Once again, talking to the Grandmother left me with a profound feeling of satisfaction, even if my body and mind were completely exhausted, the last of my energy used to return to my body. But I had learned some things, especially regarding Divine Magic. Unsurprisingly, the Grandmother had more insights into the way divine spellcasters used their powers, compared to myself. She was even willing to share some of them, especially regarding the insight an average cleric had into their spells, which apparently was none.

Just as Olivia had said, they didn’t need to understand what they were doing, they weren’t even doing anything, not really. According to the Grandmother, divine Spellcasters simply had their spells, which amounted to a simple macro that called up their deities automatic spell-casting service, ordering a large blessing, with fries on the side. It was a magical spell-delivery service, only without the need for some poor sod in their car driving around the food you ordered. That allowed divine spellcasters to use spells that were vastly complex and complicated, incorporating magical concepts far beyond their level and accomplishing feats that boggled belief. At the end of the day, you didn’t need to know how to cook a meal, if you had the delivery-service on speed-dial.

Obviously, there was a massive flip-side to that, they had what their deity deigned to give them, spells that fit their deities domains and their own rank within the organisation, with little in the way of changing what they were doing. Of course, to even attempt to change magic that you had no understanding of was a foolish endeavor unless you were careful and had a solid plan. I was an excellent example of that, my foolish endeavors hadn’t managed to kill me thus far, but there had been more than one close call. And I tried to expand on previous experiments, at least most of the time.

Somehow, the explanation made divine spellcasting feel the furthest from what I was doing, my own magic based on my understanding and instinct, amusingly, the Grandmother advised me to keep trying to study divine spells, not actively but by observation. Even understanding a tiny part of it might open up a new avenue of research, with many new paths down that road. At the same time, she cautioned me that there were deities that took a dim view on mortals trying to pry into their secrets, with some rather unpleasant punishments if a mortal was too nosy. Not necessarily ‘eagle-eternally-eating-your-liver’ unpleasant, but unpleasant enough. I had no desire to trade in my two legs for six or eight, depending on the source,and I did my weaving with magic, not thread. No, thank you very much.

Thinking about the Grandmother and incomprehensible magic made me consider something else, namely her form. The magical shell she had created in the Nexus had been purely spun from Astral Power, yet it had looked just like the form I had seen in Neyto, at least as far as my senses could tell me. There was the possibility that my method of traversing the Astral River had skewed my perspective, it wasn’t like my actual eyes had travelled through the Astral, only my mind or my soul or something along those lines. As of yet, I had no complete understanding of the mechanics regarding Astral Travel, but that wasn’t the important consideration at this point. It was interesting, and something to be added to the ever-growing list of things to research, but not near the top.

But the shape the Grandmother had taken, it made me wonder. Had I ever seen her real shape or had what she had shown us in Neyto been a similarly constructed, magical shell? Somehow, I doubted that I would be able to tell, not unless the Grandmother allowed it. But if that had only been a magical shell, what might her real form look like? It made me wonder.

If I was correct, it would be an excellent defense, a shell that was openly visible, with strong but not impossible to beat defenses, a decoy to take attacks and act while the true body was hidden somewhere, likely nearby. Maybe even hidden within the Barrow Den, or certainly somewhere close enough to use both the power of the Nexus and the concentrated power of Death lingering in that place.

It made me wonder, could I accomplish a similar, if far simpler, feat, namely to use simple blobs of shadow to improve my concealment in combat. Practically, I could cloak myself in Shadow but unless I carefully made sure that the shadows blended with the surroundings, which was difficult and required a great deal of concentration, that would simply mean that attackers would have to aim for the thick blob of shadows. It helped, defensively, but it wasn’t nearly as effective as I would like, especially as it was purely based on sight.

But what if I didn’t try to blend my cloak into the surroundings, instead simply creating a few, three or four, additional blobs of shadow, shaped just like the one around me, moving them around the battlefield akin to a shell-game? Again, not even trying to create a solid defense but simply making attacks difficult by misdirection and concealment? Somehow, that felt a lot more suitable to both my power-set and my character. That idea, too, went onto my list of things to try out, only this one far closer to the top, as I had a feeling it would be a simple modification of current abilities.

Finally, once I had finished my deliberations and mentally digested the lesson I had learned from the Grandmother, I opened my eyes and looked over to Sigmir, who was guarding nearby.

“Thank you, for keeping an eye on me.” I told her, letting a tired smile show on my face.

“Always. Did you learn something new?” she asked, returning my smile.

“Less than I would have liked but enough to understand. Why don’t you sit down and we talk about it?” I replied, reaching for my magic to widen the throne I was sitting on, turning it into something between a love-seat and a sofa.

Once Sigmir was next to me, I snuggled up to her, relaxing against her side. If there was one thing that made magical furniture awesome, it would be the ability to seamlessly modify it, to make even the strangest and most awkward seating-arrangements comfortable. Before I began to speak, I created two mugs out of ice, filling one with simple water by creating tiny ice-particles, small enough to instantly melt into water, the other with Liquid Moonlight. Somehow, drinking Liquid Moonlight always managed to make me calm, keeping me collected and comfortable.

I began telling Sigmir about the Grandmother’s refusal to tell me in detail about the bound Titan and the conclusions I was drawing from her words. If the Gods needed to set up a visible reminder of their power, especially one so gruesome, didn’t that make them somewhat insecure? It made me think that there was a distinct lack of compassion, but more than that, it made me wonder about something else.

What about the Gods of Asgard? My current assumption was that they were as real as the Gods of Olympus, with similar powers and abilities, but if that was the case, why would the Gods of Olympus leave an enemy in such an easy to access place? Why hadn’t the Gods of Asgard made an effort to release the bound Titan, simply to give the Gods of Olympus an headache? There had to be reasons, they could be lazy, written as pre-conditions into the World of Mundus by a different Pantheon, one that resided in an office-building on Earth, or there could be actual reasons, woven into the fabric of this world. While I didn’t tell Sigmir in detail about those musings, I asked her about her opinion, why the Gods of Asgard hadn’t helped a bound Titan.

Her answer, while making sense, also opened up a lot more questions. She simply thought that the Gods of Asgard had no desire to help a bound Giant, which is what she called the Titan. A Giant. For her, to immediately make that connection, it made me wonder if Titans and Giants actually were the same in this world, or if Sigmir simply took a ‘large, humanoid monster’ to be a Giant, or something along those lines.

If there was a connection, I could see why the Gods of Asgard wouldn’t help one of their enemies, but it opened up even more questions. Wasn’t there a saying about the enemy of your enemy being your friend? Or at least that the enemy of your enemy was your enemy’s enemy and you’d use that enemy to defeat your enemy? Far too much animosity in that one, but that was the way of the world.

The greek Titans and the norse Giants, myths similar enough that there most likely had been a certain amount of cultural drift and appropriation over the centuries, but what did that mean for a world where those drifting myths were supposed to be true? At least partially? And what did that mean for the Deities in the two Pantheons, who had undergone the same drift?

I didn’t know and somehow, I wasn’t sure if I could ask any of the natives.