Waking up the m, Dawn decided that she should probably take another shower, odd as they were here. It was always a good idea to stay , after all, and a bath always took lohan sh. Thus, after breakfast, she took Niphru along with some spare clothes and towels to both of them.

  Once she finished, she returo her room, unsure if Morris would be visiting today or not, and sat down to read for a while. This time, she was curious about the basis of the magic she had been using, and recalling the staions of force magic, she looked through her small colle of books until she found one focused on it.

  Browsing through the book, she saw that a lot of it covered physics that she had learned from her mother, possibly due to it being useful in magic, though there were some subtle differences in what she read. While she had learned about equal and opposite reas, for example, the book mentiohat force magided to only have about half of the opposite rea on the mage, and, for smaller forces, it was a natural instinct to offset the imparted forbsp; Apparently, this failed at higher thresholds, resulting in novice mages, especially of the earth variety, tending to knock themselves over, or sometimes throw themselves around.

  Dawn couldn’t help but giggle at the mental image this passage invoked, and she had to wonder if Morris had ever thrown himself with his magibsp; Reading further, she saw that fire and wind magic were both sidered to be incredibly low-force at novice levels, with fire as the lowest, expining why she had never noticed anything before. bining with what the book on fire had stated, fire magic was mostly just a small patch of really hot air, meaning that even simple air magided to move more at once.

  Now that she was thinking about it, she decided to try and see if she could expand her practice a bit. After calling up a small ball of fire, she focused on the feeling of moving it around before trying to apply that feeling to the empty space beside her. After a few attempts, she mao get a faint breeze to form. Having succeeded in this attempt, Dawn decided to see if she could feel the recoil effect for herself. Carefully fog, she slowly reached her mana outward, grabbing hold of a rge wall of air, nearly crossing the ey of the room. With a sudden shove, she found herself rog backwards as her efforts produced a fair gust of wind for a quient.

  Satisfied with her quick experiment, Dawuro reading the book. Nothing else iing jumped out at her until he end, however, where it mentiohat directly using force magic was extremely difficult for most, as it didn’t have a visible maion. This seemed quite odd, sidering what was said about almost all magic just being applications of force used in different ways. With that thought in mind, she realized she didn’t even know if she directly used force magi her ret experiment or not.

  Insistent on figuring this out, she went to find her old robe from when she just left Blightfall. While some would sider such a thing as important due to memories, she did not think so, and had ation in cutting a small thread loose from it. With her target acquired, Dawn sat back down and focused ohread. ing her mana around it, she repeated how it felt when she grabbed at the air earlier, then lifted. Sure enough, the thread lifted into the air, hanging there before her fabsp; Knowing what she did about physics, this couldn’t be air magic, as she was not keeping it moving, just holding it in pce, and the thread was obviously heavier than air, even if it was very light.

  Finding herself quite ied in this more direct usage of magic, Dawn began messing around with it, trying to spihread, move it around, and twist it into various shapes. Partway through her practice, she heard a chime from the door, despite havi to allow being opened. Curious, she went to the entry and opehe door, finding Morris’ hawk panion, Kel, sitting on the ground before her. As she k down, she noticed a piece of paper around Kel’s leg. With a quiod to her, the bird pulled at the string holding the note in pce, releasing it, then passed the message to her.

  This answered her question about if Morris would be ing or not today, as the letter mentiohat he still had quite a bit to take care of. Additionally, he had spoken with some of the others, and they had passed along word about her to those on simir levels who hadn’t met her yet. Following that statement, he advised her to try to meet with some of her peers, and learn which groups she fit in with the best.

  Since she wasn’t particurly pnning anything at the moment, Dawn decided to take this advibsp; First, however, she offered Kel a snack, and upoing a nod, brought the bird to the kit to pick out what it wao eat. Unsurprisingly, Kel picked out a small bit of meat, and Dawo pick up Niphru while they eheir snack.

  By the time she had returned, Kel had finished eating, so she picked the hawk up a rest on her shoulder as she left her residenbsp; Unsure where to look for people, she decided to simply head up to the floor she reviously, a some practice while in public, with the idea that others might find her. But before she could do that, she ought to help Kel out, and headed towards the grate that blocked off the opening into the tral opening of the spire.

  Once she opehe barrier, Kel rubbed its head against her cheek a from her shoulder towards the open air outside. After watg Kel fly upward for a moment, she closed the grate again and began traveling up the stairs, asding much more slowly.

  Upon reag the floor with all the mana stones, Dawn took a quick walk around the outer rim of the spire, cheg to see who resent. Fortunately, about three-quarters of the way around, she found Thomas and Viera sitting on one of the balies together. She walked up to meet them, making sure they could see her so she didn’t startle them, and waited for them to aowledge her presence.

  Just a momehomas o her, and Viera waved her over, so she joihem on the baly, taking the seat they offered. Simir to when Viera first met Niphru, Thomas also seemed polite, though somewhat cautious as well. Still, it was very o see others treat Niphru as a person immediately.

  “Hello Viera, Thomas, I am gd I was able to find you two, as I don’t really know anyone else here,” Dawn remarked with a smile towards them.

  “It is o see you again as well, Viera was telling me about your time together earlier, and I find it iing how you were able to offer useful advice despite just getting here. Perhaps the three of us get together sometime to discuss hoere taught and see if there is anything else we learn from each other,” replied Thomas.

  Viera was the o speak up, “Hello again, Dawn, I take it you are here for more practice today?”

  To respond to this, Dawn shrugged slightly before answering, “Well, kind of? Morris told me that I should try to meet people, but I’m not really sure how to do that since I don’t know much of anything about eople do here besides practig up here. I figured I would e see if I could find you, or otherwise just practid see if anyone came to talk to me.”

  She then shook her head before tinuing, “I am not terribly good with being around many people, my vilge retty small pared to the number of people I’ve seely.”

  Humming under her breath, Viera responded after a moment of thought, “I see. Perhaps we could help you meet some of the nicer groups of people here. The floor below this one serves as a kind of gathering pce, as it is partially a library, with rge reading areas. bined with the proximity to this floor, it seems to be where most people spend their time.”

  Viera sighed and shook her head as she stood up and resumed speaking, “I don’t really uand that much, myself. If you have time to sit around and chat, you have time to learn and practice more. That is more Thomas’ kind of thing, though he has gotteer about it.”

  Sighing, Thomas spoke up, “I think you uimate how important knowing people be. How about you just keep practig, and I go introduce them?

  “Sure, I am always up for more practice, go have fun with your silly talking,” Viera replied, swiftly sitting back down with a grin, “I appreciate the offer, however, so thank you for taking over. I’ll be here when you finish up, Dawn, if you want to meet up again. And it was o see you again, Niphru.”

  Dawn o Viera before following Thomas as he headed towards the stairs, expining, “There are several different groups or fas here. You want nothing to do with the one I used to be part of. They are all so certain that no one pare to them just due to being born iy. Pretty rare for any to realize they are wrong, like I did. But when you actually stop and think about it, you vilge folk tend to do a lot better overall. Viera mentiohat you have to use yic rather than just messing around with it for fun, which apparently makes quite a difference.”

  Having reached the floor below, Thomas led her towards a small group of people who were reading books together as he tinued, “Then you have these guys, they prefer to study the theory more tha, and they, quite frankly, suck at magic for the most part. But if you ever have questions, they are the oo go to. Even the older and more experienced mages e to them for answers from time to time.”

  “Oh, and they tend to be pretty ied in Awakened, so they will probably ask you all kinds of questiarding Niphru. Now, how about you introduce yourself to them?” he finished.

  After a few minutes, Dawn decided that she liked these people, though they were a bit too ied in their books, in her opinion. Having promised to meet them again, she resumed following Thomas.

  “ up, we have ‘the oners’ as they call themselves. A fairly fitting here are a ton of them pared to roups, and they mostly e from here or the towns. They have the widest variety, and are not terribly focused on anything in particur. That colle of people over there are part of them. I tell you don’t do well with big crowds, so how about we skip to the group?” Thomas said as he waved towards a gathering of about twenty people sitting around several tables nearby.

  Happy to avoid the crowd, Dawn agreed, and they moved on.

  “My new favorite group, the vilge folk, are very nice people as long as you don’t act like you are superior like I used to. Mostly they foproving their skill, the opposite of the first group. Typically there are only one or two people per vilge, if that, so the handful here are a rge portion of them,” remarked Thomas as he led her towards four people who were rexing at one of the more isoted tables.

  As she approached them, one of them quickly stood and backed away, eyeing her with evident distrust and worry. The reeted her and expihat their friend had been attacked by a fox, and would ime to accept being around one.

  Heading back to Thomas, she listened as he expihe st few groups, “You also have some smaller groups, there are the direct disciples of higher mages, which I think you are right now, and the ‘elites’ like Viera and I who advahe fastest. Typically you won’t see much of either group, as they tend to stay up higher in the spire, w with the high mages more directly.”

  Dawn this, though she was unsure if she really ted as a disciple, personally. But she decided to not think about it too much, and instead replied, “Thank you for helping me meet these people. How about we go back upstairs? I’m close to exhausted after talking with so many new people.”

  Thomas chuckled at this, clearly much more at ease around others than she was, and turo lead her back, remarking, “You seem fih Viera and I, at least.”

  “Of course, one or two people are a lot different than four or more!” Dawn excimed, surprised that he didn’t seem to realize that himself.

  She did enjoy speaking with Viera, however, though she was unsure about Thomas still. Ohey returo the baly they were at before, she tried to focus on spending time with the two of them, but quickly found herself exhausted from iing with people.

  “Sorry, but I o be alone for a while, that was too many new people for me,” she expined, receiving nods from both of them. Gd they didn’t seem to take offense, she hurried back to her residend colpsed onto her bed.