“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

---------------------

The train ride to the next spirit was spent learning everything the once living earth spirit had known. I was most interested in how he handled gravity Arcane since he used it quite easily and most of my attempts to do so end badly because my area of expertise lied elsewhere. My lantern was slowly feeding me bits and pieces of what he had know and how he had used Arcane and by filling in the gaps I could speed up my learning and the soul's cleansing.

Normally I would have stopped the train once I saw the next spirit’s home, but this time I didn’t. Unlike with the earth spirit there was no condensed Arcane, instead it was spread around the area unevenly. I knew what this meant and didn’t like what it signified about the third spirit.

At the end of the track I dispersed the train and walked towards where the spirit’s link was. I could feel myself become more depressed with each step, it was too familiar for comfort and the wounds too fresh. The link was standing at attention in the air wavering occasionally as if looking for something. At the base of the link it was colorful and bright, but as I worked my way upwards the color faded and the brightness dimmed to a dull glow at the tip. This link had been severed in the cruelest way possible, the destruction of the spirit’s home.

I would not be binding to this link nor would I be desecrating it.

“You miss what you’ve lost just as much as your other half surely does, don’t you?”

Questioning an inanimate object wouldn’t get me any responses, but it let me feel a sense of camaraderie and empathy. Nature spirits frequently lost their links due to humans and Eldritch moving into the area and claiming it as their own.

“Let me give you a purpose.”

Holding my hand out, I let my Arcane form the shape of a large pillar. The link was attracted to the Arcane and tried to bind to it with little success since I hadn’t finished my work yet. I continued to feed Arcane into the pillar while slowly allowing the link to bind itself. Once I was finished, a seven foot tall pillar of clear stone housing the colors of the link stood in place of the once tattered bond. A memorial and a beacon to other spirits who lost their home, it was not the first of its kind. I couldn’t think of anything substantial to write as an epitaph for a spirit I didn’t know and thus left a simple message of parting instead.

I sat down against the pillar and released Ormonde to do whatever he wanted on a patch of earth I created for him. The link I had taken from the earth spirit was ready to be connected and I had to attend to it before too much time passed and rendered the link inert. Closing my eyes I lost track of time while intertwining the new link with my link with the ethereal plane. The reason I describe links I see as thread is because of how I’m able to interact with them.

In order to bind the links together I either has to sew it on or merge it with my link, both methods had their benefits. Sewing the link on would be similar to what I had done with my link to Ormonde and his link to the ethereal plane. The intake of Arcane would be limited to whatever the link it was attached to could handle, but the sewn on link could be removed and given to someone or something else. Merging the links was a more time consuming process that required both links to be brought together into one.

I was going for the second method since it would greatly speed up the growth rate of my new link and I needed it as strong as possible asap. It may sound like an easy task but I needed to untangle both links braid them together and then mess them up again. Doing this took me a few hours at a minimum and I have no way to keep track of time while messing with links and souls.

When I finally finished I took a deep breath in and tested out the link to make sure everything was fine. Once I was satisfied with my work and the condition of my link, I opened my eyes to the sight of the brat looking at his reflection in the water. A wry smirk snuck its way onto my face.

“Bit of a narcissist I see.”

At the sound of my voice the brat turned to look at me and smiled.

“I’ve been dragging you around and you’ve done nothing but profit from it and that’s not going to change in the future. So I’m going to use you to practice.”

I gathered a little bit of gravity Arcane, just enough to make someone either a few pounds heavier or lighter. In the other hand I materialized a small ball of earth and tried to make it float using the gravity Arcane. Once I had a decent grasp on how to handle both types of Arcane better thanks to the earth spirit’s memories I floated the ball over to the brat. I got his attention quickly enough and soon had him trying to reach for the ball and following it intently with his eyes. It became a game to see if he could keep track of it as I slowly increased the weight of the ball with earth Arcane and lightened it with gravity Arcane. I got to practice and the brat got to be entertained, win-win in my book if I do say so.

‘Dance my little puppet! Dance!’

Both of us were thoroughly enjoying ourselves until Ormonde fell while trying to grab the ball. The fall caused him to start crying and set me into a state nervous unease. This was the part about kids I didn’t handle well.

I knelt next to him and tried to calm him by talking to him. When that failed to work I picked him up hoping that the contact would help. His crying persisted and I was getting close to just knocking him out with mind Arcane. Moving around seemed to help and I soon found myself rocking him while talking. The contact, movement, and the noise from my voice must have worked to some degree because he calmed down after a few minutes and fell asleep in my arms.

“Spoiled brat aren’t you?”

Hanging my head with a sigh I returned to the tracks and set off towards the last of the spirits. The brat got his own cushion since I needed to take some time to check on how my lantern was doing. The soul inside was being eroded slowly but surely and due to the state in which I had gotten the spirit’s soul he hadn’t had time to hide or erase anything. If I had to estimate I would say that by the end of whatever is at the next link the soul should be completely wiped and ready for integration. As far as I was concerned, that was almost as fast as when I had been at full strength and a job well done.

Not everything was good news since I had other more pressing matters to think about than my soul food. I was truly worried about what I would find at the final link. Another severed link or a corrupted spirit, I couldn’t decide which would be the worse one to encounter and only time would tell me. Lost in thought I didn’t notice that the train had stopped of its own volition. By the time I noticed we weren’t moving ten minutes had passed.

‘What’s going on? We’re still so far from the last link.’

I looked in front of the train and knew what awaited me at the final link. The track was broken as if someone had forcibly ripped it apart and a diseased looking plant had coiled around the ends of the track. Both where signs of a corrupted spirit, something I was currently ill equipped to handle. Even on my best days corrupted spirits gave me a lot of trouble, mainly due to the Eldritch influence they carried with them.

There was a new decision I had to make. By the laws of the ethereal plane I should technically try and deal with the problem and if I failed I could report it. However, I had Ormonde to deal with and I didn’t need his tiny brain being scrambled driving him mad before he could even think. There was a way to protect the brat from the worst of what could happen, but if anything came in contact with either him or his soul there were going to be issues. I also had to take my low strength into consideration when making my choice.

I paced in a small circle before deciding I needed to do something even if I had to prematurely retreat and lose my chance at revenge. With no more track to ride on I started to walk the rest of the way to the last link. The closer I got to the link the more decayed the area around me became with some patches of the plane just outright not being there. The plane here looked sick, just like the plants that were strewn about the area. Although I hated to admit it, I was scared for Ormonde and myself. I really didn’t want to have to go all out to win, it would be the same as killing us both for the most part, but I had never seen corruption spread so far from its source.

My thoughts were interrupted when the smell of rotting wood reach me. I could see the link and how the ethereal plane had done what it could to stop the corruption from spreading, limiting the flow of Arcane to the area and reducing the spirits home in the process. I swallowed my fears and moved forward, each step making the smell grow stronger and my confidence dwindle.

A twisted and mangled tree with its branches devoid of living leaves leave stood by itself on top of the link. Large section of the tree looked swollen and the rotting was visible from where I was standing a good distance away.

‘I don’t think I can win this.’

The link was still so strong despite the corruption to it meaning the spirit that I would have to face would be far above my level. The corruption coming from the link was strong enough that it felt almost physical to me and I was starting to feel nauseous. I turned to leave only to be greeted by slime covered vines growing to cage me in. A hollow and empty voice spoke from behind me.

“Come now. It would be rude to leave without saying hello first.”

Some vines forcibly turned me around to look at the decrepit tree spirit who had been standing lackadaisically behind me. His rotting jaw creaked as he smiled, his eyes narrowing as he looked me over.

“Cute little thing carrying another cute little thing I see. I must say I love cute things.”

The spirit’s smile grew even more as he started to exude an unearthly stench, his hands turning into broken and festering claws. The tree spirit’s head twitched and stayed at a bizarre unnatural angle as he raised a claw to his mouth and licked it with what narrowly passed as a tongue.

“They always taste best when scared too.”

------------------

------------------