Alice woke up in the strangest way. Her eyes were already open and her body was moving through the jungle. Somehow a knife had found its way into her hand and it was slightly better at cutting foliage than a stick. Her muscles were already feeling tired and she had no idea where she was, besides being somewhere in the jungle. She couldn't tell if she had been out for minutes or hours. Then she realizes she couldn't control her body. She could put some strain on her muscles, but it would be quickly overpowered by the spirit possessing her. Maybe she could seize control in a critical moment and make herself fall, but ... that didn't seem useful.

On and on the spirit made her body walk, though as she paid attention to the direction, it wasn't always in a straight line. Sometimes it seemed to avoid an area, but then returned to the original direction. This astonished her a little as usually her sense of direction wasn't good enough to pick such things up. She also wasn't as freaked out as she should have been considering her body was puppeteered through the jungle. Clearly having your body snatched from you was a bad situation, but there was purpose in what the spirit made her do, and harming her was clearly not the goal. It could have cut her throat any time it felt like, but it must need her for something. She hoped it was not killing the people of Ariston, though presumably the knight was there, so that wasn't even a viable option.

Alice was unable to control her mouth and breathing, so talking was out of the question. *Where are we going?* she thought at the spirit. There was no answer. She wasn't sure if the spirit didn't hear, didn't understand or didn't care. She mentally sighed and waited, watching the green of the jungle and the slowly waning light. Eventually it would be night and she would need to rest. Also she would need to eat. And pee. She couldn't decide if it was worse that the spirit ignored her needs or would take care of them.

Alice was pulled out of her musings by rustling in the leaves that she only really noticed because her eyes were focused on it against her will. Her stance lowered involuntarily and a moment later a blur of a brown beast jumped at her. The knife in her hand rose faster than she thought her body capable and rammed into the now squealing beast, but that didn't stop it from crashing into her, landing painfully on top of her. Her hand was still gripping the handle of the knife, the blade now deeply buried in the beast's body as it went still, leaking warm sticky blood all over her chest. It seemed completely dead now, the knife must have reached its heart.

She could feel the anger of the spirit, straining her tired arms to push the beast off of her. Now the anger was directed at her. *How is this my fault?* she thought at the spirit, her own anger joining in. It was bad enough having one near-death experience after another; only the fact that she was merely a passive observer kept her from panicking. If she had actual agency in all of this she wouldn't know what to do. People just didn't survive out in the jungle by themselves, immortals such as Lady Veis not counting.

With some difficulty the spirit managed to pull the knife out of the beast. The ugly wound bled all over the jungle ground and she staggered. The will of the spirit was strong, but her body was at its limit and could not be driven much further. She would collapse soon, the spirit would lose interest and something would eat her. Also she must have looked hideous with her dress covered in blood. At least it wasn't her blood. *We need to slow down, eat and take a rest* she thought at the spirit. This time she got something of an answer, but it were merely feelings. While it felt completely different to the bleating of the stag, violence, fleeing and death were once again easy to identify, but also hunger, anger and pain. She had a newfound respect for the late head priest to be able to interpret this messy excuse of a communication attempt spirits seemed so fond of.

And then Alice just flopped onto the jungle ground, her muscles suddenly relaxing and no longer holding her up. She groaned at the undignified landing and then again when she moved her weak body back up. She probably would not be able to walk tomorrow, the soreness in her muscles was already starting to settle. Then she realized that she was alone in the jungle, too weak to run or fight and she started to panic. Was this how she died?

A wave of impatience and anger flooded her mind. The spirit wasn't gone, it had just decided to give her control back for a time. She didn't know what it wanted exactly and asking was probably going to be futile. Her stomach grumbled and the beast she just killed would make for a decent meal cooked over a fire. There was a difference between animals and spirit beasts she knew and eating spirit beasts could go horribly wrong, but it was not like she had much of a choice, so she turned to the dead beast and started taking it apart. It was a strange mix between a fox and a boar, long brown fur, stubby feet, a bushy tail, tusks and fox ears.

She had never seen such a creature nor was she proficient in butchering, but she had watched her parents do that on occasion and the thing's anatomy looked similar enough to a wild pig for her purposes. Remove the fur and intestines, cook the meat and process the fur. Some intestines had uses, but just eating them could be risky. The creature didn't look poisonous, but you never knew if the fox boar wasn't part viper and she would swallow a poison sack. She didn't know how to process fur either, tanning didn't work by just hanging it out to dry in the moist jungle, but just the meat was a good start. Except she didn't know how to make a fire. Rubbing wet sticks together would not work.

She half expected the spirit to get angry at her for wasting time, but it didn't. "What do you want me to do?" she asked it, but got no answer. Maybe it had left her after all? She took the opportunity to relieve herself some distance away from the cut open beast cadaver and used the foliage to clean herself up as well as she could. She almost wanted to fall asleep right after, but noticed the wavering air in front of her. "Having fun watching?" The spirit once again rushed into her, but this time she managed to barely stay conscious and observed herself stepping back to the beast, cut its belly open further and then reach inside with a hand, feeling around for something and finally ripping out a small, red, cherry-sized stone. Why there was a stone in the boar fox she had no idea, it didn't correspond to any organ she knew about. Then she popped it into her mouth and swallowed.

Alice almost puked it right back up, the iron taste of blood not at all to her liking, but the spirit wouldn't let her. Worse, the stone felt very hot, burning its way down her throat and settling in her stomach while she felt the heat from it spread through her. The spirit forced her to keep moving while her stomach started to cramp up and she wanted to cry in pain, but the spirit either didn't notice or didn't care. *Please, leave me be* she pleaded, but got nothing but a fleeting feeling of anger back. She started sweating and feeling delirious, the spirit not able to compensate for her body strongly rejecting whatever poison the spirit made her eat, but she kept staggering on until she ended up at a small cave next to a stream of clear water and collapsed in front of it. She drank big gulps of water to quench the burning feeling in her stomach, but it wouldn't go away no matter how much she drank. Finally the spirit hid her body in the cave. Breathing heavily she closed her eyes, her body no longer controlled by the spirit, but also not really under her own control either, her muscles simply refusing to respond. The stone kept burning and the burning spread, soon infusing her torso, just as painful. She thought she would die once the poison reached her heart, but apparently that was not the case, it just increased the pain even further. After twisting on the cave floor for a few more minutes exhaustion finally overpowered the pain and she went into blissful unconsciousness.

---

Alice found herself in a strange dream. She was sitting in an infinite void. After she woke up she'd wonder what she was sitting on in that void, but during the dream she didn't question it. The stone in her belly still radiated energy, but it wasn't heat exactly. It had filled her body completely, every cell bathed in the stone's energy. However, not all parts of her body reacted the same. There were various pockets in her body where the heat settled better than other places, many in her arms, legs and organs. Maybe there were a hundred or so, counting didn't work well while dreaming and it didn't seem that relevant. There was also that spot in her belly that seemed to be the biggest of the pockets where the stone used to be, maybe a little lower. In its stead there was a sort of wall that blocked some of the energy of the stone.

In her dream Alice tried to move, but instead of moving her body it was the strange energy that moved. It felt like a gas, filling all available space, but with effort could also be compressed. The energy moved only a little at her prodding, but it was enough to give her some relief from the burning sensation that permeated even her dream. Sadly it wouldn't stay where she moved it, instead expanding back throughout her body, making the pain return. She tried pushing the energy out of her, past her skin and for a little bit it actually worked, but soon it returned and she was no longer able to push it out. Alice felt delirious even in her dream which surely was a bad sign. The void she was sitting in faded into a diffuse haze and she opened her eyes.

It didn't feel like waking up, more like stepping outside the house, out of the void and into the real world. Alice was sweating, but the heat seemed to have lessened somewhat, not burning her much anymore like the stone did before. Where the stone itself had gone she didn't know, it seemed to have run out of energy because she couldn't feel it anymore. Her thirst made her look out of the cave towards the stream, but in front of the bright exit she saw a shadow hanging in the air. For a moment she wasn't sure if this was a different spirit since it had actual form instead of being just a blur, but when it rushed into her and she lost control of her body it became clear it wasn't. This time, however, she didn't almost go unconscious. Instead she felt a cold and dark energy sweeping through her, seizing control from her muscles.

While she once again had no control over her body, she now still had that little bit of control over the energy inside her, control that the spirit didn't or couldn't take away. Alice strained to make the stone's heat-like energy clashed with the icy darkness of the spirit, even tugging at the spirit's energy and with a final push she managed to push the spirit out of her body, making it dissipate and reappear in front of her as a shadow. This also let her regained control of her body, putting a smile on her. "Looks like your free ride is over" she said and struggled to her feet. Laying on the cold cave floor without any food had been rough and she ached all over. Something was caked around her mouth and the blood on her chest partially flaked off. It was day time again, she must have been out for over 12 hours. Still she forced her body to obey and walked straight through the shadow towards the cave's exit and the stream beyond to quench the thirst that was even worse now than last night.

"Ungrateful child" she heard a labored whisper say behind her. She winced as she instinctively tried to spin around and the pain in her muscles reminded her of the state she was in. "Since when can you speak? Why didn't you do that before?" The shadow came closer, but she was no longer afraid of it. Thinking about it she was never afraid of it. Previously it could do whatever it wanted to her but didn't harm her and now it was powerless as far as she knew. It was a little worrying though that the energy she used to drive it away had been greatly diminished when it clashed with the spirit. Her ability to drive it away might be limited to a couple of times at best. "Spoke before. Didn't listen."

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"I couldn't understand you before. I'm still having trouble understanding you now." She turned to leave the cave once more, only to find the spirit suddenly reforming in front of her. "Do not leave."

Alice almost just kept walking, but then decided against it. She was still alone in the jungle and this shadow was the only thing somewhat interested in keeping her alive. It seemed unwise to ignore it. "I'm thirsty. What do you want?"

Instead of answering, the shadow went deeper into the cave and hid behind a boulder. Alice briefly looked at the entrance but saw nothing, then followed. "Are you hiding from me?" she asked the shadow. "No. Hiding from that." There was no gesture pointing at anything accompanying those words, but when she heard a noise outside the cave she quickly hid behind the boulder as well. The shadow kept whispering. "Greater spirits notice. Hide more." *This is just great. Make me a bigger target* she thought to herself but didn't voice it. After a few minutes the shadow slid around the cave walls towards the entrance and declared the danger gone. "Drink."

Alice stumbled out of the cave and towards the cold clear stream, drank her fill and then washed the sweat and other filth off herself. Then she made a futile attempt at removing the dried bloodstain from her chest, but it seemed like she would have to keep walking around in a dirty dress. She was also very hungry. She looked around for the beast from yesterday, but it was gone, probably eaten by something. Not having food was the most pressing problem, but she couldn't quite bring herself to get up and look for berries or roots to eat. First she wouldn't find enough to keep herself from starving, second this was the jungle and she'd die, and third...

Alice thought back to Kriston and cried. So many people dead and senseless at that. It wasn't even raiders who wanted something, just mindless destruction. She thought back to her family that she would never see again, back to Ron who probably had a nice coach ride. She wanted to do something, but there was nothing to be done. The dead got the best funeral they could afford and they were already avenged. Lady Veis had seen to that. She was almost angry she wouldn't be able to do any of that herself, though she couldn't even fault the knight for that. There was no way she could fight spirits and she was asked to help with the funeral and then just ... didn't. Alice sighed. Her pain and anger had no direction.

"Vengeance incomplete. Root alive." She looked up at the spirit, half worried that it seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, but also confused what it had meant. She had heard stories of spirits not being able to lie, but also of them sweet-talking people into their ruin. None of what she knew made much sense if you thought about it too much. "What do you mean? The spirits survived Lady Veis' sword?" The spirit came closer. "Spirits dead. Maker not." Someone *made* these spirits? Spirits had to come from somewhere, but created by a person? With the intend to destroy Kriston? Why would anyone do that?

"Help revenge" the spirit said, and those simple pseudo-words were laden with feelings. Anger, sadness and hopelessness, mixed with a drive unlike anything Alice had ever known. There was no hierarchy, not her helping it or it helping her, more like equals with similar goals. She could tell that going after that maker was what the spirit really wanted, maybe it was even its whole reason for existing. "Who did it?" she asked, but only got a feeling of dread and disappointment back. It didn't know. Maybe there was nobody in the first place. Spirits could form spontaneously sometimes, especially after a violent death with unfulfilled duties and strong desires. Burning the bodies usually prevented that from happening, someone must have really messed up or there was nobody left to send off the dead. Also she wasn't particularly vengeful in the first place. Her people were dead, nothing she did would make a difference and chances were that even the maker of the spirits did not actually mean for Kriston to fall, simply because it was irrelevant. That had been its true defense, that nobody cared to destroy it. On the other hand she really needed help to survive.

"Alright, if we ever find out who is responsible for the attack on Kriston I will do my best to take them down." It was an easy promise to make. Chances were that this wouldn't result in her having to take action and if it did she'd gladly do so. "Acceptable" the shadow spirit said, with a surge of renewed hope. "Join" it said formally, its cold essence invading her body, making Alice stagger, but it didn't seem to be trying to take control of her this time. Instead it pressed against the walls of the pocket in her belly that had retained much more of the stone's energy than the rest of her body. Alice hesitated. Letting a body-snatching spirit into her willingly didn't seem like the best idea. Also it seemed to not get along with the stone's energy and if the spirit went into that concentrated energy blob it might just die. "Join!" the spirit repeated impatiently and she decided to see what would happen. Alice opened herself up, allowing the spirit into her pocket, feeling its icy essence mix with the radiating energy already there. This time the spirit was not dissuaded and her pocket turned cold and dark, but still churning with energy.

*Hunt. Rest. Train.* A feeling of slight worry settled in, like after signing a contract you weren't entirely sure you wouldn't regret later, but there was no point in fretting over it since it was too late now. Also her stomach grumbled once again, demanding food. "Where did the fox boar body go?" she asked aloud. *Gone* was the answer and the spirit seemed to really not want to go into the details of how it disappeared. It probably lost a fight with some other spirit and didn't want to admit it. A feeling of annoyance was her answer. She wondered if at some point she'd have difficulty distinguishing between her own and the spirit's feelings. *Hunt!*

"Alright, alright!" Alice picked up the knife from the cave and slowly started walking, her muscles recovering somewhat with each step. She wasn't a trained hunter since hunting in the jungle was far too dangerous, but now she had to make do. Getting attacked by that fox boar was exceedingly lucky she realized. Most creatures were either stronger than her and would hunt her or weaker and flee. The number of creatures that would be weak enough for her to kill with a knife and also underestimate her to come to her must be small, not to speak of how they could survive in the first place if she could kill them. In the end she only found a few berries growing near the stream and her still recovering muscles quickly grew tired again.

As she rested on the shore, Alice noticed some reflections in the water stream. At first she had discarded them as mere sun rays dancing in the water, but when paying attention she realized there were fish in there. Some of them were big enough to make a meal and they surely wouldn't be able to eat her, so she started slashing at the river with her knife, trying to stab one of the fish. She could feel the unease of the spirit inside her, but it didn't stop her, so she kept trying. It turned out stabbing fish in a river wasn't at all easy. You needed a net. Even if she slashed one it would likely escape and get eaten or die downstream. Finally she just blocked most of the stream with the hem of her dress, her legs freezing in the cold water. The cloth made for a reasonable net, letting enough water through without ripping.

After a few minutes a fish roughly the size of her forearm jumped into her lap, thrashing about and she took the opportunity to stab it and wrap it in the cloth so it couldn't slip away. A sudden panic filled her. Not knowing what to do she let the spirit take over who didn't waste any time getting up and bolting into the jungle, securely holding the fish in the dress. Behind her she heard a tidal wave rushing down the stream and then turn after her. Thankfully the water couldn't follow her far into the jungle and the wave soon ran out of power. *Stealing bad* the spirit chided her like she was an arrogant naive child. Alice was indeed naive, as she didn't realize the river was a person one needed to be nice to and ask for the favor of being allowed to fish. Irritation flooded her and the spirit didn't go into it further. Now she was away from the stream with a dead fish in her hands and a dress that would look and especially smell even worse. It probably also wasn't smart to return to the stream anytime soon, whatever thing can make a tidal wave in a little stream would surely be too much for her.

Alice gutted the fish, removed the head and scales, then lamented the lack of fire to cook the meat. Her hunger was stronger than her disgust and she cut a piece of raw fish and swallowed it. It didn't taste very fishy, unlike the fish she had had in the village. It was somewhat slimy though and she had some trouble keeping it down. After a few minutes her disgust subsided and her hunger won out again and she took another piece, this time swallowing it without letting it touch her tongue. It helped a little bit, making her recovery time shorter. Soon she had eaten most of the fish. She wanted to throw the rest away, but the spirit insisted on her returning it to the stream. This time there was no sudden flood attacking her, whatever made that happen was gone.

*Rest* the spirit said. Her body was tired enough, but her mind was still riled up. The cave was too far back, so she just cowered under a large tree. "What is the plan?" she asked, half the spirit and half herself. She had been lucky to survive this far, or not only lucky, the spirit had saved her multiple times. Still though, surviving alone in the jungle, even if possible, wasn't very useful. *Hunt. Rest. Train.* the spirit repeated and Alice sighed. "To what end?" *Become strong. Kill invaders.* Invaders? The spirit still spoke more in feelings than in words and the word didn't express the feeling well. Violator, liar, attacker, monster, barbarian... it wasn't very clear what exactly the spirit meant. There were actual barbarians out there sometimes, west of the jungle past the mountain range. Kriston was technically a frontier town, a settlement of people who wanted to try their luck with free land and resources instead of begging for scraps in the cities, but it came with risks of barbarian raids, though there were military installations in the way and there was not much there to raid in the first place. *Wrong* the spirit thought irritatedly, but Alice didn't want to get into politics.

While her body recovered, her mind wandered. To the dead town of Kriston, the probably still alive town of Ariston, the academy Lady Vice spoke of, Ron, who might be on his way there, to her destiny that didn't seem to go as she had thought... Living alone in the jungle definitely was a major diversion from what she anticipated. Then it went to the icy block in her belly where the spirit resided. Tentatively she ordered the energy to flow out and around in her body. To her surprise it obeyed her, sluggishly flowing through her arms, legs and head. After the energy returned to her belly it was a little less icy and a little more responsive. Since she had nothing better to do she started cycling the energy around her body, slowly turning the energy into a clear form, not hot or cold, like water without a temperature. Eventually all the energy was converted.

*Good* the spirit praised her. *Take more.* At first she didn't know what it meant, but after a while she noticed that when she cycled the energy, a few scraps of other energy would get swept up with it, and that new energy would get converted to the neutral type over time. Most of the energy joined her via her lungs which probably made sense since she breathed in air from around her, draining it of something, then breathing it back out. She had done that since she was born and only now she understood a little better why breathing air in and out even made sense. Unfortunately there was also a lot of loss of energy, it kept leaking out of her body. After a while she started to trap the energy together with the spirit in her core which reduced the leakage greatly. It was fun trying to create currents that would prevent the loss and maximize the capture, increasing the amount she could hold. She didn't know what to do with that energy, besides flooding out the spirit, and even that she wasn't sure would even work now that it was no longer the radiating type. Also she had promised to help the spirit punish whoever was responsible for the attack, so she didn't want to do that. Sadly her muscles didn't seem to be able to use that movable energy and got tired regardless of the presence of it. It was still strangely fascinating and satisfying to do, making her lose track of time.

*Enough training, move.* This passed as training? Her body still moved sluggishly due to the muscles being exhausted. Slowly she started walking in the same direction she was before, having a feeling of where to go but unable to voice it. Alice kept walking, hunting, resting, and playing with her energy. The spirit steered her away from danger or straight-up mind-controlled some beasts to make them run away or allow her to kill them without much effort. Her body stayed weak, barely able to walk, unable to run, but still making progress through walking most of her waking hours. She wondered how long she'd be able to keep this up. How long she already had.

Eventually the jungle gave way to plains covered in farmland surrounding a hill, on top of which was a bastion with high walls and knights patrolling. Some of the area further back was too rocky for fields, but it looked like the stone had been mined for ore. Considering the size of the fort she was sure the fields were not big enough to feed everyone. She had been approaching it from the side and had to walk around it along the walls to the front. Many of the sentries spotted her, but didn't react. She wasn't a threat and apparently also not worth helping out. After weeks of walking through the jungle, being soaked in blood and catching fish with her dress left her in terrible shape, like a beggar from a city. Her body still being obviously weak reinforced the impression and so she had to slowly walk to the entrance. At least she would have some human contact again.