Gravity Rises (S1)

FE: Part Eleven

Gideon followed Pazeon through the dark hallways of the Tent of Telepathy. He thought it was ridiculous to call this place a tent when it was clearly a brick building; he'd said so to Pazeon, and she'd just scoffed at his 'lack of style'.

"Gidica, over here!" she hissed. Gideon scowled at the name. Pazeon's idea had better work. He was absolutely sick of this.

He followed the sound of her voice until he could make out the outline of a door in front of him. "You ready?" Pazeon asked.

"How is this different from a normal summoning?" he replied.

Pazeon shrugged. "I'm not sure. Don't worry; I'll walk you through it. In here."

They went through the door into a small, circular room. Pazeon moved to the far side of the circular table and gestured for Gideon to sit across from her. "Cross-legged," she instructed.

Once they were seated, Gideon asked in a hushed voice, "Now what?" Talking in normal tones seemed inappropriate in here.

"Activate the amulet," Pazeon instructed. Her voice was also quiet. "As if you were trying to look into my mind. When you see purple shapes start to form in your periphery, increase the power and look at them. When you can look directly at the spirits without them disappearing, you're ready to summon a specific one."

"How do I know which one I'm summoning?"

"Just get to that point."

Gideon nearly rolled his eyes but decided against it. It was time to be serious. These were life or someone else's life stakes here. He activated Pacifica's amulet with its unfamiliar purple glow. No purple smoke appeared around Pazeon's head, like it would have for other people; but, before long, Gideon could see wisps of purple popping up in the corners of his vision, like afterimage spots. His eyes flicked over involuntarily; but when he looked directly at the wisps, they disappeared. "Don't look directly at them," Pazeon reminded him softly. "I'm going to try it with yours."

The amulet around her neck started to glow; the blue mixed with the purple to make an ambient light. "Is it working?" Gideon asked after a moment of silence. He stared at a spot behind Pazeon's head as more and more purple shapes appeared.

"Yeah. . . yeah, it is!" Pazeon exclaimed in a whisper. "It's definitely not as easy as with mine, though."

A minute more of silence, and Gideon's eyes slid over to the purple shapes again. This time, they didn't disappear. "Got it!"

Pazeon didn't reply for a few seconds. "Me too. All right, now, focus on the curse as hard as you can. Not what it did to us, but the physical curse, written on the cave wall. Think about what it said, or what it looked like. If you focus hard enough, a shape or two should get bigger and take on a more human form. Those are the spirits we need to talk to. Once they're big enough to start struggling, pull them into the crystal ball. It'll trap them in there."

Gideon thought he was getting the hang of this. It was kind of like an exorcism in reverse. With his eyes on the purple shapes, he drew up the image of the curse in his mind's eye: the ancient markings, overlaid with the English translation. He remembered the words: "Let anyone who touches these words be placed under any curse that will lead them to improve. That means whatever curse you got, you deserved it. Figure out why you're cursed the way you are, admit that you were stupid, and you'll switch back."

A white-hot anger swept over Gideon before he knew what was happening. They did this. Whoever wrote that curse, they were going to ruin his life.

"Gideon, your anger is scaring them away!" Pazeon hissed. "Stay calm until we have the spirits captured!" It took quite an effort, but Gideon did as she said, curbing his rage and instead focusing on the purple shapes around the room and the image in his head.