The way out of the Charland was comparatively simple, compared to the way in. We didn’t run into any additional large monsters and even the number of smaller critters we had to face seemed to be a little diminished. I wasn’t sure what that might mean. Had we managed to cut down their numbers by an appreciable amount or had something else happened for them to wizen up? Either option was possible, as were numerous otters, and without further information, there was little we could actually find out.

For now, I simply accepted it as a lucky break. Thanks to the circumstances, we made good speed and only had to camp out a second night in the Charland, though we barely managed to get to our shelter in time. Nothing had moved into the area, maybe due to the lingering effects of the blessing Silva had used to make us comfortable, so we didn’t have to worry too much. Additionally, the break allowed me to discuss the readings and impressions Luna had taken from the central crystal with her, though neither of us really knew what to make of it, other than what Hecate had told Luna. It was, quite frankly, too far out of our current understanding and without a basis for comparison, there was little we could actually do.

It was a little like staring at the Sun, high in the sky, or looking at the ground and trying to estimate the size and shape of the Earth from it. Without some sort of comparison, without measurements and quite a bit of creativity, it was doomed to fail. We didn’t have objective measurements, we didn’t have a basis for comparison and we didn’t even know what we were looking for. Thus, trying to glean demonstrable facts from Luna’s magical exploration was sadly doomed to fail, at least until we could research those necessary foundational facts and use them as a basis for comparison.

During the day, I hoped for a visitation from Lady Hecate but sadly, it was not to be. Instead, we were harassed by a sizable swarm of Embercreepers, a strange, beetle-like creature that looked like it was made of glowing embers, hot to the touch and equipped with fairly large pincers. Luckily, the individual bugs were only the size of a finger but what they lacked in size, they made up for in sheer numbers.

For our group, that meant only I was capable of handling them with any ease. Alex had some of their expendable equipment remaining, a few of these freeze bombs and a simple, hand-made flamethrower but neither of these tools was suitable to combat swarms. Sure, they’d be able to destroy all Embercreepers in a sphere about a metre in radius but given that the swarm travelled in a long, drawn-out line, that didn’t mean too much. A few dozen would perish, with a few hundred more to come after them.

However, I could conjure freezing water, dousing the creepers and extinguishing their ember-like shells, causing them to expire almost instantly. It was almost sad to watch them die and I wasn’t sure if they were dying because of the cold if they were drowning or due to some other reason. And, really, it didn’t matter what killed them, just that they died. Sadly, their constant presence meant I wasn’t able to rest for most of the day, to say nothing of sleeping. That alone made them an incredible nuisance and to make matters worse, they didn’t even give any EXP. Not even Luna got anything from them, making me once again wonder how the system measured EXP in cases like that.

Later, I was treated to the sight of Alex happily shovelling the dead Embercreepers into one of their bags and wondered not for the first time if they had managed to make something similar to my own magical shadow bags. When asked, they had only chittered with amusement but refused to elaborate, annoying me just a little, though given that both Alex and Lia looked to be laden down with various ingredient and resource bags, maybe they were just a very efficient pack-racoon. Or it was something akin to magic, that could be possible, too. Their various tools certainly broke what I’d consider possible with normal, physical means and ventured into territory I’d consider magical and that all without the obvious usage of Astral Power. Outside usage, that is. I already knew that some materials had magical components and from that, I could reason that these components could interact and cause a magical effect, even without Alex using overt magic.

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Though, how that would come out as a magical bag, I had no idea. But it certainly was possible that it worked with some materials, though looking at the bags again, I doubted it. Especially as I was confident that Lia and Alex would share such interesting equipment with the rest of us, even if my shadow-magic bags worked reasonably fine. They had massive drawbacks and as of yet, I wasn’t able to overcome those drawbacks.

Luckily, the only opponents we faced during the day were these Embercreepers and once night fell, we could continue on our path and make it out of the Charland. At that point, I was done with the world and wanted nothing but to sleep, so once we got to our shelter, I fell into bed immediately.

Sleep came quickly and with sleep came dreams. Or maybe calling it a dream would be wrong, it was one of the usual communications with Lady Hecate who proudly told me that we had completed Her quest and it was now time to reap the rewards. It was a little weird not to get the usual notifications but I could feel a brief moment of an outside force flowing into me, causing a feeling of swelling, as if I had just eaten a particularly satisfying meal.

“Excellent, Jade. Now, I promised you that you would learn how to sense souls. Given that it is normally an innate trait, I cannot simply flip a switch and have you see them, not unless I would also change your entire being into one that possesses that fundamental trait, which would be a major alteration to your existence. I hope it meets with your approval that we will take the hard road, allowing you to learn it properly which will have some advantages for you at the end,” Lady Hecate explained, making me frown for just a moment.

Getting transformed into some other creature didn’t sound too appealing, I liked who I was and getting changed, well, it would change that. I liked being a Firn Elf but, looking back, I wasn’t certain I would have chosen to accept the Change as it came. Had I liked being human? I couldn’t really remember which was a weird sensation, causing my frown to deepen. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, if Lady Hecate was offering to teach me something normally innate to specific creatures, I wanted to learn it.

“Certainly, Lady Hecate,” I accepted, waiting for her to continue.

“I need you to look around, not with your eyes but by projecting yourself outward. Not your magic, but something deeper, more fundamental to you. Doing so will allow me to sense where you’d project your soul out naturally and I can gently nudge that projection towards your eyes, letting you take the first step to sense souls,” she instructed and I did as She asked, or rather, I tried.

For how long I was in Her realm, trying to project my soul outwards, I wasn’t sure. It felt like it had taken weeks, maybe months, of repeated exercises, exercises occasionally interrupted by instruction on the nature of the soul. The only problem with the instruction was that it sometimes felt contradictory and when I asked about those contradictions, Lady Hecate explained that not only was the language I was using to think and function lacking in the relevant concepts but that I was trying to understand something that I had yet to experience. That I lacked a frame of reference, pointing me to my initial exploration of magic.

How could I have told somebody without any understanding of Astral Power about some of the deeper aspects of Darkness Magic, especially the Realm of Shadows? I realised that I could tell somebody about the strange, non-physical sensation but if I tried to put it into words, the words started to contradict each other. Speaking of a space that was no space, of shadows that stretched and warped, words quickly began to lose meaning and I had to resort to metaphor and comparisons. Both of which would start to contradict each other, if I only kept talking long enough.

The realisation, and admittance of it, brought a wide grin to the Maiden’s mouth, one that stayed there for the rest of the lecture. Regardless, the longer I worked and the longer Lady Hecate instructed me, the more I learned. And what I learned was utterly fascinating.