“Mother, I stumbled across something we should check out,” Lia told me, as she returned from one of her nightly wanderings. Over the last few months, she had started to habitually roam the land during the night, simply exulting in her physical strength and speed. Running, jumping, exploring, those had become her primary outlet while she was looking for interesting prey. Sadly, there was no such prey to be found, nothing strong enough to make our blood sing, nothing to push us so we could increase our powers. By now, I had pretty much given up on this area and was planning to travel north some time around the equinox, maybe even before then. For now, the nights were simply too short for my liking, greatly limiting the distance we could cover, while we’d also give up the advantages of living near Apple Gate Farm, something I wasn’t quite willing. Not just yet, not for such a slim advantage.

“What did you find?” I asked, quite curious about her discovery. For her to be excited about it, to the point that she wanted to bring Silva, me and possibly even Luna in was something new.

“I moved east, away from the city, and came across an area that I don’t think should be there. It’s relatively far, so we have to find shelter there but I think it’s worth it,” she paused for a second, gathering her thoughts, “The area is filled with Astral Power, though I’m not able to detect a lot about it. It’s a lake, or a very wide river, depending on how you want to look at it. Given that there’s an old, destroyed bridge halfway in the water, I’m pretty sure it used to be a river but somehow the area was flooded after the change, turning it into a lake. But more importantly, I saw quite a few creatures, not the usual Undead or something, but magical beasts that I doubt roamed the Earth before the change.”

“I’m talking about fireflies the size of my arm, huge frogs and who-knows-what, the entire area could be a death-trap or a treasure-trove and I’ve got a feeling it’s both,” she finished a wide grin on her face. She, just like I, had started to associate danger with opportunity, for only dangerous areas could give us the EXP we both craved, allowing us to continue increasing our power. Finding an area that was so obviously altered by the change was a huge opportunity, one that I wanted to grip with both hands.

“That sounds fascinating, indeed,” I nodded, “Sleep, rest for the day, I’ll prepare some supplies and we can head out as soon as night falls.” Lia nodded at my suggestion and I turned to Silva, knowing that Luna would need quite a bit of help to move at even half the speed Lia could move at.

“Silva, would you mind carrying Luna? The munchkin is growing like a weed but she’s still lacking in the physique department,” I asked my canine companion, getting an amused whuff of agreement. Having Silva carry Luna was a fairly standard arrangement, to the point that the bags Silva was usually carrying had been modified to double as a simple saddle. While I had been trying to perfect the magical bags I created before, I wasn’t willing to risk a significant portion of our loot, preferring to store things in reality, at least until I felt confident that we wouldn’t accidentally lose what I put away. And given that one of my magical bags had lost half of the loot I stored in one of them when part of the strands connecting the shadows within and the realm of shadows broke, I wasn’t about to take more risks. No, the magical bags contained what we could easily afford to lose, even if losing some of the things would be a hassle.

Given that I wasn’t sure what was waiting for us in the magical lake, or maybe calling it marsh would be more fitting, I decided to grab a wide array of supplies. Staples like food were obvious, but I also grabbed a few more specialised things, things like thick canvas, a few tools and so on. A wide selection, so we’d hopefully have what was needed to overcome any possible challenge. In addition, I made sure to have more than enough supplies to set up a sturdy tent, just in case my previous idea to simply dig a cave using my Earth Magic was impossible, due to muddy ground.

When Luna learned that we’d be out all night, investigating an interesting location, the results were sadly the exact opposite of what I had hoped for. Instead of getting the sleep she needed, she became fairly hyper and was trying to help me with the preparation, only that her help meant I needed quite a bit of extra time. It was bad enough that a little after noon, I decided that what I had prepared was good enough and grabbed her for an afternoon nap. Amusingly, once I was getting into bed for some rest, she happily snuggled up to me and was out like a light. Sometimes, I couldn’t understand my munchkin, or maybe I simply didn’t understand children. Both were distinct possibilities.

Waking up just before sunset, we soon set out, all of us somewhat weighed down by our equipment. Luna and Alex had it the easiest, neither of them had to walk on their own, with Luna riding on Silva’s back and Alex lounging around Lia’s neck, like a furry scarf. It wasn’t the best position to be in if a fight started but by now, the two of them were quite adept, as they were constantly working together, both when roaming the land and when working in their lab.

Even I didn’t know what insanity they had mixed together using Alex’s growing alchemical abilities and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. What little I had seen made me worry that they’d soon start some sort of retribution campaign against humans, for the countless rodents that had been killed with poison over the course of human history. While the mist I could conjure was lethal, the mixtures held in their various cans were just as dangerous, only that they could theoretically set off their entire stash at the same time, poisoning a wide area. I’d need a ritual for that, taking a lot of time and giving potential enemies that time to escape while they only needed to set off their charges. Sure, they had been working on their bombs for weeks but that didn’t allow an enemy to spot them any easier, if anything, their stealth meant that they could take out anyone that they wanted, whenever they wanted. It was one of those things that pushed me to remind the people at Apple Gate Farm that they needed to get better when it came to stealth detection, even if it felt like talking to a wall. I could sneak up on the guards as often as I wanted but the lesson didn’t stick. Maybe I’d have to do something worse than tell Mrs Wu about the problem, as Mrs Wu had told me, a drop of blood makes a lesson stick. Maybe I’d have to use some of their blood to make the lesson stick.

But that was a problem for another night, now, I had to focus on putting one foot before the other, as Lia, Silva and I were running across the land. My two companions had superior attributes to me, allowing them to outpace me despite their burdens, meaning I had to either focus on running and push myself with Blood Magic or I had to get creative and abuse my Titanic Ambition. It was a fairly amusing trick I had trained myself to do, using the fact that I had enough Intuition to flawlessly split my mind to have one part of my mind focus on some fairly deep, convoluted magical question, one that stretched my knowledge and understanding, thus triggering the Titanic Ambition trait while a far lesser portion of my mind was focused on running.

The lesser portion was only able to do simple tasks, nothing more complex than running about somewhat even ground, but the other part could delve deeply into some of the mysteries of magic. And thanks to Titanic Ambition being an increase to all attributes, having it active increased my physical attributes to the point that I could keep up with Lia, though I’d be fairly sore the next day. Apparently, the recovery from strain came later, after we stopped, and at that point, I wouldn’t have the increased attributes any longer.

But for now, I could relax into the depths of my mind and once more try to figure out how the connection between Luna, myself and the Grandmother worked. It was an incredibly fascinating piece of magic, connecting us between different worlds, only that I hadn’t been able to do anything with the connection to the Grandmother, it simply led into the Astral River and faded into the distance. Still, the mental effort kept me highly engaged while my legs kept pumping, long strides eating up the distance.