Tread Lightly

Virgil jumps back into the shadows of the charred pole, surprised and yelling in pain, completely understandable for being set ablaze out of nowhere. I react just as quickly and grab the bedroll beside me and wrap his entire hand and forearm in the fabric, attempting to smother the flame of oxygen.

After a few seconds of painful struggle and agony from Virgil rolling in the bedroll, the fire extinguishes. Heaves of air exit Virgil's lungs as we both sit there with confused looks on our faces.

He looks behind me at the rays of light, and his face scrunches up in hate and realization. Curious, I ask him what the hell just happened to him.

"Virgil, what the fuck is going on? Why did you just spontaneously combust?"

Virgil glances at his arm and pulls it out of the singed cloth bedroll. The arm only has a small number of burns from the flame that covered it.

"I think a side effect of my new flickering body is that the sun now burns me. But like most lower-rank ghosts, the sun doesn't burn me if I Flicker into another realm. The only problem is that I can't do it too long, like weak ghosts."

Two revelations come from what he tells me. The first is that Absolutions can have side effects, and the second is that ghosts CAN live under the sun. I always had the impression they couldn't. The issue is that the weaker ones cannot exist under the sun's rays, yet the more powerful ones can.

I do wonder how powerful they have to be. Was the progenitor strong enough? Maybe. It doesn't seem like Virgil is, probably because he's only half-ghost and incomplete. His body may be ghostly in nature, but his mind and soul are wholly human.

After this spontaneous combustion event, we speak some more, and questions arise about whether we can still move amidst the sun. Can he be burned through clothes? Does being underwater stop the light? Can mirrors burn him?

I give Virgil my coat so that we can test the first one.

Before we do, though, I find the nearby town well and fill a bucket of water so that he doesn't have to Flicker to keep himself from burning to death. Once I'm ready to douse him, with a hand wrapped in my coat, he slowly puts his arm into the sunlight from behind the pole.

The rays of light slowly cover his whole coat-laced hand. And nothing happens. We both take a sigh of relief. We'd be done if it still burned him through the coat. Only being able to move at night is a huge detriment.

Not to even mention, where would he hide in the middle of the dunes? Sure, a town is no problem with all the buildings, and even a forest wouldn't be too bad either, but Bonedunes? He'd be dead in a week.

We continue with our tests while we wait for Vernon to wake. I search the town for clothes to cover Virgil up, and by the end of our tests, he is wrapped tightly up on every single part of his body. Not a single patch of skin shows.

He wears a long trenchcoat and shirt that covers his arms and torso with a hood and cap that cover his head. Virgil's legs are fully covered by a new pair of pants that go down over his ankles and sock that reach up to match. He is still wearing his steel-toed boots from before I met him.

I even found the man a pair of dark-tinted goggles from the town blacksmith's shop. Customarily used to block out the heat and light from a smelter, now they block out the sun's damaging rays for the ghostly man.

He doesn't seem to like it at first, though.

"Damn it. I feel like a child during his first winter. All wrapped up in needless bundles."

But we also make one more discovery at the end once Virgil is completely covered from head to toe, blocking out the sun, which changes his perspective.

His nightly strength returns. No longer with a single ray of light that reaches his skin, his passive bonus from his second Nightowl Sigil. The reduced Ether cost, increased Ether control, and heightened physical prowess.

I watch him giddy and excited about this new discovery about his Ether and Sigil. He throws punches in mock tests, and I see him Flicker here and there. Whenever he uses his new phantasmal skill, even his clothes become see-through. His beating heart, thinking brain, and breathing lungs are all visible for any to see.

But just as we both thought, the skill is incredible.

Virgil shows me how he can walk through walls and stick his head, hand, or leg through them. We do a small spar as we both want to see how useful it is in combat, and he kicks my ass. Though I'd wager all my money, he could do it without the skill.

My right fist just goes straight through the man, regardless of where I strike him, and the Bloody Palm, on the other hand, which I've had to raise my Daydream back up against now that it's recovered, does land like a regular punch. Though, if he fills the skill with more Ether than normal, deepening his connection to the other realm he enters, even the Bloody Palm passes through him. However, that does seem to leave a lasting impact as he pants and needs a moment to recover after it. I even shoot him with my ordinary revolver; just as predicted, the bullet goes right through him. Nothing seems to leave a mark except for an attack fueled with Ether.

Virgil teaches me a new skill as well to test this further, one I've never heard of. It's called Whetting, a skill he picked up from another veteran who learned it. Only about ten or so skills are "Hunter Skills," which are skills taught to most Hunters during training, and this is not one of them. It's a skill that only a handful know. And now I'm one of them.

It's both complicated and straightforward. Like using a whetstone, you run your hand over a blade, bullet, or even your own hands and coat them in Ether, focusing on making the substance sharp or piercing. Learning it is challenging, and I fail dozens of times before I even understand it. Additionally, Virgil teaches me more about how Ether is used in its applications until Vernon wakes up. In doing so, he is trying to strengthen his team and test his abilities further against Whetting.

The veteran knows what he's doing and has plenty of time to teach it.

"Every new Sigil grants one the basic level of a particular Ether technique. And the instant one gains the corresponding Sigil, most also achieve the most fundamental stage of each type of Ether manipulation. However, this is only rudimentary, and most cannot put it to any use at all, the technique breaking apart before its usefulness shows. Increasing it to a level where it is valid still requires practice or, at the very least, extreme luck. Furthermore, there is a type of Ether manipulation set to each Sigil, with intricacies within each.

1st Sigil is using individual streams of Ether. Single Strand is the common name for it. This entails using a single skill or multiple at once. It is both the most elementary manipulation of Ether and the most important. It can be trained so that people can activate up to a dozen skills without being distracted. Vernon is very good at this, me not so much.

2nd Sigil is many streams at once for the same skill. Many Strand is the common name. This differs from using multiple skills; it is about quickly activating abilities and making those chosen more potent than usual. It is also sometimes just thought of increasing the size of the streams of Ether. It is when one creates a massive stream or many at once to fuel a single skill or activate an artifact. Also incredibly important. A bit more complex than Single Strand, but not significantly.

3rd Sigil is braiding the streams of Ether to empower a skill or yourself. Braided Strand is the common name. This is what's required for Whetting. You have to create many strands and funnel them all into the same skill at once while at the same time crisscrossing and braiding them. This increases the durability of the skill, speed of activation, and time that the Ether will remain in the skill without input.

4th is raising the quality of Ether. Steel Strand is the common name. I have not yet mastered or even been able to accomplish this a single time. Very, very few can before they become 4th Sigileds. The most straightforward comparison to understand is putting the essence of your Sigil into the Ether, changing its effects drastically. The change is vital for the powerful as it increases the amount of Ether they can functionally use, for this higher quality is more easily expelled by the body as it is more personal to each person. It also can provide significant changes to already existing skills. Steel is also where the difficulty starts to pick up, as for most, it takes months before they can use it, even after advancing.

5th is raising the density of the Ether from liquid to gaseous. Steam Strand is the common name. Ether is the opposite of most substances; it grows in both density and speed when turning to gas. This increases the rate of Ether because gas moves faster than liquid while at the same time increasing the power of any skill using Steam Ether extensively. Additionally, it vastly reduces the Ether saturation pace of the user, much more so than anything else I know of.

6th details imbuing Ether with your will and personal essence. Willful Strand is the common name. I don't know what it all entails, but it exponentially increases the range of a Sigiled's Ether. If I could do it, I could use my whips up to over fifty feet from just four or five.

Beyond that, I don't know anything besides how those above that use Ether are unimaginable, and I know that the techniques of a 7th Sigil are ten times the difference from 3rd to 4th with Steel Strand. I can imagine, though, that the difficulty is just as high. But secrets of the Angelic realm are kept tight by the higher-ups. Hell, even 5th and 6th are only talked about in whispers, but I've gathered enough information to make educated guesses.

Now, this is all just a framework for how one is supposed to learn these types of Ether usage. You can know them earlier than they're generally granted from talent, pressure, or sheer force of will. You can use Single and Many Strands at a pretty high level despite saying you've had no teacher. I'm impressed, as most without a teacher will remain with just the basics.

I think you can learn Braided Strands. That and I really want to see if a skill like Whetting will hit me or not."

His bit about sheer force of will reminds me of how I gained my first Absolution, just forcing ever-growing streams of Ether into my body without stopping, creating a ball of power within me from just force of will.

This leads to a short conversation about Absolutions, and Virgil is speechless to find out I also had one. And how I got it surprises him so much that he stops teaching me to look at me for a minute.

"I always thought you were fearless, Wyatt. You look young, far too young for this line of work, but that's not my business. But now I know you're not a brave kid. You're a batshit insane one. What kind of madman creates a literal bomb of Ether inside themselves!? I don't even understand how you got your Absolution from that."

Virgil shakes his head, unbelieving, before he continues.

"They're all about survival and beating the odds. You creating an internal bomb is the exact opposite. It would kill any man one-hundred percent of the time, dissolving and breaking them down from the inside out into a pile of meat and blood."

I smile at him, calling me crazy. I had no idea what I was doing; I didn't even know that Ether could kill you like that at the time. I knew it was dangerous, but not dynamite dangerous. My only answer is something that I've been told by many people, from my mother to Edmund and even Alexos.

"They say I'm hard to put in the grave. Maybe it wouldn't have killed me?"

Virgil laughs and nods.

"Yeah, I've seen that too. I guess the chance of survival always remains. But it'd be inhuman to survive that. I can barely imagine anyone who could, even someone above the 6th Sigil that is Angelic... Maybe the Undying could, but that is the only possibility. Graves are known for being hard to kill, more similar to artifacts in their ability to take any beating and stay standing, let alone their most famous member, Killian. He is said to be missing, though. Don't want to meet whatever put that man down for the count, that's for sure."

A knowing smile is stretched onto my lips at his words, but I stay quiet as we return to me trying to learn Braided Ether.

The man runs me through many drills during his explanations, trying to increase my skill with Ether, yet even after a couple of hours of effort and attempts in trying to braid my Ether, I cannot succeed in doing so. I had thought that I was a prodigy in Ether manipulation after how I learned Adrenaline Surge and Sneak so quickly, which, now that I think about it, the latter is a use of Many Strand Ether, and so is the upgraded form of Sneak I made.

I raise my frustration to Virgil, who is kindly teaching me, and he gives me some advice back.

"Those two skills are probably things you have an affinity to. An example is I'm terrible at physical enhancement skills. It took me over two months to learn Physical Enhancement, a required Hunter skill, and I never succeeded in learning Adrenaline Surge. Vernon is similar to me. However, I am great at skills that affect objects and things that I hold, like Whetting, while Vernon is really good at general skills that involve emitting things. Recently, he's been practicing learning Radar, a skill we heard of during a large expedition into the Corialis Marshes in Sinscreak. It allows you to sense everything within a hundred feet through little pulses of Ether you emit."

He's made good progress but hasn't quite learned it entirely yet. He's only gotten it to the point of emitting one pulse every twenty seconds that reach twenty feet out.

You just seem as though you're highly skilled in Ether, which enhances your physical self. But with enough practice and effort, I believe anyone can learn any general skill, so long as it doesn't involve an element."

I nod at his wisdom and continue practicing trying to braid my Ether into Whetting my hand like a blade. While I do so, Vernon wakes up, and at a single glance at his brother, who walks around in his whole getup, he raises a sun-filled hand of radiance.

"Who the hell are you!? Where's Virgil, Wyatt!?"

Snickering, I point at the heavily cloaked, goggled, and dressed man.

"He's right there, you dumbass."

"No, he's not. I've never seen this man before."

Virgil jumps in and yells with a deeper voice than usual.

"No, you have!"

Vernon takes another look at Virgil as the older brother raises a middle finger through a jack box-like opening gesture, then laughs his ass off through his many clothes that muffle his voice a bit.

"Ah fuck you too!"

Chuckles erupt from Virgil and me while we pack our stuff, preparing to leave this not-so-harmonious Harmony Town. Vernon gets frustrated with the both of us and refuses to help, but his brother just starts chucking shit at him to carry, from scavenged bottles of alcohol to spare bullets that we found while searching throughout the day. Virgil is a much better scavenger than me and my old group.

Quickly, we restart our journey west toward the break that we must be nearing. More and more animals have been seen during our approach. This is odd as winter is near, just a week or two away. I ask Virgil and Vernon about why the break is coming despite winter being so close. Isn't winter an awful time to fight?

Vernon, the one who had the extensive Hunter training with all expenses paid for by his brother, answers as Virgil knows less theoretical knowledge on enemies that he hasn't faced compared to Vernon.

"The cold is mostly only bad for humans to fight in. Our bodies get cold and slow, which weakens us significantly, but most powerful beasts are giant and have fur or, at the very least, are large enough to not be affected by a bit of cold. The ones that don't will be heated by the other beasts near them under the control of the demons."

The man pauses in thought as if he's trying to remember the name of something.

"And demons are said to have something called... hmm... ah, a Demonic Furnace instead of a heart; it creates energy from the atmospheric Ether instead of digested food and distributes heat and blood to their bodies, a better version of a heart. Keeps 'em from getting cold or tired quickly. Only temperatures far below zero or days without rest affect them. So, actually, breaks more commonly occur during the winter, when humans are at their weakest. We're safest during autumn when most demons prepare their crusades against us at the Mother Below's will."

I nod after the explanation, and we discuss some more bits and pieces of demons, just curious about their abilities and habits. Even how they look. Virgil answers this one.

"I've talked to a few people who have fought during breaks, and typically, there are a few demons between two and three that lead it. They can naturally command beasts, so we might have to be careful with little Dakota in your backpack. Still, if a beast is domesticated, they are typically fine; its will is usually powerful enough to resist the demon's call for war from domestication."

Virgil pauses again, his hate for demons leaking outward.

"Demons are very arrogant and commonly embody only one of the seven sins compared to humans, who have all seven. Their skills and abilities vary as there are many kinds of demons. From Skinwalkers, and Jumbees, to Baykoks, there are plenty. The most dangerous ones, though, are humanoid demons, for they can blend in. This is why Skinwalkers are so feared."

I cut in with a question, curious if Wendigos are demons. I remember my title on the bounty poster mentioning them.

“What about Wendigos? Are they powerful demons?"

The two brothers both look at me as we walk, Vernon with raised eyebrows and Virgil with noticeable discomfort through the many sets of clothes. Virgil coughs and answers with a low voice.

"No. Well yes. Wendigos are powerful, one of the most dangerous creatures to ever live, but no, they are not demons. Wendigos are born from humans who have merged with at least one artifact and supplanted themselves into them. The desires and hunger from the artifacts overpower the person's mind, turning them into an amalgamation of disaster. A predator at the absolute apex. The combination of two or more beings of Sigil in one is beyond imagination."

Virgil pauses for a short moment before finishing with words of awe.

"They are only creatures that humans and demons have and would ever ally together against."

Oh… That… That sounds foreboding for my future. Names have power, after all. Ma always told me that. That being called something can signal that you will be more like that in the future. Or that simply saying a creature's name allows them to sense you.

I push these foreboding thoughts away as Virgil's eye catches something in the distance.

Something red.