I carefully bagged the remaining shard of Glinka's megalith shard and carried it into Svalbard's ruins, placing it next to the smithy.

As I handled the stone covered in wave-shaped hand-carved runes, I felt a faint tingle of magic, like spikes of electrical current dancing across my skin.

"Alright, Teya," I said, addressing the river spirit through Stormy. "To start off, I’ll need your help to unearth everything of value in Svalbard. Everything. Dragonglass, human bones, metal, gold, etc. Can you engulf the entire area in water, except for the smithy? I'll be watching from here.”

Teya's watery avatar nodded.

As I settled into position, I watched in awe as she stretched almost as if she was replicating the motion of an Olympic swimmer and then waved her hands from the water to the village as if she was conducting an invisible orchestra. The river began to rise and twist, rushing towards the megalith. A thousand sparkling currents formed a massive spiral that gradually enveloped the ruins. The water circled the smithy and poured into every crevice, gradually filling the catacombs and seeping into the smallest spaces between stones.

The sight of Teya’s work was mesmerizing.

Thousands of separate currents within the watery spiral worked in concert, meticulously taking apart the remnants of Svalbard brick by brick. I couldn't help but marvel at how effective a river was as an assistant.

Teya's control over the water was precise and efficient, sorting through the debris with a level of detail I could never have achieved alone.

I dragged a few empty barrels and chests to the edge of the river at the front of the smithy, curious to see what treasures Teya would unearth. As I watched, liquid hands began to form from the swirling waters, depositing various items into the empty chests.

Metal objects clinked as they were placed in one chest - old tools, weapons, and bits of armor that had survived the dragon's attack. In another, I saw the glint of gold coins and jewelry, remnants of Svalbard's past wealth.

The third chest began to fill with chunks of dragonglass, their obsidian surfaces gleaming wetly in the dim light. I made a mental note to be extra careful with those - they could prove invaluable in our future encounters.

But it was the barrels that were of true value to me as a witch. Human remains and extra-tough, if somewhat burned human chests were being gently deposited by Teya's watery hands.

As I observed Teya's efficient work, a sense of satisfaction washed over me. This was progress, tangible and real. With each item recovered, my piles of valuables grew.

As Glinka worked, I did too, pouring witchy earth into the barrels to produce more witchglass.

. . .

It took us many days to deconstruct all of Svalbard and even more time for the micro-organisms within the earth-blessed barrels to convert human bones into witchglass for magic remotes. In the end, thanks to Teya's ability to unearth the bones of the marauders that had been thrown all around Svalbard, I ended up with sixty six shiny new remotes and a ton of witchglass.

Over the next few days, I focused on preparing for our journey. With Teya's help, I had amassed a significant amount of witchglass, and I knew exactly how I wanted to use it.

I began by coating Cali's sleigh with a thin layer of the magical substance. As I worked, I marveled at how the witchglass seemed to meld seamlessly with the sleigh's existing enchantments and runework. The process was painstaking, requiring precision and patience, but the result was worth it. The sleigh now gleamed with an otherworldly sheen, its magical properties amplified by the witchglass coating.

However, I knew that the sleigh alone wouldn't be enough for our journey. We needed something larger, something that could carry not just the sleigh, but also Glinka's megalith, her most potent magical rocks, and our horses.

"Teya," I called out to the river spirit through Stormy, "I have an idea, but I'll need your help again."

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Teya's watery Avatar turned my way, ready to assist.

"We need to build a barge," I explained. "Something big enough to carry everything we need. Can you help me gather all the wooden beams from the ruins?"

Teya's response was immediate. The river began to churn and twist, and soon, a procession of wooden beams floated towards us, guided by Teya's watery hands.

Over the next few days, Teya and I worked in tandem to construct the barge. I designed the structure, drawing on knowledge that seemed to come from somewhere deep within the Understanding. Teya's control over water allowed us to manoeuvre the heavy beams with ease atop of each other.

Since neither of us needed rest, we worked through cloudy days and dark nights. As we constructed the barge using hacksaws, ropes and tar, our camaraderie grew.

Chatting with Teya during breaks through Stormy, I learned that Teya’s full name was Karpathy Galateya and that she was a child of several generations of human colonists from Wearth, refugees of some kind of a cosmic disaster, the origins of which bewilderingly enough was Endalaus.

Teya revealed to me the nature of her death via an arrow of the wildling Sarcaxians and her dreary, maddening immortality through a Wearth crystal.

As I was some kind of a magical effect animated by my witchy domain, Teya couldn’t see or hear me, but she could sense my body as long as it was submerged in the water she controlled. Thus I laid back in the river as if I was making a snow angel, with Teya’s magic Avatar projected into existence beside me, staring at the stars overhead and slowly discussing our future plans through our kitten interpreter who sat on my chest.

As I laid back in the river, using a backpack of witchy earth as my headrest, feeling the cold water lap around me, I turned my head towards Teya's watery avatar. "So, Teya," I began, "how exactly did you become immortal? I mean, you mentioned being shot by an arrow, but how did that lead to... you becoming river Glinka?" I gestured vaguely at the river.

Stormy, perched on my chest, began to translate Teya's response through a series of mews and paw taps on the Codex.

"Mrrr-swwrrrrrow-mrrr... ccccryssss-tlll," Stormy mewed.

"You swallowed a crystal?" I asked, intrigued.

Teya's avatar nodded, and Stormy tapping ‘yes’.

"Mrr-grrrr-fffftrrr-rrrrrssssh... mrr-ssss-aafffff prrrnnnnn-ttt," Stormy continued.

I furrowed my brow, trying to piece together the information. "A save point crystal from your grandfather? Werth tech?"

'Yes,' Stormy tapped. “Chhhh–rrrr-nnnn-aaa-csssst”

“Chronacist?” I repeated the word.

Teya nodded.

As Galateya continued her explanation through Stormy's meows and taps, using river-shaped dioramas to explain that the local boreal forest was warm, flat steppes long ago, I began to form a hypothesis. The crystal Teya had swallowed must have been some kind of advanced data storage device, capable of preserving consciousness. When she died, it somehow interfaced with the magic of this world, spreading her consciousness throughout the river over countless millennia.

"Teya," I said, sitting up slightly, "I don't think you're actually manipulating water. I think you're manipulating the crystals that have spread throughout the river. Your consciousness, your very essence, is stored in these crystals."

Teya's avatar tilted its head, processing my words as Stormy mewled them out.

"Think about it," I continued, excitement building in my voice. "The places where you're most present, where your control is strongest and where your rocks appear brightest are here - this place must be the areas with the highest concentration of these crystals. We should take a boat upriver and have you gather as many of these crystals as possible, increasing their potency and magnifying your abilities.”

Teya nodded and Stormy tapped ‘yes’.

I nodded, my mind racing with the implications. "This could explain why you can't just take over Cali's body on the account that Cali is being preserved by my witchy domain water now, which cancels out your magic.”

“Is Cali’s body going to decay if I remove her from life-water?” I asked Stormy.

‘Yes,’ Stormy replied.

As I resumed my discussion with Galateya, an idea began to form in my mind. "Teya," I said, thinking out loud, "I think I can give you physical form. Not a human body, exactly, but something more... solid, something that would actually allow you to walk around?”

The river spirit stared at me with ever-shifting faces.

"Here's what I'm thinking," I explained, sitting up fully now. "We could encase your megalith in a large backpack like mine, then create a set of watertight leather armor connected to the backpack filled with running water which would have as much concentration of these… Chronacist water-controlling crystals as possible. The crystal-filled water would be constantly cycling through the armor, allowing you to sense and move every digit of fingers, etc. This should… theoretically allow you to move yourself on land, let you go wherever you feel like.

Teya's avatar seemed to ripple with excitement at the idea. Stormy's paw tapped 'Yes' repeatedly on the Codex.

"You like that plan?" I grinned. "Alright then, let's make it happen then. I'll need to do some work in the smithy, but I think we can pull this off, there’s more than enough leather scraps and animal skins to pull this off."