Chapter 1434 (Patreon)

“Now, Lia, we’ll start with you,” I instructed my daughter after the two of us returned to the sitting room. Nearby, Luna perked up, set the book she’d been reading on the table beside her seat, and clearly paid attention to my words. Even if this particular lesson wouldn’t help her, she likely couldn’t help her interest. Curiosity was, after all, the defining trait of our little family. 

“First of all, you’ll need to immerse yourself in the Astral River. Otherwise, you will have to use the Shadows to shrink the distance between you and the anchors you wish to perceive, something I would be very hesitant to even try. Incredibly risky, and I’m not even sure it’s possible in the first place, as the shadows are in a constant state of flux. So, Astral River it is,” I explained. “You have seen the map I drew, correct? And understand the logic behind the anchors and their placements, why each number is in its position?” I asked, going over those basics again, hoping that it would help my daughter to make the jump from using familiar places as destinations to using the anchors. Alternatively, if she couldn’t manage before Luna finished her part, I would have to take her from one familiar destination to the next. Far less flexible, but just as useful for a number of important applications. Like running away or travelling from one of our homes to another. 

For a few more minutes, I continued to gently lecture Lia about the intricacies of the anchors, explaining a few tricks I had learned to spot them from the Astral River and how to home in on them, so she could understand which anchor she was targeting. This was, most likely, the most difficult and crucial step in the entire process. If done right, it would let her travel the shadows to new places instead of only going where she had already been. In theory, you didn’t even need to travel to anchors; you only needed to sense multiple of them and use their relative locations to define your destination, just as Lia had used the anchors in the shrine earlier. A lighthouse, allowing her to know her own position relative to a known point, even while travelling, not a road sign.

Curiously, Luna was listening incredibly closely, and I almost felt bad for her. This part, while interesting, wouldn’t help her at all. Because of how Lady Hecate defined her spell, the caster didn’t need to sense the target at all. It was baked into the process, essentially using a list created by Lady Hecate to select the destination. Instead of using coordinates, Lady Hecate’s spell used names, or rather, numbers. But then, numbers could easily be used as names. 42nd Street, anyone?

“Now, I want you to start delving into the Astral River and locate the first Anchor. As you know, it is about forty kilometres to the east of here. Maybe try to locate Maggie’s community within the Astral first, then go from there. It should give you a good, initial heading,” I told Lia, watching as my daughter got comfortable. Her eyes closed, her breathing slowed and evened out, and a peaceful expression appeared on her face.

For a moment, I considered leaving her like that and instructing Luna next to her. My voice, my lecture, would undoubtedly be audible to her, and it would be a challenge to retain her focus and disregard my voice. However, her current task was difficult enough already, so I walked over to the couch Luna was sitting on and sat down next to her, making myself comfortable. Then, I wove a quick warding around the couch, making sure that no noise could leave a small radius, so Lia would remain undisturbed by our conversation. 

“Your lesson will focus on other topics,” I told Luna, a small grin on her face. “You won’t have to bother with the things Lia is doing right now, at least not for a while. Maybe after you master the spell Lady Hecate is currently providing, we can ask her to open things up a little. I doubt you’ll ever be able to walk the Shadows or use another element in an equivalent way, but there’s another option. Tell me, how did Lady Hecate circumvent the chaotic and ever-changing nature of the Shadows? Lia and I can navigate them thanks to our high affinity, but unless Lady Hecate is willing to shepherd everyone through them personally, sending her faithful into them would be rather…” I paused for a second, looking for the right word. “Rather detrimental to the number of her followers. Because I doubt more than one in twenty would come out, likely much less. And those who come out- who knows how long they’d be stuck in the darkness. Not a pleasant project at all.” 

For a moment, I could see Luna think, her eyes closed in focus. At the same time, her hands flicked through gestures, drawing parts and fragments of runes into the air between us, but never fully completing them, merely using the somewhat repetitive action to help her think. Additionally, I was fairly certain that the gestures helped her to visualise the runes as she tried to read their meaning, not that it would work all that well with Lady Hecate’s private script. After all, the only one who really needed to know what the different runes meant was the Goddess herself. To her, a specific sequence of numbers would be immediately recognisable as a request to use a corresponding spell, but to anyone else? It would be nothing but a number, and unless one had access to Lady Hecate and knew the way she cast her spells, that wouldn’t help them. 

Still, watching Luna work through the gestures and runes, I could almost feel the gears turning in her head, and if she thought any harder, smoke would come pouring out of her ears soon.

“She uses her own realm,” Luna suddenly declared, her hands freezing mid-gesture and her eyes snapping open and focusing on me. “It’s as safe as it can be, at least for those she wants inside. Anyone else, it’s likely as lethal as she wants it, making it an incredibly safe method of transportation. At least for her faithful.” 

“Indeed,” I nodded. “As far as I understand, she separated a small part of her realm; not that size really matters here. You never really enter her realm after all, merely use it as a waypoint. And because her realm is, essentially, everywhere on Terra at the same time, you can seamlessly transition from one spot in our reality to another. Quite nifty, and now, you’ll have to explain why that is important,” I challenged, and, again, Luna started thinking hard.

“It’s not important for now,” she replied after a minute of thoughtful consideration. “But if I want to truly control the spell and master what is happening, I’d have to be able to move in and out of her realm, or at least that small slice of her realm, at will.” 

“Correct,” I nodded. “And that’s where things will get a little more complicated, but, at least for now, I think we should focus on learning to teleport at all, or whatever we are going to call that mode of transportation. Lia and I are stepping through the shadows; you are stepping through a divine realm, so maybe God Stepping,” I suggested, my voice filled with mirth. 

“Realmwalking,” Luna replied immediately, “I don’t think any suggestion that I’m stepping on God, or rather a specific Goddess, should be carefully avoided.” 

“Unless you have a copper roof, yeah,” I agreed, making Luna frown for a moment, so I had to explain the joke that you should only blaspheme beneath a copper roof, so any smiting by lightning would be absorbed and grounded by the roof.

Luna’s snort of amusement made me chuckle even harder, especially when she flushed for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed at the noise she made. 

“Now, for you, we’ll have to work on the proper casting, and you’ll have to memorise the different locations, how they work with Lady Hecate’s spell, and how you have to input them. It’s generally a much easier process, as you don’t have to do the magical heavy lifting; that’s left to Lady Hecate. But if you want to understand what is going on, you’ll have to keep your senses active and analyse things as much as possible, especially if you want to travel like this freely. Knowing Lady Hecate, she’ll restrict this spell otherwise, in order to motivate her followers to be more creative and come up with their own mode of instant transportation,” I explained, largely repeating what I had already told her, and Luna nodded along, looking a little impatient. 

“However, for today, Lady Hecate is giving you permission to go wild. So, why don’t you consider where you wish to go first, then we wait until Lia is done and we’ll get to the proper training?” I asked, and received another nod in response. 

Just in time for Lia’s eyes to open again, a trace of excitement on her face.