Episode 11: Disturbed Spirits

The smell of blood and ashes filled my nose as I looked down upon the massacre below me. Cheldrun soldiers were here… in the Grand Chantry… and they were killing anything that moved. There, a child is torn apart by machine gun fire, and there, a particularly spry young man is taken down by a swarm of Heishi, their blue blades flickering as they cut him down. Occasionally a deadly localized cold snap or a wave of living earth would kill a dozen or so soldiers, signaling the responses of the Guardians.

Even so, like gnats before a charging bear…

I close my eyes, shutting out the images.

This isn’t real. A tee-shee induced dream, that is all…

I open my eyes again, only to see the head of one of my former students fragment across a nearby tree in its feeble attempt at stopping a sniper’s bullet. A voice, like a whisper from just beyond my vision says, “How can you cry peace when war is all-pervasive?”

Enough. I cannot stop this slaughter, but I can save some of its would-be victims.

I turn and stride into the Chantry, searching for other Prill, cowering in their homes. I tell them to follow me, that we will have to escape. A door below bursts open, and the Heishi begin spilling in. One of them levels his weapon at me…

Draw their attention, save the others.

“Kill me if you must, but let the innocent live.” The song of Wind brings forth the maelstrom to protect me, but nothing I could have done would have stopped the onslaught. Bullets riddle my body, and my vision goes black.

I wake up back in the cave. A woman… a beautiful woman is lying on the floor near me. Her eyes glow white with energy… not unlike the mask of the Tempest. She smiles at me and touches me on the nose.

Well, it’s certainly not the worst thing I could have woken up to.

Then a whirl of fire and green surrounds the room and the woman. High-Dive. “No! Wait!” I cry… the damage had been done before I had even finished speaking. The woman’s silvery purple blood was spattered everywhere, most notably all over High-Dive’s hands and forearms… and face… and clothes… and feet…

Why you little…

The tongue lashing I gave would have left most recipients in guilty tears. Unfortunately, High-Dive is… not… most recipients.

Indeed. Spastic and impossible to get through to. Even for a Zipsum.

I doubt she even thought I was scolding her.

Through further discussion with the woman, bloodied and in pain as she was, we uncover that she is another of these… mana-eaters. Considering my highly painful experience with the last one we encountered, I felt the need to apologize to High-Dive… but, alas, she was gone. No matter. I’ll tell her later.

The woman is looking at my staff… hungrily? I mention that it is a Dusk Sage artifact, and begin explaining the concept of the Dusk Sages to Kiyoshi.

“Uh, Mokuzai… behind you…”

I hate interruptions…

I turn around and see that the woman is no longer a woman, but a giant crane looking down at me with that same look of hunger in its eyes.

So… this is what frogs feel like just before the end…

It snaps down on my staff, twists it from my grasp, and disappears down the tunnel in a blur of glowing purple feathers.

Oh Sages… no... please no…

My breath feels like daggers being dragged up and down my throat after my desperate attempt at keeping up with the crane. I sink to my hands and knees, exhausted and ruined.

First your vow and now this? Track record is beginning to look a bit shaky, old man.

The River Swift tribe are chittering and squeaking to the others. I don’t have the heart to translate. My right to ever return to the Chantry just disappeared over the horizon, to hell with everything else.

Few try to comfort my loss. No matter, I’m too drained and filled with self-loathing to care. Una tells me she saw where the crane flew and my heart literally jumps.

I’d scold her for straining my old heart if I didn’t want to embrace her for giving me hope.

“I’m sorry you lost something so important to you.”

She has a mother’s heart.

“It wasn’t just important to me, Una. It was important to all Prill. It is a Dusk Sage artifact gifted to me by the Elder Council. I cannot return until I get it back. Do you understand?”

Her eyes go wide and she offers me a drink.

Yeah. She understands.

I down the beverage in one draught…

Oh no… Liquor…

The next morning my head is pounding and I remember nothing, save for the taste of the liquor.

I hope I didn’t say anything terrible…

We make preparations and set out. Rei is looking at me askance.

Oh Sages, I better not have made a pass towards her.

Our trek through the jungle goes well. Una is an excellent woodsman and with my help our problems were kept to bugs and the occasional splinter. Rei is terrified of slugs and every night before bed she does what she does when she fears something. *sigh*

One night a Jevuum startled Moses. And by startled, I mean surprised benignly, as opposed to suddenly springing from the undergrowth and tearing out one of his vital organs or something. I took little notice or care when I awoke. If the Jevuum meant us harm, it would have done so before letting its presence be known. Then the rain starts.

The next day is long, cold, and wet. Very, very, very wet. I enjoy the rain for the most part. Our progress is slower, but I can’t help but feel cleaner in these conditions. Rei asks me if I can control this; if I can make the rain cease. I could, and admitted as much. Words can’t describe the look on her face when I told her the forest needed the rain more than we needed the lack thereof. I am thoroughly enjoying the delivery of this lesson.

I help Moses set up the canopy for the fire when we make camp. The others tend to their part, gathering wood and such. Kiyoshi tells us Rei is gone.

I would have thought that girl had learned her lesson the first time.

I catch her smell through the rain. She close. In fact, she’s…above us? Right on cue, her body thumps unceremoniously to the ground before us, a full-grown Jevuum right behind her though with far more grace than an unconscious body. Kufu was its name, and eating it seemed, was his game. After determining he was not immediately hostile to us, we exchanged names and poetry, as was customary with Jevuum.

I could never get the hang of poetry. A Song in its own right, I’m sure, though one I’ve never been able to hear the notes of.

“I wish to taste this Kyo tee-shee” he tells us.

Kyo tee-shee… so that’s what these things are. I suppose that would explain how the other tee-shee behaved around her…

We travel into the mountains. One day, while we are walking up a particularly narrow pass, I spot a giant, red… raccoon? In the distance. It looks right at me, interest in its eyes. Then rockslides begin roaring down the canyon walls towards us.

And everything was starting to go so well…