Chapter 1381 (Patreon)

There was something quite amusing about the way the fivesome acted around me after I approached them around dawn. Maybe it was because I hadn’t waited for them all to be awake to make my appearance; maybe it was just because I was, well, me; or maybe there was some other reason; I wasn’t quite certain. Whatever the case, I enjoyed the way some of them couldn’t even look at me without looking like they had a headache.

“Why, I merely wanted to ask for directions,” I said, once one of those who looked like she already had a headache broke the brooding silence that had hung over their breakfast. It reminded me that they were quite the rude group, as none of them had introduced themselves. Though, given how much the woman, roughly in her mid-thirties, maybe early forties, was swearing, that was to be expected. Truly uncivilised. Or maybe it was some sort of yapping-dog syndrome, as the woman was the weakest of the bunch, at least level-wise from what I could tell. 

“What do you mean?” the guy who had been awake on my approach asked, rubbing his face with one hand, obviously trying to chase away a headache. He might just be the oldest of the bunch, somewhere in his forties, maybe even fifties; I wasn’t quite sure. His hair was marred with a few strands of grey, alongside a couple of wrinkles, but that was about it when it came to signs of his age. His level, somewhere in the mid-fifties from what I could tell, wasn’t high enough to rejuvenate his body, but he might get to that point. 

“Well, I’ve been making my way east, trying to get to Kemmeridge, Indiana,” I explained, “Thing is, it’s rather hard to navigate without known landmarks or usable maps, so I had hoped you could give me some idea where we are now, allowing me to figure out where to go, simple as.” 

“That makes no sense,” the rude woman who had spoken first grumbled, making me raise an eyebrow. 

“What makes no sense? That I’m travelling, that maps are unusable or that I can’t rely on known landmarks? Or something else entirely?” I asked, now feeling a little impish and curious at the same time. 

“All of the above?” she snarked back, showing that the little dog truly liked to yap. “We’ve been trying to get enough food to get everyone through the winter until the harvest comes in, and here you are, travelling? And why wouldn’t landmarks or maps work?”

“Power, my dear, allows for a great deal of convenience. What takes you weeks, or might be entirely impossible, takes me a few hours of concentrated effort. Quite frankly, I can reject your reality and substitute it with my own, if I so choose,” I told her, flexing my magical power a little, causing the shadows all around us to warp and waver, making it look as if reality itself was being bent and twisted. 

“As for the rest, you may have noticed that the world has changed? The changes went much deeper than you might think. It’s not just living things, nor did the Change stop with the artefacts of civilisation. You know, the decay of houses, roads and everything else humanity has built over the centuries?” I asked, getting a nod from one of the guys who hadn’t spoken yet. 

“Yeah,” the guy nodded, speaking for the first time in a deep, confident voice. Given that he was the second-strongest and tallest of them, his self-confidence was almost justified. As long as he didn’t try to intimidate me simply because he was a head taller than me, everything would be good. If he tried, I might just have to cut him down to size.

“But maps and such? The energy necessary for macro-changes of the environment would be insane,” the last guy asked, his face twisted into a frown. 

“And yet, I can confidently say that such changes occurred. Colorado Springs and Denver used to be fifty miles apart or something like that. “Now, they have become one city.” I shrugged. “Well, their ruins are now the ruins of one city, and they had a few clear lines where reality had shifted to accommodate the odd change. The people within the cities didn’t notice the shift itself, only the result,” I told them, getting looks of complete and utter disbelief. 

“That’s insane,” the same guy gasped, just staring at me as if I had told him the Earth was flat. 

“And yet, it’s real,” I shrugged, “If you wish to ask about the mountains and such, they have changed, too. A few of the locals told me about paths they had known for years that have changed, and even a few rock formations that have been mashed together, for lack of a better word. As in, one rock suddenly being stuck through another, without any obvious changes to either rock, while the overlap is a completely different material,” I paused, thinking about the anomalies I had inspected while with Maggie’s community. “It’s rather wild, but it makes me a little wary of relying on old landmarks to navigate. Who knows where I would end up?” 

My explanation prompted a sudden urge in the group to discuss where they had originally come from. It sounded as if they had never really talked about their lives before the change, maybe because there had been a certain sense of loss regarding their old identities; I wasn’t sure. Regardless, they were suddenly faced with the fact that only three of them had lived in the same general area, while the other two should have been living some hundred miles away, not within the relatively easy walking distance they had ended up in after the change.

“That’s so wild,” the youngest woman of the group, and curiously the one with the highest magical potential, whispered, looking as if her world had just shifted on its axle.

“Well, the world has Changed. Not just on the surface, not just the people and so on,” I shrugged, “Magic is real, the system is the closest thing to an eldritch artefact I ever want to encounter, and even Gods are mucking around. Why wouldn’t there also be a large-scale rearrangement of the local geography?” I asked, a wry smile on my face.

“Because it would require enough energy to boil the oceans away? And for that to happen without anyone realising?” the shorter, somewhat unassuming guy asked, his voice still filled with disbelief. 

“In a closed system, Sunshine,” the oldest guy reminded him, “This ain’t a closed system; who knows where the energy came from or where it went afterwards,” he shrugged, apparently willing to believe me without any additional evidence. Maybe because my claims didn’t change their situation, the actual facts were rather irrelevant to their problems. To them, food and shelter were important, not what happened to the local geography a few hundred miles away.

“Still,” the guy, apparently named Sunshine for some reason, shook his head, “It just feels so utterly insane.” 

“Who cares?” the woman who had spoken originally, the rude one, asked, still looking as if she was either nursing a headache or a hangover. “Doesn’t get us food on the table, and who gives a shit where someone lived two years ago. Well, we told you where we’ve lived; does that tell you what you want?”

“It helps, at least a little.” I nodded, though given that two of them hadn’t lived there, it suggested that some shifting had happened. Meaning, I could only guess and estimate, though I would have to look at the old maps again. 

“You, what’s your name?” I asked the youngest, the one with actual arcane potential but no obvious training just yet.

“Rita, why?” she responded, a frown on her face.

“Take this,” I reached into my bag, pulling out a few slates of introductory instruction, “I believe it’s going to help you become more than you are right now. Magic is a wonderful gift, and I enjoy seeing people delve into it.” 

“Uhm?” she took them, glancing at the writing, “How does that work? The bag, I mean?” she asked, her confused enthusiasm amusing me already. 

“It’s bigger on the inside, and it also lessens the weight within considerably. Yes, I made it myself,” I added, grinning at the wide-eyed disbelief. 

“Can we have one?” the oldest asked, only to blush brightly when he realised just how greedy that sounded. 

“Do you have anything useful to trade?” I asked, curious how they’d answer. When nobody answered, I simply shook my head in denial. “If not, then, no, you can’t. But if she studies well, she might be able to make one.” 

“Is that in there?” he asked, looking at the slates I had handed over. 

“The fundamentals for it, yes. But it’s a fairly long and somewhat difficult road. Once you have worked through the material I gave you, you should be able to contact me. Or at least put out a signal that I might be able to sense. If you manage, you’ll get the next part in the series,” I grinned, the expression telling me everything I needed to know. She was hooked on the idea.