I continued my journey to inform people about the events in the Blessed City until I eventually arrived in an area I hadn’t personally visited but knew about. And, more importantly, I knew the people who were living here, especially one group of them. Their Search Group One, led by the ever-amusing Jack and composed of his other buddies. Including Samantha, the woman I had some seriously mixed feelings about, thanks to the failed relationship between her and my daughter.
The only reason those feelings were mixed was that I was tragically aware of my own potential culpability for that mess, as I had been the one who had created Carnelia’s current form. A creation that, initially, hadn’t been meant to be a daughter, not even a person, really. Carnelia was, originally, meant to be a weapon, bound to me by blood and magic. That had always been within her core, the binding only strengthened by months and months of blood sacrificed and ingested, all of it carrying my power. I had no idea if Carnelia would ever be able to be independent of me, something I hadn’t dared to remind her of. Not until I found a way to remove the binding’s impact and let her have a life of her own, or as much of a life as somebody with a shattered-and-stitched-together soul could have.
The little village Jack and his people had built was quite interesting, especially since they had rebuilt it since I had seen it through the Oculus. Back then, the village had been set up in the remnants of a gated community, using the slowly crumbling walls as a basis for their protection and the crumbling buildings inside as provisional shelter. Back then, it had been makeshift and ramshackle, far from the solid construction I could see here.
Now, it wasn’t in that gated community any longer; instead, the people here had built their village in the open fields, using a lot less wood compared to Maggy’s village. Instead, they were using magic to shape rock, possibly alongside raw muscle power, but maybe not. Looking at things from a distance, I was pretty confident that Daniel had done some of this, but I had no idea how much.
Regardless of who had done the work, I was pretty impressed. Sure, I could have done this myself, but knowing that my students built something like this, I couldn’t help but feel pride. Walls of reinforced stone surrounded the village, some ten feet high all around the village. While I couldn’t see it from my position on the ground, I was confident that the walls had walkways on the inside, making them easy to patrol and defend. They even built a few towers near the corners, allowing those inside to see everything in a wide area around their village. Unless the enemy were able to jump across the walls or bring up siege-ladders, it wouldn’t be easy to intrude into that village. Maybe through the gates, of which I had noticed two as I quietly snuck around the place. One was positioned to allow easy access to the ruined city, while the other was on the opposite side, where I had noticed a wide swath of farms, providing all the food these people needed. Sure, it wasn’t as secure as the Blessed City, but I couldn’t feel any divine influence in the area, which motivated me to help them, despite my mixed feelings toward one of their number.
Stepping forward, I quietly moved into the open area around the village, moving slowly and trying to appear unthreatening. I couldn’t see anyone in the towers or patrolling the walls but that didn’t mean there was nobody there. I might simply be unable to detect them without stronger measures than I was currently employing.
Soon, I noticed a concentration of magic right in front of me, a thin, magical structure that I immediately recognised as a ward of some kind. It was quite similar, though not identical, to the magic I regularly used to surround our camp and warn me of enemies intruding on our sleep, making me grin widely. This wasn’t something I had taught Daniel directly, but the shrine’s library back in my tower had some descriptions and directions for its creation. He must have put in quite a bit of work to come up with this, and some more to make it a reality. Idly, I wondered how he had anchored it, and how it reported trouble, but that wasn’t something I could find out without some fairly intrusive tests. Tests I would consider hostile if somebody was performing them on my own wards, so, for once, I sat on my curiosity, unwilling to antagonise these people right now.
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Instead, I gently reached out with my own magic, feeling the ward and giving it a soft poke. In my eyes, this would be the equivalent of ringing the doorbell, or maybe plucking the string of an instrument once, signalling my presence. Hopefully, this would be construed as I intended it to and wouldn’t alarm the people inside.
A few minutes later, Daniel’s head appeared above the wall, looking at me for a moment before disappearing again. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little when the gate opened soon after and Daniel, alongside Murray, came out, the pair looking somewhat strange as they hurried towards me. I still didn’t enter the warded area, considering it akin to walking into a house without invitation, especially as I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t accidentally tear the wards apart. They might be unable to survive my passage, simply because I was too powerful.
“Teacher,” Daniel immediately greeted me, giving a polite nod, deep enough to almost be classified as a bow. “You’re back in the area.”
“As you can see,” I nodded, “Good to see you again. You’ve done well with the construction and magic here,” I complimented, before greeting Murray. His physique remained as impressive as ever, though I could feel some major changes beneath his skin. And maybe within his skin, the runic formations I had tattooed on him were still there, but it felt as if they had integrated deeply into his being, making me wonder how that had happened. They certainly weren’t an external gift any longer; they had truly become part of him. I would have to take a closer look at some point, but given that I’d have to strip him for that, it would have to wait.
“Come, be welcome in our village,” Daniel invited me, visibly eager and excited. “I’ve managed to pass on some of the things you taught me; that’s how we managed to get this far. I’d love to hear you talk to my students, and, if you have the time, I’ve got a few questions myself. Maybe you could help again?”
“I’ve given a few lessons back at my tower, but sure, I’ll answer a few questions,” I nodded, immensely pleased that these people were rejecting the easy way of kneeling to one deity or another and embracing the much more complicated, but so much more satisfying, Arcane Path. That alone would be worthy of assistance anywhere, but here, as a counterforce to the Blessed City? There was no question.
Deciding that the invitation was good enough, I stepped forward, feeling the ward bulge around me, causing Daneil to wince for a moment, but the ward held. It was a curious construction, but it wasn’t perfect. I would have to give him a bit of guidance on it, maybe help him link it to a bell or something like that.
Together, we slowly walked back towards their village. I could already see a few faces peek out from the gate Daniel and Murray had left through, and one or two had appeared atop the wall. By the looks of it, there were a few children in their village, and they were all curious, just as one would expect.
“I have to ask,” he began, Daniel’s voice suddenly quiet, “What happened to Carnelia? One day, she was just gone, the tower closed, and nobody knew what was going on. Sam was…” he paused, clearly searching for the right word, “She was worried,” he finished. I could hear the understatement in his tone.
“That’s a complicated and deeply personal question,” I sighed, not wanting to go into that topic. “Suffice to say, she’s fine now, but things could have been handled a lot better by multiple people.”
“It is good that she is unharmed,” Murray said, his voice as calm and placid as ever, “We have all worried about her, even before she disappeared.”
“Good to hear,” I gave him a small smile, “But let’s talk about other topics, your questions, local politics, stuff like that,” I suggested, trying to figure out the best way to pass on my warning, without making it sound too self-serving.
“Oh, sure,” Daniel agreed, “A few things have happened. There was that thing with the Centaur, not sure what that was about,” he began, and I had to hide a grin when he managed to stumble into the exact topic I wanted to talk about. After all, there weren’t all that many Centaurs in the area.
