Joseph

"You ready?" One of my jailers asks with a happy grin as he prepares to cut off the stump that is my growing left arm.

"Fuck you-" I try to say even as the blade swings up in an arch and a large chunk of my flesh flies off to land with a wet thunk somewhere behind me.

I grit my teeth and try to breathe as calmly as I can even as the gushing bleeding slows to a drizzle, a dripping and then stops altogether.

I look up again and the fucker is nodding at me as though he approves, if he knew how little I desired his fucking approval. His blade is already in its sheat as though nothing has happened, only the flesh and blood an indicator that a weapon was drawn in this room. He passes me a water skin which I glare at then I spit on the floor before taking it and drinking everything as quickly as is possible.

He walks off somewhere behind me and returns with what had grown of my arm in the few days it had been allowed to cultivate itself. Ever since I got the communication from the messenger spirit of the Circle Master I have been cultivating getting my own spirit's power to encampus more than just the arm it has always been in possession of, its a slow process but there is some progress.

I have managed to have all of my shoulder and most of my left chest and ribs infused with the spirit's power over the years of my imprisonment and I feared they may discover me at first but these Hito people don't have any sorcerers. Or at least no sorcerers came to the new settlement they built and are still building here in the mountains only a few hundred km from the cultist's monastery we attacked all that time ago.

I've been pushing myself since that messenger spirit because I know that the circle will send another spirit to kill me as soon as they feel their bindings of the oaths tied to my soul loosen.

I'm not sure if these short, strange Hito people with razor sharp swords can really unbind a soul bound oath but I would rather die in the attempt than have my freaking arm chopped off anymore. I look up as a small plate of food is placed close by. Say what you will about these people and their bloodthirsty happy smiles when they get a turn at cutting a piece of me off, but at least their blades are sharp and they feed me well. Better than I've seen useful slaves be fed at some of the manors the others have acquired or built over the years as a member of the circle. And I'm nothing but a useless prisoner who can't even answer any questions yet without dying due to convoluted oaths tied to my soul by the sorcerers of the first circle personally.

I've been here for years now but I'm not even sure how many, I think it's been two years but my connection to Gaia is cut off in this warded cell. I've known many of my jailers and they've gone and others have come to replace them. I should have been interrogated quickly and probably have my head chopped off as I've gathered these people are known to do to their 'unworthy' enemies or criminals if they don't just maime then.

But Asriel wanted me questioned and the situation the Barbarians were in with the war caused some delays. Then the building of a new Hito settlement took president, then the Soul Mages that were available were busy with more important shit apparently.

Then I guess they forgot about me some but sadly never forgot to come cut my fucking arm off before it gets dangerous. I hate myself for relying solely on the one ability, now that I think about it it's probably the most stupid thing anyone that associates with the type of people I did could do. But I was young and naive when I joined the Outer Circle.

Not having found a place I fit into in the world and looking for a cause to call my own. Half possessed by a spirit I didn't understand or know how to control or even if I could control it. Then they came along and initiated me in their ways with an oat and some tutoring. Teaching me the basics of sorcery and how to developed a symbiotic relationship with the thing inside me, every single one of them sorcerers like I learnt I was.

It wasn't long before I was disillusioned of that shit though. The things I saw, the things I did, and the whole time the reminder that if I told anyone or betray the Circle the oaths I had spoken would ensure that I end up with my body shredded by my own mana from within and my soul likely in the possession of whatever spirit the oath was made in the name of for as long as it stayed unbannished.

I've been told that tomorrow I'll finally be seen by a Soul Mage and that a representative from the Order is present to question me afterwards if the procedure is a success. I first joined the Order as a plant by the Circle but ironically it is there I found all the things I had yearned to find within the Circle.

The comradeship, the sense of belonging and the surety that I was improving myself if not the world. It is there I met a sorcerer that didn't feed me knowledge in drips and drabs for favours I did in exchange, it is there I met a mentor I respected, fell in and out of love for the first time. Then I was reminded that the Order wasn't my real life, I was Ordered to kill someone in order to create a vacancy we could exploit, and I did.

I've done many other things since then and I'm just so tired of it all now, just so so tired. And the possibility that I could be freed from this burden is more relieving than I am willing to admit. The greater possibility that they will fail and I will end up some malevolent spirits play thing is making me wet my pants though because I've seen what spirits do to their mortal playthings. They hate us, I don't know why but they hate us mortals with an unreasonable irrational hatred, especially the weaker ones that are sometimes summoned as spectres or messengers. The ghosts.

*

Asriel

I'm back on the continent more because of sentimentality than anything but it's been good being back and seeing all the progressive changes. Though the tribes may have fallen and will never be what they were they are also stronger in a lot of ways and more than what they ever could have been without The War With The South. At least the remnants that remain are more than they were.

I never knew the tribes before the fighting started but their current population is something like 120 000 tribal people in the entire Tundra when excluding the now mostly secluded Jotnar. A remnant of what they were, a remnant that can't even fill a single city to capacity.

I'm glad Zhen took the time to write the rich history of these people and that he seems to have settled down in Paradisum, even though it is with a girl he is almost a hundred times older than she seems to be good for him. It was bittersweet spending time with him without Crysta around to converse with, but she seems to have gone off on an adventure of her own Zhen knows not where.

Of course, the absence of Sachi from the city was also felt since I was looking forward to catching up with him since we parted some four years ago. But Mira's, Kuyoki's and little Saya's presence more than made up for it. I truly didn't expect to see them in the Tundra I don't know why, but their presence along with little Didi who is now four years old more than made up for Sachi's absence and let me catch up with another pair of friends that are as close to me as family now. He is lucky to have such a family, and I was glad to hear that Mira and Divina had gotten along in spite of Sach's worries.

I don't even know when I got so close to all of them and especially Sachi. But being with him and having nonsensical banter and inside jokes made me realise I have never actually had a friendship before nor had I ever felt the lack of it. But now that I have friends I also know more keenly what it is to be lonely.

"Where is your mind wandering off to this time?" Yami asks innocently in a comfortable lotus position on one of the floor pillows.

"Sorry, just thinking about the last time I was in this part of the world," I say also taking a seat and sipping at my still warm tea.

"Your head has been in the clouds a lot since we've been to that fae city several days ago, anything I should worry about?" He asks after a small sip from his own cup.

I grin at the blissful look on his face as he saviours the precious liquid.

"No, just remembering old friends. And it's actually a Barbarian city."

"Come again?" He asks with a raised eyebrow and a silly grin on his face. I sigh and I ignore his giggling.

I don't know why I get a rise every time he calls Paradisum a fae city and the stupid Monkey does it every time he figures I'm not paying attention to what I say. I relax and think about the presence of the sorcerer kid here and our last explosive meeting all those years ago in that monastery.

I've seen the kid at Tiba and I know he's an initiate of the path of the Chaste. There just aren't that many people that practice any type of sorcery there so obviously he would stand out with his unique abilities. And after the fight to find out that he has oaths tied directly to his soul that bind his mouth shut, I couldn't just kill him without knowing why they attacked the cults and who he is working with.

"Think we'll get anything out of him?" I ask Yami.

He shrugs, "If these mages you speak so highly off can get the bindings off it shouldn't be too difficult. One look at me though and he will know I'm not from the Order."

"Yeah well, I'm from both the Order and the Conclave so it's still Order business. Besides, I can't exactly come here asking questions in the name of the Conclave, no one knows who we are yet." I say and cross my arms.

I've been to the training camp for the prospective recruits. It's still growing and actually turning into a sort of elite school of combat and magic. No one is allowed to leave before achieving a certain minimum level of competence and restraint.

Every student there is sworn to secrecy but no actual binding oaths are used and word of the school is slowly making its way around Pangaea. Already some of the rich and powerful have been asking questions enquiring about sending their spoilt or useless children there for education. No one knows where the camp is though and only the invited can find the route to it. The entire 20 square km training camp is warded by a coven of powerful witches that seem to make it so no one who isn't invited or hasn't been there before can find it. But I don't even pretend to understand a witches craft, especially an Awakened witch. I really don't know where all these different types of people come from, only a few are from Tiba like I am.

"How are you liking the Hito hospitality?" I ask my training and mission partner.

"They remind me a lot of the Orientals back home, some of their manners and the physical resemblance."

"Yes, I've read some of their histories. They believe they are from a common ancestry and separated at some point but I won't reveal too much about them without their blessing. They are a very private people."

"Yes, the fact that their main village's locations are not to be known by outsiders is an indication of that, though since you know about it I wonder what constitutes an outsider."

I shrug at that, "The Wanderer vouched for me and that seems to have been enough for them."

"I've actually never met The Wanderer you know. What's he like anyway?"

I shrug again. "Just like these people here I see you underestimating."

He grins at my words and brings his majestic staff closer so he can cradle it.

"Think it's okay if I ask one of them to spar, or maybe two of them simultaneously, I wouldn't want to sour diplomatic ties by being a bully," he asks with that silly grin that Monkeys have mastered but I know the man is completely serious.

I snort and look away. Yami is good, he is really really good with that ash black staff with silver metal hoops on each end and flowing down the staff slightly like melted metal. Those weapons aren't simple and can only be acquired by achieving a certain level of skill first. The staff can extend or retract to be as short as a cudgel depending on the amount of mana fused into it.

Yami is my training partner because my zanpakutō is also a staff and no one else at the training camp is advanced enough with the staff to take lessons from the ever playful but dangerous Yami. The Monkey people are a humanoid race from the world of Terra.

They look like a combination of an indigenous monkey and a human being in appearance. Having the fur, the tails and the flexibility of our monkeys but the stature and intelligence of humans. On Gaia they live solely in the forests of the continent they claimed for themselves, the Orientals and the beasts which they named Terra after their homeworld. But since the birth of Earth some 4 years ago the portal to Terra world has been closed and every single Monkey on Gaia is now stranded on Terra the continent.

How the Conclave recruits such diverse creatures is a wonder to me but I really don't want to see Yami beating up on these nice people. And samurai's love sparing so I know they wouldn't refuse. But there is also a secret part in me excited at the prospect of watching Yami spar with one of the Watanabe. I have never seen one of them spar but I assume they are better than the Blossoms and at least on par with the soul-samurai as a minimum. Yami is a grandmaster staff wielder and an Awakened Warrior though, even as an Awakened Lord I am yet to best him without resorting to using my full power and even that doesn't always work.

A woman walks into the room and gets on her knees on the smooth wooden floor gracefully before bowing and then facing us. "The ritual is to begin in a few minutes," she says then waits to be dismissed.

"About time hey?" Yami says with a smile.

I bow respectfully and thank her for the message, asking her to lead us on.

"Think we should have brought Hara along?" Yami asks as we follow our guide through the hall and out into the garden through the stone path.

"Maybe, but she is better at Paradisum as an ambassador for the Conclave," I say as we walk to a cave and deep into the darkness.