Sera looked at Sarah inquiring. The scientist would have preferred it, if she could keep her listening role, but leaving the planning of long term goals to her sister could only end in a disaster. Assuming she had those in the first place.
At least the probability of danger going out from Nia was reduced now, thanks to the signed contracts.
“For the moment i intend to learn more about magic, so getting some kind of base would probably be good. I’m also in favor of learning the language of this world then, though depending on it’s complexity i guess we can also do it while traveling.”
She was about to go further in depth about their plans, since she was already talking, but got interrupted by Sera. “Hey sis, aside from you none can learn a new language quickly on the side. Also i doubt you have to tell her a detailed plan for the next decade to answer her question.”
“Wait, you two don’t want to go back to your old world?” Nia asked in surprise over their plans for the future.
“Nah, it’s way too boring there, and it has too little magic in our opinion.” Sera didn’t give her sister the option to answer the question, though she also didn’t assume that the mage wanted to answer in the first place.
Sarah wasn’t exactly happy about the interruption, now that she had forced herself to speak with someone, but also appreciated that she had a good reason to end her part in the conversation again. However she quickly went mentally through potential topics to ask, just in case.
The Followers of Law? The name sounded to her like one from a religion, so she assumed it was something like a mix between that and the police. She would need more information, but it wasn’t that important for the moment. Everything should be fine as long as there were no bodies, according to Nia’s explanation.
Magic? Their new companion didn’t look all that well versed in it, though some commentary on how people of this world used magic would be useful to the mage.
Levels? While Eas did offer them a lot of infos, that knowledge seemed to contain some gaps. Like when and how one could evolve. Not to mention that, in case Eas worked similar to a game, there was a certain possibility that one could make mistakes when leveling and end up with worse options for the future than others. She probably should ask about that, but there was something else she was more interested in.
Those corpses.
The scientist just couldn’t remove them from her mind. The people from the ritual died as sacrifices. While further examinations were necessary, they were probably nothing more than empty husks deprived of anything of value. Contrary to that, the three victims killed by her sister should have merely 0 health with a slowly decreasing sanity.
Souls should disperse or vanish to somewhere else upon death more or less quickly. She wasn’t quite sure about what happened to them, just that they ceased to be near the body after a few minutes. Unfortunately, just because she proved the existence of souls, it didn’t mean that she also knew everything about them. Something similar should be true for this world, unless revival magic, which she assumed existed as otherwise the sanity mechanic wouldn’t make much sense, could pull souls from wherever they went upon death. She had to admit that that was a tempting idea, since if it proved to be true, it would allow her to figure out more about souls after the death. However it seemed more likely that souls remained near their bodies like in her old world.
Maybe she could just test it.
Thinking for a moment about it, that was probably the best choice. They didn’t seem to be in any imminent danger and it was knowledge she definitely needed in the future.
“Sera, can you burn a circle in the center of the clearing and make it more or less even?” After instructing her sister, she decided to also ask their new source of information about the topic. Having additional points of view was never bad. “Nia, what do you know about souls?”
The assassin seemed a bit surprised by the sudden question and shift of subject by Sarah, however then quickly answered. “Each entity with a status has a soul. According to those who remember their past life, there is a certain possibility that one can keep their memories upon death, though as most people don’t remember any past lives it’s assumed that they generally vanish. You can probably find out more, if you look into revival magic, as it should be the magic with the closest interaction with souls, though i wouldn’t bet too much on it.
There is also mind magic, which can damage sanity. However, when it happens, it’s indirectly, like a long term exposure to pain magic. Well, not that i know much about that branch of magic, but due to its popularity and dangers the general limitations are pretty well known.
That should be all… Not that anyone besides some eccentric healing mages would look into souls in the first place… Oh, and the dispersal of the bodies is believed to be linked to that of the soul, which should happen in a few minutes for those low level men, but will take some time for higher leveled individuals. It’s one of the reasons why no one tries to revive low level people, so take care of your lives, at least until you find a healer. Why did you ask?”
“Hm… you’ll see.” Having lost her interest in the conversation with the gained answers she kept her response short.
The information about souls seemed a bit shallow to Sarah. She had assumed she could get a bit more out of Nia. Especially as souls were deeply connected with mana and magic and this was a world filled with magic. Though at least it did answer the question of what happened to souls after death to some extent. The scientist deemed further tests in the subject necessary, however as her research into souls was more or less secondary to that into magic, she pushed it to the back of her mind for the moment.
That the bodies in the cave didn’t “disperse” or whatever Nia meant was weird, though if she assumed that it wasn’t a property of the bodies alone, but of the environment, it could happen due to microorganisms native to this world or the higher level of mana. Further subjects she wanted to look into, but later, as she had another project to attend to.
Her sister had cleared a circle and some more. Apparently she was a bit too enthusiastic with her flame magic and even now Sera was playing around with her fire nearby.
Earth or the charred ground definitely wasn’t optimal for what Sarah wanted to do, but she had to work with what she got. Getting back to the cave would take too long and her mana regeneration would probably slow down around that area. Searching for a sturdy rock or other dense dead material usable for engravings would also waste too much time and she had to set up the ritual.
Though even if it failed, it wasn’t like she expended days worth of mana, so she could finally be a bit more daring with her experiments.
From the loot Sarah picked a sword. It didn’t seem to be enchanted and her sister probably had enough swords by now that she wouldn’t mind one missing. Then she went into the center of the newly created clearing.
While concentrating, she summoned a sphere of water. It still didn’t quite feel right to trust in her instincts, or the system, but as it helped her, she would use it for the moment and stay vigilant.
First she used it to clear away the loose earth, creating one bigger circle in the center and three smaller ones at the edges. Then Sarah instructed her two assistants to place the corpses in each of the outer circles.
“Hey, why do we have to do it? I was in the middle of something… can’t you just drag them in the circles yourself?” While she got a displeased answer from her sister, the two still followed her orders.
“Sorry, but dragging them would destroy the circles and unfortunately i can’t lift someone else.”
The earth was fortunately not wet, as the water was still under her control and she could prevent it from seeping into the ground. It wasn’t that easy to create the outer circles as the distance, amount of water and resistance of the earth increased, but with her attributes and skills it also wasn’t that hard. Sarah definitely preferred magic over manual labor. In the end she directed the flow of the water away from the circles with magic, as it had accumulated too much pollution and gotten hard to control. There was probably the option to just destroy the element, but that would use additional mana and the forest offered enough space. Though she would have to keep that issue in her mind for other environments.
Stabbing the sword into the center of the central circle, she placed her hand on it and concentrated, creating another sphere of water, this time above the sword.
Visualizing the spell she wanted to engrave, she used a small water jet created by a tentacle of water which was going out from the water ball to cut it in the ground. In many points the created pattern was much smaller than what a normal, non-magical water jet could have achieved. She also started to actually notice the mental strain it put her under. Sometimes the load seemed to get reduced, yet she only used those improvements to increase her speed. She assumed it was a skill or her affinity leveling, yet she didn’t look after it as she needed her concentration and only had limited time.
The surface she was working on didn’t make it easier, since she couldn’t just shoot the water into the earth. Sarah needed to redirect her element together with the excavated material to prevent the ground from getting wet or accidentally damaging the already created parts of the spell circle.
At least her engravings on the sword were easier, as it was much closer to her and forged from better material than earth.
Finishing the last lines of the circle some time later, though it took way too long in Sarah’s opinion, she immediately started to push her mana in the circles of the ritual. She would have preferred to rest for a while, however she already noticed the first wisps of black smoke rising from the corpses.
Then the bodies burst into quickly dissipating smoke and vanished. The scientist wasn’t sure whether she had succeeded or not. Her spell intended to draw the souls from the bodies, which would hasten the dissipation, according to Nia, yet she hadn’t seen how it looked normally, so she couldn’t be sure whether she just witnessed an accelerated or normal dispersion, whether her spells caught the three souls or not.
Her senses focused on the sword.
She waited.
However the uncertainty only lasted a few moments as something settled in the three engravings of the weapon.
Then, with a metallic clinking, it broke.
It took her a moment to find them, but in between the shards of the shattered sword she could spot three engraved metallic rings.
