Part One: Le
Turning ghost was a strange experience. Looking at herself, she couldn't tell. She had been told ghosts were transparent, but instead, everything around her seemed too clear – she stepped through buildings soft as cloud, walked light on water like frosted glass. When she reached her body, she took a breath – the corpse seemed too small, curled there like a parenthesis on the ground. The corpse was flat, collapsed into itself, parallel with the grass. Stepping into it was like walking into a rain – cold, prickling, a wispy dampness settling around her shoulders. Her spirit-sight melted slowly into her eyes, and she was aware of a new solidity, an apartness of color she didn't see before. She pressed her palm into the bright white column to test its firmness, leaving a small wet handprint that faded in a moment with the sun. She was back – although she still wasn't sure where that was.
She performed her training with absent persistence, feeling her legs walk towards her targets and her hands heat with the tingling force of shadow. She 'd fight as if in a trance, stopping only when she felt the last breath leave the defeated; then stand there, wondering why the creatures fell.
She received her imp after only five days. The trainer smiled at her from under half-closed lids and tilted her coiffed head, bestowing the gift. It seemed to take forever to summon the creature, who leapt at last out of oblivion like a horned leaf, green-veined and flitting wildly in a glowing wind. "Yours," the trainer nodded, expression unchanged.
She lifted her chin and looked at the creature. The imp laughed. "Jakuri!" His voice was raspy, scratching hoarse from his corded grey throat. He flipped, bouncing restlessly on scorched legs. "Jakuri!" His name? She tried it out on her tongue - two more syllables than her own. Jakuri grinned and fidgeted, scratching one leg against the other, and thrust up his pointed face towards hers. He nodded. "Jakuri." She smiled, because the trainer had. Her lips felt strange, stretched. Bowing to the trainer, she motioned outside, turning to walk up the path. Jakuri flipped and followed, his throaty cackle pulsing the green fire around his ears. "Le."
She stopped, turned – gazed at him with a dazed kind of wonder. The imp knew her name – or at least all the name she had known, when she awakened, a single syllable with no meaning she could sense. She had awakened, and known "Le" and the coolness of rain-dewed grass; nothing more until the acolyte Xenia had found her sitting there still surprised by existence and pulled her to her feet, led her to the great hall where her path was decided. She would be a warlock. She hadn't known what that would mean – the title was meaningless, like the other classes they had described to her – priest, rogue, mage (mage, page, pages from what – a book, there had been a book before, called – she couldn't remember). Warrior was the only name she could recall – but nothing about the role, only a vague sense of revulsion. Disoriented, she waited until a tall elder chose for her – "warlock," he had pronounced. Should she have been excited? Xenia seemed to be. "Only the best are picked for warlocks," she enthused. "I'm a mage, which is close – but warlocks need something special," Xenia said, peering at her earnestly. "What is that for you?"
She hadn't known. But her imp knew her name, and they'd never met before. She knew that much, though her memories were shaky– just that day, the trainer had helped her pluck the tiny demon from the nether swirl. But there was some connection – she could sense it, though the light bony creature before her looked utterly alien. There was something, some warmth in the fluttering green fire. And he had said her name.
She opened her mouth to speak, to ask the imp what else he knew, but the creature was already spans ahead, sending a new-formed fireball careening into the heart of a sickly-looking tree with menacing eyes. She jumped, felt the blue energy rising in her hands. The imp was leaping high.
Minutes later, she opened her eyes, looked down. She saw the oozing yellow sap, the scattered limbs, an outstretched branch-palm full of the grainy ash dust that meant a failed curse. Her imp was chittering angrily, hopping around the fallen creature, sparks still glowing from his small clawed hands. "Mm?" The sound burst softly from her mouth as she rose, brushing leaves from her robe. "Le!" The imp leapt at her, clung to her leg, pressed his horned head close to her calves. He pointed to the tainted tree. "Jakuri."
He protected her. She understood that, though she had apparently fought the tree herself, as she found her hands sticky with viscous sap and her arms glowing faintly from the recent bursts of mana energy. She turned to the imp, who sat crosslegged just a few spans away, shivering with adrenaline, and spoke. "Jakuri." The imp turned at the sound of his name, glowing orange eyes widening. He smiled, hopped over to her, gestured to the field before them. "Le?"
Her first quest outside the small settlement. She was sent against the Wretched, to gather the unstable crystals they stole. When she stepped off the road, she saw the first – gleaming in a chest of gold, the crystals sat enthroned, shining in the grass. They didn't seem hidden at all, to her – then she realized she wasn't seeing the sparkle that emanated from the gems, but feeling it – a breathtaking heat that stole her breath and drew her ears forward in unsure anticipation. As she collected the crystals, Jakuri flitting beside her, a wrenching groan assaulted her senses, driving pain into her skull. "More!" a voice moaned. "I must feed soon." She felt the form before she saw it – tall but hunched, thin, eaten from the inside by hollow thirst, faded purple vests sheathing sharp, jutting ribs, dark-booted feet worn into animal-like claws from burning paths. She didn't fight it, though it began to reach for her, small knife slashing in her direction – but Jakuri leapt into action, hurling fireballs, dancing back and forth in front of her, heaving great sheets of red fire at the Wretched. The Wretched itself fought almost listlessly, body swaying atop weak legs, staring ahead with eyes blazing pale. The attacker's grasping arms seemed to her the only animated parts, reaching desperately forward with craving, tearing hands. She could feel its hunger inside her chest, an ache stretching into her arms that keyed the energy inside her and made it throb on the surface, shimmering with frenzy just below the skin. She stood, staring, only barely aware of her imp's frantic clamor as he sought to fight off the two, now three Wretched that surrounded the pair. The need was so intense – the hunger unendurable. She found herself reaching towards the crystals, bringing them up from the pockets of her robe, burying her hands in their fine bronze auras, bending her head towards their overpowering scent. The Wretched above her groaned again – a flash of red above her forehead.
She ghosted at almost the same time her imp did, feeling herself dissolve only as she saw his wide, worried eyes, disappearing into green fire. They had fought him down. Being thrown into her ghost body revived her lost senses - like a fall into cold lakewater, her body leapt into immediate awareness, but too late. She was alone –Jakuri was gone. She searched her mind, trying to remember how to summon the imp back, but found her thoughts pinned in the translucent stone at her feet. She needed to get back to her body. Then it would be alright.