Chapter 5: The Soul's Price
The [Whisperer's Cloak] felt like a second skin, a layer of shadow and silence between Leo and the world. He wore it now, hood drawn up, as he slipped through the pre-dawn gloom towards the gryphlet's enclosure. The 600 System Points burned a hole in his metaphysical pocket, but the shop was still locked, its tantalizing wares just out of reach. He had power, but no way to spend it. For now, his currency was trust.
The mountain air cut straight through him, sharp and freezing. Inside the cage, the gryphlet was already awake—a small, coiled shape of gold in the dim light. It wasn't pacing or restless. It was perfectly still, staring at the trail Leo always used, as if it had been waiting just for him.
Leo didn't approach the front bars. Instead, he moved to the side of the enclosure, where the ironwood was thickest and the shadows clung deep. He stopped at the very edge of his new [Calming Aura]'s five-foot radius, letting the gentle, empathic pressure wash over the cage.
The gryphlet cocked its head, ear tufts turning toward him with slow precision. The hostility he'd come to expect had faded, replaced by a guarded curiosity. It knew something had shifted.
Leo slowly sank to his knees, making himself small, non-threatening. He didn't have any meat this time. His offering was something else entirely.
He took a deep breath, pushing down his own nervousness, and activated [Soul-Link].
The world didn't shift so much as it shattered.
One moment he was Leo, kneeling on cold stone. The next, he was drowning.
A flood of feelings hit him all at once, sharp and disorienting. He felt the gryphlet's pain—a steady, grinding ache from its broken wing that never truly stopped. Hunger curled in his gut, but it wasn't just for food. It was for open air, for flight, for the freedom the creature had lost.
And underneath everything lay a crushing weight of fear and betrayal, so heavy it felt like being trapped inside another cage layered over the first.
Hate-them-hate-them-hurt-them-break-the-bars-claw-their-eyes-why-won't-it-mend-SKY-SKY-SKY!
The gryphlet's psychic scream was a raw, unfiltered storm of emotion. It recoiled from the link, screeching in panic and rage, slamming its body against the far wall of the enclosure. The feedback was a white-hot poker driven into Leo's temple.
[Warning: Empathic Feedback Overload! Health: 92%]
He gasped, breaking the link for a second, his vision swimming. It was too much—the pain, the anger, the raw force of it all. It felt like it could hollow him out from the inside.
He couldn't push through this. Corvin's journal had warned him: The key is not to force… but to listen.
Gritting his teeth, Leo reached out again, but this time, he didn't try to probe or diagnose. He didn't push. He simply opened himself up.
He let the gryphlet's pain flow into him, and instead of fighting it, he accepted it. He focused on the memory of his own powerlessness in the cellar, the terror of being trapped in a body that wasn't his, in a life that sought to crush him. He took that feeling and fed it back down the link, not as an attack, but as a offering. A shared understanding.
I know. I know what it's like to be broken. To be trapped.
The gryphlet froze mid-lunge. The raging storm of its spirit hesitated. The link held, thrumming with a new, fragile tension.
Slowly, carefully, Leo guided the connection away from the maelstrom of emotion and towards the source of the most acute physical pain: the injured wing. He let his consciousness brush against the memory of the injury—the snap of the net, the crushing weight, the wrongness of the angle.
The system provided a clinical overlay, translating the empathic impression into data.
[Diagnosis Complete: Storm-Wing Gryphlet]
Injury: Compound Fracture of the Primary Alar Bone (Poorly Set)
Secondary Issues: Severe Muscle Atrophy, Ligament Tearing, Necrotic Tissue at Fracture Site.
Recommended Treatment: [Mend Bone] Salve, [Vitalis Root] for tissue regeneration, [Sky-Thread] for surgical reinforcement. Magical healing required for full mobility.
The diagnosis made his chest tighten.This wasn't just a broken wing—it was a wound that had been ignored, left to rot. The Aviary might have captured the gryphlet, but they'd never tried to heal it. They hadn't just damaged its body; they'd crushed its spirit along with it.
But now, Leo had a roadmap. And he had 600 points.
He gently withdrew the [Soul-Link], the process feeling like pulling a piece of his own soul back through a keyhole. He was drenched in a cold sweat, trembling from the onslaught of another's suffering. His head pounded.
The gryphlet was staring at him, its chest heaving. The fury in its eyes was gone, replaced by a deep, bewildered shock. For the first time, someone had not tried to dominate its pain or ignore it. They had shared it.
It let out a soft, questioning warble, a sound utterly unlike its previous screeches.
Leo gave a weak, exhausted smile. "I understand now," he whispered, his voice raw. "I'll find a way. I promise."
He stood on unsteady legs and turned to leave. The quest wasn't complete, but he had accomplished the first, most vital step: he had been granted access to the wound.
[Quest Updated: Mend the Broken Wing.]
Objective: Acquire the necessary materials: [Mend Bone] Salve, [Vitalis Root], [Sky-Thread].
Progress: Diagnosis Complete. Materials: 0/3.
As he stumbled back towards the dormitory, the dawn finally breaking, a new determination filled him, hardening the exhaustion into resolve. He had a shopping list. And he had a system, now buzzing with a new, unlocked feature.
[System Shop Unlocked!]
He ducked into a deserted equipment shed and pulled up the interface. It appeared as a shimmering, three-dimensional catalog in his mind's eye. The categories were vast and dizzying: [Combat Skills], [Beast Cores], [Weapons & Armor], [Alchemical Ingredients]. He navigated directly to the ingredients section.
His heart sank.
[Mend Bone Salve]: 400 SP
[Vitalis Root]: 250 SP
[Sky-Thread Spool]: 150 SP
Total: 800 System Points. He had 600.
He could afford the Salve and the Sky-Thread, but not the Vitalis Root, which was crucial for regenerating the atrophied muscle. He cursed under his breath. So close.
He was about to resign himself to a grinding quest for more points when a new, unlisted category at the very bottom of the shop caught his eye. It was greyed out, labeled [Whisperer's Exclusive].
He focused on it.
[Whisperer's Exclusive (Beta Access)]
Tier 1 Items Unlocked:
· [Empathic Catalyst]: Amplifies the effects of [Soul-Link] and [Calming Aura]. Cost: 200 SP.
· [Spectral Mend]: A low-level psychic technique that accelerates natural healing in a bonded beast by channeling the user's own vitality. Cost: 300 SP. (Warning: User will experience fatigue proportional to healing done.)
Leo stared. [Spectral Mend]. It wasn't the instant fix of the alchemical items, but it was a tool. A way to start the healing process now, without the Vitalis Root. It would cost him his energy, but it would save him 250 points. And it was a skill, not a consumable—a permanent part of his arsenal.
He didn't hesitate. He purchased both the [Empathic Catalyst]—a small, smooth stone that glowed with a soft, internal light—and the [Spectral Mend] skill tome, which dissolved into knowledge as the memory crystal had.
[System Points: 100]
New Skill Learned: [Spectral Mend (Lv. 1)]
He pocketed the Catalyst, feeling its gentle warmth against his chest. He had spent almost all his points, but he was armed. He had a path.
As he slipped out of the shed, the first bell for morning duties began to ring. He pulled the [Whisperer's Cloak] tighter around himself, the Unassuming dreg once more. But beneath the cloak, his hands were steady, his mind clear.
He had shared the gryphlet's pain. He had felt its broken sky. And he had made a promise.
He would mend the wing. And in doing so, he would forge a bond that would shake the very foundations of the Aviary that sought to break them both. The real taming had begun.
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