Discussing the oddities around me and my possible divinities with the Grandmother was a wonderful experience in its own right. Not only was the Grandmother a brilliant and knowledgeable being, she also had a massive advantage over any other mortal I could discuss these things with, in that she shared some of my own experiences and was widely studied in arcane and divine matters. That allowed her to compare events in her past, or even just things she had read or heard about, with the things happening to me, letting us draw conclusions from the similarities and differences.

Sadly, while some of her experiences were useful, we already knew that my current situation was a rarity; otherwise, Lady Hecate wouldn’t be as curious about it. If a deity whose domain was focused on Magic, Knowledge and, to some degree, Secrets, considered your situation an interesting and rare oddity, you better believe that it was rare and odd, likely completely unique within a mortal’s lifespan. Or even within a planet’s lifespan, I had no idea just how wide the cult of Hecate and other deities spread, though I already knew that she administered multiple worlds within different dimensions.

Regardless of how rare, common, or unique my current situation was, I needed to gain a better understanding of it. So, with the little knowledge the Grandmother could bestow, coupled with her wide experience and intelligent mind, we were able to draw some conclusions. The first was that I was occupying two different divine spaces, so to speak. One was that of the Mother, acting as part of a Triad with the Grandmother and Luna; the other was as the Pale Lady, which was solitary, with Lenore acting as the Pale Lady’s companion.

Our current hypothesis was that this solitary divinity was the problem, that it was solely focused on me, so when Morgana, the part of my existence that was primarily mortal, heard the prayer to the Pale Lady, a painful feedback occurred. Amusingly, that fit with the simile I had used to conceptualise the agony I had experienced, though even now, the most I could do was chuckle weakly, the pain still too fresh in my mind to actually laugh at it.

In contrast, prayers to the Mother automatically included the Grandmother in her role of the Crone, anchoring the connection in Mundus, though we might be reaching a little with our conclusions there. After all, Lenore seemed to be part of the Pale Lady, and, to the best of our knowledge, Lenore was still alive and active on Mundus, so she should have anchored it. And yet, it hadn’t worked, which was why our current model assumed her to be a mere companion, not a divine being in her own right, as the Crone was.

Sadly, while we managed to form a few theories, there was nothing I could really act on. At least not actively. Sure, I could try to minimise the exposure the Pale Lady received but, from what I could tell, I didn’t think that would work all that well, especially as our travel plans didn’t include meeting any more people. Even the village near the burned land had been a serious surprise, only viable thanks to the Chief’s experience and the training he provided. So, not all that much room to proselytise, even if I wanted to. Still, I would talk to Luna to make sure she wouldn’t speak of the Pale Lady any more, as little as that would help if people were somehow able to make idols associated with that form.

A few other ideas would hopefully remain theoretical for a long time, as those required me to shed my mortal form, which effectively meant I would have to die, which I wasn’t too eager to do.

It didn’t matter to me that the question of whether my existence would split into two distinct beings, the Pale Lady and the Mother, with both achieving their own divinity or if they’d somehow merge into one. Sure, it was an interesting question, but I didn’t want to die to find out. Hel, even if there was a way to shed my mortal form without dying, I wasn’t sure I would like to do it.

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As things were right now, I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to become a deity at all. Sure, access to additional power and different worlds, all with their own lore and knowledge, was a tempting lure, but I was certain I didn’t need to become a deity to get access to that. And then there was the whole aspect about caring for morals and shepherding them in ways you desired that turned me off. At best, I would want to be a deity like Lady Hecate, largely separate from mortal affairs, and only intervene to educate a select few or when I found something interesting.

And then there were the divine politics. On Mundus, those had manifested in a fairly even split of followers. Some continents, namely those primarily inhabited by a singular race, were nearly entirely devoted to one pantheon or the other. Aretia, the area where different races coexisted in relative proximity, had been a scene of conflict and war for centuries, with only occasional periods of peace, until one group or another attempted to achieve dominance once more. While on Mundus, I had experienced the beginnings of one such push, made by the Centuars, though I had no idea if anything had come of that.

Would I want to become embroiled in a mess like that? And if not, would I have the ability to remain unaffected by these politics and unaffiliated? I had no idea, but it was a major concern on the road to divinity, especially when thinking back to the myths regarding Zeus; those made me shudder in disgust, while I wondered just how much truth they held. Not that the Asgardian myths were completely benign either, but at least they didn’t feature a serial rapist as their chief deity, whose domain included such important aspects as Kingship and Law and Order. Which said a lot about the state of Law and Order in that pantheon, if rape was something the deity of it could commit.

Why did I consider becoming a deity again, or pursue apotheosis at all?

Regardless of these potential future problems, my discussion with the Grandmother gave me a fair idea of what I wanted to do in the near future. It was a fairly simple plan, namely, to grab the rest of my family and continue to head north, avoiding any contact with Angelina. It would be interesting to see if I could figure out a way to hear her prayers through my divine aspect, without involving the mortal part at all, but that was something far down on my list of priorities.

Hel, it only had a space on that list because it was interesting; otherwise, I might have decided to simply ignore any potential connection to the divine and exclusively focus on developing my mortal self, turning it into the most powerful it could be. Most likely the most powerful dragon, which seemed to be the path I was on, that of a mortal, or maybe titanic, dragon, whatever that would mean in terms of mortality and divinity. If nothing else, it was ambitious.

With these things put off for the future, I could focus on the present and the question of just how effective the raid into the burned land’s dungeon had been. To figure that out, I conjured a flight of scrying constructs and had them survey the soil, and what I saw was both incredibly strange and, amusingly, just as promising.

At first, when my constructs started near the mountain I was hiding under, the burned land was just that, burned and dead, a wasteland of ash and dust. Calling it desolate was the only way to describe it, but that didn’t last too long. When my constructs got close to the centre, I could see an obvious change on the ground, a strip of green breaking through the soil and reaching for the sky.

After staring for a few minutes, my mind fighting to accept what my eyes were seeing, I realised what I was looking at. The greenery followed a path, starting at the central area, which was now dormant, and stretched outwards, towards the village. Unless I completely missed my guess, this was the path Luna and her group had taken on the way out, only that Luna hadn’t just been content to leave, she had used her Life Magic, likely extensively, and literally planted the seeds for future growth, giving nature a headstart when it came to reclaiming this place.

Other than that, the place was in bad shape, but it didn’t look like things would get worse. Luna’s trail was a clear sign that things would get better; Nature just needed time. Things would be okay here, and we could continue our journey without feeling bad about it.