[Havanna]
Havanna woke up stretching and groaning, pushing the sand beneath the bedsheet aside as she tossed and turned. The morning sun’s arc loomed over the horizon, inching up by the minute. She hated waking up this early, but the blinding dawn and the threat of the unknown made it impossible for her to continue lazing away. It had been almost three weeks since she ended up on this island. Her soul healed for the most part by now. Soon she could connect to the hub again and meet Ewan.
She giggled—the corners of her mouth widening into a foolish smile—when his fuming image appeared in her mind, with his nostrils flared and veins popped. The few years of detachment had chiseled a gulf between them, especially when her parents died. Both cared for each other but neither crossed that chasm, they just watched from afar from their own world, struggling with their own misery.
Gone were the days when they scratched each other over the last piece of cake, and the days when they sliced it in half and ended up sharing it anyway. When they finally talked after years, the words were familiar, but the tone had pulled away.
Yet it all changed now, their relationship was sliding back to how it was when they were kids. When they ripped each other’s hair off in the morning then giggled together under the same blanket at night; when Ewan wetted the bed and blamed it on her; when she bit him and blamed it on the dog; when he ran to her house whenever Uncle Authen cooked something; when she used him as a shield against her angry mum; and when he ducked, and she got spanked in the end anyway—he always tittered on the side….
Her dreams weren’t as grand as Ewan’s, she only wished to live a simple life with him—a humble life, a reflection and continuation of their childhood. She didn’t want him to stop for her though and didn’t hope to be a thorn in his path either. And so, to walk with him, to match his steps, she had to aim high and avoid the pitfall of mere average.
Now that her soul injury didn’t trouble her, she had to start working towards her dream. It towered as a whole picture, its peak hiding beyond the unreachable clouds, but in pieces, it became daily monotonous chores. The baby steps would take her to her destination.
She stood up, brushing the sand off her arms and her butt, and looked towards the depth of the island. She found those berries at the edge. Something that could affect the soul was at the edge, what would there be deep inside the forest? She aspired to be an Artificer, and Ewan was a Potioneer—they both needed raw ingredients. So, she planned to explore the island today, find some precious materials and herbs if possible.
……
[Ewan]
Potioneering Room.
The argent liquid floated in the test tube, shying away from the wall, repelling most external influences. The potion was a dream, existing and non-existing at the same time. It expressed the extent of virtual and reality, and how the two mixed. A shake of the test tube disarrayed the droplets and soon they formed random images, vague but obvious scenes from reality.
Memories, Ewan thought. He’d already read about this nature of mystic element after encountering the illusion of the horizon. ‘The ocean remembers’, they said. It was a fascinating ability, both mesmerizing and powerful. The extent of its potential took his imagination on a wild ride. Their realization depended on the mystic rune though. So, he could only focus on the doable right now and shove all those ideas back.
He loaded the potion into the injector and pushed it in his veins. After the shot and the slight sting, it spread in him, pushing his intellectual acuity to beyond its limits. The sharp thoughts ran amuck, colliding and concluding with incoherent results, becoming a muddled mess. His senses soared and sharpened; he winced in pain at even a caress of the wind. A layer of the world peeled away in front of his eyes. He saw the skeletal structure of the basement, where he sat, where the spell circuits were. He saw the chaotic arrangement of all Anima, the order hidden within, their conflicts and their harmony. How they would go for each other’s throats in his body yet lived peacefully in nature together.
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The enlightening view strained his nerves, and soon he bled from his eyes and had to shut it close.
His favored-level affinity in the mystic element strengthened his control over the potion, it gathered at his heart with a thought. The modification process took him through illusions, or rather, memories.
The rise of the kingdom, its naming ceremony, its golden age, its prosperity, its kings and its wars, its successes and its defeats, and its downfall with the ‘Endless Helix’. The ‘mystic’ remembered not only the ocean. The time-devoured history, the forgotten names, the long-lost culture, it kept it all.
Some of the details matched the booked records, so this must be the fallen kingdom—Ashocan. And the ocean that kissed its coast, the endless water that spanned beyond the false horizon was the Morinfair Ocean.
The illusions, the memories, the resurging past, they gave birth to an idea that took over his mind. He couldn’t resist it; he didn’t want to resist it. The whetted acuity supported him; his enhanced senses paved the pathway. He built a framework around the idea, a skeletal spell circuit—still raw and unstable but feasible. Stroke by stroke, inch by inch, he adjusted and readjusted, and filled in the gaps. By the time the potion modified his heart, he had his final product glimmering in his soul space.
Remembrance—he named and recorded it in his Spellbook.
….
The mystic element only absorbed the drastic disturbances and the changes. A stale and stagnant environment couldn’t pluck its string, it couldn’t let the Mystic-Anima remember its traces.
Remembrance!
Ewan cast the spell on the villa to confirm his suspicion—it was far too cheap. The Anima ran velvet smooth in his body by virtue of the modifications. Even half a cycle produced noticeable effects on his Anima manipulation. Especially Mystic-Anima where the lack of rune made the improvement more tangible.
The spell circuit hummed once the Anima stuffed it and rippled out a few surging waves. They struck the wild Mystic-Anima and rampaged through, leaving only a stirred chaos behind. In that muddled reflection, Ewan saw what he wanted to see—the history of this villa. The Anima showed him the memories, the spectral past, and it proved his suspicion.
A massacre at the hands of a young curious boy who wanted to understand what death meant. Ewan shook his head. Others might care for this, he didn’t. As long as the extreme event didn’t produce any ‘Wraith’, he didn’t care. Even if it did create a ‘Wraith’, as long as it didn’t disturb him, they could coexist.
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Status: Healthy
Step-0 [8th Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 1.9
Spirit: 16.9
Anima: [Fire – 16.9 | Ice – 16.9 | Blood – 16.9]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [8th Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-8] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-8] [Grade-B]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-8] [Grade-C]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 14
Crelith: 4689