"The poison has no cure." Eve sighed as she plopped on to her bed. "The only way to get rid of it is an exchange of souls."
Evelina was in a dilemma. It's true she asked for the investigation to go on, but she still hadn't figured out how to get out of this messy situation.
"The poison is the first thing that would be investigated."
Eve thought to herself, "I can't even think of manipulating those results with the participation of the Magic Tower's Mage."
Eve swung her feet in the air, while she laid down on her back. She blankly gazed at her feet when suddenly she heard a whisper in her ear.
"Master."
"Ah!" Eve exclaimed and spun around, "Ava? Is that you?"
"It's me, Master." a little ball of light came out of nowhere and presented itself in front of Evelina.
"My name is Lune and I had contracted with master Avalina a few days ago."
Eve admired the ball of light as it slowly seemed to take the shape of a baby fairy.
"If you were Avalina's spirit," Eve started, "Why are you calling me your master?"
It is a known fact that a spirit forms a contract with a soul rather than a body. If the soul leaves the body, the spirit follows the soul. This as well serves as vital evidence during cases where people are claimed to be possessed.
"My previous master asked me for a favour," Lune continued in his mesmerising angelic voice, " So I am just following her request."
"But still," Eve continued, "Spirits do not bind themselves by any favours. So, why did you?"
"Who said I accepted you just because of a favour?" Lune smiled.
"Uh…You didn't?" Eve blinked her eyes in confusion.
"Of Course not," Lune replied, " I simply agreed not to put you through the task of forming a fresh contract with me. Unless I deemed you worthy, I wouldn't introduce myself to you."
Worthy. A spirit deemed a soul worthy depending on the capacity of energy that soul can save and wield.
Saving up energy in the form of mana and shaping that energy into something to ease your day to day life is the qualities a spiritualist should have.
Thus, Lune's words signified that Evelina had passed the preliminary test of pleasing the spirits.
"Thank you." Eve nodded and acknowledged the spirit's words as a praise.
Just then Eve realised something.
Spirits never form contracts with different souls. They only have one master and they follow them through the cycles of life and death. A person can own many spirits but a spirit accepts only one master.
"Wait a minute," Evelina said, "Don't spirits serve only one soul throughout and die with that soul as well?"
"It's true," Lune nodded, "But if the Master uses her favour for us to survive, then we can survive and accept the Master's conditions."
Spirits only bestow one favour for their master. It can be anything from burning down a town to creating a Kingdom from scratch. The spirit promises to fulfil such favours for their masters in return for contracting with them.
A spiritualist gets one favour all of his lives he has or will live. The first King of Lunar wished for a Kingdom and thus Lunar was formed from scratch and was very prosperous. The second king of Lunar wished for exquisite gems and was granted with uncountable magic stone mines. The coming generations stopped revealing their wishes, for they feared that their offsprings would be in danger due to such capabilities.
It was very rare for a spiritualist to wish for their spirit's freedom.
"Avalina's condition was to accept you as my master,"Lune continued, "So, if you accept me as your spirit, raise your right arm."
Eve raised her right arm without any hesitation.
"Now call out my name and I'll call out yours."
Lune said.
Evelina nodded and said, "Lune."
"Evelina Rogers." Lune spoke and closed his eyes. Immediately a blinding light shone on Evelina's wrist and reduced to form the divine symbol of Light.
A four-pointed star with waves of light radiating from it.
After a while, the light faded and so did the mark.
"Where did the mark go?" Eve blurted out.
"It is hidden from plain sight as of now," Lune replied, "Only if you wish for it to appear, it will reappear."
"If asked to testify," Eve said, "Will you acknowledge me as Avalina Riverton?"
"Ofcourse." Lune replied, "I am on your side now, Master."
"Great! Phew." Saying so, Eve threw herself back on the bed. "Poison case solved!"
"Not exactly, Master." Lune said, hovering over Evelina, "I can testify that your soul hasn't been affected by the poison. But the issue of false testimony will cause many problems and to solve them you have two choices."
"Problems?" Eve looked up, confused, "What problem can possibly come out of this testimony and what are the choices you speak off?"
"There are concerns with both choices and at times like such, we should just choose the better option." Lune replied, "Your first choice is that you bring me along to the court and use me to testify that you truly are Avalina Riverton. But that would mean that the testimony for the poison was wrong and the Mage would try to dig in deeper into our contract for they can never accept the fact that they are wrong."
"Ah shit! I didn't think of that at all!" Eve slapped her forehead and hissed. "What is the other option?"
"The other choice is that the poison was indeed taken but you were once possessed and thus the original soul remained intact." Lune replied, "The issue that rises with this is that your past actions will all be questioned all over again. Additionally, it's difficult to prove that you were the original soul and not the other way around."
Eve was speechless. Neither of the options had a safe way out! She had to face the Magic tower in both cases for authentication issues. The only thing she could think of right now is how to prove that the poison did not work.
"Lune," Eve faced the spirit, "What is your speciality?"
"Illusion and healing." Lune replied.
The Kingdom of Solbrillar doesn't have any spiritualists. They have been the sole speciality of the people of Lunar. The Princess of Lunar and her closest friend were the only people to come out of Lunar but they had been brainwashed to forget their homeland in its entirety.Thus, the people of Solbrillar didn't have much knowledge regarding the various fields of Spirits. Evelina, having read the novel, had a slight idea of what spiritualists actually do.
"Can you create an illusion big enough to fool the Magic Tower's Mages?" Eve asked.
"Of Course." Lune replied, "But, the bigger the illusion the greeter is the energy needed to sustain it."
"Alright. I'll make sure to keep that in mind but for now," Eve exclaimed, "We have a plan!"
…