“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh” with a shout, I woke. My soul! The beast was in me! Revulsion and hate dominated my mind. With all my power, I scratched at my ethereal body. I had to get it out! Now!

I was hysteric! Nothing helped. Slowly the realization sunk in. I was unable to get it out. Whimpering I fell back to the floor. My mind a complete mess. Only slowly did I calm down and recover.

At some point, I had regained enough of my clarity to build coherent thoughts. I realized now was not the time to lose my cool. Focusing on the until now unimportant data my eyes and ears had collected, my rational half started to work. I switched to my combat state, or better said I wanted to. The instant I tried to engage, pain flushed through my entire being.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh” A loud cry left my lips and I spasmed on the floor. The pain only slowly subsided. My breath came quick and shallow, my whole soul still shivering from the pain. Damn, the encounter with the entity must have cracked my soul. No combat state in the upcoming challenges. I would need to get by without it. Okay, relax Andrew, you can do it.

I stood up and took in the surroundings with more attention. It had changed to an old stone room. I stood in a pentacle that was positioned in the middle of it. On every pentacle point a strange glyph glowed.

On the left side, an old wooden cupboard and work desk took up most of the space while an enormous book-rack occupied the right side.

At the beginning I couldn’t pinpoint why I felt so strange, but suddenly realized what was wrong. I stood on the ground. Even though I was still in ghost form, I felt the gravity here. That could only mean that something was impeding my ability to float and with it my freedom.

I remembered the countless movies where magicians had summoned demons or other entities with similar pentagrams as the one I currently was standing in.

Pondering the theory in my mind, I got surer and surer about it. I had to escape from here. If not, the dark thing in my soul would be the least of my problems. Sadly, I also knew that it was practically impossible to flee from such a prison. They were designed to hold the summoned entities inside of them.

Even so, I had to get away. Remembering the cold dark chains that had dragged me here, I was very certain that I didn’t want to find out who had summoned me. Following my decision, I cautiously walked towards the edge, trying to cross the line of the pentagram.

*Bzzzz

An enormous amount of electricity flowed through me. I collapsed immediately. Lying on the ground, still twitching, I tried to recover. Some time later, after I had regained control, I sat cross-legged in the middle of the pentacle and pondered over potential solutions.

The door on the side of the room opened, and an old-looking man entered the room.

He wore a grey robe with greenish glyphs on it. He appeared to be your typical grandpa from next door that gave sweets to little children.

“Hello, little soul, I am archmage Sorvoros. It is my pleasure to finally meet you!”

His entire face changed to the origin of all friendly smiles as he tried to set me at ease. Looking into his understanding eyes I had the impulse to trust and believe him. He was a kind man.

“I hope the journey was not too hard for you, I didn’t want to rip you out of your world, but you have to understand, my world is on the brink of destruction. We need new knowledge to protect us against the evil monsters that threaten to wipe us from this world.”

I deeply looked into his sad eyes, I had to help him! At least that was what his compulsion was telling me. Another part of my brain, where I always counter checked my gut-feeling against my people reading skills, was telling me a different story.

It was the first time that I felt this conflicted. My logical side that was supported by my special gift read people like books. It told me he was evil, no doubt about that. On the other hand, my emotional side insisted that I should implicitly trust him. I used all my willpower to break free of his compulsion. Immediately afterward I closed my mind off to his intrusion.

The construct of trust and friendliness he had built around himself broke apart. It left goosebumps on my arm as I realized how easy it had been for him to affect me.

Aware of his real intentions I decided to still play along with it. It would buy me more time to find my way out of this situation.

Following that logic I answered with a friendly tone,” Greetings to you, Archmage Sorvoros. I understand your plight, but I am not sure how I can help you. I don’t know if I even have knowledge that you could need. Aside from that, I wanted to ask if you will send me back after I have answered your question?”

He nodded understandingly, “I assure you I will immediately send you back after the questioning. I promise that! Regarding your knowledge, why don’t you give me a general outline of what your people can do? Then I can decide what my people could use?”

I strongly concentrated on not giving away any change in my inner self. I had deciphered his lies immediately. There would be no journey home!

Damn, why had it always to get worse. First the war, my death, then the kidnapping where an alien creature piggybacked on my soul. I didn’t even want to think on how that instance would come back in to future to bite my ass… And as the culmination of it all; Now I had to deal with an evil archmage…

It was a given that I would not tell Sorvoros about our technology. That left me in a squander what I should tell him. A sudden Idea popped up in my head. That could function. Remembering the fantasy novels I had read during my teenager years, I felt convinced that it would buy me some additional time.

“Okay, I think I know what should be most helpful to you. Our production katas! These are sets of movements that let you harness the power of the very world around you. Through them, we take in energy and transmit it via runes into a pre-defined structure. This process empowers its might. We can use the new product for any number of things. In your case, weapons of mass destruction. As an example, we could push energy into a piece of iron. At some point it would become highly volatile. Connected to a trigger device, that piece of iron could destroy everything in a radius of five miles!”

I observed him while I talked about infusing the energies in more detail. He was hooked thoroughly. I could just about see the scenarios of world domination he was making up in his mind.

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“And you are sure I have to make these postures while hopping around the piece of iron to harness the energies?” he asked with some doubt in his voice.

I looked him sternly into the eyes, having on my most earnest and sincere expression that I could make.

“Yes, very sure! It is of immense importance that you jump on one leg around the piece of iron, while moving your hips for and back and doing the rowing movements with your arms I have shown you earlier. Otherwise it won’t function! Our scientists have tested out this process for centuries and they are unanimously certain that it is the most efficient way!”

I watched him as he left the room.

Maybe it was not the best decision to tell him to do such “special” moves. Yet it was imperative that he made a mistake if I wanted to get out of here. That would never happen if he stayed collected so I needed him furious. That was the only way.

But enough of that. What really scared me was his friendly acting. I was sure that an evil mage had lots of ways to secure my secrets. That could only mean it would be very torturous on my soul and he feared he might lose knowledge using them. I was sure he didn’t give a damn about myself.

Breathing out slowly, I forced myself to focus on the pentacle. There had to be a way out.

I searched and searched, trying to not let myself get distracted by the strange sounds that came from the adjacent room. One and half an hour later I had still not found anything that could help me out of my “prison-cell”. I stopped my tests as I heard the door handle being pushed down.

Looking up, I saw a sweaty Sorvoros walking back in. Yes… reading his angry expression I would say it hadn’t worked at all, or too well, depending on how one saw it.

The time of truth had come. Would I be able to capitalize on his anger or not? And if I was able to, would it even benefit me? Or would I be stranded as a soul in this unknown world for all eternity?

I began my part. I knitted my brows and asked, ”Did it not function?”

He wordlessly shook his head.

“That’s strange. It should have functioned. Are you sure that you did it correctly? Maybe it would be good if you showed me the complete dance so I can verify if you did everything right?”

“Enough!!”

He had obviously reached his limit. Now I would get to see the real Sorvoros.

“How dare you! A mere soul wants to take me for an idiot?! I should have known that playing nice wouldn’t amount to anything! But don’t hope! I will get the information out of you!”

Seeing his red eyes, I was sure he was livid!

He walked over towards the position directly in front of the pentagram and mumbled words.

I didn’t have to wait long. Toxic green orbs appeared on every end of the pentacle. After they had reached a diameter of around one foot they floated up until they were at roughly the height of my chest.

“Ignite!”

The green orbs started to burn and formed tentacles that lunged at my soul. I jumped to the side, put they caught up to me in mid-jump. They were much too fast.

“AAAAHHHHHHH!!”

I felt a searing pain lance through my soul. I was only half conscious after that but became clearheaded quickly as the tentacles devoured my very matter.

I understood immediately what Sorvoros had intended. I was a well of information to him. He planned to suck me dry like a god damn oil deposit. Panicking, I tried to hold my soul together. I knew that if I let him do as he pleased, it would be the end of me. There would be nothing left.

It was very hard. But somehow I succeeded. Sorvoros’s astonishment was shown vividly on his face when he realized that the formation didn’t work as intended.

“You think you can hold your measly soul against the suction force of the soul devourer formation?! Maybe for now, but how will it look in a day or two? Give up, you have no chance!”

That comment should have made me lose hope, but it achieved the opposite. Thanks to my ability I was sure that he was afraid of letting me withstand the formation for longer amounts of time.

My spirit soared. I would hold out, I would survive! I didn’t pay attention to his needling and efforts to impede my will. I focused on my soul and incensed him further with comments about his inability.

As the time flew by he got more and more worried. At the beginning he was still able to hide it, but the longer I withstood the torture the more scared he got.

Seeing his face, I was sure that something bad was about to happen. As ninety-nine percent of the things bad for him were good for me, it was a simple decision to make. I goaded him again.

“What sort of Archmage are you? Can’t even conquer a measly human soul!”

Ah, there it was. His controlled countenance transformed to an unhealthy reddish one. Especially the pumping vein on the left side of his forehead and the eyes full of reddish veins looked beautiful to me.

“That can’t be! A mere soul can withstand me?!, I won’t allow it!!” With that he took out a knife and sliced open his left hand, letting the blood drop onto the lines of the pentagram.

A swooshing sound resounded through the entire room, and the pentagram glowed in a bright red light. It pulsated at first slowly than quicker and quicker. After it had reached a certain cadence, the reddish hue expanded until it had reached the floating orbs, turning them red as well.

Observing these changes, I had a bad feeling. The tentacles also turned red. The transformation began at the orbs and slowly made its way towards my body. I prepared myself as best as I could. But as it arrived, it quickly became clear that my defenses wouldn’t be enough.

The suction force doubled in an instant. I felt parts of my soul loosen, being ripped out of my body and eagerly transported away by the evil tentacles connected to my body. I screamed mentally, but I couldn’t do anything.

As I lost hope, the evil thing in my body reacted. Black tendrils reached towards the already loose soul parts that were being ripped away. It pulled them back and glued them to my soul again.

The pain was enormous. I felt so close to my end. It was very strenuous. At least I lost no more parts of my already injured soul.

As I watched the black tendrils supporting me I got a sudden impression. The thing in my soul was furious. How dare a mere human wanted to steal its property!

I already knew that the thing and I weren’t friends, but this made it crystal clear where I stood in our “relationship”…

Nonetheless, I had to prioritize. I had no capacity to worry about my hitchhiker.

Thanks to its help, we had reached a stalemate once more. Sorvoros looked more and more scared and cast additional spells. Only this time they didn’t target me, but the surrounding structure.

“By the abyss! I call you! Chains of Darkshore! I order you to bind this room and hide it from the world!”

Listening to his chants, it became clearer and clearer that he feared something out there. It looked like the soul devourer formation could somehow be felt by this identity or identities.

Maybe I could survive this. Hopefully, they would find us!