41 Suns: Wind, Spirits, and Monsters

--- Jon ---

Cracking open The Layman’s Shaman, the first thing he found was a disclaimer of sorts.

(This book is about Arcane Shamanism, and while inspired by the more traditional shamanism practiced by some cultures, is not actively connected to these religious forms of shamanism, and as such should not be used as a guide, study, or commentary on those religion’s beliefs or principals.)

He considered that for a moment, before nodding at the idea that (Arcane Shamanism is not religious Shamanism) and flipping to the next page as he began to dive into the subject.

The primary principal of Arcane Shamanism was a concept that he was at least passingly familiar with based on his studies of the Occult. That being that the more an object is infused with Anima the more likely it is to take on a life of its own thus forming a Spirit. And while these Spirits aren’t necessarily sapient in their behaviors, they were reactive to whatever beliefs had been instilled into them over time.

Meaning if people believed something would protect them in some way, should the thing gather enough Anima to form a Spirit than that Spirit will take on protective tendencies, even if it was still incapable of actually considering whether or not to protect someone unless that too had been carried into the Anima’s beliefs.

(Actually, this whole belief thing kind of reminds me of Madness, and how it’s generated by thought and emotion.) He realized after a couple of chapters, which led to him considering the whole thing from another angle. (I know this is Anima, I mean if it’s considered an actual Arcane Art then there’s been enough study to know whether or not Madness is involved. But at the same time I wonder if there’s a connection here, maybe in the way Madness and Anima interact? I think that was something DeSade was researching back in Blackwell, but… I’d have to go through his books to find out more.)

Deciding that that was something he could deal with later, he made sure to write down the handful of Anima tricks the book had for those who wanted to try and communicate with these ‘Nature Spirits’.

(Alright, I think I’ve got enough to at least give this a try.)

Scene Consequences

-New Skill: Arcane Shamanism Unlocked

--Thanks to overlap of Occult gained 7XP

--*Skill Level Up*: Arcane Shamanism Lv. 2 (3/6)

-For learning a new Magical Art gained 1XP to Occult

--Currently: Lv. 7 (8/16)

---

Figuring that if he wanted to make contact with Nature Spirits he should go somewhere with a fair amount of nature, he found himself making his way through the city towards its larger park, only to come to a stop in front of an old alleyway.

(You know, I really wish I didn’t keep running into this kind of thing. It says something really sad about the world we live in…)

He sighed to himself, before walking down the alley and making his way to the nearest of the men inside the alley, at which point he proceeded to punch the man in his kidney -getting a shout of pain that distracted his two compatriots- grabbing the man by his neck, and dragging him towards the brick wall where a quick maneuver knocked the man out.

Another man rushed him, and he easily sidestepped before hooking his foot around the man’s knee, repositioning it just right to let him stomp the man’s leg and send him to the ground with an over exaggerated scream of pain. Something that had him rolling his eyes -(I’ve been hurt twice as bad as this and still kept quiet.)- as he knocked the man out with a quick blow to the temple.

He tilted his head at a faint scuffing of the ground, and turned to the last of the three as he made his way forward, using his thumb to crack his fingers one by one. “You know normally I’d give you the chance to run, but… I’m honestly not feeling it today.”

The last man reached for the gun at his side.

He shifted his footing on the ground.

The man aimed the gun at him.

He kicked off the ground rushing forward.

The man tried to aim for his moving target, but Jon stopped him by grabbing the man’s wrist and pressing a pressure point to make the man’s hand loosen just enough for him to take the gun. At which point he flipped it around in his hand and slammed the grip into the man’s temple, aiming for a quick knockout, but needing to repeat the action when the man became staggered but remained conscious.

Dropping both the man and the gun he rolled his shoulders and his neck, hoping to work out the tension of rushing into this little mess, before pausing as he felt a tinge of Madness in the air. Leaning back a bit to where the beast in his head was looking he found a really pale teen with inky black hair watching him from the rooftop.

The teen made an odd sort of eep-ing sound before disappearing over the edge and likely fleeing.

Figuring that the teen likely had very little to do with this, he pulled his phone out and made his way towards the van those three had been loading.

“What’s up kiddo?” His Ma answered after the second ring.

“Hey, uh, Ma I kind of, may’ve interrupted an attempted kidnapping.” He told her taking a quick look to make sure the kid in the van was okay. “You think you can call EMS for the kid?”

---

Unwilling to take a look at his more serious reading material just yet, he decided to instead keep chipping away at learning the basics of all the general affinities of the Arcane Association. And given how he already knew [Ice] and [Shadows] he figured [Wind] was a good concept to move onto next, given how it was an affinity Wolf made frequent use of.

Which is why he already had a fairly solid idea of how the affinity could be used based on the various tricks he’d seen her use it for, from creating gusts of wing to push people away to thinning the winds out in dense slashes to give her cuts range or even wrapping the winds around her to accelerate her movements.

Because of this, he felt fairly comfortable moving on to simply learning the various symbology that went into adding [Wind] to his various enchantments and Script Craft. A feat that came down more to his ability to memorize visual patterns than any mystical knowledge or philosophy. Which was a talent he’d grown fairly good at after so many months working on drawing his spell circuits and learning Script Craft.

Though none of that kept him from remembering a note in the book about how the concept of wind had a more powerful version in Air, which supposedly required a higher level of control and magical understanding than the more simple [Wind].

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to having a Contract with a creature already possessing this affinity, Jon has made additional progress towards learning it.

--Jon has learned [Wind] as a general affinity.

-For learning a new concept gained 1XP to Occult

--Currently: Lv. 7 (9/16)

---

Knowing that he shouldn’t keep procrastinating, he forced himself to sit down and pulled out the Sanctuary Dossier he’d acquired from the meeting to try and learn more about the Creeps and Demon that this ‘Halloween Haunt’ thing were all about.

Shifting through the file he found a history report, covering most of what the representative had told everyone about the seal being placed in three cities and the hows and whys of why that happened. Though notably most of the information on the seal itself was deemed classified in case the dossiers got out to someone looking to cause damage to the city.

Beneath this largely redacted file were a trio of files on the actual Creeps commonly seen over the course of this event, the first of which looked like a bloated van sized cross between a praying mantis, a beetle, and a lizard with human hands.

(Claws can cut through concrete. Capable of short distance flight or long distance leaps due to wings under shell. Saliva is acidic and vision is heat based. Back and torso are also plated in a scaled carapace, but there are soft spots where the front of the waist connects with the abdomen as well as under the shell where the wings hide.) He highlighted as he read over the Creep’s profile. (Likely a frontline fighter, probably going to be the most numerous out of whatever Creeps are in this file.)

Moving on to the second file he found several pictures of what at first glance was an emacisticated werewolf with a serpent’s tail, a goat’s hind legs, and a ram’s horns.

(Ambush predators, with venomous bites. Has both heightened hearing and sense of smell. Highly mobile. Mildly flammable fur due to a natural oil that bends light on the dimmer end of the spectrum. Most likely combat method is to lie in weight then ram a target to stun them, before using that time to deliver a preferably fatal bite that will weaken the prey should they manage to survive this one-two combo. Tail doesn’t look like it’s built for balance… a tertiary weapon maybe?) That wasn’t something he could confirm until he saw them in action.

The final file held an almost humanoid bird that based on the pictures seemed to move on all fours when it wasn’t flying. (Scouting units maybe? Or hit and run support? Not particularly stealthy, but smarter than what the other two have demonstrated. Primary offense is… breathing fire.) (Lovely…) (Is known to unleash a high pitched cry that attracts any nearby Creeps to help it. So another point in favor of being the forward scout of the group.)

He ran his hands down his face as he leaned back in his chair, his mind comparing these creatures to the Corrupted he was more familiar with. (Based on these reports they’re probably stronger than the Corrupted one on one, but they lack a lot of their more esoteric abilities and are nowhere near as numerous or relentless.) (Meaning they’re a threat, but nothing we can’t handle.)

He didn’t want to get involved with this mess, but if he had to be he'd be ready to (hunt them down one by one.)