After observing the devastation of the Blessed City, a part of me was tempted to head there right away and help the people. Not so much driven by some altruistic need, but because becoming the helper and saviour in their hour of need would give me influence and allow me to effectively poison the well Sunna was drawing her power from. It likely wouldn’t do much; Sunna likely had other worlds with worshippers just like Lady Hecate, but it might limit her influence on Terra. Any disillusioned worshipper might prevent others from converting in the future, which these people would be well-suited to do. After all, they had personally experienced the horror of Sunna and the influence her power had on those who worshipped her. It would be interesting to see if the people who had lived in the Blessed City remembered what they had done, what they had witnessed and allowed, or if that was swallowed up by some fog. Or if their subconscious suppressed those experiences to protect their conscious mind from the horror. I wasn’t sure if people would want to know just how badly they had been controlled; they might just go into shock. Or reject their own memories and take refuge in insanity, I wasn’t sure.

  That idea added another reason to visit the place: the people who had worshipped Sunna and believed her creed would undoubtedly be in severe mental anguish, giving me suitable subjects to test a few of my ideas. Some carefully applied Mind Magic might help blunt the damage their minds took, or I could even try to suppress some of their experiences, if they so wished. I doubted I’d be able to erase them, not with what I had learned about how memories, or rather, experiences, carved themselves into a person’s soul, and how the system recorded that process made erasing memories challenging. Or maybe even impossible, I wasn’t sure.

  However, while there were some good reasons to go there, I wasn’t sure how long Lorgar would be out of commission. If he were active while I was there, he would likely attack, drawing on Sunna’s power to do so. I had no idea how powerful the guy was, or how powerful Sunna could make him if she channelled as much power through him as possible. If she was willing to discard him, to burn up his body, mind and soul by channelling her considerable power through him, it would be a considerable amount of power. More than I was willing to face, unless I had the Nexus, or even Lady Hecate’s shrine here, at my back.

  For a moment, I considered sending my daughters, or maybe conjure a few constructs and do my work through them, but neither option was suitable. If my daughters were attacked, I would go to help them, negating the whole point of not going there myself. Constructs, on the other hand, weren’t able to provide that necessary living touch. I didn’t think I would be able to copy the part of Lady Hecate’s ritual that created the Grandmother’s body during the family dinner.

  That left me with one suitable option. Namely, to use the locals, not those in the Blessed City, but those in other settlements. The best option would be to approach Maggie in the morning, hopefully without disturbing her sleep too much.

  After explaining my plan to the others, we settled down, spending the rest of the longest night in peace, contemplation and conversation. Talking about the past year, remembering our triumphs and losses, and making plans for the coming year. It was calming, peaceful and a wonderful contrast to the conflict I knew was happening in the Blessed City.

  It was exactly what I needed, allowing me to lay down the burdens and the grief I carried from the last year and look towards the future with confidence instead of apprehension. In many ways, the past year had been incredible, with multiple massive successes, but also marred by loss and grief.

  By the time we headed to bed, we could already see the sun dawning on a new year. That wasn’t something I wanted to experience atop my tower, not with the mess I had caused for Sunna. Some shade and darkness was exactly what the doctor ordered and once I was back up, I could visit Maggie.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Ultimately, the decision to wait until the afternoon to visit Maggie turned out to be a very, very prudent one. Given the state I found her in, despite my visit happening at least two hours after noon, I had a feeling that she would have found a way to murder me, regardless of my higher level; no matter that I was far stronger than her, she would have found a way. The look she gave me when I woke her up made that very, very clear.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her voice hoarse and a little slurred but filled with enough malice that I took a small step back.

  “You sound as if you have some blood in your alcohol,” I snarked, my passive perception enough to feel the agony pouring off her. The poor woman was nursing the hangover of the century, which was quite impressive. And it made the fact that she hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t alone in her bed all the more amusing, especially as the short-haired head seemed to be completely dead to the world.

  “Given that I want something from you, I will be kind,” I grinned, casually conjuring up a mug of water, carefully infusing the water with a bit of regenerative Blood Magic. It wouldn’t be as beneficial as Luna could make it, but it would act like a minor tonic, in addition to the obvious way it would help with her dehydration. That I also might be able to bind her using the Astral Power inherent to the conjured material was something I would better keep quiet about.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice no longer as agonised and a lot more awake. Her wakeful state, amusingly, brought some awareness, making her realise that a warm body lay behind her.

  “The fuck?” she whispered, her eyes darting to me, as if she was trying to gauge whether I was pranking her in some way, or whether she had done something in the drunken state she had been in the previous night.

  “The fuck?!” she repeated, her voice now loud, almost a shout. Certainly loud enough to wake the person behind her, making them try to get up, only to tangle their legs up in the sheets and land on the floor in a thudding crash.

  “I won’t judge, my friend,” I grinned, already highly amused, even if the pale behind of Maggie’s bedwarmer wasn’t all that appealing. “But if you wish some assistance, I can make sure that your actions last night won’t have any lasting consequences,” I added, despite a part of me rebelling at the thought. Just considering it, felt wrong, that rebellious part pushing me to reach out and make sure that there would be consequences in nine months.

  I immediately squashed the thought, but the instinct was there, making me just a bit uncomfortable, as I realised just how easy it would be to make sure Maggie would become pregnant. Now that I focused on that, I could feel the possibility and knew I could make it a certainty. It would be trivial, an odd realisation as I had no readily available magical trick, just the odd instinct and certainty that I could make it happen.

  It wasn’t hard to guess where that might come from, which part of me was pushing that idea, but it wasn’t something I was willing to experiment with. At least not when it concerned a friend.

  “Get out!” the bedwarmer finally squeaked, his mind finally fighting through the fog of sleep and alcohol to come to the realisation that having another woman in the bedroom upon waking wasn’t quite normal. Maybe even the first woman wasn’t usual for him, but my presence certainly wasn’t normal.

  “You get out!” Maggie barked back, now getting angry. Or maybe embarrassed, manifesting as anger in her case.

  The look on the guy’s face when the shadows started to darken and writhe, forming sharp shapes, as if he was about to be skewered, was quite amusing. So was the display Maggie was putting on with her Darkness Magic. It was completely different from how I wielded mine, but I could see its effectiveness. Darkness was the unknown, and people feared the dark for a reason. In this case, she seemed to combine an instinctive fear with simple manipulation, creating a highly intimidating scene, at least for someone who wasn’t immune to her efforts.

  I couldn’t help but laugh when the guy struggled to his feet and started to run, leaving Maggie’s house without a single stitch of clothing on him.

  “Now that that’s out of the way, would you care for some breakfast? I’d like to talk about something with you,” I offered.

  “In a moment,” she nodded, “But first, can you make sure?” she asked, not fully voicing the question, but making her intent clear nonetheless. With a nod, I took her hand, making sure that there wouldn’t be any consequences. Luckily, there wouldn’t be, but certainty was always better than chance.