The Third Step: Chapter Thirty-Nine

A part of me was tempted to blast my mana senses down as deep as I could, and then just immediately teleport down. After all, the deeper I went, the more concentrated the death magic would become, and the more likely I would be to find something that would help Kene. I resisted that idea, though. I was supposed to show respect for the dead, and that felt incredibly disrespectful.

So I began walking down the steps, letting Vampiric Senses burn at a very low level to help me navigate the darkness. I had barely made it a few steps down, though, before the first shade appeared before me. It looked human, but with hair that warped upward into the shape of spiderwebs, and a set of four additional humanoid limbs extending from its back, giving it a somewhat creepy air. 

I bowed my head in respect to the shade. It wasn’t especially powerful, only first gate, but it was best to treat the remnants of the dead with some respect. While ghosts might take after the person they were in life, leftover bits of unfinished business and desires, shades were almost exclusively shaped by the magic the person had, which often left them… peculiar. They didn’t need something to pass on, they were simply a byproduct of the magical life cycle that would slowly dissolve, like a plant. 

“What is an endearing liver?” the shade asked, and I considered for a moment. 

“Enduring livers are enduring because of the life flows causing them to regenerate. I suppose an endearing liver is endearing because it’s somehow developed a flow of mental energy?” 

The shade let out a ‘hnnnn’ sound, then slid away into the shadows, apparently satisfied with my answer, and I stepped onto the first sealed level. The odds that I’d find anything useful to Kene this shallowly were low, but it was possible. I walked through the tomb, feeling the ghosts and shades keeping an eye on me as I did. Most bodies didn’t have one, the person who had passed either not leaving one behind, the ghost having been laid to rest, or the shade taken by a familial umbramancer, but even so, one in about twenty dead had a spirit lingering around. With the size of Fitiavana, that meant each layer had about twenty ghosts, and roughly ten shades. 

As I completed my circuit around the room, the ghost of an elderly woman, who had to have been in her nineties when she died, appeared. 

“Will you help me?” she croaked. I bowed my head to her. 

“I am only a visitor to this island. I have obligations to fulfill. But if I can, grandmother, then I will.” 

The word I used, grandmother, wasn’t quite right. It was the word I heard, but the word I actually used wasn’t grandmother, it was something from the local tongue that didn’t translate right into my brain, and yet that the mono spell had nevertheless insisted on me using. I’d been aiming for something closer to ‘elder’. 

“My son never visited, not in the eight years of waiting. He did not visit on the day of my death. It… it is my fault, really. I was not what I should have been, and I saw that only when I could feel the pull.” 

“It is an inexorable thing, the pull,” I agreed. “It forces one to confront who and what they are.” 

It certainly had for me. Though I’d been in battle, it had been enough to freak me out until Dawn had snapped me back into myself. The ghost studied me, her form seeming to grow sharper for a moment.

“It is,” she said. “Tell Tantely that I am sorry.” 

“I will attempt to send him the message.” 

The ghost dispersed herself then, returning to the blank nothingness that was somewhat like sleep for them. I took a moment to note down her mostly blank stone, only containing her name. I would attempt to send the message, just like I had said, but I had a bad feeling about it. There was a good chance that, for such a simple request, the tenders of Deepfall Cemetery had already attempted it. 

No, that thread of constellations was broken, but my own did not need to be. I would try, and merely be satisfied in having tried. If Tantely could not forgive her – which may very well be reasonable, I did not know what she had done – then that was not on me. 

I began descending down the stairs again, taking the long circling onto the second of the sealed off floors, and then the third, and the fourth. Down and down I went, slowly but surely. Most floors, I was stopped by one haunt or another, but none of them were especially aggressive or powerful. I supposed the most aggressive of ghosts were probably laid to rest by solving whatever problem had left them with violence on the brain, like an unsolved murder, while most aggressive shades would be given to umbramancer battle mages, where they could channel their aggression in a more beneficial manner. 

Some of the ghosts had requests, as the old woman had, and I agreed to fulfill some of them, while others I refused with as much grace as I could. A man wishing to taste his favorite dish again seemed simple, until reading his plaque revealed that he was a millionaire in life, and had developed a taste for the now critically endangered yellow mineralsoaker. When I attempted to gently inform him of this, he flew into a rage and tried to punch me. He succeeded, but as only an ungated ghost, his ectoplasm was depleted almost immediately, and I left him behind. 

On the seventh layer of Deepfall, things changed somewhat as a new ghost approached. In life, ghost had been a tall, muscular woman, but with the sort of leanness that indicated she had been a fighter or swimmer, rather than the bulk of a power lifter or construction worker. Her magic was roughly in the middle of third gate, but it felt radically different from Arthur’s. She hadn’t been third gate when she had died, as Arthur had been fourth gate. Her power was more like Hannah’s, sharply devoted to purely ghostly affairs, rather than being shaped by the soulself she had spawned from. If I had to judge, in life she hadn’t opened her gates at all. 

“Oh, what’s this? It’s been a long time since anyone dared to step up to a TWO TIME WORLD CHAMPION!” she called out in a booming voice that resonated throughout the tomb, disturbing the dead around her. They muttered and shifted away, and I figured this might be something they had to deal with anytime someone descended this far. 

“I’m afraid I am not familiar with you,” I said to the ghost. “But it seems your volume is annoying your tombmates.” 

I tried to suppress a snicker at the tombmates pun, I really did, but didn’t quite manage it. The ghostly woman threw back her head and howled with laughter, further irritating the ghosts, then she dropped into a fighting stance. It was markedly different from the stance that Ikki told me to use, much more of her bodily – ghostly? – power focused on the fists and upper body, while she bounced on the balls of her feet. 

“I am Noor Paulo! Competitor in four Elysian Mastery Tournament non-magical fighting competitions. Third place in one! Second in another! And first in two more! If you wish to proceed deeper, then you must fight me! One on one, with no magic!” 

“I can’t hit you or see in the dark without magic,” I pointed out. “I also can’t remove the energy in my body already there.” 

“Ah. Well. Your first point is fair! The second, in duels, is constrained by special bracelets. But very well! I have cultivated magic of my own to strengthen myself, for even this strange place is no match for Noor Paulo! And my legacy no longer makes it hard for me to increase my mana. I will use only my own strengthening spells to match you!” 

“You’re dead, I’m afraid,” I said. “That’s why your legacy isn’t stopping you.” 

“Of course I’m dead! But even death isn’t enough to stop me from being a TWO TIME WORLD CHAMPION!” 

I winced as her voice echoed off the walls again. And I thought I was the one who might risk disrespecting the sanctity of Deepfall. I cast Cwn Awnn’s Hunt, locking onto the fighting ghost, even as she sparked with power of my own. Her fist lashed out, even as I sprang to the side, then pivoted into a kick. She shuffled back, then lashed out with more punches, while I bounced out of the way and kicked from the side. Our styles were radically different, and hers reminded me of Ed’s, relying on straightforward attacks and upper body strength, against my more mobile and mixed style. 

The biggest issue with my current style now, though, was that I wasn’t mobile enough. I shifted and flung myself around, but without Foxstep to serve as the core of my style, I only needed to bump the shelving once for her fist to connect to my jaw in a devastating uppercut. I managed to lean into the blow and strike her core with a palm strike, knocking her away, but it was a herald of things to come. 

In the end, I put up a fight, but was sorely beaten. Without the advantages of Foxstep, Immovable Lock, and my highly versatile mix of offensive and defensive options, I was a good fighter. Maybe even an excellent one. More than two years of training with Ikki, the Time Prince, the White Viper of Daocheng, would do that. But I was still a mage, not a bare knuckles brawler. Noor Paulo, on the other hand, had well earned her title of two time world champion. She was loud and showy about it, but her non-magical fighting skill was very real. 

“Not a bad fight!” she said. “But you cannot stand up to the might of a –” 

I shoved my fingers in my ears, managing to dull the roar of her claiming her title once again. Once she was quiet again, I removed them.

“I appreciate that, honored Noor Paulo. Am I free to head deeper?” I asked, then paused as an idea crossed my mind. I had three things I could bring out. I needed a source of spiritual power for constructing the artificial soul for Kene, but that did mean I could take one or two things for myself, depending on how potent the source I was looking at was. 

“I’m going to head deeper, then I’ll be going to the EMT myself. Not as a nonmagical combatant, but for the main tournament. If you would like to join me–” 

“And miss my chance to find an ectomancer who can defeat me? Absolutely not.” 

I winced, as that implied my performance really hadn’t been up to her standards. I knew I’d lost, but that was a bit… much. I could have defeated her – just not with only Cwn Anwnn’s Hunt. I would bet that if I could add even Foxstep in, I could have. But that did admittedly defeat the point of wanting someone with world-class nonmagical fighting skills. 

“I see. I wish you luck in finding peace,” I said, rising to my feet and flaring Starfish’s Regeneration to hopefully repair the slightly loose tooth in my mouth and to heal the bruising that I knew was coming on.

And so, licking my wounded pride, I headed deeper into Deepfall Cemetery.