The next morning, they woke up late. The previous day had been strenuous for the group. Kiresula and Mayana felt sore after the miserable night, during which they slept shallowly, often being shocked awake by a sudden noise or woke up from the cold.

Kju yawned: "Ugh! I am not sure how people can sleep here!"

Mayana responded: "Yeah! I guess practice!"

Kju grimaced: "I thought that the Rainbow House was bad to sleep in. Yeah, no!"

Kiresula nodded: "I slept like a baby, just like, before sleep training."

Mayana giggled: "As long as you didn't go potty while sleeping, I am happy."

Kju looked at them: "I am just happy that you didn't, you know, do something naughty together."

Mayana raised an eyebrow. "As if we had the energy for that. Even if we wanted to disturb everyone."

"Don't worry, we keep our libidos in check around you," Kiresula assured him.

Zaiké woke up a while later, metaphorically speaking, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Looking at him made it seem that he slept on the softest mattress with a blanket of just the correct warmth and weight. He looked at the group: “Kju ve Kiresula ve Mayana ve Zaiké shen-ovik ve shen-izah.” He mimed the entire situation: shen was accompanied by pointing around at the group, ovik was accompanied by him moving his right hand toward his mouth and pretend-chewing, then again, the same pointing around that he did before, and afterwards, walking in place.

Kiresula nodded and responded slowly: “Shen-izah,” (we go) she walked in place at almost a running speed, “tah.” (don’t) She took a moment to collect her thoughts, then continued: “Shen-izah,” (we go) now she walked in place slowly. “[Enhance Ability] Tah.” ([Enhance Ability] doesn’t)

He looked confused. “Enhanz Avileyti Kiresula rha.” (Enhance ability is in Kiresula) He tapped onto her forehead.

Kiresula nodded: “Heve-...” (yes) She tried to think about what to say as they walked towards the mess hall, but came up empty, so she made a defeated gesture.

During a simple breakfast of gruel and springwater, Zaiké taught the group some words for the things around them: Bench, table, bowl, gruel, water, glass, spoon, pot, and so on. This allowed Kiresula to ask for the words for full (ijen) and empty (zineet). This allowed her to say: “[Enhance ability] tah. Kiresula zineet.” ([Enhance Ability] doesn’t. Kiresula empty)

Now Zaiké understood. “Kiresula meeki-ooma zoo?” (Is Kiresula filling?) for the verb, he filled the cup with an intense look at her.

“Heve-,” (yes) she responded. Then, she stammered as she once again realised that there was no way at all to express what she wanted to. She rather helplessly mimed slowly walking with her hands. It was a lie, and it bugged her horribly. Currently, her magic recovery was zero. It would actually work once she was within broken magic. She however had no way to express that fact with mostly kitchen vocabulary.

Mayana saw her expression and said: “Akem Tah. Kiresula meeki-ooma Tah. Shen-izah ve Kiresula meeki-ooma.” (Water doesn’t. Kiresula doesn’t fill up. We go and Kiresula fills up)

“Thanks!” Kiresula said while hugging Mayana.

Zaiké made a vague gesture, as if he was not quite understanding.

The other two also did so while looking embarrassed. Kiresula blushed as deeply as a glitchling can (which means that the colours on their skin turn more saturated).

Afterwards, they made the long and arduous journey to the broken magic. They walked slowly, paused frequently, petted many black cats and arrived at a completely unobtrusive area. While doing so, they learned many Island-and-Coast language words for things.

When they arrived, it first looked like another stop on the way. They were in a kind of small atrium with three exits, just with many rope bridges that the cats happily used. The ground was grassy, however stones of all sizes from pebbles to one man-high boulder littered the place. Zaiké said: “kha meejhilih.” (Here is the place.)

“Jhilih zoo?” (Here?) Kiresula asked, seeing nothing extraordinary.

“Heve-, jhilih!” (Yes, here!) Zaiké took a pebble and threw it into one exit, where it was repelled.

Kiresula walked towards it, trying to perceive any broken magic around there. She could not, but walked close to it and tried to touch it.

Zaiké screamed: “Niyil!” (No!) then realising that he never taught this word: “Tah!” (Don’t!)

It was too late. Kiresula felt a sharp pain. She managed to remove her hand, but looking at her fingertips, she could see that they were singed. They also hurt a lot. Checking her status, she also had lost 30 Seren of magic. Kiresula cussed. She told Kju and Mayana about this.

Mayana interrupted her description: “Wait, you cannot see the barrier?”

“You can see it?” asked Kiresula incredulously.

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The woman nodded: “Oh, right, this is regular magic, so of course you cannot.”

The glitchling let out a long sigh. Only then, she responded: “I guess this makes sense. This sucks!”

“Ugh! Can we break through this barrier?” Kju enquired.

“That’s for us to find out!” Mayana responded.

“Okay. Let’s think about this from the beginning: This can be a spell or an enchantment. And there are only a few classes of magic this can belong to… So only a few ways to handle that…” Kiresula thought out loud, “This can be interlaced, or spot-weakened or interference-cleared… Now, thinking about what we can do…”

Zaiké looked lost in the conversation, but the others could not translate what they were saying.

Kiresula murmured to herself while pacing to and fro. Sometimes Mayana offered a suggestion. Kju mostly listened, but occasionally offered suggestions mostly related to how Kiresula could accomplish something.

The shadows had wandered noticeably as Kiresula did her first experiment: She took two long, thin stones, about as long as her arm from hand to elbow. Kiresula moved these towards the invisible barrier and tried to move them through it. Mayana observed the flow of magic and, lacking a notebook, went to an adjacent room with a sandy floor and drew there how the barrier was disturbed. She then moved them apart and asked Mayana to describe the reaction.

Mayana wordlessly went to the previous room and started drawing.

Kiresula understood the isoserenic lines that Mayana drew to show the flow of magic, but sometimes had to ask about what increased where and how reactive a particular part of a squiggle was.

Kiresula started murmuring and pacing again. Occasionally stopping to chide herself for foolishness, daftness, utter stupidity, and mindlessness. Eventually, Kiresula stopped and handed a rock to Zaiké, made a movement towards the barrier and said: “Izah-il, Zaiké” (Go, Zaiké).

Zaiké made some tentative steps towards the barrier, while looking at her, holding the stone in both hands. She encouraged him with gestures until the stone hit it. Kiresula said: “Heve-!” (yes!) encouragingly, then she picked up stones to give to the others and moved them into positions around Zaiké. At last she took a stone and did s as well. Nothing happened. For several breaths of time, nothing happened. Eventually, Mayana, picking up on what Kiresula was trying to do and corrected their positions.

It took quite a bit when Mayana was satisfied, but when she was, she told everyone not to move and to wait to disturb the spell’s structure. Several breaths long, nothing happened.

Kiresula started started feeling doubt: Would this work? Would this be an embarrassment? Hacking a spellflow just by forcing it to enhance parts in order to weaken others sounded… quite preposterous to work. She hoped that the others would not make their disappointment too clear and especially that Mayana would not blame herself for this. She drew as well as the situation permitted, especially with the lack of tools.

In that moment, a jet of concentrated synthic magic emerged from the barrier, hit Zaiké and then created a plume. Mayana threw herself to the ground and crawled to a corner of the room, unsure how well her resistance would protect her from glitching.

Kju held Zaiké, his right hand was on Zaiké’s forehead. Zaiké and Kju were enveloped by a thick layer of synthic magic for a second before it settled into both of them with a blue glow. Then, Kju looked really pleased while Zaiké looked as if he just unexpectedly spaceshifted to glittering and glowing realm of the sun. His skin had turned from the colourful glitchling colours to more subdued hues that seemed to blend in with the background better. They still moved and shifted, but he looked less like a glitchling.

Kju asked: "Il-ivekah zoo?" (Are you well?)

Zaiké responded in fast and excited Island-and-Coast language.

As no one understood, he showed his stat sheet: It was green. Zaiké pointed to the stat sheet and pointed to it in confusion, fear, and anger. He said: “Ehanaishe mee-veikhan!” (My stats are green!)

Kiresula nodded: “Heve-.” She showed her own stat sheet. “Hanan. Kiresula mee-veikhan.” (Yes. As well. Kiresula is green.)

Zaiké touched her stat sheet in confusion. As soon as his hand touched the illusion, it translated into the squiggly writing of the Island and Coast people. He narrowed his eyes as he read it.

While he did so, Kiresula, feeling kinda vulnerable exposing her stats this openly, stepped forward and touched his sheet.

As soon as she stepped into the cloud of broken magic, her magic recovery started up. About a blink later, she saw the messages icon and selected it:

Class Achievement: Wanderer.

Walked more than ten Kauri through wild terrain. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class.

Class Achievement: Lighthouse.

Reached a magical attractor: Siyah kedi kalesi. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class. This experience is reduced as it lightly attracts glitchlings to it, due to metaphors that existed during the creation of the lighthouse.

Class Achievement: Contact.

Made contact with a community that was unknown to you. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class.

Class Achievement: Polyglot.

Learned a previously unknown language to some degree. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class.

Class Achievement: Reached Rank emergent, Level 5.

120 stat points assigned, 10 free stat points.

New spell: Northern Star, Grains of Time

She immediately had a feeling for these spells: Northern Star created a speck of light to the north of her for navigation. Grains of time gave an indication how long to the next dusk or dawn, but did so by creating the mental abstraction of an hourglass with 256 grains and telling how many had not fallen yet.

Kiresula shook her head for a moment, then touched Zaiké's stat sheet. She could just read that his class was "Defender of Holy Place", before Zaiké closed it. Kiresula did so as well. Zaiké said: "Kiresula ijen zoo?" (Is Kiresula full?)

"Heve-" (yes) she responded. She realised that her magic recovery actually stopped at about 290, but looking around, she realised that this was because there was no broken magic left.

"Shen-izah maiyooé zoo? Kansak khikh." (We go to the dormitory? Sun low.) He pointed at the sun and then the horizon to indicate that.

The others agreed.

This time, the journey was faster: Kju mentioned that he put his free points into Fortitude. And only then told the group that he was level 2 now. While it was not green yet, he hoped that would happen soon. Zaiké was level 1, but had full use of his Fortitude. It no longer was behind a blue veil. Kiresula hoped that they would meet the elder again. They had a lot to tell.