Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin stood up as the Erlking sent the bitchy blonde away. He wasn’t even going to ask; he was too tired to care. He would really need to remember this for future battles, he could heal indefinitely but he still had limits.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” He asked, as the Erlking approached him. The bodies of the rats started to disappear one by one. That was a shock, until he remembered that patterns on the soul would return there when killed. If the pattern hadn’t been removed anyway.

“Please, take a seat.” The Erlking said, creating four chairs out of nothingness. He sat down himself while Benjamin thought about how to react. It was a nice gesture, giving the creations chairs. Finally, he sat down in the chair. Motioning for his goblins to do the same.

“Alright, I’m listening.” He said after he was seated. “I wouldn’t mind knowing what you see in the blonde too, and why I’ve got to work with her.” He had been on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster in the last few hours. The last thing he needed was another woman in his life.

“Very well, Mr. Vryce. I will answer that question briefly. Jade may have…problems…but apart from you, she’s the strongest human soul I have to work with. There really weren’t many of you sent here, and you might be surprised just how many of those, just… sat down and refused to do anything after dying once or twice. I’m working with them but I don’t have much hope.” Was the surprisingly informative answer. Benjamin had to remember answers were dangerous.

“Alright, I can see that. How about my core? It’s full and funny shaped. Am I supposed to do something with it or…” he trailed off, unsure of how to ask the question.

“Cultivating one’s soul essence is a personal matter Mr. Vryce. The Arbiter has given strict guidelines on what we are allowed to tell you. I am sure if you…”at this point he paused and rotated his finger around, like he was stirring a glass. “Spin a few ideas around in your head, you will think of something on your own,” he said.

Benjamin thought that was a hint of some kind, but didn’t press. He understood, somewhat, that the Arbiter called the shots here, and that even he was bound by a higher power. He would think on what the Erlking said though, maybe he could think of something.

“Ok, so what do you need me to do?” he asked at last, looking between his goblins. They had sat at his instruction but neither of them looked comfortable.

“As I said Mr. Vryce. Corruption has started to spread on one of my core worlds. I won’t abandon this world, and if I can get you there soon enough, I believe you can stop the spread.” The Erlking said, unhelpfully.

“I got that part, but I don’t even know what corruption is. Or, why you can’t just go fix it yourself. Why did you bring in a bunch of nobodies from earth to do it?” He was exasperated at the lack of knowledge. Not to mention just how tired and dirty he was. He wanted to go to sleep, not off to fight some mystery monster.

“You have to understand, Mr. Vryce. It isn’t that we want to keep you in the dark. It’s just that until you grow a little, you won’t be able to understand the answers. For example; if I had tried to explain to you how to summon a pattern from your void space into reality, when you first arrived would you have understood?” the Erlking asked.

Benjamin had to admit to himself that no, he wouldn’t have had a clue. Fact was, he still didn’t understand how it worked, and he just…did it. He shook his head at the Erlking, who continued.

“Summoning a pattern is nothing. Really just a visualization, that we made up too…” his voice stopped as the ground vibrated slightly. Benjamin watched his face pale a little and he pulled on his antlers before starting again.

“Well, it’s not important. I will try to explain, without saying too much. This universe is old, I believe you have theories on earth about how universes expand as they age, yes?” he asked. At Benjamin’s nod he continued.

“This universe has expanded so much that its barriers are failing. When the barrier wall grows too thin a tear can appear, and corruption enters. It takes the form of an invading army. They spread out into the universe like a virus. When enough of them gather they form a new tear, and more come in. this continues until the universe is destroyed.” He finished.

Benjamin assumed that he had dumbed that down for him a lot, but still, he knew he could have grasped that concept on day one.

“And us? The humans, or souls as you call us.” He asked, that being the most important question right now.

“The universes and everything in them, are comprised of essence. Only Beings the Creator of the universes has gifted with a soul can freely manipulate that essence. Other beings can make use of essence, but not in its base form. We need you to use the essence to seal and strengthen the universes barrier wall,” he said.

“Well, at least you’re not asking for much.” Benjamin replied, trying to think about the incomprehensible size of a universe and how a handful of people could fix it all. Especially if that blonde woman was one of the strongest among them.

“I apologize Mr. Vryce. There are limits to what I can say, and what you would understand.” He said with a shrug. “I had intended to send four of you on your first trip out. Unfortunately, the essence cost would be too high. So, it will be just the two of you. I do have a few items to give you though, to make the task easier.” With those words he set a bundle of patterns on the table.

“Before you ask, no, there aren’t any extra’s in the pattern. I had never intended for you to get the goblin patterns so I was careless with their creation.” The Erlking answered the question before Benjamin even had the chance to ask it.

“Alright, so how is this going to work?” he asked at last, picking up and absorbing the patterns. He didn’t know what any of them were, so he would have to check it out in his void space later.

For the next two hours, the Erlking told Benjamin what he was supposed to do. He also asked him for a favor. One that surprised him, and answered a few questions he had wondered about.

* * *

Benjamin sat in his meditation chair. He had finally learned what it was called, and that it was a gift from the Arbiter. The Erlking had told him about it briefly, how everyone made better decisions when they had a clear mind. He wasn’t going to argue, this chair had saved him months of effort removing that seal.

He was currently in transit to the world the Erlking didn’t want to lose. The World Lord hadn’t even tried to explain how time worked for long transits, except to say that he would be in there for a while. Benjamin had already been here for a week, subjectively, already. He looked around; all of his creations were here. Grace taking her place in his soul for the first time.

He looked at the goblin girl. She had wanted to talk to him, but there just hadn’t been time. He could always wake her up in here, he had done it with silver before, but didn’t want to just yet. He needed time to think and work on his core, then, maybe he would talk to her. He checked out the adjustments to her pattern the Erlking had given him.

He had been skeptical at first. Changing any of his creation’s patterns seemed dangerous, what if it changed her…them. In the end though he needn’t have worried. The set of patterns the Erlking had given him were basically like digital clothes and weapons he might buy for an online game.

It was so strange to think of his life that way, but it was what it was. He had a few dozen of them, mostly small or simple things, like the dire squirrel cloak Grace now wore. Apparently when summons who wore clothes was summoned, they showed up in whatever outfit was in their base pattern. What these new patterns did was allow him to add items to the base pattern.

Whenever he summoned her now, Grace would be wearing her hunter’s cloak. Better still, since it was a pattern, even if it was completely destroyed, he could remake it with essence. Plus, it offered better protection than her original. He next looked at her new armor, the formfitting brown leather looked like it belonged on a dnd character not a real person, but again, the base protection values were a lot higher than her old gear.

He looked away, he had been admiring her, equipment, a bit too long. Benjamin and Stomper had also gotten a new upgrade, along with a few of the creations he hadn’t used yet. That could wait for now however.

Closing his eyes, he focused in on his core. He had been thinking on the Erlking’s hint. Trying various things; from mentally squeezing the core, splitting it up into two cores, he had even tried cycling the essence through his body’s channels. That had actually been helpful and he would come back to that. He didn’t think that was what the World lord had meant though.

Entering the area that made up the star in his soul, Benjamin thought maybe he had been speaking literally. Perhaps he was supposed to actually, spin the core. He watched the liquid essence undulate slowly, it was still drawing in essence but it was slow and inconsistent.

Reaching out, he put his mental ‘hand’ into the essence, and began to walk around it. Slowly at first, he didn’t want to cause waves. Like running his hands around the bathtub when he was a kid, he wanted to get the liquid essence spinning. Slowly, gradually, it started to move. As it spun it gradually expanded, Benjamin thought it looked like it might fly apart. Franticly he thought about what to do, he didn’t want to stop now.

In the end he tried to press in on the core with his mind. He had done this before but all that had happened was the liquid sloshed around a little. Now, he felt somewhat like a potter. He was spinning the essence ‘clay’ and he was using his mental ‘hands’ to shape it and press it down tighter.

He didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish with this. His core had just seemed so, out of balance. Eventually he stopped, the star continued to spin for a while. To his shock he could see that the ambient essence was being drawn in by the rotation. Like a boat being pulled into a whirlpool.

After a time, it began to slow again and the essence lost the suction force it had before. He reached in and spun it once more, this time when he pulled back, he tried to keep a small part of his mind spinning the core. It was extremely difficult. Like jumping up and down while patting his head and singing his ABC’s backwards difficult, but he was starting to grasp it.

He didn’t know if he was doing this right, or if there was a next step. However, he was pleased with what it was allowing him to do. His core was stabilized, unlike the wobbly mess it had been. It was also actively sucking in ambient essence now, instead of absorbing it randomly. Granted, he had to keep his mind at least a little focused on the task, but he thought with practice he could get used to it.

He focused on gathering essence and refining his core the entire trip. He wanted to be able to keep the spin going even in his sleep. There might also be the fact that if he was busy working, he didn’t have to think about girl drama. That thought never occurred to him though, he was too busy working on his core.

Benjamin managed to gather an impressive amount of essence by the time he winked back into reality. It was a good thing too.