The Spirit

The room was tastefully decorated with two simple paintings decorating the walls, one of a small village lying on the verge of a forest, the other was of a young woman who I presumed to be the queen based on the expensive crown mounted upon her head. A maroon rug smothered the floor, though some of the stone slabs that constituted the floor could still be seen at the sides. The centrepiece of the room was a heavy wooden desk, the edges carved into exquisite patterns and shapes; atop the desk is an unimaginable quantity of papers, a quill and ink pot resting to the side with empty and discarded pots lying at the edges. A simple wooden chair with a small cushion lay behind the desk, seemingly at odds with the opulence of the rest of the citadel, on the other side of the desk were two comfortable looking chairs, the dark brown of the leather accented by subtle tufting that added depth and texture to the upholstery. On the wall behind the desk were a wall of old bookshelves, the wooden frames standing firm and sturdy, reliable despite the wear and tear of time. The shelves themselves were lined with row upon row of aging tomes, the spines cracked and worn from years of use.

I had been seated on one of the comfortable leather chairs in front of the desk, the guard had stood faithfully outside of the door. A servant had came and offered me a small meal and a cup of wine, leaving me to look around the room. As boredom grew on me, I had investigated the bookshelf and eventually decided on a dusty copy of “Hunting the Remnant”, I had spent a few hours engrossed in the historical text when Calendis returned to his office.

He had exchanged the ceremonial robes that were adorning him hours before for a simple ensemble of pants and a tunic, all made in the fine material that everyone in the citadel seemed to be equipped with, no matter their station. The man who, without the pomp of the ceremony, seemed to be rather young was carrying a book and reading it as he walked into the room, his small glasses almost slipping from his nose. As he sees me sat in the chair and reading the tome I had taken from his shelves, the young man pushed the glasses back up his face and gave me a satisfied smile.

“Ah, here you are” he says, taking a piece of paper from his desk and sliding it into the book that he had been reading before closing it and laying it down in a draw. He walks over to his desk and sits down in the modest chair, scanning his eyes over a few papers before looking back to me. “Your name is Aucus?” he says questioningly

“Yes sir” I say, feeling nervous about the reasons this man had sequestered me to his office

“Aucus… Ah Hunting the Remnant, a very well-written account” he says, seemingly distracted by many things at the same time, his eyes glancing to the tome in my hands that I had shut. “Anyway, Aucus” he continued, “Where are you from?”

“Blue-Rock sir. A village in the northwest, it’s Lord Beckront’s lands” I say quickly before correcting myself, “Lord Motten’s now I suppose”

“Blue-Rock? And were you born there?”

“Uh, not quite. My mother gave birth to me on the road towards Blue-Rock when she was moving there. But I’ve lived there all my life”

“Your mother? And where is she from if not Blue-Rock?” he asks, seemingly becoming interested by this conversation

“I don’t know originally, but she was an adventurer here in the capital before me” I tell him, trying to be helpful

He writes something down on a blank sheet of paper that he had managed to find, “And your father?”

“I don’t know sir; he was an adventurer like my mother, but he went missing in a dungeon before I was born. They never found him, and my mother did not tell me much about him”

He scrunches his face up a little in frustration as he scribbles something else onto the paper, “And have you ever left the kingdom? Travelled north past the spire?” he asks

I look at him confused, nobody goes past the spire, not even adventurers. Everyone knows it’s a desolate wasteland, nothing can survive there “Uh, no sir?” I say questioningly, “Before I came to Alynthir, the furthest I had travelled was to the nearby villages”

He screws up his face some more as his quill continues its motions, “Okay, and have you ever had any encounters with monsters?” he pauses for a moment before adding another question, “or devils?”

I look up at him startled at that, “Devils?” I ask, “they were all killed in the thousand wars” surely, he knows this, he’s got all of those books “As for monsters, there was an ogre that attacked me a couple of months ago”

He hums and strums the quill in his hand “No, they were not all killed. Most of them were sealed in the shadow gates” he nods to the book in my hands, “of course there was the remnant, but they were all hunted down” he writes some more on the paper

“Why are you asking me all of these questions?” I ask at last

He sighs and lowers his quill, letting it rest in the ink pot as he looks at me, “yes, I suppose you would want to know. It’s about your spirit” he says at last

“My spirit? What about it? It’s just a raven, a spirit of Tallaque” I protest

He shakes his head “No, it’s not” he says “Yes it looks like a raven, but you saw the purple energy that it formed from, did you not”

I nod my head, “yes, is that not normal?” I ask, feeling my heart racing in my chest is it not a real spirit? “I mean, I’ve only seen a few spirits before today”

“No, it certainly isn’t. Spirits come fully formed, they are either in the spirit plane or the physical plane, they do not… materialise” he says, pausing for a moment as though searching for the right word. He looks at me as though weighing the decision to tell me something, “Except for dark spirits”

I feel my breath catch in my throat A dark spirit? What are they? I think to myself before Calendis continues

“Dark spirits, if the texts I have access to are accurate, were similar to spirits in many ways. They existed before the thousand wars from what I can surmise” he intones as though giving a lecture, “It shouldn’t be possible for one of them to still exist, let alone for you to bond one”

“What does that mean?” I ask, starting to become afraid of the thing that had bonded with me, “Is it dangerous?”

“That depends on you I suppose. Spirits have very little agency in this plane, though I cannot say if that is the same of dark spirits. Spirits simply give their power to the adventurer who can use it however they wish, from the records it appears that dark spirits are very powerful, so I suppose that you have the ability to become dangerous”

I look at him startled “Powerful? How powerful?”

He gives a little smile, “well there’s very little that we know from before the thousand wars so I couldn’t say. It is possible that they can make you as powerful as one of the three favoured, but…” he trails off

I feel worried by his pause and look at him desperately, about to ask what the but is

“But it is possible that dark spirits are not of the three goddesses, so there is too much that we do not know”

I have so many questions about the dark spirits, but it seems that Calendis has few answers from the little knowledge that he was able to gleam from the handful of texts that remain from before the thousand wars.

Calendis sits in silence with me for a few moments, rapidly tapping his fingertips against his desk before speaking, “We will have some time to figure more out about your spirit. You will be staying in the citadel with the rest of the new adventurers and will be taught by veterans of the three temples before you will be permitted to form a party or leave for your temple. This is so that you are not restricted by the teachings of the temples and are able to learn from others” he says in a thoughtful voice, continuing on “You will be able to discover the abilities that the spirit has granted you and hone them here”

“Right, I saw my mother use some of her abilities in my village. How do I know what mine are, or do I just have to discover them myself?” I ask

He frowns a little at me, “spirits should usually be able to tell you what your abilities are, if you ask them, you should be able to feel them inside of yourself. You should try it if you haven’t already” he says, nodding in his consent for me to summon my spirit

I call out to that part of me that I can inherently feel; that tether that binds its very being to my own and gently tug on it, summoning the spirit to this plane. The dark purple energy glows briefly in the room before resolving to a solid form and perching atop me. I think to myself what are my abilities? Trying to send that thought through the tether, getting no response I try to say the thought out loud, whispering it to the raven and again getting no response. The raven simply caws to the room, and still, I do not feel what my abilities are.

I shake my head to Calendis, “No, I don’t think it’s working. I have no idea what my abilities are” I say, feeling exasperated as the raven disappears once more.

Calendis sighs again, “I suppose that was a possibility” he says, picking up the quill to twirl in his fingers, “I think that you will have to figure them out yourself. Depending on the type of spirit, an adventurer will have anywhere between three and seven abilities, the weakest spirits only give three abilities and only the favoured three of each goddess will have seven. The favoured three are the light spirit for Soras, the Lion spirit for Tallaque, and the Paladin for Cleonora; only three of each of those spirits are bonded at a time” he pauses for a moment, as though he was telling something particularly simple to someone very stupid, “In fact, I believe that one of this year’s adventurers bonded the lion spirit. No doubt he will have an exciting future”

I look at Calendis, still futilely trying to ask my spirit what my abilities are before I give up. “So, it’s possible that the dark spirit could give me seven abilities as well?” I ask, feeling a little excited at the prospect of becoming that powerful

“It is certainly possible, but I wouldn’t expect it. The favoured three are something special” he says, giving me a gentle smile. “Of course everything that we have said here will stay between us, you will continue as though your spirit is a raven of Tallaque, if the wrong people found out about a dark spirit being bonded once more…” he trails off at the prospect “… well, let’s just say that it could become dangerous for you

I hadn’t even thought about that, I had become caught up in the potential that the spirit had for me. I hadn’t considered that there would be people who didn’t want dark spirits to roam the world once more. I nod my head again to Calendis, “Right, I’ll tell no one. Can you just let me know when you find something else about it, I don’t want to be left not knowing something important”

The older man nods his head, “Of course, now then I should let you go. The welcoming speech will be soon and I’m sure you will want to find your friends in the great hall” he says as he rises from his seat and walks over to me. He takes the book that I had been reading and returns it to his shelf, “There are some wonderful copies in the library if you wish to continue reading it, I’m sure you of all people have a lot to learn from this point in history” he adds, gently caressing the spine of the book as he places it onto the shelf.

“The guard at the door will take you to the hall, I look forward to speaking with you again” he says with that comforting smile of his.