Chương 55: Book 2 Chapter 7 - Family Visit

Ava was gathering the chicken eggs. Normally, she would have done it earlier in the morning, but the past few days had been abnormally busy. It felt good to be home again, but it didn't feel normal yet. She suspected that would change once everything settled down. When they had been hauled off months ago, their neighbors had taken care of the Dunsun family's animals, eventually merging them with their own flocks and herds once they realized the Dunsun's weren't coming back anytime soon.

Arriving back in the village so unexpectedly, it had taken a few days to sort out how many chickens they should have, and where those chickens had ended up, where their goats and pigs had been moved to, etc. Nobody had kept exact track of the numbers, but Ava knew most of their animals by name and by sight, and was able to pick them out from the neighbors' fields. The neighbors had been overjoyed to welcome them back home, along with a few others from Lord Grivalt's estate that had returned to the village.

None of them were wealthy enough to throw a large party, like she'd read about in the stories, but they had a great big gathering in the village square, with a lot of hearty back-clapping and smiling. The warm hearts and friendly hands more than made up for the lack of fancy decorations and food. Although… some food would have been nice. Ava immediately missed Helga's meals at the Yountal Estate once they were back home.

Mom's cooking was good, but she didn't have the time or ingredients to make the extraordinary meals that they'd enjoyed back in Easton. She missed it somewhat, and that made her angry. She was angry at herself for missing the food, missing the people. They were good people, to be sure, but they worked for her. The meals were tasty, but they came from her. Her parents seemed to have softened towards Shian Yountal, they even spoke kindly of her ever since returning to the village.

They had tried to explain to Ava that Lady Yountal had helped them, had delivered them from Lord Grivalt's estate, had even given them money to help them get back on their feet. Ava saw it for what it was: a bribe. She was glad to be free from Lord Grivalt's estate, but it still felt very surreal. One day they had been slaving away like normal, and then suddenly all of the adults had come rushing into the servants' quarters, talking loudly and urgently.

They had stacked furniture against the doors, then ushered all of the families into the private rooms. It was all very exciting for a moment, in an adrenaline-inducing sort of way, but then they simply sat there for hours, and nothing happened. Eventually, the doors were opened, and Lady Yountal had been there, shoving them all into her wagons like pieces of merchandise. Ava didn't know everything that had happened.

She was a couple years shy of her sixteenth birthday, when she would be considered an adult, so they kept things from her 'for her own good'. She hadn't been there when Lady Yountal fought with Lord Grivalt, and her parents refused to speak of it – they said it was best to put that scene from their minds. They had simply told her that Lady Yountal had fought Lord Grivalt, then freed everyone from his estate, and that's as much as Ava knew.

She was grateful that they were home, and she knew that Lady Yountal had a hand in that. There was a part of her that wanted to be grateful, but the other memories were burned too brightly into her mind. She remembered that first time seeing Lady Yountal, when she had come to visit Lord Grivalt at his estate. The smiling faces, the fancy food: she had been friendly with Lord Grivalt. Ava knew that deep down, Lady Yountal was just like every other noble.

Maybe less vindictive in her character than some, but still a noble. She would do what was best for herself and House Yountal, and everything else was simply a game to her. And to top it all off, Gabe had confused her for his sister! He was still young, maybe he didn't quite understand that word yet, so she didn't fault him for using it. Lady Yountal, however, had acted like a sister, picking him up without asking, hugging him… that had made Ava's blood boil.

No one could replace Kiara, her death was still so recent. And her parents had simply brushed off Lady Yountal's actions, scolding Ava instead! Amidst these thoughts, Ava saw a dust cloud growing in the west. At first she worried it might be some kind of dust storm, but she quickly realized it was too small and localized. It seemed to be sticking to the road, in fact. Maybe it was a carriage of some kind? She hadn't ever seen one move so fast though, it was approaching the village quite quickly.

Imagine her surprise when the dust cloud headed straight for the farm. It arrived while she was still with the chickens. She cocooned the eggs she had already gathered in her apron and ran for the house in a state of alarm. She burst into the back door, then paused when she heard voices. They were the voices of her parents, and they didn't sound panicked, so Ava calmed down a bit. She even heard Gabe giggling and chattering happily.

She deposited the eggs into a wooden bowl, then dusted herself off somewhat to be more presentable. Then, she walked into the living room to see what was going on. She froze as she entered the room. There, sitting on their family rocking chair, was Lady Yountal herself, rocking gently and bouncing Gabe on her knee. Gabe, for his part, seemed to be enjoying it, and was giggling as she bounced him up and down playfully. He was clutching what appeared to be a new toy. Another bribe.

The three adults looked up as Ava entered the room, and the conversation died off completely. Lady Yountal stopped bouncing Gabe up and down and gave Ava a gentle smile. What was she doing here? What could she possibly want with their family now? Ava's mom motioned to her.

"Why don't you come in and sit down, Ava? Lady Yountal is here to visit with us." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why?" was all she could think to say.

"Why is she here?" It came out more forcefully than was probably appropriate. Ava felt her face scrunching up in anger. She knew her parents wanted her to learn to control this fire she felt inside her, but sometimes she just couldn't help it. It felt like there was an intense energy inside of her, begging to be let out.

"Ava," her mom said sternly, conveying more by her tone than by the word itself. Ava glanced at her mom, then her dad, then glared daggers back at Lady Yountal.

"I have chores to do," she said. Then, she stormed out. Back through the kitchen and out the back door. She had more eggs to gather, but she was worried she'd crush them if she did that now. Instead, she went for the pig pen. She had been putting off mucking the pig pen, as it was dirty and took a lot of energy, but if there was one thing she had plenty of now, it was energy. * After visiting with her family, Kiara jogged back home.

It made her sad that Ava seemed so determined to hate her, but she knew it would just take time. Her parents acted more civilly, but she could tell that they, too, were putting on a show of sorts. They weren't truly comfortable around her, she was still too much of a stranger. Occasional, regular visits would provide the consistent, repeated interactions to help build that trust and change their perspectives about her. Back at the estate, Kiara stopped by the guard house.

As she approached the guard house, the guards bowed enthusiastically, greeting her with big smiles. Ever since they'd announced the upcoming in-house tournament, the guards had seemed extra pleased every time they saw her. Soren was still healing, but was recovering astonishingly fast. The healers at the infirmary certainly helped speed up the process at the beginning, but even since then Kiara had been shocked at how fast both he and Estella were healing up.

It had only been a week since they were injured, but they were both almost fully recovered. Their wounds had been deeper than Kiara's, and hers wasn't better yet. It seemed their recovery had quickly passed her own. With her wound on her non-dominant arm, it hadn't affected her ability to participate in her sword class. The wound itself wasn't in a location that moved too often, so Kiara hadn't experienced the same pain and stinging that she knew the other two had gone through as their wounds healed.

She had been visiting them every day since they came back from the infirmary, making sure they were doing well, asking if they needed anything. The first day they had seemed in pretty rough shape still. The second day, they were noticeably better, but complained quite vocally about how bad it stung. The next few days were the same, more stinging and more complaining, but their bodies were rapidly knitting themselves back together.

Kiara tried to remember what the suggested increases to her Healing stat had been each of the times she had spent her stats points when leveling up. She was pretty sure those suggested numbers represented the increases a normal mage would get in each stat when they leveled up, so if she had been keeping track, she would probably be able to guess what Soren and Estella's healing stat stood at. She pulled up her own stats to check them.

Stats: Unspent Points: +0 Strength: 289 Mind: 100 (MAX) Endurance: 58 Healing: 32 Sleep Fatigue Resistance: 22 Food / Nourishment Requirement: 22 Durability: 109 Life Expectancy: 67 Her own Healing had started off at 15; she remembered doubling it as an experiment during the trip from Horange to Portish. Soren and Estella's Healing stat must be a bit higher than hers, based on their rate of recovery. Jealous, she checked her timeline for leveling up again.

Class As things tend to malfunction when you are around, you have been granted the class of Anti-Mage. Basic magic won't affect you in the same way it does other people. As you grow stronger and advance through the tiers in your class, you will gain other abilities as well, pertinent to your new tier. Current tier: 2 Advancement through the tiers of your class will be time based. Next advancement: 7 months and 4 days. Seven months.

Those first few level-ups had come around so quickly, but each subsequent one was taking successively longer. She knew she had a reward point available to spend, so she checked that next. Reward Points: 1 [Upgrade Stats (tier-based)] cost: 1 point. Gain +170 points to spend on stats [Guaranteed Advancement] cost: 1 point. The normal advancement times for each tier of your class will be capped at 1 year. Advancements that happen before that are unaffected. [Stat Checker] cost: 1 point.

Gain the ability to view other people's stats. [Limit Breaker] cost: 1 point. Gain the ability to upgrade your stats up to double their original MAX value. [Soul Space 2] cost: 1 point. Your soul can function as a spacial storage device, accessible only by you. The space itself will be spherical, with a diameter of 10 feet. Anything placed in the soul space will enter a time stasis. As a bonus, this space can serve as a coin denomination exchanger for a 5% fee. [Early Personal Aura Negation] cost: 2 points.

Others' magical auras will have no effect on you. She thought about purchasing the tier-based upgrade points, so she could dump more points into her Healing stat, but she knew that wouldn't be wise. Those reward points were a limited resource, and waiting seven months wouldn't be that hard. The number of Stats points she received to spend seemed to be slowly creeping up with each tier, so if she was going to buy that reward, it would probably be better to wait until she reached a higher tier first.

Besides, some of the other rewards were probably a better value. The [Limit Breaker] reward had been calling her name for some time now. [Stat Checker] seemed like it would be fun to have, but she didn't know if it would actually help her in any way. [Guaranteed Advancement] would offer an obvious benefit, if and when her next advancement would take more than a single year to come about. She had much to think about.