Volume 1, Chapter 48: Portable Spirit (Patreon)

“Arthur… um, Arthur…”

Bri’s voice pulled me out of the white room with collapsing walls I had once again found myself in while dreaming. I jerked my head up, scratched at my neck, and rolled onto all fours, instinctively searching for the knife.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked, feeling the warmth radiating from her.

“That, um, new man from Earth is coming this way. Sorry, but I had to wake you up, well, just in case,” she replied, shrinking down and slipping back into the cage at the top of my staff.

Yawning, I got to my feet, slung the backpack over my shoulders, and grabbed the staff before stepping out to meet Peter as he approached.

The leather armor he wore reflected the light of my fireball and shifted like overlapping layers, each moving in a slightly different rhythm, giving his whole figure a strange, almost unreal appearance in the dim light. Even though it was so dark here, he still had his sunglasses on.

“Knew yo ass had to be behind them rocks, man,” he said, pointing at me before planting his hands on his hips and shifting from one foot to the other. He shook his head. “Hurrin told me to come find you and let you know we gon’ be movin’ out in like fifteen minutes. You wanna run a little spar, see which one of us better?” he added, lifting his chin.

“Not really.” I scratched my cheek. “You can heal yourself. I can’t. I also saw what your attacks did when you fought against Plasario—you’d put holes in me.”

“We ain’t gotta use magic. Just a regular-ass spar—”

“Like I said,” I cut him off. “You can heal yourself. I can’t.”

“Damn shame… I’m bored as fuck.” He spread his arms. “Ain’t shit interesting to do around here.”

“What did you do to kill time back on Earth?” I asked, walking toward him and gesturing with my head and eyebrows toward Hurrin farther ahead.

He understood the signal, and we started slowly walking in that direction together.

“Not much. I swam whenever I could, or trained boxing and adaptive jiu-jitsu. Then the gym. Worked at a cardboard box factory too, so that shit wasn’t exactly exciting.” He shrugged. “Ain’t have no boyfriend either, ’cause dating apps are straight-up fuckin’ evil. Soon as somebody found out I was disabled, they’d ghost my ass. Shit sucked.”

“You still have a pretty positive outlook on life.” I reached my reptodon and mounted the staff in its designated holder.

“Way more now than I did back home—just look at me,” he said, turning around with his arms spread wide. “I’m the picture of fuckin’ health. Just gotta work these twigs some more so they stop lookin’ like chicken legs, and I’ma be a straight-up beast. I’m gonna win this whole damn thing.” He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me slightly away from my mount, then lifted his sunglasses with the other hand and looked me directly in the eyes. “I appreciate you ain’t ask or make some comment about me bein’ gay. That shit always used to piss me off. That whole dramatic—what? You gay? I can’t believe it…”

“Who you sleep with is none of my business. Or, in your case, who you don’t sleep with, even when you’d like to.” He burst out laughing, irritating Hurrin, who was busy untying the animals from the stakes.

“Damn. Well said.” He leaned his face closer to mine. His breath smelled stale. I realized everyone’s probably smelled about the same by now, mine included. Without toothpaste or a toothbrush, keeping the mouth clean wasn’t exactly easy. “Listen, though. If you ain’t down to fight, maybe you interested in somethin’ a little more sexual?”

“I play for the other team, Peter,” I replied, stepping back so I could take off my backpack and toss it onto the shelf beside the saddle, where I secured it with the straps attached to it.

“Fo’ real? Any port in the storm?”

“One hundred percent,” I replied without changing my expression.

“Damn. That’s a shame, but I get it.”

“That’s not my wind, nor the sails it blows into, but I would suggest keeping your preferences to yourself and resisting the temptations offered by the flesh,” Hurrin suddenly said. He pulled the stakes from the ground, knocking their flat heads upward from underneath with his hammer. “A man’s love for another man is, unfortunately, forbidden and carries either exile to Underrock or compulsory military service.” His eyes were narrowed, and the corner of his mouth twitched as he spoke.

“Fuck me. Even in my fantasy world, I gotta deal with this kinda prejudice,” Peter replied, clearly failing to notice that his conversation partner had just outed himself in the process.

I had no intention of getting involved. I climbed onto my reptodon and gave it a pat on the back.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

“Sure don’t look like it,” Peter replied, shaking his head in disbelief as he climbed onto his mount.

I found myself wondering how the hell he was even able to stay on his feet and run after not using his legs for so many years. Eventually, though, I decided that in a world where magic could make water behave like a solid and someone could regenerate because they had stuffed themselves with food, questioning things like that probably wasn’t good for my mental health.

So I followed Hurrin as he led the way. From what I had managed to learn during the trip to the campsite we were now leaving behind, the road ahead was supposed to be fairly straightforward—across plains covered in fungal growths until we reached the river, which would eventually lead us to the port.

As we traveled, I tried to memorize any distinctive landmarks I could find, along with the general direction we were heading, in case I ever had to make my way back to Frogflower. I knew it was probably wishful thinking. It was so dark down here, and all the mushrooms and fungal growths looked so similar, that there was no chance I could find my way back alone. I wasn’t a tracker. Until now, whenever I wanted to get somewhere, I used Google Maps and mostly traveled around cities. So if I wanted to come back this way, I’d probably have to hitch a ride with another caravan or something like that.

Eventually, I gave up and allowed myself to be led—though mentally, it was extremely difficult for me to place my fate entirely in someone else’s hands—and instead of searching for landmarks, I began reaching inward, trying to uncover the possibilities offered to me by the Daimon.

[Inquiry received. Listing Daimon capabilities:]

[Your Daimon may provide information concerning aspects of your Soul, its condition, structure, and development; your chosen Path and the possibilities arising from it; Techniques granted or developed through that Path, including conditions under which they may branch or change; Authority available to you, its expenditure, accumulation, and effects; and magical phenomena perceived through your Aura.]

Everything unfolding inside my mind through my soul matched what I had experienced so far from the spirit sealed within the crystal.

[It may identify Works and other manifestations of Authority where sufficient information is available, present known properties and classifications, and distinguish phenomena for which no adequate pattern is known.]

[Your Daimon may also maintain information concerning Connections formed with other Daimon bearers. Connections represent the degree to which your actions, intentions, and Objectives have become associated through continued interaction. They may be used to determine whether progress toward an Objective is recognized as belonging solely to one participant or is shared among several.]

That information caught me completely by surprise. I hadn’t realized I had access to anything like that, so I decided to examine it first, as soon as Daimon was done with the listing.

[Information concerning the Event may include active Objectives, their progression, relevant conditions, Event Achievement Points, Comites, and communications made available by the Oracle.]

[Records of information previously provided, recognized phenomena, changes to your Soul, acquired Essence of Authority, completed Objectives, and other events deemed relevant may be recalled upon request.]

[Availability of information is dependent upon your current knowledge, the capacity of your Daimon to classify the phenomenon in question, restrictions imposed upon the information, and your ability to formulate an applicable inquiry.]

[Current lists of accessible and available concepts overview include: Soul, Path, Techniques, Authority, Aura, Connections, Works, Event, Records.]

[Would you like to delve deeper into any of these concepts?]

I selected Connections through my soul.

[Connections detected with other Daimon bearers. Connections represent established patterns of cooperation and the degree to which the actions and Objectives of two bearers may be interpreted as contributing toward a common outcome.]

[Active Connections: Brigid: Bound, Khufu’Ri: Aligned, Nickolette Leben: Cooperative, Sophie DeLonge: Cooperative, Peter Heidegger: Associated, Milo: Incidental]

[Inactive Connections: Elias Park: Cooperative; Deceased, Mara Vélez: Cooperative; Deceased]

[Connection classifications may change as further interactions establish or contradict shared intent.]

I didn’t like that this know-it-all little spirit was collecting so much information about me and everyone else. I found myself wondering how I appeared to them whenever someone checked how closely my goals aligned with their own, and whether simply running into another Daimon bearer by pure chance would be enough to establish a Connection.

Unfortunately, the Daimon offered no answers to any of those thoughts, which meant either it didn’t know—or it simply wasn’t willing to share that knowledge with me.

With all that in mind, I remembered the sense of direction that had guided me toward Frogflower once it had been marked as a task for me, and wondered whether I could use it to tell which way I should be heading.

[Secondary Task location marked.]

The Daimon answered, and two things happened almost immediately. First, I turned my head toward the direction opposite the one we were currently traveling in, purely on instinct. Second, I felt a faint instinct telling me where I should go if I wanted to reach my Objective. A moment later, I decided I wasn’t interested in it for now, and the entire sensation disappeared.

For the next several hours, I familiarized myself with the possibilities offered by the spirit, trusting the little shit less and less with every moment I spent interacting with it. It knew far too much about me.

At the same time, that knowledge gave me the opportunity to learn more about the Path I was following. Or rather, about one of my abilities, which had developed the beginnings of an opportunity to evolve.

[Stoke; Trigger for enhancement availability (50% complete): Witness Authority being used to stabilize and impose order upon forms that naturally exist in a less ordered state; observed examples: fat shaped into a sphere, blood stabilized into a solid form.] What interested me was that in Nicky’s case, the Daimon had been extremely specific, while with Peter it generalized what he had done.

It had still counted both examples, though, so I urged my reptodon closer to the man to see whether I could use him to make further progress. As I approached, we were just emerging from the fungal thickets toward the sound of water rushing somewhere in the distance, accompanied by the croaking of frogs.

Peter was practically lying across his saddle, arms spread wide and head thrown back.

“I need a favor,” I called to him.

He jerked his whole body forward so hard to sit upright that I heard several of his joints crack.

“What’s up? Goddamn, man, I’m bored as hell. I’ll do whatever the fuck you want.”

“Can you do something with water instead of blood?”

“What for?” he asked, though he was already reaching for one of the waterskins hanging from his belt.

Then he waved the question away.

“You know what? Nah, don’t even tell me. I don’t give a shit. Anything better than bein’ bored.”

He uncorked the waterskin, took a deep drink, then poured a good portion of the water over the arm he extended toward me. Even with the dark sunglasses covering his eyes, I still had the impression that he was watching me the entire time. The moment the liquid hit his skin, it began to run down his arm, but his magic caught it. The water twisted around his muscles and shaped itself into something resembling a sleeve.

Ripples moved across its surface for a few moments, but eventually it stabilized enough that it looked like a transparent piece of clothing.

“That enough?”

[Stoke; Trigger for enhancement availability [75% complete]: …observed examples: fat shaped into a sphere, blood stabilized into a solid form, water stabilized into a solid form.] The Daimon confirmed it within me.

“Can you freeze it too?” I asked.

Peter raised his eyebrows and sighed.

“Man, I swear to God, I hope this ain’t some kinda setup.”

The water surrounding his arm instantly turned glassy, frosted over, and began reflecting the dim light in that cold, fractured way unique to ice.

This time, however, the Daimon did not count it toward the development of my ability.

“That enough?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

The moment I finished speaking, he flexed his bicep. The ice cracked under the pressure of his swelling muscles.

“Good. I fuckin’ hate the cold. Now you gon’ tell me what all that was about?”

“My Daimon told me one of my abilities can evolve if I observe something like that. I still need to find someone else who can do something similar to what you do.”

“And what will you be able to do then?”

“I have no idea. I just like completing objectives,” I replied as we finally emerged from the dense growth onto the rocky descent leading toward the river.

Yet neither of those descriptions did proper justice to what appeared before us. The rocks ahead were secured by a palisade, its sharpened stakes angled toward us. The spikes, each around eight feet long, did an excellent job of preventing entry onto what I assumed was the road leading to the city along the side of an enormous river flowing in a slow current, as if the city itself were its source.

And right there before us, moving along that broad channel whose far bank vanished into darkness beyond the slope we were descending, sailed not one vessel, but several. A galleon led them, its massive hull fashioned from some kind of reinforced fungal material banded and strengthened with steel. Behind it followed two smaller ships of similar make, and farther out, little more than spectral outlines against the gloom, drifted additional craft whose shapes emerged only when the pale glow running through their structures caught the eye.

The four masts of the galleon had been formed from the trunks of enormous mushrooms, thick and slightly uneven. From them hung sails folded tight against the spars, their surfaces resembling the leathery wings of giant bats at rest. The entire vessel seemed alive with faint bioluminescence. Veins of cold, ghostly light pulsed through the fungal hull, spread across the masts, and traced the edges of the rigging with a dim radiance. Only the cabin at its center appeared ordinary, seemingly made of plain wood, for it alone gave off none of that pallid shine and stood like a dark island amid the vessel’s eerie glow.

That light did not remain confined to the ships themselves. It spilled onto the river and broke apart across the slow-moving surface into long trembling streaks of blue-white and sickly green. Every ripple caught and stretched the glow, turning the water into a shifting mirror of drowned stars. Beneath the vessels, the reflections wavered and twisted with the current, so that the river seemed filled with silent fire, carrying the phantom fleet forward through a channel of living light.

 “How the hell are they sailing upriver?” I asked our guide.

“Beneath the water are mycelial tendrils controlled by the pilot. They catch hold of the bottom and pull the vessel toward the port. Because of that, it may travel in defiance of Lord Wind. Do you gentlemen not have such vessels in your homeland?” he replied, steering his mount in the same direction the majestic ship was traveling.

Without hesitation, I followed him, and a moment later all three of us were moving along the line of stakes.

“Nah, man, we ain’t got nothin’ like that,” Peter answered, while I sat in my saddle, absorbed in the sight.

“That’s true. We don’t,” I added.

For the first time, I felt genuine satisfaction in my heart that I had ended up here. I was starting to feel excitement too at the thought of all the other wonders I might still get to see.

Following Hurrin, I kept glancing between the ships and Bri, who had begun crackling more intensely, her flames spilling out between the bars of her cage. Apparently, my partner felt the same way I did.