As we made our ways down the highway, my mind was still on the events of the night before. After I had returned to my body, and been violently sick, Sigmir had helped me to get myself back together, carefully feeding me some water, while Lenore remained within her Hallow, trying to help my mind process what had happened. With some care from the two of them, I was able to crawl into my bed-roll and get some sleep.

Come morning, my head was still aching, a deep-seated, pounding headache that made me wonder if some dwarves had taken up residence inside and were trying to dig down into my spine. A cold compress, produced by Lenore’s improved control over Ice-Magic was able to get me to my feet and on the road. Something else caused me a bit of concern however, namely that Olivia had, as soon as she had noticed that I wasn’t well, tried to find out what was wrong, using her magic in the process. Turns out, her magic, supposedly divinely inspired, had been unable to find out what was ailing me, indicating that she was unable to heal me. The look of concern on Olivia’s face, combined with Lenore’s investigation while I had slept, were enough to make me worry.

Somehow, I had taken damage to my soul, that ephemeral construct connected to my mind and body, not a lot of damage, barely a scratch according to Lenore’s analysis, but still. A scratch on something that was supposedly indestructible, to the point that the Gods themselves used Soul Prisons to seal and slowly grind one down, gave me a headache, both literally and metaphorically.

But had the scratch been caused by enemy action, with the most likely culprits being the arachnids, or had it been by my sudden retreat, the amount of power I had utilised to bring my mind back into my body had been nothing to scoff at. A lot of power, channelled through my body, my mind and possibly my soul? Could that have caused that scratch?

Or, stepping back from the outcome for a moment, what had been the cause for my instinctual fear, the bad feeling that had made me retreat? Had I jumped at a shadow, caused by being overly vigilant, maybe paranoid, seeing an enemy where there was none? Had I stepped into a trap laid by the arachnids and somehow managed to escape in the nick of time? Had there been something else, maybe the same entity that caused me to feel watched whenever I moved into the realm of shadows, that caused my bad feeling?

I had no idea, and that was annoying. I had even looked into the system-log, the supposed record for all things combat and such, but the only thing I learned from it was that I had suffered damage to my Health, Stamina and Astral Power. There was no source, no explanation, just that I had taken the damage. Maddening.

What made matters even worse was that I was unable to perceive my soul, or souls in general. I could detect bodies, thanks to my Blood-, and to a lesser degree Death-, Magic, I could find and manipulate minds, thanks to my Mind-Magic but souls? I could somewhat get an idea that there was something interwoven into the physical elements of the body and the mental aspects that made up the mind, but what that something was? I had no idea. Working with Lenore helped but even when examining her perceptions and impressions, it was too filtered through her mind to be integrated into my own perception.

The one thing I had decided, however, was that I wouldn’t look back at those Arachnids. They may have tried to trap me, if so, shame on them, but trying to figure them out was a waste of time. There were more interesting things on the road ahead and looking back wouldn’t help me get there.

Instead, I had suggested a decent pace to the others, so that we could get to Carinthia as soon as possible. It was the last stop before we were to go into the White Mountains, and our last chance to get some extra supplies, possibly to pick up a few quests regarding the mountains and our passage through them. In addition, it seemed that the town was very much reliant on travellers and trade, making the people open to outsiders and quite polite. The tales were interesting enough that I had decided to see if that openness to outsiders also applied to my Outsider-Trait, which seemed like a reasonable assumption.

“DId you manage to figure anything out about last night?” Lenore asked, landing on my shoulder.

“Still as clueless as before.” I admitted, grateful for the distraction. Speculating on essentially no information was pointless, but even though I knew that, I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what had happened, but had no way to figure it out.

“I want you to consider this: Remember how you drained the trace of divine Blood from that wolf a while back? Could you do something similar to Ylva, just not to drain it? Instead, could you use your Blood Magic to look into her, looking for that trace within her, acting as if you are looking for an injury? It should be easier to find, right?” Lenore suggested, bringing up Ylva’s request, turning my mind into a totally different direction.

“It might work.” I allowed, twisting a strand of hair around my finger, a little lost in thought. It likely wouldn’t be as easy as that, but I could remember the oppressive presence emanating from that single drop of blood, powerful enough to send shivers down my spine. Yet, when I thought of the Titan we had seen, and it’s winged tormentor, the presence radiating from the Blood was put into perspective, Sure, if the real thing, the ancient, divine wolf that had sired the progenitor of that wolf, had been there, likely even if one of the earlier descendants had been there, the presence would have been similarly powerful. But when it had been filtered through the generations, the splendor had dulled.

Realisation washed over me for a moment, generations, that might be important. What about the heritage of my Avatar? How many generations was it removed from the creation-event that had spawned the Firn-Elves? The experiment by Loki, using some of his own blood? How much of the divine presence, if that's what I had felt back then, was within my own blood?

The thought kept circling within my mind, until we stopped for lunch. Instead of helping the others, I begged off, asking them to take care of my part, as I had something else I wanted to try. Given that they knew I had run into trouble the night before, though not what kind of trouble, Olivia easily accepted, while Adra looked at me with a bit of suspicion. She knew me quite well, at this point.

Sitting comfortably within the crown of a tree near the road, no point in conjuring up my throne for a short rest, I began to look into myself. Not trying to use the physical aspects of my Blood Magic, as I wasn’t really looking for something physical. I might be able to manifest it physically, if I used my Magic, but I didn’t think that the Divine Blood was something physically present within my body, that could leak out if one was bleeding bad enough. No, it was a divine quality within my blood, that could be condensed using magic, at least that was what I believed.

For almost half an hour, while the others were working nearby, I was mentally flipping between my Blood Magic and the perception of Astral Power flowing within my body, trying to find that divine quality, looking for anything that screamed divinity at me. Or maybe that screamed chaos, deception, earthquakes or maybe even sexual perversion to me, all qualities associated with Loki. Sadly, at the end of that half-hour, the only thing I had to show for was a resurgence of my headache, luckily not as bad as it had been earlier.

Following the call to get food, I hopped down from my tree, enjoying the short sensation of free fall, gently landing on the ground. Walking over, I decided that I would continue to look into the Blood Issue myself, but not spend all my time on it. Instead, I wanted to finally crack a mystery I had been nibbling on for months, namely the teleportation through shadows. Shifting into the Shadow-Realm, moving within it and shifting back out was as close I could reliably get at the moment, which was already good. But I wanted to fully figure out the teleportation-issue, especially when I considered that I had essentially teleported my mind through the Astral the night before.

If those could be combined, wouldn’t I be able to teleport at will? Moving across vast distances, with nothing but a single step? Even the headache I was feeling didn’t manage to erase the smile on my lips.