Similar to the first time, their group's entrance was unnoteworthy. It was still early in the morning, and there weren’t many undead. They were organized in two columns of ten single file lines, with Francis leading between them. Omia was to his right and behind him, at the front of her own column, because her Glimpse allowed for her to see the undead before they’d even arrived.
When she saw the white smoke creep out from the underbrush, she whispered to Francis “Undead, ten paces forward two paces left.”
Stopping, he held his hand up to make the rest of them pause.
“Omia, you’re first. Show me how it’s done.”
Nodding, she took a few steps forward. It was not a bunny as her first undead, but a medium-sized feline creature called a Gasher Cat. Normally quite nimble, she was worried for a moment.
When it started swaying side-to-side as it shambled in her direction, she reevaluated the enemy. Shield raised and sword out, she studied the amount of Undeath energy flowing from it.
The rabbits she’d seen last time had perhaps two-thirds of this cat's cloud. Looking at the heavy white smoke closer, she saw that it wasn’t actually flowing out of the cat, but circulating through the cat.
It would flow up and outwards, arcing slowly to the forest floor, where it would turn back around and flow into the creature from below.
Holding her shield around center mass and continuing to approach the undead animal as it moved towards her, she was surprised but ready when it let out a sudden burst of speed, launching itself at her.
With one swift motion, she braced her shield and felt its weird press against her, then immediately cut downwards into its exposed back.
It fell down into two pieces, and she backed up a pace, watching the mana.
Despite it being cut in half… the mana didn’t stop flowing. Not hesitating, she stabbed it in the brain as well, and saw the field around the cat stutter, before falling apart.
When it’d flung itself in her direction, some of its undeath mana flew into the air as well, touching her face. It didn’t affect her at first, but now that it was dead, she felt a cold tingle against her skin, and saw that some of it disappeared, absorbed by her Glimpse.
She winced, bracing for a vision, but none came immediately. Keeping watch on the road forward and her sides, she glanced back to make sure Francis and the others were still behind her, before slowly backing up and falling into line.
“Injured?” Francis asked.
“No.”
“What was that wince?”
“My Glimpse responded to the undead mana from the cat. It was cold and unexpected.” She partially lied.
Nodding, he made no comment on it. Omia had always been told that people couldn’t read her easily, as she almost never changed facial expressions, especially when she wasn’t very relaxed. When she was focused on anything, it was like her outward displays of emotion locked up. In this forest, she was focused on everything, so she wasn’t worried about Francis seeing through her.
When she called out another undead, Rory, the other leader of the line, was next to fight.
By that point, Omia was watching the undeath mana flow up from the ground and wriggle along the ground before going back down.
It was looking for her.
She gulped slightly. They were still fairly close to the edge of the forest, but she didn’t know if she could withstand the entire time here, especially if a repeat of the undeath mana blizzard happened around her. She didn’t know if it would even be safe to stay in the forest.
She decided to tell Francis that her Glimpse was responding weirdly if it came to that, and that they needed to cut the excursion short. She didn’t mind telling people the odd aspects of her Glimpse… she just didn’t want to tell them about Jane.
Still, she would wait and see if she could weather it, or if she could somehow stop the forest from picking up speed and drawing her in.
As Rory finished his undead, he moved to the back. Only Omia got the pleasure of staying near the front of the line so she could act as a scout for their group, this time at least. Francis said next time, she’d be at the back, so the rest of the classmates could get experience spotting undead.
She couldn’t change her gait to avoid any of the tendrils on the ground, so when they started marching again, she inevitably stepped on one to avoid suspicion. It was bound to happen eventually, it may as well happen near the start of their journey.
The tendril rapidly flew up her boot, under the leg of her armor, and she knew the moment it touched her skin. A familiar pressure attempted to force a vision onto her by knocking her into a trance-state, then showing her the memories of Jane. Just as she’d always done, she resisted and even managed to stop the vision, though she could tell it was a close call. Only by having her mental imagery prepared of a happy moment when playing with Joseph, her baby brother, did she prevent the vision.
Once she did that, she felt the oddest sensation. It felt like something… broke in the undeath mana that attempted to invade her. Once that happened, it was like her own Glimpse of Undeath cannibalized the opposing undeath
The feeling was familiar to her, she realized. It was like when she pulled the life mana from Death Eater grass. She fought it, won, then absorbed it.
The next few minutes, she fought down a tension in her gut as she waited for the storm of mana but… nothing. The searching tendrils continued to crawl along the ground like they knew she was in the area, but not where.
The cycle repeated for a long while, where her group would come upon an undead, kill it, and she would resist attempts at blurring her mind by remembering all the good times she’d experienced.
‘Throwing a snowball at dad. Francis admitting he was wrong. Outrunning the boys in town for the first time.’
Outwardly, she was completely neutral and calling out the undead as they came, but inward she was fighting her personal battle, and winning handily.
Each time the undeath mana broke, her body absorbed it quickly.
Some may have relaxed in her position as she realized she wasn’t in any danger, but her parents and Francis had beaten into her that she needed to give her all in every battle, because she didn’t know which would be life threatening.
Before she knew it, Francis told her to pass the message along that they were turning around, and for everyone to keep their eyes open. This was also a time to practice an anti-illusion maneuver.
To Omia’s left, she saw Rory back at the front of the line- soon to be the back. He turned around, and held his arm out for them to lock together.
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Rory guided the way forward, Omia walked backwards and made sure nothing snuck up on them.
Supposedly, this would help resist certain creatures that attempted to draw them into illusions, but Omia had never faced any, and didn’t know how true that was. Still, it was in training, and they would follow the order.
When, at last, she walked backwards out of the forest, she heard Rory sigh in relief. She couldn’t take her eyes off Wiltwood for a moment though.
She could still see it. Several tendrils along the ground. They were not searching for her anymore though, no. The small white wisps waved to her.
Somehow, that made her more uncomfortable than attempting to invade her mind.
Turning back around with the rest of her class, they went back to the camp in order to rest and go over what they’d learned.
Over the next few months, they had many similar excursions. Each time, Omia had to face off with the undeath mana wisps attempting to burrow into her. She began to take note of the significant details.
First, it could never penetrate her armor. The vision only appeared when it was able to slip into the crack between her leather leggings and her boots.
Second, the forest did not become more active until she came within range of an undeads aura. No undead, no mental attacks. Once she was spotted though, the forest would harry her until she left, and the attacks did not become more targeted when she was near an undead.
Third, she was pretty sure a blizzard of undeath mana would not be kicked up unless she fell to at least a single vision, but she was unwilling to test it right now. Potentially later, when she was either on her own or with some trusted friends. As it was, she’d succeeded in devouring every morsel of undeath mana offered to her by the forest. She did not notice any sort of uptick in how quickly she was getting stronger, but she did only consume small quantities. Perhaps she would need a lot more to convert into strength
Paying attention to it all, she never had an incident, and never endangered anyone around her. As a guard, she would only feel shame if she kept a secret and purposefully put herself in a precarious situation that might lead to others being considered “collateral damage.” it was her job to protect others, not herself.
She was also beginning to actually make some friends. Though she didn’t talk much, there were a few in the guard that she’d grown to know a bit better than the others. The first was Jamei, the largest guard cadet and the very first boy she’d ever out-enduranced. Ever since she beat him, they’d been fast friends. He didn’t mind being the butt end of the joke or losing out physically to a girl, while she could tell it made a few of the others uncomfortable. The other was Rory, the man who’d stood next to her on their first excursion into the Wiltwood. He was a bit more competitive than Jamei, but thats exactly why they knew each other better. He was always challenging her to a spar and, despite losing, was one of the only people who could actually put up a real fight.
By this point, Omia was about a third stronger than the other cadets. While that didn’t seem like a lot, it was more than enough to hurt badly when she hit their swords, to the point where her sparring opponents couldn’t hold their swords for long.
Omia noticed that the rate she was gaining strength had begun to slow down, but not stop quite yet. She suspected she’d hit a wall soon, and need to start experimenting as thoroughly as Torei did.
He insisted the importance of strengthening her Glimpse. Each time she drained it of strength and it rehealed, it was just a bit easier to pull life energy from the fields or consume the undeath energy of Wiltwood.
She did notice, however, that visions outside of Wiltwood could not be cannibalized by her Glimpse, simply because there was no energy to fight. Visions of Jane happened naturally to her, and Omia’s Glimpse couldn’t stop that. The Wiltwood wasn’t giving her visions when it attacked her, it was more like stimulating whatever gave her the visions to wake up a bit more. She wasn’t consuming the vision, but the catalyst.
No matter what she did though, Jane’s memories slowly grew stronger. Omia herself did as well, both mentally and physically, but despite becoming tougher and more experienced in her battle against the memories, they never got easier to stop. They always required her full attention for just a few seconds, but that might cost her eventually.
She was fighting a losing battle. For a long time, she dreaded the end to Jane’s story. She didn’t know why and she didn’t know how she knew Jane would die, but Jane would die, and Omia wanted Jane out of her head before that happened. The aching sense of loss only grew with each failed battle in her head, each second further into Janes' march to her inevitable demise.
Which was why, when first snow finally occurred, she was more than relieved. Soon, she would have free-reign to leave the city and explore the forest to her heart's content. She only needed to make it through one season without leaving the confines of the forest, one season without losing a single mental battle.
Hard. Hard, but not impossible.
“Alright everybody!” Francis shouted out to his class. The first years stood behind Omia’s group with the other trainer talking them through the setup, while the professional guards that were accompanying them stood behind the first years. Francis took care of the second years, who lead the way. “Everyone has their swords and armor? Everyone have the right equipment?”
Omia looked over all her things. Purge and healing of course, then there were the more unique ones. Breathless potions for if poison was emitted by something, draining potions to weaken larger undead, smokescreen for speedy escapes when needed, and finally- but most volatile- fire slag potions that would cover anything hit with the liquid. Francis always said to throw those as far as possible, even if the fire was fairly small. You did not want it touching you.
Each potions kit had two purge potions, four healing, then one of each special potion for a total of ten.
Omia had also asked her parents for a slightly unique armor set, one that merged her boots to her upper armor. There was no longer a gap for the undeath mana to get through. She tested it, with great success- when she wore this armor, it could not reach her skin immediately. That didn’t stop it from trying of course, by crawling upwards towards the seam between her upper and lower armor, at her waist, but she always sent out her own undeath mana to devour it before it could reach her. Speaking of, she’d loaded up on the energy and now had a compact stream of her very own Glimpse mana coiled around her left arm. Just in case. She’d try to keep the mana from dissipating for as long as she could, because she didn’t want to risk making herself too much weaker by producing a significant amount.
More than her preparations to fight the visions while awake, she’d requested- and been approved for- a change in her kit. No longer did she have a waterproof sleeping bag, but a waterproof hammock. She worried that, when she slept, she would be attacked by the tendrils. The solution? Stay off the ground.
It was untested, but she hoped it would work. She’d spent a long time training how quickly she could leap to her feet from the hammock battle-ready.
On her back was a buckler with her backpack over it. Her right hip held the potions case with a latch to close it and a hook that held it secure unless unfastened, and a small dagger sheath slightly above the box for easy access. She still occasionally felt her hand go to the daggers handle, the comfort she always drew from knives still present, but her first instinct was to reach for her sword now.
On her left hip, the longsword. Francis said that claymores were rather expensive and difficult to custom make, so he’d have to give her one at graduation. For now, she would need to fare just a bit longer with the tiny, pathetic sword…
“Omia.” Francis called out from the front, making her head snap up.
In his hands, a large, detailed scabbard. Far larger than a longsword.
‘A claymore!’ she thought, shocked.
“Well? Come here!” he said, and she took several quick steps forward to reach him.
“How… did you get it here without me noticing?”
He laughed. “I had someone carry it behind us. When you were looking over your gear, they brought it up front.”
He held it out to her, and she carefully inspected it for a moment.
“Later!” he said “we have to get going. Give me your longsword, attach the Claymore.”
Quickly undoing the belt that held her longsword in place, she handed it over and secured her new claymore.
She had to push down on the handle and keep it at an angle to prevent it from dragging along the ground, but it was absolutely worth the effort if it meant she could fight with her most comfortable weapon.
Quickly falling back into line, Francis made sure everyone was ready, before saying “Alright everybody! Time to march. Get a clear look of the sun one more time, this might be the last clear view you have of it for the next four months!”
Around her, people glanced up towards the sun, seeing it was behind the thick clouds that, even now, released snow onto them.
Francis laughed, then turned around and led the way into Wiltwood Forest. Omia and Rory, the two at the front as usual, jogged behind him. Behind them, others quickly matched steps and, before long, a loud synchronized march of guards resounded one last time before being muffled by the gangly disfigured trees.