The dark essence area was now underground, the pathway leading into a subterranean cave system. Luminescent fungus and white flowers that shone like moonlight covered the walls while the floor of the cave was covered in silver grass that apparently required no photosynthesis. Even with the glow of flowers and fungi, it was hard to see in the dark and irregular natural caverns. Even Jason’s power to see through darkness was suppressed, although it started working when he concentrated on it. It was, after all, his soul, and he was ultimately in control.
The doom essence area used medium-sized trees to create different levels of light throughout. The paths were simple grass trails between bushes and trees. Some of the bushes were explosions of red and orange that, under the light coming through the trees, looked like a fire. Other places had tall, narrow hedges covered in gold, white, and silver flowers. The unobstructed light shining on them gave an appearance reminiscent of Jason's transcendent finishing attacks.
A creek now led into the garden from under one of the walls, winding through the various sections of the garden and crossed by a series of small bridges. In the doom section, the bridges were rustic wood. The sin area had bridges of marbled black and white obsidian. In the blood section, the creek was only heard and not seen, adding to the sensation of being inside a living vein.
The creek ultimately dropped from a small waterfall to pool in an underground fairy grotto, the only part of the dark section open to the sky. Even the dimmer parts of that chamber were filled with a rainbow of luminescent fungus, giving it an ethereal beauty.
As far as Jason could tell, the creek represented a trickle of power sourced directly from the astral. He suspected it was the reason he hadn't needed to take a spirit coin to stave off the magic deficit of Earth during the long plane flight.
At the heart of the space, the gazebo had not only been fully integrated into the garden but transformed into a sprawling pavilion complex, centred on a three-storey pagoda. The marbled obsidian was more white than black, compared to the dark stone of the gazebo, and overgrown with vines and flowers.
Exploring the pagoda, the ground floor was the storage space for his inventory items. To outside observation, the bottom floor had walls, but the inside was a different story. Instead of walls, the interior was a platform situated in a starry void. The contents of his inventory floated nearby and beyond that spread out an infinite expanse of stars, galaxies, and nebulae. It was like standing in the centre of the universe.
“Bigger on the inside,” he muttered. “I suppose I am too, for that matter.”
There were two exits, in the form of apertures that reminded Jason of his portal arches. One was the archway through which the garden outside could be seen. The other was a ring floating in the ceiling, situated over an elevating platform, which Jason rode up to the next floor.
The second and third floors of the pagoda were open to the air, much like the old gazebo. The second story was a sitting area, complete with furniture, while the third storey was a meditation room with a luxurious floor of white moss that rivalled his cloud house for softness. Heading back down, he paused in the sitting area and looked at the chairs.
“Why more than one chair?”
He considered the changes his soul garden had gone through since arriving back home. Until he gained the spirit vault, it had been an unchanging place, aside from the expansion when he ranked up. These new and rapid alterations were obviously a reflection of the changes to his soul. What he needed was some quiet time to adjust and consolidate but there were too many claimants on his time.
With that thought, his mind turned once more to things the new garden had mercifully distracted him from. He was soon back to dwelling on the frustration of his outburst towards the family.
“Damn it,” he scolded himself, his hands wringing impotently at his sides.
“You have a lot to deal with,” Shade said. His familiars had been comfortingly following him around like apocalyptic ducklings. “Miss Hurin’s care, the Network, your family. The changes to the very nature of your being.”
“I know,” Jason said.
“The man who tried to kidnap you and is now at large,” Shade continued to list off, “the EOA, the World-Phoenix, the mysterious painter…”
“I said I know,” Jason snapped, then his whole body sagged. “I’m sorry, Shade. Without you, I wouldn't have kept my head above water this long. You deserve the opposite of being yelled at. How about a raise?”
“You don’t pay me,” Shade said.
“Of course I do,” Jason said. “I’ve been giving the money to Gordon every week to pass along, haven’t I, Gordon?”
Jason’s nebulous familiar gave no reaction.
“See?” Jason said.
“No one will blame you for getting overwhelmed,” Shade said.
“You don’t know my mother that well,” Jason said. “I can’t allow myself to unleash like that. What if I lose control of my aura and give someone an aneurism? It’s stronger than ever and I’m increasingly finding it getting off the leash when I become emotional. The whole reason I ducked in here was that I could feel myself losing what little remained of my cool. The power disparity means that I don't get to be the one who can't control himself.”
He groaned, running his hands over his face.
“Shade, I don’t know what to do. I don’t see a path where I can do all the things I need to do without my head popping like a pimple from stress.”
Emi marched into the crowded bar lounge, dragging Farrah by the hand. After drying off and putting on clothes, Emi had taken Farrah literally in hand and marched her into the bathroom of Emi’s cabin. She brushed out Farrah’s depression hair, returning her at least a semblance of the appearance she had in Jason’s recordings.
This allowed everyone who had seen the recordings to recognise her on her arrival in the bar lounge, leaving everyone but Asya startled by her arrival. This was double for Erika and Ian who, like Emi, had watched enough of them to learn Farrah’s fate. Asya at least had seen her when arranging Jason’s flight back to Australia.
Farrah’s gaze was drawn to Asya, whose iron-rank aura stood out amongst the normals. Farrah could feel the curiosity and nervousness of the woman, along with a faint strain of fear and hostility. It wasn’t that she viewed Farrah as a danger, but saw her as a more nebulous kind of threat. It wasn’t something Farrah could unravel without knowing the woman and circumstances more.
“They’ve all seen Uncle Jason’s recordings, so they all recognise you,” Emi explained, ignoring the room’s occupants as she pulled Farrah towards the arch. “Not all of them know you’re meant to be dead, though.”
For her part, Farrah was arrested by the incongruous obsidian arch in the middle of the room. She had once found an identical one under a lake, the object of a mission her team had been sent on by Emir.
“How can this be here?” she whispered to herself.
“Oh, this?” Emi asked as they reached the arch. “Uncle Jason makes them.”
“Farrah?” Erika asked, the first to gather her wits.
“That’s my mum,” Emi explained.
“Jason’s sister,” Farrah said, turning to Erika. “He always spoke warmly of you.”
“Erika Asano,” she introduced herself. “Jason told us you were dead.”
“I was,” Farrah said.