The book flew out from Addie’s chest and started rapidly turning its own pages. Each page flew by so fast that it produced a steady wind, which pushed Addie’s hair back and up into the air. Ember, Addie’s birdie, turned her head around to look at the book, and then she promptly flew out of Addie’s lap and dove into the floating book faster than Addie could blink. In her absence, the flames that had been spread across Addie’s body abruptly extinguished.
The floating book shut with a loud clap then fell right down into the sand.
“Well, that was curious,” Christena said. “Come to think of it, you never did tell us about that book you found that talks about Soul Hunters. That’s partly both mine and your aunt’s fault for forgetting, but honestly, I’m not even surprised. Where did you find such a thing?” Christena shook her head with a slight smile.
It didn’t really sound like a proper question, so Addie didn’t bother answering. “The book said it would help me learn how to use Ember’s magic.”
“Ah, well that’s a relief. I’m glad you have a book detailing the secrets to maiming people’s souls.”
Addie scrunched her face in confusion. For some reason, Christena’s tone sounded so upbeat, and yet her words didn’t match the tone at all.
“That, young Addie, was sarcasm,” Christena explained. “Sorry, that might have been too harsh,” she winced.
“Oh. That’s okay.”
“Anyway, I’m proud of you for giving Ember a name. Now, could you pick that book up? It appears to be aflame.”
With a quick turning of her head, Addie locked onto the book and scrambled to pick it back up. The sand easily fell away from its cover and dropped back to the earth. The remainder Addie dusted off with her hand. The flames on the book didn’t bother her one bit.
She opened it to the first page and stared at the blank paper. Quickly, words began to scrawl along the page, Addie reading them as they appeared.
-Whosoever can read these pages shall wield the power of a Soul Hunter.-
*Congratulations, Addie, for clearing the first bottleneck. Ember here seems very pleased to be bonded to you.*
The top and bottom lines were written in different fonts, the upper font looking more like classic text and the second line looking more like the looping lines of a handwritten note. Each sentence disappeared the precise moment after Addie finished reading it.
*Don’t worry about Ember, she’ll come back out shortly. I’m just teaching her a few things about human emotions and fragility. We don’t need her going berserk.*
Christena leaned over Addie’s shoulder on one side to try and read the book from above, but the pages immediately stopped writing new text and the page blanked out.
“What did it say?” Christena asked. “I know you weren’t just staring at a blank page for a full minute.”
“It said it wanted to help me learn how to control my new power, and it said that it was helping Ember.”
Then, even though Christena was watching, new text appeared
*I will share more secrets with you at a later time— when you learn to unlock them. Listen to your mentor for now. She will help you with your foundations.*
“Fascinating,” Christena began, “I wonder how it knows I’m here? Some kind of intelligent relic... Just what kind of treasure have you found this time, Addie?”
Again, the question didn’t seem like one that Christena actually expected an answer for, so Addie ignored it and said something else, “Do you want me to practice with the flames today?”
“No!” Christena quickly stopped Addie, “Not yet. Let’s keep it simpler for now.”
Before Christena could continue, Ember flew out of the book, and Addie held her arm out so she could perch on it. She did just that, and together, Addie and Ember looked up at Christena.
“We already know its first power, those are obviously the soul flames. I want to know what other power it’s been paired with. Have you figured it out, yet?”
“I don’t think so,” Addie answered.
“What about when you were fighting Black Cloak, did anything stand out?”
“Well, she can fly into people.”
“I think that’s something else, called Soul Melding, but I don’t want to get into that right now. What else did you notice?”
Addie put her fist underneath her chin and started thinking hard. Thinking back to when she fought Black Cloak, it didn’t really seem like Ember had any other abilities. But something else stood out to Addie, just on the tip of her tongue.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The first night she got soul damage.
That had been a strange night. Her room had been on fire, at least in a nightmare, but after that, her dreams were what allowed her to find Sen’s fortress.
She had floated along, almost as a pure soul.
“I think I know what it is.” Based on the feedback she was getting from the soul bond, Addie felt that Ember agreed.
“She doesn’t just hurt souls. We can make them go on walks, too!”
“Go on, walks?” Christena asked with a pause. She idly shook her head, “What?”
“Do you want me to show you?” Addie started to innocently reach her hand out toward Christena, who took a step back.
“No! That’s ok,” Christena put her hands palm up in front of herself as she backed up, “Stop,” she commanded.
Addie instantly complied.
“Listen, don’t experiment with untested magic, alright? That’s how people get hurt.”
“Oh,” Addie’s face fell.
“It’s ok! You’re still learning. Can you practice on yourself, or Squishy maybe if he’s alright with it?”
Addie turned her head around the sandy field. It looked like Squishy was off in the swamp somewhere still sparring with Fluffy.
“Squishy, can you come help me and Christena for a little bit?”
Her soul bond was silent for a moment before she got a reply. A flash of intense fighting, claws attempting to gouge, and teeth trying to tear, flashed through their telepathic link, but Squishy managed to shut that off quickly and replied in words, “My Lady summons me, and I listen.”
“Squishy’s gonna help us.”
“Great!” Christena clapped her hands together once. “This will be a learning experience for all of us.”
Through the swamp foliage in the distance, Addie saw Squishy’s shining black scales emerge as he padded his way through the mud. Fluffy followed him close behind with bits of fur tuffs missing or skiwompus. Squishy broke out into an all-out sprint, and Addie watched as his tongue lolled out of his mouth and his powerful leg muscles propelled him forward. He skidded to a halt just a meter or so away from Addie, drawing lines in the sand.
Addie watched in the corner of her eye as Fluffy scampered up Christena’s leather sparring pants and situated herself in her customary position on Christena’s shoulders.
“What can I assist you with?” Squishy tilted his head to the side.
“Christena wants to help us learn how to use Ember’s magic.”
“So our third companion finally is awarded a name. Fitting, I think.” Squishy moved his head from side to side, letting out a few pops as his neck cracked. “We shall grow strong indeed.”
“Yeah, I guess. Can I try using magic on you? I think I know what to do and it shouldn’t hurt.”
“I trust you with my very essence. Go ahead, I am ready.”
“Ember?” Addie asked.
Ember took off from Addie’s arm, and at the same time, the floating book burst into flames and flew back toward Addie, rushing back into her soul. Ember hovered next to Squishy.
“Ok, Squishy.” Using Ember’s instinct as a guide, Addie pushed magic out from their soul bond and moved her hand toward Squishy. She reached her hand up to his chest and then pushed her hand through his chest.
Squishy’s body instantly slumped to the ground, unconscious. Addie stared at her hand for a moment, and then she admired Squishy’s undamaged scales.
“What did you do? He’s still breathing.” Christena walked over and started prodding at him.
“I’m not completely sure,” Addie said as she looked at Squishy’s slumped body.
Then, Squishy took a big deep breath and sat back up. He used both his front paws to rub his snout as he awkwardly stood on his hind legs.
He looked like he was about to sneeze, “Very strange, indeed.” He shook his whole body, like a dog trying to get dry.
“What was it like?” Addie asked.
“I could see you and Christena. I could even hear you speak. And yet, I floated in the air like a specter, and regardless of where I moved to, my physical body remained on the ground. Perhaps we could use this new power for scouting applications...” After that, Addie stopped listening to him. She absently overheard words and terms like ‘military applications’ and ‘defeating enemies’ but Addie tried to tune it out since Christena was talking.
“At first, I wasn’t entirely sure, but now that I’ve also seen him wake back up, I think I have an idea of what’s going on.” Christena scuffed her boot into the sand, digging her toe in a bit. “I think you ejected his soul from his body!”
“It felt like pushing my hand through honey when I did it,” Addie said, then paused for half a second.
“Do you think I can try it on you?” Addie asked as she took a small step forward.
“I’m afraid not. I like my senses where they are, thank you very much. Though, if I’m right, Squishy’s soul didn’t leave his body, so much as you stretched it away from his body and gave him a lens to look at the world from. Or, something like that. You said that when this happened to you, you were able to travel all over Realmspace? The magic must reinforce the soul tether to the body if you can stretch it out that far.” Christena bit her lip as she thought. “Well, my goal is to teach you how to make use of your abilities for combat. The way I see it, there’s at least two things you could use it for—”
Addie interrupted, “Scouting around as a soul or stunning an enemy?” she guessed.
“That’s,” Christena scrunched her face, “That’s right.” She looked skeptical.
“Squishy told me, he had the idea.”
“Ah. Clever Squishy. Alright, let me think.. What would be some good exercises to practice your magic?”
“No more burpees!” Addie demanded.
“Yes, yes. This is magic practice.” Then, Christena smirked her evil smirk. “You know what Addie, that’s actually a splendid idea!”
“No! No burpees!” Addie pleaded.
“I won’t make you do burpees. We are going to do magic burpees instead!”
The idea filled Addie with dread. How could Christena manage to make magic dreadful?
Crossing her arms, Addie said, “Magic’s supposed to be fun.”
“Oh trust me, this will be fun.”
Addie didn’t believe her one bit. Christena still had that smirk.
“Here’s what I want you to do. Channel your flames -just release it in the air-, then jump to Realmspace as fast as you can. Alternating your magical pathways like that over and over again will be good practice.”
Well, that actually didn’t seem too bad. “Practice for what?” Addie couldn’t help but ask.
“Magical endurance. Since Ember and Squishy are two different sources of magic, you’ll have to exhaust both of their powers to truly get a good ‘magical’ workout in. Alright, go! Push as many flames out as you can at once.” Christena waved off to the side.
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A torrential outpouring of flames finished spitting out from Addie’s outstretched palm. The moment she realized she couldn’t let out one single more drop, she tugged on the soul-bond with Squishy and leaped into Realmspace. She quickly cut the magic off, and landed back in the sand in reality, panting. This level of magical workout wouldn’t be enough to damage her soul bonds, but she did feel like keeping this up for the rest of the day would get her close to that point.
Addie put her hands on her knees and just panted for a moment to try and catch her breath. Christena hovered over her with a critical eye.
“Good. Now, start over. Do five more.”
Addie groaned.