The Zevarra Agha, the book of spells, the Grimoire of the Grandmother, a wholly unique item originating from another World. There was nothing even remotely comparable to it anywhere on Terra, nothing that held as much arcane lore. Some of the other legacy holders might have read about different magical concepts in the libraries of Mundus, but I doubted anyone had managed to gain a truly comprehensive magical education, simply due to the lack of time. But here, I held an item scribed by a genuine Mistress of Magic, one who had walked further down the Arcane Path than most could manage in a lifetime. A book she had personally given to me, as a guide on my own magical path and a reminder of the lessons she had given me. Not many of them, but they had become part of the foundation upon which I had built my own knowledge of the Arcane on.

And now, I was taking that foundation, the knowledge I had gained on Mundus, and was expanding it far beyond anything I had managed in that world. Given that the grimoire supposedly expanded as I gained power, allowing me to read and learn more as I grew, I wondered what it would show me now, with my vastly expanded foundational skills and affinities.

With a trembling hand and no small amount of trepidation, I opened the book, glancing at the first page. Originally, there had been a foreword here, the Grandmother’s musings on the elements and their connections, differences between striving for extremes and striving for the cycle, along what she considered the limits of her understanding and where her ideas about the way the World and System worked were incorrect. It had been a fascinating read, only, now, it was gone.

Replaced with a different foreword, or maybe calling it a message would be more fitting. A message directly addressed to me, as if it had been added to the book long after I had taken possession of it, or maybe as if it was written with knowledge about the situation I was now finding myself in.

There was still a part of it that spoke of the esoteric, of arcane topics I could only ponder and try to understand, but it wasn’t so much focused on the elements but on the Astral River and the Worlds it was flowing through.

Worlds, plural, something I considered rather important, especially now that I had as much of a confirmation of Mundus’ existence as I could have without finding my way there. Only, where I knew of multiple worlds, thanks to the capsules and Pantheon Entertainment, in other words, thanks to the Gods and their efforts, the Grandmother was looking at it from the other side.

She, as an ancient, maybe even primordial, being, she was confident that those very same Gods hadn’t originated on Mundus. She wrote of a bridge between Worlds, allowing the Gods access to the World of Mundus, until that access was destroyed by an insane Arcanist, the same who had shattered the ancient Empire of the Roadbuilder. But where I could only accept that something like that might have happened in the distant past of Mundus, the Grandmother could confirm it, though she didn’t go into too much detail, merely mentioning it as something that happened around the same time she created Neyto.

However, the important part was that the Grandmother felt that, with direct access to Mundus denied to the Gods, they might seek to establish such direct access elsewhere. And what better way to eventually gain access to a world, but to give that world help in an hour of dire need. Maybe by providing that world with information, by training some of the people there and granting them access to Legacies of their own making?

It sounded rather plausible, a very long-term plan to be sure, but one I could eventually see succeeding. If the Gods and their clerics managed to get into the foundation of the society that was starting to form after it was shattered in the change, nobody would bat an eye at it in a few hundred years. The Gods, both Olympian and Asgardian, would be a fundamental part of Terra’s culture, if not the foundation of it. Ruling by Divine Right had worked for thousands of years, so why not use that wonderful idea and roll with it? If the Divine Right was actually divinely supported, things would turn even more dire.

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Sadly, it somewhat fit with what I had assumed about the actions of the Divine myself, only that the Grandmother had included something else. Namely, her ideas about what a Divine being actually was, that what we saw as Gods were merely sapient creatures like us that had managed to gain a following that donated Astral Power to them, likely across worlds. That donated power was then refined and a part of it was, as Divine Power, used to fuel the spellcasting of their chosen, possibly in an effort to recruit more to their flock. Her writing also included the idea that the transfer of power between worlds was a necessity to allow the refinement of Astral Power into Divine Power, though she only postulated it because her own experiments to refine Divine Power had failed.

Looking at her writing, I had to control myself so I didn’t laugh, it sounded very much like a pyramid scheme, with a God on top of the pyramid, with countless people below, all recruiting and donating, while receiving a smaller amount of power, the further down the pyramid they were. Sadly, knowing what might make a God didn’t help with actually combatting their influence, not unless I wanted to set up my own pyramid scheme, something I realised was suddenly quite possible.

I had two potential targets, three if I wanted to include Hecate for the blessing she had given me, even if the Church of Hecate didn’t really seem to be a thing, that Hecate wanted Arcane Spellcaster to think and learn for themself, not knock on her door for the answers. Maybe I even had four targets, though that was only if I decided that praying to an Apocalyptic Dragon was a good idea and started marketing the Nidhögg. I wasn’t quite sure how anyone would be able to make that pitch, not unless I found somebody who had lost everything and wanted the world to burn for it. Someone in the mindset I had during my last weeks on Mundus when I was happily throwing the world into the longest winter I could conjure.

On the other hand, if I wanted to set up a Church, the Grandmother would likely make the best patron, which might be the actual reason why she included the whole thing in the grimoire. Looking over the rest of her introduction, I realised that it would be relatively easy to make contact with her, at least if I gained some additional power. It would take a ritual similar to the one I had used to contact Lenore and from that point, we could negotiate.

The ritual to contact the Grandmother would be more difficult, simply because I knew Lenore far better than her, allowing me to zero in on her with ease, especially using the sigil Lenore and I shared, but contacting the Grandmother was feasible as a mid-term goal. Maybe a few months, at most a year, though it, as so often, depended on the number of enemies I could hunt. With the Withered apparently volunteering to serve as our enemies, the timeframe could easily be shortened quite a bit. If I wanted to go down that road.

And that was the big question, did I want to take that route? Not necessarily the path of praying to the Grandmother, but did I want to pray to any Divine or potentially Divine being?

There was always a price for power, the idea of the pyramid scheme didn’t seem to be too far off. Sure, if I managed to form the Church of the Grandmother, or maybe something like the Church of the Forest Witch or something along those lines, I would be the senior member of the pyramid on Terra. But I would be beholden to the Grandmother, taking her as my Patron and Mistress.

Did I want to be beholden in that way, even to someone like the Grandmother who had helped me, or even to a dear friend like Lenore? There was the joke about the easiest way to lose a friend being to lend them money, but somehow, I had a feeling starting to pray to them would make you lose one even faster.

Shaking my head, I decided to consider the question over the next few weeks. For now, I had a book to read, a daughter to train and countless Withered to hunt. I could take my time and consider divine matters carefully.