PSTH: Chapter Ten

Fire essence! One of the more unusual types for primals to possess, but one of the most common types that magians aspect their essence. I think we all have a decent idea of what fire actually is. Or do we? We’ll get to that later. But yeah! Despite not being the best in terms of essence matchups, fire undeniably has a great number of powerful attacking spells that make it a very solid choice for most people interested in combat, and its high energy density per anima unit makes it an okay choice for powering large scale devices…

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Intro to the second in a video essay series about essence types and their unique factors, 454 Modern-Era

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As we approached the mansion of the long-dead Obsidian King, I felt a sense of foreboding, like long, thin fingers were running along my spine. At first, I assumed that it was just the sort of air about the place, that sort of sense that goes beyond magic when standing in places where terrible things happened. But as a prickling sensation started to creep down my arms and to my hands, I started to realize that there was more to it than just that. The essence in the area grew stronger, but it also grew… rougher. More turbulent, yes, but also sharper in a way that I struggled to really comprehend. 

It seemed to be getting to Scales, too. He was loyal, and typically stuck close to me, but as we walked, he kept creeping closer and closer until he was practically glued to my leg. When we were only about a quarter of a mile out, and the intensity of the strange essence had only gotten stronger, I couldn’t hold in my questions any longer.

“Are Scales and I the only ones who feel that?” 

“No,” Laurel said, her eyebrows knit together in concern. “I wasn’t sure if it was real, or just some creepy feeling because I knew that a lot of people died here, but there’s something wrong with the essence. I can’t cultivate it anymore.” 

I hadn’t been able to cultivate it since we had arrived on the island, but I didn’t want to admit that and look weak in front of Laurel, River, or especially Vince, so I just nodded. 

“I can feel something for sure,” River said. “I just don’t know what?” 

As one, Laurel, River, and I all turned to the most experienced member of the group. Vince just looked pensive, and he stroked his beard while his glowing red eyes swept over the mansion. 

“I haven’t felt anything exactly like this before, but it shares some similarities to a shade element spell that temporarily locks away a person’s connection to ambient essence and stops them from recovering anima or pneuma. But it’s like someone cursed the island itself, not just locked a person’s essence.” 

“I haven’t even heard of that spell,” River admitted. “How difficult is it?” 

“I don’t know the ranking that magians gave it, but it’s difficult. It doesn’t show up in the natural essence patterns of Primals until the sixties or seventies, and it’s too complex to fit onto a standard move disk.” 

River whistled, but that was the last sound that we made for a while as we continued to approach the mansion, the solemnity of the air and uncomfortable sensations growing worse. When we passed through the rusted and sea-worn piles of metal and brick that had once served as the gates to the mansion, a new sensation joined with the overall creepy vibe that the place gave off: the sensation of being watched. I glanced around and even looked over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see anything. River let out a gasp, and Laurel tensed, her magic surging for a moment. 

“What?” Laurel asked. 

“I swear I saw a person in the mansion,” he said, then shook his head. “It was probably just my imagination.” 

“Why don’t you go ahead and cast your spell while we’re here?” Vince asked, and River lifted his hands. Blue power sparked once again, and then it began to warp and dance, before it faded away into nothing, and River frowned. Anima flared to life between his palms again, dancing for a few moments, before slipping away again. 

“That’s just uncanny,” River said. “The spell shouldn’t burn out that quickly. Something about this place is disrupting it. Still…” 

He lit the magic up a third time, and it died out just as quickly. This time, he nodded. 

“I’m sure of it. It only lasts for a few seconds, but there are mystic jewels nearby. Four, maybe five, of them. There was also a bit of a ping for the egg, though it could also be something that just has a general shape and pattern, so I don’t want to get your hopes up. They’re within a few hundred feet, but also really far away at the same time, and I’m not sure what to make of that.” 

“Spatial warping?” I suggested, and River shrugged. 

“Maybe? I don’t think that most Obsidian Kings would have the skill to make an enchantment that would last hundreds of years after their death. Then again, this one managed to make a working camera, so clearly the people he was exploiting had a very scientific mindset.”

“I don’t suppose that there is any chance that the several hundred feet is out of the yard?” Laurel asked, and River shook his head, then pointed at the mansion. Vince let out a sigh, then stepped forward, red light rushing over his body as he formed a pneuma shell. I half expected it to vanish in the same way that River’s magic had, but the divination spell explicitly interacted with ambient essence in order to detect things, while a pneuma shell was fed entirely through internal reserves, and the red light held steady. 

“I’ll go first. Just in case.” 

He began walking through the waist-high grasses and toward the mansion’s front door. The door itself had long since rotted away, and within was darkness that was lit only by the faint glow of Vince’s red magic. I followed a few steps behind him, and Laurel and River followed a moment later, hand in hand. 

The hall we stood in had once been a horrifyingly gross display of wealth, and several of those elements survived into the modern day. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, the wax melted into lumps that covered the crystals that had made it up. I wondered if the crystals had been mined by child slaves. It wouldn’t surprise me – a lot of jewelry from the era was made special by the fact that it was metaphorically coated in blood. But the ostentatious display didn’t end at the chandelier. Golden sconces, also filled with long-melted wax, lined the walls, and the tiles on the ground looked to be made of blue marble. Blue! There was marble and granite in the mountains only a few hundred miles from here, but using relatively local materials wouldn’t be good enough for an Obsidian King, oh, no. It had to be brought in from an entirely separate country at least a few thousand miles away.

One thing that at least seemed to be a bit less gaudy than the rest was the fact that the stone walls were covered in carvings that were likely early attempts at enchanting. I recognized certain patterns that were similar to the Boost Scales spell that strengthened a pneuma shell, but the rest was fairly opaque to me. I thought it might be structural reinforcement if I was being nice, or it might be wards to prevent an uprising of ordinary people if I wasn’t. 

“Let’s split up and search,” Vince said. He tried to say it as a joke, a way to lighten the mood, but his voice lost the humor halfway through. I shuffled closer to him, then bent down and scooped Scales into my arms to hold him. 

We moved through the mansion slowly, moving from room to room. A small part of me had hoped that the garishly gilded cruelty of the Obsidian King would be confined to the entry hall as a way to impress incomers with his wealth, but that hope was quickly crushed. As we moved through what seemed like a third dining room, I spotted a shadow duck behind a doorway and spun, drawing on my essence. 

Nothing was there. 

I shivered and stepped a bit closer into the group, despite not liking how reliant on them it made me look. We had moved around into a room filled with glass bottles – at least it was glass, and not plastic – when River finally spoke up.

“This is about where the spell said things were.” 

He held up his hands and cast the tracking spell again. It reacted and fizzled out, just like before. 

“It says we’re basically right on it, but are also like… twenty or thirty feet away? It’s hard to tell, like I said, it’s not great with distance.” 

I glanced up at the ceiling of rotting boards and metal cross bracing, then let out a groan. 

“Do you think it’s up there?” 

“Oh, maybe!” Laurel said. “I know that vertical distance can mess up your teleports, could it be doing the same to your divination?” 

“Laurel…” River said, face flushing in shame, though it was partially hidden by the red light of Vince’s essence. “But… no, you’re right, it could be up there.” 

“Do you want to send Ella to lo–” 

I had been trying to ask if Laurel wanted to send Ella, her air and lightning Primal, up to look around so we didn’t need to risk falling through the flooring, but I was cut off by a massive surge of shade essence. It absolutely outstripped any source of power that I had seen before, crushing the record of the Aquarb, blowing away the people in their level thirties or forties that came to visit the town during tourist season, and grinding my own paltry power to dust. The shadow of a man stepped into the room, blazing with power. He was translucent, and his body seemed to be made of living shades of gray. It was slightly warped and distended, with sharp fingers longer than his forearm, and eyes so small and beady that they were the size of cherry pits. 

“G-ghost!” River said, his voice cracking as he tried to take a step back, even as he lit with blue magic. 

“Heart’s truth, I told you this place was haunted,” I muttered under my breath, even as I got a grip on my essence. 

The ghost of the Obsidian King, for that is what this had to be, raised his hand, reaching out for us. I flared my power out, joining my anima to Scales as he leapt from my arms, growling and assuming his battle form. Normally, I would have also pooled my pneuma into his, but with my heart hammering in my chest, I formed a shell of pneuma around myself. Against an opponent this powerful, the shell might only buy me a single blow, but that was better than nothing. 

Next to me, Laurel did the same, glowing with green light while Ella and Zaza erupted into their battle forms of a swirling tornado with six pairs of wings and a horned serpent respectively. 

The ghost’s smile grew wide, revealing row after row of sharp teeth that went deep into its throat. The shadows in the room began to dance, and I felt them brushing against my pneuma shell as they tried to crawl up my legs and arms and around my throat. The power was weak right now, more an effect of its mere presence than a true attack. 

All of our power together still didn’t feel like it stood a good chance against the Obsidian King. The ghost’s power felt like it was in the sixties or even the seventies, we’d need at least four more Primals at our level to comfortably defeat it. The ghost’s beady eyes flicked between us as it leaked more shadow into the room, and it only seemed to grow hungrier with each passing moment, before its gaze finally settled onto Vince. 

Even when Vince had conjured his pneuma shell, he’d done so with the power restrained and kept low, partially to avoid scaring off any wild Primals or essence beasts, and partially because it was just rude to go about swinging power more than a few levels above those you were with. Logically, I knew that Vince was powerful in his own right. But he was also a Tamer. His magic was primarily directed to empowering his Primals. His Serest and Ltan, or maybe his Copycat, Elithe, or Glayker were the creatures that came to mind when considering Vince’s power. 

That all changed when he dropped his veil.