PSTH: Chapter Eight

Null element essence is often seen as what happens to raw essence when it settles down, and becomes less chaotic. Indeed, those of you in the audience who have raw essence are capable of learning to freecast null spells.

But while that’s a great way to simplify the process, it’s a bit like saying evolution is where positive traits are kept, and negative ones are left behind. There’s truthfully a bit more to both, but to simplify it into one sentence, it works well. Now, this video is focused on all of the instances where that rule of thumb doesn’t work…

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

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Despite my hopes, with the continual slowing of the inexperienced kayakers, it took closer to two hours to actually get to our lunch spot. When we finally arrived, I pulled everyone’s kayaks onto land, and River crawled out of his boat and flopped into the sand. 

“Leave me here,” he said. “I’m going to die. It’s better to just move on without me…” 

I rolled my eyes, while Laurel started needling her boyfriend about him being unable to keep up with her. Vince stretched, popping his back and sighing. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten the chance to really boat around like this,” he said whistfully. “Being a Regent is a full time job and then some.”

“What do you do, other than take on challengers?” I asked curiously. “I imagine there’s a lot of paperwork.” 

“Heart’s truth,” he agreed. “You can’t even imagine the amount of paperwork I have to do. Coordinating tournaments, flexing our power every time Rainforge does something menacing about the bordering essence hearts, balancing the budget of the consortium… It’s a mess.”

He let out a long, tired sigh and scratched at his beard, while I nodded sympathetically and began taking out the various containers of dried fruits, nuts, and jerky that I’d packed for lunch. With the heat and humidity, any of the cold foods I might normally have gone for, like a shrimp salad and coleslaw, weren’t exactly viable. Despite his claims of death being imminent, River popped back up when the food and water came out, and I used the gallon of water to refill his bottle.

“Should I have brought some shrimp flavored chips?” I asked innocently, and got a glare from Laurel, who even shifted her position to look slightly away from me. Vince laughed and glanced around, then sighed. 

“You know, I thought that when you had on that sun hat you were being a bit ridiculous, but what I wouldn’t do for some shade right now…” 

“I can set up a tent, but if I’m going to do that, it would probably be better to leave for the island tomorrow,” I said. “We’re running late already.” 

“Sorry,” River said, actually looking contrite. “I admit, I definitely underestimated the toll that five straight hours of kayaking can take on the body. I thought– well, nevermind.” 

“It’s fine,” I said, waving my hand. “I should…” 

I trailed off as I felt something within the ambient essence. An instant later, a massive crab, easily the size of a dog, complete with a third eye and two additional legs, erupted from the sand, snapping its pincers. I thrust out my hand and began channeling my power into Scales, who stepped forwards. Pneuma began to swirl around him, forming the shell of his battle form, and he stepped forward to take on the challenge of battle against the primal. 

An instant later, the battle form of a Serest emerged next to Scales, as Laurel stepped up next to me, giving me a curt nod. The crablike creature lunged, reaching out with a snap of its pincers, and I had Scales use Boost Scales, then bite down with a basic Pneuma Bite. While getting to use Frosted Bite would be fun, it would be less effective against the power of a fellow water primal.

“What is it? What level?!”  

My augpad was still in my pack, leaning against the palm tree on the island, so I wasn’t able to scan the wild primal for exact information, but I knew the breed. I was a little more surprised that Laurel couldn’t sense the level – did I have sharper essence senses than she did? 

That was a question for another time, as Zaza used Willow Switch, slamming down on the crab primal, and Scales bit down again, even as it snapped at both of them. 

“It’s an Aquarb. Common water element primal, higher defenses than most, but severely lacking both physical and magical power. Its claws are actually so big that it has to use its pneuma allo–”

“Focus!” 

“Right. Sorry. Low offensive power. It’s in its low twenties. Maybe twenty-two or three. Probably the strongest Primal in the region by a long shot, hoping to battle us to advance.”

“Right! Paralyzing Spores!” 

As she called out, Zaza began to emit the same spores that had slowed and thrown off Scales’ motion as before, sinking into the pneuma shell of the Aquarb. Scales used the opportunity to break free of the giant claw, and then pounced, slamming a Pneuma Bite down on the eye-stalk, which sent a few cracks through the shell. The Aquarb tried to bring its claw down on Scales’ head like a hammer, but the spores caused it to freeze up, buying my primal an instant to duck out of the way, while at the same time, Zaza dove in and lashed out with a Willow Switch, striking the underbelly. 

More cracks spread through the protections of our opponent, and I had Scales use Boost Scales again, improving the defensive power of his pneuma shell, while ducking and weaving from the hammering crab-like blows. While Scales was far from the speediest primal, the spores continued to hinder the Aquarb, and with his defenses doubled, he was tough enough to take the glancing blows. The entire time, Zaza kept up its assault, slipping between the spider-like legs to lash out with Willow Switches at the creature’s underbelly, until the Aquarb began to glow. 

The primal let out a screech and brought a heavy blow down on Scales, using some sort of spell that negated the spores' slowing effect. I cursed under my breath, and Scales barely had the time to cast another Boost Scales before the blow connected. 

Cracks spread through Scales’ battle form, and it began to glow as well, but Scales got to his feet, lunging in for one last Pneuma Bite. At the same time, Zaza slammed into the Aquarb’s shell with a Willow Switch. 

The battle form of the Aquarb vanished, and a crab the size of my two hands put together, with two extra legs, a blue shell, and three eye-stalks hissed bubbles at us angrily, before diving back into the waves, presumably to go restore its spent essence. I let out a sigh as I felt a rush of power flowing from the Aquarb and the atmosphere into Scales, Zaza, Laurel, and me. 

If I thought the rush of essence from beating Laurel yesterday had been potent, it was nothing compared to this. The essence from the defeat of a level twenty primal, even if only a common one, was extremely dense. It swirled into Scales, whose battle form began to glow, then stretch and compact. An instant later, I felt as the essence I was connected to compressed itself, crunching down and becoming more potent, as well as paving the way to allow additional essence to enter his spirit.

I couldn’t help but let a goofy grin spread across my face as I scooped up Scales, who was dismissing his pneuma shell, and held him close to me. I squeezed gently and then lifted him up to hold him at eye level. 

“You’re level twelve now!” I told him excitedly. “Congratulations!”

He didn’t understand what I was saying, but he could feel my excitement through our bond, and he’d always been the sort of primal that desired training and working to empower himself. His shark tail began to wag back and forth, even as his long tongue lolled out of his mouth like a dog, and I squeezed him again. I put him down a few moments later, and turned to see Vince grinning like a cat that had just discovered a bowl of fresh tuna, even as Laurel finished scratching Zaza’s head. 

“Well done both of you! That Aquarb had been trailing us for a bit, and I was curious to see how you handled it. You worked well together…”

Just like he had after the initial battle between Laurel and I, Vince ran through the fight, pointing out what we’d done well, as well as all of the things that each of us could have done better.

The rest of our half-hour break wasn’t nearly so eventful, and we set off again, with River grumbling all the while. As we started to move, I once again noticed something strange happening with Laurel’s essence. It was probably a little rude to ask, but after fighting together, I felt that I’d earned a modicum of respect. 

“What are you doing? I can sense something strange going on, but I don’t know what.” 

“Moving cultivation,” she responded. Though her reply was curt, her tone didn’t seem angry, just… focused. 

“Training,” River explained. “She uses a technique to focus on the interactions between the body and its ousia. She strains her ousia through ordinary physical activity, and when she stops to rest, essence begins to fill in the micro-tears, advancing her.” 

“Also gives more to work with spiderweb,” Laurel said, her words still clipped and focused on something else. 

“It can be dangerous to overdo it, though,” Vince said. “The body and spirit need rest. If you work non-stop, you’re going to rip yourself apart.” 

I tapped my fingers against the wooden frame of my kayak and resolved to look into this sort of method. If I could expand my power through walking, running, and biking, that would be a great way to get an edge in competition. Though, given how Laurel struggled to talk, maybe picking up something a bit less intense would be a good idea. The world was beautiful, and I didn’t want to get so caught up in training that I forgot to see everything around. 

I pushed the thoughts aside as we spent the next several hours kayaking. Three hours in, I actually threw out a rope to River, tying his kayak behind my own and pulling him along in an attempt to relieve some of his aches and pains, as he was physically exhausted. 

I was still going strong – I could have made the trip in about half the time if I’d needed to, but I was also very much used to kayaking up and down the coast, training with Scales, fishing, and collecting oysters in the autumn months.

When we were only about an hour out, we saw the island that the long dead Obsidian King’s mansion sat upon, and some energy seemed to return to Laurel, Vince, and even to River, who began to propel himself once again, though he slowed when it became clear we weren’t as close as he’d initially thought.

As we got closer, the mansion became clearer. Set at the top of a series of three hills that made up the island, it was tall and imposing. It likely had once stood at three stories tall, but the top story had long since caved in. In its initial days, it had likely once been covered with thin sheets of drywall, as was the fashion in pre-arrival days. All of it had long since been destroyed by hurricanes, leaving only the granite underneath – a practicality that even some of the Obsidian Kings had been forced to bow to, despite their seeming love of importing gypsum stone from thousands of miles away, only to build thin, easily destroyed walls that even an unawakened farmer could rip through. 

The glass windows had long been broken apart due to a lack of care, and half of them were probably sea glass now. The property had once been wrapped with wrought iron fences, but nearly all of them had decayed away in the salt air, leaving only a handful of iron and brick posts as nature took its vengeance on the destructive powers of the pre-arrival peoples and the Obsidian Kings.  

One of the other hills held a large entry that looked to be partially collapsed as the wooden reinforcement beams had rotted, and flooded as the waters of the earth rose higher. That had likely been the initial mine for essence stones, an attempt from Obsidian Kings who had yet to understand essence mechanics. The third hill, at the very least, was pristine. It was the lowest of them, covered in trees, bushes, and scrub. It was where we made our landing for that night, and I pulled us onto shore and started setting up my tent and the camp stove.