“Will I get a new name, too? So I can be your daughter?” Sabrina’s words stumped me for a moment. Did she need a new name? A part of me wanted to deny, even if only to keep the people who knew her as Sabrina from coming after me. It was one thing to change the name of Chantalle, she was older, almost an adult, and had been considered lost to the world. And yet, I took great care to never use the name Carnelia or Lia at Apple Gate Farm. If others heard me and later talked about it, they’d likely think it was a nickname, making it of lesser importance. But if I took in a child, changed her name and maybe even her looks, depending on the results of the ritual I was planning? How would people react and did I care about their reaction?

It was difficult to guess the reactions, people weren’t rational when it came to children. I noticed it within myself, taking Sabrina in was a burden and while I had some confidence in her later value because we were divinely guided here, I couldn’t be certain whether the value was enough to make up for the hardship. But something about her made me look past the uncertainty of her future value and ignore the hardships taking her in brought with it. Instead, I simply embraced the munchkin and felt good about it. Irrationally good, and yet, I wasn’t quite willing to simply ignore the comfortable sensation welling up within myself.

“You are my daughter and Lia’s sister, even if you keep the name Sabrina,” I assured her, cuddling her in an attempt to show her I wouldn’t go away, “But if you feel that a new name would be good for you, we can think of one. Or we could wait for a few more days, until the New Moon or right after it, when the moon starts waxing again, and hold the ritual I was planning for you. It will hopefully allow you to commune with Hecate, remember what I told you about her?” I asked, getting an immediate nod in response. Sabrina knew that we had been led to her by Silva, who knew about her presence due to Hecate, giving her some familiarity with the deity.

“Well, it would be akin to a baptism. Nowadays, people have their names before their baptism but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the day, people decided to be baptised, shedding their old life and starting a new one, taking on a new name and role. Doesn’t that sound right to you?” I explained, having to hide a grin when Sabrina started to quickly nod, making me worry that she might become dizzy. Lia had been given her new name when she stepped out of the cage the Shattered had been in, so maybe it was a good parallel that Sabrina would be given a new name when she stepped away from the weakness of her body and gained the seed of power she needed to protect herself.

Growing that seed would take time, but it had to be done. The gods might be able to give somebody enough power to change the world at the drop of a head but I didn’t think that the person getting the power could wield it. Going by my experience, it would be more likely that they’d react akin to an incandescent lamp that was connected to a high-power grid, giving off a brief, bright spark before burning out forever.

Yeah, I didn’t want that, not for me, Sabrina, or anyone I considered a companion. Hel, I didn’t even want it for my enemies, but that was mostly because they might cause me incredible damage in that brief moment of brightness. I had no delusions that I could stand up to a God, not without a Nexus, a tower to channel and control the power from it and, if at all possible, a helper as strong as the Nidhögg. With those, I would be able to ward off any attack of a Deity channelled through a weak mortal but I doubted that I’d be attacked by weak mortals if I had access to that kind of power. No, they’d send their strongest or maybe use some divine shenanigans, like that bright light that burned me away on Mundus.

“I can wait, mum,” she assured me, though I thought there was a bit of vulnerability in her voice. Unsure how to comfort her, I simply kept holding her, my hand idly tracing circles on her back, while my mind was busy. Namely, trying to figure out what to name her. For now, I had bought myself a bit of time but unless Hecate had some awesome ideas on what to name a young girl coming into Her service, it would be up to me. I wasn’t even sure how close the communication during the baptism would be, or communion or whatever the ritual I was trying to work out would be called, whether Hecate would verbally talk to us or if it would be limited to impressions and ideas. It might even be limited to a mere notification, telling Sabrina that she received the blessing or something along those lines, giving her the ability to get some special class upon reaching level ten.

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So, I’d better have a good name ready, a name that would make the munchkin happy, make her feel like she was part of the family and my daughter.

Meaning, giving her some random, if pretty, name was out. Given that both Carnelia and my currently used name were based on gems matching the colour of our eyes, using that concept would be easy and fitting. But what sort of gem had that fairly average brown colour, too dark to be called amber but also not hazel? Sabrina’s eyes were just, well, brown, middle of the colour range with a few tiny specks of green and blue, depending on how the light hit them. They were, sadly, fairly unremarkable, if not for that sparkle of curiosity, that inner light shining from them.

But how could I put that into a good, fitting name that she’d feel happy about? Maybe a visit to the Jeweler would be necessary, not to get additional metal or gems but to find a book in order to give Sabrina a good name.

Nodding to myself, I decided that we’d visit, it would also allow us to visit a few more stores and get some new clothes for the munchkin. Her supplies were rather sparse and with my newly developed bags, I could easily carry as much as we needed. Those bags truly called for another looting trip, I had never been an avid shopper but there was something about the idea to take whatever we wanted that spoke to me. Plus, there wouldn’t be any other people around the stores to annoy me, no noise, no bustle, nothing but the stuff I wanted to take, Sabrina and Lia.

That would work.

“Lia, I’ll need to work on your bags. Sabrina, do you know if there are a couple of bags around here? I’ll be able to magic them so we can carry more stuff with us,” I told my daughters, happy that I didn’t need to shout at Lia, thanks to her relatively sharp senses. Otherwise, I might have hurt the munchkin’s ears, she was still sitting on my lap, her head resting against my chest. Luckily, I had grown after crossing the divide, or this wouldn’t work as well as it did.

Sabrina and Lia followed my request, Lia simply dropping the bag off before going back to her training while Sabrina hopped off my lap, rummaging around the area, looking for bags. Most of the useful things had been taken by the leaving survivors but not everything, so I soon had multiple bags to work with.

After making the first, it was fairly simple to make more, using the same design. It wasn’t complex, which might be why it wasn’t recognised by the system, nor could anybody use it. The bags needed relatively good skill in Darkness Magic, in addition to knowing how to step into the shadows, a skill I doubted anyone could just stumble across. Or maybe it was a skill people could only stumble across, I remembered that my initial forays on Mundus had been just that. Stumbling around in a daze, my mind not working due to exhaustion and stress, only to find myself in that strange place. Those had been the initial steps to find the shadows, so it might just be that random. Or something else, with only my own experience and a bit of lore from Mundus, I couldn’t be confident one way or the other.

Maybe it was akin to that amusing idea from an old novel, in order to fly, you needed to fall and miss the ground. Until Lia managed to reach into the shadows without my help, I wouldn’t know. But it also didn’t really matter. As long as I could use the bags, my group could use the convenience while I tried to perfect them. For now, they were prototypes, in which I wouldn’t dare store our truly valuable stuff, not unless I was convinced they were safe.