Hope

"What does that mean?" Irwyn frowned. But the old woman shut up again and drank her tea.

They tried to get more from her, but she just ignored their words. Waylan and Desir kept sipping on their beverage while the rest of them tried to press the ancient lady for more details. They failed. All the way until the mayor eventually returned a few minutes later.

"Real apologies for the delay," the younger man said as soon he entered the hall. "I hope my grandmother did not bore you."

"Besides the atrocity against language, she has mentioned some interesting things," Elizabeth inclined her head with curiosity. "Something about dead gods."

"Big mouth as ever, does she?" Silvester shot his hunched relative an annoyed glare. "It's an old legend."

"Interesting one," Waylan paid attention for once in spite of the tea.

"Some locals, including my grandmother, believe that these lands were once a battlefield between gods, eons ago," he said in a tone which clearly indicated that he was not among them. "Supposedly they bled so much divine ichor into the soil that it has miraculous properties to this day."

"And what do you think?" Irwyn encouraged.

"There is something in the soil, alright," the man nodded. "Definitely mildly hallucinogenic. Makes whatever we grow unique. Some researcher has come through here decades prior and their best guess was that there is a Source for some kind of potent substance. Not all mysteries have fantastical explanations."

"It's god blood, fool," the crone spoke again, then shut up when half the room turned to glare briefly.

"She is quite insistent," Silvester sighed before sitting down.

"What do you think?" Irwyn turned to Waylan. While he wasn't able to feel anything off, he was not their resident theovore.

"Aye, there is something in the soil," the sneak nodded, licking his lips. "Been a while since I craved grass soup, eh? God blood? Could be. Don't think I would feel like this about spicy water."

"Whatever it is, should we expect any side effects?" Elizabeth questioned instead.

"Not in the short term, no," Silvester assured. "The quickest manifestations happen after at least several weeks of daily exposure, and those are for normal folks. You will be undoubtedly more resilient to that kind of change."

"What exactly does actually happen to people?" Alice asked curiously. She must have been quite bored given she disliked tea even when it wasn't terribly bland.

"Very little, usually," Silvester said. "Some delusions or mild things that usually fade out over time. Mild mutations in some cases. You may notice that my grandmother and I are quite normal. Those who stay are all people who have accepted the tiny price as well worth the quiet life."

But as Silvester said that, Irwyn got the distinct impression he was not telling the truth about the 'normalcy' of the two of them. He was not sure how or from what, but it was definitely there, making him frown. It was not exactly the time to delve into the apparent lack of facial cues he would usually rely on, rather, he focused on find out what could be off before they got caught off guard. That made him quietly cast All is seen.

The world shifted. As always, much information had to be filtered out just to be comprehensible. Right away, Irwyn chose not to see any mana, as he had felt none. Moreover, he immediately discarded the most warped parts of the vision - those he suspected to be related to things like Time or Fate that he had no frame of reference to interpret and thus ended up just being merely distracted by them. He had trained a bit during the day, so he rather quickly managed to construct something which produced a clear image.

And a disturbing one. To his startlement, thick purple veins ran across the ground, up the furniture and around the tables all around them. Irwyn could see something coursing through them, thick as molasses, but undoubtedly flowing. It was a fascinatingly disturbing sight. More so, that he had not noticed anything off before. Experimentally, Irwyn began to reach for one.

"Don't!" Silvester interrupted him, a sudden force to the man's voice. Irwyn looked up and immediately realized what the lie had been. While the man was still mostly humanoid, his face was distorted. Eyes bulged out of their sockets into orbs of that same magenta shade as those grounded capillaries, while his lips and cheeks were as if sprinkled with shining silver-like spots.

"What is happening?" Elizabeth asked, but Irwyn noticed the tension in her voice. She was already prepared to pounce in a split second from reading the room. But it was not up to that point yet.

"Why not?" Irwyn challenged their host first of all, addressing the mayor.

"It would be ill-advised and possibly dangerous," Silvester explained. "I hope you would trust me to know that."

"Not the greatest foundation for trust you have built," Irwyn commented but refrained.

"Irwyn," Elizabeth reminded him.

"Yes, so, you might have realized I noticed…" Irwyn started explaining, not taking his eyes off of Silvester while elaborating on what he saw, much to the increasing distress of everyone else. Their host did not interrupt, even as everyone turned to him with increasing suspicion. Merely waiting for Irwyn to finish before speaking up.

"I apologize for the deceit," the man bowed deeply once Irwyn was done. "I hope you will understand that it is a white lie born out of necessity. Most people who wander here are not so… discerning."

"What is all this?" Irwyn demanded.

"Godblood," the crone said with a rasping, almost creaking, laugh. Irwyn had forgotten her in the moment of tension, which in itself was worth frowning about. She should have been in his peripheral vision if not mind.

Glancing at her made him realize why he had not noticed anything off. She melded quite well into the wooden hall's background. As in, she was literally a wooden sculpture to his new sight, sitting in the same position she had poured them the tea from. More than that, she was visibly rooted into the floor like a tree. There was actually even thick bark covering much of the lower half of the woman's body. Another thing worth noting was that unlike everyone else in the room, the purple veins grew across her form as they did the walls and furniture.

"To explain my little lie in order… you may note that all this seems rather sinister," Silvester explained. "I think you can imagine why it might frighten most travelers and thus we leave the truth omitted."

"You cautioned me not to touch these... veins, but we must have witlessly stumbled into countless of them along the way."

"It is a trick of perception," Silvester shook his head. "Surely you have at least heard of something similar? They can only be touched when directly beheld."

"The Observer effect," Alice supplied a term. "It comes up with very powerful Time magic. Certain effects in chronomancy only work while the target is not aware of them. Or vice versa."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"And some illusions," Desir added. "But that is not my specialty."

"Or many other greater magics, I am sure," Elizabeth nodded, then turned to their host again. "Continue. What would happen?"

"Hopefully, very little. It does exponentially accelerate the transformation, but it's hard to estimate your resistance to its transmutations. At worst you would develop some unusual… traits. Which I know to assume outsiders are not interested in."

Irwyn thought that his resilience would be high, but opted not to take that risk. Even if the odds were million to one that his form could not be changed so simply, there was no reason to take that risk.

"What changes?" Waylan, on the other hand remained curious.

"For you? None," Silvester

"I thought you implied some were almost guaranteed with time," Desir frowned.

"For other people," their host nodded. "But your impresent friend is practically one of us already. You cannot carve the same pole twice."

"You definitely could," Alice pointed out. "It would just look like a mess instead of a carving, though."

"Please, do not misunderstand. While these changes are generally not desired by outsiders, they are not random. There is a guiding principle behind them. Not a will or consciousness, but patterns and long paved trails. Everyone who lives here has been transformed to some extent over years and decades, but it is something to be celebrated rather than resented. The godblood does not twist, it improves. Your friend has already gone further down that road than most of us, it would at most push him down a step further on the path he already treads."

"So I take it the tale of a 'non-believer' was just that," Desir asked with a knowing smile.

"Of course, I trust that which I witness," Silvester smiled too, although with some chagrin. "But many travellers and merchants do not want to believe in fanciful tales. They desire a logical explanation. Why deprive them of that peace of mind? For most people, there is no practical difference between a strange mutating substance permeating the soil and the truth."

"And those who want a story alongside their baubles come to me," the crone added with a wheezing laugh. Notably, she was speaking normally instead of the atrocity against language from before - though still with a strange rasp. The only one upset about that seemed to be Waylan. "And I will spin them the fanciest tale to go alongside that pot we made last week. Then the merchant will pass that story on with another markup on top of our own. We all win."

"Except the fool who buys it," Alice pointed out.

"The items are real enough, and anyone who can pay extra for a story is not in need," the wooden woman reasoned. "They still get what they seek."

"I think that is besides the point, given that over half of our group are former criminals," Elizabeth pointed out with a mischievous grin, causing Alice to blush in realization. Indeed, no one besides their Time mage would be getting outraged about overpriced luxury goods of dubious origin and authenticity.

"Got any favorite wine jugs from a wealth god?" Waylan asked jokingly, successfully distracting from Alice's embarrassment. "Ideally, the mighty Oneofyourchoice."

"Seven, actually," the crone chuckled along. "Eighth coming in by dusk. But they usually prefer something with prophecy than astounding former owners. Easier to make up too."

"And I am sure you have a list of them as well," Waylan nodded along. "Them gods who enlynch the soil."

"Enrich?" their host half asked, half corrected.

"So that isn't a no," Waylan just grinned.

"Something could be arranged," Silvester spoke hesitantly. "But I think you had a reason for coming."

"Your bandit problem," Elizabeth inclined her head. "Knowledge about these lands for dealing with them seems fair enough."

"We would be delighted to do so," a smile bloomed on his lips, still spotted by silver in Irwyn's eyes. Then he tuned the conversation out a bit. He was a bit too curious and nervous not to experiment.

Hesitantly, Irwyn disabled his spell, waited for a few moments, then moved his hand through an area he remembered there being one of the veins. He felt nothing but did not take that as absolute proof, instead withdrawing and re-activating his magic. On a second glance, said vein was still in the same spot, wholly undisturbed. That at least gave him some confirmation that the 'trick of perception' was the truth.

"What is actually the problem?" Desir offered an opening after a round of unheard small talk. Or Irwyn presumed that nothing important had been said. It would be rather embarrassing to ask, given he was literally with them in the room.

"As you may have heard, bandits," Silvester sighed. "They have taken up an ancient ruin in sunset's direction from here. Usually, such groups would perceive this land as corrupted and flee because of the changes. These have not. We presume at least some of them come from another community like our, so expect some… more directed changes and resistance."

"How far and what is their pattern of attacks?" Desir continued the role of asking questions.

"Four days of walking. They have not been brazen enough to assault us directly yet, but they do scare off many merchants. At this rate, we will run out of necessities we cannot produce ourselves while harvests rot away."

"We could be back by dusk then," Elizabeth nodded, standing up and leaving almost abruptly. The rest of them were briefly startled but followed suit.

"What about the food?" Waylan reminded. Irwyn thought that it might have been the point to not receive it. For all of Silvester's assurances, he was hesitant to partake in something spawned from the soil he had beheld.

"Alas, you come and pass faster than the wind," the mayor laughed, following them out of the doorway. "I doubt the cooks are done even cutting yet, much less boiling. I will tell them to delay until dinner then?"

"Perhaps, we might end up a bit too late for that," Elizabeth said, giving the sneak a pointed look.

"Just because you don't have the guts doesn't mean I don't," Waylan just shot back a challenging grin.

"Then a feast for one."

"Of course, I understand," Silvester graciously bowed.

"Make it two, I will give it a shot," Desir added with a wide smile.

"Brave," Alice scoffed as Irwyn was forming a platform beneath each person's feet.

"More like I will be able to feel if something is actually happening to my body," Desir just smiled as they were raised. Up and then ahead. Irwyn had at least remember that it was in the 'sunset direction' which was easy enough to follow given it was a few hours past noon.

"We could have squeezed them for more," Desir's smile slipped a bit once they were well out of sight. The village was quickly becoming a dot on the horizon.

"We could have extorted them for pointless baubles," Elizabeth shook her head. "Our actual payment was supplied by your Bhaak if you recall? This is a bonus, whether Waylan manages to glean something from it or not will be up to chance. At worst, they will likely tell us something mildly interesting about their history."

"So, there is one thing I've been muling about," Waylan said after his name came up, very much mispronouncing the word as 'mule'. "Gather 'round?"

"What is it?" Irwyn nodded, bringing the platforms closer together.

"So, remember this?" the sneak brought out a vaguely familiar scroll. Irwyn did not, in fact, remember where he had seen it though.

"That's the one Old Crow gave you!" Alice saved him with an exclamation. "But that one had been sealed. Something about a jungle where it was made that might hold some clues? I can see that you have opened it already though."

That definitely gathered more attention. They had distinctly not been to any such place - unless one counted that very large forest, which Irwyn did not. It was doubtful Waylan had snuck out to the ancient ruins of some order of assassins, if Irwyn remembered the story told to them right.

"So, I noticed it had been opened some time when we were in the Republic," Waylan nodded, spreading it out so that everyone could have a look at the letter written within. "Timed seal, I think. And boy, does it say a lot. Been hesitating when to bring it up, 'cause… Well, read fer yourself."

And they did. The handwriting was very familiar to Irwyn.

Dear Young as-of-yet-unnamed-Fowl,

Which you should make a choice about before returning, but that is beside the point. As you may be realizing, the tale I have spun for you was an outright lie. The technique I have taught you was taken from a distinctly different group of long dead men, and, as you might have concluded by now, somewhat modified.

I expect you will understand my need for secrecy. It would cause me no end of problems were the Duchess to learn of my diet as I was investigating her secret operation in Abonisle. So while I like to think the best of young Elizabeth, it pays to be cautions and only let these secrets slip once you are well away from the range of communication.

But I have promised you a path to power, and that I shall fulfil. Bring this scroll to a conspiracy of crows, and it will reveal its true contents. That should still gather several nations to the North. If that is not your destination, I would advice to convince the others to detour on the way back at least. Places near one Kingdom of Venen would be ideal to search, though not within the nation itself.

Sincerely, Old Crow

"Rude," Elizabeth frowned.

"I think he might have meant more your mother spying than receiving the news from you," Irwyn appeased.

"I thought it was murder of crows?" Alice questioned.

"It is. This could be cultural?" Irwyn shrugged.

"I will want the whole story behind the scroll later," Desir started a different conversation with Waylan in the meantime. "Every detail you can think of, ideally."

"Sure can do," Waylan grinned back. Irwyn presumed their shapeshifter wanted to glean something from Old Crow's words at the time.

"What do you think will be in it?" Alice was much more interested in the deeper secret, joining in.

"I think it's no chance that we are here with what our eye-guy just found out," Waylan's smile grew even deeper. "Say, Irw, how drinkable do you reckon all that blood looked?"