Helena rolled out of bed, only to discover she had neither a bed, nor a floor. “What?”

This only vaguely disturbed her, as she missed her bedside table, didn’t find the light charm or see even the faint hint of the early morning light through her bedroom curtains. She was in total darkness.

All these were secondary to the habit her mother had ingrained in her. Like so many followers of the Sydany path, Helena woke up and launched into her mourning mantra routine:

“Thereee once was a traveller with ten fingers and toes,

ten fingers and toes, fingers and toes.

They had two feet and double the hand,

it was normal you understand?”

She bent over, touching fingers to toes, wiggling each one, then rose up stretching fully upwards while crossing her fingers high above her head. It all felt a bit off but that was just waking up.

The song had changed over the generations. Multiple times. Her mother hated that Helena had picked up on a more modern take of the song, but she didn’t care. “If I have to wake up at five in the morning every day of my life to do my mantras and exercises, I can damn well pick the song I do it to Mother.”

Helena was almost thirty four and she still preferred the children’s carol version of the song. It was catchy. She didn’t have to beat the exercises into her kids.

“These are my lips and these my eyes,

raise them up to witness the beauty of clear blue skies.

Ears to hear the world sing,

nose to sense what breakfast brings.”

Her body felt somewhat odd and tingly. For a moment, mid workout, Helena imagined she had twelve fingers, not ten and could almost feel them. But that was a silly dream thing and she soon returned to her Mantras.

The only reason Helena had kept doing the exercises after getting out of her childhood home was that everyone, from the healers, to mages and the priests agreed it was good for her health. Good for her physical, mental and spiritual health. “Not that the last one will matter until I’m an old grandma.”

Helena kept doing the mantras, every morning and evening, losing two hours of her life. In the beginning, because her mother had drilled them into her, but these days because she saw how age was starting to catch up to her friends who didn’t. Thirty-five was just around the corner, but unlike a lot of her girlfriends, she still looked like she was in her early twenties. More importantly, she moved and felt like she was almost twenty one.

Going through the reasons for why she put up with all this helped Helena stay focused. Which was important. As she moved, she was also circulating her inner mana, the parts that weren’t attuned to any of her tools. Messing that up could send her to the hospital right quick.

Helena hadn’t messed it up since she was out of her teen years. “Bleh. Puberty.”

That had not been fun.

However Helena was starting to worry, just a little bit. Her singing of the mantra and it’s steady beat didn’t allow for much of thinking or worrying, but she’d gotten good and practiced enough that she could focus on another thing while doing the exercises.

Usually, she planned her day. Today, Helena found it hard to focus away from her body. With each pass of the mantra, knees, ankles, wrists, fingers, she felt more like herself. But something was off. And not in a good way.

Helena didn’t stop. Whatever it was, it could wait until after the mantra was over. That much she learned the hard way. Her Mother believed in disciplining her children and Helena had felt both belt and lash plenty of times, till she learned that nothing was allowed to distract her from her mantra.

“If your apartment is burning down, you’re to do them while you run.” Her mother used to say.

It wasn’t quite that bad, but something was definitely off. Her body felt almost rubbery, stretchy… like it could shift or morph and not like flesh. If she stopped to think about it she might panic a bit, but the mantra kept her moving, kept her rolling, focused, calm. That’s what it did. The habit centred and calmed her, every morning and before bed.

The rubbery feel of her flesh worried her. It would really worry Helena, if the mantras left any space for it. As it was, they seemed to be helping with that whole “I feel like I might just fall apart” sensation, so she kept at it.

In the dark.

Without her Ilsa. A spirit friend that had been with her since she started school at six. Her little personal assistant that she always, always kept on her.

Ilsa was missing. That unnerved Helena more than anything.

Even more then not being able to feel her magicore jewel-heart. The precious enchanted gem was one of the fundamental tools of her arts. It was, quite literally, fused with her flesh, right where her belly button used to be.

Or the enchanted jewel used to be there. Running through her exercises, it felt like her body might turn into something else if she didn’t remember it right. Her hands ghosted over her stomach as part of the exercise. The jewel, like its steady pulse in her inner most manaflows… was missing.

Which shouldn’t be possible without very invasive surgery, a shape shift or a flesh graft.

Helena tried not to think about the missing tool. She couldn’t do anything about the loss until her mantras were done anyway, so there was no point worrying about it.

***

The familiar motions and songs kept her focused, on task, kept her calm.

Relentlessly, driven by literal decades of habit, instilled from the moment Helena could walk and talk by her Sydany mother, Helena went through her morning mantras in the pitch darkness, floating in silent emptiness.

The ancient ritual helped her trapped soul remember its shape, its life. Even past death. As it was meant to. A fact she could not refute, as her mantra finished. They were meant for this, to know herself. Know the state of her body, mind and soul. Reaffirm it.

It was all gone. Helena wept with the memory of tears. Because the mantras helped, kept her in a human seeming, even if she was a loose soul. She remembered how to cry, so she could, even if her tears weren’t water anymore. Though she didn’t have to, Helena kept breathing steadily, with the memory of air. Because that was what humans did and she was human. All the memories and habits kept her centred, coherent.

As the ancient Sydany Mystics had designed them to do, even beyond death.

“I died.” Helena whispered, floating in that empty dark. It was neither cold nor warm. She didn’t need to breathe. Even her voice sounded less like Helena was talking and more like a fresh, vivid memory of when she had spoken.

“Because a soul doesn’t have a voice, Helena. To have a voice, you need to have a body.”

And she didn’t. Not a human one, at least. Jury was still out if she’d been stuck in another one.

“Alright. Stay calm, Helena. Panicking helps no one. You’re not necessarily fully dead girl, you have regeneration insurance. Maybe they just stuck your soul in a soul gem while your body was sleeping off whatever it was that nearly killed you.”

Helena knew she was blabbing a bit, but it helped her think, to talk out laud. She preferred using her husband as a sounding board but he wasn’t available.

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“Alright, what do we know?” Helena asked.

The bad: Helena had lost all contact with all of her bound spirits. None of them were responding. She had no tools, not even her implanted magicore. As far as she could tell, she was actually naked in this dark, but she could fix that. If she was just a soul, then experience in the Blue Dream would let her conjure at least a basic bodysuit for astral navigation and her emergency tool belt.

Helena never seriously thought she’d ever need to do that from nothing. Like some cave woman trying to smash rocks together to light a fire. Much like the spiritual benefits of the mantras, Helena didn’t think she’d need the knowledge any time soon. But she kept current on her emergency drills as part of her profession, which was now a life saver.

The last thing Helena wanted was to be caught in a sudden null zone or mana flare and be left helpless without her fancy enchanted tools when they drained or overloaded.

She was a Master Summoner. Conjuring was Helena’s bread and butter. Conjured tools would never measure up to proper, real enchanted ones. And they’d leave her at half tank, but with them, she’d be able to do a lot more. Much more than doing everything by hand and purely from her own mind.

That was the bad. She was, as far as she could tell, completely on her own. Which was pretty Gods be Damned terrible, and Helena was not one for casual cursing.

Now, the good? There wasn’t much. The mantras were working, so Helena wasn’t stuck in some helpless, half-awake half dream state, while she was ferried off for Judgement before an afterlife. Or into the wheel, to be wiped and sent back through reincarnation. “Or at the mercy of some soul slaver.”

She’d either been separated from her body through healing, soul or death magic, or she’d been directly reborn. Which would take Godly intervention.

The image of the Sydany God of Trials flashed through her mind, as it had been painted on the walls of her childhood’s home temple.

Helena couldn’t remember dying, or meeting any of the Reaper Gods… “so I’m either suppressing or not quite dead.”

The second would be much better. Another sign for it was that, if she’d been kidnapped and stuffed into a soul gem to keep her helpless, there’d be curses on it. On her. Curses that would respond to anything she tried, and feel… well… like shackles in this dark place.

Helena had, like every potent spell caster, gone through militia training. Which included interrogation resistance. Just the possibility of it happening for real made her shiver with unease.

If she was bound, she’d know. She wasn’t. “That’s good. That’s very good.” Her voice was a bit high, but she was under a lot of stress, dang it.

Her mana flowed freely… but the links that were supposed to go to her head and body, to her mind and heart were missing. That was bad. That was really, really bad.

You need regeneration to survive bad. Suspended in the Green Dream for recovery bad.

“Or I’m just dead.”

Which was the other option.

She was delaying. Helena knew she was delaying. There was a simple way to tell. The mother of two called up the diagrams for a basic light charm in her head. Casting anything with only her soul was hard, even for her. It took a decade of learning and another five years of practice for anyone to do it safely without the assistance of tools. Helena had fourteen years of schooling and another thirteen of practical work, as a Summon type earthmover and stone shaper in civil construction.

It took about five minutes for the full spell matrix to form in her soul. Once it was done, she went over it again, as she was supposed to. Just to be sure there were no leaks. Leaks were bad. In her current condition, possibly terrible.

Helena felt her lips dry out and she swallowed. They were only affectations, but her mantras had reminded her of every part of herself. So long as she remembered them, they’d stay. She didn’t want to lose even one. “That how it starts. Bless the Mystics for their teachings.”

Helena found herself tearing up at that. Immensely grateful for the utility she’d never thought she’d need. “If I couldn’t even cry anymore, I think I might lose it.”

The matrix lit up, as Helena carefully fed the spell pattern her mana. A soft white light illuminated the darkness, with a slight brown tint.

The light showed a space about as big as a family home. Except it was all red crystal, faceted, geometrical. For now, Helena kept the light soft, weak, not strong enough to pass through the revealed red walls.

She licked her lips, holding up her little light in one palm, surrounded by red mirrors on all sides.

“If it is some kind of direct reincarnation, you aren’t a Jinn. They come in rough and need decades to get all prettied up.” The walls were too smooth, geometrical, each an equal triangle. Helena considered, going through the options.

The jewelled space was silent, even after her light. Her heart dropped. That, more than anything, was the death kneel of her hopes for survival. If she was in a hospital, temple or grove, under watch, care, someone would have responded to her waking up. Someone would be ready, watching, at all times. If not for her waking, with the mantras, then for the light. Even if it was only a bound spirit.

There was no one. Just Helena and her new home.

Her hand went to her chest, where her heart ached. “Oh hells. I died.”

She couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember how. It happened. The soul was traumatised, it suppressed. “I forgot. I have to have forgotten.” She couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t want to. Waking up to find out she’d lost everything was horrible enough.

Helena blinked blurry eyes. “Clio was about to start her apprenticeship this year. I was going to help her with her lessons, make sure she learns the right ones.” She was only fourteen, taking her first steps to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

“Trair. Oh, Trair, what will you do?” Her son was a little dreamer. Only nine, just starting his schooling. Who’d help them with their magic lessons without her there? And the finances…

Zuvrul was a good man, a good father, hardworking but… he had no skill with mana. In a world increasingly running on magitech, his odd jobs and taxi service did not pay well. Not well enough to afford their house loans. It was fine when the household had a rising Master Summoner but now…

Her head suddenly hurt, as if someone had driven a spike of feedback right behind her eyes.

Wincing and in a lot of pain, Helena let the worries and memories go. She’d have to come back to them, but this was, it was… it wasn’t helping. She had to survive first. Survive, to return to them.

“Emergency measures Helena. Survival priorities. I don’t need food or water, not as a soul. Priorities, what were the priorities?” Helena tried to remember. The lessons on this were from back in her apprenticeship. Helena never thought she’d need them.

“Bodiless soul, how did it go? What are the differences from disaster relief? First come binds. I have none. I have to keep it that way.”

If her soul was in nothing more than a soul gem, then any semi-competent mage could force her cooperation by enchanting it. Freedom, freedom came first.

“Conjure tools second. Then, shelter. Hide, figure out where you are, location comes forth. Information. Wilderness or not?”

Both had their problems. If Helena was stuck somewhere in the wilds monsters were a concern. If she wasn’t… people could be better for her… or far worse. The worst thing a monster could do to her is break her gem. Or eat it.

A nasty, greedy mage could enslave her. Slavery was banned on Primdeval. Helena wasn’t supposed to worry about being taken and sold like some slave!

But the drumbeat was missing. It was gone. She couldn’t hear the drums anymore and it had been the background to her world ever since she opened her astral sight at the start of her formal apprenticeship.

That then was the final clue Helena had within her jewelled prison. The steady beating heart of her Homeworld was missing. “It’s possible I just can’t feel it, in here.” Possible, but not likely. Within a day of reaching out, she’d know for sure.

The steady drumbeat of Primdeval would mean she was still on her home. “Hammers and anvils, the endless beat of artifice, that’s Gur’un-al.” she recalled. The dwarves wouldn’t be keen on her, there’d be a price to pay for trespassing, but that was one of the least bad options. They were a civilised people, there were rules.

Slavery was banned on Gur’un-al and Primdeval. Helion Prime wasn’t worth mentioning. If Helena was on that verdant paradise world, someone would have already arrived to check on her and render aid, just from all the distress she’d felt. They would have felt it.

Which left the other four worlds of the Seven In Light.

None of them were great. Helion Prime, Gur’un-al and Primdeval were the first, second and third world from their life and magic giving sun. The further out one went, the closer the Shadow crept in and the worlds were less developed, backwards.

Kuglion was only just starting to develop magitech and Ritteracht was stuck in the dark ages of pure enchanting by hand.

The last two didn’t bear thinking of. Plumbur was a desert world filled with nothing but nomads and barbarians, only just starting to recover from their plunge into Shadow. And Erastus in Shade was a hell world. Holding off the Shadow, so the other six could stand in the Light. As was their duty, this cycle.

If Helena was on Erastus, someone or something would have found her by now. “I really hope I’m not under the Shade of the Shadow.” That would be bad.

Helena hoped she was on one of the first three, no matter how unreasonable that hope was for the first.

But she feared she was on the second half, closer to Shadow.

“I have to go back, I can’t just abandon them.” Helena murmured, feeling the realisation crystalize. “Death or no death, I’m going home. Be you men, spirits, shadow beast or god, help me, or get out of my way.”

No one answered her. If she was on Primdeval, one of her native Gods would have answered.

Her light flared with her determination as Helena revealed her location, psyching herself up for a fight.

She was greeted by dirty water and a sewer tunnel. By scattering insects and softly squeaking rats.

By two dead bodies, slumped in the gutter.

Helena screamed, only just managing to muffle her fright with both hands. Which also covered the light.

Whatever had killed them might still be around and Helena did not want to be found while still helpless. “I need to tool up, arm up, now.”