Talking to Olivia was an interesting, yet very frustrating affair. When it came to talking about the places she had been to, and the things she had seen, it was fascinating, the recollections of someone who had spent the last four decades wandering Mundus, never staying for long in any place, they were a marvel to listen to. But, on the other hand, whenever I asked about her magic, or the spells she mentioned, how they functioned, I was left with a frustration that made me growl. It sounded like all her spellcasting boiled down to, ‘I ask my Lady for it’, without any understanding or ability on her own. Sure, it sounded like she knew what she could ask for and what effect her spells would have but truly understanding how those effects came to be? That was entirely left to her deity, a reliance that bugged me.

Finally, after a good day of hearing those responses, I decided to stop asking about magic for a time, instead trying to learn more about Mundus and maybe her deity.

“This morning, when we were talking about where we came from, you mentioned that it was a tragedy. Care to elaborate?” I asked, shifting the conversation away from magic.

“Certainly.” she paused for a moment, before continuing, “Let me ask you, what do you consider freedom?” there was another pause, but before I could actually think about her question and how to respond, she continued on.

“Freedom, freedom doesn’t mean that there are no consequences for your actions. That would just be anarchy. Earlier, when we exchanged our Oaths, we willingly placed a binding on our actions, even invoking my Lady to witness the binding, asking her to watch that we both keep our word. If the Oath hadn’t been willingly given, she would have rejected us and we would have felt the rejection.” she explained, in a bit of an non-sequitur.

“Society, as a whole, is essentially the same, just on a larger, yet less obvious, scale. To live within a society, you need to obey their laws, if not, the people of that society feel that punishing you is within their rights. However, to be considered just, the punishment needs to fit the crime, neither too lax nor too strict.” she continued and I realised that it hadn’t really been a non-sequitur, not when considering the story behind Prometheus, both the original and the one recorded on Mundus. Before I could do more than nod, to signify my understanding, she spoke again.

“Alas, what is a just punishment, for a crime that changed the entire world? That killed countless beings and changed the destiny of all future generations, for all eternity? An eternal crime.” She asked, and I was reminded of various religious narratives and their ideas of damnation. Curiously, the analogy that sprang to mind was the Chrisitan faith and their idea of Hell, with a Devil as Jailor and Tormentor of the damned. Only that here, the tormented figure was the devil, tortured by a divine beast in an easily accessible, if hidden, place.

“An eternal punishment.” I muttered, apparently loud enough for Olivia to hear me.

“Indeed. An eternal punishment, an eternal reminder.” she paused, again, as I was thinking about the summary Adra had given us the day before, that Prometheus had essentially broken the divine monopoly on magic and was now being punished for it. As a Sorceress, as someone who loved to experiment with magic and try to understand the intricacies of Astral Power and its effect on Mundus, that punishment felt wrong.

“I wonder why my Lady wanted me to see it.” Olivia muttered, her words quiet, lost in thought.

“If you do not know, I certainly don’t know either.” I responded, a little amused.

“No, that would be too much to ask wouldn’t it? For you, to know the mind of my Lady? I’ll have to think about it and maybe, if I can’t figure it out, pray for guidance. It wouldn’t be the first time that the lesson’s my Lady is teaching me are complicated and hard to understand.” Olivia agreed, now amused herself.

“Anyway, let me tell you about that one time, it has to have been ten years since then…” Olivia continued talking, launching into another story about a different occurence when her Deity had sent her somewhere, in this case it had been on the Demon-continent, in order to help a particular tribe break a curse that was slowly turning them into salt. I wasn’t quite sure about her train of thought but the story sounded interesting and she was a gifted story-teller. I wasn’t quite sure how much of her tale was accurate and how much embellishment, but given that we were on Mundus and I had seen a literal god the day before, I wasn’t about to simply declare a story about a desert-spirit to be implausible. If it had been a dessert-spirit, I might have been tempted but even then, it might be a thing. It made me wonder, was there such a thing as a spirit-spirit? Maybe the spirit of whisky or something along those lines, I might have to ask the dwarves in the next city about it.

Shaking my head, I banished those ridiculous thoughts and continued to listen to Olivia with one ear while considering other things, mainly magic. Lenore was, for once, sitting on my shoulder, hitching a ride that way, our connection still too raw to spend much time in our Hallows. Together, we tried to merge our memories of the day before, hoping to get a better insight into our Avatar-State and the magical tricks we had accomplished together.

It was interesting, my recollections of the day before were clearer, a lot less fuzzy, than the images I had from the usage during the night-battle against the centaurs. On the other hand, Lenore’s memories were similarly fuzzy when looking back at our use of the Avatar back then. Neither of us knew why that was, even as we were posing hypothesis, from the idea that I had been in a state of heightened focus as we were working to safe Sigmir to the idea that my increased power during night-time had pushed me deeper into the state, thus making it harder to recall my time spent in that state. There were indications and contraindications for our ideas, some of them regarding the entire hypothesis, some only parts of a particular hypothesis. It was interesting, to the point that I missed quite a bit of Olivia’s story, despite Lenore trying to help me pay attention.

“That place looks like a good spot to make camp, what do you think?” Adra asked, snapping me out of my mental world. My eyes followed her pointing hand, taking in the scenery. It brought a smile to my face, the spot she pointed to was a little elevated, compared to the plateau we had been walking in, just a little up-hill. From our current position, I could only be sure that there was a brook up there, flowing down the mountain and across our path.

Looking around, I noticed that it was earlier than we’d normally make camp but a look up, into the sky, made me nod anyways. The sky was filled with ominous, dark clouds, strongly hinting that there would be rain, soon. There was little shelter to be had, especially on the mountainside we were walking.

“Let’s check it out.” I agreed, just as Lenore was hopping off my shoulder, quickly flapping her wings to gain altitude. With a smile on my face, I closed my left eye, letting Lenore’s vision fill my mind. Ever since I had been able to use my Hallow to fly with her, the vertigo caused by looking through her eyes when flying had vanished, or maybe I simply had gotten used to the experience over time. EIther way, I was able to watch the mountainside and the small plateau above us, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, just a couple of rocks, a bit of vegetation, mostly grass and lichen and finally, the spring that fed the brook, bubbling out of the mountain.

“We should hurry.” Olivia urged, looking up into the sky. “The weather can get rather nasty in these mountains.” she added, already starting to make her way up the mountain.

With a shrug, I pushed away Lenore’s vision and followed Olivia up the mountain, placing my feet carefully, as loose rocks might cause me to lose my footing. Luckily, we all had supernaturally powerful and agile bodies, allowing us to climb the precarious slope almost as if it was flat ground and quite soon, we were on the small plateau. Olivia, the first one up, looked into the distance and I noticed a frown on her face.

“We need shelter.” she muttered and while I lacked the experience to judge the mountain-weather, the dark clouds I could see made me agree. I was about to push my magic a little, putting up a small Ice-Cottage, when Olivia started to chant, beseeching Eleutheria to shelter us weary travellers from wind and rain. I stopped, watching her gesticulate in a way that strongly reminded me of my own runic magic, even if I had no idea what the glowing symbols meant. She kept chanting for about a minute, carefully drawing magical designs into the air, as she praised Eleutheria, making me curious just what she was doing and what the magical symbols meant. Once she finished her chant, she took a step forward and placed her staff in an empty area. where it remained standing upright, even when she let go. From the carved top, a warm glow emanated, enveloping an area of about five meters radius in a dimly glowing, golden membrane. It looked almost like a half-soap-bubble, an idea that made me chuckle to myself.

“Come, my lady granted us shelter for the night.” Olivia nodded, a grin on her face, as I was taken aback a little. While I loved my own style of magic, the gentle, golden bubble had something fantastical about it. Furthermore, the speed with which she had created it was quite impressive, making me want to learn more, even if I knew that the answer would just be something along the lines of ‘I asked my lady. Still, not getting wet would be nice.