A gout of water shot from behind me and crashed into the pillar, knocking it back and washing away some of its mud. I glanced back to see Aeld holding his staff high and pouring water from his open hand. Fifa clapped her hands together, and a flurry of ice shot out from her fingers, finger-sized shards that buried themselves in the mud and froze everything around them.
“Quickly, Freyd!” Aeld said, his voice holding actual concern for the first time in the battle. “Into the circle!”
I quickly ran backward and stepped over the line I’d drawn. A sharp pain darted into my temples, and I stumbled as my circle forcibly ended my Swift and Steady spell, holding out the spirits that had steadied my feet. I caught my balance and looked over at Aeld.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing my spear at the pillar.
“A powerful land spirit,” he replied tersely. “Or perhaps more.”
“It’s the spirit of Lerlauga!” Fifa said with a strangled voice. “You woke it, Haviti!”
“That sort of means, ‘idiot,’ John,” Sara supplied helpfully.
“I guessed that from context, thanks,” I chuckled. “Is she saying that’s a high spirit?”
“She seems to think so. I’m not sure; it could just be a powerful land spirit. I don’t know where the borders are, I’m afraid.”
“So, how do we drive it off?” I finally asked aloud.
“We don’t,” she said shortly. “Nothing we can do will hurt it!” I wanted to argue with her, but even as I watched, the mud that Aeld had washed off the creature flowed back to rejoin it, and the frozen spots covering it melted as it healed the damage their spells had done.
“We’ll remain in the circle,” Aeld said in a voice that sounded slightly strained. “It can’t sense us here. Eventually, it will tire of waiting for us to appear and return to the pool…”
He fell silent as a whip of mud lashed out toward us. The tendril slammed into an invisible barrier in midair, and a spike of pain flared in my skull. I winced and grabbed my temple, then looked at Aeld a little accusingly.
“I think it can sense us.”
“It—how?” Fifa gasped. “I can’t feel anything beyond the circle. How does it know we’re here?”
I cringed as another lash slammed into the shield of the circle, and more pain lanced through my skull. “Maybe it sensed where we disappeared and worked it out?”
“Spirits don’t understand the world that way, Freyd,” Aeld said gravely. “Normally, nothing is hidden from them within their sensory range, so to them, something either exists, or it doesn’t. There’s no in-between.”
“It must be sensing us, still,” Fifa declared. “Your circle is flawed, Freyd. There’s no other explanation.”
Another whip of mud cracking into the barrier made my head spin, and I wobbled slightly. “I don’t know how long this is going to last,” I said. “Fifa, can you use that spell of yours to get us out of here?”
“Not within the circle, no. And you saw: the spirits take some time to get us up to speed. The spirit of Lerlauga will be on us long before we can escape.”
“We’ll have to chance running,” Aeld said gravely. “If the circle falls…”
I hissed in pain as a pair of tendrils slammed into the barrier at once. My head felt like a vice had clamped around it, and I dropped my spear and grabbed my temples. Another assault slammed into the circle, and the pain turned into a sharp stab behind my eyes as one of the tendrils leaped through and slammed into Aeld’s chest, knocking him backward.
The pain crested and faded to a pounding throb as the circle failed completely, leaving me woozy but able to stand. The pillar surged toward us, its tendrils lashing, and unthinkingly, I batted aside one of the tendrils and ducked beneath the other. A third leaped out from the base of the pillar, cracking into my chest and knocking me back. A stream of ice slammed into it, coating it with frost that swiftly melted, halting it long enough to let me roll to my feet. I growled and ran toward the thing, scooping up my spear as I did. My head ached, and my thoughts felt fuzzy, but one thing was certain. This thing needed to die.
Another tendril swiped toward me, but I knocked it aside with my spear and thrust, jamming the weapon into the mud. The spear slid in without effect, and in response, another lash darted toward my head, forcing me to duck. At the same time, a tendril swept low, knocking my feet out from under me, and I rolled as a heavy strand of mud crashed into the ground where I’d fallen.
I scrambled to my feet and lunged in again, stabbing the spirit once more with similar effect. This time, I slid back, and the follow-up strikes missed me. I readied my spear, but as I did, Sara’s voice cut through the haze in my thoughts.
“Spiritual Strike, John! Attack the spirit, not the shell!”
The fog in my head made it hard to think, but I’d learned to trust Sara. My spear shimmered into ghostliness as I stabbed again, and this time, the weapon passed through the muddy exterior and sank into the creature beneath. The pillar recoiled, whipping several limbs toward me, and I was forced to leap back to dodge. My spear slipped free, but I struck again before the spear lost its ethereal nature.
The pillar shuddered and yanked itself back, but I followed it, batting aside tendrils, ducking whiplike slashes, and leaping over sweeping arms. I stabbed it again, thrusting my spear into the beast with Channeled Strike, then once more.
“Strike and pull, John!” Sara’s instructions rang in my fuzzy mind. “Like before!”
I lunged at the creature and jabbed my spear into it. As the weapon slid deep inside, I pulled. I dimly recalled that last time, this hadn’t worked, but this time, power flowed swiftly into me, pouring through the spear. The pillar slid back, but I followed it, keeping the spear embedded in it and pulling, hard. Power surged inside me, and without thinking, I guided it back into the beast the way I had before, filling it with frigid power. The mud around the spear froze solid with loud cracks, locking the weapon in place.
Tendrils lashed at me, and I had to choose between releasing my spear or enduring the attacks. I ground my teeth, ducked my chin, and growled as whips of burning mud slammed into me, knocking me about and trying to tear me loose from the pillar. I held on and kept pulling, pushing the power I stole back into the creature in waves of utter cold that slowly spread the frost across the pillar’s surface. Tendrils slashed at my shoulders and back, crashed into my head and knocked my legs out from under me, but I refused to let go of the spear. At last, the strands snapped out and wrapped around me. Instead of trying to knock me away, they grabbed me and hauled me forward, toward the pillar. Caught off-guard, I stumbled forward and reached up, sinking my hands into the mud to catch myself, while still activating Spiritual Strike.
My fingers slid through the mud and tangled with something deep inside it, something thick and viscous like honey. My fingers plunged into that liquid, and I curled them and leaned back, trying to tear them free. The thick fluid held me tightly, and I strained harder, using my entire body to push backward. My fingers suddenly slid free with a wet squelching noise, but as they slid out, the viscous stuff flowed with them. The tower of mud collapsed as I dragged whatever it was out of the pillar, and I flew backward. I relaxed my body, expecting to hit the ground hard, but I kept rising, floating into the air and dragging a huge mass of blue-gray liquid with me.
The world around me seemed to blur, and the pain vanished from my skull. My thoughts cleared, and I realized that I’d pulled the huge spirit out into spiritual combat. I felt a surge of panic—this thing was vast, and there was no way I could fight it—but to my surprise, the spirit wasn’t attacking me. I let go of it and floated back, getting a better look at it, trying to understand what it was doing.
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I understood instantly. The spirit was a wounded beast, barely alive, a mark that had died and simply didn’t know it yet. While it loomed over me, it looked oddly empty, as if it had been hollowed out. Holes dotted its bulk, and streams of power flowed from those as its essence bled out. It shifted and flowed erratically, as if trying but failing to move.
I reached into myself and touched the power of the hunt spirit within me. My hands stretched into deadly claws, and my mouth elongated into a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. I leaped at the creature, reaching with my claws and snapping my jaws at it. Tendrils emerged from it at last and lashed at me, battering and burning me, driving me back, but I batted them aside and charged forward, ducking and weaving around its attacks until I sprang forward and sank my claws into it.
My skin burned as whiplike strands of energy lashed my back and sides, but I ignored them and tore into the column, ripping out hunks of spirit flesh. Those sank into me and flowed over my skin, healing the damage the spirit was doing. My jaws ripped away chunks of its essence that flowed down my ethereal throat and spread out within me.
“Ice, John. Try shielding yourself with ice from the steam spirit.” Sara’s voice was dim and hazy, as it always was when I was in spiritual combat, but it was clear enough. I reached down and touched the steam spirit whirling inside me, drawing up its essence and wrapping it around myself. My flesh hardened and turned pale blue as ice energy coated it, and the burning lashes of the spirit’s attacks became mere stinging slaps against me.
“No more!” The spirit’s voice was plaintive as it cried out. “I yield!” I ignored it; marks always begged or bargained for their lives before the end.
The spirit struggled and wailed, but its attacks grew feebler as I ripped away more of its essence. My wounds were healed by the time it reached half size, and the energy I took in filled me up, swelling my body with its power. I loomed over it as it shrank, its voice a feeble squeal as my jaws snapped down and scooped the last of it up. My teeth crashed together, and the spirit’s essence flowed into me, filling my body.
I felt myself sinking back to earth as the combat ended. The eldritch colors of the spirit world faded into ordinary sunlight, and the pain in my head returned with a vengeance as I slipped back into my body. A moment later, though, the pain began to lessen, and I looked up to find myself lying on my back, coated in mud, with Aeld’s hand resting on my forehead. As he healed me, I closed my eyes and pulled up the notifications waiting for me.
Ability Gained: Spirit Drain
Active Spiritual Ability
You drain power from a spirit with which you are in contact. You drain power equal to your Spiritual Flow per second. This energy counts against your maximum spiritual capacity.
Special: Spirits can attempt to resist this drain. Success depends on their type and class as well as your Intuition stat and the levels of your spirit-based professions.
Spell Created: Elemental Spear
Power Required: 26
You can channel spiritual energy of an elemental type through your spear, doing additional damage of that type.
Special: You can only channel energy types associated with a spirit you’ve bonded or melded.
Spirit Melding: You have Melded the Spirit of Lerlauga!
Class A High Spirit
Spiritual Power: 300
Benefits: All Stats +1, Genius Loci
Ability: Genius Loci
Active Ability
You can analyze every creature, spirit, and object within a short distance at once. The range depends on your Perception and Reason stats.
Skill Increase: Spirit Channeling
Rank: Initiate 2
Channeled spirit-based spells require 1% less power per skill level to maintain
Partial Adaptation!
You have partially adapted to the Doorworld of Sojnheim!
Current Adaptation: 75%
Benefits: All Stat penalties reduced by 50%
You have 4,182 XP that needs to be assigned.
This XP can be assigned to the following Professions:
Undtharvis, Undkrager
If this XP is not assigned within 24 hours, it will be randomly assigned.
Both undkrager and undtharvis were solid choices, but the XP would bring undkrager up a level, so I put it into that.
Profession: Undkrager has gained a level
New Level: 5
With each level of Undkrager, you gain:
Intuition +1, Prowess +2, Vigor +1, 2 Skill Points
I hadn’t gotten an ability from the level, but that was fine; I’d gotten two new abilities and a spell from that fight. Of course, I’d come somewhat close to dying, as well, but that was a pretty normal tradeoff for me. Big risks, big rewards—and big consequences for screwing up. Sadly, I got those a lot more than the rewards.
“So, it was a high spirit after all?” I asked Sara silently.
“I think so. The density of it and the pattern are much more complex than a normal land spirit—but really, it could still be a very powerful land spirit, as well. Something around Class U or higher.” She sighed. “I’d need to examine more high spirits to be sure, and they aren’t exactly plentiful.”
I jumped as a surge of water washed over me, scouring away the mud pinning me down. I opened my eyes, sighing in relief as the pain in my skull dulled to a distant throb. Fifa stood above me, hosing me down with a jet of water that shot from her palm and clearing the thick, clinging mud from me. Her expression seemed to be an odd combination of angry and frightened that I thought I understood. Whether or not the spirit I’d melded was a high spirit, she thought it was, and the fact that I’d claimed it probably pissed her off.
“What did you just do, Haviti?” she snapped at me as she cleaned away the last of the mud, spraying me in the face a bit before shutting off her jet. Yep, she was pissed. Fortunately, I didn’t much care.
“What you asked me to,” I replied, wiping the water from my face and climbing slowly to my feet. As usual, Aeld had only healed me enough to get me going again, and my body still burned and throbbed. “I called a mud spirit and claimed it.”
“You called every spirit in the Lerlauga,” she spat. “And you woke the spirit of the place itself! And then you…you…” She fell silent, and her body shuddered. “How did you do that?” she whispered, lowering herself to her knees and placing a hand on the ground. “No one can bind a high spirit—no one has, not since…” She fell silent, and after a few moments, I simply shrugged.
“Maybe it wasn’t really a high spirit,” I suggested. “Maybe it was just a powerful land spirit on the verge of becoming a high spirit.”
“Perhaps,” Aeld replied slowly, his face just as concerned. “However, I think—I think that it’s time that you meet the rashi, Freyd.” He looked at Fifa. “Do you agree? Did you or your elders learn anything?”
“No,” she whispered hoarsely. “They watched just as I did, in spirit. I saw him wrest the spirit from its vessel and enter spiritual combat. Then, somehow, he took its essence into himself, separating the spirit from its power and leaving only a trace of it behind—and that, he bonded. Beyond that, I don’t know. I’m sorry—I failed.”
I glanced at her, then gave Aeld a hard look as a suspicion grew in my mind, and he sighed. “One reason I had asked for shelter in Valskab Flothmathur, Freyd, is that Fifa is one of the letharvisa here. Her sensitivity to all things spiritual is well known across the Haelendi, and like you, she has a rare talent with spirits. I’d hoped that she could work out what you’re doing where I couldn’t. It’s true that her elders are observing, but the fact is, if Fifa doesn’t understand, it’s very unlikely that they will, either.”
“I don’t understand—yet.” Her voice firmed as she rose to her feet, and her face grew determined. “I will, though. The elders will arrange for the rashi to meet you, Freyd, and for transport for you and your companions there—and for me.”
“You?” I asked. “You want to come along?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what will happen.”
“Fifa, is this truly a good time for traveling for you?” Aeld asked with a slightly worried voice.
“I can handle it,” she said dismissively. “The decision is made. I will travel with you, Freyd, and you will demonstrate this again for me, as often as is feasible. By the time we reach Aldhyor, I mean to have something to tell the rashi.”
“And if I don’t want you to come along?” I asked evenly. “Or don’t want to show you?”
“Then you’ll be walking, and it’s likely that you’ll find Aldhyor closed to you,” she said in a harsh voice. “If not the entire Haelendi.”
“Fifa…” Aeld said warningly, reaching a hand toward the woman.
“No, Aeld. He claimed a high spirit. If he can do that, now, untrained—imagine what he could do as a fully trained letharvis! Imagine what the rashi could do with that ability. The Great Bargain—think of it!”
His eyes widened, and he turned to look at me thoughtfully, then back at her. “Even so,” he finally said, his voice slow, “Freyd’s path is his own, Fifa. You and your elders know this. It isn’t your place to stand in the way of it or to demand to follow it. You can only ask, and I know Freyd well enough to tell you that demands or threats will get you nowhere.”
She stared at the shaman silently for long seconds, and I could almost see the argument happening between them. Aeld’s face was set stubbornly, while Fifa’s was angry. As the seconds passed, though, her expression turned guilty, and at last, she lowered her chin.
“He’s right,” she said softly. “I can’t guide your path, Freyd. None of us can. We can only bargain. Will you allow me to travel with you and continue to show me what you can do, in return for our word to the rashi and transportation?”
“The transportation will take a week off the trip, at least,” Aeld said with a smile. “And if the rashi agrees to your coming, we’ll be guaranteed rest in every valskab along the way—and entrance to Aldhyor, which might have been denied us.”
I turned to Fifa and smiled. “I’d be happy to, Fifa. All you had to do was ask nicely.”
She gave me a weak grin, but an odd, almost hungry expression flashed across her face before it vanished. I didn’t understand that, and I also didn’t trust it. Something odd was happening, here, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t like it if I understood it. While I kept a smile plastered to my face, inside, I groaned. I had a feeling the trip south just got a lot more complicated.