Sarah smirked as she walked up to Claire and waved over Joey. "So guess what." She said, her grin growing wider as Claire sighed and Joey rolled his eyes, both of them trying to hide smiles.

"New spell?" Claire asked, and Joey nodded.

"New spell, definitely." He said.

Sarah laughed. "That's right! It's a good one, too, I think. Check this out!"

Lesser Sense Magic
- Cost: 5 MP
- Casting Time: 10 seconds
- Duration: 5 minutes
- Range: 10 feet radius
- Sense the presence of magic, along with details about what kind of magic it is.

Claire frowned. "Don't you already have a 'Mana Sight' ability? Do you really need this too?"

Sarah shrugged. "It's slightly different - better for seeing past the surface of magic. Gives me a better perspective. Also, it's hard to use my mana sight on spells I'm casting myself, this works much better for that. Anyway, you two got some spare mana? I want to try it out on someone elses spells."

"Yeah, fair enough. Uh, speaking of which, I actually got a new spell of my own I want to try out? We should go find an enemy to try it with, though." Claire said, gesturing with her head towards the woods. "Bring Jack along, too."

---

Jack stood by them with his spear. "Alright, go ahead." He said, and Claire waited for Sarah to cast her new spell, then sent Chomper forwards to draw Aggro. Another saproling hissed back from the underbrush, and then the two of them rushed at each other - and as they did, Claire cast her own new spell, and Chomper grew larger, his skin and teeth thickening. The other saproling fought back, but it had little chance against it's buffed counterpart, and it soon fell, Chomper screeching his victory and returning to Claire for headpats and scritches.

"Not bad, eh?" Claire said, sharing the spells description.

Feral Strength
- Cost: 3 MP
- Casting Time: 1 second
- Duration: 1 minute
- Target: One willing living entity
- Range: Touch
- Entity gains a significant boost to strength, toughness, reaction time, motor control, and natural instincts, and a significant penalty to logical thought.

Sarah leaned back, her eyebrows raising. "Oh. Ohhh, wow. Yeah, yeah okay. That is pretty good. And, lots of new things I can see in it, too... Whew. Joey, why don't you go ahead and show me some stuff? While we're here. Oh, and Claire, can I see your healing spell in action, too?"

---

Miria perked up as she heard her scouts returning, quickly finishing off the monster she was fighting and moving to meet them. "Hey! How'd it go?"

Janet sighed. "Well, the bad news is we got ambushed by intelligent spiders. The good news is we made it out unharmed... So, take that as you will."

Miria frowned. "Intelligent spiders? Like, how intelligent?"

"Well, they laid a pretty good ambush, and they had a net and a lasso and decent teamwork, and they knew how to change strategies and then retreat when things weren't working... So, yeah, uncomfortably intelligent, I'd say." Janet said, shrugging. "We fought two large ones, about the size of large dogs, and a whole bunch of smaller ones, the size of small dogs - ten to fifteen, maybe? No idea where they came from or how many more of them there are. They ran into the forest away from both us and grocery - I can show you the direction, if you've got a map." She paused. "Oh, I forgot to grab any of the corpses, too. Oops. We can go back and try and get one, if you want?"

Miria shook her head. "No, no thank you. I'm pulling everyone back and tightening security - we'll organize regular patrols, just the forest immediately around the clearing. Nobody goes out of sight, I don't want anyone else ambushed." She lets out a sigh of her own. "Fuck me, this makes things so much more complicated. Well, I suppose things were looking a little too easy..."

---

Claire smiled, finishing her work on another section of the hedge wall as she heard Sarah approaching her. "Hey. Again?" She said, and the vedalken nodded.

"Yeahhh. Couple of new spells, actually." Sarah said, sharing their descriptions.

Lesser Sense Plants
- Cost: 3 MP
- Casting Time: 3 seconds
- Duration: 5 minutes
- Range: 100 feet radius
- Sense the presence of plants, along with details about what kind of plants they are.

Lesser Disable Firearm
- Cost: 1 MP
- Casting Time: 3 seconds
- Duration: 1 minute
- Range: 50 feet
- Target: One firearm
- Effect: The target ceases to function.

Lesser Suppress Strength
- Cost: 1 MP
- Casting Time: 3 seconds
- Duration: 1 minute
- Range: 20 feet
- Target: One living Entity
- Effect: The target loses 20% of it's physical strength.

Claire read them, eyebrows raising. "Well, okay, that looks pretty good. You're really making progress. Show me the plant one, then?"

"Sure. Here..." Sarah says, hands lighting up with a nimbus of blue magic, the occasional green sparkle seen within.

"...Well that looks so much easier than the last one! Why didn't we start with me learning this?" She groans, facepalming. "Ugh. Okay, lesson learned. Well, let me see if I can figure it out. You get your 'Teaching' skill yet? I got mine earlier when I showed you two how to meditate."

Sarah nods. "Yeah, I did. Working on leveling it, still. Hope it makes things a bit easier for you, though."

---

Miria walked up to Claire as the sun approached the horizon, finding her about 3 quarters done with the hedge wall, Janet and Zach on watch just outside the building. "Hey. How're you doing?" She asked, and Claire smiled at her.

"Little scared, to be honest. Forest does seem a bit darker than before... But I know you'll guide us through things. How bout you? You holding up alright?" She said.

Miria sighed. "I think so. It's frustrating, more than anything else - just when I thought I was getting a handle on things, I have a whole new problem dumped on me. But oh well, I guess that's just life sometimes, right?" She says, smiling back.

Claire bit her lip. "...Is it really that big a deal? I mean, we already had the nazis to deal with, what's another enemy?"

Miria laughed softly. "Yeah, it's a big complication. Like, think about it mathematically - with just us and the nazis, we have two factions and one relationship, for a total of three things to worry about on a grand strategic level, right? But we add the spiders, and now we have three factions and three relationships - us to nazis, us to spiders, and spiders to nazis. That's twice as many things overall, and given that difficulty scales non-linearly, that's a lot more than a doubling of difficulty. And of course, we know a lot less about the spiders than we did about the nazis, and they seem more threatening. So, there's that, too."

Claire frowned. "...Huh. Uh, I've never been good at math... That does sound complicated, though. Anything I can do to help?" She said, and Miria grinned and pulled her into her arms, turning her around to make Claire lean back against her, so that Miria could rub her belly with her larger hands and massage her scalp with her smaller ones.

"Well, now that you mention it. I talked about putting three eggs in you last night - think you could handle that? We'll have to wait until the first one finishes, obviously, but if you think you can take it, I'd like to start leveling my ability now..." She says, while Claire moans softly and leans her head back into Miria's hands.

"I-I, yeah, fuck, I think I can take it. A-ask me again after I lay. You should definitely level the ability now though. I'll talk to Sarah, see if I can get her to take one in the meantime..."

Miria stiffened. "...Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Claire nodded. "Yeah. I'll be nice, worst thing is she'll say no. I know what I'm doing, trust me."

Miria sighed again. "Fuck, you're probably right. What about Joey? Should I take essence from him? It'd probably help a lot, what with the fire magic, and he already volunteered, but, he is sixteen..."

Claire groaned. "...Uggh, that's harder. I dunno... I'll talk with him some, see what I think."

---

Claire raised her eyebrows as Sarah walked over to meet her when she walked into the building for dinner. "Again?" She teased, smirking at Sarah.

"Hey, it's not a spell this time! I think I made a big discovery, though. About how magic works. Like, you know how I have 'Blue Magic'? Well, I found the other colors..."

Blue Magic
- Blue magic is magic aligned with the axis of thought, dreams, control, possibility, and deliberate controlled change.
- Notable sub-elements - air, water, ice, energy (when carefully controlled), artifice, dreams, logic, control, and magic.

Black Magic
- Black magic is magic aligned with the axis of power, death, fear, ambition, sacrifice, and selfishness.
- Notable sub-elements - death, undeath, darkness, nightmares, ambition, cruelty, and disease.

Red Magic
- Red magic is magic aligned with the axis of freedom, violence, rage, impulse, action, and destruction.
- Notable sub-elements - fire, lightning, stones (When in motion), anger, blood, wild emotion.

Green Magic
- Green magic is magic aligned with the axis of life, nature, connection, tradition, and steady, sustainable growth.
- Notable sub-elements - plants, animals, earth, weather, cooperation, natural toxins, ecology.

White Magic
- White magic is magic aligned with the axis of peace, community, protection, law, and order.
- Notable sub-elements - light, barriers, healing, civilization, hope, equality, justice, and structure.

The Color Wheel
- White allies with Green and Blue, and opposes Black and Red.
- Blue allies with White and Black, and opposes Red and Green.
- Black allies with Blue and Red, and opposes White and Green.
- Red allies with Black and Green, and opposes White and Blue.
- Green allies with Red and White, and opposes Blue and Black.

Claire frowned, reading the descriptions. "...Weird. I don't have Green magic, do I...? Also, damn, but Black magic sounds pretty evil."

Sarah laughs, shakes her head. "Yeah it does. But no, I think your magic is like, less high level than this? So, you have a lot of overlap with Green, but not all of it, and you have some overlap with Red and White too I think. Maybe even Blue or Black? Not sure."

Claire nodded. "Huh. And I guess Joey and Zach have basically the same thing going on for Red and White? Okay, makes sense... Not sure what to do with this, though. Should we try and like, learn our corresponding colors of magic?"

Sarah shrugs. "I have no idea. Worth taking a look at? I think the colored magic is like, deeper and more powerful in some ways? I'm not sure though."

---

Sasha waved everyone in as they all moved to sit down for dinner. "Welcome everybody! So, tonight we have a stew, along with some fruit salad, roasted vegetables, and I made some basic flatbread. I hope everyone enjoys!"

Miria smiled as she sat down. "Oh, I think we will. I've been smelling the fresh bread for like an hour now, and it smells fantastic."

Maxim nods along, taking his seat. "Indeed. Let uz not say life haz no pleasures, hmm?" He says, while Sasha starts loading up peoples plates.

"...I wish we had less pressing threats. I've love to try my hand at growing grain, or seeing if we could make wine..." Claire said. "Well, maybe something for the future. We need more people for that sort of thing to really make sense, anyway."

Sarah rubbed her back. "We'll get there."