"So?" Kali asked in a hushed whisper, her eyes still trained on the three trolls wandering about at the edge of the forest. "Is it working?"

"No, it isn't," Izuna grimaced. "Why is it not working?!"

"I thought mental magic worked better on … simpler people."

"These aren't people," said Izuna, her amethyst gaze locked onto the one still hauling about a leg and occasionally munching on it. "It's like their minds haven nothing but muscle in it."

"There is a strength in simplicity," Kali mused, very much trying to distract herself from the bloody leg.

"Huh," Izuna blinked. "At least I can mostly sense what they are thinking."

"Really?" Kali raised an eyebrow, hunching down and flattening herself onto the ground as a troll started wandering about and ended up selecting the bush they were hiding under as his next munching victim.

"Yes," nodded Izuna. "I'm surprised they can even think."

"What are they thinking?" Kali asked back, trying her hardest to not look at the brutalised leg she really wanted to think wasn't from an elf.

"'Food', 'Tasty', 'Angry', 'Hungry', 'Bush Tasty', 'Want Bush'… " Izuna trailed off as the troll in question came to a stop only a few meters away from them, at the edge of the large berry bush. Kali had made sure it wasn't going to come alive this time like that damned pile of vines the other day with some Kinetic Strikes before the two hid inside, they wanted to test the viability of Izuna's talent on the trolls but as it turned out, they'd need to come up with another plan.

"You try your thing now," Izuna whispered in such a low voice that Kali doubted anyone but she could have heard it. She gave the foxgirl a nod.

The trio spent the majority of the last few days scouting around the ravine, trailing troll groups that wandered outside of it and just outright stalking them. They needed to know which ones were weaker and whether there was any sense of a system in how they moved.

There was none. That was the answer in Kali's opinion. Trolls ate when they grew hungry, they slept when they grew tired, and they fucked when they were horny.

Kali took a deep breath through her nose and barely held down a gag. With how close the troll was, she almost vomited when she caught a whiff of its stench. Trolls weren't a race that was especially set on cleanliness and with that one whiff Kali unfortunately caught, she was sure this exact troll had been avoiding bathing religiously.

Years of built-up mucus covered its body, combined with the stench of blood and rot that came with its breath, were enough to make Izuna hold her breath next to her.

Kali breathed out through her mouth, trying to calm herself with the action, which more or less worked.

Then, she started forming a rune. It was a new one and one she'd never tested in active combat, so she was being especially careful with it.

She drew it in her mind line by line, twist by twist and bend by bend. This was how she started drawing every rune when she first learned them, trying to have them snap into being at once by imagining the rune in its entirety was leagues faster, but also much more likely to have her mess something up on a new rune.

The seconds trickled by as Kali kept her gaze locked on the troll. It snapped off a branch full of thorns and some sour berries, then it shoved it in its entirety down its throat. No chewing or anything of the sort.

When the troll reached for its third branch, the rune was done. Kali felt it solidify in her mind, going from a tangible state to a stable mental image that was only waiting for her mana to fuel it before activating.

Her Tome called this rune 'Silence' and it mostly did what the name implied.

Yet, at the same time, it did so much more than just 'make a spell silent'. It was a complex rune made of dozens of lines and twists bending all around, so much so that Kali would probably rank it as the most complex rune she knew at that moment. Not that her list was too long to begin with.

The rune would make spells it was used in more silent and harder to notice, but it did this by somehow streamlining the Runes that came after it.

This was an 'optimization' rune, or so it was referred to in the Tome. Kali wasn't quite sure what that meant in the context of a rune, but apparently it made the mana expenditure and wastage of the runes coming after it, much less, which somehow made spells less visible and audible.

This wasn't her first time testing the spell, of course. She'd tested it out in a safer environment. The rune worked best with pure Arcane spells that didn't use source runes like Water Collect or Flame as it could only make mana harder to notice but what was that worth when the whole damned spell was a ball of angry flames hissing through the air?

She was working on a spell which was inspired by this one rune. She had a good base set of spells already, but what her repertoire previously lacked was a spell that could kill silently and go unnoticed.

Five more runes snapped into being after the first one. These were one she knew already, so she could form them in a blink.

The Silence Rune was followed by a Needle Rune like the one she had used to kill insects months ago. She wanted maximum piercing capability, so this was the best choice, and the next Overcharge rune only made that property that much stronger.

The Overcharge came first, followed by a Condense rune. The goal was to strengthen the Needle structure, ensuring it would stay intact while piercing through a troll's hide. She completed the spell with Launch and Overcharge runes to propel the needle at maximum speed.

Kali lamented the fact the there were no actual alternatives to the Launch rune in the Tome that were superior to it in speed. There were some other ways to strengthen the Launch rune beside the Overcharge rune, but no actual alternative.

She checked the spell once, then twice, and then a third time. During the third check, she focused more on the Silence rune just to make sure nothing slipped under her notice in the previous checks. She had cast this spell successfully before, but if she messed it up now with a troll within a dozen meters of her, she'd be in quite the predicament.

How did she know the backlash would be a hemorrhage in her brain? Well … there was a reason she was even more paranoid about casting the new rune than usual.

It was good. No errors, no wrongfully drawn twists, and she didn't mess up the rune sequence either. For a last finishing touch, she connected the Overcharge Runes to the preceding runes with a small thread of Mana. She only knew this much about how to use mana threads in turning basic spells into Magic Circle, and even this came from a tip in the tome mentioned in the Overcharge Rune's chapter.

That will make sure the damned rune doesn't attach itself to the wrong gods forsaken rune!

Which was — as it turned out — a problem when she kept adding more and more runes to a spell. Rune sequencing had its limits.

She wanted to harrumph or snort, but even the half-deaf troll would notice that. Instead, she took another silent breath, careful to only breath through her mouth this time and let it out.

Right as her lungs contracted and the last touch of air left her lips, the Runes pulsed in her mind and collapsed. The formed spell matrix rushed down to her right index finger according to her will and stopped there. She raised her hand, aiming with her extended finger at the troll's throat, and finally released the matrix.

She relaxed ever so slightly as no sudden pain bloomed in her head. Good, it activated without an issue. Now onto the next part …

Her knuckles went white as she clenched her hands into fists. Leaves and branches disappeared from sight as she stared at where her spell should strike the monster of her nightmares.

An ever so tiny swirl of mana formed into a circle right above her fingertip, and a moment later a needle the length of her palm and as wide as one of her fingers made of pure Mana shot out from it.

Well, a sound the trolls could hear. Kali could clearly follow it as it left a whisper in the air as it passed, but it was much fainter than before. She doubted anyone other than elves or a Faun like Izuna could catch the sound of it.

Perfect against human. She mused as she eagerly tracked the Needle as it lunged into the troll's unprotected throat.

Her eyes widened, and she nearly squealed in excitement as it pierced the skin. Murky dark blood came bubbling out slowly with a troll slapping itself on the neck, much like she'd have if a mosquito bit her. Damage of that extent had only a minor effect on a troll, nevertheless, it was damage she caused to a troll.

It didn't even realize it was under attack, and the wound healed in a matter of seconds. Only the trail of blood now coating its thick neck left as a sign of it ever having been there.

Kali couldn't quite say that she wasn't disheartened by how quickly it healed from the damage, but she took solace in the fact that her amateurish, wish-wash spell wounded a monster they wrote fairytales about.

A pull on her jacket pulled her attention away from the troll, who carelessly went back to eating branches full of berries while occasionally scratching its neck as if it was itching. The Needle might have not dissipated yet. Condense and Overcharge should keep it intact for a while, even if it lost a bunch of integrity while puncturing the hide.

Kali raised an eyebrow as she turned her head at Izuna, who in turn was glaring at her and motioning with her head away from the man-eating troll. Right, they were done here and they should be leaving.

The two girls ever so carefully crawled out from under the bush and snuck away. The forest was dense and after a few dozen meters, the many trunks hid the trolls from their view already. Kali could still hear them, of course, but that should mean that the trolls had no way of noticing them.

She reviewed the encounter in her mind as she hopped from branch to branch, having grown much more comfortable traveling higher up, away from the ground the trolls used.

The spell was a foundation, but just that at this point. A human or magical beast without regeneration would easily die if she hit them with this spell somewhere vital, but it wouldn't be enough against a troll or someone who had an artifact like her bracelet. If it went through the head, maybe one hit of this could down her with her bracelet, but she could probably heal from it if it went through her heart.

It needs more oomph. She held back a giggle at that thought. Kali had watched Ly'Riel mulling over her spells and say that before.

Kali couldn't help but wonder whether her sister would be proud of her for making a spell that could wound a troll.

Ly'Riel was everything she had ever wanted to be. She was strong, independent, loved by the people and feared by their enemies. Ly'Riel was her hero.

She would be proud … right?

Kali bit her lips, shaking her head. There was no way to know.

She jumped from branch to branch, twisting her body to slip through the dense canopy. She felt smaller, willowy branches filled with leaves scrape against her body and get stuck in her hair.

A darker part of her mind was whispering to her still. It was a part that resented her sister for never helping her, for always taking father's word at face value and as the only truth. 'She'd just admonish you for it. You should be on your way to Kashgar to get married, not playing with trolls. The Kingdom is more important than your happiness.'

That was a phrase she hated so very much. She didn't hate the kingdom as it was; it was one of the last safe havens for elves on the continent or maybe on the entire planet; she loved her people.

She would have been more than willing to become a soldier, to learn magic and defend her home as a battle mage or a blade dancer like her sister, but she was never given the chance to make that choice. She was to serve her kingdom by being a political pawn. Where her sister was loved and respected for her strength, she was pitied.

Pity and guilt. Two things that haunted those that were close to her. It could have all been so very different if only … if only her father had given her a chance.

If only he loved me.

A vine hung from an upper branch and Kali grasped it mid-flight, slowly letting herself descend onto the ground. A faint smile slipped back onto her lips as her feet touched the ground.

She just had to become strong. Strength would change everything.

Kali looked around, taking in her surroundings with a cursory glance. She flexed her ears, focusing on her regular hearing to orient herself.

Water crashing against rock … that was on my right. Gentle stream of water was behind me much further … and a nest of hawks was only a few dozen meters away.

What she thought was a waterfall was the easiest to notice. From there she searched for the smaller stream she heard and finally she heard the distant call of a hawk a good way outside of her spatial hearing.

"What are you doing?" Izuna asked, her head popping out from behind a row of trees.

"I was lost in thought for a moment," Kali gave a nervous smile. "Needed a second to reorient myself."

"Okay?" Izuna blinked at her weirdly, obviously questioning how she could have gotten lost with hearing just as good as hers. "So you are alright now?"

"Yeah," Kali shrugged. "We should get back before sundown. Vorgnar should be done with the new camp by now."

Yesterday, while the three of them went out scouting, they had left their camp and some of their stuff behind, but when they returned, they found the whole place brutalized. Trees torn out, patches of dirt fund up in the canopy, their stuff spread across a newly made clearing in fragments.

It wasn't much of a mystery who did it. Taking a single breath was all it took to identify the trolls as the culprits.

The real question was 'how?' rather than 'who?'.

By now, they knew the trolls didn't really go on hunting trips unless they were especially hungry and even then they tended to just walk around the ravine and hope for some magical beast to try to take a bite out of them.

Why did the trolls beat up their camp, which was a good distance away from the ravine, and how did they even find it? That was the mystery that had been haunting the three of them.

It only took another few minutes of rushing through the forest before the two girls arrived back at their campsite of the day. It wasn't much, but they couldn't be too picky when they had to find a new one every day.

"You are back," Vorgnar nodded at them, looking up from the campfire he'd been blowing air at. It still amazed Kali that he didn't just use a flame rune to do it, even if he couldn't cast it himself. Just inscribing it onto a rock had to be something even a hobbyist enchanter should be able to do. It seemed like such a pain to collect little flammable branches and cut up wood, but if he liked to do it that way, she would not intrude.

"Yeah," Kali gave him a smile. "It worked!"

"Congrats," Vorgnar nodded with a slight smile.

"It barely hurt it," Izuna had to shoot down Kali's celebration though, like the sour little fox she was.

"But it did hurt it!" Kali said indignantly. "Now I just need to add something inside it to-"

The leaves rattled as a terrible howl shook the air, sending a chilling shiver down Kali's spine.

"This again," Izuna said with a frown.

Vorgnar stood up and nodded, staring into the depths of the forest where the howl originated from. It was kilometers away but it sent flocks of frightened birds flying all over this part of the forest.

The mysterious troll ambushes weren't the only thing haunting the three of them.