the barrier that made up the beast of pride's prison was strange. very much complicated. but he could feel a large portion of it was made of pride energy. and more than what he knew, but he would learn.
aero didn't focus don't the barrier instead pushing through it so he could mentally and spritely enter the cage. the eveirment of it hadn't changed one bit since he last looked into it. Originally the place was was of a wasteland, but the beast of pride had nothing if not high standards. just because it was trapped didn't mean that it had to let its surroundings below those standards.
which led to the hand-made temple Aero faced today. everything near perfection, the giant beast standing on top of it. bathing and posing in the light of the dimension. " So my jailor comes for what?" he could hear and taste the smugness and smirk from the beast.
aero didn't answer just formed his pride energy into the largest sectioned staff he could make at his current stores. this led to it being the thickness of a tree and the length of several, but it was still kind of small compared to the beast. which spoke of the massive size it kept itself at.
"how pathetic." the beast said before Aero moved, directing the weapon it didn't move fast but the pride of the beast prevented it from moving. until the staff struck it in the face, "AAAH!" the beast roared.
"That hurt!" shot up rearing back its gleaming and deadly claws. this mortal harmed it, that wasn't not early. the part of the companion that watched over them rarely found reason to enter the prison much less attack. but the beast even for such bing it wouldn't be easy to injure them.
but this small mortal who hadn't even reached the stars yet managed to injure them, impossible. and unforgivable." Swearing Aero moved, but the claws moved faster than he could follow than he could comprehend.
he only knew the beast struck before his protection started bleeding, well he understood he was bleeding. in a way. this form didn't have blood, but he'd been cut deep and something was dripping. gritting his teeth as he screamed, he regained attention to his fading weapon.
'It's not going to last much longer thanks to the attack, but I came to teach them a lesson.' The staff twitched before it shot forward with all the speed aero could muster at this moment. the beast knew the attack was coming and simply moved its head back.
"AH!" it didn't expect the other ten of the staff to come around slamming onto the back of its head. it moved to cut aero again but the moment he sent the staff into action he moved to leave the prison. As he faded from this space he gave the beast a rude guestor tova showed him.
returning to his body took a few petals. then he screamed through his clenched jaw. there was nothing physical wrong with him, but he could still feel the cut the beast gave him. In fact, he felt it stronger than he did before.
"Okay what happened I've had much worse wounds so why does this hurt like the time I got briefly set on fire." he pushed himself to his feet, unsteady walking towards the village.' My lord this is a wound on your spirit. it much different from a physical wound and much more complicated.'
"It's not going to heal easily is it." If the helper had a body their head would be shaking Yes, 'No my lord, a wound of this size could take a couple of hundred years to heal' Aero nearly tripped over that.
"By the zalts and the black holes of creation,!" he mumbled under his breath mixing swears from his world and beyond." Is there a way to speed that up?" The helper gave an affirmative," But it's not that easy so that." Again another affirmative.
the helper then went on to explain there were many ways to attack the spirit as they could stop you from reaching the afterlife, Attacking one's spirit was a horrible crime. as many regions viewed it as a sacred thing. not to how hard it was for someone to recover.
a small genocide was a lesser crime than harming a single person's spirit. "by the zalts and their stories! how is it that bad!" he ran his fingers over where he felt the wound. his skin was unharmed, but it hurt a lot. Maybe that was why one crime was heavier than the other." So what about healing them?"
'A spirit is a form of energy, damage to it is a loss of energy. restoring that energy is how you heal your spirit. ' Aero nodded in understanding, so the helper continued explaining,' by living eating sleeping, expressing emotions, and more. you give energy to your spirit. By living you will repair your spirit slowly.
"But that could take too long. What does having a damaged spirit lead to?" The helper was quiet, for just a moment. ' A healthy spirit dwells within a healthy mind and body. a sick spirit dwells in a sick mind and body. Your spirit will harm your mind and body if precautions are not taken.'
"This is just looking better and better, Aero stated as he walked inside his mother's house. "Do I need money for their precautions?" The helper informed him that it was negative.' but it would require at least weekly medication, and it would be better to do daily and certation herbs. but the herbs are definitely expensive due to their rarity and I don't know if there are any that meet the requirement on Augustine."
"Okay, mediation I work with that, plus over the forest ocean are some of the best herb farmers." That little fact he read up on recently. "Back to the topic of healing what should I do to speed that up."
'Again it is the matter of herbs or minerals that naturally affect the energy of the spirit. I don't have the information to know if they grow here....there is the third option of using a melody.'
"There's a reason that you hesitated to state," Aero picked up on something he probably wasn't going to like to hear.' The spirit is as fragile as it is strong.' was the answer which Aero took a moment to think about.
'As strong as it was fragile how horrible contradictory.' It was a thought provoker if nothing else, but Aero could kind of grasp what it meant. more so it reminded him of a kind of creature he read about, a slow creature with incredible defense ability. especially in their large shells, stronger than metal, unless you hit the right place then they crumble like a wet scroll.
"Melodies risk being a weak spot for the melodies," which made sense. melodies turned out to be more complicated than he first thought. so it was possible they could affect a spirit, but it was unknown how. if they damaged a spirit he risked being convicted of a crime.
"Can we call xoqax?" the scientist might be interested. the helper shot that idea down, they didn't state why giving their lord a chance to decipher it himself," It's because of the courts, they wouldn't take well to him studying spirit would they?"
'Not in the slightest, it would actually violate the parol he's on and that would be bad for several reasons. it's also likely you would be brought to court over the matter.' Aero hummed as he laid himself on his bed. he probably wasn't going to be moving much for a while, this spirit wound hurt. he was going to get used to it, seeing as it was going to be a chronic problem for the foreseeable future.
"Any way around that?"
'Not within your current ability, if you could transverse space in a reasonable time, you could petition to the court in person. which is the only way they will listen on such matter." aero huffed. before closing his eyes, he was going to try and mediate.
it wasn't that hard to get in the right mind state, but staying there with the constant ache of the wound was a different matter. he kept going back and forth, trying to push down the pain. but that wasn't showing any signs of progress so he tried something else.
he tried accepting the pain he was feeling, like in the middle of combat. he was hurt but he couldn't afford to stop. just needed a way to manged how the pain affected him, After who knows how long he got a feeling for the damage.
despite it being around his chest he could feel the wound to the tips of his tone and finger. also, he could feel the wound bleeding his energy, which was another. 'If the problem is energy can I use my own to fix it?'
'Possibly, it's like trying to fix a tub with the water leaking from it,' Well that was an image but maybe he could just see the bleeding if nothing else. the helper said he would see better results with that. but there were still risks if the energy level was too high.
there was a twinge of doubt before he acted, which reminded Aero how much aero he spent sticking the pride beast. yeah, it was likely to retaliate, but it didn't ruin Aero's satisfaction. 'Oh, that's probably why the energy level isn't as low as it should be. he did some he would be proud of for a very long while.
he even thought back on more of his recent achievements, feeling his pride engery so he could focus it towards his wound. trying to deal with it. giving the energy the form of bandages didn't help as the energy just seemed to bleed through, 'This is only steaming the flow.'
but he didn't know where to start, only left with trial and error. in the end, he stuck with the image of bandages as it seemed to work in time for the third meal of the day. it made him feel better for a while, but he knew more was going to be needed. so after mediating some more, he started going through combat stances in his room.
the pain was there but he forced himself to work through it as time went on before lying down to listen to more of the horror stories. they were progressively getting worse, longer impacting and immersing him deeper into their horrors.
'I didn't know the forest could install such a feeling,' a different feeling from the chance of a creature attacking you. aero didn't feel that much as his chances were good at winning any ambush. if that wasn't possible he would run or call for help. but only after a certain amount of his blood had been spilled. he refused anything less.
the next day Areo started changing his plans for his trip, The new injuries changed a few requirements, and on the road, he preferred to take the bare minimum with lots of coin. now he had to bring a few more things to make himself livelier on the road," Wow I don't have mu do I?" he was surprised when he took a step back and looked at it he didn't have the many world possessions.
"You know I'm fine with that and the zalts can quote me on it." Aero said as he increased the bags of coin he hid on the cart," That should be enough for me to live with." he wasn't sure, years of proving the truth had left its effect.
"I guess I could poke the topic to my teammates, I hope I don't end up drinking again." No more wondering for him thank you very much. was kind of fun but he could definitely get hurt or mauled, 'How good am I at drunk fighting?' That was probably something he would have to keep in mind if he did drunk wonder again.
'My lord, would you like me to look into drunken fighting styles?' That sentence alone reminded Aero how big the universe was, 'no not for the moment but keep it in mind just in case.' Then he turned back to his preparations. again he considered sending out letters but again kind of pointless, so instead he thought about how was he was supposed to explain this stuff to people.
organizing the information the helper had even him, he tried to make it simple for him to explain to people.' Are they worth this effort?' he paused to think for a moment before deciding that it wasn't them he was spending the effort for.
no, he was spending it for himself, he wouldn't let anyone assume the source of his possible weaknesses. plus, unfortunately, he would need the team to cover him if the wound affected his abilities too much. he wasn't looking forward to that possibly so he was going to medicate and bind the wound with as much energy as needed.
because who knew when the next time he came home would be he spent the rest of the time near his mother. and inevitably Adit, who was starting to work up some courage concerning aero. Neaora was very pleased to see this, Aero was unsure if it made the man more or less bearable.
'Either way, I'm putting up with him for Mother', aero thought looking over the game before him. it was his mother's favorite game. entangled, as it was mostly referred to to aero's knowledge. the game was played with a set of colored full ropes, his mother owned the same set since she was a child, worn from the many games she played in her and her child's youth.
aero could see the part that had to be fixed after a tantrum when he was between six and seven. he members being so upset that his mother had been taking it easy on him. but at the same time, soundlessly beat him in every game they played.
his tantrum had been pretty big, it was the first time Aero had hit someone. Unfortunately, it ended up being his mother. like a switch flipped he was no longer upset about the game. much more tears over the fact that he hit his mother, she managed to calm him down by pressing his strength and how well he hit. it gave him the first bit of pride in his physical abilities once he was calmed down.
'You know that probably affection how I turned out a lot,' he thought as the memories washed over him right before he lost the round.