Chapter 98

“My blood?” I asked, my urge to run returning with a vengeance.

Magatha sniffed in derision. “Your blood is a part of you. It touches on your aether, your soul — carrying with it pieces of their nature. With enough blood, I could refine the part that allowed you to hide from me. Feeding it to my bound forest spirit would then let it take on a portion of those same properties.”

Hearing her explanation didn’t reduce my desire to run, even if it did pique my curiosity.

“It would make your home harder to find?”

Magatha shrugged. “That would be the idea. Maybe even hard enough to find that those who know where it is would struggle to do so.”

I paused in consideration before asking, “How much blood exactly?”

The Hedge Witch strode back down into her garden, resting a hand against the bark of the forest spirit. The creature led out a groan that sounded like wood cracking and leaves rustling in the trees.

“More than you would like to give and less than I need,” Magatha said slowly as her eyes shifted from her pet giant tree and back to me. “But first, we need to see if we can even conduct the ritual you’re asking for. Are you seriously going to enter a Rift?”

Her tone told me that what I was considering was insane — a fact I already knew. But I had a plan. Perhaps not a great one, but a plan nonetheless.

“Rifts sometimes give harvesting Paths. I hid from you… for the most part. I thought I could slip in using the same Skill and complete a harvesting Path — then get an Achievement for doing it without a Class Path,” I explained.

Magatha tapped a lip in thought, but the moment I had mentioned ‘harvesting,’ I had seen how her eyes lit up. I knew then I already had her on the hook — the question was, what was her assistance going to cost me. Parting with my blood sounded incredibly dangerous, especially for me — and that was even if she was being honest and just intended to feed it to the forest spirit. My paranoia told me not to trust her, even if I needed her.

“That might work,” Magatha muttered. “Though it does change a few things. Do you have a way to hide the sound of your movement like you do your presence?” After I nodded, she continued. “Good. That settles it then… if we entice a Dungeon into creating a Rift, we should target the Echoing Depths and not the Endless Plains.”

I didn’t bother asking why, since I knew the answer from Mum’s gift to me. The Echoing Depths was well known for its many different environments and monsters that made use of sound. Being able to hide the noise I made would be crucial to moving around unseen in an environment that would potentially have creatures predisposed to hunting using sound. I did have a question for Magatha though.

“Entice?”

“The ritual can’t force a Rift to open. Only a Dungeon can do that. But we can bait a Dungeon into wanting to open a Rift at a specific location. It will take time though.”

Magatha paused, fingers moving as though she was doing some mental arithmetic.

“If we begin the ritual in three days' time, that should coincide with a new lunar cycle. That should cause the ritual's power to increase night by night, culminating in a month's time. If the Rift doesn’t form by that time, then it can be called a failure.”

“Do we need anything?” I asked, having no idea how these rituals functioned. The closest I had come to one was drinking an affinity increasing potion in a specific location on a suitable night. Whatever we were about to attempt sounded far more complicated.

Magatha nodded quickly, looking back towards her home. “We’ll need some things taken from the Dungeon itself. Bamboo if you can find some. Spider silk as well. I have a few herbs that were grown within it that I can add. Then, we need aether to help power the ritual, connect it to the cycle of the moon, as well as draw the Dungeon’s attention like a hound who’s scented blood.”

“Like, aether coins?” I asked, my body relaxing unconsciously the longer the conversation continued.

Magtha clicked her tongue. “You would need a decent stack of them unless they’re Dungeon aether coins.”

My mind went to my stash, and I almost bit my tongue as I tried not to say anything. The idea of giving up one of the rewards from the night Lucille died and Etta left felt like giving up a piece of myself.

Perhaps you should be giving up pieces of yourself, suggested an intrusive thought.

The same ones that reminded me I hadn’t been good enough to save Lucille and told me I wouldn’t be good enough for my Grandaunt.

“What about a Skill Seed?” I asked quietly, clamping down on the anger I felt.

“It would need to be Lesser or better, but that would work. There are solvents that can slowly break them down, releasing the aether they’re made from at a steady pace. Why? Do you have one?”

A mutinous part of me told me to say no, to keep the rewards I had earned for myself — but then the other part of me reminded me that this was for myself. A Rift for me to challenge and a new Achievement to push me over the edge and hopefully unlock the Path of Weapon Mastery. The part of me that wanted to push forward won.

I nodded.

“I can start work on the solvents necessary, along with another few ingredients needed. That still leaves the bamboo and spider silk.”

“I’ll get them,” I replied with confidence.

Guess I was just a dirty rotten thief all along, I thought morosely. In my mind, I saw the disappointed look on my mother’s face — though whether she was disappointed that I failed to get into Songleaf or for stealing, my head and heart couldn’t agree on.

“Then, all that is left is the agreement between us. I’ve changed my mind,” Magatha stated calmly, her eyes green with greed in the moonlight.

My eyebrows drew down in displeasure. “My blood isn’t enough?”

“Your blood is a gamble. I can only take so much of it and if my experiments fail to refine what I need from it, then I am left with nothing except the loss of some expensive herbs.”

“And a Rift,” I pointed out. “You never did say how you would deal with it… or where we would try to create it. They’re apparently worth enough for a Baron to pay the Adventurer’s Society to be allowed to close them.”

“True, but he has a paid guard to help him. Even if he gives them a bonus for their assistance, he still enjoys the larger share of its rewards. I would not have such a luxury and getting a few Dungeon aether coins is worth about as much as the herbs I will lose in the ritual. Which means I come out no better than before. Hardly seems worth the time, effort, and risk,” Magatha countered.

I was almost certain she was lying — her next words proving my theory.

“It’s a simple request anyway. Assuming you succeed at your Rift Harvesting Path, I would have whatever you harvested. In addition, I will give you a few jars to collect any water you find within the Rift.”

“Water?” I asked in confusion.

“Aetheric water improves the potency of alchemical reactions, and the Echoing Depths is known for having plenty of it. So, do we have a deal, little Bastian?”

Her epithet for me sounded snide, but the Hedge Witch had always been a disagreeable individual.

“And if the ritual fails?” I asked.

“You still give me enough blood to try and refine your ability to conceal yourself, and I will consider us even. A risk for both of us, but it seems like I am paying more for it,” Magatha answered, her voice turning to honey.

I sensed the aether as it travelled down her arm and into her hand before she tried to conceal how she was throwing something in my direction. In the dark, had it been most people, she might have gotten away with it. Nightvision let me see each action clearly, and the moment I felt her aether flowing, I slipped my hand into my jacket, touching the ring hidden there. A wall of aether formed in front of me, the pollen or dust that she had thrown towards me sliding around its edges as the little motes of aether glittered in my senses.

Magatha had once told me that she was an expert at Aethersensing. The expression on her face told me that she hadn’t been lying. She went from shocked to annoyed very quickly.

“Was that the same spell you used on me when I was a child?” I asked more casually than I felt after her attack.

“You remember that, do you? Well, you always were an odd one. Yes, it was meant to make you more agreeable. I truly had hoped you would accept. If you’re not going to agree then it’s time for you to leave,” Magatha spat before glancing at the hulking forest spirit.

It took a lumbering step towards me, the bark of its body creaking with the movement. I finally stopped pumping aether into the shielding enchantment and held up my hands.

“I was already going to accept, you mad witch!”

Magatha raised a hand and the forest spirit jerked to a halt, not yet even out of the garden. The creature's flowery hair swayed back and forth, the thorns longer than my fingers. I could see its hands now and the rugged wooden surface was covered in similar spikes, easily long enough to impale me if it managed to strike me though hopefully it just intended to herd me away from its domain.

“You were?” Magatha asked in surprise. “You’re really that desperate?”

Was I? Was the risk worth it? The Achievement for successfully completing a Rift Path unassisted before having a Class Path was almost certain to be good. But, there was a real danger of me dying. Everything I had read about Rifts told me that they were death traps for the unprepared. Seasoned adventurers died in them all the time.

I glanced at my Status and took a deep breath.

“I am,” I replied. “So, do we have a deal?”

Magatha licked her lips as she watched me, no doubt considering whether I was lying — I was. Just not about my desperation or my intention to enter the Rift. If she thought I was giving her my blood, she was delusional. No doubt our agreement would only last until I exited the Rift, at which point she would try to take my blood and I would try to flee. If I was going to be staying in Hornpeak, I would never have even entertained the idea of doublecrossing the greedy woman. But I wasn’t. If I pulled this off, it would almost coincide with the arrival of my grandaunt, and then I could leave this place for Helenica — far beyond the Hedge Witch’s reach.

Whatever she was considering — probably whether to just sic her forest spirit on me and be done with it — her greed for the Rift itself and what it could offer her won out.

“We have a deal,” Magatha replied far more calmly than she had looked a moment ago. “Return in three nights with your part of the deal. The Skill Seed along with the bamboo and spider silk from the Echoing Depths.”

I nodded, not giving her a chance to say any more as I backed away, my eyes flicking between her and her forest spirit. The moment I was in the darkness cast by one of the towering Horndale pines, I drew my Cloak of Shadows about myself and fled. A cackle filled the woods behind me, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or I was just imagining it.

As I crawled into bed back at the outpost, having concealed the scent of my return as well as my presence, I wondered just what I had gotten myself into — and how I was going to break into Joss’s keep. The Baron would likely have both the bamboo and spider silk I needed. Hell would freeze over before I used my mother’s dress. I’d rather fail at impressing my grandaunt than do that to my beloved mum.