Spending some time with people other than my daughter was strangely amusing. Lia and I had grown into a comfortable, quiet comradery, we didn’t really need to talk while existing in the same space. Both of us could follow our own interests, though I often helped Lia with her training. Sure, her physical attributes were coming along nicely but there was still quite a lot I knew about physical combat that she had yet to learn, to say nothing about the magical side of things. There, I was constantly growing and experimenting myself, giving me more and more things that Lia might eventually learn. It was an endless process, which, amusingly, made Lia focus more on the physical side. I had a feeling that focus came from her desire to show me that she was growing up, that she would eventually be more capable than I was, but magically speaking, that was nearly impossible. Physically, it was a far more realistic prospect.

But when in contact with other people, the comradery between Lia and me morphed into something else, both of us instinctively grouping together, as if making sure that nobody could take either of us by surprise. I caught myself being far more attentive and cautious than I normally was while hiding in a shelter, my mental state far more similar to the one I adopted while out and fighting. It drove home how little I trusted humans, that I was expecting them to attack us almost as much as I was expecting that of a Withered or Shattered.

Luckily, for everyone involved, they never tried anything. Sadly, the conversation with Mark hadn’t yielded the results I had hoped for, or maybe the results needed to make my previous plan a viable alternative. The people at Apple Gate Farm didn’t have the strength to go against the Withered, the various fighters needed to train more, in order to get strong enough to stand against the enemies we were facing.

Mark, with a look of grim understanding on his face, could only shake his head when faced with the current state of affairs. It was an almost impossible situation, the Withered were growing as fast, or even faster, than the human fighters, they were more numerous and they had better internal cohesion. There was no way the people could fight against them, but what was the alternative? Diplomacy, with an entity you couldn’t even talk to, an entity that was so far removed from humans that I doubted there was any common ground? It sounded completely impossible, the only thin sliver of hope was that I might be able to communicate with them using Mind Magic. Might, because I certainly wasn’t willing to try patching my mind into that fungal mess I had seen, I liked my brain unscrambled and without mushrooms, thank you very much.

Which left the survivors with precious few options, or rather, a single option. Avoidance. They either had to hope that the Withered remained contained in the area they currently claimed, or they had to eventually abandon Apple Gate Farm and venture out, seeking greener pastures. As the vast majority of livestock had done, the fields that had once been overrun by cattle or pigs on a nearly daily basis were now abandoned once more, with few beasts remaining in the area. From what I had heard, it was only thanks to the Army of Dog that the people at Apple Gate Farm were able to successfully hunt, but that, too, might be on a time limit.

They had managed to get some fields back up and growing, but it only worked thanks to the liberal use of Nature Magic supplementing their efforts. Only time would tell if the location was actually viable, though I had a feeling that adjustments would need to be made. Society would have to spread out again, going back to its more agrarian roots. Or maybe it wouldn’t, it would likely depend on whether the Nature Magicians were able to compensate for the lack of fertiliser, and maybe on the way the seeds had been altered by the Change. I had once read about seeds being deliberately modified so the plants they grew into wouldn’t bear viable seeds, ostensibly to prevent the crops from turning into an invasive species, but I had always thought it was to make sure the farmers kept buying fresh seeds. How such modifications, or how the various other ways in which humans had modified plants to fuel the giant cities we built, had been impacted by the system could be a fascinating question for somebody like the Grandmother, or any Nature, Life or maybe even Earth-Magician.

But those concerns were irrelevant for the immediate future. If the Withered started to seriously spread out the question of whether or not the crops currently growing in the fields would have viable seeds in a few months' time wouldn’t matter. It would all get withered away anyway, leaving nothing but desolation. Not quite the desolation of the Nethersprites, but a similar desolation, though I wasn’t quite sure what the Withered were attracted to. Not that it truly mattered, I had no interest in trying to summon more of their ilk, at least not until I managed to get a grip on the current infection.

Once again, there was a part of me that wished Fire wasn’t as abhorrent to me as it was. While the mental image of a burning city disgusted me, just from the amount of Fire needed, the idea to watch the Withered in all their fungal glory get consumed by hellfire, or maybe Dragon’s Fire, was morbidly appealing. Alas, I lacked the ability to conjure Fire on that scale and I doubted I would ever feel comfortable trying to do so, even if I could.

But there were other things I could conjure, things that, while not as viscerally destructive, could cause just as much damage. The best course of action, now that we had confirmed that the people at Apple Gate Farm would sit this one out, was to get the last few levels on the way to fifty under our belt, with the secondary goal of pushing all my primary elemental magic abilities to ten while I did. Hopefully, getting them to that level would allow me to gain a suitable class after crossing the Divide, especially if I managed to push my primary magic abilities further up, too.

Once I managed to get there, and crossed the Divide, Lia and I would hunt down a few suitable Shattered, so I could use them to fuel the biggest spell I could create. Maybe something simple, like the mist I was so fond of, only scaled up to eleven, or something truly grand. There was still the Nevermore’s Feather I had gained thanks to the ritual Lenore had sent me, filled with her own unique blend of Death, Wind and a bit of Ice, familiar enough that I would likely be able to incorporate the Feather into a ritual, though I had no idea what effect that would have. Maybe it would allow Lenore to add her own twist to it, maybe it would simply act as fuel and increase the ritual’s power by an order of magnitude or two, I simply didn’t know. But I also wasn’t quite willing to find out, not with such a precious and unique component.

Another idea I considered worth my while was to mess with the Withered on a mental level. So far, any attempt to infiltrate their connection using Mind Magic had resulted in major retaliation, far beyond anything that we could fight against, but merely stunning the Withered worked. What I had yet to try was to first stun them, keep them stunned or, if possible, asleep and interfere then. If the reaction came from a disturbance in their psychic connection, it might work, if the connection was inactive while they were unconscious.

If I could influence their minds long-term, things might get seriously interesting. What happened within a hive-mind, if parts of the hive suddenly had a different opinion? Would it be as simple that the dissident were killed outright, or would the disturbed WIthered become something new? Maybe they’d even pass on whatever disturbance I could create, I knew that the Withered shared sensory information over their connection, meaning if I somehow managed to implant false sensory impressions in a Withered, the network connecting them in battle might completely shut down. If that happened, their strength would be majorly reduced, allowing Lia, Silva and me to kill far more than we normally could.

Alas, I had yet to create any sort of sensory illusion, the best I could currently do was completely blind an enemy's senses, using a combination of Mind Magic and Darkness. It was a rather nifty combination, at least normally, but against a creature that could simply disregard its senses and use those of its brethren, the utility was drastically reduced.

But just because I had yet to manage something didn’t mean I never would. It might be a nice project for Lia and me to work on together. Some nice Mother-Daughter bonding, by torturing our enemies.