Not only that, but the water’s power seeped into his madra channels like rain on dying grass. He gasped at the sudden pain, which reminded him of splashing icy cold water on a burn. Only when this hit his channels, it left them stronger than before.
Lindon didn’t hesitate to dunk his face into the well.
It was like a high-grade madra-refining pill mixed with Little Blue’s touch. Every drink rinsed his spirit, helped his core refill itself, and refined his madra. He could feel his pure power growing denser, richer, thicker.
He came up for air, gasping. “Jars. We need jars.”
Chapter 12
The Spirit Well was Lindon’s greatest dream made real.
It was like a heavenly feast set before him; an endless spring of power from which he could literally drink. Cycling had never been so rewarding or so effortless. He and Orthos moved into another room that was filled with garbage—the wreckage of long-abandoned crates and barrels that smelled like vinegar and had been smashed years if not decades before. They set the garbage on fire, leaving Dross to open the vents and get rid of the smoke. It became their cycling room for Blackflame. After a mouthful of Spirit Well water, each revolution of madra produced twice the result for half the effort. Lindon missed his parasite ring; the scripted halfsilver ring would have filtered his madra even further, resulting in even faster growth.
But the water was just as much of a boon for Blackflame as it was for his pure core. After the first few hours, he was pushing the barriers of Lowgold. If Lindon ever met Northstrider face-to-face, he was going to prostrate himself at the Monarch’s feet in gratitude for building this place.
Ziel left the well room for an hour or two at a time, but always returned to sit in his corner. When he came back, he would dip his bowl into the Spirit Well, take one halfhearted sip, and then dump the rest over his head so that it washed the blood away in finger-thin rivulets.
Lindon almost choked at the waste.
“Forgiveness, but why don’t you drink more?”
Ziel didn’t open his eyes, but gestured at his abdomen. “Take a look, then tell me if you think it’ll do any good.”
Lindon opened his Copper sight. A venomous, toxic green ravaged his body, dimming the aura of his blood and life. He extended his perception, scanning the man’s spirit; he didn’t resist at all.
His core, a hazy green light, had been destroyed. Something had deliberately sliced it into pieces, then stitched the pieces back together. Half his madra channels were dark, and the other half were twisted and knotted into chaotic patterns.
Lindon closed off his perception, horrified. A Truegold with that much damage to their spirit should either be dead or Unsouled. But he had the power of a Truegold now.
How powerful had he been before?
Lindon bowed to him in silent apology and turned back to the pool. Little Blue’s touch could cleanse and reinforce madra channels, but the Spirit Well had a similar effect. If it wasn’t helping Ziel, neither could she.
At this point, Lindon wasn’t sure if a team of spirit healers could help the man. He was ashamed to have looked.
Outwardly, Orthos wasn’t as thrilled with the well as Lindon was, but he went back and guzzled deeply whenever he could. Slowly, Lindon felt the turtle’s spirit improving, like a knot unraveling or a stain shrinking.
Little Blue was hesitant to leave Lindon’s side at first, staring warily at the newcomer and the Dreamseeds overhead. But after she dipped a hand into the Spirit Well, she cooed in wonder and then dove in headfirst. She had taken to it like a fish, swimming around happily and growing deeper in color with every passing minute. A night in there, and she would be back to normal.
Dross had returned to his vessel and demanded to be dropped into the pool, just as he had been in the Dream Well for over fifty years. Lindon didn’t spare any more thought for him until the first night—which was what they had chosen to call the half of the day when the overhead scripts dimmed. The water outside the habitat was just as black as always, and of course the dream tablets and Spirit Well glowed constantly.
Lindon was just starting to wonder if he should drink a vial of Dream Well water to shake off sleep when he heard a loud sigh from the azure pool. Dross’ spirit-form drifted up from the water, an ethereal ball of slowly turning gears and spinning violet lights.
“It’s great in there, it really is, but uh...I don’t know that I want to spend fifty years in there again. Do you know what I mean? I wasn’t conscious for most of that time, but once I was, it got very boring very quickly. Not sure I want to do the whole thing wide awake.”
Lindon rubbed his chin, looking at the Spirit Well. “What do you think this will do for you?”
Dross made a coughing sound. “That’s the question. The Soulsmiths who made me tried to make a construct that could work alongside a person’s brain, but they failed, didn’t they? Ended up just making better memory constructs.
“Well, this facility was run by a collection of scholars after the same goal. They theorized that they could create a kind of super-spirit, an advanced hive of Dreamseeds that would handle thoughts so that Northstrider didn’t have to. It would make it so that he wouldn’t have to think to solve a problem, but he would always know the answer, bam, just like that. The Dreamseeds would do the mental work for him.”
“And it failed,” Lindon said. That wasn’t a guess; if it had succeeded, Northstrider would never have abandoned Ghostwater in the first place.
“Like a snow fort in the desert,” Dross said sadly. “Turns out, when they pumped power into a Dreamseed, what they got was a more powerful Dreamseed. Not sure how else they expected that to go, really.” He waited a breath before continuing. “I may have been born a little differently than these little guys, but surely a construct that’s come to life can’t be too different than a natural spirit.”
That made sense to Lindon. And he wanted to see what Dross was becoming; it might end up useful. This was the chance to learn something that even Northstrider’s expert Soulsmiths hadn’t understood.
“We could try and come up with a script that might focus the power on you,” Lindon said doubtfully. If he was a more knowledgeable scriptor, it might work, but he had never done much research on that front. “It’s a pity you can’t just drink it.”
Dross glowed brighter. “That’s it! I can borrow your body!” He saw the look on Lindon’s face and hastened to add, “Don’t worry, I’ll share.”
“You can do that?” Lindon asked. That was intriguing. Could he send Dross to take over other people’s bodies?
“Don’t see why not. There’s a Remnant inside you right now, or at least all the ingredients to make one when you die. Plenty of room inside your spirit, so I’ll just squeeze in there.” He pushed into Lindon’s chest, but bounced off the madra running through Lindon’s skin. “Excuse me, you have to move aside. Just for a minute. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t hurt. Me. I don’t know what it will feel like to you.”
Orthos pushed past Lindon on the way to the Spirit Well. “There are some sacred artists who take in the power of natural spirits as part of their Path. It is safe.”
“See! Perfectly safe, he says.” Dross tried to push into Lindon’s head this time, but slid off.
Lindon wanted to see what Dross would become, but he was still uncomfortable with the idea of letting a self-aware construct inside his soul. “Is this the only option we have?”
“Don’t worry,” Orthos said. “If the tiny spirit tries some mischief, I will burn him out of your body.”