A Jaded Life

When I returned to Jademoon Tower early in the afternoon, Lia was looking incredibly out of sorts. According to Luna, Lia had been out the entire night, only returning in the morning and had gone straight to bed, only getting up now, as I was returning.

"How was your night, Mom?" Luna asked, her voice casual, almost bored.

"The night was interesting, the morning even more so," I replied, my voice just as casual, "I've been looking into the new neighbours, a little to the west of us. I'm uncertain what to do about their presence and the problem they represent." I added, knowing that this already was a major issue locally and could readily turn into a significant threat in the long run. For now, these Sunna worshippers were 'just' a large, organised community. In time, they could turn into a regional power, or maybe even a proper country. How far they could spread ultimately depended on what other groups were setting up out there, putting down roots and growing into their own, little countries.

People would always seek to spread out, to settle on as much land as possible, it was simply nature. Not even human nature, all living things were operating like that, happily going forth and multiplying as much as possible. If they could adapt to the environment they were spreading into, that is, if they could not, they would seek to remain where they were, competing with their kin for the resources needed to procreate there.

For now, the change had reset things, killing off enough people that land was opened up to new settlement, or to have wild animals move in but that wouldn't last. Once people managed to get back on track, the relevant question would be, could people reclaim their spot at the top of the foodchain? The ability to settle in almost every place across the globe, with only a few areas not permanently settled by humans. Or would the definition of 'people' expand, to include beings of similar intelligence, or maybe with a similar ability to use tools and form civilisation?

It was a question I had thought about a lot in the last few months, especially after I began to actively cultivate the dragons, and later the frost giants. Both species had their own potential, each with their own path and opportunities for the future, especially if I were to continue guiding them.

"What problem do they represent?" Lia asked, rousing herself a little to shake off the remnants of sleep still clinging to her consciousness.

"Ah, you didn't hear it yesterday," I realised, "Turns out, some guys decided to go all religious on us, starting to praise the Sun or some nonsense like that. You know, worship the annoyance who cursed me way back when, the curse you inherited when my blood restored your mind," I explained, noticing the look of utter disgust on Lia's face.

"Yuck," she spat, not even trying to control her emotions, "How many are there? And are we going to kill them all?" she asked, instantly going to the genocidal options. Her reaction made me chuckle for a moment before I shook my head.

"Honestly, that's the question and problem," I admitted, still annoyed at my own indecision, "See, there's a lot of them. As in, there are easily a few hundred, probably over a thousand, it's hard to guess," I paused for a moment, letting the sheer weight of numbers sink in, "We'd have to take out the big guns to deal with them, and their combined magical weight isn't trivial to challenge, especially given that they have divine backing," I paused again, considering the logistics of such a battle.

"It might even be that my own status as a partial, or potential or something like that, deity means I'm bound by the accords the deities operate under, to keep their conflicts out of the mortal realm and avoid mutually assured destruction. Basically, no deity wants to have their faithful get smote by another deity, so they have some obscure rules they all obey that keeps mortal conflicts to the mortals," I tried to explain, fully aware that I didn't have the full picture. Or even an accurate representation of a part of the picture, merely some ideas that may or may not be correct.

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"You mean you might be bound by accords you don't know, nor agreed to?" Luna asked, her eyes wide at the possibility.

"You see the problem, right?" I asked, after giving a brief nod. "I have no real idea where my current state puts me in regards to other Gods. It might be some Schrödinger's situation, where it's not truly determined whether I'm God or Mortal until the system makes a determination. Or it might be that Sunna is limited in her perception, unable to determine my current location without having me in contact with one of her faithful, and once that contact is established, she'll realise that I'm divine enough to deal with personally," I explained, new concerns and possibilities popping up in my mind as I spoke.

"And you don't think you'd be able to challenge a deity just yet," Lia finished my thought, making me snort in amusement. No, I wasn't ready to challenge a deity, especially not one that had already placed a greatly annoying curse on me. Sure, I was largely able to deal with the curse, but that was thanks to my magic, and the simple fact that Lady Hecate's blessing was assuaging the effect. Without the blessing, I would probably be a lot worse off, as Lia's situation demonstrated. She was only affected due to her connection to me, and yet, the effect on her was a lot worse than the one on me.

"So, indirect means it is, easy. No need to challenge those people if we can simply make them miserable until they all give up, right?" Lia asked, her voice eager to viscerally demonstrate her disdain for these people.

"Sure, we could be tricky about it, sneak in, destroy their stores of food, salt their fields, let them starve in the winter," I replied, "But that would only doom this entire region. People don't just peacefully starve to death if you destroy their food. They'll fight tooth and nail to get new food, no matter the cost. In this case, they'd go hunting and looting, essentially making everyone living here suffer. If we go there, nobody will be living here by the time spring rolls around."

"There's also another thing to consider," Luna threw in, "You said there are hundreds of their faithful, which implies they have some serious power to throw about. Why haven't they thrown all that power at this tower, if they are as hostile to you as you imply? Unless they don't know this tower is yours, that is."

"They know, at least that's what Maggie told me," I was frowning now, "It might be that the tower remains off-limit due to Hecate's Shrine at the bottom. Or for some other reason, but you are right, if we use the tower as a base to attack, any protection we receive from that would almost certainly fade. We might even get some divine, or system-assinged, punishment for our transgressions, not something I'm willing to suffer from," I admitted, my mind going back to the people we had met in the flooding valley, and the massive debuffs they had received for their attack on Lady Hecate's shrine.

"So?" Lia asked, a little curt, maybe due to my indecision. But there were simply far too many unknown factors at play here, factors that could easily spell doom for me and mine. This was even worse than fighting the Tallest' Guardian had been, at least that had merely been a powerful monster. This could be a fight we had lost before it even started, a fight we might lose, even if we won the battle. We couldn't fight against Lady Sunna, the deity was beyond our ability to reach to begin with and if we proved to be troublesome enough for her to take action personally? It wouldn't be pretty.

"I think I'll have to commune with Lady Hecate. She must know about the agreements binding the deities, though whether she'll be willing to help is an entirely different question. Maybe if I had something she was interested in but, alas, there's nothing I can really think of," I sighed, trying to come up with a better plan of action to get the information we needed.

"Or, alternatively, we can try to rally the locals here and turn them into a power in their own right, allowing them to compete with the Sun worshippers. There's some animosity there, but I have no idea if it's enough to get people to fight, instead of them simply moving away if the Sun worshippers get too annoying."

"Maybe I'll go out there, shank a few of them in the field or something," Lia muttered, only for me to shake my head.

"We don't know what protections they have set up. We don't know their skills, their levels, we know nothing concrete. Sure, I'm reasonably confident that you are stronger than any individual there, but that doesn't always mean you'll win," I paused, trying to pin my daughters with a stern gaze, "How often have we won against foes with a higher level, greater strength or a better position because we managed to exploit a weakness or were plain lucky?" I paused again, my gaze softening, "I don't want some Sun-crazed lunatic to get lucky and get the better of you. So, please, whatever you do, be careful. Always be careful and don't get cocky."