For a moment, I was tempted to simply reject her plea. After trudging through the mud the entire night and too little sleep during the day, I was rather tired and wanted some sleep. But no, she was the hostess, so I should at least hear her out.

“What happened to her? While I have some healing abilities, they are rather limited,” I asked, regretting that I had focused my Blood Rune Mastery in a different direction.

“She’s changed,” Kira sobbed, her composure fading with every word, “Ever since that night, she’s been trying to attack everyone and her eyes have burned away. We had to lock her up!”

“So, she’s become a Shattered?” I prodded, getting a wail that might have been a yes in response. In the interest of decorum, I managed to keep from sighing, knowing that the woman didn’t want to hear my initial response, which was to kill the Shattered and be done with it. But maybe that was for the best, if they had managed to contain her daughter, I would have some time to study a Shattered under relatively controlled circumstances, which was a novelty.

“I’ll have to take a look,” I let out a sigh, not sure how to best keep expectations down without making myself hated. Offering help but being unable to provide it could easily lead to blame being assigned to me, something I didn’t want.

“But I can’t promise you anything, only that I’ll try. I honestly doubt that I’ll be able to help, the Shattered transformation is far beyond anything I’ve seen before,” I explained, thinking of the different examples of incredible magic I had seen on Mundus. Nothing really came close, maybe the Lycantroll I had seen in the White Mountains, as it was a full-body transformation, while giving additional abilities. Different sources, but it was the closest I could think of.

For a moment, I considered the transformation and the mechanism behind it. The source was obviously the system or the introduction of the Astral River. Or something moving alongside the Astral Power within that realm. That being said, I wasn’t even sure if the Astral River was the source of the System, or if the System was the source of the Astral River.

Either way, given the timing, I could confidently say that Shattered came from the change. With their name, ‘Shattered’, it was logical to assume that something had Shattered them or had shattered within them, which led me to believe that the introduction of Astral Power into their biological system had broken something, some connection that was supposed to regulate the power within them or guide that power. Somehow, instead of giving people the capacity to wield Astral Power in some form, many had been left… Shattered.

Shaking away my thoughts, I focused on the frantic woman, giving Silva a few head pats and following her to take a look at her daughter, while a large part of my mind was continuing my thoughts in regards to Shattered. Given how their levels had been increasing over the days, their levels were likely connected to the depth of the infusion of the Astral River into our reality, or they simply gained levels over time. Maybe by absorbing Vitality in some way, which would explain why they were so drawn to the Miasma released by my Blood Magic. They could turn it back into Vitality, or maybe they could absorb it and mix it with Astral Power in some sort of reverse Blood Magic, giving them levels in turn. There was so much I didn’t know, it was hard to even hypothesise on the mechanics, let alone come up with a treatment. If such a thing was even possible.

Kira led me into their laundry-room, before pulling open a heavy trapdoor, leading into a cellar. For a moment, I worried about it being a ploy to catch me off-guard and unaware, an ambush of some sort. Wary, I almost fell into Bullet Time but as seconds passed and Kira started her way down the stairs, nothing happened and I realised there would be no ambush. If there were, I could simply hole up in the cellar, fill the entire area with deadly mist and wait until nightfall, before disappearing. Power was a wonderful security blanket.

The staircase was narrow, almost a ladder and the room downstairs was almost entirely dark. There was a tiny window, but that helped only so much, especially in the pre-dawn gloom. The only real light came from the candle my hostess was carrying and the eyes of the Shattered. Not that I really needed the light, but she obviously did.

In the darkness of the cellar, the blue flames of a Shattered’s eyes were incredibly startling and while a part of me was fascinated at the creature bound down here, another part was horrified. The Shattered, Kira’s daughter, used to be a tall, lanky female, judging by her size and Kira’s age an older teenager or young adult, if Kira had children very young. Certainly younger than me, but how much younger, I couldn’t even begin to guess.

The horrifying part came from the condition she was kept in. The Shattered was held within a sturdy cage, likely designed to hold even the most aggressive and angry animal, maybe dogs of some kind, and there was little in the creature that remained human. Its, her, clothes were torn, likely in attempts to escape the cage and her body was battered, blood coating the bars of her prison.

Our approach must have woken the creature up and it tried again to break her cell, straining against the bars while making hissing and snarling sounds, even as her blood started flowing from her attempts. There would be no way to observe the creature, for she was far from docile. And yet, looking at the flames that had replaced the eyes of Kira’s daughter, I was startled to notice how they flickered as if they were about to fade. A quick use of Observe told me that it was a level four Shattered, no threat to anyone, really, but to bring the human she once was back, that was difficult. Maybe even impossible.

“Sleep,” I commanded, pushing my Mind Magic to its limits, even activating Overflow. There was an Ice Rune, the Torpor rune, linked to the state of suspended animation some creatures went assumed during the cold time of the year, but sadly, I didn’t have it yet. So, the closest I could do to temporarily disable the creature without destroying it, was to try using my Mind Magic. To my surprise, the creature immediately slumped over, sinking against the bars while I felt a decent chunk of Astral Power flow out of me, enough to simply kill a creature at that level if I had used a different type of magic.

Ignoring the noise of surprise coming from Kira, and the blue window telling me my Mind Magic had levelled to eight, I walked up to the cage, studying the creature. It didn’t look comfortable, slumped against the bars, but that was hardly the point of the exercise. Curiously, the flames in its eyes were still there, though the flickering was far less agitated, more akin to a calm candle flame than a blazing fire whipped around by the wind. Maybe a window into the mind of the creature, the agitation of the flames mirroring the agitation of the creature? A distinct possibility.

“As I said, I do not know if I’ll be able to help your daughter, at least not in a permanent fashion. For now, the Shattered sleeps and I have more time to study it,” I told her, trying to dismiss her.

“Anything I can do to help? She’s my baby,” Kira pleaded and for a moment, I wanted to reject her again.

However, instead of doing so, I decided to distract her.

“There’s nothing you can do but pray,” I told her, having noticed the cross above the threshold of their house. Maybe it would distract her and give me time to work. If nothing else, praying to the Christian God would hopefully innoculate them from being influenced by the Deities worshipped on Mundus.

“Yes, I’ll have everyone pray for my baby,” she frantically nodded, almost running up the stairs in an attempt to get their prayer meeting going. I was tempted to chuckle, given that she had taken the candle with her, leaving me in almost complete darkness.

Letting out a sigh, I placed a hand on the Shattered, trying to first use Blood Magic to get a better idea of its bodily functions. Understanding its body seemed like a good first step, followed by an attempt to understand its mind and, last and most difficult, understand its soul. Even now, I barely understood what a soul was, from the conversations with Lenore I had on that topic. She had been able to perceive them but that was a skill I hadn’t inherited.

Poking and prodding at the Shattered, I was fascinated by the changes. What used to be a human was now something entirely different, some organs having shrivelled up to near non-existence, while others had enlarged, though not to the point that would explain their strength. Either way, it didn’t look good for Kira’s request. The thing was even less human on the inside, compared to the outside.