Jace's Spark

Using his makeshift staff, he tentatively extended it towards Jace's corpse. As the staff arrived at a distance of roughly 1 ft away from his chest, the golden badges skulls two eye sockets suddenly emitted two golden beams of light which instantly sliced off the tip of the staff.

Examining the smoothly severed end of the staff, he gently ran a finger across the smooth cut, then sighed a breath of relief. Fortunately over his many years of violence he had cultivated a cautious nature, a necessary trait for anyone to have, especially when exploring the unknown. Many a time he had witnessed an individual fall victim to a lethal trap from a single moment of carelessness.

Extending the stalagmite once again, as it reached a distance of precisely 1 ft from the body the two eye sockets emitted two rays of golden light and once again the end was severed in a flash of golden light. Realizing Jace's corpse was protected by some type of energy shield, Salvatore began to experiment with it, using the stalagmite to probe it for weaknesses.

Over the course of several minutes he attempted to get near to the corpse from several different points, but regardless of where he approached, as soon as he was precisely 1 ft away from the body, the badge on his chest would emit a flash of golden light, then the end of the stalagmite would suddenly be missing a piece of the end.

Repeating the experiment several time, after sacrificing about a dozen stalagmite's he determined that the entire corpse was enclosed by a barrier, which apparently would automatically attack anything foreign that approached within 1 ft of the body.

Furthermore he postulated that this was a secondary function intended to defend the user in accidental situations. Usually the user would have to manually trigger the shield to avoid accidents, except in the case were something approached the user, exceeding a set speed, in that case the shield would be triggered automatically to defend the user.

But despite all of this currently useless information he did manage to discover a single insightful fact. After triggering the shield thirty or so times, his keen eyes noticed a slight dimming of the golden light. With only this clue, combined with the available information he had, he realized that the shield was weakening.

Most likely now that Jace was dead it had no one to supply it with magic and was running on and auxiliary power source. Every time the shield was triggered it would expend a small amount of the badges auxiliary power supply, which meant if he continued triggering the shield with stalagmites he could eventually completely drain the badges battery dry.

Immediately he collected a few dozen stalagmites then began furiously triggering the shield, approaching dozens of places simultaneously. Slowly yet surely, he began to notice an obvious weakening of the shield, until after reducing almost a hundred various sized stalagmites to rubble the shield finally failed to appear.

Waving a stalagmite around a few times, he tentatively prodded Jace's corpse. Seeing no reaction, he gentle tapped the corpse a few more times on the chest, making sure there were no additional defenses or booby traps before he approached it. Extending his hand, he carefully placed it upon the area he had checked, feeling the ice cold flesh beneath the camouflage clothes.

"[Spark Extraction]!"

Immediately Jace's corpse began to blaze with a myriad of multihued lights. As if drawn by some inaudible call they furiously swarmed towards Salvatore's outstretched hand, slowly coalescing into a familiar elongated crystal shard. Finally after several minutes the last of the specks of light finished merging with the Spark.

In his hand sat an ominous obsidian Spark, bigger than his fist which exuded a terrifying dominant aura. Rays of black light pulsated all around it and if you listened closely to it you could hear a mournful wail. Raising it to his nose he lightly sniffed it and detected a faint odor of blood.

Moving away from Jace's pristine corpse, he located a relatively dry and secure area a few feet away then sat down and brought Jace's Spark up to his mouth. Without the slightest hesitation he placed it into his mouth and began to chew.

Unlike the many Sparks he had previously eaten, Jace's was rather bland, being completely flavorless. After chewing for awhile he finally swallowed the completely liquefied Spark and felt the now familiar assimilation process begin as a pillar of upward shooting prismatic radiance enclosed around him.