Seeing no reason to leave anything out, Tahir started with the fortune telling - what led him to seek out spirit magic in the first place. He figured the fortune teller’s note that his soul was ‘full of empathy’ might be something relevant. Merenthyl seemed to take note of it, but didn’t have a strong reaction, so Tahir went on to what he actually knew. The information he found from the library in Balrech, and some of the supplementary information that Meti recalled from her readings at the collective.

Once he finished, Merenthyl didn’t react for a couple of seconds, and then blinked in surprise when she realized that he stopped talking. “That’s all?” She asked, and rubbed her temples at Tahir’s nod in response. “I’ll give those mages guild credit - I believe the ritual that you learned to summon spirits with was something of their creation, in order to make it as safe a process for them as possible I imagine, but that’s about all they have. They give you what you need to summon a spirit and send you on your way.”

“As little as I know about it, they actually wanted to use me for research at the collective.” Tahir offered. “But yes, I realized pretty quickly that what I read left out quite a bit about spirit magic and its particulars - like the fact that switching spirits in the middle of the fight can get you killed since it makes you freeze up.”

“Spirits?” Merenthyl said, with a furrowed brow but renewed interest. “You’re bonded with more than one?”

“Yes?” With how quickly the bonds with his spirits formed, he didn’t think the fact that he had multiple would be something that surprised her. “I’m currently bound to six.” After he spoke, he saw Merenthyl nearly drop her glass. “Is that not normal?”

“Not for a beginner, no.” She clarified. “Spirits can see the bonds of others in your soul. After you bind with one, most spirits wouldn’t want to bond with you. Paradoxically, spirits become more willing to bond with you after they see you’ve bonded to around three or four, since it's a sign of a favorable contract. How did you come across six spirits over the course about a month?”

He explained how the rituals for his spirits went. How spirits flocked to him by the dozens whenever he performed the ritual, and how the first couple of times he bound with two at a time - the four tier zero elemental spirits. During that time, he noted Merenthyl taking a couple of notable gulps from her wine glass.

“Right, that isn’t normal. Spirits wouldn’t normally flock to you like that unless you were already an accomplished spirit mage. When you commune with them through that ritual, your soul is laid bare for them to see. If you’ve had interactions with spirits in the past, the kind like a spirit mage’s bond that leaves a mark, they’d be able to see. But according to you, you’ve never touched it before not too long ago.”

“That’s right. I’d been studying magic about five or six months before - but basic spells, and nothing relating to spirit magic at all.”

“Perhaps that fortune teller was onto something then.” Merenthyl leaned back against the couch. “You didn’t have any true ‘affinities,’ but something about your soul makes you enticing to spirits. You said you avoided any that you felt were malicious, but have your spirits themselves said anything about it?”

“Not that I’m aware of. The Traveler is content to operate under the terms of the contract we worked out, which was really just to help me when I call them. As for the Winged Serpent, I can’t really understand them at the moment, and I’ve gotten nothing from the tier zero spirits other than ‘feeling’, emotions, I guess.”

“Traveler? Winged Serpent? Do you not know their names?”

“...No? They haven’t told me.” Tahir responded. “Am I supposed to know them already?”

“No, I suppose that’s normal for bonds that haven’t contracted with you that long” Merenthyl leaned forward and set her glass down on a coffee table. “A spirit’s name is a sign of their whole being. A word of power in a sense. Knowing a spirit’s name would allow you to summon them without being bound, and is used in that way for conjuration mages who want to bring forth specific beings from different planes. For spirit mages, it has another use.”

She paused to take a sip of wine before continuing. “Knowing a spirit’s name allows you to bring more of them out into the world. To put it simply they become more powerful while you’re bonded with them, regardless of how much spirit energy they have. In the terms that you’re familiar with, a spirit whose name you know will rise by a tier. From tier one to tier two and so on. This would improve further by truly ‘understanding’ the name of the spirit, but that is a more personal experience that usually comes a while after knowing the name. In that sense, you can get a spirit’s power to improve by two tiers with that knowledge.”

Tahir took a moment to take that in. He could bring the Traveler or the Winged Serpent to tier two, just from knowing their names. “Wait, does that mean they can go beyond tier three?”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Quite. I imagine the mage guild researchers didn’t get nearly as far, but if you had enough mana to bring them out at tier three, you could feasibly get them to tiers four and five.” Merenthyl took yet another sip of wine. “Tier four and five spirits do exist natively as well, but they’ve become powerful enough to give mortals blessings and small portions of their power rather than bond with them. At that point, they stand closer to demon lords, archfey, and demigods rather than the spirits you are familiar with.”

“And you’re saying I can eventually summon something on that level if I know and understand their name?” Tahir asked, and let out a whistle at her nod in response. “That sounds amazing, although I hope it’s a long while before I get anywhere near any of them.” Tahir admitted. “I mean, I’m still trying to figure out if I can use enough mana and aura to actually summon something that’s tier two-”

“Wait, are you using aura to summon spirits?”

Here we go again. “Yes? Only recently. We realized that the researchers were likely only mages so none of them would have tried anything with aura-”

While Tahir spoke, Merenthyl set her glass down, and then lurched forward, grabbing Tahir’s face and cupping his chin. “Be still.” She ordered when he jerked back from her grip, and despite Tahir’s confusion, he followed her direction. “I’m going to take a look at your soul. Give me a moment.”

He couldn’t quite see, but Tahir barely made out what looked to be the somatics to a spell. One of Merenthyl’s hands waves, and he felt the rush of mana around her as her eyes started to glow. They held that position for several seconds, with Merenthyl’s eyes flicking across Tahir’s face the entire time. After a while, she let go of him and shifted back on the couch. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose your spirits really do look favorably on you.”

Tahir released a breath he hadn’t realized he held. “Am I not supposed to use aura to summon spirits?” He asked.

Merenthyl said nothing for a long while before answering. “It’s not recommended for those who are new to it. When you use mana to summon forth a spirit, you naturally create a barrier of sorts within your soul for the spirit to inhabit. This prevents your souls from melding together. When you use aura, that barrier breaks down, and your souls do mix. This of course results in overt physical changes and subtle personality changes depending on the spirit. On top of the personality changes having the potential to make you do something you would never do on your own, if you or the spirits aren’t careful they can leave pieces of themselves to linger in your soul when you end the bond, even unintentionally. This can, among other things, cause some of those physical changes to become semi-permanent, and make you easier to possess in the future if the spirit had those intentions.”

Tahir swallowed hard. He had the thought that he felt closer to his spirits whenever he used aura to summon them, but couldn’t put why into words. “What would I do if you did find parts of their soul left in mine?”

“Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to get rid of them if they haven’t built up significantly. Cycling your aura and mana until you’re rid of any lingering fragments. Unfortunately, heavier buildup acts more like a curse, so that must be dealt with by other means.” She gave another sigh. He’d heard a lot of those from her so far. “I guess I can teach you the soul sight spell. You’ll need to know it if you want to check beyond relying on your gut feeling.”

“That would be fantastic. Before we get to that though, I have a couple of other questions.” He took the opportunity to tell Merenthyl about the fight with the lich Zorhe. In particular, the last few moments of the fight when the lich tried to steal his soul, and the Traveler’s intervention that stunned Zorhe so Neveroth could capture him.”

During his story, Merenthyl took another sip of her wine, with the glass nearly empty at this point. “Fortunately for you, spirit magic does fall under the wide category of ‘soul magic.’ Your spirit, the Traveler as you call them, likely had some experience with it in the past. Just be careful with allowing spirits to use your soul as fuel for that kind of magic. It could lead to your soul being exhausted in the process. Nothing to be done about the instance you described, though, since it seemed like you would have lost your soul if the Traveler didn’t use some of it.” She shrugged. “You seem to have avoided nearly every pitfall that new spirit mages can fall into by sheer luck. I’m a little impressed.”

“Thanks?” Tahir didn’t know if he should take that as a complement, but he decided he was going to. “Also, this is the last thing I promise, about a week before we got here, I was given this while I was deep in the forest.” He pulled out the seed from his storage bag, and Merenthyl’s eyes went wide. “By a unicorn, if you’re wondering, but that’s a story in itself. I don’t think just planting it somewhere is the right way to use it, but do you have any suggestions?”

While he held it out, Tahir heard several things in the building shift, and looking around, it seemed that the vines themselves were moving. He saw Merenthyl hold out a hand, and in short order the writhing of the vines ceased. “Sorry, my own spirit got a little excited.” She apologized.

Her spirit was the thing growing over most of the building? Or was at least behind all of the growth. She made sure everything had stopped moving before she spoke. “That is a fairly potent catalyst. I’d wager you can use it to summon something up to around what you consider tier two in lieu of that ritual’s regular materials.”

Tahir’s eyes went wide, as he stuffed the seed back in his storage bag. “That’s pretty impressive. Makes me wish I could actually use Isanthyr’s leyline crossing.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. I can put in a good word for you, but it won’t do much.”

“Even that would be great, but I’ll worry about that after the ruin is clear.” He stood up from the couch and stretched, realizing the amount of time he just spent talking to her. “Just this conversation has been enlightening for me. Is there a way I can repay you?”

She looked him up and down and finished her glass of wine. “I can think of a few, actually. You’re not busy for the rest of the day, are you?”