Lanulculte
The hills behind the mansion were almost like mountains, broad and covered in forest, with a spring high up on the second one that ran down in a stream. From his maps, Taylor knew he could follow the stream to a bigger one, which passed near Mourne, then joined a major waterway that ultimately ran to the sea. When the world was between freezes, he took the chance to run up and down the hills through the half-melted snow, with lunch packed in a little bucket, courtesy of Cook. On lesson days, he came home early to bathe for Ophelia's arrival. On other days, he took rod and bucket in hand and stayed out until sunset, freezing his limbs for the chance to fish.
If he caught anything, he cleaned and cooked it over a simple fire he started with magic. He loved the hot, flaky flesh with salt and dried herbs from the kitchen. Sometimes, he brought a bit of dry hardwood with him and tried to smoke his catch. The fish came out too dry, semi-cooked, and semi-smoked, but he felt like he was on to something important.
It was during one of those pseudo-spring days he had a breakthrough in his magic practice. He was fishing near the spring, standing next to ice that still clung to the hill in patches. He had a new pole, one he made himself with reeds and a simple shaping spell. The hook and lure was tied by Blake, and looked astonishingly like the fat black flies that swarmed the forest in spring.
He was resting in a sunny spot, floating his lure along the river, when he felt a stir of mana from the stream. Before that day, he'd only sensed his own mana, and only while he worked spells. He flicked his lure aloft, whipped it through the air to dry it, and plunked into the water where the mana was. He had a bite in seconds, and pulled in a silver ribbon of a fish as long as he was tall: an eel. Cook would be happy to get her hands on a few of those! Taylor tossed the catch into his bucket of river water and spell-formed ice and stepped into the shivering current. With focus, he discovered that not only could he detect the eels but he could distinguish them well enough to count them. He plucked several more from the water until his bucket was overflowing, then killed and cleaned them all with quick mercy. To his surprise, their mana did not entirely die when they did.
As he cleaned them, Taylor discovered each one had a stone, just a pebble, the size of his smallest fingernail. They were clearer than the ones he knew from the mansion, and must have contained a larger amount of mana. He didn't know how long they would last, but they were perfect for training his mana sense. He had all kinds of games and exercises from past lives, meant to improve a practitioner's senses. He secured the stones in a pocket and put the cleaned fish into the ice bucket. He cooked one for himself right away and savored the crisp, sweet meat. If his amateur skills could make something that good, he couldn't wait to taste what Cook made.
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Taylor was so pleased with the find, he braved the cold waters again. This time, he found a smooth, striated slab of rock resting inches under the water. He used a spell to raise a design on its surface in the shape of Lanulculte, Goddess of Rivers and Streams. It took longer than he thought it would to get it right, his hands badly numbed from the freezing water. He'd only seen her once, and briefly at that, peeking at him from under Nature's mantle. The work absorbed all his mana, but he was used to that and didn't fear the slight nausea or falling into the water. The end result was either a woman or a fish, depending on how the water rippled along the stone.
He didn't have bells, gongs, or horns to call the goddess' attention so he clapped his hands twice. "Lanulculte! Thank you for your blessings of eels and mana stones. This is a lovely stream. I like it very much." He clapped twice more to end his prayer.
Were the gods of this world truly divine beings, or were they Mi'iri constructs left behind to keep watch over the world? It likely didn't matter since the Mi'iri possessed minds so vast they were effectively gods in their own right. As a general rule, if Taylor had evidence the gods of a world were real, he acknowledged them. He wasn't a fool.
He hefted his bucket of ice and fish in one hand and his fishing rod in the other, and made his way home. There was a trail that followed the river downstream, ending at the edge of the fields around Mourne, but he didn't take that. He was too likely to encounter other people. He cut cross-country instead, in a near direct line to his house, up and over one of the soft, rounded hills. This was gentle land, long settled, but he rarely encountered people in the woods. Sometimes, he saw distant woodcutters or hunters, who purchased the right to work the hills from the town's Curator, whom Taylor still hadn't met. His household often advised him to avoid anyone from town, so he waved at them and moved on.
The day he caught the eels was different. On that day, he ran into four older boys. And they took an instant dislike to Legate d'Mourne's son.
