Solo The Price of Magic III

[Alice Weaver]

62th of Spring, 522

“Now onto the final portion of today's event,” Chiona interrupted two of her two students' ribbings. At her statement she produced, from under the desk, a loaf of dark rye, butter, and a few slices of meat. “Lunch!”

Blank stares greeted her statement and her grin faltered.

“I’m serious. We are in the final leg of you all learning the basics of Spiritism and before we can get into applications you have to display an aptitude for producing Soulmist, the material that makes up a ghost. ‘Dead’ djed is what it is also known as but I much prefer to call it as it is. Unchanging still djed that loses its transmutative properties and instead gains a whole new way to interface with the world.”

“As some of you already know,” She raised an eyebrow at Cavan before continuing. “Ghost uses soulmist to great effect. From looking solid, moving objects around with tendrils of it, and the most insidious, and one that Spiritists will have to become used to, possession. The act of a ghost enforcing their unchanging djed’s will onto others and puppeting them.”

“If the thought of having to go through this act concerns you, the giving up of your bodily autonomy, then Spiritism is not for you. Because to learn to resist possession you must first experience possession. I will give you all a moment to think of this and you are allowed to leave with a refund. There is no shame in not wanting to bruise your soul and I’d even consider you smart for not wanting to work with the dead! Ghosts are dangerous, unpredictable beings after all. They may look friendly and well put together but they are all questionably sane.


Rude.

But not entirely wrong.

Chiona took a brief pause as she pinned everyone with her knowing eyes. Through her aura Alice sensed the barest flaring of djed and intent as she passed her eyes over everyone, sussing out hesitation…and found none.

She gave a nod as she launched into her explanation as no one took her offer.

“Soulmist, as I said before, is the domain of the ghost. Ghosts naturally produce the stuff as their body goes from producing djed to producing soulmist from their core. How this switch happens or what is used to create this soulmist is unknown. The prevailing theory of the ghost methods of production lines up with how Spiritists produce their own,” She paused as a darker smile crossed her face. “The consumption and conversion of souls. Specifically the astral body.”

A chill descended upon the room as Chiona’s words took everyone by surprise. Alice especially felt their blood chill in Cavan’s body as they found themselves raising their hand.

“What do you mean by that? I’ve never seen a ghost go after someone purely to eat. Ghosts don’t need to eat, they just sit there and meditate a bit.” Replace ‘a ghost’ with Alice themselves and you have the correct sentence. Alice had never actively hunted someone for energy. Though they did know their touch could deal damage through a drain-like effect…Oh, my gods would they eventually be able to suck someone's soul out if they got a good enough materialization??

No. That’s absurd. If that was true then ghosts would be the most feared creatures in the world.

[Alice Weaver]

“It’s not as violent as you think it is, Cavan. When we use personal magic, when we move, when we do anything, we are expending a bit of ourselves to do so. And that leaves a trail behind. It's off this trail how Auristics function, a projection of the soul’s djed, and ghosts might absorb this excess and turn it into soulmist. Think of it as a fungus cleaning up the leftovers.”

Alright, this lesson seemed more and more like a personal attack by the chime.

“There are predatory ghosts, yes. Their touch can be quite draining and gather soulmist from a living person and it is tangential to the method Spiritist uses. What a lovely segway that is!”

In Alice’s opinion, it seemed like quite a good theory. People got energy from eating food, plants got it from the sun, so why not ghosts from souls? Or leftover soul-ish energy. They were like a…bottom feeder? Trawling around to pick up the scraps to convert into soulmist? They shelved that theory till they heard how Spiritists went about it which seemed to have been learned from copying ghosts, which made a great deal of sense.

“Now we living people are not as good at producing soulmist as ghosts are. Ghosts can use energy from around them and convert it with no medium to transmute it while we living folks have to use food and our own soul.”

“There is very little magic actually involved in Spiritism. After you learn how to make your own soulmist it's just a matter of application and having a quick enough tongue. But without this little bit of magic, a Spiritist is useless so pay attention.”

“First, you need food from three different sources. Many prefer a slice of soft cheese, an egg, and flour mixed in the mouth or bowl into a dough. The most important ingredient in soulmist, however, is blood. You will be relegated to using your own blood for the time being but you can use others’ blood for this process and it might lead to interesting effects on the ghost that consumes it. But you take that bloody dough and place it into your body…most prefer the mouth for obvious reasons and chew it or work it while focusing on what they want.”

“What you want is for the dough to become a sort of force that deeply wants to hold a bit of your soul. So the dough will tug as a bit of your soul and gently pinch a bit off” -She made a pinching motion with her hand- “and pull it into the dough where it will sit and convert into soulmist as it is now ‘dead’ djed.”

“That then gets stored in a clean jar for later use of feeding ghosts, coating weapons, or making boundary lines that ghosts can’t cross. Easy right?” Chiona gently smiled at her student as she took a knife to the sandwich passing out a section to everyone, a silver knife and small jar came next.

“Whenever you are ready to give a go,” She waved them on. “And you just need a few drops of blood. Please don’t go crazy and slit open your entire hand…”

[Alice Weaver]

That warning seemed to be born of one witnessing many many stupid people doing stupid things. So it was one that Alice heeded well as they idly poked at the sad slice of a sandwich they were given. The bread slid off the top from the half-melted butter and greasy meat and their stomach gurgled in distaste.

What a terrible time to regain a sense of taste. Alice bemoaned they hastily cut the flow of djed to their eyes. Their intense focus on the sandwich had brought its aura to the forefront of their mind and assaulted them with its flavor.

Before they could change their mind they grabbed the knife and slit the tip of their finger, gritting their teeth against the parting of their own flesh. The sensation was raw and biting as the cold metal swam through the surface of their skin leaving behind a red line that burbled up with hot blood. Their hand shook at the pain still oversensitive to everything in Cavan as they slathered the already forsaken sandwich with a strip of blood. Their injured finger rapidly found its way into the comfort of their own mouth as they sucked on the wound.

The taste of iron-ladened blood was sort of comforting in a weird way. With the injury safely in their mouth for a few moments, the spirit felt ready to move on.

The ‘sandwich’ came up. Their mouth closed. And Alice tried not to gag at the strongly preserved meat coated with the flavor of nutmeg and onion. Alice hated nutmeg and the common persevering spice was the bane of her once living existence…and now it came back to haunt her even in the afterlife.

The blood-soaked bread did it no favors either.

So Alice sat there as they chewed, forming their meal into a bloody ball of meat bits and pasty bread.

Note to self: Eggs, cheese, and flour is the way to go…

As they chewed they looked inwards and imposed an ideal into themselves, much like how one creates a hypnotic suggestion. The idea of soulmist came easy to them. They were, after all, a being made of the stuff. If anyone had any idea of what soulmist felt like it would be a ghost. But the idea of soulmist wasn’t the hard part it was the process of creating said soulmist that was the issue.

Not for nothing but Alice wasn’t in the habit of lopping off portions of their shared soul even if it did come back as with all djed expended.

Their eyes fluttered shut as they felt a minute change in the slurry resting in their mouth. A subtle shift as it sat in their body, impressed with their djed, and asked for something from within. The little dough ball reached out grubby soul-stealing hands and tugged on something within them.

Alice battled those little hands away and the World’s djed recoiled, possibly a bit confused at their action. They had asked it to make something and then got mad at them when it tried to do its job? What gall! They must have been kidding right? Their creator was simply making them work for it. That must be the case.

Or at least that's what Alice assumed was going through the now personified mix of intent and djed in their mouth as it reached out again only to be rebutted.

I- I have to let it take a piece else this won’t work! Damn it why am I so complicated. I feel no qualms invading others' souls but when my own magic wants a piece I cringe? I refuse! Take a piece! Give me my soulmist!

[Alice Weaver]

Before they could think themselves out of the action they took a knife of intent to a bit of their mixed soul and nicked some ‘excess’ off for a lack of a better word. It was a piece of soul that was at the very edges and didn’t seem to be doing anything important so it got fed to the dough in their mouth.

A twinge in their chest, a feeling of pressure, an instant of movement, and it was done. A bit of their soul was freed from their body before it flowed out and was ripped violently into the dough. The dough's only response was to stop its tugging and go slightly cold to the tongue.

Tense minutes crept by as Alice kept the feeling on soulmist focused on the dough but doubt slowly rose. Did they mess up? Did they cut a piece of themselves off for nothing in return?

As the doubt crested its peak a change happened. The dough in their mouth shifted and flexed, swelling slightly in size as it lost all sense of mass and became chilled to the touch. The natural reaction that happens when something unexpected appears in your mouth expeled the freshly made soulmist into the small jar provided.

From Alice’s eye, the soulmist wasn’t very good, barely a snack that paled in comparison to the gallons that Madeira could effortlessly produce, and already it was fading away. Bits and pieces of it boiled in the cool air disappearing back into the djed it came from.

When they looked up from their new creation they saw Chiona standing in front of their desk as she spoke to them in a hushed tone.

“Well done, Cavan or Alice, or whoever you are going by in this body. Welcome to your first steps as a Spiritist. Hopefully your own insights into how a ghost function lets you do plenty of good with what you have learned here today. Now here, take this and go enjoy the rest of your day as a newly minted mage. Two others are still trying so don’t interrupt them.”

Alice mechanically accepted the small charm in the form of lips, pocketing it as they asked.

“How long did it take me?”

“Huh? Oh. About thirty chimes,” She said with a shrug. “A bit on the slower side for your first time but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Now go, shoo.” A hand flutter got Alice out of the chair and down and out the halls of the tower. Each step built excitement within the ghost as they felt they made out like a bandit today. Their steps filled with a jaunty spring as they stepped out into the sculpted city of Lhavit.