Bregg awoke not long after I did and began setting up an actual camp of sorts. I joined him after a few minutes, stacking rocks into a low, circular wall about ankle-high around the camp and pushing more into a pile in the center for a firepit. He pulled out the log we’d always used to build a fire, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to light it without Aeld’s fire spirit. To my surprise, he took out a pile of what almost looked like a tangled nest of straw or dried grass, stuffing it under the log, then pulled out a pair of glittering, quartzlike stones. He struck those together with a loud crack, and a spark jumped from them and landed on the straw. That quickly caught fire, and the flames jumped swiftly to the already burnt wood. He pulled out the straw and extinguished it with a splash of water, then stuffed it back into his pack.
“That’s clever,” I noted, pointing at the stones as he put them away. “I was wondering how you were going to light this without spirits.”
“While the spirits are useful, Hemskal, a wise hunter knows better than to rely on them,” the big man rumbled. “The letharvisa may be able to coax, command, and bind them, but we hunters usually have to find other ways to work with them.” He held up the two stones. “These stones, when struck together, attract the attention of a fire spirit. No one’s yet explained why, and sometimes it takes multiple attempts to find one, but they work almost as well as a letharvis’ spirits.”
I didn’t mention that I was pretty sure it was friction caused by the quartz of one stone rubbing off the metallic ore of the other that made the fire, not spirits. It really wasn’t that different from using flint and steel, which I’d done before back as a kid on Earth. I doubted he’d listen to my explanation, and even if he did, he’d probably dismiss it for his own.
“You know, John, his explanation is just as likely as yours in this world,” Sara pointed out with a grin that I could feel but not see.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re assuming that material science is the same on this world as Earth, and that’s not necessarily the case. All matter in this world interacts at some level with the spiritual field surrounding it, so it’s possible that that specific type of stone, when struck together, creates a resonance in that field that draws fire spirits—just as it’s possible that there’s something about the rocks or even the layout of the mountains we just passed through that draws powerful storm spirits.”
“I just assumed it was some weird air current or weather pattern,” I replied dubiously.
“It might be. After all, the laws of physics do still work on this world—mostly. The thing is, the spiritual field can disrupt or affect those laws, so things might not always function the way you’d expect.”
While Bregg produced and started cooking a haunch of meat of some kind, I moved back to the edge of the shelf and looked downward. The plateau was hidden from me in the darkness, nothing more than a deeper blackness only visible by the fact that the blanket of stars in the sky ended at the horizon. On a whim, I activated See Spirits, wondering what the place looked like without regular sight. Instantly, a brilliant silver light exploded into my vision, as bright as the sun, burning into my skull with its intensity. Pain flared in my head, and I hissed a curse and deactivated the skill, flinging my head away and rubbing my eyes futilely. They weren’t hurt, really—no dancing spots or blinking flashes in them—but my head pounded just behind them like a pair of spikes being driven into my skull.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded silently as the throbbing in my head slowly died.
“Sorry, John, I didn’t realize that you’d perceive that so—intensely,” Sara said with what sounded like genuine regret. “I’ll tone it down a bit, I promise.”
“Are there really that many spirits down there?” I asked, opening my eyes slowly and peering back at the cool, soothing darkness. Having my eyes open didn’t really change my pain level, but that meant it didn’t make things worse, either.
“Not really, John,” she laughed. “That was a single spirit you just saw.”
I froze, my hand halfway to rubbing my temple. “Wait, just a single spirit?”
“Yes. One spirit that, as far as I can tell, fills the entire Haelendi—or at least the part you can see right now. It’s possible that it ends just past the horizon.” She paused for a moment. “There. I’ve toned down your sensitivity to it. If you use your ability again, you should be able to see it without discomfort.”
I very hesitantly reactivated the skill, and the pain in my head increased slightly, but the resulting silver glow was much easier to look at. I peered downward and saw a blanket of soft light that started at the base of the mountains below me and spread south, covering the entire plain and ending at the horizon. The radiance didn’t move or shift; it didn’t pulse or writhe. It just lay there, steadily glowing, illuminating nothing but itself in my magical vision.
“That—it’s huge,” I muttered. “How strong is that thing?”
“Impossible to say, I’m afraid. What you’re seeing is only part of it; it extends beyond the horizon and down into the ground below the plain. However, if I were to extrapolate—hold on, try this.” Instantly, a screen flashed in my vision, its blackness a welcome interruption on the field of perfect white.
Unknown Spirit
Unknown Rank
Unknown Type
Estimated Power: 8,500+
“Holy shit!” I muttered. “Eighty-five hundred power?”
“That’s actually a low-end, conservative estimate, John. It’s likely over 10,000.”
I suppressed a low whistle of amazement. “Imagine the things I could do if I bonded that!”
She laughed wryly. “Oh, you’d be able to perform Major spells without any problem, for certain! However, the odds of your being able to take that thing in spiritual combat are—well, let’s just say that they aren’t even close to good.”
“Meaning it would probably squash me like a bug,” I sighed. “Yeah, I get it. Plus, I’m pretty sure that if I did bond it, it would control me completely. That hunt spirit was influencing me, and it’s a lot weaker than this thing.”
“Most likely, yes.”
I turned off the ability and blinked rapidly at the sudden darkness. “You know, that thing’s going to make that ability close to useless down there.”
“I can dim it as much as you’d like, John. It’ll take me a couple hours at most to work out how to block it from your senses entirely, in fact.”
“I’d appreciate that.” I straightened slightly. “Since we’ve got nothing else to do, we might as well practice spells, right? Maybe we can come up with a new one.”
“Absolutely.” She suddenly appeared before me, seeming to hover in midair past the edge of the cliff, perfectly illuminated despite the darkness. “Any ideas on what you’d like to try?”
I considered the question, then paused as a thought occurred to me. “Hey, Kadonsel,” I sent to the ojain spirit, “what are some spells that you’d consider vital for any ojain to know?”
“Calling,” the woman’s voice replied at once in my thoughts. “The first thing all ojaini learn is how to call a spirit and bring it close.”
“I can already do that, though. I can speak to them, remember?”
“No, not communicate with the spirits—although I still wouldn’t believe that had I not seen you do it with the ancient hunter. I mean, find a specific type of one and bring it to you. If I want to craft a fire orb, for example, first I need an ancient flame I can offer the orb as sanctuary to.”
“I think she means summoning a specific spirit, John,” Sara interjected. “And that would be useful since it would make your spellcasting more efficient.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Okay, so how do you call a spirit, Kadonsel?” I asked.
“It’s a simple matter. First you center yourself. Then, you focus on the essence of the spirit that you wish to call. Finally, you guide your own spirit through that essence, and it will draw the ancient one you want.” She might have been able to sense my confusion, as she sighed. “The problem is, you’re lacking years of instruction that most ojain receive by this point. I’ll do my best to guide you, but this might take some time…”
As it turned out, it did take a couple hours for me to pick up what the ojain meant. Once I did, though, it really was a pretty simple matter. When she told me to focus on the essence of the spirit I wanted to call, I thought she meant to picture a fire, or the wind blowing. In fact, it was a lot more involved than that. I needed to picture my perception of wind, or fire, or stone, or whatever, and that meant all of my perceptions of it. I had to feel the wind on my skin, taste it on my tongue. I had to picture the dust it carried, and the way it swirled. I had to hear it roaring in the peaks above and feel it battering me, trying to blow me off the icy ledges. All of that, together, comprised what I thought of as “wind”, and that was what I was trying to project.
Once I got it down, though, the rest came pretty easily. I just had to take a strand of power from the hunt spirit and guide it through my imagining of what the wind was like, then push all of that out of me. I felt the image flowing from my mind, radiating out into the atmosphere like a beacon. Maintaining the call took some power, but I activated Draining Aura, and new energy seeped into me, replacing what I was pushing out. Thanks to the aura, I was pretty sure I could keep this call up as long as I had to, in fact. I pushed the call a little harder, trying to match the outflowing energy to what I took in, activating See Spirits as I did.
I’d never really watched my Swift and Steady spell in action with See Spirits before. I’d never seen the need, and honestly, I’d mostly been too busy trying not to fall off a ledge—or keeping Aeld from doing the same—to even consider it. I wondered now if maybe I should have, because the calling spell looked fascinating in my magical sight, in all honesty.
The world of the spirits hung around me, faintly illuminated by the pure silver glow of the huge spirit below. The ground beneath me burned with a dull gray luster; the fire behind me danced in shades of orange. The peaks of the mountains shone blue-white in the darkness, with the exposed stone slopes shimmering the same gray as the shelf beneath me. And all around me, filling the air near me, misty white shapes whirled and danced, apparently drawn by my call. My spell rippled out from me, and what had felt like a pulse before now looked more like a ripple or wave, a disturbance in the glow surrounding me. It almost felt like I was plucking a huge string, or maybe tossing rocks into a massive lake.
I watched the wind spirits twirling around me as that wave rippled through them. They shivered each time it touched them, undulating in almost perfect synchronization with the wave I sent out. I turned my focus to the fire spirits behind me; when the wave hit them, they flickered and recoiled, moving in a totally different fashion. The same was true of the earth spirits below me. When my ripple passed through them, they actually scattered slightly as if repelled by the call, shifting and writhing painfully as the wave slid past them.
I frowned as I watched the interplay. The whole scene honestly reminded me of radio waves back on Earth. Back there, light, microwaves, X-rays, and radio were all pretty much the same thing, just electromagnetic waves moving at different frequencies. I’d even learned that most physicists back home believed that what we called particles were just ripples in a weird quantum field, although I didn’t really understand how that worked. I wondered if this could be the same thing; could all these different spirits just be different vibrations in one field? It had to be more complicated than that, but maybe the different frequencies denoted different types of spirits: one vibration for wind, another for stone, and so on.
Just as a test, I examined the earth spirits below me, watching how they moved and shifted, then changed the call I radiated outward. I ignored the whole “essence” idea; if I was right, then all my imagination was doing was “tuning” the call to the right frequency. If I could match the frequency without needing the image, the spell would be a lot easier to cast…
The ground beneath me trembled as the stone spirits nearby suddenly swarmed me, flowing thickly underneath my ass. My call shifted at the same moment, now feeling like a deeper, more rumbling thing that sank into the ground, vibrating in the same pattern as the earth spirits. The trembling increased as more spirits appeared, writhing and shifting beneath my call, and the shelf actually started to shake alarmingly. I dropped the call at once, but the shaking didn’t ease; if anything, it grew stronger as the gathered spirits, apparently released from the call, began to shift around more vehemently. I felt a spike of panic; I didn’t know how stable this shelf was, and if the damn spirits didn’t calm down, they might bring the whole thing crashing down!
“Use Dominate Spirits, John!” Sara said quickly. “Hurry!”
I took a deep breath and activated the ability, focusing it on the spirits below. I felt them instantly, their presence a pressure against my mind, and I could sense their confusion and anger. Apparently, they didn’t like that I’d ended the call, and they were taking that unhappiness out on the ground itself.
“Stop that!” I commanded mentally, driving the order at the massed spirits beneath me. I felt their resistance as they fought against my will, pushing back against my thoughts.
“More!” they demanded. “Give us more!”
“No,” I snarled. “Calm down now!” I drove the command at them with my will, trying to smother them with the force of my thoughts. They fought back, but each struggled against me individually, not as a group. If they’d worked together, they probably could have ignored me, but separately, they stood no chance. I felt the command sinking into them, and the shelf settled as one by one, they fell still.
“You might want to have them repair the shelf, John,” Sara suggested. “I’m sure that little quake damaged it some.”
I quickly sent out the order, and I felt the spirits grudgingly flow down into the shelf, spreading throughout it. While they worked, I returned my focus inward.
“What the hell happened, Sara?” I asked. To my surprise, though, the AI wasn’t the one who answered.
“That was too loud,” the ojain said, her voice somewhat pained.
“Too loud? What do you mean?”
“The way the Calling works is that it offers a little power of the same type as the ancient you want to bring,” she explained. “When a spirit of that type gets that power, they follow it to you in hopes of getting more—like following the smell of food, or a whisper promising you wealth. That—that was more like a scream. You put so much power out there that it drew every spirit nearby.”
“It seemed like the spirits were feeding on the energy of the call, John,” Sara added. “That’s why they gathered so quickly, and probably why they reacted badly when you ended it. They wanted to be fed more.”
“So, I need to tone down how much power I use,” I concluded with a sigh. “That would have been nice to know in advance, Kadonsel.”
“I’ve never heard of someone able to make a Calling that loud before,” she said defensively. “Usually, an ojain’s first Calling is too weak to bring anything, and even an elder would have trouble Calling that many spirits.” She paused. “I’ve also never heard of anyone able to simply command the ancients like you just did, without threatening them or bargaining with them. How did you do that?”
“It’s just something I can do,” I hedged. “Okay, so, less power next time. Got it. Sara, any suggestions?”
“Only that you could probably also focus the direction of your call, John,” the AI replied. “If you want wind spirits, for example, there’s no point in sending the call into the ground or at the mountainside.” She paused. “That idea you had about the different spirit types, though—I think you’re onto something there. Here, try it again, but this time, send it in a straight line into the air, and instead of the image, just use this pattern.”
An odd sort of pulsing shivered my body, and I focused on it, drawing the smallest bit of power I could and sending it out like a spotlight, rippling in the pattern that Sara showed me. Nothing happened for several seconds, but soon, a single hazy, white cloud appeared, flowing toward me through the air. I released the call at once, before the thing could get close, and the wind spirit stopped in midair, swirling about as if in confusion before speeding away, flying overhead toward the mountains behind me.
“That’s it,” Sara said happily. “I think you’ve got it, John! Here, take a look at this.” A screen flashed into my sight, and I read it through carefully.
Spell Created: Spirit Call
Power Required: 1, +1 per second
With this spell, you attempt to call a spirit of a specific type. You can cast this spell in one of two variations:
Focused Call – You call a spirit type with which you’ve interacted or observed closely through See Spirits. The spell will always succeed, although the time required for the spirit to arrive can vary.
Unfocused Call – You call a spirit type with which you aren’t as familiar, using your mental image of the “essence” of that type. The power requirement for this call is doubled. You can call any type of spirit you can clearly imagine this way, but there is a chance that the spell will fail to attract a spirit of the type you wish, and if it does, it may take longer to arrive.
Partial Adaptation!
You have partially adapted to the Doorworld of Sojnheim!
Current Adaptation: 50%
Benefits: Mental Stat penalties reduced by 25%
“What are you doing, Hemskal?”
I quickly closed my screen as new awareness seemed to flood my mind. My thoughts cleared somewhat, and everything around me suddenly felt crisper and sharper. I turned to see Bregg standing about ten feet away, staring at me suspiciously, his spear in his hand.
“Just thinking,” I lied easily. “What was that shaking? An earthquake?”
He stared at me, obviously unconvinced. “No, Hemskal. An earthquake would have shaken this whole mountain and sent snow or rocks tumbling down on us. That was the work of spirits—probably vengeful ones. What did you do to anger them?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I snorted. “I haven’t called on an earth spirit since I hunted the enyarv, Bregg, and I don’t think that one would wait all this time to try to get revenge, do you? Maybe Aeld was calling on them to help us during our trip. It might explain why the path never washed out on us.” I probably should have felt bad throwing Aeld under the bus like that, but I really didn’t. I was pretty sure Bregg was as unhappy with the shaman as he was going to get, and besides, if what I said were true, the hunter could only blame himself. If Aeld had felt that the path we took was dangerous enough to need earth spirits to shore it up, well, Bregg picked that path. I didn’t think he had much right to bitch about it.
Apparently, the hunter agreed. He grunted, lowering his spear, and relaxed his tense muscles. “The food’s been done for a while,” he rumbled. “You should eat. We still have a long way to go to get to Aldhyor.”