If I ever wanted to know what it felt like to be inside the body of a bell when it was rung, I felt like I had an adequate approximation. Even if Lenore had managed to pull our mind back a little, whatever item the Centaurs had used had resonated through the magic I had used to attack them, shaking me up.

“Are you alright?” Sigmir asked, as she jogged away from the sallying Centaurs.

“I think so. They used… something to break my magic.” I answered, trying to get my bearings. “Where’s Lenore?” I asked, realising that when the Avatar-state had been broken, she had been thrown from my body.

“I’ve got her, Master.” Rai assured me and when I focused, I could feel her mind but she seemed to have taken most of the backlash.

“Think you could cover our tracks? The forest will slow the Centaurs down, but I’m not sure if it’ll be enough. They seem to be righteously ticked off.” Adra asked, catching up to us.

Reaching out with my magic was not a fun experience, it wasn’t truly painful but it felt like I was trying to grasp grains of sand while wearing thick oven-mitts, trying to take a precise amount of sand, relying on my sense of touch. It was slow-going and frustrating but luckily, it was a task that I had done dozens of time.

For a time, I solely focused on that task, trying to make sure that the silly ponies wouldn’t easily manage to get to us or identify us. To that effect, I changed our tracks, from time to time creating false trails. At one point during my labor, I felt Lenore return to her Hallow and she wordlessly started to help me. It wasn’t until about an hour later that the others started to slow down while Lenore and I started to mentally discuss what had happened.

“What do you think that crystal was, now that you had a while to think about it?” Lenore asked, causing me to frown. I wasn’t sure how it had been done, but the closest I could compare it to was a quake, a vibration, transmitted through the Astral Power we had used to conjure up our storm.

“Some sort of resonance?” I replied, more questioningly than actually convinced. “At a guess, I’d think that it was some sort of prepared anti-magic item, maybe to crack wards or similar strong, anchored spells.” I continued, trying to picture how such an item might work. Sadly, I was drawing a blank, my own abilities to counter magic working completely different from what we had been subjected to.

“But wouldn’t that affect every spell in the area, at least if there’s enough power behind it? What was left of their wards would have been shattered as well, right?” Lenore continued my train of thought.

“They most likely thought that it wouldn’t matter. Their wards weren’t designed to deal with cold and wind, not a surprise if you ask me. The wards would have had to stop a lot of natural weather during the winter, I don’t even want to think about what would be necessary for something like that.” I picked up where she stopped, bringing up a slight tangent. We had seen such wards, even if they had been highly specialised and, back then, we had lacked the understanding what we were looking at, but the dryads of Tegi had used something like that, a magical field to keep their grove in a permanent state of warm, moist spring.

“And if their wavering wards would be unable to stand up to our attack anyway, what’s the point in keeping them active? Sure, they would have wards to keep others from scrying on the graveyard we would have turned their camp into, but what would be the point?” Lenore finished the idea.

“Mhm, indeed. Still, that doesn’t give us a better idea what they did to us.” I grumbled, not happy with being taken out so thoroughly, even if they had to destroy their own defenses in the process.

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“I doubt that they would have done that, if not as a measure of last resort. And it drives something else home, we should focus on what we do best, slow, insidious attacks, letting our power seep into the target, before we devastate them with a single blow. That’s what worked best for large-scale attacks, maybe you should look into ways to use it on a personal level.” Lenore suggested, making me smirk. But she was right, even before we met, when I had destroyed the Snowbolds, slow, steady and sneaky had been the method of success, not trying to chuck the biggest bang I could produce their way.

“Maybe you are right, but I doubt I’ll give up on ways to kill enemies fast. In combat, I doubt I’ll regularly have the time to slowly invade an enemy before killing them, but if we have the time, I agree, a slow and sneaky approach will be better. I think we should try to look into curses, they might be well worth our time.” I agreed, thinking about the various runes I had gained an insight into. Some of them might allow me to get both, a slow, insidious invasion that traded damage for disorientation but would ultimately allow me to shut down their senses. At that point, the fight would be over. It would take a combination of Darkness- and Mind-Magic, but other than that, I should be able to come up with something worthwhile.

“I think we’ve lost them.” Sigmir’s voice pulled me from my thoughts and I opened my eyes, looking up at Sigmir’s slightly sweaty face.

“That’s good to hear. Thank you, love, I doubt I could have run away on my own.” I admitted, pulling one of her hands to my lips and pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles.

“So, what happened back there? I just felt a… ripple?” Adra asked, as Sigmir was gently setting me down, so I could walk on my own.

“They had some sort of artifact, I think they prepared it to take down large wards or something similar. It also worked against my magic and managed to ring my bell.” I admitted, grinning wryly.

“That explains this.” Adra admitted, showing me my staff. I had to suppress a groan of dismay, my beautiful, almost new staff looked like it was about to shatter into a million pieces, cracks running through it and making me wonder just how it was still mostly in one piece. Reaching out, I gently took it from Adra, simply feeling the ice, without using my magic at all. I was a little apprehensive, my magic feeling a little shaken which was obviously not the best state to work on a delicate and damaged piece of equipment.

“Don’t worry about it, we made it and we will remake it.” Lenore mentally consoled me and, while I knew that she was right, it was depressing to see my staff that damaged.

For a while, we continued to walk in silence, either carefully keeping an eye out for possible trouble or brooding on the events. One thing that I had noticed was that my attack seemed to have managed quite a bit of impact before it had been shattered, I had gained some EXP, sadly not enough to raise my level but it was a good start. What I considered the true benefit of the attack were the skill-level I had received. Not that there were many of them, only two, but they were well worth it. One was in Astral Meditation, bringing it to fifty-one, which was decidedly nice.

The other was in Ice-Rune Mastery, bringing it to another milestone, seventy, and making me realise that I was inching closer to that magical state of maxing the score on that one. While it would take me a while, the progress had slowed to an absolute crawl for the last couple of points, I wondered just what would happen if I got there.

But that was a goal for a different day, the immediate benefit was that I would be able to delve into the Astral River, looking for understanding on another rune. That had the potential to be a major breakthrough, depending on what I gleaned understanding into. If it was Eternal Ice, my prowess would sky-rocket, not only thanks to the stronger material, but because it would allow me to carefully study it and experiment with it, without using up my very limited supply.

Part of me wanted to find a spot to delve into the Astral River right away, but another was cautious, reminding me of the magical concussion I was suffering. I also considered that it might be a good idea to wait a few extra days, simply to gain the bonus of a full moon. I wasn’t sure if there was such a thing, but my Ice Magic was boosted during the full moon, so it seemed plausible that I might gain additional understanding during that period. My class had some connection with the moon, using the Astral River as a medium and waiting for a couple of days was no great sacrifice.