The Return | Cricky

Chapter III: The Book

a/n: two notes for this chapter. 1, I finally gave this realm a fucking name, & 2, retconning the part about Asher being from a parallel timeline. He's now from this earth & his existence remains a mystery. Making these changes so I can segway into my official re-write of Qrow here.

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The many creatures that inhabit Valavana, from humanoid to the smallest caterpillar, all have the ability to access the planet's natural ether (AKA magic), but they can only utilize the most minuscule fragments. That's what made a demon lord so powerful—The ability to harness any given type of magic in it's rawest form and to it's fullest potential. The unfortunate side effect being any spells of a certain type of magic that preexisted their respected demon lord are child's play for our kind. Despite that, Ricky still recommended it as a good starting point. He said learning those rudimentary spells is how he familiarized himself with the feel of shadow magic; "Developing a working relationship between you and your magic is the key to creating new, more powerful spells."

He went on about how creating new spells was a combination of imagination and intuition. It reminded me of when Ville had described soul eating as something that "can't be taught." I suppose that's the way of magic, isn't it? It's not meant to be straight forward. Much like any artform, there are basic guidelines, but no real hard rules, no right or wrong way of expression.

Aside from using my new strength to access my bat form more often, I'd done very little with this power. Lucky for me, the moon falls under the category of celestial magic, and I happen to know an expert that's easily bribed with sweets.

"Well, you have good timing." Yuu told me as I followed him down the castle steps. He can walk surprisingly fast for someone so short. "I was just about to make a fresh batch of lunar water. Moony is a little overdue for a bath. Vinny said it's still too cold to have the fountain running, so we'll have to go all the way to the river."

"We have water in the castle." I replied.

"Has to be water that's been exposed to the fresh air and moonlight. The longer, the better. It's an intermediate spell, but something tells me you can handle it." He giggled.

Suffice it to say that was an understatement. When Yuu showed me the spell, it was as damn easy as breathing. We stood at the river's bank, the beautiful soothing sound of the water's mild currant trickling through our ears. Yuu placed a freshly filled jar before me, prattling on about how it was no big deal if I couldn't get it my first try. He didn't even finish his speech and the water was glowing. And no, I don't just mean the water in the jar.

Yuu looked at the newly luminescent river, dumbfounded. "Oh."

Fast forward to us back at the castle and he's digging through a chest in his room. With a dramatic sigh, he uncovered what he'd been looking for. "This book has been passed down for, well, as far back as our tribe has existed. Supposedly, these spells are the most powerful we have."

"You know I can't read this." I said.

"That makes two of us." Yuu opened to a random page, turning the book in my direction. "It's written in a lost language. No one's been able to translate it, but I thought maybe since you've got all this crazy power now, you might be able to figure it out?" I took the book from his hands, looking closer at the symbols. Yuu babbling on, "I don't know, I thought maybe seeing it could awake something in you or whatever, but now that I'm saying it out loud it sounds kind of dumb, doesn't it?"

"No," I stopped him, "Your intuition was right. I do recognize this, but not because I'm a demon lord. This is an Earth language."

"... Huh?" Yuu's brain did a full-ass 30 second reset. "No! Are you sure? Why would- That doesn't make any sense!"