A Jaded Life

If there was one thing that drove home just how inexperienced Mima was, it was the way her face morphed and moved as I spoke about my various experiences with dryads on Mundus. Where before, when she had essentially been in control of the conversation, her face had kept up the placidly calm and pleasant mask, now that the control wasn’t with her, the mask was gone, too. Instead, I could easily interpret her expressions to let me read her mind unless she was an incredibly gifted actress, which I doubted. No, I was fairly certain that she truly was completely disgusted by my tales of Tegi and her desire to have endless spring in a land of ice and snow, amused by some of the tales I told of Adra and her behaviour and saddened by the story about Callista and her eternal wait for her lost lover. I didn’t go into the entire thing where the Grandmother was convinced that Adra was said lost lover, only reborn in a new body and without memories. Still, given that Adra had taken a different path in life than the one that would reunite her with Callista, maybe that was for the best.

Thinking of my old friends, I began to wonder how they were doing, since the Travellers had vanished from their planet. And just how devastating the after-effects of my actions alongside Nidhögg would turn out to be. Unless an incredibly powerful entity intervened, I was confident that there would be some devastation, a massive shift in climate with the expected results, like failing crops, changes in flora and fauna and so on, likely causing famine, disease and so on. But what I couldn’t estimate was the upper end of the changes. Just how far would things go, how badly would the world of Mundus be affected? I doubted my actions had been enough to trigger a global collapse, leading to a new Ice Age, but that was about the greatest effect I could plausibly imagine. Unless the Nidhögg added his power behind my working, if that happened, I couldn’t even try to estimate how things would turn out, other than ‘badly’.

A part of me felt bad for my actions, even if I hadn’t been aware that Mundus was more than a game. Given just how far-reaching the devastation I had likely caused was, the diminutive size of that part would likely worry a few people, but it was something I kept strictly private. Nobody needed to know that I had largely destroyed a world and, what might be worse to some, that I didn’t feel too bad about it. Sure, I would prefer if it had never happened but if I had to weigh which event I’d theoretically prefer to undo, Sigmir’s death ranked above the destruction I wrought on Mundus, it wasn’t even a competition.

That thought left me wondering if I would do the same here, on Terra. I had managed to avoid killing thus far, mostly because there simply hadn’t been a need or any real advantage to do so, but if I looked into myself, I knew that my vengeance would be devastating if Lia, Silva or Luna were hurt. Especially Luna, somehow my little munchkin had wormed her way deep into my heart, filling a different niche compared to the one Sigmir had built for herself but it was an important niche nonetheless. Similarly, Lia had her own place but hers, like Silva’s was different again, each relationship unique and important. Strangely, Alex took up the least space within my heart, sure, the furry critter was fairly cute and frighteningly intelligent but their place was with Lia, not with me. I liked them well enough but the connection went through the one I had with my daughter, the indirectness of it somehow blunting the emotional aspect of it. Or it might simply be a question of time spent together, or rather a lack of it. Who knew, I certainly did not, nor was I able to analyse my own mind successfully in that regard.

My musing, and the story I had been absentmindedly telling to Mima, ended when we reached the clearing holding her tree. Now, as dusk covered the area in the deep shadows of twilight, the clearing and the tree in the middle were strangely more impressive than at night. I had a strong feeling that the magic radiating out from the tree was bound to the cycles of day and night, maybe to the seasonal cycles, too. More Sun, more light, would likely mean more power to the tree and thus more magic, or something along those lines. At least as long as the tree wasn’t starved of nutrients and water, making me wonder if I might be able to teach Mima, or any of the people here, a bit of Water Magic, allowing them to conjure water for their trees. And how this particular tree, that seemed to be so deeply rooted in the Astral River and was constantly drinking in magic from beneath and absorbing sun from above, would react to an infusion of magically conjured water. Would the water simply be broken down into Astral Power or would it be absorbed as water? I wasn’t sure but was interested to find out.

Even ignoring possibly interesting interactions between Astral Power channelled through people and the tree, the experience of walking across the amusingly well-maintained lawn that covered the clearing was fascinating. Not just because of the lawn itself but mostly due to the magic radiating out from the tree. The closer I got to it, the more I could feel, though trying to make sense of it was difficult.

Sure, when just looking at it with my magical sight, it was a mix of Nature and Life Magic, but that only told half the story. When tasting the magic, I could make out some subtle undertones, different types of magic all wrapped up in the greater whole of Nature or Life Magic. If Nature Magic had a sweet taste, the different sub-flavours would be akin to differentiating between the sweetness of different fruits. They were all sweet and contained sugar but they also contained countless other things, all moderating and adjusting the sweet taste. This was somewhat similar, though I couldn’t easily parse out what these many sub-flavours denoted. Different types of magic, obviously, but the exact composition was impossible to describe, especially as the flavours seemed to slowly and subtly shift as I moved across the lawn.

“It’s fascinating,” I admitted, once Mima and I reached the tree. There, I used as much of my Darkness Magic as possible to conceal the use of Observe, only to be subtly disappointed by the ability. Sure, I learned that I was dealing with a World Tree Sapling but that wasn’t really useful. There was no level, no nothing, only that useless name I had already deduced. Confirmation was nice but ultimately useless.

“Could you tell me about the magic your tree takes in? I can feel it but I can’t make sense of it. Can you use the power it takes in or are you limited to the elements it radiates outwards?” I asked, looking at Mima with some curiosity in my eyes. Hopefully, she’d be able to shed some light on the processes of the World Tree.

“I’m not really sure,” she admitted, looking at me with a bit of confusion in her eyes, “I just do things that feel right and they work,” she shrugged, making me nod thanks to a sudden realisation. If she was as inexperienced as I was convinced she was, she’d be like a child and I was asking a child how their equivalent to a digestive system worked. At best, I might get an answer about using the bathroom and eating in general but to find out details would be completely impossible.

Deciding that Mima wouldn’t be a good source of knowledge, I focused my mind and eyes on the tree itself, trying to see more than the physical. I even let myself partially drop into the Astral River so I could see more, stretching my mind and senses as far as I could.

For a minute, or maybe five, I wasn’t quite sure how long my mind was staring at the maddening complexity that was the World Tree, I kept observing the processes, only to realise that there was even more going on than I had thought. The World Tree was pulling in everything from the Astral River, almost as if it was regenerating Astral Power at an alarming rate, but at the same time, the Astral Power it radiated back out was rapidly returning to the Astral River, subtly changed and empowered, for lack of a better word. It was filled with vitality and life, making me wonder just how it would interact with living beings. It felt refreshing, like a pleasantly warm shower or a wonderful cup of tea, only on a spiritual level.

However, as I looked around, I quickly noticed the flip side of the process. Where the World Tree was radiating purified and energised Astral Power outwards, the Astral River wasn’t carrying that sort of power. And so, almost like a water filter or something along those lines, the World Tree seemed to strip away some impurities, unhealthy elements that would prevent the pleasant effect I was feeling. The problem came with the question of what the tree did with these elements because from what I could currently tell, it was simply letting them sit there, in the soil beneath its roots.