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The spirit craft [Far Presence] that Diurhimath had used to project power far from his main body has two stages. The first, an ‘outrider’, was a simple presence built up from captive low-level (sub-sentient) spirits, capable of observation and some limited active effects. The second, a ‘proxy’, is an actual physical body, albeit an illusion of sorts. It can have weight, exert pressure, emit a voice and a heartbeat and even have a fragrance, but it is a technique of Illusory Reality projected into Objective Reality. Thus, the ability to convert an outrider into a proxy is a much higher level of attainment.
Her Highness, if she expanded her mind to its maximum, might manage an outrider. She doesn’t stand any chance of creating a proxy in her current state, even though our former self, Senhion, created a proxy so complete in Kanon that she became a person in her own right.
But this scholar, while creating the [Blood Effigy] spell, ensured that a similar ‘second stage’ could be created from it. After all, the paper effigies which had been so useful on Huajie could produce the same result by the time the cultivator reached the fourth stage. At the second stage, they could only be birds and other small animals, but by the fourth stage, they were capable of acting as human figures with mystic abilities as great as a stage below that of their creator.
The only drawback was, the [Blood Effigy] version of the spell would require more blood and mana than the ‘crows’ that Her Highness sent out. It was necessary to sacrifice two simple reconnaissance birds to yield enough for one human-sized figure.
Including the gasps coming from the slave pens which were probably reactions to this one’s appearance, at least six individuals noticed the very first appearance of a corporeal Fan Li in the main world of Huade.
The reason to reproduce this scholar’s body, alien to this world, rather than an image of Her Highness, was quite simple.
Any damage that this effigy took would look very inhuman indeed, especially if any limbs were lost. It would produce no blood, no guts, no exposed bones. In short, the human appearance of this scholar was only skin deep. The effigy is a mannequin in motion, not a living body. If anything unexpected happened to it, the results would look nothing like a wounded person.
Her Highness has enough trouble with a fearful populace as it is, without adding any strange new rumors.
Of course, this small one had no intention of taking damage, if at all possible. The two enemies closest, when they whirled and fired, had no chance to land their shots. Under the force of Will, the [Fireball] from the one on this scholar’s right deflected straight into the floor, spraying dirt and flames outward at ankle-level, while the [Earth Bullet] from the one on this scholar’s left went flew past her hair while tilting upward to punch a hole through the roof.
“[Sleep],” this small one intoned, while pointing a closed illusory fan into the Fire-wielder’s face and an outstretched index finger at the Earth-wielder’s eye. Having much better control over this effigy than Her Highness, the flow of Holy mana did not disrupt the figure at all, and the two collapsed without further violence.
Others began attempting to turn their weapons toward their new assailant as well, but with a flick of the sleeve, this scholar sent [Earth Bullet] attacks into each of them, firing the spread from the now-opened fan to disrupt their shots.
On Huajie, the effort to get within range for the [Sleep] spell could be taken through a single [Void Step], but this was a greater spirit craft than currently available to this small one on Huade. It did not matter, though. The effigy had a move available to it that accomplished the same result.
The image of Fan Li melted for just a split second, then reformed in the location directly behind to the first target, who went down before perceiving the sudden appearance. In the next second, this scholar moved to the next victim, seemingly ‘teleporting’ between widely separated locations.
In the memories of Robert Stewart, this would be called something like ‘Flash Step’, and be the result of a super-trained martial artist somehow simply moving their body faster than the eye could perceive. In reality, the condensed blood and mana composing the effigy body could move at supersonic speed as long as the body was momentarily decomposed. But the result, admittedly, looked the same.
After defeating the last of their enemies, this scholar walked out into the middle, bowed toward the astonished soldiers and fairy, and announced, “That was the last of them.”
The soldiers warily filed in, remaining ready for enemies as they scanned about, and Fairy Falerè strode directly toward this scholar’s effigy, locked onto it with a wrinkled-brow stare.
“What exactly… are you?” she asked.
A feeling that something that needed to be addressed was being forgotten about while this conversation continued was bothering this small one, but the fairy’s question had to be answered first.
Of course, her fairy sight should show her that no physical body occupied the blood effigy’s space. She had seen the crows taking off from Her Highness’s arm at Narses Castle, so no doubt she recognized it was the same sort of magic. She was likely thinking it was some form of illusion, so this scholar chose an answer that would feed into that bias.
“It is a form of illusion formed by vampire blood magic,” this scholar replied simply, then carefully chose words as Her Highness would speak them for the rest. “And as His Royal Highness should have reported to you by now, I am still obediently sitting in my chair, on my balcony, with my friend and my lady’s maid both keeping an eye on me for him.”
Her eyes grew huge and she retorted, “What illusion can fire magic spells?!”
“This one. Concern yourself with more pressing matters, Captain.”
This scholar felt a little embarrassed to be so short with her, but it was necessary to continue the illusion of Her Highness’s speech patterns. “
“Such as?” she demanded, clearly unsatisfied with the change of subject.
“Such as, why was this warehouse so much more strongly defended than the others? What was more important about the contents here?”
Falerè frowned, then nodded agreement as she looked around. “We should examine the crates they were trying to pack.”
– The back door, Fan Li!
Her Highness’s thoughts broke into our conversation, and this scholar realized what had been left unattended. When Her Highness flew the ‘bird’ in a circuit around the warehouse, she had witnessed wagons with guards, waiting to carry away merchandise.
“Fairy, follow quickly!” this scholar snapped at Falerè, then dissolved the human figure.
On Huajie, it would have been possible to use [Earth Escape] or some other rapid motion technique to traverse the distance. And here, it would be possible to use the same fake ‘Flash Step’ movement, since it was capable of much greater distances than [Void Step]. But for Falerè to follow, her eye must see what she was following, so the better choice was to turn back into birds.
Following the preferences of her vampire heart, Her Highness favored crows for her daytime effigies, but this one is fond of house sparrows, which are barely a tenth of the size. The effigy scattered into a host of twenty little birds, which flew through the warehouse in pursuit of the escaping men.
To her credit, it took only two seconds for the fairy warrior to unfreeze and follow, flying in close pursuit of the effigies.
The lead wagon had already gone from the line. Heading out the cargo door, the sparrows began emitting a cacophony of calls, in order to make sure the lagging fairy could hear and pursue once the birds vanished out of sight.
Of course, that alerted the men on the wagon, one of which turned to stare, wide-eyed, at the approaching host. But when he saw the fairy emerge from the warehouse, he jumped from the slow wagon and attempted to run.
The birds swarmed the fleeing man, who then collapsed from a [Sleep] spell. A moment later, Falerè landed on the wagon, threatening the driver with her spear while ordering him to stop.
After a moment to reform the Fan Li image, this scholar walked over to the wagon and bowed.
“Thank you for your assistance, Fairy.”
Falerè, still holding the driver at spearpoint, simply stared without saying a word for several seconds, then replied, “Certainly, Your Highness.”
We loaded the sleeping man onto the wagon and ordered the driver to bring it back to the warehouse, which the soldiers were now guarding. The sergeant saluted Falerè and simply gave this scholar’s effigy a wary look, uncertain how to act toward it.
The fairy captain gave the castle another call, asking for additional soldiers and wagons to transport the slaves. Until the national law against slavery could be extended into the last two duchies which continued to use their autonomous legal systems in order to allow it , they were still technically legal, even if transporting them for purposes of sale through Pendor had been against the law. Simply freeing them without first turning the wheels of justice was not possible. Not that the soldiers would have done it anyway, since simply turning out a bevy of young women without any financial means and wearing only rags around their hips would be utter stupidity. So they had to be taken into custody.
The criminals had not been trying to remove these girls, so they were not what had been so important in this warehouse to merit sending a much stronger force here. More likely, the crates on the wagon that had been trying to escape, and perhaps the crates the men had still been trying to load, held the real answer. But that answer could wait. Another matter was more urgent.
As the captain dealt with that, this scholar strolled back outside while ignoring the superstitious looks from the soldiers. Outside, the wounded fairy warrior still sat, her back against the warehouse wall, holding a cloth against her shoulder to minimize the bleeding. From the pool of blood that had already dripped from her, onto the ground, the bleeding was not minimized enough.
“Who are you?” she asked while frowning up at this small one.
This was her first time seeing the human-shaped effigy, and being a half-mortal fairborn, her fairy sight was doubtless less developed than the captain’s. Likely, she could not recognize the same mana signature as the ‘crow’ that she previously confronted. And likely, in her current condition, suffering blood loss, she was not seeing well, anyhow.
This scholar bowed and smiled, then pointed the effigy ‘fan’ in its closed position and commanded, “[Reform]”.
Originally, this was an Earth Qi magic. Elemental Qi magic first becomes available to Second Stage cultivators, as the simplest external Qi they can manipulate, but this particular magic, which uses Qi to shape and rearrange matter, would not be available for anyone below the Soul Refinement stage, also called Stage Four.
And since it was not Earth Qi, but Earth Mana that was being manipulated, one would think it was not possible at all for a mere effigy being remotely operated by the ghost of a cultivator. But the scientific knowledge of Daq R’mion and Robert Stewart had introduced this scholar to molecules, atoms and the ‘Elements’ of science, so very different from the elements this scholar knew. The merger of our knowledge unlocked and simplified the difficulties that confronted the Soul Refinement cultivator of Huajie who must grasp the essence of a piece of metal in order to rewrite its being.
The crossbow bolt impaling the fairy warrior’s shoulder suddenly began writhing and twisting, almost like a snake, as she stared down at it with her complexion going pale. Then it pulled out… or to be more accurate, its mass flowed away from its tip into its rear half… and dropped to the ground, completely distorted out of shape.
“Wha…” she mumbled, her voice barely audible.
After summoning the necessary Holy mana, this scholar pointed the fan again and intoned, “[Heal],” and the wound closed.
The speechless half-fairy stared up at this small one, still struggling to comprehend the alien magic she had just witnessed.
But it was high time to check on the remaining locations. This scholar simply bowed, and dissolved back into sparrows in order to fly to them.
