When Stefan awakened, when the spell wore off and realization set in, he clenched the bedsheet and his chest heaved. Sweat drenched his forehead and his breath broke in half, he had his one foot in the panic state, and the rest also slipped away.
Ewan stayed afar, watching his plight with absolute detachment, and Kidd also followed his example. If Stefan couldn’t even survive the idea of being blind, then being a Whispered was far from his reach, and Ewan had no intention of lending him a hand and creating a subpar version of the man.
He had fortitude though, his pain and his guilt had steeled his determination, to the point of being suicidal even. And so, he stabilized his state, his tension dissipated, and he recited the chant of the rite and prepared his first step towards the Whispered path. With the blood from his eye sockets, he traced his skull over his facial skin, flinching each time he went back to dip his finger in the red. Soon the air hummed around him, matching the timbre of his chants. The more layers he painted, the more he chanted, the louder the buzz got, and the four types of Anima Ewan could sense surged in his premise.
Finally, an elusive shockwave snapped the thread, and Stefan broke free from the Kyron—he’d become a Whispered.
….
“Is there any discomfort?” Ewan asked, taking a seat beside the bed. Kidd dragged a stool too, scraping the floor, and sat his ass down.
“No, you’re really good at this,” Stefan said, tilting his head towards Ewan with his eyelids shut and caved in.
“It’s mostly because you became a Whispered soon after,” Ewan said, taking out the lantern he got from Algernon, along with all the information on it. “Here’s the lantern I talked about. You need to use your eyes as its wick and light it up.” He handed the lantern over and helped Stefan reach it when he was groping around.
“I’m not sure what it does though, you need to figure that out by yourself,” he said, sticking the crystal ball to Stefan’s forehead. “Touch it with your spirit, and don’t resist.”
“What about the blindfold?” Kidd asked.
“Make it yourself, do I have to do everything for you fuckers.” Ewan snapped and clicked his tongue.
“I’ll just use the one I was practicing with,” Stefan said when the crystal ball spent the information stored inside and dimmed.
“Rest a while, light the lantern, and get used to being a Whispered,” Ewan said. “I’ll handle the navigation for now. You need to learn how to navigate in your condition though, you said that yourself.”
“Just a day or two, I won't be long,” Stefan said with a smile, a peaceful and a mundane smile. The change in status has smoothened his edge, he looked at ease now, light as a feather.
“At least there’s no Kyron on-board anymore,” Ewan said with a sigh of relief. “I don’t have to worry about anyone catching fire from the sunlight now. Oh, the mess to clean after that.”
“It’s not like you would clean it yourself,” Kidd mumbled. “You’d kick my ass and make me do it.”
Ewan grabbed his hair yet again and rattled him around, flicking his forehead hard in between his vibrating cries. “That reminds me,” he said. “Sun hasn’t come out in a long time now, there might be something brewing. We need to be prepared.”
“What do we do?” Stefan asked as Kidd soothed his reddened forehead and fixed his bird’s nest of a hair with practiced strokes.
“What else can we do besides get stronger,” Ewan said. “Step-1 at the very least, all of you must reach that before the storm comes. We’ll work towards that from now on.”
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“Boss, I’m already Step-1,” Kidd said. “What do I do?”
“You and I will gather resources,” Ewan said. “Let’s first hit that pirate ship you were talking about. If they’re a regular in this area, someone must have some problem with them. We can take the bounty and loot the pirates, double gain.”
“Stormfalcon also needs repairing, I’ll need some parts for it,” Stefan said.
“What about the Rigen, Boss?” Kidd asked.
“Yeah, we need to find a good source.” Ewan frowned and mulled. “Let’s search around this region, maybe some island has a fueling station.”
“We can always go back and get some from Okona Key,” Stefan said.
“That’ll be our last option,” Ewan said. “For now, let’s stick to this region and gather some capital.”
…..
Stormfalcon, Mechanics Hall.
Nana had already settled in by the time Ewan came down to the hall, as her strewn materials and tools marked her territory. Stefan as the warship mechanic, and Nana as an Artificer would share the hall for their purposes, the intended design of the section deemed it so. But with Stefan’s eyes gone, and Nana being Nana, Ewan could only see a stumbling future for the man, full of stubbed toes.
“Can you organize a little? I told you to sort what you got, not scatter them around,” he said, threading his way through the ores and the irons.
“I already did, the other stuff I had were in the way, so I kept them aside for now,” Nana said, looking up at him while adjusting the line of drenched materials on the sheet before her. “This is what I got from the water.” She pointed at them with a grin.
“Anything good?” he asked, squatting at an empty place beside her, running his eyes across her collection.
“It’s mostly anima crystals,” she said, brushing the mountainous pile of cerulean chips. “Among some other common materials. Just this rock, its reacting to me.” She reached for the irregular glassy rock, and it tremored on her touch.
“It’s Runeslag,” Ewan said, after a cast of
Nana nodded, then looked at him. “Nothing came up in my
“We both forgot,” he said. “You’re no better than me then, you also forget things.”
“I am, I remember all our important dates, you even forgot my birthday.”
“I didn’t forget, it was on that date…that…uh…a few months ago…” She gave him a blank stare with her nostrils flaring, and he could only flash back a crooked guilt-ridden smile. “Happy birthday,” he uttered.
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Status: Healthy
Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
Subtype: Step-0 Elementalist
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 7.0
Spirit: 25.5
Anima: [Fire – 25.5 | Ice – 25.5 | Blood – 25.5 | Mystic: 25.5 | Dark: 25.5]
Astylinds: 5 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Bloodthorn-Lotus [Iris]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-D]
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Necros-Crow [Ghost]: Step-0 [Level-4] [Grade-D]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball]; Rainwarden [Staff]; Blackfeather [Overcoat].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Unknown Book [Radon’s Legacy]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Hub-Connector; Ingredients; Lantern.
Novas: 24,285
Crelith: 1,014