A Jaded Life

Garry turned out to be amazingly accommodating, happily telling me all about their community. I wasn’t quite sure why that was, maybe he was just trying to fill the air with noise to keep himself from getting nervous, or he might be one of those people who babbled when they were feeling stressed, whatever the reason, I was happily listening to him talk and took note of what he was saying.

It turned out that, yes, there were more legacies around, at least eight of them, not that he admitted to his ignorance of the actual number but from what I could tell, he was mostly relaying rumours and such. But the eight he mentioned and described were clearly legacies, as none of them remained human, while I suspected there were at least two more, simply because the village was composed of ten groups who had found their way to this small valley. And for ten different groups, from different towns and cities, to collectively make their way to a fairly remote and almost hidden valley, without there being any obvious connection?

Yeah, if that was a coincidence, I’d start worshipping the Sun and solely use Fire Magic in the future. The only question was, were all of these groups led by Legacies, was there only one legacy per group and, maybe the most important question, what did all these people, united by an outside influence plan for the future? If the outside influence was divine, how deeply did it penetrate into the minds of the locals, had it only pushed them to gather and guided them together or was there some sort of implanted effect that would push them to form a theocracy or something like that? And, if there was such an influence, could I risk trying to remove it, while staying within their community? Was trying to break the outside influence on them malicious, if the outside influence came from the deities at least some of them worshipped?

There wasn’t an easy and obvious answer to that, it came down to the question of how deeply the deities, and the system, had influenced their minds. For many people in our country, even the idea of living in a theocracy would be abhorrent and those who would be willing to accept one would only accept it if it followed their specific religion. Given that I doubted everyone in New Dawn used to be a follower of the Asgardian Gods, I was fairly confident that they wouldn’t just accept a divinely bestowed right to rule. Though, the entire Change might have thrown that out of the window, the need to survive trumped many previously held strong beliefs.

Shaking my head, I pushed the entire line of thought away, it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t easily start going against the locals, partially due to my oath but mainly because I would have to step in and provide the protection and guidance currently given by the clerics and their divine patrons. This wasn’t like the community at the apartment block, merely hanging on and trying their best without any prospect, they had managed to build a thriving community that outstripped Apple Gate Farm by a large margin. Furthermore, after meeting Joshua, I wasn’t completely confident I’d be able to overcome the local defenders, not without a lot of preparation and large-scale magic. The only way to take down the local powerhouses would be to devastate the entire community, something I wasn’t quite willing to do, even with the obvious divine influence.

“There we are,” Garry interrupted himself, waving towards an area filled with fieldstones, in a fairly narrow patch close to the brook. “What did you have in mind?”

“Nothing much,” I grinned and stretched my Earth Sense, trying to get a good idea of the soil situation here, so I knew what I was working with. The immediate feedback told me that there was only a thin layer of soil, and the rest was predominately rock, meaning I had no doubt nobody would want to farm here. Maybe the actual soil had been carried off by the water, I wasn’t sure and not about to investigate but what I could do was reach out with my magic and infuse the rocks.

“But I can do this,” I continued, slowly waving my hands to direct my magic as the rocks started to move and flow, their behaviour a lot closer to a strange, viscous liquid than the solid stones they had been moments before. The method I was employing wasn’t the most efficient way to do what I did, but it worked exceptionally well to reshape the rocks and, just as importantly, it allowed me to show off. If these people wanted to believe in the superiority of the Gods, showing them just how much a mortal spellcaster, though one with Titanic Ambitions, could do might lessen the divine hold.

Under the disbelieving gaze of Garry, and a few others who had been nearby and were watching the show from afar, I parted the soil to allow the flowing rock to move down before binding it to the deeper rocks and letting it solidify, giving me a firm foundation to continue my work. Next, I created a smooth floor on that foundation and let walls grow up from there, the rock moving according to my will, complete with holes for the windows and door.

It was a fairly sizable exertion of my magic but within twenty minutes, I had a solid shelter, complete with walls, a nicely tiled roof and even a door set on stone joints, allowing it to swing open without any problems. Granted, that only worked thanks to a bit of magical lubrication, but the people around me didn’t need to know that.

They had only seen me create a sturdy, if a little odd-looking, house from nothing but a bunch of loose rocks and take less than half an hour for that feat. It wasn’t big, sure, just about five on ten metres, but it was more than enough for a single person and even a family would be able to make do. Trying to construct anything like that with conventional methods would have taken days, as the only way to get the liquid, flowing rock I had used would be concrete, and even then, you’d have to use metal for the internals. I could get around that by changing some of the stone with my Crystal Magic, allowing me to construct fairly impressive geometry without the need for special materials. I made my own.

“It looks good, doesn’t it?” I asked, giving the stunned Garry a grin. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes off my construction the entire time and even now, his eyes were wide with disbelief.

“How?” he could only gasp out, his eyes flickering between the house and me.

“Magic. I’ll have to do some internals, do you want to keep watching?” I couldn’t help but grin when I walked in, even as I considered whether I’d be able to make glass. Theoretically, it was nothing but sand, well, silica, fused into a crystal lattice. With my Crystal Magic, I should be able to make some from sand, if I could get it pure enough and for that, I had my Earth Magic. But first, there were more walls to raise and a few other things to finish.

Once the inside of my small cabin was done, complete with indoor plumbing and central heating. Granted, both only looked like the real thing and I was faking the rest with my personal magic but I wasn’t about to tell the onlookers that. Instead, I moved back out of the house, with Garry still following after me while looking utterly confused in a way that made me think he was doubting his senses. Luckily, that wasn’t my problem and a closer look at the brook revealed that there was quite a bit of sand and gravel sitting at the bottom, materials I could acquire with a bit of Water and Earth Magic.

Once I had the sand, I could use Earth Magic to separate out the usable material and discard the rest. Then, I had to carefully fuse the sand into glass, using a combination of Crystal Magic and Fire Magic, allowing me to create smooth and clear sheets of glass. It also cost a lot more Astral Power than I had expected but it worked quite well, as did the transformation of window-frames. For a moment, I considered trying to make double-paned glass but decided against it as a waste of time and effort, even if it would have been an excellent demonstration of my superiority, and the superiority of magic.

Alas, once I placed the magically constructed window frames into the prepared holes and sealed things up, I had an actual house. The final touch, in my eyes, was to smooth out the path towards the front door and add a small sign reading, ‘The Witch is In’ on one side, while the other told people that the witch was out. Finally, I cast an alarm ward to the path, allowing me to greet people at the door, adding to the image I wanted to portray.

All of a sudden, I realised that my creation had quite a few parallels with the Grandmother’s abode in Neyto, the thought bringing a wide smile to my face. With a few words of thanks to Garry, I retreated into my new house and closed the door, hoping that the message my image was sending was received as I intended.