…Why?

Why did this have to happen now?

Why? After decades of no results, no progress, no development, no evidence whatsoever of any single one of the 2809 Baptism techniques I had practised time and time again over 68 long years of giving me nothing other than a… a twinge.

Why? After suffering such a mind blowing failure, of slipping into madness, depression, desperation, and a practically suicidal need to put my life against the terrible wrath of a magical beast to feel any sense of self worth…

Why? WHY? Is this happening now?

I know what this is. Decades of study and experience has made it perfectly clear to me despite the initial bafflement I feel towards my new discovery.

Warriors and Sorcerers consume mana rich materials to absorb their inborn mana so that they can add it onto their own, either through mana infusion or core construction, to boost their level and further their way along their Path.

That Galecat, it’s body was a mana rich material. A material that was resting in my stomach as I was performing that Baptism, just before I felt mana like I had never once experienced in the over 200 years I have been walking the surface of this strange and alien world.

I…I need some rest. I can’t think about this right now.

So, pushing all thoughts and concerns from my mind, I settled down by the fire and went to sleep injured, tired and fatigued.

Thankfully, sleep welcomed me with open arms.

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The next morning, I packed up all my belongings and the Galecats' remains and started making the long returning march back through the forest to the farm.

Unfortunately, I had lost my bow and arrows in my clash with the Galecat and so had nothing to protect myself with other than a few knives still on my person, so I was naturally eager to get back home to safety as fast as possible. My wounds naturally slowed me down but I still kept up a good and steady pace across the many long days as I made my return home.

My ability to hunt was of course momentarily suspended until I got back to my workshop and rearmed myself so hunting my dinner was currently off the table. However, even with all the precious and delicious readily available meat slung over my shoulder for the entire way, I didn’t touch any of it.

Mana could be weird, and I knew from my previous readings that the mana in mana rich meat could preserve itself for weeks, maybe months while the mana gradually seeped out, and so I had no need to worry about it going bad for the immediate future.

I just didn’t want to touch it while I was still filled with so many doubts and uncertainties. So I fed myself through the scavenging of berries, fruits, plant roots, bark and even some grasses to hold me over until I finally made it back over the wooden fence that delineated the border of my territory.

During the first few nights as well I also stitched up the claw marks as best I could, but it was clear from the get go that no matter what I did I was going to be left with a nasty couple of scars for the rest of my life. A few more to add onto the collection already on my body.

Once back at the farm, the first thing I did was put the meat into the meat storage container I had built by the stream. It used the cold flowing water to keep it somewhat cool, and was usually used to preserve and extend the usability of some of my own livestocks remains.

Next I took the pelt over to my workshop and left it there to turn into leather at some other time, something I was well and able to do having dabbled with the process through the years with my own livestocks’ skins.

After that, and after taking a day to settle down for a bit, I started back up on working on the farm.

In my time away it had become even worse looking than it had when I left. So filled with the need for distraction, without hesitation, I dived head first into my workload, eager to tackle it head on as a means to work through all that I was churning about in my mind.

“68 years” I thought as I cut the grass. “68 years, ending in utter failure.”

“But not totally” I retorted to myself as I cleaned and dusted the house. “I know everything there is to know about Baptisms, how to move and push my body and the general composition of my mana affinity spectrum. I even know what certain affinities feel and taste like from the flickers I got at the end of every one.”

“But that doesn't mean anything!” I thought back as I sheared and cleaned up the cattle and sheep. “You failed so terribly the first time, there’s no guarantee that this whole endeavour is going to work out, and it could all just as easily go as bad as the first time.”

“But there’s hope, hope again.” I pondered as I harvested what was still alive and healthy in my fields. “You’re unageing, you’ve got all the time in the world. Are you really going to be beaten down by one bad ending when you have limitless attempts to go ahead and find a better one.”

These were just some of the thoughts bouncing around my head through the weeks since I got back.

Indecision and doubt throttled its arguments at me heavily, but so too did the arguments for hope and excitement. All of them fighting against each other to try and make me do one thing or the other.

Eventually some arguments won out, others lost, some debates simply ended in stalemates and some are even still going on in the back of my mind at this very moment.

But as I sat down on my porch eating dinner like always, watching the sunset over my once more well ordered and immaculate looking farm, I arrived at my decision about what I was going to do.

I was… going to try again.

The realities of my situation had not changed. I was still unageing, but weak and powerless to the whims of those who wielded and cultivated what I could not, mana. And so unless I meet an unfortunate end which I will still try my very best to prevent, in all likelihood, one day, I will be discovered, captured, experimented on, and will experience whatever else they may decide to inflict on me.

Forever.

I need to be able to defend myself. I need mana. I need to make these Baptisms work despite how they have already disappointed me.

I need to keep going. I need to go…once more… into the deep.

I may not have the optimism I had before, but what I do have now is a direction as to where to go if I want to find some success.

Mana rich materials.

I need to obtain and consume mana rich materials.

Days earlier, halfway through my deliberations on my future, I had started once again eating the remains of the Galecat to try and work out what the food was actually doing to me so I could better inform my decision.

Through trial and error and after eating every last scrap of flesh on that feline skeleton, I’m confident I have a good grasp on what is happening inside of me.

The Galecat was made up of wind affinity mana. So when I ate some of it, and practised a wind affinity Baptism, the mana I was already trying to draw into myself was now already there plus bucketloads of whatever other mana affinities were also in the Galecat’s remains.

So, in my thinking, these affinities mixed altogether and connected with other Baptisms I had done, whose presence was already in my body. Ones that I could identify through the whole experience as being likewise wind affinity based also.

This is what caused the fusions of techniques I was practising, and in doing so led me to move in a way that combined Baptism techniques that incorporated more than one affinity into what must be the beginnings of a whole other Baptism technique.

What this means from this point on… I don’t know. I ran out of Galecat before I could explore my suppositions further. But the way to move further and figure out what I’m working with is clear.

I need more mana rich materials.

I know I can’t get them anywhere out here on the island or in Mellawin. The market is already monopolised by the Coalition outpost and even with the apparent resurgence in the local wildlife, the Warriors of the Corps will come in soon enough and take all of them for themselves as they always do.

I can’t go to the Homeland either. Every market and avenue there is also already dominated and monitored by figures and forces much more terrifying than the ones that exist around me on this little island.

No. There’s only one place I can go if I want to have any chance of getting the goods I need. A place still developing and so has a loose hold on its resources and economy. A place filled with danger as everyone from peasant to Master is over there trying to carve out a future for themselves in the new land of opportunity that is the new wild frontier.

The New Continent.

I have to leave this place, and sail to the new Continent.

It… works out actually. My presence here is already too long and bordering on noticeable to the tax collectors at the Bank. Plus, in the coming years, some new farms could very well be popping up nearby as civilization continues to expand outwards from the city into the country.

…It’s… time for me to move on again.

The finality of that thought hits me as I look out at all I have built during the time I spent here, and I am sad, but accepting of it.

My life… is the way it is.

So I look out over the farm and enjoy the sight of it, the sounds and all the smells in between. All the memories of how I cleared that piece of land there to make way for that fencepost or how that now looks like this but actually used to look like that.

I soak in all these memories and moments as the Sun sets over the farm, reminiscing and remembering fondly the life I have lived here.

When I was done, I went back inside, cleaned up, washed myself off, went to bed, and fell asleep.

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The next morning, I got started on faking my death.

The first thing I did was pack a bag to get ready to go to the city. Once accomplished, I set off and the two week expedition on the road to getting to the city.

Once at Mellawin, I didn’t bother going inside, but instead moved along the outskirts of the city to where my destination had been in the very first place, the slums.

For a time after the Underfrost attacked they had remained empty and somewhat clean after all the water came in and swept all the gunk inside away. But of course, time went on. And the slums once again reemerged if only now looking a little bit different.

The time now being the beginning of the night, I wandered inside and began searching. It didn’t take me long however to find what I was here looking for.

A dead body.

Taking out a large drawstring sack I had brought with me, I folded the skinny, dirty and old dead man into the bag, and under the light of the three moons exited the city without anyone else the wiser to my having been there.

The walk back was tough with the smell and making sure to avoid any interaction with anyone else on the road, but some time later I made my way past the entrance to my farm, walked up to the house, and dumped the body beside it before I went off to the stream to have a wash.

After that I spent the rest of my time going about my farm and just enjoying being there, knowing it may very well be the last time I’ll ever see it.

I went to bed sad, yet calm, and likewise woke up in the same mood the next morning ready for what I had to do.

I broke open a fence at the side of my paddock and shepherded all the animals out of there.

I went to my workshop and with the exception of my finest bow, some arrows with the Galecat bone arrowtips I had made, my guitar, a couple flutes, and some tools that I could carry with me, I took out everything inside that I didn’t want anyone to know about, and set fire to it all.

I then packed a bag with all my necessities and put on my new Galecat leather vest and pants underneath my coat for the coming journey. An added protection I have made which I’m sure will prove necessary.

Finally, I then opened the sack with the decaying corpse in it, carried it into the house, and laid it out on my bed and moved up my blanket to cover it.

After that, I took one last look at what I had spent a lifetime on, turned around, and walked away.