Her lines were messy, something she needed not worry so much about previously while carving Isa into the wood as the single line had come somewhat effortlessly to her limp limbs at the time. But now. With Sowilo, matters were quite different. Her first line in the lightning bolt-like shape was more reminiscent of an overcooked piece of spaghetti than the crisp line runic carvings demanded. But as the Isa in her pocket influence began to take it’s hold and the drops of perspiration ceasing to drip from her brow, so too did her lines become more cool and collected. Crisp. “Damnit,” she muttered to herself upon seeing the error to her carving.

She would have to start over, clearly.

Or perhaps not.

Taking another moment to wipe her brow, her head dipping and bowing towards the ground while her elbow momentarily shaded her face, the Wampus noticed something she must have overlooked during her numerous circumnavigations of the red door. Perhaps a combination of fwooper song and the heat was to blame, although she was more willing to shift it entirely on the heat and sticky humidity. The humidity was by far the worst and and only made the heat feel all the more unbearable and she could feel her thighs and calves beginning to cramp up slightly as her body attempted (and failed to) compensate in cooling her down prior to invoking the rune within her pocket.

And to think she had previously complained about all the tasks involving the cold. She would gladly trade the tundra in place of this furnace.

Although her thoughts were drifting to that tundra and all she had experienced the previous task provoked unwanted and ill-timed feelings. Feelings that overpowered the rune's cooling properties and made its influence almost obsolete. She could not afford this emotional distraction. Not now. Nor could she afford to lose more water in the form of tears that were beginning to sting her eyes. So her hand slipped into her pocket and clutched the wood there, her thumb rubbing over the carving and permitting it to cool her thoughts and return her blood from a boil to a slow simmer.

Now. To return to the inspection of this red door.

Leaning forward to peer more closely at what was carved into the door (if it was another poem she may actually cast Bombarda at the door) when her attention was pulled towards a shift in the grass. The Isa rune in her pocket had cooled and refreshed her limbs enough to them to their cat-like reflexes, Valerie quickly pivoted (although did wince at the knot in her left thigh and calf that had previously formed from heat exhaustion) so she faced the direction of the sound with her wand thrust forward accordingly. “Incarcolvo!” she snapped with a instinctive jab of her wand towards the rustle in the grass. A black mesh immediately erupted from the tip of her cherry wood wand and hurtled itself towards the rustle in the grass.

Preemptive defensive strike or strategic provoking of whatever lay hidden in the long grass? She supposed she was about to find out.