For the second time I found myself blinking my eyes in wonder. I don't think I will get used to be a fleshy creature, though I am curious how they were able to make me a body like this. Yet, not fix the Sara girl at all. The shadow seemed to indicate that it would explain...eventually at least.
Now, there was another sight that looked vaguely familiar, and the broken sign laying on the ground confirmed it.
1321 E. Lakeshore Drive, Coeur d’Alene
"This is both where everything started, and also where nothing happened at all." The shadow said, seemingly continuing from his previous comments, "Sara was born with a series of health problems that made her a burden on everyone." The girl in question was still unconscious, but didn't look like she was in pain anymore at least.
"Her mind was still sharp so people pitied her instead of hating her for being useless." It's tone was clearly scornful, "She lived most of her time in this house, unable to do much besides talk to people. And, so she decided to die." The shadow made itself more human like, until it suddenly filled with color. A tall man with a face of void, now holding the girl in his arms. He began to walk into the house's main entrance.
"Only the main family would enter through these doors, while guests would come through one of the back doors. Sara's room sat on the second floor looking out at these doors. So, she would only see horses and vehicles, but rarely people." As I entered the small room, well small for me at least, it gestured at the dilapidated walls and statues. I itched to make it look presentable, but still magic wouldn't come to my hands. Earth was a terrible place without magic.
"So, she managed to convince her father to take her with him on a survey of the mine. It wasn't easy, but she had a plan." I stepped over a bunch of twisted metal and crystal that I guessed was a ceiling ornament. Though it was just so fragile no wonder it broke and fell. These humans didn't understand structure it seemed.
I grasped the bent metal, and wished I could at least melt it into a few bars. When, I felt something within myself leak outward, and the metal twitched under my hands. Oh, so subtle, but it gave me a pause.
I always pulled mana from the air, and formed it outside of myself. But...I was a dungeon, I made mana from the white power under the Realm. Was it now inside me? The man paused in the center of the room, looking back at me with a tilted head. He had no eyes or face to give impressions, but I still felt joy from him.
"She managed to get away from her minders and fell to her death in an underground river they had unearthed. One that lead right to my cave, and the Realmheart that I had guarded for thousands of years." He just stood there then, and I hesitantly pushed from within myself. A shimmer of rainbow light pulsed under my skin before steaming off and into the air. Where it quickly faded like smoke.
I focused on my intent to shape the metal beneath my hand, and sharpened my Will to the task. Then, the metal turned to liquid and the whole construct transformed into three small bars of metal. The small gems clinking to the floor, faintly glowing before the light fades.
"And that is what I had hoped to see." The man continued, a white crack of a smile in the otherwise void of a face, "Something that the ancients of the past would have killed, and fought wars over to accomplish. A living channel for magic from the realms beyond." His words reminded me of something I had been too distracted by to ask, but he read my face again.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"The Realm is frozen for now. No time will pass there, because it already doesn't flow the same way Earth time does." He waved a third arm and hand dismissively, "Your children and the humans, and beastkin, are safe. The moment time resumes for them, the Realm will collapse, and the last gate of magic into Earth will fall." I frowned, and I felt the intensity of this expression. The Realm was...broken? But the girl was the god of that place, couldn't she just put it back together?
"No, the Realm needed fixing long before you were even born, and it was too damaged to fix. Even I don't understand how the Hearts were created, and the legends say they fell from the first cracks in the world. Or were made from slivers of moonlight and the hearts of beasts." He scratched at his head with a fourth hand coming off his third arm, "I am ancient, but even I wasn't around when those gems were made or fell from the sky. No one had ever succeeded in making more, but they were the engine by which the ancients powered everything."
He gestured again at the walls, and tapped a strange glass thing on the wall I had no idea what it was. It suddenly lit up with a faint yellow light for a second, and I raised my eyebrows. He said they didn't have magic, was this the Science?
"Humans use electricity to make light and other things work. The ancients used mana in much the same way, but the Hearts only created so much of this energy. So, wars were fought over them like the humans fought over oil and electricity." It gestured for me to follow it back outside, and then looked up at the cloudy sky.
"I wasn't benevolent when I buried the Realmheart into this girl." It said after a moment, its voice soft, "I was just so tired of being alone and magic fading away due to the actions of empires. They broke the Hearts, seeing them as evil." It laid Sara down in the grass, which was quite soft and I would be taking some if I could.
"The process had never worked before, but something about her desire to die let a miracle happen. The only issue is that she couldn't be whole when outside of the Realm. Her body wouldn't be changed by magic, and the power burned her from within when she was outside."
"Is that why she is this way? Mana burn?" I asked, unable to keep my curiosity in check. I had seen the results of too much mana within a body.
"Not as such, but close enough." It seemed to sigh before looking back up at the sky, "I cannot leave her side, or I will die, and I cannot take my full form or I will die. Both issues prevented me from doing much about the state of the Earth and magic." Then it turned it's blank face towards me.
"However, that is something you can fix. Sara and I had a dream and you were the best result. Dungeons...they could be made manifest due to the rules of Earth, and you were made to channel vast amounts of the energy from the Realms Beyond. Which you could turn into mana." My brain started to spin, was I meant to be a battery?
"All I want, and all she wants, is for you to travel the world. Do what you want, even bring your children with you, but channel that energy into the world again." The white smile faded, and something solemn seemed to come from him. "It might take until the end of your mortal life, as even gods have died in this world when magic left it, but you could see a whole world."
There was a lot to consider here of course, and I didn't imagine I understood all of his story. Which had enough missing pieces to it that just screamed to be filled. Like, why did the humans come into the Realm?
He might have felt bad for killing the girl, even if it saved her life in the end, but I had a feeling more happened here. He also couldn't control me directly, but wanted me to do things that I would already be interested in doing.
He clearly said that I couldn't return to the Realm, and if Sara was anything to go by. That was probably very true, and not something I should play with. No, the real question wasn't if I was going to do what he asked. Instead, it was what questions would he answer before I left.
"Ask, and I will try to answer." He said.