Chapter 7 - Recovery

Morgan hadn't slept, she did a secondary investigation on the enigmatic master and belatedly realised she hadn't even known his name previously.

'Sunless… what a strange name.'' 

Over the course of the night, the mental damage that had been plaguing her healed. She looked back upon her actions and felt embarrassment, but it was no longer amplified to the point where she needed to hold her head in her hands.

She found herself to be somewhat disappointed, wishing to continue to forsake her duties to be with him. This surprised her, but not too much.

Morgan always knew that she longed for something deep within her, and realised the true extent of it after her sobering defeat. But for it to go as far as her wishing to abandon all of her responsibilities and duties to pursue it, that was surprising.

She hadn't done anything all of yesterday, partially because she didn't trust herself to, but mostly because she was preoccupied.

Morgan let out an awkward cough, blushing a little bit. 'Let's not talk about that.'

She purged the memory from her mind and focused on analysing the information she had found on Sunless.

'So he made a memory for Saint Roan, it makes sense that he was confident enough to make a transcendent one.' She only focused on the important parts, not too surprised to see notes of his apparent aversion to clan Valor.

'It's disappointing, but it doesn't matter too much.' She could think of half a million ways to coerce a rogue master into joining anyway.

Morgan had previously organised the results she found on him, but was also busy with training and catching up on yesterday's inaction. It was only now did she actually read over and consider him as a person. 

Morgan constructed a profile of him in her mind and frowned. There was a distinct lack of information on him before about a year ago when he suddenly popped into existence.

There were also a couple of glaring inconsistencies. She almost wouldn't be surprised if he was a nightmare creature pretending to be a human.

One thing she was sure of, was that he wasn't a Song spy. 

For one, the details on him were too suspicious, any self-respecting spy would at least try to cover it up.

Two, he showed no intention of getting closer to Valor, in fact, he did the exact opposite. Morgan found him increasingly interesting, and increasingly suspicious. 

She still didn't know enough about him to make any meaningful conclusion, so her motivation to find more about him increased.

'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer… I think I'll go see him again tonight.' Master Sunless wasn't an enemy per se, but he was an unknown. To a strategist such as herself, an unknown was as good as an enemy, if not worse.

***

Morgan came again that day, Sunny was starting to get used to her presence in the shop. Unlike last time, she only came just before closing time and had something to drink before leaving.

She still managed to strike up some conversation with him, and her questions were uncomfortably poignant as usual. He found himself giving away more than intended, but still kept the most important of his secrets close.

Sunny had been spending his day running the cafe and the night creating the weaves for Morgan's commissioned memories. He even cut back on sleep to get it done.

Ever since the first day, Morgan had been a lot more like how she was in his memories. She was less carefree, if you could call her carefree at all.

Sunny didn't know what had happened to her, but was sorrowful that it had. It landed him under her watchful gaze after all.

'One more day, then it'll be over.' He was hopeful, but also knew it was more likely that Morgan would continue to bother him after the fact. 

Sunny sighed and got to work again, the weave for the quiver was done, but the bow had one more enchantment to add.

True to himself, Sunny had left the hardest bit for last. He summoned the bow and let it lie on the ground, confident that he could finish it today.

Sunny sat down in front of the bow and switched his vision, peering into the four glowing nexuses and intricate weave of shadowy strings.

He manifested the surrounding shadows into two extra pairs of arms and got to work.

The enchantment he had suggested to Morgan had many different parts. The ability to shoot anything was quite literal. From liquid to gas to living creatures.

He had already started on the enchantment. There was already a weave that designated everything within the bounds of the bow and its string as a target, and another that allowed the force of the string being let go of to affect it like an arrow.

The last part of the enchantment he needed to add was a passive force that contained whatever was between the string and the bow and let it spread again after it hit something.

He decided to shape anything put within, into an arrow to better work with the bow.

His six arms moved, his fingers moving with speed but also precision as he drew out strings and placed them on a delicate tapestry.

The enchantment slowly came together, he stole elements from the weaves of many memories he had seen before and let his instinct fill in the gaps.

Soon he was left with just one more part of the enchantment, but he felt that the amount of cores wouldn't be able to sustain it.

He hadn't quite mastered the ability to determine how many cores an enchantment would need, so he kept enough on hand for a careful transplant later on.

Sunny grabbed a fifth transcendent soul shard and connected it with the rest of the tapestry.

Soon, as the morning quickly approached, he was finished.

He took a step back and sighed, 'Finally over.'

Summoning the bow into his soul sea, he walked out of his workshop with two completed products.

'I'll give them to her tonight.'