"Other than possible mental influences, the enchantment works fine, doesn't it?" Lia asked, looking at the various notes we had taken during our experiments with a curious eye.

"There are probably some edge cases in which the enchantment will fail, some people who are incompatible with it or something like that, but generally, it works as well as any piece of new magic can be expected to work. It's no longer purely experimental but it's still something new and not tested by hundreds of generations over thousands of years," I shrugged, uncertain if there was anything we could do on an individual level to improve the enchantment further. We all had done some tweaking over the development process, with Lia changing the exact formula of the Crimson Ink, while I altered the runes, and Luna added her own spin on things, making the final version something only possible thanks to our cooperation. Eventually, we might be able to use it individually but for now, we could only apply it while working together, too. This, truly, was a piece of magic made by our family.

The question we had yet to answer was whether the enchantment altered the recipients' mental state but given what we had heard about the people of idiot-ville before they had received our enchantment, I couldn't see any real correlation. The only thing I could imagine was that the improved regeneration reduced the direct, personal consequences, thus taking away part of the usual incentive to keep the peace. If getting punched didn't hurt after a few minutes, then it became much less of a problem, though I didn't want to believe that adults were that simple and stupid. I knew they could be, but at the same time, I didn't want that knowledge to be true, even if it was a bit of self-deception.

"Lady Hecate might commune with you, I think she knows a few things about that type of enchantment," Luna added her own two cents to our discussion, making me curious. She had a few interesting points during the creation, some of which spoke of information sourced beyond our usual means, indicating that Lady Hecate had Her fingers in the pie, though I couldn't be sure to what end.

"I'll spend the night praying," I promised, even if it continued to feel a little strange to pray in a temple holding my own image, as if I was performing the ultimate act of arrogance and hubris, worshipping an image of myself as my god.

"Unless something big comes up, do you think we can offer Jack, Murray and Jonas the procedure tomorrow?" Lia pushed, her tone telling me just as much as her words did. She wanted these three to be as strong as possible, likely because she was still dithering on the decision whether she wanted to remain here or continue onwards with Luna and me. I couldn't help but be happy about her hesitation, especially given that I knew I had imparted a large part of my own mental makeup to her during her creation. Thus, if I imagined myself in her role, having to pick between Sigmir and continuing onwards with my family or something along those lines, I knew that I'd leave my family behind without hesitating even a moment. Sigmir was just more important than anything and everything else; it was that simple.

"Yes, you can make the offer. Though you maybe should keep quiet about the details of the enchantment's creation, we don't need those five to get pissy about our methods. But the choice is yours; we'll be able to continue onwards in a week or two anyway," I told her, getting a nod from Luna in confirmation. The snow had largely thawed away while we were working on the enchantment, and while it wasn't completely spring yet, the weather was getting there quickly.

"I'll think about it," Lia promised, and again, I heard a little more in her tone than what she said in words. She was considering whether the 'we' who continued onwards would contain her and Alex, as I was confident that Alex would remain with Lia, just as I was certain Silva would remain with Luna and me. Who she would pick between the two of us, I wasn't as certain, but, hopefully, that question wouldn't come up soon.

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During the night, I spent some time in quiet contemplation, marvelling at the calm atmosphere of the shrine and the easy way I could meditate inside of it. There was something that made me feel safe and secure as if nothing from the outside could get to me. Not just due to the thick and sturdy walls of the tower but due to the wards Luna had placed on the room, preventing enemies from entering easily, or while concealed; though how the ward could detect who was an 'enemy', I wasn't sure.

Soon, I felt myself sink into the sea of my consciousness, simply drifting along where any idle thought might take me. It wasn't the Astral River, it was just my own head, and after a bit of drifting around my ponderous mind, I imposed direction, sending my thoughts in the direction they needed to go.

An instant later, I found myself in a familiar environment, able to see it clearly despite the fact that my eyes remained firmly shut. It wasn't a physical place after all, so why would I need my eyes to see or my ears to hear? My body hadn't moved; after all, it was still in the shrine. And yet, I was undeniably here, too, standing in the endless expanse of Lady Hecate's realm.

"Good evening, young one," Lady Hecate greeted me, a bit of amusement in Her harmonious voice. "Luna told me about that project of yours. Why don't you show me what you came up with? I might give you a hint or two. And some homework; it's fascinating what you come up with on your own," She chuckled while I had to keep myself from grinning and frowning at the same time. A part of me was annoyed that Luna had told Her about our endeavour but at the same time, I knew that Luna drew power and information from Her, so Luna needed to communicate what she needed to receive it. However, I was also self-aware enough to know any compliment given by Lady Hecate, especially in the area of magic, was one to be treasured; I had no doubt that She was amongst the best and most skilled travellers on the Arcane Path in existence, being the literal Goddess and all that.

"Certainly," I agreed, trying to come up with the best way to communicate what usually needed a ritual done by three people. Not quite sure whether it would work, I pulled on the various memories I had of doing the ritual and discussing what we were doing with the others and tried projecting all that into Lady Hecate's mind, trusting that the deity would easily be able to process what my mind could handle.

There was a brief frown on her face, but it vanished seconds later, and the Lady nodded, maybe to Herself, maybe in acknowledgement, but I wasn't sure.

"Interesting application of Mind Magic. Don't try it with your average mortal; you might just make their heads explode," Lady Hecate warned me, and now it was my turn to nod in acknowledgement. At the same time, I wondered if I could do something interesting with that trick, maybe pack up memories of pain or despair and use them in an offensive fashion. Or maybe something more positive; I would have to look into that particular idea but later.

"It's somewhat simple, as you probably realise. You can do a whole lot more with the basic idea you already had; you just need to try and experiment and maybe draw on some inspiration from something other than humans. Humans aren't the strongest animals out there, after all, the smartest and one of the animals with the best stamina, yes, but fairly unremarkable otherwise," she suggested, though I soon realised that what she suggested was a lot more invasive than the runic markings placed upon a person. This would be an incorporation of animal elements, both biological and magical, into a person, turning them into something else. It would have some vague resemblance to the procedure I had used to create Lia, just with parts from an animal to be used to alter a human instead of using part of myself to alter a Shattered.

"Now, as I said, you've done some interesting things here," She grinned, and for a moment, I regretted coming here, "And in turn, I'll show you something I have been using; it's something one of my priests came up on another world, they use it to guard my temples there," she explained, and moments later, I felt something brush against my mind and I immediately realised it was the same thing I had sent at Lady Hecate earlier, a package of information put together with Mind Magic. Only that Lady Hecate obviously had a lot more brain power, allowing her to process a lot more information.

Struggling to contain the headache trying to rip my head apart, I forced my mind into overdrive, sifting through the dense package and storing it within the depths of my consciousness. The Lady truly had given me something to think about.

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