Niphru o Richard before saying, “Yes, I am Niphru; Dawn and I just moved up here.”

  Richard smiled widely and remarked, “It is ohing to hear of a talking fox, ao see it yourself. It is a pleasure to meet you, Niphru. I’ve heard we will be w together soon. Perhaps I help with your wind magic?”

  “That sounds great, I’ve been having trouble with it and just figured out how to get it w on a usable level. Maybe Dawn and I help with new ideas?” replied Niphru.

  “Ihat would be great. We share our own insights as well; that is part of how we’ve beore skilled over time, not just tinual practice,” responded Richard, before he waved the unknown woman forward.

  “Hello, Niphru. I am Miana; gd to meet you. I focus mostly on fire, but also work with water magic occasionally. Perhaps we share insights on fire magic, as I heard both you and Dawn are best at that as well,” she politely remarked with a slight bow.

  As she was introdug herself, Niphru saw Daroag from behind them. With a grin, he ran around them to meet her, excited to let her know how he had mao get his wind magic to help him run.

  After he shared the news with her, the others introduced themselves to Dawn as well and guided everyoo one of the tables to sit down.

  Feeling it was a good time to mention it, Niphru remarked, “I seem to have an odd way of using magipared to normal. I have a link to a magic stone, just like most, but then that links to fmes I trol or turn into illusions, which is how I talk. When I cast, it es from the fmes or illusions, so some things work differently for me.”

  Following this, he went to switch his illusion to fme, and was shocked to find that there were two fmes instead of the one he was expeg. Dawn also looked on in shock, well aware that he had only been able to produe fme before.

  Rapidly thinking, he realized that it made sense, as before, he was managing to hide himself and produ illusion of himself at a dista the same time.

  Once he got over his shock, he focused and realized he could feel eae separately, though only barely. Surprisingly, however, he didn’t feel as drained as he did before when only trying to keep one fme active. Once he mao swite to illusion again, he even stopped feeling the drain, allowing him to keep one fme going and still speak with an illusion.

  This led to him exg, “This is new; I didn’t know I could mawo at onow! Now I even keep a fme and illusion at the same time! I always loved having my fme nearby but had to stop in order to talk; now I do both! I eveo have recovered enough that it doesn’t draioo much.”

  It was quite hard for Niphru to keep from boung in his excitement, but he managed.

  Dawn seemed to take over for him, grabbing and hugging him as she smiled and excimed, “I’m so happy you do that now! Both of those are very useful things, and now you do both at once!”

  Niphru nodded and moved the fme back to his tail as he spoke, “It is nice for sure! I feel much better now that I do both at once.”

  While the others were curious about the situation, they simply moved on to discussing magic rather quickly.

  Like he had thought, Dawn had quite a few ideas that the others could use when it came t with fire, though he could tell that it was hard for her to avoid giving away too much about her affinity with it. Meanwhile, he listeo Richard discussing his experiences with wind magibsp; Simir to what he had been told downstairs, Richard usually just focused on what he wao happen ahe mana act as his subscious directed rather than trying to trol everything.

  He did say, however, that the few times he managed force magic directly, he had o give extremely precise instrus to his magic; otherwise it ended up being some other form of magic, or just pletely failing.

  Dawn paid attention to that bit of information as well, remarking that it was simir but not quite the same for her, as she had ma while attempting to do wind magic.

  Beyond that, Niphru had trouble fog, as he was still busy beied by finally being able to keep a fme going again, even more so with an illusion at the same time.

  Instead of paying attention to the others speaking, he found himself switg back to having two balls of fme. He made them spiral around each other, follow one another across the area they were in, and even had them both cover him as much as possible, enjoying the feeling of warmth they gave him.

  Faintly, he heard Dawn expining that his fmes only burned what he wanted, so they were pletely safe from being burned.

  Fog ba the versation, he sed back to using an illusion so he could speak again, finding they had moved on to talking about some of the things that they did around the spire. Iingly, one of the nearby spires hadn’t mao keep their se of the sewers cleared, so it was likely ied with more potent mutated creatures than normal, and would o be cleared out.

  This duty had been passed on to their spire, and their group specifically had been asked to take care of it within the few days. Richard brought up, “With awo fire mages, this should be much easier than we expected before, that is, if you two are willing to e along as well?”

  Dawn thought for a moment before nodding, asking Niphru if he wao go as well. Almost immediately, he nodded, remarking, “Where Dawn goes, so do I!”

  Since everyone had agreed to go together, they arranged a time the day to get it done as soon as possible.

  Shard