§ Even the next morning, I was just about dying of embarrassment. I absolutely could not believe Sen got naked and kissed, right there in the outdoors! She and Shindzha even groped each other a little! I know nobody but pixies could see her, but… well, somebody saw her, you know? But Sen insisted I had to go speak to …

§ With our immaterial form attached to her, Shindzha jogged through the woods while using her Darkness-based magic, [Indifference]. It wasn’t a true stealth; nobody would fail to notice if she was using it while walking straight up to them. It seems that it simply turned the sounds and sights of her passing by into a part of the background. …

§ The ‘Lady’ that the pooka mentioned before his escape, the mystery person capable of making such a creature her underling, remained a worrisome unknown, but by Fourthday our encounter with him was more than a hundred miles behind us. At least among the mortals, the theory was that she wisely chose to let us pass without bothering us after …

§ I am tiny. I already know that. But it takes situation like facing three soldiers from the Mountain Troop of Pendor’s First SAS squadron for me to grasp just how tiny I am. The term “Mountain Troop” means a troop specialized in mountain fighting, doesn’t? Why did it feel like it actually means a troop composed of human mountains …

§ I’m not the only one scouting for the expedition. If the mortals would listen to us, the fairies and I, plus maybe the people of the Hero’s Party, would be the only ones working as advance guards and scouts. The mortals of the Pendorian military would only be the interior guard, protecting the two non-combatants with them, acting as …

§ Mireia grew alarmed the moment I assumed a posture for spellcasting. She grabbed my arm, leaning close, and said, “My Lady, you mustn’t.” “I’m not going to cast Healing.” “My Lady?” Nurse Eldis inquired. I pressed my lips together and told her, “She was concerned that I would cast Healing. As you are probably aware, I am a vampire. …

§ Other magic users have levels to classify their relative proficiency in their arts, but healers are not normally rated using that system. The reason is simple: for the great majority, their spells, if assessed using the definitions applied to elemental magic, are all ‘level one’, with the only upgrade, an enhancement of those same spells when a focus (which …

§ The most foreign thing I have encountered in this foreign place is not the unfamiliar people and customs, even though they are indeed very strange to me, but rather the ability I never anticipated to gain, to hear the thoughts of a different and separate me, this “Lady Tiana”. Hearing thoughts isn’t what one might imagine. One doesn’t read …

§ I was discovering that I could tell fairly consistently what sort of thoughts Lydia was having, at least in a general sense on the surface, so I knew she had just resolved herself somehow, as we entered the headquarters tent at last. Sadly, it wasn’t a good time to ask her what her resolve was all about. As the …

§ The journey down the mountain and out beyond city limits in one of those huffing mechanical monsters that the knights call a ‘steam carriage’ brought us to the large army camp on the north side of town. A little over three weeks ago, a massive attack on Narses devastated this place. Mireia told me that she visited shortly after …