Chapter Twenty-Three: Phases of the Moon

Vade gently placed the curled-up, fast-asleep Mia onto the ground. After playing herself into exhaustion, Mia had ended up in his palm. He cradled the little ghost, and only once she had fallen asleep did he set her next to the scale. By habit, he folded a corner of the shroud to cover her ethereal body. A ghost probably didn’t need a blanket to sleep—after all, ghosts wouldn’t catch cold—but Vade absentmindedly pulled the fabric over her. Unexpectedly, in her sleep, Mia turned over, gathered up the edge of the linen, and burrowed herself beneath it. Those who live in cold regions all know to sleep under covers; it seemed she’d retained that habit. Vade took note of this small detail, resolving to someday make her a little blanket suited to her needs. With proper bedding, perhaps she’d stop nestling into his palm so often.

But with the scant supplies at hand, Vade could do nothing for now. The cave was barren; apart from a rag, only some bones remained. To upgrade their furnishings, he’d have to venture outside for materials. Yet even as Mia settled into sleep, the wind outside hadn’t ceased its howling. Vade felt it acutely—leaning against the edge of the cave, he sensed the tremors of wind through the earth, picturing the sandstorms raging beyond.

The wind swept across the wasteland. Before Vade’s last period of dormancy, there had been no wind; for a long time, he hadn’t witnessed such gales. He pondered how long he’d wandered the wasteland, picking up a white bone to scribble calculations on the ground. Here, there was no sunrise or sunset, no ordinary way to mark a full day. So he adopted another method: he counted the duration of his complete rest cycle as the length of a day.

He’d used this method since earlier times. The margin of error was small, since each period of dormancy required roughly the same amount of time. By tallying the number of times he rolled his dice in the “dream”—about twenty-one thousand five hundred rolls per cycle—he could gauge the length of his rest. He always sat on the ground, rolling the die gently within a tiny area. Picking it up, tossing it, waiting for it to stop—each roll took about two seconds, three at most.

Simple multiplication yielded the answer: twenty-one thousand five hundred rolls would take roughly twelve hours. Though he’d never spent an entire waking day rolling something, his sense told him that wakefulness and sleep were of equal duration. Thus, his method of timekeeping was rather reliable.

By this calculation, today marked the fifty-seventh day since his resurrection as a skeleton. Vade scratched the number fifty-seven into the dirt, barely able to make out the figures by the faint glow Mia radiated. At least fifty-seven days had passed without such fierce winds; minor breezes were common, but they hardly hindered movement. Strong winds were rare on the wasteland—or at least, rare in the first fifty-seven days of Vade’s activity.

He’d formed a theory to explain the cause of this great wind—one he believed had at least eighty percent credibility. The change in wind strength was likely tied to the blood moon overhead. Not intuition or premonition—the moon’s shifts followed a pattern. As an idle skeleton, Vade had endless time to sit and gaze skyward, studying the moon.

He reconstructed its phases from memory, charting them against the days. In the first fifty-seven days, the moon waxed from a quarter crescent to full. The night of the full moon coincided with the day Vade saw many skeletons rise from the sand to battle. Magical energy was unprecedentedly dense that night; as the full moon began to wane, the magic faded with it.

Thus, he reasoned, the changes in the moon’s phase might directly impact the wasteland’s living conditions. Like the rise and fall of the tides, it was a regular magical ebb and flow. From new moon to full, the wasteland’s climate remained stable—Vade hadn’t witnessed extreme weather, nor were the roaming skeletons particularly active. But as the full moon waned, everything shifted. The windstorm seemed to coincide with the moon’s transformation.

Most likely, it was linked to the outpouring of magical power. The first fifty-seven days had seen magic gathering, absorbed by the sky, leaving the land tranquil. Now, as the full moon passed, magic spilled outward—the “tide” surged forth, and the wind swept across the land. This theory perfectly explained the anomalies.

It seemed the coming days would demand extra caution. The preceding fifty days might have been the calm before the storm; the retreat of waves on the beach didn’t mean the seas had stilled—it was merely the prelude to greater surges. If one wandered beneath the waves, foolishly collecting shells without heed, the incoming tide would sweep them away, toss them into the ocean.

Adequate preparations were essential. The waning moon cycle was likely the most perilous time on the wasteland. Vade resolved to reinforce and upgrade the cave; if the wind died down, he’d seize the chance to gather materials and useful items outside. It wasn’t as though staying in the cave meant all was well and safe. If the cave contained everything, nothing lacking, he could simply hide away—but in truth, much was missing.

First, reinforcement was vital. Relying on Mia to freeze the main supporting structures was only a temporary measure, not a permanent solution. It was obvious—the ice binding the bones was melting; droplets trickled down the white joints. Without upgrading the overall structure, they’d always face the risk of cave collapse.

As for seeking a new home elsewhere... If he could find a better place, Vade wouldn’t have chosen this one. He’d surveyed a vast area; all things considered, this spot was the best. Thus, he could only try to improve it.

He also had to find food for Mia. He himself felt little need, but Mia had communicated her “hunger” since her birth. The book had said: without sufficient magic and soul energy to feed on, a spirit cannot sustain its existence and will eventually dissolve into basic magic and elements, returning to nature.

Right now, Mia still had an undigested soul within her, providing energy—there was no immediate worry. But once she finished consuming it, if he hadn’t found new sustenance for her...

Vade glanced at Mia, quietly sleeping beside him, stretched out a finger, and poked her little cheek. After a moment’s gaze, he turned away in silence, recalling his journey step by step. On the ground, he began to sketch a map of the places he’d traversed, carefully marking out spots where potential resources might be found.