“The theory is surprisingly straightforward,” John explained to Eliza what he had learned, once he was back home. He was sitting on the couch in his living room, the television showing a nice wallpaper with the visualizer for whatever techno song Rave had put on at the lower rim. It wasn’t just Eliza around. Everyone who was currently accounted for was around. Even Scarlett, who had a way easier time justifying visiting him here now that he had relocated the teleporter. “Although I don’t quite get the details about how they set it up…”

“How about ya just start with the explanation before you say what ya don’t get?” Rave requested. Doubtlessly, she knew that she would have trouble following even without her boyfriend scrambling on the structure.

“Right… okay, first things first, you know how the Hidden Tradition is said to have a particularly odd way of elemental magic that nobody else around the world knows how to use?” Everyone nodded. “Well, it’s not any elemental magic, shamanism or anything like that… it’s necromancy.”

“The fucking what?” Eliza intercepted. “How does any shitbrain out there mistake elemental magic for the school of doing magic shit centred around RAISING THE DAMNED DEAD?!”

“Because they don’t raise the dead, they bind them to nature,” John tried to explain and was met with questioning gazes. “See, that’s the part I don’t get either. Apparently there is some very convoluted coming of age ritual amongst the Abyssal Natives involving going to see mother earth.”

Gnome sheepishly raised her hand, “Uhm, Gaia or my mother?”

“Not clear about it. Elu only gave me the ‘unimportant’ details,” John answered. He had been told enough to comprehend the logical chain of events but if he were to try to reconstruct the actual spells involved, he barely had any idea where to start. “The fact that they use this technique to do more than just earth control indicated that its Gaia… or that they actually see all of the elemental leaders, five of which are female after all. Whatever it is, we can’t test it and it's not exactly important… Scarlett, I am really worried you are turning into an alcoholic.”

The mentioned redhead stirred her coffee, equally distributing the shot of whiskey she had put in there. “Turning into?” she gave him an amused glance and raised her cup. “My man, I have an addictive personality, so if I am not uncovering any secret somebody holds or having sex, you bet I am filling my system with some sort of drug.”

Aclysia shook her head. “Master voices his worry and all you can do is agree that you have a problem?”

“It’s only a problem if I run out,” Scarlett retorted, a joke that she, Eliza and Salamander found the funniest. “Don’t be so fucking tense,” the redhead grumbled and downed her coffee.

“You have to be in ideal breeding condition for whenever Master decides to procreate,” Aclysia demanded. Now lesser people, namely John, who was happening to drink at that very moment, would have choked hearing that. Scarlett just calmly swallowed.

“First off, that’s not his and much less your decision, Aclysia,” Scarlett shot back with absolute certainty, putting her cup back on the table before leaning back and resting a foot on the other leg’s knee in a relaxed fashion. “Second, how about a bet? If I can go one month without any drugs whatsoever, you have to do me a favour. If I lose, then you can ask for anything in return.”

“Agreed,” Aclysia went ahead rather abruptly.

“One… moment,” John interrupted, still struggling to get that awful scratch out of his throat. “Aclysia won’t do anything I don’t approve of!”

“Pah,” Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Okay, I won’t make her strip, walk through the city and bribe a nun to walk after her, ringing a bell and chanting ‘SHAME!’ every few steps along the name.”

“Can’t wait for that last season…” John grumbled, highly doubting that was what Scarlett had in mind in the first place. All he had wanted to make sure of was that there was no other instance of him getting carried away against his will. Although he doubted that Scarlett was the type of woman that would sacrifice herself for him. Even if she was in love with him, at least enough to not stab him in the back, her self-preservation was way higher than anybody else’s in the harem.

“Neither can I,” Scarlett answered. “Season 7 wasn’t even that good, but you can’t help but be excited for these things to come to an end, can you?”

“BACK TO TOPIC!” Eliza screamed. “To the ‘how the fuck do we get this piece of shit Thana out of the adorable blood hungry cunt steadily screaming?!’-topic! A very fucking important topic!”

“Right,” John cleared his throat. “So, they commit themselves to the land in some ritual. In life, this means they are able to communicate with the remains of those that made that pact before them. In death, part of their consciousness stays behind, not a true continuation of their life but more like an animated diary.”

“Okay, so they have an extra power in life and when they die they give back to that power, so far I get it… kinda,” Rave voiced her understanding. “Sounds convoluted though, and if that just made them stronger than other people by default, they wouldn’t be nailed into hiding in the mountains for so long. Where’s the kicker?”

“Well, first off, it requires a certain way of life, at least the way I understand it,” John answered. “Your ancestors no longer approve of you? Well, there goes your extra power. Takes generations to even set the damn thing up and then its flimsy. More importantly, it's bound to wherever the mortal remains of the person rest. The further away from a resting site, the less potent the guidance. Works best in concentrations, graveyards, and if disturbed physically in their rest, the ancestors may react more than a bit hostile.” He turned the glass of orange juice in his hands. “Although they are still smart enough to not gain Gaia’s ire.

“…So, just as an example,” Rave realized what he was getting at. “If I accidentally built a house on an ancient Indian gravesite, would they curse me with bad luck?”

“Well, I don’t think they can curse you, but you wouldn’t be happy in that house,” John answered. “Fascinating what dumb stories have kernels of truth, isn’t it?”

“This whole thing strikes me as a reversal of the German way of fusing with an elemental,” Scarlett chimed back in. “They fuse with an elemental in life, the Indians submit their souls to the elements in death.”

“Might be like that on a metaphorical level, but I doubt it works even remotely the same in practice,” the Gamer stated. “Otherwise, the Germans would have stumbled on it by accident and the world wouldn’t be wondering how it works. The fact that they allowed me to know this much without any resistance means that they don’t keep the information itself under wraps and yet it still is exclusive to them. Must be rather complicated in its execution.”

“Still need to fucking know how this is related to me,” Eliza moved to put her feet on the table, but Aclysia slapped the blood mage’s bare thigh, the purple eyed girl in her usual get-up of robe and minimalistic leather wear.

“Right, we can get to that now,” John answered. “Here is how that cleansing ritual works: They will guide the spirits of their ancestors through you. They are not-human enough to take hold of any magical energy, including Faith, and drag it out of your body. However, they are still too human for Faith to be absorbed. Fragment by fragment, they will drag out of you what doesn’t belong inside you until she is gone.

“And the beauty of it all,” he continued. “Because of the piecemeal process, she will just dissipate into that weird Faith cycle. If it won’t work, it just won’t work, the spirits will fail to remove anything and we lose nothing except a bit of time. It all depends on the question whether you and Thana are too far bonded at this point.”

“…Was about to ask if we could use that to solve that fucking Tamara problem,” Eliza mumbled. “But she and the blood seem to have bonded rather strongly already, so there is probably no solving that shit so conveniently.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem if this works out,” John tried to be optimistic. He really wanted a success these days and Eliza getting free of Thana was important for an incredibly selfish reason on top of the ease it would put all of them at. Having Eliza finally able to fight again would make everything so much easier, it wouldn’t even be funny. In the current condition he was in, such a capable force of destruction on his side would greatly diminish his worries.

John was fully aware that this was a reason why he was trying to make this happen quicker than he normally would. However, he wasn’t trusting enough to just take this explanation as the full truth from the Hidden Tradition. In case the ancestor spirits were there to suck the energy from Eliza, rather than just disperse it, he needed to know in advance. Basically, he was trying his best to gather some more sources on this and check if he was getting lied to.

“Speaking of Thana, what’s she doing?” Rave asked and tapped her index finger against Eliza’s forehead. “She just chill about all of this?”

“She is keeping her mouth shut like a shit eating something,” Eliza answered, pulling her legs to her chest and falling over like a domino next time the Lightbearer tapped her. “Either she doesn’t give a fuck,” the blood mage continued with a light giggle in her voice, now lying on her side, “or the cannibal cunt is trying to get me to lower my guard so she can ruin the ritual at the last second.”

“Well, I hope you got it under control?” John asked. “Wait, I am getting ahead of myself here. Knowing what we now do, do you even want to do it?”

“Yes, get the bitch out of my head,” Eliza was rather clear on that. “Because if I wake up one more time with my hand around your spleen, I will cry myself to fucking sleep for a month. I just want to function like a person, this whole piss-covered thing is worth just about any risk to get out of.”

“Alright… then we won’t lose any time on it,” John stated. “I don’t want to risk anymore dots to turn to lines and progress your melding to a point where the separation becomes impossible.”

“So, what, we are going tomorrow?” Rave asked.

John waited for a moment before giving his answers, just enough time for Scarlett to break the news instead. “There is no ‘we’ going anywhere,” her red eyes wandered over the assembled crowd. “Ya’ll are used to sticking together, but if you think the current situation allows for you to just waltz away and leave any other piece of work untouched, then you’re so fucking wrong it’s not even funny.”

“Yeah, here is the thing,” John elaborated. “We need to start talks with Amacat and the Small Lake Pact, secure our borders, honour the fallen, keep everything running and also keep the people calm. Fusion is still young, so I don’t especially trust any of our current sub-guilds to not defect the moment they smell instability.”

“We’re separating?” Rave asked, clearly not psyched by the idea.

“Only in small ways,” the Gamer assured and then listed what he wanted everyone to do. “My immediate concern will be with our internal situation and dealing with the end of this war. Jane, I’ll need you to act as a special force along our border, take some other people with you. Just be purely defensive, we want to be sure the Lake Alliance isn’t trying anything. Aclysia, you will go to the Small Lake Pact as our diplomat.”

“I… Master, I request you to rethink that order,” the weaponized maid interrupted. “In your current state, leaving you behind is against my interest.”

“I know,” John spoke slow, understanding but with a certain urgency. “But the Small Lake Pact seems to respect strength and I need to show them we are serious. I would send Jane, but you can teleport out if they turn out to be absolute scum.”

“We won’t be able to communicate mentally over that distance,” Aclysia reminded him as if he wasn’t aware of that.

“Yes.”

“And yet you insist?”

“It’s unpleasant, but it seems to be the best option we have in this regard,” John stood his ground and Aclysia conceded by lowering her gaze. Downtrodden as she was, she would follow his plan. “Beatrice, you will be the other diplomat and go to the Amacat. Your job is to listen to the instructions Scarlett gives you.” He looked from the passive maid to the redhead. “Its enough if we keep them lukewarm in our favour for now. Once this Eliza thing is done with and I am more secure with my new sight, I will personally go and have negotiations. Scarlett will also try and find Nia in the meantime.”

“Thank fuck I am such a great multitasker,” the Technomancer exclaimed, waving nonchalantly. Since John had made this entire distribution of responsibilities up together with her, the redhead had no reason to be surprised.

Originally, they had wanted to spin Magoi into this as well, but the High Fateweaver had insisted that he actually needed to teach on the still forming university if that thing was ever to get off the ground. Since he had been very insistent, the raptor-masked man was, for now, out of the picture.

“Once I am done with my line of stuff and things have settled somewhat, Eliza and I will head over to the Hidden Tradition.” Although John wouldn’t be of direct help in the ritual, it was best he was around in case Thana did decide to try and rampage. “Not like I am currently able to waste time grinding or should get into a fight.”

“Right,” his girlfriend agreed, looking unhappy about all of this. With a heavy sigh, she did accept the situation though. “Alright, let’s hope there are no more annoying surprises on the way.”