By the time morning rolled around, the house was nicely furnished by the combined efforts of Luna and myself. Stone and anything related was solidly in my domain, while Luna had learned to manipulate wood into any shape she wanted, at least if the wood was fresh off the tree, and once it had the desired shape, I could gently draw out the moisture while preventing any further warping. That way, we could add some pleasant, sometimes artistic, touches to the otherwise somewhat boring and heavy stone furniture I could easily create, making the entire thing feel less like a mausoleum and more like, well, a home.

  In this case, we both were driven by a shared desire to flex on the locals, mine born from petty pride, Luna’s partially from her desire to make the Shrine to Lady Hecate as impressive as possible, though I was willing to bet that part of her desire came from the same place as mine. While she wasn’t biologically related to me, nor had she been born from my Body, Mind and Soul as Carnelia had been, there was no question whether Luna was my daughter; we shared far too many personality traits and quirks for anyone to deny the relation.

  Here, those similarities manifested in a desire to have the house be as perfect and unattainable as possible in the eyes of these people, a monument to all the things they had lost and couldn’t regain, protected by Lady Hecate’s power and thus beyond their grasp.

  The first victim of our petty pride came right as the sun rose somewhere beyond the dreary clouds above, which were still making a valorous attempt at drowning the world with endless torrents of water.

  I was standing in the kitchen, using one of the appliances I had created to make the preparation of food easier by having a smooth, solid stone as dense and heat-resistant that I could heat to a cherry red glow before using the emanating heat for cooking. It was a lot more comfortable than using Fire Magic directly, and it easily beat an actual fire in terms of convenience, though I was pretty certain there were better ways. Maybe I should make another attempt at learning FIre Rune Mastery, the only Rune Mastery of the basic elements I had yet to attain. Still, it had eluded me so far despite witnessing multiple people learn the actual runes. It just didn’t click with me; either my affinity for Fire was still lacking, despite multiple traits granting me some affinity to all types of magic, or there might be a mental block holding me back, the intense dislike I had for the Sun transferring to fire or something along those lines.

  Either way, what caught my attention was that I could hear voices outside despite the storm making a valiant attempt at literally drowning out all other noise outside. It was only thanks to one of my traits that I could hear the people outside talk, and what I heard brought a wide grin to my face. They were, quite frankly, completely taken aback by what they saw; the house we had built overnight looked fairly modern, to the point that it wouldn’t have been out of place in a normal city before the change. Maybe seen as a little odd, the facade was bare, grey stone after all, and the roof didn’t differ in colour from the rest of it, but other than the colour and lack of a few modern conveniences like a doorbell, outside lighting and things like that, the house could easily pass as a modern house.

  Which had sprung up overnight, something both people outside couldn’t believe. Well, Sylvia was torn between sheer, unadulterated awe while the other person, I think he had been introduced as Larry or something like that, just couldn’t believe his eyes, to the point that he had pinched himself multiple times and even asked Sylvia to pinch him. Still, despite the pain, he was unwilling, or maybe unable, to accept the reality before him.

  They needed a moment to figure out the best way to announce their arrival, as trying to knock on a door made of solid stone wouldn’t produce any audible results but they tried anyway, much to my amusement. After a few moments of deliberation, I decided to simply open the door manually instead of doing something fancy, like using my magic to have it swing open without a sound or anyone in sight. It might have been amusing to confuse and possibly frighten the pair even more, but I was curious what brought them to my door, especially as agitated as they seemed to be. Well, agitated beyond what would be expected from the impossible house they were faced with.

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  “Good morning,” I greeted them, “You can place your shoes over there; the house is warm enough that you don’t need them, so don’t go dragging dirt through my living room,” I ordered them, turning and walking back inside, leaving them to take off their shoes like civilised people.

  “Luna, breakfast is ready,” I called out, putting the fairly simple food I had prepared on plates. I deliberately made the entire scene look like the change had never happened and worked surprisingly well. Sure, there were differences, especially in the details, but I was confident the message was getting across.

  “Now, would you like a cup of tea? I’m afraid we are all out of the really good blend, but we managed to acquire quite a lot of the mediocre stuff, so we shouldn’t run out for a while,” I offered, keeping my voice perfectly even as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on here, presenting a perfect picture of mundanity.

  “Yes, thank you,” Sylvia was the first to recover, and she managed splendidly, “Do you happen to have some sliced lemon? I so love them to tea, or maybe some honey?” she asked, and it was only thanks to superhuman resilience that I managed to keep from laughing.

  “We should have some hone, but I’m afraid we are all out of lemon. The supply situation is horrid, you know?” I joked before gesturing for the pair to sit just as Luna entered the living room from above, looking so very much like the stereotypical teenager who had just fallen out of bed on a Sunday morning that I barely managed to hold on to my facade of calm.

  “Mhm, pancakes,” Luna cheered before sitting down across the table and quickly starting on her portion of breakfast, playing along splendidly as I prepared some tea for the pair; I even managed to find some honey in one of our magical bags.

  “Sit, drink your tea, and allow us to enjoy our breakfast,” I told them, cutting off an attempt of Larry to speak, likely to explain why they were visiting us despite the pouring rain.

  For a few minutes, Luna and I could eat in peace while Sylvia and Larry were sipping their tea, Sylvia with an expression of amusement on her face, Larry fluctuating between disbelief, uncertainty and hilarity as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether he was going insane or not. Quite amusing, at least for an outside observer; I doubted he would be as amused by my observations as I was.

  “Now, why don’t you tell us why you are here?” I asked after I had drained my first cup of tea and enjoyed a pancake with some fresh berries we had found a few days prior.

  “You have heard of Ned, the strongest fighter in our community and the one who helped us to make sense of the weirdness that is the system, right?” Sylvia asked, keeping things calm and conversational as if we were discussing nothing more than the bad weather outside.

  “This morning, one of their group returned, looking a lot worse for wear, but he wasn’t actually injured. However, the message he brought was a dire one; their group was caught up in a landslide, leaving two of them fairly injured, to the point that they can’t make it down the mountain on their own,” Sylvia explained, and once she was done, Larry spoke up.

  “Would you be willing to head into the mountains and help them? Can you get them back here so the wounds can be treated and the injuries have a chance to heal? We need those people, especially if some critters decide that the food we manage to grow and store would make for a nice snack,” he asked, his voice pleading.

  “Well, we certainly could help. The question would be, what’s in it for us?” I asked in return. Soon, we were engaged in a bit of haggling, both sides looking for a good deal. In truth, I was reasonably sure they didn’t have as much as I would have liked, so I didn’t try all that hard and kept things relatively light.

  Eventually, we reached an agreement, and to my surprise, a blue window opened before me. It told me that we had been given a quest with a fairly tight time limit: to head into the mountains and rescue the trapped party. Curiously, the quest had multiple timers and bonus objectives for rescuing different numbers of them. How fascinating.

  Now, we just had to to and get these people.