As it turned out, Amy's mind corruption problem wasn't as easy as she figured it'd be. It was definitely simple in execution, but the actual process of removing her previous enhancements was hard work. These were the same corruptive enhancements that couldn't be turned off after all and they rebelled at every turn to be dissolved as well. According to Felin, there was a way to completely wipe all the enhancements from her brain quite easily, but in doing so it would erase all of her enhancements, not just the corruptive ones. Since doing that meant setting her back months of work, she was forced to tread the harder path.

In the end, the method that worked the most seemed to be something similar in practice to the filter technique. Amy would feed a strand of Mirrored Fae and Unknowable towards the corrupted elements and encourage them to connect. As is the corruption's instinct, it spreads and tries to merge with the Mirrored Elements. In doing so the corrupted would meet its Mirrored counterpart and negate each other. The only downside to this method was its lengthiness. Simply cleaning one part of her enhancements took her the better part of the day, her work still not done by the time she went to sleep. Regardless, Amy could already begin to feel the benefits of the cleansing. Since she had begun her work near the temporal lobe, she was already beginning to clear up some of her memories during that week without Felin and she could start seeing the gaps in her reasoning a lot better.

What was I even thinking? Amy cringed to herself as she lay in her bed in the dark, resisting the urge to groan. I actually bloody fought an Apprentice. It's crazy that it's only properly sinking in now but... It truly did feel like I had no other choice. And yet, if I had gone to Felin, he could've proposed something much better and safer. I wouldn't have been allowed to go after Harrison but I might've been allowed to investigate him.

Sighing deeply, Amy tried her best to rid herself of her troubling thoughts, trying to simply rest her tired mind. Slowly but surely, she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Morning swiftly arrived and rewarded her with much of the same work as the day before. Boring enhancement purification. The worst part about it was that it required her full attention. She couldn't simply let her mind wander elsewhere or even properly walk around to stretch her legs. All she was stuck doing was sitting on her bed crossed-legged and working through it. In the breaks she took throughout the day, Amy did end up wandering the city and doing some sight-seeing.

There was a magnificent waterfall near the city's edge, one that was quite frozen over this time of year. With the altitude as high as it was and the temperature dropping with winter's approach, it was no surprise that it had turned to ice. Fortunately, it made for an even more striking image than something she had seen before the last time she made her way through the city. While the majority of the ice-cold water still flowed, churning down into a great river that flowed westward, the edges had completely turned to frost framing it all in pure white.

As she sat on a bench looking out towards the massive vista, Amy's mind wandered over to what she and her Familiar had discussed yesterday.

What does it mean to be human? Amy considered, leaning back in her seat. I mean, that's the only path really available to me. I don't like the sound of the 3rd and I think I'm too messed up for the 2nd , so all that's left is the 1st. I've... never really had to think about such a thing. Like I said, that's for philosophers, not me, a simple Mage. Except, there's nothing simple about this, is there? And apparently, back in his day at least, practically all Mages followed these pathways. Countless Mages before me have also considered what it's like to be human, or a member of whatever race they belong to. But what if you don't feel like you belong to your race? You can't exactly go along the 2nd if you have issues, so does that mean you're stuck with the 3rd? Maybe that is where you would go. For those who struggle to be human in the first place.

Do I do that? Do I struggle to be human? Before Harth I would've said yes, without a single doubt. Now? I... don't know. I even said it to Felin when I was... dealing with Harrison. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be a Fae. But what does it even mean to be a Fae? There's the idea of how Felin acts, and yet that can't be the full picture. I know so little about him and his kind and yet everything about me seems attracted to it; almost as if the proposal of me becoming a Fae isn't out of the question. I... I don't think I genuinely want to be a Fae however. That has to be my affinities speaking. It would be wonderful, to be so free, so confident, so self-assured about everything you do, but that's not me. Right now, I can't be allowed to delude myself. I have to doubt and I have to worry, or else I wouldn't be able to tell what's really me. Is that what I consider a human then? Someone who second-guesses themselves and dwells? No, that's entirely me. Plenty of humans don't do it to the same degree as I do. That line of thought seems entirely suited to the 2nd pathway.

It has to be even more foundational than that then. It can't be personalised, it has to be across the entire race. Human. A person who... No. A people that think and wonder. A people prized for their craftiness and ingenuity, who can adapt to every situation. Is that what a human is, from which everything else spreads? Or is that merely a single aspect, a mere facet of the greater whole I've yet to touch upon? Maybe I should give up on this approach. Perhaps I'm trying to cover the idea at too high of a level and should reach deeper. Instead of trying to summarise what it means to be human straight away, I should think about what drives someone to be human. From those motivations I could then try and extract something akin to a form of humanity.

I suppose we have to start with the thing that drives all living beings: life. That, in turn, is supported by a need for food and drink as well as safety and shelter, all in support of ones continued living. Life is a lot more than those baser things however. It's about socialising, finding enjoyment, and spreading something onwards. I mean, I don't have any urge to have children yet, but that's the base motivation behind living in the first place. To live is to spread out your own life and sow the seeds for the future. It has to be one of the more baser motivations otherwise so many people wouldn't have children. Children themselves are a product of sex, which is yet another base motivation alongside satiation. Does that mean these instincts that directly relate to life and its propagation are more important than others? The vast majority of people my age don't care for children, and yet that seems pretty damn important to the picture I've painted thus far. Does that make them not human until they fulfil that need? Or is humanity more than the sum of their parts? I would hope so. If a human is to live in the modern age, they must do more than eat, sleep and fuck. They must work, they must support their community and have friends otherwise they aren't considered 'human' by others.

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Is that a big part of humanity as well? The approval of others? That meshes pretty well with my experiences with life so far, Amy laughed sardonically. Then, realising that yes, she indeed did have friends, Amy laughed to herself again. Realising that she probably shouldn't leave the city without leaving them a message either. So, she ended up drafting a small message to her friend.

[Amy Wachlund: Hey Rose. I'm going to be leaving Evyria soon so I thought I'd send this over. It was lovely seeing you again and I would love to meet up again if I return to Evyria. Hope your promotion goes well too! See you!]

With that written up and sent, Amy got up and started walking back to the inn, ready to start packing up her things again and embarking on the next train. Mid-way through her walk, she did end up getting a reply, Rose wishing her safe travels and a relaxing vacation. Relaxing, She scoffed to herself, smiling helplessly. As if my worrying could be described like that. Now that I don't have any other stops I can just head straight for Iyrtir. And, of course, there's The Forgetting to investigate. From the Record it seems a lot of things related to the Observatory Project would be around the capital so I could try catching one of the known locations on a carriage to Pryston. I just hope Felin would approve. He should, I hope.

"I don't see why not," Felin said while she packed. There wasn't much to do anyway as she had left as little as she could stored away during her stay. "Might as well take advantage of the opportunity when it comes. As long as I deem you in proper condition, that is."

"Proper condition?" Amy asked, turning to look at the black cat lounging on her bed.

"You're going to be doing a lot of magical maintenance over the coming weeks and months and it's going to take a heavy toll, both physically and mentally. If I don't think it'll be safe for you to look into it, I won't allow you to investigate. Those 'observatories' aren't going anywhere from the sounds of it, and they've already been wiped clean by investigators. Delaying until you're ready will do literally no harm."

"I'll try and stay in my best condition then," Amy joked, getting back to packing.

"...I am serious," He said after a while. "Whatever will lie in those ruins are going to be far more dangerous than anything that could've been found in that Tower in Triesen. I won't know my way around these things like the Towers, and you could very easily be caught unawares. Plus, there's always the risk of running into something deeply related to The Forgetting and getting... affected."

"Affected how? Wouldn't those investigators have already found something like that? I imagine these aren't Journeymen we're talking about. They were probably Monarchs and the like."

"Not necessarily. You see, I've been thinking on this since you pointed it out to me. I don't remember my former contractor's name."

"Yes?"

"He was erased by this Forgetting just the same, leaving no trace of his existence on this plane any longer. And yet... I can remember who wrote that book of yours, that Introduction to Wizardry."

"...You can?" Amy blurted out, sitting up straight.

"It's why I thought The Forgetting to be different to something Unknowable-based. If I can remember the names of those authors, then this Forgetting would've been localised only to the plane, making it not a multi-planar mana event. And yet... I can't remember my contractor. That, to me, screams Unknowable. It would've been so much easier if I couldn't remember anything, Amy. I know how to deal with those sorts of things. It's not like they haven't happened before, grand workings of that terrible Element. It's why I was so surprised about everything when you summoned me to the plane. I could remember everything. There wasn't a single gap in my recollection, except of course what we know now."

"I mean, why couldn't it have been Unknowable based? What if a Monarch cast the Magick of The Forgetting so it didn't affect you, an Ascendant. Other than that one name, that is. Which is a bit of a hole in my reasoning, I admit."

"Because, my dear apprentice, the gods are all dead. And I know, for certain, that they didn't kill each other."

"You do? How? I thought you were limited in this form?"

"I am indeed limited here, but it's not like I'm limited in the Faerie. There I can wander out and inspect some known Ascendant Elements in the mana and probe them."

"What?"

"This is probably a bit outside of the scope of your current understanding so I'll keep it brief. Ascendants can't really die, Amy. They either go to sleep for a very long time or merge with their Elements completely, essentially becoming dead. That's what happened to all of these Ascendants. They weren't killed, as they simply no longer exist. It's like, for some reason, they all just gave up.

"So, all together," Felin grimaced, "This means that someone or something had the power to both kill the Ascendants in the only way they can be killed, their ego-death, and yet... Their working could only affect a single plane, and did so incompletely. If they had done it correctly, then these Monarchs wouldn't have had a chance of remembering anything about this Forgetting and yet they did. So something along the way got messed up."

"I'm... Not too sure what to say to that," Amy said, a hesitant expression on her face. "What are the chances that they did, indeed, mess up?"

"A Mage who'd make a mistake that large wouldn't have been able to create The Forgetting in the first place, it's that bad. It meant something, fundamentally, went wrong with whatever Magick they weaved."

"I see."

"Anyway, there's no use thinking about this right now. Your train's arriving soon, right?"

"Just under an hour away."

"Then best to finish packing, yes?"

"Yes, I should," Amy sighed, getting back to work where she had paused to listen to her Familiar.

"...Good," Felin said after a long silence. His face was unreadable, something strange quivering on his upper lip. His gaze was steely however, and completely locked onto his apprentice as she toiled. In them, they held what could only be called sadness.

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