Once more, I was forced to suppress socially inappropriate laughter the morning after we fought the dryad and her nymphs. During breakfast, Sigmir had asked me if I had slept well and I had happily told her that I had slept great. The expression on Adra’s face, who was looking at the two surviving, now collared, nymphs had turned into a grimace of disbelief and dread when she heard me professing that the torture and the violation I had committed the night before had not affected my sleep in any way.

We also took stock of the things secured from the nymphs and I was happy to find multiple of the enchanted darts we had seen before, the ones used to capture living beings for their sacrificial rituals. With them, I would be able to use magic to put Jonari-guards to sleep, adding more credence to the idea that nymphs and dryads of Tegi had attacked them. Our plan was slightly ruthless, but I wanted the quest to hunt us dealt with, else it would most likely come back to bite us in the butt. If I understood what the Grandmother had told us correct, quests like that, with an easy way to track the prey, were rare and almost always given by a leader to rescue someone taken from their community. So, in a way, the system was fallible; it could be abused to gain advantages, if one was able to delude oneself. Or maybe, the quest-giver was truly convinced that the quest was given to rescue Sigmir. If that was the case, it could be a problem, if it was not given by one of our three targets.

It annoyed me that I was so lacking in information; there were variables that I did not know - essential variables - but I had not the slightest idea how to get the information. The name “Divination” came to mind, but I had no idea how to even start an attempt to scry for the information I wanted, nor of what elements governed divination and scrying. Both Light and Darkness were possible, but it was also possible that there were higher elements that I did not know about. Thinking logically, space and time were needed for divination, one wanted to gather information from a different point in either space or time. or both, and interpret that information. So, clairvoyance, or farsight, would be Space, pre- and postcognition would be Time and true divination would be both. I wondered if the skill I used to see through Lenore’s eyes was considered divination and if I could use it to gain a mechanism to start research into that branch of magic.

My ruminations on magic were interrupted when I had to check up on the two nymphs and suddenly realised something I had not considered. Thus far, my idea had worked, the mind of both nymphs was suppressed to the point that I would not call them sentient any longer, they were alive and could be guided through simple, muscle-memory tasks, like walking, chewing and swallowing, but anything higher than that was not possible. So, we would have to take care of them, as if they were two overgrown toddlers, practically baby-sitting them the next few days. That would be so much fun, I could hardly wait. I was mentally cursing the Pantheon development-team, why on earth did they have to make everything at such a high level of realism? What a shitty job...

After we had our breakfast, I told the other two what we would have to do, causing Sigmir to groan a little and Adra to scowl. Neither looked happy but Adra agreed to help me feed them for now. However, taking them into the bushes to relieve themselves was a chore neither wanted to help with.

A while later, we were on our way, with me both intrigued and disgusted. The chore had killed even the most remote idea of ever having children and given me an interesting insight in the human, or rather sapient, condition. For some reason, the hygiene conditioning was stronger rooted in the mind than anything else, it apparently held true even when the mind was suppressed to a state little higher than ‘vegetable’, They were walking like zombies, and even the idea of speech or rational thought was laughable, but that single, simple part held true. Maybe because it was part of the earliest, learned behaviour.

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Luckily, we did not have to let their slow, shuffling walk slow us down, Sigmir and I simply summoned our mounts and fixated the two nymphs on their back, walking next to the mounts. Both of them were rather displeased by my actions, equating my actions to the practise of forcefully binding spirits into shells and using them as tools but they merely voiced their opinion without trying to change the agreement they were under. They had given their word to serve as mounts for a time and would do so. Almost no matter what I did with them.

With the two nymphs on the mounts, Sigmir and I were able to demonstrate the strength one gains when crossing the first divide by only slightly reducing our pace, despite having to keep up with spirit-mounts and Adra’s strange goat-like form. Over the day, we crossed quite the distance, passing the area we had hidden Rai in, but not actually meeting him. He had orders to wait for our return and hopefully he would obey them. Well, if he did not, he would come to regret it. Collateral damage was a sad reality of life after all.

In the evening, we made camp and I did my babysitting-chores, once more contemplating the need for both nymphs, maybe one would do. But no, I had both and would not waste them simply to spare myself work. Another annoyance was the need to use external blood magic to keep one of the collars going through the night, the other used the nymph it held to fuel itself, but the first one I had created needed an external powersource. While I was awake, I was easily able to channel power into it, it was little more than a trickle, but when I was asleep or, even worse, logged out, I could not do so, forcing me to use other ways to keep it powered. Originally, I had planned to use the blood-amber I had gathered but it was a bad idea, wasting what little I had. No, I would have to use my own blood.

Shortly before I went to sleep, I went to the two nymphs. The one with the self-fueling collar looked a little pale but not seriously injured. Cutting into my finger, I tried something new, actively forcing Astral Power into the drawn blood to supercharge it. My mind recoiled in pain, but I got the feeling that it worked, making the blood, for lack of better term, thicker and more potent. A single drop contained an incredible amount of Astral Power, I had managed to squeeze about a third of my total Astral Power into it before the pain spiked to another level of agony, breaking my concentration and leaving me reeling.

Skill increased You increased your skill: Blood Magic [33/100]

It was quite the surprise when I realised that my hair had lost its supernatural colouration, normally, it was sprinkled with small silvery lights but now that light was gone. I suspected there were also black lights and maybe even a few dark red ones, but those were simply invisible in my dark hair. The Grandmother had warned me that my hair stored my power and that the external storage of power, outside of my vital body, came with both advantages and disadvantages. Had I just discovered one of the advantages - the ability to shift the power from my hair, into shed blood without mind-rending pain? Maybe. Or maybe there was another mechanism at play, something I did not know. It was highly possible, after all.

I spent the night snuggled up to Sigmir, enjoying her warmth. But sadly, it was not for the full night. Thanks to the night-attack the nymphs had used to capture Adra before we met, both Sigmir and Adra insisted on a night-watch, split between three shift. Thanks to Lenore and Ylva taking a watch each as well, each night two of us could sleep through the night and three people had to switch off. That night, Sigmir had the dog watch, the middle watch, leaving her with the shortest amount of uninterrupted sleep. The fact that I slept in her embrace meant that I would wake as well, but there was no way that I would give that up.

In the morning, I was rather grumpy while taking care of the two nymphs, but that faded when something truly interesting happened. Something I had not expected or intended, but it was an interesting development nonetheless. The nymph with the self-fueled collar stumbled, slumped over and gave off an heart-wrenching, piercing wail, telling of unimaginable agony, a wail that seemed to go on forever and that conveyed only one thing.

Despair. It was the sound of a soul that only wished to escape the mortal coil, to flee into the Cycle of Rebirth, what some called the river of souls.

But either chance or destiny had other plans.