Zalia knelt by a palm tree, inspecting it. With a touch, she received flashes of images lost to time as the desert transformed around the tree, pond and pyramid. The dunes around shifted and moved, some building and others being worn down. Just as Sazcha had said though, they always formed facing in the same direction.
She was pulled from the flashing images as they ended, met with a little notification.
Woody Palm - Unranked.
These trees grow by small pools formed across the northern edge of the desert. They are seen as signs of safety, leading the way for thirsty desert dwellers.
“Alright, I’m ready to go in.”
Sazcha was waiting nearby, watching as Zalia inspected the trees and pool. There wasn’t anything growing or living in the turquoise water, just the trees nearby.
They walked up to the pyramid, Zalia summoning her sword as Sazcha cast a spell. A swirling mini storm of sand floated up and wrapped around her blade, some of the grains of sand glowing as they heated up.
“You have two heirlooms?” Sazcha asked, glancing from her glove to her sword.
“Three,” Zalia corrected, summoning her armour as well.
Sazcha stared at her wide-eyed.
“Where did you find so many? Who are you?”
Zalia shrugged.
“I just kind of stumble across them. One was given to me and the other two I found in an abandoned city filled with undead in another world.”
Sazcha stared at her in confusion for so long Zalia wondered if her translation power had broken.
“I-”
Sazcha shook her head.
“Nevermind, let’s go.”
They moved down the wide stairway leading into the darkness, both at the ready.
The stairway slowly narrowed until it stopped at a doorway, the arch of which was covered in more depictions of sandstorms, this time they had some human features like eyes or were shaped in a vaguely humanoid manner. She wondered if this old civilisation had worshipped the sandstorms or if she had discovered what might be another nature spirit.
They walked through the arch and into pitch darkness, Zalia able to see by her many forms of vision and Sazcha by her warmly glowing sand embers. Past the arch was a complex, with corridors and doorways set into walls.
“Want to head deeper straight away?” Zalia asked in a whisper.
Sazcha nodded and they walked forward, coming to a T intersection. To the right was another corridor and to the left, a set of stairs spiraling down with a single glowing spirit stood at its top.
Disturbed Spirit - Bronze rank.
Zalia glanced at Sazcha and she gestured as if to say “all yours.”
She stepped around the corner and walked towards the spirit, weapon stored away and hands held in a placating gesture. The spirit was an amorphous torso with a head and two limbs that could be called arms, though there were no hands present. The head had two eyes and no other shape or form.
“Hello spirit, I see you’ve been disturbed by something. Do you need help?”
The spirit turned ever so slightly to look at her and an opening formed where its mouth would have been if it were a person. A quiet whispering echoed around the halls saying something she couldn’t understand.
She furrowed her brow, trying to decipher its whisperings.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Is there something you could show me?”
The whisperings grew louder, angrier.
She took a step back, hands still held open in front of her.
“Woah, okay. Please don’t attack me.”
The spirit must not have understood her either because the moment she spoke, it attacked.
Her blade was in her hand before it reached her, the spirit floating towards her at speed. It had one arm reaching out towards her head which she immediately slashed at.
The blade passed straight through, leaving a burning blue gash. The whispering turned to a high-pitched scream as it flinched away from her. With the strike, Hunter’s Mark was applied.
Active 2 - Hunter's Mark - spell - targeted - channel
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Tin - Marked by the hunter, there is no escape. This ability marks a creature you can see. Marked creature takes a small amount of extra damage when damaged by you. You know the general direction of the marked enemy. Marking a second creature removes the first mark.
Iron - you may apply Hunter's Mark to three creatures at once
Bronze - the three creature limit increases to ten and a small amount of damage a marked creature takes is applied to other marked creatures as well.
Silver - Any damaging ability or attack now applies Hunter’s Mark. When applied this way, the mark does not count towards the mark limit. Marked creatures are more susceptible to controlling effects such as restraint and are slowed.
Mana - very low/s
Cooldown - n/a
The blue starlit fire burned through its arm, severing it in moments. Zalia took a step forward and cut upwards with her blade, setting the spirit alight down the length of its entire body. The scream withered out and died, just as the spirit did.
She turned back to Sazcha, sword still held overhead.
“Well, they’re pretty easy to kill at least.”
Sazcha snorted in amusement.
“Easier to kill than to make conversation with apparently.”
Down the stairway, Zalia saw something glowing. She prepared her sword, thinking it was another spirit at first. Looking closer though, she could see that it wasn’t a spirit at all, rather a little ethereal root sprouting from between the sandstone brickwork.
Sazcha stepped past her and down the stairway to touch the root but her hand passed right through it.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Zalia stepped up and nudged her aside.
“Watch and learn.”
She opened her vault door and stepped inside, letting Sazcha stare in wonder at the beautifully decorated sandstone arch that had appeared out of nowhere. Walking to the back, she collected a little wooden bowl of paste, something she had discovered with Ember all those years ago.
Manifest Paste (Potent) - Silver rank.
Capable of solidifying incorporeal beings.
Turning about and leaving the vault, stepping around the gawking Sazcha, she applied some of the paste to the root and found that it went on as if the root were entirely solid. Once that was done, she checked it with Flora Identification.
Hundreds of years flashed by in an instant, each image the same as the last. It had been here… forever and the only image that was different was one of a man wandering down the steps, some pottery fragments sticking out of his bag.
Soulroot - Iron rank - Use in rituals to add an element of Soul.
This root forms in places of spiritual unrest, often accompanied by various disrupted and enraged spirits. The cause of these kinds of places is extremely varied.
She used Natural Matter Alteration to harvest the root sending it straight to her vault, the process enhanced by her passive, Harvester.
Passive 1 - Harvester - passive - skill enhancement
Tin - The herbalist harvests herbs and other flora, with which they do what they will. You gain an instinctual understanding of how to harvest flora of your rank and lower. When harvesting flora of your rank or lower it has increased potency.
Iron - You are able to sense nearby herbs and flora of a type you have already harvested before.
Bronze - Plants you harvest of a rank lower than yours are granted additional potency to match your rank. Additionally, plants that are transplanted by you have increased resiliency.
Silver - Once you have harvested a plant, other plants of that type communicate with you. The information these plants communicate with you is dependent on their nature but will often be things such as insights into the health of the environment, or a source of corruption as well as potential dangers.
Immediately, her perception of the underground complex was widened. She could sense more and more of the Soulroot growing further down and a sense of both danger and corruption was emanating from the bottom floor. It was obvious that it was the bottom floor, as there were no more of the plants growing below that point.
She could feel it, the sense being communicated to her by the plant. A powerful presence, the source of the spiritual unrest.
This felt like something that she was better equipped to handle than almost anyone else, the amount of time she had spent around Ascendant beings and other shades and souls, as well as trying to teach Aylie about her own soul and astral related powers. Hell, she had revived a god, how hard could it be to fix a little spiritual unrest?
They descended further, finding the place emptied of anything valuable. She had a feeling that the guy who had been here before them must have cleared out the first few floors. As such, they agreed to find the quickest way down to the point they started finding Silver rank spirits.
While the Bronze ones were easy for the two of them to take out, both of their weapons being equally effective, the Silvers were much harder.
Once again, Zalia tried to talk to the spirits.
“Please, I want to help. Why are you attacking us? I can stop whatever this is that is causing your pain.”
Once more, her pleading didn’t work.
A more effective weapon she had found to fight against the spirits was soulfire. Using Flame-root and Soulroot, she cast a ritual that burned through the spirits in moments. With Hunter’s Mark cast on ten different spirits, the soulfire also appeared on all ten.
Passive 2 - Herbal magic - passive - varied
Tin - Minor herbal-based rituals are a keystone of magical herbalists. You gain an instinctual understanding of herbal rituals of your rank or lower. Herbal magic you use of your rank and lower has slightly increased potency.
Iron - you may emulate the effects of herbs you have used in rituals of a rank lower than this ability.
Bronze - When applying a Herbal ritual effect to a target marked by Hunter’s mark, all other marked targets are also affected. In addition, you are able to combine certain herbs to gain a new base effect.
Silver - Your living rituals become almost indistinguishable from natural magic. The scale of your ritual magic expands, allowing you to now perform significantly larger and longer rituals.
The spirits dissipated with hissing whispering sounds, their anger dissipating in her soulfire.
They were four floors down now and Zalia could feel the cause of the spiritual unrest was on the next. Sazcha was starting to look unsettled and Zalia knew why. Where the Soulroot did not inform her, her magical senses did. Whatever it was that was on the next floor, it was Ascendant rank. It was easily distinguishable as such, yet the power radiating from it might have been something of Gold rank, like it was diminished or lessened in some way.
“I can see why that other guy didn’t go further down,” Sazcha said.
They stood before the stairs down the next floor, both of them hesitant.
Sucking in her fear, Zalia took the first step down the stairs.