Chapter 22: The Passing Murder

-No stop slow down Mistress!- Susasov thought.

Olice did not stop, she had to run, run and get away from that dread cloud of flying beings heading her way.

What were these beings that Olice feared them so? Truthfully they were simple carrion bird spirits. A weak kind of death focused spirit that usually takes a form not unlike the impression of a baleful crow. However, though named carrion bird spirits, they can in a large enough murder, bring an end to beings far far more powerful than they would be individually. Think of them as piranhas that fly and strip life from the living instead of flesh from bone, not that they won’t potentially go for that too.

It was not at all surprising that there was such a large murder of these spirits in the Red Crystal Realm, considering how the place came to be.

-Ka pin her down and blend with the crystal!- Susasov thought.

-Mistress?- Ka asked.

Olice could not think straight, so she did something on instinct. She grabbed her heartflame, stilling and calming it as she did once before. An unnatural forced calm came over her.

She quickly realised what Susasov intended and dropped flat on the ground, not moving.

-Quickly Ka- Olice said.

As Susasov rightly guessed, Ka was able to blend in with the crystal environment very well. Olice did not have to do a thing, Ka had in part managed to survive as long as she had by mimicking the crystal around her, not appearing as a living being.

-Gander eject the remains of that spirit onto the pathway and then find somewhere to hide!-

Gander quickly did as he was bid and then vanished beginning with tail tip and ending with his grimace.

There was a flurry of whooshing wings and a cacophony like a badly played organ dirge.

The noises reached a feverish pitch as the spirits found the remains of the strix.

A Flurry of wings and the murder was on the move again.

-Mistress, you should let your emotions flow now, restraining them like that has dangers- Susasov said.

Olice did so, and fear washed over her, even though it was over. She had read many a story where an unwary being was devoured by carrion bird spirits.

Ka did her best to try and comfort her mistress.

Gander was angry in particular he was angry at himself. He should have known better, the stillness of the Everfall Curtains, how could it not be home to death spirits?

Olice actually cried herself to sleep and Ka wrapped around the poor lost child.

* * * * *

When Olice awoke it was to Gander’s toothy face.

She blearily looked around. They weren’t at all in the same place. They were in a field of crystal grass. In the distance thin indistinct forms with large flappy ears grazed. The whole area was hazy, as if one was looking through blurred glass.

“Where are we?” Olice sleepily asked.

“Before that, I have ssssomething to sssay” Gander said.

Olice looked at Gander wonderingly, having just awoken, her mind was quite jumbled.

“…I”

Gander twisted under Olice’s gaze, as if he was in great anguish.

With great difficulty, something managed to twist its way out of his throat. A strangled sort of a sound, even the lesser effects of the Wordspell couldn’t do much to make it understandable, especially in a place like the Red Crystal Realm, where that grand spell of translation was tracked in fragments by outsiders like Olice.

Still Olice understood, and couldn’t believe her ears.

She quickly reached out and hugged Gander.

“Thank you, I forgive you” She said.

Gander, deeply embarrassed slipped into her shadow.

-We decided to travel onwards while you slept Mistress- Susasov said.

“Mistress alright?” Ka question.

Olice nodded.

“I am now, thank you Ka, Susasov”

Susasov while not pleased that such an event happened, was glad that he had been of use to Olice.

“I know this place now, from your memories Ka, well I guess we should get going!”

Just then Olice’s stomach roared in a most unlady-like fashion.

Gander lazily dumped out the meat that Toro Yacobs had once prepared along with one of the strange capsules he drank from.

As Olice ate, a thought came to her mind, and she thoughtlessly spoke it.

“Susasov, what kind of deity were you?” She asked.

“Do tell, Do tell” Ka said.

Susasov paused.

“They worshipped me as a god of oaths. Three oaths in particular, an oath of union, an oath of vengeance and an oath of will”

“An oath of will?” Olice understood the other ones, but this one didn’t make much sense to her.

-It was a personal oath. A commitment to follow a path or do something, to act on their will. Now that I think about it, there was so few that could keep those oaths. I gave them power to complete their oath, but I also consumed those that failed. I think though I was never a good god, I gave power to those that swore by me, but I never really helped them.-

“Being a god sounds really hard” Olice said.

Susasov laughed.

“What does Mistress want to be?” Ka asked.

“Not a Goddess! Maybe an Exemplar!” Olice said.

Gander popped his head up.

“You’ll have to work a lot harder if you want to be that, but I’m sssure one day you’ll be an Exemplar of Wailing”

Olice swatted at his head, but the mean spirit had dropped back into her shadow.

-If you want to be an exemplar you’ll need to find something to focus your magic on, something that you’d be naturally suited would be best-

“Exemplar of Kindness?” Ka wondered.

Olice giggled.

“I’m not that nice you know!”

-I disagree, Mistress is a compassionate person. I hope that you never lose hold of that, whatever you become in the future-

Olice blushed a bit.

“I’ve finished eating, we should get moving again”

So, she did, making her way through the strangely soft crystal grass, most of the wildlife didn’t notice her, obscured as she was by Ka.

It took far less time that she thought it would to reach their destination, the blue crystal curtain.

However there were two spirits barring the entrance of the the curtain that she and Ka knew about.

Olice had read about these spirits.

They were soldiers of fortune.

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