Chapter 17 part A: Spirit Elitism and Speech issues

Gander was not at all a trusting type, he would hardly take chances with what even should just be a weak shadow spirit. Not even setting Olice down, he stopped and called out to the red shadower.

“Hold a moment, Why were you ssssso nearby, child?” Gander asked.

-Do you really need to be so worried about a spirit as weak as that?- Susasov thought to Gander.

-Plotsss devour the ssstrong- Gander rebuked, he felt Susasov should have known better.

The red shadower radiated annoyance, the edges of its cloak-like form briefly going a bit more jagged.

“…Ka…” Its voice was a faint whisper, almost something that couldn’t be heard, though the spirit was floating quite far away from Gander.

Gander stared at the shadower uncomprehending.

-I’m afraid I have no idea what it is saying either- Susasov said.

“…Name…” Ka explained.

Gander bristled and let loose the weight of his power on Ka.

“Know your place!” he hissed “Lessssser sssspirit, answer me! Did I asssk for your name?”

Susasov felt a bit of sympathy in his heart for Ka.

“…followed…” Ka whispered sullenly.

Gander grimaced, as a sort of shadesnake spirit, he was afflicted with an unfortunate speech problem, it was quite common for spirits to have their words be afflicted with this or that quirk due to their natures. Ka had one that Gander found truly tiresome, he was only glad that vestiges of the wordspell seemed to reach even into the Red Crystal Realm. That combined with him being a spirit of a shared concept allowed Gander to understand the word deprived shadower.

Still, he was almost impressed by the weak Ka managing to follow them even through that flight from the Kitir. Gander assumed that it was due to Ka being a variant spirit, shadowers weren’t usually red after all. Connecting this, Gander knew what he wanted to know next.

“Ssspeak child and sssspeak truly, why did you follow my Missstressss?”

-I can think of a number of unpleasant possibilities- Susasov mused.

“…”

Ka made an annoying absence of speech, a horrid contradiction, a audible silence.

“…repayment…” Ka whispered.

Gander felt this was true, Ka did indeed seem genuinely grateful for the meal it had been allowed to partake in at Poarge’s shack. He was sure there was more to it though, but he relaxed a bit. Ka’s intentions didn’t seem malignant, also what convinced Gander more was that Ka didn’t seem terribly cunning.

“What do you want?” Gander asked straight out.

Ka jerked back, a bit shocked to have been seen through.

“…Not servant…”

Gander was truly incensed by what he considered to be the nerve of this spirit, to want to address Olice directly, especially if the matter was what Gander was beginning to suspect it was. Before Gander could follow through on his anger, Olice awoke.

[Due to flesh world issues, this update is shorter than I would have liked, to make up for that, tomorrow will have an extra update, to complete what the chapter should have been. I am very sorry for this occurrence.]