The ‘modern’ method of awakening anima-sense was with the aid of someone who could materialize and project anima outward. For Finlay, that was Cassini, a student of his then would-be master, Isidore. Cassini Valyntyr of Oxbund firmly believed that hard work could overcome any challenge. Finlay’s dedication to becoming a Warden impressed him so much that he agreed to help him. Some pleading and pestering were involved, but Finlay would like to think his indomitable spirit did the convincing part. Half an hour a day, Cassini projected his anima onto Finlay’s back. Within five days, Finlay awoke to his own anima.
Isidore and Cassini weren’t in Worwick yet. It’d take more than a week for them to arrive. Making friends with Cassini again would take even more time which Finlay couldn’t spare. Beor’s party might be willing to help, but Finlay didn’t bother asking because he intended to anima-sense the old-fashioned way.
Old-fashioned as in how the Core monks and the Witchblade dancers did it—immersing the self in a natura-rich environment while meditating until mental tranquility was achieved.
In the void of the mind, with the calmness of inner peace, all that remained would be a person’s latent anima. Strong fluctuations of the surrounding natura would sway the stilled anima, like winds disturbing calm waters and creating ripples. It would lead to an epiphany of one’s place in the world, a deeper understanding and connection to the universal force, thus, sensing anima.
At least, that was what Archon Khaero taught Finlay when they became allies. But Finlay had already been a Soulheart Warden for years by then. He didn’t know how it’d work in practice from an absolute beginner’s perspective… which he currently was.
What Finlay did know was that the old-fashioned way led to much greater heights in anima manipulation than that practiced by most humans. There were historical records about Soulheart Wardens of centuries past reaching eight or even nine Links, wielding all Paragon Grade Soulhearts. The deliberate construction of the mind shrine would make for harmonious Linking. It’d also well up the first cycle of anima and expand the crucible naturally. If successful, Finlay would start at a higher level than he originally did.
It was like doing good-form push-ups compared to cheating half-reps just to pass PE class. Finlay regretted not getting into sports and working out. Would’ve made all this hiking a lot easier if he was fit.
Opposite the old-fashioned way, the modern method would result in a hastily constructed mind shrine, rickety and with no structure. The first intentional anima the beginner’s body would experience would be from the outside, projected by the assisting Warden, creating a feeble and small crucible forming at the moment of impact. A sternial would be the cornerstone to stabilize the mind shrine and artificially force the crucible to grow.
Khaero perfectly encapsulated why humans hardly attempted self anima-sensing despite all its benefits—it was the elusive nature of inner peace in humans and the time required to attain it.
If it were even possible.
Many people could never gain inner peace even if given a century or two to try. Finlay could name more than thirty people like that in the office he used to work at.
Core monks could take several years to reach anima-sensing, and that required seclusion training for months on end. From the point of view of the inherently stoic and long-lived elven race, humans should stick with their inelegant ways. They respected the dedication of the Core monks and felt some level of friendship for humans being on with nature, but still thought it was a waste of their short lifespans.
Khaero took a lot of convincing to teach Finlay the meditative state of the crone shrines. Those techniques helped Finlay gain his sixth Link fast, and it was going to help him now, combined with his learnings from a year spent at the Core monk temples.
Finlay had another massive advantage no one, whether human or elf or any other race on Ilaya, ever had—he was already mentally very familiar with anima because of his past life. It was like not forgetting how to ride a bike or swim no matter how long. He was confident he’d awaken anima-sensing before the day ended.
A minute or maybe an hour or even two later, Finlay didn’t know how long, his breathing settled into a relaxed rhythm.
He couldn’t feel his lungs expand as he inhaled, nor the air going in his nose and out his mouth. He shut off other sensations—the smell of the fruits he had eaten, their sticky pulp drying on his skin, cold wind rustling blades of grass, loud insects getting busy, the pebble under his butt… All that became distant as if he were an outsider observing a different body experiencing them.
Then he turned around and left that body behind. He completely withdrew into himself. Everything external was gone.
It was complete darkness. No light of inner peace.
Finlay strode forth. This was the first time he visited the void of his mind in this body, but he had done it many times in the past. There was no fear in his heart, no hesitation.
The further he walked into nothingness, the more his psychic body became heavier and heavier. The movements of his limbs slowed as if he were stuck in syrup.
How many steps had he taken? Ten? A hundred? Thousands?
Finlay repeated the litanies of the Core monks to retain sanity in seclusion training. Khaero’s guidance on how to combat losing the sense of time in this surreal world also came in handy. Finlay forced his will to stay whole, and he willed himself to move onward.
No stopping. No turning back.
Something coiled around his ankle and pulled him. He staggered but continued to swing his leg forward, one foot in front of the other. More things wrapped around his limbs. Then it grabbed his torso and tried to keep him in place.
These were the chains the Core monks and Khaero spoke of. Finlay hadn’t experienced this in the past because he had already built his mind shrine when he first descended into his mind void. The current him was different. He had to push through heavier psychological barriers.
Finlay could see something in the distance. The trials were starting. He went through three while expanding his mind shrine using the crone methods of the elves. What would these trials be?
Faces of warriors who fell by Finlay’s side in battle rose from the abyss. Friends, allies, their anguished faces decaying fast into skeletons.
This proved that he retained parts of his mind from his prior life. Why else would his first trial be the same as previous? It was based on events that hadn’t happened in this timeline.
The dead blamed him for living while they died. Their miasma of grudges coiled around him like tentacles. Bony hands grabbed him and made him relive their last moments. He paid them no heed. They frequented his nightmares for years, and he had laid them to rest in his mind. Each warrior—as well as Finlay—knew death could claim them on the battlefield. They fought with their all. Finlay was one of the lucky ones who survived until the end, and even he met his end at the end.
The warriors were fleeting, for they no longer had any hold over Finlay.
As they faded away, corpses and shredded body parts emerged, covering the dark ground—the second trial. Everywhere Finlay stepped were bodies painted with gore. His feet sunk into the mass, the pile reaching past his knees.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Against the Sporeal Tide, there was no real victory. A battle may be won here and there, but the spore-infested would return in greater numbers. Any fortification would eventually collapse. Everyone behind was forfeited. The uncountable bodies stretching to the horizon of darkness were ordinary citizens that Finlay had left behind after every defeat.
Finlay’s first foray into battle as a Warden flashed in fast forward before his eyes, slowing down as it reached the disastrous end. He and the few survivors of a decimated army looked on from a hill as the Sporeal Tide consumed the city they were supposed to defend.
That wasn’t the last of it.
Many more times Finlay failed.
The burning camps around the World Tree… even on his final moment, he was too weak to protect others.
Khaero would lecture Finlay to accept what had happened, the same as he did in the prior trial. Most things in life he couldn’t control. Finlay didn’t need to be told that. But this was very different compared to the situation with his fallen comrades-in-arms. It was harder to overcome the guilt of letting down the helpless, those who couldn’t fight, those relying on him.
The Witchblade Archon would say, “Don’t listen to the past,” whenever Finlay broke out of the trance. At least a dozen times Finlay couldn’t push through with this trial.
Don’t listen? The dead weren’t saying anything to him. Better if they did.
They only looked at him as he swam through their bodies.
Finlay willed himself to meet their gazes, something he hadn’t done before. Acceptance and moving onward was the teaching of the elves. Ignore things out of their hands. However, Finlay faced these ghosts. That was all they were now, ghosts of a future he wouldn’t allow.
That was his promise to them.
And they crumbled into dust, swept away by nonexistent wind.
Finlay stood taller as the chains binding him loosened. His heart beat freer and he felt lighter. The future was within his power to change. This bolstered his resolution to face the last trial.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but when he opened his eyes again, someone stood in front of him.
Jade…
She appeared the same as the day they met in Eloyce Forest. Skin and bones, frail yet holding on, rebelliously standing at the edge of her life. Her eyes burned with green flames through the copper hair strands across her face. Finlay used to turn away whenever he met her in his mind void.
No longer. He looked her straight.
From behind Jade came a great march of people. They trudged towards Finlay with feeble forms ravaged by famine and diseases, their skin covered in boils and all sorts of afflictions. Sunken eyes stared off into the nothingness as they marched to the left and right of Jade. Soon, they passed Finlay too. They were proof of the cruelty of war and Finlay’s helplessness.
More people die from hunger and sickness than get killed by enemies in war. Cities encircled by the Sporeal Tide were the most nightmarish places Finlay had been to. People lay on the streets, waiting for their time to expire, too weak to cry out. And that’d be the tamest of conditions.
The rare instances the siege was broken wasn’t the end of the nightmare. The march of the uncountable around Finlay was like the lines of half-dead people fleeing a city before the next wave of the Sporeal Tide came. Finlay was usually at the head of this line; he didn’t see but knew their numbers diminished every step of the way. People dropped like broken poles as they fled, never to rise again and never to be buried.
In his mind void, the march wasn’t following behind Finlay. It passed by him so he could see people as life left them. Some of them slumped over him, others splayed by his feet.
Instead of pushing through, ignoring the dying he could no longer help, imbibing the mindset of the elves as he did in meditations during his past life, Finlay stayed in front of Jade.
The world was cruel. When the Sporeal Tide came, it became even more cruel.
“Through it all, accept and endure,” Khaero would repeatedly tell Finlay. That was the elven way. They experienced many things in their long lives. Accepting it, accepting the world was their answer.
Finlay did accept. He endured. But he also had a new answer to the ghosts of his failed future—I will change it.
Jade nodded and joined the flow of people passing him. In this timeless space, the countless plodded on and on until Finlay was alone again in the darkness.
It wasn’t so dark anymore.
Light far ahead beckoned him. Warm. Inner peace was near.
He approached the light.
Something’s wrong.
His body suddenly became heavy, his arms and legs dragging him down as if encased in rocks. The chains remained coiled around him. Tighter. More chains sprung out of the darkness to bind him.
They dragged him back. He couldn’t fight!
Finlay stretched his hand to reach for the light. But it was getting farther and farther away.
To his left, his mother materialized, shadows pulling away like a curtain. Her mouth moved though no words came out. Even then, Finlay knew what she was saying—she pleaded with him to stay on Earth. This was an illusion of his mind. But he knew his real mother would’ve told him the same during their last meeting if she had known what he planned to do.
Finlay’s father also appeared, repeating his last words to Finlay to take care of his mother. They didn’t have a good relationship, but Finlay promised to do as he asked. Grandpa Swaney was there too, sad and lonely because Finlay abandoned his farm. They were having a great time bonding. Finlay’s friends showed up. Sarah, Earl, and Derrick invited him to hang out with them instead of torture himself with the burden of saving a world that wasn’t his. More people joined, those he barely knew, even the cab driver who drove him to the bus station.
Earth formed around Finlay, his apartment, his mother’s house, the building he worked at, Grandpa Swaney’s farm, they all jumbled together into an incoherent mess that made Finlay’s head hurt trying to make sense of them. He was surrounded by hundreds of people he had met, all wordlessly talking to him and yet deafening.
Everyone and everything he left behind on Earth questioned why he did so.
Finlay couldn’t answer. He knew the answer—he had to save Ilaya—but no one would understand that. Even to him, it was illogical. His family would be devastated that he disappeared. If he died on Ilaya, he’d never return to Earth.
He could’ve stayed. He should’ve stayed.
Why was he here?
This wasn’t his fight.
A trickle of sweat ran down Finlay’s face. He felt it. A sensation from the real world. The trance was breaking. Finlay couldn’t achieve inner peace; the chains held strong. The light was becoming smaller, dimmer.
This was a new trial, birthed by his choice to return to Ilaya. Finlay hurriedly ran the chants of the Core monk to regain his center. He followed it up with crone mental stances to anchor himself in the void.
Then everything disappeared.
Did I succeed?
No.
Complete darkness. The light was gone.
Finlay felt something on his shoulder. A hand. For the first time since descending into his mind void, Finlay turned around. He was face to face with himself. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, understanding what the trial was.
It’s all on your shoulders, his other self said. It ‘spoke’ because it was Finlay himself thinking it.
And then, Finlay could feel the air on his face.
He opened his eyes to a much darker forest. Nighttime. Hints of moonlight poked through tiny gaps in the dense roof of leaves the trees held up, allowing Finlay to see around and know for sure he was kicked out of his mind void.
His vision swam as he fought to keep himself from fainting. His breathing was ragged. The wind cooling his sweat-soaked clothes invited nausea. A bitter taste climbed the back of his throat. He hurriedly scrambled out of his hole and vomited on the grass.
Finlay fumbled to open the health potion and carefully drank it as his hands trembled. The warm liquid soothed his chest and spread coolness throughout his body. He let go of the bottle and stared at his hand.
“I failed…”