Ike remembered when he was just a kid. How strange that was, having memories that felt so foreign but fit so perfectly to who he was. He could remember getting lost in the monastery, in places he hadn’t even explored as an adult, and it didn’t feel like watching someone else’s story. It felt like his own.
Lost, confused, with just a dash of friendly naivete. Turns out that with a childhood or without, Ike was still destined to be confused.
The blood in the basin purified the key. Broke off the white enamel and left a thin metal key with two notches and a ring just big enough to loop around one of Nerinai’s fingers.
They took it out of the basement and up to a doorway tucked away on the first floor where anyone who wasn’t looking for it would miss it. Even the door itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, just a solid piece of dark wood with a rounded top. The handle was unique. Coated in swirling iron and gold, a swirling pattern that shined even with the minimal light that crept into the corner.
“Why not just break it down?” Ike asked.
Nerinai held the key just an inch from the lock and didn’t put it in. “Why not break it?” she asked, not hiding the mockery in her voice. “I suppose you think dumping my blood out was the first option.”
He shrugged. “It was just a question.”
“A stupid one.”
Before Ike could retort, Nerinai stepped back. She lifted up her arm and watched the black ichor creep up her skin, dripping like sweat, until it formed into a solid fist encasing her own, four times the size. She brought her arm back and slammed it into the door with a high pitched shout. The ichor smashed and shattered on impact, Nerinai recoiled.
Ike held her shoulders, keeping the impact from knocking her on the ground. “Alright, yeah. Got it. Big door.”
“Magic door, Guardian. The first shamans were incredibly strict with their locks and wards.” She pushed herself off of him and massaged her right arm. “Their work is likely the only thing that’s kept us safe from the full brunt of the blight. Even if it was only a temporary and destructive solution.”
With the key inserted, the door popped open without so much as a click. It careened out into empty space leaving the way down open for the two visitors. Ike and Nerinai both crowded the door, staring into the dark stairway heading down. She took the first step before he could, forcing him to listen for the patter of footsteps so he wouldn’t stumble into her on the way down.
“It would have been a lot easier if I went first,” he mumbled. She didn’t respond, and so for a long time they descended in silence and darkness.
No wonder Nerinai was used to doing these things alone, Ike thought. Climbing down here was eerie. Knowing there were demons in the building, possibly sitting in the darkness below waiting for them, didn’t make anything any better.
“So, blood magic.” He coughed to clear his throat. No point in being quiet if this was already a trap, right? “Can you explain how it works? Besides, yeah, you put the blood in the bowl and it fixes the thing. Nothing’s really that simple, right?”
“Ah, I’ve seen you’ve become a scholar while I was out finding the seals. Of course that’s not all there is to blood magic. It’s ancient. Hardly an elegant system all things considered, but you would be hard pressed to find a more… brute force way of accomplishing specific goals. There’s a certain power in blood that you can’t get from ichor. Yanell would likely know more.”
“Yanell?” Ike found it hard to imagine the quiet shaman from the Crows as somebody well versed in spilling blood for power. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more it kind of made sense.
There was a pause, but if she nodded Ike couldn’t see. “I could practically smell it on her. Ichor comes from the spirit. It’s a push on the material world working on the engine of a shaman's soul mixed with that of a demon spirit. That kind of power is versatile, but doesn’t carry the same weight, if that makes any sense to you. Blood carries that weight. Spill enough of it, in any capacity, and you could accomplish virtually any task you wished to complete.”
That sounded like a one way path to some incredibly grim magic. Ike didn’t want to think about the things shamans did before they were shamans. They were willing to break the gates of hell for more strength, what was the death of a few sacrifices?
As if reading his mind, Nerinai continued, “The caveat is that any form of sacrifice has to be willing. It’s a particularly stubborn nick in more complex spells, because how many people could you find willing to bleed themselves dry? And then there’s the conditions of material. Blood coagulates. Work too slowly, and you’ll end up repeating the entire process over again. Messy work for amateurs and those without an imagination for problem solving.”
“Sounds like it.” She made it sound like any ritual would have taken gallons of the stuff. “We purified the key pretty quickly though, right? I mean, never seen a blood ritual, but you thought you could do it alone. Why?”
“The blood of a shaman carries more weight than a normal person. Especially the blood of a Raveness. The more powerful the shaman, the thicker the blood, or so the saying goes.”
The shamans had sayings. Ike couldn’t help but grin, not that anyone could see. He liked talking with Nerinai like this. And, if he let himself assume, it sounded like she did too. He knew he could listen to her go on for hours talking about anything she liked, or hated, and he’d be happy to listen.
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For a few minutes, there was only the pattern of their steps heading down the stairs. They seemed to stretch on for infinity, and Ike could already feel his muscles burning up with exhaustion.
“There's something else I didn’t tell you.” Nerinai’s voice sounded small in the pitch black. “Something you wouldn’t remember, because, well, why would you? I barely do.”
“You do? I mean, we’re only like a year apart. How could you remember something I can’t?” He rubbed the spot on his side and realized with a start that the scar was gone. All just part of the ritual, he guessed. He could remember almost every time someone saw it and mocked him for it when he was younger.
He was so busy thinking about the scar that he didn’t hear her footsteps stop in front of him. He crashed into her, and then the both of them ended up stumbling around an empty space muttering curses. Ike got his arm wrapped up in her cloak, and she couldn’t shove him off hard enough until he felt something sticky smack into his chest and knock him flat on his ass.
While he recuperated, rubbing the spot his ass hit the hard ground, he could hear Nerinai storming off somewhere. Then he panicked. All he heard was the occasional curse, some sort of clicking noise, and his own throbbing skull.
Then everything lit up with golden brilliance that blinded him. The only respite was Nerinai standing over him like a black cloud, offering a hand to help him up. Ike took her hand, and brushed himself off when he was steady enough to keep from falling down again.
“You and I weren’t chosen for this mission, Ike, we were born for it.” Now that there wasn’t a shadow between them, he could see that familiar intensity back to her eyes. Everytime Nerinai talked about him, she looked so worried. “The monastery saw potential in an infant after the first herald came. You… they made you after.”
Ike couldn't help but recoil. “Why is it made? Say literally anything else.”
“There's no better way to describe it. Your father contracted blight illness before you were conceived and died before your mother gave birth. Three months is the longest anyones ever lasted with that poison in their blood, and that’s lucky. They gave it to your mother weeks before you were born. Weeks, Ike.”
Ike wanted to disappear back into the darkness. This was a little more than he ever wanted to hear. It was like no matter how many times she dropped a bomb on the way he looked at his life, she was always ready to break it down again.
Then, to add insult to injury, she grabbed his collar and pulled him in so close that their faces were inches away. Trying to avoid how close they were, he noticed that strong jasmine smell she had before was gone. Replaced by days of sitting in the same, sweaty cloak and running between tasks.
“I need you to understand this-”
“Alright!” He yanked himself back and out of her grasp. “I get it, ok? The monastery hates babies. Wonderful news! Couldn’t you have the decency to, I don’t know, just leave me a few illusions? Not everyone wants to think about how miserable their life is every goddamn time they try to have a conversation.”
“This is important. You’re the one who decided that you wanted to be a Guardian and stick with it.”
“Yes, and I don’t regret that. I don’t think I ever could, but please Nerinai. You know, it’s a lot to drop on somebody all at once, right? I’m glad you’re talking- but let’s talk about something that isn’t me. Ok? Very simple, I think.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Indignant as always, holding her chin above complaints and history.
“Fine.”
Ike exhaled, taking that little victory in. He thought she’d never stop reeling on him about how miserable he was. Now the two of them could get back to doing the things they should have been doing from the start. Working together, holding actual conversations and god forsake it being something more than bitter shaman and idiot follower.
Nerinai had turned away from him and to something deeper in the room with a look of mild curiosity on her face. Ike followed her gaze to the middle of the room.
They stood at one point in a diamond shaped room. The walls had been decorated with the visage of saintly figures, erected stone figures that nobody remembered to care about in the modern era. The ground under their feet was a pattern of blending natural stone, rivers of golden brown and milky white leaking through the coated gray stone leading to a shallow pool in the center of the room. There, in the middle of the pool sitting on a stone, was another statue.
Except this one was made of bone.
“Well Guardian, I suppose we have bigger things to worry about after all.”
As if she needed to say it out loud. He fought to keep from rolling his eyes.
“What now?” he asked. “It’s just a statue.”
“And tell me, how likely is it that one would construct a several centuries old figure out of bone exposed to moisture and air? Don’t answer that. The answer is highly unlikely.”
Up until then, the large skeleton wore a jovial bone grin, watching their conversation in silent amusement. The thing probably hadn’t had any entertainment in centuries. All alone in this basement, Ike could almost feel sorry for it. Once it stretched those impossibly long legs and lifted a harmonica up to its nonexistent lips, he stopped feeling any sort of sympathy.
He had the shovel off his back and in his hand in seconds. Nerinai was next to him, arms lifted in front of her.
“Plan?” he asked.
In place of an answer, Nerinai charged ahead. Ike expected some sort of long plan involving a very detailed list of directions for how he would place himself on the field. So, when her foot hit the water, he was even less prepared for the odious thrum in the air as the skeleton blew into its flute.
Nerinai collapsed to her knees and Ike was barely any better. The shovel clattered out of his hands and had him struggling between trying to cover up his ears and reaching to pick it back up.
When he managed to focus past the noise, he could see Nerinai rising to her feet again. That woman, Ike thought, was a terrifying thing.
Her arms wreathed in black ichor, she shot tendrils at the skeleton. Then something really odd happened. The tendrils hit the skeleton, wrapped around its bones and looked like they were doing exactly what they were meant to, and the song hummed through the flat instrument reached a crescendo.
Nerinai started screaming.
Ike grabbed his shovel. Not a thought in his head, fueled purely by adrenaline, he ran into the pool and cut the ichor down the middle. Nerinai fell and he caught her. Dragged her and himself through the water and back onto solid ground.
They both panted, waiting for the next attack. Nothing came. Even that terrible song halted once they left the water, but the both of them were still drenched and Nerinai was deathly pale.
She reached up to his chest. “Ike… you… you’re bleeding”
He looked down, confused. His chest was fine. Then he licked his lips and finally realized his chin was soaked. Letting out a soft groan, he fell down next to her.