I learned then that the Hamok spell was one of the easiest spells to learn, and is what most Dabblers began with.

Aling Asunta, the witch, snapped her fingers, and uttered more unwriteable words. Slowly, the debris of the broken tree suddenly moving backward, and the trunk of the tree that had been crushed began reforming, as if it was being rebuilt, or its destruction being rewound.

“When can I do that?” I asked, pointing at the now rewound and repaired tree. It stood there, unmoving, like it wasn’t just blasted apart with destructive magic a few moments ago. “I wanna be able to do that.”

Asunta shrugged. “Not any time soon, and not for a long time soon after, that’s for sure.”

I cursed. “Well, fine. How do I do the destructive spell then? Is there like, any mental gymnastics I need to do?”

“Since you now bear the Profession of Dabbler, your instincts would have changed. You should have an intrinsic feel for weird, unnatural things. Now here is the basic assumption of every Lore, since it is the truth, and one that permeates the entirety of living. Every person has two souls: the Ginhawa, which is your Life Force, and which governs your Physical body—“

“I understand that all too well,” I muttered, suddenly chilled and shivering at my brief touch with death.

“—and Kalag, which is your subtle body, or in other words your Spirit Force. Other cultures might call it your Astral Body. Simply put, the Kalag determines your mental faculties, your higher thinking, and how connected you are with the rest of nature’s breathing spirit.”

She raised her hand again at the tree, but this time she simply pointed a finger. “So the principle of Hamok is using your Kalag to change reality. Your Kalag is your spiritual strength. Particularly powerful Kalag can enact more powerful changes in the world, such as changing the weather, or summoning elements from nothing. But Hamok is easier than that. Hamok is as easy as exerting a bit of your Kalag.” And then she chanted something, and her eyes flared.

And it was so. A hole erupted from the side of the tree, and the witch grinned. “That is Barang, the Black Sorcery.”

“Black Sorcery…,” I looked down at my hands, and then I looked up and found the sky. “Are there other kinds of Sorcery, other than Black?”

“Aye. Like I said there is the White Healing, there is the Green Spiritspeaking, and the Red Science. But there are more magics, probably farther away from this island, across all the islands, for there are as many magics as there are the colors of the rainbow.”

“Has the world always been this way?” I asked.

When she didn’t answer right away, I turned to look at her. She was staring wistfully at the cracked sky. “No. It has not. And it will never be the way it was ever again.”

Then she shook her head and turned to me. “But that is enough lecture, now is the time for practice.” She told me to follow and do as she had.

I raised my hand, splayed my fingers and focused at the tree, ignoring everything else. My eyes seemed to laser focus on that point where the small hole had been bored. “Kalag…” And I knew that it was the truth, I knew that the tree was connected to me. I knew this truth since the beginning of time, since the beginning of the world. I chanted: “By my will and soul, you are sundered!”

In my mind’s eye, I saw the notification pop up:

Learned Hamok!

And then an invisible hammer slammed against the side of the tree, cracking it and sending bits and pieces of bark flying in every place.

“Good job,” said Aling Asunta, and I couldn’t help but smile at her, exhilarated. “Again.”

A rush went through my body. I was going to do this. I can do this. And so I raised my hand once more and fired another Hamok spell at the poor unsuspecting tree.

We spent the rest of the day redoing Hamok, and I did it until I could do it from the back of my mind. The poor tree had to be rewound every now and again because I would hammer at it until it fell over. The chanting became a thing to hype myself up, as apparently mental stimulation and emotion fed into magic. However, after doing my fifth or sixth Hamok spell, I realized that I didn’t need to chant anymore.

At the end of it all, I fell over, breathing heavily. My vision blurred, and my head throbbed, agonizingly, as if large nails were being hammered into my skull. Asunta took one look at me, and then nodded. “Alright, that’s enough for today.”

I had been ignoring the pale white orbs that were arrayed in a circular pattern, like a mandala, that I could see somewhere in my mind’s eye. Due to my excitement and focus on learning the entire cursed spell, I hadn’t been paying attention to that track. I saw that there was 1/4 left still remaining, and it was blinking a bright red. “Why am I-“ I managed to squeeze the words out in between ragged breaths, “So tired?”

“You’ve expended most of your Kalag Orbs,” she said. “It’s the orbs that you see? Yes, those are your Kalag Orbs. They track how much Kalag you have left.”

“And I’ve used them all up? It looks like I have three!”

“Yes. Take another look at Hamok’s statistics.”

And I did, in my mind’s eye.

Hamok

Effect: Deals 1 damage against Ginhawa. This pierces worn armor.

Cost: 1/4 Kalag Orbs.

Speed: Instant

Range: 60 feet.

“Pierces worn armor?” I looked up to see her walking back to the garden. “Come, I shall prepare you some tea and we shall wind down for the day.”

“H-Hey wait—“

“Yes, girl,” said Orlok, suddenly uncoiling back to life, unfrozen from her stupor. “It pierces all Armor that comes from worn pieces. That means that while it cannot negate the reduction from Endurance, nor can it ignore natural armor, it can pierce worn armor.”

“That’s amazing. I like it.” And I rose to my feet, head still throbbing, as if someone was lancing mental spears through it, and went back into the church.

Asunta told me to lie down on the banig, or rattan mat, wherein was placed a soft comforter that looked like it had been stuffed with chicken feathers. Did she make this?

And so I did. A comfortable silk blanket was laid over me, and my throbbing head laid on a soft pillow. She had set up a makeshift bedroom in the right side of the altar. There was another bed there, which was placed upon four posts, unlike the usual banig laid on the floor of bamboo slats.

I laid there until the night, watching as Asunta put on her shirt again. My head throbbed as she went out of the hole and presumably began preparing something. I forced myself to take it easy, to close my eyes, but the hammering in my head made that close to impossible. I was stuck in that limbo of feeling sorry for myself.

I mean, really. What kind of person was I to deserve something like this? That I would wake up with no recollection of who I was, much less my name, and then thrown immediately into a “game” where I’m supposed to kill God. That makes no sense, and doesn’t help me at all! To top it all off, I didn’t understand anything. I feel like a child, having to be re-taught all these things to me, on top of being told that I’m supposed to go kill God so that he wouldn’t destroy the world.

She came in with a tray with a clay cup of glowing tea and a porcelain plate layered with rice and chicken and other meat. “Eat up,” she said. “But start with the tea. It’ll help.”

“Alright. Thanks.” And so I did. I gulped down the tea no problem. As I drank, I saw the Kalag Orbs in my mind’s eye slowly fill up again, as if it was being filled up as the tea settled in my stomach. When I finished the tea, my Orbs were all back, and my horrible lancing headache had subsided. “Oh that’s heavenly. What is it?”

“Soulbrew,” she replied, putting down a bamboo scroll. Etched upon it were the ingredients and facts of the Soulbrew which immediately translated to my mind’s eye and came up as:

Soulbrew

Uncommon Remedy

Effect: Refills 3 Kalag Orbs.

Ingredients: 5x Petals of a Gumamela, x2 Lagundi leaves, x1 stalk of a Tayabak.

And suddenly, upon receiving that recipe, I knew in the back of my mind exactly how to make it. I just needed the materials, which unfortunately did not pop up in my mind like the rest of the knowledge.

“You get that?”

I nodded. “That’s nice. I guess I have to brew it myself, then?”

“That’s right. We can do that tomorrow. For now, rest.” And with that, she went out of the hole again, presumably to go and fix up and ready for the night.

I went back down to scarfing down the rice and chicken, this time. As I did, I asked Orlok, “Where did you go? Why did you leave?”

If Orlok could shrug, I’m sure that she would’ve at that moment. “I would rather not talk about it. For now, just know that I am even more committed to helping you achieve your goal than before.”

“Whoa, where did that come from?”

“As I said, I would rather not talk about it.”

“All right then,” I said, as I began eating. The food was down to its last portions in a quick second, so I stopped for a bit and said, “But, hey, I’m glad you’re helping me. I know we haven’t gone through much yet, but I’m still thankful that you’re helping me get through this weird thing that’s happening to me.”

“You are but a babe in this world,” said Orlok. “And thus, like your surrogate mother, I must guide you. It is my responsibility.”

“Yeah. Man, losing your memory and then being asleep for 333,333 years really takes a toll on you, huh?”

I bet Orlok would’ve nodded if she could.

When I finished my food, I stood up and walked out to where Asunta was. She was indeed putting everything into the stone pot. The place that we ate in was illuminated with torches burning with a bright green witch flame. “Where do you clean your dishes?”

“I don’t,” she replied. “Go ahead, just drop the dishes into that pot. You’ll see.”

“Uh, all right.”

When I placed my dirty dishes onto the pot, I stepped back and Asunta whistled. A second passed, a beat. I thought that maybe she had gone crazy. But no, after that moment passed, the mound hidden under a veil of flowers burst open, and out leaped a small, goblin-like creature, with human-like skin, but with an extremely long chin beard, a shock of white hair, and a salakot, or a hardwood hat used usually by farmers. I gasped at first because I thought it was a Black Lamanlupa. But now looking at him and his huge, bulbous black eyes, I realized then that he didn’t have the same black skin. Rather, he had skin, not unlike the color of our own. He was also not the muscular kind of Lamanlupa. He was lanky, and his limbs were rather long, and his gut was bulbous, and sloshed about. They probably stored beer or something.

“Good evening to you, witch,” said the being. I looked at it, and it smiled at me. Well, it sounded more like a he. “Oh, and hello, new spice. How are you today.”

“Clean the dishes, Arre,” Asunta said. “And make it quick. I don’t like paying you pilos for nothing.”

“Pilos?”

Asunta produced a few gold beads out of her sleeves. They glinted in the moonlight. She plopped five of these pieces down onto the hand of the creature. “This is pilos. It's the currency of the entire archipelago. It's made from mined gold. And he," Asunta pointed at the creature. "Is a Lamanlupa and his name is Arre.”

In my mind’s eye, once again:

Arre, Lamanlupa

Ginhawa 3

Kalag 3

Gahum 1

Profession: Servant Rank 3

“Servant?”

“Aye, girlie,” said the dwarfish man. “That a problem to ‘ya?”

“N-No, sir, not at all.”

“Good. Now go, you know how I don’t like it when people watch me work.”

Asunta smiled and chuckled softly. “Be quick and be done soon. I appreciate your work, Arre.”

“And so to you as well, witch and… woman.”

“Don’t you know who I am?” I asked.

“Should I? Look, girlie, Kalangitan is a huge place, alright? I don’t got time to learn the name of every waif or whore that comes my way.”

My eyes widened. “Whore?”

Asunta snapped her fingers, and a whip of lightning flashed from one of the witch-flames upon the torches and snapped against Arre’s ass. He yelped and cursed.

I laughed, and Asunta pulled me inside. “Come on, let us sleep.”

I nodded in agreement, and we retreated to that little nook where the beds had been made. While I slept on the floor, she slept on the four-poster bed. As I laid and let my eyes and mind to rest, I realized that it had gotten pretty dark. The only light was the moongleam drifting into the church from the hole, as well as the little witchlights that now floated all about the room. Wandering fires.

“Good night, young one. Sleep early, for we must awake early tomorrow. I seek to travel to the river, and we must walk past the plains,” she said, settling into her bed and wrapping herself in that same silk blanket. “It gets terribly hot at noon, so I would like to undertake that endeavor early in the morning. Also, tomorrow, I will set about teaching you more things.”

I nodded and didn’t reply. It seemed I didn’t need to since once she was settled, she was snoring.

I snorted out a light laugh. I looked down at Orlok and said, “Goodnight, Nuno.” I waited for a response, but after a minute, I decided to give it up and go to bed. Perhaps ancestor spirits need some rest too? God knows I do.