That first group wasn’t the only one with whom I had some variation of that conversation. I never changed the information I gave them, making sure to keep my statements consistent, but the final interpretation varied somewhat between different people. Never enough to completely contradict what others had concluded, but there was enough variance to keep people talking. People never liked small inconsistencies; they would discuss interpretations of movies or novels to death and beyond, trying to make others reach the same conclusions they had already drawn.

  This would hopefully play out the same way. People would keep discussing their theories, unable to create a version that matched the details everyone considered confirmed, thus keeping the story alive. Nobody could mentally file it away as long as it remained disputed, so nobody would forget about it. They certainly wouldn’t forget the parts I made sure to keep consistent across everyone’s versions, namely that the wards had been controlling everyone’s minds and that Sunna was to blame for the mess. It was, quite frankly, rather amusing to add different details to different groups and lead them to slightly different conclusions, fully aware that this would spark months, if not years, of discussion and discord.

  Another amusing aspect of these conversations was the reaction different people had when I forced their minds to realise that they had essentially been party to the torture and execution of people for something that would have been a misdemeanour before the change. Not a serious crime, certainly not something deserving of that punishment.

  I had a feeling they also wondered if they would have been punished the same way for similar small misconduct. Nobody wanted to consider if it had only been circumstantial luck that had spared their lives, kept them from suffering such horrendous torture. I doubted anyone would feel good about that realisation, and I was confident that nobody would keep worshipping Sunna, not with that idea lingering in the back of their minds.

  Thanks to those details, some of them started to wonder if Lorgar and his buddies were willing to torture and execute people in broad daylight, what were they willing to do under the cover of the night, so to speak? That line of questioning made some of them connect Lorgar and his friends to a few people who had mysteriously disappeared, without any assistance from me. I considered that just a happy coincidence, as it would stop them from asking questions I didn’t necessarily want to answer.

  With others, my input made them wonder what anyone would do with the sort of power Lorgar had gained thanks to his deity. Thanks to the horrors they had witnessed before the longest night, and the rather adventurous party they had during that night, their imaginations were primed and ready to come up with a number of different scenarios, one more depraved than the other, only with different expressions of depravity.

  All in all, it was a good thing that my aerial scrying constructs didn’t spot any signs of trouble as the group was travelling. The people I had been talking to, the fighters responsible for the protection of the group, weren’t in any shape to actively meet any serious threat. If anyone had tried to attack, I would have had to intervene with my constructs, maybe even go there personally.

  It was a good thing that my ability to travel through the shadows was quite advanced by now, though I didn’t think it was perfected just yet. For that, I would want the ability to go to places I hadn’t been before, maybe combined with the ability to scout from the shadows, allowing me to investigate threats and mysteries without exposing my body to danger. Or rather, use the full strength of my senses, bolstered by my full Intuition and further boosted by various traits I had accumulated, instead of only the greatly reduced senses I could give my scrying constructs.

  But, as it turned out, that many people were too much for the beasts of the area. A few had investigated the noise, poked their heads out to see what was going on, only to pull back quickly. They, too, had to be aware that hundreds of people were too much for them, even if they would gleefully turn a lone human, maybe even a pair of humans, into their afternoon snack.

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  The negative aspect of the large group was that the march took a long time. I wasn’t sure what was delaying them, but somehow the trek took more than twice as long as it should have, even given their lower level. Thanks to that, it was well past dusk when the group finally arrived at Maggie’s community, which obviously caused an immediate issue.

  They had no place to put that many people. Not even close, the community had about fifteen hundred people before the newcomers arrived. Adding some eight hundred people to that without sufficient preparation would be a disaster.

  “Jade, I’m afraid we’ll have to call upon your help again,” Maggie told me, right after the group arrived. Her people had been able to prepare enough food for that many; they had planned ahead that far, but shelter? That just wasn’t possible, not without some serious magic.

  Luckily, I had magic to spare. And within Maggie’s community, I didn’t have to be as wary of Sunna as I had been in the ruins of the Blessed City, meaning I could come here and work myself, using my actual body.

  “Certainly,” I assured her as I made the various scrying constructs land on trees, poles, and buildings, “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Pulling my mind back, I rose and looked around for a moment, using the magic of my tower to locate Luna. She was upstairs, so I quickly made my way there, hoping to take my daughter along and introduce her to the people we had just rescued. Some healing wouldn’t go amiss, even if I would have to remind her to keep any proselytisation on the down-low, as these people had just escaped what I could only describe as a divine horror show.

  “Sweetheart?” I called out, causing Luna to look up from the book she had been reading. “I’ll head over to Maggie’s little town, the people formerly of the Blessed City are there now. Want to tag along?”

  “Sure, they might be thankful for help. And I can get started on the food they’ll undoubtedly need,” she agreed, putting her book down. By the looks of it, she had been reading one of the biology textbooks we had pilfered during our journey, apparently trying to learn more about the world before the change. It would be interesting to see what changes the system's arrival had wrought at such a fundamental level. Given that even the laws of physics seemed to have been altered and weren’t as consistent as they once had been, I had little doubt that biology had fared any better.

  “Excellent,” I nodded, “Just remember, no preaching. Don’t want them to think they exchanged one mind-controlling monster for another.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she sighed, “But I can tell them about Lady Hecate, and the way one doesn’t worship Her, but simply acknowledges her arcane abilities and the lessons She can bestow upon us simple mortals, right?”

  “Yes, you can.” I agreed after a moment of contemplation, “But, please, be careful. Don’t push these people, they are just coming out of a stupor and might react violently.”

  After getting another nod and quiet acknowledgement from her, I wrapped my arm around her, briefly warning her that we’d travel through the shadows. Then, I pulled us both into the darkness, holding my daughter close as we sped through the gloomy twilight, the world around us shifting and warping, until we reappeared out of Maggie’s shadow.

  “Here we are,” I greeted her, my sudden appearance causing her to turn around. By now, she was sadly quite desensitised against me and my shenanigans; I could barely get her to jump any longer. It was quite sad.

  “Good,” she looked Luna and me over for a moment, “You also brought the little one along. That’s even better. She could heal, right?”

  “Yes, Luna is able to magically heal people, but I believe she had plans to get the crops you’ll need started.”

  “Indeed, while I can massively speed up the growth of plants, I can’t make food from nothing,” Luna added, “If you want to feed all these people for the next few months, you’ll need a bit of a miracle, unless you were incredibly lucky with your preparations for the winter,” she paused for a moment, “Or did they manage to carry enough food on their persons to last them until spring?”

  “They’d need some of my special bags for that,” I reminded her, slightly ignoring Maggie for the moment.

  “True, not everyone can carry around as much as we can,” she nodded, “Anyway, could someone show me to an open area you haven’t used to farm recently. Maybe a meadow or something like that. If I can get some muscle for manual labour, I could even clear a bit of forest. If needed, I can quickly turn the trees into compost and infuse it into the soil, making it extra fertile. That way, I can set you up with crops that’ll be ready in a week or so.”