Answering the Call

Quest Update: Getting into the Spirit
Lesson 4: Manipulation, complete.
Reward: Spirit Casting Skill Modifier
Lessons Complete

“Well,” Mason’s deep voice resonated as he noticed the popup, “it seems your system is quite in tune with my assessment. I was about to say you’ve gotten a pretty good handle on things.”

“Guess that’s what happens when a goddess is plugged into it,” John remarked.

“I suppose,” Mason said with a sigh. “You can let your spirit rest. We are done with the basics and I think the reward from this one is gearing you up for the more advanced lessons.”

John let his wind spirit fade back into his aura. It had been a fun thirty minutes. Mason’s method was simple: he let his spirit fly and had John follow, slowly increasing speed and complexity. At first, John’s movements were clumsy, with overly wide turns and fluctuating speeds. But in the last few minutes, he was able to nearly replicate Mason’s more practiced, precise movements. Evidently enough for the man to declare the lesson done.

John cleared away the pop up and pulled up Spirit Link’s sheet.

‘Not that much for experience,’ he groused. ‘Guess it’ll be a grindy sort of skill. I wonder what higher levels do with it though. The only variable here is distance and that’s tied to Wisdom. Maybe Spirit Casting or other Modifiers will use the level for something.’

His thoughts already directed to the new addition to the skill, John tapped his final reward.

Spirit Casting: This Modifier allows you to call out a unique effect from your bonded spirits.

“So much for that thought,” John muttered. “Unless, the spirit’s effect is limited by the skill level.”

With a though, John willed his wind spirit into view and cast Observe on it.

Note: People, Spirits and Items can now have their latest Observes called up without looking at the subject as long as it has been Observed before.

“Nice bit of utility there,” John said, letting the spirit fade out of view. “Now what do these do?”

Weak Wind Manipulation: This spirit can conjure mild winds. The wind's power can be increased by supplying mana at a rate of 3MP/Sec.

“Hey Mason,” John signaled to his teacher. “How much stronger can you make the winds your spirit generates?”

“Not more than a strong breeze,” Mason replied, drawing up to John. “Enough to maybe knock someone over but nothing overly spectacular. Multiple spirits working together, with some work, would be needed to generate combat level winds.”

He peered at the spirit’s display, eyes fixed on the second ability, his lips drawn into a small frown.

“Is there a problem?” John asked.

“A small one,” Mason answered. “Emotion based effects are generally more of an advanced working. What I did to those thugs from yesterday was using fire spirits born from anger to react to that emotion to invoke a burning pain. Since they wanted to hurt us, and we stopped them, further desire to cause us harm was rooted in anger, which sets off the spell.”

“From the name, I don’t think I got that sort of ability,” John commented.

Mason nodded. “Beyond setting effects triggered by a spirit’s core emotion, one can broadcast the emotion into others. Your wind spirit’s core is joy so, assuming your powers don’t throw a curveball, you can induce joy in people.”

“Just like that?” John asked, snapping his fingers for effect. “Boom. Happy feelings?”

“More or less,” Mason replied. “Emotional magics are somewhat finicky. Sometimes you can only enhance or diminish an emotion the target is already feeling. Other times, you can just **** the emotion on someone. Or the emotion you’re trying to invoke counters out an emotion they’re already feeling.”

“Well, let’s see what the particulars are then,” John remarked, tapping the ability on the screen.

Emotion Surge (Joy): From a manifested spirit, induce the emotion in all within a (SkLv/2) meter radius. Cost: 5MP/Sec.

“And there’s the skill level restriction,” John said. “At max level it’ll have a fifty meter range, assuming the skill tops out at one hundred.”

“Not a bad range,” Mason nodded. “I’d say I could target someone about fifteen meters away.”

“Which, if your abilities worked with my numbers, would put you at skill level thirty,” John noted.

“Let’s not compare apples and canned yams,” Mason said with a grin. “I feel your abilities may be able to outstrip mine, if not in power then in utility. I’m quite curious about that last bit there. A complex spirit like Cammie’s I can see having more unique abilities, but there isn’t much difference, if any, between your wind spirit and mine.”

“No point in putting off the finale then,” John announced. “Let’s get to it.”

Spirit Casting: Rushing Winds: Increase your Agility by (Wis). If this spirit is in its incorporeal state, instead increase Agility by (Wis/2). Cost: 2MP/Sec.

“That’s interesting,” Mason intoned. “There aren’t really any sort of physical enhancements you can use spirits for. Even the flame brand I used yesterday is just a mental thing, simulating the pain of being burned.”

“It certainly is a strong effect,” John muttered. “This nearly doubles my Agility. Even if it’s only for ten seconds, getting that big of a boost is nice. Could let me get out of, or into, range pretty easily.”

The sharp beeping of Mason’s phone interrupted any more talk and the large man quickly pulled his phone from his pocket, his face set with a grim frown.

“Something the matter?” John asked, a sense of unease settling over him.

“It’s from Cammie,” he answered as he opened the message she sent. “She only uses this in an emergency.”

That caused John’s unease to shift into full blown panic and he blurted out, “What happened!? Are they okay?”

“‘4,’” Mason read out, his grim face easing slightly. “We need to head back to the diner and collect some things then book it to the Barrier. Let’s hurry.”

Mason blinked out of the Barrier and John scurried after him.

“What does ‘4’ mean?” he pressed, his tone on edge.

“Cammie and I have a system to quickly inform each other if a situation arises,” Mason quickly explained. “A scale of ‘1’ to ‘5’, for how bad things are. ‘4’ is bad, but it’s not ‘we’re about to die’ territory, yet.”

That still did little to calm John’s nerves. “And there wasn’t anything about how they are, or what’s gone wrong?”

“Just the number,” Mason tersely replied, before his tone softened slightly, “so she can keep her focus on whatever has gone wrong. She won’t let anything happen to Aeolia and Vivian.”

Worry still knotted John’s guts so he focused on the first thing he could to distract from whatever was happening to his girlfriends. “What are we grabbing?”

“Health and mana potions,” Mason answered as they neared the restaurant. In one deft motion, he slipped into the Barrier, followed by John. Mason didn’t say anything further as he called out several wind spirits, sending them out. A minute later, they began to fly back, laden with two small sacks that clattered the distinct sound of glass bottles shifting against each other.

Mason took one of them and the other drifted to John. He took the satchel and peered inside. Several baseball sized glass bottles filled with lightly glowing clear liquid met his gaze and John quickly Observed one.

“Don’t go drinking those in quick succession,” Mason suddenly cautioned. “Over consuming them can leave your natural mana restoration stunted for a time. Though with your innate, constant regen, I have no way of knowing if that rings true, but better safe than sorry. Save them for when you really need it. Come on. Time to get moving.”

John nodded and bunched the top of the satchel closed as he followed Mason out. The large man strode with purpose down the street to a nearby parking structure where he led John to an old, weathered white van. Faded letters decorated the side and John could just make out it had once said ‘BAKERY’.

Mason threw open the sliding door and he and John placed their bags of potions into the van. Before Mason slid the door shut, John willed three mana potions into his Inventory. Then the pair jumped into the front and Mason fired up the engine.

The ride was tense and with only the roar of the engine as background noise, John’s thoughts drifted to unpleasant territory. Images of Aeolia and Vivian fighting monsters of unknown forms plagued his mind and his nails bit into his palms from the stress.

“Relax,” Mason’s calm voice broke through his angst. “Getting overworked before we arrive won’t do any good. This isn’t the first level four situation Cammie or I have dealt with. And she knows where we were so she knows how long it’ll take for us to get there. She’ll keep whatever they’re up against at bay until we rendezvous. Then we can deal with it as a team. She’s likely already thinking of how to employ our abilities effectively.”

His words alleviated some of John’s worry, but he still felt the weight of the situation sit heavy on his shoulders. He cast a glance at Mason. The smile he usually wore was gone, replaced with a passive expression, all emotion gone from his face.

“Is it always going to feel like this?” John asked quietly, his words almost eaten by the engine’s roar.

“Worrying about your loved ones?” Mason inquired back, correctly guessing John’s frame of mind. “You’d have to be dead inside to not. The best you can do when you're apart is to trust in their ability to survive. Cammie isn’t the type to go down without fighting, neither is Aeolia. And while I don’t know Vivian all that well yet, something tells me when push comes to shove, she’ll rise to the occasion.”

The image of Vivian blocking the S.O.M.’s lightning lance from striking him came to mind and John nodded.

“Yeah, she will,” he muttered.

“Then don’t betray their fighting spirit by thinking of them failing,” Mason advised before lapsing back into silence.

John mulled over Mason’s words, his thoughts drifting back though all the fighting they had done in the last three days. Even with the close calls, the exploding spider bots and punching golems, they had fought well and John focused on their victories to bolster his will.

‘They know how to fight and when to back down,’ he thought, his fear abating slightly. ‘And since Cammie reached out for us, they know we’re coming and probably won’t take unneeded risks.’

John banished all thoughts of the impending battle from his mind, taking a clearing breath. He tried to use Bask to recover some mana, but as he tried to reach for the surrounding mana, only a small amount flowed into him, the rest flew past him too quickly for him to draw in.

‘We’re moving too fast.’ he realized, thinking back to Bask’s sheet. ‘Guess sitting in a moving car doesn’t count as being motionless. But I did take in some. Was that just the van’s mana?’

That question occupied his thoughts for a few minutes, mainly focused on how much mana something like the van would produce or if it just carried along some mana from where it had been parked. Sadly with no grounding in magical theory, he could only vaguely speculate.

‘Vivian might know,’ he reasoned, bringing his thoughts back around to the issue at hand, though now focused on what he could do when they arrived to help. ‘Fire glove, fire crystal, greatsword, Senka, wind spirit, goggles. All my armor, my jacket, rings and the amulet. I’ve got healing with the limb but kind of wish I had the battery on hand so I could use the combined Evocation for a mass hp and mp restore.’

John shook that thought from his head. ‘Can’t focus on what I could have done or brought with me. Just keep thinking about what I can do. Heal, fire off fireballs or shards, bind with Senka…’

Thinking about Senka caused John’s mind to drift to the spirit born from the knife. It, no, she was a wildcard right now and John found himself debating whether to reach out to the nascent being.

‘Do I take that risk?’ he asked himself. ‘Just keeping the wind spirit is costing a little bit of my regen and Mason keeps saying Senka’s playing by rules he can’t anticipate. What if she needs more mana to run? But if she costs a lot of mana to manifest, maybe she’ll have enough power to help?’

John bit the inside of his cheek as he wrestled with the Senka question, before he reached a decision.

‘Playing with too many unknowns right now is a bad idea,’ he thought. ‘Better to play with the tools I already have and know how to use, than to bring in something new.’

“We’re here,” Mason’s voice brought John out of his thoughts. He looked out to see Vivian’s car parked in front of them on the side of the road. A glance at the radio’s clock put their trip here at about thirty minutes.

They got out of the van and collected the bags of potions, taking one each. Mason nodded towards the open field to the right of their vehicles.

“Barrier’s over that way,” he stated. “A fair bit off. We’re going to need to hurry.”

Mason broke out into a decent jog, and John followed after. At first John could easily keep up, but soon, his low Endurance meant his legs and lungs started to burn, unable to maintain the full benefits of his Agility score. Thankfully, they reached the edge of the Barrier before he reached his limit, though he still needed a few deep breaths when they stopped.

“Ready?” Mason asked, hand raised.

“Yeah,” John answered, summoning Senka to his hand. A cool rush ran up his arm and he felt the phantom sensation of slender arms draping around his shoulders for a second, accompanied by a sensual breath on his ear. The feelings vanished as quick as they came and John cleared his head as Mason vanished into the Barrier, a sour look on his face.

He reached out, touching the Barrier’s edge, flinching at the utter feeling of wrongness that washed over him as he willed himself in. It was like the scraping of a chalkboard mixed with the smell of bad eggs on top of being covered in clamoring insects. The feeling didn’t abate as he appeared next to Mason in a dark forest, the faint sounds of some horde of beasts in the distance.

“You felt that, yes?” Mason asked as he began to move towards the noise. “Whatever is happening here is just plainly wrong. Some sort of corruption to the natural flow of energies. This place shouldn’t feel like it's trying to repel us. And it’s worrisome that Cammie would enter a place like this.”

“Maybe it wasn’t like this when they got here?” John floated the idea as he accessed his Inventory, equipping the Steelwood Greaves and Chestplate, the wooden armor seamlessly appearing on his feet and torso. On his head he equipped his goggles and for his hands he went with the flame glove.

“That’s just as worrying,” the large man grumbled. A harsh shriek echoed from in front of them, like the baying of several wounded animals, that was met with a cry in a grating tongue, though that response was far quieter. Through the tree trunks, John could see a horrible mishmash of wood and flesh, twisting limbs with protruding claws sweeping at minute figures stabbing at its roots.

John felt a surge of bile rise as one of those attackers was snagged by a fleshy tendril that shot out from an opening in the monster’s trunk. Before anything could come of that, Aeolia appeared like a green comet and brought her glaive down, cutting the binding rope of flesh.

Before she could retreat, a second slimy tendril shot out, forcing her to dive down to avoid it. More tentacles emerged, some topped with unblinking eyes, and they lashed out, trying to smack her down or catch her.

John darted past Mason, a wave of righteous fury propelling him. With a surge of mana, John used Fiery Pursuit, the ball of flame sparking into life in his palm before he launched it at the monster attacking his girlfriend. Aeolia caught sight of the fireball and darted around it as John directed it into the gaping maw the tentacles spawned from. As the ball reached its distance limit, it detonated, blasting apart the tendrils at their base and eliciting a horrible cry from the abomination tree’s many mouths.

No longer harried, Aeolia flew over to John even as he pulled back, putting distance between him and the reeling arboreal Frankenstein’s Monster. A strategy their diminutive allies were also employing, pulling away before it could attack again. When John hit the treeline, Aeolia nearly crashed into him, just barely adjusting her flight to soar up before hitting his carved chestplate.

“Took you long enough,” she said in an exhausted voice as she landed on his shoulder. Up close now, John could make out her status bars. To his relief, her health bar was nearly full, but her mana bar was well below a quarter.

“Sorry,” John apologized, relieved that things were not so dire that she couldn’t complain. “This is a bit of a drive away.”

She cracked a tired smile, then shook her head before lifting back into the air.

“Come on,” she said, flying back into the woods. “Let’s regroup and figure a way out of this mess.”

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