Rise of the Spirit Walker [Exam]

In a small town in the Kingdom of Fiore, not far from the treacherous Cursed Lands, a tall figure wearing a large black coat came walking. A dusty, tattered, wide-brimmed hat sat atop the stranger's head, casting a shadow over part of his hair and eyes. Much of the townsfolk weren't sure what to make of the strange figure, though it was fairly certain it was a male one, judging from the frame. Not paying any mind to looks he was getting, the man continued onward. It was something he was neither unaccustomed to nor offended by; he cared little about what others thought of him. It was a rather cloudy day, yet no rain had yet fallen. The people here were already wary of a threat that had been growing on the horizon, wiping out entire villages in it's wake. Many were afraid that this threat would swallow up their little town, others hoped that it would stay in it's lair, deep within the labyrinth in the Cursed Lands. This made them somewhat wary of visitors, to say the least. Of course, none dare to approach the man. They were all too busy boarding up their homes, preparing for the worst.

In truth, Dmitry Kazakov wasn't happy at all to be in a new town. He was not a man who fancied urban lifestyle, even that which could be found in such a small town. Typically, he would likely swerve around the place, avoiding the irritation of navigating his way through another 'civilized' place. Since he was a child, Dmitry had survived and traveled the wilds, living the greater part of his life with little human contact. This had never bothered him before, nor did it please him. It was simply what he was accustomed to. It is for this reason that navigating towns such as these was always an irksome task, one that he generally avoided if he could help it. He had only barely started to learn how to navigate Hargeon, his new place of residence, and even then he found the trip to this place a welcome break until he actually got there.

'Upset are we, boy?' Came a voice only Dmitry could here, eliciting a sigh from the young man. 'No one asked you to pipe in, old man.' He responded, communicating with the being through his mind, as he had become accustomed to doing. 'You should enjoy the company of your own kind a bit more. I'm starting worry for your social health, dear boy.' Anyone who knew anything of the entitiy would know that it was intentionally irritating the eighteen year old, if they were even aware of the exchange in the first place. 'Let's just get this over with so I can get on with this shit-show. We haven't even gotten to the bad part yet.' On that note, Dmitry continued his way through the streets and on to a small cafe in which he was to meet the mayor of the small burg.

After a hard days work, and a long walk back from the desert, I treated myself to a nice hot bath at my room back at LS Headquarters, before walking down to a cafe downtown. A cheap one, mind you, as I'd lost most of my money somewhere along the line. I'd walked in, had been seated at one of the tables, and when I was waiting for my food, when a man in a large black coat and a tattered old hat walked in, clearly looking for someone as his eyes scanned the room. I shrugged my shoulders and moved my eyes back to my food, moving into my mind. I ate autonomously, and while in my mind, I saw into the future, looking into what might be needed for this man. After a couple minutes, and a couple dozen futures, I stood up, and I walked over to the man, and said a simple phrase, that almost everyone says: "Hello, do you need help with something?"

Upon entering the establishment in which the meeting was to take place, it seemed as though the business had fallen on hard times. Indeed, much of the fear and doubt that was prevalent in the rest of the town was reflected in this place, with almost no customers, what appeared to be a shortage of staff, and even an owner that clearly did not want to be there. One could almost smell the fear, something that made Dmitry wonder why he was even helping these whelps. However, the task was assigned to him by the master of the wizard's guild he now found himself a member of: the Lamia Scale guild. As such, even he couldn't simply turn the mission down, even if he himself felt it was just  another waste of time.

It didn't take long to locate the mayor of the small town, sitting in a booth in the corner of the cafe. Dmitry calmly made his way over to the spot, taking note of disused the place was. Many of the seats were covered in dust, having sat in the same spot for days or even weeks. The young man could even spot more than a few spiderwebs on the stools and even a few dusty old cobwebs, something that spoke volumes on it's own. What spoke even greater volumes, however, was the sheer, galling fact that this was one of only three places in the entire town that one could get a meal outside of what they could prepare within their own homes. Of course, Dmitry wasn't here to survey the town's eateries, nor would he be in anyway qualified to do so.

The mayor was a small, stout man, with an absurdly large nose and a limp in his step. Truthfully, most might believe the old man had walked out of some children's story; Dmitry had never heard any of these stories. The man looked up as Dmitry sat down. Well, it was more accurate to say he snapped out of a deep sleep, having most likely fallen asleep while waiting at the booth. The wizard blinked for a moment before merely sighing and slamming a hand on the table, immediately rousing the mayor from his rather peaceful slumber. "Ah, were you here about the harvest parade on Tuesday? Lovely show that!." Dmitry raised his eyebrow at the man, assuming his mind had become a bit rusty over the years. "Uh...no. I'm with Lamia Scale, about the monster." He said, pulling back his right sleeve a bit to show the guild emblem on his forearm. The  elderly man's face became a bit more grim at that, proving that even he understood the gravity of the situation. At least, it seemed that was the case, until the tiny official fell asleep all over again.

With this, a vein could be seen bulging from Dmitry's head, causing him to once again slam his hand on the table, this time with the request that brought him here underneath. "Hey! I'm here to take out that Hannibal thing, I'll be back in a bit!" He shouted before the man could doze off again. "Well, you be careful out there and have fun." The kindly old mayor said before dozing off in the booth again as Dmitry got up and left.

---

WC: 1054

As he exited the cafe, Dmitry took an immediate right and headed down the road...before immediately turning around when he was headed the way he came in.

'Where to now, boy?' Asked the voice from earlier, as Dmitry headed for the southern exit of the town. 'This thing's attacked other towns, right? Best thing we can do right now is get info.' He replied sternly, now fully authorized to get this matter well and truly over with. As he exited the the tiny community, a greater spring to his step now that there was something to be acted on, the people looked out after him, wondering if this odd man was truly enough to save them.


It wasn't a terribly long walk to the next town and the trip there suited Dmitry far more than the stroll through town earlier. After a two hours walk, the wizard in the hat found himself trekking over a hill, an all to familiar smell hanging in the air like a curse. It was the smell of death, corpses left to rot away because none had the courage to come and face this horror. The horror that such carnage could befall them as well, should they live in one of the nearby towns such as what this place used to be. As it all came into view, Dmitry's suspicions were confirmed: he had indeed arrived at yet another graveyard, in which nothing but coyotes and buzzards took residence. The hill he stood on overlooked the ruins and gave a perfect view of what remained of this hellscape, allowing the wizard to accurately access what exactly had happened before heading into the place.

This was clearly not a human act. Even accounting for magic and technology, it was simply too random. There was no clear path for the destruction and no feasible objective, just a path of wreckage clean into the town that seemed to end in a sort of crater where the creature likely went into a rampage. From what he knew of the thing, it was a pure man eater, something only the cursed lands could cough up. It didn't take much thought to figure out what happened in the center of town. It seemed he had all the information he was going to gather from this point, leading him to start walking down the hill toward town. It was here that the guild wizard would be able to get up close details on the kind of force this thing could throw around and perhaps even a glimpse into what it looked like.

---

WC: 1485

As Dmitry neared the wrecked town, a familiar sent caught his attention, along with a sudden gust of wind and heat that knocked the tattered hat off his head and into the distance. From down on heaven came a bird that appeared to be composed entirely of lava, a mask wearing woman riding on top. Just as he was about to say something clever, a large, fist sized rock was kicked up by the abnormal steed's arrival and collided with Dmitry's forehead, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground on his back. It was about this time that the bird finally hit land and the masked rider gave her rather cheerful greeting, as though this were a perfectly normal reunion.

"Hey there, shrimp. Good to see you..." He said, sarcasm practically oozing from the young man as he got to his feet, a red mark now on his face. 'That's going to bruise.' The voice said, taking a little too much joy out of this. 'Yeah, thanks for the update, old man.' Dmitry snapped back, in no mood for this nonsense. "Boss lady sent me out here to find some...something or other." He said in response to his guildmate's earlier question, not sure why he cared to answer in the first place. "Hit a few towns already, including this one. Apparently it's got a taste for humans and they can't seem to defend themselves. I don't really get why, but I'm supposed to go into the cursed lands, find the big nasty prick, and put it down before it decides to eat anybody else." Having thoroughly answered her question, Dmitry continued on into the ghost town. Even through the pungent smell of death permeating the air, the wizard could detect the scent that was anything but human. However, the corpses were in fact enough to obscure the scent to the point that he could not discern its exact nature. Of course, this mattered little as all he really needed was something identifiable to track the monster with, not an in depth knowledge of what exactly it was. So long as he wasn't wandering aimlessly in the cursed lands, that was enough for him. He'd seen enough of that place not to go in there blindly. Still, it might help if he knew a bit more about what happened in this town, so as to preempt the creature's habits of offense. Not to mention some extra food might not be a terrible idea at the moment, the curse lands being easy to get lost in even with a scent to follow. And it's not as though the townsfolk will be needing it.

An odd mix of scents wafted out of confinement as Dmitry kicked open the door of a butcher's shop in one of the less devastated parts of town, equal parts dust and rotting meats. The smell would likely be greater, but most of the meat had been eaten by wild animals or extremely desperate humans scavenging the town. After a bit of searching, the gray wizard managed to to find both a burlap sack and the place where the former proprietor of this once great shop kept the dried and smoked meats, walking out with a bag of goodies and strip of jerky hanging out of his mouth. Swinging the bag over his shoulder and grabbing the jerky with his free hand so as to take a proper bite, Dmitry took a long whiff of the air. "Not as many bodies as there should be," he absentmindedly said before swallowing his bite. "And there's something else..." There was something about the scent of the creature that had been bothering the Lamian since he arrived, but he hadn't been able to place.

'Come now, boy.' The voice of his mentor, Hati, rang out. 'I think you should know this well...' Realizing what he was implying, both revelation and excitement lit up Dmitry's features, a crooked grin extending from ear to ear. An uncharacteristic chuckle escaped his lips, slowly growing in volume until he contained himself.

"So that's how it is..."

---

WC: 2170

The wizard was suddenly interrupted by a large beak hitting the top of his head, causing him to yelp in shock as well as pain. "What? Go get your own damnit!" He shouted at the lava bird, almost instinctively knowing what it was after. Unfortunately, as his hands were both full and the bag of dried meats was weighing him down on one side, Dmitry could do little to protect himself from the series of harsh pecks that came next, leaving several lumps on the top of his head. "Piss off! Its mine!" He shouted like a child as he haphazardly kicked up at the bird, as though he were shooing a stray dog. Thankfully, the Kaori son reigned in her fiery steed, allowing Dmitry to avoid a fight with a creature more than twice his size over a bag of meat.

'Are you quite alright, boy?' Hati teasingly asked. 'Nothing too serious? We can always turn back if you like.' Before he could answer his nuisance of a mentor, the smaller wizard asked him about the very event happening at that moment, as well as the very being responsible for such a headache. Of course, Dmitry could have explained to the curious ninja that Hati was a spirit of the wolf and that the two were bound to one another, resulting in his ability to communicate with the entity telepathically. However, his response was something far more eloquent and infinitely more accurate.

"You tryin' to tell me I smell or somethin'?"  

Such poetry only elicited the raucous laughter of the very spirit in question, creating another one of those changes in expression that Kaori mentioned earlier. 'Well, well, boy. I'd say you've got this one figured, now don't you.' The wolf spirit said in between it's laughter. 'All this observation to discern body oder; quite the sleuth.' Dmitry on the other hand merely shrugged off both the inquiry and the reaction of the being in question, turning in the direction of the presence belonging to the creature that destroyed this place. "Right, so it's this way." He said in a laid-back tone, not at all suggesting that their might be danger where he was headed and simply walking off, taking another bite of his jerky as he went.

It wasn't long before he was outside of town, saying nothing of how he knew where he was going or his purpose in the town. His pace was very different from before, as though his feet moved on their own along a path laid out before them. The strange wizard walked with a strange purpose to him, clearly guided by something that was far beyond sight or sound or smell. As he pressed further, the land around him became more abysmal, a foul presence filling the air and saturating the ground. Should Kaori press on with Dmitry, she would follow him well into the cursed lands. Soon the sky began to take on a sickly color like an infected wound, the gray hair's breathing becoming a bit heavier as he broke out into a cold sweat. However, despite his clearly worsening state, his uttered no complaint and even his expression didn't change in the slightest beyond that of mild discomfort.

---

WC: 2711

Just as Kaori's fiery feathered steed began throwing its fit, Dmitry stopped entirely, a sigh escaping his lips as though he were presented with some minor inconvenience. Guided by some unseen force, the gray haired wizard lifted his foot up before him just as a strange, gray skinned creature burst through the ground, it's face thoroughly halted by a boot. "You lot just had to make an appearance, huh?" He said as he slammed raised his foot in the air and slammed it back into the creatures face once more, this time deriving a sickening crunch as the creature ceased its movement and slumped down, still half buried in the ground. Naturally, several others began to spring quite literally from the ground all around the two travelers, prompting the phoenix like creature fallowing Kaori to take to the skies. There far too many for him to get by without magic. Furthermore, one spirit in particular was extremely well suited to this situation.

'Come now, boy.' That same spirit said mockingly, knowing the situation just as well as Dmitry did, making this moment all the more amusing. 'I think we both know what's going to happen here.' The wizard rolled his eyes and held out his right hand, causing a silver magic circle to appear. As the engine of spell craft began to draw in what appeared to be a strange, spectral, smoke-like substance of the same color as the circle, Dmitry closed his eyes. "I invoke the Great Wolf..." He said, opening his eyes and revealing the same glow as they had during the doppelganger job. "Hati!"

As his name was called, the body of an enormous wolf, twice the natural size of one typically encountered across Earthland, quickly formed and sprinted after the horde of grey skinned abominations. The first it passed attempted a haphazard swing of its arm at the spirit beast, but it quickly found the limb removed from its body, the momentum of the even sending it spinning to the ground. The next creature the wolf passed lost it's leg and fell to the ground, attempting to crawl towards Dmitry along with the one that lost its arm. In response the gray wizard grasped the arrow out of the head of one of the foes Kaori shot down, planting it in the skull of the lead crawler, snapping it in half, and jamming what remained into the eye of a creature that had shambled by in the meantime. After slamming his palm rather painfully on the protruding rear of the arrow, sending it through the eye and into the brain, he raised his leg once more and slammed it down onto the neck of other crawler. A sickening crunch was heard as the spine separated, something that killed even this type of being. As another tried to grab him from behind, he quickly ducked under it's arms and grabbed hold of its head, giving it a strong twist and letting out another crunch, the corpse falling to the ground.

Dmitry waited to hear the shambling footsteps of yet another foe, but he was surprised to hear nothing but the nimble motions of his partner and the calm trotting of his four-legged mentor. For his part, the wolf spirit left a swath of carnage, most creatures dismembered, some decapitated, and one even torn in half. "I'd say that's the last of them for now, though some of them still move..." he said allowed. "Leave'em, no point wasting any time on them if they can't hurt us." Dmitry said in response. With that, Hati walked past his pupil and, provided she was done with her share of enemies, approached the ninja.

"Hello, my dear. I don't believe we've been properly introduced." He said cordially. "I am Hati, a spirit of the wolf. I taught this knave everything he knows about magic, among other things." The spirit briefly lowered the front half of his body in a strange sort of bow to the young woman, to which Dmitry groaned.

"It is a pleasure to meet you."

---

WC: 3389

Though he raised an eyebrow when the masked woman displayed such affection towards what he could only see as a nuisance, Dmitry ultimately shrugged at her request. "Hey, knock yourself out." He said, nonchalantly as he began to head in the direction he was walking in before the creatures attacked, Hati enjoying the attention. "Feel free to hold on as tight as you wish." The wolf said politely, a far cry from how he treated his pupil. "I am devoid of pain as you know it, so you need not worry, my dear." When Kaori was safely on his back, Hati took off after the one who brought him into physical being, slowing down after catching up and matching the wizards pace. "Do not be afraid to hold on, my dear." He said politely. "I feel no physical forms of pain, so you need not worry." The wolf spirit then gave Dmitry a wry grin, as though he were reveling in something. "You see, boy, this is why you should head my teachings. I haven't heard anyone ask if they can keep you, after all." Dmitry rolled his eyes again in response to his mentor. "Yeah, I wanna be just like you when I grow up, old timer." Hati simply chuckled at the sarcasm, quite familiar with the tone the wizard was using. "I would recommend growing up first."

After that, the grey-hair said little, more focused on following the force that guided him to his destination and, more importantly, the prey he had been sent here to hunt. Still, even if it hadn't yet hindered his ability to fight, Dmitry hated being in this place. It's very presence felt toxic to him, far more so than the simple tension or dread a typical human or even most wizards would feel within its wretched borders. Still, he agreed to follow her orders while he was a member of Lamia Scale, even if they made no sense to him whatsoever.

"Ugh, I could wring that stupid rabbit's neck..." He grumbled as he pressed onward, his destination just as fixed as it was before the attack from earlier. It wasn't much longer before the environment became less composed of empty plains, giving way to more uneven terrain as they approached a small mountain. As they got closer, a small entrance became more and more visible, just barely large enough for Dmitry to walk through unhindered. Such was a thankful coincidence as the medium had not the focus to stop and consider the entrance he was walking through, simply keeping the exact same pace as he entered the cave. One had to watch their step as they went through, the cave almost immediately converting into a sharp incline, forcing one to descend. There was no light save for the cave entrance and that quickly dwindled as they continued, the space withing being quite tight. Thankfully for Dmitry, his sight barely played a role at this point, his sixth sense almost entirely guiding his movements at this points. However, eventually, one could see lit torches lining the walls, the cave eventually converting into some sort of man made design. At first, it only seemed to go in a single direction, becoming better lit as the torches became more numerous. However, the path soon became divided between left and right, though it didn't seem to deter the pathfinder for this mission. He made a swift right turn along with several other turns that seemed as though they were made in advance, like it had already been decided for him.

Eventually, signs of blood began to appear, the quantity and frequency increasing as they went on until even a few body parts could be spotted along the way. This, of course, all led to the makeshift den of the creature responsible for this, which stepped from the shadows as though it had been made to wait for their arrival. It was enormous, larger than a two story house and coated in an armored exoskeleton, glinting like steel in the torchlight. It was a testament to the maze-like structure that it managed to house the creature with room to spare, something Dmitry was thankful for as he broke from his trance. "You may wish to dismount, my dear..." Hati said to his new friend as what appeared to be smaller creatures seemed to approach from behind them, their origins unclear. "I am afraid you will have to deal with these ones on your own. I must assist that gray-haired fool before he gets himself killed." With that, the wolf shot off like a cannon ball, leaping high and kicking off of the right hand wall to spring even higher. Just as the beast was about to charge the young wizard, who simply held his hand out before him, Hati's fangs sunk into its neck with a surprising a mount of force. Not did let out a howl of agony, but was actually thrown off balance and ran into the left hand wall, creating a large dent. The old wolf, however, still managed to cling to the creature's throat, even finding strength to bit down even harder and prompting the monster to throw its head about in a vain attempt to throw Hati off.

Meanwhile, Dmitry formed another, far larger magic circle of the same color as before in front of his hand, an even greater amount of the spectral material being dragged from thin air than earlier. "I invoke the World Serpent..." He chanted, drawing on the bond he had with this nature spirit, similar to that which he shared with Hati. "Jormangand!" At the call of its name, an absurdly large snake, close to the size of a small train, emerged from the circle and quickly made its way to the now dwarfed monster. Hati finally leaped off the creature and landed gracefully on the stone floor, well out of the way of his fellow spirit. Before this 'Hannibal' new what was happening, Jormangand managed to thoroughly wrap itself around the hulking creatures entire body, only leaving out it's arms, head, and a portion of it's neck, which the serpent quickly sunk its gigantic fangs into. The influence of the snake spirit, taking form as a unique venom, began to course through the man-eater's veins, causing it to have more trouble struggling against its captor. Taking advantage of this, Jormangand began to tighten its hold even further, not letting up even as the exoskeleton could be clearly heard cracking under the pressure. When the spirit could constrict no further, the monster had already stopped moving. With this, Dmitry allowed both Hati and Jormangand to vanish, their physical forms no longer needed.

As the lifeless husk of the thing that destroyed the town he and Kaori were in earlier fell to the ground, the chamber they were in began to rumble. Whatever aura or life-force that was supporting this place was now gone and it was beginning to crumble, causing even the smaller creatures, if there were any left, to flee out of fear of being crushed. Oddly enough, the rest of the labyrinth was completely unaffected by this phenomenon, not that Dmitry could tell.

"Shit!" The wizards shouted without any care of his language. "We gotta move, now!" With that statement of the plainly obvious, Dmitry began to run for the exit, presumably with Kaori not far behind. Thankfully, he was just barely able to retrace the path he had taken to get here and made it to the cave entrance, leaping out into the open before the place was buried. For a moment, he rolled over and simply lay there, panting from the sprint. "Well..." He said in between breaths.

"That was a thing."

---

WC: 4679

At the mention of food, all signs of fatigue seem to disappear from the wizard, one of his greatest delights being brought up. As though the previous sprint had never happened, Dmitry rolled back onto his shoulders and pushed off the ground with his hands, landing upright and following after the young woman. "Now your speakin' my language." He said with new found glee. 'Well, at least your easy to motivate.' Hati said from beyond the physical plain, resuming his roll as menace to Dmitry's peace and quiet. 'Hey! I earned it, didn't I?' The medium shot back.

However, as he was walking, a passing thought caused him to stop and turn southward, somber look taking over his features for just a moment. "Been about ten years, huh?" He mumbled to himself, not even realizing he was speaking out loud. A lonesome wind blew through the lands and through his gray hair, causing him to ponder for a moment. "Has it really been that long?"

Dmitry shook his head getting back to following Kaori and her bird friend, deeming his previous train of thought to be a needless waste of time. He still didn't understand what being apart of a guild meant exactly, but hopefully that would become clearly as he continued to work with the wizards of Lamia Scale. In all honesty, he wasn't even sure why he was bothering to learn about it in the first place, but he rarely questioned his instincts. At the very least, it was a change of pace from wandering aimlessly about the lands of Fiore, something that could get surprisingly monotonous after a decade.

"Wait a minute..." The survivalist said, stopping dead in his tracks. This was followed by him looking at both his hands, then scanning the surrounding environment. "I had food already..." After a moment of confusion and a mental retracing of his steps up to this point, an expression of revelation appeared on his face, followed by one of irritation. "Oh, you big bird bastard!" He shouted before chasing after the enormous bird.

"That was mine you stupid fire chicken!"

---

WC: 5031