Elske watched as the battle went on, looking for ghosts on the field of dead followers they were fighting upon. One rose up, and unobserved by the masses, who were focused on the gods, it crawled towards the prophet of Tuzo, arriving just as the woman was cutting into the soil as the tree roots approached. The ghost laid a hand on the woman’s cloak, as if lending her strength, leaning into the decaying woman. And as the prophet flared in response to the root's climb up her torso, the ghost disappeared out of existence, simply blinking out, gone. Elske’s breath quickened with excitement, was this a validation of the ghost consumption hypothesis? He would have to see more than one instance of course, there could be other explanations, but this was the first real indication that the hypothesis could be correct. His mind was racing with ideas. Was there a way to see more souls beyond the resentful ghosts? His work would be so much easier if he had been able to see the souls of the entire battlefield, rather than just waiting for a ghost to show up. It was worth looking into.

Returning to Voche’s stall, he found her already back, cheerfully hailing the others returning to the square, summoning them to look at her goods. ‘Holy man!’ she greeted him, ‘A couple just came back by to thank you for their talisman! They said placing it over their house was successful in protecting it from the vengeful spirit that had been plaguing them.’ Elske looked at her bewildered, ‘Successful?’ How could the talismen possibly be successful, they were just some old script he had thought to be rather pretty. Perhaps it was a placebo effect? ‘Yup,’ Voche chirped, just a smug that he had unwittingly demonstrated the value of her services. ‘See, sometimes people just need a little boost,’ she smiled.

Elske walked about in a daze the rest of the day. Too much had happened, with the holy battle, observing the ghost’s consumption, and the possibility of his talisman actually working. Despite the gravity of his hypothesis being potentially confirmed, it was the issue of his talisman that took up most of his thoughts. Perhaps he should review the old scriptures, see if there was something in there that he had missed.

He flipped through the texts he had brought with him on his journey, surprisingly light books despite the gravity of their contents, each page whisper thin, almost translucently visible from the opposite side.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Wait, perhaps that was intentional. He lifted the book to the light. The combination of the two pages revealed another passage entirely, the glyphs on each side revealing a third combinatorial glyph with a hidden message. He laughed, a huff of disbelief. Here he had been carrying on for years referencing them and they had an additional, different message this whole time. He sat down at the desk in his small cramped apartment. He had research to do.

Well. That was unexpected. It turned out reading the scripts intentionally aroused a meditative state, one that brought ghosts more into focus. And perhaps even the more pure souls if he concentrated enough, though that would take time and practice. This would be revolutionary for testing his hypothesis. Simply incredible that this had been in the text the whole time. A surprising side effect of the meditation was a sort of blurring of his senses, a synesthetic sense allowing him to hear colors and feel the temperature of smells, thrusting his sensory experience of his room into a whole new realm of twisting sounds and heightened scents. And a particularly interesting experience of seeing time, a subtle looping of actions, a faint blur, like an after image of movement, only projected in the future as well. A fourth dimension now cracked open to him, and with more practice, the possibilities were endless.

However, if ghosts were the source of magic, what then, he wondered, breaking out of his trance as he closed his texts. Would he be willing to destroy them in pursuit of the power of the gods? He wasn’t sure. He knew he wasn’t the most naturally empathetic of people, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have morality, boundaries for his actions he would not cross. And this might be one of them. But just observing might be alright, he reasoned. But what about knowing, after he did observe, would he be morally compelled to do something about it? He had access to this whole other dimension of godhood that no one else knew about, only an ancient text written by an old mystic.

Had the mystic felt as alone as he did, as conflicted about what to do with the knowledge he had accrued? He was the only one with access to another realm of existence, on an elevated plane, walking through time rather than just space. He had felt alone his whole life, as a child prodigy his days were filled with isolation from children and adults alike. Fitting with neither. But this was a different type of loneliness. One that could be remedied. But should it?

Did he have a moral obligation to spread the gospel? Should he even? What would humans do with such knowledge? As imperfect as the gods were, he knew humans could be just as flawed, would the damage they might cause be on his head? He suddenly felt the full weight, the possible repercussions of his work bear down on him. He reeled, this was too much to carry, too much for one person to decide on their own. Who did he have to discuss it with? Certainly not Voche. Not his family, no one that he knew was qualified to make such a heavy decision for all of mankind. He was so alone. Trapped on a pinnacle of his own success.