The new party has just arrived in a new dungeon and secured a bear cave by killing the previous occupant. This led to a discussion on the taste and preparation method commonly used for bear meat of which they had a sudden surplus.

Turns out, bear meat behaves much like beef. While the temptation to leave some red meat in the centre was high, with the quest description mentioning an infection, they decided against that particular course of action. For preparation they didn't have salt or pepper on hand so they decided to make impromptu bear kebab. It worked for all intends, but the meat wasn't amazing. It was probably still better than one of the MRE's still in the bag of The Warlock, but not by much.

Removing and eating the meat turned out to be the easy part. Burying the organs and, on the insistence of The Fighter, cleaning the bear skin took most of the day. While The Fighter was doing that, The Sorcerer and The Warlock were making camp. Setting the tents was more difficult as there was no easy way to anchor them to the ground, still it beat sleeping in the woods. The made the cave opening a bit smaller by moving nearby rocks and even found some more that could block at least 70% of the hole when they went to sleep.

All and all, the day wasn't bad. They found a camp site and when looking for rocks even found a small stream. Whether the water was safe or not, they would probably have to boil it first. Those were minor complaints however and the three new party members adjourned to their tents for the night after blocking the cave.

The Warlock did not fall asleep right away. She lay there, looking at the roof of the tent and let her mind wander. It was kind of insane really. Not a full day ago she was in her home preparing and now she had been brought to somewhere else and put into survival mode. She remembered her hard-bought lessons from her patron and began her training. She felt the channel of power that had opened in her. The contract between her and the devil flowed through it, binding it in place. According to her knowledge, it should be possible to draw more power from it. She would need this strength soon so she calmed her mind.

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Seeing the channel in her mind she imagined a tether and pulled on it, nothing really changed. She pulled again, gritting her imaginary teeth and felt more resistance. She had to rethink things; it shouldn't be this hard. She knew that. So, what was she doing wrong? She went over the magically implanted knowledge again, it really was there. So why hadn't it worked? Had the devil missed something? Some integral piece of the puzzle or was it her fault? Thinking about that was even more annoying than pulling on the tether. Wait. That was it, she was 'pulling' on the stream, not speeding it up or widening it. You can't pull a river faster or slower, that makes no sense. No, she was going about this the wrong way.

She focused her mind back to the stream of power and tried widening the channel of power slowly. She didn't want to stretch the lines of the contract too much, maybe there was a strain limit or something. She really didn't know much and was playing this almost fully by ear at this point. It was a little frustrating but nothing she couldn't handle. It took a while but she began noticing an increase in the stream of power. She decided to keep it like this for now and check back tomorrow. If it was stable, she would wait a day before trying again. If this was similar to a muscle she didn't wish to overexert. Who knows what kind of effects that would have? She decided to check her tablet before she went to sleep. It was still a piece of paper, but with an effort of will she could pull up her information.

--- Warlock Level 1 ---

--- Fiend pact ---

--- Blasting Spell, Hexing spell ---

--- NEW: Temporary Flame enchantment ---