"... 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?"

Hyacinth's taken up her staff again, and hums softly to herself. "I think that rock outcropping we saw earlier would be fine. And we can look for somewhere more convenient on the way. Just got to bring enough fuel along."

"Kindling and dry branches will be easy enough to find, but we should buy some proper firewood, I think, if we're hoping for a fire big enough for you to sit in," Sable notes, turning toward the shops.

Hyacinth follows along. "I agree. And it's not like we're hurting for money, or for supplies to unload. Speaking of which, I should have a look at your loot with my ritual senses probably."

"Good thinking." She turns her hands over, palm up, and pulls a bit of meat of both animals and the bleak essence into her hands, holding them out for Sin to inspect.

Hyacinth's ritual senses inform her that the meat is a decent option for offerings, while the bleak essence is absolutely a viable reagent wherever she needs to refer to corrupted and toxic things.

"Both of these have some potential. The bleak essence is... nasty. It's got the ritual aspect of corruption and toxicity. The meat could be a viable offering, though I don't know who or what would accept it. I'm not sure I'd risk using it given that it was taken from a corrupted beast though; I don't particularly want my ritual to accidentally incorporate that kind of aspect, you know?"

"Yeah, I can see some ways that could go badly sideways." She vanishes the materials back into her inventory, then draws her sword for a moment to use the flat of her shadow cutter to disintegrate any residue left behind, before sheathing it again and taking Sin's hand.

Sin flushes a little, but takes Sable's hand. 

And off they go to market together. 

"I think we should watch for... candles, lamp oil, salt... really basic ingredients, you know? I doubt we'll find too much fancy out here, though naturally if you spot anything that looks exciting point it out."

Sable smiles warmly and nods.

The general store turns out to have some basic candles in a variety of sizes, a few oil lamps, plenty of lamp oil, salt, and a collection of some locally-gathered herbs, all of which register as passable reagents. 

Sable steps over to grab the lamp and candles and oil.