Eight 4

The fighting appeared to have scared off the other beasts in the area, so the trip back to Voorhei was uneventful. As we crossed the village’s boundary, I sent Snow blinking ahead to alert the militia members guarding the wall that we were back and safe. By that point, Yuki was back inside her, so I got to hear about her hijinks firsthand.

A handful of villagers had volunteered for the duty, mostly younger folk who needed the extra taak. Snow gave them a good scare materializing among them, and it might’ve seemed from the outside like a bit of cruel mischief, but the prank was good training.

Yuki relayed Snow’s satisfaction and shared that while a couple of the villagers had jumped in fright, the rest had either recognized her or brought their weapons to the ready right away. The two who’d been slower to respond were marked by both Snow and Yuki for additional… ah… attention.

I almost felt bad for their victims, but it really was good for the villagers. Or it would be eventually, once Snow and Yuki were done with them. And if my companions got a perverse pleasure from inflicting the jump scares, then that could be considered a win-win.

Behind me, Wensatsu and Krenya snickered. That was one thing I’d noticed about the peltwei, their eyesight tended to be exceptional.

All around us the fields slumbered. The remnants of the previous Long Dark had been swept away by the villagers as soon as the snow had melted, and over the past couple of weeks, once the hard frosts had diminished, they’d worked furiously to plant the year’s crops. Those seeds were hidden by the earth—each a tiny, ferocious engine of growth.

In my old life, I’d would’ve told you it was early May. Here in Diaksha, we were in the fifth week of the season of spring.

The walls surrounding Voorhei were twenty feet tall, and none of the stones matched—a legacy of the Earth-Touched families who’d built them. As for the west gate, it was made from a series of logs banded together by iron and operated by a pulley system. Immediately on the other side was an enclosure whose walls were carved with stylized images of war dogs, their teeth bared.

Snow re-joined us on the other side of the kill box, and sent via Yuki, ‘The kittens need teaching.’

I really did feel bad for those poor kids. Almost.

###

Thankfully, Healing Water treated alcohol like any other poison, and my team was able to get a good number of hunters sober and shuttling to where we’d left the dead kalesks. Then, we sent two more batches of helpers over the next couple of hours as our mana recovered.

The process would’ve gone more quickly if the villagers who knew the spell could’ve also cast it on our hunters, but ever since Makul the Journeyman Healer had been stationed in Voorhei, we had to be more circumspect with the spell’s use.

The reality was that our land knight, Ithia, seemed intent on leaving the status of Healing Water undetermined. Technically, she was still “deliberating” who it should belong to, but after eight years, it was clear to everyone involved that this was nothing more than a polite fiction and that she’d decided not to decide in either the hunters’ or the healers’ favor.

Therefore, anyone could legally learn the spell, and they’d be allowed to use it on themselves and their family members. And because the lodges were considered a second family, they were included too.

Just as importantly, to learn the spell, you also had to be willing to withstand the healers’ ire.

There had been real consequences to that. For several years, the Healer’s Lodge forbade its members from treating the hunters from Voorhei, and a couple of our people had lost babies during those intervening years, one nearly dying herself while in the process giving birth. Healing Water was an amazing spell, but it couldn’t replace an actual, skilled healer.

When those situations had arisen, Makul had ignored every plea to help. I’d seen the toll it took on his spirit—he’d truly anguished—but that hadn’t stopped him from refusing to aid the children and their mothers.

I’d socked him the first time it happened, and afterward my team had known to keep me away from him whenever one of our hunters needed medical help beyond what Healing Water could address.

Fortunately, a couple of years back, Ithia had intervened and forced the healers to provide non-injury-based support to our lodge. She’d chastised them for deepening the conflict while she was considering the issue.

In many ways, the situation helped Ithia immensely. It provided a way for three lodges to have full access to Healing Water—the hunters, the healers, and the alchemists. Plus there were all the random folk who’d made the journey to Ikfael’s shrine to exchange for the spell.

Our dear otter had at least done well. Because Healing Water was still being contested, she was the best and safest source to learn the spell. All those exchanges had gotten her spirit shining just about how it used to before she’d one-sidedly saved my life from an assassin.

She’d thrived over the past few years, and so had our lodge, despite the difficulties. Or maybe because of the difficulties—all the light flooding into the region had increased the average level of our hunters even before the new immigrants were accounted for.

I mean, we were supposed to be celebrating, weren’t we? This wasn’t the time for maudlin thoughts and worrying about things I couldn’t control. Teila, Haol, and Tegen had all become dawn, and we’d received a windfall of nearly thirty kalesks.

It took about four hours to get the animals’ bodies dressed and stored, but once that was done, the party was still going. Our hunters re-joined the festivities, sliding right back in as if they’d never left. After all, we’d grown stronger. My team and I had tirelessly walked the Path to Perfection. That deserved some recognition.

The sun peaked over the horizon before I was dragged away to bed.

###

One thing about a qi-reinforced body, it handled a hangover well. Add in a dash of Healing Water, and you were mostly right as rain. Assuming you got enough sleep, which I had. My Status clock read 12:37 in the afternoon when I finally rolled out of bed. There was just me in the longhouse, so I must’ve been the last one to get up.

A pot of corn porridge simmered over a small pile of banked charcoal. I grabbed a bowl and served myself up some. Mmm… this is nice. Butter, green chilies, tomato relish, and smoked venison.

Yuki moved through my consciousness. The merge was as short and natural as the blinking of the eyes—just long enough to taste the flavors and get a read on my condition—before they separated and turned their attention back to… Aluali was it? They left behind a nod to confirm my supposition, a hint of amusement at my blurry thoughts, and a note that I was wanted at the lodge, but only when I was ready. There wasn’t any rush.

That was good, because moments to myself were rare in Voorhei, and I took advantage of the empty longhouse to take care of some… personal business. Then afterward, I lay back in bed to let my mind wander and to wake up in earnest.

I’d really cut loose the previous night, drinking way more than I should have. That was something I’d noticed about being a teenager again—everything just felt so intense. My thoughts also tended to swing between extremities, but thankfully Yuki was usually available to help balance the boat. At least my ability to focus had improved as my body grew older.

Still, the benefits of a young body far outweighed the negatives. I’d never felt so alive and so powerful before. My Agility was Olympic grade, and my Spirit was approaching superhuman levels. Like, literally so—rank 20 was supposed to be the human limit, and that was where the attribute currently sat.

I brought up my Status to look it over.

Eight the Storm Caller (Hidden, Oliver Michael Sandoval)

Path of the Storm Caller: Level 8

Age: 16

Silverlight: 27,753

Soul Marks

God Touched

Spontaneous Formation

Memories of Another World

Mana Door

Way of the Hunter

Dawn

Primary Attributes

Strength 13

Constitution 13

Agility 15

Intelligence 15

Wisdom 16

Spirit 20

Charm 11

Luck 15

Secondary Attributes

Body Power 34

Qi 107

Mana 47

Talents

Jack of All Trades

Talent Scout

Qi Sensitive

Uncanny Tracker

Multilingual

Enduring

Spirit Hunter

Lightning Affinity

Heart of the Storm

Scholar of Land and Sky

Blessings

Aluali Eightsson (Human)

Billisha Eightsdaughter (Human)

Diriktot (Fallen God, Order)

Helen Miriam Sandoval (Spirit)

Ikfael (Spirit)

Curses

Conditions

Occupied (Evolving*)

Skills

Artisan

Appraisal 6

Construction 8

Woodworking 8

Domestic

Cleaning 4

Cooking 7

Repairs 6

Magical

Aeromancy 10

Body Power Arts 5

Geomancy 6

Gravity Magic 0

Hydromancy 10

Light Magic 0

Nature Magic 8

Probability Magic 0

Pyromancy 0

Qi Body 13

Qi Body Arts 12

Spirit Magic 8

Time Magic 0

Martial

Archery 12

Knife Arts 9

Logistics 11

Marksmanship 10

Poison Arts 8

Spear Arts 11

Strategy 7

Mercantile

Accounting 12

Administration 12

Barter 8

Scholarship

Biology 6

Chemistry 5

Diaksh 11

Ecology 5

English 13

Meteorology 7

Nonverbal Communication 9

Numeracy 8

Physics 6

Signed Diaksh 11

Spanish 8

Social

Gaming 12

Relationships 9

Storytelling 11

Spiritualism

Meditation 12

Spirit Arts 12

Taoism 12

Survival

Caves 3

City 7

Forest 13

Ocean 5

Stealth 13

Yuki was ahead of me as a Level 9 Uekisheile, but they’d decided to hold there while I caught up. I only needed approximately four thousand silverlight to do so, and from there we’d both climb to Silvered together.

Now, that was a long, long trek; the gap between Level 9 and Level 10 was thirty thousand light. I’d looked at the chart in the lodge’s library so often, I had it memorized:

Level Total Silverlight

1..... 50

2..... 250

3..... 750

4..... 2,250

5..... 6,750

6..... 9,250

7..... 14,250

8..... 21,750

9..... 31,750

10... 61,750

At least I had some interesting toys to play with along the way. I picked up the Scholar of Land and Sky talent when I hit 20 Spirit, plus there were all the journeyman hunter spells I’d bought access to thanks to my contributions to the lodge, financial and otherwise.

There were also, of course, the spells I’d painstakingly taught myself from the Path of the Storm Caller.

The only downside to these path spells was that the really powerful ones required a thunderstorm first, and if one didn’t happen to be handy, then it took time and energy to build one up. That meant multiple casts of spells, as well as time—lots and lots of time.

From blue skies to thunderstorm, I’d need a sequence of Rain Call, Windstorm, and Storm Call. Altogether, depending on the exact meteorological conditions, that would take anywhere from ninety to one-hundred-twenty minutes. They’d also cost me a total of twelve points' worth of body power, six of qi, and six of mana.

Given the above prerequisites, I mostly stuck to the hunters’ spells. I could also electrify my weapons when it made sense to do so. I’d named those spells Lightning Arrow and Lightning Strike, and they were great for small encounters. Each cost four points' worth of body power and two each of qi and mana.

When an encounter called for area-effect damage, I relied on Lightning Hands. The spell didn’t require any preparation at all, relying as it did on Spark. The only issue was that it was a mana hog.

Where my path really shone was during the Long Dark. A couple of times now, I’d gotten a big storm going and lit up the entire battlefield with stroke after stroke of lightning. I called the spell Skyfire’s Dance, and it was damn effective. Unfortunately, the spell was another hog, costing me body power, qi, and mana by the second. That was on top of the costs needed to create the prerequisite conditions.

My current work in progress was a spell called Lightning Cage, an effort to combine Skyfire’s Dance with another spell I called Return Stroke—that’d be going all in on the area-effect damage.

The problem was that opportunities to work on my big spells were few and far between. The people of Voorhei were willing to tolerate only so many thunderstorms, which meant I’d often had to travel out to the deep woods to practice, and then I was limited by my 34 Body Power.

All that went out the window whenever a natural thunderstorm had come to visit. When that happened, the villagers had quickly learned to stay well away from the Glen.

I swiped my phone screen to check the weather report, but the forecast was mostly clear for the next ten days. The farmers would appreciate it, since there was still quite a lot of work to do in the fields. They’d want a few spring rains soon, though, and I made a note to myself to drop by their lodge to check on when that might be.

But first, I’d take care of a little more business. Then, I planned to clean up and head over to the Hunter’s Lodge to see what they needed me for.

###

The lodge was located along the boundary surrounding Voorhei’s pyramid, opposite the Farmer’s Lodge on the other side of the plaza. This was where all the village’s most important structures were located—the communal ovens, the smokehouse, the smithy, and so on. Each of these buildings was constructed of stone, unlike the longhouses everywhere else in the village.

The interior of the Hunter’s Lodge was set up like a hall—a long, open space with animal heads mounted along the walls. They were things like elk, musk oxen, bears, and mountain lions. The newest head had once belonged to a kalesk. No surprise there.

Below the heads were butchering and crafting tables, as well as hooks attached to the ceiling from which to hang game. A sparring ring occupied the middle of the lodge, and toward the back wall were three doors. Two smaller ones led to meditation rooms, while the third opened onto the courtyard out back.

I found Tegen working, of course. He sat at Inleio’s old desk, but he’d moved it several years ago from where it used to be—in the corner to the left of the front door—to the middle of the hall so that he could watch over and participate in anything happening in the lodge. The new location also offered a nice view onto the courtyard.

Snow lay next to him, and he paused his scribbling to give her a scratch between the ears. There were only a few other hunters present, and I gave them a wave. They greeted me back, each of them bowing slightly.

They were all recent immigrants to the village, and I was tempted to walk over to get to know them better. By that point, though, my curiosity had started waking up along with the rest of me, so I pulled up a cushion beside Tegen instead.

“How is it?” I asked. “Still settling into being dawn?”

Tegen smiled. There were bags under his eyes, remnants from the night spent partying, but his eyes shone anyway. “It’s better than I imagined. Nothing I’d read or heard captures the feeling.”

“And your path evolution?”

There were aspects of Tegen’s new path that eluded him, very much like how it took me time to figure out Storm Caller.

“So-so,” he said. “I can feel something tugging on my attention, but it is too diffuse to tell anything more than that.”

A click from my Status camera showed:

Integnei the Warden of the Woods (Human, Dawn)

Talents: Braveheart, Patient, Devoted Teacher, the Hunter’s Bulwark

Nascent: Paperwork is Fieldwork

In becoming dawn, Tegen’s path had evolved into Warden of the Woods. He’d also gained the Hunter’s Bulwark talent and also had his Natural Mentor evolve into Devoted Teacher. Both changes were natural outgrowths stemming from the foundational role he’d been playing as Mumu’s assistant and as the lodge’s primary instructor.

My guess was that it was Hunter’s Bulwark he was feeling, specifically the interaction between it and his path. And it really was just a guess on my part. His spirit map had indicated that the talent connected him to the hunters around him, but not much else was clear besides that.

I looked forward to learning more, once he’d explored his path and talents, that is.

Honestly, Tegen should probably be leading his own team, just like Haol, Teila, and I should also be leading teams, and six years ago we’d argued in circles as a lodge about just that proposal. For days and days. Speech after speech. In the end, though, the five of us stuck together as a kind of alpha strike team to handle the village’s worst-case scenarios.

Normally, family members wouldn’t be allowed on the same team, but an exception had been made for the married Mumu and Haol.

We also never forgot the lessons from the hunt for Borba the Murderer, so our hunters often trained with mixed teams to ensure we all understood what each of us was capable of and to also improve our flexibility and our coordination.

That’d had been especially critical with all the new lodge members joining us. We’d needed that very intentional, forced working together. The hunters from before Ikfael’s Boon still hazed the hell out of the newer ones, but the amount and severity had diminished after we’d faced the village’s enemies together.

Honestly, the organizational dynamics had been fascinating to watch. Nerve-wracking to live though, but I felt like I’d learned a lot from how they’d played out. Thank god for Koda; the village head had mentored Mumu and Tegen through those truly critical times.

It was funny. After my terrible first impressions of Koda—he had outright manipulated me into becoming a hunter and joining Bihei’s longhouse—all I could feel now was gratitude for how well he dealt with the village’s social scene.

People were people, no matter where they lived or how big the settlement, which meant that they fought each other over the littlest things. Koda kept the peace. Both in the village at large, and through his guidance within our lodge too.

The conversation with Tegen lapsed into comfortable silence, punctuated by the sounds of him scribbling in the book and the occasional purr from Snow. The afternoon was a languid one, to be honest. The whole village had the rare day off.

“So we’re waiting for Mumu then?” I asked, my curiosity pricking me again.

“She’s with Aslishtei’s family,” Tegen said, pausing. “They came by earlier, and the three of them have been behind closed doors ever since.”

That was interesting, since it implied that Krenya and Wensatsu had come to visit for more than just attending the celebration. Did they have business with the lodge? They’d thrown quite a lot of business our way over the years, and not all of it on behalf of their aunt, either.

Krenya was a Level 3 Magic Scholar with the ambitious goal of unraveling the nature of magic itself. Unlike the recent trend among philosophers to try and develop a grand unified theory of magic, she’d paid good money for us to hunt down certain beasts so that she could examine their magical structures.

The first time she’d offered us the job, she’d explained, “My hope is that by understanding the small and the particular, I might come to know the big and the mysterious.”

Those jobs hadn’t ever required discussions behind closed doors before—perhaps she’d stumbled across news of a natural treasure of some kind? I knew for a fact that her extended family had at least one member who walked the diviner’s path.

I hung out with Tegen for about an hour, just chit chatting like that. My gear was already in good order, and there really wasn’t anything else to do, so I took a break from my break to pop over to the Farmer’s Lodge to arrange for a mild rain shower in two days’ time.

On my way out, I spotted Mumu’s youngest steadily climbing the pyramid on her short, chubby legs. Little Nenet saw me in turn, and signed, “Come. Carry me.”

The little girl was a demon at hide and seek, although the pyramid was usually off limits to the game. Curious about what she was planning, I did as she told me and carried her to the apex. Once there, she had me place her on top of the roof of the structure sheltering the entrance. She’d be able to see the whole village from that vantage, and because of the sight lines, no one would see her unless her head poked out.

Amazing, especially since the girl was only three years old.

Nenetl Mulallamusdaughter (Human)

Talents: The Strategist

Nascent: Wild Born

Gods, it was gratifying to see how talented the kids in Mumu’s family were.

Nenet wouldn’t let me leave either; she had me sit on the steps below her. That way, if anyone did think to search for her higher up, I’d be a distraction to them. And, in fact, that happened a couple of times. In this variation of the game, only one child hid while all the others searched for them, and I had a couple spot me and come up to ask me if I’d seen Nenet anywhere.

I knew better than to spoil the game, so I gave them hints about good places to hide in the village. Hopefully, the information would never be needed, but it was good to share anyway, just in case.

Each time, after the kids left to go searching, I heard Nenet giggle.

“You spoil my child,” Mumu’s voice came from behind me.

I turned and saw her accompanied by Sheedi and Aslishtei’s nieces, exiting the pyramid. They must’ve have finished their meeting. What would’ve required the world speaker’s presence, though? The odds that it was a typical bounty request were rapidly diminishing.

My curiosity ratcheted up a notch, but first things first. “Cleverness should be rewarded,” I said.

“And yet, cleverness makes fools of the clever. By hiding above the entrance’s enclosure, my daughter becomes vulnerable to enemies in the sky, including those that might be invisible to sight.” Mumu had pitched her voice so that Nenet could hear her. “This is the danger of cleverness—we are so pleased to have found a solution to our problem, the pleasure carries us forward into danger unless we pause to consider it from all sides.”

“Our teeth cannot chew rocks,” I said, repeating the familiar warning against overconfidence.

“Just so,” Mumu replied. “That is why we must treat cleverness like dirt. We make it plain and unassuming so that it doesn’t lure us into rash action.”

“But cleverness is useful,” I argued, playing devil’s advocate.

“Of course,” Mumu agreed. “Just like how dirt sustains us. Our seeds depend on it to grow, after all.” She smiled, her expression turning sly. Her hands hidden from Nenet’s view, she continued while signing, “I’m talking to you too, our Eight. This lesson is not just for Nenet.”

I laughed, because that was a truth I had to admit. My cleverness may have led me into a trouble or two since arriving on this Diaksha.