Looking up at the stars, I had to chuckle to myself. Preparing and eating dinner on a small stretch of sand in a bend of the river had given me some time to actually think and make me realise just how ridiculous the idea was. Visions of me, dressed in tight, black clothes and masked with a balaclava, trying to sneak into the headquarters of Pantheon Entertainment in an attempt to hack their servers to allow me to stay with Sigmir, or maybe liberate her from their servers, bringing her into some sort of outside device, were just too ridiculous to even consider. There was no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be allowed a capsule in prison and just the thought of being forced to wear orange made me recoil in terror. No, my path to staying with Sigmir had to be legitimate, something I accomplished within the rules of Road to Purgatory, maybe as a reward for exemplary achievement during the beta. Pantheon had hinted at rewards for especially successful testers, people who distinguished themselves by playing the game but also by carefully testing what they were doing.

That testing part might be my road to success, by testing things nobody else could or would test, by delving into the deeper, more advanced, parts of magic, by gaining enough power to experiment with magic beyond what others could. If there were ways to break the system, they might be found there and Pantheon would have to decide which parts of breaking the world they wanted to remain within the system and which had to be removed. The old question, what was a bug and what a feature.

Slowly, those thoughts started drifting from my mind, as I lost myself in the vision of the sky above. The glimmering stars high above, in a see of endless darkness, those few, frozen lights in the sky, they captured my imagination. Just what was out there, hidden in the dark? How vast was this world and what could be found, if one was brave enough to venture into the unknown? I wanted to know, wanted to find out. To go boldly where no man had dared to tread before, as the saying went. It didn’t quite apply here, but the sentiment was the same.

“It’s been years and hundreds of miles, yet, they are the same.” I heard Sigmir mutter next to me, causing me to return to the present.

“Compared to the endless Void out there, with its tiny shards of light, Mundus is nothing but a speck of dust, slowly flowing through the eons of time.” I mused, reaching out to take her hand.

“But does that make you feel insignificant or inspired? That is a question you need to answer for yourself. When I look up there, I see the endless things that I have yet to see, have yet to discover and I feel elated. That there will never be a day when there is nothing more to find, a time when there is nowhere new to go. That I will always be able to look above me and strive to know more than I knew the day before.” I continued, squeezing her hand for a moment.

“Or will you be discouraged, knowing that you will never reach the end of your journey, that everything we do, everything we are, is confined to a tiny speck of dust?” I asked, hoping that she would feel the same as I did, motivated to know the unknown, not fearful of it.

“Will you be by my side?” she asked after a moment, gripping my hand tightly, not letting go. For a moment, I wanted to be truthful, telling her that I couldn’t promise her that, that I would be with her as long as I could but couldn’t guarantee. But I simply couldn’t.

“Always.” I promised, knowing that I might be unable to keep my promise. But here, on the small beach, with the stars above, it simply didn’t matter.

“Thank you.” she muttered back and for a few minutes, neither of us talked until she began again.

“My father and I often looked up at the stars.” she told me, the longing from earlier back in her voice, as she was lost in memories.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“He taught me which stars could guide, show you the way home.” she continued on, letting memories of her father flow out, along some of the grief she had carried with her, since his passing.

Reaching over, I simply pulled her a little closer, letting her use my arm as a pillow for once while I listened. Now, it was my time to be strong for her, to support her, if only by listening to her, tell me a tale how her father had taken her out of the village one night, teaching her about the stars.

After a while, Sigmir’s voice started to become slurred, a little indistinct, until her words turned to soft snores. Looking down onto her peaceful face, I felt my lips curl into a smile, simply because she looked so cute. The fact that she had fallen asleep again made me wonder if she had stayed awake while I had slept on her or if her circadian rhythm was simply stronger than mine, after all, I was wide awake, thanks to sleeping most of the day. This time, it was my turn to be the pillow and assure that my loved one could rest in relative comfort. There were worse fates out there, than to serve as a pillow.

Confined in that manner, there was little to do but let my mind return to its wandering, with the sky above as my backdrop. Slowly, ever so slowly, my mind unfocused, my eyes looking up into the sky but no longer seeing it. Instead, I started to feel the Astral River all around me, vast streams of power, intertwined with, yet apart, from reality.

As I lay there, I started to feel small disturbances in the Astral River, eddies where it was a little closer to reality, flowing into beings on the physical plane. Given that one of the eddies was right around me and, when looking closely, mirrored my own absorption of Astral Power, and another was around Sigmir, I could make an easy guess what caused those ripples.

When looking further, to map the physical and the Astral together, things became difficult, the streams of power too blinding to allow me to see the minute disturbances caused by the physical.

My connection to Lenore allowed me to feel her approach, long before my limited sight within the Astral allowed me to perceive her, which happened only once she landed near my head. With her so close, I could feel her presence and effect on the Astral, a minute dip in density, for lack of a better word, where she absorbed parts of the Astral into herself. Looking closely, I thought I was able to sort out what she absorbed from her surroundings, something that might give me a hint to her affinities. It wasn’t something I would learn about Lenore, I knew her affinities quite well after all, but if I was able to use her as an example, I might be able to do the same to others.

Sadly, I was a little disappointed when I realised that I was barely able to perceive the disturbance, trying to map the different parts of the disturbance to specific affinities was beyond me, at least for now. And, as I was lying there, I also realised that it was simply taking too long to be of any use in a clandestine manner. Staring past someone for twenty minutes was not a good way to gather information on them, not if you wanted them to remain oblivious to you. It might be useful to help someone learn their affinities, before they ever started to learn magic, maybe in a school-setting or something like that, but for now, it was a pointless exercise.

“And, what did you learn?” Lenore asked me, having picked up on my concentration and curiosity.

“That more study and experimentation is required.” I drily replied, the intense observation having manifested as a small headache, a stinging behind my eyes.

“Did you expect anything else?” she asked, amused at the frustration I felt.

“No, not really.” I admitted. At the end of the day, I didn’t really focus on studying the Astral so hoping that I would learn all its secrets with a simple look, that would make those secrets rather mundane. No, if I wanted to learn more about the Astral and how to extract information from it, I would have to put a lot more effort into studying it.

Which was an interesting topic but there were so many interesting topics, so much to learn, so much to find out. And just so little time.

“Why don’t we focus on my Ice-Magic for a bit? I think there are some interesting applications when combining mist and wind.” Lenore suggested, hopping closer to sit next to my head.

“As long as we keep it small, sure.” I agreed, watching her create a tiny bit of mist, before starting to manipulate the volume of air it occupied. Helping Lenore with her magic often helped me with my own, the student learning from the teacher and the teacher from the student and all that. So, for now, I was watching the swirling cold with a smile on my face.