Chapter 1414 (Patreon)

Spending the entire day sitting around wasn’t my usual habit, but for this day, I made an exception. And I wasn’t really sitting around, at least not sitting around doing nothing. Instead, while my body was idle, my mind was anything but. 

The realisation I had stumbled across while working with Lia had given me a new approach to extracting Sigmir’s memories from the legacy of Morgana, a new perspective and a few ideas I wanted to consider and test. And so, I was delving deeply into my mind, gently poking and prodding at strands, trying my best to differentiate between what I had experienced and what I had not. The flavour, for lack of a better word, between my own experiences, their generated EXP, and the EXP I had gained from another. Well, gained from Sigmir, as she was the only one transferring her EXP to me, gifting me her literal life experience.

After a few hours of work, I thought I had found something, but that was as far as I got, at least for now. The next step here would be to try transferring those EXP to another, but I wasn’t about to try severing a literal part of my being just willy-nilly. No, that would have to wait until I had the correct receptacle, namely, until I had Sigmir’s soul in my grasp.

Which, ultimately, was the last hurdle I needed to cross in order to resurrect my beloved. To draw her Soul from wherever it might be now, to keep it here until it could be bound to her new body and to shield it from any harm in the process. 

Even without knowing how I could accomplish that, I knew it would be a challenge. 

In the evening, Lia and I stepped over to the tree-shrine once more, meeting with Luna again. 

“Hey, Mom,” Luna greeted us, her tone quite enthusiastic. “Look who I found!”

It took me a moment or five to realise that I had seen the person before. I didn’t remember the name, only that she had been part of Mrs Wu’s group, one of those who had listened to my first introductory speech on magic. Beyond that, I had little to no recollection of her, she likely had been with the group when we travelled to Apple Gate Farm and lived there afterwards, but that was pure conjecture. 

“Hello, Luna,” I greeted my daughter first, then looked at the woman. “And hello to you, too.” 

She looked a little rough, her body and clothes looking somewhat wet. Her clothes were relatively simple, though clearly well made. They certainly looked sturdy, crafted from leather and some strange, rough cloth that I had never seen before. Not terribly magical, but the material wasn’t completely mundane. 

The person wearing the clothes looked even worse than the clothes themselves. Her eyes were wide, reminding me of an animal uncertain if she was supposed to run away now, or if that would only attract the attention of some predator. But then, Lia and I had just materialised from a nearby shadow, obviously arriving by magic. However, the smile on my face when addressing Luna, and her address of me, helped to keep her somewhat calm. Or maybe it was the shrine; she might feel that she was safe here, just as everyone else. 

“I remember you,” the woman muttered, her previously concerned expression shifting to a pensive one. “Morgana, was it?”

“Close enough, yes,” I nodded. “What have the two of you talked about? Anything interesting?” I asked Luna, curious what this person was doing here. 

“Eh, not really? Theology, the purpose of this shrine, the weather, things like that,” my daughter explained with a shrug, making me look at her in disbelief for a moment. I could see how the first two fit together, but adding the weather?

“She took shelter here to escape the rain,” Luna clarified. “That’s why we talked about the weather. She only showed up about half an hour ago.” 

“Is it still raining?” I couldn’t help but ask, an unbidden groan escaping alongside my words. 

“It may have stopped by now,” Luna replied, though her voice wasn’t all that hopeful, making me sigh. 

“Great, another night wasted,” I grumbled. “But we might want to check anyway,” I decided, even if it didn’t matter all that much. Whether it was actively raining or not, the ground would be thoroughly soaked and turned into a muddy mess, and the entire forest would be completely drenched, causing every small gust to shower us with the accumulated water on the leaves above us. 

“Say, what’s your name anyway? And, by the way, you can call me Jade,” I told the woman Luna had been talking to. 

“Name’s Yaneth,” she replied, her concern slowly fading away as realisation set in that neither Lia nor I were about to attack her.

“Mom, would you mind helping her? Her wet clothes and hair can’t be comfortable, or healthy for that matter,” Luna asked, as we were walking through the shrine. 

“I can try.” I shrugged. “Not sure what the magic here would classify as an attack, though; I might want to preface things.” With that, I focused a bit of power, not into anything specific but into something similar to a prayer. Only that I wasn’t really praying; I was giving notice, for lack of a better word, trying to convey to the shrine and its wards, and to Lady Hecate, for that matter, that I was acting to help, not harm.

What came next fascinated me deeply. The moment I used my Water Magic to affect the moisture on the clothing and in the hair of Yaneth, I could instantly sense the shrine’s power take an interest. Not hostile, not even suspicious, but it was clearly aware. Not really intelligent, but certainly more sentient than I had expected any spell to be. The shrine seemed to be actively monitoring my magical activity, and I had no doubt that it would shield Yaneth if I acted in a harmful manner. Though what exactly the shrine would classify as harmful, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t look like my earlier prayer had any effect, at least I didn’t think so. Either way, I might have to reconsider my theories about the Mind, as this place, or at least the spellwork protecting this place, had its own sentience. Maybe even its own sapience, though I wasn’t sure whether it was using its own judgement or if Lady Hecate had essentially programmed certain conditions in which the use of magic on others was allowed.

Either way, it was a lot more than I had ever expected of pure spellwork, making me wonder if the shrine was on its way to gaining a genius loci and becoming a place with its own spirit.

“Thank you,” Yanith told me, now dressed in dry but still rough clothes. 

“Don’t mention it,” I waved her off. “Why don’t you tell me about local events? We’ve been away for some time, and I had no chance to meet any locals since our return.”

“Ah,” she visibly hesitated. “You were gone for a long time? But you know about Apple Gate Farm, right?” she asked, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. 

“I mean, yeah?” Now, it was my turn to frown. “You might remember that I helped to get the people who had holed up at the Wu’s gym out there when things went to pot in the city. And generally rescued a bunch of people, including my daughter over there,” I gestured to Luna, causing the uncomfortable expression on Yanith’s face to worsen. 

“So, you don’t know,” she sighed. “Well, I hope you won’t shoot the messenger.”

With that, she began to tell me the tale of Apple Gate Farm. A tale of mismanagement, foolish decisions, hubris and, ultimately, the confirmation of the truism that pride came before the fall. How a group of people with management experience had pushed out practical leaders by virtue of their ‘authority and skill’, only to continue to act as if the government and the social security net were still in place to take care of any large losses, thanks to their relevance to the system. 

I had been aware of part of that, but obviously not everything. Especially not what had happened after more and more people with vital, practical skills decided to seek their fortune elsewhere, taking their skills with them. And oftentimes not only their skills, but also additional people, all with skills of their own. 

That drain eventually made things harder and harder until the group fractured; some of them, Yanith among them, started their own community under the Denmother’s leadership. I could easily remember the Denmother, also known as Cassie, a cleric of some sort. It made sense that she would take her people and build something new instead of staying aboard a sinking ship. 

What I hadn’t expected was that the situation at Apple Gate Farm would deteriorate to the point that the former managers would eventually get murdered by their own people. But apparently, there had been quite a few with grudges against their profession, and they made their own version of justice. Or maybe it had been revenge; I wasn’t sure. Regardless, it didn’t sound good.