Sophie finished eating the rest of the pita bread and her other two kebabs, following it all up with a chocolate scone and a cup of tea. She sat back in her chair, extremely pleased with the food, all of the worries about registering pushed to the corners of her mind. The person from town would be here tomorrow morning, and there really wasn’t much she could do about it now. Instead…

She stood up, putting the rest of her tea aside for later. “I’m ready to try those lamps,” she decided.

Elowen glanced up in surprise. “The ones in the courtyard?” she asked.

Sophie nodded. “Yep, let’s do it.”

Elowen practically spun with excitement as she floated out towards the courtyard, not bothering to wait for Sophie. Sophie laughed, following behind but having to go through two sets of doors to do so.

When she finally made it out to the courtyard, she noticed the sunlight was already starting to fade, but that wouldn't matter once she got the lamps lit. They were set at even intervals all around the perimeter of the courtyard. They were spaced out a bit further than the ones in the shrine, but they were also quite a bit larger, reaching up to her shins.

The lamps didn’t look like much in their current empty state, but she imagined the courtyard would look beautiful when it was finally lit up.

In fact, now that Sophie knew what to look for, she was starting to see mana stone everywhere. It seemed like it was primarily used for lighting and decoration around the shrine, but she wondered if the little marker stones along the path were made of mana stone as well. It would make sense if whatever mana used to support the shrine could stretch out that far. The scale seemed impossibly large to her, at her current level though. She couldn’t imagine walking along that path and lighting each marker individually.

“Just do as many as you can,” Elowen said, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s okay if you can't get them all tonight.”

“Okay.” Sophie nodded, glancing around the courtyard. There were, after all, quite a few lamps out here as well. Maybe not as many as there were in the shrine, but probably nearly so.

She made her way over to one and crouched down in front of it. She hesitantly placed her hand on the top of the stone. It was cold and slightly grimy to the touch. She shivered involuntarily at the feeling, but she tried to repress the sensation and focus on her mana, instead.

She was getting much more used to this feeling after a few days of this – the feeling of finding mana inside her, pulling it out of her core, and letting it flow into the cool stone. Somehow she also knew exactly when to stop. It was as if the stone spoke to her and said, enough. A small part of her wondered what would happen if she pushed past that, but another part of her shied away at the idea.

She pulled her hand away from the stone as it lit up with that strange blue glow – but much brighter than lamps in the shrine.

Elowen clapped from somewhere behind her, obviously delighted. “You’re getting to be so quick at this. Oh, I do hope you'll level up again. You're leveling so quickly.”

Sophie wasn't exactly sure how long it usually took for people to level in this world. But if people were usually only Level 10 by the time they came of age, it did seem like she was leveling awfully quickly to already be Level 3 in a matter of days.

Granted, she suppose she was a rare case, given the fact that she had never used mana before now and now she had found herself in a position of being the priestess in this shrine completely devoid of mana. She wasn’t sure what a shrine priestess’s usual duties were exactly, quite yet. But she couldn't imagine that manually lighting every lamp in the shrine by hand was among them.

She moved on to the next lamp, and then the next after that, making her way around the courtyard until she felt shaky and exhausted. She wanted to keep going. But she also remembered Elowen’s warning.

Besides, the spirit seemed to be able to tell when Sophie's mana was low, and Sophie didn't want to worry her unduly.

She stood back. “Okay,” she said. “I think I’m done for now.” She'd made it about three quarters of the way around. She was pretty proud of herself, despite being unable to complete the whole set of them. It was definitely better than the previous two times with the lamps in the shrine. Especially considering that these lamps were a lot larger.

“It’s wonderful, Sophie,” Elowen said, floating around the courtyard and looking at the lights.

Sophie felt warm with the praise. It was nice to have something to keep her mind off of tomorrow.

She thought, perhaps, that she could use another chocolate croissant or two as a reward.

***

When Sophie woke up the next morning, she immediately sat up buzzing with excitement. Had she leveled up again? She could feel the energy bursting within her just like she had the previous morning. But she still hadn't figured out how to actually tell her own level yet.

Elowen floated in after Sophie started getting ready for the day. But the spirit didn't look as excited as she had yesterday.

“Did I level?” Sophie asked.

Elowen shook her head. “No.” She sighed. “But that's not unexpected.”

“Why not?” Sophie frowned at the reply – the past two times she had been able to work herself to exhaustion and then wake up at a new level. Why would this be any different?

“Leveling gets slightly harder as you go along,” Elowen explained. “The earliest levels are much easier to obtain. It’s hard to say exactly how long it will take, but you won't reach the next levels as easily, and it will only get harder as we go.”

For some reason, the explanation jarred Sophie out of the pleasant haze that had been surrounding her recently. She had started to think somehow that maybe all of this wasn't so bad. But hearing this…

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“So it could take a while?” she asked. “And we don’t know how long?”

Elowen nodded somberly.

Sophie was definitely disappointed to hear that. But it's not like it changed things. If anything, it meant she needed to work harder. She needed to make sure she was training to the point of exhaustion every day – to level as quickly as she could. She felt something stirring within her at the idea. A purpose. Training was, in and of itself, and purpose. And each step would bring her closer to her goal.

But first she had to get past this whole registering business.

“Well,” she said. “I’d like to work more on channeling, but we do have a visitor coming this morning…” She glanced over at the chest containing the dreaded grey priestess gear. “I suppose I’ll wear one of the Tailored dresses.”

Elowen nodded, obviously pleased at the suggestion. “That would be lovely.”

Sophie dug in the chest to see what her options were. Most of the dresses were that same drab shade of grey. They were, at least, fairly clean and in good shape, even given the years they must have been sitting here. Probably the work of Tailoring. After a bit of digging, she found one towards the very bottom that was a light blue color. Very similar, in fact, to one of the outfits she picked out at the market. She pulled it out, holding it up for inspection. This one wasn’t so bad, actually.

From behind her, Elowen made a small sound – just a light intake of breath.

Sophie turned around to look at the spirit, but Elowen was staring at the dress, her eyes hazy.

“Is something wrong?” Sophie asked, immediately worried at the strange reaction.

Elowen’s eyes snapped back to her, and she seemed to come back to the present. After a moment, she shook her head. “I thought I remembered something…” she frowned, trailing off.

But then they heard the bell.

“Crap.” Sophie waved the spirit away. “Can you go check for me? I’m going to put this on. It’s probably the Mage from town.”

And she hadn't even had her morning tea yet.

***

After quickly changing into the dress and shepherding her hair into something that was less of a rat's nest, Sophie made her way out to the front. It seemed like people in this town expected shrine priestesses to wake up at the crack of dawn or something. Sophie still had no idea what time it actually was, of course, or even a reliable method of telling time. But she probably should figure that out soon if she was going to keep having morning visitors.

She peered out of one of the front windows of the shrine, Elowen floating alongside her. The man in the courtyard was glancing around with a critical eye. He seemed to be a bit older than she was, and he had long blond hair pulled back at his nape. He was even wearing robes. He looked awfully official. Sophie’s stomach sank with anxiety.

“He’s an Unspecialized,” Elowen whispered to her.

“Unspecialized?” Sophie asked.

Elowen nodded. “Unspecialized mages work with mana directly, rather than one of the elements,” she explained. “They have abilities similar to a priest or priestess, although they are still unable to see my true form as I am now.”

Huh. Sophie would have to ask more questions about that later. As it was, she stepped out into the courtyard, preparing for the worst.

The man's eyes locked on to her immediately. She almost expected some sort of accusation or some harsh comments about the terrible state of the shrine, but she was relieved to see a friendly smile quirk at the corner of his mouth, instead. “Our new priestess,” he said drolly. “It’s been a very long time indeed.”

Sophie nearly couldn't resist the urge to ask, How long? but she managed to restrain herself somehow.

“The spirit!” he gasped, nearly losing his composure as Elowen came up alongside Sophie. “So there has been a spirit here!”

“You can see her?” Sophie asked.

The man shook his head sadly. “Not exactly… She's pretty far into the Fade, isn't she?”

Sophie nodded, although she wasn't exactly sure what he meant, Elowen’s form was fairly translucent, so Fading seemed an accurate description of what was happening to her.

“You'll be working on getting her back to her true form, I suppose,” the man said. He pulled out a scroll and began making some notes on it.

“Of course,” Sophie replied. “Didn't anyone think to check before?”

The man glanced up from his notes. He looked… embarrassed. “To be honest… No. We hadn’t. Not when the shrine had been abandoned for so long.”

He made a sweeping gesture. “In the past… Well, it must have been assumed that this spirit had Faded out completely with the loss of mana. And when the mana is completely gone like it is now, another spirit can't form to take its place.” He shook his head. “You'd have to check the archives in the town library to find out why exactly. It was well before my time, but they likely have some records that might be of assistance to you.”

Sophie frowned at the answer, but she supposed it seemed reasonable enough. Although it didn't help the fact that Elowen had been left alone for such a long time. “Okay,” she replied. “I’ll do that.”

She hadn’t heard of the archives, but any hints as to what happened in the past would probably help her solve this problem, so she would need to go investigate that when she could.

The man made a few more notes on the scroll and nodded. “Well, that's all I really needed to do. All looks to be in order here, although I do not envy you this task. A shrine without a mana source…” he frowned. “Frankly, it’s completely unheard of. The spirit should have Faded completely by now. No offense intended –” he said, inclining his head towards Elowen.

Elowen crossed her arms and huffed, obviously displeased with the remark, but Sophie didn’t think the man could actually see that.

“Let me know if I can be of any assistance, although an earth mage would likely be better suited to help.”

“An earth mage?” Sophie asked. “How could they help?”

“Although it’s quite dangerous, they have the power to move the earth itself,” the man explained. “If there is a strong enough mana source nearby, they might very well be able to redirect it to the shrine.”

For the first time, Sophie felt a true glimmer of hope about her predicament. An earth mage, huh?

“It’s not a common class…” the man continued. “But sure enough, Caulis is proud to have an earth mage of our own. Unfortunately, he’s currently away on a quest. But he’ll likely return in a fortnight or so. Just let the Adventurer’s Guild know the situation, and they will get a message to him when he returns. They might very well have other solutions for you to try until then.”

Sophie nodded. “Thank you,” she said, truly meaning it.

“My pleasure. It’s the least I can do…” The mage bowed deeply to Elowen. “And I am truly sorry. I hope we can see the shrine restored to its former splendor.”

Sophie glanced over to Elowen, when the spirit didn’t immediately reply. Her head was bowed slightly, and when she lifted it, she seemed to have tears running down her face. Sophie reached out, uncertain all of a sudden what could possibly be wrong, but realized her mistake immediately. Of course, she still couldn’t touch the spirit.

After a long moment, Elowen sniffled a bit. “Thank you,” she replied softly, although Sophie doubted the mage could hear her. “Me, too.”