Checking out the aired-out house turned into a morose affair and showed just how distanced Lia was from the memories of living as Chantalle. It turned out, the family had been home, a father, a mother and two children. Only, they hadn’t beaten the odds of becoming Shattered. One of the children, a barely teenage boy, was lying in the door of the main bedroom, with a hole in his head and burned-out eyes. A gunshot, by the looks of it. The mother was inside, similarly dead, with similarly burned-out eyes and a few more holes. Finally, we managed to find the father, the gun lying next to where he had blown his own brain out. He was slumped over the torn-apart body of a girl, maybe six or seven years old. It looked very much like the work of a Shattered, likely the boy, if I read the course of events correctly. I wasn’t sure I should consider the father lucky, for having his gun work on every shot, or unlucky, because nobody should feel the kind of despair that came with having to shoot your wife and son, only to find the ripped-apart body of your daughter.

And yet, as horrible as the whole affair was, I intellectually knew that this kind of event was somewhat commonplace, maybe even what had happened to a majority of people. Still, knowing how often it had to have happened didn’t make things easier, especially when Lia began to quietly speak about the family, as she used to babysit the two children from time to time. Hearing about them, having their habitual, sometimes adorable, behaviour described as we were carrying out the slowly decaying bodies put a strange pressure on my chest, one that I didn’t like one bit. I had considered trying to decompose the bodies magically, but I knew that I lacked the magical power for that, at least for now.

Instead, we carried them out and I flexed my recently acquired Earth Magic, pushing it beyond everything I had managed before. I wanted these people, whose house we were taking over, to have a decent grave, even if we couldn’t give them a real funeral. Around me, the dogs started to let out soft, almost wolf-like howls, as the earth parted into a deep pit. As Lia and I placed the family into the grave, trying to give them as much dignity as possible, the dogs continued their eerie song. After climbing back out of the grave, I sniffed the air and noticed the scent of magic, divine magic, coming from the gathered dogs. The power was concentrated on the grave, though I couldn’t really tell what Silva was trying to accomplish. Hopefully, it was something good, these people deserved their rest, after the horrific way they had departed the mortal coil.

Pushing my Earth Magic once more, I closed the grave, returning the earth to its previous, undisturbed state. It felt a little empty, but I wasn’t really sure what more to do. Planting a cross, as would be culturally appropriate before the change, didn’t feel right but I wasn’t sure what the appropriate symbol for Hecate would be, if She was to watch over these people, as Silva’s magic hopefully indicated. Looking over to my canine companion, she looked at the grave for a bit, her head lowered, before plodding away. She wouldn’t tell me, and I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to try praying. Sure, I had that blessing of Hecate, but I had never done anything with it, at least not to my knowledge.

Either way, burying the dead gave me some peace of mind and pushed my Earth Magic up to two, a little underwhelming for the effort I had put in, but I knew raising it wouldn’t be as easy as raising my Darkness or Ice Magic would be. I simply lacked the affinity for it.

Shaking my head, I went back into the house. There was still some work to be done before morning rolled around, and I certainly wanted to explore the cellar. That could be done during the day, but something about the idea of a large, sun-protected space that I could set up just as I liked drew me in. There were quite a few ideas I had, rituals that I might be able to set up, even a few ideas for potential permanent enchantments, I almost couldn’t contain myself.

Neither Lia nor I spoke a lot while we cleaned up the place. The same pressure that had constricted my chest when we buried the people earlier returned, a strange sensation that I didn’t like one bit. It felt eerily wrong to simply take over their place, to make it as if they had never existed in the first place.

On Lia’s suggestion, we decided to keep the personal spaces mostly as they had been, though we cleared out the blood-soaked linen and the mattresses. I even pushed my magic once more, this time my Death Magic, and turned the dried rust-coloured patches of blood into dust. It didn’t really help the looks but it made me feel better, even as the pain of channelling Death Magic was gnawing at my system. Somehow, the pain distracted me from the strange sensation I had been feeling, making me feel… weird. Not worse, not better, just weird.

Finally, the upper space was done, just in time for us two photosensitive people to disappear underground. Finding the entrance to the lower level was easy, as Lia had been shown the space in the past. There was a lift in the cider brewery, or whatever the space where cider was made was called, to easily lower the barrels into their storage facility and nearby was a stairwell. The door to the stairs was locked but given that the key was hanging on a hook right next to it, I didn’t even have to try picking that lock.

After moving down a long, long stairwell, almost twice the length of a normal flight of stairs, we got to another door, this one unlocked. Opening it, I got my first look at our new living space and I felt my chin drop.

At first glance, it looked more like an underground parking lot, only that instead of cars, there were barrels stored in the parking spaces. Everything was neat and orderly, though there was a certain sweet scent lingering in the air, strong enough to make me lick my lips.

“Wow,” I managed to mutter, already imagining how much I could do down here. If we set things up nicely, Lia and I could both have almost as much space as we wanted, unless one of us wanted to set up an indoor football field or something, the space was that big. Without knowing about it, I would never have guessed just how huge things were if I even had noticed the ramp down here in the first place.

Investigating that ramp showed that the motor opening the shutters was fried, but luckily, there was a smaller door right next to it, allowing people to move in or out, without having to open the shutters made for trucks.

“I guess we can stay here, right?” Lia asked quietly, studying the area.

“Sure, if you like we can drag the mattresses from the guest room upstairs down here, maybe even the beds,” I grinned, looking forward to setting up the space just right. There was so much of it, I couldn’t wait.

“You know, there are a few things I want to try out, some of which I never could try in the other world. We spent most of our time moving around, so there was never time. I only know a few things about alchemy, basically chemistry only with magic mixed in, and I want to try. There are so many things I could learn,” I gushed, feeling myself getting giddy with ideas.

Looking around, I realised that there was a small area filled with glassware, likely to test the produced cider. Sure, it wasn’t a full laboratory, but it was an awesome start.

I had a few ideas about what the change had done to our world, especially why it had caused the fires that had destroyed so much. My primary theory was that the change hadn’t just affected living things but everything. Maybe including energy, which would mean electricity had suddenly gained a magical element to it, a magical element that insulation had never been designed to handle. Unless the insulation was changed in the same way, it could easily lead to cable fires. Even if the energy hadn’t been changed, if the conductors or the insulation were changed in the wrong way, it could lead to the same.

But, if the change had affected inorganic materials, they might be magical in nature, or at least potentially magical. This meant, there were countless things I could explore and understand, to say nothing about the living materials that had been changed, if I was correct, everything was now at least partially magical, with infinite potential. Just the little bit of enchanting I had done with my cloak had yielded awesome results and there was so much more to explore and discover.

I couldn’t wait.