Chapter 31: Crude Spirit Charming Breath

Olice collapsed, legs buckling beneath her. That stillness! It had been so suffocating, Olice knew that without a doubt, the oracle had been holding back her presence, otherwise Olice’s heartflame would have been snuffed out!

“I’m…” Olice took in a deep breath, “…thankful to the oracle, but couldn’t she have told us where the eye is?”

“We should move first, Mistress” Ka said urgently.

-Ka is right, who knows what the oracle might do if we linger around and chatter-

Gander wasn’t going to take any chances, he wrapped his tail around Olice and swept her off her feet, taking her back up the staircase. There he plugged up the stair with his body, forming a platform.

“Before that problem we have a more pressssssing concern, my Missstresssss, we need to deal with all thosssse soldiersssss of fortune, I did jussst tosssss their ssssovereign to the oracle” Gander said.

“Yes you did, didn’t you?” Olice said, glaring at Gander. “That problem is your fault!”

Gander looked away, seeming as innocent as it was possible for a being like him to appear.

-On that, I may have a solution, and these two problems might be joined in how solving them benefits us- Susasov offered

“Soldiers know where eye is?” Ka wondered perceptively.

-Exactly, the chances of at least one of those soldiers knowing where the eyeland are high-

“Yesss, well, we’d need to get the soldiers to tell ussss where it isss, it’d be fine if we knew which ssssoldier had that knowledge, I could jussst devour it and itsss memoriesss, unfortunately there isss a lot of thosssse fabricationssss and I can only devour ssso many” Gander hissed.

“If they all obey mistress, no problem” Ka said.

“How could they all obey me Ka? I can’t make all of them my familiars, I don’t know if I’d be able to make any of them familiars, I mean what if not one submits?”

“Yessss, do tell, enlighten usss Ka, how doesss sssshe make all the sssoldiersss of fortune ssssubmit to her?” Gander jeered.

“Susasov’s plot” Ka said, deftly passing the puck back to him.

-Ah, yes, well, I have a spell I know how to use!-

Susasov had Gander’s attention at this point. For spirits, it was extremely difficult to not only use spells, but comprehend them or even form them. Usually spirits just relied on their innate abilities.

-Mistress, are you familiar with the spell-family of the Mark of Domination?-

Olice remembered with a bit of difficulty, that family of spells was made up of spells that were variations or flawed forms of an Exalted Elder Spell or Exspell , known as the Mark of Domination. As an Exspell, naturally few people knew the actual form of the pattern, but even something that had the vague shape of that pattern would be a strong spell.

The original Mark of Domination did one thing, as most of the Exspells did. It granted the caster complete domination over what they used the spell on. As with most of the Exspells, it seemed good but not amazing. Then one realised that the spell was not restricted. It could dominate one thing, it could dominate a group, things with minds, things with minds. Terrifying power. It was quite strange there was many variations on Exspells, but if one tried to cast an actual Exspell, a single mistake could, nevermind bring misfortune to the caster, but even give rise to a forsaken land.

Naturally with Exspells being so terrifying countless mages have cast this or that curse or binding on their usage. It was very rare to discover or figure out the pattern of an Exspell, but even when one did, it was often a futile task, as the Exspell would often be cursed or restricted, the fears of countless generations of peak mages was not something lightly brushed aside. In the case of the Mark of Domination, even many of its offshoots were under curses, hexes and various bindings.

“Do you mean to say you have a spell that dominates?” Olice asked.

-Yes, though it only works on spirits, and more than that, you need to convince them with words, since you are a sorceress Mistress, it’ll be useless to you currently, and I lack the ability to cast spells now. However, I am sure that I can adapt my Spirit Charm Tyranny into something you can do, you learned how to breath flame didn’t you?-

“Yes, I did” Olice said.

It wasn’t at all odd that a being like Susasov who had once been considered a deity had such a spell in mind.

-Well then, I think I can help you make… hmm a Spirit Charming Breath? Something like that?-

In Olice’s mind, she felt Susasov pushing something to her, she allowed it through, and she saw a vision of a pattern. It eluded her, she could not even grasp its basic shape. Her spirits fell.

-Don’t be disheartened Mistress, you just need the pattern in mind. Now, what I want you to do is draw on your heartflame, pull some through your body and onto your tongue, then puff out a bit of the flame while taking a commanding tone and speaking, I shall handle forming the spell for you, you need only do the actions, test it out on Gander-

“What!?” Gander objected.

However Olice had already pulled on her heartflame, pulling some though her body and resting it on her tongue, as she did so, she sensed Susasov guiding her mind, the heartflame transforming, becoming a crude spell. Olice let out a puff of flame, and as she spoke, little puffs of silver flame would slip out. It was not fire, but rather heartflame given the barest minimum of refinement. Doing something like forming actual fire was something quite outside of Olice’s abilities currently even with a spirit helping.

“Make a funny face Gander!” Olice commanded.

Gander’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly.

“Do it, we need to test this out!”

Gander’s face twitched, but he still did not obey.

“Ok, ow, I think it isss sssstrong enough, even a weak one isss enough for those fabricationssss” Gander said.

It was quite impressive that Gander had resisted, considering he was a familiar of Olice’s, then again, he was fairly loosely tied to her, and could usually disobey whenever given an order that wasn’t important to protecting her.

-Spit the rest out Mistress- Susasov said.

Olice breathed out the rest onto one of the walls.

“Just need to convince them now” Ka said.

That wouldn’t be difficult, would it? The soldiers of fortune would hopefully still be thoroughly spooked. Still, they needed to think about how to do it.