As the two of them left the house, Grizz visibly shuddered. He said to Orou: “This is why I don’t mess around with magic, it’s easy to go down the wrong path and become insane like the maniac we saw right now. Another reason is that I simply can’t learn magic, but we’ll ignore that fact for right now.” Whatever Rial was doing didn’t disturb Orou that much. Sure, the screech and the squirming around might be a bit terrifying but besides that, he didn't see a reason to be scared. The thing didn’t exude an aura of danger nor did the thing make any hostile movements, so Orou didn’t get Grizz’s evident displeasure.
As much as Orou wanted to get back to the shop and inspect every single piece of the spirit, they still had business to take care of. Grizz moved through various buildings, speaking in codes to various people, occasionally pulling a shiny necklace or ring from his backpack, receiving a bag of spirits in return. The smaller pieces like rings sold quite quickly, but there wasn’t much of a demand for tiaras or masterfully woven dresses. By the end of the day, Grizz has received several payments from several sources, but he looked in dismay at the rest of the stuff at the bottom of his backpack.
“I”m going to need to find some very specific buyers to sell these. I’m sure the dress has never been worn nor has it ever seen the light of day, so it would be easy for a merchant to sell, but the problem is getting a reasonable price from a merchant, it’s going to have to travel through multiple hands first at least,” Grizz sighed as they started to return back to their temporary home. Still, his overall mood was joyful, most likely because of the several bags of crystals he was carrying with him.
“I’m sure none of this interests you and I don’t have to rush in selling these, I can take several days to find the right buyers. I’ll busy myself with counting our spoils while you can play with the spirit that we found. We’ll return back to Onilia in a few days when I get myself sorted through all the things that need to be done here.” The setting sun disappeared behind the tall buildings as they entered the shop. Grizz tossed the cube into the air as it slightly reflected the light in front of it and Orou caught it with his tail, wrapping around it and casting his spirit vision. His eyes focused on an unfortunate spirit right next to the box and he stopped it dead in its tracks.
Now, a problem unfolded itself. If Orou could make a spirit string himself, he wouldn’t really need to examine this spirit. The one time he did make a string was the formation that was attached to the door, so Orou simply had to concentrate on two different spots and stretch it. This time, he had to concentrate on stretching the spirit, making sure that the spirit stayed in place and he had to account for the fact that the spirit was going to resist being deformed unlike last time. That being said, he had gotten practical experience and he had the crystal ball, so the process was nowhere near as stressful as last time.
Orou kept slowly stretching the spirit out for what felt like hours. His head was pounding and he was beginning to see double. He could hear the heavy thumps of his own heartbeat, which he never knew were this loud before. He couldn’t make the spirit thin enough to be a thread and he had to do with the spirit resembling a thick and long needle. Fortunately for him, it seemed like it would fit into the black block, though he only now realised that the process of moving the spirit was even harder than he imagined. He had to surround the spirit with his will, hold it in place and move it at the same time. Orou nearly went crazy from trying to move it, it unsteadily shook and bounced up and down and didn’t want to obey his commands. The spirit needle finally arrived next to the cube and with a sigh of relief, Orou put the needle into one of the holes.
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He waited for several seconds in anticipations until he realised it isn’t going to work. Rial use the thread to weave through all the holes and as that realisation hit Orou, his concentration broke and the spirit expanded and returned back to its original form. Orou was ready to say screw with it all and toss the cube outside of the window, but as he looked closer towards the cube, he saw that it was slowly opening. A corner of the black cube was simply missing and Orou wasn’t sure if it could be used again, but the spirit seemed to be in no hurry to move as it simply presented itself to the rest of the spirits.
Once more, Orou saw the rest of the spirits stopping to move and standing completely in place. Orou was in no condition or mood to currently manipulate spirits, but he watched in excitement as the greater spirit asserted its authority over the rest of the spirits. It wasn’t even that, what made Orou truly happy was seeing the spirits behave like beings with feelings and order, though he knew that this likely wasn’t true. To Orou, it seemed like some of the spirits were respectful and some were shaking in fear, though that could simply be his head from the exhaustion he felt.
Finally noticing his surroundings, he noticed that it was completely dark outside and that Grizz was already snoring. His mind was telling him to observe and play with the spirit, but he had exhausted himself too much by forcing himself beyond his capabilities. His vision slowly grew dark and he slowly laid his head on the floor. The spirit before him expanded to cover his entire vision as his vision faded to black and he went to sleep.
Orou stirred from his sleep and found himself staring at the black box, illuminated by daylight that was slipping into the room through the curtains. He looked around to look for Grizz, but the only thing he could find was a note next to his table, spelling out “I’ll be back before sundown, so don’t worry about me. Don’t turn the shop upside down while I’m gone.”
Orou wondered where Grizz had gone, but if he wrote down that he would be back in several hours then be so. He had a slight headache that would’ve made it difficult to manipulate spirits, not factoring in the domain the greater spirit had over the rest of the spirits. With difficulty, Orou gathered the spirits he needed to cast spirit sight. He slithered and coiled up next to the spirit, deciding that he wouldn’t experiment today. No, he would observe it like he would do with his prey, looking for the method that the spirit used to control the spirits around it.
Without even noticing it, several hours had gone by in a flash. Grizz still hadn’t returned, but the sun was slowly beginning to set. What Orou noticed was that the life of a spirit was very uninteresting, at least the life of this greater spirit. Just like any regular spirit, it moved around and spun in place, but besides that, there was nothing interesting about it. On the other hand, the rest of the spirits that wanted to behave like their usual selves but couldn’t were interesting. They seemed to be half obeying, half resisting the command of the spirit in front of them. At first, they seemed to be practically held in place but as time passed, they started to slowly wiggle and move, trying to escape its grasp.
Just as it seemed like the spirits were about to escape, a sort of invisible wave spread out from the middle of the spirit and washed over the rest of the spirits. As it hit the spirits, they once more became rigid and motionless. Over the day, he had seen the same phenomenon repeat itself multiple time and at the end of the day, he decided to try and use his will in order to replicate it.