Chapter 1412 (Patreon)

“Nice of you to meet us here,” I remarked when Lia stepped out of the shadows at Jademoon Tower. “I thought we would have to go and track you down.” 

Luna and I had travelled here just a little while ago, arriving about an hour before dusk. Travelling through the Shadows was such a wonderful ability, and I was glad that Lia could use it to return to prepared anchors. Even if she had yet to learn how to make them herself, at least she could escape if it was ever needed. 

“You did call out to me,” she replied with a shrug, clearly unconcerned. “Cut my game short; it was a little annoying. But I’m getting quite good with illusions and mental manipulation,” she added, her voice quite proud of herself.  A part of me wondered how I had called out to her, as I hadn’t consciously done so, and another wondered what ‘game’ she was talking about, but then I decided that it didn’t matter. Well, the first part was interesting, so I asked about it. “Would you show me?” 

“Certainly, Mother,” she grinned, and I felt a trace of magic well up from her. It wasn’t much, just a trickle, and it easily attached to me. It didn’t feel hostile or dangerous, making it incredibly subtle to the point that I was fairly sure I wouldn’t have noticed without paying attention. Even a small distraction might have been enough to keep me from realising that a magical effect was in play. 

The effect, in this case, wasn’t major. It simply made a few nearby shadows feel deeper, allowing anyone using Darkness Magic to blend into them and disappear. Closing my eyes for a second, I focused on isolating the taste of this magic in my mouth, so I could parese it completely, and that was when I noticed that it wasn’t just that. There were two distinct effects, and I wanted to learn about one of them. The relatively obvious effect was the deeper shadows, which was nice. Nothing tremendously important; I could accomplish the same with less power by using Darkness Magic, allowing me to actually alter the shadows instead of merely their perception. So, relatively minor and quite useless for me. 

The other effect, however, was tied to that and a lot more interesting. It was purely mental, without any clues to its existence. It didn’t try to change what I saw; it merely messed with the processing, so to speak. Making it less likely that I would pay attention to anything within the shadows, making it harder to notice any oddities. That alone was an incredible effect, but the fact that Lia was already combining it with another effect made it even better. My mind was already conjuring up ideas to use this, possible combinations of effects that could be devastating. After all, if one part of the effect made it harder to notice the effect, people would only realise that they were under a magical spell when it was too late. 

“Explain,” I told her, after gently disrupting the effect and freeing my mind. “It’s fascinating, and I want to learn more, especially about the second effect.”

“Shouldn’t we head out first?” Luna interrupted us. “I mean, sitting here is nice and dandy; Jademoon Tower is comfortable, but we had plans, mother,” she reminded me, causing a light flush to colour my cheeks. 

“True,” I admitted. “Want to join us back out east, near our old home? I want to see if that slaughterhouse dungeon lets me understand Death Runes, and we might be able to find that creepy hotel in the forest of weird dimensions again. You know, the thing I accidentally destroyed.” 

“I remember, the strange tentacle place,” Lia shuddered visibly. “Why would we want to go there again? Hoping for more tentacles?”

“No, hoping for more interesting crafting materials,” I returned the shrug. “I mean, without that thing, I wouldn’t have my nifty cloak, and you know how much I love to fly.”

“Fair,” Lia admitted, and I could see her eyes gleam with interest. She wanted a cloak of her own, maybe not exactly the same, but something created to assist her unique abilities and personality. 

“So, let’s head east, start walking, then you can talk about that Mind Magic trickery,” Luna suggested, getting nods from Lia and me in return. “Well, after we gather up Silva,” she added, to a few gentle chuckles.

Finding Silva proved to be trivial. She had been waiting outside Jademoon Tower when we walked down, looking quite proud of herself and a little bored. Also, huge.

“You’ve grown, girl,” I complimented her, reaching out to scratch her neck. In the beginning, right after the Change when we first met, she had been about hip-high to my original size. Now, that was no longer the case. Not only had I grown, thanks to the effects of the draconic influence on my body, but she had, too. Now, she was tall enough to look me in the eye without issue, standing as tall as most horses. Not just some small pony, as she originally had, but a proper, full-sized horse, maybe even on the tall side for a horse. She was, quite frankly, massive, to the point that I wondered just how that worked. And what she ate, as her maw was now big enough to readily chew on human skulls, if she ever wanted. Or the skulls of most animals; she had grown to such outrageous dimensions.

“You know, I almost think I could take a ride on you,” I grinned, only to realise that trying to ride her without a saddle would likely be rather painful, as her back was a slim, rather sharp, bony ridge. When she whuffed in response, clearly unenthused about the idea, I accepted her denial readily and explained the plan. She instantly started to wag her tail, clearly interested, so I placed one hand on her, wrapped the other arm around Luna and used that same hand to grab Lia. Then, we all were off, moving through the shadows to the recently created anchor point under the large tree.

When we walked out of the shrine, Silva suddenly stopped, her entire body frozen. Well, almost her entire body. Her tail wasn’t frozen at all; it was going at least a mile a minute, to the point that nobody would be able to get close to her backside, or they would get smacked hard. And given that her tail was just as oversized as the rest of her, getting wagged by her tail would likely lead to bruises, maybe even broken bones. 

“All good, girl?” Luna asked, but then her eyes followed Silva’s line of sight, and she started to giggle, while Lia and I started to chuckle when we realised what our canine companion was focused on- one of the biggest trees she had ever seen. 

“You know, I don’t think Lady Hecate would want you to mark her sacred tree. She had me build her shrine beneath its roots; I think that’s her way of laying claim to it,” I warned her, unwilling to find out what would happen if Silva decided to follow canine urges. 

“But we might find a nice stick for you, something to play fetch with,” Lia suggested, a wide grin on her face. “There’s got to be some nice, small tree somewhere nearby; that should do, right? Or maybe the big tree lost a branch somewhere.” 

“We can play fetch later, if that’s what you want,” I reminded them. “We’ve got places to be, and the night won’t last forever.” 

“You sure about that?” Luna asked, glancing across the expanse covered by the great tree’s canopy. “I mean, it looks as if the world is trying to flood out there. The cloud cover has got to be rather thick.”

Just in time with her words, thunder rumbled above us, loud enough to make all four of us flinch for a moment. 

“Wonderful,” I grumbled, remembering my last experience here during the rain. “Want to do something else? Lia, you mentioned something about a game that was cut short?” I asked, not really interested in wandering through the rain again. Sure, I could keep myself dry, but that didn’t keep the experience from being miserable. It just wasn’t as miserable as it might be otherwise.

“Agreed, I don’t think I want to go traipsing through the rain,” she admitted, her voice giving away how unattractive she found the idea. “But I’ve found a few groups of people. If you want, we can go there, and I'll show you how that Mind Magic trick works. It’s a lot easier to learn stuff like that if you have a target you can use without hesitation,” she suggested. There, her eagerness was quite audible, and the grin on her face gave it away, too. 

“Works for me,” I agreed. “Luna, Silva, what are your preferences?”

“I’ll stay here, play fetch with Silva and get a better look at the Shrine,” Luna demurred. “It’s quite interesting, such a different design. And it has expanded.”

With that, the plans for the night, despite their sudden change, were decided. After taking Lia’s hand, I pulled her with me into the shadows, carrying her elsewhere. Sometimes, bad weather could really be a pain, but better torrential rain than blazing heat.