After finishing up the lesson I had been giving to Daniel, I moved towards the doors, taking up my position in the middle of the room and conjuring up a seat for myself. Not quite my full throne but something good enough to give me a comfortable position to speak to these visitors from a position of strength. If they wanted to sit, they could make their own seats, something Daniel actually tried, albeit a bit behind me. It didn’t quite work, mostly because the stone of the tower was still imbued with my own power and resisted his attempts, but he made do by using the dirt we had used for his lesson. Thus, he had his own seat, though where mine was almost good enough to work as a throne, his was a glorified heap of dirt, the difference enough to make me grin just a little.

Thanks to a discreet scrying construct placed above the door, I could see the group of twelve approach and readily opened the door for them, ready to react if they decided to become hostile but given that two of the people approaching looked younger than Luna’s physical appearance suggested, I doubted they were here to fight. But if they were, I was fairly confident that I’d be able to squash them, the powers imbued in the tower around me were mine to command and the shrine we were sitting in only added to my magical abilities.

“Greetings,” I spoke up, just as the door fully opened and they could see into the dim room, “Enter without malice and leave without hindrance. Bear malice towards those within these halls and they shall be your grave,” I warned them, looking at them with a serious expression and a slight glow in my eyes. Overflow was quite useful for intimidation purposes, even if there, amusingly, was no official system description of that effect. Maybe because humans were still too new to the whole supernatural, magic thing, so something as alien as glowing eyes had an effect on people. Or it might be due to the way my power radiated outwards, literally overflowing from my body, driving home the point that I could kill them all if I so wished.

“Heya, birdie, still oh-so-serious?” a faintly familiar voice asked and the person in the lead was moving towards me rapidly, not threatening but aggressively cheerful. Moments later, I was engulfed in a warm, friendly hug, still trying just what had happened to get me into this strange situation. Moments later, something deep within my memory clicked and I realised that the voice belonged to Maggy, one of the Travellers I had conversed with during the beta, trying to make plans for the official release and create some additional hype. Well, at the end of what we had considered the ‘beta’, there certainly had been a lot of hype around my actions, though now, with the power of hindsight, those actions looked a lot less benign than they would have if the world of Mundus had been a computer-generated one and could be reset with the press of a few buttons.

Granted, in my heart of hearts I had to admit I’d probably have acted exactly the same way if had known that my vengeance would doom countless unrelated beings to death, especially given the advantages I gained from the Dragon Touched Trait and how much closer they brought me to bringing Sigmir back, but that was something I wasn’t about to share with anyone.

“Maggy, right?” I had to ask, just to make sure that I wasn’t misremembering things but her happy nod dispelled all doubts. For a moment, I considered trying to Observe her sneakily but decided against it, there had always been something about Maggy that hinted at her being a lot more informed and, well, clued-in than her somewhat ditzy behaviour would suggest. No need to prod her rudely, especially after my earlier invitation. Even without the Observe, I could be confident that she hadn’t passed the second Divide, especially with the close contact she had initiated.

“What brings you to my tower? And who have you brought with you?” I continued, happy that she had pushed herself back to her feet and taken a step back, so I could actually ee those with her. Introductions followed, though I needed to clarify that my name was now Jade, with Morgana having turned into something of a family-name, thanks to two orphaned kids I had essentially adopted. That apparently brought me some brownie points judging by the looks and smiles I received, making me briefly wonder what they’d think if they met Lia and Luna, especially if they learned Luna’s actual, chronological age.

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Then, we got to the question of why they were visiting and had to smother a grin when Daniel let out a soft grumble of protest when nine of the people Maggy had brought with her, plus Maggy herself, were all interested in learning magic. They, as Maggy put it, had taken everyone from their community who wanted to learn and made the trek, hoping that I was willing to give guidance at my leisure.

It was an interesting idea. The biggest benefit for me would be the EXP I could gain, no questions asked. But there was potential for more, if I decided to negotiate a little, have them pay me in food or other supplies they might have looted after everything changed. Additionally, there was an option of using the whole teaching-thing to give Lady Hecate an in with these communities, something that could easily lead to benefits, boons and maybe even outright blessings in the future, to say nothing of the fact that making nice with the deity that literally empowered my daughter was a sound tactical idea anyway.

On the other hand, it would take time and with an ever-growing number of students, I would have less time to use on my own studies and experiments, partially limiting the growth of my own power, or at least the growth of my skills.

“The possibility to teach those who wish to learn certainly exists,” I began my reply, trying to return to my earlier dignified demeanour that Maggy had shattered with such apparently guileless positivity. For a moment, I wondered if that had been on purpose and I couldn’t really answer my own question, I simply didn’t know. It certainly was possible that Maggy had pushed the positivity to such a degree to disarm any possible hostility but I couldn’t be certain. Maybe it simply didn’t matter, though it was a tactic I might have to keep in mind, even if I was aware it was incredibly unsuited for me. I simply wasn’t as effortlessly cuddly as Maggy was, able to act as if somebody was a dear friend at the drop of a head, certainly not without it coming off as trying far too hard and being incredibly awkward.

“What would you be willing to exchange for the time I use to teach you? I dare to make the claim that I am the most powerful arcane spellcaster around, maybe even across the entire world, so my time and tutelage are valuable,” I asked, starting the negotiations.

As the negotiations started to pick up steam, I was quickly reminded why I had let Adra deal with these kinds of talks on Mundus. Partially due to the traits that made me creepy, something the survivors on Terra apparently hadn’t learned to sense just yet but the more important part, at least to me, was that Adra had been a lot better at negotiating than I was. Better with people in general, and negotiation was all about the art of the compromise.

If not for my position of strength at the start of the negotiation and the simple fact that they wanted something from me, while offering fairly little I couldn’t get with a bit of effort elsewhere, I had a feeling Maggy would have managed to make me sell my tower to her, before paying rent so I could keep living in it. Luckily, she seemed to be well-aware that I had a hard bottom line and wasn’t pushing things too far, instead offering some fairly interesting benefits, especially those coming from labour-intensive tasks that required precision. Things like turning fleece into yarn and weaving that yarn into cloth for example. I certainly wasn’t able to do that but from previous experiments, I was fairly confident that I’d need some sturdy, hand-made cloth if I wanted to improve the quality of my magical bags, simply because the bags I was currently using weren’t considered to be part of the system, forcing me to use workarounds with my magical hair and some of my blood, nothing I was willing to hand over to just anyone. But if I had the right sort of cloth, maybe created by using fleece from a particular kind of sheep or by treating the yarn with some sort of alchemical concoction, I would be able to make something better.

Still, by the end of the negotiations, I realised just how good Maggy truly was. She had pushed me to the limit and yet, if I thought about it, I didn’t feel like she had actually taken advantage. It was quite impressive.