to enter the Hallow, even joined with Lenore. We both knew that it had to be possible, I had done so once before, but that had been an unconscious action during a dream, possibly helped along by parts of Hugin that were still contained in her Bloodline. It was one of those things that I simply accepted as ‘Magic’ and moved on, not even trying to understand it at this point. So, I needed to mentally enter the Hallow, which proved difficult. At first, we were unable to even find the Hallow, there was a physical mark on my body, but getting from my marked eye to the magical dimension, or whatever one wanted to call it, that sheltered Lenore’s body. That was the first hurdle. I tried to watch Lenore enter the Hallow but it proved pointless and even she was unable to explain how she entered the Hallow, she just did.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

So, we came up with another plan, using the fact that as part of our bond, Lenore was letting most of her own Astral Power regeneration flow into me and she was able to push more Astral Power into me, like she had done during the fight with the dungeon boss. Once, I had managed to take her Astral Power unwittingly ripping it away from her and using it but it was something I had apologised for, when I had experienced the bleedthrough of her feelings. She had felt utterly violated by that action, Magic being an intricate part of her, taking it was one of the biggest violations to her.

Now, we used that mechanism of Power-sharing to create distinct flows of Power that we witnessed from both sides, and with some effort, we managed to follow the flows of Astral Power to the joining point, the point where the Hallow was magically connected to my own magic system. Once we had found it, we both wondered how we had ever missed it, it was akin to a glowing whirlpool and when Lenore entered, she entered the whirlpool, dissolving into pure power while travelling into the Hallow.

Consciously entering myself was rather strange, the best metaphor I am able to come up with, was that I was riding on Lenore’s back, letting her carry me inside. During the process, I noticed that I would only ever be able to send half my mind inside here, if we wanted more, I would have to establish my own Hallow inside Lenore’s body and she would have to carry both of us. If that was even possible. But the idea was fascinating to both of us, as it flashed into my mind.

Now, partially inside the Hallow, we watched the interplay between my own magic, the Astral River that was somehow connected to the Hallow and Lenore herself. Again, my mind used metaphors to make sense of what I was seeing and interpret it. Obviously, the problem had to stem from the fact that my magic was permanently containing traces of Ice-Magic, so, we looked at the flow that came from me, studying it in detail. Finding the Ice-Magic proved rather easy, it stood out like a beacon, glowing with power. Dealing with it, was a little harder, after an indefinite amount of time that we pulled, prodded and pushed at the magic, we came up with the idea to inscribe runes of Shadow into the whirlpool that connected the Hallow to my body. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but I argued that it was part of my mind, so if I believed that it would work, it should work in the confines of it.

Maybe that belief was the key to success, somehow, I was able to hover above the whirlpool and inscribe runes of Magic and Shadow into the swirling power, filtering out everything else. When I did so, the Hallow turned even darker, an inky blackness swirling around but Lenore was quite happy with it, feeling right at home. At the same time, the temperature went back to normal, at least in her perception and I only had to keep one of my mental processes floating above the whirlpool, holding the runes in place. I obliged, having a feeling that it would probably be only a matter of time until the runes became natural part of my mental landscape and thus my second mental process would be free to move along. And even while holding the runes in place, I was able to ponder other questions, not needing my full focus on the runes.

A downside we noticed was that the filter reduced the amount of Astral Power Lenore was able to pass over to me, reducing the Astral Power regeneration quite a bit, so we agreed that the filter would only be in place outside of combat, something easily agreed by both of us. In combat, I would need my mind fully on fighting, not holding something in place.

Finally, I emerged from my meditation, feeling the shadows gently swirl around me. I idly noticed that I had gained another level in Astral Meditation, bringing it to fifty. Night had fully come and I made my way over to the cave, stepping softly to avoid waking anyone up. Sigmir was the one on watch-duty, so I simply sat on her lap, not talking, just enjoying her closeness and the scent that was just her. I might have dozed off, sitting there, the work I had done with Lenore had been mentally exhausting.

The next morning, I awoke in our sleeping furs, still cuddling with Sigmir.