There was still flickering light around Apple Gate Farm as we approached and a few people were moving around the property, despite the darkness. It was quite impressive how much they had done in the week since our last visit, there was a whole new building set up. It looked rather simple, just a wooden fra with a sheet tal roof, likely only good to keep out rain and wind, but it was newly made and so without any advanced technology.
We made our approach openly and again, the so-called guards didn’t notice us until we were far too close for comfort. If we had ill intent on these people, I, alone, could have killed them all, though maybe I was a bad example in that regard. If I truly intended to kill them all, I was pretty sure I could manage, even if they knew I was coming. It would just take a lot longer, if I had to hunt them all down individually, if I managed to spread my mist around the property they would all just die.
Shaking off my morbid thoughts, I greeted the guard and walked past, not about to tell them how to do their job. I’d tell the local leader, I think the na was Marcus or sothing, and he could deal with their ability and attitude. Not my problem, but given that I had noticed it, sharing felt like the right thing. It hopefully was, if I invested ti and effort into these people, especially if they joined with the people from the gym, I wanted them to survive, otherwise, all my efforts would be wasted.
“Mistress, I will go et my parents,” Lia quietly told , her voice so soft that even I had to strain my ears to hear her. “I believe if they know I’m happy and thriving with you, they will be deeply indebted to you, as you gave their daughter a path forward by creating .”
“Do so, L,” I interrupted myself, ntally switching gears, “Do so, Chantalle. We will go together, so your mother can show what room I can convert into a freezer. In the anti, you can tell them about your training, but maybe focus more on the magical stuff, I doubt that the parents of a teenage girl would enjoy knowing she is trained to fight,” I paused again, thinking about it.
“Or maybe they would like to know that. In this wonderful new world of ours, knowing how to fight is a rather important skill, one might even say it’s vital. Do as you will, you have more information about them anyway and I believe you are more socially adept than I am,” I instructed her as we continued.
Finding Kira wasn’t too difficult, she was talking with a few other middle-aged won, maybe gossiping, maybe planning, we didn’t get to listen in before she noticed us. The mont she did, their conversation was completely forgotten, with Kira almost running over to embrace Lia. I failed to stifle a giggle at the embrace, partially because of the brief mont of stiffness Lia went through when Kira hugged her but mostly because Lia still had the pole we had used to carry the killed pig on her shoulder.
“We thought with this many people here, you could use so extra food, and I can prepare a place where you can store it. We’ll have to see how long the storage can last so I can return to refresh the charge, but it should work out,” I spoke in the general direction of the gathered won, hoping that sobody would supply a bit of direction. I had a feeling that getting between a mother and her returned daughter would be seen as impolite but I also wanted to get the pig off my shoulder, it was heavy, and to get away from the humans. We had things to do later in the night.
“Er, sure?” one of the won replied, looking a little confused at the situation. Not that I could really bla her, I doubted there were many people carrying dead pigs around, at least not without having a previous plan for those pigs.
“Chantalle, why don’t I take your companion and deliver the at to our butchering station? And what do you an by storage?” she asked, the last part addressed at .
“Just what I ant, it won’t be anything fancy, but filling a room with magically created ice should create a simple approximation of a freezer. Let’s you store the at until it’s needed, or you can prepare so reserves, just in case your hunting is disrupted for a few days,” I explained, getting a frown and a nod in response.
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Two of the won took over the pole from Lia, while one of them ca over to help . While Lia stayed behind with her mom, the rest of us moved to the edge of the property, where a shed was located. Behind that shed, they had set up a camping table, now covered in blood, and a couple of hooks set into the wooden wall. It was an incredibly simple set-up, but I could see that people had repeatedly butchered animals here.
“We’ll take care of this, the quicker we cut those up, the better the at will be,” one of the won assured , while another one told she’d show where I might set up that Ice of mine.
“How much drainage do you need? I an, how does your ice work?” the woman asked , as we were moving back towards the primarily used parts of the property.
“No drainage needed,” I assured her, “The Ice doesn’t lt into water it, for lack of a better word, evaporates back into the Astral River. It turns back into the non-physical stuff I use to conjure it in the first place. If I conjure a ton of Ice and simply let it sit, you’ll be left with maybe a bottle of water by the end of it. And even that water doesn’t really stick around in the long term, it’s complicated,” I explained, trying to describe the processes I had observed in terms people could understand. It took a mont to realise that it was similar to that law of thermodynamics, whatever number it was, stating that energy couldn’t be created or destroyed. It was similar with Astral Power and the material I conjured using it, I was simply changing the state, for lack of a better word, of the Astral Power into a physical version of itself with physical properties that mirrored the elent I was using to conjure. At least that felt like the most parsimonious and logical explanation in my mind, though I had a niggling feeling that there was more to it. For now, I managed to give the woman next to an explanation that was good enough, I doubted she was interested in listening to ramble on about magical theory and my hypothesis.
“If you say so,” she simply shrugged, before starting to ask how one could learn magic. I began a spiel similar to the explanation I had given with the people at the gym, even showing similar tricks, naly the conjuration of water. By now, I was good enough with the runes and the magic that I could simply manifest a rune and let it flash for a second, making it manifest a floating ball of water. My demonstration made the woman guiding look at it with a mix of awe and suspicion for a mont before she asked even more questions. Her first, and quite good, question was if the water could be used to quench thirst, or if it would disappear like the Ice.
I had done so experintation on that and was sowhat confident in my observations. The water could be drunk, and would sustain a person, at least it did for , because the process of drinking it turned it into sothing else. I wasn’t sure why that didn’t apply to lting Ice, maybe I had to experint so more, but it was the best explanation I could co up with.
By the ti we got back to the main building, the woman looked quite interested in magic, making consider giving a few magic lessons here, too. Maybe it would get so more magic users started, which might prove important if the slaughterhouse was only the first location to change. Sure, a lot more beings had been killed there than in town, at least per square tre and over ti, but that didn’t an the dead wouldn’t rise in town.
But that was a problem for another day. We t Lia and Kira back at the main building and Kira guided to a small walk-in freezer, now completely dark and empty. As we walked in the light of the torches near the building, Kira looked at with a bit of confusion in her eyes, making realise that my ergence as a Firn Elf was almost complete, giving unnaturally pale, light blue skin. In the darkness, it wasn’t too bad, but once I was in real light, there might be questions.
But that would be a problem for another day. For now, I froze over the walls within the freezer, trying to keep the ice focused on the walls so that the people had as much useful storage area as possible.
Once that was done, I pumped out so more Astral Power into the area, filling it with as much Cold as I could. Hopefully, that would increase the ti the Ice would stay frozen, giving them a longer-lasting freezer. When I was done, Kira and the woman I still didn’t know the na of thanked , the woman scurrying off to get so of the perishable supplies.
“Did you tell them that there are undead at the old slaughterhouse?” I asked Lia, just to make sure that the ssages I wanted to send were delivered.
Lia nodded and after as little small talk as I could get away with without being highly impolite, the three of us left, making our way back to the dungeon. There were undead to destroy, skills to be increased and levels to be made. I couldn’t wait.
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