Keira was not happy with him after he told her what happened. He should have woke her; should have told her sooner about the voice, should have taken her with him. She had started pacing around the room as he spoke and rifled off her annoyance at his lack of consideration for her. The worst part was when she turned to him with near tears in her eyes and voiced her frustration that he could have disappeared again. That, once again he chose to go alone to a dangerous place without telling her first.
He understood her frustration and felt even more guilt than he had with the instructors. He had promised not to do anything stupid without telling her first multiple times at this point and yet there he was, about to chase a voice of his past into the woods without anyone knowing. He continued to apologise until she was too tired to continue her ranting and they both settled back down to sleep for what was left of the night.
It wasn’t peaceful; he dreamed of the voice, he dreamed of his sister, but worse, he dreamed of the wraith that came for him. When he woke up, he looked to Keira who was sound asleep and as he lay there trying to drift off again, he thought about how he acted. He froze up, fear got the better of him and he couldn’t even react to the wraith that appeared before him. Would he do that again? What about other demons, like the guardians—would he not be able to respond next time or was it just because it was a wraith?
The questions flooded his weary mind and stopped him from falling asleep again but all they did was bring more frustration and confusion. The window started to show signs that the night was drifting away; light began to fill the room and he knew that what time he had left to sleep would soon be over but he was not ready for a day of training, not now.
The fading night moved to day without any real rest and his worries continued to plague him until an alarm signified any chance of more sleep was gone. The device on his wrist, as all of them had that measured their anam and monitored their level in relation to their spirit, lit up and beeped. It had never happened before but he knew it was a feature. They could be used to communicate with others if you had their identification number and signals could be sent to your party, such as an emergency call for help. In this case, it seemed the instructors were using that same feature to signal it was time for them all to get up and come to the main room.
Keira groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes before looking at the beeping thing on her wrist. He watched her very sleepily try and turn it off which resulted in a lot of frustrated hitting after failing multiple times. When she finally got it to stop and looked at him, he was laughing, feeling some reprieve from the exhaustion that was still present.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said to his grin.
“You’ll forgive me once you’ve eaten, come on, let’s grab William.”
“Bold assumption,” she stood up and walked to the door. “I’m going to get changed and things, I’ll meet you outside William’s door—don’t go disappearing before breakfast.”
She walked out and he felt the same moment of guilt and realisation that she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight from now on, not that she ever stayed far away before. He hopped to the adjoining bathroom to wash up and prepare for the day before getting dressed and leaving the room. William was already waiting for him.
“Morning, hope you both slept better than I did,” he said.
“I don’t think either of us slept all that well, surprised you had a rough night?”
“It’s this miasma, it makes me feel tired, exhausted really, but when I actually tried to sleep I was just uncomfortable all night, made it impossible to get settled.”
“I guess I was busy thinking about other things to really notice, though now that you mention it, well it certainly doesn’t help.”
The miasma made things more confusing and when he thought about how restless he felt after the incident, he wondered if that was part of the reason he struggled to sleep more. He had been so focused on everything that happened to put much thought into it. They continued to make small talk while waiting for Keira and once she appeared from her room, they all made their way to the main hall.
Most of their section had already arrived and the ones who hadn’t drifted in with sleep-filled eyes and groggy appearances. It seemed that they weren’t the only ones to struggle with sleeping in this place though he assumed their reasons were more towards William’s than his own. They sat down near the edge of one of the large tables in the middle of the room with William on their outer side as had become common. He had become the friendly one of the group while people seemed to avoid Keira and Finlay for reasons they weren’t in agreement over.
Sara was busy working over a large pot and he realised that she seemed happier in that moment than he had ever seen her. He wondered if she enjoyed cooking or if it was more because of her motherly side in looking after the section but regardless, he would enjoy it. The meal she had made before was quite delicious and the room already smelled warm and inviting from whatever she was making now.
Faye and Ronan were sitting nearby and seemed to be in one of their heated discussions which he was sure related to the events of the previous night, and so he decided to avoid direct eye contact. Keira, on the other hand, was staring at them, almost inviting them to ask her over. He was sure she wanted to talk to them about the previous night to make sure he hadn’t left out any near-death details but wouldn’t want to initiate it. He was thankful that neither seemed to take any notice of her and were completely absorbed in each other.
The food was as good as he imagined from the smell; a broth of some sort that warmed and comforted him. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d normally have first thing in the morning but given how tired he felt, it was perfect. The sentiment was shared amongst the others and the usually chatty group fell silent to eat which delighted Sara further.
After everyone finished, Faye selected a few people to clean up and announced that they'd divide chores on a rotation basis amongst the group during their stay. They would have to take care of their own belongings but everyone would take care of the general and main areas.
The rest of the group went outside to start the day's training. Faye asked them all how they were feeling and after some hesitation, one person spoke up about struggling to sleep under the miasma. This ignited the others to agree and people seemed to relax under the shared struggle. Faye explained this was normal and expected as the pressure from the miasma made it difficult for their being, their minds to relax but they would get used to this over time and sleep would become easier.
She also took this moment to remind everyone of the rules about leaving the building during the night and that they should talk to her or the other instructors if anything unusual was happening to them. Keira shot him a sharp look as they both knew exactly why that reminder came but she never said anything directly to or at him.
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Their training would be similar to what they had been doing back in the city but now under the pressure of the miasma, they’d experience much greater fatigue and difficulty maintaining the forms. They were first told to call upon their spiritual forms and go for a run, though endurance was the goal of this test so they should take it slow. They were to lap the open area and keep within sight at all times. He found out later that the group that were doing chores inside were to do this while maintaining their spiritual forms to give everyone the same initial training.
Being told that it would be harder under the pressure of the miasma was an understatement. Something about it seemed to pull and tear at the aura around him and he struggled to maintain it at all, let alone through his normal running pace. Everyone was struggling and between the mental and physical exertion to maintain their forms, only a few even made it around one lap of the route they were to take.
After they all collapsed back in the area they had started, they huddled together to rest, everyone feeling defeated. He was struggling to believe how little progress he had made in the reality of the miasma given all his progress in the city. Ronan joined them with the few who had been cleaning and they showed as much exhaustion in their faces and collapsed with the rest of the group.
“Are you surprised it was as hard as it was?” He said looking over them all.
There were nods and some people called out that there was something wrong or complained again about sleep deprivation. The man shook his head with a far too smug smile on his face and Faye rolled her eyes at him.
“The miasma tries to destroy your spirit, in essence, it tries to steal it from you. It will constantly degrade it, attack it, make it harder to use, to manipulate. Everything you’ve tried before will be harder and that only gets worse the further in you get.”
More groans and sighs of desperation, it felt impossible and it sounded as though the others shared that view.
“Now now, this is what you’re here for. You have to grow in strength, improve your control, and develop yourself and your spirit's connection so that you can still function in this environment. But it will be hard and it will take time.”
Faye had been preparing another area while Ronan continued to explain the difficulties of the miasma to them. The rest of his section were to continue their training through combat though for now it would be back to the basic weapons and spiritual forms rather than calling their more destructive counterparts.
He as usual with the combat exercises would not be included and instead would be focusing on invocation. What he hadn’t expected was how much harder that would be under the pressure of the miasma. It wasn’t just the act of pushing his anam, his spiritual form into the runes of the circle that was difficult, but even when he managed to do that, it went ignored. He started with Nochd which he’d been successful with before but there was no response this time, no answer, and instead, his anam dissipated into the world leaving him tired with no reward.
“Did you think it would be the same as before?” Ronan had watched him from afar but as he failed again, had decided to come and talk with him.
“I figured it would be hard to send the anam out, to call upon Nochd, but I didn’t expect them to just ignore me once I did.”
“The miasma is dangerous for spirits, even powerful ones tend to avoid it if possible.”
“The spirit at the station mentioned that when it talked about the sanctuary being breached. It said it would be affected by the corruption, that it would no longer be itself.”
“There’s still more we’re learning about the spirits and the miasma. From what we know, the source of the miasma is this corruption and as I said earlier, the goal of the miasma is to break apart the spirit.”
“Why? Is the spirit devoured afterwards, does the corruption get stronger?”
“Difficult to know for certain but I don’t believe so. Yes, it gets stronger to some extent and it makes sense that some anam is taken. But I think its goal is to corrupt and convert spirits to its cause.”
“I don’t understand, what purpose would it have in doing that?”
“To further spread the miasma. Demons spread miasma, they release it. I believe these are corrupted spirits, broken apart and rebuilt in some manner to continue the spread. Like a plague, to cover the world.”
“So like the guardians, they were corrupted and then released that miasma?”
“Yes, and the wraiths, they were once spirits as well. The only real difference between demons and spirits with physical forms, is they tend to be highly aggressive and they spread the miasma.”
“Then what’s the ultimate cause of the corruption?”
“Well, unfortunately, not even we have managed to breach the deepest parts of the realms. So until someone does, that answer will continue to be unknown.”
“But there has to be a source?”
“It started somewhere, and there’s no doubt that the miasma becomes denser as you delve into the realms which suggests a source. But given its circular nature, it’s hard to tell what that is beyond, some powerful old demon.”
“So Nochd doesn’t want to risk being summoned only to be destroyed and corrupted.”
“Exactly, spirits want to avoid places like this while they still exist.”
“What can I do?”
“There are two potential answers to that. You can offer so much anam that Nochd takes the risk and comes anyway. But that’s going to be rather inefficient and potentially dangerous. The other answer is to create a protective space for Nochd so that they won’t be influenced by the miasma.”
“Wait, create a protective space, like the sanctuary?”
“You are fortunate in some ways to have experienced that, I can’t think of any other ways to see a safe haven from the miasma in that manner. Essentially, yes.”
“I’m not sure I’m capable of building giant ancient structures made from mysterious stones.”
“No need to be so glib. I’m not suggesting you build anything, well nothing physical. Remember, these spirits don’t require a physical space, they’re not physical creatures but the miasma works at a spiritual level so they need protection on that level.”
“How do I create that?”
“With your and your spirits anam. You can create a form around your body made of your anam, when stable it protects what's inside, in that case, you. Well, you have to do the same thing, create a space outside of your body for the spirit to reside within.”
“I get the feeling you're making that sound a lot easier than it's going to be.”
“It will take some practice. But remember, it doesn’t have to be a large space, spirits don’t care about dimensions like that. What it needs to be is stable, secure and strong.”
Ronan gave him some final instructions to practise and then returned to watch and help some of the others in his section. He had to call upon his spiritual form in a similar manner to how he projected it into the runes. Except that when he did, he had to hold it in a space out of his body and maintain it in a stable manner that was protective and strong against the onslaught of the miasma. Only then could he open up the form enough to allow a safe space inside that he’d be able to offer to the invoked spirit.
Even with all of his practice and control over his anam, this was proving incredibly hard and not something he was going to master, or even come close to in a day. By the end, he had managed to project his anam for a whole three seconds before it crumbled and fell apart. Not enough to even sustain it let alone create a space to call a spirit within. The others had experienced similar results and defeats but there was one thing to uplift them—Sara was going to cook another meal.
As night rolled in and people started to go to their beds, the three of them sat on a large log that had been carved into a bench outside their new temporary home. They were talking about their day and watching as the sky darkened and stars started to sparkle above. Exhausted but comforted from their meal, they relaxed in a happy enjoyment even under the pressure the miasma continued to exert on them.
But then he heard it, the sound he’d hoped to never hear again, the sound that got him in so much trouble the night before—the laughter of his sister.