Scourge Thirty-Five - Gather

The first thing I do is clear out some of the mud and muck on the ground next to the dark pool. I don’t mind getting a little dirty, but it’s going to be a pain to clean myself off while out in the middle of the woods.

There’s no cleaning service out here.

Felix helps by dragging a big rock over and setting it down right next to the water. “Thanks,” I say.

She nods once. “No problem. I’m gonna go get some logs or something to sit on.”

“Will it take long?” Bianca asks.

“A few hours, at least,” I say. “It’s a bit tricky. Should be done before nightfall, so we can fly off for an hour or two, find a place to settle down before the sun sets and build our camp for the night a long ways from the city.”

“I see,” Bianca says.

I brush off the surface of the rock Felix brought, then I sit on it and slip off a shoe. I need direct contact with the dark pool for this to work. Well, no, I don’t need it, but it makes everything a lot easier, and I’m not here to practise my monster-making skills, I’m here to apply them.

Mom always instructed me by making things a challenge, but she’s told me a few times that when it comes to the real thing, I should take every shortcut and use every trick that makes a task easier. Challenges are meant to help me grow, not to hamper me in the future.

I close my eyes and breathe out of my nose as I dip my foot into the dark pool, then I hiss.

“What’s wrong?” Esme asks.

“The water’s freezing!” I complain. I pull my foot out and wiggle it about. “This is going to suck if I need to spend hours with my foot in the pool.”

“We could warm your foot up after. I’ll get a fire started if you want. Can’t be too hard to find twigs around here.”

“That would be nice,” I say.

“Or we could warm the entire pool up. I don’t know if I’m angry enough for that though,” Esme says.

Felix comes back, dragging an entire falling trunk with her. “I can annoy you until you’re angry enough,” she says, entirely serious.

“No thank you,” Esme says.

“No, I’ll be fine. The water’s not much colder than the air. I guess I’m just used to the dark pools at home. The cavern under the castle’s really warm.”

I dip my foot in again, and this time it’s not so bad. Expecting the cold takes away a lot of its bite. “Okay, this isn’t too bad once you get used to it.”

“I’d rather not try,” Esme says.

“I heard that dark pools are dangerous,” Bianca says.

“Oh, they are,” I reply. “Well, like fire’s dangerous, but only if you don’t respect it, or don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I see,” Bianca says. She nods to Felix once the log is dropped, then searches through one of our bags and returns with a blanket which she lays down atop the log.

Esme aims at the ground with her hand and frowns in concentration for a long moment. Eventually the dirt moves up and around, forming a small depression with a few stones on the edges. A firepit of sorts.

“Want to help me gather some branches?” Esme asks Felix.

“Sure.”

Bianca watches my friends go, then snaps her fingers and creates a long stream of fire which spins and circles around her hand. She’s pretty talented with that, it seems. Or she’s just secretly really angry.

“Can... can I speak while you work?” she asks.

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “I haven’t actually started yet, not really. Just waiting for a few souls to gather up that are strong enough to work with.”

“I’m curious, how does it work? Creating monsters, I mean.”

“Oh, well, when they’re being made naturally, then it’s not as complex as you might think. Lots of things die around dark pools, and their souls are gathered up in the waters here. Not actually water, but... yeah, close enough for laymen, I guess.” I swirl my foot around. Dark pools are much deeper than they look.

“How do souls know what form to take, as a monster, I mean,” Bianca asks.

“Oh, that mostly depends on what kinds of monsters are already around the pool, and if not that, then they’ll take shapes similar to dead things that the soul is compatible with. You’ve heard that thing where sinners make bigger monsters, or stronger cultivators do.”

“I’ve heard both,” Bianca says.

“Right, well in reality, it’s more that the kind of monster a soul turns into is based on the soul’s strength and compatibility. Most monsters are tiny and weak, but then most people are small and weak too. The whole sin thing is a lie, but the more a person cultivates and grows strong, the stronger the monster they reincarnate as will be. It’s a bit hard to guess what kind of monster someone might appear as.”

“I think I see,” Bianca says.

I shrug. I’m probably not doing a great job of explaining it. “Mom knows better than I do. It’s complicated. The magic to make a monster the way you want it to be is even more complicated, and it’s forbidden just about everywhere.”

“Oh?” Bianca asks. That has her perking up.

“Yeah. Soul magic. It’s a pretty big crime to even try it.”

I can see the confusion flit across her features. “I’ve never heard that before. Or even about soul magic.”

“Well yeah, if everyone knew it was illegal and wrong, then more people would try it, right? But if the fact that it’s illegal is kept hidden, and no one who does know about it talks about it because that’s not allowed either, then whatever knowledge about it that exists fades away.”

“Oh,” Bianca says. “I suppose that sort of thing is somewhat common.”

“I mean, the problem with that kind of thing is that you never know how much stuff is hidden because it’s hidden, right?” I ask. Grinning over at Bianca, I gesture to the dark pool. “This is mostly soul-magic, like I said. It’s... trickier than emotional magic, but also easier.”

“I never actually had a proper education when it comes to cultivation. I learned from reading and self-study, often on my own time, or in secret.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, we can help you learn more! Esme’s really good with proper lessons and the like. Felix is awful.”

“Hey!” Felix says as she returns with an armful of dried branches and twigs. “What am I awful at?”

“Cultivating. Or at least learning how.”

“Oh, yeah,” Felix says. “I just do what feels right. I mean, I can learn spells and stuff, but they’re troublesome.”

I shrug. “You do you. You’re a pretty good fighter, though you really need to work on your grief magic more.”

“Two opposites,” Bianca says. “Like my fire and water.”

“Yup,” I say. “It’s good for balancing.”

Bianca nods. “It’s why I chose both. Though to be fair, they both came naturally for me, so I suppose I was lucky in that regard. Could you tell me more about soul magic?”

I nod along. “Sure, but don’t try it on your own? It’s tricky. Unlike most emotional magics where you feed the magic into your core by feeling something really hard, soul magic is more about taking some of yourself and pushing it out. It’s... less jittery, and more fuzzy.”

“That’s helpful,” Felix says.

I stick my tongue out at her.

“I don’t think I quite understand,” Bianca admits. She raises her hand and focuses, but all that happens is that fire bursts into the air before her, just a burp of flame that dies off.

“No, that’s cultivated magic,” I say. “Soul is more... deeper. More you. Your emotions aren’t who you are. They’re... the state that you’re in. You feel a certain way, but you are more than just the way you feel, right? You might be coloured by your emotions, but there’s more to you than that.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Bianca says. “But how do you reach for that and use it?”

“Well... I don’t know,” I say. “It’s always felt normal to me. I think most really strong cultivators will eventually feel the difference. Mom says that it's the very very first step towards becoming divine, but it takes a lot of work to get there.”

“I’ve tried it,” Felix says. “It’s... weird-feeling. Not easy either, and it doesn’t do anything.”

“That’s the other problem, I guess,” I say. “Emotional magic reacts to the world. It moves the air, or lights things on fire. The best you can do with soul magic is give someone’s soul a hug.”

I blush a bit. That’s something that’s rather intimate to do with someone.

“Anyway, I can show you more later, I kinda need to focus on this bit.”

***