Livia goes to trance when Adaly whispers to Amara “You want to try again?” and Amara eagerly nods. This time they switch their positions around, Adaly trying to put his finger in the cup and Amara goes with charcoal to his face.
Even with the minor touches Sam startles awake and he yells. Adaly immediately holds the cup of water up to him “It is okay darling… You should drink something.” Sam nods and takes the cup, finishing it. Adaly gently touches his arm “Good, you should get some more sleep” she says with a concerned smile he turns around and he goes back to sleep.
Adaly chuckles with Amara before they notice Livia is also awake “Seriously Adaly… how old are you? Ten?” Livia says harshly with a hateful glare. Adaly swallows her chuckle and wants to point out she was not alone in her prank, but decides to not give away Amara’s involvement.
With a look of guilt, she steps away from Sam and looks at Livia “Sorry…” she says before stepping into her own bedroll and going to sleep. She falls asleep with a smile on her face, not because they succeeded, but because the goofing around with Amara makes her feel like herself again.
In the morning Livia has already left for her morning ritual and Adaly and Amara try once more and succeed putting Sams fingers in the cup filled with water. They chuckle and leave for their morning exercises.
They run into Livia when they are walking back to the cabin. They open the door to the cabin and the smell of urine is immediately noticeable. Adaly and Amara start laughing when they see a still asleep Sam but who has clearly wetted himself. Livia looks angry at the two of them “Not okay guys… but sure I will stay behind and get him clean, you go do the visions” Livia shoos them out of the cabin and they go back to the ritual side.
Adaly breaths in the weird incense once more before opening her eyes, seeing the now familiar vision of herself with silvery white lines flowing through her body, but there is something different. She can see the lines branching off and out of her body.
A scraggily brown line that scathes off into the distance, but which fills her with nostalgic feelings of her adoptive mother, Muddy. Lessons that are dangerously double edged, but always valuable to learn, of someone that cared for her despite what it might, and has, cost her.
There is also a thick green line that thrums with dependability and trust. Amara, she immediately recognizes her friend, the only one she has ever had that didn’t die on her.
There are also ones that feel more painful. An orange line that beats with a violent rhythm and that her mind involuntarily flinches away from. Es-Vahelieth. A milky white line that pulses with absence, bitterness, and a faint longing that she knows can’t ever be fulfilled, of her biological mother. And of course, the one line that has determined her entire life up until this point. A line that is blacker than mortals can understand. Anger and fear swirl around it, but also determination and now hope. Ilhoketh.
There are other lines too, more complicated ones. Heskeni, the enthusiastic halfling-turned-lich for whom she has started to feel oddly responsible. Oscar, her former lover. One of the few people she had met powerful enough to survive the disasters that follow in her path. Es-Grenalieth, whom she realizes is what she could be, if she chooses the path of a devil.
And finally, Sam. Sam, whom she started viewing as a kindred spirit of sorts, the other side of the same coin that she has been minted as. But also feels a hope for a future in him, something she never saw herself having.
As she peers at those lines, she notices many more smaller and thinner lines, thousands of them, every person that she has ever met or spoke to. Sprawling out into a giant web of souls all connected to each other.
Her eyes open and the lines immediately vanish, but she can still feel them, she knows they’re there. She lets out a deep breath looking at her friend who smiles at her and she broadly smiles back. They are back on track, they can do this mission, she believes in them.
“Good first one is always the hardest… Now for the others here is the herb mix, repeat the same steps and you should be good to go.” Agrom says and Adaly puts the material in her bag of holding “Thank you…” Adaly says and they walk back to their temporary cabin.
Stories of my brain 