Chapter 1398 (Patreon)

When I woke the next morning, I felt quite refreshed, despite sleeping hunched over the library crystal. I could only attribute my current rested state, and possibly that nobody had disturbed me, to Lady Hecate. Maybe she had kept an eye on my body while I was in her realm, or there might be something else going on. 

Either way, talking to her had been, as always, a pleasure, and with the added treats she had provided, it only got better. Given my exhaustion, our conversation had avoided technical topics, like the modifications to my anchors she would like to see, but that didn’t mean it was small and meaningless. Instead, the closest comparison might be to a philosophical discussion in which at least one participant was somewhat intoxicated.  Luckily, I didn’t suffer a hangover, nor had I forgotten the details of our talk. To top off my good fortune, my somewhat impaired mental state hadn’t insulted Lady Hecate. If anything, my exhausted antics had amused her. 

Sure, the philosophical details only made a limited amount of sense, at least those I had put forth, but that had more to do with the exhaustion I had laboured under, making my mind somewhat prone to leaping mental hurdles and flights of fancy. In some cases, the mental leaps I had made continued to make sense, even to my rested mind, but in others?

Not so much. Or, they might make sense, but proving, or disproving the ideas I had put forth would be difficult. Was it possible that each planet was producing Astral Power similar to the way the magnetic field was formed? Sure.

Was it probable that this formation came about because the planet’s core was filled with cream cheese like some sort of giant doughnut? A lot less plausible. 

Was it a sane idea to dig into the core on an expedition to unearth these vast mines of cream cheese, so we could all enjoy some creamy, cheesy goodness? By the point my reasoning reached that far, the grin on the Maiden’s face had turned decidedly manic, while the Mother was looking a little exhausted and the Crone was shaking her head in wry amusement.

Somehow, I doubted that the cream cheese hypothesis would hold up under scrutiny, nor did I have any idea where it actually came from. I didn’t even like cream cheese, so why had I been so obsessed with the idea that the planet was filled with the stuff? Now, in the light of day, I had no idea, but I could recall having those ideas, though my actual reasoning, the mental processes that created them, eluded me. 

Other topics were much more coherent and interesting, especially now that I was considering them with a little more mental clarity. One such topic was that of Sigmir’s resurrection and the potential paths we could have taken. As it turned out, the advice she had given me was based on what she considered my abilities back then, my companions and the way I could have progressed. There were, as one would expect, other potential paths I could have trodden down, though she hadn’t outright said what paths those had been. 

So, we had discussed theoreticals, with me suggesting a few rather wild ideas, and Lady Hecate considering them, sometimes seriously, sometimes with a wicked gleam of amusement in her eyes. Not that she had been shy to suggest some outrageous ideas of her own, one of which was the suggestion that I could resurrect Sigmir by enslaving a specific set of Gods, though she didn’t share which, and force them to do the deed for me. Even in my mentally impaired state, I had known better than to do anything but laugh at the idea. Not because it wouldn’t work; I was quite confident that the right set of Gods would have no issue bringing my beloved back, but because enslaving the Gods wasn’t a project I wanted to consider for some time. 

Another one of her ideas sounded a little more plausible, though not all that much better. Again, it centred around ludicrous power, only this time, instead of enslaving the Gods, the idea was to take a world hostage. This world, to be precise, Terra, and suggest to the correct Gods, though she, again, didn’t give names, that I would spare the world if the Gods returned my beloved to me. It was another slightly ludicrous idea, but it wasn’t as bad as the previous one. It simply depended on the effort the Gods had put into this world and their hold over it, and how much effort Sigmir’s resurrection would take. 

Another idea, this time proposed by me, was that I could learn Spatial Magic, or maybe twist my Darkness Magic into something else, combining it with my Astral Meditation so I could travel the Astral River with greater ease. After all, I already knew that material could travel between Mundus and Terra; my grimoire was proof of that. Which, in turn, meant that I might be able to travel to Mundus, where Sigmir’s graveside should remain intact. Only, how decomposed would her body be after lying within an Ice Sarcophagus for four years, or however long it would be to learn the requisite magic? Lady Hecate undoubtedly knew the state of Sigmir’s body there, simply because I had given the Sarcophagus four idols as guardians, one of which was hers. Given what I knew about the Gods, that should be enough, though I obviously could be wrong. 

My last, and maybe most ludicrous, idea had been to learn Time Magic. That way, I would be able to go back in time and snatch Sigmir up, right as she would be defeated and killed. I only had to make sure that my past self didn’t notice the switch, or I wouldn’t be motivated to learn Time Magic and the entire thing would run into a grandfather paradox, just without the incest. 

All in all, the numerous ideas we had bandied back and forth ranged from the complicated to the impractical until they reached the realm of the ludicrous, with some going even further than that. But the mental exercise was interesting, and I would have to remind myself to keep doing it. Namely, I would have to keep in mind that the first possibility I came across wasn’t necessarily the only possibility, to say nothing of being the best possibility. It was just as plausible that my biases and preconceptions were pushing me down a foolish and somewhat pointless road, even if the path was walkable. There could always be a different, better path right next to the difficult road I made for myself, and I only had to take a step back or to the side to see said path. 

Rising, I stretched, getting rid of a few cricks and cramps, shaking my limbs out a little to get the blood flowing. Then, I studied the Altar for a moment before deciding that one of the sides, currently sitting empty, was a suitable position to engrave one of my anchors. There was more than enough space to modify the design once Lady Hecate gave me the details she wanted me to include, but for now I simply wanted the ability to reach this place so I could return to one of my towers. I needed a shower, a change of clothes and some relaxation, none of which I thought I’d get if I remained here. 

Just as I was about to carve into the Altar, the library crystal flashed with light, projecting a message to me. 

“Please prepare a secondary room for the anchor and inscribe it on the ground,” the message read, and it was signed by Lady Hecate. Clearly, the additions the Lady had in mind were a little more extensive than just a small addition to allow others to detect my anchors, but her request wasn’t onerous. At least not for me. Others might have trouble building an extension to her shrine, but for me, it was trivial.

When I walked outside, the shrine’s doors once again opened without a touch, only this time, I didn’t need to use magic. Apparently, Lady Hecate was assisting me a little with my showmanship, a subtle gesture that brought a grin to my face. 

The villagers were looking at me with a wide variety of expressions, ranging from distrust and fear to expressions of awe, interest and even lust and desire. Some of those expressions were expected; others were outright disturbing, reminding me that sleeping in this place might be a bad idea. 

Who knew what would have happened last night if I hadn’t been guarded by Lady Hecate? I had been rather exhausted, and if my mind was within Lady Hecate’s realm, who knew if signals from my body would reach?

Suppressing a shudder of disgust, I set to work, drawing stone from underground and quickly building the addition while keeping the shrine's theme and overall appearance intact. Maybe I should have created the addition underground, but what was done was done.