Walking around the park, I was hit with some strange, mixed feelings. Here, at ground zero of my attack, I was both a little amazed at what I had accomplished but also scared of the devastation I had caused. Knowing that I could snuff out many lives with the equivalent of a gas attack, using my tried and true Devouring Mist, was one thing, but here, I could see that I could also accomplish the equivalent of an artillery barrage. In addition, as we were looking around, I noticed another strange feeling of disappointment creeping up within me. It took me a few moments to figure out where that was coming from, as the attack had almost been as successful as I could have ever hoped, so why was I feeling disappointed? It was an amusing realisation that it came from my gamer instincts. They still demanded that a large, opposing force should have some sort of boss, a creature of greater power than the mob of lesser beings around it, a threat that the heroes, had to defeat in a direct, brutal confrontation. Only, there was no boss here, and there also would be no loot, other than maybe the Ice I had conjured, or some destroyed mushroom spores. Not that I was about to take anything with me, not when said spores could still be viable. I didn’t want the Withered to return but even more than that, I wanted to make sure that we weren’t the ones who were withered first.

We didn’t stay long in the area around the park, simply because there was nothing left. Just the devastation and somehow, I didn’t want to dwell on it too much. Especially not on the fact that I wasn’t sure the entire amount of power I had unleashed would dissipate, or rather, that the power in the soil would remain there and cause some troubles in the future.

Luckily, neither Ice nor Death were terribly dynamic powers, though I was a little worried about the combination. The only dynamic part within the element of Death I could see were Undeads, maybe some sort of revenant, and given that bodies could be conserved within Ice for millennia, it could become a problem in the indeterminate future, depending how the powers interacted. Or it might just do nothing, other than blight the area, turning it into an utterly sterile field, until wind and rain had carried away the affected soil. Once the dusty soil was spread out enough, the energies would cease to be a problem, simply because they were too thinly spread.

Though maybe I should pick up some of the dust, simply because it was perfectly sterile, with quite a bit of Death energy mixed it, it might be useful for some funky attempts at gardening, trying to grow something within an element completely antithetical to life could give some interesting results. But no, I had bigger things to worry about, one of which was trying to help Lia to cross the first Divide. While her level boost hadn’t been as extreme as that of Luna, she had gained quite a few levels during the ritual, enough to push her beyond level fifty, meaning she had a decision to make.

Amusingly, that decision was one she wanted me to be involved in, both as her Mother and the Creator of her Race. Neither of us was certain what would happen to her, nor did we have an idea of what possibilities were even on the table, but she wanted to make a decision based on as much information as possible.

It was something we discussed as we moved back towards our old hideout, outside of town, in the brewery. There was nothing more in town for us to do, the threat of the Withered was, at least for now, dealt with, though the remaining creatures might be a problem in the short-term, something we should warn the people at the farm about. They might get in trouble otherwise, and while the individual Withered groups were far from the same danger-level the entire host was, a single group of Withered would likely be able to overcome a group of survivors, unless the people at the farm had made tremendous progress.

No, I would feel much better if the people would back to the farm, at least for a bit, while waiting for the situation to calm down, maybe they could perfect their training. Or do something else entirely, I didn’t care too much, I just didn’t want them to perish by accident. So, a warning was needed.

But the bigger, more important, question was that of Lia and her crossing of the divide. Our discussion centred on that what I knew about the divides, that crossing them was focused on self-discovery, on your place in the world and the nature of your powers. For me, crossing the first divide could have focused on elemental magic, trying to draw more power into a broader range of elements, or I could have focused on the shadows, trying to draw out more power from them. Both could have given me an increase in powers, but in both cases, that increase would have also been limiting me.

If I had gone with the elemental option, the limit would have been lesser but I had no doubt that doing so wouldn’t have benefitted my Blood Magic, as it was part of the Living Cycle, just as Death was. If I had gone into the Shadows, I had no doubt that my abilities in Darkness Magic would have skyrocketed, but at the same time, all my other magical abilities, maybe safe Mind Magic, wouldn’t have gained, making it a bit of a balance. Ultimately, I had gone for the Dragon Within, as it was both interesting and universal, the result pleasing me greatly.

Now, for Lia, one possible route was to focus on her physical body, essentially going a pure warrior route, though I was a little leery at that idea. She wasn’t a purely physical entity, her state necessitated the use of magic, simply because her feeding was magical in nature. I doubted she’d ever be unable to feed, she might even change to make her feeding a purely physical process, where she had to bite people for their blood, not just the Astral Power within that blood, but I wasn’t sure about that.

The opposite of that would be trying to focus on the magical aspects of her existence, the feeding, the Darkness Magic I had taught her, and maybe even the manifestation of her claws, which I considered to be part of her Blood Magic. I doubted going that route would make her an actual spellcaster similar to me, my theory was that she’d be more akin to an assassin, moving about unseen and striking with devastating, magically enhanced force. Or maybe she would be able to feed from the distance, something that sounded insanely dangerous for everyone involved, but either way, Lia wasn’t interested in that route. While she could use magic, it wasn’t her focus, part of her interests was the physical side of things, so going purely magical was out.

Lastly, the option that might be the most intriguing but also the scariest one of them all, one that Lia had brought up much to my surprise. Thanks to Luna, Lia was aware of the connection between Luna, me and the Grandmother, though none of us knew what was actually going on with that, only that Hecate had created it while blessing Luna, naming us Maiden, Mother and, most likely, Crone in the process, just like her three aspects were named. Lia’s, possibly insane, idea was to focus on her status as the First of her Kind, and the implied connection to the Mother to empower herself even further.

There was so much weird with that idea, I wasn’t quite sure where to even start considering what it might do. I was the ‘Mother’ of her race, that much was certain, and I had been given the appellation of ‘Mother’ from a deity connected to the idea, a deity of magic at that, something necessary for Lia and the Vampires to exist.

It was, quite frankly, an intriguing idea and if this was still a game if we were playing Road to Purgatory and one of my companions had asked me if I was okay with it, I would immediately have accepted, because it sounded fascinating. To make matters worse, none of us had an idea what it might do. Sure, the First of her Kind trait was increasing her attributes quite a bit, especially her physical ones, but that didn’t mean it would carry over. It might just give her the ability to turn others into vampires with ease or spread her own status like some sort of virus. To say nothing of the other ways this could go horribly wrong.

But this wasn’t a game and while I would dearly love to learn more, I wasn’t willing to risk Lia’s future on an idea that could easily break her entire being. There was no reset, if she was stuck with a useless class, there was no whining and the only way to quit was fairly permanent.

No, I wanted her to take another, less risky, path. But at the end of the day, it was her path and she had to decide what steps to take by herself.