Sachihiro

I take two steps away from the old man leaning on the walking stick now spotting a different face, ‘never trust a spirit’.

Words spoken by a woman possessed by a spirit she seemed to have a stable symbiotic relationship with, words that have always stuck with me. But as old and powerful as spirits actually are I know how limited they can be when manifested physically, and one of those limits is the inability to directly lie when making a bargain.

Still, visions of the thing Eros is having its way with me come to mind; I shiver, removing my hand from my zanpakutō’s hilt. The man-thing stands before me not having moved a muscle, the thing known as Phosphorus still looking at me through his eyes, another shiver involuntarily goes through me. I swallow my saliva and flare Spirit Aura around me but its immediately extinguished by the thing before me. I take another step back but the door closes behind me with a loud crash.

Eery eyes gaze at me.

‘’Your life is in your hands,’’ the words are spoken lightly but land heavily on me.

You’ve dealt with these creatures many times before Sachi, you’re a trained sorcerer and spiritist in your own right. I tell myself as I try to collect my nerves, this thing’s aura must be making me nervous. I try to push my aura out of my body but its like trying to trying to shout after exhaling my breath away.

‘’I have a contracted spirit creature,’’ I swallow saliva heavy in my mouth. ‘’It has a body, a human body. I don’t know how exactly it came to be,’’ an experiment by a fat perverted 200 year old sorcerer. ‘’But I imagine it would be no trouble for you to confiscate that body for yourself if I summon that being here,’’ why am I sweating? I take a breath to calm myself trying to take in my surrounding buts its pointless with how dark it is outside my awareness.

‘’Summon your creature,’’ the man-thing says after a moment of silence. Is it weird that I haven’t seen him blink yet, wait, shit that’s a different face again. My hands land on Kata and Razor for comfort, I’m not 100% and I can’t draw my zanpakutō but if I have to die I’ll die fighting. No way is this thing getting my body, no way. I look around again taking a step back so I lean against the closed door.

‘’Like I said, I want a few things in return,’’ think Sachi think, what do I want? What I really want actually is to get out of here but I have to be specific, and how trustworthy are those visions? The thing, Eros/Erotica/ Cupid had a tentacle around my waist. I have to take everything I hear and see as a lie. No, they can’t lie, as a half truth.

But if I take anything I saw seriously then my priorities need to shift, it isn’t getting home that I need to focus most urgently on but getting my family out of the shit I got them into by worshiping that fucken’ thing. Do the Brothel priests and priestesses know how tightly they wound themselves to this thing with the rituals taught there? Where do these things even come from?

‘’Choose your next words carefully human, you may have something of value. But keep in mind that I could always take your body by force if the gain outweighs the cost...’’

Choose my words carefully. I have something of value. It can force itself into me but it would cost it. So whatever I ask for must be easier to provide than it would cost it to wrestle me for my body? I breakdown the words in my mind trying to find any hidden meanings or innuendos beneath the obvious meaning.

I want to be released from the spiritual ties that bind me, I want my family released from them. I want to be with my family home so we can wait out the madness of the world together, safe. I want us to not just survive all this but to flourish in terms of riches and power. Do I just say that though, am I to just give this creature the desires of my heart like some imbecile?

‘’What assurances can I get that you won’t just take what you want and kill me anyways, or double cross me in some other way that I can’t immediately think of?’’ I ask moving left, exploring my new surroundings as best I can.

‘’If I gain this body you provide I promise not to harm you or work against you in any way except in defence of my interests.’’ The words are laced with spirit and they gather and hover over me like a swam of invisible bees, I almost gawk at them in the spiritual spectrum of awareness but quickly accept them into my spirit intuitively. They land on me and disappear into my spirit, a new thread blooms within my spiritual awareness like an tiny egg ready to be incubated.

I didn’t know I could do that but without a doubt in my mind I know that this thing can’t break its word to me without severe consequences to itself, are those consequences enough to disway betrayal? Here goes...

I want release for me and my family from the spirits that have any form of claim on us, ''I want freedom from spirits’’ I pronounce each word carefully lacing my words with spirit as well. I want my whole family safe at home together, but I will settle for the best means to get that done, ''I want the power to safely transverse long distances quickly with my allies,’’ I explain quickly. Mindful of not making impossible requests but putting it out there if its a possibility, I don’t know this thing’s limits after all.

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‘’I want to be paid what this service I do you is worth-‘’

‘’You ask too much!’’ The words screech into my ears scrambling my brain, I seize, falling to my knees.

I catch myself on the rough stone floor, panting completely drained. What the fuck kind of attack was that? I try and fail to coalesce mana within me; blood drips on the floor below me. My blood.

Warmth spreads from stomach outwards, it blooms like an explosion in my chest as my heart pumps harder. I feel Honour in Death unseal from her sheath with a click, who does this fuck think he is? My next breath is cold as calm fills me, I could have gotten so much from this deal. Gotten rid of two spirits and gained myself. But now I have to kill this thing, strength fills me as I stand unsheathing Honour in Death with a silent wail-

‘’Insolence,’’ the words are spoken without care, thrown like a used rag.

Something happens, I projectile puke out my guts! Pain, everything is pain. I’m against the stone floor with a house crushing me into the ground.

I’m released, cutting around me bursting out a Spirit Oppression roaring my outrage.

‘’You don’t know your place,’’ my exploded Oppression is caught in a bubble that shrinks back into me choking like a swallowed tongue. I rattle as an implosion happens within me, I pee myself having swallowed the Rage as well as the spirit oppression I just sent out. Is that smoke coming from my ears?

I am such a fuckup, misery, shear misery fills me and I sob on the stone floor. Shivering I pull my knees to my chest trying to decrease the pain of the burn inside me whilst bringing my knees up for protection. Why am I suck a fuck up? Why am I not doing anything right, having doubts about decisions I have already made! Life is so hard, confusing, there is no one to tell me which way to go, what to do, how best to be.

I’ve fucked up my children...; did I really think becoming an acolyte of a religion I didn’t fully understand a good idea? Debase myself in those rituals; by bowing and worshipping a sex god, tying myself to something by worshiping I have made Eros greater than myself. How could I not have seen the spiritual contracts I was tying myself to having gone through Spiritus lessons and having a contracted spirit of my own?

Now I am this thing’s contracted creature, this deity’s... thing! Worse I brought it home with me, how could I have been so stupid?! Of course, the spiritual illness that we suffered! Inducing lust in an entire household, is that not what happened every seven days in the Brothel Temple? By making this thing one of my gods I have infected my whole household, is Hannah not safe even in death? What have I done? What have I done?!

Did the Conclave know how mired with these inhuman creatures I would have to be in Tiba? Did they send me knowingly into the debt of a spirit no one living can fully understand? I’m such an idiot, an idiot in so many things even though I am old by the standards my people had just three decades ago. I am a grandfather for Gaia’s sake, spirits beyond, where is my foresight?! Fuck, am I still invoking the names of these unknown creatures?

{Misery}.

Am I going insane? I’m insane, it was always going to be this way. There world has always been a bit odd to me and one day it would find out I didn’t belong and reject me. I’ve been rejected by Gaia, why else is all this happening to me? Why else don’t I feel grounded in my orientation of space and time, I have diverged too far from the path I was meant to walk. I am lost. My children are lost, my wives are lost, my whole family is out wondering, lost. What have I done, what have I done?!

*

Wilson the Acolyte

I watch the warrior wrap himself into foetal position and start rocking and sobbing on the floor experiencing the backlash of his own attack.

If the human is to be useful to me it must know its place, ensure it doesn’t die.

The meaning not the words bloom in my mind and the presence fades until only I am looking at the sobbing man completely broken on the floor. I walk towards the discarded blade on the floor, it vibrates threateningly as I am about to touch it, I step back. This man must be a great warrior to survive in this tomb intact for so long. The Ardet Grave Guards are said to have been chosen from the pharaohs best guards.

I imagine they’ve lost a step since being mummified some 900 years ago but not to the extent that a single 2nd Tier Awakened to make it out alive. There must be at least three Moorish pharaohs in there guarded by at least 300 Ardet Guards each, well a lot could have happen with time.

‘’Wastup ap tan,’’ the warrior whimpers. I lean closer to listen. ‘’What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?’’ he whimpers over and over whilst cradling himself like a delirious child.

‘’Must have been a strong attack,’’ I move away, placing a hand on the doors, power flows through me aligning the hidden scripts sealing the door back into stone. I take a breath and sigh joyfully, still coming down from the escasy of having the Lord manifest through me like that.

I may as well do something productive as I wait. I go on my knees prostrating myself, fully open to the spiritual I send worship towards the Lord Phosphorus. Having just basked in its presence my connection to the divine flows freely, my spirit rejoices like a child called home, my body trembles in esctatic humility. The might of Phosphorus, the cleverness of the Great Thief, the Scavenger of Gods, the Survivor of a Fallen Pantheon.

Glory to the spirit of Phosphorus, the Unseen One that watches from the formless world between worlds. Having it so intimately intertwined within me gives me insights into its might, not even a month ago I was nothing but a scribe. An old man of 65 that never amounted to much in his previous life but to jot down the accomplishments of better men. Now I’ve Awakened twice, reborn in the forge of mana but also awakened to the world of the spiritual I’ve been veiled from my whole life.

Now I am the First Acolyt of Phosphorus, blessed with secrets of the occult.

The silence of the warrior brings my attention back to him and I find him fast asleep in his own urine, poor fool. Thinking himself equal to these new gods, thinking himself capable of getting not just himself but others out from under the world orders. But he will learn, for whatever reason the Lord needs this one, he will learn his place eventually, I go back to my knees.