Totemist Quest: The Plot Thus Far

Totemist Quest begins with Osyki, a boy of eighteen, standing vigil over his master's funeral. Ayren Overwake was, until quite recently, the village's Totemist. Part shamanistic warrior, part spiritual negotiator, the Totemist's role is a peacekeeper of sorts between the mortal and spiritual worlds, ensuring that the people of Grisoch village can live in harmony with the elemental spirits around them. With Ayren slain by the Basilisk Wyrm, a Behemoth of terrible power, the role of village Totemist now falls to Osyki. Armed with a pair of advisor spirits—Tryd, a soot imp and Amal, a nature sprite—Osyki sets to work proving his capabilities to the people of the village. His sole advantage at the beginning of the tale is his spear, bound to a powerful spirit that refuses to communicate with him.

This urge to prove himself is not entirely motivated by personal pride. Walther, chief of the village guard known simply as Slayers, is a crude, unpleasant individual with a dislike for Osyki and his arcane work. From the very beginning, Walther has made it clear that he resents the 'shadow magic' Osyki wields.

To prove his aptitude and dispel potential doubts in his village, Osyki sets off at once to perform a Feral Binding, a ritual that captures the soul of a wild beast and binds it to his will. His first mark is a Rock Turtle, one of the enormous terrapins living high in the Ikrin Peaks near his village. After a brief climb up the mountain cliffs, Osyki stumbles onto a nest of Rock Turtles. Feeling particularly brave, he confronts the elder turtle, a beast of enormous size with the ability to fire electric blasts from a glowing crystal atop its brow. After a pitched battle (involving surfing stalactites into the turtle's shell to shatter it, and carving through its eye to attack its brain) Osyki manages his first succesful Feral Bind, claiming the Crystal Spear focus from the turtle.

When he returns home, Osyki recieves a vision from the spirit within his spear. Calling itself Modi Magni, Greater Avatar of Wrath, the spirit requests Osyki's aid in snuffing out those of Draconic origin, and humanity at large. In exchange, the spirit offers to craft Osyki into a fighting machine of unparalleled prowess. Osyki tells Magni that he'll consider the offer before slipping into a deep sleep.

The next day, Osyki joins a squad of slayers to recover precious meat and bone from the Rock Turtle's remains, as well as gather the precious gemstones encrusted in its hide. This plan is interrupted by the appearance of a Bone Warden, a necromantic monstrosity composed entirely of stolen skeletons. Leaving the ill-equipped soldiers behind, Osyki confronts the Warden himself in the midst of the remains of his previous victory. The fight is close; Osyki nearly loses his life several times before he finally manages to bind the Bone Warden in another Feral Bind. He passes out shortly thereafter, carried back to town by Pierce, a guard lieutenant.

After recovering from his wounds, Osyki takes the time to aid the Healer's apprentice, Elana, in gathering medicinal blooms for the village stocks. The two enjoy a quiet lunch together atop a waterfall near the village. When Elana slips from the cliff on the climb down, Osyki dives into the pool below to rescue her. In the process, both meet the enigmatic Boand, spirit of the waterfall pool and former ally of Osyki's master. Flustered and soaking wet, Osyki and Elana return to the village.

Osyki spends some time experimenting with his magical Foci, tapping the power of his Totemist magic to combine them with various pieces of equipment in myriad and incredible forms. Osyki returns to Boand's pool and makes a pact with her: in exchange for her help negotiating with the spirits of the forest and serving as an advisor, Osyki will return to the pond to spend time with her, and bring her gifts. She gives him a Link Pearl as a symbol of their pact, so he can contact her from afar. Osyki heads home, exhausted from his day's training, and heads to sleep.

When he awakens, it is still dark. The smell of smoke fills the air. He rushes outside to find himself confronted by a foe of overpowering spiritual pressure. Calling itself Evaleii Myoho, it demands Osyki turn over a child promised to him many years ago by his master: Elana. Osyki refuses, and aided by the spirit of the forest, Sylviannis, he engages the monstrosity in mortal combat.

The battle rages through the night. Modi Magni awakens within Osyki's spear, crafting itself a golem body of stone to tackle the intruder head-on. Osyki learns that the being is actually called the Magus, and that Ayren's dealings with him were brief for the safety of the village. Together, Osyki, Sylvia, and Magni drive the splinter of the Magus back, destroying it with a decisive lightning-fueled assault. Osyki emerges from the fight victorious, but in debt to Sylvia for one favor to be named in the future.

After a day's rest, Osyki begins working on restoring the wards that Ayren had in place to keep the village hidden from the Magus. The key component of the ward is human blood—loathe at the idea of becoming a blood-draining psychopath, Osyki enlists the aid of the village healer to organize a blood drive across the village. On his way to consult with Boand about the proper totemic wards, Osyki stumbles across an argument—Pierce and Walther, shouting at one another. The debate in question is whether or not to enlist Osyki's aid in crafting superior weapons for the slayers. Unsurprisingly, Walther is vehemently opposed. The argument is ended by the cutting remarks of another Slayer, Quinn, a boy not too far from Osyki's age. Abandoning Walther to his impotent fury, Osyki takes Quinn and Pierce to visit Boand in her spring.

When Osyki returns to the village, he stops in to dine with the village elders. Over dinner, he convinces the elders to allow him to go through with the blood drive. In addition, given the unique circumstances, the elders grant Osyki permission to take Quinn on as an apprentice Totemist, and later adopt a child and tutor it in the same manner as is traditional.

The next day, while the blood drive is under way, Osyki is called to the southern gate. He helps the slayers fend off an incursion of wild beasts from the forest, binding a Fanged Stalker in the process. Boand later informs him that the scent from the blood drive likely lured the beasts toward the village, given how agitated the forest has been since the Magus's arrival.

Osyki spends some time training Quinn in the basics of Totemistry and bonding with Elana. In the process he receives a cryptic visitation from an unknown primordial spirit—a harbinger of something to come.

( A brief interlude ensues in thread XV, detailing a fight Ayren Overwake undertook against a massive Behemoth worshipped as a volcano god.)

Using Tryd and Amal as spiritual sensors of a sort, Osyki chooses an apprentice from the crop of available children—a young girl named Terra whose spiritual aptitude is matched only by her courageous spirit. Sylviannis calls in her favor: she wants Osyki to travel through the swamp to the south of the forest and negotiate with its spirit to stop her aggressive territorial expansion. Compelled by the power of his debt, Osyki agrees.

The swamp is a dangerous bog, filled with poisonous creatures and massive insects. Osyki binds a Ykree, a two-headed serpent in the course of his travels. After evading death in the murky waters of the  bog Osyki meets Siperco, a corrupt water spirit. Siperco agrees to guide Osyki to the Grand Blossom, the Swamp Mother's palace, in exchange for sanctuary. He hates the swamp, and wishes to find a new home. They strike a deal, and soon Osyki is in the court of the Mother.

Putting his silver tongue to work, Osyki succesfully negotiates a truce between Sylvia and the Mother, putting a halt to a decades-long feud. He stays the night in the Blossom, tended to by a dryad by the name of Orchid. In the night, he has another horrific, possibly prophetic dream of that same primordial spirit. Upon his return to the forest, Osyki secures Siperco a place to live in Sylvia's forest.

Finally given some down-time, Osyki sets to reinforcing his village's defenses. He climbs the Ikrins to strike a bargain with the spirits of rain for bountiful harvests. In his meditations, he discovers why Elana was so important to the Magus: Ayren spent a significant portion of the mountain spirit's power to seal away a hidden potential in Elana, a potential to 'see the true order of the world'. Osyki trains himself, Quinn, and Terra, and together the three grow stronger. Quinn manages his first Feral Bind, and Terra summons herself a familiar. An accident in the workshop brings Osyki into contact with raw elemental earth, a power which massively increases his ability to manipulate his earth-aspected bindings at the cost of his stamina. To seal the raw earth, he fuses it with the Bone Warden focus, revitalizing the spirit within.

Osyki makes a pact with the spirit of his Fanged Stalker, an enigmatic spirit by the name of Thane who, very likely, is more than he appears to be. In exchange for a cup of blood every new moon, Thane agrees to hide Osyki's name from those who do not already know it.

A few days later, Osyki receives news of people spotted to the south of the swamp, military in appearance. A swift recon reveals them to be soldiers from another land. He reveals himself briefly to them in disguise and agrees to bring one of the elders to open formal negotiations with them. The soldiers bear mantles of strange magic, though they do not appear to wield it themselves, and they worship the goddess of the moon.

Osyki escorts elder Haine to negotiate with the moon worshipers in a strange, earth-saturated canyon. Negotiations proceed relatively smoothly, but are interrupted by the appearance of the massive Plate Worm. Tapping into the powers of elemental earth he possesses, Osyki handily dispatches and binds the worm, leaving all onlookers impressed.

Another vision quest leads Osyki to an audience with the Lord Restrained, a powerful spirit of the earth. The lord warns Osyki of a spirit growing beyond the Ikrin Peaks, the Iron Tyrant. The Lord puts a bounty on the Tyrant's head, which Osyki tentatively accepts. In the course of his travels, Osyki negotiates with the Stone Emperor, spirit of the mountains, and becomes a Knight of Stone in the Emperor's court. So obligated, he sets off through the spirit world to track down and destroy the Tyrant.

In the mists between worlds, Osyki is approached and attacked by a mysterious woman. She weaves illusions around them, offering to spirit Osyki away from his troubles and responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, he declines her offer. She departs, leaving him intact to complete his journey.

When Osyki arrives beyond the Ikrins, he discovers a blighted, pitted wasteland of ash and smog. Diving beneath the surface of the earth, Osyki discovers a massive mine network connected at one central hub: an underground city of mind-boggling proportions. The Tyrant's domain. After exploring the city briefly, Osyki meets the woman from before, who introduces herself as Saeri, the Iron General's assistant. She introduces Osyki to the general, a spirit of iron and ambition wholly unlike the blood-thirsty monster the Lord Restrained described.

The General allows Osyki free run of Pointsmar, supervised by Saeri, to make his decision. Osyki discovers that the city is a vibrant metropolis, fueled almost entirely by the heat of the earth. Though the General has not always been so environmentally minded, he appears to have repented his ways of bloodlust and terror for the good of the people in his domain. After extensive investigations and a near-death fight in the mines with a Deep Siren, Osyki agrees to help the General move Pointsmar to a region of the world unblighted by his previous experiments.

With his negotiations successful and his obligations to the Emperor fulfilled, Osyki and Saeri return to the village.

Back in Grisoch, Osyki engages in negotiations with the representative of Eluneia, the moon-worshiping land to the southwest. Though the ambassador is pleasant, Osyki and the Elders quickly find his terms for establishing a route of trade between the two settlements to be unacceptable. They send Corporal Rime on his way to renegotiate terms on their behalf.

Osyki spends some time bonding with Saeri, Elana, and Quinn. He spends some time experimenting with his new Siren's Heart focus, and engages Quinn in a duel. His Cotemist shows remarkable creativity by binding his Raptor focus to a carved puppet, turning the tables on Osyki by forging a construct of spiritual energy to fight on his behalf. Still, Osyki emerges victorious. The four share a relaxed evening together before Saeri has to depart. Unwilling to rest just yet, Quinn and Osyki head off into the forest to do some Focus hunting. Together, they take down a pack of Verdis Wyrms and an oversized Glimmerwing, a toxic moth the size of a bear with strange light-manipulation abilities.

The next day, Osyki and Quinn join Pierce to keep Osyki's mundane fighting skills as sharp as his supernatural dueling prowess. A round of intense training sees Osyki a little more skilled with sword-and-board tactics and sporting a fresh complement of bruises. Osyki takes a trip to the mountains to debrief the Stone Emperor on the mission, nearly gets himself struck by lightning investigating a mysterious mine shaft, and decides to head home, where he promptly nearly blows himself up (again) experimenting with totems.

Using a ritual Saeri gave to him, Osyki discovers that there is an Avatar dangerously close to his village. He flies out to investigate, and discovers that an Avatar of Hunger has taken up residence in the Basilisk Wyrm's abandoned lair. After meeting with the Mother of the Swamp and exchanging a few promises for her aid, Osyki sets off to hunt the beast.

In the course of this hunt, he ends up felling not only the Avatar of Hunger, but a semi-developed Basilisk Wyrmling, binding both into Foci. Triumphant, he returns to the Grand Blossom to rest and recuperate, only to be pulled into the Shade as he sleeps and subject to a series of nightmarish trials. After dodging past a lamprey-mouthed childhood sweetheart and embracing a metal fiend with a skeletal visage, Osyki awakens in the Grand Blossom and heads for home.

Back at the workshop, Osyki discovers that he has unlocked a pair of gifts from Ayren's legacy: an artifact to allow him to mix spirits together in a single binding, and a set of instructions to construct a totem of Quick Recall, allowing him to return to his village nigh-instantly from anywhere on the continent. Setting Quinn to work on translating Ayren's shorthand on the totem instructions, Osyki spends some time experimenting with his new Foci. After, at Quinn's request, he subjects his Cotemist to some of the spiritually exhausting training that Ayren originally used. Though he does not utterly subjugate Quinn's aura, as Ayren would have, Osyki leaves his apprentice-partner stunned in the dirt by the end of the training session.

Later in the day, after a round of highly successful Totem creation, Osyki is summoned to Boand's pond. He traverses the veil with her to her spirit world sanctum, where she shows him a disturbingly familiar image: the primordial spirit that contacted him a few weeks ago has been stalking his village, skulking around the walls and spying on his workshop from the mountains. Boand agrees to aid Osyki in hunting down the spirit and discovering its purpose. At her suggestion, the two spend the rest of the day crafting Osyki's first Celestial Binding (the opposite of a Feral Bind, an agreement between a sentient spirit and a Totemist). Exhausted, Osyki agrees to spend the night in Boa's sanctum. He is awakened in the middle of the night by the sounds of a hauntingly familiar song. Investigating, he discovers Boa miserably singing a tune that Ayren had once taught him. The two share a tender moment of grief over Ayren's passing.

In the morning, after a brief bout of spiritual training with Quinn, Osyki sets off to meet with the far-flung kingdom of Eluneia. He is temporarily waylaid by the need to put down an enormous Emperor Cobra in the village's logging grounds, an apex predator which he makes short work of with his Basilisk Wyrmling bindings.

Once into the mists, Osyki meets briefly with Sylvia before passing out of her domain. On his way through the swamp's aetherial trails he is once again confronted by the strange primordial spirit who tells him in no uncertain terms that he is expected to cooperate in bringing the strange spirit's master into the world. Osyki refuses, and the two engage in combat in a strange, half-real segment of the spirit world. Osyki does not emerge the victor. After a brief period of unconsciousness, he is roused by his Wyrm and delivered to the doorstep of Eluneia. Doing his best to shake off the worst of the battle fatigue, Osyki sets out to make a solid first impression.

A brief tour of the city, led by Pruisa of the guard, leads Osyki to the underground Moon Gardens. The space is positively suffused with spiritual presence, confusing Osyki's senses and leaving him hopelessly lost. As he wanders, he encounters Marisol, a refugee hiding out in the twisting passages. She refuses to elaborate why she is on the run from the guard, but leads Osyki out of the labyrinth in exchange for his silence regarding her presence.

Once out of the Gardens, Pruisa escorts Osyki to his temporary abode, a small cottage in the lower district of Eluneia. He spends some time experimenting with his bindings before deciding that, whilst in the city, he should see what the populace looks like out from behind the controlling gauntlets of the city guard. His wanderings lead to him a bar where he meets Lord Tybald Fior II, a member of the ruling class desperately bored with his station in life. The two make fast friends, and Osyki is whisked away to a gala in the noble's quarter of the city.

Osyki does his best to blend in to the party, but he's unable to mingle for long; An explosion brings the party to a swift halt. Setting out with Tybald and his friend Jun to investigate, Osyki finds a villain he did not expect to face: another splinter of the Magus, standing in the smoldering ruins of the Moon Garden. Their fight is brief but intense, utilizing all of the resources and skills Osyki has gathered since the last encounter. With the help of the local vigilante The Silver Hawk, Osyki deals the second splinter a deathblow. He is then promptly arrested for suspicion of terrorism and conspiracy, and passes out in transport from his wounds.

Osyki's delirium takes him to his inner world again where the mark of the primordial spirit is clear on his innermost structure. Guided by Modi Magni, Osyki learns about himself and his enemies in equal regard. He awakens from his trance on the mend but in a jail cell. Jun and Rime have pulled some strings to see him freed at his leisure, and he goes on to make his treaty with the High Council with the usual panache and silver tongue he is so well known for. Once his case is made he spends the rest of the day exploring the city, visiting the church of the Moon and the local markets. One shopping spree later he receives word that his apprentices have cobbled together a totem of Recall, allowing him to make the trip home much faster than anticipated.

As the evening progresses Osyki explores the countryside. He discovers a strange spirit trapped within the ephemeral essence of a nearby river. Tying Boand's essence to the river in its place, he gains a Celestial pact with Fourth, a fragmented spirit of mysterious origins. In the morning Osyki tests the totem of Recall, arriving back in Grisoch in the blink of an eye. He spends the rest of the day experimenting with his newfound allies, though he cuts his exuberant experimentation short for a very important appointment: a date with Elana later that evening.

As they wander the plains of Grisoch together, Elana asks Osyki to remove the seal on her eyes so that she can help him defend the village. He promises to look into a method to unlock her potential.

Back at the workshop, Osyki sets off into the encroaching Mists to track down the source of the weakening between worlds. His apprentices and familiars are taken while he roams, and he hitches a ride on a cracked pathway of spiritual energy to a vast castle on the far side of the Veil. There, he meets Hesheza Zahn, the kidnapper and the spirit of the First Totemist, and discovers he stands within Azeo Sicros, the birthplace and bastion of Totemistry.

Hesheza and Osyki speak at length regarding the reason for the kidnapping and the First's motives. It is revealed that Osyki has not properly initiated his apprentices into the Totemist's Pact. By allowing them to treat with spirits without the Pact's protection he not only endangers them, but weakens the strength of that ancient agreement between man and spirit. It is also revealed that Grisoch was built long ago atop the source of the Behemoths: "Uruhal Olihim", The World's Grave. Osyki and Hesheza come to terms, and Osyki agrees to seek out the means to initiate his apprentices as soon as he can. Unfortunately, there is one stumbling block standing in the way of that ritual: A major component of it is the vital spark from one of the residents of Uruhal Olihim. Osyki must either slay a Behemoth or track down the spark Ayren used to initiate him.

With that in mind, Osyki delves further into unlocking the secrets Ayren has left behind for him. One such challenge is to increase the power of an otherwise minor spirit. Using the resources contained with Azeo Sicros Osyki hones Amal's Knowledge, vastly increasing his spiritual potency.