Crosse watched Mike walk across the bridge towards his quarters, while Lauren and he continued towards the steps to the ground. Such an odd boy that one, he had come clean about some huge things, but Crosse could tell that he had more hidden away.

If the boy had shown him anything so far though, it was that he would speak up when he was comfortable. He had seen that first night that rushing him didn’t go well.

“So, who is that boy to you?” Lauren asked a note of concern in her voice. “I heard about what happened to Connor. Gonal and Tyler have been mourning alone in private, but word has gotten around."

Crosse sighed, having known the question was coming. “I don’t rightly know, he is a bit of a mystery at the moment. As I said before, I found him in the woods on a hunt. I had separated from Connor to chase a young peryton. I was rather baffled when I started running towards its screeches to find someone had already killed it,” Crosse explained.

Laurens brows rose. “A peryton? That is rather impressive, especially alone, even you would have had some trouble with that, and you’re likely the best of the seniors,” she replied.

Crosse chuckled, “He didn’t do it cleanly, that ‘hair cut’ he was given to him by the thing's claws, pretty sure it went to the bone, he’d have been dead in moments if I hadn’t shown up. I brought him to meet up with where I left Connor and…”

Crosse paused, remembering wandering through those trees looking for his partner, not seeing any sign of him, and then seeing Mike's eyes widen in his periphery. Only to draw his bow on something far more deadly than he had expected, then wondering for the whole fight and treating Mike whether he had left his friend to die.

He may have been too hasty with the cauterization, simply because he had needed to know if Connor was still alive. Lady Ina had praised him and maybe she had been right, he had seen a hunter suffer from metal poisoning before, but that wasn’t what he was thinking in the moment.

He had been thinking of Connor and what oozes did to their prey, swallowing them whole and slowly digesting them over hours. His only solace had been that at least gold-sap oozes tended to kill their prey first, as their method of combat was particularly brutal for their species.

But there had been no broken bones in Connor’s skeleton. He closed his eyes taking a deep breath to smother that line of thinking, as Lauren and he continued down towards the ground in silence. She didn’t prod him to continue.

They reached the ground after two more flights of stairs, exiting to face directly towards Ina. Crosse wondered idly if she had changed the staircase to exit facing her or if it had just been a coincidence, he leaned towards the former. Lady Ina generally preferred using magic to solve something rather than have it take more time.

If histories were to be believed, that was a rather common trait amongst High Elves, though some took it to a rather distasteful excess.

When they reached within about ten metres of her she raised a palm in their direction, signalling they stop. They did and she greeted them, “Crosse, Lauren.” She then turned to face them.

“Please make sure that everyone in the village knows not to get any closer to this thing than you are now. Do not post guards anywhere nearer than the base of the trees and don’t stay with this proximity for longer than is absolutely necessary.

“The area ten metres around it is saturated with Death Magic. I can use Light to either stop it from spreading or stop it from coalescing and potentially forming a Death Spirit, as the consequences for the latter are much graver.”

Crosse saw a smirk touch her face as and it took everything he had not to groan. Lauren apparently didn’t have as much willpower, or specific resistance to terrible puns from her, as he heard a distinctly strangled chuckle come from her. Lady Ina continued as if nothing had happened.

“I have decided to do the prior. So living things cannot enter its proximity for long, or risk spreading it. This will last a month, I will come out here once a week to make sure no Spirit is forming,” she explained.

Crosse and Lauren both bowed and spoke, “Yes lady Ina,” they said in unison.

“You are dismissed, one of you go tell the elders and one of you tell the village head, I don’t care which does which. I need to continue here for a few more minutes, and need to concentrate,” She finished and closed her eyes.

Crosse and Lauren glanced at each other and bowed again before backing away and leaving quickly. “I’ll tell the elders, I have a meeting with them already planned for,” he glanced up at the sky through the canopy, able to see glimpses of the sun through branches and leaves swaying in the wind, “well, now. I will go get Mike.”

Lauren nodded, and Crosse walked towards the lower steps of the hunters' barracks.

***

Mike looked sheepishly back at Crosse. When the light had flashed in his face he had felt an intense burst of curiosity, and it was still tickling at the back of his mind. “Experimenting with what?” he asked, he at least wanted to know what the purpose of the errant magic that could have killed them both was.

“Light Magic and Mystery Magic,” the boy replied, not seeming too sure of the answer himself.

Crosse stepped into the room, not putting down his bow, they wouldn’t be here long, he just wanted to know this one thing. “Light Magic and What Magic?” he asked, mystery Magic? What in the realms was that?

Mike made his own curious face, “have you not heard the word mystery before? or is my Language Skill screwing up?” Mike asked, answering a question with a question.

“You said Mystery Magic, is that what you meant to say?” Crosse replied in kind.

Mike appeared to think for a moment, “Mystery is close I guess, perhaps it didn’t work because there isn’t a word for it in Gildaic, what I mean is an esoteric mystery or intentionally hidden mystery, the word is Arcane, I hope that came through this time. In my wo-language, it is used to describe Magical mysteries, things out of reach,” Mike said in explanation.

“Arcane,” Crosse said, trying out the word. He noticed the hitch in Mike’s explanation, what had he intended to say? Given the way Mike apparently communicated, there was no guarantee that what came out of his mouth had any relation to a language that Crosse spoke, so he couldn’t guess.

“It sounds like you are just explaining Magic. it is already mysterious and out of reach,” Crosse said, crossing his arms. At least for him, it was. He had come to terms with that as a child, as most did. Why was he even asking this?

Mike nodded, “that is kind of the point, the word is used to describe mysteries that are magical in nature, or at least in that vein,” he said seeming pleased.

“So what does this Magical-mystery Magic do?” he asked, still unable to suppress his curiosity.

Mike furrowed his brow. “That’s what I was trying to work out. From what I know, it does a lot, but I have no idea how to use what I know it does to benefit me, it doesn’t give me hints in the same way other types of mana do,” he said, sounding frustrated.

Crosse finally shook his head, this wasn’t useful. They had a place to be. “I have to go talk to the hunter elders, would you like to come? Your testimony could be useful, even if you are a stranger,” he asked, not wanting to force Mike. He hadn’t responded well to that at first.

Mike stood from the chair nodding. “I wouldn’t want to miss it, though you will be mostly talking in Manish right?” Mike asked.

Crosse nodded, “Not all of the elders speak Gildaic, though some have picked some up since they stopped going on active missions. Bring Connor’s bow, it will likely come up, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m hiding it,” Crosse said.

Mike nodded again and grabbed the bow from where he had leaned it against the wall. Mike took orders well at least, questions less so, but orders he didn’t seem to mind.

Crosse watched as he picked up the inert longbow and he flashed back to another time. When Connor had taken up the bow while it was like that, more than five years ago. It had been that way ever since Crosse's mother died, retrieved by Ina and given to Crosse too redistribute, whether to an apprentice when he became a senior hunter, as it had been or to a descendant when they came of age.

“So where are we going?” Mike asked, breaking Crosse from his reverie.

“The bottom level of the hunter’s barrack is called the lodge, it is an open place where the hunters unwind. Information about past hunts and known beasts are collected there. It is where the Elders run the hunters from,” Crosse explained as he made his way out the door.

He heard Mike exit through the curtain behind him. “So what did Lady Ina have to say?” he asked as he caught up.

Crosse repeated to Mike what Ina had told him earlier, about Death Magic and her inability to stop its spread; due to the possibility that it might become a Spirit.

Mike didn’t respond and he glanced back to see that Mike was looking out towards the clearing where Ina was likely still dealing with the problem.

He glanced that way and could see that Ina was just standing where she had been before, eyes closed and concentrating.

“That is a lot of Magic she is using over there, but it isn’t making waves like last time, why?” Mike said quietly, was he talking to himself? Then he spoke up, “what are Spirits, anyway?”

Crosse blinked as they reached the stairs. “You are the one with one inked into your arm, you probably know better than I do,” Crosse replied.

Mike replied as he followed Crosse down the stairs. “My Spirit is kinda unique, it knows more about the world than I do, but it is also cryptic and inconvenient to communicate with,” Mike replied.

“That sounds about right for what I have heard about spirits that can actually communicate, not that I have met one. All of the Spirits I have seen were like that tree fuck earlier. Big, scary, and eager to kill everything in their reach,” he said, Spirits were worse than Beasts, but far less common, so he tended to dwell on them less.

“Okay, but what are they, what is the difference between a spirit and a beast?” he asked.

Crosse shrugged in reply, “Spirits tend to follow less logic or different logic. I asked Lady Ina about why she called them Mad Spirits once, and she said that they are ‘A Spirit that grieves their life from the moment of their birth, thus driving them mad,’ she hasn’t said anything else about them,” he said. He had asked her that after the first time he had heard her challenge one.

Mike didn’t respond for a while after that, probably thinking.

“Interesting,” was all he said.