The talk with Mrs Wu was interesting. On one hand, I initially wasn’t sure how much of the backstory I should give her, as the things that I had done as Morgana weren’t things normal people would consider ‘good’. Hell, if I merely looked at my actions on Mundus through an outsider’s lens, I would have to consider myself evil and yet, when looking at the things I had done and my motivations, I didn’t feel evil. It was something that made me a little introspective and had me questioning my concepts of morality.

On the other hand, I wanted to give Mrs Wu and her merry band of survivors, for I was almost completely convinced that Mrs Wu would be in a leading, or at least influentially advising, position, as much information as possible, if only to pay her back for the instruction she had given me. While I knew that my actions on Mundus had been highly influential when it came to my survival after the change, I couldn’t discard that Mrs Wu’s instruction had allowed me to thrive. To say nothing about the physical effects her training had, without that, I doubted I would be anywhere near as fit as I was now.

At the end of the day, however, it turned out that my considerations were all moot. Mrs Wu could easily spot my fibs and use simple, seemingly innocuous, questions to draw out the truth, making me realise that yeah, trying to pull the wool over a highly trained and experienced spy and interrogator was a fool’s errant and a half. To say nothing about the fact that the vast majority of my ability in deception and the navigation of tricky conversations came from her. What little social graces my mother had managed to instil into me had been more along the lines of trying to avoid insulting people while making sure I was capable of communicating my points clearly. Though, thinking about it, maybe that training had been quite similar, both designed to keep me from saying too much, or from saying things too bluntly. A curious realisation, but not a truly important one.

The big point of uncertainty, and of trust, was that Mrs Wu would prefer my help and the power I, at least temporarily, offered to her and her community to any benefit they might gain by betraying me. It was questionable and if I had gotten even a whiff of divine magic, I might not have dared to try, but I could only hope. And so I decided to tell her most of what I knew.

By the end of our talk, Mrs Wu knew what I had been up to since the change and had a good idea about my theories in regard to Mundus, Road to Purgatory and the Divine. I had yet to figure out why two ostensibly competing Pantheons had worked together to get people to Mundus while giving the Travellers the option to pick either of the groups, but I didn’t feel that was overly important, at least for now. It might be important later if the Gods decided to split the world in a similar fashion to how Mundus had been split between their spheres of influence, but for now, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the continued survival of the people here, and of myself.

Once we were done, Mrs Wu offered to tell me about their experience but by that point, I was simply too tired. It was clearly past my bedtime and Mrs Wu noticed, offering to let me stay in a guest-room, instead of the general sleeping quarters for females, an offer I gladly accepted. She offered me a candle, reminding me that electricity was completely out and that their water supply was limited, but I waved off. I wasn’t able to navigate in perfect darkness just yet, but I was getting there. The slight gloom in the depths of her house was no problem for me, I was more worried about getting too much light and getting afflicted by the Curse of the Sun.

Mrs Wu had never asked why I had only been hunting at night, but it didn’t take a trained agent to realise that there was something going on. It was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to be known. It was just too damn easy to hear about someone only active at night and jump to sinister conclusions. Simply human nature, there was a reason why one of the euphemisms for mystical monsters was ‘things that go bump in the night’, with me being one of those things. I didn’t want to be known as some sort of nightstalker and I certainly didn’t want to get staked through the chest.

The guestroom gave me a bit of whiplash. It was so ordinary, so completely and utterly normal, that a small part of me briefly wondered if the whole change had been a delusion, conjured up by a cracking mind. But until the people in white coats came and offered me a special jacket so I could always hug myself, I would continue to treat the environment around me as if it was real. Even if I had spent months treating an environment with remarkable similarities to mine as a game.

Shaking my head, I made sure that the room was fit for my special needs. Once the curtains were drawn, I placed one of the blankets in front of the window, blocking out all light. The cursed Sun wouldn’t get me, or was that the cursing sun? Either way, I was safe from those hateful rays and with a small early warning system, just some metal rigged to the door in a fashion Mrs Wu had taught me to, I decided that I was reasonably safe from intruders. Likely not from Mrs Wu, not unless I managed to incorporate magic into my defences, but safe from most people.

Silva walked around the room a few times, sniffing around various corners and inspecting everything before she plopped herself down next to the bed, apparently satisfied with the situation. In turn, I put on some fresh clothes and laid down myself, trying to relax and get some sleep.

It was a lot harder than I had anticipated. Before the change, I sometimes had trouble sleeping but now, after the change and the hypervigilance of the last few days, it felt as if any small noise, of which there were many, was booting me back into a wakeful, ready-for-action state. Only to crash moments later, when the adrenaline faded and my conscious mind discarded the noise as just another sign of nearby humans.

In addition, the bed was keeping me awake. It was far too soft, after days of rough sleeping on a thin foam mattress, the comfortable, soft mattress felt just wrong. As if some sort of slimy, gooey monster was trying to swallow me up and devour me whole, it gave me the creeps.

It took an hour of stubborn tossing and turning for me to decide that apparently, beds just didn’t agree with me any longer. Instead, I put the mat I used outside next to Silva, who merely raised her head for a moment, studying me with her dark, brown eyes, before going back to sleep. Lying on the mat helped, as did cuddling up to Silva, her protective presence allowing me to rest a little easier.

Whether or not I truly fell asleep, I wasn’t certain. I might have been drifting for hours, or I might have actually fallen asleep, but eventually, my mind snapped back into focus, taking in the world around me once more. Hours had passed, from morning to afternoon, leaving me a little groggy, my mind a bit disjointed but somewhat rested.

Sitting up, I decided to delve into the Astral River. On Mundus, the stream had been a wonderful, peaceful sanctuary for me, allowing me to relax my mind and body, revelling in its cosmic magnificence. Here, on Terra, I couldn’t do that just yet. The Astral River was still in turmoil, roiling from the changes it imprinted on our reality but somehow, that turmoil had its own charm.

Instead of a seemingly endless ocean, it was more akin to a small stream, with rapids that crested in white foam and a mix of placid gurgling and thunderous roars as it cascaded through the bedrock of reality. Fascinating in its own right and I had a feeling that witnessing what I could see here was a rare thing that only few could enjoy.

But enjoying the world-changing magnificence wasn’t the only reason I had delved into the Astral. Here, surrounded by all those vibrant, living humans, I would likely have an easier time pinning down the streams of blood and vitality that ran through the World. I needed to define one of my Blood runes and by now, I had made a decision. I wanted the power of sacrifice, to harvest the inherent energies of other living beings and make them my own.

I remembered the rune easily, I hadn’t carved it all that often on Mundus but when I did, it changed the world. Sacrifice was what had given me the ability to create large rituals, things beyond what I could do on my own. It wasn’t purely evil, not inherently, but the way I had used it, most people would deem it such. And I didn’t care. Moral Judgements, Mercy and those wonderful virtues, they were reserved for those with the strength to uphold them. Or for those who begged those with more power than them, by submitting and serving, like the disgusting wretches they were.

Filled with my disdain, I felt the rune solidify in my mind, the harsh lines that could so easily be carved into the flesh of my resources reminding me of the havoc I had wrought in the past. And would in the future.

After the Sacrifice rune was fixed in my mind, I remained there, my mind sitting at the edge of chaos as the primordial Astral River of my realm was digging into the fabric of reality. I couldn’t understand what was going on, it was far beyond me, but I could watch. Watch, remember and maybe, one day, understand.

No matter what, it seemed that my quest for magical understanding would remain with me, maybe forever. There were worse quests, all things considered, even if I had a more important one to handle first. Get my Sigmir back. No matter the price I would have to pay.