The discovery that Sigmir was still under the influence of some kind of curse or disease made me feel helpless, which in turn made me angry. I hate those feelings.

With time, the night went and a new day came and Sigmir woke back up. At first, she stiffened but then relaxed into my arms. It was a new but very welcome feeling, waking up with someone. “Say, Sigmir, do you know the location of an astral nexus or any groups of shamans?” I asked the blushing Sigmir. “I have heard stories of a village far in the north, a village of wonder and magic, filled with shamans and protected by the spirits.” Suddenly, I heard a loud yell, causing me to quickly move out of the cave to witness a large humanoid stumbling around in the mist, yelling around. Next to me, Sigmir stiffened and whispered “That's one of the hunters of my tribe. We need to get going.” I refreshed the mist, focusing on the disorientation-aspect. Sigmir was affected a bit and focused on me. Suddenly, there was a blue box before me.

Sigmir has invited you to form a group. Accept? Yes No

I mentally accepted and Sigmir was looking better while we watched to hunter try to find his way in the confusing mist.

Soon, the hunter was looking drunk, as if he had been on a three-day bender and I switched to a concealed chilling mist, cooling him down until he fell asleep. “Silent” I whispered to Sigmir who then moved out and, with a swift cut of her axe, the hunter lost his head.

Jonari Hunter died You gain 1500 EXP. For killing an opponent 21 levels above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP

The hunter gave a nice chunk of EXP. Then it was time to hustle, I packed everything I had in the cave and we started swiftly towards north, soon I heard a horn behind us. Sigmir scowled and said “They found him. The hunt is on.” At the same time, I got a message:

You lost a shelter. You lost your shelter in the Northern Wilderness. As it was your current respawn-point, you will now spawn at a random, common respawn-point in the area.

From time to time, I used Hail – Mist – Concealment to cause a drizzling snow to destroy our tracks. Still, from time to time, we still heard the horns behind us, harrying us on. My stamina kept dropping but I kept going, Sigmir looked like she could run on forever. The pine-needles kept pricking me and suddenly Sigmir gripped my shoulder and threw me aside. Then, an axe struck into a tree, right next to the place my head had just been. I jumped back up and saw a hunter, further back, in the shrubbery, scowling and pulling back the hand that had just thrown an axe at me. A small part of me wanted to turn and fight but the rational side told me, it would be suicide. So we ran on, moving at a clip that didn't take more stamina than I could handle. From time to time, we ran into some kind of critter but mostly we simply smashed them aside, either with my Frozen Shuttle or with the monstrous weapon Sigmir was lugging around.

I had to push myself, struggling with the exertion of our run, feeling like a marathon-runner, when suddenly I got an new skill.

Skill gained You gained the Skill: Athletics The Athletics skill trains and conditions one for running and swimming. Skilled athletes move short and long distances over land with speed and efficiency, and they also swim swiftly underwater.

I felt my gait smooth out, using less power to achieve the same speed, thus saving stamina.

In the afternoon, the horns were all around us. “We need to lose them.” grunted Sigmir, by now, the heavier load she was carrying had taken a toll. “I've got an idea, give me a second!” Well, now or never. Not sure if it would work, but I had an idea. I formed runes, not to channel but to instantly release them, trying to summon a hailstorm. Hail – Mist – Hail – Mist – Hail – Mist – Disorientation gave me a Rune-Heptagon and then it gave off a bright, silver light, shining into the sky. There had been clouds all day but suddenly the clouds turned grey and a heavy mist settled around us. Then came the hail, making it miserable to be outside but better miserable than dead, I guess. I ignored the skill-gain messages, we had to move on on.

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

It became harder and harder to find our way but Sigmir was certain that she knew that we were moving in the right direction. Then, the dim twilight of the arctic winter turned into the deep black of night. The clouds hid the moon and stars but we could move on thanks to my low-light vision. Still, the darkness was all-encompassing.

We found refuge in a tree and regained our stamina, knowing that it would only be a short rest. I had made some jerky so we snacked on that and Sigmir caught a little shut-eye, still exhausted from her flight the days before. Remembering that whatever their shaman had done to her, was still attacking her, I went into the channelled healing again and reinforced the sealing of the malediction. All too soon, we had to move again so I woke her back up and we climbed down. It was time to go again, so further north, we ran through the night.

By now, my mind was churning, trying to find way to escape but coming up short. The horns sounded more scattered now but that mainly meant that the hunters had spread out and one catching us might bring them all down on us.

Suddenly, the clouds ripped apart and high in the sky, we could see the shining gibbous moon, illuminating bright bands of colour as the northern lights were framing it. I almost stumbled due to the sheer magic of it all. The vision of natural wonder reached deeply into my soul and touched me in ways I had never imagined. Deep within me, I knew, the green burning skies under the silver moon would stay with me until my final hour. Both, Sigmir and I stopped and simply watched the beauty, not saying a single word, just holding each others hand and taking in the wonder.

But time waits for no one so we had to move on and we did so with a spring in our steps. Compared to the celestial beauty, our earthly troubles looked so small and insignificant. We kept moving until dawn was upon us when suddenly another axe struck next into a tree next to me and a hunter moved out of the shrubbery before us. “Quick, we need to keep moving!” with that I started to control my Frozen Shuttle to start attacking him. The hunter was well trained and managed to keep both my shuttle and Sigmirs weapon at bay so he was losing but slowly, far too slowly. Then I heard a noise behind me and dove to the side, just in time to dodge a flying axe, aimed to take me between the shoulders. I switched into bullet time to give me more time and realized that I was able to take more than a single object with my Ice Magic, now that the skill had grown. I ripped an icicle from a tree behind our first attacker and managed to drive it deep into his chest from behind. Then there was the blast of an horn behind us, a long drawn note, followed by two short notes.

Our hunters now knew the position of their prey. I withdrew my shuttle to contend with the new foe and switched positions with Sigmir, getting closer to the knocked down foe. Observing him told me that he was wounded and bleeding but would likely not die from his wounds. With a cruel smirk, I let my shuttle down, trusting Sigmir to keep the new attacker occupied and used Ice Magic to engrave a rune-triangle made out of shatter-runes into the icicle within the hunter who was just getting up. Then, feeling the rule of cool, or maybe cruel, I turned and while turning channelled Astral Power into the runes. The wet splattering sounds told me that it had worked well enough. Then I used my shuttle and some handy icicles to assist Sigmir in finishing off our second foe.

Jonari Hunter died You gain 1500 EXP. For killing an opponent 17 levels above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP Jonari Hunter died You gain 1500 EXP. For killing an opponent 16 levels above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP

Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Magic [39/100]

After taking care of Sigmirs wounds with quite a bit of my remaining Astral Power we were off again, hurrying through the snow hoping for a miracle to slip out of the grasp of our enemies.