"Will you stop fidgeting; they're going to see us again."
Jax said, elbowing me from our small leafy hiding spot.
"I'm amazed you're not fidgeting more considering how many times you have been set on fire this past week."
I replied, trying my best to shuffle over from where I had been. Jax and I had been watching the fire ghost thing and trying to figure out what we could about it. It seemed simple in theory; its body made of ashes with a small burning core. From what we had gathered from a week of observations were a few things.
1. Jax has a really strange way of writing by balancing a pencil between his toes and writing by moving his entire arm, or would it be considered his leg? Is it considered ignorant to ask about that or is it a guess and get corrected kind of thing?
2. The ash ghosts' claws are actually really hot to the touch as it set a few trees on fire by holding their hand to them.
3. When actually attacking its claws will heat up more than normal and leave bits of ash that combust after a few seconds. Worst part is they stick so it's not something you can easily just yank off.
4. Its really hard to see at night, only really revealed when its core slightly flashes beyond the swirling ash.
There are a couple of ash spirits on the mountain, so far have counted 3. They seem to be aware of the fire they cause as they go to efforts to prevent it from spreading
I followed the slowly floating ash ghost as it floated over to another tree, and rested its palms against the tree, the wood smoking before catching fire. As the fire rose the ghost rose up, fanning its arms and actively getting in the way of any flames that could spread to other nearby trees. After a few more trees, it seemed to float off, content to move on to other areas, as its ashy aura followed, confirming it had left. Jax and I crawled out of our hiding spot, and Jax shook the dirt off, I had to just brush as much as I could off, and it didn't help that Jax got half of his dirt on me. We both walked over to the slightly curved edge made by the burned trees that seemed to mark a burn zone, where almost like a cut off line, the vegetation past it was either burned and ashy, or withering.
"You're sure this has never happened before on the mountain?"
Jax asked, glancing over at me.
"I have never seen fire ghosts before, much less one that is conservationally included."
I said a bit exasperated. Jax bumped his shoulder into my leg, chuckling a bit as he walked in front of me, and got up on his back legs, spreading his paws out in his "human stance" as he called it. "Me fire ghost, me teach fire safety and safe forest fires."
Jax's humor had started out annoying and grating, but I will admit, it was starting to grow on me. I held back my chuckles at his joke as he dropped back down and started to walk towards the burn line.
"Where are you going?"
"It seems like a circle; it's always curved so maybe there is something in the middle of it."
Jax said walking across the charred and ash covered plants.
"Fine, but you better not track any ash or soot into my house"
I said quickly following after him. As I stepped onto the ashy line I pulled a blinding powder from my bag, to be ready. I even ended up going through my supply of 4 tubes and had to make 3 more because of how many times we had to run away. However, I also ran out of Ironsplit, and need to restock. As we walked across the crunchy decayed plants, and ashy wooden trees I couldn't help but be reminded of a barbeque with how much charcoal was around us.
"So, your positive you don't know how to make a potion that makes you immune to fire?"
Jax asked for the 7th time. I had told him on end that would be a higher rank potion as the recipes I currently have are for E rank potions, but at this point I felt like I needed to show him proof. I pulled my recipes notebook out and flipped through it once again, partially because I wanted to show Jax so he didn't ask again, and partially in case I happened to forget about jotting down a potion of fire resistance somewhere. As I flipped through my notebook I mumbled the names aloud.
"Potion of Shadowmeld, that's only useful if its night or dark outside, Potion of Clarity, not unless we challenge the ghosts to trivia, Potion of Barkskin, not unless we want to be even more flammable, Vomit Potion, self-explanatory and not useful for what we are doing."
Jax cut me off and asked
"You just have a potion that makes people puke?"
"Yea, uses one part Ferefe that causes nausea and one part Vilerge that can act as a calming agent, it's great when you have that feeling of throwing up but you end up just sitting there wishing you could just get it over with already, created the recipe myself when I had a nasty stomach bug when I was 14."
Jax just stared at me as we kept walking, crossing over burned fallen trees as he asked.
"Those are just recipes, right, you don't just have a bottle of convenient vomit on you, right?"
I shifted my bag over from my side and flipped open the top.
"The potions I have on me are. 3 Potions of Shadow Meld I made 4 days ago incase our stakeouts took too long and we got stuck in the dark like that one time. 2 Elixirs of Clarity I don't remember when I made, actually they might be bad."
I said pulling out the vial, giving it a quick sniff and wrinkling my nose, dumping it out as Jax steered a wide birth as he scrambled under a low hanging branch, painting a trail of black down his back fur as I continued to rummage.
"3 convenient vomit potions as you called them, one Elixir of fleetness for when I want to outrun you, so you get eaten first."
Jax hip checked my leg as I stumbled a bit as he gave me a grin
"The day you outrun me is the day I know I am out of shape."
While he had a point, I refused to give him the satisfaction, but as I turned to keep rummaging Jax seemed to perk up and pick up his speed approaching something, so I closed my pouch and followed after him. As we both hid behind a log as one of the fire ghosts was patrolling nearby, we peeked through a hole finding an oddly intact building in the woods. It was old for sure, with semi rotted wood beams, and paint that was either faded beyond recognition or pealing so only flakes remain. However, it remained standing, with a small circle of green grass, and a large tree that seemed to grow up the backside of the building.
I wanted to step out and approach the building, but Jax held out a paw and ushured us to a still standing charred log as we hid behind it. An ash spirit seemed to drift by passing by the building but not approaching as looking down I could see the building had a perfect circle of space around it that marked it as intact. Jax gave the all clear as the fire ghost moves on and we both approached the building.
"It's an old rundown house?"
I asked Jax looking the old building over. However, Jax continued forward as he seemed to perk his ears a bit.
"I think I know what this is, it looks like a traveler's shrine."
"What's a traveler's shrine?"
Jax turned, seemingly a bit surprised I didn't know what this was. Jax seemed to think for a minute and said,
"You know how trains, airships, and mecha have made travel much faster and safer, right?"
I nodded along thinking back to the rare large robots that would accompany those with the mech pilot class. as we made our way past the line of ash to the preserved space inside we stepped from crunchy, dry ash to oddly fresh grass.
"Well one of the classes you can get is called a shrine maiden. It's a support class that's main ability is to make a shrine that keeps monsters out. Before people could get from city to city in a few days, travel could take weeks, and so people would seek shrines for the night. In exchange for a bit of money, the travelers could stay in the shrine and be guaranteed safety for the night as well as getting a meal and hearing stories and rumors of other travelers before them. While the practice is much rarer now, it's still rather prevalent in more dangerous places like Frigund and Tessegog."
I looked around at the rundown building and saw Jax walking up to the large tree.
"Please don't pee on the tree,"
I said nudging Jax. Fine, I'll just use your leg he said, making a sidestep towards me. I quickly stepped away as we both split up to look at different areas. I walked to the front door of the old building that seemed to have a few holes here and there. It was stuck in place, probably from age, swelling, and 11 other things I don't know, but as I put my foot on the edge of the door and pulled it popped open with a sharp squeak. Inside sat what looked to be a dusty room, however in the middle of the room was a drawn-out ornate magic circle, with subcircles, multiple different kinds of lettering and more. It thrummed with a quiet energy with a very faint, and flickering light blue glow as a small knot of roots seemed to sit in the circle as if coming trough the floorboards. A part of me wanted to investigate further, but I didn't know much about magic circles. I turned, poking my head out the door as I asked.
"Hey Jax, do you know anyth-."
I was cut off as I saw Jax go sprinting by yelling,
"THEY KNOW WERE HERE!!"
I could have tried to fact check him, but I played it on the safe side and broke into a sprint after Jax. As I ran, I turned back and saw 3 of the fire ghosts flying towards us. I wanted to turn back quick, but I was surprised to see despite the fact they were chasing us, they took the extra time to avoid the house, going around it. As I turned back to keep running, I saw a low hanging stick too late and ran neck first into it. I landed on my back hard as the wind was knocked out of me and I was left gasping for air. I saw one of the ghosts dive for me as my lungs seemed to finally open up again. I rolled to the side, as another swung its claws towards me but was pushed back as Jax jumped, his paws in its face and used the ghost as a springboard. The world was still blurry from trying to catch my breath, the adrenaline, and the heavy exercise, but I followed the blob I assumed was Jax as he guided me. I could barely stumble, much less run, so I reached into my bag, pulling out one of my potions. I didn't know which one, but my vision was too blurry to see exactly what I had grabbed. I uncorked the vial and flung the potions contents at the nearest fire ghost; it was splashed with a light green liquid. It continued, seeming to blink a few times as its eyes gained a light green glow compared to their normal orange color.
"What did that do?"
Jax asked as he jumped over a downed log. My vision refused to clear but from the color that had been splashed I think I had hit them with a night vision potion. I didn't respond to Jax, instead reaching into my bag and reaching around where I had been looking earlier. I pulled out the light blue elixir of fleetingness from before and tipped my head back as the potion mostly got to my mouth, but as I panted I started to cough, most of the potion getting coughed back out, but the bit that got in sent a feeling of lightness to my legs as I ran, Jax speeding up to keep pace, as the ghosts behind us slowly lost ground. we broke away from the burn zone and down our path to the stakeout spot before I stumbled and rolled to a stop. I layed on my back gasping for air as I coughed from the ash that was floating around me and the now developing bruise on my neck.
"They seemed extra mad that time."
Jax said panting.
"Saw, gasp, weird magic, huff, circle, cough, house."
I managed to get out between violent coughs from the elixir from earlier and my breathlessness. Jax turned and said,
"In that case let's- what happened to your glasses?"
I squinted as I forced myself to sit up and turn to the vaguely Jax colored blob before my hands shot to my face. The normal feel of my thick glasses was gone. I flopped back to my back again, taking a moment to calm my breathing and get over my coughing fit before I said.
"I think they fell off when I ran into that tree."
As I ran both my hands down my face pulling it down slightly in exasperation a system window appeared, and despite the blurry world around itself, it and its text was crystal clear.
Escape from a deadly situation +250 XP
Level up 3 -> 4
HP 14 -> 16
MP 54 -> 56
Int 21 -> 24
I turned to the Jax blob and said in a surprised voice,
"I just leveled up."
"First off dude, I'm over here, and second off congratulations! What level are you?"
"I'm level 4"
"Just one more and you can be a full adventurer when this is over."
Jax said as he stretched and looked himself over for ash or burns.
"Now hold on, who said anything about being an adventurer?"
I said crossing my arms.
"Come on Aiden, you have to admit you have been having fun, and you have saved my ass just as many times as I have saved yours with your potions and concoctions and whatnot, well not as much this time, but you were working blind."
Jax said at first sounding serious before adding in a small playful jab at the end.
"I'm just here to help with mountain navigation. I said crossing my arms, but a small betraying part of my mind said, but you're having fun, and you know it. Jax swatted my nose with the end of his tail as he said in an annoyingly sarcastic tone.
"Yea, sure, my navigational help does stakeouts and runs from fire ghost's half a dozen times, it's just your job."
"Next time your set on fire, I'm grabbing marshmallows instead of a healing potion."
I grumbled crossing my arms where I way laying.
"Since there was a magic circle, we probably need to see about finding a mage." Jax said as he changed the topic and started walking away.
"Hey Jax,"
"What?"
"I-I can't see very well right now, can you guide me back to the house?"
I heard the muffled laughter of Jax as he asked in a mocking tone.
"What was that marshmallow man? For someone hellbent on being a guide and nothing else, you seem to be lacking in your job at the moment."
"Yea, yea, do you want dinner or not?"
I asked in an annoyed tone. Jax came back, helped me up and I followed him down the path as a thought passed through my mind. He does have a point, for someone hellbent on just being a guide, why am I sticking my neck out so far. As this though ran through my mind I could practically see the little angel and devil on both of my shoulders.
"Because you are a kind soul who doesn't want a young adventurer to die simply because you sat back and did nothing."
The angel chimed
"Lies, the real reason is you never gave up on wanting to be an adventurer, just think of the fun you have been having doing an actual quest, think of the money, but most importantly, think of the XP."
The devil seemed to say.
I shook my head for a moment, but the little devil wasn't wrong.