"Mmmmmmmmm, why am I still so tired?" I smacked my lips together a couple of times trying to remove the dryness from my mouth before rolling over. "Hmm?" I felt my body hit someone as I tried to roll onto my back. "Huh?" Why am I being squeaked from both sides?
I opened my eyes and felt my heart jump into my throat as lying just in front of me was a monster with a pitch-black body. I felt unable to move as the monster noticed that I was awake and I felt it staring straight through me and pierced my soul with its eyes. Above me, hundreds of animal skulls stared at me with hollow eyes, examining me like prey. Blood began to pour from each of the hundreds of empty sockets staring at me as a murderous aura erupted from the monster. Each head began to fight one another trying to get closer to me before red filled my vision as one of the heads managed to reach me. I somehow managed to move my hands and I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.
"What an awful nightmare." I stared blankly at the area where the nightmarish monster was just a moment ago with doubt, scanning each shadow that existed in the almost completely dark cave, no longer illuminated by magical crystals. I silently cursed whatever spirit thought hunting me at night was a good idea before taking another look at my surroundings.
In front of me, Kia peacefully slept, resting her head on my arm. She purred quietly like Shiro sometimes did but unlike my guard, the necromancer seemed to be talking to herself. I tried to listen to what the sleeping girl wearing a long black dress was saying but all of her words came out as unintelligible murmur. I rested my hand on Kia's bare shoulder and began to massage it as her body suddenly shook, the not-nekos slowly sunk back into her peaceful dreaming before letting out a never-ending purr.
"Purrfection." I giggled a little finding the strange girl's behaviour funny and played a little on the purring instrument before I noticed a pair of bright blue hands wrapped around my hips. "How am I meant to interpret this?"
I wasn't used to being squeaked between two people who looked like they could sleep quite a while longer. And Shiro dares to call me lazy in the mornings! To add to the problem my mind couldn't get used to fire being harmless and even slightly cool instead of being burning hot.
I twisted my body backwards and I was greeted by the most beautiful face in existence, ME. Well, not really. The last time I checked I wasn't made from soul fire and bone plates but still, I couldn't see anything else other than myself. Spark even went as far as to make the little fireballs inside the eye sockets to be greenish-light blue copying my emerald eyes as best as she could.
"Hi." Spark whispered to me with a frighteningly similar voice. Spirits probably can't sleep the way Kia and I do and she must have spent the entire time practising speaking. Should I congratulate her or feel offended that she is copying me?
"Hi." I answered back, in the far corner of the room I noticed a small black beetle cleaning its wings. I wonder how he got here?
"Do I sound good?" Spark's voice went through one last change before the frighteningly similar became exactly the same to my voice.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked after I gave Spark a head pat which seemed she really enjoyed.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Because I like you?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you should copy me."
"Ehhh... I was forced to quickly make a form after I jumped into the Spiritpool and you were the first thing I thought of." Spark sounded a little apologetic as she spoke. She then lifted her long tails above us and them into a fan seemingly trying to show how different she is.
*Sigh* Why is that one of the things making you different from me?
"Did something happen when we were sleeping? There had to be some consequences of destroying a Spiritpool and killing its Guardian."
"I'm very young and don't know how things work but as soon as we killed the Guardian, all the spirits who were allowed to feed from it quickly rushed here and then they left."
"You can't just stop like that." Such a horrible storyteller.
"They came here, saw that all the mana was gone and the pool was destroyed and quickly left to find other sources of mana."
"They were not angry? I know I would be."
"No, fighting over nothing would be pointless and thanks to me gaining so many levels I'm now the most powerful spirit around. I'm so happy about it," Spark suddenly squeezed me and I felt like I was going to be popped like a zit if she didn't stop." It took me one hundred years to scrounge up enough mana to level myself twice and I-I-I *Sniff* n-never thought I would reach level 10." Spark pressed her head against me as she squeezed even harder.
"Led go, le- go."
"Oh, sorry."
I was about to speak again before I felt something incredibly cold touch my back. "Ibis?" Kia's voice came from above me as she climbed onto my shoulder. She looked like she was still asleep with both of her eyes closed as she seemed to be searching for something. "Ibis?" Her voice grew louder and more desperate as she rested her entire body against me.
"Kia?"
"Not the line...Uhhh?" The girl automatically responded before noticing that I wasn't Iris. She opened her eyes halfway and slowly turned her head from side to side before standing up, dragging my hand behind her. "We are going." As soon as I tried to resist being kidnapped by the barefoot necromancer, I heard the girl grumble something under her nose, no matter how hard I resisted the tiny girl didn't stop.
Kia stopped at the door which slammed behind us when we came and put her hand on the stone slab.
"Wait!" Spark shouted causing the sleeping girl to turn around with an elven frown stuck on her forehead. "That cavern is flooded, something happened in the middle stratum."
Kia's frown deepened even more as she raised her hand again before staring at me with a soul-piercing stare. After a moment of staring at me, the girl huffed with annoyance as she let my hand slip from her iron grip.
"How do we leave?" Kia grumbled.
"That way. It should lead you safely to the middle stratum," Spark walked up to me and patted me. "I think I can steal this idea... now you should see a path toward the undead and demi-human waiting for you." My system was filled with blinding white light before I stared at a familiar fog line stretching toward Shiro and Iris presumably.
"Spark, how do you know where we want to go?" For a bizarre reason, my question caused Spark to fidget in place.
"I might have seen you giving mana to other spirits and stuck around you for... a very long time."
"Oh."
"We are going to Ibis, now." Kia suddenly pulled my hand again as she made all her clothes disappear into thin air and looked unbothered by having to walk barefoot on the hard rock.
"Spark, are you not going?" I stared at the beautiful firespirit who waved at us instead of leaving.
[System Notification]
[Greater Brimstone Lantern Fire Spirit you had bonded with had broken the bond linking you together.]
"Spark?"
"I'm sorry but you can't sustain me with your level. I wish I could stay but I have to find a source of mana big enough to keep me alive," I didn't know why but my vision became blurry as Spark hugged me. What is happening to me, I don't want Spark to leave me. "I will always be thankful to you and I will be carrying the memory of you until I perish," Even as she tried to calm me down she too began to grow emotional. "As soon as you become strong enough I will instantly find you and bond with you, even if you don't want me too." She flashed a bright smile I could never replicate before disappearing leaving behind a pile of bone-white plates.
I snatched the delicate-looking mask made from bone-white material before it could hit the floor and stared at it a bit. “Goodbye friend… see you soon.” I hope she heard me.
"Thanks, Kia." I turned toward the grumpy girl who stopped pulling me and waited patiently for me to calm down a bit.
"Grumble, grumble." The mage who had caused all of this to happen grumbled aloud as she stretched her hands toward me ordering me to pick her up. "To Iris."
"And Shiro."
"Grumble." I waited for the girl to find a comfortable spot on me before I stepped forward accompanied by the sound of crunching as Kia shamelessly ate a brown circle on my shoulder.