Willow
Running East, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
Why didn’t I test using my discipline mana to run further before? Trees flashed by on her left and right. Blurs of white and grey stalks interspersed by washed out greens and tans as the rare flora made themselves known passed by her field of view almost without her noticing. Her pace would have been record shattering back on earth, easily traveling seventeen or eighteen meters a second. Here, she suspected it wasn’t all that impressive.
Despite the speed, Willow found slipping around the trees and rare bushes which popped into her path to be smooth and easy. Her instincts and conscious thought brushed shoulders, as her body responded quickly and accurately to each command. Is this fast enough to outrun those giants, though? Trying to calculate how fast they were moving, she almost tripped over an unexpected crest in the earth, a remnant of previous titanous wondering no doubt.
Just managing to maintain her footing and recover her pace, she decided it was likely she was outpacing them if they were walking leisurely. She had no idea how fast they could move if they ran. However, she could estimate their normal speed based on how quickly the one that had been ‘born’ at the pop-hopper village had moved. She’d have to guess the massive creature, which was well north of four hundred meters tall, had legs around a hundred and forty meters by themselves. Given she’d never really explored any kind of locomotive science or anything like that, she’d have to extrapolate distance per step mostly through guess work.
The awkward way which the giant had walked away from its place of creation had shown her that the creature didn’t extend its legs anywhere near to fully. Besides neglecting to stretch out fully, lifting and moving the massive limb took much longer than the same motion for an average human. Taking maybe as long as ten seconds between lifting a foot and setting it back down. Working that roughly with a guestimated stride length of around forty five meters, or a third of her estimate of its full leg length, she calculated that a walking pace should be somewhere around 4.5 meters per second.
The realization caused Willow’s harried and mana enhanced dash through the forest to suddenly slow. That can’t be right. The ones that passed us and threw us around like rag-dolls just from the wind of their feet hitting the ground definitely weren’t moving that slowly, or they would have caught us. Most people’s distance running speed is probably between five and six meters per second. We were running away faster than that, closer to a decent sprint. Between nine and ten meters per second. Noticing she’d come to a dead stop, Willow resumed her journey at a leisurely jog. I wonder if the UICI has a built in speedometer and radar somewhere…
After a bit of digging, she found there was a module available for both functions. The speedometer, or ‘Personal Speed Awareness Gauge’ was was listed for various different prices depending on rank and currency. Apparently the Wesnmen’s Coallition (G) was interested in profit regardless of the rank. The prices were even equivalent between ranks, though she wasn’t sure if the exchange rate between the dozens of accepted currencies listed were fair or not. Picking it up for the 20 R2-EB price, as R2 was all she had available.
A few more minutes of searching was enough to find a ‘Accurate External Object Speed Determination Measurement Module’ with high reviews, along with dozens of similar offers with reviews and comments indicating they were essentially scams. Unfortunately, the seller of this module was less interested in making profits across the different ranks. Nor did they accept every currency. The only accepted currently listed was ‘10 R10-XZE’.
Looking into the XZE currency made it clear Willow wouldn’t be buying the module anytime soon. XZE could apparently only be exchanged in bulk, with an exchange to 100 XZE being the minimum available. 1 XZE roughly cost 100 EB of the same rank. However, if someone chose one of the large exchange packs: say the 1000 XZE, it was closer to 3 XZE per 100EB. Rolling her eyes, Willow gave up on the idea and turned her thoughts back to the present.
Alright, well, whatever. I’ve got the speedo, that’s cool! I can see how fast I’m moving at any given time. Focusing on how fast she was going, a number popped up. It made no sense, so she spent another little while clicking through settings and windows until she found a conversion which appeared to be roughly equivalent to meters per second, her most familiar metric for movement on foot. Seeing that she was jogging at about ten meters per second, she grinned broadly. Her jogging speed was about the same as an average man’s sprint back on earth.
Alright, so if that’s the case my calculations are way off. We must have been running quite a bit faster than I assumed when trying to get away from what we thought was some kind of storm… Let’s see, I think I was running about like this… Picking up her pace, she tried to gauge just how fast she’d been going while trying to stay close to her significantly slower friends. She decided the average was probably around fifteen meters per second. Wow, even Naomi and Jonah can run faster than the previous world record runner on Earth! Taking that information into account lead Willow to one powerful certainty. I have no idea how fast those stupid giants might be moving. If that idiot Madrick hadn’t run off he might have been able to tell me.
Annoyed, Willow slowly ramped up her speed again until she resumed the discipline mana enhanced run she’d been maintaining before. Glancing at the compass app she’d added to the corner of her UICI HUD on Madrick’s condescending advice, she checked her heading. She was still going in the direction he’d said their meeting point was. It had been a long time since Willow truly felt the absolute seething fury which had colored her younger years. Somehow, Madrick was able to bring it out of her, seemingly without effort. Worse, he seemed to enjoy stoking that fire.
Having slouched in his self-created throne, the infuriating man had listened silently while she outlined her rough plan to Naomi and Jonah. His posture had been that of a disinterested ruler, watching his subjects squabble. He had leaned his chin into his right palm, elbow resting on the chair’s arm rest, the rest of his body relaxed and loose in an absolute picture of boredom. The slit of his weird green goat eyes had even seemed to thin down to bare lines, giving the impression of being zoned out. There, but not present.
Why in Jesus’ good name did I get stuck as his apprentice?! She fumed to herself. More frustrating still was that she actually wanted his help. Or rather, she wanted what he’d promised her in that mission prompt. Which, of course, came full circle as to why she was running through the forest in the direction he demanded rather than some other direction. The plan really just called for her staying away from the chasing titans while Jonah and Naomi rallied the kobolds to help them out. She’s originally considered trying to get one of them in view, then just stay ahead of them. After working out the math of their traveling speed, and realizing she couldn’t work it out, she was glad she hadn’t. How embarrassing would it have been to rush over to one of those monsters to try and kite it, just to get scrooshed immediately cuz it was faster than I thought? Oof.
Her initial plan had just been to go the opposite direction of her friends so they didn’t have to worry about the things chasing her. Then Madrick had butted in at the last second before they finalized their plans. His tone had been languid, full of the assumption they’d want and value his advice. “Good enough. The only changes you’ll make is that you,” he turned his bored gaze on Willow, “little tree, will meet me on the mountain’s peak to the north east. When you arrive, I’ll provide you the hour of training promised as your reward for bringing me the fae. And the other change is that he will be coming with me.”
Having said his piece, Madrick had moved faster than Willow could perceive. He’d just vanished and he’d taken Nuu with him. Granted, Nuu’s part of the plan had just been to accompany Naomi and Jonah and his absence changed essentially nothing. However, it was annoying that he’d been taken. His ability would have ensured a much smoother and more streamlined conversation explaining what was going on and an easier time convincing them to help. Nuu could have simply written a little scene ensuring as much. He might still be able to from wherever Madrick took him… I guess probably on the mountain he wants me to meet him on? The question is whether he will. We didn’t really get a chance to ask him about distance limits, or whether he needed specific details about the area the conversation would take place or a description of Skeetha and Halshath.
Sighing, Willow ran on.
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Night was probably a little less than an hour away by the time Willow saw the sheer needle-like protrusion on the distance. Upon seeing it, she wanted to start ranting, raving, and screaming about Madrick’s nonsense. He’d said to meet him on top of the mountain. That thing was taller than the stupid giants she was going to fight! It was a grey tooth-like spike which, had the weird mist still been floating about, would likely have pierced the ever-present cloud. From this distance it was a bit difficult to make out any details, but the sheer size was enough to make her blood begin to boil.
Red edges began to form around her vision. Noticing the familiar sign that categorized the beginnings of her former famous tantrum-like rage was enough to shock Willow into thinking more clearly. She was still angry enough that she thought steam was likely leaking from her skin and ears, but composed herself and began the familiar process of calming herself. She continued to run as she worked to feed her emotions into her focus. There was an odd sense of resistance, the same she’d felt every time she’d tried to use her new more-magical version of focus that she’d gained since her death.
Ignoring the resistance, she continued to feed her emotions into the idea of her focus. Not the magical construct, she wasn’t doing this to fuel herself. She just needed to calm down before she lost control and did something stupid. Focusing on the feeling of her rapid steps, up and down. The constant motion of her lungs breathing, in and out. The smoldering anger which threatened to break the balance. The fiery anger which thrashed and contorted, bucking and railing against being contained. Against the order of her motions. Against the intention of her actions. Against the control of her mind. The anger was a primal force, stupid and unknowing. Willow, was a human. Master of the primal. Water, fire, air, lightning, humanity had learned to harness and control all of the primal energies which had once raged unchecked.
The question of storms and natural disasters briefly tried to distract her, undermine her focus and control. She fed the thought into her mind, if she had the mental capacity to doubt herself then she could redirect that potential to aid her instead. The root of humanity’s success on Earth had been their ability to subvert and control unthinking forces.
Having created a center of peace within the ever-building maelstrom of anger bubbling and building within her, Willow refocused. Her body was on auto-pilot, rushing toward the distant spike of earth. Her mind was trapped fighting against her own monstrous emotion. Using the eye of calm she’d claimed, Willow thought. Since arriving into the world, she’d felt mostly normal. Though, there had been plenty of times where she’d felt her emotions suddenly explode unreasonably. Just like they had when she was a child. The difference was that each of those instances had happened when she could stand still. That had given her the easy out of simply tossing the emotion into her focus, converting it to mana. The unrestrained emotions had become almost a boon, allowing her to rapidly recover her mana.
Have I relaxed my discipline? Grown complacent? She wondered if relying on the supernatural had caused her hard-won self control to degrade. Yet, that didn’t feel quite right. The spikes of emotion didn’t feel the same, they felt stronger. More developed. Enhanced. Sparing a thought for the trees flashing by as she casually leapt and twisted around obstacles while not even paying attention, it clicked. I’m getting stronger. Everything about me. My body is faster and stronger. My mind is generally more resilient, clear and flexible. Would it be so strange for my emotions to become more as well?
The theory had merit. More than merit, she knew at an instinctual level that she was right. It wasn’t that her control was getting worse, it was her emotions which were growing. But why can I feed the emotions into my ability if I’m still, but not if I’m moving? The question brought a surge of annoyance and her precarious balance within the swirling mass of anger broke. She felt it all hit her again, driving out conscious thought and careful consideration. She forced herself to slow, then stop. Willow stood stiffly under the shadow of the towering cliff face in front of her. Her teeth and fists clenched, her eyes staring straight down at her booted feet as her body trembled. With a herculean effort, she activated her focus and began forcing the pent up fury into it. Releasing the emotion into her ability where it was ripped apart and consumed, returned to her as disciple mana. Over the course of several minutes, Willow slowly relaxed. Her jaw loosening, fists opening and relaxing, shoulders dropping as tension fell from them. She took a deep, long, breath, and looked up.
She stood a handful of meters from a wall of white and grey. Semi porous rock sat uncaring before her, its surface mostly flat and sheer. The slight mound around the stone where it met the earth hinted that the jagged spike had possibly been driven into the ground somehow. Looking up, the thought was boggling. Anything large enough to drive something that monumental into the ground was beyond her ability to imagine. Taking one last steadying breath, she began to walk around the structure’s perimeter, looking for a good place to begin climbing.
An hour later, Willow had examined the semi-cylindrical construct of stone from every angle. No side was really any better than any other. She could see some ledges and possible hand-holds, but each one was faint and appeared both too small and infinitely precarious. While she hadn’t noticed any dust or rocks falling from the spike while she’d been investigating it, she didn’t necessarily meant it was stable. After all, this planet didn’t have any birds or wildlife to speak of.
Where she might assume a silent cliff face like this back on Earth was mostly stable, that was mostly due to the knowledge that goats, birds and other wildlife would be constantly testing any potential hand and footholds. That wasn’t to say there wouldn’t be treacherous or loose stones, but she’d have at least been confident that there was a stable pathway. Had she been on earth, she probably would have even been able to find a trail which whatever indigenous wildlife used commonly and could follow that. No such luck for her here.
Fully calmed after spending the last hour considering a literal rock, and feeling both of her mana aspects were full, Willow felt as ready as she’d ever be. She began climbing.
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Three hours later, Willow groaned as her back slammed into the earth. Again. For the twentieth time. She stared up into the night sky, oddly lit by a defuse kind of white light coming from too-bright stars which she might have thought were satellites back on Earth. The first time she fell, she’d almost panicked as she felt her spine snap. This time, feeling her back break, along with several bones in her arm and both legs, and her neck, she just waited. At least this is a good testing ground for my healing skill. Back Into It lived up to its name every time. No matter how badly she thought she’d ruined her body with a bad fall, it just kept patching her back up. Its mana usage was even efficient enough that if she just let it passively heal her, she’d have as much mana left after it was done knitting her back together as she’d had when it started.
Seeing little reason to waste time letting it use the minimum amount of mana, though, Willow channeled a bit more discipline mana into the task and let it do its thing. While she waited, she examined the skill’s pattern looping through her body. She thought she might have it entirely memorized soon, since this was all she could really do while waiting for it to finish up. She’d probably gone over the pattern a hundred times by now.
It was just ten minutes later that she climbed back to her feet. Her mana was down to about a fourth, so she sat and channeled the frustration from failing again into her ability. Once her mana was full, she stood back up and stretched while thinking. I’ve tried a bunch of different paths, I’ve used my discipline mana to make sure every single movement I make is perfect, I’ve taken care to test ever hand hold and foot hold. It doesn’t matter, the stupid mountain seems to just decide it’s done with me and bucks me off.
The latest fall hadn’t happened due to slipping hands or feet while moving from one position into the next one. No. She’d been resting on a stable cleft, holding two convenient jutting stones for extra stability. There’d been no hint of weakness or instability. She’d been standing and gasping for air, hundreds of meters from the ground. Then the cleft she was on had simply crumbled to dust and she’d been falling. She had tried to hold herself with the stones her hands were on, but they just exploded into gravel and fell beside her. Every time she reached out to grab for a new hold, she just managed to scrape her fingers and hands.
Hands on hips, she glared at the uncaring mountain face. She would get up there. As Willow strode toward her twenty first attempt, she didn’t spare a thought for why she was trying to climb it. Madrick and his nonsense were a distant memory, the only thing she had to think about was the challenge in front of her. She’d failed challenges before.
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Madrick
Sitting on the Edge of The Mountain, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
As expected of his apprentice, Willow had arrived at the foot of the mountain before night fell. Also as expected, she’d ignored the darkness which fell as she walked around looking for a good path to ascend. It had apparently never crossed her mind to camp out and wait for morning. After falling the first time, just a few dozen meters from the ground, she’d landed badly on her backpack. Whatever was in there was clearly sturdy, as she’d bent around it. She’d broken before whatever was in there did.
He’d been about to go down and fetch her, healing her would be annoying and wouldn’t be fast given his current aspects didn’t lend themselves to healing others very well. He’d need several more ranks before his soul nexus would be ready for the insights he had planned to close those gaps. Deciding to give her some time to languish and think about how fucked she was before saving her, he just watched. The fae man sat quietly off to the side, flipping through his journal and writing something every so often. He was oblivious that Willow had arrived at the mountain’s base and Madrick had no reason to tell him.
A minute or two later, just as he was about to go pick her up and instruct her on the folly of trying to accomplish something beyond her means, an amusingly hypocritical speech forming in his mind, she moved. He’d been shocked to see her just sit up, as if she hadn’t had several vertebrae shattered into shards. Curiosity peaked, he used his Eyes of Conquest to examine her. She still had bright red spots along her back which indicated weak points, but as he watched they rapidly faded from scarlet to burgundy, to orange, yellow, then gone.
That had been enough to elicit a sharp whistle of admiration from the warrior. At her grade, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to recover from such a horrible wound by himself. Even at his current grade, if his spine snapped, he’d need some serious healing before he’d be able to function properly again. Due to his particular aspects, he’d be able to force himself to move and continue fighting, but he wouldn’t actually be in any shape to. He’d only be able to because his entire path revolved around battle, war, and domination. If he had to stop fighting just because he had a fatal wound, he’d never have been able to advance far enough to leave such physical weakness behind the first time around.
Settling back in, Madrick watched as his apprentice tried again. And again. Over and over she tried and fell, but each time she got further. Each time she also took an even more terrible injury. By her twentieth attempt, she was scaling the wall like she’d been born to climb. She somehow identified stable hand and footholds even from a distance and leapt and twisted to catch the right ones. She contorted her body into unnatural shapes to ensure her position would allow her to get to the next hold she needed. When she got to one of the larger ledges on the path, he knew she’d make it all the way to the top this time. She’d mastered the skills she needed to do it.
Yet, he felt that she hadn’t reached her limit. There was still plenty of potential here, ready to be pulled out. With a wicked grin, he sent a thread of mana down the mountain face and into the rock-hard ledge under the girl’s feet. He twisted it into a simple rock-to-earth transmutation spell. It cost more mana than he’d like, given his aspects’ lack of affinity with such spells. It was worth it, though. She fell and her body broke again. She just stared upward, then got up, meditated to recover her mana, and went to try again.
Once she reached the same point as last time, Madrick began to send challenges down for her. This time, she noticed just before a ledge she was resting on crumbled. He wasn’t certain if she’d somehow developed a rudimentary mana sense, or if she was counting seconds, or if the clumsy transmutation spell had caused the earth to soften before crumbling. Whatever the cause, she’d leapt moments before the cleft dropped out beneath her. She continued on her way.
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Four hours later, the climb had become a contest. The little tree never hesitated to try again, even after landing and cracking her skull. The wound had been bad enough that Madrick wondered if she’d survive. Of course, she had. From that point one every time she fell, she intentionally rolled in the air to ensure she didn’t land in a way that her head was in danger. She’d clearly surmised the same thing Madrick had: as long as she wasn’t killed instantly or ran out of mana with a fatal injury, she would recover. That skull injury, along with the rest of her broken body, had taken a full hour to heal. It had been, by far, the longest time between falling and trying again. The time between being healed and trying again, though, was less than five minutes.
Now that Willow was getting an entire three fourths of the way up, Madrick had started making every handhold and foothold crumble less than a second after she caught hold of it. This resulted in a kind of race as she forced her way up through speed and determination, while he put his full attention into rapidly casting the minor spell over and over. Part of him wondered whether Willow’s eventual victory would be due to him running out of mana. At this point, there was no question as to who would come out on top. Willow would get to the mountain’s summit. It was just a matter of how long it would take. Madrick’s goal was to keep her at it until morning. A tall order, considering the day-night cycle here was about twenty hours for each half. He’d have to manage to keep her down for at least another twelve hours. She might take a break to sleep at some point, which would be hugely helpful toward his goal.
Unbeknownst to Madrick, he’d become so focused that he’d stopped paying attention to his surroundings entirely. Nuu had noticed, and was taking advantage. His hand almost seemed to flicker and blur as he wrote with an almost manic intensity.
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Willow
Sitting on the Edge of The Mountain, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
CRACK went the Willow-body. She would have sighed, if her lungs hand’t been punctured. The image of her body on her dojo’s stained-glass window was essentially a mess of red with hundreds of little ‘urgent’ spots. She flooded her skill with mana. It was a good thing she’d memorized the pattern of it, since at one point she’d found the limit of it’s passive ability.
When she fell and cracked her skull, that break along with the dozens of breaks, cuts, crushed bone, and other wounds was enough to entirely break the skill. She’s seen the skill itself highlighted in bright red on the mural. The pain had been so intense that she’d nearly blacked out. She hadn’t, but it had been close. Had she passed out, she knew she would have died. Instead, she’d managed to push through. She activated her focus to give herself the control she needed. Pushing her mana into the now-instinctive pattern of her Back Into It skill without the assistance of the pre-existing channels, she could only hope it would still work the same. It had.
This time, while arguably more of her body was broken, the skill didn’t break. So far as she could determine, there were two reasons it hadn’t broken since. First, the way the skill worked seemed to be based on maintaining a consistent energy pattern throughout her body, which enforced her healing capacity. That pattern was very difficult to break, because it went throughout her entire body. Even if entire sections of it were damages, as long as the overall pattern was in tact it would work fine.
Secondly, each time the skill healed her, it tempered her body slightly. Her body was becoming tougher and more resilient each time it broke. This made the overall structure of her body less broken. although more individual pieces probably were. While she thought essentially every bone in her body had broken, and much of her muscle felt like it had been turned to jelly, while every organ had taken some kind of damage, everything was more or less in its correct spot. Which meant the skill had to do less rearrangement.
This time she’d seen the peak of the mountain. Another dozen meters, and she’d have been able to pull herself onto the summit. Then the section of rock she was traversing had literally shaken, throwing her off. The shrapnel that had fallen after her had, of course, pierced her as well.
Yeah, this is definitely the worst damage I’ve taken overall. She thought almost casually as she channeled all of her discipline mana into the task of healing her. The torrent of energy washed through her body and began fixing her. Her body ejected foreign matter which couldn’t be broken down, while disintegrating and integrating any useless bits of her body or usable outside material.
The entire process was excruciating, which was ironically a huge boon. She’d figured out after her fiftieth or so drop that if she fed her pain into her focus ability, she could maintain a super-charged version of her skill running until it finished its work. This had reduced her healing time tremendously. Now, she thought, that original spine-break would be a cinch to fix up. She guessed it’d take less than ten seconds if she used all her mana and channeled the pain into replenishing it.
Getting up, she strode toward the mountain again. As she began the much easier start of the climb, she thought through her strategy for the end. If the mountain keeps moving and breaking and bucking there’s no way I’ll ever get to the top. I need it to be still.
She’d tried using her focus, and even the full moment of focus version. It hadn’t stopped the treacherous rock from doing as it pleased. Though, it had caused those changes to become highlighted to her perception and made it easier to predict and avoid. Her current tricks and abilities wouldn’t work. So, what options does that leave me?
The truth was, she had no idea. She knew that she hadn’t even scrapped the surface of what her mana could do yet. She believed her aspects were leagues better than any elemental aspect. What would fire and water help her with here? Even something like Nuu’s aspect wasn’t as powerful, in the long run. Sure, she could write a scene of herself cresting the mountain and be assured it would happen. That’d require she sit down and carefully write the thing out, though. What if she was being chased? She couldn’t write and run. On the other hand, with everything she’d learned while climbing this cliff could be taken and used in the future as needed. No preparation necessary.
The key has to be in one of my aspects, then. I’m very familiar with my discipline mana, by now. Its job is to make me do what I want. Even impossible things. So that leaves my instruction mana. Its job should be to make other stuff do what I want, right? With that thought, she began testing. She was already half-way through the climb. The first part being easy enough by now to be done on auto. Taking a bit of her instruction mana, she tried pushing it through her moment of focus ability. Other than her skill, that’s generally how she would use her mana after all. She’d tried to use just her instruction mana by itself in the ability before, of course, but she hadn’t really had an idea of what she wanted it to do. This time she did. Unfortunately, having a clearer picture of what she wanted wasn’t enough. The ability didn’t seem to do anything.
Annoyed, but not deterred, Willow switched to a newer technique. More recently, and especially on this climb, she’d learned to use her discipline mana to target her body and improve specific things she needed to be better. Taking another strand of instruction mana, she directed it into a hand-hold as she grasped it. Immediately, she felt a connection form. Excited, she sent her intent to the stone. It refused her. She felt as if it understood her intention, but didn’t like it. She sent a blob of her instruction mana down the connection along with her demand. This time it partially obliged, the stone taking on a shape that was just slightly more comfortable for her to grip. Releasing that particular stone with mana and hand alike, she continued her climb.
On the next stone she forged the connection, but this time tried sending a packet of her discipline mana along with her demand. This time, she felt like it was just confused about what she wanted. Anticipation began to bubble up within her as theories began flashing through her mind even faster than her hands and feet took her up the wall. It wasn’t until a dozen or so meters further up the wall that she found the right combination of actions and mana to do what she wanted.
Three fourths of the way up the wall, she stopped on a ledge. She knew it would crumble quickly, so this test would either work or she would fall again. She connected to the ledge with her instruction mana, then formed a packet with her discipline and instruction mana both. The instruction mana wrapped and twisted around the discipline in such a way that the start and end of the packet were delineated by the instruction mana. Meanwhile, the discipline mana made up the majority of the structure. She sent the simple intent toward the ledge Be strong, do not break.
The feeling of acknowledgement she received was simple, but clear. She waited. It was less than a second later that she felt that same sense of interference which she associated with the mountain changing up around her. This time, she felt about half of the discipline mana she’d sent into the foothold drain away, but nothing happened.
She grinned. I win.