--- Kat ---

Later into the night once everyone else was starting to get some sleep, Lily and Kat moved into the hallway and a bit away from the door. Not so far that they’d be unable to hear if things got weird, and there wasn’t any clear way around them as they’d made sure not to go passed any junctions. Though the pair had moved far enough away that Lily’s practice wasn’t going to impact the door.

"So what did you want to practice anyway?" asked Kat.

Lily glanced around before transforming and giving Kat a peck on the cheek. Which gave Kat ideas, she waited for Lily to start to lean away from the kiss, but Kat swept her tail around and pulled Lily in close, kissing her deeply for a few moments before letting go. Lily wobbled a bit on her feet, steadied by Kat’s tail, before shaking her head. "Hey, I didn’t want to be so out of it for this," mumbled Lily.

"Do you want me to apologise?" asked Kat.

"Never," Lily hissed out instantly, ears flattening before she shook herself and calmed a bit. "Sorry, just, I’m trying to make my spells better."

"Oh? I thought they were already pretty good," Kat said.

"Yes... but also no. It’s casting thing... and I’ve probably been lazier about it then I should have been. See, spells can only be so efficient, but the basic idea is that the more mana you can pass through the spell the bigger the effect... but the larger you make your runes and sigil circles the more mana your wasting.

"In theory, you want to keep everything to a microscopic spell sigil but nobody is that good. My issue is that as long as your mana is able to form into runes you can cast the spell properly, well assuming it’s a real spell. As long as it’s all ’legible’ that’s fine enough, and you can just keep pushing mana through it or make it larger... but that’s not the proper way to go about it.

"You want to keep the runes the same size or smaller while putting the same mana through it... but frankly I’m not that good at that part. My mana control... well I haven’t had the time needed to make it better. I get by making my spell circles bigger than normal and that’s fine because I have plenty of mana... but it’s not great," explained Lily.

"Ok, so you’re just going to practice that a bit?" asked Kat.

"Sort of. See, there isn’t anything you can do to speed up your control other than practice, which I am doing. I can’t make that any faster, it just is what it is... BUT I’m assuming that part of the reason people have favourite spells is that you can train to be specifically better at that one spell.

"So my plan here is to cast my paper storm spell at Rank 2, and Rank 3 while slowly changing the amount of mana I’m pushing through the and trying not to make the runes any larger. I’m hoping that will be a big bonus," explained Lily.

"Do you want me to set up... say... a wall of demonic fire to catch your paper? I’m not sure they’d all burn up immediately but it would probably make your less likely to destroy the wall in the process," offered Kat.

"Ah, I’ll try a few casts like that then? If it’s ok with you?" Lily agreed. Shifting her shadow a bit she moved it to outline a rough square of her spell, and after seeing Kat nod, Lily let her shadow snap back to normal and Kat summoned the fire in its place. A few moments later and the spell was ready... but Lily didn’t send it off yet. Instead she contracted and expanded the mana holding the runes together... and had to wince at the results.

Expand and contract. It seems like such a simple little thing... but not really. Mana was a weird combination of liquid gas, and very, very occasionally solid. Unless you counted constructs made entirely of mana Lily supposed... which would mean it behaves like all three now that she was properly thinking about it.

Regardless, the problem with her runes was that even if the glow from them made it look like she’d simply managed to change their size... that wasn’t the case. Not in truth. When she expanded it cracks formed, broken lines that would completely ruin the spell if she actually cast it. Contracting wasn’t much better. Some spots, instead of simply getting smaller, doubled over themselves. Sure it looked smaller, and they kind of were... but not really. Lily could feel the difference. She wasn’t even sure these counted as runes. Actually.

Lily decided to just test it, not pushing extra mana into it with hopes that would fix the issue, just letting the spell go... and of course. Lily bit down on her cheek as the pain echoed throughout her body of a failed spell. [Shit. I forgot why people are meant to be so careful with spells.]

*Are you alright?*

[Yes. I guess... I guess I semi-intentionally shattered my own spell? It’s weird. Even if a spell is wrong it doesn’t normally shatter like that... though I suppose I intentionally left those holes in it to see what would happen. Pain is the answer. Remind me not to do that again...]

*Lily, don’t do that again. Especially not while I can fill you wanting to do this again.*

[I kind of hate that I finally understand your masochistic tendencies when it comes to training. What I just did gave me important information and might let me learn more in the future. I need to know more and try other things... but dammit that hurt. I don’t think it actually did damage... or maybe it did? It’s a bit harder to control my mana right now but I can already feel it settling. Hmmm... really should have asked about that at some point. Do you think Thyme would be able to heal whatever issues this creates?]

*I don’t know. I want to say yes but mana generation seems at least partially tied to souls so... maybe?*

[Blegh. Get ready to comfort me if this turns out to be an equally bad idea.] Lily sighed as she twisted contracted the runes this time and cast the spell again. Instead of breaking as suspect, the spell did cast... sort of. Lily felt a large chunk of mana get ripped away from her as a giant wad of paper flopped outwards. It didn’t have any power at all behind it, reaching neither the wall nor Kat’s flames. Instead... it just sort of fell forwards and hit the ground. Lily felt like she was about to collapse.

Kat pulled her girlfriend against her as Lily waited for her breathing to stabilise. The spell didn’t break... but it certainly hadn’t gone off properly either. She’d cast that spell easily hundreds of times and it had never once taken anywhere close to that much mana before... it had also never been quite so ineffective.

Lily was about to kick the mess of paper on the grand when the whole thing simply vanished. Lily frowned at that. "Is... is that how that’s meant to work?"

"Why are you asking me?" Kat said from the side. Not that Lily had actually been looking her way when voicing that question. "Actually, what’s weird about this? Doesn’t that sort of thing vanish once your mana burns away?"

Lily’s ears flicked in annoyance as she glared at the empty space. "No, not really. I put a MASSIVE amount of mana in that garbage. Perhaps not intentionally, but the mana was still supplied. There was no reason for it to vanish so fast. Like, watch this," Lily summoned up a little square of paper. "I put in way less mana into this. Less then I regenerate in a second. It’s about the smallest unit of mana I can put inside... and yet..."

Lily continued to look at the small bit of paper on the end of her finger for a while before continuing. "It’s still here! That might already be longer than the big glob lasted, and sure it was a lot more paper but... it was a huge amount of mana from me. It should’ve lasted longer... I think,"

Kat shrugged, she really had no idea what this would all mean. She could only see stuff from Lily’s perspective at best... and had no real idea why it would have taken so much mana and lasted so little time. It had taken close to forty percent of Lily’s reserves to do... essentially nothing. The wad of paper was fairly large, but at the same time, not necessarily all that larger then what you’d get if you added the entire swarm from a standard cast together. "Actually... do you think it cost more because you broke it before? And your mana channels, or whatever were still recovering?"

"I... um... maybe? That... hmm... I thought I was mostly better by the time I cast the second spell... I mean it’s possible but I don’t think it’s likely..." Lily pondered.