Abilities of spirits and groundwork

‘Luneria’s guides are feline spirits native to the plane of Panthea, said to be descendent of the cat in Luneria’s myth; they are said to guide lost souls to  Luneria's embrace. Not much is known is about them, due to them being rare (estimated less than 2000), however what is known is that they have traces of Luneria’s divinity on them. While they lack combat prowess in accordance for their rank as a lieutenant rank spirit they possess covert and movement abilities far outside the norm.’

Closing the book on spirits I looked over to my right as I saw a black cat like figure with 2 eyes that looked like the moon tilt its head at me.

“Luneria’s guide, eh.” It had been over 10 days since Lynn supposed passing, the first time I saw her in her new from I felt incredulous; I mean here I am mourning the passing of my cat when she shows up reborn as a spirit.

That being said it was really hard for me (morally) to fool the other into thinking that I was genuinely mourning, but a couple skipped dinners, some general apathy and lots of time staying in my room seemed to do the trick. I mean it isn’t that I wanted to hide her existence but that she seemed unwilling to appear in front of others and considering what she had been through I decided to honour that.

“Let’s head home, Lynn.”

Hearing this Lynn’s ears pricked up as she vanished in a puff of smoke and appeared on my shoulder. Earlier she had been the average size kitten for her age but after turning into a spirit she had shrunk so much so that now she could easily fit in the palm of my hand.

Heading home the sky had turned orange at dusk, I took quite an unconventional route, one passing by the south eastern part of town. As I was passing by the place I could feel some eyes staring at me, some looked at me like I was some kind of prey both literally and figuratively while other looked warily.

While I had just passed by the place it still gave me an idea what kind of place this side of town was, one that covered its filth with all kinds of glamour be it booze, women or drugs. Passing on by the place I looked at a building, one inconspicuous enough that it seemed out of place amidst all the glamour but a second look would make it look right in place.

‘That one, Lynn’ ‘meow’ walking past the south-east district, I walked for about another half an hour before reaching the home. Once there I put on my best ‘I am sad but I am not trying to show it face’ and went about my day as usual though I was getting a lot of stares of sympathy, which in turn tugged at my heart strings.

‘Lying to them feels wrong but Lynn doesn’t want to face them *sigh* god help me’

After the usual stuff with the chores and all I went to Mr Dolson and Harold who were busy amongst them, seeing me approach Harold asked

“Alfred, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing I just wanted you and Mr Dolson to teach me miracles” hearing my response both of them looked at each other in shock, after all since a young age in this life I was obsessed with magic and pretty much didn’t care for anything else; even the healing miracle and the cleaning one, were forced upon me by Mr Dolson.

Seeing the ‘magic maniac’ ask about learning miracles made them feel a bit dumbfounded, while still a bit confused they seemed to gain some clarity as suddenly Mr Dolson pulled me into a hug and agreed all the while comforting with me that it was not my fault.

‘Maybe he thinks I am doing this because of the letter or the matter with Lynn’ if he thought so then he was right, I wanted to learn more miracles, precisely because they were the easiest way currently for me to gain power.

Entering my room at night I summoned Lynn who appeared from the shadows underneath the bed. ‘The notebook, Lynn’ with that the shadows beneath Lynn seemed to spread and covered an area four times their previous amount. Crouching down, I placed my hand in the shadow and pulled out a notebook.

Sitting down on the bed we began our routine as Lynn, vanished into a puff of smoke and appeared next to the building we saw today, while I sitting on the bed saw what Lynn was seeing. ‘Shared sight’ the ability of a spirit to transmit what it was seeing to its contractor.

Spirits are being that are born of mana and some define them as sentient mana while others argue that they are strong souls from the spiritual world that possess the ability to influence the material world, there was much that was not known about the origin of spirits in the current world, or it is just outside my current reach, however what was known was parts of their ecology.

Spirits are divided into ranks nameless, solider, lieutenant, general and finally king; only spirits at and above the ranks of solider can make contracts.

Walking slowly towards the window of the building she changed into a cloud of amorphous stuff and then passed through the windows and then reformed inside once inside, she melted into the shadows turning herself unnoticeable (at least by someone with a similar caliber to of Mr Dolson, I tested). Searching around the house she managed to find some people playing cards with what seemed to be tokens, while others were at a roulette machine. Searching some more we found our destination, a hidden door in the staff changing room courtesy of Lynn’s ability to sense darkness(quite literally, she senses dark attribute mana that naturally exist in shadows and dark places).

Passing through the door led us to a dimly lit hallway, at the end we seemed to have reached a table were men and one woman were gambling but what they were using as chips weren’t money or even something logical like property. No they were gambling on people.

Slavery in the empire and most of the continent has been abolished for over 3000 years; however there are still scumbags that partake in human trafficking, most of these are organizations that use slaves for things that any sane person would refuse, such as mining in a half collapsed mine or as drug testers for back-alley pharmacist. Most of these people were able to get away with this because they kept the pockets of the powerful lined with cash it didn’t matter if it was in the empire or any of the republics or any other kingdom or nation.

Seeing a bunch of people with varying age in decrepit conditions I felt nauseous, but I managed to hold it, and looked at those that at the table and those that were surveying the slaves.

Back in my room I held out my hand as darkness manifested before me and coalesced into thin rectangular strip, holding out the note book I focused my attention onto their faces. As soon as I felt I got a good enough look at them, the black strip turned into a bunch of trails of shadow and was imprinted onto the book, turning the blank page into one with the portraits of the people on the table.

‘Lynn mark them and return.’ ’meow’ hearing a purr of acknowledgement, Lynn went to each of the group and marked them each with a mark on the back of their calf as she vanished and appeared in my room.

Once in my room I had Lynn traced over the portraits that I made with her powers. The back strip was an ability I gained after forming the contract with Lynn, I gained the ability to control darkness similar to Lynn however on a much-much smaller scale, a strip of 10cmx0.5cmx2cm with consistency like play dough was my limit however if I were to maximise strength of the material I could make about 2 toothpick size cylinders which are tough as iron, and If I tried to make more than those 2 the earlier one would disappear, Lynn on the other hand didn’t have that problem.

The reason why I was investigating this group was simple, they were related to why my mother (in this life) had turned into a zombie, quite simply she had left the dragonkin village after a fight with her sister to live in the city, however she was kidnapped and sold to the black market auction house in the capital, from where she was sold to an illegal brothel in this city. The letter she left detailed all of this as well as her name and her sister’s name, along with the identity of my so called father.

The reason for investigating the group was that, even if they weren’t the guys that bought her they were related be it as an associate or rival. Remembering what mother had written in her letter, I could not help and look at it placed beside my bed.

“Renee, it’s a nice name mother” muttering to self as I found myself placing my hand on the letter, sensing my melancholy mood Lynn teleported onto my shoulders and caressed my head with her paws and head, feeling a bit more bright I spent the rest of time before bed petting and playing with goodest of good girls.

“Good night Lynn”

“Meow”

“How is he?”(Mr Dolson)

“Not good, he is talking as if Lynn is still there with him, I even heard him meow to himself” (Joel)

Hearing her words the war harden priest could help but shed tears, while the young lady just stood there awkwardly without knowing what to do.

FIN