“How was the watch?” Jude asked upon waking. He rubbed his eyes, a small tear coming out. Not a moment later, he was kicked back, guitar in hand and strumming along.

“Three dead. A Witch appeared.”

He stared at Leland, the last chord played echoing into the early morning sunrise. “You okay?”

With a shrug, the Legacy of Curses pulled his shirt down a bit, showing off the Lord of Souls, or rather, his necklace. Where the item was previously empty, and thus just a normal-ish looking necklace, now the loop of jewelry glimmered with soul-green. Which wasn’t far off of emerald green, albeit darker and with streaks of black.

“Rebuilding the collection,” Leland morbidly said, his words pandering for Jude more than himself. Killing wasn’t something he wanted to do, but also, he wasn’t afraid to. It was a strange dynamic, but one he had grown accustomed to.

Hated killing, but understood it is sometimes necessary. Especially out in the wilds with no sort of jailhouse or justice system.

“You should have woken us.” Jude went back to playing, but his frown lingered.

“I woke Glenny. He rolled over and fell back asleep.”

With a grunt, Jude activated the Mirage Fox’s blessing, creating a duplicate of himself. Being a new Jude, Jude Two understood what the original wanted and expertly executed. Before sitting beside the original and fingering along on their flute, he kicked dirt on Glenny, waking him.

“What was that for!” Glenny yelped, unsure which Jude to glare at.

The answer was given to him: both.

As one, the mirage and original shouted, “How could you just leave Leland to kill three people? Next time, get up and help.”

“In Glenny’s defense, I said I’d handle it,” Leland quickly interjected.

“Still, help next time.”

“Okay dude, okay. I will,” Glenny muttered, rubbing his eyes. A tear welled. Then, with a yawn, he asked, “Who were they?”

“Poachers. Left over stragglers from the gang Isobel dismantled, I’d guess. Must have heard that Gelo’s in town and came to claim her pelt or something. One was a Witch.” Leland glanced at the cub in question, finding her peacefully sleeping despite the loud voices and music. “If you want to loot them, their corpses are about one hundred and sixty paces back that way.”

The Judes and Glenny followed his hiked-up thumb, tracing the trees further and further back.

“See anything worth the effort?” Jude asked.

“Nope.”

“Then I do not.”

“We can’t just leave them there,” Glenny said. “Is there someway you can send a letter to Frostford to claim them, Leland?”

He considered this, his eyes slowly trailing overhead where his promoted crow glided around in circles. Being a summoned ethereal creature, the bird hardly had to rest, which, when paired with the curse’s newest effect, meant theoretically, the crow could remain in this realm for a long, long time. Though, that created more questions for Leland. What happened when he fell asleep? Would it remain? How about distance? Could the crow take a letter back to Frostford from here?

Could he summon the creature when it got to Frostford then resummon it a moment later, thus, in essence, teleporting it the distance instantly? Well, he supposed, no time like the present.

With a flick of his wrist, a paper and pen appeared in hand. He quickly wrote a short letter detailing that a Witch's corpse was left approximately in this location. He creased it and called down his crow. It landed on his shoulder, its sharp talons like daggers to his skin.

“Take this to one of the guards on Frostford’s wall,” he said to the creature, unsure if verbal commands were better than mental ones. Maybe that was the case? It wouldn’t be the first time he had heard of something like that—

“Is this the leader crow?” Jude asked, and when Leland nodded, he continued, “What did you name it?”

“I haven’t.”

“Oh good, I love naming animals.” He pondered for a moment, even to Leland’s lack of enthusiasm.

“I’m not sure if I can summon the same crow after I dismiss this one—”

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“Then I’ll name that one later.” Jude hummed. “I think you’ll be named Klaus.”

“No.”

“Zeke?”

The crow cawed at that.

“Zeke it is!” Jude exclaimed. “See Leals? This is how you become one with nature. You can’t use them like tools.”

Leland gave a long, slow, dejected sigh. He made a point to seriously over exaggerate the motion, finally locking eyes with his bird. “Are you sure you want to be called Zeke? I can pick something different.”

It cawed, which Leland was able to discern as “it’s fine.”

“Zeke it is then. If I have to resummon you, will it still be you, Zeke?” Another caw, this time it was much more wishy-washy. The bird didn’t know. “Figured as much. We’ll see later then.”

And with that, Zeke took to the sky, a creased letter in talon.

“I like Zeke, he’s a good bird,” Jude Two said.

“How do you know it’s a ‘he?’” asked Glenny.

“Did you see the size of him? He’s almost twice as big as Leland’s head! Male birds are usually bigger than female ones.”

“So you don’t actually know?”

“Trust me, I’m good at animals.”

“Good… at animals. What does that mean exactly?”

Jude shrugged. “You figure it out, Dandruff. Don’t think I forgot you abandoned Leland in his time of need.”

“It was hardly a time of need,” Leland said, finding himself once again defending Glenny. “I don’t know… I had the battle in my hands the whole time. Everything went exactly as I wanted it to.”

“Brag about it.”

He made a face.

“Yeah okay. I just might—”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s enough, that’s enough,” Jude said, switching from strumming his guitar to plucking. Jude Two adapted as well, changing to sweeping rises and falls. “Think we should wake Gelo?”

“No need,” the bear said, a yawn escaping her maw. “I’m up. Oh! And check this out!”

Gelo pushed forward her paw, showing off a dark patch of fur along her mostly white-blue fur.

“A Legacy tattoo?” Leland asked, suddenly very interested. “Your mom, I’d guess?”

“Yup! She even let me help design the tattoo! It’s a dungeon core!”

The boys had to squint to understand that a circular patch of dark fur was supposed to be a dungeon core. As it appeared, most of the detail of the tattoo was lost when hair was involved. Normally, dungeon cores were sphere-like objects made entirely of mana and construct magic. They were the heart and soul of the dungeon, the overseer of monsters and loot. It was fitting for that to be the mark of the Lord of Dungeons.

“It looks great!” Jude said with an agog strum. “I take it you had a Dream Ceremony?”

“Indeed I did,” Gelo yapped. “She said Leland’s Lord suggested it!”

Leland was surprised by this news. She was always bending what appeared to be standards or tradition. What was a beast becoming a Legacy? Not her problem!

“I’m glad,” he said, only to notice the patch of fur on her paw shift slightly. It moved like someone was twisting it upon its axis, morphing the dark hairs into blonde. “Ah, you’re a Champion too.”

Gelo gasped, seeing the movement. “What does it mean? Am I supposed to be doing something when it moves?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Mine usually pecks me and draws blood.”

“Your… your Lord hurts you?”

Leland shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“If you say so.” Gelo looked at Glenny and Jude, receiving a shrug from each of them as well. “Anyways, I’m also helping mom design the Legacy spells. Space is the element.”

“If you are looking for space advice, my dad—”

“Not portals, but rather this—”

Gelo raised a paw, creating a similar blizzard as her mom had done for her earlier. With her other paw, she activated the spell they worked hard on. An odd wind and magic poured from her, the space around the blizzard suddenly becoming slick. Snow and ice fell through the world, appearing somewhat similarly to mist around the group.

“It stretches whatever I want it to. In this case, I’m making my mini blizzard bigger!”

Jude, Jude Two, and Glenny lightly clapped for the show, their shoulders and ears becoming wet with frost.

Leland, on the other hand, leaned in, finding the process fascinating. Normally, magic appeared in strict formations. Naturally, magic contained itself until the point of breaking. A Fireball spell might balloon in size until it explodes, but while it balloons it stays within its natural formation – that being a ball.

The same idea worked for most other spells. There was a form the spell preferred, one that the caster often had to adhere to, otherwise risk breakage.

Gelo’s spell wasn’t like this.

To Leland’s naked eye, the wind of magic paraded through the open air, unconcerned about forming in a structured state. It didn’t rush to repair weakened areas, it didn’t try to smooth itself out. Could this be in part that Gelo was a novice at this particular spell? Yes, but he also couldn’t ignore—

Wait, he thought to himself, finding a particular section of the spell different.

Within the heart of the wind was a bead. A single point of structure. Like the patch of fur that was Gelo’s Legacy tattoo, this single point rotated on its axis. It spun, twisting the magic wind along with it like cog and gears. That was the structured point… which meant the rest of the spell just made Gelo’s first spell bigger.

Leland glanced all around, finding the stretched blizzard winding down. That was it. The natural structure of the blizzard had been interrupted, thus it was something he initially thought was incorrect. And in a way, it was. But it was also by design, clearly. He smiled. Magic was awesome.

“Can you make a spike of ice bigger?” Leland asked.

The cub grinned, excited to show off.