Claudia opened her eyes and taking the spoon, placed it into one of the empty bowls. “Feed fire and earth into the spoon,” she directed Dmitri. Dmitri reached out and touched the spoon, channelling the essence of fire and earth into the spoon. Claudia touched her fingers to the spoon as well and closed her eyes and focused her magic. At first, nothing happened, the spoon just sat there. But then suddenly, the spoon was no more. Within a split second, it had melted. The bowl was now full of an oily metallic liquid. They both gasped at this and carefully released their magic. The wondrous feeling that had filled Dmitri was gone, but the memory of her presence in his mind remained. As did the bowl with the remains of the spoon, “What happened to it?” asked Dmitri, swirling the liquid around in the bowl.

“We melted it down into liquid form,” replied Claudia. “I believe that if we can purify the molten liquid and separated the actual metal from slag, we can work on it some more. And then we will finally have what Arcaedus needs to start helping us. You’ll need to use air and water this time. You try starting the link.”

Dmitri closed his eyes, emptying his thoughts once more. He entered his universe and sought out the radiance that would signify Claudia’s presence here. He saw her glow and willed himself towards and it reached out, taking her hand. His magic flared within him and his white universe turned golden as the link was made. He fed a mixture of water and air to the molten metal and let Claudia manipulate it. Painstakingly slowly, they progressed. Using a thin barrier of air created by Dmitri to divide the bowl into compartments, Claudia gradually separate the pure metal form the oily slag.

Several hours later, Dmitri blinked as Claudia shook him out of a daze. “It is done.” She said, sounding exhausted. “That is all I can do for now, I need to let my mind rest.”

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Dmitri rose to his feet and brought a pitcher of water to Claudia, from which she drank deeply. “I thought I was going to fall asleep a few times,” said Dmitri.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” replied Claudia, “I have no idea what would happen to a link if one of the party fell asleep.”

“I believe my magic would still work while I was asleep,” mused Dmitri, “I’ve kept a campfire burning all night after I created it. But this linking is different; when I draw glyphs and have them do something, I reach out for the magic and I focus it into the glyphs. But with linking, I don’t actually focus it on anything as such; I reach out to you instead.”

“That is where it differs,” Claudia explained, “linking doesn’t actually need magic. When I tell you to reach out for your magic, it is simply putting you into a receptive state, which is why you can link with anyone.” She got to her feet and started wandering around to stretch her legs. She stopped in front of the door, looking down. “Where did this come from?” she asked, indicating a tray heaped with fresh food.

Dmitri looked over, frowning, “I don’t know. Someone must have brought it in while we were busy.”

“And they didn’t disturb us?” asked Claudia sceptically. She knelt down and started to eat. Seeing how fast she was eating, Dmitri went over to eat as well. After a while, Dmitri’s appetite sated, he turned to Claudia.

“So can someone link to another against their will?” asked Dmitri curiously.

Claudia sighed, “I don’t know. Possibly; if the subject was forced into a receptive state by consuming a plant or potion that could put them in that way, I would say so. But if they did link like that, I’d imagine that if they used the other person’s power against them and killed them, the backlash from the death would do considerable harm. But as I said, I’m not sure. It might not even be possible.”

Dmitri thought this over as Claudia lay down for a rest with instructions to wake her after a few hours.