"What the fuck?! What was that, Umbra?!"

Elvira is on her back not too far from me, covering her eyes with one arm and trying to push herself up into a sitting position with the other. The humans are actively hiding under their blanket now, the firelight visible reflecting off their eyes as they peak around the edge. All of them can wait. I reach out five tendrils, once again twisting them around each other to form a crude hand, and focus on trying to create a smaller light. There's a small flicker, then a slightly larger one, then another flood of blinding light. Knowing that it was coming makes it easier to stay calm this time, though I still instinctively pull away, and instead I focus on dimming it. The most I manage is making it flicker in and out of existence, not dimming in the slightest. Hmm, based on how the elf reacted this spell will be useful to blind enemies, but if I could make it dimmer it could serve as a lure or distraction without causing panic... Maybe I need a careful application of dark magic to balance out the light? Something similar to Night's Veil, perhaps... If I can make something similar to it that's smaller and centered around the light then mayb-

Something hits the ground beside me, it takes only a moment to realize that it's the knife that Elvira had been planing to use to cut up the deer's legs. I glance over to see the elf, still covering her eyes, picking up the cutting board and preparing to throw it at me too. A bit regretfully I decide to put off my experimentation for later, extinguishing the light.

"Are you done," Elvira nearly shouts.

I pick up my discarded notebook, glancing down at the small bottle of ink that I dropped when the light first appeared. It landed on its side, spilling the majority of the ink into the sand. No saving it now, I'll use up what little ink I can salvage from the sand and I'll have to look for an alternative later.

I am done for now.

The elf, still covering her eyes, doesn't respond. She tosses the cutting board in my general direction and begins running her hand around her surroundings to find something new to throw. If I could speak, now would be the perfect time to sigh in exasperation. Instead I reach out a tendril, smacking the top of Elvira's head with my notebook before once again holding it up for her to read. The elf peeks out from behind her arm, then drops it back to her side and squints at the page.

"What in the Light's name were you doing," Elvira asks. "Or rather, how did you make that bright of a light?"

I just copied your spell.

"No, there is no way that was the same spell. Spells can be changed by the caster's intentions, but not by that much! And you were just struggling to cast it at all, how would you suddenly be that good at it!"

I just copied your spell. Yehma's blessing, maybe?

"I... Yeah, that's probably it." Elvira sighs, pushing her fingers through her hair. "So not only can you cast light magic, but it's insanely strong... Well, once you learn some battle magic you'll be a force to be reckoned with. I guess that's to be expected since you have two blessings."

Teach me battle magic.

Elvira winces. "I would, but I don't know any. At least not any that you would be able to use well, just a bit of wind magic that's useful for archery. But, I can introduce you to a good light mage in my village when we get there! I'm sure he'll have plenty of spells he can teach you."

Well, that was our original destination anyways. It would be reassuring if I could learn some magic I could use in case we get attacked on the way there. Perhaps I can come up with something? Reshaping the Black Hand to have claws somewhat worked, maybe I can make some sort of blade out of dark magic? The elf did say something about intentions changing magic, I'll have to set some time aside to figure out how far that goes. Perhaps Thrane's blessing will help with that...

"Well, I..." Elvira clears her throat. "I'm going to take a rest, it'll be a long day tomorrow. Unless you need something else?"

Alright. I'll do some hunting in the forest.

I make my way into the dark woods, already thinking about how I can alter my magic. I'll have to try using an altered version of Night's Veil to dim the light magic... I wonder if I could create some kind of White Hand out of light magic? Black Hand can't be used during the day so it'll be troublesome if we get attacked while it's bright out and I can't use it. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between casting the two types of magic, but maybe just forming something similar out of light will work? I'll have to try that as well. Oh, and perhaps I can...

Elvira let out a shaky breath, settling back down. Just when she had been getting used to being around the Voidspawn... The thing having blessings was surprising enough, but to have magic that powerful was just too much. She had decided to trust it in the first place because Void creatures tend to be bad at lying due to their lack of creativity, even the smarter ones tending to only lie when it was a very obvious choice. Trusting the creatures words should have been completely safe since it wouldn't get anything from lying to her, but with Yehma's blessing making it more creative it could be planning anything. Add to that that its magic was strong enough to turn a simple light spell into something like that... It would take a small army to stop the thing once it learned holy and profane magic. However, the elf couldn't just leave it or try to kill it, she needed it to help her find her get home. Traveling through Lux was by no means safe for a lone elf. The best she could do was be useful to it and hope it decided she wasn't worth killing. Unless... maybe the blessing would do more than just make it more creative, if it made the thing's mind more similar to those of the Races it might gain the capacity for more emotions. For example, allowing it to grow attached to a person.

There was no way to tell if that were actually the case, though. If it were, it would be quite useful to have Umbra like her, and if not she wouldn't lose anything by being nice to it. Even if it weren't capable of forming that sort of emotional connection it may decide that she was worth keeping alive if she proved useful to it.

Elvira glanced towards the two skinned deer legs she had set aside earlier and picked up the discarded knife. Just one more thing to do before resting.