Overlooking the natural array and the naked body prone in the centre, a woman in brown rags approached one of the robed cultists with head bowed.

"Vessel status Vahn." the cultists said.

"Morelia—"

"Refer to her as the vessel Vahn, her old name is no more. Or had you forgotten?" head turning to the slave, eyebrow raised.

Cringing in fear, the slave girl Vahn responded.

"Yes Hand Feld" voice trembling.

"Status. Now." Feld said, turning back to regard the prone woman.

"The others have all confirmed that the soul signature has changed, Hand"

Looking up at Feld she saw him focusing, a glimmer of curiosity in his red eyes.

"Good, good. Tell the others to prepare for stage 2, the soul is stabilising" still not looking at her, he seemed to have a faint shimmer appear around his bare feet.

Seeing this Vahn hurriedly backed off, not turning her back on him, she walked backwards down the protruding rock that Feld stood upon, one of six surrounding the former body of her friend Morelia. Now on the forest floor, she hurriedly went to the other five robed cultists one by one, repeating what the Hand had said. None of them gave any response to acknowledge her beyond the same faint shimmer appearing around them in turn.

Returning to a small copse of trees where oiled tarps had been strung up above head height, Vahn sat down, knees held close to her chest. Staring empty eyed at the camp before her, she thought of her friend, Morelia. She had always been the more ambitious of the pair, striving for more than what should be possible to achieve in her position, a passion in her eyes when she spoke of the lost soul and the will she served, if only as the most lowly of slaves.

Helping shape the land was a calling to her, but for Vahn it had always merely been a way to an end. The best way she could see to be free, free of chains, however imaginary.

And now, now Morelia had done it, the one thing that could make her more than any servitude and grovelling could accomplish, offer up her own soul's place in her body to make place for whatever the lost soul had set into motion. It was death in all but name as far as anyone Vahn had ever spoken to knew. Worse in some ways, as her soul would forever be trapped with whatever now held dominion in her core. Tears slowly falling down her cheeks, she rested her back on a pine tree looking up at a gap in the tarps above, just barely glimpsing the clear blue sky. Vahn knew that letting her emotions out was risky at best, but she couldn't help herself. Letting the grief settle into her very core, she cried quietly, not caring about the inevitable consequences.

Clenching her fists at her sides, she focused on the image of Morelia in the middle of the array in her mind's eye. She wished so utterly for the days when the only concern was pain given by someone else and not this heartache that would not go away however far into herself she drew. She wished to be away, anywhere but here, sitting hand in with Morelia overlooking the landscape before them. She had never wanted anything so much in her entire life, and for a slave to the Hand of the lost soul himself, that was certainly saying something.

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She felt her grief stirring in her core like something alive, coiling and undulating, melding with her most fervent wish.

With a tug at her waist, she felt a pulling sensation, quickly growing stronger until—

BOOM!

It felt like her entire body was disintegrating, particles wrenching at each other, her very essence trembling at the force of it. Through all this Vahn felt herself moving, something like a shock wave pushing her forward, until suddenly everything was still. The world reasserting itself upon her, she opened her eyes that she hadn't even remembered closing and felt a familiar sensation of a hand in her own. When she looked to her right, she let out a gasp to see herself holding the limp hand of Morelia's naked body, beyond which was a different landscape entirely from the calm forest she had just sat down in. They were atop a hill overlooking rolling plains of wild flora, a river flowing calmly not a few meters away, it's calm babbling disconcerting.

What had she done? Looking around in a panic, she saw no signs of the cult of the lost soul, in fact no sign of any intelligent life whatsoever. She must have— no that wasn't possible, even if her emotions had run wild she should not have been able to accomplish something like teleportation, however crude it had been. Like all untrained, she should only be able to channel her most base emotions, and that only with unpredictable results. Actual teleportation usually required years of training and way more specific emotions than fear.

But impossible though it might be, she felt certain that, yes, she had channelled fear and the results of her current surroundings were clear.

She jumped as she felt the hand she was still clutching tightly starting to move slowly, Morelia's body was stirring. Standing up with a jerk, she backed off quickly. There was no telling what soul was inhabiting her friend now. She once again looked around, for a place to hide maybe, but she froze as the body started mumbling softly and approaching consciousness. She must have moved them just as the sleep ritual that Hand Feld was conducting was drawing to a close.

Morelia's eyes open and looked at Vahn, standing there in her rags, frozen in terror.

"Where am I? Who are you?" I said in a croaking voice.

No response. The woman in front of me looked terror-stricken, just barely trembling while staring me right in the eye.

The last thing I remembered was closing my eyes to explore my interface further, then my thoughts started slowing down, it became harder and harder to focus without me even noticing and then a powerful tug, what sounded like a military aircraft breaking the sound barrier, and now I opened my eyes to what looked to me like some kind of alien landscape. Like the place I had found myself earlier, everything seemed so well planned, mathematical, like if some massive landscaping company had planned out this area as some kind of place for the billionaires of the world to see what the Earth looked like in some distant past before the onset of humanity. Patterns of rock forming what I could only describe as art, added to by colourful fauna and healthy trees. A small river where each smooth stone was part of some greater whole.

The only somewhat normal thing I could see was the woman, although calling a beautiful redhead in nothing more than covering brown rags would be far from normal in my day-to-day life. But having someone to ask my ever-increasing list of questions to would be a boon, even if she still hadn't responded to my earlier outburst. Thinking back, I didn't even know if we have the same language, that would be a real bummer, wouldn't it.

Sitting up slowly and stretching out my legs and arms, I realise once again that I am naked, in front of a beautiful woman no less. I had never been a shy soul but taking half a second to think I come to the conclusion that even though this body might not be mine, not trying for modesty would be weird. I try to cover myself as best as possible, almost forgetting that I have boobs that I now need to hide too, bloody inconvenient.

"So... Hi?" I say, an awkward smile on my face.