Chapter 1423 (Patreon)

It was quite amusing. When Lia and I returned to the Den after our fun midnight stroll, Luna was somehow already awake. She never explained why or how she knew to be up and waiting for us, but it only took her a single glance at me to decide I needed to rest. And not simply rest, but rest in peace and together with them. First, Luna prodded me into using the shadows to transport us all to Jademoon Tower. There, I was fairly forcibly put to bed, with Lia and Luna snuggling up to either side of me, mostly lying on top of me, acting like weights, or maybe a weighted blanket. Lastly, Silva hopped onto the bed as well, her size letting her cover our legs with ease and adding more warmth and weight to the whole arrangement. 

All in all, I was feeling a little bit broiled by the end; the physical warmth was a little too much for me, but I couldn’t really complain about the emotional warmth I felt. My family was all around me, embracing me and doing their best to replace the thoughts of death and desolation with feelings of warmth and companionship. If only the warmth had been purely emotional, I really could have done without being drenched in sweat.

Regardless of the warmth, I soon found myself drifting off, my thoughts fading as I drifted off. Yet, no matter how far I drifted, I never quite faded to sleep all the way. A part of me, maybe small and rarely at the forefront of my mind, refused. Instead, that small part of me continued to wrestle with something, the struggle just barely on the edge of my consciousness, like a fly buzzing near my ear, never close enough to swat, never far enough to ignore. It was quite maddening, but at the same time, the buzzing wasn’t just noise.

There was something more to it: rhyme, or maybe a reason. It wasn’t random, and the longer I listened to it, in that strange space between the waking world and the nothingness of sleep and dream, the more I came to realise that I could hear those patterns. That they were familiar, a song I had heard before, an unseen tune, a whispered melody. Not completely harmonious, but not discordant either. It was a mix; some of these colours-that-were-sounds clashed, others blended, slowly turning the chaotic noise into a song, into a painting of impossible colours.

Part of me wanted to hum along, especially as time passed and I began to recognise some of these colours. The colours, the sounds, they were all so very familiar, and even the song was something I recognised. Not the way I was hearing it now; normally, I heard it in the sound of waves, of a river flowing by, whenever I delved into the Astral. But here, between the world of dreams and waking, I heard that familiar sound, only that it was different now. No longer the rushing of water, the gurgling of the waves or the slow rhythm of the tides, but a symphony. Different, and yet the same.

And just as the sounds within the Astral River, the painting I was looking at was composed of countless individual influences. Hundreds, if not thousands, of colours, joined together to create a harmonious whole, even if the individual colours could clash horribly. Could, and did, with two fundamental tones dominating the picture I was looking at. Always connected, always clashing, and yet it was easy to see that neither colour could shine without the other. Remove either, and the other would quickly follow, fading into a dull, meaningless grey. These colours were fundamentally linked, always mixing, always clashing, and only shining in that discord. 

Suddenly, realisation struck me, and the ripple it sent through my being was enough to jostle me from my uneasy sleep. I wasn’t feeling all that rested; my mind was sluggish from exhaustion and the strange dream-that-wasn’t I had just awoken from- but there was little I could do. For a moment, I considered getting up, only to realise that I was pinned to the bed by Lia on one side, Luna on the other, and Silva resting on all of our legs. Unless I was willing to escape into the shadows, I just couldn't get up, at least not without waking up my family.

At first, I simply closed my eyes, trying to will myself to sleep, but my mind was simply too keyed up and still reeling from the strange experience I had earlier. I was confident it hadn’t been a dream, nor a visitation from Lady Hecate, though it shared some similarities with our encounters. No, it was something else, though maybe something similar. What? I had no real idea, just that it had been an anomaly. 

So, instead of trying to sleep, I considered the strange experience. It had been magical, at least partially; the connection to the Astral River made that somewhat obvious. So my next step was to dip my metaphorical toes into the river, letting its sounds and sensations flood my mind and compare this experience with the earlier one, highlighting the contrasts in the process. Obviously, this also allowed me to see the similarities and the areas that overlapped neatly. 

Looking at the overlapping areas, I first focused on those, and I quickly realised that one of the most important aspects that overlapped in the image, or painting or whatever you wanted to call it, was Life and Death. The two sides of the coin, inexorably linked, impossible to separate. If one vanished, the other would fade soon after, as life without death was meaningless and without anything alive, nothing could die. Only stagnation would remain, until Life eventually sprang forth once more, bringing Death with it. Or, if Life ever triumphed over Death, it would start to devour itself, an endless cancer, ever growing, ever spreading, but never able to progress, as Death was necessary to remove the old and make room for new growth. 

Focusing on one side of the tapestry, on the image I had beheld earlier, the complex interplay of colours and forms, I soon beheld something. Something beyond the streams of the Astral River, something incredibly similar to the exploration I had performed earlier. Near the Dungeon, Death Magic and Soul Magic had been linked deeply, but here, within the sanctuary of my tower, and maybe everywhere in the world, that wasn’t the case. Or rather, it wasn’t just those two that were linked; three aspects were. 

Life and Death were linked, fundamentally so, and the bridge between the two, the body of the coin, so to speak, was the Soul. If Life and Death were two sides of a ladder, or maybe a DNA-like structure, then Souls were the rungs of that ladder. 

Drawing on strands of Death and Soul Magic within myself, I delved a little further into the Astral River. There, I began to feel out the strands of that same magic within the River, drawing on the earlier experience. I was drawing on both the experience in my vision and the experience above the dungeon, trying to make sense of it all. 

Slowly, I began to see shapes and forms, and something clicked. These were runes, or they might eventually be, if I could make sense of them. So I took a mental step back, looked at the forms from afar, and simply took them in. Where were the similarities, and where were the patterns? What could I compare these forms to?

Eventually, I fell asleep, my mind still awhirl with these forms as I tried to make sense of them. When I woke up in the morning, I felt a little strange. 

“Good morning, Mother,” Luna greeted me as my eyes were fluttering open. “Lia decided to prepare some breakfast.” 

“Thank you,” I replied, rubbing my eyes and looking around. Luna was still in bed with me, but Lia was obviously gone, just like Silva. “Breakfast sounds good,” I added, stretching as Luna got up and freed my arm. 

“Huh,” I muttered when I noticed a pair of blue boxes flickering at the edge of my sight, only becoming truly visible when I focused on them. 

Apparently, I had somehow gained Soul Rune Mastery and Death Rune Mastery during the night, but I wasn’t sure how. Strangely, both skills were set at only one out of sixty-six, making me realise there was more to them.

After a moment of thought, I also understood what that ‘more’ might be. Namely, an understanding of Life, as annoying as that was. Maybe the skill level I could gain now was sufficient, but I would have to see. 

“Let’s get breakfast,” I told Luna, getting up from the bed. “I’ve just learned something new, and I’m not sure what to think about this.” 

Together, we walked down from my bedroom and into the kitchen, where I could hear Lia bustle around. Somehow, the sounds and scents were bringing a smile to my face. Family was, after all, incredibly important.  But so was work. And there was work to be done so I could understand my new skills, so the laboratory was next once we finished family breakfast.