“Mother,” Luna immediately greeted me after I dropped from the sky, using my wings to catch myself just before impacting the ground and landing in a crouch. “It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Luna, Lia,” I let my wings fade away, stepping forward to give my daughters a quick hug, “Same goes for you, Silva and Sasha,” I added after kneeling down and thoroughly fluffing Silva’s pelt and giving a simple pet to Sasha who had been a little hesitant, likely due to how little time I had spent with my family these last few weeks. There had always been something going on that forced me to deal with it, making it impossible to spend as much time with them as I would want to. That went doubly for our two furry friends, who had some severe difficulties traversing the burned land, as the hot soil was quite painful on their feet.

“Why don’t you fill me in about the things that happened after I left? And what happened in the village while we were gone, Lia? Then I’ll explain what I managed to figure out about my current condition.” I asked, and both my daughters nodded in response. As they started to talk, I readied myself to continue our journey by dismissing the rest of the icy structures I needed to fly with my wings and dressing myself in my usual clothes. That was one of the major downsides of my wings; their physical structure meant I needed specially prepared, and fairly flimsy, clothes to accommodate them. Perhaps I could devise a way to alter my clothing appropriately, but for now, a flimsy wrap-and-tie covering was the best I could do.

In the meantime, Lia told me about her time in the village, which was about as peaceful as one would expect. The locals hadn’t survived by being stupid about conflict; they had survived because the Chief had managed to forge them into a surprisingly coherent whole, a disciplined unit in which everyone did their part. In their situation, it had been discipline and teamwork or death, and thanks to the Chief’s leadership, they had managed to reach their current state. It would be interesting to see what would happen to them once the larger power discrepancy they had now became evident, with the people who had fought against the Bitumen, and the group around Oliver especially, being simply more powerful than the rest but, given current circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to observe. Maybe I should try to make the lair under the mountain into a teleportation point, so I could come back and take a look whenever I wanted, but the problem of returning to my family would remain.

Regardless, Lia’s report was quite uneventful, with the most notable event in our absence being a pair of Moose going at each other near the village, bringing a few trees down in their fighting. Afterwards, one of the locals considered trying to capture and tame one of the beasts, but the Chief and a few others managed to knock some sense back into her.

Luna’s report, on the other hand, took a great deal longer, and we continued walking as she spoke, heading further north. Her tale started quite interesting, as she told me about the events that followed the battle against the Lindwurm, a strange crystal being shattered within the dungeon and its possible collapse. That was followed up with a description of their trek back and her efforts to revitalise the burned land, but it got really interesting when she described their return to the village.

Or rather, Angelina’s fervour in convincing everyone to join her in praying to the Pale Lady. Angelina was, as it turned out, now completely devout, planning to dedicate herself to the Pale Lady and perform the last rites for anyone who died within the village. She saw preventing the rise of any Undead as her solemn duty and considered herself the protector against all the things that went bump in the night. To her, the night was the Pale Lady’s domain and nothing should be allowed to threaten its sanctity, or something along those lines. I wasn’t quite certain where she got all that doctrine from, but given the incredibly painful feedback I would receive when asking her, I wasn’t about to do that. Instead, I accepted that Angelina seemed to have found a niche for herself and decided it wasn’t any of my business to intervene there. Not unless I managed to completely shatter the barrier between my mortal self and the Pale Lady, so I could understand what was going on. Though given that I might have to become the Pale Lady to actually do so, which might mean dying and shedding my mortality, I wasn’t overly eager to try. So, for now, that was somebody else’s problem, not mine, no matter what my titles implied or what some people might think.

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The more Luna and Lia described Angelina’s actions, the less comfortable I felt about this whole affair. To me, the abject fanaticism sounded horribly wrong; the sheer single-minded focus on me, or rather the Pale Lady, was something I wouldn’t want to deal with. I didn’t want to be subject to something like that. There was only one person I wanted to have focus on me, my beloved Sigmir. Still, even from her, I wanted attention and love, a reciprocal relationship, not what Luna described. This was just… wrong; there was no other word I could use to describe it, other than it felt completely and utterly wrong. Luna had tried to talk to Angelina about that, but it didn’t sound like it had helped. Largely because Angelina managed to get results, the Pale Lady responded to her pleas and exchanged divine power and spells for the Astral Power Angelina and some people she had pulled into her orbit.

Curiously, while I had sensed that original prayer, and there had been that interesting, if highly painful, reaction when I was close enough. But other than in those instances? I hadn’t felt anything of it, but from what Luna described, the exchange was continuing, adding yet another confusing layer to the whole divinity situation, but further analysis would have to wait until I had more information and could try to form a proper model.

But given just how fanatic and, quite frankly, crazy the behaviour described by Luna was, I wasn’t about to go and ask Angelina questions. That was doubly true given that I would likely suffer agonising pain if I did, but even without that pain, I wouldn’t want to get too close to her.

What my daughters told me about the rest of the village and the way their report was received was somewhat amusing, too. On the one hand, they were deeply grateful for the aid we had given them but on the other hand, it sounded as if there had been an underlying tension, one that was relieved when my daughters made it clear that they were leaving. I had a feeling that that tension was caused by the knowledge that each of us was powerful enough to take on anyone within their village and win. Or, as was the case with me, could wipe their little town off the map if I planned and set things up correctly. To know such potential dangers were out of the area would be a relief, even if I wasn’t about to go and kill everyone. As soon as the danger they wanted us to help solve was gone, so was their need to have us in the area.

It was somewhat disheartening but also quite understandable. Any social animal wouldn’t want to have such a threat within their group, unless they were accustomed to said threat and saw it as nothing but a protector, as was the case with sheepdogs. But I was no sheepdog, and I had no doubt that the people knew that.

Regardless of their stances and behaviour, it just didn’t matter any longer. They now had their chance; the burned land was quiescent for now and would hopefully remain that way for a long time. But once it started to burn once again, they now knew how to deal with it, giving them a headstart, though I wasn’t sure how much that would help. The people on Mundus had known about dungeons, but even with that knowledge, the Dwarves of Ashenforge Hold had been surprised by the dungeon springing up in the swamp near their hold.

Hopefully, the villagers here would prove more intelligent and set things up for the future. The Chief and his competence gave me some hope in that regard, but at the end of the day, only time would tell.

For now, my little family and I were once again on the road, heading north, deeper into the wilderness of what once was Canada. It would be interesting to see what we might find further north.