Sadly, the creation of my wings was the last major accomplishment I achieved in regards to my draconic body during the winter. Trying to create my breath was met with repeated failure, despite the faint glimpse at the deeper truths of magic I had managed to take while observing Lady Hecate at work. Even now, almost two months after the Longest Night, that experience was something I hadn't completely digested and continue to go over the memory. There was so much going on, processes I could only comprehend by likening them to concepts I already knew. For example, she twisted the experience of moving into the Astral River and the sensation of immersion one felt while within it and turned it into a simple, singular glyph. Not a rune as I knew them but something similar, close enough to make me wonder if the Runes I was usually using were something similar, an experience, or maybe a concept or idea, folded in on itself like a sheet of paper. Once the sheet was folded, the text written on it could no longer be read but by putting the correct label on it, somebody in the know would be able to discern what the paper contained with nary a glance.

Just turning what I could only do thanks to a mix of instinct, experience and my physical presence into a spell that could be used by others who lacked those things was beyond me, especially given that the spell had to connect to the Astral River independently from its caster. But to turn said spell into a glyph like she did, allowing people to cast it without any real understanding of what they were doing was just… There were no words and I began to wonder just how far I'd have to go if I wanted to lay claim to the title of deity. if I wanted to go down that path.

And those were only two of the incredible things she did, in other cases, she readily transformed one elemental aspect into another, twisting and morphing the very fabric of reality so people would get the full experience of the Astral River, regardless of the actual state of it. So, even if somebody were to use the spell at sea or in the middle of the desert, places where the elemental bias was so strong that some of the other elements would be drowned out completely, Lady Hecate managed to manipulate the spellwork in such a way that it would still give those present and involved in the ceremony a somewhat balanced experience. Not completely balanced, that would lead to a disconnect between their usual experience within the Astral River, but it would be good enough to make everyone comfortable, even if they were suffering from elemental intolerance, like I was intolerant to Light and, now to a much lesser degree, Fire.

Sadly, while I was slowly beginning to understand part of what she had done, and maybe more importantly why she had done it and possibly even the reason why she used that specific way, though that last part was pure speculation on my part, I was far from able to put that faint understanding into practice. Sure, I tried but, so far, it mostly blew up in my face, in some cases quite literally as trying to create a Dragon's Breath from any place but your mouth would be a bit odd. It might be possible to expel one from the other end, but doing so would likely have… strange consequences for the eventual Dragon Form I was hoping to gain at some point in the future.

Outside of my attempts to work out my breath, we also did a few other things. The amalgamation of Denver and Colorado Springs was a massive, sprawling city, even if it was now mostly in ruins, and there were numerous locations to visit and explore. Even after months of exploration, we hadn't managed to visit them all, though we had a fairly good idea of which were worthwhile and which we could readily leave for others to explore and cut their teeth on.

Sure, if the five of us were working together the likelihood of encountering an enemy we couldn't deal with was fairly slim and if we ever encountered something we couldn't deal with, escape was always an option, especially with two people capable of teleporting and my ever-growing ability to create illusions and manipulate the minds of my enemies. While I wasn't about to go around announcing our superiority and power to the world, I was certain that any enemy capable of forcing us into a corner could kill anyone in the wider area with a fairly large degree of ease. This was why we left the weaker zones and the enemies within to others, we simply wouldn't gain anything from it but the warm and fuzzy feelings generated by massacring your enemies. This way, the people currently much weaker than us could catch up a little in level, giving them a bit of a headstart and additional security after we left the area.

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It helped that the locations we decided to explore were often quite fascinating. The zoo, for one, had been turned into something similar to an outdoor dungeon and I wasn't convinced it wouldn't do so in the future, possibly depending on outside influences. For now, it was an area covered in far too much greenery for the time of the year, noticeably warmer than the rest of the city as evidenced by the visibly lower amount of snow within its confines and filled with a ton of animals, some of which ventured out to hunt down any meaty snack that might wander too close to it.

The massive amount of greenery might actually have been the most interesting part about it, as it was able to sustain a number of herbivores far bigger than the area would suggest, creating some fairly odd effects on the inhabitants. That, in turn, led to a larger number of carnivores, creating the aforementioned ton of animals, some of which had already learned to channel Astral Power to create some interesting effects. While we didn't aim to kill off all the animals, we explored the area thoroughly, with Luna gathering some interesting seeds from plants already altered by the environment, which we were planning to use in further experiments. We even provided an addition to the dungeon ourselves, a cross between a large shrub and ivy vines, augmented to have a high affinity of Life and Earth, with some Darkness attuned to Magic itself thrown in. How the thing would grow and mature, we had no idea but it was an utterly fascinating experiment which we sadly wouldn't be able to see to its conclusion, simply due to the time needed for it to grow. Maybe we could return someday, in a year or five, and check on it but for now, we would have to make do with the initial impressions and a few checks before we left.

Then there were the churches, some of which remained conspicuously intact despite the devastation surrounding them. Sure, the churches might have been built better but given the fairly obvious pattern, I didn't think that was the primary cause. After all, if all buildings in the area are little better than rubble and a single building still has its stained glass windows, something odd is going on.

Some investigation revealed a strange magical resonance, almost as if an echo of prayers spoken in the church before the change still lingered, though that might have simply been my imagination. Luna and I tried to fiddle around and figure out just what we were sensing but, sadly, we didn't get all that far. It was some weird magic, not quite natural, not quite divine but certainly not anything man-made, it was too odd for that. And far too pointless, it didn't do all that much, it just seemed to linger and make the area linger, alongside everyone within it.

A similar curiosity was the boneyard, which we had discovered during our initial explorations, a massive area where just about every graveyard had been amalgamated, creating an outdoor dungeon filled with different undead. Sadly, the vast majority of those undead were far too weak to give us any EXP, let alone pose a challenge to us and the few that might have given a few EXP weren't all that interesting, so we left them alone. Instead, we trained our stealth and explored the boneyard without anyone being the wiser. We checked various crypts and broken graves, curious about the effects caused by the dungeonification of the area.

While a few things stood out, nothing we came across reached our agreed-upon level to intervene. This area would remain for future adventurers, looking for EXP, treasure and general, well, adventure. Hopefully, it would serve them well and we made sure to provide the local survivor groups we had gotten to know maps about the area and what we had observed within. Maybe that way they'd be able to explore without sacrificing far too many people but the choice would be theirs. The best we could do to help them was to provide the tools they needed to succeed, after all, as the old saying went, if you give a man a fish, you fed him for the day, if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

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