Deep beneath the surface of the Temple of the Well, in a room carved from the very mountain itself, Runa prepared for the final harvest of the season.
The seventh soul harvested on the seventh day of the seventh week should have held a great mystical weight, given the significance of the number seven in the lores of so many cultures. Runa, however, having been saddled with the last harvest of the season more times than any other Harvester, knew that in practice, all one had on one’s mind by this time, was to get it over with until next year.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t do her best, but the entire Harvest leading up to this point had left her more exhausted and eager to be finished than any other Harvest before. Never had there been so many oddities, issues, and delays. If any could say that with authority, it was Runa.. She had been the first Harvester to ever cast a line into the Well of Souls when the world of Novalis was still young.
She stepped to the edge of the Well. The basin, constructed from a single massive slab of polished black marble, stood hip high to her and the bottom dipped well below the level of the floor. Within, a liquid glowed a faint, pale blue, infused with the lingering mana of the last six harvests of the day. It created just enough light so she could just make out the inky black hole at the dead center of the basin’s bottom. The shaft of the Well of Souls extended down to the foundations of the mountain and beyond to the very Void itself.
Runa rested her palms on the edge of the basin and let the coolness of stone soothe her hands. Manipulating mana at this level generated a lot of heat. She glanced to her left as Cyrillus, her harvesting partner, took his usual place. He knew exactly where she wanted him. Not too close he might get in the way, but not so far that she couldn’t properly manage the mana he would feed to her.
“Ready?” He crooked his head to the side, making his neck pop loudly.
“Beyond ready,” Runa said. “I cannot wait for this day to be over.”
“Thank the Gods, this is the last one.” Cyrillus dipped his fingers into the Well. “First round of beer at the Harvest Festival is on me.”
Runa nodded her approval while she prepared herself to harvest the seventh soul. They had drawn lots as always, and as almost always happened, Runa had drawn the short straw. She would harvest four souls to Cyrillus’s three, each one more exhausting than the last. Not for the first time, she wondered if Cyrillus cheated somehow. He could not be this lucky.
She dipped her own fingers into the warm, viscous liquid that filled the Well and nodded to him to begin. Together they manipulated the mana laden contents of the Well of Souls until it glowed the bright and steady deep blue of potential magic. Then, carefully, she directed a good portion of that potential downward into the well shaft, deeper and deeper. Then, very carefully, she tore a hole in the Veil that separated their world from the Void, a dangerous work of magic that always fell on the shoulders of the most senior and experienced Harvester present. The consequences of a bad tear could be catastrophic. As ever, Runa completed the tear with perfect precision. The hunt had begun.
Strands of power extended from her fingertips, zig-zagging their way down until they disappeared into the depths of the Well. Runa had been harvesting souls for a long time, and she took her job seriously. Too seriously, some said, but those who talked like that were fools. There was nothing more important in all of Novalis in her estimation. No grand-champion ever stood on the winner’s podium without being harvested first, and she had harvested more grand-champions than any other Harvester.
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She had a knack for choosing the right souls. While all Harvesters had some sense of the worth of a soul, she had a particular prescience about it.
One of her strands brushed against a soul. It felt dull. Grey. No spark. No color. She pushed it away.
Long ago, it had taken more effort to find souls at all. Harvesters cast their strands far and wide, the effort so great one could only manage a single soul a day. Yet, in a way, it had been a simpler task. The souls were few, but they were nearly all strong and worthy.
Now, souls gathered thick at the Well. It seemed to draw them in, and while that made it easier to catch a soul, they were seldom worth keeping.
She found a second soul. Sickly yellow— a coward, a weasel. It suffered the same quick judgment. The third looked promising at first. Its pale green seemed bright enough, but underneath there were streaks of black and red. She associated those streaks with cruelty and arrogance. A true champion had to be both strong and honorable. She flung this one as far as she could. Other Harvesters might be tempted to take it, seeing only its surface strength. The longer it took to get back to the Well, the better.
Runa knew that no one else could feel the colors of the souls like she did. It was why she was so much better at it than anyone else, but that success hadn’t stopped the other Harvesters for mocking her when she had first made reference to the color of a soul. She never spoke of it to anyone again, not even Cyrillus.
Sweat broke out on Runa’s brow as the hunt continued. The fourth and fifth souls were as dull as the first. The sixth, an interesting mix of muted blue that shifted ever so slightly into lavender here and there. A healer maybe, but she had already harvested a similar soul earlier in the day. She lingered over it, but in the end, released it.
“So close,” she said.
Cyrillus sighed with impatience. She ignored him as she often did. He was the newest Harvester and not as conscientious as Runa would have liked in a partner. He made up for it by being more adept than Runa in dealing with the results of their harvest: frightened, confused, and clueless mortals.
She took a deep breath and sent more mana into her casting lines. She brushed against a group of several souls without even bothering to take a better look— they were nearly free of any color at all. The poor things were barely even souls anymore, grown thin and transparent. She didn’t know why some souls were like this and she would not harvest one to find out… none of them would. They could all feel it. These souls were not right, and there seemed to be more of them every Harvest Season.
Then she settled on another likely candidate. It felt bright and fresh, a newer soul. She liked the modern ones. They integrated with the System much more readily. That made everything that came after the Harvest so much easier.
Cyrillus must have seen the intrigue in her expression. “A good one?” He asked, eyes shining with anticipation.
“Maybe.” She didn’t know what to make of the colors. While the soul felt bright, the colors were not actually that vibrant— or stable. They shifted as she probed. First green, then blue, then a burst of multi-color swirls. Very pretty, she had to admit, but what did it mean? She hesitated.
“Just take it, Runa.”
She shook her head slightly, still undecided. She hated when things didn’t fit into the neat patterns she was used to.
“Nobody expects the seventh soul on the seventh day to be perfect.”
“There is no such thing as a perfect soul,” she snapped. But there were such things as bad souls and good souls, and Runa expected all her harvests to be good. Better than good.
Only, she wasn’t sure she had it in her to try again. Her hand literally shook from the effort of holding on to this one. She gave it one more look, but it still refused to settle down into something she understood.
At least, she didn’t get a sense of wrongness from it like she felt from the faded souls. Plus, if she harvested this one, then she would know what these changing colors meant. It’s how she learned it all in the first place. Nobody had handed her a guide. No blue souls equal this, and green souls that. No, she had studied, tracked, compared soul after soul, adventurer and champion, from slow starts to meteoric rises. She had notes going back centuries.
“Fine.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “If this one sucks, it’s your fault.”
Cyrillus rolled his eyes at her. She pretended not to notice and pulled the soul toward the surface. As it rose, the mana rich fluid condensed and congealed around the soul, creating substance where none had been before. Cell by cell, bone by bone, sinew by sinew, a woman emerged from the depths.