The next morning came a little too early for my tastes. After my short log-out, I had returned and promptly been kicked out of my Hallow by Lenore, the irritation due to the recent use of our Avatar-form quite unpleasant. It might have been for the best, sleeping snuggled up to Sigmir was always preferable to resting within my comfortable Hallow, even if it meant waking up early.

Luckily, my body had mostly recovered from the magical exertion of the day before, leaving me a little sore and tired but not in actual discomfort. I took a moment to confirm, once more, that Sigmir’s body was healed and closely scrutinising the traces of magic that remained within her flesh. They seemed to be slowly fading, leaving the flesh knit together and hale, without any adverse effects but it was an entirely different form of healing than my own, leaving me both suspicious and curious about it.

Just because this Olivia had made an oath to Adra and Rai, it didn’t mean that there weren’t things that could have been left out, hidden motivations or double meanings and such. At the end of the day, hadn’t Dura promised to give us the location of a place of power, with us thinking that it would be something that could be used, only to witness a scene of literal divine punishment? If one had ill intent, words could be interpreted as one wanted, an oath to help could justify murder, if one thought about it as mercy-killing. Hopefully, no politicians or lawyers would come to Mundus.

“Good Morning.” I greeted Sigmir, when I noticed her open eyes.

“Good Morning.” she replied, a gentle smile on her face. “It is good that you were unharmed yesterday.” she added, after a moment.

I felt a tad awkward, there was a part of me that wanted to admonish Sigmir for her behaviour the day before, for rushing a dangerous foe and fighting a tiger with her bare hands, leaving her in the precarious state she had been in. But even if I wanted to say those words, they wouldn’t leave my throat. Sigmir had been fighting for me and was always doing her best to protect me, could I trample on that pride? I would talk with her, but later, when there was no one nearby and after carefully considering what to say.

Instead of responding, I merely mumbled and gave her a soft kiss, before pushing myself up to take a closer look at the unknown Olivia. From the way she averted her eyes, just as I was looking up, I had a feeling that she had been watching Sigmir and me. Maybe out of consideration for a patient, she had healed Sigmir after all, maybe for other reasons. Either way, I wanted to find out who she was and why she was here.

What I could say was that she was a striking person, the lines on her face sharp and clear, despite some crows feet around her deep blue eyes and hair that shone with a silver luster. Maybe it was that striking, toned body that made the lack of her left hand stand out all the more, a single imperfection marrying an otherwise perfect being. But even the lack of a hand didn’t seem to slow her down, as she was casually working along Adra to prepare breakfast.

“Good Morning, or should I say, Greetings.” I gave a nod to the newcomer once I was upright. It was awkward, I had not even the slightest idea how to handle such a conversation. We had essentially just slept in the same room but I knew nothing about the person but her name and that she was a cleric of some good. I had even forgotten to look up the deity on the internet, to get an initial impression.

“My name is Morgana, a Traveller and Mystic. Again, thank you for helping me yesterday.” I added, as I decided to go with a straight-forward approach, not even trying to play word-games.

“Good Morning to you. As you have been told during the night, my name is Olivia, a travelling cleric of Eleutheria.” she replied and I jumped on the obvious opening.

“Travelling, you say? Could you tell us where you are travelling to, in these mountains?” I asked, continuing on my straight forward approach. The smile on her face widened, just a little, before she replied.

“To, is a bit of a question. For now, my destination is Neamov, a dwarven stronghold near the Ancient Road. From there, I am not certain. But, I think the more interesting question is, where am I travelling from, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, making me slowly nod, not quite in comprehension but in agreement. I had a hunch where she was travelling from, mainly because we had witnessed something big the day before, but there could be other things that had drawn her here.

“And where would that be?” I bit on her bait, asking the question she obviously wanted to be asked.

“The same place you have seen, I would say.” she replied, the smile on her face now a full-blown grin. For a moment, I considered asking her about the Bright Hollow Orcs, just to throw her off, but decided against it.

“You have seen the bound Titan?” I asked, just to get everything out into the open.

“Indeed, I have seen him.” she nodded, the earlier amusement fading. “In a way, it is a tragedy.” there was a slow shaking of her head, her eyes distant.

There were many things I wanted to ask, foremost among them why she, a cleric to a greek god, considered the punishment of what should be a criminal in her eyes a tragedy but before I could, Adra called over and told us that breakfast was ready.

“Ah, we should eat.” Olivia snapped out of her thoughts and focused on Sigmir for a moment. “Especially you, young lady, magical healing can help but at the end of the day, the body needs resources to heal.” she admonished, her voice stern, yet tinged with concern.

Breakfast was another relatively simple affair, roasted meat, with a strong, gamey taste along with bread and a couple of dried fruits, not terribly tasty or a really balanced diet but at the end of the day, needs must and we were limited in supplies. While magical bags could store large amounts of goods, they lacked climate control, meaning that during summer, perishable goods would quickly spoil. If I had to guess, the abundant amount of meat we were eating was donated by the tiger that had tried to turn me into dinner. While it wasn’t quite dog eats dog, the predator could quickly become the meal of their supposed prey.

As we ate, I couldn’t help but peek at the way Olivia was using the stump of her left arm to manipulate things. Just watching made me reasonably sure that she had lost her hand a long time ago which made me even more curious. This was a world in which healing magic existed, while I didn’t have the ability to restore lost limbs, there had to be people out there who could, of that I was almost certain. Even I was able to remove scars and regenerate tissue, and that was merely with Blood Magic. If someone had magic that covered a wider array, especially some sort of Bone-Magic, they should have no trouble restoring a hand.

But this woman was without her hand, which made me wonder. Given the fact that she was able to traverse these mountains, seemingly alone, meant that she had to have power, especially with the way she had approached us the day before. Such an approach was only possible if you had the power to keep yourself safe or you were seriously lacking in survival instinct. Which was contraindicated by her overall appearance, especially the grey hair on her head, she looked rather old. At least in her fifties or sixties, so she had to have either an abundance of luck or the skills and instincts to stay alive.

“If you stare at me like that, your sweetheart will be jealous.” It was just a casual remark, thrown out with a smile on her face, but it was enough to make me snap out of my thoughts and blush, realising that I had been staring at her and hardly eating.

“I apologize.” I told her, before looking back down at my food. For a moment, suspicion flared up within me and I mentally asked Lenore for help.

“Can you take a close look at our food, to see if there is poison mixed in?” I mentally asked, just to assuage my sense of paranoia. For a moment, my perspective shifted and I was able to see through Lenore’s eyes, as she closely focused on my food. The result was inconclusive, with nothing visible to her sight but that didn’t necessarily mean that there was nothing there, just that possible poison was either non-magical, non-existent or undetectable. Pushing my thoughts aside, I continued eating, carefully monitoring my body with magic, just in case something foul was going on.