Unlike the previous two times with this power, it felt much... warmer. Both times in the past it was cold, alien even - an outside force that I was merely a benefactor of. Today was the first time it felt... it felt like it was my own. Like something I chose, and that I could trust.

I reached out my hand outwards and was able to recognize the fingers I saw as my own - even though everything was in greyscale, there was a clear definition and familiarity. I marveled at the realization that... well... I was doing this. There was no one and nothing else to it, no threat that would be after my life, no visitor to taint this with their trickery and ominous threats... just me.

I paid attention to each movement of my fingers as I closed them into a fist - and opened the hand again later. It felt smooth - almost too much. As if air itself was slowing down my movements normally. The unnatural disconnect between intent and thought was gone too - the form no longer acted too fast for my mind, instead the two were truly in sync. I couldn't help but smile - and somehow felt arms wrap around me. I hurriedly looked around but saw no one and nothing - the fire was still crackling, and Rybrus was soundly asleep.

Yet, the hug felt familiar - comforting even. It didn't click for me until I heard a faint whisper in my mind - a voice I've missed for so long. 'You’ll never be alone again.' An anxiety I haven't even realized I was holding in - a tension within my chest - released and tears appeared under my eyes, only to slowly drift down my cheeks. Quickly turning my attention inwards, I saw mom's statue watching me with that kind smile she always had whenever she looked at me.

She never judged me for being weird, or different.. she never cared about any of that. I was a person - and a human. For at least one person who will forever be with me, just being me is enough.

"Thanks mom." I whispered, and saw the statue nod inside my mind's eye. A moment later it's eyes were shut and it was still and silent once more - and on the outside, the utter darkness that drowned out the night let the soft light of the moon and the brighter light of our camp's fire illuminate our surroundings again.

Few minutes later, I was out like a candle - asleep, dreaming of a brighter tommorow.

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Next day was yet another day of mostly sitting around on the wagon, but I took the opportunity to question Rybrus some more - about how powers actually work. Mom's statue was still 'asleep' after I invoked it's power last night - and that must have been at least a twelve hours ago.

"Obviously it depends on the individual power in question." Rybrus mused, his forehead creased. "Take for example the humble Deadeye. There were tests done to measure just how many arrows a deadeye could shoot - and no upper limit was discovered. Another was much more risky, done by a volunteer Survivor. Some much smarter people than I created a contraption that was capable of being stopped by sight, and mounted that to a needle that threathened to pierce his skull if he did not stare at it. The Survivor managed well over a hundred sucesses before getting bored and asking for the experiment to stop as it clearly was going nowhere."

I nodded, though I was surprised that someone was willing to let such a device be used on themselves. It sounded horrifying. "Then you have things like my ability to decipher memories from blood. While I'm theoretically capable of doing so over and over, it would lead to my mind self destructing from the overload of information. Or, at the very least, at the end of it I would no longer be the man I was at the start."

"The only power that was hard limited by usage that I can think of belonged to a senator who died of old age some four hundred years ago. Apparently he was capable of invoking a power that let him exceed any and all physical restrictions upon his body for hours on end - but when the ability ended, he became weak and had to have servants carry him around as not even his legs functioned due to the strain. And even with him, it is only a conjecture - it is entirely possible that he simply wisely chose not to try to use the power in his weakened state as doing so would likely kill him."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He nodded a few times as he spoke. "So, to summarize, our current working theory is that there is no true limit on how often any power can be invoked, except the willingness of the one using the power to suffer backlash of overusing said power. This backlash also appears to be directly proportional with how much said power allows an individual do surpass their limits or operate outside the boundaries of natural laws like gravity."

I considered his words - if what he's saying is true, then it's likely there's some way I could wake mom's statue up early and gain access to her darkness early. But what would it cost me? I had no idea - there's some costs I'd be willing to bear, like a strain on my body, or maybe even mind. But considering the hint the visitor gave me... Priestess of Memories... there's a chance the cost would be defacing the statue, or even losing it entirely... Those were prices I was not willing to pay.

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Late in the afternoon our current destination comes into view - a former military outpost from back when the Lands Inside weren't united against a common threat posed by torments. Rybrus told me that a trader hub slowly grew around the old fort that originally stood there for the purpose of guarding the borders between different realms - each with their own ruler, not like the parliament we have now.

Rybrus was ranting about some particular form being annoying to fill when he'll have to check in to enter the town - something about wanting to make sure he wrote everything correctly and double checking with whoever passed for local guard leadership. It sounded boring so I didn't particularly care about it - what didn't fail to capture my attention however was a pillar of smoke raising to the sky from the town itself. I was fairly positive most towns didn't have that.

"Hey, Rybrus?" I poked him to interrupt this latest rant and then pointed towards the outpost ahead of us. "You seeing that?"

He squinted his eyes to focus and eventually nodded. "Well damn, looks like this visit will be quite unusual."

The tone of his voice was jovial, but I could see him tensing up - and I agreed with the body language. A pillar of smoke? Definitely not a good sign. A moment later I hopped of the front seat of the wagon and ran around to access the storage inside - armor quickly got uncomfortable so now that I had the option to I left it inside the wagon and merely wore a normal shirt and pants. Though I never let go of mom's daggers and Stein's sword - those were precious to me.

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By sundown we were at the outpost's wall and could truly evaluate the gist of damage the town suffered. The wooden palisade was unharmed, but the gate was on the floor with significant damage as if something extremely heavy impacted it and bust it open.

Rybrus luckily had the good sense to leave the horse and the wagon outside the town so we needn't worry about it, so both of us quietly marched side by side down what should have been the living artery of the merchant fortress, yet was instead was a ghost town filled only with the silence of the grave - and dead bodies.

We both scanned our surroundings - the stone houses were still standing proud, yet each one had it's doors kicked in, revealing a pool of blood or scattered body parts of whoever was hiding inside. Shop stalls were kicked over, with trails leading away from them as whoever manned them got hunted down. I leaned down and inspected what I assumed to be a shopkeep's corpse as we passed by - the wound was a clean cut, deep enough to cause severe bleeding and hamper movement but not impacting bone.

"Hey..." I started talking as I checked further wounds on the body - and only found more of these same precise cuts. "...I don't think this was done by torments - these are cuts." I spoke as I did my best to ignore the pugnant smell of fecal matter around the body. Likely an involuntary release after the man died. A moment later I reached my hand up to his face, and pulled his eyelids down.

"I agree" stated Rybrus, though unlike me, he was more interested in analyzing one of the kicked in doors nearby. "The gate was weird enough, but whoever kicked in these doors knew where to aim. This was human raid."