Spirit Love

Jolan stepped forward, followed by the seven spirit beings. Their time shields flickered as they connected with the time anomalies of the island. They wanted to learn the secrets of the island and not become lost to the loop. Their time shields allowed them to walk within the natural flow of time on the island without losing their memories once the loop restarted.

The shields essentially protected them from time magic by creating a wall of magic that actually neutralized time. It was a ward created by Anabel. If a spell of aging hit the shield it changed its nature to be a spell of youth and canceled itself out. If it was a spell for chaotic time it became a calm time stream that again canceled itself out. It was intricate and dangerous magic. Jolan was quite impressed that his mother created and refined it.

They silently flashed in and out of existence in nine feet gaps. Jolan nodded to himself. He could now feel that the time magics of the island had a stable flow. He thought time might be chaotic or scattered here.

They made it to the cliffs and suddenly came across a patch of scattered time. Their shields burst with chaotic color and sparks as if they were on fire. They all paused to get a feel for the area. Their eyes roamed over the space and one of the spirit beings, a soul, spoke, her voice ethereal and sounding like it came from far away.

"This is a time knot. It is probably a part of the spell weave tying the island's time to the time funnel of the whirlpool effectively locking the island in the spell work and the time loop."

"Hmmm. She is right. There are probably quite a few time knots on the island."

"Yes but this one is so small. How could such a little knot cause so much chaos to occur with our shields?"

Jolan listened to the spirit beings speak as he observed the knot the soul illuminated. He noticed that the knot was tied to the island but it did not seem tied to anything else. He looked deeply at the knot his eyes narrowing.

"It is anchored to the island, not tethered." He looked to the whirlpool. Then back to the spell weave knot. He reached out his perception and touched the knot. He opened his eyes and saw that the spirit beings around him were doing the same thing.

"I think it is beacon. What do all of you think?"

An apparition's hollow voice sounded out. "I agree. It seems To be drawing time magics to it but in small increments and within a very small time stream. This movement of time is in such small amounts it appears to be a part of the normal flow of time in the area."

Another apparition nodded in agreement. "The connection to the whirlpool seems to be artificial."

"Not artificial nonexistent its purpose seems to be hidden in the weave for some reason. Maybe these knots play an important role in the weave."

"I do not think so. It seems…"

Jolan again became lost in thought and the spirit beings' conversation became background noise. Weave knots that absorb time magics can be created for different reasons. They can absorb time magics to help maintain a time flux, a time loop, to scatter time, or to stabilize time.

Jolan was leaning toward the scattering of time. But why scatter the island's time. His eyes roamed over the cliffs above him and their dark grey rock walls. There was something here. His eyes moved back to the illuminated weave knot. Something was here and the weave was scattering time to hide it.

Jolan looked to the spirit beings. "I think it is scattering time to hide something. We need to find more weave knots to understand what is being hidden but let's think about the scattering for a moment."

All the spirit beings paused as one.

"This is why you are a time warlock and mage. You have a grasp on time that only compares to your mother's."

"The scattering is very delicate, very fine."

"Right. So fine that we missed it."

Jolan's eyes widened. "A fine time sieve used to scattering time!" His voice was filled with excitement, fear, and awe. Once again the spirit beings froze in unison.

Scattering time causes an area to have places devoid of time (time stands still) places moving at varying rates of speed in a past, present, future motion. The areas devoid of time were neutral points where time stood still and someone in the area obtained a reprieve from the effects of scattered time. The spell determined how quickly areas moved through the past, present and future. It could also determine their locations but the spell work usually could not hide itself well. How can such changes in time hide well?

For example: the beach they stood on could have begun underwater, became a beach, and then ended up underwater again in a distant future. But if you could slow the process down to the extreme the differences could be more difficult to detect in a moment.

Jolan thought about the length of the loop. "Perhaps it takes a week for the spell to move between each step of time."

"Of course. We enter the loop and no change is sensed for a week and without residual time magics embedded within the changes we would never attribute the phenomenon to time."

"Maybe the thing hidden here is hidden in both time and space and at the end of a month the item degrades down to nothing or, at the very least, something unusable."

"That is good conjecture." Jolan looked about again. "So where do we begin our search." He looked back down at the weave knot. "I think these are important."

They all nodded. "How do we find more."

The hair on Jolan's body stood on end. The voice of this spirit was very jarring. It was like glass breaking and falling to the ground.

He continued looking down at the at the weave knot. After a long moment he sat down next to it and closed his eyes. The spirit beings surrounded him and the knot and began touching the knot with their perceptions.

Jolan found a thin thread that felt different. It was a thread attached to the main weave and it had a strum that told Jolan it was an actual part of the main weave holding the spell together.

He followed the thread to the main weave and found that it moved through the weave, forming an incredibly intricate knot, and then out again to six additional points on the island. Two of these additional points were further along the beach in either direction from the knot before them.

Jolan stood and looked at his companions. "Let's begin with the two knots on the beach." He was with seven spirit beings that specialized in time magics. He pointed out three to go with him to the right and the other four would go to the left.

The two groups time stepped to the two knots. They kept close contact with each other and understood that the knots were equidistant from each other. They continued in this way and found the other four knots.

It was a dead-end and they set up camp to both meet up and think over the situation.

"Maybe you just need to reach out and find what is on the island."

"Yes. Does anything call to you?"

Jolan had spoken to spirits all of his life. When he was a child they took care of him, they were his playmates when he was a child. He understood their temperaments, behaviors, and drives. But he could never get used to the sound of their otherworldly voices. They seemed to grate at him, tickle his soul, or even stir some random buried emotion.

He calmed his nerves and closed his eyes and did what was suggested. His body shimmered and he forcibly brought his perception back. It dove hard into his being and his mind swam for a second.

The spirits became alert as they all simultaneously checked his condition.

"I am okay. I am okay. I set off some sort of trigger and my perception seemed to fall into a chaotic stream of time and it was pulling my spirit body with it."

"Your perception pulled your spirit body?!" all of the spirit beings fell into contemplative thought.

"I know. It is odd. I think that was a part of the trap. But it is even odder that I escaped so easily." Jolan thought for a second.

"I do not know this spellwork but I think that it knows me. It allowed me to enter but it became aggressive when I got too close to whatever is on the island. Maybe the weave has protective aspects. I do not know much about protection magics."

The group was quiet. All of them lost in thought.

"I know where the item is but I think we need to plan how to both get near it and obtain it. Let's rest. I will speak with mother and we will make a plan."

The spirit beings decided on guard duty shifts. Those who were not on guard phased into the spirit realm to rest. Jolan set up a tent, lost in thought, and a bit apprehensive.