“Uh, Sleek, a little help here, please?” Cal called to his bonded spirit as a blade of bright white mana appeared at his neck.
“No, she cannot help you at this moment. You need to help yourselves, and I suggest you do so quickly,” Icelord’s jovial tone had turned threatening.
“Fine, look into my head. You’re a world spirit, right? The last one I met could do that. So go ahead and take a deep look. Take a long look into just how pointless killing me would be!” Cal felt his anger start to bubble up. They hadn’t done anything to deserve this treatment. Just because Icelord had screwed up was no reason to threaten him or cut him off from Sleek.
“Good idea. Let’s see what world spirit you’ve met and see what these claims of yours are about.” Cal felt his core pulsate rapidly as the spirit started pushing his own being across his mana channels. It didn’t hurt exactly, but the feeling was extremely unpleasant. It felt like worms were crawling under his skin, and he just wanted it to end.
Cal watched several of his memories replay in his mind’s eye; his first loop reset and rebirth into his childhood body, the same he mostly wore right now, the first time he met monstrous bugs in Alaska, Bug’s first speech, and on it went through all his memories at breakneck pace until finally Icelord pulled himself free of Cal’s mana channels and spoke again. “My apologies. I had no idea you were leading this fight, my friend. Perhaps Sleek is right and I should be more trusting of strangers, but as you know, that hasn’t worked well for me in the past.”
Cal grabbed hold of his flaring anger before he opened his mouth and pushed it back down but now wasn’t the time. “Your apology is accepted, but I am warning you. I’ve had too many intrusions into my brain this loop, so if you try anything else without my explicit permission, it will not go well.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t consider your threats to have much merit, but honestly, I have no idea what I’d do with you as an enemy. I won’t even remember we had this fight on your next loop, so I have no concept of how to see you coming. So how about we start this whole conversation over and I’ll be much more welcoming this time because as much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. You don’t deserve how I’m treating you, and it seems Marley treated you much better as his guest.” The spirit reached out a hand, and Cal grasped it and firmly shook Icelord’s hand.
“Thank you,” Cal said. His anger had entirely melted away with the sincerity that Icelord’s words had. “So I have a ton of questions, but first up, where’s Sleek?”
“OH! I’m right here, sorry, got distracted with the babies. Are there less than there were the last time I was here?” She popped back into sight.
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“Yes, the Graylth have managed to tap some of the energy of our world core. This means less energy to feed to proto mana spirits.” Sadness crept into Icelord’s voice as he answered. The emotion spread across Sleek’s face mirrored the tone his words had taken on.
“TS, during the course of my questioning, you are going to likely learn a lot about me and the others that you don’t know. Are you ready for some weird knowledge?” Cal asked the squirrel who was still standing behind him.
“I have already deduced that you believe yourself in some sort of loop where events repeat. This lines up with what little I was told before our final battle. I do not pretend to understand the ramifications of such a claim or belief fully, but I do understand that it is the situation we find ourselves in, and as I come to dwell more on it, I foresee myself asking a favor of you,” Third Smasher explained.
“Well, that makes some things easier. So, uh, first up, big guy, what the hell exactly is abyssal mana, and why does it make Sleek drunk if we try to absorb it?” Cal had wanted to know that one since their first encounter with it left them both reeling.
“One of the effects of the Martian world seed you have within you, as it grows you are able to see foreign mana sources. Assuming you can be called a mortal, I have never before met one that could detect the mana, so anything else I say will be a pure hypothesis. Just be warned. Your core is of this reality, and in order to work with any foreign mana, it needs to be purified. Doing so will likely be an unpleasant experience for you but probably akin to an intoxicant for any mana spirit bonded to you. Based on your memories and this pull you felt towards their incursion spot, I believe it was also trying to fight you to return home before you could nullify it,” Icelord answered.
“Wait, so abyssal mana has thoughts?” That was a new one for Cal. So far, he had been under the impression that unless the mana could manifest as a being, it was mostly just a tool.
“Not really, no, but abyssal mana isn’t really mana in the normal sense. It’s protoplasmic essences that makeup all the beasts from outside reality. It doesn’t have the full makeup of a universe. This is partially why creatures of the abyss are so drawn to feeding out different realities. The pull was likely less an attempt to save itself but more an attempt to feed your mana to its children,” Icelord continued.
“Oh, well, that’s nice and creepy. Any guesses as to why there is such a large incursion? Compared to what we saw on Mars, this seems insane,” Cal asked his next question. This one he had very few guesses as to what was going on. There wasn’t an exposed world seed here. Icelord appeared to be in great health, so while the planet wasn’t exactly teeming with life, it also wasn’t dying to the extent that made it vulnerable. He doubted Icelord would even be having issues with the incursion if the Gryalth weren’t complicating things.
“That one is easy enough. The Gryalth are attracting them, on purpose,” Icelord stated matter of factly.