A permanent stonework emplacement stood placidly in one corner of Janet’s new home. It was designated as the kitchen area, and a pot quietly bubbled away over a magical flame, sending a fragrant aroma wafting through the strategically placed trees. There, it intermingled with the vegetation’s natural perfumes into a mesmerizing fragrance that was carried away upon a gentle breeze.
Janet was still confounded by the natural formation she’d constructed there. She had recreated it from memory, having skimmed through it in a tattered, ancient manuscript she’d found in Lakewood’s library.
According to what she remembered, the Moonlight Trees attracted heavenly energy that was rich in yin Qi, – whatever that was supposed to mean, while Redbloom Marigolds accumulated yang Qi from the earth.
She’d had to pretend that she had no idea of what she was doing when the others had offered to help in the planting, but that image of a flame dragon circling a blue phoenix with their acupoints highlighted as glowing stars and understated moons had refused to leave her mind ever since it was confirmed that she had indeed gained ownership of the land.
It was a magic she did not understand, and her [Mana Sight] was of no help. Yet, souls seemed to be drawn to the points that had been marked as acupoints. Mana also seemed to flow differently, the natural chaos somehow mollified into tranquil flows that soothed and enriched the land, without being spent in any way.
Those were just the energies she could detect. Going by the peculiar behavior of animals and insects, she was certain there were more secrets to be uncovered.
Birds flying through the air seemed to follow circuitous paths through the air, and Janet had even spotted fireflies darting around in complex yet somehow complementary dances. Something must have compelled them to behave so bizarrely.
For the time being, however, she had more pressing concerns.
The rickety vehicle she and Aurelia had cobbled together neared the former Dead Zone, and her tumultuous soul finally relaxed. The land, the air, and even the pot sang a welcoming song only she could hear. She almost let go of her mana in an instant to delve into meditation and let the natural flows restore her, but that would have led to catastrophe.
Aurelia was still maintaining the metal construct. Cutting her off from the supply of soul matter that allowed her core to maintain control over her metal-affinity mana would have led to an instant explosion.
She broadcast the mental message out into the ether, fully aware that Sylthis always had an ear out for signals of all kinds. She was the scout and sentry, and her watch never ended.
Within its area of effect, people suddenly became very lethargic. Not the “I am lazy and just want to lay here” kind of lethargy, but more the “The universe is all-knowing and perfect. Things will work themselves out without my input.”
Like the mana, the inflowing soul fragments, and the effect on creatures of the wild, this was yet another effect Janet was dying to understand.
Luckily, Sylthis followed her instructions. A mana storage crystal clinked against the stone surface of the carriage. Janet quickly picked it up with a shadow tentacle, making sure not to allow any of her mana to get absorbed. Mana storages tended to bond to the first affinity that made it into the space inside, like a weapon bonding to a mage’s core.
“Aura, I need you to disperse the metal box. Gather all the metal into a ball, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
She needed to be that gentle. Her friend’s core had been stretched a hundred times past its capacity. Agitation was bound to make her lose the little control she had left.
Despite the gentle instruction, Aurelia was too spent to hold a ball together. Janet was forced to intervene, wrapping Aurelia as well as her mana up in a mana-proof cocoon. The next step was to shove the crystal in there alongside her so it could drink its fill of her mana.
“You can let go, now.”
As soon as the words left her tongue, the rock holding the carriage together dissipated into brown motes of mana. Janet had to act fast. The violent jostling of a fall would likely lead to her losing control over the seal that was holding back Aurelia’s mana.
Quickly, she squeezed out as much mana from her system as she could. In an instant, she and the cocoon with Aurelia inside it were held up by an awkward shadow construct that looked like a poorly-hang hammock. Luckily, it was enough to forestall the fall.
In a few short minutes, Aurelia began breathing easier. The pressure on her core was gone, and all the potentially explosive mana was locked up inside a crystal that had changed color from milky quartz to shimmering silver.
‘What a handy little bomb.’ She thought to herself as she tossed the crystal into the air and then caught it again. She imagined how easy hunting would be if she had more. Just cracking it in the middle of…
“Give me that.” Darius’ voice rang from her back, then as the crystal tumbled through the air on its way to her waiting palm, it disappeared into his ring of storage.
“I swear I wasn’t thin-”
“Yes, you were.” It was the end of the discussion. The barefoot Slayer walked back into the clearing, escorted by Janet’s piercing gaze.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Janet forced her eyes to the ground, following that with a calming technique. A few deep inhalation cycles let out the steam pressure that had been building up into a childish tantrum.
After calming down, she carried Aurelia into her tent. As soon as they crossed the boundary of moonlight trees, the redhead breathed easier, and the strain written on her face began to abate.
Janet herself felt a wave of pure tranquility wash over her. Her mind, still fatigued from the fight despite bathing it in regenerative energies, suddenly felt less tired. She even noticed a bounce in her step, though that might have just been the effect of the impossibly soft grass.
Once more, Janet felt an upwelling of pride when she remembered that indeed, the idyllic paradise was her home. Utterly and irrevocably hers, confirmed by a sense of belonging and possession that she felt resonate within her soul.
In her relaxed mental state, Janet noticed a discrepancy in the mana flow. There was a distinct tinge of very familiar soul matter, and oddly enough, some spatial magic. She recognized both as they reminded her of how it felt to call upon her runic tattoo.
Always the sucker for magical mysteries, Janet scoured through the ambient flows. All her mana-sensing abilities were called to bear, and even her soul took deep whiffs within its realm to ascertain where the oddly familiar magic was coming from.
She was forced to give up. The magic imprint was too faint, and she was too tired to care, anyway. Sylthis was also plating the stew, and she could pick out a certain herb for which she’d come to develop a taste.
‘Should I include an herb garden here after all? It would make harvesting them so much easier.’
She shook her head, clearing the stupid idea off her mind. Anything valuable would invite the greedy, grabby hands of Gatherers who would trample all over her formation. Most of the plants that brought it to life were designated as weeds, so the Gatherers would think it right to uproot them to allow the herbs to proliferate more. She could see herself picking an unwinnable fight over such an occurrence.
“How was the day?” Sylthis asked in fake disinterest, then she slurped on her stew. Janet threw her a dirty look, but she just chuckled and pointed to Janet’s plate. She’d not touched her food.
“You know how it went. Nethergill, locusts, got me a Bane-type Title and another level.”
“Nothing new with Aurelia?”
The redhead was recovering in her tent. With stasis storage, the meals never got cold or got stale, so her meal would be waiting for her when she felt up to it.
“She was too tired to tell me anything when we were rolling here.”
“You must have noticed the ride get progressively smoother, though.”
Wait… she swallowed her mouthful, then began working through another as she combed through her memory of the escape. The ride had indeed grown less and less nauseous as it went on. That could only mean… “[Mana Manipulation]”
“I would wager she finally got it to Common rarity”
“Good for her.” And she meant it. Practicing magic with abysmal manipulation capabilities was like trying to swim with weights hanging from one’s fingers. It was possible, but the experience would be doubly torturous and unforgiving.
“Does that mean she can cast [Fireball] now? Can I begin to teach her?”
“You know she must unlock the prerequisite Skills first, and that’s best accomplished without outside help. We don’t want to hobble her capacity for fire magic by spoon-feeding her all the answers…”
The meal was delicious, as usual. The cleanup afterward was even easier with the [Cleansing] spell that Janet was still trying to get her head around.
The conversation with Sylthis was also non-confrontational, which indicated that she’d been forgiven. That took another load off her back, which helped ease her mind when she finally decided to enter after-combat [Meditation].
The fight had been intense and exhausting, and she’d been on the cusp of death on multiple occasions. Such fights always carried hidden rewards in both technique and magic, and she was keen to unearth what new Mysteries had been revealed.
“What idiots?”
‘That’s right,’ she thought. ‘They’ll be fighting against a creature that consumed more than 100 beasts on the cusp of Third Circle!’
Before Sylthis could answer, Janet looked on in tranquil placidity as one brilliant soul after another got dispersed into the Realm of Souls. Four idiots had entered the infested area. None were left alive.
The entire time, Janet’s mind just rang with a peaceful melody that lulled her deeper and deeper into [Meditation]. There was magic calling to her there, some Mystery inherent to the way black roots had pierced into the souls and simply popped them like balloons.
Normally she would have expressed her eagerness. New food meant new recipes and new cooking techniques which would improve her Skill for when the Slayers finally went on to see to their duties, but her mind was entirely consumed by that beatific sight.
The roots had looked an awful lot like her shadow constructs, but they were made of a type of mana that could infest souls and bring about near-instant destruction.
For the first time that day, she found herself asking; why are they called nethergills? What exactly does “nether” mean? For some reason, the nethergill reminded her of [Void], the dagger bequeathed to her by Gaia. It too could interact with the supposedly inviolable souls.
===
Beyond her sight, a soul that had evaded her senses since their first meeting was gazing down with a thoughtful frown at a puffy ball of spores that had hitched a ride inside Janet’s shadow. She had noticed him pluck them out in the same motion as he’d used to confiscate the crystal. The spores were trembling in terror, but the man simply held them in his palm.
As though he’d found what they had to say satisfactory, he carried them right to the edge of Janet’s domain, in the expanding area not yet covered by the ancient formation. He infused them with his mana, richer and more nourishing than any that could be found in the Sphere, then he pushed the ball that was now shining like threads of gold into the ground.
He then stood there, watching intently as a scene not so different from the nethergill’s final stand against his students unfolded, only underground this time.
By the next morning, threads darker than night had grown through the entire area. Right at their nexus, which happened to coincide with the area’s center which held the heart of Janet’s formation, rested a mind-boggling construct of runes, glyphs, and geometric formations.
If one had an eye for such things, they’d notice that the threads were beginning to organize themselves into a configuration mirroring that of the construct. Even odder, the threads seemed to be part of a larger network.
Golden motes flowed into the construct from the threads, seemingly out of thin air. Looking closer, the flow took place with constant, startling regularity.
A bird’s eye view over the Havenhurst gave a more complete picture. The motes of gold only flowed in whenever a death occurred in the forested part of the jungle. The nethergill was imitating Janet’s ability, but it was so subtle as to be completely negligible when viewed locally.
When the affected area was as large as the jungle, though, the genius behind the design became clear.
Something most people forgot was that a nethergill was not named so because of the conditions it afflicted upon the minds of its victims. Rather, it possessed those capabilities because the nether was its home.
And now, the Havenhurst’s mycelium had found family. They’d even embraced the collective into their heart and had offered them refuge in a home so peaceful, it swore to forever keep it safe from all trespassers.
But that was a tale for another day.