Benjamin Vryce

The Void space was still an endless plain of white nothingness. The area right around Benjamin’s calming chair though, was looking a little less empty. He walked around looking at all the creatures he had absorbed the patterns for over the last few hours.

The dire boar was by far the largest, towering over the other beasts. He hadn’t made changes to that one while he absorbed it. The questioning feeling and rush of essence hadn’t come. He thought on that as he had absorbed the other beasts. Rerunning the events in his mind.

He started with the ants; they were the least battle worthy of the patterns he had gathered. As he held each pattern, he felt for that connection while he pulled it into his soul. The ants hadn’t reacted to his probes in anyway.

“Grace, what do you think, why am I not feeling the memory and essence draw?” he asked her after he had absorbed the last ant fighter. She was assisting him with the absorption process. Handing him patterns and holding creation cores to hand him in case he needed the essence boost.

The goblin girl thought on his words while she pulled out the dire squirrel cores and patterns.

“Grace isn’t a soul. She can only guess…but…you said it was a drawing of memories with Grace and your silver? Do you have any memories with the ants?” she asked, as she knelt before him with the first squirrel pattern.

That had only made sense, after someone else pointed it out to him. When he had shaped Grace and Silver, he had used his memories and his feeling for them. If he didn’t have memories and didn’t feel anything for the beast in question, what changes could he expect?

“Great point Grace, then we probably don’t have to worry about the squirrels. The only two patterns we have that I have a strong impression for are the white wolf and the ice wolf. Save those for last, will you?” he said, accepting the dire squirrel pattern she held.

Near the end Grace held the white wolf’s pattern out to him. He looked at it, getting his thoughts in line before picking it up. As the pattern flowed into him, he got the questioning feeling and a pull on his essence. Reaching his hand out again, Grace handed him the wolf’s creation core.

Pulling the essence from that core he funneled it along with his thoughts and impressions about the white wolf into its pattern. He was loyal, willing to die and be subjected to unknown rule to be with his brethren. This wolf had courage and determination. These impressions had flowed from Benjamin with the essence, into the pattern. Its shape was subtly adjusted to fit his expectations.

Benjamin nodded to himself as the process finished. He wasn’t yet able to adjust the patterns in a mathematical sense, but he could shape it a little. Assuming he had an impression and essence to spare, of course.

Then, it was time to absorb the ice wolf’s pattern. He paused and thought over everything he had learned about the elemental wolf from Grace’s story. She was a battle-hardened veteran, used to carrying a rider into battle. She was a leader worthy of her subordinate’s respect, if the white wolf’s sacrifice was any indication. He thought of her mother. Willing to carry her rider into any situation and out again, if she believed in the cause. He pictured the ice wolf the same way.

Then he thought about her elemental affinity. She didn’t seem to have any supernatural powers associated with the cold, only the appearance of a beast from a cold climate. Perhaps he could change that?

Accepting her pattern from Grace, he put all those impressions into her. He quickly used up the creation core and it was still pulling, with a frown he asked Grace for another one. It too was consumed making the changes he had envisioned. He accepted the last wolf core from her, hoping it was going to be enough.

He supposed some changes were more essence intensive then others. Thankfully, after the third wolf’s core the draw slowed and ended. The changes to her pattern settling into place in his soul.

He thought of that process as he stood in his void space looking at her. She was much the same visually. Her dirty white fur now had a slight blue tinge to it, the same shade as her ice blue eyes. He thought about her appearance, and that she would be his mount in the battles to come.

“Ice,” he said at last looking into her eyes. “I would like to name you Ice. Do you find that acceptable?” he asked. The patterns weren’t living creatures here, more like living statues unless he actively interacted with them.

She growled as her head lowered to look him in the eyes. A long moment later she nodded her assent before going back to her former stance. He took that as a yes and patting her shaggy shoulder, moved on.

He stopped at the white wolf next and repeated the encounter. He named this wolf Honor, out of respect for it. The other two wolves hadn’t stuck out to him in any way so he didn’t name them. perhaps when he was able to summon them and if they did something worthy of a name, he would name them then.

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He took a quick inventory of those patterns he had absorbed. Starting from the smallest and working his way up. He had; Silver, eight worker ants, two fighter ants, four dire squirrels, Grace, three wolves, ice, and the dire boar. Unfortunately, two of the dire squirrel patterns had been too damaged to save.

He took a moment to count the creation cores he still had. This was going to get confusing if he didn’t keep track of it somehow. There were the eight ant worker cores, the two ant fighter cores, five from the dire squirrels (he had used one to heal grace) and the ten cores from the goblins. When the essence was used up the other cores had vanished.

He also had the patterns for seven goblins, including Stomper and Grace. Eight if he included the damaged one, but he didn’t think that one would yield a goblin when he absorbed it. He hadn’t absorbed any of their patterns yet. Without a steady source of essence, he was afraid he would be overwhelmed by the Erlking’s added directives.

He was mentally drained from the nights work, but there were several hours yet until the twenty-four-hour night ended and they had to move. He sat down in the calming chair; he was going to make use of every minute of that time. Looking deep into himself he found the seal and began working the knots loose.

* * *

Grace

Grace helped Benjamin absorb the patterns of the beasts they had collected. He was now sitting cross-legged on the ground, trying to remove the seal on his core. While he was doing that, Grace packed the remaining creation cores and the goblin patterns away into a fighter ants’ abdomen.

It was intact, Benjamin having smashed his fists on the insect’s thorax. It made a great protective case for the precious patterns of her clan mates. One small opening on the thorax end, allowed entry into the otherwise thickly armored exoskeleton.

It wasn’t that big; the fighter ant’s whole body had been the size of Benjamin’s ‘raccoon’. Grace thought it might hold a half gallon of liquid if she were to pour water into it. Its tapered cylindrical shape fit nicely into the small of her back as well.

She shook her head; she was only distracting herself by thinking about the improvised backpack. She looked at the seven patterns laid out before her. One belonged to Stomper, and another was cracked. Benjamin had told her that it was no longer the goblin it had been.

That just left five. Five patterns, five of her people. All that was left of just over one hundred members of her clan. She didn’t even know who they were, the bodies had been badly burned when she had buried them. Even if they hadn’t been, only five of the nine she had lain to rest had been intact.

She sighed, rolling them up in a protective padding of leaves and moss before putting them away in the fighter ant’s abdomen. She wouldn’t complain, even these five were more then she had when Stomper had entered the woods with her after the fire.

Packing done, she looked over the few supplies she had managed to gather from her ruined town. Another set of soft hides for herself, a hunters bow and a quiver that held nine arrows. As well as a handful of hunter’s cloaks.

She was already wearing one herself, the entire hide of a tree climber, Benjamin’s dire squirrel. The hood was composed of the beast’s head. Whiskered snout coming down to just above her eyes, ears standing up over her head. The front arms were wrapped around her throat and were clasped in place with a bone from the same animal. That had been Pushed through a leather loop.

The cloak fell to her knees and the edge was trimmed with the beast’s long tail. Having a hunter’s cloak was a sign of strength in her clan, or one of her memories said it was anyway. She shook the odd thoughts away. Yes, hunting a tree climber for its hide made one eligible to join the hunters.

She hadn’t been wearing hers when she and stomper had gone out hunting. She hadn’t found it when she returned, her house being one of those burned. This one was a suitable replacement though; its owner wouldn’t mind now.

With another sigh she looked to the remaining four tree climber cloaks she had found. Benjamin had worn his strange black clothing down to tatters with all the fighting, and while he was busy in his soul space, Grace was going to make him a new outfit.

The Goblins were much smaller than he was, and she hadn’t been able to find much soft hide anyway. The best she could come up with was to piece these four cloaks together into something he could fit into. Picking up the bone needle and gut thread she had salvaged she set to work.

The night passed by slowly as she worked. Occasionally Grace would stop working and look to Benjamin, the soul who had bound her to himself. He hadn’t moved, even a muscle, since he closed his eyes. Grace fought the thoughts that kept creeping into her mind.

Thoughts of, who was she really, had she ever really lived before now, was she any different from the rest of her clan? She thought of them how they were now, just egg-shaped objects carved with intricate designs that, according to the other memories, held the information that made them, them.

Was she just an intricate carving in Benjamin’s soul? Her fingers worked mechanically, cutting and stitching the tree climber hides. This was something she knew how to do by heart, having been tanning and making tools from animal parts her entire life.

She sighed for a third time, knowing that she could think in circles all night and go nowhere. She looked at Benjamin again, from what he had told her she understood that he was very much like her. He had lived his life on his ‘Earth’ never realizing there was anything else beyond what he knew.

Then out of nowhere everything changed. He learned that his world wasn’t what he thought, that more powerful beings than him, were in control of his existence. Benjamin hadn’t faltered though; he had taken it all in stride. Resolving to grow stronger so that he could decide his own future.

Thinking of him like that settled Grace’s mind. He wasn’t any different than she was, and if Benjamin could carry on then so could she. Worries about her existence settled down, at least for now, and she continued to work on the hides she held.

She wouldn’t sleep until she had finished his clothes, not that she was really tired. Since he had put more essence into her when he healed her wounds, she had felt stronger. That thought made Grace smile happily. She was getting stronger, just like Benjamin. They would grow stronger together, and bring her clan mates back. She started to hum quietly while she worked. Grace had a task before her now, she would worry about tomorrow when it came.