The Third Step: Chapter Forty-Two

Acting on instinct, I flickered out of the way, only for the shade to turn and tilt its head. It was only then that I realized that it hadn’t been a shadow attack, but rather a shade. I gently reached out with my mana senses, and froze. The shade in front of me was radiating power, at least peak sixth gate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a false Occultist. Perhaps even a real one, though it certainly wasn’t possessed of the immense power that a Titled offered. 

“Hello there?” the spirit said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement. The way it spoke had an odd accent, one that I thought was aristocratic, though old enough that I wasn’t sure. The fact that it was speaking caused me to relax some, and I was able to take in a bit more information from my mana senses. It seemed to have belonged to a death and abnegation mage, which created an interesting mix for a spirit. Its dominion seemed to be oddly… slippery. I wasn’t sure how to put it, but I had a hard time placing it. I couldn’t even make out its authority at all.

It – they? – looked somewhat like an androgynous human, but it had some clearly nonhuman features. For one, they didn’t have legs, but rather gray-black smoke that trailed into nothingness. They seemed to be wearing a skirt woven entirely out of gourds. Given all the gourds used for flight in the city, that might not have been too odd, but the gourds were tiny, barely the size of my thumbnail. Its hands were massive, almost the size of its full body. 

“Hello,” I said, offering a shallow bow to the spirit. “You may call me Malachi. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?” 

Instead of answer, the spirit reached out and speared a mana source nearby with a single long finger. It popped it into its mouth, which caused a grumbling amongst the ghosts and shades of the floor. That was another good sign. If this creature hadn’t consumed the ghosts on this floor for power, it probably wasn't aggressive. After it ate the mana source in full, it grinned, the teeth unnervingly pink for a being made of shadow. 

“Oh, I don’t know the name of the one who spawned me,” the spirit said. “But you can just call me… Fallen.” 

“A Title?” I asked. I was all but certain that it wasn’t. Darius, the Amethyst Mask, might have been exceptional among seventh gate mages, and Meadow might be a Magi, but I had felt both of their Titles to an extent. This spirit didn’t have it. Its pressure was nothing more than mana and general spirit-based weirdness. 

“Perhaps in time,” Fallen said. “Though in truth, I have worked for something else.”

“I see,” I said noncommittally. “If it is not too presumptuous of me, might I ask why you’re here?” 

“Most turn back within fifty stories. Most ask any shade with an iota of combat potential to join them. Most don’t pass by mana sources found on floors without people on them. And y– well, this was interesting to me. So I made my way up to meet you.” 

I studied the spirit a little closer. There was more than just death and abnegation making it up, as I had first seen. There was lunar, of course, but all shades had some of it. But this didn’t feel the same as Liz’s lunar. With the improved senses of Soulgaze, I was confident some of this lunar was also water, which was strange.And it wasn’t just the water. Here and there, I found strands of telluric mana woven into their frame. Mental mana was there too, almost like it could be found somewhat in ghosts, but also fractions of the strangeness that had surrounded the Flock’s nest. Time and space were woven in, not so much in a manner that suggested that the spirit could command and distort time, so much as… 

My eyes widened as I finally realized just who – or rather, what – was floating in front of me. The way everything was woven into one reminded me of Dusk or Idyll, both worldspirits. They had spatial and temporal as a part of their very existence, and could do some things with it, but it was not the primary effect of their mana, and it wasn’t interlaced with their spellcraft so much as a fundamental part of their nature. This being, Fallen, was the same. Only, rather than being an amalgam of energies that made up a forested world, they were an amalgam of death, darkness, and containment. Of earth sunk deep, far deeper than it had any right to, and the beings within. 

This wasn’t a seventh gate shade. Or if it had begun as a normal shade, it had transformed into something much greater than that. This was the genius loci, the spirit of a place. This was Deepfall Cemetery. 

“And I’m connected to something that is, to an extent, like you,” I said. “That was the reason you were about to say, wasn’t it?” 

The spirit studied me for a long time, then let out a sigh and inclined their head.

“I was planning to have more time to take your measure before I told you I was not Fallen, but was Deepfall. You are right, it was. The spirit you are bound to a worldspirit? But it feels almost like me. Connected to the earth. Is this the Idle-Fluid? And the other spirit… 

“Idyll-Flume,” I corrected as gently as I could. “And I don’t think the Flume exists anymore, it was destroyed. She is just Idyll now. But no. I have the honor to be the chosen companion of Dusk, a worldspirit who has chosen to interlace her nature with Ddeaer. She has territory in Mossford, Crysite, outside of Delitone, and a mobile gatestone.” 

“Truly? That is interesting. To sacrifice internal size for deeper connections to the world. Odd. What of the other spirit you are bound to?” 

“Her name is Dawn, and she is from above,” I said. 

If I couldn’t trust a worldspirit, then

“Most things are from above. We’re half a mile underground,” Deepfall said. I at first thought it was a joke, but they didn’t seem to be joking. Nor did they seem annoyed, just slightly confused. 

“Appologies, I should have been more clear. Dawn is… I will be honest, I do not fully understand her, and I don’t think she fully understands me. She’s from above the surface. I found her after a starfall. Though I would appreciate you not sharing either of those pieces of information. They can be dangerous.” 

I wasn’t sure I wanted to say all of it, but at the same time, the spirit had me entirely within their power and had clearly already identified that Dawn was something More than that, if I couldn’t trust a worldspirit, then I couldn’t trust just about anyone. 

“I see. I will be discreet. Some people believe I began because of a starfall. I don’t remember, I was still dead at the time.” 

“Still… dead?” 

“I was unthinking rock and stone and nothing. It took me a very, very long time to become cognizant. But I was not lying about my other reasons. It’s unusual for most to delve as deeply and strangely as you have. Why have you done it?” 

“I am looking for a source of spiritual power. Perhaps a truly ancient ghost that has lost all sense of self and is nothing, or a shade, or an amalgam of all of them. I essentially need the sort of artifact that could, if planted, transform an area into a spiritually aligned death mana nexus.”  

A thought struck me then. According to Meadow, there were a few beings that could produce an artificial soul. All of the ones she had mentioned had been Titled, and it was possible that a Title was needed to do it, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“I need this for an artificial soul,” I pressed on. “My partner is possessed by a hag, and we are attempting to separate them. That would kill them both, unless the hag has an artificial soul to provide structure. 

“They would both still die,” Deepfall said, sounding somewhat sad. “The hag doesn’t have a body for one, and your partner’s soul would collapse due to having the Hexed Heritage legacy pulled out. Not to mention, I don’t know of many ways to even separate them. One of them must die, it is the way it must be.” 

Their last sentence had a weight to it, one that I had rarely encountered. It wasn’t the same kind of weight as a Title or of advancement, or the pressure of resonance. It was… deeper. And I rejected it. I had been pushing it back as long as I had known it. I took hold of my will and pushed back on the statement. 

“No,” I said firmly, and Deepfall took a step back, their face showing clear surprise. 

“Neither one will die,” I continued. “I have procured a body of my own. I will guide them through the first sepulcher. We will use the amulet of Silver Tide to split them. And then the hag will take the body even as my partner heals themselves.” 

“You are playing a dangerous game,” the spirit said, their voice serious. “A very, very dangerous game. One of them is supposed to kill the other. To change destiny is a dangerous game. Sometimes it does leave the world a better place, but sometimes it leaves the world far worse. For every life it has saved, it has cast ten others into the pits of despair.” 

“No. I have the power to change things for the better, so I will. It’s my job to stand up for those who can’t. Neither Kene nor the hag can change this. So it’s my job to do it. If Orykson is unwilling to help me because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, then I’ll stand up for those powerless few condemned to suffer myself.”  

Deepfall listened to me and nodded slowly but surely.

“As long as you are aware of the toll you are taking on yourself. But what will you do about the consequences of your actions? If the hag kills a person? A thousand people?” 

“What the hag does with her freedom is her choice,” I said. “With that said, she has seen me. She knows that if she does that, she will have to answer to me.” 

“You take on the responsibilities of others, a weave of constellations around yourself, debts and favors weighed against your very soul? That is a path with no end. You will never be free of your duties.” 

The word they said didn’t quite sound like constellations, nor fortune. It was both, and neither, and something else, a cultural concept that didn’t get translated well by the monolinguistic spell. But I understood their meaning.

“If that’s the burden needed to make the world a better place, then it’s a burden I will bear,” I said seriously. The spirit continued to study me, then nodded, the faint hint of a smile cracking their lips. 

“Well, what can I do for such an interesting fellow but help? If you are willing to help me, that is?” 

“It depends on the help, but I’m far from opposed to the idea of helping you,” I said with a slight sigh of relief. Deepfall raised their hand and a mass of… something… flowed from it. It reminded me of the gatestone that Dusk had created, but much smoother, and more  

“A markerstone. Important for expanding the territory of a spirit like me. We discussed Titles before, and in truth, I could likely create the Title of Deepfall Depths right now. But I want to be more than that. More than just a spirit of the deep dead that is rarely seen and visited. I want to form the Title of Fitiavana, or at least of Deepfall Cemetery, not Deepfall Depths. Bring my markerstone to the geyser and plant it in the ground there, then run your mana through it to activate it.” 

“Why not appear before your keepers and tell them to do it?” I asked curiously.

“I have, many times, but not many of my keepers are capable of making the journey deep enough to speak to me, and it takes hundreds of stones to expand. Taking this stone to the geyser won’t extend my territory all the way out there. But it should help me reach a few floors higher, and many feet wider.”

“Wait, you can’t reach the top?” I asked, genuinely thrown off for the first time. 

“Manifesting my body any higher than this is nearly impossible. Even appearing before you here is taxing. If not for your body helping anchor me, I am not sure I could. Will you help me?”