Tall Tails

Chapter 5: Into The Veil

Miyuki blinked and her ears slowly flattened against her head as she tried to process what Grey had just said. "A...veil?" she repeated tentatively. Grey nodded in response, "They're extremely uncommon, usually they only occur in the presence of extremely strong spirits." Miyuki tilted her head and crossed her arms quizzically "what is it though?" Grey thought for a moment on how to best explain the concept. "Well, one way to look at them is they're kind of like altered reality, usually related to the type of spirit you're dealing with.. Right now that spirit you just saw is using their spiritual energy to influence this place making it align more with their energy and unfortunately you got pulled into the space the spirit created."

Miyuki shivered at Grey's explanation, what he had just told her is that she had been pulled into some kind of in-between space by something sinister and all she wanted to do at this point was get as far away from it as possible. "Can we leave? Please? I-I don't want to be here anymore" Miyuki wrapped her arms around herself. She was still shivering, her ears were drooping, and her tail was tucked between her legs. Grey returned a sympathetic look. "I know how you feel, trust me. Unfortunately, with you being untrained, there's no way out of here until we deal with the spirit creating this veil, it takes a lot of focus to punch out of a veil and if you aren't careful you can seriously damage yourself mentally." Miyuki slumped at the response "are you saying we need to fight that thing?" Grey nodded in affirmation "Don't worry, I won't leave you alone, part of my job is to protect people in situations like this. The thing I don't understand is this is extremely out of character for a spirit of that caliber" Miyuki's ears perked up a bit, her curiosity getting the better of her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, that was a filth licker. They usually hang around derelict temples or other forms of holy ground and literally lick them clean. They're a bit off-putting appearance wise, but they don't usually attack people and they certainly don't have enough of a presence to create a veil, at least not usually. They're generally classified as a C rank monster at best." Miyuki stared past Grey at the temple building where the spirit had retreated to. The entrance was dark and foreboding and staring at it caused her to shiver again. "Spirits have ranks?" Miyuki asked, her ears drooping as she continued to monitor the entrance of the temple building. It made sense they did, there had to be some kind of system for the priests to use to determine how dangerous a particular spirit was. However, even with that knowledge, the concept of a given rank such as rank C meant nothing to her. Grey tapped the hilt of his sword on his shoulder and gave a quick nod. "Yeah, it's pretty similar to the system used in school here in the States, with there being one additional rank past A referred to as rank S, there have only been a handful of those in all of human history though. Honestly though, we should get going before that spirit finds a place to hole itself up."

Miyuki's ears drooped further, laying flat against her head at the reminder and she let out a small sigh. "I was kind of hoping if we waited long enough the veil would just go away on its own or something." Grey began walking towards the abandoned temple building and looked back over his shoulder at Miyuki's protest. "Unfortunately that isn't really an option, veils usually don't go away on their own immediately, it can take weeks or months depending on the spirit. Additionally, it's not good to stay in a spirit's veil long term as the influence will begin eroding your own identity." Another cold chill ran down Miyuki's spine. "What does that mean?" Grey turned to look at her over his shoulder. "It means that eventually, you lose your connection to the world of the living, and when this veil finally does go, you'd go with it." With that bit of sobering information, Miyuki reluctantly followed Grey towards the temple.

Inside was about what Miyuki had expected. The temple was old and had a faintly musty smell, reminiscent of dust or possibly damp earth. The inside of the temple felt damp, and slightly cold, almost as if they'd entered a cave and despite the small size from the exterior, the interior seemed to open up to a tremendous size on the inside. Miyuki's ears pivoted and twitched, listening for any sound which might denote the location of the spirit. The deeper they ventured into the temple the darker it became, it was as if the light itself couldn't stand being in such a cursed place. A fetid brown substance resembling moss crept along the floor and grew up the walls here with an audible sound. The substance had a strong foul smell which caused Miyuki to gag and cover her nose. Suddenly, there was the sound of a flame being ignited and a blue glow was cast over the area illuminating it. Miyuki looked for the source of the light and saw a small blue fireball hovering just above Grey's upturned palm. "WHAT?" Miyuki barked out a single word, she was absolutely floored and couldn't adequately come up with a response to what she was seeing. Grey caught on quick and chuckled before showing off but tossing the fireball in the air and catching it gracefully a few times. "It's fox magic, aptly named foxfire. If you want I can teach you after we get out of here, it's not that difficult."