"Fascinating," she murmurs. "Well, that sounds like a plot hook if I've ever seen one. Also possibly the gods ship it?"

She giggles and shakes her head, squeezing Hyacinth tighter.

Hyacinth laughs. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Thank you. For... being you." She smiles. 

"Oh, and I was able to lock a better meditation with my meditation." Her smile widens to a grin, then she tilts her head to the side. "Didn't name it though. While I'm under it's very... pre-words. I think the second one will gain power from fire?" She shrugs. "Let me call up the interface again..." 

The locked ability is [Mediation, Fire, Fire Resistance, Capacity, Intricacy], so... the sensible thing to call it would be "Inner Fire", yes? 

She'll have to try it out later. 

"Yeah, it's still locked outside of trance. And it felt like it locked tighter, too, a little more solidly..." She raises her eyebrows. "The natural next thing to do is to try and see if we can get the Inner Fire meditation to lock an even better meditation, or at least a better set of abilities... but there's that pesky problem of having another six skill points to spend. I could plow them all into the Self tree, get even better Meditation abilities and even stronger passives for it to feed from..." 

She shakes her head. "I don't want to overspecialize my build like that, though. Even if I'm really really tempted to see what I can make out with a souped-up meditation. My remaining six points should probably go into the Ranged Casting and Persistent Spell trees - get the first tier of Lingering Spell at least, and start getting points together towards Effect Chain... Lingering Spell unlocks some new targeting modes in Persistent, the beginnings of being able to cast real ritual magic... I'd want to go over that with you seriously. As for the Ranged Spell tree the obvious thing to buy there is Fire II or higher, or maybe Ray... Though I can emulate a persistent ray with Held Spell fairly well." 

Hyacinth nuzzles into Sable. "Sorry, I'm getting into the weeds again..."

Has Hyacinth noticed that getting into the weeds seems to reliably produce the sappy expression Sable's currently wearing? Because Sable's definitely got a sappy expression and she's petting Sin tenderly.

"I think there are massive advantages to be had from such specialization later, but I agree that continuing to focus on some combat capability for now is a very good idea. At the very least it keeps up our ability to gain more levels and pick that up as we go. I'd be glad to go over things with you. I agree that you can probably hold off on Ray for a little longer, judging by how good you are with Held Spell so far."

"Yeah, we've definitely got to pick a primary tactic for this build in the long run, but right now having lots of add-on nodes lets me exploit the high Intricacy. Most effects are better when they last longer, so Lingering Spell is a nice mix-in I can toss into most anything."

She frowns. "Longer-term, though... I want utility. I bet a lot of people build for combat first and forget this is a team game..." She pauses.

"— had another idea. I wonder if I can form an ability that lets me lead people in meditation. I, um." She flushes a little. "I'm actually better at that than focusing myself, I'd say. A... Held Burst of Enhance with Meditation and Intricacy...?" She frowns. "That's five nodes so it might or might not slot, but it's definitely something we should try."

Sable's grin turns eager, and the slightest bit sharp, almost knife-like. "Oh my, that is some dangerously lovely synergy. I'd be game to try it."

"Probably best to try and slot it using the most advanced meditation I can get access to." Hyacinth traces a finger across Sable's thigh. "Since Fire is in my meditation now, and it's my main mode of attack, I don't think it's a bad move to pick up another level of it just on spec." 

She rolls over onto her back on the bed and looks up at the ceiling. "So that's... Fire II, Persistent Spell I, for sure. Let me take a look at the Persistent tree..."

Hyacinth holds her hand up and swipes through menus like she's looking at clouds. 

"Ooh, Ritual I under Persistent. An extended casting time spell that produces an effect lasting approximately one hour, but requires ritual foci and or sacrifices proportional to the level and complexity of the cast spell. Opens a set of subnodes for ritual efficiency, casting time, duration, material substitution or reduction..."

She looks over at Sable. "I think this and its upgrades are key to my build as a crafter and support wizard in the long term, but the material components are troublesome. Might not be worth taking at this low a level, given that we aren't likely to have a lot of access to ritual components this early..."

Sable hums and strokes Sin's hair while she frowns consideringly. Good ritual components will be expensive or come from dangerous creatures, but the CORA devs do try to foster a level of approachability for such things even at low levels...

"The devs have a tendency to build some utility for such things at all levels, so it likely wouldn't be useless, but I think we're likely to have access to better components when our ability to kill things goes up a bit more. My instinct is not to buy the ritual node quite yet, and instead save it for our next round of upgrades or the one after. Not too long, though, because once you have the node you'll probably have an instinctive sense for ritual applications of all sorts of things."

"I feel, just on a gut level, that doing guided meditation on a high level is likely to work best as a ritual. The more pieces of scene setting you use for this kind of thing, the better the effects you get in the real world, so..." 

"Honestly, just for the sense of what to keep and what to throw out, I want Ritual I. It's a safe longterm buy and I don't have anything else in the Persistent tree that's burning a hole in my pocket. I need to invest more points to get to Chained Effects, and this is a reasonable thing to spend those points on."

She flicks through the menus. "Let's look at its competition though. I could take Sustained Spell II, which would be... eh. I could see it being useful for meditation but in general stuff with a duration of "concentration" is bad. I could take Extinguish II, that'd strengthen my crowd control. Might be worth it. There's also the option of Mana Efficiency II, which is just a nice general purpose flat buff..."

She sighs. "I know I should take some simple basic power boosters but they're just so boring. Having seen what CORA can do with meditation, I want everything to have that same kind of tactile clicky really-doing-it feel. That's something I hardly ever got in RoD."

"Adorable and also caring." She kisses the top of Hyacinth's head. "I think you should buy it. Between our ability to butcher our kills and you gaining the ability to recognize usable resources, I think we could build toward useful rituals quicker than expected at this level."

She gives Sin another squeeze. "That and I think it would make you happy, and I think that's valuable in and of itself."

"... Alright," she says. "Thank you." 

She stretches. "So, Fire II, Ritual I, Lingering Spell I, three more. I think I probably have to take Fire Resist three if I'm going to keep standing in my flames. So the other two are... Bolt II, Extinguish II?"

"Those seem reasonable, yeah. I'd also consider something to increase the radius of your zones, as a possibility, or upgrading Force."

"Yeah, I suppose I could upgrade Splash or Force..."

Plumph she goes against Sable with a small sigh. "Upgrading Force potentially gives me a second damage type. Splash upgrade would boost AOEs in general. Extinguish upgrade would boost hampering effects in general... Bolt II upgrades bolts specifically, but in the longer term we might want to take Ray..."

Hyacinth bites her lip. "I guess Force is a reasonable upgrade, yeah. It'd boost my crowd control in general, and it's also a potential second damage type..."

"I think we take Force II instead of Bolt II. So Force II, Fire II, Fire Resistance three, Ritual I, Lingering Spell I, and... One more. Do we invest in Ranged spells or Persistent? Probably we put it in the Persistent tree to reach Effect Chain faster, right? So we'd want to take Extinguish II over Splash II or Bolt II."

Hyacinth shakes her head. "But the thing is, if I get Effect Chain too fast, I might not have the Intricacy for such complicated spell effects. Like, a spell that does two things in order is more than twice as complex as a spell that does one thing, and that complexity takes up space. So maybe we don't rush for Effect Chain..." 

"What am I going for in ranged casting... I guess in the longer term I'm going for Explosion there, right? But that's a ways in. Ranged Burst could be a prerequisite..." 

She frowns. "I dislike having both Splash and Ranged Burst in my build when I could be focusing on just one. Let's just take Splash II for now?"

Sable squeezes her tighter and nods. "I think that sounds like a solid plan. Keeps your build a bit more focused for now."

"Let's start by unlocking the ritual subtree then." 

She puts the point in and purchases Ritual I, then examines her new node selection.

"Oh, great, there's a whole bunch of stuff I want here. If I get Ritual II then I can take Runes or Investiture and start making cool stuff..."

She frowns. "Investiture, Offerings, Sacrifice is one side of the tree, then on the other side we've got Runes, Diagrams, Scrolls..." She raises her eyebrows. "An item crafting node! Let me see what it says... 'Inscribe a completed ritual into a scroll for later use without requiring full ritual setup. Casting time of the bound ritual remains the same.' That's got to be the start of item crafting, isn't it? But to get it I have to take... Rituals IV, Runes III, Diagrams II. Which requires... a total of five more intermediate nodes below it." 

"As much as I'm tempted to beeline for item crafting, I'd clearly be gimping the combat side if I were to invest my whole next three levels into nothing but rituals. Better to move more evenly. But I am really tempted to grab either Runes or Invesititure..." 

She shakes her head. "I'll get them soon enough at the rate we're leveling. Stick to the plan." 

Back into the menus she goes, unlocking Fire II, Force II, Fire Resistance III, Lingering Spell I, and Splash II. 

"Okay! All done on the unlocks! Now I just need to slot my best fire resistance and figure out how this fire-absorbing meditation works."

Sable nods and grins. "I know the feeling. It's easy to get tempted by all these shiny nodes off in the ability trees." She kisses the top of Sin's head and squeezes her tighter.

"Good girl for sticking to the plan." 

She blushes, and turns to face Sable. After a moment's indecision, she presses in and kisses her too.

"... and you're cool too, for listening to everything..." She rubs the back of her head, and then seems to remember that she's not wearing anything. 

"... We should probably get our clothes on and find somewhere we can build a nice hot fire," she says. "Somehow I doubt our innkeeper would like me to sit in his fireplace."

She nods. "That's a reasonable plan. Probably shouldn't go downstairs naked."

One hand strokes tenderly down Sin's ribs and waist. "Maybe the rocks we practiced at earlier? There should be someplace closer, though, if we look."

Hyacinth smiles and nestles into Sable a little more. 

"... kind of just want to stay with you, but magic." She makes a balancing scales motion with her hands. "Incredibly hot girlfriend. Incredibly cool magic." The imaginary pans balance first one way, then the other. "... I can take the girlfriend with me to do magic. This solves both problems."

"True, you can take me with you. You can even find ways to flirt and tease me while you do the magic, I bet."

Hyacinth grins. "I bet I can." She rolls her shoulders against the bed, then sits up and starts collecting her scattered clothes. "Let's go, then."

Sable gets up as well, clothes vanishing onto her body as she picks them up and equips them. When they're both dressed, she leads the way downstairs, waves to Jorem, and heads outside. "So, where do we want to build a bonfire?"