“I’ve taught you the basics of germ theory, microbiology, biology, chemistry, physics, emergency medical care from my military days, and much more,” says my grandfather in front of what are now three glass walls covered in various diagrams and lecture notes, “we have discussed how these disciplines interact and can make various benefits for man like antibiotics and vaccines and have done several lab exercises to explore these disciplines in a practical manner. Granted none of the lab equipment we used probably exists in the world now, but it was more for learning principles than replicating everything we did with exactness. You’ve endured and learned so much in such a short time. You did it Skath! You survived this bastard’s my cram school!”
“I was curious about the lab equipment now that you mention it. Why does it seem that humanity doesn’t have all this technology like microscopes, or even a knowledge of disease? I mean the celandil had this technology and knowledge why not man?” I ask at my now large workstation desk that was covered in various scientific instruments and glassware.
“During the years of the witch hunts, or what I and most likely your father call the celandil genocide, humanity saw objects of soulcraft and science as one in the same and destroyed them as objects of witchcraft or demonic relics,” responds my grandfather, answering my question quickly as he always seems uncomfortable talking about the past, “My best efforts to preserve the learning of the past were lost mainly because I permitted leadership to shift from me to another letting humanity choose its future. What was precious and what could have been useful to the burgeoning bud of humanity was lost and scorned leading to a new dark age.”
“How did humanity even stand up against the celandil? I mean soulcraft is so powerful, and considering I am limited by my dominating humanity, the celandil must have been close to omnipotent,” I say pressing for more information on my last day of learning with my grandfather.
“Humanity outnumbered the celandil almost a thousand to one. The celandil population was maintained small to keep our central government stable,” says my grandfather relenting to my questions, “The celandil were powerful, but they were still mortal, and they grew slothful in growing in their own personal strength. They used humanity to harvest the essence they needed, which powered their entire society. Though humans were slaughtered in droves initially during the liberation wars, the power of the celandil waned as they lost their main power source, and with essence being limited eventually the tides of humanity overwhelmed the celandil.”
“I thought my main problem was that my essence was human, how is it that humanity was used as a power source?” I ask trying to figure out how that could even be possible.
My grandfather gives a halfhearted chuckle and says, “Your problem is that your soul is that of a celandil and your essence is a mixture of human and celandil. You grew in strength and so did the barrier your essence formed. Humans were never trained as celandil, so their souls and essence never really increased in strength. The draining I put you through did actually weaken the essence flesh barrier for humans and despite much of their essence dissipating when it left their bodies a portion of it was able to be stored and used by the celandil. This inefficiency didn’t matter that much, as the sheer numbers of humanity provided a flood of essence every day, permitting the celandil to live luxurious lives essentially having godly yet stolen power, and a mob of will deprived slaves.”
“That’s why you thought that draining me of essence would destroy my barrier. You thought that the barrier could be weakened like with humans, and couldn’t have guessed that the mixture of training and draining would result in what I am now,” I say now understanding why I went through that painful and traumatic exercise in the past, “but what do you mean by will deprived slaves?”
“Humans regenerate essence slower than celandil, and the word essence is much more than just a name for the misty stuff our souls produce. Essence is quite literally the quintessence of a person, our souls produce it so that we have the willpower and agency to enact our will upon the universe,” explains my grandfather and the board behind him altered itself to display a diagram of an outline of a person and inside the firm outline was another outline that appeared to be a cloud person inside the solid outline, and inside the misty outline a sphere floated in the person’s chest, “Humans because they have the essence flesh barrier can be drained nearly completely of their essence without losing their soul. In turn a human being drained nearly completely of their essence means their will to power, their individuality, their inherent drive to choose and act on their own is removed, and they become subservient, incredibly suggestible, and almost the perfect slave. All a drained human slave needs are food, water, ‘entertainment,’ and an ascribed purpose, and the drained human would perform in accordance to said purpose with exactness.”
“That’s horrible, but also explains why you told me that those already dead give their will to another,” I say reflecting on when my resolve waivered in my promise to save Uzuri.
“Anyway, Skath enough about the past. Is there anything you would like to clarify in the last few minutes of our final class?” asks my grandfather sitting back on a desk of his own where he occasionally sits to rest, as our classes have extended in time by an immense margin. In real-world time, we spend twelve hours in the classroom, but as time here in the classroom is experienced at a faster rate each class has been lengthened to be nearly three days in length. I’ve endured nearly three months of lectures in one months’ time, and thankfully my physical body experiences all this in twelve hours of real time so the buildup of fatigue here in the classroom is much slower than what I’d experience in real time.
“I just want to learn more about soulcraft. You’ve avoided teaching me about external soulcraft and inscription to help keep me focused on continuing to grow in internal soulcraft techniques. I know I won’t be able to use them, but I still want a description of them,” I say almost pleading with my grandfather.
He nods and the three walls change again to depict a new diagram of the same drawn person but with the misty substance of essence being inside and outside its body, “simply put external soulcraft is a lot like what you have been doing with internal soulcraft techniques. Essence can be used to create matter from nothing overwriting the very laws of physics, but to do this essence is expended almost at a proportion of two to one for the strongest of celandil. This makes it inefficient in my view, but it was the preferred method of the celandil of my day. You already do this inside of your body, as you fill your stomach with food to feed yourself.”
“Okay, you were trying to prepare me for external uses of soulcraft by training me to do everything within myself first where I wouldn’t be handicapped by my barrier. That makes a lot of sense now,” I say amazed at how what I had gone through with training was making more sense as to why my grandfather chose the curriculum he had.
“Exactly, which is why I hate that my training failed you, as if it succeeded you would have been able to progress quickly through the next parts of my training. We spent so much time learning about science so that the other method of external soulcraft would be easier to perform if not more spectacular,” says my grandfather, and I can note the regret in his facial features, “Manipulation is the other technique of external soulcraft and supersedes creation techniques. We can see essence which makes this technique easier for us. Under this method most celandil use essence as almost another limb not constrained by physical limits, much like the plasma boulders Argentum lifted from the cliff side, or even how you propel your physical limbs beyond their mortal constraints. However, that is the most basic use of manipulation based soulcraft, as if you understand the world you can focus essence to such a degree you can literally move protons and neutrons around at the atomic level to make the very air into gold. Truly, if you know the laws of the universe manipulation soulcraft makes the universe a helpful friend.”
“So, that’s why you spent so much time on teaching me science. I was honestly confused about how these lessons were preparing me to use soulcraft. I personally thought these lessons were just exercising the mind with my body to prepare for my soul to get stronger,” I say shaking my head while chuckling to myself with each realization impacting me on how organized and thought out each step of my grandfather’s training was.
“Correct Skath. And as time grows short, I’ll give a small introduction to inscription based soul craft techniques. Though, I believe you are familiar with the basics, so I’ll just be brief. The body acts as a reservoir of essence but can only contain so much. Inscription permits a celandil to store essence outside of themselves, thus essence reservoirs. Inscription acts as a sort of shortcut to perform more complex actions with soul craft, so the celandil doesn’t have to cognitively control their essence to do what some would consider tedious work. Going back to the air to gold example, atoms are incredibly small and focusing on changing each atom until you had enough gold to be visible would be a pain in the ass,” says my grandfather throwing his arms behind him to recline back on his desk a bit more, “This also permits a celandil to prepare for more complex ‘spells’ by slowly powering them overtime with essence, instead of needing to rely on the essence in their body and potentially over extending themselves and losing their soul in the process. Celandil depend on essence to keep their souls in their bodies and do not have a barrier, so many learners end up keeling over being overconfident in themselves. Luckily you do have a barrier which has made our training safer in some senses.”
“So, like my father’s scrolls then. He writes down what he wants his essence to do, infuses it with essence, and because what he has written is what the essence will do, when he needs his flaming sword he doesn’t have to consciously envelop his sword with essence and ignite it, the spell will do all that for him,” I say aloud to try and confirm that I understand what inscription is.
My grandfather nods again with a weak smile and the classroom begins to lose stability as the room begins to become almost a wispy haze than a solid structure to my view, “exactly, but I’d suggest being more specific than your father. Sure, the way he inscribes is somewhat poetic and artsy, and thankfully one’s soul and the shard of one’s soul in a reservoir do a lot of interpreting, but specificity is king when it comes to inscription, so you do not waste essence or make a spell that is larger than intended or performs not in accordance with expectation. During my time in school one exercise, they had us perform was to write the words ‘rise rock’ and depending on the person a rock would either shoot through the ceiling of the building, float gracefully, or for a particularly gluttonous individual the rock even expanded like rising bread. Now times up, I’m afraid, and thus concludes our final lesson.”
My vision shifts back to the real world, and I begin to prepare for twelve hours of endurance and strength exercises. The world was covered in snow, and the fire I was sitting next to had gone out during my twelve hours made three days in my mind of class time. Every hour of the day was now dedicated to instruction and exercise, and my mind, body, and soul are all close to collapsing.
I was about to start jogging around the valley to warm up my body, but my grandfather signals to me as a specter and says, “you won’t be doing your usual routine today.”
I took a seat on a rock at a fire circle I had made which was prepared with fresh firewood. I quickly light the fire and sit on a rock to warm myself and watch as my grandfather strolls the frozen gymnasium. I look at the icicles and small crystalline stars that dance on the breeze, as I wait for my grandfather to join me.
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“It’s time Skath,” says my grandfather taking a seat next to me and for a specter it is odd to see him look so exhausted, “at this point I think I’ve given you the tools to continue to learn and grow on your own. Today you go and make your essence reservoir, and tomorrow you graduate.”
“I’m going to miss you grandpa,” I say my voice escaping in breathy rasps and I know my mind and body are intimately aware that we are closing in on the end and are ready for a rest again. My training was using everything I had, as not a moment had been spared to let me rest. My soul had been keeping my body healthy as I pushed it day and night learning and exercising all I could. The final push is almost over.
“I will miss you too, but I won’t exist long enough to truly feel sorrow,” says my grandfather reclining backwards to rest his back on a stone.
“Wait, you’ll just cease to exist. I can’t have that; no I won’t be responsible for you to just disappear. You are family! You’ve helped me so much that I can’t have my mentor and grandfather just vanish,” I say with tears in my eyes as I look at my grandfather, and he looks at peace.
“I’m not really your grandfather Skath. I’m just a memory given life. Granted the things I feel for you are the things your actual grandfather would feel, but I’m just a mirage generated from the memories in those gloves and what traces of your grandfather exist in you,” says my grandfather’s memory, “I’ve been dead for I have no idea how many years, but I feel that somehow the time we spent together will reach your actual grandfather, and I feel like he would say he loves you as I do now. Don’t lament or cry for me, because in a way I already live on in you as it was a part of you that made our interactions possible.”
“Grandpa please, don’t leave me?” I beg and tears now pour from my eyes as I want to embrace him… but there is nothing to embrace.
“Today won’t be our last, that I can promise, but please promise me when I do go that you will smile knowing that I go on living in you. You’ll go on to repair what I have damaged. Truly you will bring light to the shadows of the past, and my legacy of destruction will be replaced by your healing hands,” says my grandfather and he begins to fade, “I need to reserve energy, as I’m closing in on my limit.”
“How do I make an essence reservoir?” I ask quickly before my grandfather can fade entirely.
“I’d suggest you go out into the forest and find something that speaks to you. When you do find what speaks to you, write your name upon it and impart into it a piece of your soul. When you hear its name, you will know that you have been successful,” says my grandfather closing his eye, “take off my gloves before you go, I’ll wait here for you. You need to do this alone.”
The gloves loosen around my hands, but I do not wish to take them off yet. I do not know what he meant in his instructions, as generally he is very explicit in what he wants me to do. His directions were very vague, and almost mystical. Sometimes I forget that to a certain extent everything I’ve learned about soulcraft is magical at its base. Everything up until now has been very methodical and scientific, but now my final task is to go out and feel. I guess when it comes down to it, my father and uncle Argentum both feel soulcraft more than see it like I do, so now I need to change approach.
I gently remove the gloves from my hands, and for the first time in months my hands are exposed to the elements. I was expecting them to have been impacted in some way from being locked inside those gloves for so long, but they were the same as when they had entered the gloves. My nails hadn’t grown longer, and my skin if anything was softer than it was before having been spared some of the brunt of the wear they should have gone through by the gloves. The chilly air passes over my hands and I place them into my winter coat to keep them warm.
I walk over to a small structure I had made to store a few things during training and pick up my plant journal and satchel. Taking my grandfather’s gloves from my coat pocket, I deposit my grandfather’s gloves inside the journal to keep them safe. I want to make my journal into my essence reservoir, but I remember how my grandfather was somewhat against the idea. I place the journal in my satchel, as I might as well carry it with me in case nothing speaks to me like my grandfather instructed. Today marks the end of my training, and tomorrow I graduate and must act quickly to maintain the advantages I have over Gehenna. What weight I felt before training came back to me. What stress and worries that had evaporated into training, now rained down upon me once more. Uzuri is waiting, and I sure hope I’m ready.
Steeling myself for the future, I begin to walk amongst the trees and let my eyes and ears transition into the misty world of essence. My purpose in wandering was to find what would become my essence reservoir, and I think the world knew that. My eyes and ears tuned to the essence of the world normally would bring upon me a torrent of whispers that would organize themselves as I accustom myself to them, but the world was silent. I found myself hitting trees as I walk forward, as their misty forms and souls were invisible to me for some reason.
Only when I stop focusing on my goal of finding my essence reservoir do the whispers and the misty forms of all things and souls of the living things of the forest return to my view. I attempt to alter my perception as I let my ears listen to essence and adjust my eyes to the physical world. With a little internal struggle as my eyes and ears jumped back and forth between the realm of essence and reality, I eventually attune my senses to what I need. I can now see where I am going and can hear the whispers of the forest.
I wander and it feels like I am utterly deaf as no sound pierces the canals of my ears. It is unnerving to lose a sense that I rely on, but maybe this is what will guide me. I walk slowly through the forest listening, but not a sound comes to me. I try running through the forest to cover more ground, and as I bound through the forest I am still treated with silence.
Frustrated with my search I decided to take a break and make a path for my old haunt. Though I have adjusted my ears to listen to the sounds of the forest again, the haunting quite followed me. What once sounded with perpetual crashing now hangs in frozen stillness. The waterfall is now a glacial pillar stands as an icy reminder of the season.
I smooth off some snow from the rock I usually sit on and stare at the ice giant before me. I wonder what it would say if it could speak right now. Would it be irritated that it can’t move or feel relieved to finally be able to rest? I attune my ears to see if I can hear anything from it, and I didn’t expect something so personified. Most inanimate objects whisper very factual information without any emotion whatsoever, whereas all things that possess a soul tell me more about the experiences they are going through and only speak monotone and factual if I focus on specific aspects of their physical form.
“Help me!” yells the waterfall, “I’ll wilt! Die soon! Help!”
Wilt, that doesn’t sound like something a waterfall would say. I focus on my essence reservoir again, and the yelling doesn’t cease, if anything it gets louder. I walk up to the waterfall and the voice gets louder, so I begin to climb the ice and make my way to the cave where water usually spills from into the valley. Normally this cave would be untraversable, but with the water frozen I have a path to walk on into the cave.
I shift my eyes into the misty realm of essence. Light becomes a luxury as I progress further into the cave. With my eyes attuned to essence I no longer need light to see. The misty form of essence visible to me displaying the cave walls and path ahead of me, I continue following the voice. I eventually find a bank in the cave, and I walk off the ice onto sandy ground as the voice now seems closer than ever. I look around thinking I’ll find a bird that might have gotten trapped in here. However, birds don’t wilt, and can plants cry? If that’s the case, I have a lot of apologies to make.
“Help me… need light,” says the voice, “Mountain shifted… Now no light!”
“Who’s here?” I ask walking around trying to find the source of the voice, and I see it. A tree, well more a pole than a tree as it only has two branches that split from one another and then reunite into a central shaft again. A single leaf like a desperate finger clawing upward grows from the central shaft above the circular hole the branches form.
“My mama,” says the helpless sapling, “queen of the mountain… my seed fell… river swept… Trapped… I grow… die soon... light gone… want to be… like… mama…”
I walk forward and touch the tree, and it seems to perk up. I look at it and the essence within it is incredibly weak, and if I replanted it outside it would probably die in the transfer, especially in this season. I want to do something for it as it seems desperate to live, but I don’t know how to help it.
“Scared… Death... never be… like… mama…” laments the small tree, “trapped… never see sky… life giving light… never leave… the dark…”
I pulled a knife from my satchel and feel prompted to cut down the tree. If I can’t save it, I can at least bring it out of this cave so it can die under the sun. However, I can’t bring myself to chop it down. I look again at the essence within it, and I know it is weak, and close to death. I take a few steps away from it, but I can’t bring myself to abandon the tree.
“Help!” whimpers the tree again, “anything to see light! anything to be great like mama!”
This tree and I are kindred souls in some ways, both of us trapped in places we didn’t choose, and both of us have legacies thrust upon us by those before. It calls to me, and I can’t leave it to die, as it would feel like leaving a part of me here to perish. I take out my knife and carve into the tree’s fragile bark my name. I put my hand around the tree and use my essence to force my soul into my hand, but no matter how I push against my flesh, my soul is trapped in my body.
I shook my head, as a part of me knew that this would happen, that making an essence reservoir would be a vain endeavor. I squeeze my hand around the trunk of the tree and my thumb slips into the nook where the two branches split from one another. A sharp pain bursts into my thumb. I had pricked myself with what looks like a thorn but must be a third branch that failed to grow completely. My eyes still attuned to essence, I bring my thumb to my face to look at my wound and notice that essence drifts in the blood pooling on my finger. Maybe all this time I didn’t need to work against my body, but with it.
I place my bloody thumb against my carved name and move my essence and blood like a bloody tendril into the engraved letters. All at once I feel the world grow dark around me and all there seems to be in the universe is only me and the tree. I feel myself being drained, but it isn’t violent, or painful, but warm. My surroundings fade from my senses as I grasp the tree in front of me. I see the glowing orb of my soul travel from my chest to my arm again and this time a small piece of it breaks off into my blood and flows into the tree and mixes with the tree’s soul. The soul shard and the tree soul spiral into one another looking like the swirling clouds of a violent storm, as they unite.
The tree before me morphs in my gaze and I see a wooden version of me staring into my eyes. My hand now on the tree’s shoulder, the tree grins at me. It nods at me and reciprocates my touch by placing its wooden hand on my shoulder.
“You have offered me a fate I can’t refuse,” says the tree its eyes glowing green and piercing me to my very being, “If I go with you, I’ll see the sun and perform great things worthy of the queen of the mountain. I’ll live and with you bearing me and empowering me, we will do wonders. I am Cranbeatha and I will be your essence reservoir!”
When the vision faded, I wake to find myself on the ground, my hand still clutching the tree’s trunk. A gentle light now illuminates the cavern. A single fruit hangs inside the circular hole formed by the tree’s main two branches. The fruit emits a bioluminescent glow and serves as the source of the new light. This wasn’t the only new growth on the tree as now the tree appears to be in full bloom as from the top piece of the trunk that grew out of the interlocking of the two original branches several new branches sprang from the tree bearing all manner of leaves and flowers. Leaves and flowers I recognize. I open my journal to see that every plant in it had somehow grafted onto the tree, and the journal is empty, even my notes are gone. I toss the empty journal to the side as I stare at the resplendent sapling.
I lift myself from the ground and the tree responds as the new branches shrank back into itself and the leaves and flowers moved to form a sort of covering on the trunk of the tree, though, not all the leaves form the covering as three leaves serve to ornament the top of what appeared to be a staff. I grab the tree and its roots release from the ground. The fruit was still present, and its glow gratefully didn’t extinguish when the tree or rather staff released itself. I felt the leaves on the shaft of the staff, and they felt of leather, and one of the leaves making the wrapping had red writing upon it that I could just make out in the glow of the fruit. The writing was the spell that imbued my father’s blade with fire. My thumb again accidentally slides in the nook formed by the two branches, and I feel something sharp jab into my finger, but it’s not painful, but feels like I was becoming connected somehow to the staff. I feel as if I should permit my essence to leave my body and the leaf bearing my father’s spell in the leathery wrapping of the staff appears to glow slightly to my eyes as the scarlet words fill with essence. Before my soul could begin bounding in my chest, the staff itself retracted the branch like thorn that stabbed my thumb.
“Cranbeatha my staff and essence reservoir,” I say under my breath raising the staff into the air, “together we will save a woman and village, just you wait and see.”
The tree no longer whispered to me, but in the light of its fruit it almost appeared to shimmer like metal in candlelight in response.