Cass tried Arctic Shroud a few more times before Marco called it a night. No matter what she did, she couldn't get the origin point to move away from her body.

"Is it a hard limit on the skill?" Cass asked.

"Entirely possible," Salos said.

Cass scowled. Even with her bonus to range, there were limits. Maybe that limitation would loosen as the skill leveled up. Should she set it aside for now? She hadn't gotten a new level with it either. It was probably too new.

She glanced up at the sky. Still no sign of Alyx.

Maybe she'd try it again? Could she combine the skill with something else to move it?

Maybe Elemental Manipulation? It was worth a shot.

Cass activated Arctic Shroud. The winds whipped around her, ice filling the air. Salos shivered and stepped back.

Now, to move it. She reached out with Elemental Manipulation and grabbed at the winds. It hooked into a tendril of spinning air, and Cass yanked it to one side. The arctic air gusted out from her shroud, only to warm and die as it left the sphere of Shroud's influence.

That wasn't what she'd been going for, but that could be useful in conjunction with Tempest Blade. Cass added it to her backlog of things to investigate.

So she could move parts of it. Could she move more of it at once? Would it maintain its momentum if it were moved as a unit?

She spread Elemental Manipulation, pushing the skill to cover all the air in a sphere around her. The wind gusted through her collected space, fast and cold. She closed her grip on it.

And the air stopped.

It was still cold, but unmoving, waiting for her next command. She jerked it away from her and the entire block of air moved together as a single gust, blowing through Salos and knocking him back a step.

"Watch it!" he shouted. But he was unharmed, and Arctic Shroud reformed around her as her controlled gust left the territory of Shroud.

That wasn't what she'd had in mind either, though it proved the volume of material she could control had increased since her days in Uvana.

If she wanted to move Shroud away from herself with Elemental Manipulation, she was going to have to maintain the separate threads of wind, twisting them around independently. Moving all of it at once undermined the structure of the skill, breaking it.

But could she move multiple threads independently? Had she ever tried? Where did one strand of wind end and the next one begin?

And even if she could, was it enough to move this structure off of her while maintaining its movements, or was she signing up to manually duplicate Arctic Shroud?

The skills whispered this wasn't the right answer. She grit her teeth. She still had to try, didn't she? She reached out for a thread of Arctic Shroud again. Grabbing and redirecting one was easy. Could she grab a second?

She willed a second gust under her control, only to drop the first. She tried again. And again. Consistently, one slipped through her fingers as the skill grabbed the second.

Was it a limit on Elemental Manipulation?

It must be because she could use multiple skills simultaneously. There must be some unspoken rule about using the same skill in parallel.

Was this just a dead end then?

If not Elemental Manipulation what else did she have that could make this work? She skimmed through her skills list, shaking her head.

"This may just be beyond you right now," Salos said softly. "You only just got that skill."

A noncommittal grumble rumbled from Cass. Salos was probably right. But she couldn't escape the feeling that she was missing something. She was overlooking something.

If not a skill, a trait?

No. If her bonus range wasn't doing it, none of those would.

Then what?

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Cass snapped. "It's my skill."

Salos cocked his head. "Obviously?"

"So what if we swap?" Cass said, activating Shifting Minds as she suggested it. Space shifted, and she found herself looking up at her body. That never felt more normal, looking up at herself.

Salos looked down at her from it. "I see problems with this plan."

"What problems?" Cass brushed aside his warning and activated Arctic Shroud.

As she'd hoped, the skill whirled to life around her (the cat), not her Salos-possessed body (the slyphid). But it was cold. She shivered. "Wow. Okay. I see what you mean."

"Oh, this is nice when the cold doesn't affect you," Salos muttered.

"Try Stealthing in it," Cass said.

"Are you okay?" he asked instead.

She nodded. It was cold but not unbearable. "This body has fur."

Something pinged across their bond. Regret, perhaps? It was gone before Cass could make sense of it.

"Here I go," he said, activating Stealth. Shadows swallowed him. He shook his head. "It's as I thought."

His Stealth had more to do with shadows than wind. The blowing ice crystals provided a little bit of a screen, but it was only marginally better than standing still without shroud.

"Oh, right," Cass said.

"It was expected," Salos said. "Go ahead and swap us back."

Cass did. The winds around Salos died and sprang up around Cass as they swapped back.

"This only works with my Stealth," Cass said.

"You're the only fool who associates sneaking around with wind, so yes."

Was this just unworkable? She laid out the facts:

- Arctic Shroud followed her (the caster of the skill). This was true even when she swapped bodies.

- Only her Wind variant of Stealth got any benefits from Shroud.

- Only she could cast Arctic Shroud.

That all seemed right. Maybe this was a dead end. She turned the facts over again. Was that all true?

No, one of those statements was wrong. She slipped Salos's necklace out from under her robes.

Azorth Necklace

[The home of a once powerful Nyxdran Demon, now your humble servant.

As you have survived the demon's attempts to possess you, you have been granted ownership of the demon, giving you some bonuses.

Gain one choice of three Status Effects (choice can be altered once every 24 hours):

- Demonic Strength: Gain your demon's listed Str.

- Demonic Will: Allow your demon to control any skill controlled by Will as if they had cast it.

- Demonic Vitality: Double health regeneration.

This item has Unbound Growth and may absorb compatible items to gain functionality.

This item is Soul Bound to the Initiate Cass and may only be removed on death.]

She'd picked Demonic Vitality when she'd gotten it and hadn't changed it since. There hadn't been a good reason to, and frankly she'd needed the extra healing.

But that wasn't the only option.

"Salos, I want to try Demonic Will," Cass said and changed her choice. "Can you use any of my skills?"

He shook his head. "I don't feel any different."

She pursed her lips. She didn't either. How did this work? Maybe she needed to let him use one? She willed him to use Arctic Shroud.

[Offer skill, Arctic Shroud (lvl 9), to demon bond, Salos?]

Cass willed her assent.

"Oh. I got a notification. I see," Salos said.

"Well, can you use it?" Cass asked.

In answer, a storm of ice materialized around Salos. The area was only about a third the size of Cass's, and the wind was slower. But the ice was denser in the air. And sharper.

"Nice!"

"Can you use it at the same time?" Salos asked.

Cass reached for the skill, only to find nothing there. Her heart pounded. She took a deep breath. "No. It's gone."

"Can you reclaim your skill?" Salos asked.

Cass closed her eyes and willed the skill to return. Salos's Arctic Shroud stopped abruptly. It reappeared among her skills. "Yes. Looks like only one of us can use my skills at a time."

"I borrow them rather than copy them, interesting," Salos muttered.

Cass let him have Arctic Shroud again and said, "Let's see if this works like I wanted."

He activated Shroud and Cass Stealthed, slipping into the sluggish winds like another. She could feel herself disappear, her presence melting into the winds. She floated through the space like a ghost.

Cass grinned as Salos let the skill fall and returned it to Cass. "That works!"

"More or less," Salos agreed half-heartedly.

"There are still a few kinks," Cass agreed. "You aren't resistant to the cold, after all."

He nodded. "I'm more resistant than some, but yes. It will eventually eat through my Stamina."

Stamina wasn't the only problem. "How much Focus do you have?"

He looked away. "Only about a tenth of yours."

That wasn't a lot, and she hadn't expected otherwise. He wasn't a mage, and she had a lot even by a mage's standards. But if she could use it for about an hour, that meant, "You can use this for about five minutes?"

He nodded. Something pinged over their bond again, cold and disappointed? It didn't show in his voice, whatever it was. "Fairy Fire draws from the same budget."

That was good to know. Fairy Fire couldn't be that expensive, but she should assume he'd have less than five minutes of up time if he was using that too.

Honestly, five minutes was an eternity in a fight. This was more than enough for most engagements. And if the fight went longer, "You can retreat to my soul well if you run out."

Salos shifted uncomfortably. "Yes. But that isn't an instant recovery. We won't be able to rely on that mid-fight. There is also the issue of my vulnerability while I use this skill."

"Right, I'm Stealthed, but you aren't any more hidden than usual," Cass said. Marco's concern about mages blowing up the area covered by Arctic Shroud was only partially resolved. Cass was no longer in the dead center of it. Instead, Salos was and the area was significantly smaller.

"And the cold will make it harder for me to move too," he said. "So expect me to dodge fewer attacks while we use this combination."

Cass hummed in thought. They'd far from 'solved' the problem, but this was progress.

"I'm sorry I can't do more," Salos said quietly. His regret rippled across again.

"This is plenty," Cass said. "Really." Demonic Will promised to open a new dimension of flexibility with her skills. She didn't know yet how it would help, but there was no way it wouldn't.

Salos nodded mutely. The night wind whipped between them, cold and buzzing, their bond quiet and closed.

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