“Why yes, it’s very nice to meet you. Do you want to come with us?” Jen said to something Cal still couldn’t see. He assumed it was her spirit and that it didn’t have a strong enough connection to truly manifest yet. That was something else he didn’t fully understand. The way he had to connect to his spirits seemed to be a lot harder than others. Then again, he had three, and they weren’t all bonded in the easiest way.
“You do? Yes, I think that would be great.” She paused for a moment. “No, I think the blue shimmer is a very nice color. It fits your abilities, assuming I’m feeling this correctly at least. I’m very new to all of this.” There was more silence as Jen continued to pay attention to the space in front of her.
“Jen, I’m glad you met your spirit, but just so you know, we can’t see or hear them, and I think you should grab Excalibur and hop out of the water before it starts to cool down again,” Stan said to his wife.
“Oh, you can’t? Sorry didn’t realize.” Jen dropped herself below the water’s surface and reappeared, soaking wet, carrying the sword. She carefully climbed out and passed the sword back to her husband.
“Damn, this sword is freezing. How are you handling this well, Jen?” Stan asked, concern evident in his voice.
“Was it? I didn’t notice. Actually, the cold seemed to disappear pretty fast once I entered the pool. I just assumed it had heated up enough. Oh, I bet this is already an effect my little new friend here. She’s an ice spirit.” Jen explained.
“Yeah, even before I connected with my spirits, I could already use some of their power. Once you form your realm, you can help her pick a name.” Cal replied, remembering his own chaotic and explosive attempts at the same thing.
“Oh, her name is Acorncracker. She’s been stuck in the pool for a while now. She went in for a dip years ago, and everything froze over. She’s very glad I’ve helped free her.” Jen reached out and ran her hand back and forth across the air.
“Wait, what? Was it the frozen squirrel? Did they somehow turn into a spirit?” The universe seemed to love to prove Cal wrong every time he thought he had some understanding of how this all worked. Was this something between a familiar and a spirit? He had no idea, but he hoped she would still get a realm.
“She says yes, and she would also like to leave as she finds the sight of her body depressing. Oh, yes, we can do that. Absolutely,” Jen said.
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“We can do what? Also, does she know if she can manifest a spirit realm?” Cal asked. It wasn’t the end of the world if she couldn’t, but he really needed to expand their connections to the void house.
“She wants me to find her family and let them know what happened to her. Also she isn’t one hundred percent sure what you mean, but she does feel the need to release something, but thinks we need to bond a bit more before that will be possible. So I’m guessing yes, that’s a realm. As to exactly what she is, who knows? Don’t pretend any of this actually makes sense. You love to keep saying this is magic every time Andrew tries to define any rules.” Jen walked out of the cavern as she spoke, getting her new spirit away from her previous existence.
“Yeah, fair. I'm not trying to judge any of this. I'm just talking out loud more often. With Earth so far away and cut off, I don’t have my usual voices to talk to,” Cal said apologetically. He hadn’t meant to come off as critical of the situation at all.
“Don’t worry about it. But do think fast.” Jen yelled as she suddenly turned and threw a snowball at Cal’s face. He was reasonably sure it hadn’t been there a second ago, but that thought did nothing to help him dodge it. The snowball hit him square in the face and quickly melted away after contact. Jen burst into laughter.
“I guess I should add learning to dodge snowballs to my training,” Cal said. The water making up the snow had also vanished away shortly after the melt, but the cold remained. He shivered slightly as the chill permeated across his body. He hadn’t felt cold like this since he at the fruit and he certainly didn’t miss it.
“Jen, that’s kind of amazing. The cold that generated, well, I still feel it, enough that I’m shivering. I haven’t felt any real cold since some of my training, so I think there’s a good chance, with some practice, you can do some real damage with those snowballs.” Cal said all of this through chattering teeth that he couldn’t suppress. “Any chance you can turn it off? Do you see some kind of mana thread?”
“Huh, is that what this is?” She pointed to something. Cal was able to ascertain some of the flow source, but the thread itself was still invisible to him. Jen grabbed something and ripped. In turn, Cal felt the cold start to vanish from his body.
“Thank you.” His teeth finally stopped chattering.
“So that was what was making me exhausted. I just assumed it was the after-effects of the dip in the pool.” She said.
“Oh yeah, be careful; your mana is likely pretty limited until you get a core filled, and if you drain it entirely off, it will be like you haven’t slept for days. I hate it so much, though these days, I don’t have to worry nearly as often about it. I’m planning to really let loose at the end of the loop just to see where my limit is now anyway. I may want to punch Onelder every time I see him still, but I can feel his training helping. Plus, this time, we should have you and Albert spell-slinging and dad slashing. It’s going to be fun!” Cal gave her a giant smile.