The Shadow Sorcerer

Barry slowly made his way back towards the inn. He practiced his new magicks whenever he could to better integrate them.

The mage opened his mind to the aetherfire burning within all. He flared the living flame that dwelled inside him, causing ripples upon the Weave. These ripples bounced off solid agglomerations in the flow of the Ethereal, causing waves to bounce back towards him. These “obstructions” in the flow were living beings, mostly animals like hares and birds. With this new aura sense, he could feel life and the living and perceive any that had aether within them.

What most surprised him was that aether truly held no color. His own viridian flame manifestation was unique to him. Others that unlock the ability to tap into their own vital adra seem to manifest it differently. His primal life-force was “awakened” similar to his soul, forming its own representation of what he interpreted as life.

Fire. A wisp of something that burns to keep itself afloat.

Aether and void mana were but two sides of the blade. They only differed in polarity, causing each other to self-annihilate when close together. As such, they existed in different layers of the Weave that bound all. There was no positive and negative, only what a being perceived it to be. The classifications were their name sakes: arbitrary definitions made for communication. And since both mana polarities were anathema to each other, man saw it as a vile poison.

But then again, Barry heard whispers about the Void. The endless black in which floated the Inverted Spear of the Heavens. Calenthesus. A spear wielded by Oriath himself to bind the Red Dragon to the abyss between the light. The weapon pierced its heart, and from Her blood came devils. The Darkness Ch'thon corrupted the Dragon, once a loyal beast to the Divine. And now, She laid with the Darkness, forever bound to it by the heart. Her spawn made its way through the spear, like termites upon wood.

Nine layers were formed through their clawing and so the Nine Abyssal Hells were born.

The Dragon and Ct'thon became but one. Barry reckoned that was why the pronouns for the Adversary changed so much depending on the region. To the South, it was the Lady of Deceit. And to the North it was Ch'thon Lord of the Black. Certain towns each had their own ways of seeing the conjoined entity. He'd even seen a small village that called the deity, the Serpent Sithis or Ch’thos. A genderless version of the Trickster and the Tricked.

Perhaps there was some truth to the myths. Magic constantly blurred the line between possible and impossible.

Barry had yet to find either Charles or the Beast inside his soulspace. But, perhaps they simply could not manifest as it was a place made only for him. They were always at the back of his mind when in the prime-material. Errant thoughts too different from his own. At times, from the depths of his psyche came mental screams of excitement when he saw a squirrel or hare. Other times, he felt feelings with no apparent rhyme or reason. Longing and nostalgia. Rage and hunger.

But, inside his sorcerous realm? He was alone. No beast nor holy man. Blessedly silent and empty was his mind. It made some sense as the eternal soul was impossible to harm or be corrupted. One could not harm it, for it was volatile incarnate. Though, he did feel his sorcerous wellspring merge with Charles'.

Another strand of the web to follow another day, he had other things on his mind.

His arcanums hadn’t changed much, especially the information pertaining to The Bones of the Master and The Flesh of the Servant. He supposed he would need to further test and experiment to unearth knowledge of those two particular abilities.

What he did find that had changed was his understanding of his blood sorceries. The battle with the bloodborne inquisitor had been enlightening. The sheer amount of foreign arcana he was exposed to was enough to help Barry realize the sproutling inside his soul—a bud of the arcane collected from his times as a sellsword and in his most recent battles.

The arcana was something he could barely grasp while awake in the prime-material. But, like a faint memory, trying to conjure it was like holding water in cupped hands. The liquid would inexorably slip through the cracks. And so he delved into his soul palace.

The space itself was only physical to the senses, being instead a more conceptual and mental plane at its base. As such, certain things cowled from the waking mind were also tucked away in the soul. The Sorcerer thought of it as a plane of convergence, a meeting place for the physical and mental. The blood arcana itself was hidden in the mists at the edges of his sorcerous realm, masquerading as a fleeting figure of red.

Barry bent the essence of blood, practicing his control over it, alternating between that and meditation. He conjured Moonsblood in the form of the Ritualist’s blade, cutting ribbons upon his flesh. The bloodletting was a means to gather his needed clay. Streams of red flowed out from his wounds into the air, being bent by mind and spirit alone. He could have used bodily movements to ease the manipulation, but he had long since found that such a thing was a crutch. Opponents could guess his next move if he relied too much on somatic components for casting. Since the spirit tethered to the body, certain poses or movements could be used to enhance any type of spiritual bending, lessening the cost. Yet, they increased the ease at which foes could read him.

The streams converged into malformed circles and then changed into different shapes. The mental and spiritual exertion was costly, causing the blood essence to quiver as the Sorcerer's concentration wavered.

After he became too mentally drained to continue, Barry stopped, pulling the essence back into his body. Serpents of blood were sucked into his Center in a single gulp of the ethereal body. He then alternated to meditating. He started by feeling the flow of his spirit and how blood mana interacted with it. Then, he changed to simply focusing on his breath and letting thoughts come and go.

Stillwater Mind. He lumened the mental technique himself, having found it useful for resting between long sessions of practice. As an errant thought came, he only observed, letting it drift away into the black. The meditative technique was no too dissimilar to the Heart of Stone. Though they did differ a bit in practice and in mechanics. The Stillwater Mind was natural, relying on no spirit art or sorcery. In contrast, the Heart of Stone was artificial, requiring a magical medium to forcefully still mental animus. Be it a linked spirit, awakened mind, or eternal soul, some control over mana was needed.

Since the space around him was borne too from his mind, clearing the murky waters of the psyche had a transitive effect on his surroundings. Though, he could have done the opposite and still achieved a similar outcome. As one throws a stone upon a pond, dust from the dark is dislodged and taken up to the surface. All would become murkier, but any hidden life would be unearthed. Brute force had its appeal, but so too did it have its weaknesses, blinding the honed edge of the mind.

The heavy fog dispersed as Barry finished his tenth rotation of blood manipulation and meditation. A light mist was still present at the edges leading into nothingness, but the hidden figure was no longer hidden. A blood-echo. A humanoid manifestation wrought from the stolen life-force of another. Barry had used such things before to track others. Fitting for it to lead him to the equivalent of sorcerous treasure.

Most of the arcane manifestation’s body was made of bloody mist. At the heart of the blood-echo was a solid core, veins of vibrant red pulsating to and from it in tendrils of lightning.

As Barry approached the arcana made manifest, its features solidified, turning into a reflection of himself. Only this one had skin the color of freshly spilled blood.

The Sorcerer reached forth with a hand of shadow and starlight, questing towards the arcane core. It was such a tantalizing prize that he could not stop himself from doing so. Like a plump and juicy apple, he had to taste it. Possess it.

The manifestation gave him an eerie smile before melting into a mist cloud bound with arcs of lightning. The cloud raced across the landscape until it landed upon the center of the standing stones.

The cloud solidified into a vibrant red rose atop the pedestal at the middle of the sorcerous standing stones. It pulsed with the breath of life, tendrils of carnelian and scarlet spreading from all around it. The arcane construct was waiting for a middling impulse, a slight push to get it flourishing. Barry felt the call from inside his soul, an offer to root the rose to the firmament of his eternity.

Simply thinking of being near it, willed him in front of the sproutling. Its colors of shifting reds were so vibrant he could taste it with his eyes, the sight enchanting him into a stupor.

His promise had long since been broken. Warlock. The word stung bitter in his mouth, breaking him out from the arcane influence. A breaker of oaths he had become, no more could he go back. He had yet to see the vileness in hemomancy, though he could guess the dark paths one could take upon the road to its mastery.

Blood had to be taken from the living, and those that cared about efficiency would do so without regard to how much pain such a process would inflict. And of the innocents they feasted upon. But, Barry did not plan on going around and bleeding people dry, so he saw nothing wrong in his ways.

That was what was most important—what he thought of himself. Though, he could not deny feeling a bit… ashamed. Emi had guided him at the start of his journey on the Path of the Sorcerer. It felt like betrayal. It was betrayal.

Nevertheless, Barry took upon the rose, letting the carnelian arcana take root. Tendrils branched from below it, digging deep into the grey earth of his sorcerous realm. The beating of red was still visible to his sight, even under the depths of the ground below his feet.

A trinity of runes appeared atop the sorcerous construct, an upside-down triangle with the alchemical symbol for salt holding the firmament for the arcane script. A circle with a horizontal line bisecting it, its meaning linked to that of the body, the vessel for spirit and soul.

Then came two other symbols. Mercury—the shifting spirit—a circle with a semicircle atop it and a cross below. And lastly, there was sulfur—the eternal mind—a triangle with a cross beneath its horizontal base.

Two paths opened up to his mind: spirit or soul. Imprint the arcane onto his spirit or coalesce it into an arcanum. Barry felt he needed no more augments for his spirit. The thing had already changed too much, he reckoned. And yet, he did not just want another arcanum.

Why not both?

Barry touched both symbols, accepting them in twain.

Blinding red and fading consciousness was the soul’s response.

Barry awoke some unknown time later, still in his soulceric domain. He felt the tendrils of the arcane take root upon his psyche like a leech cramped inside his skull. A pulse of power beckoned to be brought forth from the back of his head.

Barry followed the intuition of the soul, letting it guide him as it had always done.

With a breath, he evoked the arcana into his palm. Scarlet lightning coursed through his veins, be they the stuff of spirit or corporeality. Misty, blood-red fog coalesced atop his outstretched hand, a rose condensing from the amorphous mass in turn. From the rose blossomed a thousand-thousand petals, seemingly blooming into eternity. It had no end, only a never-ending and unquantifiable core from which came the unfurling of layers upon layers.

Time passed, both slow and fast, until, from the madness of eternal red, came twin runes. Sulfur—a triangle with a cross below—and mercury—a circle with a cross below and a semicircle above.

No longer entranced by the communion, Barry willed stone to come to be. Another standing rock ripped through the grey earth of his soul palace, its surface bereft of markings. Where before a rumble came from deep below, now came only the shifting and uneasy balance, the sound not appearing this time around.

After the repeated exposure to magic since his Awakening, the practice had become routine and almost mundane. It seemed his soul reflected the same, the god-like manipulation of the geography no longer needing sound to herald its grandiosity. For it had none.

The Sorcerer made his way to the standing stone. The sulfur rune shone bright like a star as the mercury sigil dimmed into the background mist. He touched his palm with the arcanum upon the stone, letting it imprint upon the construct. Sizzling tendrils of pulsating ruby blossomed from beneath his fingers, lightning dancing upon the surface of the roots. Wherever the branches made contact, they corroded and ripped apart the stone in an orderly fashion. The end result produced a constellation of a rose balanced upon a stem. The stem itself had but a single leaf and three thorns.

The sulfur rune disappeared from the arcane construct atop his hand, appearing instead in the core of the engraved rose. Only the symbol for mercury was left. And for him to imprint it upon his spirit.

Barry had no directions on how he was to complete the next step. Maybe it’s like how I imbue an arcanum onto a standing stone. I etch it onto the surface. Alas, the problem was that the spirit was ever-shifting and in constant flux. Its symbol was an apt description.

Quicksilver.

And so too was the alchemic rune for the soul: sulfur. A caustic and foul-smelling rock. It held great explosive power and yet was as much a danger to the wielder as it was to the foe.

Not having many other alternatives, Barry sat cross-legged and entered the trance of the Heart of Stone. He knew he would have to still his spirit, as one could not write upon water but could do so upon sand.

The Sorcerer controlled the ebb and flow of his ethereal body, starting from the most physical bindings and ending in the adra of the deep ethereal. The anchors of mana, tendons that served to bind the spirit, were eased into a calm. Starting from those synaptic tendrils, he then stilled his middle-spirit, stopping the flow of his Center, Heart, and Eye. The three basins became etheric ice, their movement coming to a stop at his whim.

It felt as though Mortus had come upon him, his body frozen as no motion was present in his low and middle-spirit. To be alive was to move, and thus, the status he had impressed upon his spirit was anathema to himself. His consciousness started to fade, yet he held on before the impending friendly dark. Ice began to form upon his skin made of stars, freezing him from the inside out. The stars of his skin burned blue, the color of the eternal corpses that littered the vast emptiness of the firmament. Forever dying yet not dead. The sorcerous realm reflected his plight, his surroundings turning into a snowstorm, gale winds howling over him.

The Sorcerer moved onto constricting his mortal soul, the animus of the body. It was different from the eternal soul that provided him with his sorceries. It was more primitive and innate, providing instead spiritual prowess and basal will. If the eternal psyche reverberated one’s will, the mortal animus birthed it. The aether came to an ebb, his whole spirit as still as sand at the bottom of an hourglass and rigid as stone. If not for him still having some semblance of consciousness, Barry would have thought he had died.

Slowly, with hoarfrost coating his limbs, he brought up the rose to his chest.

Barry plunged the scarlet rose upon his heart, letting it pierce both body and spirit. The rose bore roots, entrenching itself into all of his mortal being. The Sorcerer felt his middle and low-spirit being remade, reforged in the aspect of blood. His etheric veins grew more extensive and more robust, as did his capacity to hold aether. A lowly vessel could only contain so much adraic water, and so with his new blood-forged body, he could possess more.

The process was distinctly violating. The tendrils bore through everything with no care for pain. Slick roots wriggling in one’s abdominal cavity was nowhere near pleasant. And yet, there was a reason for such madness. To soar higher. To become stronger.

Barry had monsters to slay and bandits to cull, and until he could do so with cold efficiency, he would not rest. He had already been too powerless before, his second family being taken from his clutches. The Sorcerer would not let the same happen for his third. With the brigand-ridden south and Inquisition on the horizons of tomorrow, he would need all the strength he could attain.

With the revelation of his own motivations, he opened his eyes. His pupils shone vibrant red, constricting into slits as his iris shimmered viridian green, the color of emerald fire.

Starting from his Heart of the Bodies, aetheric flames burst forth, dispelling the cold as his spirit returned to motion in a single bound. The blaze morphed bifrostian in nature. Waves of rainbow fire and coils of lightning ate away at the icy veil spread over his inner domain. The fay-fire devoured the illusionary reflection like locusts upon crop, returning the plane to its rightful state.

Barry stood up, walking towards the new standing stone.

The Sanguine Arcanum: The arcana of blood and war.

Mana Amalgam: Blood mana.

Major Arcana: Blood, hunger.

Minor Arcana: Life, dark, chaos, heat, combustion, ethereal.

Description: The Sanguine Arcanum is the arcanum of will-bound animus. It is an arcanum stolen from the blood of thine felled foes and forged from all thine bloody struggles upon the mortal coil. Unlike other arcanums, this one does not produce a primary amalgam but instead serves to transmute mana into blood-aspected permutations.

Transmutation and conjuration are the primary functions of the Sanguine Arcanum.

For each harvest, thine mastery ascends to greater heights. As the rose blossoms, so too comes the thorn. Beware of the double-edged blade.

Take the vibrant red that dwells in the flesh. And shadow shall come.

Techniques, Spells & Abilities:

Blood of the All-Father - Heavenly Conjuration - Imbuement - Artifact (Holy - Blood): Conjures a drop of the All-Father’s celestial ichor. Only one Dominus Ichor may be summoned at a time. The Dominus Ichor may be shaped into an artifact construct or imbued into a sorcery. For the conjuring of such an entity, one needs to sacrifice theirs or another’s blood. For each instance of conjuration, the required sacrifice grows. The Lord takes only those with an unending thirst for more.

The artifact configuration of the Dominus Ichor comes in two forms. The forms may be changed, incurring fuel in the form of sanguine essence.

Form I creates a sword of congealed blood. It cuts through inert matter like a mundane blade yet shears through flesh easily. Cuts and wounds inflicted by the Edge of Judgement take longer to heal and inflict (Judgement). (Judgement) causes the foe to deal significantly less damage to the caster. Steel misses its mark, and the aim of the bow falters. The spirit trembles whenever near the caster, opening its Eye to the Arbiter of Oriath. (Judgement) is a mental geas and may be dispelled by those with enough will depending on how many instances the victim possesses.

For every ten instances of (Judgement), one instance of (Mental Possession) is transmuted, dispelling the previous instances of (Judgement). Once enough instances of (Mental Possession) are inflicted, the caster gains dominion over another’s waking mind. (Mental Possession) ails a foe with the same geas as two instances of (Judgement).

Form II creates a set of armor made of congealed blood. It shifts to protect the bearer and may be condensed into a shield to ward off especially potent attacks. Aegis of Retribution condenses spikes to ward off attackers. In doing so, it loses some of its protective abilities as its corporeal mass is compressed and repurposed. Whenever the artifact’s thorns prick a foe, it inflicts them with (Retribution). (Retribution) increases the damage of blood sorceries for each instance until five.

At instance five, all afflictions of (Retribution) are converted into a single instance of (Corporeal Possession). Once enough instances of (Corporeal Possession) are inflicted, the caster gains dominion over another’s vitality. (Corporeal Possession) ails a foe with the same affliction as one instance of (Retribution).

The Dominus Ichor may be imbued into another sorcery or spirit art. In doing so, it receives the blessing of the Calenthesus Spear. The veils of reality become nothing but their namesake: weak and fragile veils no stronger than cotton fabric. Thine magic shall penetrate through the membranes of existence as steel pierces through cloth and skin.

The Lord of Domination beckons thy to don His ichor. Bleed thine foes dry of their precious vitality.

Spell Chant - Conjuration (Holy - Blood): “From the Heavenly Throne, the Lord giveth His avatar a drop of His holy blood. Heed the call of battle and dominion, and cometh o’ Harbinger of War. Sanguinem Oriatti.”

Spell Chant - Artifact I (Holy - Blood): “Mine is the Lord’s Felling Blade. Edge of Judgement.”

Spell Chant - Artifact II (Holy - Blood): “Mine is the Lord’s Heavenly Bulwark. Aegis of Retribution.”

Spell Chant - Imbuement (Holy - Blood): “Spill blood in the name of War. Calenthesus Spear.”

Astral Ichor - Sanguine Transmutation - Celestial Evocation (Light - Blood): tinges astral flame with vitality, causing it to burn through flesh with renewed vigor. Uses aether to transmute the celestial evocation and blood mana to transform it further.

Flesh-blight Pox - Chthonic Transmutation - Celestial Evocation (Dark - Unholy): the introduction of the caster’s blood enhances the will of the void-flame, increasing its ability to melt flesh. The composition of void-flame turns from that of the darkness of the firmament to the unholiness of the very bones of reality. This particular amalgam is more faithful to its name of “void-flame,” bearing aspects truly belonging to the Void. Blood-tinged void-flame cannot be extinguished with mundane means, possessing the same property as its primary permutation. From thine blood and darkness, there is no escape.

Spell chant - Chthonic Transmutation (Dark - Unholy): "From blood and darkness, there is no escape. Flesh-blight Pox."

Scarlet Double & Shade-Step - Blood-Bound Etheric Forging - Celestial Conjuration (Blood - Dark): creates a double of blood and shadow, transporting one's awareness into it. Their sight and feeling are confined to the double. The double is connected to the caster by a tendril of shadow essence through the navel. If the tendril is broken, the magic is dispelled.

The double may be used as an anchor point to transpose through the veil or as a focus to channel other magicks. The transposition of Shade-Step is a clean, piercing action compared to the brutal ripping of Starlight Transposition.

Spell Chant 1 - Blood-bound Etheric Forging (Blood): “Take upon the vibrant red that dwells in the flesh. Scarlet Double.”

Spell Chant 2 - Celestial Conjuration (Dark): “And shadows shall come. Shade-Step.

Hound of Ill Omen - Chthonic Transmutation - Curse (Dark - Blood - Spirit): blood is introduced into the Shadow Lacquer spell, causing it to bind corporeally into the target. In such a case, it becomes a curse that has to be specially exorcised. Light magicks weaken the hound but do not remove its corporeal tether to the flesh.

The entity becomes a being with a will of its own, carrying out the caster’s commands in its own interpretation. The conjured entity needs a target for it to viciously chase, as hounds must have their quarry. Without prey, the entity will consume itself into oblivion.

Once inside its prey, the hound of ill omen will lay dormant until it is called upon. After enough time has passed, the flesh and low-spirit of the marked one are under the control of the caster. The cursed one’s high-spirit may resist and purge the invader. These scenarios are rare, as the spirit knows the purging of a flesh-bound curse will kill the corporeal body.

Death may be preferred to eternal servitude.

Spell Chant - Chthonic Transmutation - Curse (Dark - Blood - Spirit): “Take upon another’s flesh in the dead of night, marking them with the blood of thy veins. Hound of Ill Omen.”

Along with the new arcanum came changes to the pre-existing Shade-spirit Arcanum.

Blood of the Retainer - Vessel of Dissipus - Aura - (Dark - Blood - Ether): Thine blood has been reborn, solidifying its connection to the ether of the Tide. Unravel the mysteries that flow through thine veins.

The bearer’s aether capacity has increased drastically and is dependent upon how much blood present in their veins.

The essence of tithe and take is imbued into the bearer’s body and spirit, increasing resistance to blunt-force trauma and internal trauma. Internal hemorrhaging is drastically mitigated, and external bleeding is quickly clotted unless willed to not do so for a blood sorcery or spirit art.

The bearer’s aura has been reborn as well. Where before it could only cling onto the Ether, it can now manifest physically as a protective barrier. The auric shroud is resistant to blunt-force but weak against cuts and piercing attacks. When the shroud is manifested, the caster cannot produce darken mist unless Shadow’s Embrace is cast in conjunction.

For every sorcery cast in conjunction, the mana cost is exponentially increased. The spirit, mind, and soul have only so much mental fuel to keep a mana construct stable.

Heavenly Nimbus - Vessel of Caestus - Aura (Light - Holy - Ether): infuses an auric shroud with divine energy, aspecting it with the light of the Heavenly Bridge. Transcendent mana is similar to astral energy in that it is highly volatile to the mundane. However, it differs in that it attacks the spirit directly. Where astral mana would burn away the tethers of one’s spirit, thus damaging it in turn, transcendent energy burns through all layers of the ethereal and material. As such, it slowly eats away at any and all, eradicating matter and mana from existence in equal measure.

Transcendent energy is attracted to its opposite: stasis energy. Therefore, any and all mana that possesses some aspect of stasis will draw thy heavenly wrath like a lodestone.

The Heavenly Nimbus is the power of light ascended to its apex. Wield the Spear of Eradication, and thy foes shall perish into nothingness.

In the beginning, the Blood of the Retainer ability’s description ended in the second paragraph. After that, conscious and unconscious understanding of the power added to the text as Barry simply tested his new limits. He had long since forgone manually writing the functions for each arcanum. Instead, his soul and sleeping mind had slowly taken up the job themselves, leaving him to only add in small additions where he thought them apt.

Slowly, by simply conjuring different shades and battling them, he adapted to his new abilities. Where maces before would be fatal, now they were more akin to love-taps made by small boulders. A full-force mace swing done by an adult man did not break his bones. At least, cleanly. They did fracture, but his dark spirit quickly sealed the splinters back together, strengthening them further.

Bleeding of any kind was healed faster than mortal means, his blood quickly coagulating. Bruising took only a bit shorter to dissipate than normal, Barry reckoned. Since his body was a mesh of various different types of matter and mana not usually seen together, they interacted negatively when forced too close together. Rotting troll and human flesh spun together along with the spirit of man and beast. Turning his meat into a paste seemed the best method to do any lasting damage. The thought sent shivers down the Sorcerer’s spine.

Ever since his rebirth and undeath, he had been gaining both the mental and physical benefits of his time in the sorcerous. Since his body was practically made of mana, his soul would imprint upon it changes of his time in the soul plane. As such, his spiritualism and sorcery became but one. When his bones were broken and remade inside his inner domain, the same was done in the prime-material.

The act of manifesting an auric shroud was foreign to Barry. His own spirit was too different from others to do such an act before.

He tugged at the mist that bled from his skin, pulling it tight and not letting a single drop escape his grasp. A dark nimbus danced around him, coating him in shadow-aspected aurai. Mental, perception, life, wind, water, and finally shadow mana mixed together to form the particular essence resin.

It seemed that the spirit organ was simply not strong enough before to form such a shroud in the corporeal. Perhaps because of all the different mana types? Even mana requires something to “stick” it together, so to speak. Even though magic was supernatural and thus “above” the mundane, that did not mean it did not take after or share similar principles to other natural crafts. As the bow needs sinew, as the wood needs glue, and as the brick needs mortar, so too did divergent amalgams need a bonding agent.

Barry did remember feeling the scarlet rose webbing his spirit together like a spider wrapping its prey. Blood mana was what bound animus to the spirit and body, so perhaps that was the missing piece needed to form a cohesive amalgam of shadow aurai. Some sort of connective tissue for the spirit? As much as my magic bloodline has strengths, so too does it have weaknesses. Excessive buildup of heat from exposure to the sun, lack of auric endomembrane, and a sensitivity to blood essence.

What’s next? I can’t cross running streams of water?

Barry let out a chuckle before returning once again to the grim subject he had been avoiding.

The Blood of the All-Father.

Barry really did not like being beholden to a deity. Even after the introductory theology lectures from Emi, he had reservations about the Divine. As Barry understood, gods themselves did not exist as egos and individual beings as man perceived them to be. At least, that was not their core nor their origin. They were more akin to living thought or concepts given life. And yet, whenever these noetic beings incarnated into an avatar to propagate themselves upon the minds of others, imprints of the mortal psyche seemed to stick to them, changing the animated telos into something else. It brought them down to the failings of humanity and mortality. After all, nothing perfect could exist in the prime-material. And so, instead of believing in the concept, those of the Faith believed in the humanized personas worn by it. A bit creepy, Barry reckoned. A higher being wearing the skin of a lower form to gain clouts of belief. To spread itself no differently than a disease. To find hosts in which it could leech belief and fate.

Wolf in sheep’s clothing. Nothing good comes from it.

The strange part of the ability was that it came pretty detailed already. Barry did absorb a conjured holy artifact. How it worked was probably reversed by his soul as his Center broke it down. The judgement geas and retribution ailment were interesting, to say the least. From his fractured memories of both Charles and the Beast, he believed that the judgement geas came from another spell. But, in assimilating both the holy artifact and the inquisitor's regalia, his soul simply mixed it all together. Like adding in whatever scraps for a stew to bulk it up. Seemed that the commoner’s mentality was one inscribed onto the eternal soul itself. The thought gave Barry some bit of mirth, at least.

Then came the other new sorcery and spirit art, the Heavenly Nimbus. The new transcendent energy was, in all likeliness, not new at all. Barry had experienced it when he first used the Celestial Wellspring sorcery. The light and holy arcana mixed together in the weave of his mana, stitching together a new amalgam: transcendent mana. Mana had a gravity of its own, and thus when enough of it was in a concentrated spot, it condensed into a higher form. No different than a god reaching for its telos. But as one approaches the end, infinity beckons. None reach it, for the space that denies them their end goal is ever-expanding.

Improvement was limitless and perfection unattainable.

Even though the Heavenly Nimbus aura sorcery was divine adjacent, Barry held it no grief nor worry. There was a difference between using magic that was divine in nature and magic beholden to the divine. Where one could not take from him his power, the other could be easily revoked. He would have to work at it to find a way to conjure the artifact without the weakness of being able to lose it at a god's whim.

The Sorcerer had enough magic practice for a time. Too much focus on sorcery could quickly turn his journey back to the inn from one of turns to months.

Barry breathed out a breath before stepping out from his Palace Beneath the Waters. His body dangled upon webs made of darkness that stuck him inside a cocoon adhered to the side of a tree. Sunlight warmed his skin, yet he had no need for heat. He could continue living even when all his flesh had been torn from his bones by frostbite. His green eyes opened to the morning sun, Solaria shining bright as birds made their song. His pupils constrict into slits, the light no longer blinding him.

He willed the shadows to dissipate, tugging at the constant stream of will that held them together like strands that bound a thatch roof. The webbing came undone, unravelling into wisps of dark mist as he fell from the tree. His hands turned to claws, the black talons digging deep into the tree, slowing his fall. The vibrations shook his teeth, yet his bones stayed firm, and his tendons gave no give. They didn’t even hurt. Warming up wasn’t even a necessity as he could regulate the internal temperature of his musculature at whim. It was the same for stretching as well since his mind was not directly nor corporeally connected to his body anymore. Instead, his spirit served to bridge that connection, him no longer possessing a nervous system other than the one trapped in his skull. A line of nervous tissue did run down his spine, but that was it. That seemed to be the part that bound to the spirit and then the body. A weakness that could be exploited if one wanted to stun him for a breath. He would be able to still move, albeit in a clunky manner, as moving his body would be like manipulating a puppet.

It had been three turns time so far. Three-fourths a full turn of the Twins—almost a month. Barry had yet to find any more bandits or brigands as he avoided the major highways and the king’s road that went from south to north in the Corners. Barry thought of fighting them, but he decided not to until he warned the inn that he would be leaving for a time. Besides, in his state, it would not be a fight. It would be a slaughter. The Beast Within had been straining at its mental cage to be let out.

The Sorcerer’s mind was in flux. Chaos gripped at his psyche with claws of ice-fire. The twin, perhaps tri? Souls and personalities inside him were at odds. Twain minds of man and a single awakened animatory force in the primal form of a beast. So much had changed in barely a few cycles. A few turns. He did not feel insane, yet Barry did not feel… normal. No, he could never return to the mundane.

He was by no means “human” for that part. The only mortal part of him was his mind as he still required a whole night's sleep. But, his body had long since been reborn in vital adra, ghastly edra, and whatever else the Fates thrust upon him. Damn Fortuna and her godlings. They were a bloodthirsty bunch.

And now with the new presences inside his anima, he had another path to walk. He would have to learn to strike a balance between discipline and rage. Wherever that tenuous line may be.

Got two noisy tenants that live rent-free in my head. Perfect.