Possessive spirits were vile parasites.
They would consume their host's soul and take control of their body. Once others came looking for the host, they'd jump bodies, repeating the cycle. They were often born from the remains of the partially consumed mind and soul that inefficient vampiric spells left. It was one of the major reasons that other races hated the warlocks; their overuse of such magic.
Gilver swung his blade down, but stopped it precisely just under its chin, a thought coming to mind. ‘Maybe I should interrogate it a little before I kill it? It stood to reason that if there was one possessed doppel then there might be more nearby.’
“What are you? I have bound your soul so you cannot possess me, if you lie or try to cast I will run you through with my blade immediately!” he yelled at the cowering creature.
“C-Cixrus… Is my name,” it whimpered, trying to take a step back as its eyes darted around wildly, searching for escape.
It winced as it trod on a stone, its foot rolling causing it to fall onto the ground. It tried to scrabble back, but he took a step forward returning his blade to its neck.
“Is the rest of the Hive possessed too?” Gilver yelled down at it.
The Doppel looked up at him, its eyes wide as it hyperventilated. “I’m not possessed.”
“LIES!” Gilver snarled, taking a step forward. The blade scratched its neck, drawing forth a drop of ichor and causing Cixrus to gulp.
Entering his mind space he called forth his energy perception spell, letting a trickle of magic flow into it before glancing into the creature's core.
He gasped at what he saw, taking a step back, it was his turn for his eyes to go wide.
“Impossible…” he breathed under his breath as he stared into its very soul. His distraction caused all his spells to end.
Unlike other souls, which sort of looked like glowing orbs, or possessive spirits, which looked like small black orbs that fed off a larger one. This creature instead had two pieces of a soul; a red and an orange fragment that appeared to be bound round each other, two broken souls somehow whole together.
He realised he had read of a similar case, a warlock's spell had backfired and the damage done to itself and its victim caused their souls to completely fuse into a new being. However that merger had been nowhere near as perfect as this one appeared to be.
‘It must be something to do with the state of incompleteness of its soul, due to hosting a hive mind’ he thought.
“Do you remember a previous life?” He asked, wondering.
There was a blank look on the Doppelgängers face. Then it screamed as its eyes rolled back into its head and it slumped down onto the ground, unconscious.
Well there was his answer.
Gilver decided not to linger any longer, he hoisted the limp figure over his shoulder and glanced over at the fight.
“Shit… I need to get out of here.” He had been seen. Someone must have heard his yell, they had sent a dozen ghostly wights to deal with him.
Knowing the wights were tier four spell constructs that he couldn’t currently deal with he riskily cast his sixth spell that day. Pushing heaps of magic into it.
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‘I’ll just not cast for a few days, hopefully that will make up for it.’ he justified.
Green light glowed under his skin as he felt an insane rush that threatened to tear his body at the seams as the latent power in his muscles seemed to multiply. The stamina boosting spell almost overloaded as green energy leaked out from his mouth and eyes.
‘This will really accelerate my mutations’ he thought with a frown and then chuckled.
“But I passed that point long ago!”
Leaning over he pushed off the ground into a sprint, continuously pulsing magic into the spell to keep it up as he accelerated.
His legs blurred and his muscles strained to keep up with the spell as he dashed perpendicularly to the wights; towards the maw of a tunnel on the other side of the cavern.
A few of the wights branched off from the group, tailing him as he sped into the distance.
Soon he reached the tunnel and he looked back into the cavern for a last glance at the Devil's Maw.
The invading force of Fenrik were covered in purple shields that seemed capable of reflecting the white bolts that rained down upon it and had almost reached the entrance. They would have to make their way through all of the stronghold's defences, which would give him more time to escape.
On the opposite side of the cavern he could see the small black opening of the hidden exit spewing the rest of his kind who were all casting minor illusion spells for camouflage or just making a run for it. Some of the more powerful ones were staying in place to fight the wights as the rest escaped.
“Good riddance,” he spat.
Then he turned his back and left.
⟣⟡⟢
TCH—BOOOOOOOM!
There was a sudden shock wave that shook the very earth.
Fragments of rock rained down from the ceiling and cracks ran up the walls as Gilver grabbed the side of the tunnel for support.
He had got several kilometres before the explosion had occurred, its impacts devastating as the might of it shot down the tunnels like a cannon.
‘Soul Stitcher overdid it. Heavily.’ He thought, his mind trying to conceptualise how vast the explosion was.
Gilver spotted a small hollow in the side of the tunnel and frantically pushed Cixrus in before climbing in himself. Then weighing the risks he cast another spell to shield the hollow.
A faintly white shimmering buried sprung up, sealing off the small hollow from the tunnel.
It had been the correct decision as moments later a jet of flame blasted down the tunnel, warming up the hollow through the shield and utterly incinerating everything outside. He took deep breaths and focused on maintaining the spell, and ignoring how close a shave he had just had.
The hollow kept heating up, soon reaching higher than a sauna, but nothing could break Gilvers concentration as he pushed more magic into his spell.
The flames petered down after a few minutes, before there was a sudden vacuum, pulling all the flame back in as the centre of the explosion rapidly cooled.
Shakily he let the shield drop with a sigh, and slowly clambered out, jumping up and down as the heated sides of the tunnel burnt his feet through his boots.
Ignoring the pain, he grabbed the small Doppel.
“Time to go home.” He wanted to get back to the ancient home of the Kron warlock bloodline as soon as possible.
It was located in a complete other layer but perhaps if he made good time then he would be able to get there and hide, before it became impossible to escape the layer via the influx of investigatory forces. An incident such as this would not go ignored. It would attract the interest of all of the races and their factions.
As he turned the corner into a spider-like junction he heard the screeches of dying kelters. It was another convoy who hadn’t managed to properly shield themselves from the blast. Gilver ignored them and continued pushing down a different passage, they would probably die without his intervention and he had no time to stop.
He looked at his arms and legs, now covered in black veins from all the corruption his magic had caused by mutating his body.
“I don’t think I would be capable of fighting anything in this pitiful state,” he laughed to himself.
⟣⟡⟢