The Light of the Night

Light pierced through the eternal darkness shrouding the dirt road. One single solitary orb was seen in the middle of it, contrasting the glowing moon that shone behind them.

The young boy trudged forwards, a small backpack in one hand and the orb in the other. At first glance, one would assume he was alone on this trek. However, it was not so.

“Edward. You’re going to need to restock. I’d advise visiting a village if you can. I personally would’ve killed some monsters from now to sell their meat. But, I suppose your current funds will be sufficient for now.”

A tall woman floated over the boy’s shoulder, dressed in an elegant blue robe. Her presence would be instantly noticed by anyone, if she was at all visible to the world.

Edward was haunted by a ghost. A spirit that has made its home only in his mind. It hadn’t been long since this began, but it already felt like an eternity since the only voice in his head was his.

“I get it, Auranna. I’ll drop by the next village for a break,” he groaned. “And I’ll work on that as soon as I leave. There just haven't been any good opportunities yet.”

“Because you haven’t been looking for opportunities. Do you expect it all to fall into your lap? If you’re going to be my host, you could at least put in the bare minimum effort to use the power I gave you.”

She was right. Edward hardly looked out for any monsters. He decided that he would kill a monster if he saw one, but actively looking took too much effort.

Especially when he already has such a time-consuming task on his hand anyways.

“I’m going to need you to stop slacking once we reach the capital as well. It’s for both of our best interests that we access the royal academies. I need you to be strong.” Auranna said.

“You told me this yesterday. Let me relax for a second, jeez. I don’t want to think about it all the time, at least.” Edward responded.

Auranna rolled her eyes.

Strength. That was the one thing that Edward thought about a lot. It sounded nice, getting stronger and more powerful as a mage. Becoming more respected, more liked, and more appreciated.

But it was really grating to have to hear about it so often in his head. There were so many benefits to having Auranna around, but sometimes he wondered if it was all worth it in the end.

“Walk faster. You spend too much time doing nothing.”

“Nngh-!” That comment actively bothered Edward, as he immediately considered trying to slap the ethereal spirit, but he had to remind himself that it would be both rude and practically impossible. So he took a deep breath and spoke to her instead.

“Auranna, I’m going to be doing a lot of stuff in the future. Just let me enjoy the time that I have until then,” Edward reasoned.

“Okay,” the ghost finally backed down. “But you really ought to start thinking about that future soon.”

Edward finally breathed a sigh of relief. He could finally think to himself on this empty walk. Though, now that he had that quiet, he began to think about the time he spent.

I really don’t do that much, do I? Edward thought to himself. I really should start spending my time more productively-

SCREEEEEECH

However, before he could think further, his thoughts got interrupted by that noise. The duo immediately perked up at the sound, and looked at each other.

““Monster.”” The two nodded at each other. Edward reached into his bag and pulled out a golden mask, before placing it on his face.

Energy surged through his body, and the eyes in the mask glowed gold. Gauntlets formed on his body and a yellow cloak fluttered on his back as Auranna temporarily disappeared. And within that second, Edward began to run.

Dust kicked up into the air as he closed in on the sound, and in the distance, he saw it. A massive spider standing on the side of the road. A rare sight, as normally the roads are quite quiet. But that was not the only thing Edward saw.

He saw two more kids, roughly his age, staring down the spider. A girl and a boy, both face-to-face with the monster.

What are those two kids doing? Shouldn’t they be running?

Edward thought as he dashed right next to them, and stared down the spider as well. The girl was standing in-front of the boy, who was slinking backwards.

“You two should run!” Edward shouted, “I’ll handle this!”

“Oh, you’re here to help?” The girl responded. “I’m Adelyn! Nice to meet you!”

Edward groaned at the response. But he assumed that if she wasn’t running then she probably could do something at least.

“If you’re not going to run, then don’t get in the way at least!” Edward said, immediately springing into action. In both hands, he summoned two weapons both made out of pure light. One, a sharp sword, and the other, a long rope. Then, he dashed to the side of the spider.

The spider noticed Edward moving around it, before raising its massive leg and trying to kick him! However, it wasn’t focusing all of its attention on him.

This species of giant spider had quite a powerful secret weapon, as it could spit acid out of its mouth, and it used it to weaken prey. As a result, a massive shot of acid headed towards the remaining duo!

Ed was concerned that he was going to have to rush back to save them. However, with a hand motion, the white-haired girl split through the spit, sending acid in both directions away from both of them!

“Thank god that worked…” Adelyn said, taking a deep breath. But Edward had his own issues to deal with. With a strong jump, he dodged the kick from the spider before throwing out his rope and wrapping it around the leg. Then he pulled the spider forcefully to the side, to throw it off balance!

As the spider got pulled along, Edward used his sword to slice through the massive beast’s leg, cutting cleanly through it! With one leg down, if he just cut through the other front leg, its balance should be completely thrown off.

And that is what he does, while the spider is in shock he immediately runs under the giant beast and goes to the other leg! Throwing out the rope once more to wrap it around, and preparing his sword… but then, suddenly Edward gets struck by a leg he didn’t see!

A yelp of pain comes from him as he falls down to the ground, skidding along due to being mid-run. In a brief second, he raised his sword to block a stomp from the spider… but then suddenly the leg missed and the entire thing fell to the side!

Edward, confused, looked at the spider and noticed a strange creature on top of the spider. What seemed to be a creature of pure ice standing on top of it, wielding a longsword before dissipating.

He looked around to regain his surroundings, and noticed Adelyn holding out a glowing book. Not questioning his good fortune, Edward leaped into action once more. Clutching onto the rope and pulling the spider once more, then throwing his sword straight through its leg cutting it off!

The spider immediately fell forward, unable to maintain its balance anymore. He looked over to Adelyn and her friend, and finally got a glimpse of her abilities.

From the book, a magic creature formed once more. This time, an earthen golem, as it leaps out and raises both hands into the air… before slamming the spider’s head, finishing it off! The light left the spider’s eyes, as the creature was slain.

Edward’s body relaxed, the energy from before flowed out of him as he took off his mask. Auranna formed back into his sights as they looked upon the defeated creature.

“You could’ve done a lot better there. Now you see why we need to train to become stronger. With enough training, you won’t be the weakest of my hosts anymore.”

“I get it, Auranna,” Edward said. “You don’t need to remind me.”

Edward got up to his feet and looked at the monster. He thought that he should get to cutting it apart and selling what he can.

No time to waste.

Creating a smaller knife in his hands, he is about to get to cutting, but then his focus is disturbed by another voice.

“Hey! Thanks for the help!” Adelyn called to him. Figuring it wouldn’t be right to just ignore her, he turned and responded.

“It’s okay, you did good too,” he responded.

The girl ran down onto the field to get closer to him and stick out her hand. “I dunno if you caught it before, but my name is Adelyn! What about you?”

“Uh. My name is Edward, good to meet you,” Edward said, shaking her hand back.

“The boy over there is Teddie, and I’m just going to call you Ed!” Adelyn mentioned. “Where are you headed too?”

Oh. Edward thought. She’s trying to start small-talk.

Ed wasn’t paying much attention to her, instead trying to cut into the neck of the spider. “I was just going to the capital.”

Going into the neck, he reached through the spider’s insides and began to pull out an organ. The poison gland, where the acid was produced. A surprisingly valuable item if you can properly extract it.

“Oh, we were going in the direction of that big light! I dunno if you saw it, but we think that there’s someone important there!” She explained while Ed continued to cut through the big spider.

“Uh-huh, yeah- wait, big light?” Ed looked back at her for just a second. Auranna floated above his shoulder.

“Ah, they’re also going to the capital.” Auranna said.

“You guys are going to Oscur too?” Ed looked at them.

“Oscur…?” Adelyn responded, not seeming entirely familiar with the name.

“It’s the capital of Lunasa. I also saw a big flash of light come from there, which was strange… but I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“Then, yes. I suppose we’re going there, though we shouldn’t stay that long. Just go there and go out-”

“You sure? Oscur is at least another day of walking from here.”

Edward was constantly inundated with reminders from Auranna about how slow he was going. He figured that a journey to the capital wasn’t just a quick trip.

“Oh. A whole day…?” Adelyn said, seemingly not having to take into account the actual length of the trip. “That’s… that is a while.”

The other boy, Teddie, walked behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. “It shouldn’t be that long. If we keep up we should be there relatively quickly…”

“Yeah. It’s just…” Adelyn sighed. “It’s okay. We can walk.”

Edward looked at the two once more. Adelyn impressed him with her abilities earlier, but the two looked very undersupplied.

He weighed his options.

“We could travel together, if you don’t mind,” Ed offered. “If it’s a day-long trip, then you guys probably need supplies. I was just planning on stopping by a nearby town for a restock, plus you seem like a good fighter and…”

“Really? Thank you!”

Before he could finish speaking, Adelyn threw her arms around Ed.

“I’d like to get there as soon as possible, but I really appreciate any help we can get!”

“Woah,” Ed pushed her off. “I just said I would help. It’s not that much. What supplies do you two have anyways?”

“Well…” Teddie said. “We have uh… uh…”

The two of them pat themselves down, and come up with absolutely nothing. The only thing that they had on them was a singular book.

“We don’t have anything…” Adelyn said.

“We have a lot of work to do.” Ed responded. “Look, I can sell this when we get to the village, and then we’ll buy supplies, does that sound good?”

“Mhm!” Adelyn nodded. Teddie also gave a small thumbs-up.

“Alright. Just give me a second,” Ed said. “Let me finish cutting this thing up.”

With another nod, Ed left the two to finish up his work. Auranna floated beside him, with an approving look.

“That was your first good move in a while. I’m impressed, Edward,” Auranna said to him. “Allies are always valuable to have, it’s good to see you reach out.”

“I think I just needed another voice to talk to that wasn’t you,” Ed responded. “Let's get this over with.”