“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

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By the time I reached the edge of Jaab’s domain I was sucking in haggard breaths and fighting to stand on shaking legs. The last of the forest returned as I finally exited it and proceeded to collapse from the pain in my chest. My vision swam as I struggled to stay conscious and increase the amount of Arcane my link we giving me. Ormonde didn’t understand anything except that he had gotten wet and had started to cry.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

My speech slurred as I spoke to try and calm the brat down. Despite my body feeling like it was trying to rip itself into three, I still managed to get the brat out of the water and dry him before I succumbed to sleep to get away from the pain.

I had been ready for the backlash of using enough Arcane to render an area empty, but it still caught me off guard with how much worse it was this time. Landmasses in the ethereal plane are just concentrated Arcane that’s taken shape to reflect the spirit’s home. The more spirits living there and the older the landmass, the greater the concentration of Arcane and I had severely underestimated Jaab’s growth.

Unlike my previous nap, this time I slept like the dead since I had exhausted my entire store of Arcane, a dangerous action for spirits with unstable souls. How much time passed I do not know, but when I did wake the changes to the surrounding area were devastating. The water around me was murky and fetid, a grey slime resting on the surface and slowly spreading the rot to the nearby waters. There was nothing I could do about this problem except watch it for now until I had regained a bit more strength.

A quiet whimper brought me out of my sullen mood, reminding me that I wasn’t the only one I was responsible for at the moment. My body refused to let me stand so I crawled over to where I had placed the brat down to check on him. Fortunately, whatever protected me from him did the reverse as well. I sighed in relief, I wasn’t going to have to explain to his parents how I had killed him by slowly destroying his soul because I had blown a gasket.

With nothing to do but wait, I took out the Arcane compass and memorized the locations of my prey before absorbing it. Upon doing so a single word rang out inside my mind, quiet and sad.

*Sorry.*

That bastard wolf.

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on them. He had known this would happen, the amount of excess Arcane in the compass made that perfectly clear. I guess I was predictable to a fault, but everyone has their pet peeves.

With the added Arcane I was able to pull back the grey slime and shoved it into the dark recess inside myself from which it had escaped. Cleaning the water would take more time, but at least it couldn’t spread anymore. The surrounding water wasn’t the only thing that suffered from my wrath. Jaab’s forest had shrunk considerably in size but had thankfully been untouched by the rot I had been spreading while asleep. I didn’t want to think about the effect this would have had on the material plane, I couldn’t deal with that at the moment.

Once my thoughts and Arcane had been recollected, I cleaned the water and returned to the train tracks we had arrived on. I remade the train and sent it off in the direction of the first spirit I was going to kill. Most of the trip was spent fighting an internal war with myself and keeping the train materialized, but Ormonde did occasionally have his own inputs to add in the form of crying. Jaab really didn’t understand my position on kids. It wasn’t that I hated them, I just didn’t know how to handle them and that freaked me out. The brat on the seat across from me was a good example. I was unhappy that I had been bound to him, but it was easy enough to fix given time and I held no grudge against him personally. Humanity as a whole, on the other hand, I loathed just as much as I hated the Eldritch.

My first target was an earth spirit and the mountain that was slowly coming into view as we approached his link made that stupidly clear. I debated on waiting a little while before fighting since I was still pretty drained on multiple fronts and had yet to figure out what to do with the brat, but the longer I waited the more likely that I would be noticed. Once I could see the base of the mountain I stopped the train car, the walk to the base would be used to gather my Arcane back.

With my Arcane restored and a vague idea on how to handle having the brat with me I felt relatively good about my chances. By the time I reached the mountain I had tied the brat to my back using my hair and concentrated enough Arcane into my fighting form to be happy. After checking that Ormonde was securely tied to myself I changed into my combat form. The only change was the lantern that was now in my hand. I looked over the familiar tool, each detail representing a different bit of the past.

The static metal ring that connected to the top the lantern was notched with many scratches and dents. The tiles on the pagoda like roof were worn smooth in some parts while chipped in other. Each of the four main bars that made the lantern’s cage had small fire like figures spiralling up from the square base of the lantern. the fire figures had a face screaming in pain on it. All of this held in the small pink flame that rested inside the lantern, shedding an unearthly light onto the surrounding landscape.

The lantern was close to me so much so that it connected directly to my soul. It was a part of me and I it.

I fed the fire inside the lantern till it started to escape from the confines of the bars soon after attaching it to my waist. Starting the fire took most of my Arcane, but I was about to be getting it all back. I crouched down to give my welcoming gift to my first target, part of the pink flame left the lantern and came to rest in my hand. With a bit of care I ignited the edge of the spirits domain, the pink flame catching and spreading. The mountain started to burn, very slowly but surely it would be consumed by my fire, by me. Everything my fire burnt or ate was mine.

It was easy to tell when the earth spirit was about to materialize by the slight distortion around the mountain and fluctuation of Arcane. He, she, it was angry, I would be to if someone came and started to burn my home down. The spirit walked quickly towards me, eager to find out why I had turned the mountain into a bonfire.

“You there! What have I done to make you have enmity towards me?”

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember me, it was over a year ago.”

The earth spirit looked me over, hoping to extinguish my fire before more of its mountain was eaten by the flames.

“You’re right I don’t, but regardless of the reason I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you now.”

I laughed as I launched myself backwards on a wave of water.

“You can try.”

Seeing my actions the earth spirit followed me while creating two large pillars of earth on either side of him before launching small chunks of hardened earth at me. I intercepted his projectiles with blasts of wind that turned them to dust. I didn’t have to worry about my Arcane useage, his mountain was providing me with a steady supply as my flames ate it.

Still on my wave, I pulled water from it and created three spears of water on my left and a ball of fire on my right. I began to freeze the water into ice by pulling the heat out of it and putting it into the fireball. My height advantage was done away with as a huge wave of earth swept towards me absorbing the water I was raising myself with.

Landing in a small pool to decrease my impact, I continued to freeze the water while moving to the side to avoid being stationary. A blur shot past me from behind, the earth that had been behind me was coming back the other direction. My ice spears finished, I fed my lantern the fire I had been tending and zig zagged towards the earth spirit to increase my accuracy and avoid the incoming projectiles.

I fired off the first spear and narrowly missed my mark. A retaliatory burst of earth shot my way causing me to lose my chance at another shot. Jumping over the earth wave, I was hit in the chest by a large rock falling back as the wind was knocked out of me from my sudden halt in momentum. I rolled to get my feet underneath me again and started to stand up only to have another rock knock me back down.

“Not so powerful now are you you cocky little spirit!”

Taunts were meaningless if I didn’t fall for them and with more and more Arcane gathering in my lantern I wasn’t worried. I spat out a mouthful of the spirit equivalent to blood, the rocks had done surprising large amounts of internal damage.

“Still stronger than you ya stupid earth spirit!”

I picked myself up while breathing fire in the earth spirit’s direction. I didn’t need to hit, just buy time. My legs gave out from underneath me and my fire flickered out as what felt like a heavy weight was placed on top of me.

‘He’s using gravity Arcane?!’

Strong stuff but hard to control, I needed to unbalance him somehow but moving was nigh impossible at this point.

‘If I can’t go up . . .’

I dispersed the earth beneath me and let myself sink into the waters below. The added gravity pushed me fairly deep and I began to move in the directio on the earth spirit’s mountain while creating an air bubble around Ormonde. The water next to me quaked as a large earthen spear passed inches from my body causing me to twirl wildly in the waters as the current toyed with me. I swam faster as the spears increased in size and frequency, hoping to get away unscathed.

The mountain left my sight as a great wall of earth blocked my way forcing me to move upwards to avoid hitting it at ramming speed. Nearing the surface I readied some fire Arcane and began to surround myself in it. Upon breaching the surface of the water I flew into the air due to the lack of gravity.

‘Looks like you were ready for me. Good thing I planned for this.’

I condensed more Arcane into the flames surrounding me and expanded them in a large sphere of flames. Inside the fire the gravity Arcane didn’t effect me, but I was a sitting target at the moment and an earthen spear that flew through the center of the sphere proved that. I needed to close the distance and get in closer to the earth spirit so he couldn’t stop me with his gravity Arcane.

Pulling more fire from my lantern, I started to shoot fireballs in rapid succession. Once I had a precedent set, I shot out another fireball with myself inside it leaving the sphere intact. I hit the ground and slid while dispersing the fire around me so I could see. The earth spirit was right in front of me just as surprised as I was.

Not waiting for the earth spirit to take advantage of the momentary pause in battle, I ran towards him while taking my lantern from my waist and swinging it at him. The earth spirit raised his arm to block my incoming attack and braced himself for the impact. The lantern connected solidly and resounded with a dull thudding noise and a hiss. Pressing my advantage, I swung again at the spirit and kept burning small pieces of him off leaving blackened indentations on his figure.

A wall of earth caused me to momentarily retreat. The earth spirit stared at me wide eyes in disbelief. Earth had appeared on my skin mirroring what I had been burning from him. Although barely audible, I could still hear the question directed at me.

“What are you?”

A toothy grin plastered itself on my face and my eyes grew dark.

“I’m a spirit of course.”

I slowly advanced towards him, my eyes flashing with hunger as my flames cut off all of his escape routes.

“No spirit I know of can do what you’re doing. Not even a corrupted spirit.”

The earth spirit was unable to move out of fear of my fire as I approached him and whispered in his ear.

“You’ve never met a spirit that’s come back from being corrupted.”

I engulfed the earth spirit in flames from my lantern, reducing him to a pile of dark ash in seconds. The mountain belonging to the earth spirit had been reduced to a small hill at this point and I let it continue burning. A small green orb had appeared at the crest of the hill, the soul of the earth spirit trying to recover from his death. Pink flames licked my feet happily as I made my way up to the orb and bowed to it.

“Thank you for allowing me to live longer.”

I took the orb and separated the Arcane from the spirit’s soul, placing the latter inside my lantern. The pink flame inside the lantern coiled around the soul I had gifted it. As it was devoured I would gain first his links and then his knowledge before finally absorbing the soul itself. I turned and left towards the train track from which I had come. By the time I reached the tracks there was nothing but clear empty water behind me, completely still as if nothing had been there in the first place. My flame had done their job and eaten the mountain to the ground. I hefted Ormonde to give myself a better grip on him, an evil grin creeped onto my face. I had cast the first of many stones and I was awaiting the ripples they would make.

“One down, two to go.”

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AN: Hey there readers! Would you believe it's hard to write a decent fight scene when your hero fights with a lantern? I've been releasing these as I write them and feel that's a better thing to do than x releases in a set time period. I will try and have a least one chapter a week up but you may get more than that sometimes depending on how the gods of writing favor me. Damn you past and future writers block! (Shakes fist at the sky) Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, any feedback you have would be lovely and for now I'll bid you adieu.

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