Although James had been very tempted to stick around for his new employees' first day of work, he reasoned it would be more detrimental than beneficial. The whole point of the operation was for potential enemies to see the warehouse as the easier target, and for potential spies to feel confident observing and maybe sabotaging it. His new workers might feel weird and uncomfortable if he hung around, even hidden. Besides, his infused could handle the situation. The goblin shaman and the werewolf-thing directing a small group of powered-up humanoids were more than enough to deal with most things James knew roamed the slums.
No, there was a much better use of his time on the horizon. Or, to be more exact, within himself. Currently taking the form of a puddle in his meditation room in the sewers lair, filtering out the sound of the ratlings sparring with various members of Mischief, James was going back to his "soul space", the void in which his various connections and his true soul resided deep within his consciousness.
The void had changed a lot since his first visit, James idly noted. Many new spots representing things he had infused had appeared, though it appeared the void rearranged itself to make sure it was never cluttered, and even if it were James could instinctively feel which spot represented what, such as the new tattoo he had sneakily snuck onto the scammer that had tried to sell him the warehouse, currently arguing with another man about fruit prices and whatnot.
From these spots grew threads, each independent from the rest and yet in such numbers that it almost looked like a web, and these threads congregated into a large hollow ball, though as more and more formed it was harder to tell the sphere was empty, as fewer and fewer spots exposed its inexistent interior. From this sphere a condensed cable assembling all threads came to him, widening to form a classic genie-like tail on which rested his humanoid torso, or more accurately the shell he had formed with the threads to protect his soul hidden within. A very good decision in hindsight, as was evidenced by the various scars left behind in the void after his fight with the demon Sydakors.
Before, the connections between infused items and the giant yarn ball were all straight, but ever since James had used some to sew shut the wounds the demon's attacks somehow caused to his soul space, many of them went straight to the black scars floating in the air before joining back with the rest, sometimes at particularly odd angles. The fact no thread touched another before they joined the sphere was almost miraculous.
Now that he was taking the time to simply watch his soul space, James realized something as he traced the many connections he had formed. He had expected them to be completely random, or perhaps be placed to mimic the items' positions in the real world, but instead, they formed layers. The closer to the "center" - the great sphere - they were, the more... Extreme, things were.
The various bricks and knickknacks he had infused for his shop formed the outermost layer, whereas the people he had infused formed the innermost, or at the very least the people he had completely infused. The scammer, for example, was situated among the bricks, which made sense since his tattoo-like mark was rather benign compared to the rest of the living things James had transformed.
As intriguing as this discovery was, there wasn't much James could do about it, and it wasn't why he had initially decided to study his soul space some more. No, he had something more practical in mind.
James put his hand on one of the many threads, this one connecting him to Polisson, and felt it beneath his fingers. It was much more solid than one would expect in a spiritual environment, but James had some difficulty narrowing down which texture was the closest to what he felt. It was smooth and comfortable, yet solid, it was neither cold nor warm, yet he could feel a very weak heat coming from it. It wasn't sticky, nor was it particularly slippery. It... Well, the closest thing he knew to this substance was his own body, the one he had gained upon reincarnating in this world. The only difference he could notice was that his body's natural state seemed to be on the goopier side of things, whereas these threads were perfectly solid.
Unless...?
James wanted to try and see if he could alter the thread beyond the sewing technique he had used to close his wounds, but testing this on such an important link felt stupid. He left his connection to Polisson alone and instead floated to the outskirts of his soul space, as far as his tail could extend, and instead chose to test his hypothesis on one of his connections to his many infused bricks. The first thing that stood out was that the thread was thinner, and when he put his hand on it James could feel some give. James pulled with all his strength, and the spot from which the link appeared slowly moved, but as soon as James let go it returned to its original point. James pondered the discovery as he tried something else, something inspired by the similarity between his flesh and these threads.
With his hand still on the thread, James emptied his mind and let himself go.
The world went black.
And then James was in the training room.
As in, the general training room, not his dedicated personal space.
More specifically, it appeared he was somewhere above the ground in a corner of the room, and none of the many rodents currently training within the room had noticed his appearance. Though, knowing his kids and Polisson, it shouldn't be long before one of them noticed his apparition.
As the realization set in, James also noticed he was quickly falling, and still out of it thanks to his inexperience he didn't catch himself in time and splattered on the floor.
As expected, many furry heads turned at the sound, all brandishing their weapons and barring their teeth, ready to fight, before they all realized at the same time what exactly had interrupted them.
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"Father?"
James knew answering Lucille should be his priority, but right now his mind was still a little shaken. Still, he didn't want to worry his kids. He slowly reformed himself from the puddle he had become to his usual Silhouette form and shook his head a few times before focusing on his workaholic daughter.
"I'm fine, Lucille. Just... I'm just a little lost, right now, don't mind me."
The usually stern little rodent had an approximation of a frown on her snout, but surprisingly it was neither she nor one of her siblings who questioned James' words.
"Master, are you certain you are well?"
James noticed that unlike his children Polisson hadn't fully lowered his guard, and the old rat's shadowy paw had morphed to form truly impressive claws, closer to knives than natural body parts. James was somewhat ashamed to admit he had almost forgotten the leader of his rat force's spectral limb past its original appearance, and that, combined with his latest experiment and his experience of communicating with his infused at a distance, made him realize that infusion might be capable of much more than just improving things.
"Yes, Polisson. I was just testing some of my abilities, and, well... Here I am. Worry not, I'll be getting back to my room."
The old rat nodded, and as James passed him by on his way out he projected a whisper that he was only the rodent elder could hear.
"Good work keeping an eye out."
Polisson didn't twitch a hair but from the glint in his eyes, James assumed he got the message.
Once he was back in his room, James spent the rest of the day testing out this teleportation trick. To start things out, he paid much more attention to where the items whose links he used to travel were. He tried to reorganize the mess of threads in his soul space to make it easier to keep track of, but just like in his earlier experiments things always went back to where they were as soon as he let go. At least he got better at identifying threads at a glance, and slowly but surely was making a mental map of what was where.
Once that was done, it thankfully only took a few hours of constant teleportation to get accustomed to the sudden change of location. No longer was James stunned for a few seconds, incredibly precious time in a fight, though it appeared transport always required him to turn into a shadow before forming back.
That was the most crucial test that day, the conditions for his ability to work. So far, it appeared he could only teleport to an infused inanimate object if he was also touching one and there was an infused surface connecting the two. In simpler terms, he could teleport from any brick in his lair to another, but going to an infused brick in another section of the sewers was impossible, and so was teleporting from a regular sewer canal to his lair. He could also teleport from a brick of the lair to, say, an infused electrogun, but only if the electrogun was on the ground of the lair or an infused table with its feet on the lair's floor. So, this ability could prove useful to quickly go from room to room in one place, but couldn't be used to travel between his two lairs quickly.
A shame, fast travel would have been great.
Another annoying impractical aspect of this ability is that James needed to mediate and enter his soul space to find a thread to travel through. Granted, he had gotten much quicker at this than he had been when he first began studying magic, but that was still a drawback. James probably wouldn't be able to use this trick to escape in the middle of a fight, but he could surprise an opponent who assumed he was in another room.
All this time spent studying the many threads connecting him to the various bricks he had infused did remind him of a certain something he had been putting off for a while, dealing with Grover. It looked like his prisoner didn't have any sort of tracking device on him, whether magical or technological, given the fact no one else had shown up in the sewers since his raid. Or Runar could be playing the long game and was simply waiting for James to drop his guard. Maybe instead it was killing the man that would trigger something that would alert his employer to his position? These had been many of the interrogations that had urged James to keep the man locked up in the first place, that and his personal discomfort at the idea of killing someone who posed no threat.
But now? After Runar's attack on the shop? And with the warehouse plan well on its way? Well, there was no point in trying to spare Runar's feelings, and if anything giving him a false clue could help. It wasn't like James had planned to keep Grover in his cell forever, after all. He just... He had just hoped something would happen. Maybe Runar sending in a message to parley, or something.
There's no point in keeping him around anymore, the goons I caught had more recent intel anyway. But what to do...
After a few long silent minutes spent pondering, James sighed and simply went to the lair's prison.
The place was the same as always, with the only noteworthy change being a simple wooden door that the Shadow Commando had helped install. It was better than nothing. As he entered James casually nodded to the various members of Mischief acting as guards, the infused rodents doing the closest they could to a salute by standing on their hindlegs and placing a paw on their heart.
Although there were multiple cells in this prison, only one had ever been occupied. The slumped bulky form of Grover was recognizable through the bars, though the time spent hidden away in the dark with the bare minimum of food had undoubtedly left its mark.
James saw the man raise his head, and a few seconds later a rough voice came out of his parched throat.
"Silhouette..."
"Hello, Grover."
"Haven't seen you... In a while..."
"I have been quite busy, growing my forces while dealing with your boss' assaults."
"Ah... Wanna use me... As a hostage?"
"No, no. From my encounters with his elite forces, I do not believe Runar would care about you if it meant getting me. No, I just wanted to see you to discuss the end of your imprisonment."
"What... Do you mean?"
"I don't need you anymore, and truth be told I haven't for a while, I was just too busy to handle it. I don't want to waste forces guarding a nearly empty jail, so I'm getting rid of you. How, however, is up to you."
"How?"
"I can't let you go, you know too much. So, here's the choice I offer: join me via the same method Solvent did, or die. Whichever one you pick, I'll respect your choice."
"Live as a puppet... Or die in the dark..."
"I don't have all day, Grover."
"Death... Lets me stay me... So go ahead... Silhouette..."
James stared at the broken man in silence before a tentacle rose from the darkness of the cell.
"Any preference?"
"Through the head..."
James nodded, and before the prisoner could react a black spike emerged between his eyes as bone fragments and cerebrospinal fluid flew and covered the ground. With the support of the tentacle through his skull, Grover's body didn't fall, at least not until James removed his appendage. The corpse hit the ground with a thump, and James shook his limb a few times to clean it before merging it back with the rest of his body. Finally, James addressed the Mischief members.
"Do as you wish with the body. If there's a Core in there, bring it to the workshop."
The rats nodded, and with the help of his new trick, James was gone.