“So the greater spirit is in here?” I muttered as I looked around the basement.
The little spirits nodded vigorously.
Using my magic to create a light source, I picked up a stack of old parchment and started flipping through the pages.
“Lady Witch, what does it say?” Teto asked me.
“Looks like a summary of the research that was conducted using the greater spirit’s powers. I have a pretty good idea of what they were trying to do,” I said.
Within those documents lay an outline of the whole life of the mage who’d built this place and the direction of their studies.
“The mansion’s first owner was a court magician. It looks to me from what’s in here like they’d been tasked to find a way to weaponize the greater spirit’s powers.”
A lot of folklore in this part of the continent mentioned weapons and armor that had received the blessing of spirits. It seems that the mage who’d lived here was trying to find a way to extract the greater spirit’s powers and use them to artificially “bless” weapons and armor.
“This type of research is completely forbidden on the continent,” I said. “I’m not sure what to do with these... On one hand, it might be better to destroy them, but on the other, we might want to leave them as proof of what was done here.”
If a spirit was bled dry of its powers, it might go on a rampage and start attacking everything in sight. Moreover, if that spirit happened to be connected to a certain place, abducting it could cause the land itself to become unruly. Abusing spirits’ powers came at far too high a price for anyone in the known world to consider it anything but taboo.
“For now, let’s grab everything in case something goes awry,” I said.
Teto and I went around the basement and grabbed every document related to the mage’s experiments. There weren’t that many, so it didn’t take us long. When we were done, I shifted my focus to the back of the room.
“This is the seal, isn’t it?” I said, making my way towards a little pedestal with a gem resting atop it.
Looking around, I saw that it was surrounded by magic circles—on the floor, walls, and ceiling.
“It seems to work in the same way as the jewel of sealing I had made with my magic to capture the Archdevil,” I noted. “But the mage had to layer two seals to make sure the greater spirit wouldn’t escape.”
The magic circles painted all around the pedestal were draining the greater spirit’s mana, which in turn kept it sealed. Said mana was also what kept the preservation spell on the mansion going, as well as what prevented the little spirits from interfering with the seal. Now I understood why the mansion hadn’t degraded in the slightest in over three hundred years, and also why the spirits hadn’t been able to rescue the greater spirit.
“It’s a lot duller than the one you made, though, Lady Witch,” Teto noted as she studied the jewel, which was pulsating with a reddish-brown glow, her head tilted to the side.
She was right.
“Well, it’s been three hundred years; it’s only natural that it would have deteriorated,” I said. “The magic circles keep the greater spirit sealed, but it looks like the jewel is nearing its limits.”
This unfortunately meant that we wouldn’t be able to take the jewel with us.
“Guess we’re going to have to pacify it here,” I sighed.
“How are we going to do that, Lady Witch?”
“We’ll have to make it exhaust itself. The question is, how?”
As I tried to find a way to bait the rampaging spirit into exhausting its powers without causing harm to our surroundings, a very unwelcome noise came from the jewel on the pedestal.
Crack.
I whipped my head around to look at it, and sure enough, a fissure had appeared on its surface. Mana started leaking from the crack, undulating in the air like heat haze.
“No way... The jewel is about to break!” I exclaimed.
“And the spirit is very, very angry!” Teto said.
“We need to evacuate, and quick! Teleport!”
I hurriedly gathered the little spirits and Teto and teleported us all outside the mansion. As soon as we arrived, a pillar of fire erupted from the mansion’s basement, piercing through the building. The mansion started burning, the flames steadily growing. Feeling that something was wrong, our horse golem bolted, pulling our caravan along.
“Gaaaaaah!”
✦ ✦ ✦
With a bloodcurdling roar, the greater spirit materialized as a human figure amid the flames. The spirit had taken on the appearance of a man with spiky red hair and dragon horns. His chest was bare, and he wore exotic gold ornaments.
“Lady Witch, why did the jewel break all of a sudden?” Teto asked me.
“Probably because we came near it.”
The gem had already been on the verge of breaking, but my approaching it must’ve been the final straw. The greater spirit held a deep grudge against humans; by coming close to him, I must’ve exacerbated his anger, giving him the strength to break free.
When the greater spirit spotted us, he roared once more, reaching out after us as he loosed a volley of fireballs, his face twisted up into a mask of rage.
“Lady Witch, watch out!” Teto exclaimed, then dropped down and put her hands against the ground. “Earth Wall!”
She conjured an earth barrier that intercepted the fireballs before they could reach us. They all exploded upon impact, but Teto’s wall didn’t budge.
This seemed to displease the greater spirit even more, and he spread the flames surrounding his body in all directions; the trees and shrubs around the mansion all caught fire. Using the trees as fresh fuel, he shot another round of fireballs at Teto’s wall. This time a crack formed on the surface, dirt particles scattering everywhere with each explosion.
“The wall’s coming down!” Teto warned us.
Meanwhile, the greater spirit had started burning yet more trees. If we didn’t mount some kind of counteroffensive, we were doomed.
“Let’s isolate him! Multi-Barrier!”
I created a dome-shaped barrier all around the greater fire spirit and the burning mansion, trapping him inside.
“I’ll keep him contained. Teto, go extinguish the fire so it doesn’t spread to the rest of the forest!”
“Roger!”
The greater spirit grew increasingly agitated, relentlessly attacking my barriers with flames and explosions, but every time he managed to break one, I swiftly conjured a new one in its place.
“Lady Witch, is everything okay?” Teto asked.
“Yeah, everything’s fine for now. I’ve cut off his oxygen supply, so he can’t set up the feedback loop he wants.”
My barriers were blocking mana and oxygen from getting in or out. Up until now, the greater fire spirit had been using very little mana to attack us, mostly relying on the environment itself to feed his flames. But it was only a matter of time before he consumed all of the air inside the barrier and ran out of things to burn. This would force him to use his own mana to keep up the pressure. All we needed to do was wait for him to exhaust his powers and calm down, and our job here would be done...or so I thought.
“Lady Witch, it’s getting hotter,” Teto noted.
“No way... Heat is leaking from the barriers?!”
If this kept going, there was a risk that the rest of the forest would catch fire.
“We have to lower the temperature or things might take a turn for the worst. Heavy Rain!”
I poured some mana into my staff, Flying Jade, and cast a rain spell, all while sustaining the barriers around the greater spirit. Using a combination of Water and Wind Magic, I conjured thick clouds in the sky; the next second, a torrent struck the barrier. It was so hot that as soon as the raindrops hit, they instantly evaporated with a sizzling sound. As a plume of steam rose high above us, the ambient temperature dropped to something more manageable.
“I hope this is enough,” I said.
“It’s working! We don’t have to worry about the forest burning anymore, Lady Witch!”
I had the threat contained now, but keeping two powerful spells like Multi-Barrier and Heavy Rain up at the same time was rapidly draining my MP. Soon my transformation spell came undone, and I returned to my twelve-year-old appearance. Meanwhile, Teto had used her Earth Magic to build a little hut for us to take shelter from the rain while waiting for the greater spirit to regain his calm.