Chapter IV - Far reaching decisions and some new toys

*** Kiara ***

She had made a plan, or at least she had a rough idea on how it might be possible to find a single person on a world, when you know neither their name, how they look or even what gender they are. Ok, maybe more of a rough outline of an idea which might work.

In her past life she had seen what fame could do. More often than not questionable and sometimes even outright terrible things. However there had been exceptions, instances where fame had been used as a platform for good, by good, moral people who took a stand.

Admittedly Petro’s adventure stories probably were also somewhat to blame. Having heard so many tales of great fames heroes and on how they traveled all over the world and met so many different people and did good, somewhat inspired her. She was a dreamer and hopefully would always be.

So, the idea was to become a famous adventurer and then use her fame to search for her lost love. Sounds simple so far. Yeah, there were a lot of problems with that plan, holes and gaps big enough to drive a carriage right through, but so far it was the best he had come up with and the problem he was trying to solve was not an easy one.

Becoming a famous adventurer and traveling and exploring magical lands did also sound a little bit like having a good time, she had to admit to herself.

The other idea those stories especially the story of the orphan twins and another similar story in which a poor man drank out of a magical spring and afterwards formed his own crystalline core, had inspired her to instead of visualizing Mana she now believed the way forward was to absorb Mana into herself and use it to form her own crystal.

Both stories depicted an external source of Mana of a what is to be presumed a quite significant amount. Also, in both cases the sources were digested and initially lead to negative short time consequences described similar to a sickness, before the core was formed.

Her one theory so far, was that the exposure was too much for their body to handle and they both poisoned themselves at the same time as giving their body the necessary push to adapt to the unfamiliar stimulation by forming their own core.

“Yeah, and my only evidence is in the form of two adventure stories written for children” Kiara thought frustrated.

If the theory was sound, the goal forward might be to meditate close to the barrier or while laying her hands on it and trying to pull the Mana into herself. She refused to believe that her digestive track was needed for the absorption of Mana, not impossible of course, but it just felt wrong and would really disappoint her greatly. Magical worlds were not supposed to work like that. No, for now, she would not entertain the thought.

On the other hand, if she was wrong maybe she would just poison herself. Maybe there were additional requirements she was not aware of. Maybe she would form her own core, but it would be incredible weak and she would cripple her long term potential. Why did people use crystals if they could form their crystalline core on their own? For now, she simply did have enough information to make such a far reaching decision.

*** Sarok ***

Kiara was special so much Sarok was ready to admit. In the first months she had cried nearly all the time and then she suddenly stopped. At first, he had feared, her mother in law might have been involved, after what Maya told her about her childhood he wouldn’t put it past her. She had spent some time alone with their child and after that the crying mostly stopped.

If his wife was not interested in mending and improving the relationship with her mother, he would not have tolerated her as much in their house as he was. Magdalena had also tried to meddle with Petro some years back. Endless tirades of “A good weaver starts as early as possible” “The younger the child the more malleable their Mana channels still are and the more potential they will have later on” “Don’t you want, what’s best for your child?” Especially the last on drove him mad and he had to suppress the urge to lash out at her. She had to knew how much such a statement would hurt Maya and make her doubt herself and that riled him up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

However, with Petro it had started shortly before his fourth birthday. At this time, she had been able to communicate to Petro what she wanted him to do. She stealthily had him undergo several small tests without their knowledge. She had only been able to get them past Maya by building them directly into some handcrafted wooden toys and using her playtime with little Petro for them.

Petro was a great kid and he was proud to call him his son. He knew very well what was right and what was wrong and acted accordingly – well at least most of the time and when it truly mattered. However, he was not patient and detested just sitting around and listening to something which didn’t interest him. He needed an active element, something he could do or a warm hug which helped him relax and wind down.

“Yeah, the teachers would have their hands full next year.” Thought Sarok and he could already feel the future headache forming.

What he did not really understand was, why Magdalena was already so interested in Kiara. Yes, it was true, weaving on the highest level was mostly done by women. Something to do with them having a higher total Mana capacity or something like that. It had never really mattered to him. However, Kiara was just about a year old and had just spoken her first word. She shouldn’t be interested in her yet.

That is if Kiara is indeed a normal child and by now, he wasn’t entirely sure of that himself. He loved her unconditionally and whole heartedly. No doubt in his mind about it.

But he had been raised in a large family with a lot of younger siblings and had always enjoyed his time with his nephews and nieces as well. He knew how children behaved and Kiara was not playing her part or at least not to perfection.

She was overall too well behaved. He could count the number of times she had woken them up in the middle of the night by one hand and never without a reason. Before he had found his little trick with the cooking instructions, she had sometimes listened carefully for hours to the stories he read or told to her. Magic seemed to interest her very much. Her eyes always got a certain gleam and her gaze was clued to his lips, as if to make sure she did not miss a single word.

Maybe for once Magdalena was really onto something. He wasn’t inherently against weaving. It wasn’t his way, but that didn’t mean it was weaker or wrong. If his daughter’s interests lay in the more academical field of magic he would support her full heartedly and as Magdalena always said the earlier the better.

There was no way in hell Maya would be fine with her mother and daughter spending a lot of time together, but maybe he could slip some of those old wooden tools and maybe one or two not child appropriate magic books by her. Something for beginners. Without a fully formed core there was no risk of her doing anything dangerous after all.

*** Kiara ***

Her father was strange this morning. First, he came into her room and threw an old cloth over the nothingness orb. Then he brought in a locked chest and placed it close to her crib and pulled an ancient locking key which also displayed some carvings on its side out of his pocket. During this he looked around again and again, to make sure nobody was watching.

Then he looked directly at her gave her a gesture to indicate she had to be quiet and then winked at her.

“Had her dad just winked at me?!? What was going on? And what’s in that chest?” Kiara was both half stunned, overloaded and at the same time her thoughts were racing and she was damn curious as to what the chest contained.

The key slid into its opening and then gently started glowing. A near inaudible click could be heard. It was so silent you could have heard a pin drop. Tension lay in the air. Slowly Sarok opened the chest and yet she could not yet look into it from where she was sitting in her crib.

He looked around once more and then smiled at her, before reaching into the chest and pulling something out.

“Wait, are those wooden toys?” she thought now completely thrown in a loop. “Why were wooden toys locked away and why was her father so secretive about them?”

He placed most of them with her normal toys, where they blended in perfectly. She had mostly ignored them so far, but maybe now she needed to take a closer look after all.

Then he placed a single cube into her crib. She just looked at him flabbergast. He smiled and took the chest with him and left.

Was this an elaborate plot to get her to play with her toys? For whatever reasons the story of an English king who had protected potatoes with guards to convince his people of the plant, after they had been unwilling to try it out before, came to her mind.

Could this be the same? At first, she dismissed the wooden blocks and toys and now her father was trying to goat her into giving them another chance by pretending they were special or valuable?

Slowly she crawled over to the block her father had left her.