Their stay in the island town was brief and uneventful, and they left without much fanfare. He did leave eight silver richer though, after repairing and fabricating some reliable blades for the village guard.

Leaving the village behind, they settled in for another month on the ship.

He spent most of the time getting through a number of his books. He learned a lot about the Daion field that existed everywhere around him. It was the dimension of reality that Daions moved through, and it facilitated the interaction between the curious particles and the rest of the world through resonance. Everything that existed had its own Daionic potential, meaning its own production of active Daions. The potential of an object or person was largely dependent on the resonance, or 'shape' of the Daions within, meaning not all objects were compatible with each other in terms of enchantment or influence. The Daion resonance spectrum existed separately to the aspectral spectrum, leaving Murphy with a headache and a list of things to scrutinise further.

He used the ship's engine as a point of study, since flight was something he was curious about. The aspect of 'flight' was an illusive one. It only ever showed up for brief moments when the action was being achieved. For the most part, the act of flight consisted of the aspects of 'lift', 'descent' and a volatile aspect he understood as 'position'. The engine was a bulky cylinder of iron that spewed the three aspects constantly. It was connected to the ship by a shaft that ran through the centre and into the floor and ceiling. The shaft connected to the metal frame the ship was built around. Inside the chamber was a blackened crystal, the size of his balled up fist. It was wedged between the pillars of iron that made the connecting shaft. He learned that the crystal was commonly known as a 'Gravity Crystal', and it was the sole motivator behind the ships flight. It had a peculiar property that allowed it to mostly ignore the effects of gravity, and under certain conditions could be sent nearly perpetually in one direction. That was achieved by blasting the crystal with a source of Daions. If the crystal was cut properly, the direction of its motion was informed by the face that the empowerment was directed at. In the case of the ship he was on, the crew could turn a wheel in a certain direction, to either pulse a charge at the ascending face or the descending face respectively. The aspect he saw when the pulse was sent turned out to be a quality of the super charged copper braid that connected the mechanism to the crystal. He paid close attention every time the ship's engineer altered the operation of his machine, learning more about the relationship between Daions and Aspect. The degree the ship moved by was dependent on the aspect conducted into the metal, and the metals ability to conduct aspect was dependent on the strength of the Daion current activating it. It was one of his books that taught him the fact of Aspect particles existing in two states, empowered or not. As well as the proper name of the particles themselves being 'Hexons'. The 'Dai-Hexon particles' could interact with matter of the physical, where 'Hexon particles' had no real means of interaction. The former getting its quality from the infused Daions. A Dai-Hexon particle was complicated, since it existed as the aspect it originated as, as well as a unique entity on a spectrum of its own. That was known as the 'Geometric Spectrum', or more commonly, the 'shape' of aspect.

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That helped him understand the symbols of his runes on a deeper level. The shape of the symbol influenced the shape of the aspect, which would govern exactly how the particles interact with the matter around them. The symbols of resistance would fold the aspect into a shape that would work against itself. The symbols of direction would act as a middle step in changing the shape, allowing the aspect to be moved around the rune. The boundary circle acted as a way to keep the entropy within in check. Each different set of symbols, as well as many Dolmic letters, folded aspect in a different way, allowing a Rune-Scribe to alter their reality in fine detail. The study time helped him piece together his first original rune. He used the inks he bought in Lie-Dor, and a square of the swordfish skin. The rune he designed was originally intended to make him fly, though he realised quickly in his design phase that the complexity was beyond his skill. What he ended up with, was a rune that allowed him to float a few inches above the surface beneath him. It worked by lifting an area roughly the size of him to a certain height, then correcting for the fall at a constant rate. It was crude, but it was a start, and he was elated to be able to slide around his cabin as if he could actually fly. He found a way to have the rune define its influenced party, by having the aspect of containment folded in a specific way. The information was available to him in his texts, though he still had to fill in a lot of gaps with experimentation.

By the time they reached their destination, he had used up a large supply of paper and skin. He cobbled together a sad grimoire, made from the fish and consisting of the different projectile runes he knew and his new floating original. He managed to save enough skin to have some spare pages, though he hoped heavily for the opportunity to upgrade the moist book as soon as possible. The town they ported at was named "Last-Port". A bit on the nose in his opinion, but it was accurate as far as he knew. Beyond Last-Port was Tavernless land, stretching all the way to the God King's land. The Tavern they were going to spend the night in was called "The Nip-Sip". The plan was to spend the night, and then leave towards their mission's destination in the morning, it being another two days walk from Last-Port.

They spent one last night with the crew, drinking and celebrating their time together. He was growing unfortunately complacent in saying goodbye to new friends. The crew would be continuing onwards within the next week, though the party would be gone in the morning, long before the drunken sailors pull themselves from their duty free slumber. He left Tugger with one of his books. It was a title called "Getting Used to Burning your Hands", a book he'd already read. The intention was for the weathered man to continue his reading, though the blubbering that came from the intoxicated fisherman showed that the gesture came with a heavy sentiment.

He ended his last night with the men in his own drunken slumber, getting so messy that he had to sleep in the stall next to Sausage by order of the innkeeper. The donkey was pleased for the company however, and his sleep came with the warm embrace of a stinky arse.