Aperio set Maria down, gently patting her head as she grabbed hold of the All-Mother's dress as if that would somehow stop her from leaving. She had an idea on how she could solve the current issue of having people run rampant; one that had the potential to make everything even worse.

Fixing the last bit of the Class subsystem would most definitely be a distraction for everyone. Just that I don't know how they will react. Or what it will do to them. Aperio knew, however, that it would have to interact with everyone's Soul — an opportunity she wanted to use to make sure that she could find and get rid of any tampering the now-deceased Elder Gods might have left behind.

A prayer from Caethya surfaced in Aperio's mind, her disciple's voice barely a whisper among the churning tide of her thoughts that still somehow managed to quiet everything else. Apparently the All-Mother was not the only one who had considered using the Classes as a way to at least distract the people from their anger and other problems. Need to figure out how to do that.

The subsystem was still broken — that much was clear — and Aperio still had no real idea as to how she could get the System to check if someone's Soul was marred without risking the System itself doing something to a Soul. At the moment, the System never did anything with Souls besides 'reading' them; something it had to do in order to provide Classes, Titles, and everything else it offered. If this 'reading' included any potential marring of a Soul, it was not something Aperio knew.

She still replied in the affirmative to Caethya, while also showing her disciple the doubts she had about the idea. What would happen if the lunatics that were trying to avenge their Gods got a Class to match their anger? Does anyone even know what Classes were like?

The answer was an obvious yes, but the person she could ask was not one she wanted to deal with at the moment. Given that her daughter was, perhaps, the only person that could actually help her solve the issue, continuing to avoid her was increasingly unfeasible as an option.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Lord Terenyk asked with a slight shake to his voice. "I am not quite sure what more I could do, but I am willing to help in any way I can."

"There is no need," Aperio replied as she lowered herself to be on eye-level with Maria. She ruffled the girl’s hair, giving her a smile. "The best thing you can do is be there for your daughter." Just like I have to be.

"Do you have to go again?" Maria asked, lowering her head slightly as she held on to Aperio's dress a little tighter. "You just came here."

"I know," Aperio replied as she picked Maria up again. "But there is someone else that I have not talked to for too long. I would take you with me, but I don't think that is a good idea right now."

"But I would be safer with you!" the girl exclaimed as she tried her best to wrap her arms around the All-Mother. "Nobody here can protect me as well as you."

Aperio suppressed a sigh. Maria was right, but she did not want to expose the girl to the talk that would inevitably come when she visited Ferio. "That might be true," she finally said, "but there are things that are likely to happen that I do not want you to see."

"Perhaps it is for the best if you stay here," Caethya said as she got up from her chair. Maria turned to look at the Demigoddess, squinting at her. Her disciple held out her arms, offering to take Maria from Aperio. "I will stay here with you while we wait for Aperio to return, okay?"

The girl remained quiet for a moment before she gave a small nod and let Caethya take her from Aperio's arms. "Thank you," the All-Mother said, placing a quick kiss on Caethya's lips before giving Maria's hair a final ruffle and directing her gaze at the girl’s father. "I thank you for your support, Lord Terenyk. I hope I can repay you in kind."

Before the man could respond, Aperio disappeared from the estate. She spread her wings, beating them lazily as she floated above Ebenlowe. Aperio had already found her daughter; Ferio's aura unmistakable amongst the mortals that inhabited the city. She took a deep breath as she reached out to her daughter. Neither of them had been a good example for a family. And neither was my past self…

Ferio's reply took a moment, long enough that Aperio had considered simply appearing in her daughter’s study. Luckily, that was not necessary as her daughter asked her to come to her temple directly. The All-Mother obliged, appearing in front of her daughter's desk barely a moment later.

"Your mind seems to be back up to speed," Ferio remarked as she looked at her mother, hesitating for a moment. "You did the right thing removing those leeches. They have done nothing of value while you were gone."

"They forced their will on Souls," Aperio said. "It is hard to do worse than that."

"And yet, you took this long to act."

"I did," Aperio replied. "I tried to find other problems to occupy me. Tried to find excuses." She took a step forwards, reality twisting itself apart just a little to allow the All-Mother to appear in front of her daughter. "I tried to flee my obligation towards you."

"What obligations?" Ferio huffed. "You are the All-Mother. The only obligations you have are the ones you give yourself."

Aperio lowered her head at the words, her shoulders and wings slumping a little. "You are my daughter. The fact that I cannot remember all of our past does not change that." The All-Mother paused for a moment, smoothing out some non-existent creases in her dress with her hands. "I want you to be a part of my life, even if I do not know how that will look."

Please. Aperio would fully understand if Ferio's reaction would be to say no and send her away — was prepared for that to be the case. She had never been proper family to Aperio before, and even now she still could not. Did not know how to. And yet, Aperio knew that she wanted her daughter to be a part of her life.

"Did you only come to tell me this, or is there something else you wish to talk about?" Ferio asked, her face and aura remaining free from any emotion that Aperio could discern. "The removal of the Elder Gods has led to some undesirable results and I would like to take care of that first."

"There is something else," the All-Mother mumbled in reply, lowering the hand she had begun to outstretch. "I had hoped you knew something about Classes."

"Classes? Why?" Ferio asked as she suddenly sat herself down. "Are you planning on bringing them back?" The Goddess of Life and Light leaned back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Just for Verenier, or all worlds?"

"All worlds," the All-Mother replied. "I am not even sure I could contain it to one world." She let out a sigh, setting herself down on an invisible chair made from her mana. "Nor am I certain what will happen once I do fix it."

"Can you even fix it on command?" Ferio asked, looking back at her mother. "I was under the impression that you did not know how to fix the System."

"I don't really, no." Her nebulous understanding of the System was not something she could explain, but Aperio was certain that she could fix the Class subsystem. She knew she only had to do one small tweak, and she was sure it would work. "But I know how to fix this. I am more worried that Epemirial and her ilk have messed with more Souls and that it would somehow mess with the Classes."

"And you want to check everyone to make sure that is not the case," Ferio added. "Right?"

"Yes…"

"Wouldn't it be easier if you just left your body for a bit to check on every Soul?" Ferio asked as she opened a drawer on her desk. "I am pretty sure you have done that before…"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Aperio raised a brow as she looked at her daughter practically disappearing into a drawer that was most definitely too small for her. "What are you doing?"

"I have," Ferio began, reemerging from the drawer, "a book where I wrote down stuff you did in the past that I did not understand. Like the way you turn into what I now guess to be mana, and thereby just doing stuff."

"And how is that supposed to help?"

Ferio leafed through the pages for a moment before she handed it to Aperio. "You added notes to it."

The All-Mother tilted her head slightly as her eyes wandered over the pages. She had not recognised either of the styles as her own and had assumed that both belonged to Ferio. Actually reading the annotations made it clear that her daughter had not written them. Correcting ‘body’ to 'Unfit Vessel' doesn't seem like something Ferio would do.

Still, even after reading the pages Ferio had shown her, Aperio was still not quite sure what this was supposed to accomplish. The pages merely contained the observations of her daughter whenever her past self had abandoned a body and done something as a weird space cloud. It did not, however, detail how such an act was done. Aperio did not want to abandon her body without at least a solid idea of how to get back to it. Her physical form was a connection to something she knew, and kept her grounded. Literally.

Having everything be only a thought away was helpful, sure, but Aperio was certain that she would do more harm than good that way. And I would probably see their thoughts or memories… After her experience in the Court, Aperio was not so keen on seeing the memories of others again.

"And what are the notes supposed to tell me?" Aperio asked, closing the book and placing it on her daughter’s desk. "I do not know how to leave my body at will, nor how I would get back once I am done."

"I had hoped it would somehow help you remember," Ferio replied with a sigh. "But at least we know you can still read the language I made up."

Aperio blinked at the words, her daughter’s book appearing in her hand again. She flipped it open, her eyes scanning rapidly across the page. Reading the words was no problem, and for a moment the All-Mother questioned what Ferio had meant before she noticed that what was written was not in a language she had seen before. How does that work?

A quick look through her aura at a few random books in Ferio's temple revealed she could still not magically read every language, just the one her daughter had apparently made up at some point. "I don't remember learning it, though."

"You never did," Ferio said. "I think. I asked you to explain something one day to me and then you started annotating things in my book." She tried to take the book from Aperio, only managing to take it after the All-Mother let go. "In any case, the Classes.

"From what I know of them, they would elevate some of the mortals to heights they have not known before. Or even higher, in the case of your Scion or… girlfriend. Having the Class of Demigoddess is a lot stronger than the title. I imagine the same to be true for whatever Class Laelia will end up with."

"I am more concerned about the people who are currently trying to avenge their dead Gods," Aperio said. "What if they get a Class that enables them to actually do what they plan on doing?"

"Receiving a Class is a very intimate experience, from what I have been told," Ferio said. "I am pretty sure many of those who are angry now will see differently after confronting their past. And, even if a large part won’t, most everyone is getting one. I would be more worried about any marks the Repens Nabu might have left on someone's Soul messing with the process of getting a Class. I'm also not sure how you would heal them en masse without leaving your body."

"I have an idea for that," Aperio replied. "It already has to look at a Soul to read titles and the like in order to make a Class for someone. I would simply have it not proceed for anyone that has been marred. It would not fix them — I barely trust myself to do that — but it would prevent them from being subjected to any undue complications."

It was not ideal, and the question still remained of whether the System's act of checking if a Soul was marred would have any further consequences on the Soul, but it was still the best option Aperio could come up with at the moment. All her other ideas leaned towards her having to kill a lot of mortals — something she did not want to do — or simply forcing them to think of something else. With more time, she might have perhaps been able to come up with other options, but time was not something she had. And I doubt I could come up with a solution by myself. Though the All-Mother might have been able to think faster than anyone should be able to, it sadly did not translate into easy solutions. Or even solutions that necessarily made sense. I'm more likely to spiral back into bad memories...

"But you would like the System to be able to fix them?"

"Yes," Aperio replied, a part of her mind already devoting itself to nudging the last pieces of the Class System into place. "But that can come later. Should come later."

"Just have to be careful with the Classless then," Ferio said. "Mortals are very quick to take advantage of those. Always have been."

"People were without Classes in the past?"

"If you did nothing to deserve one, you did not get one. There weren't many, but they did exist. You never paid them much mind, though."

"I did not pay much mind to most things…" Aperio mumbled as a thought placed another rune in the endlessly twisting paths of the System. Fixing something so complicated based mostly on her instincts felt weird, but she knew what she was doing was the correct way. Even the System seems to know. The automatic repair had stopped as soon as she had started tinkering with it, quite unlike the past few times where she had to basically fight it. "But that changes now." Even if I don't like it.

Aperio did not want to be worshipped by mortals. She had no need for their prayers and did not want to know about their problems, but she could not just ignore them either. She was the All-Mother, after all.

"I certainly hope so," Ferio said as she stood up from her chair. "I am sorry that I could not help you with the Classes, but something tells me you would have brought them back anyway." Her daughter stretched slightly, garnering a raised eyebrow from Aperio. "It's the right choice. The mortals need a working System and, more importantly, change. Your absence was not great for anyone."

"I know," Aperio replied, drawing the final rune in her mind. It was a simple thing — basically nothing more than the word 'and' — but it would be the one that would bring Classes back to her creation. The parts that had sufficient mana, at least.

"But I hope I can fix at least some of the damage I have done," she added, fixing her eyes on her daughter. "That includes things I did before I left." Ran away like a coward.

A final thought caused the last rune to slot into its place, linking the Class subsystem with the rest of the winding pathways of her System. She could feel a draw on her well as the runes began to glow ever-so-slightly and another, not quite foreign, presence swept across parts she had just fixed.

It was the System. Aperio knew that, just not what it tried to achieve with the sweep. The question was answered a moment later as a silver window appeared in front of her mind's eye.

Changes to subsystem 'Class' accepted. No errors found. System integration will be completed in one (1) day (Based on current position: Verenier).

A moment later, Aperio was also presented with a side by side view comparing what the Class subsystem had been before to its new, altered state. Inspecting the comparison closer resulted in it shifting through each and every step she had taken in fixing this part of the System and a small prompt asking her if she would like to revert to the earlier stage. Why did this not pop up earlier?

Her mind was taken from the question as another prompt appeared in front of her. It listed all the worlds that did not have enough mana — the ones running on what the System called 'essential mode'. Trying to find out what that meant did not yield any results. Maybe Diskrye knows. Something Aperio did know of, however, was the appearance of a small prompt underneath the way-too-long list. It was a simple question; one she was unsure how to answer.

Announce changes?

With an unneeded deep breath, and a shake of her head, Aperio mentally pressed yes.