When Maggie and I returned to the barracks I had set up earlier, I could almost feel the awe directed at me in the air. Everyone stopped moving as we approached, their eyes staring fixedly at me, at least until I tried to return the gaze. Once I focused on someone, their eyes immediately went to the ground, as if they were scared to meet my eyes. It almost looked as if they were about to drop to their knees, either in submission or worship; I wasn’t sure which I’d consider worse. Maybe the few who looked to be torn between kneeling and attacking me in a mindless rage, those might just be the worst.
Even if I was growing a divine domain, I had realised a while ago that I never wanted mindless worship. If anything, I wanted followers like those of Lady Hecate on Mundus. People who wished to better their own arcane abilities, who studied magic and advanced their skills, trying to become powerful without relying on an outside source. Someone who didn’t want to knock on a God’s door to achieve something but who achieved their goal and then showed their patron said achievement. People who were willing to dedicate their lives to reaching the boundaries of the Arcane Path and then forge onwards, expanding the path.
People who were willing to brave hardship and delve into the unknown. Those were the kind of people I wanted to champion; those were the people I wanted to help subtly, guiding them toward their goals without taking away the path that made those goals worthwhile.
Shaking my head, I focused my distracted mind back on the present and the task at hand. Even if I tried to talk to these people, they likely wouldn’t be able to offer the guidance they need right now. Before anything, they needed to process the trauma they had suffered in the Blessed City; they needed to take back control over their lives, even if some of them might not have fully realised just how messed up their time in the Blessed City had been.
It had been fairly interesting to observe the people I had talked to during their travels here. It had taken an outside stimulus to make them notice the control they had been subjected to, even if they remembered the events. Almost as if their minds were only willing to recall those memories when prodded. Otherwise, the memories were somewhere in the back of their minds, just sitting there as if they were completely ordinary.
It was a fascinating mechanism, making me wonder if their minds were acting that way to protect themself from trauma, or if it was something inherent to Sunna’s wards. The second felt a little more likely. Unless the control lingered even after people left the wards, anyone who left the wards at some point would realise that something was messed up. But if people were unable to recall the messed-up parts and only realised what was going on when prodded? Then, they’d consider everything they experienced in the Blessed City as ordinary and normal, nothing to worry about, so why even talk about it? Why recall it outside the confines of the ward, and why ever would one talk about it with someone not native to the Blessed City?
It was, quite frankly, an utterly inventive way to keep people from escaping the control. If they didn’t know they were controlled in the first place, why would they seek to escape that control? And with the act of praying to Sunna acting as a newing shackle around their minds, maybe even their soul, I doubted anyone would be able to get away from the Blessed City, unless they were a very stubborn person. Or maybe unremarkable, someone not even the Gods paid attention to.
“How are you going to set these buildings up?” Maggie asked me, as we walked through the doors into the first barrack. So far, the room was exceedingly simple, nothing but a large, square room, with a few openings to allow entry and circulation. It would provide shelter from rain and snow, but that was about it. Trying to keep a building like this warm would be nearly impossible, even with the magical ovens I had set up in the shelter I had pulled up near the Blessed City.
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“For today, I’ll just seal the windows, add some sanitary facilities and consider the best way to provide ventilation while I’m doing that,” I explained, “Tomorrow, after I have some time to rest, I’ll expand on that, divide the large room into individual apartments, or something like that. I’ll just have to see.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to finish all of the buildings before retiring for the night?” Maggie asked, sounding curious. “If it would help, I’m sure we can find a bed or two for you and your daughter. You know, that way, you don’t have to worry about getting back home.”
“That would probably help, yes,” I agreed, mentally measuring the room around me, “We’ll need to get back here tomorrow anyway, so keeping travel down would help.”
I didn’t tell her just how little the travelling would actually matter. My motivations were a little different, less about efficiency and a lot more about integration and sympathy. If the people we had rescued considered us to belong to them, Luna would have an easier time teaching them. That way, they’d hopefully be inured against any other preachers who might try to prey on them in the future. Plus, it would probably make Luna happy; my daughter missed social contacts and connections beyond our little family.
“Would you be willing to organise those beds while I’m working here?” I prodded, reaching out with my magic and reshaping the stone beneath our feet, splitting off part of the building to form what would become a bathing area. For a moment, I considered adding a second area, just to keep the sexes segregated, but then I decided against it. It would only add work to my already full schedule, with little actual benefit. These people could simply segregate the entire building for the night, keeping a few for males and the rest for females; that way, the sanitary situation would be much easier. Especially for a single night.
By now, I was quite good at the enchantments necessary to create warm and cold water, so setting up showers and faucets was trivial, as was the creation of toilets. Back when I first started using my magic for construction like this, I would have needed an entire day to set up a large sanitation area, but by now, with the experience I've gained? It only took me about fifteen minutes, and I barely spent more Astral Power than I regenerated in the same time. The mental effort was a little exhausting, but, again, nothing overly draining, certainly not compared to my earlier stunt. It was more a question of precision and experience, knowing what worked and what didn’t.
Creating glass for the numerous windows, crystals with lightning bound into them to provide light and the heating stones I had designed the day before took a little longer, maybe adding another twenty minutes to the time I had needed to finish the building, but that was okay with me. Better to make sure everything works than to hurry things up and risk an accident later.
Sadly, that meant I would have to work deep into the night, continuing to create these amenities for the people who had survived the Blessed City, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
After the first building was finished, I noticed that a few were quietly praying, not the Sunna, or even Lady Hecate. Luckily, they also weren’t praying to me, or either of my divine aspects, or they would have given me a serious headache. Instead, it looked like they were praying to the Christian God, essentially releasing their Astral Power into the environment. Once the power was free, I could use it for my own purpose, which was an interesting experience in and of itself. I had done so back when saving Lia, but I had a lot more arcane knowledge now, allowing me to understand the experience a little better.
Not completely, I was barely scratching the surface in that regard, but I managed to make use of the power they released, and I thought I even managed to capture the emotional energy, their desire to have a home and shelter. Those emotions were innately powerful, woven into an energy of their own, one I had never experienced in such a raw form. I tried to imbue that energy into the structure itself, strengthening it subtly. I doubted I’d be able to work something like that alone, so it was quite interesting to experience, even if I wasn’t sure it would actually work.
But I could use the Astral Power, sparing my own reserves as I continued working, finishing one building after another.
