In the middle of the ritual circle, right atop the second glyph symbolising myself, were two things. Neither item was terribly complex at first glance, one was a simple, black Feather, the other a book. There were no special notifications, nothing but a message that my Blood Magic had risen by one, reaching level twenty-five, nor was there any other indication that the ritual I had done had worked. Just those two items, sitting there innocently.

Staggering back, I sat down myself, not rushing forward to inspect them just yet. Having contact, even if it was only brief, muted contact between my magic and Lenore’s meant that Mundus wasn’t some unbridgeable distance away, something I would never be able to overcome. Lenore, quite obviously, had managed to send me that ritual and, using the ritual, these two items. Now, I only needed to figure out if there was a way for me to reach back to her, maybe even to send me over to Mundus.

If that was what I wanted to do. On one hand, levelling on Mundus would be far easier, both when it came to skills and normal levels. There were quite a few powerful creatures and entities on Mundus, creatures I could hunt and kill. Some of them wouldn’t even be missed, if I were to focus on hunting Undead in the Dorrian Mountains or clear out similar hot spots, nobody would complain. I would just get levels, and lots of them, allowing me to get back my Sigmir.

Or would it?

The Grandmother, powerful as she undoubtedly was, hadn’t been able to revive Callista’s partner, her solution had been to allow Callista to take roots and have her wait for her partner to be reborn. When it happened, it hadn’t even been her partner any longer, it had been Adra, who might have shared some of her partner’s characteristics but wasn’t actually her partner. Or hadn’t become her partner, I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Maybe Adra would eventually become Callista’s partner from the past and fall in love with Callista again, but it felt like an incredibly convoluted way of going about things. And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from claiming Sigmir for myself, the moment I got a whiff of her presence. She was mine, would be mine, no matter her form. Now and forever more. Not even Death was allowed to part us, not permanently. I would get her back.

Pushing down the growl that escaped me at the memory of Callista asking me to watch out for Adra, and imagining how it would feel to be in Callista’s shoes at that moment, I focused on the present. Namely, the book and the feather I had summoned from another world.

Reaching out, I picked up the feather. It was the simpler item, with nothing outwardly complex to it, at least until I touched it. The moment I did, I realised just who had shed that black feather, her magic still having a vivid and obvious presence within it. It was one of Lenore’s feathers, faintly humming with her magic as if waiting to be unleashed. Or maybe waiting to be used for something, I had a feeling that there was a myriad of ways in which I could use the feather, certainly more than just using it to power some spell. I could do so, the feather was highly attuned to Death Magic and filled with the stuff, but I thought it would be a waste. There were better ways to use a gift my dear partner had given me from out of this world. Just to make sure, I used Inspect on the feather in my hand, lightly giggling when it came back as Nevermore’s Feather. Apparently, my dear Lenore had retained the amusement she felt about the poetry I had shared with her.

While the feather was obvious in what it was, the book not so much. A book, outwardly, was just that, what was important about it was on the inside, literally. In this case, the outside was a tome bound in dark-brown leather, without any obvious title, author or anything giving away what it might be. Reaching out, I touched it and, just like I had with the feather, I immediately recognised it. The outside had changed, how I had no idea, but the inside was still what it used to be. The Grimnoire the Grandmother had given me, the Zevarra Agha.

Quickly using Inspect on the tome, I got just what I had hoped for, the same information I had received last time, at least if my memory was correct. It had been quite a while since I inspected that particular tome, even if I had read it far more recently.

Zevarra Agha Rarity: Unique Type: Grimoire Special Effect: Ritual Guide Allows you to cast the spells written within without separately learning them. Special Effect: Soul Bound This Grimoire is bound to the Traveller Morgana. Only she can read it and she can store it within her soul. Special Effect: Growth

This Grimoire is bound to the Traveller Morgana. It will grow alongside her, yielding more secrets with growing power.

This Grimoire was written by the Grandmother. It was gifted to the Traveller Morgana as a token of remembrance.

Bound to my soul. The words in the blue box brought the giggle I had suppressed earlier back with a vengeance and by the time Lia was attracted by the strange noise, I was howling with laughter. I wondered if the Grandmother had known what would happen, had understood that the whole thing with the Travellers was some sort of divine recruiting scheme, allowing them to get into the ground level of another civilisation as their world burned around them.

“Mother, are you alright?” Lia asked, as my laughing fit slowly started to ebb off.

“Never better, my dear,” I wiped off a tear, “I merely received a care package from my Grandmother. How I’d love to introduce you to her,” I replied, a chuckle escaping me at the idea. Visiting the Grandmother with Lia, it sounded like an amazing prank, visiting the lady who had essentially taken over one of her world’s sources of Astral Power, made it into her domain and even, according to Callista, kept out divine politics. Visiting that woman with my vampire daughter.

“Sadly, it is quite far from here, so getting there will be rather difficult. It might take a while, a rather long while, for me to get that to work,” I added, just to make sure Lia wasn’t getting her hopes up.

“Okay?” she just stood there, a look of utterly adorable confusion on her face. Obviously, she didn’t get how my Grandmother could send me things, why that would require a magical formation still bleeding off a heady mix of Blood and Death Astral Power, or generally what was going on.

“Some light reading for me, or maybe I should call it Dark reading? I’m sure I’ll find some tremendously interesting things in here,” I gently stroked the book, remembering how it was growing with my power. Back on Mundus, my power had been solely focused on Ice, Darkness and Blood, with a bit of Mind and Death Magic thrown in for good measure, but now? Just how much could I gain from the book, written by what I considered a tremendously powerful witch? I couldn’t wait to find out, back on Mundus, there had been spells in there that I could adjust to my own spellcasting, making them work with what I had magically. But now, with my greatly expanded foundation and the desire to expand those foundations even further?

“Do you want to stay in for the night and read? Or can we go and kill some of those Withered you told me about?” Lia asked, sounding amusingly eager for some bloodshed.

“I’ll look through the book, but later,” I promised, pushing myself to my feet, “Now, I just need to figure something out,” I admitted, before remembering that I needed to bind the book. After letting a drop of blood fall on the cover of the grimoire, I could immediately feel the difference, feel its connection to me strengthen. My soul, my body.

A single thought and the book vanished from my hands, hidden within my Soul. I could still feel it, just hanging there somewhat similar to the way Lenore had hung around within my mind, but I couldn’t do anything with it, not at the moment. Maybe once I attuned myself more to the grimoire or gained more power. Or something like that, I wasn’t quite sure just yet, but I knew I didn’t have to lug around the heavy tome and nobody would be able to steal it.

“Now, we can head out,” I grinned at Lia, managing to keep myself from giggling some more at the look on her face. It wouldn’t be nice to laugh at my daughter’s confusion.