With no pressing matter to attend to, we settled in for the summer. The long, hot days meant that Lia was near-permanently confined to our underground shelter while it was hit or miss for me. I could be out in the Sun but it was uncomfortable, even if I could sustain the constant drain on my Astral Power for quite some time. Luckily, the umbrella I noticed served me well, to the point that I even stitched runes into it using my hair, turning it into a magical item.

It never became anything major, but it became a sturdy shield against the hateful rays of the sun, giving me a cool, dark place to hide. Once it was enchanted, it even allowed Lia to move around outside, though she didn’t enjoy it, partially because she was completely dependent on the umbrella, partially due to psychological reasons. To her, the umbrella was almost like a cage, forcing her to remain within a certain area, even if she carried that area with her. She wanted to run freely, jump through the air if she could, or even learn to fly, though that last desire wasn’t one she could accomplish just yet. The placid pace I used while carrying my umbrella wasn’t for her. Regardless of Lia’s troubles, my magical umbrella served me well and I considered adding some extra enchantments to it. There was that old story about a woman using an umbrella to fly, though I doubted getting an enchantment like that would be easy. Or even possible.

During the respite granted by the darkness of the night, the five of us roamed around the area, sometimes hunting for food, sometimes making sure no Undead, Withered or Shattered was attacking the brewery or the farm and sometimes just gathering interesting stuff, be it plant-life, strange critters or even the odd mineral.

Some of the stuff altered by the change was truly fascinating, oftentimes lacking any real connection to what it was before. On one occasion, we literally stumbled across an odd rock, just lying in the middle of a gravel path, partially concealed in the dirt. If not for the Astral Power radiating out from it, I doubted I’d have taken a closer look at the stone but when I did, I noticed that there was something radiating out from within. It took some careful application of Earth Magic to crack it open, but when I did, the effort was well worth it. Within that simple, unassuming rock, I found a gemstone, one that Inspect identified as a Blood Agathe. There was some interaction with my Blood Magic, but I hadn’t found a way to harness its properties just yet, maybe some sort of enchantment would work. For now, it joined the assortment of odd items we had found in the Dungeon.

But it wasn’t all skulking and stalking through the nights. Not with Luna, my munchkin needed socialisation with other people, she needed children and the Sun, as much as I disliked that. Every other day, we made our way over to Apple Gate Farm, allowing Luna to socialise with people her age, even if she ended up on my lap more often than not, listening in while I was teaching other people magic.

Or speaking up herself, it didn’t take long for her connection to Lady Hecate to make itself known, adding her own two cents to my instruction and even using her abilities to help our students learn. It was fairly amusing, watching grown people get lectured by a six-year-old and the adults having to listen seriously, instead of merely humouring the child. While I had a lot more practical knowledge than Luna, my munchkin had the advantage of her divine connection adding to her instincts, giving her a somewhat different perspective. In addition, her skills allowed her to demonstrate on a whole different level, especially when it came to immersion in the Astral River. I needed to use a combination of Mind Magic and Astral Meditation while being incredibly careful, while Luna could simply utter a soft prayer to Hecate and get a similar or even better effect. It wasn’t that I was jealous, but there were times I considered divine abilities utter bogus.

All in all, watching Luna interact with other people was both, amusing and tragic. Amusing, because the adults could feel the power swirling around my daughter, even after she put some points into Charisma, giving her more control over her aura. The adults knew that Luna was powerful and dangerous, making them wary, and watching my daughter casually and, more importantly, unintentionally, intimidate adults was fairly hilarious.

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Sadly, the caution and fear of the adults were reflected down onto the children and while the kids weren’t deliberately cruel, they were… distant. I saw a reflection of my own childhood, my difficulties with emotions and empathy had made me just as much an outcast as Luna was and far too often, my little munchkin ended up in my lap, not because it was more interesting but because she wanted to feel accepted.

One thing I was incredibly careful with was Luna’s attribute distribution. We had discussed it for a bit, before I made her promise me to stay away from the physical attributes, at least for now. She’d get an increase, simply because she would eventually cross the divides but i had no idea how increased attributes would interact with a growing body. How would her body be changed by the system if she increased her Strength by a few points? I knew Strength wasn’t just how, well, physically strong one was, but also the mental component of actively using that strength, but I didn’t want to take the risk and mess with such a fundamental process.

Maybe there had been a reason why Rai had only been allowed to increase his level after he reached a certain age and I remembered Sigmir telling me that her father had trained her as a child but never taken her to gain levels until shortly before she became of age.

Instead, Luna’s attribute points were focused on her mental attributes, as befitting her class. While I wondered if that would mess with her in the long run, only mentally instead of physically, I felt that she needed those levels for the long run to matter. I had no idea if Lady Hecate had been the only deity interested in her, nor did I trust others to keep her safe, maybe because she was almost starved when we met that group of survivors.

Either way, Luna had the levels, she had the attribute points and we were making the best of it. Which also meant training her, especially in regard to Healing. Her affinity to Life Magic was incredibly useful and I did my best to help her with it. It could be used to influence anything living, from seeds in the ground to the living tissue of a wound, making it incredibly versatile as support with a few seriously nasty offensive applications. So far, we hadn’t managed to make it truly long-ranged, beyond using seeds to create short-lived vines but maybe that was for the best. I had no desire to watch my daughter give people literal heart attacks or strokes from a distance, people were already intimidated enough as it was.

Instead, we focused on walking the fields while she did her best to radiate her power outwards, helping the plants grow, something we had copied from one of the Nature Mages living at the farm. We also trained her in healing, but given her initial troubles, the training was mostly done far from the farm, using animals we were hunting. It wasn’t the perfect solution but it was one that worked for all of us, and if the rabbit had a stroke before becoming dinner, that was just too bad. It might have been different if I lacked the ability to make sure the meat was safe despite the exposure to magic, but my Magical Sight and scent were up to the task.

Lastly, there were her interactions with the dogs. Nothing I could have imagined came even close to the reality of their relationship. They shared a faith, that much was obvious, and while it looked incredibly strange to me, they practised said faith. While it didn’t look like some sort of canine mass, there was an obvious structure to their practise, and even the barks from the various dogs had a clear pattern. It wasn’t music, at least not as I understood it, but it worked for them and I could easily feel the Astral Power unleashed in their service.

There were times I was tempted to siphon it off, similar to the way I had used the Astral Power unleashed in prayer when healing Lia, but I didn’t want to mess with Lady Hecate that way. I considered asking for permission the next time we communicated, simply because I thought it would be fascinating to wield magic that way, but I wasn’t about to just steal from Her. Not while She was blessing me and certainly not while my daughter was in Her service.

All in all, the summer was surprisingly relaxing, but maybe that was simply because I couldn’t really do a lot with the amount of sunshine we were getting.