Seated on the roof of the Pitarav village Taramo looked at the destruction that he caused. Most of the buildings had fully collapsed when he woke and a few flames remained burning. The destruction was, in all truth, not that large. It covered a few blocks, though some of the orchard plaza had been damaged. If he'd been actively trying to engage in building destruction he would have been able to get at least half of the city. A lot of efficiency was lost in fire that only heated the air and lit up the entire sky.

  The last time he lost control he was a lot more efficient about it.He'd taken his new wisp and tracked down that necromancer, though he failed in that too. Some of the other archmages had decided that he was 'not behaving rationally' and waylaid him. He hadn't killed all of them. Some of them promised to bring the necromancer back to him so he could finish her off. The curse felt much less when the loss was irrevocable.

  Taramo had "come to his senses" eventually and let the survivor's be without retaliating against them. He would eventually have to fight the entire mage population otherwise and no matter how bloodthirsty he was he didn't want to end mages altogether. He wouldn't have been able to either way.

  The light of dawn was approaching. Eventually someone would find him and ask the questions that he didn't want to answer. He would have to admit his involvement in the smoldering ruin. The immediate return of control would be a good excuse, some untrained mages would have more mana than they could control and disturbances could cause larger aftereffects. He wouldn't be explaining the full reason.

  He sat and waited for the dawn to properly arrive, enjoying a few minutes of it before he stepped off the roof. The ward he'd set on himself to slow his fall was more sudden and caused extra pressure on his armpits and shoulderblades. If it had been any worse he could have expected dislocation or even rapid disassembly, though as he remembered the pale scar right below his ribcage it wouldn't matter much anyways.

  He shooed away the vines that peeled away from the wall on the building and were drifting towards him. She probably wanted to ease whatever soreness that came from his misadventure, though she still did not initiate any talk.

  Those pustules that were everpresent for his second life were almost completely absent. There was some scar tissue that hadn't been healed from the folk medicine though there wasn't any growth from it that he'd noticed. Whether that would happen after he spent time with heavy mana use was yet to be seen. He wouldn't want to undergo the same thing again if he could help it, though he probably wouldn't need to be killed to get there.

  He'd found the place where the system had attached itself to himself. It interlaced itself in his mana like the roots of a tree and was woven into the top of his spinal cord. It was currently inactive and would have completely disslolved if he'd remained without mana for at least a day after his death. The absence of any effect was from the activation of this 'death' tag. Since he was 'dead' there was no reason to apply any more mana into him and it would fade as his mana would dissipate through his death.

  Though he hadn't stayed dead. Ariwyn had, without his involvement, stabbed him in the heart and waited until the death tag was applied to patch him up. He would want to think that the visions that he had were outside of her influence though he wasn't going to accept that yet.

  He wandered, and occasionally he would look back and see Spot duck behind something. He was able to understand that Taramo wanted time to think but not enough to avoid following him. The butterflies were probably above him too, though they seemed to have found out invisibility so they could be anywhere around him.

  "C'mon" He called out and Spot bounded out, tongue lolling. How much of his dog behavior was an act Taramo didn't bother considering. He wouldn't order Spot either way. He enjoyed giving Spot pats and rubbing his belly from the side. He didn't have ribs like a real dog and since the muscles were much more flexible in their placement Taramo could almost stick his entire hand into Spot's body. Spot licked at his face when Taramo tried so he gave up.

  He started walking again and llooked at his hand. Not any magical investigation, since he'd already done that, but on the surface level only. The strange webbing across his skin was present like an additional set of thin veins, though they didn't seem to have any active function. The slight green colouration made him almost look like a leaf. If he painted himself the right hue he could probably hide in a garden if he really wanted to. He'd have to ask her about it, eventually.

  Deciding he'd wasted enough time wandering he turned about and went back to the village. He passed the attempted farmland as he returned. Someone had pulled up another set of stones and planted some more of the seeds. Nobody was present working the land or guarding it, probably from the 'attack' that they'd recieved when he had managed to wrestle control back after his 'death'.

  He chuckled a bit when, on the way from the farm, he saw a pair of tea bushes planted in front of a workshop that had an anvil shaped sign blowing on the wind. It was nice seeing someone follow their passion.

  He was briefly startled when six of the Pitarav soldiers emerged in front of him from an alleyway but they saluted without saying anything and two of them fell in behind him while the rest continued their patrol. One of them mentioned that most of the people with any authority, including the head priest, were asleep due to the incidents of the night before. Taramo didn't inquire exactly what incidents there were, he knew for certain one of them which might have been all of it, and the guards were amiable to give him silence to think.

  Whe they got back to the gate Taramo stopped. There was one of the vines that crossed the road from the building that Ariwyn had requisitioned. The tip raised up and waved him over to the uncovered doorway in the building. Time to deal with the big issue.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The guards didn't follow him in, the door closing after he walked through. The building was an apartment before given the small entry hall with matching staircases on either side. The room was two stories with some stone pillars that were covered in the vines which had flowers that emitted a clear light. The windows were covered so it was the only light in the room. At the center of the room was a pot that had been in the room with him when he'd woken up these last few weeks. Beside it was a modest breakfast and a pair of chairs.

  He walked to the chairs and sat down in one of them, waiting for Ariwyn to speak. After a few beats of silence he turned his attention to the breakfast.

  There were some smoked sausages and some porridge with snowberries alongside a teacup that held a tisane he couldn't identify except that it had mint in it. He ate and drank mechanically, noting that the tea was good, and when he was done Ariwyn still hadn't spoken.

  "So..." Taramo started and trailed off. The air was heavy and speaking didn't seem to lighten it any.

  "We need to talk" Ariwyn broke her silence.

  Like anyone being told 'we need to talk' Taramo felt a jolt of fear? Anticipation? Some unintelligble mix of them.

  "What about?" Taramo evaded the inevitable, and it did not work.

  "I killed you."

  "And you brought me back. I'd like to know why but you didn't end up ending me for good, so-"

  "I killed you. It should be impossible for me to do that. My Tenets would directly forbit it."

  Taramo felt a bit of pressure at realizing that. It was possible she could have found a work around for it. Maybe if I wouldn't stay dead for long or if she justified it was for his eventual betterment.

  One of the vines tightened around his wrist, pressing a long thorn against the back of his hand. "Check the Tenets." Ariwyn ordered.

  Taramo checked them. The set of orders written into Ariwyn's mana that restricted her actions. Held connected to the mass of mana that was the closest thing she had to a brain. In an instant a pulse went to it and he felt the pain of a papercut and the back of his hand bled. The intent to harm passed through the tenets like they didn't exist.

  "So. You can bypass them. We should be able to set them up better if-"

  "They never worked." Taramo's brain misfired at that and he dumly waited for Ariwyn to continue.

  "The Tenets were made for wisps. I don't know if it was specifically who made up me or just the fact that I am part human. You could never order her to do anything." A larger vine curled up and around his shoulders.

  "I am not her. Even if I have the memories. She wouldn't be able to do what I had to. It is time I explain what happened when you were dead."

  At fist it was pure chaos. Half of all mages ended up dead in the first few years and a lot of others were lost after someone released the manaflu. I spent most of that time hidden away, though I got your apprentice to find some of your descendants and get them somewhere safe.

  It took four hundred years for the war to end. Everyone who was interested in continuing to fight had been lost and even among those people recognized that the common folk were still necessary and they needed some stability. The world was split into little kingdoms were an archmage would rule over the commoners however they wished. The tyrants and fools ended up losing most of their people and there was some stability.

  That was when I tried to revive you first. It didn't work. Your mana wasn't able to attach to the body. There's something about the soul that was not accounted for. When you were alive the existence of the body was enough to make up the difference and I needed to find out what the difference was. I couldn't leave to learn from the mages and if I used the Tower network the vault would be found out so I brought the mages to me.

  I waited for ten thousand years trying to solve it on my own but with no experiments my theory could only go so far. There were two failed attempts in that time.

  I turned the security to wisps and sent some of them to the nomads. It took a few hundred years but they started to settle when one of their chief's noticed there were more of the 'spirits' here. I contacted them and brought them knowledge. There was a lot that was lost to everyone but the archmages and most of them slept for centuries.

  Immortality is not for the faint of heart and many mages didn't like leaving family behind in time so they slept together, built constructs to hold their essence within, sought elixirs of immortality. Some found it, though it's expensive and becoming a strong enough mage is as effective.

  So I made the nomads build a city and in return I experimented on them. Gave them some improvements and taught them about the arts of life and death. They brought enough subjects for me to discover how to anchor the soul to the body.

  But the vitality draught had been corrupted. I'd let some of the highest ranked people come in to the vault to communicate with me while I kept the wardings up to hide us. One of them brought the tiniest amount of manaflu, and it had multiplied and adapted in the draught. It had specialized on you, or specifically people related to your grandfather. Some genetic anomaly in him made you too weak to even develop or survive days with my direct help. I surpressed those memories and you might be able to find them. Please don't look.

  I made the vine that I use now as a means to deal with the disease. It is semi-sentient on it's own but I am able to merge myself with it. But even purging the solution and doing my utmost I couldn't get you to live.

  (The vine tightened for a second, but loosened itself shortly after)

  Then politics got involved. Those Arachne were expanding and knew enough to avoid waking up the archmages. They took over both sides of the mountains and I had the city capitulate before it could be sacked. They couldn't go against their goddess.

  The arachne were tolerable. They knew not to do too much once I showed them my capabilities. I also got some of your descendants from them. They took them as slaves centuries ago. The arachne gave them to me and I was able to learn about the disease for longer than minutes between millenia. I found out how to destroy it and how to make people resistant to it.

  It was the least I could do for our descendants.

  I freed them after I learned what I needed and I think they live somewhere near. The Silver Chain had gotten some of them and I recaptured them. Maybe once this whole thing is over we should visit?

  Anyhow the archmages woke up and the arachne were in trouble. They agreed to leave on their own and most of them left quickly before the archmages would root them out. My apprentice stayed but it took a long time for the mages to find out about her and she had no aspirations for dominion so they left her be.

  And then that System Priest showed up. He tried to turn everyone to the worship of Adras exclusively and he was violent when people severed their relatives from the system. It takes a bit more than it gives, so work will always make more than the system can. I rallied my forces to drive him out but he succeeded. He nearly got to the vault but I drove him off. He was able to seal the vault from any mana access and lay seige to me.

  I had one more chance to bring you back before there would not be enough mana. And there wasn't enough. And I begged, pleaded, prayed to whatever would listen. Then you revived.