Looking out, in the dim light of the setting sun, Carnelia couldn't help her pensive mood. Returning to Jademoon Tower, the tower where she had spent weeks in a fugue, hadn't been easy. Some memories were worse than others, and it had taken her a few minutes after their arrival, simply standing there, trying to centre herself. Luckily, her little sister had been with her, providing an anchor and a patient ear to listen to her doubts, fears and worries.

Hindsight and distance were powerful tools, allowing her to see that some, maybe even most, of her problems had been self-inflicted back then. She had been unwilling to leave the tower after her family had left, only noticing just how tightly she was bound to her mother after they left. Drinking from Samantha had been nice, fulfilling in a way that the consumption of her mother's blood had never quite been. However, her mother's blood and magic had sated a deeply ingrained need within her, a need for guidance she hadn't truly noticed. In a way, it was a leash that kept the hunger at bay, a reminder that there was someone who could, and would, step in if Carnelia allowed herself to go out of control. The magical impression her mother had left on Jademoon Tower had helped to keep those demons at bay, as had drawing in the ambient power present in the tower, but it hadn't been the same.

Was it certain that she would have gone out of control and turned into a monster? Far from it, but it remained a possibility. If that had happened, how many would have died? Would she have killed Samantha, the woman she had fallen in love with, who she might still love? Even now, with months of separation and time to put things into perspective, the idea felt abhorrent to her but would that have been enough?

Maybe if she had realised the problem before her mother had left, she could have talked to her about it, but even now, she hadn't dared bring up the issue. Fear continued to seal her mouth. Fear of being abandoned, fear of being locked into a cage once again. Intellectually, she was confident that her mother wouldn't do anything like that, but this wasn't something she could control with her will; it went far deeper.

"Luna, I'll be heading out. Please tell Mother that I'm scouting," Carnelia told her sister, knowing that their mother was still busy using the artefact atop the tower to inspect the local environment.

"I'll tell her," her sister promised, pausing for a moment before she added, "Please be careful out there."

Without any further words, Carnelia made off into the twilight, moving swiftly across the snow. Once again, she used the trick she had learned while racing her mother through the mountains —the one that let her step onto snow without sinking in. That way, she could glide across the snow smoothly, moving quicker than she had any right to, at least without using the blurringly fast movement she was still in the process of mastering.

Gliding across the snow like this, she wasn't that much slower across a long distance, and it took a lot less energy, meaning she'd still be in fine shape, whenever she found what she was looking for.

Initially, she simply moved around the tower in an outward spiral, slowly widening the radius as she kept her eyes, ears and every other sense open to spot potential hazards. The tower's door had some weird smudges and dirt on it. However, she had no idea whether the mud and dirt had sullied their gate due to natural circumstances — maybe a mighty storm — or if someone had vandalised their tower, dirtying it as a defiant insult.

However, as she circled the tower, nothing sprang out at her. No dangers, no traps, no tripwires, nothing that an enemy might have left to find out if the tower remained inhabited. Or that anyone had been in the area for a while —only the pristine snow. Though, given that she had no idea when the snow had fallen, that meant relatively little. If a lot of snow had fallen the night before, any potential tracks were buried beneath it, impossible to spot without investing a great deal of time and effort. Without any idea where to start such an investigation, it would be akin to looking for a camouflaged needle hidden in a massive haystack. Just utterly impractical, with a low chance of success and a huge investment of time that was unlikely to pay off.

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Instead, she sped off into the night, recalling the various points of interest around their tower. Places where game congregated, even in the winter, areas of magical importance her mother had pointed out in the past, and the few paths through the forest, paying particular attention to the crossroads and bottlenecks.

As she searched, she found a few indications that people had been in the area not all that long ago —maybe a week or so —but no fresh tracks to follow. Most of the signs she spotted were close to the points where one could easily enter the forest from the direction of the ruined city, though whether that meant people had come from somewhere else and moved into the city or if they had come out of the city and gone into the forest to hunt. Either was possible, as there had been communities in both directions, or someone might have set up a new group somewhere out there.

After a moment of consideration, Carnelia decided to continue her scouting, stepping onto the ruined remains of a road, moving down the mountains and into the city itself. The buildings had been completely demolished, with nary a brick left standing. She could see a few areas where the rubble had been cleared to some extent, or maybe people had gathered the material and tried to reuse it. It couldn't be easy to find smoothly cut stone, unless one was willing to invest a fair amount of physical strength or had access to Earth Magic.

However, the destruction wasn't the curious part. She had seen numerous destroyed towns during their journey, so one more wasn't that remarkable. No, the curious part was just how peaceful the ruined town was. Even with her generally good senses, she was unable to detect any activity, be it living, undead or Shattered. Nothing but peace and quiet, something she had rarely experienced outside of her Mother's domains. Only the most remote areas, like the one near the Nexus, had been as desolate as this ruined city, making it decidedly odd. The best explanation she could come up with on the fly was that people were regularly hunting here, killing all game that might wander in from the forest, as well as having killed off all the Shattered and Undead. Or there might be some other explanation, but this would be something for her Mother to investigate.

Then, finally, she heard faint noises in the distance and immediately started to make her way towards them. She continued to swiftly glide across the snow, occasionally using her other new abilities to briefly appear on a few structures that remained standing to get a better view of the area. Still, her primary focus was on reaching the noise and finding out what was going on.

When she came across the wall of a graveyard and noticed that the gate was missing, she briefly paused, a smirk on her face for just a moment, before she continued on her way, moving silently through the night.

Finally, she was able to see the source of the noise, a familiar group of five, locked in combat with some strange abomination of flesh, earth and bone. The thing was, quite frankly, gruesome and mishappen, but it wasn't the critical figure in the tableau of combat before her. No, the important figure was the familiar form of Samantha, looking quite fierce and unyielding, using tiles of clay inscribed with runes to create some fascinating effects. It wasn't quite magic as her Mother would define the craft, but it also wasn't just Alchemy, it was somewhere on the boundary on the two disciplines.

Now, she only had to figure out what she wanted to do with this unexpected meeting, did she want to show herself at all, did she want to jump in and help or did she want to do something else entirely?

Frozen in indecision, she simply waited, carefully concealing herself on one of the few remaining crypts, crouched behind some sort of decoration so she would fully blend into the shadows. Like that, she watched as the group of five battled the strange monster, impressed by the progress the five had made.

But, ultimately, she couldn't bring herself to show herself, to give away her presence. She simply remained there, concealed. Even when Samantha briefly looked in her direction, maybe to check the area for additional enemies, she remained hidden, lurking in the shadows until the group disappeared deeper into the graveyard. Then, once they were gone, she relaxed a little and vanished into the shadows, uncertain just what she wanted to do now.

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