I had no idea a place like this existed so close to the village.
The Arcon's Nest is a giant network of caves that make the entire edge of this small mountain range look like a honeycomb. As I glance up at the dozens of giant holes that make up the Arcon's Nest, the male Instructor speaks.
"These holes were made by a species of bugs, if you can believe it," Mr. Copper says. "The birds moved in and ate them all."
Ms. Borden nods. All of the students have disembarked the wagons, and we all stand around and await instructions. "So what we're doing here," she starts, "Is, quite frankly…Spirit hunting. Yes! I know it's exciting. This will be your biggest test to date, because here we have a life or death situation. I can't promise you'll all live through this one, but I can tell you if you follow everything we've taught you and keep calm, you'll be absolutely fine!"
She looks up at the caves. "If anyone happened to be using Bright Eyes right now, you'd see that every entrance to the Arcon's Nest is covered with a barrier. These barriers were cast by graduate Spiritguards just like yourselves. You have learned the barrier technique in class. Your job is to enter the cave and reinforce the barriers. Now you may be wondering…why do we need all these barriers?
"I can answer that quite easily. The Arcon's Nest has become a home for Spirits. Lots of Spirits. In dark, secluded places such as these, Spirits have no trouble teleporting into our world. As such, these caves are absolutely crawling with Spirits. We have the barriers set up to keep the Spirits within from escaping out into the world. Every year, we bring students here to refresh some of the older barriers. Right now there are roughly eleven barriers in need of rejuvenation, but since we have forty students we will be having twenty teams. That means that nine of you teams will simply be rejuvenating a barrier that doesn't need to be."
Instructor Borden pulls out a list. "We've sorted you all by class standing. The two students at the top will be partners, and so on. Zach Windzie and Justin Thorpe. You two will be first. Here is your map. It has on it the barrier that needs to be replaced. Good luck!"
The two students that I barely know wander into the cave. Suddenly, it makes sense why they are sorting us by rank. The stronger students will face the most Spirits, and the groups that come in later, the ones that are weaker, won't have as many to deal with. It's a nicely set up system, I have to say.
"Natalia Rose and Marshall Dawson." Natalia I know, but I'm not too familiar with Marshall Dawson. When I see his face, I sort of know him. He's in the room right next to mine. His face is kind of like a rat, and his cheeks are scrunched up all the time.
"Kavella Montale and Sigmund Felice."
When she calls my name, I'm surprised. I had no idea I was sixth in the class, but then I remember sixty percent of the grade is based on our physical skills. As far as that goes, Natalia and I are the only two that have perfect scores. I guess that offsets my less-than-perfect test scores.
Kavella nods and steps up. I reach for the map, but she's the one that grabs it. I guess she's in control of this mission. I mean…she is ranked higher than me, but I should be in control. I'm obviously the better fighter. I mean…I taught her how to fight!
Kavella is carrying a staff with her, because she doesn't like to use swords. Her skills with a staff, I've noticed, are incredible. I've seen her spar with that thing, and she can knock a sword right out of someone's hand in a second. She's got one of the only available staves, and she uses it like a pro.
I step up toward the Arcon's Nest and look over the map with Kavella. The map doesn't make much sense, but I can see the barrier/portal thing that we're repairing will be marked as number thirty-two. There are some instructions written on the map, but they are very basic.
"So we just have to fight our way through and find the barrier marked with a number thirty-two?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says, almost as if she doesn't want to continue the conversation at all. She's been like this ever since I met her at Commencement Day. It's not that she's mean, but it seems like she just doesn't have time for me…
She starts to walk ahead, and I jog up after her. "What's the strategy if a Spirit shows up?" I question her.
"You stab it and I'll use Animus to restrain it," she is cool as ever. "I know you can't use Animus effectively, so stabbing it is about your only option."
We enter the cave, and right away I notice the temperature drop about ten degrees. It's creepily chilly in here, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the paranormal stuff that's been going down.
On the map, it gives a brief description of the type of Spirits we'll find in here. Apparently there are Spider-type and Ghost-type, and not much else. It notes on the bottom that Gremlin-type Spirits have been rarely discovered. I hope we run into some of those. Gremlin-type Spirits are supposedly much craftier than normal, and while they're not really strong, they are hard to kill. That sounds like a pretty fun battle, if I do say so myself.
"Are you competent enough to use the Animus skill 'Light'?" I love the confidence she has in me.
"Yeah," I say. "Of course."
"Well, it's dark in here. Use it." As she says that, she snaps her fingers and a small, bright light extends from her left pointer finger. I withdraw my sword and make a small light on the tip of my blade. While the lights aren't too powerful, both of them together are more than enough to see around the room.
"So, why did you join the Spiritguards?" I try desperately to make conversation with her. There's still so much about Kavella that I don't know, and I really want to know more. I can't stand that she's a mystery and no matter how hard I try, I can't figure her out.
"To kill Spirits."
"Hmm," I reply. A basic answer. Wasn't that the reason I joined too? If that was my reason, how could I ask her for a more elaborate answer?
I understand that it's going to be insanely difficult to get an answer out of her, so I don't even bother.
About fifteen minutes into our walk through the winding caves, we come across our first Spirit. At first I don't notice it, but Kavella cautions me.
"Specter, Knight Rank," she focuses in on the darkness. "Bright Eyes, use it." After she instructs me to use the technique, I notice her eyes are already glowing. She is amazing at using Animus abilities. I wonder how she got so good…most of these skills she knew even before becoming a Spiritguard.
I use the technique, and I can detect the Spirit that she has seen. What I see is a black circle with two white eyes and a grinning mouth. The circle is the creature's face, I'm assuming. The rest of the body is nothing more than a shifting, shapeless white mass. "I'll take care of this," I say, and I charge in swinging.
My blade passes right through the creature, and I feel a sudden force push me to the ground right after I try to attack it. I hear Kavella groan in disapproval, and then suddenly see an electric yellow light surround the Specter on three sides. This is the intermediate level binding skill that we learned. After I see her bind the Spirit, I retreat away so it can't hit me again. Seeing the skill she used, I remember that Specters are unable to be damaged by weapons unless a specific Animus technique is used first. Whoops.
She readies another technique, and she swings her arm violently. I look from her to the Spirit. By the time I see the Spirit, I notice it is engulfed in purple flames. In moments, it is nothing but ash.
"What's that technique?" I cry, amazed at her skills. "We haven't learned that one in class!"
"It's Exorcist Flame," she informs me. "No, we didn't learn it in class. It only works on Ghost-type Spirits, but it is very useful."
She continues to walk ahead, following the map, and I feel like an idiot. If she hadn't been here now, that Specter would have beaten the crap out of me. It probably wouldn't have killed me, because I would have ran, but…she definitely was the only one in that situation who was actually useful.
I've been training for a year, and I couldn't even kill the first Spirit I came across…I think about that, and I feel pretty bad about it. What has the past year taught me? Haven't I gotten any better than I was before I joined?
"Don't feel too bad," Kavella must have noticed my dejected face. "I've been fighting Spirits for a long time. I messed up my first time too."
Finally! She's human! I never thought I'd hear Kavella try to comfort me. I mean, I got a sense of her humanity the day she asked me to help her with the sword, but here she's showing actual compassion.