Finally, there was nothing more to do. The gym I had set up worked as well as I could have hoped, even if I had been forced to add an entirely new building to Jademoon Tower, simply so I would have the space needed to set up. The enchanted statues were acting as demonstration dummies, allowing people to see the movements they were supposed to learn and, maybe more importantly, experience how they could be countered in an unthreatening situation; the writing had all been scribed, and I even had time to make things look fairly pretty, even if it was a utilitarian beauty.
Now, the only thing needed was to finally have Lia decide whether she wanted to stay or go, something she had continued to dither about. But if Luna and I wanted to start moving, she couldn’t postpone the decision any longer; she just had to come to a firm conclusion.
“Have you decided?” I asked, looking her straight in the eyes.
For a moment, she hesitated and I saw her eyes flicker towards the wall of the tower as if to pierce through the rocks into the direction of the cottage I had set up for Samantha and her group, but then, she took a deep breath and nodded in affirmation. She had decided; now, she only needed to inform me of her decision.
“I want to stay,” she quietly declared, her voice soft but with an underlying strength, making it clear that she wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“I wasn’t sure which way you’d jump,” I accepted her decision with a sad smile on my face, partially disappointed, but I had more than enough time to mentally prepare myself, so it wasn’t as if I had been ambushed in some way.
“Has Alex decided as well?” Luna asked the question I didn’t think needed to be asked, Alex had always shared a stronger connection with Lia than with anyone else, something I was mildly disappointed by. But then, it had been Lia’s blood that had helped it to regain their mind from the infection of the Withered, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise.
“They wish to stay in the area, too. It seems as if they managed to round up a bunch of others and form a group, something they don’t want to leave behind,” Lia explained, getting accepting nods from Luna and me.
“Disappointing but not entirely unexpected,” I admitted, “We’ll have to see just how deeply I can embed your being into the tower; I have a few ideas that might allow you to siphon off Astral Power from the Astral River directly while you are within the tower as if you were drinking from a living being. It should give you a major edge in any confrontation, to say nothing about the utility coming with such a connection; I believe I might even be able to grant you parietal control over the work I have done here.”
Lia was quite wide-eyed when I finished my explanation, a look shared on Luna’s face, something I deeply relished. Luna had, thanks to the continued education of Lady Hecate, become quite the theorist, even if her practical knowledge remained quite a bit behind my own, mainly because Lady Hecate taught her nothing but theory. If Luna wanted to have more arcane combat magic, she had to come up with it on her own unless she wanted to draw on some of Lady Hecate’s power, an act she would be punished for by her ‘boss’ outside of emergencies.
“How would that work?” Luna couldn’t help but ask, a lot more interested in the arcane properties than Lia was, as was to be expected of Lady Hecate’s chosen.
For the next thirty minutes, I was busy explaining the exact details to Luna, especially the part where I had allowed myself to be inspired by the shrine, just with a different focus. Instead of connecting a local space and having it interact with Lady Hecate and Her power, I was using a local space and a limited overlap with the Astral River to draw power into the local area, essentially forming a very localised and fairly controlled area of Wild Magic. It was another outcropping of the work I had done to animate the statues, just turned towards another direction. It was quite the feat if I were to say so myself, though I doubted it would allow Lia to completely abstain from drinking blood. Not that I thought my daughter wanted to, but from what I had covertly observed, it was something both Lia and Samantha enjoyed a great deal, making me feel more than a little complicated.
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Maybe it was for the best that Lia stayed behind with Samantha; after witnessing just how… invested the pair was when Lia drank Samantha’s blood, I wasn’t quite sure I would be comfortable with the process, especially not immediately after leaving the area.
There had always been an interesting component to the entire ritual, and it was not always comfortable for me. Now, after seeing them go at it and knowing that they would go at ‘it’ afterwards, too, that component would likely be even stronger. Luckily, it didn’t seem as if my dear daughter would be trying to kill me with embarrassment.
“Erm, Mother?” Lia interrupted the discussion between Luna and me, returning focus to the dinner table and our food. Both Luna and I immediately blushed, realising that we had gotten quite far off track and derailed the original discussion so far that it couldn’t even be seen.
“Yes, Carnelia,” I had to hide the grin that threatened to break the innocent mien I had forcibly adopted, acting as if nothing had happened, “You know, we never managed to nail Jack down and have him make a decision in regards to the empowerment ritual. Or did you manage at some point?” I asked, derailing whatever train of thought she might have just established.
“No, he never said, but, honestly, I think that’s just as much of a decision as saying something would be. If he doesn’t want the ritual, it’s on him. I doubt he’d get all that far on the Arcane Path anyway, but he’s almost an adult and can make his own choices,” Lia snarked, making us all chuckle for a moment over her dig at Jack’s maturity or lack thereof, something we all had experienced at some point. The guy could be incredibly, and annoyingly, childish if he wanted to be, which was far too often for everybody’s taste. Still, he was a competent leader and hunter, so there was that. If I had to guess, I would say he knew that the tower was a safe area, allowing him to lay down the burden of leadership and the responsibility inherent to it, letting him relax.
“Agreed, though I think I’ll still offer it one last time; maybe he’ll bite knowing that you’ll stay in the area,” I grinned, curious just how Jack would react to that tidbit of information.
“Do what you want,” Lia sulked before shaking her head and continuing her original train of thought, “And speaking of things we want, would you be willing to redecorate the tower a little, change a few things, make it easier to use for people who aren’t as dedicated to the Arcane Path as Luna and you are?” Lia asked, her sulky expression replaced with a cheeky grin as if it had never been there.
“Depends on what you have in mind?” I shrugged, “Though, you should be aware that you will only be the one living here. I’ll still be the owner, kind of as if I was your landlord,” I told her, and now it was my turn to grin cheekily.
“But why? It’s not like you’ll be around the area in the future, right? You wanted to head north until you get to wherever that Nexus is,” she paused, “Has that thing formed by now anyway?”
“It has formed but not stabilised. If I were to guess, I’d say that the Nexus are currently areas of Wild Magic, where Astral Power surges into the world in waves but they have not yet settled and become the pools of power I have seen on Mundus. They might not turn into those naturally anyway, it’s not as if there were a lot of people around to study their generation. Or would that be gestation, I’m not sure,” I explained with a frown before returning to her other question.
“And for the question of whether I’ll be around or now, you know I can step through the shadows, right?” I asked, now with the earlier grin back on my face, “There’s no reason why I wouldn’t be able to prepare an anchor here, allowing me to step back whenever I want, so I’ll still be able to occasionally look in on you, make sure everything’s alright, things like that,” I explained and for a moment, Lia looked thoughtful before accepting my explanation with a nod.
“Could be worse, I guess,” she had a smirk on her face, making the joke obvious. Soon, the serious discussion ended in jokes and laughter, as they sometimes did. There were a lot worse endings to any evening.
