Riwenne has a new weapon with a dark origin and incredible power. This may be the key that she needs to kill Chysa, the corrupt sun goddess. But should she use it?
The Soul Staff
I stared down at the staff in my hands. So much power. Maybe it was too much for one human to wield. Just holding it like this, I could feel the strength flowing into me. The power coiled up my arms and waited like a panther, ready to spring on the hunt.
Lifting it up, I could see the light shining inside the crystal. Huamani’s soul, a demigoddess trapped inside forever. This was the weapon my friends had made for me.
All of us were crowded into Nexita’s workshop to see the final result. There were tools and machine parts all over the floor, sketches and plans tacked onto the walls, and fire still flickered in the nearby forge, making the stuffy air even hotter. But with the staff in my hand, I didn’t feel the heat or any strain on my muscles as I lifted the heavy staff. It was like I could do anything.
It had been almost two weeks while Illari and Nexita had worked on the design. The planetary warriors didn’t have any technical expertise to add their own opinions, but they’d tried to help in their own ways. I still didn’t know if I could trust them, but they had a single-minded focus that was useful. All they cared about was defeating Chysa. Since I had the same goal, I could go along with them for now.
Mano had trained me to fight with a two-handed staff, using both ends of the weapon to attack and block as I needed.
Fairuza had brought metal ore that she mined somewhere deep in the mountains, a rare material that was stronger than anything we’d seen before. She claimed it came from a meteorite that crashed to the ground. Stuff that came from the stars themselves.
Yanis had spent more time teaching me his talent for speed so that I could react and move faster. It still hurt my brain to follow such quick movements, but he trained them into me until my muscles remembered what to do. In a crisis, I would be able to act without thinking. It might mean the difference between life and death.
Ixi helped me practice transforming into more types of animals, and that training was actually kind of fun. I liked to see what it felt like to experience swimming in the ocean as a dolphin and climbing trees as a monkey. We didn’t have any current plans that used an animal form, but it could be another useful skill to have someday.
Namburo was most interested in studying the soul crystal itself. He helped Illari in her laboratory as she performed tests and measured its capabilities. We still didn’t know exactly how it happened or how to make another one. Nexita confirmed that it was different than the blood stones used by the bionic witches. Was that only because Huamani was divine? Or had we changed it somehow in the process used to create it?
