Sitting comfortably in our lair, after I had returned without the Shattered I had planned to bring back as a test subject, I was thinking about my earlier failure. The behaviour of the Shattered and, more importantly, its aning, was sothing surprising, I hadn’t thought they had the ability to work at that level. It was easily comparable to the Withered and their structured hive-mind, though with so additional cunning thrown in.
Before, I had thought Shattered to be at the sa intellectual level as simple animals, able to chase prey if they discovered it, maybe even capable of lying in ambush in a concealed position but nothing more. Animals, driven by instinct, unable to truly sche and plan. Sure, the detection area around the town was sothing fairly impressive, as were the tunnels they used to get around without having to traverse the surface, but both of those were sothing certain insects could accomplish, like ants or maybe termites.
But to lie in wait, to study my tactics in order to prepare an ambush that used my previously recognised patterns against ? If not for my instinctual unease, it was likely that they’d have managed to catch . Just imagining the situation sent a shiver down my spine, there was no way I could delude myself into thinking that I’d have been able to survive if they caught in their initial trap, let alone evade their follow-up. Even just the follow-up had almost succeeded in tearing from the sky and if that happened, I’d be dead, no question about it. Even a single Shattered at their level would be a formidable foe to face in close combat unless I could use my Mind or Death Magic to take them out instantly. However, that needed a mont or two of focus, even while using Bullet Ti.
The big question remained, what was the right path to take in the future? Should I consider treating Shattered differently, now that they demonstrated intelligence beyond what I had considered possible or should we continue as we had and use them as readily available test subjects, their lack of consent be damned? Was there a way to communicate with the Shattered or had the damage of their Souls rendered them into sothing alien to us, sothing unable to communicate unless or until their Souls were restored or replaced by the vampiric version? There were so many questions I couldn’t even begin to answer and, there was an additional problem I would have to consider.
If I decided that Shattered couldn’t be used for experints unless the Shattered gave their consent, would we be able to continue our testing and eventually get Sigmir back? The last few weeks, especially the sowhat questionable experints we had perford on the willing volunteers from New Dawn had pushed my understanding of the Soul a great deal and now, the experints on the Shattered had pushed that even further. If I decided that Shattered couldn’t be used, what was I supposed to use to experint and further my understanding?
For the first ti since coming to this area, I took a glimpse at my recent skill and experience gains, grinning when I saw that I had gained points in Mind Magic, bringing it to seventy-two, Soul Magic, bringing it to twenty-three, two points in Astral diation, a point in Darkness Magic, which was now sixty-five, while Blood Magic had gained a point and was now fifty. Also, I had gained so EXP, either from the Shattered I had killed or for the experints we had perford, I wasn’t quite sure, but the combination had been enough to push to level ninety-one. Last, but certainly not least, there was a point in Darkness Rune Mastery and the skill was now at sixty, giving access to yet another Rune.
Grinning to myself, I decided to delve into the Astral River and try getting that Rune. There were a few concepts I wanted to get a better understanding of and having the appropriate Rune was the best way to further my knowledge.
At first, I simply let myself drift in the Astral River, feeling the stolid, solemn Earth all around , the traces of Life springing into the Astral River but also the eternal, unending Darkness of the underground. This Darkness was what I let myself float towards, my mind starting to focus on the concept I wanted to understand, the imperceivable darkness between matter. The emptiness, the endless and perfect void, the epito of Darkness, where the absence of light doesn’t matter because there is nothing for the light to reflect off of.
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I could feel my focus narrow down, lines of dark fire starting to sear through my mind as a rune took shape and within monts, I realised the rune was part of sothing greater. Sure, it was a complete rune in and of itself, a rune aning Space, but it was also part of sothing greater, sothing I hadn’t been able to grasp just yet. What that ‘sothing’ was, I couldn’t be certain but I had a strong inclination that it had sothing to do with that emptiness or the void I had been focused on. Alas, I would have to investigate and, eventually, I’d be able to understand.
Still, the Rune was an interesting one, though I would need so ti to figure out how to use it in my spellcraft. Space, while deceptively simple in aning, was terrifyingly complicated as a concept. Everything was within space but nothing could alter space, at least not on a scale I could understand. Sure, there was that theory about incredible masses impacting the fabric of space-ti or sothing along those lines, but I could barely rember that such a thing existed, to say nothing of any details. So, how was I supposed to make use of this rune? The obvious answer was that I could use it to improve my magical bags, they were creating a contained Space that I could carry with , but beyond that? Maybe I’d be able to use it to strengthen my area of effect spells, or maybe I would be able to use space itself as a dium for my spells, just like I had used Mist to carry effects. I would have to experint with that and see what else I could do with it.
“Mom, I did it,” Luna’s excited voice broke out of my contemplative reverie, pulling back into the material world. For a mont, I had to process her words and imdiately, I felt a smile curling my lips. So often, little Luna was trying to act like a teenager, thanks to the levels accelerating her physical and ntal growth but then, there were tis like this when she partially reverted to a giddy child.
“And what did you do, munchkin?” I asked, my grin only widening when she decided to hop onto my lap and snuggle in for a mont.
“Alex and I made a flower,” she explained, before hopping back off my lap, an almost visible aura of excitent manifesting around her.
“A flower?” I asked, not quite sure what to make of this. Luna could make flowers grow with her magic, that was nothing new, but the declaration that Alex was involved made a little apprehensive. Either of these two on their own could co up with… interesting things, and that was coming from , but when they combined their ideas, I was growing just a little cautious.
“Mhm,” she nodded, “Rember those ashes we made? We used them as a base and I think I made sothing that’s truly alive,” she explained, as she pulled behind her, towards the cell area. Now, my interest was well and truly roused. Normally, Luna had two options when exerting her Life Magic on vegetation, she could either grow sothing rapidly, to the point that a normal vine could be grown within seconds but those creations were always temporary, lasting a few minutes or maybe an hour if she continuously supplied the construct with magic. Or she could plant a seed in the ground and speed up the growth with her magic, taking hours to grow a plant but the result wasn’t truly permanent, either. Sure, the plant would last for weeks, maybe even months, it was difficult to say without staying in an area, but it wasn’t truly permanent, nor was it really alive. It wouldn’t grow any further after her magic stopped supplying the initial growth, nor did it sprout seeds. Curiously, she could have the plants she grew with her magic sprout fruits and those lasted about as long as they would normally, but even then, there were no seeds inside, resulting in a few sowhat strange growths. Apricots without seeds were.. . weird.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long and soon, I was standing in the sa room we had used for the last experint. Now, there were a bunch of fresh earth on the ground, the strange ash-like dust was gone and from the earth, an otherworldly flower was sprouting, unlike anything I had seen before. Sowhat like a tulip, but with a very different blossom, far wider and black as night, with a few slivery markings shaped like tears. Additionally, there were a few slightly odd, crimson seeds sprouting in the middle of the blossom, unlike anything I had seen from Luna’s creations. I had no idea what to make of this, but I was curious what might be going on.
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