36: Protect the Dead
Gallen’s words seemed off to Drenak, and he told the others “Be on your guard! Last test is protecting the dead from things that would attack them as we escort the souls back. I think he plans to spring it on us during this trip.”
Gallen called back over his shoulder “You really are paranoid, aren’t you?”
Drenak called out to him, “And you’d do something like that! You’d even claim it is to make sure we are always on guard!”
“That is a really twisted way of thinking. However, it doesn’t work so well when people expect it.”
He had Claire lead them away from the graveyard and back into the Astral. It should have been a simple 2 minute walk, but one minute into the walk shapes came out of the mists and tried to attack them.
Drenak had his chain ready and lashed out at the attackers immediately. The other two students were taken by surprise and had to be protected by Gallen. The souls were all convicted killers and tough prisoners. They might be dead, but they knew how to fight.
Most of the attackers were killed or driven off. However, the prisoners managed to take one captive, and demonstrated to anything watching on why they should not attack that group.
Claire puked her guts out and fainted at the horror. Faryat looked totally disgusted. Drenak just said “They chose to take the risks when they attacked.”
Gallen smiled at him. “I said it didn’t work so well when people expected it. I never said it didn’t work.”
When the prisoners had finished with the soul devourer and rejoined them, they had smirks on their faces. The soul devour was still alive, but mentally destroyed, pleading to be killed.
All of them except Claire could feel beings out there looking on in horror and disgust. The only reason Claire couldn’t was because she was too stunned in shock to feel or sense anything. Faryat was helping her along.
Back at the building the executed guys looked around and one of them whistled. “Nice digs you have here. If we thought we had a chance to take over, we would have already killed you for it!
Gallen smiled. “I know. And since you are inside my turf, I suggest you move along before I have some Deities of torment practice on you! If you reincarnate, you may be able to covert to them, and merge with them, or possible become one.”
They laughed and passed through.
Gallen made sure they all got sealed away.
Going back he found Claire only starting to recover.
He sat down next to Claire as she was on the ground, slumped against a wall. “I don’t like those people. I detest them, and anyone who takes joy in tormenting innocent people for their own pleasure.”
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She slowly turned her head and looked t him “Then why do you help them?”
She was totally in shock and confused.
Gallen was deadly serious. “Because if I don’t then evil groups can claim we are opposing such as them. There is more: when souls in an area build up, they may start to affect the local area. They might possess people. They could even manage to be reborn with all their memories.”
“How? How can they manage to be reborn? I don’t believe they can!”
Gallen calmly told her “There are many ways this can happen, but they could not do most of them. That is beside the point.”
“What is the point? Why make this whole multiverse if you are going to let such as them in?”
Gallen sighed. “There are many schemes that Felinia and I have. Even ideas we had in passing that we merged when making this.
“The simple answer that actually covers the core basics is that we are doing this to help others. For that we need to be neutral. If we sided with Good, the forces of Evil would consider us a threat and destroy us. If we sided with Order, Chaos and possibly evil would unite to destroy us. We can help a lot of people, but we have to follow the rules that have been made. The rules state we must be neutral.”
“But why take us to those guys? Why recruit them?”
Gallen sighed. “A few reasons. I needed to see if you could stand to act neutral with them. You seemed able to at first, but when you saw their nature, you showed your inability to. I had to do this, because neutrality is something we can’t risk. Secondly, we were being watched, and other beings would have seen what happened. This will tell them we are not favoring Good over Evil.
“Another issue is that lingering spirits affect where they are. I wanted them removed. One of those recruited was actually a gang leader who was starting to learn how to draw power from underlings in life. That made him arrogant enough to get sloppy, which led to him getting caught and executed. I wanted him gone before he learned how to drain power from other spirits. Can you imagine what one of them would be like if they could drain the power from others?”
Claire shuddered.
Gallen nodded. “Yes. They may have been recruited for reincarnation, but they are also contained and may face having their memories erased. During their next life they will have a chance to live good lives, and that bastard won’t remember that trick. When he died, he most likely won’t be able to use that trick either.”
Claire faced him in horror. “You set this up as a scheme?”
Gallen nodded. “I hate my job. I really do. I hate what would happen if I don’t do it even worse. What I want is to be able to have fun, but being responsible for things like this. However, if I want to protect the dead from things like that, I need to do this.”
Claire asked him “Why don’t you quit and let someone else take over? Someone who doesn’t need to do these schemes and helping people like those prisoners?”
Gallen asked her “Who? Who can I get to do the job? If you can think of someone who can do it, then tell me because I’m pretty damn tempted to! It has to be someone who I can trust to do the job, and who won’t piss off different groups into destroying us.”
Claire was silent for a bit, and Gallen asked her “Since I come from the same multiversal spectrum as you, I think you may understand this question. Why did the Christian God allow Satan to exist if he is all powerful?”
Claire frowned, “I don’t know why. I’ve asked priests and ministers, but they don’t know either.”
Gallen told her “I’ve read my world’s version of the Bible, and think I know the answer. The answer is that despite him acting so horrible, Satan actually serves that God. He tests souls and those that pass may enter Heaven. After all, if they are not tested, those who are Evil in their heart but were never faced temptation to actually d something would enter Heaven.
“These systems have to deal with testing souls, and dealing those who fail. Some may seek to redeem the souls, but others just punish them for eternity or destroy them. It is part of how the systems work. We can try to set up the system to help who it can, but we are restricted.
“If you can think of any ideas to help, tell me when you think of them. Until then, this is the best I can think of to protect the souls of the dead.”