Callie's Heroes

PART VIII - THE NO-SHOW GHOST

Tazrok was growing tired of this. He’d been sitting under the tree for hours now, listening to the annoying wind and the squawking birds, and he was utterly and completely bored and frustrated. The Gaia person, it turned out, wasn’t really a person at all. Rowani had tried to explain that Gaia was something called a ‘personification’, whatever that made up word meant. After several attempts to help Tazrok understand, Rowani finally said to think of Gaia as the ‘Ghost of Nature’. Tazrok could understand ghosts, and hoped Gaia wasn’t a bad ghost.

Wallir was the first to be visited by the Ghost Gaia. He yelped loudly when he learned his first form; that of his stealth animal. There was confusion, though, because he didn’t actually know what his animal form was. Rowani explained that until you turn into your form for the first time, it will be a mystery. Wallir wanted to change right then and there, but the trainer told him no. Instead, there was to be a big ceremony at the end of the day where the Druids revealed all their forms to everyone. Wallir was sad about this, and Tazrok was worried. What if the Ghost Gaia never talked to him? Would all the other recruits think he was not a Druid after all?

As the four Druids settled back into meditating, it was not long before Bratig received his Striker form, followed by Melga receiving her form for flying. Still, there was no ghost for Tazrok. So the Ogre tried even harder to meditate, hoping for the Gaia ghost to come soon. But the Ogre’s frustration was amplified even more when Bratig received yet another, this time his flight form. Why should the Dwarf get two so quickly? And what was he doing wrong?