Just before sunup, Levi knocked on the guest room door. He received a grunt of acknowledgement from within. As he waited near the bathing room, Levi looked at Seth’s robe from the day before from a safe distance. Truly no one sweated more than teenage boys. Somehow, the front torso and right sleeve had been punctured in about a dozen places.

By the time a groggy Seth opened his door, the robe had already been collected.

“I believe Philip would like me to thank you.” Levi said with a wry smile. “He does so love opportunities to use his sewing gift.”

“Huh?” Seth said blearily.

“Your robe from yesterday is so punctured that it looks like you fell into one of the hedgehog pens.” Levi explained. “It’ll take Philip half the day to fix it with all the complaining he’ll do.”

“Right. Good.” Seth replied. “Are we going to breakfast together?”

“That would be a bad idea.” His dad said. “I actually came to make sure you didn’t go to breakfast, since we’ll be working on corpse purification this morning.”

Seth paled slightly as Levi gestured for him to follow. Reaching the narthex, they took the broad stairway down to the basement. The bodies weren’t in the lowest part of the basement where Seth had stayed after the heightening ritual, but were instead stored in the floor above. Levi saw Seth brace himself as they opened the solid stone door, but there wasn’t any smell.

The bodies had been individually wrapped in special preserving sheets imbued with Immutable essence before being stacked at the back of the room. Levi led his son to where one of the bodies lay on a solid citrine altar. The corpse was still wrapped in a sheet for the benefit of everyone involved. He placed a hand gently on the body and directed Seth to put a hand on top of his.

Over the next three hours, Levi slowly purified the body with Seth following along. The process wasn’t that difficult once you knew what to do, but it had to be done all at once. A slow wave of Virtue was being woven into the body, and if it didn’t reach every part of it, the effect would collapse and he’d have to start over. Repurifying an area was faster, but pausing and starting over still took more time overall than purifying a body in one go.

Once the body was pure, the two carried it to the other side of the room where a furnace was built into the wall. They unrolled the body into the glass-like coals, and after setting aside the Valuable infused cloth, Levi showed Seth how to pull Virtue essence from the temple around them into the inscriptions of the furnace.

When they were fully powered, golden flames surged up from the glassy coals and enveloped the cultist’s body. Seth could feel intense Virtue in the fire. He stared into the comforting flames that seemed to call to him.

“What is this?” Seth asked distractedly.

“Virtue fire.” Levi replied, looking at the pile of bodies. “It’s Virtue essence forced to mimic real fire. It burns away impurity.”

“If we’re cremating them with the fire of Virtue anyway, why do we need to purify the corpses to begin with?” Seth said with puzzlement.

“Efficiency.” Levi replied. “The amount of Virtue the furnace would pull from the temple to cremate an impure body would undo months of alignment. A few hours of work for us saves all the time it would take to realign the temple.”

Seth nodded, and they moved the next cultist to the altar. This time, Levi instructed Seth to put his hand on the body first, placing his own over it. Seth began to form the weave of Virtue essence in the corpse like his dad had. He was much slower however, and after two hours the body was only halfway pure.

Levi felt Seth’s concentration waning, but before he could say anything, a pulse of Sin essence pushed from Seth’s hand into the body. The Sin rapidly annihilated all the essence inside, and Seth quickly wove Virtue to keep up. In a matter of minutes, the body was completely purified.

“Excellent!” Levi said, putting an arm around Seth. “If you can do that from the beginning, this won’t take nearly as long. You should still practice the proper way at least a bit though.”

“I have to,” Seth said, peeling back the sheet over the body’s lower half.

The area where the Sin essence had swept through was swollen and blackish-purple, like all the blood vessels and lymph nodes had exploded.

“If I did that at the beginning, I think the body might have…ruptured.” He concluded.

Levi blanched. “Yes, let’s take care to avoid that.”

“Would it be possible for me to practice out in the jungle more?” Seth asked. “If I can improve my Sin control in a less confined space, I may be able to purify them faster.”

Levi nodded, figuring that made sense.

“Let’s cremate this one, then I’ll go talk to Priest Joe and meet you for lunch after. That sound good?” He asked.

Both of their stomachs audibly gurgled.

“Works for me.” Seth said.

____________________________________________

After reheated grits, potatoes, and boar for lunch, Seth received a truncated half hour lesson from the Head Priest about actively using his Virtue projection to feel the world around him. As expected, Seth couldn’t sense nearly as well as Joe, but he was able to feel the Virtue essence in Meranda, who was doing vocal warmups in the adjacent sanctuary.

Seth also recognized that everyone with Virtue essence shared a tone to his auditory ability. If he was hearing the essence that underlay the abilities people had, Seth’s new tonal ability would let him do something similar to what Priest Joe could sense. He just needed practice differentiating tones in each person.

Late that afternoon, Seth and Sheldon made their way through the jungle yet again.

Seth gave the ghost a cheerful wave as they entered the clearing. “Good evening!”

“Hello.” Landon replied. “Isn’t this a bit late in the day for you to arrive? Or maybe it’s morning. It can be hard to tell.”

“This is pretty late.” Seth said, walking toward a nearby tree. “But I was purifying the bodies of cultists and realized there’s a way to use Sin to sever the essence in them faster. I need to practice control with the trees some more, so I came out here. Do you mind?”

“Of course not, that’s fine by me.” The ghost said tersely, and Seth saw fury flicker across his face before it smoothed over. “So, how many more bodies are there to ‘sever’ as you say?”

“Purify is a better word.” Seth commented. “And I don’t know. Not that many, if I can purify them as fast as I think I can.”

The ghost went quiet for a while, and Seth stopped paying attention to him. He was trying to destroy and heal the tree in a consistent way, without causing another explosive failure.

When Seth had learned to purify bodies earlier, he had been quite surprised to find that they were similar to working with plants in some ways. While his dad had talked a big game about how difficult it was to push Virtue essence into corpses, Seth had actually found it to be a bit easier than with trees.

Ultimately, a body was just an object now, while trees were alive and seemed to resist him. If he could learn good control of Sin essence when the ‘patient’ was actively fighting him to some degree, then using it in objects and cooperative people would be comparatively easy.

After he had practiced for a good hour or two and was feeling more confident, Seth returned to Landon. Instead of genetics homework, the ghost had the cube themed ‘video game’ on his laptop.

“We didn’t properly celebrate you becoming a Priest the last time you were here.” Landon said. “Would you like to keep making that iron house from last time?”

Seth was thrilled. He could see why people where Landon came from liked these games so much. The idea of making an entire building out of something so Valuable was ridiculous, and he loved it.

After playing for a while, Seth returned the ghostly laptop. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and it was time to head back to Lith.

Back at the temple, Levi caught Seth on his way to the kitchen.

“Did you make any progress?” He asked.

“I did.” Seth replied. “I’m pretty confident that I won’t cause any violent ruptures working with corpses at least.”

“Good.” His dad said. “Joe and I will choose some of the remaining bodies that still have potentially dangerous amounts of essence in them for you to take care of tomorrow. The longer they wait, the greater the chance of manifestation.”

“Alright, that makes sense to me.” Seth said, giving him a hug.

At dinner, Philip gave Seth a glare that could have peeled the baked potatoes they were eating, but Seth chose to ignore him. Seth’s cleaned and repaired robe was hanging on the guest room door when he returned to his room, and he put it up with his other robes before bathing and getting ready for bed.

The following morning before dawn, Seth went looking for Amber to ask her for a spare candle. He found her in the greenhouse looking around in confusion, one eye twitching. She turned to him, gesturing wildly at an array of dust-covered, but otherwise empty pots.

“They’re gone!” She exclaimed.

“What’s gone?” He asked.

“Those pea plants your mom likes.” Amber replied. “All the ones in the gardens and greenhouse were wilting a bit yesterday, and now they’re gone!”

“The spider peas?” Seth said, concerned. “They take up most of the third garden, are all of those gone too?”

“That’s what I just said.” Amber retorted. “And it wasn’t Sammy over-collecting them for lunch or something.”

“That is strange.” Seth said. “Spider peas only grow in very limited areas, they disintegrate into dust if relocated. Did something change? Did you alter the soil somehow?”

Amber scowled at him. “They’re not azaleas, they don’t care about the soil. They grow in anything as long as they’re on the right island, your mom told me about them.”

“Right, I knew that.” Seth said, having in fact partially confused them with azaleas. “Well, you should talk to Priest Joe, he can ask Mom. Anyway, do you have any spare candles that I can use?”

“What? Why?” She asked.

“I want to try to do something with them.” Seth replied.

“That doesn’t tell me anything.” Amber said, annoyed. “But yes, I have a few candles on me. You can use one.”

She handed Seth a thin white candle. He thanked her and headed to the main temple. His dad joined him on the second floor of the basement a few minutes later. Levi found Seth studying the inscriptions around the furnace, but not having very much luck.

“You look pretty focused so early in the morning.” Levi said as he walked over. “What are you trying to do with the furnace?”

“I was trying to figure out what the inscriptions do.” Seth replied, glancing up. “Since I’m learning so many new techniques with Virtue, I wanted to see if I could figure out how to make the golden fire.”

“Hmm. I’d never thought about that,” his dad said contemplatively. “I don’t know if we can make it ourselves. I doubt you’ll be able to learn from simply looking at the inscriptions, though.”

“Why?” Seth asked.

“They aren’t made with Virtue essence, or mostly aren’t.” Levi explained. “The inscriptions are a product of Creation essence designed to focus Virtue essence.”

“So even if they have information about manipulating Virtue, I would need Creation essence to parse it?” Seth guessed.

“Probably.” His dad said. “You’d be better off studying the fire directly, but that’s only if it’s possible to learn at all.”

Seth nodded.

“Speaking of fire,” Levi continued. “The next body has a large amount of Flame essence in it. You’ll need to be careful.”

They walked over to the citrine altar, where the wrapped body already lay.

“To purify Flame essence safely, “ His dad explained, “I recommend you visualize your essence like liquid. That makes it easier to ‘put out’ the Flame, to me anyway.”

“Sure.” Seth said. “Can I try purifying this one without your guidance? I want to try using Sin immediately. I’ll still try to picture it as water.”

Levi hesitantly gestured for him to go ahead, and Seth stepped up to the altar and put a hand on the sheet over the midsection. After purifying a small area with Virtue over the first fifteen minutes or so, he started adding Sin essence, picturing it as a flood pouring through the corpse instead of a pulse.

It worked, and he tried to chase the wave with Virtue essence, but the effect wasn’t as clean as he had hoped. Seth hurriedly waved over his dad, and the two of them carried the body to the furnace as it began liquifying.

“At least it didn’t explode.” Levi commented, as Seth activated the inscriptions.

As Virtue essence was pulled into the furnace, Seth tried to pay close attention to what was happening. The essence underwent a drastic change that he didn’t really understand, but Seth was prepared. He took out the candle and carefully lit it using the blaze in the furnace.

To his delight, the candle caught with golden flame. Seth took it out and held it aloft. The fire was trying to go back to normal, but he didn’t let it. Seth began pouring Virtue from himself and the temple around him into it. It worked, and he even had some control over the fire, but his dad interrupted him by pinching the wick to put it out.

“Hey!” Seth said indignantly.

“You were sucking more Virtue from the temple alignment to keep that candle going than the whole furnace uses.” Levi said sternly.

“Oh.” Seth muttered. “Sorry.”

“You’re welcome to keep trying, but I recommend going off the temple grounds.” His dad said. “If the only thing you exhaust is yourself, then it’s fine. Now, help me get the next one.”

The pair lifted the second of the three bodies that had been set aside onto the altar. Levi tied the sheet wrapping it extra tight in case this one dissolved as well.

“So, this one is full of a large amount of Loss essence.” Levi explained. “There’s more essence than even the last body had. Normally, it would have passed the threshold for a manifestation, but Priest Joe and I think the unusual purity of the Loss essence may have prevented that so far. The body has virtually no other essence in it, oddly.”

“Is there a particular way to purify Loss?” Seth asked.

“No, it’s just especially time consuming.” His dad replied. “If Sin accelerates it at all, it will be a big help.”

Seth got to work, Levi following along at first to make sure he made a proper purifying weave in the dense Loss, then stepping back when Seth said he was going to use Sin. When Seth carefully released a pulse of Sin into the corpse, he suddenly felt pressure building in his ears. As the Sin and Virtue purified the last of the body, he heard a painfully loud *SNAP* that made him stagger back as he felt Loss essence surround him.

Rubbing his ears, Seth looked over at his dad who didn’t seem to have heard anything. Levi was looking up and down at Seth with a pale, pinched expression. Seth looked down, and saw that his clothing had changed.

Uncomfortably tight over his outer robe, a familiar blue-white tinted button-up shirt, dress pants, and slightly too tight pointed shoes met his gaze. He noticed the weight of a backpack settle over his shoulders. Confused, then horrified, Seth rushed over to the altar and started hurriedly untying the sheet covering the body.

____________________________________________

Landon felt a feeling like pins and needles come over him again, the world around him beginning to distort. He wasn’t surprised. When Seth had told him about purifying bodies the day before, he had a premonition that if he didn’t stop the young Priest, Landon would meet his second and final end.

The ghost had managed to suppress the sudden violent compulsions that had come over him, and resolved to make the last few meetings he would have with his student positive experiences. He thought about mentioning that ghosts could apparently sense threats to their ‘life’ in the journal he’d been keeping, but didn’t see the point. So, while this was sooner than he had hoped, he was calm. As his body began to fade away, Landon Clarke leaned against a tree and enjoyed the jungle sunrise.