There was something changing inside Rye, she knew that much. The world was much clearer now that she had woken up, and yet it all felt so small and far away, like she was the only person in a world made of glass. She did not know if it was better that she could act and think before feeling. She did not particularly mind. But despite never feeling as calm ever since she had woken up in the maze, an inner restlessness compelled her to do and be more than she was.
And so, she did what she did best: she filled up the day with distractions.
Rye grinned happily at her newly acquired essences. With months and months to think on what she wanted to do with her boons, she already knew what kind of essences she wanted. Initially, she had wanted to turn her [Dream-haze projection] into a boon that could assist Elia directly. One big weakness it had was the range. The second one was that as a ghostly mist, she couldn’t physically interact with the world directly.
To fix both problems, Rye had planned to get an essence of travel and an essence of physicality. The man formerly known as Harris, aka Mahdi, only had the first essence in stock. But while she was perusing the alternatives, that was when a truly divine inspiration hit her.
[Mind/Soul] Dream-haze projection [Rare] [Essence of travel] [Essence of possession]
Your mind has always been less constrained than your body, awake or asleep. You can strain your spirit to project parts of yourself outwards unto infinity, with an upkeep cost of reservoir scaling with your distance from your anchor. The cost increases with the spiritual weight of the parts. Concentration increases maximum distance while flow determines projection speed and channels determine projection accuracy.
You may choose a body to possess, pitting your spirit against its conviction. Should you succeed, you may turn the body into your new anchor. The more familiar the target is, the easier it is for you to control it. Objects or bodies without a spirit cannot resist this possession.
With a name like ‘essence of possession’, Rye had expected a far more nefarious change to her boon. The wording implied it did work on people, so maybe a more evil person would have enjoyed a lot. Hopefully her plan would still work.
She opened her eyes and conjured an arm. It was made of a smooth glass-like ice with a blue tint coloring it deeply. Rye was especially proud of the detailed fingertips, though no one would be fooled into thinking this was a human limb. It was too rough, the surfaces immaculate and geometrical.
Regardless, she cast her [Dream-haze projection], projecting the part of her spirit she associated with her right arm into the ice. Her real arm slumped, hanging from her side as if it wasn’t hers. Moments later, the ice-arm jittered, shaking with movement.
“Success!” With this, she could conjure an extra set of floating limbs while Elia was in control. With those, she could cast, hold a shield, or a spear. If she honed her skills further, maybe she could conjure an entire body.
She bent her third ice-arm with a groan of effort. The ice cracked, then fully snapped the limb in two. She called out in surprise and no small amount of pain, like a sharp prick of an icicle to her forearm.
Right. She couldn’t conjure it all in one piece. The limb needed to be articulated. They did not require muscles or organs, just a shell and functioning joints. Ball joints maybe? She would have to check on how viable that was to create and implement. Maybe she should ask Kasimir for an apprenticeship in crafting artificial bodies…
“Um, Rye?” Karla whispered with a thin voice. She moved up a scooch, sitting right next to Rye. “When you said Elia doesn’t love me, what… what did you mean?”
Rye blinked. Right, she had almost forgotten to clarify. Silly her. She clasped Karla’s hands in hers and put on a sad smile.
“Karla, you are the most adorable little button, and I think it is really endearing watching you try and impress Elia. But she can’t reciprocate the feelings you have for her. She is so wise in the ways of the undead, but when it comes to romance, she is blind as a brick. You should consider her like a small, easy to startle deer.”
“A deer?”
“Exactly! Now imagine, Elia, stalking the depths of the jungle, every bush possibly hiding a predator,” Rye squished against Karla, throwing out an arm to paint a vast, world-spanning picture. That way, she could be even more convincing! “You have to be careful not to startle her. Take it slow. Feed her snacks, like a pokemon. Only then will she be able to trust you. Do you follow me?.”
“Umm, I’m not sure I do.”
“Also! You can try the opposite. Rush her down, blow her away with so much love that she’ll be in a state of shock. Before she knows what happened, you sitting at her side, and her stroking your hair will have not just become normal, but desirable for her.” Rye grabbed Karla by both her shoulders, turning her until they were face to face. “I’m not going to lie, bending that noodle is going to take a lot of elbow-grease and sweat. And now is not the time anyways. Instead of crushing on people, you should be the one crushing people.”
Karla blinked, in what was no doubt a great-idea overload of epic proportions. “I think I am going to ask the attendant for a second opinion.”
She went to leave, but found a hand on her shoulder holding her back.
“Karla. Communication is the key of every functional relationship. And you have not been communicating enough with yourself.”
“Myself?”
“The representation of the shard living inside your head, silly. N.O.T Karla. She comes out every now and again, says something weird, then goes back to sleep with you none the wiser.”
Karla’s face went through a variety of emotions, starting at confusion, then eventually arriving at anger and indignance. “She’s been ruining my entire life! I-I am… so angry, but I also want to know why. Why, in spite of all my efforts, was she so dead set on making me look like a monster?”
“Maybe just ask her?” Rye put a hand to her forehead. “Here I’ll help you two along.”
She drew on her power, letting it wash over Karla and forcing her into that dream filled with a sea of blood. She pulled and pushed and… nothing much happened.
“Do you feel tired?” she asked Karla.
“A little.”
How much mental tenacity did this girl have? Scratch that, how was her conviction winning against her greater shard? Maybe her own greater shard gave her resistance. Yes, maybe she just needed to try harder.
Karla yawned. One last push.
“I’m going to… go ahead and…” the princess laid down on her side and promptly clocked out.
“Don’t worry, every hero starts small.” Rye patted her hand gently.
Karla nodded, muttering something in her sleep.
A tinge of something jumped up in Rye’s chest as she left the girl alone, but she crushed it mercilessly. Returning to why she went to the trouble of going this far out, Rye turned to Pascal the metal carver, who had already finished his inspection of the broken Moonlight sword and the tarakon scale.
“Mmmh, what a rare pair of curiosities you have brought me,” Pascal said. “I can craft this, mend the greatsword’s blade.”
Rye opened her mouth, but paused. Moonlight was already incredibly heavy, and that was just with half the blade. It was clearly meant for the hands of someone as large as a giant, or Partlight at the very least. Did Elia even know how to fight with unwieldy, huge weapons? More importantly, would she want to? This was going to be her present to Elia after all, for taking care of her for so long, it had to be perfect.
“Mister smith, Pascal, sir. I would like to ask you to reforge the weapon completely into an… a kitchen implement.”
Pascal’s bushy brows rose a tad. “As in a… bread-knife?”
Weap-pon, Zippo the helpful slug whispered in her mind. Boon. In-tent.
Intent was important for Elia’s boon. She couldn’t ask for a two-meter broadsword, call it a butter knife, and expect the boon to work. The tool had to be made with a shape that fit its purpose, and that purpose had to be focused on the kitchen.
“Well, it needs to be more of a steak-knife. A long, sharp steak knife. With a handguard,” she said as diplomatically as possible. “Some of the ingredients will be alive. Some. Very few. It needs to be a kitchen tool.”
“A kitchen knife. A long blade.” He hummed thoughtfully, like gravel grumbling over gravel. “I can do that. Yes, with the materials provided, I can make a great weapon– err, kitchen tool .”
“Alright. What will it cost me?” Rye asked. After purchasing two essences, her soul pouch was looking a bit thinner.
“Only the souls needed to power the furnace. I must carve weapons. It is my duty as a smith. It shall be done within a day.”
A day. Just barely enough time.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
She sighed, then sent him a few thousand souls.
Soul count: 11,394
She watched them drift in a small swirl before being sucked up in the apparatus. Rye should have felt something watching them go. But it all seemed so distant, so detached from herself. Was this how Elia felt when she had arrived in a new world? The poor, blessed thing was all she had between her and the coldness of it all.
She looked down and thought that just one little gift was not going to be enough. There had to be more she could do. More.
“What does Elia like?” she muttered.
Souls, her little brainslug echoed. Loot. Ham-burger.
All true, but Rye was already gifting her loot, and she didn’t know where to get a hamburger. She peered out across the maze, its infinite corridors, infinite pathways wending and winding unto the horizon. It was drawing some part of her in, calling to her.
There was something in it that belonged to her, some part Elia had lost. If only she took a couple steps, she could find it, feel more whole, and then–
The Wolf materialized straight in front of her face. “A word, little godling.”
Rye blinked. “Godling?”
“You are immortal and you possess a greater shard. Were it not for your evident lack in experience and skill, you would have made a good candidate for a lesser god already. Perhaps I should call you cousin.”
She blinked. The simple act of talking to this man brought the radiance of the word ‘god’ down, or perhaps into a different light. “Is that all a god is? Someone with power and a piece of pottery in their skull?”
He laughed darkly, but didn’t answer her question otherwise. “I need to get to my body. But as I am, its warden will surely snuff me out.”
“Which means you need me.” Rye didn’t see why she had to help him now of all times. Rhuna could attack the pact at any moment, and Elia was on vacation. On the other hand, she did have a full day to burn waiting on Elia’s sword.
She mulled it over, leaning first to one side, then to the other.
“Is it close?” she asked. “And what can you offer me in exchange?”
“In the fetid bog, down by the river, my body writhes, tortured, yet not broken.” He lifted a hand, a crooked, gauntleted finger pointing down the path to Castle Glenrock. “As for what I can offer, it is a promise. When you free me, I am yours, and you may ask any one thing of me, so long as it does not hurt my first oath to my distant lady.”
Rye eyed him for a long while. It was not his words that made her agree, nor any sense to help those in need. It was the need to go out and dig her claws into the bowels of reality and dredge from it a sense of meaning, a sense of sense.
“I accept,” she said and barely had she said as much when her handy haze drifted into view.
Valti looks upon you with a smile
You have been blessed. Your five senses gain a minor increase for the next 25 hours.
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“This swamp stinks,” Zane grumbled.
“Really?” Rye pretended to take a whiff. It smelled worse than usual, yes, but if she imagined it was a sea of rose petals, then it was a lot more bearable. “To me, it smells like opportunity. And the only way to change it is to move on.”
They were moving on; had been even for quite some time. The swamp abutting the path to Glenrock was the kind you could not walk on, but had to wade through, which gave all kinds of swampy critters permission to slither around and in between their legs.
“I think it’s quite alright.” Cesare was happily floating on a big wad of cloud-fluff beside them. The young master of the thieves guild took offense to this, as he pretended to stumble, ripping the cloud-float and the pink man down with him.
Cesare, who was now also covered in swamp, stared at Zane. Zane laughed and for his troubles gained a poofy circular cloud wig in bright pink.
Through the ribbing in the back, Rye trudged along through the thick muck. She had a feeling that something was following them beneath the hip-high water. The worry built in her chest until suddenly, she stopped.
“What is it?” Karla asked.
“Umm,” Rye ummed. “Not to worry, but the water might not just smell awful.”
You have been poisoned
She rubbed her lips, and her hand came back slightly bloody. This was not a problem she could imagine away. “Aw beans.”
“I have antidotes,” Cesare said, offering a pouch with greenish powder.
“Thanks, but I’ve got my own,” said Zane, popping a greenish vial into his mouth. “Besides, that looks more poisonous than anything in the swamp.”
Karla trudged along behind them. She looked more severely impacted by whatever she had seen in the dream than by the poison. “I… I feel fine. I think it’s because of your low tenacity, Rye.”
Rye harrumphed. Then, she harrumphed again. “I am a shardbearer. A godling. A prima. I don’t need to submit myself to such ridicule.”
Zane and Cesare looked at each other.
“Why of course, mistress.”
“Anything you want milady prima.”
Rye squinted at them suspiciously. “Are you not taking me seriously?”
“What?” Zane said. “I would never not take someone whose power is based on the distribution of pottery seriously.”
“I wouldn’t,” Cesare said with a straight face. “Also, you should probably take your antidote sooner rather than later.”
She did. It was bitter. Bitter like thinking of home. Maybe this whole idea was a mistake.
“I want a tunic that says, ‘I went to the swamp and all I got was poisoned’,” she muttered.
“Of course milady,” Zane mocked. “In pink or in purple?”
A slithering, dark thing squirmed its way around Rye’s ankle.
“Zippo, if you would be so kind.”
With a trumpet of affirmation, her being rippled, and the world changed. Moments later, the meter-long eel drifted to the surface, twitching and coiling in on itself in a nightmare. It was covered in a thick layer of slime, so thick that it pushed away the rest of the swamp and sank down in clear swirls.
The young spymaster poked it with a stick. “Woah. You think these are the things poisoning us?”
“I hope not,” Rye said.
“Why is that?”
Her being flexed again. A hundred slick things bobbed to the surface.
This little diversion was worth it, if only to see the expression on all their faces.
----------------------------------------
Once the swamp turned shallower, they found themselves in an old, dilapidated graveyard. Tombstones abutted one next to the other and urns decorated the resting places of great lords, ladies, and all in between.
“My body ought to be somewhere nearby.” The Wolf sampled the air. “I smell earth, water, and iron.”
They fanned out once they realized that the dregs here didn’t pose a threat to any of them. They were still aggressive, yes, but compared to the ones steeped in souls inside Loften, these ones were far flimsier. Some looked more like skeletons, with water-bloated strips of skin and leather dangling from their bodies. Others were ridden by fleas the size of a head. They had dug themselves into the dregs’ arms and legs, pinching their muscles of all blood before replacing their functionality with their powerful jaws and hind muscles.
When these infected people walked, they skipped, halfway coordinated, across the stone. The fleas made them stronger than the average person, but as luck would have it, they were dreadfully dull in mind and sense.
An ideal test environment. Rye blasted one dreg that had gotten too close for comfort. She conjured a single limb piece this time, a forearm. It was sharp towards one end and tapered into a thin blade on the outside.
“Coated with hardfrost, tempered with corefrost, forged with sticky lover’s influence.” Rye flexed her spirit, finding it much, much stronger than she remembered. She had to thank Elia as well for that greater soul. “Here goes.”
Possessing it with the spirit of an arm, she felt it like a distant ghost limb. Another dreg slowly staggered out of a family crypt. Rye shifted her stance, ready and tense. Her blade-arm swished through the air, giving the dreg a much-needed haircut as it missed its neck by inches.
“You flinched!” she grumped. “You ought to stay still like the corpse you so poorly imitate.”
Another hack sailed too far behind it, missing again. She swerved the possessed limb around and by the third time, she chopped right into its side, severing a limb. A few giant fleas quickly fled the scene. The dreg was still standing. This was dreadfully ineffective.
She dispatched it with a conjured bolt to the face and then eyed the greater soul in her spirit.
[Mind/Spirit] Soul of Yolon the Lunatic [Rare]
Yolon was a great mind who studied the moon and found a fell secret within it. After surviving the Passing Knight sent from up high to claim his life, he renounced the authority of the gods and declared himself the emissary of the moon.
0/28,000 Massive increase to channel, moderate reduction to Subtlety
11,000/11,000 Great increase to Reservoir
6600/6600 Moderate increase to Flow
6000/6000 Minor increase to Processing and Conviction
That increase to channel, to the flexibility of her casting, was exactly what she was missing. With it she would be able to conjure more parts of a spell at the same time, control her possessed false limbs with more accuracy, and make calm-signs more efficiently too. It would be like going from crafting clay with her feet to her hands. Rye wasn’t worried about the reduction to her subtlety at all. Handling miscasts felt as easy as pie. She was missing the souls to buy the upgrade in the first place though.
How much are these dregs worth?, she thought.
Soul count: 11,472
Forty souls apiece. I would need… roughly four hundred of them.
The graveyard might house that many dregs, but they were few and far in between. It was not worth the trouble. At least, not for these dregs.
“Finally bothered looking, have you?” the Wolf said as Rye strolled down through the maze-like collection of hillocks and carved stone. “You needn’t bother with this way, the god-whore has already searched this place.”
She inhaled sharply.
“If being a god involves being a rude ingrate to everyone, I would like to politely, yet forcefully decline the honor.”
He laughed. “To become a god, you would have to be audited and accepted by a council of the great gods’ children, of which half are dead, Worga is missing, and Ruthe has decreed none be allowed to enter his domain. You would have to gather enough power to force the rest into going against his decree.”
“Do you mean like gathering four greater shards on the spot?”
The Wolf eyed her quietly. “The god-whore thinks he can break open the gates simply because as far as the legend of the forlorn goes, only those of great power may pass the gates to the realm of the gods. Perhaps he is counting on their same cowardice that prevents action against the Rhuna as she rages and sin in their names to protect him from his own folly. What he does not know is that the rules do not count for the rule maker, and that great heavenly cur has already undone much graver realities with his smithing hammer.”
Rye chewed her lip. That did not sound like the Ruthe that she knew. He was a gentle father, a grand architect, a visionary, an engineer, a god.
But for what did being a god count in this day and age, when anyone with power could declare ‘here I am, great and divine. Smite me, if you dare’ and receive no response?
As if to answer her, she reached a clearing and within it stood a naked woman. She was bekki, clear by her hunched gait and furry backside. She looked up from her stew pot, glossy eyes coming to a rest on Rye. Rye in turn looked over her gangly yet muscular frame, until she noticed that an armored hand was sticking out of her pot.
“That is my arm,” the Wolf growled. “That is mine you wretch!”
The bekki turned to her, nothing but a wooden club and shield made of scrap wood in her hands. She licked her lips.
“Godflesh,” tittered the bekki with a grin. “A blessing from our Lord Avon.”
The bekki charged as the air filled with the scent of burning meat.