Tsaimath
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Chapter 1067
🕑 Added 2024-10-12 16:00:14 +0000 UTCObviously, I couldn’t spend all my time teaching my students. Well, I probably could, but there were things in the area I wanted to explore and understand, which meant I had to investigate. That, in turn, meant I had to use my scrying constructs and the Oculus to gather information or I had to physically go to whatever curiosity I was investigating and check it out. The obvious advantage of the constructs was that there was no danger. Nothing local would be able to harm me if I wasn’t there to be harmed and while there were ways to use the connection between one of my constructs and my magic to strike at my person, I doubted that anyone could manage that just yet. It was, after all, a fairly complex piece of magic, nothing I’d be able to pull off at a whim, which I was using as a benchmark to judge risks against. Sadly, I hadn’t been able to replicate all my senses into a scrying construct just yet, I could manage touch, hearing and sight, but nothing more, which made the constructs somewhat awkward. Proprioception wasn’t a terribly obvious sense but it was incredibly important, as was the somewhat related vestibular sense, neither of which I could replicate, to say nothing of things like my Soul Sense or the senses related to my Mind Magic. Curiously, I could occasionally manage to use my magical sight through a construct but that was far from reliable, making it a bit problematic.
Thus, more often than not, a combination of the two methods was the winning formula, where I used my constructs and the Oculus for a preliminary investigation and to make sure there was no serious danger before taking my companions and heading there in person.
As was the case right now. The curiosity in question was, amusingly, a mountaintop. Ordinarily, a completely mundane and faintly boring location but in this case, it was a little more interesting, as this wasn’t any old mountaintop, it was in actual fact a new mountain. Just that would make it interesting, new mountains weren’t born every day after all, but this mountain had been born during the change, when two different mountains amalgamated. Normally, I might make a joke about Mama Mountain and Daddy Mountain loving each other a whole lot, but this was a slightly different case. The mountains had, quite literally, fused together and formed something new, never mind that one of the mountains used to be a dozen-odd metres higher than the other, a difference that was no longer there, at least from what I had been able to tell with the scrying construct.
It was, quite frankly, bizarre, though maybe I should be getting used to the fact that the change had, at least temporarily, suspended the laws of physics. Or at least warped them sufficiently to make what would usually be utterly impossible into a possible explanation, otherwise, there was just no way for a mountain to grow, or shrink, a dozen metres without some massive landslides or earthquakes involved. And yet, it was exactly what had happened here, and that was ignoring that these two mountains should have been some sixty miles away from each other. Bizarre, there was just no other word to adequately describe the situation, though even that word felt a little flat. Sadly, I wasn’t sure there was a better word and, hopefully, the situation wouldn’t come up during anyone’s lifetime, meaning there was no real need to invent new words for an occurrence that would never come again.
Even just the approach was quite interesting. There were some differences between the two different mountains, some stark, some rather subtle, making it possible to trace the boundary between the two that became one. In a few places, it was utterly simple, with fairly straight lies separating formations of rock or similar landmarks making it completely and readily obvious that something abnormal had happened here. Sure, there were natural processes that resulted in straight lines, mostly geological in nature like subsequent layers of sediment that later turned into rock, but the jagged lines we could observe here were different.
But nothing compared to the most obvious sign of them all, something Luna and I were utterly flabbergasted to find. It was a tree that, just like the mountain, used to be two different trees. Not in some simple way where two trees had grown too close together and intertwined or something like that, but these two trees had been fused together on a much more fundamental level.
The leaves, for example, were in a state of flux, not just because it was fall and they had turned red already, but their shape and size. There were no two leaves on the tree that shared their shape, they were all in various states of mixture between the original oak leaves and the much broader, jagged plane tree leaves. Similarly, the bark of the tree showed a clear demarcation between the different textures but the most obvious and impressive part was the tree’s merged essence.
Even now, almost three-quarters of a year after its initial merge, there were some remaining differences within, showing the two original trees. Sure, most of the essence was blended already but it wasn’t a complete mix just yet, the process was ongoing. Sadly, the two trees seemed to be elementally quite similar, leading to a few complications, but it was an interesting thing to see. It would be even better if the essence of these trees was more developed, something more akin to a real soul with a mind and everything but sadly, that was not to be.
Regardless of the simplicity, it was a fascinating thing to observe, something both Luna and I wanted to poke and prod a little, though we both were sure to be careful. It would be tragic to accidentally destroy this natural wonder, especially before we had managed to glean all possible information from its study. We spent a day gently prodding the trunk and taking a few leaves to test with more invasive measures, though the ultimate test would occur in the spring when it would hopefully sprout some seeds and pass on its unique traits. Maybe it would be wise to wait until then and gather some of those seeds, this tree might be as unique as the World Tree we had seen the month before last, just unique in a very different way.
Uncertain if that tree was the most interesting thing we would find along this line of alteration, we continued further upwards, looking for unique features we might want to explore. Our investigation wasn’t limited to the surface, which would be too easy and superficial, I also used my Earth Magic to scan deeper into the mountain, curious what we might find there.
With the unique, magically highly charged circumstances of the Change, there was no telling what might have formed, especially if the right conditions were met. As was the case with one odd geological formation some distance beneath the surface, where two distinct formations of rock had intersected in an impossible way, neither pushing the other aside but joining together into something else. I wasn’t able to discern just what it was from the surface, though I could feel enough magic to make me curious about it. Given that we had discovered some impossible materials before, though mostly in dungeons, this might be a natural occurrence of something impossible. Or maybe calling it implausible was a better description, a material that could only form under the most unlikely of circumstances.
Digging it out would take a lot of time and effort though, so we initially only marked down the location so we could return at a later time, with some additional supplies. Furthermore, we hadn’t warned the others that we would stay out for all that long, just a few days, far too short for us to dig this out.
When we reached the peak of the mountain, I was almost disappointed when we didn’t immediately notice anything outstandingly interesting to celebrate the occasion. No treasure chest waiting for us, no ray of light from above to guide us further on our quest, not even a ring of toadstools to allow entrance into some sacred grove. Nothing, but a fairly flat area, with a couple of rocks lying around, some trees, shrubs and an old bench from before the change. It was, quite frankly, extraordinarily boring, though that didn’t stop me from investigating to the best of my ability.
Alas, while it would have been wonderful to find something interesting up here, the only outstanding thing we found up here was the view. The height allowed us to see a little further than we usually could, though even that had to compete with the unparalleled sight we could experience through the Oculus.
Still, there was something nice about a hike with my daughter and our canine friend, it felt almost mundane and normal, something we could experience far too rarely in this changed world.
