Walking around our shelter, I realised that only Silva was currently awake, keeping guard. A quick, somewhat onesided conversation between us told me that she had received her rewards but when I tried to find out, she only gave me a wide, canine grin and refused to even hint at them. It was just a little annoying but then, I was fairly used to Silva having fun at my expense, especially when it came to my unbridled curiosity.

Shaking my head, I decided to test my new sense in the real world, after I had been working on it in Lady Hecate’s realm for an untold amount of time. Focusing in that strange, somewhat uncomfortable way, I opened my eyes and suffered a brief moment of headache as a little too much information was flowing into my mind. Almost as if there were souls everywhere, in every stone, in every blade of grass and diffused everywhere within the Earth. Even the air had some strange hues that I could detect, less intense than what I could see in the Earth but definitely present. Focusing on the spark I could see within Silva, I managed to focus my sight to the point that I could only see that spark, and the spark of my other companions, but it took me a bit of work. Not as much as I had needed before, but this new sense was not one I could use with impunity.

Wondering what I might be able to do with that new way of looking at the world, I checked the sky outside, making sure that I wasn’t running into the bright light of the sun, before deciding that I’d have to wait a little longer, it was still too bright outside.

Instead, I took inventory of our supplies, realising with a bit of annoyance that we would be running out soon, despite our attempts to loot as much as possible, the shadow bags that allowed us to carry surreal amounts of resources and constant foraging. Spending time in the Charland, with its inedible fauna and non-existent flora meant we had been unable to gather anything, causing us to deplete our stores far more than I’d have liked. We had maybe a week of our usual, fairly balanced and tasty diet and about two months of the essential staples like rice, grain, oatmeal and salt.

During our looting, I had made sure to take as much of those staples as possible, as they would sustain us, it wouldn’t be good eating, it wouldn’t really be healthy but we would endure. Additionally, it was a lot easier to find some somewhat edible green in the wild and turn it into salad, it might not taste well but it was possible and a similar case could be made for meat. If taste wasn’t taken into account, it was fairly easy to acquire, especially with my own magical abilities that allowed me to make sure the meat was safe.

Still, if we didn’t want to start hunting squirrels, rats or similar critters that likely were reproducing in droves on the ruins of human civilisation, we would have to start looking into the situation carefully. Annoying as it was, there was no way around it, at least until we managed to find some way to magically conjure food if that was even possible. It worked with Water but I doubted there was a realm of Food out there, though a realm of beasts might be plausible. Maybe I’d be able to conjure blood, though I hadn’t been able to with my Blood Magic, at least so far. If I could, there might be a way to turn the conjured blood into sausage or black pudding or something like that, I might have to look into the possibility. As weird as it was to imagine eating something I had literally pulled from thin air, I was already doing that when drinking conjured water. It was merely a question of getting used to the strange new world we were living in. Possible, and likely worth the effort, if the initial idea was possible.

Something to look into.

By the time I was done checking the food and planning, Lia had woken up and was looking at me with excitement in her eyes.

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“And, what did the Lady Hecate grant you?” I asked, curious about the answer.

“I know where I went wrong now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to make new Vampires, though I might need your help if the convert is seriously powerful,” she gushed, looking incredibly proud and happy at the idea.

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow, asking for elaboration which Lia happily provided. It turned out, that neither of us had realised that there was a specific and fairly elaborate combination of magical elements that needed to be infused into the blood, alongside a dash of vital energy from the one doing the raising. A fairly interesting idea, though it made me wonder how we had managed with Alex. Maybe part of the infusion had come from the Withered elements in their body, or the colonel fungus itself, inadvertently transmitted to these elements in an attempt to fight back against our infusion, only to fail and make us succeed.

A definite possibility and something I might have to look into at some point, meaning I put it on the endlessly growing list.

Shaking my head, I decided to study Lia, looking at her through my newly developed sight. The result was fairly fascinating, especially when I compared it to the way Silva looked. Where Silva was bright with vital energies and had a spark glowing at the centre of her metaphysical being, Lia was almost the exact opposite. Oh, she had vital energies within her body but it looked almost as if they were slowly drawn in while mixing with a different type of energy, one that was most definitely not vital. Or conducive to living things, the closest energy I had seen to it was the necrotic energy I could conjure with my Death Magic and about the deadliest thing I had access to. And it was animating my daughter, at least partially. To make matters worse, where Silva had the glowing spark, Lia had a slightly disturbing void, almost like a tiny, black sun that radiated emptiness. It wasn’t just Darkness that spread from that Void, it was something deeper, darker, both fascinating in its implications but also just a little scary. Or maybe a lot scary, I wasn’t quite sure how to take it.

Trying to look deeper was sadly impossible but I had a feeling I was missing something there, as if the void in the centre of her being was more than just emptiness. A hole in existence but one that either led elsewhere or had a definite and distinct bottom, I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret what my new sense was telling me. Or I might simply imagine things, it wasn’t as if I had a lot of experience with strangely empty souls, or souls in general.

Either way, I was both fascinated and a little horrified by my daughter, making me wonder what my own soul and existence would look like. Sadly, I was unable to study that, due to the way this particular sight worked.

Taking another look at my older daughter, I watched in fascination how the energies in her body moved. the necrotic energies interacting with the vital energies in a process that was almost reminiscent of digestion, just a lot stranger. There was no real physical process involved, at least I couldn’t detect anything that indicated one, just a metaphysical exchange of energies I couldn’t really describe. The only thing I could say conclusively was that she was far from a living being, while also not being Undead, at least from what I could tell. Maybe I would have to take another look at the Undead in the cities and the Shattered, too. It would be interesting to see how they looked with my new sight, though other things took priority for now.

Just a little after Lia woke, Alex joined us, too, and when I looked at them, I realised a startling similarity. Where Lia had that disturbing void in the centre of her being, Alex had a similar one, only when I focused on theirs, I was able to detect a faint but familiar echo, that of Lia. Not a real connection, at least from what I could tell, but more an imprint, making me wonder why Lia was different in that regard. Or maybe the difference was that I couldn’t detect myself with that sight, as I already knew, and where Alex had an imprint of Lia, Lia would have one of me, something that wasn’t visible to my new sight.

Shaking my head, I checked the situation outside once more before stepping out while asking Lia and Alex if they could go hunting during the night, informing them of our incoming food shortage. Not that either of them needed normal food, but if I couldn’t get decent food, they, too, would suffer with me.