AETHER BEASTS

"What do think this great master is?" Sandra asked as we sat in our dining room

After the interrogation, we'd taken the body a mile away from our treehouse, and then we'd simply dropped it somewhere. The smell would attract beasts, and they'd clean it up. It was that reason we didn't bury it close to the treehouse, the floor had plenty of two core beasts and their sense of smell was powerful enough that they'd be able to pick up the smell of a rotting body from a mile or two away, hell, they might have found our base if not for the aether wards Zirani had placed around the perimeter of our little area.

"Some sort of high power I assume," Zirani replied in a confused tone. "But I've never heard of someone with the title of lost king. It's rather…"

"Vague?" I suggested.

Zireani nodded. "Yes, vague."

"Whatever it was, I don't think its a good idea if they bring him back," Misty said. "That is what he said they were trying to do right?"

"I assume so," Zirani answered. "That's what the sacrifices were for, to create those masses of flesh he talked of. An ingredient needed for that ritual. I wonder…"

Her words trailed off, and a distant look came to her eyes.

"What is it?" I asked.

Zirani didn't answer for a moment, but then she shook her head as though trying to rid herself of a thought. "I've heard of rituals like this before, of people trying to place a soul into a new vessel."

"Like body swapping?" Sandra asked.

"Sort of." Zirani sighed. "It usually never works, or if it does, the results are not what was expected. A person's soul is tied to their body in a very intimate way, they are linked and were quite literally made for each other. To try and tear that bond or even place a bodiless soul into a new vessel isn't an easy process. Only the most intelligent and well-versed arcanists could do such a thing, which makes me wonder how they got their hands on this sort of information. A soul transference or binding ritual is not some common knowledge, not even beyond the great scar."

"What if their great master told them?" I suggested. "Could he communicate with them?"

Ziraini frowned and then her eyes widened and she cursed under her breath. "Oh no."

"What?" Sandra looked puzzled. "What is it?"

"I should have guessed." Zirani shook her head. "The knowledge, the reasoning, the title they gave him. Great master."

She turned to Sandra. "What do you know about the history of the twin horn?"

Sandra frowned. "Not much. There a normal sect or were a normal sect before the war, arrogant, had a strict hierarchy."

"Where did they come from, who founded the sect?" Zirani questioned.

"No one knows," Sandra replied. "They just popped out of nowhere…"

It suddenly hit me, what Zirani was thinking. That this great master was the leader of the twin horn, not just some think they prayed two. From what I'd been told, the twin horn hadn't always been so bloodthirsty and greedy, and it's not like they'd tried to take the first tower close to Orton or Orton itself. It had been the moment this tower had appeared that they'd started a war, and while most thought it was for greed and money, what if it had been for another reason.

"You think this great master is behind everything?" I asked Zirani.

"It's just a hunch," Zirani replied, turning to Sandra. "We need to get the bonding between you and Aiden done now, even if you have to go into the night, and then we need to leave. Just as Misty said, we cannot let them go through with this ritual, whoever this great master is, its clear he's very knowledgeable and when it comes to the arcane, that usually also means that they are also very powerful."

"So what do we do for the rest of the day?" I asked. "Should we just go back to training?"

Zirani shook her head. "I need to get things ready for this bonding ritual. You three have accomplished the goals I've set, and while I might have said you could relax, now with this new information, I think it's best if we use all the time we can to prepare. I was planning on teaching you the basics of changing your aether and finally teaching you advanced techniques when we got to the next floor, including finally tapping into the spatial aspect we now have for new and existing techniques, Aiden, but it seems we're not going to get that chance just yet."

I held back my disappointment. I'd really been looking forward to learning new techniques, especially a movement technique and finally putting the warp seed to good use. Unlike Misty or Sandra I didn't have any sort of enhancement technique besides aether burst, which was only good for short boosts and couldn't be maintained for extended fights or periods of time. I couldn't wait until this business with the twin horn was done, and over. After that, we could take time to finish training and then head to border cities, after I visited my aunt of course.

"I want the three of you to experiment with modifying your already existing techniques, and adding new patterns to them." Zirani stood. "Don't push yourselves, or try and rush things, especially you Misty, you do have excellent regeneration, but I don't think you want to melt your face off do you?"

Misty blanched and shook her head. "No, definitely not."

"Far too pretty," I added with a smirk which earned me a playful smack on the arm from Misty.

It was a real shame that our training had once again been disrupted by the twin horn, but what could we do? We had to get rid of the twin horn once and for all, more so now than ever, with this new knowledge. If this great master was their leader then there was no way we could let come back.

That was another piece of information that would have baffled me a few weeks ago, but with everything I'd learned, learning that you could shove a soul into a new body, wasn't as shocking as it once might have been, though it did bring up plenty fo question in my mind. Were your cores and infusion level tied to your soul or would you have to start over again, and what exactly could you do with a soul. Zirani had talked about trapped souls so casually, was that something that people did beyond the great scar? More questions to add to the list for when we finally had some time to ourselves and weren't in such a rush.

As Zirani worked on getting the ritual ready, Sandra, Misty, and I worked on experimenting with our techniques. The first technique I tried to add things to was my lashing vine. While it has plenty of utility uses, it didn't have the same lethality as a bark spike, so I tried adding thorns along its length. Before the lessons and training from Zirani, it would have been impossible, but with my new understanding of patterns along with the base, advanced and affinity sets, it was far easier than I had thought. Since it was a simple addition, all it took was a few changes. I had options on how I wanted it to work. Did I want the thorns to form at the same time the vine initially did or after? What size and shape did I want them? I could have spent hours on it, but I didn't have hours so I went with simply shaped curved thorns that I could shrink into the vine at will so that If I simply wanted to grab something or cathing them without doing too much damage, then I could. Being able to switch from lethal to non-lethal had been a must

Sandra's first attempt at dark spears had been weeks ago on the first floor, and it had not worked out, but this time she got it in a matter of minutes, and happily tested it out, sending four long spears of darkness out at frightening speed.

Misty did something similar to Sandra. She changed her death ball into a slash like she'd done when she'd been fighting the bear. She could use it without the claws or with. She also tested out her screech, which had sent me and Sandra to the ground, and Zirani annoyingly shouting at her to warn them next time.

It was a shame we didn't have more time as there was a ton of possibilities I could think of for all my techniques, and I was eager to try and make some new techniques, though I followed Zirani's advice and kept back on that idea.

"I'm done," Zirnai announced, walking over to us.. "Now we just need to get the two of your ready and we can begin."