“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

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When I woke up four years had passed and I had recovered to a state much stronger and more stable than before. There were still too many things on my to do list and the top priority was getting what was owed to me from the spirit pair. However, to do that I would have to find them in a mansion that I had never explored or even cared about. I slowly slipped myself out of Ormonde so that he wouldn’t be able to detect any change.

To my relief it was nighttime, how late I couldn’t say, and seeing wasn’t a problem due to the pale moonlight that was leaking through the shaded window to lighten the room. Floating slightly I moved my body through a series of stretches and motions to wake it back up, the occasional groan of pleasure absconding as my muscle relaxed. It had been a fairly busy four years if the memories I was getting from Ormonde were any indication.

Speaking of Ormonde, the kid had grown considerably and was now three-fourths my height. His brown hair was in a ridiculous bowl cut that failed to capture any semblance of youthfulness his face still held. From what I gleaned via memories, he had been walking for about a year and speaking a quarter of that time. Surprisingly he asked about spirits with an infrequency that astonished me. Either he didn’t care about them or just hadn’t thought to ask.

With most of the memories viewed and his soul in perfect condition I made my way to the window. I was headed for the roof and although I didn’t need to leave through the window it just felt right to do so. Not bothering to look at the scenery, I went to the roof and sat.

Once in position I began to slowly scan the surrounding area. About fifteen feet from the house was a wrought iron fence that stood about seven feet tall. A thin spindly vine had started to wrap itself around the fence and provided a veil that blocked any view from the outside.

The area between the fence and house was well kept grass and large flower beds, the area was cared for to my delight. It became apparent that the mansion was quite in tune with nature and sought only to blend with it instead of control it. The fact that maybe Maka and Tanzi were nature spirits had slipped my mind; it would be an obvious reason for the harmony.

There was a large mass of shadows in the distance that I assumed to be a city, but only the coming dawn would confirm that. I sighed and began to contemplate on what to do. Getting the information from Tanzi or Maka took priority, but I needed to plan for the long run as well. I still needed to practice my corporality skills and then there was Akhan to deal with. My last fight with him had narrowly been my victory and I was much stronger then that I was now.

A sudden realization hit me. I had forgotten two very important things. The first matter was of utmost importance and the second was to continue my revenge. I shut my eyes and sent out a pulse, I was looking for something specific. Two hot trail snaked their way down my face and I began to choke up. I had gotten a return ping. It had been dim, almost nonexistent, but it had been there. I could sense it again after almost seven years of nothing. I could finally find my spirit crystal again.

It had been taken from me after I lost my home. Every nature spirit had a crystal and, like our home, it contained a part of our soul. Acquiring my spirit crystal had been a pipe dream, a fantasy, and now I could do it. I calmed myself, the small shakes subsiding along with the tears. After twelve years of separation I would finally have more of my soul back, more of me belonging to me.

There were so many effects that would come from the return of my crystal, an increased Arcane capacity being the most helpful. A nature spirit’s Arcane capacity only grew when they did and I have been stuck as a child for fifteen years. My main weak point was my lack of Arcane and I had been forced to make up for it in a variety of ways. Think of Arcane capacity like a bathtub and the links as faucets. It didn’t matter how fast you put water into the tub; once filled it was filled.

My thoughts had passed the time rather quickly and I was now being treated to a beautiful sunrise. The reds and purples mingled together before going their separate ways into orange and blue respectively. The illumination was enough to make out the city that had been hidden in shadows before. A bell tower, most likely belonging to a church, was the tallest structure closely followed by a few domes buildings. I couldn’t make out finer details, but the newly forming streaks of black against the sky signaled that people were up.

If Tanzi and Maka followed a normal sleep cycle they would be waking up now. I let myself fall through the roof as I questioned the point of not sleeping when you were tired, one of the many reason I didn’t understand humans. I stopped myself when I reached the ground floor and began to walk the halls while looking for signs of life.

Being in the house was strange. It felt nice as opposed to other houses I had been in; I made a note to ask about it. I rounded a corner and found myself face to face with Maka. I lifted my hand in a weak wave.

“Hi.”

Maka seemed to bristle, her brown and green hair swaying as Arcane gathered around her.

“Do you know how l-”

“Yes, four years. Ormonde’s soul if fine as is mine. Thank you for asking.” my interruption silenced her outburst and my demeanor seemed to startle her.

“Wh- are you really Vio?” Her eyebrow arched.

“I’m assuming you’re asking about the shift in personality. I was tired and said as much. Twenty hours of constant Arcane expenditure, focus, and a damaged soul will do that.”

“Ri~ight. So what now?”

“Now? Now you’re going to tell me about the trials you asked me about and I have a few other questions about the mansion.”

Maka’s cheeks puffed out in defiance.

“I’ll keep Tanzi’s promise about the trials, but if you want more answers you’ll have to help with some work.”

I pretended to think about it before answering.

“Fine. What do you need help with?”

“Breakfast.”

With nothing more to say, Maka walked by me and I turned and followed her. She had been here for a long time and the way she maneuvered around the house was a testament to that. A few minutes later and we arrived in a kitchen. I had never seen one as large as this one; most had been part of small farm houses. Maka turned to me and pointed to a drawer and then a cupboard.

“Knives are in there and the vegetables are in there. I need you to chop up three of each vegetable on the bottom shelf. Got it?”

“Um. I think so?”

“Good then get to work and ask any of the questions you have about the mansion.”

She walked away to another corner of the room and started moving wood and cooking pots around. I walked over to the cupboard and looked for the vegetables.

“So the first question I have is as to why this house feels so.” I stopped to try and think of the right word.

“Natural? Nice? Warming? I don’t quite have the right word for it but it feels . . . ok to be here where other places felt wrong. Does that make any sense?”

I picked up the first batch of these vegetables I was supposed to be cutting. Some long orange things and brown rock like lumps, the red bulbs had to be left behind because of my small hands. I made my way back to the closest counter and deposited the strange plants.

“The word you’re looking for is most likely resonant. Countless spirits have lived here and slowly the mansion has picked up trace amounts of Arcane. A similar spirit has probably been here and this place feels better than normal because of it.”

I had finished carrying the vegetable over to the counter and was now at a lost as to what needed to be done.

“What do I do?”

Maka stopped filling the pot she had with water and looked at me in utter confusion.

“What do you mean ‘What do I do’?”

“Well first off, what knife am I supposed to use and how do I cut these vegetables?”

She blinked a few times before speaking again.

“Vio how much time did you spend around humans?”

“In my opinion too much time, but over all? I never really interacted with them. Why?”

“Well you seemed to have some basic knowledge so I assumed that you had made food before.”

I snorted.

“Why would I do that? I have almost no need for food.”

Maka sighed and set down the pot she had filled before walking over to me.

“I’ll show you how to do this once and then you can do it. You’re going to have to help out with things around here eventually so you might as well practice.”

I resisted saying that I would be doing no such thing and watched her work instead. After a display of how to chop the vegetable and what each one was called she handed the knife over to me. The knife fell to the ground since I was ethereal at the moment and Maka gave me an annoyed look.

“What?”

“Why did you drop the knife?”

“How was I supposed to take it?”

“Using Arcane of course.”

She rolled her eyes and levitated the knife back onto the counter and went back to the pots.

“If you don’t have any other questions can I ask you one?”

“You can ask but I won’t give you an answer depending on the question.”

I tried to use raw Arcane to pick up the knife but kept putting my hand through it. I was growing frustrated rather quickly and decide to leave Maka’s method alone for the moment. With a little concentration I willed my hand to become corporal and picked up the knife and began to chop. It was the best I could do right now and would only last for a short while before I required rest.

“You said you had almost no need for food, not that you had no need like other spirits.”

The knife fell back to the counter since my concentration had been broken. Taking a deep breath to calm myself I repeated the steps to become corporeal and resumed chopping.

“I’m sure you know this already, but I’m a wild spirit.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t answer the question.”

“I just need a little something here and there to keep me going when Arcane doesn’t suffice.”

Even though I dislike chopping the vegetables since they kept running from me when I cut them it was good practice for maintaining my corporality. In addition, once I had full control of my corporality again I could use it for Arcane control practice. I hadn’t ever interacted with the material plane using Arcane so it would be an interesting experience.

“Any other questions for me that I can answer vaguely?”

“What’s your plan? And are the vegetables done?”

“Ah, yeah they’re done.”

I moved out of the way and Maka levitated the chopped vegetables into a pot and started to stir.

“As for what I’m going to do? Check out whatever these trials are eventually and go back to the forest I was killed in and wipe out the cult there. I also have something I need to find and just got a lead on it.”

“Well I won’t ask about any of that right now so I guess I’ll tell you about the trials.”

Maka shifted and brought a pan over to the stove she was working on.

“The first thing to know is that the trials actual title is ‘The Trials of the Ancients’. Any race with the exception of humans and Eldritch can take the trials. Human’s used to be able to take them, but that’s a story for another time.”

She paused to get eggs out of an icebox and pointed to a cabinet behind me.

“Can you get three plates from there and put them over here please.”

I complied and waited for her to continue while sitting myself upon the counter I had used.

“I don’t know if you know this, but there were thirteen beings known as the Ancients. Each one of them has their own sets of trials that can be attempted to gain knowledge about what each of them studied. For spirits that have taken a trial there’s a special ranking system that has to do with how many times you have completed the trials. It’s a two number system, the first number represents the number of times all thirteen trials have been completed and the second is how many trials in your current set you’ve finished.”

She was interrupted by a hiss from pouring the eggs into the heated pan.

“As a spirit that hasn’t done any trials yet you would be a 0-0 spirit, or an untested spirit. I’m a 1-6 spirit; I’ve completed one loop and am halfway through my second loop. The maximum rank a spirit can have when they pass all thirteen loops of the trials is 14-0. Any questions?”

“Yeah, lots of them. How do the trials work? Where do you take the trials? How hard are they? There’s so much you left out.”

I was annoyed at her decision to leave so much information out and would eventually be cross checking everything she told me with Tanzi.

“The easiest of those to answer is where you take a trial. Have you ever encountered an area that looks like a stone cave that’s been put there on purpose?”

“Not that I can remember? Are the caves a natural formation?”

“No, the caves are artificial and are called the Catacombs of Koldoth and the openings are everywhere. The closest one is about a day via horse from here. As for what the caves look like, it would be accurate to say it’s one piece of stone carved to looks like brick. It’s kinda creepy in my opinion.”

Maka dished the eggs out and took bowls from the cabinet above her before placing them upside down onto the plates. She moved about and returned to the pan with three thin slabs of pinkish meat. A quiet applause sounded when she put them into the pan.

“The difficulty of the trials is a little harder to explain. Each trial tests your grasp on something and then rewards you for what you know or have understood from past trials of the same type. They get harder and harder as the concepts become more abstract and impossible to practice. They also become harder if you know more about what you’re being assessed on.”

The sound of cooking food was the only noise in the room until Maka finished the meat and added it to the plates. She placed the pan into the nearby sink and then walked over to the counter I was sitting on.

“Because the trials are different for everyone the only thing I can say as to how they work is that it’s like a round robin system. Thirteen Ancients with thirteen trials each. You have to take a trial from each one before they’ll give you another and the order is usually random.”

Satisfied with her explanation, Maka leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.

“You mentioned something about what each of these Ancients studied. What was it?”

“Four of them studied the elements, one pair life and death and another light and dark. As individuals; spirits, Arcane, blood, humans and other races were studied. The last Ancient studied the Ancients and created Edin.”

My nose turned upward into a snarl at the mention of Edin. It was a nasty power the Eldritch used that tried to mimic Arcane and required either raw Arcane or souls to use.

“I don’t like that last one. Is it possible to skip it?”

“No, and most spirits stop once he starts to test on Edin. That’s usually around the fifth or sixth loop and I’ve heard rumors that he asks about other much worse things at the tenth loop and above.”

I shivered just thinking about it. The Eldritch were creepy amoral volatile creatures, I knew that from experience, and they used Edin to manipulate their biology and do other less desirable things to others.

“I understand why the Eldritch can’t take any trials but what happened that humans can’t take any?”

“Long story short, humans hunted down and killed the Ancients. It used to be thought that the Ancients were immortal, but in truth it seemed they only had superb longevity. There are some exceptions; witches and werepeople being a few. They can still take the trials but what they can learn from them is severely limited. Werepeople get information on blood and different races while witches can focus on one element and making potions via plants. Some witches make contracts with spirits to use other elements or boost the strength of their own, but a witch that can use more than one element is incredibly rare. It would be like a wereperson being able to use more than one type of blood.”

“Huh. You said the closest trial area is only a day by horse from here. Which direction is that in?”

“Northeast. The closest city, Neilspeth, is directly east so it serves as a good landmark since it’s on the same latitude line as the cave; just line yourself up with it and head north.”

“Great. I’ll be back after checking the cave out and maybe doing a trial or two.”

I floated off the counter and made my way to the nearest wall before stopping and turning around.

“Oh and if anyone asks; I’m still asleep inside Ormonde. See ya.”

With my final word I moved through the wall and started towards the nearest catacomb entrance.

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AN: Hello readers! I would have had this chapter to you three days ago but a rewrite, computer crash, and seven hour airplane ride from turbulent hell made that difficult. Hope you enjoy regardless and for now I'll bid you adieu.

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