=Calibro’s Wraith=

Walking down the hallway of clean cut stone I listened to my steps echo off the walls in the darkness that flows around me. Calibro followed behind me, his own gentle glow drowned out by the light of the torch.

[Gods, this passage is too long. ] Tripping over a loose stone I’m reminded exactly how much I envy Calibro and his incorporeal body.

“Remind me why, Calibro, that we must do this for every damn gathering?” I say while picking myself up. As indistinct as his features are I can almost feel his smirk.

“Stop complaining, you’re well aware that this is one of the few ways into the Garden.”

Deciding that this was a losing battle I continue on without a word. After another 10 joyous minutes of walking we finally come to our target location. Before us stands a wall of silvery metal that emits a slight blue gleam.

Calibro and I separate to either side, me on the left and him to the right. Syncing our movements we both reach out, tapping it with our fingertips as the center ripples form in the middle, they roll outwards until meeting in the middle stopping wherever they meet each other. When the metal finally calms down again a long unbroken line is formed down the middle.

Soundlessly, it glides open revealing an empty stone room. An Antechamber to the Garden, one of seven in the entire world. Passing through the now open door I take one last look at the pearly doorway, the Garden, Antechamber and the entrance all came from times before the first Wraith Lord.

[Shame we can’t reproduce any of it.]

We head to the middle of the room, extinguishing the flame of torch  as we reach the center. Calibro touches the door a second time, reacting to his spiritual energy it swings shut behind. Sitting down in the center of the room, I close my eyes and turn my focus inwards.

With practiced ease I find my soul and wrap it in spiritual energy. Once I am sure I have a tight hold on it, I signal Calibro. A moment later I feel a slight tug, not even a full breath after it began it turned into a wrenching feeling.

I opened  my “eyes” once again, and  am dazzled by the bright surroundings. Gone is the dark and dreary room, in its place are bright swirling lines that hum with power. The door now blazes with shifting colors behind us. Below us sits my now vacant body.

I can only shiver thinking of the earlier Wraith while eying the thin blue line that tethers me to my body. At the best of times I never felt comfortable spirit walking and that was before I saw that. Now… Well, I just tried to avoid thinking about it. Calibro, holding my soul, moves towards the front of the room.

All of the energy gravitated towards a single point in the room creating a pseudo whirlpool of turbulent energies. Walk- no floating towards it, we got about a foot away from it before I began to feel the telltale pull. Bracing myself for what came next, I wrapped my energy even tighter around me. Calibro stops resisting and lets us be pulled in.

Reaching the very center of maelstrom I felt the energies tearing at my thin shield and myself. I realized what came next was necessary, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Feeling it pierce my shield I clenched my non-existent teeth...

I burst, my soul separating down to its basic elements. Millions of me floating around, each made up of a single facet of what made up myself as a whole. Thankfully, Calibro  was prepared for this. He took the surrounding energies and skillfully weaved it into a container around me (or us?).

Back in the physical world Spirits have the barest of control over spiritual energy, and are only able to filter it for us Wraiths. Here though in the Garden spirits had complete control, making us Wraiths obsolete as long as we were here.

Slowly Calibro rebuilds me, allowing me to take stock of our surroundings. Seeing the thick mist that shined to my senses and the outline of six other figures I breathe a sigh of relief.

The Garden, as we called this place, allowed us to hold conversations as if we were face to face across entire continents. Messages relayed by spirit walking were fast but not instant like this, too bad only the strongest are able to survive the transition.

“I ask that the representatives identify themselves!” Calibro shouts, finished putting me back together. In the Garden the spirits are the ones who do the talking.

“Do you not think it is rude to demand names when you have yet to give your own?” A lilting voice yells from the right.

[Calibro, must you argue with her like this everytime?]

Ignoring me he continues, “I am Calibro of Tor-Nundo, and again I ask, who are the present representatives?”

[Well damn, guess you do.]

“Jeywin the one to join you from Divel.” For all her complaints the melodic voice is the first to speak.

“Soldat representing Cass-Vinda, Not that you’d forget I’m sure.” A voice dripping with arrogance.

“Zorn the speaker for Querin.” A quiet whisper.

“Späher. Urtonlo.” Short and sweet that one.

“Stefues of Eolin.” Unexpectedly normal, that guy.

“Jäger of the Yorv Land.” A  deep gravelly voice from the left.

Not recognizing the last one I quickly give Calibro a mental poke. Picking up on it he turns to address the last voice.

“Jäger of Yorv Land, what has befallen your last representative?”

“An ailment known as death, not a very uncommon thing within our ranks no?”

Calibro nods accepting his response, “Moving on. Has everyone has received the outline of the Wrai-”

“Surely that is due to a foolish mistake on the Wraith’s part, not  because of Revenants with levels of power we haven’t seen since the previous Wraith Lord? The next Wraith Lord hasn’t even appeared yet! We should still have some time left!” Soldat interrupts.

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Calibro snaps back, “We don’t, It’s been nearly ten thousand cycles since we and the Revenants nearly decimated each other. That's plenty long enough for the Revenants to rebuild their strength, and we have yet to do so.”

“What. Mean.” Späher asks in it’s own special way.

“Späher is right, There are tens of thousands of Wraiths stretched across the seven regions. A number unimaginable just after Wraith Lord Hathis’ disappearance, surely you jest.” Jeywin, though her voice had lost the musical cadence.

“Just like Soldat said, a new Wraith Lord has yet to appear and without him….. I dare say even we wouldn’t be safe.”

“Stop with this foolishness. We are the seven, the most powerful and oldest Wraiths that walk the Earth. Even if there are Revenants that spent the entire time the last decimation to now, we would not be so helpless against them.” A gravelly voice from the mist.

Calibro hesitates, “We aren’t, not against them. Tell me though, do you think that we completely wiped out the Revenants during that battle?”

No response.

Calibro starts again, almost whispering, ”What I fear are beings much older. You’ve all read the records of largest battles, and about that single being of black jade. One that was able to fight the Hathis toe to toe, do any of you think you could face an opponent that a Wraith Lord struggled with?”

Silence follows, broken only by a different, even quieter voice, “We will take your words to heart Calibro. We shall renew our efforts on finding the new Wraith Lord, and we will support you in anyway we can to capture this 'Spirit Walk' capturing Revenant of yours.”

Calibro nods, “Then we shall contact our base in the Reld kingdom and ask them to start a sweep of the whole land in search of the threat.”

=Varith=

Running, bounding through the forest, stepping side to side to avoid trees by the barest margin, heart beating in my chest. With each stride I flung myself farther forward, a trick that I was only able to accomplish because of my strange weight.

Exhilarated, I push myself faster, losing sight of my surroundings. Focusing purely on the run I immerse myself in my body, too late though I notice a road right in front of me. Bursting through the trees I see a carriage no more than an arm's span away from me.

Panicking, I cross my arms in front of my face and pull myself through the carriage.

Everything slows, becoming a muted grey as I hurtle through the carriages side, likely startling the passengers inside. Sadly, because I covered my face in a reflex I am unable to survey the inside, even if  I am in slow-motion. Would have been nice to see their faces.

Passing through faster than a galloping horse from their point of view they likely only saw a dark blue blur. Unless, of course the coachmen caught sight of me beforehand, but even then I'm confident I would be fine.

While in the middle of my musings I slam into a tree about thirty steps past the carriage in the forest. Luckily I went far enough that the trees should be concealing me.

[Damn it, why can't  I just phase through everything. ]

I’m not able to phase through the ground or natural, uncut rock. People, living plants, and animals are a no go.

[That’s enough for today, gotta get home or else mother will freak and father....]

I can only shiver at the thought of the torture he disguises as training he would make me do. Going at my top speed it only takes 10 minutes tops before I make it back to our two story cabin I call home.

Smelling something delicious wafting from the kitchen I recklessly pop out of the bushes, making my way towards the open door. Only to see a similar blue smudge standing in it, and by its size,  its Gafrin, my father's spirit.

[Trap!]

I turn trying to escape my fate only to be met with a solid wall of muscle, also known as my father. Sensing danger I kick myself off his legs, sending me into a shallow leap backwards by almost 20 paces skidding on the ground a bit due to my low weight. I catch the training sword that had been tossed to me.

[Why fight when you can run?]

I turn and run, after all Gafrin wouldn't be able to stop me. Only to pause at the sight of my mother in the doorway. Feeling my father coming up behind me, I kick off the ground flinging myself onto the roof. I turn to gloat of my glorious escape only to be dealt a crushing blow by my mother.

“Either you fig- I mean train with your dad or no dinner for you.”

I can only gasp, shocked that they would stoop so low. I immediately fall through the roof all the way to the ground floor, and while still phased launch myself forward through the wall legs stretched out behind me. Coming through the wall I see him ready to beat me down.

This time I pulled. You see, as I've grown older I've realized that some of me seems to just naturally stay on the other side (probably why I'm so light). So now I try pulling myself here taking all of me from the other side. This had the effect of immediately raising my weight.

With such a sudden spike in mass my body dropped, stopping right before my dad hit me. This caused his swing to miss me completely, allowing me to nonchalantly tap him on the chest with my training sword tip.

Unfortunately, they're not surprised a bit by the new trick, they after all have been dealing with my quirks the whole time they've raised me. You know, things like falling through my crib or using some non-traditional methods of moving around as a baby, that may have involved a ladle and a pot.

To add insult to injury I'm the one that's surprised by my usually silent father's next words.

"Tomorrow I’m going to town, come with me"

With that, he turned and walked off inside with mother.

==

PR: Leon Das