Chapter Four: Unexpected

Every person has a soul space. It is as normal as having two arms and two legs. Your soul space is where your daily coin appeared, and where a person would hold their most precious possessions as well as useful items.

It was understood that you could carry in your soul space as much as you could carry in the physical world. When you tried to carry more, you would feel pain and discomfort, just as if you tried to walk while carrying around too much.

It was even possible to injure yourself, trying to carry too much in your soul space. You could damage your connection, reducing the capacity of your space or, in rare cases, even preventing you from accessing it entirely.

Just like physical muscles however, you could also increase your capacity. Carrying things near your capacity for long periods of time could help you to carry even more items in your soul space.

A porter was typically someone who had above average capacity to carry goods in their soul space. Some professional porters could carry as much as to two times their own weight without discomfort. Such people were well-regarded by travelers and merchants. The obvious advantage of carrying things out of sight is highly prized, for both legitimate and less forthright reasons.

But just as there were those with above-average ability, there were some who had below-average mastery of their soul space.

It was well known that one of the common traits of people who were exposed to purge sticks to harvest their daily coins in their childhood often had their potential permanently crippled. They may have a mental aversion to placing anything at all in their soul space for fear of the repercussions of being found with anything put in their private space.

Thayn had brought Rook along to help them carry the gear for the Verity Mercenary Troupe. Due to recent events, they had increased the amount of luggage, while losing most of their available soul space. This had jeopardized their current job, and stranded the party in the forest, defending their cargos, but with no way to leave.

The bubals acquired from Rhaeger’s ranch should be able to accommodate all of their cargo and gear. But there were some things that you never store in an animal’s soul space. He had brought the boy along, hoping that he could replace the porter they had lost on this trip. Now, it seemed as though he had made a horrible miscalculation. Thayn pondered how he was going to explain this to the boss. Without a doubt, Willis was already ratting his error out to everyone in the camp.

Rook stood there, hands out, coins still in his palm. Waiting, apparently, for Thayn to confiscate his coins and hit him with a purge stick to prove he held nothing back. The thought turned the old man’s stomach.

Thayn reached out and closed the boy’s hand, hiding the coins from his vision. Those three coins likely represented everything this boy possessed in the world. Barely enough to buy a decent meal in the capital, and perhaps more money than the pitiable child had ever been allowed to keep at one time.

The thought made Thayn decide to go back to that ranch when he had a chance for sure. To personally deal with that drunk wretch, not just for swindling him, but for crimes against common decency.

“Boy… Rook. Put the coins back.”

Rook stared back at the old man’s face in renewed panic.

Although he had produced the coins, even he had forgotten about them. He had been trained to add his own coin to the morning harvest from the animals, but since leaving the ranch, the daily chores had been wiped from his mind.

He was sure the other man had gone to fetch a purge stick. They were going to check to make sure he wasn’t concealing more. He had produced the coins and offered them to the old man. There was nothing else, but he knew they wouldn’t believe him, so he mentally prepared himself for the stick. It had been a while since he last felt it. He had learned to be careful. The count was never wrong, never off by even a single coin.

Pig would still mess up sometimes. It hurt Rook to see Pig, throwing up on the ground. He could feel it in his stomach, even if he didn’t feel the painful pull of the purge stick himself. He just had to see it, or imagine seeing it.

The old man, Thayn, was now telling him to put the coins back? It had to be a trick. That never happened. He knew how to do it, of course. But he never put things into his space. That was just asking them to beat him. Rook had always been careful. The first lesson he had learned at the ranch was to give up his coin every morning, and never, ever, put anything into his own soul space.

Rook was at a loss. What should he do? These people terrified him. He should do whatever they say, but now the man was telling him to do something he knew might cost him more than a simple beating.

Again, as though reading his mind, the old man pressed Rook’s palm, compressing the coins until they started to hurt his hand.

“Put them back. Can you? Can you put them back into your space? I promise, it’s okay.”

Rook couldn’t tell if the man was angry or sad. He seemed to be both at the same time. He was torn between following orders or doing what he knew to be safe. Finally he rationalized that no matter what, he was going to get hit by the stick. He might as well do what the man said.

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Rook had used his soul space in the past. He was always careful to do it when he knew he was alone, and he only tried with simple, worthless objects. Things like stones, small twigs, a fragment of a deer’s hoof that he found once. He knew how it worked, of course. He would sometimes have to help Rhaeger load a bubal with containers of milk, or bunches of herbs, that would be taken into the village for barter.

Rhaeger kept a box of red-painted stones in the ranch house. The bubals were always fascinated by these stones. Rook was taught that in order to get the bubals to put something into their storage space, you had to make them want the item. By placing a bundle or box in front of a bubal, then placing a stone on top and letting the large animal rub its nose against the stone was usually enough to trigger the whole pile to disappear.

To get it out, they just used the purge stick. It never failed to empty everything stored in a soul space, be it animal or person.

To put the coins back into his soul space, Rook simply needed to want them to go back. The problem was, he didn’t really want that. He was scared, and for as long as he could remember, he had been taught what would happen if you put things in his soul space.

Tears started to run down his face. Fear, frustration, mental exhaustion. Everything was combining to break apart Rook’s world. Would they beat him, abandon him in the forest to be torn apart by wild beasts?

Suddenly, the old man snatched the coins from Rook.

“Here, let me hold these for a bit. Take this and place it in your space. Can you do that for me?”

Thayn placed a small brown object into Rook’s hand where, moments before, the coins had appeared. It was just a pinecone. One of many that littered the ground around them.

Rook was confused for a moment, but he quickly realized that this was merely a worthless item that the old man had grabbed. This was simply a test to see if he could store something.

The realization was enough to calm his nerves. He took a deep breath, then willed the item into his soul space. It promptly disappeared from his hand. Almost instinctively, Rook grinned. This was the first time he had done this in front of a person. Then, before the old man even asked, he pulled the pinecone back from his space, holding it out for Thayn to inspect.

Thayn relaxed a bit. At least the boy wasn’t completely crippled. There was trauma, to be sure, but he might get at least some use from him.

Taking the pinecone from the boy’s hand, he dropped it to the ground. Then he put the three coins back in Rook’s palm.

“Put these back. You won’t get in trouble. I swear. From now on, you can hold onto all your coins. I’ll let you know if you need to take them out. No one will force you…”

Rook looked at the old man’s face. He didn’t seem angry. Perhaps this was how things worked now. Maybe they wouldn’t hit him with the stick until later, after he had more coins. Rhaeger was always adamant that he take the coins out as soon as the sun came up, but maybe these mercenaries did things differently.

Bracing himself, should the man suddenly change his mind, Rook pulled the coins back into his space.

Coins, unlike any other physical object, did not use up capacity in a soul space. You could store an unlimited amount of coins, and never feel weighed down. Not that Rook had ever held more than a single coin at a time. Still, placing three coins into his space at once felt different to Rook. In his mind, he could feel the weight somehow.

Thayn watched closely as the coins disappeared. It was a good sign. Perhaps the boy would not be completely useless after all. He decided to test out if Rook could carry at least some of the equipment that they kept aside for the porter.

The luggage and cargo were in the same place he had left them before he had left the camp. There were three large piles of crates, each under a special kind of tarpaulin, right next to the tie up point for the animals.

The canvas covers were specially treated to disperse any odors or emissions that might draw the attention of any animals passing nearby. They hadn’t used these often before, as the pack animals would typically keep the cargo in their soul storage for the duration of any journey, but an accident several days ago had cost them dearly.

All three of their pack animals, three of their party members, and the previous porter had all perished after they had run directly into a herd of alcini.

A single alcini is as dangerous as a forest bear, but unlike bears, they traveled in large numbers. How the scouts had missed them remained a mystery that Thayn had sworn he would untangle after they completed this job. He owed it to their families. The immediate issue was that they had been stranded here until they either replaced their ranks or abandoned their cargo.

After uncovering the cargo, many of the boxes showed the scars of run ins with the beasts, whose giant arrays of deadly sharp antlers easily perforated the containers, as they did with the men who had perished in the stampede. A smaller stack of boxes was splattered with the blood of the last porter.

Unlike the cargo, the luggage that the porter carried was usually filled with tools, extra weapons, and other items that the party would often want to use at a moment’s notice. Unloading a pack beast always required removing all the contents of its soul space at once, so it was impractical to have them carry anything that might be used while they were moving.

If Rook could hold at least half the porter’s load, they might be able to get by. Less useful tools could be packed in with the cargo, and the rest, split up amongst the others. Thayn knew that even that much was a naive level of optimism, but it’s not like they had any better options at this point.

“Boy, can you carry these boxes?” Thayn said, pointing at the blood-stained containers.

Rook cringed at the sight of the grisly luggage, but as ordered, he moved to the stack, trying to find a grip to lift the boxes from the bottom.

“No, don’t lift them, store them.”

Confused at first, Rook finally caught on to what the old man wanted. This is something he had never done before. He had experimented with a few small items, but nothing as large as a single one of these boxes.

Gingerly, Rook placed his hand on the top box in the stack. A moment later, it disappeared.

Then, one at a time, he repeated the action with other boxes in the stack. He winced when he touched the dried-on blood of some of the boxes but kept on moving through the pile.

At first, Thayn was pleasantly surprised. The boy was doing better than he had feared. Soon, half the boxes were gone.

As Rook continued, however, worry again crept into the old man’s features. One box after another, until finally, the entire pile was gone.

The entire stack, as full a load as a professional porter could carry, was now in the storage space of this small young boy. A crippled bondling by all rights.

“Are you alright? Can you move? Does it hurt?”

Rook looked at Thayn’s face, the concern clearly showing. Unsure if he was doing something wrong, Rook took a few steps, back and forth, left and right. Nothing seemed wrong. Everything appeared to be fine.

Shaking his head, he told the old man that there were no problems.

“Remarkable…”