— Keira —

The remaining few hours of daylight passed with all the speed of cold molasses flowing uphill and the boredom quickly got the better of Keir. She originally planned to wait for a more private setting to check her newest notification. Status screens and notifications may have been visible only to their user but the fluctuations in mana that could result from alterations or rewards were not. She didn’t know what the strange little rust colored crystal was but even a minor reward gained on her Path would send out ripples in the immediate area.

After some internal debate she decided to set aside her concerns over the potential information leak and brought up her notification.

“You have received a small shard of Sanguine Sea Glass. Would you like to improve a passive skill (Yes/No).”

A small part of Keir advised she wait, possibly until she had more options for passive skills to upgrade. The rest of her mind was all for choosing immediately, though not for a single reason. Part of her was far too curious and bored to put it off. The main reason was that she knew that even when she gained more passive skills the strange sea glass would not be able to be applied to skills she didn’t possess when she claimed it. With a thought she chose “Yes”.

“Please select Passive Skill to enhance (Tide Pool).”

“Please select Tide Pool enhancement.”

Keir was only slightly surprised that her notifications hadn’t actually given her a choice, instead selecting her only option by default. Much like when she had selected her skill she was presented with three options when she focused on the potential enhancements.

“Deep Tide Pool: This enhancement increases both the capacity of your tide pool as well as greatly increases the maximum size of the creatures it can house.”

“Interconnected Tide Pools: This enhancement creates several smaller tide pools connected by a series of submerged tunnels. This enhancement does not increase the blood available for use in skills, instead it drastically increases the number of creatures your tide pools may sustain.”

“Vibrant Tide Pool: This enhancement creates mana rich sea glass structures that improves both the potency of the blood within, providing a slight enhancement to power of skills fueled by it, and the power and ability of creatures sustained within the pool.”

Keir had to look over her choices a few times before she was sure she’d read them properly. Unlike her choices for passive skills there were no clearly inferior options. She didn’t have the ability to call forth summons or familiars so that aspect was largely theoretical. From what she knew from fighting summoners and the abyssal spawn she knew all of her options had benefits and drawbacks.

Large creatures were almost always strong and durable but their size limited maneuverability and they could rarely be used well indoors. Swarming creatures were weak individually but they could overwhelm powerful foes through sheer numbers and their losses carried little weight. As for the last option it may have been a bit vague but a blanket improvement to the creature's power and abilities, even a relatively minor one would be quite useful. It was the primary improvements that really made her choice.

“Interconnected Tide Pools” Had no direct second effect. Keir had only the vague idea that it would allow for more pools she could draw from sooner so it was the easiest elimination. The next choice was more difficult but she finally settled on selecting “Vibrant Tide Pool”.

“Deep Tide Pool” would give her access to more resources and her new class seemed to be ideal for the sort of battles of attrition where the amount of resources could determine the outcome. At first she gravitated towards that option. The more she considered it the less appealing it became. The only time she would need to draw heavily on her pool was at the beginning of a fight or against enemies with no blood or equivalent. Much like the improvements to the creatures that may one day dwell in the pool, more powerful skills would be useful in more situations than being able to use more skills freely.

With that decided, Keir made her selection and felt a similar, albeit weaker, shifting within her soulscape as when she first gained the tide pool.

While she’d examined her options she’d sat leaning against one of the wagons with her back to the setting sun. Dusk had slowly crept in largely unnoticed but she knew there was still some time before the most sensitive members of the group could move freely.

Slowly over the course of the next hour or so the camp came to life as those secluded within their tents emerged and packed them away onto the wagons. The first to emerge were those who were only weaker in the sunlight followed by Antheia and the young kobold girl. The last to join the rest of the group were the fully spectral villagers.

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Fortunately as only a few members of the group needed any rest and there was no need to make a meal they were on the road within twenty minutes of the sun fully setting.

As the group set off it soon became apparent that Antheia had spent the forced downtime hard at work. The somewhat ornate but otherwise mundane chitinous sickle now held a complex spider web like pattern of faintly glowing silver, green, and brown runes.

Keir wasn’t an expert on enchanting by any means, but even she knew how impressive it was to enchant an item in a single day in a tent with limited tools. She was even more impressed when the little vampiric kobold, whose name was apparently Mycenia, channeled her limited nature magic through the sickle.

The first night Mycenia had been able to encourage tree branches to pull back from the path and cause the roots of the encroaching undergrowth to loosen their hold on the soil. The plants had still needed to be removed by hand; it was just much easier than it would have been. That was no longer the case as she walked at a slightly sedate speed and the plants parted before her. Their roots moving through the dirt like octopus swing through water.

Eshtan Earthhammer was able to smooth and harden the soil she left cleared at a comparable rate so their overall traveling speed was greatly increased.

As Keir walked along just behind the pair clearing the path she decided to seek out Antheia to inquire about books when she finished her guard shift.

— Antheia of Stone Lilly Cove —

Since breaking camp a few hours earlier the night had been peaceful. The druidic focus she’d enchanted for Mycenia was working better than expected and Antheia was glad to be moving again.

She was raised as a scholar so spending days or even weeks cooped up researching things was normal. Spending the day hiding in a small tent with someone she barely knew, trying not to think how a lethal amount of sunlight was a thin layer of enchanted silk away, was not at all normal. Even when traveling through the wilds she had never before had to spend so long with the threat of death hanging above her. Even as she slithered along under the overcast night sky it was hard to put the threat of the sun entirely out of mind.

She was distracted from thinking about the stress of the daylight when she saw the unusual royal elven adventurer turned village leader approaching from the front of their group. As she watched the elven warrior approaching Antheia had to admit she cut an impressive figure.

Antheia could match or even exceed Keir’s own six feet and a bit height using her snake-like lower half but in her most comfortable position she was five or six inches shorter. Additionally while Keir’s armor was definitely built for practicality over style it still hinted at the lithe and strong frame of a warrior who focused on agility and strength in equal measure. More than her body or height however, Antheia found herself watching her wavy black hair. Perhaps it was because she spent the majority of her early life with only other gorgons and the occasional other reptilian or amphibian species but she’d always been a bit fascinated by hair. She wasn’t jealous per se, she loved her little hair serpents, but her limited dating experience definitely showed a trend.

As Keir got closer Antheia made a conscious effort to not to stare or think about the fact she’d accidentally flashed the elf before they’d even properly met. Fortunately the sword Keir had propped up against her shoulder was more than enough distraction.

The swords wielded by the Steel Coast Tide Carvers were almost as famous as their wielders. Each was a masterwork blade forged exclusively from the mana infused steels only found in the steel coast. Antheia would definitely have enjoyed the challenge of enchanting such a blade if she ever got the chance. Even from a distance however she could feel the metaphysical weight of the magic wafting off of it. The lack of runes showed it hadn’t been enchanted but from the mana radiating from it she could tell it was at least an artifact class weapon and very much beyond her current skill level.

While Antheia was lost in thought about what tier she would have to reach to craft an enchantment worthy of the blade Keir approached and said “I would not have expected less from one raised in the Library of Stone and Tide, but the work you did on that sickle is impressive.”

Antheia felt a cool blush spread on her cheeks as she responded “While I certainly appreciate the sentiment, it is far from a truly impressive enchantment. All I did was tie in some simple mana gathering runes into an enhancement array incorporated into a druidic ritual formation.”

Keir laughed a little and a bit of mirth in her tone said “Oh so you only combined three very different enchantments into a single item over the course of at most a single day, in a tent.”

“See, it was in actuality a rather simple task all things considered.” Antheia responded keeping her tone flat as long as she could before letting out a sound between a hiss, a giggle, and a snort and continuing with a little grin “Really though, I appreciate the compliment. Hopefully it will help us get through the most dangerous middle portion of our journey a bit faster. I’m not looking forward to hiding from the sun in a tent while a battle goes on in or around the camp.”

Keir grew a bit more serious as she said “Speaking of that risk, I was hoping to talk to you about something tangentially related to that. I can pass the day in my soulscape but I’m sure you can see the potential issues there.”

Antheia nodded and Keir continued a little awkwardly “I was hoping you might have some books I could borrow to pass the time while waiting for the sun to go down.”

Antheia debated the issue internally for a few seconds but eventually agreed. She couldn’t retrieve them at that moment as her book vault was a spatial artifact that could not be moved while active. She was about to explain that to Keir when they were both put on high alert as calls to arms and the rumble of stone rang out from the front of the group.