As soon as Kallista had dragged me into her kitchen, she visibly relaxed. Still, there was a stark difference to her usual calm, almost stoic, self. I didn't want to hurry her, so I simply started the familiar movements of cooking, giving her time to gather herself and talk on her own terms. We worked next to each other for a little bit before she stopped fidgeting and started talking.

“I know I asked you to save the sacrifices. What you don't know is why I did it. I'm not really good with divination-magics, I am able to get impressions and feelings but no images or anything concrete. I knew that it would be necessary to deal with the dryads in Tegi but that you are too weak to face them head on. I also knew that saving the sacrifices would be vital but not why. Can you tell me what exactly happened?”

A thought flashed through my head, 'Ugh, more magic I have no idea about...'

I told Kallista what happened, starting with Yari, continuing with the meeting with Samodiva, the strange occurrences around Tegi and ended with the Travellers that may or may not hunt us. She listened intently but didn't interrupt until I was done.

“I see it now. You did the right thing. The thing you destroyed, it was a focus. They used sacrifices to gain power and used that power to suppress the side-effects of their sacrifices. The more they sacrificed, the more power they needed to suppress the side-effects, the more power they needed, the more they sacrificed. I don't know if they had a long-term plan or simply pushed their problems further and further back, thereby increasing the eventual backlash further and further. What you did probably defiled the area for a long time but honestly? It could have been so much worse. I'm just not sure if Adra's predicament drew my intuition or if it was just the increasingly disturbing build-up of power they created. But it is done now, so that is that. I just don't know what to do about Adra. She feels familiar, and I have a theory why, but I'm not certain.” explained Kallista.

“I will try to sort out my feelings later, but for now, it's good that you are back. Say, did you get any extra apples?” she continued.

She looked at me expectantly, so I showed her the eight apples and explained that we would need five of them for the Grandmother.

“Oh, that's fine, three are plenty. Now, I know what I'll do as my favour to you. Would you pass the apples to me please?” she asked. I handed the three apples over and we went back to preparing dinner.

Dinner itself was interesting, the good food and general atmosphere of friendship between Kallista, Sigmir and myself lured Adra in and made her comfortable enough to tell us her story.

“Before, I introduced myself as Adra. The full form of my name is Adrastea but I usually go by Adra. The grove that spawned me is in Nolakan, when I decided to travel, my options were limited.” Upon seeing my look of incomprehension, she explained “Nolakan is the region north of the inner sea. To the east and south-east is the Olympian Desert, to the west is the Luram- Mountainrange and obviously to the south is the inner sea. That limited my options quite a bit, I could go north to Nakadias, north-west into the fertile lands or Neurop or to the north-east heading into Beriasa. As you can tell, I wanted to see the endless expanse of the northern tundra and the boundless forests. Sadly, my mother was right, I was not ready to travel by myself. I was enjoying the truly wild lands out here, back west you could not travel for a week without running into a settlement or one of the old roads. Out here, it's still wild, you can travel for days on end without meeting anyone, least of all bandits so I grew lax.. I believed I was safe with the preparations I made against wild animals. Sadly, my wards and my fire just drew those insane hunters.” she stopped and I saw tears in her eyes. The ordeal of her captivity finally caught up with her.

As Adra was still not quite comfortable with me, I gave Sigmir a slight push and, when I realised that Sigmir was not sure how to handle it, I joined them, in a slightly awkward group-hug. That it came to this might be the biggest hint of just how unsettled and insecure Kallista was. When I went through insecurities she always had a kind word and a hug for me, now she sat there, fidgeting without joining in. I gave her a look and motioned with my head for her to come over and join in which she did but she stuck more to Sigmir and me than Adra.

After a few minutes, the group-hug disbanded and everyone sat back down. A visible more collected Adra continued. “I still can't believe what they were doing. I can understand using Blood Magic, it's not really different than eating meat. But what they did? They tried to keep their victims alive as long as possible to draw every bit of power out of them that they could. And when the sacrifice finally died, they fed the rest with their remains. All that death... All that suffering. And for what? To have all year spring? In Beriasa? What kind of insane being thinks of something like that?! And then you” she turned on me. “By the trees, what you did was just insane. You caused a tear in the fabric, opening a passage to the Nether. Why would you do that?” Adra grew more agitated with every passing word.

Finally, Kallista spoke up. “Stop, child. I believe I know what happened and it was not Morgana”s fault. I think, in the beginning, they just used normal Blood Magic to fuel their growth-spells. Cisar uses growth-spells himself, just not with Blood Magic, he's just that good at what he does. Blood Magic is a slippery slope. You can gain a lot of power with it and using it makes for quick success. But most use only part of what they gain and the rest escapes into nature as miasma. If you travel a lot and don't use huge rituals, it's negligible, the miasma fades back into the cycle without problem. They thought they could outsmart the cycle by using the power they gained to control the miasma, using it to ward against the consequences of it. It works. For a while. However, the need for more power grows with every passing day, the more power they needed, the more they had to sacrifice, the more they sacrificed, the more miasma they created, increasing the need for power. You can see the vicious cycle.

I refuse to believe that their powerful members were unaware of their folly, they must have sensed it. Morgana told me about their two crystals, quite ingenious. They split the power they gained, channelling the positive parts into their warmth spell, their light and their growth-spells, fuelling them with pure life magic. The other part of the coin, the negative parts, they channelled into the dark crystal. The problem is, some of the negative parts could not be used, it would destroy their workings, so they simply encased it into the crystal. The rest was used to strengthen the crystal and creating their strong wards. They needed a constant flow of magic to hold their crystal together and the pressure in the crystal grew higher and higher.

What Morgana did, unknowingly mind you, was introduce a strong surge of magic, knocking their filter-system out and causing a wild surge to shatter the crystal and neutralize quite a bit of the power within. The rest lashed to the nearest source of strong life-magic, their other crystal. In the flux of power, reality got torn. That rend will devour life within a mile, maybe two, of Tegi but what you don't realize, it's the less destructive version. If the dryads of Tegi had ever lost control of their crystals, the flood of negative magic within their crystal would have killed much more, depending on when they lost control. They had no permanent solution for their problem, they just happily pushed it back further and further.”

Kallista's explanation made a bit of sense, I certainly had no idea what I had done to cause the events we had seen. I felt I had dodged a bullet there and felt a need to learn more about magic in general and the intricacies of my personal power.

When we were done, Sigmir pulled Adra up and together they cleaned up the kitchen, claiming that it was only fair after Kallista and I had cooked. Part of me wanted to directly head for the bath-tub but a larger part wanted to wait for Sigmir. Unsurprisingly, the larger part won. There was still a voice in my head that yelled at me, telling me that I was insane, that I was tricking myself into believing in a relationship with a computer but for the first time in my life, the logical, methodical, part of me was shouted down and beaten into submission by the sheer power of my feelings. For the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. Just before I could start yelling at myself, Sigmir returned and pulled me into her arms, kissing me soundly. Her kiss silenced all the voices in my head, leaving my mind curiously blank. Almost on auto-pilot, I stood and pulled Sigmir into the bath with me. Sadly, she reminded me that Adra would go in after us, so we had to behave and be quick.

We were quick, I hardly got my dose of Sigmir, but a small fix helped. Adra had strange look on her face as we passed her on the way back. I don't know if it was because she had heard something or because I was happily being carried in Sigmir's arms, only wrapped in a towel. Ah, well, no matter.

We had some more fun in the bedroom but both of us were exhausted to we quickly went to sleep in each others arms.

The next morning came and after a good breakfast, Sigmir and I went to visit the Grandmother. Adra stayed behind when Kallista asked her for help with something. After knocking on the walls of her strange cabin, a door appeared and let us into the structure. Once more, I realised that the inside structure must be much larger than the outside suggests.

We were greeted once more by the smiling Grandmother, looking just as young before with only her eyes betraying her true agelessness.

“Welcome back, children. You were quite swift, it took you what? Not quite two months? Now, I believe you have something for me?”

I took out the remaining apples and the tail-feather of the Fire-Bird and handed them over. There was nothing I could hand over from the Barrow Den but I had a feeling that it didn't matter in this case.

“Yes, you have done well. I saw your testing in the Barrow Den, quite the Achievement to best that trial with only the two of you and your respective partners.”

Quest Completed Calm the Barrow Den. You gained: 30.000 EXP You reached level 48. Quest Completed Collect the Firebird's Tail You gained: 30.000 EXP Quest Completed Steal the Apples of Tegi. You gained: 30.000 EXP

“And with that you have completed my trial for you. Congratulations.”

Quest Completed Grandmother's Tasks. You gained: 40.000 EXP You reached level 49.

I perked up. Finally, Sigmir would be whole again.

“Will you heal Sigmir now?” I asked, full of expectation and hope.

The Grandmother crooked her head and looked at me askance. “Now, why would I do that? I never said I would, did I?”