Shard

  Sihey had arrived back at the spire, Lisryn and her guards headed back to the church while the rest of their group headed upwards. Meanwhile, Dawn and Niphru were left with the young man they had been tasked with esc. Dawn still remembered roughly what had been done duriesting to open the route to the dungeon, so she removed her new sigil stone a both it and the floor with her mana, notig multiple odd swirls of power within each.

  It was nowhere near as easy to uand as the door to the rest of the spire, so Dawn had to spend time trying to figure out how it worked. This led to the man going and sitting against the wall as the wait grew longer.

  Around half an hour ter, Dawn finally determined how to properly interface the sigil with the lo the floor. Unlike how it had been done before her, she simply guided the mana flows through the air instead of pressing the sigil itself against the floor first. A moment after the mana had ehe floor, it began to shift, stairs appearing in the ter of the room leading downward.

  Seeing this, the man stood back up and, at Dawn’s dire, began to head dowairs ahead of her. They quickly reached the halls below, where, after sealing the stairs again, Dawn poihem toward the room the mage down here stayed within. Though they were nervous, the discussion was quick, and they were directed to tinue downward to the bottom of the dungeon. It turned out that the most extreme crimes resulted in staying closer to the top, while less extreme ones were pced lower down.

  Supposedly, this allowed people to see examples of what they might face if they itted more harmful crimes, and had resulted a small redu in crime si was introduced. The entire group found it rather annoying, however, as it meant quite a bit more walking and many more flights of stairs. Along the way, they only passed by half a dozen people, which was quite a low number sidering the fra of the city their spire was in charge of.

  Eventually, they began seeing signs listing various crimes reted to theft, showing them they were nearing the right area, before finally finding ones listing theft of food. Following the instrus they had been given, the man was simply left near one of the proper cells without araints. Apparently, none of the rooms i two floors even had any kind of restraints, not even doors, as they were sidered unnecessary for people who had itted such minor crimes. As Dawn and Niphru turo leave, the man asked them to please request that he be informed when his daughter was taken care of.

  With such a simple request, it was easy enough to agree, so they kept it in mind as they asded back to the upper levels. After a quick stop to speak with the person in charge t up the request, they once again opehe stairs a.

  Much as expected, no one resent iry room along the way back to their floor. They did, however, find the rest of their group sitting around a table, and joihem. Apparently while they had been waiting, everyone discussed their pns for the near future. It turned out that everyo insignifit after their enter with the serpent, and there was a lot of desire to bee stronger. The fact that the snake had shrugged off eveacks of their teachers was rather humbling for many of them, though Dawn and Niphru were well aware of how dangerous creatures of the deeper wilds could be.

  When asked, Dawn agreed with the idea of spending more time w oency of her spells, aiohat she also wao work more on her light magibsp; She still couldn’t replicate the burning ray of light that her mother was capable of produg, and did not want to feel like she was too far behind in skill, though she was aware it would take quite a while to obtain the same strength.

  Niphru, however, had different pns than the rest. He had felt that he needed more work on his illusions, felt the o py around some, and was retively tent with his magical abilities. While he didn’t show it much, he knew he was still better with fire magic than Dawn was, even though it was what she was fog on most currently, and he barely focused on it.

  It seemed rather reasoo him; fire was literally a part of him, so he was quite fident in his trol of it. Instead, he decided to focus on expl the city and iing more with its people. This would allow him to practice his illusions in a retively safe area, especially now that the Church of flict had stopped hunting Awakened.

  During discussion with the group, Niphru learhat it wasn’t unon fes to be requested to visit various locations iy to help with entments or offer advi how to set up magical assistance for various tasks. This was clearly something that he was quite ied in, so after being informed of where the requests were dispyed, he quickly scurried downstairs to go see what he might be able to do.

  While it took a while, Niphru was eventually able to find several requests he thought would be iing. It turned out several bcksmiths operated iy, some of them fog on low-quality armor and ons, but most instead produg parts for maes and objects for making daily life more fortable, such as kit supplies, mps, and housing materials. He felt tired of things reted to bat, so he focused oer group, finding several had sent in requests for assistah their f setups in attempts to make them more effit, as well as simply maintaining the existing equipment.

  These mostly required skill with fire and water magie of which he was good at. There were also some he wasn’t certain of, such as tailors and general shopkeepers. The sed he thought he might be able to help, as the requests talked about airflow and cooling, which made him think wind magic could be involved.

  And while he wasn’t terribly ied in bat, there were also requests to remove vermin, which were apparently difficult for most due to their behavior of seeking small areas that humans couldn’t reabsp; Those might be a good ce to see how the average perso about Awakened, as he could ask them if they were okay with a non-human assisting the task, and only helping them if he could safely reveal himself.

  Having decided on some things to do iure, he returned back to the rest of his group, finding them still gathered at the same spot. When asked what he to, he shared what he had learned as well as his iion to try to work with people throughout the city and see what he could help with. There was some worry about his idea of sharing his true nature, but in the end, Dawn’s fiden him vihe others that it would be fine.

  He was quite certain that he could get away from non-mages as well, so he had to agree with Dawn’s thoughts. It was hard to catething a fra of your size when it moved faster than you, let alone if it could hide with illusions and use magic to avoid the floor, where you would expect it to be.

  With these thoughts in mind, he headed back to their room to rest for the night. Tomorrow they should also hear what was thought of their trip into the wilderness as well, which he had fotten about in his excitement. Hopefully, they would get good news from Morris.