Spirit Gathering: Part 1 [Legendseekers]

The spirits from Wingfell encircled the group of living xyns: Pantalaimon, Troia, Bravura, Chiptune, the knights that escorted them, and everyone else with their Cleff compasses.

“We need to clean up this place best as we can,” repeated Pantalaimon. “I have a gut feeling that we can find something here if we do it. After all, it’s the time of the Brighthollow Banquet, isn’t it…? Spirits are wont to feel comfort around this time of year.”

They looked around at the blank faces of the spirits around them, and suppressed the urge to shudder- their spine only tingled lightly from the chill of the air. 

“Pantalaimon is right,” Chiptune chimed in. “We’re not gaining anymore time standing around here before we have to turn back. Let’s finish this up!”

And with that, she began to whistle her soul song as she began to clear debris around the ruined area. The other xyns gradually followed suit- some hesitant to follow orders, but eventually cleaning up as they should.

“Spirits? One xyn muttered to another. “Are they pretending that there’s ghosts around here? I couldn’t see or hear anything.” 

The other xyn scoffed. “I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary either. But it’s a shame to leave such a beautiful place in ruins like this from all the corruption left behind. We can’t march back to Moonreach with nothing in our paws, so we might as well tidy up.”

Only Troia stood still in place, frozen by the sight of the spirits that she saw. Were any of them the residents that she failed to protect at the battle of Wingfell, and fled from with Athen’s Moonreach spell…?

Pantalaimon and Bravura stepped closer to Troia. “What’s wrong?” asked Pantalaimon, gently. “You can see them, can’t you?”

“I can. But… this feeling… are these spirits from the battle… that…”

Bravura shook his head to reassure her. “You can’t worry about that now. Help us clean up- regardless of who they are or where they’ve come from, it will put them at peace to see you help out.”

“Bravura’s right.” Pantalaimon brushed their wing on her back reassuringly, and their faerie halo perched itself just between her horns, at the top of her head, as if to keep her company. Her dark purple hair glittered with it’s golden faerie dust. “Come along! I can’t do all the work helping out, you know!”

Troia reluctantly stepped forward, and helped Pantalaimon, together with everyone else, clean up the shrine.

Bravura, the royal knights, and the other vexyns in the crowd lifted and hauled away heavier parts of the rubble and fallen trees, rearranging them where they could into their proper structures; the moxyns and lullay knights cast their anti-corruption and mending spells to clear away the black ooze and ash that soaked the surroundings by them. The pixyns gently used their nature magic to allow the plantlife to flourish, though they could only encourage minimal growth from what little of Yanwei’s light could feed them. Much of the ground was still covered in withered, dry patches of grass, but it was much cleaner than before. Many of the spirits faded in and out of view as the xyns completed their work, restless, while some hovered above to watch apprehensively.

After about an hour of work, the xyns had completed their work cleaning up the shrine area; only the engraved lith at the center of it all remained untouched, the last thing to clean underneath the ruins that were cleared away.

Remarkably, the stone lith stood undisturbed despite the former destruction that surrounded it; corruption ooze and black ash had not smothered it at all, nor had it been broken in any other way. Only cobwebs and moss covered the inscriptions on it’s surface, which were written in a language that none could recognize. Pantalaimon and Troia stepped forward, with Pantalaimon blowing puffs of air to remove dust from age, and Troia bringing the stinger of her tail to scrape away at the moss and wipe away the cobwebs.

They both stepped back from it. The structure was pristine now; and the inscriptions engraved on it’s surface began to glow with a subtle light under Yanwei’s moonbeans…