Finding the camp the other had made was easy enough, their living presence, the subtle movement and flickering of their fire sticking out in the dead environment like a sore thumb. When we returned, Adra instantly noticed that something had changed with Rai, that his shadow was a little less pronounced and that a small part of himself was always within the boundary of Twilight. I had asked about it, and it seemed that he could now find shadow, even under the light of the Sun, that there was always Darkness within the light. While his explanation made a bit of sense and I was able to follow his words, the implications inherent to it went against my own understanding. They were, fundamentally, grounded in a cyclical view of the world, the understanding that there was always a part of the counter-force within the original force, that Life and Death were but two sides of a coin.

I could accept that he was thinking that way and I wasn’t too disappointed that he was wrong, but it also meant I wouldn’t be able to easily copy what he was doing, simply because he saw the world in a different manner.

Adra’s concern brought with it Olivia’s interest and, in turn, made me realise that the changes caused by crossing the second Divide might be the equivalent of a Mind Magic effect. That realisation made me look closely, not trying to actually use my Mind Magic, which was inherently destructive thanks to the effects of the Dark Moon, but simply trying to observe.

At first, there was little to see, or rather, understand. Any mental architecture, the interplay between the physical, the emergent and the spiritual was beyond complex, brain, mind and soul working in concert to create the being I knew as Rai. Thanks to Lenore, being right there and mirroring her own mind to mind, not quite slipping into the avatar-state and physically merging but riding right on the cusp, I could see the vague, nebulous construct of his soul, interwoven between his body and mind.

Given that I had never even tried to deeply scan his, or any, mind, never got a feel for how it should look, spotting differences was next to impossible. There was nothing that stood out as wrong, only an organised web, vibrating with emotion, almost like the string of a violin.

When Adra and Olivia began to question him, getting into the details of his experience, that calmness changed, the web beginning to vibrate with emotion and thought. Half-listening to their questions and his responses, I began to quietly parse what I was seeing, trying to filter what I thought were his true emotions and a possible interference by the wraiths trapped within that chasm. I didn’t think I would be able, or should even try, to remove such influence, given that it was all tied up in the crossing of the second Divide but I wanted to know about the influences on him, and wanted him to know. It was one thing to be under the influence of a mind-altering effect and not knowing about it, a whole other thing to know about the effect, accept that it was there and be able to muster your will to deny it, if necessary. Or know about it, accept it, even revel in it, if you considered the effect pleasing.

In this case, my lack of experience was hindering me but as I was watching, I could see a slight interference in the vibrations of his emotions, in the music of his soul. That interference dampened things, if only a little, taking away the sharper tones, the jarring, desperate sounds of terror, smoothing them out and leaving only reasonable fear in its wake. Instead of quivering in terror at the experience, he was able to speak with reason and respectful caution of it. Unless I completely missed the mark, always a possibility, crossing the second divide had given him either a large increase in his courage-attribute or it had simply made him resistant to fear.

A small part of me wanted to push things, to see if I would be able to magically induce fear into him, but that would shift me from careful, passive observation to an active use of Mind Magic, bringing with it the madness and solitude of the Dark Moon. He might be resistant to that, too, but I wasn’t about to attack his mind to find out.

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Watching his mind and soul vibrate with his emotions, as he answered the questions, also gave me an interesting insight into his state in regards to those answers. For example, just from the sheer amplitude of emotions vibrating through his being as he told of the remnants bound in the grave, especially those that had been buried alive, it was obvious that he considered their fate worse than just dying. Given that it was part of his new class, and his previous combat-style, I was reasonably certain that he would lean even further into the deadly side of things, giving up on wounding or disabling for that single, absolutely lethal strike. A bringer of mercy, even if only it was only a clean and swift death.

Prompted by Adra’s questions, he even resigned to showing off his new skills. A wide smile sprung to my face, even as my careful scanning of his mind ended, interrupted by the sudden surge of action.

The first thing he demonstrated was something I had already seen, the ability to teleport, even under the light of the sun. It was very much like his previous shadow-step, only that I was reasonably certain it suffered from increased cost and cooldown. Watching with Lenore in close, mental contact, I also noticed that there was a surge of power, transmitted through the faint boundary of twilight, that I might be able to interrupt, if I acted on reflex. It wasn’t instant, only near-instant, the near being the crucial modifier. If one managed to interrupt him, I wasn’t sure what would happen but doubted it would be good.

The next thing he showed was an evolution of his ability to clad his weapon in magic-consuming Darkness, something I had taught him recently. The devouring aspect had been retained, but by his description, it also gained the ability to devour life, making it a thoroughly nasty enchantment. If he somehow managed to turn it into a curse, it would be very much akin to the ability of the Skeleton-Lord that I had been researching.

His third major ability was something he called Wraith-Form. It allowed him to turn incorporeal, not only shifting into the shadows but truly incorporeal, avoiding the vast majority of attacks, slipping through solid matter, all that good stuff. He even demonstrated how he could slip through the earth, though he was admonished to be very careful with that, as fading into corporality while buried would be very unhealthy.

The last, but certainly not least ability, was one that was almost unchanged from its previous incarnation, the ability to create short-duration shadow-clones, still indistinct and hazy, especially under the light of the sun, but that was less of a problem now, given that he, too, could turn into his indistinct and hazy wraith-form. In that way, he looked just like his clones and it became nigh impossible, even for me, to distinguish them, unless I used a boat-load of Astral Power to blanket the area, essentially overwhelming his ability to adapt.

When he used them all in sequence, blurring into Wraith-Form, creating a bunch of clones to distract before switching position with one of the clones to attack from a blind-spot, I had to applaud, for the combination was thoroughly lethal. The way he was now, I had my doubts I would be able to fight him, even with Lenore on my side. He was simply too slippery to avoid, difficult to detect and the ominous glow of his enchanted blades made their lethality obvious to me. In terms of simply killing a single target, especially one that wasn’t heavily armoured, he was now the best in our group.

It was a little amusing to watch Adra, who seemed just a little miffed at the development. Or maybe envious, would be a better word. She had been stronger than him, we all had been, but time and sharing risks at our side had allowed him to truly catch up and overtake her. From her demeanour, I could see that she would be looking for a way to cross the second Divide, though I wasn’t quite sure how she could do so. The divides were dependent on perseverance, accumulated experience and a healthy dollop of luck.

Hopefully, she, too, would find her way, but I wasn’t all too optimistic, finding a source of living energy, one that could be harvested without drawing the ire of the Divine, would be challenging. Time would tell, and a small part of me relished the idea of challenging the Divine on their home-turf, even if rationality reminded me of the last time I had looked too deeply into their affairs.

For now, we had skeletons to crush and miles to travel.