---Maddy---

Maddy awoke frozen and drifting. She had never experienced sleep paralysis before but that was definitely the closest feeling she could imagine relating her current state.

Her mind very quickly fought through a fog and found itself trapped in a fleshy prison.

Within seconds the prison gave slightly and she could move her eyes about.

That…almost made it worse – being able to roll her eyes about wildly made her feeling of being trapped intensify.

Beside her, Maddy could just barely make out a body she was nearly confident was Troy and a bit of a distance ahead the jellyfish siren who had captured her argued with…

What even is that?

A massive creature of floating strands and flickering patterns and random body parts took up the entirety of Maddy’s vision.

The creature was wider than she could track without being able to tilt her head. It was an absolute mess of shapes.

Blobs of clear jellyfish with hair floating up off of it. Tentacle like appendages covered in eyes or ears. Random strands of blobby nothing that slowly morphed into what looked like a melted human arm or ended with puckered red lips.

A rubbery horror that was strangely sterile and clean. It looked like it should be covered in rotting flesh but was instead simply perfectly smooth – the humanoid chunks slowly shifting to jellyfish and back again across a massive scale.

The mostly girl shaped monster continued to try and argue with the monstrosity most of the communication appearing to be done through flashing lights but a small bit through a humanoid voice speaking some shrill foreign language.

Body language made her look like a teenager trying to convince her parents to let her keep a pet while it was hard to attribute anything from the other side of the conversation.

Maddy found more of her body returned to her. She could feel the water around her and was suddenly aware of the rubbery chunk of something in her mouth allowing her to breathe.

It tasted like a tire and her lungs still felt full of water but just by focusing on her breathing Maddy found herself able to start moving ever so slightly.

A twitch of her hand in the water turned her whole body slightly. Another shifted her further and Maddy found her head could tilt the rest of the way to see Her friend beside her.

He seemed to be trying to get her attention?

Maddy continued to struggle against the disconnect between her body and mind. It felt like all the connections between her body and brain had been cut and she was slowly reforging them the longer she struggled.

“You shouldn’t have followed me” Troy mouthed.

Or at least mostly mouthed. The inside of his mouth was full of white gunk and it was really hard to read his lips.

Hindsight said he was probably right. There wasn’t really anything she had accomplished by jumping after him – that was all hindsight speaking however.

At the time Maddy had known nothing and had made a decision. Now she had to figure out how to get them out of this. Cut off from nearly the entirety of her magic Maddy couldn’t even cast the skills she had broken any more. She’d moulded their parts too much to control mentally.

There was still the sound rune on her tongue?

Focusing on that, Maddy tried to imagine how she might get out of this. All her complicated magic was out. Trying to make seeds or similar was too complex to work through with pure visualization. Sound and the rune…she could distill it down into attaching dark death to her rune then making a sound – any sound – and piggybacking the attack onto that sound? She might even be able to visualize it attacking just what heard her, instead of weakly hitting anything touched by the sound...

For this plan Maddy didn’t need to say anything – just make a sound. It was raw but it should work? It would hit Troy as well…was she okay with that? If she was currently being frozen by either of those monsters and hitting them broke their focus she’d suddenly be able to grab Troy and maybe heal any damage she’d caused?

How would she go about healing. She could semi-reliably push life mana toward him but without intent, it wouldn’t do anything against the intent-filled attack. She could –

Maddy didn’t have time to finish her plan. A long tentacle wrapped around her waist and yanked her through the water until she floated in front of a pouting monster with unnatural appeal.

The woman held out a hand and stroked Maddy’s cheek then spoke. The words were in a different language and warped but somehow Maddy could understand the meaning.

“I’m sorry-sad, I hope-wanted to play with you more but All-Mother said your Mind-Aegis is too strong. Bad-Stats.” The monster sighed with melodrama her nice sounding voice overlaid ontop of the shrill noises she made underneath.

Explanation given, several things began to happen quickly in sequence.

Maddy felt the hold on her body drop for a disorienting second before a tingling shock spread through the tentacle holding her and she was once again frozen completely. It felt like she was being pumped with paralytic poison even as a wash of something passed through her body and stole her control.

Her body was squeezed hard enough for her to involuntarily choke out the rubbery gag and an incredibly painful burning sensation coated her entire scalp.

There was a single horrifying moment when she realized the monster in front of her was about to eat her brain and then like a movie being shut off on an old boxy television, everything snapped to static.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Maddy died for the first time. Her perfect streak broken near the end for no real reason.

Nearly all sensation left her till all that remained was a weak sense of self. It felt exactly like the feeling of distributing her stats or choosing something outside of her body but without the structure those times had given. Nothing surrounded her but blinking dots of black in a white void. Or maybe it was flashing points of white in a black void? It was hard to tell.

What felt like a billowing cloak surrounded Maddy’s sense of self. A terrifying trapping sensation made worse by the sensations on the opposite side of the material. It felt like it was almost instantly wrapping around her and yet if Maddy had to point to a direction she would have said it came from the rune on her leg.

It felt…it felt like Maddy had just been shoved into a silk bag and on the other side thousands of hands were grabbing and poking and pressing. Skeletal hands the fingers nothing more than bone.

A new sensation of movement began to permeate Maddy’s being. It was hard to describe as movement – for her soul had none of the balance organs or typical senses of touch that might give her a feeling.

…but similar to how the bag surrounding her pushed a sensation onto her being, the pull through static pushed the intent of movement onto her.

The longer Maddy was held in this bag the more sensations she was able to feel. The less of a void it felt like she was in.

“Necromancer?” She called out her voice almost sounding out. The almost exclamation originated from the center of her being and suddenly freaked Maddy out as she realized she had no mouth. Or head.

It felt like there might have been a slight pause in the movement of the bag but it soon continued no response being given.

The sense of movement continued. A rocking sensation that was almost soothing. The sharp fingers jabbing the other side of the bag stopped feeling as rough…

It was almost boring.

Maddy was left alone with her thoughts…and yet her thoughts felt strange. More chaotic and less ‘her’ than she would have imagined.

Her mind…wasn’t fully linked to emotions in this state. It wasn’t linked to discrete ideas, or logical thought, or even most of her memories.

She was incomplete. Incomplete and yet not terrified by that incompleteness while still being present enough to notice it and comment to herself on everything.

Time passed and pending anything else to do Maddy’s mind got curious.

Her foundation choice…that was something that was linked to her mind. Not her brain even if that was usually the home of her mind but…the part of her that was currently reasoning and thinking about herself.

The mind that was currently located in her soul instead of her brain…

Her mana…was located in the center of her and yet nothing she had felt had indicated her pools were located in her body.

So where were they? Her mana pools being located in her soul made sense didn’t it?

why couldn’t she feel them?

As soon as Maddy thought that she could feel the familiar link to her pools appear. Like when you suddenly wondered what something you were ignoring felt like. Suddenly something hidden was all she could see.

Her pools felt strange. Strong and so much more alive than they were usually…and yet flimsy and weak in the same moment.

Instead of a solid point she could instinctually feel they were shifting blobs of potential rolling about her soul. Constantly in slight motion and slippery in a way they had never been before.

Maddy finally grabbed onto one of them and pulled life mana into her mind.

In a single moment, the floating point was attached and dragged towards her consciousness. Like she had just stretched an elastic band around her nose and a marble and then let go. The link she made snapped tight and her pool pulled up and into her.

Suddenly Maddy felt more herself. She felt happier and more optimistic but also…the mana she could feel rushing into her mind ‘fixed’ her slightly. Made her even more herself.

It was difficult to tell time currently but in a single moment Maddy felt her entire pool was drained to a single drop. What was little more than a disorienting flash of sensation filled her and Maddy was briefly able to sense the strange life that surrounded her.

Her pool was drained completely dry. So easily had she ripped the mana from it that it felt like she had accidentally broken it. like she had eaten it completely the pool disappeared from her senses for a panic inducing moment.

Slowly the pool came into view once again drifting away from her mind as it struggled to refill.

It had slipped away from her mind as soon as her life mana reached absolute zero and ever so slowly regained its form.

After a metaphorical sigh of relief – Maddy didn’t have the lungs or mouth to sigh with – Maddy focused on what she had seen.

It wasn’t quite thousands of hands but there were at least a dozen of them holding onto her surroundings. There were muted blobs around her in the surroundings. Humanoid shapes seared into the static for a second and then dropped as soon as her spell ended.

Maddy reached very carefully for her light pool.

Instead of grabbing it this time Maddy reached out and tapped it mentally. She actively tried to draw as small a strand as she could up towards her mind and took the time to slowly visualize the single small strand passing through her soul.

A less aggressive link was made and Maddy’s senses shifted once more.

Slowly as if looking at the output of a 3d scanner, the void shifted and gained structure. Very quickly static black and white dots shifted to sand and outlined buildings and figures. The fuzzy black and white bled into colours as the flavours of light tinged her surroundings.

Maddy was back in the city once again. Held floating invisible above people’s heads.

Below her and to the side she watched a familiar looking outline. A familiar...

Was that…her?

Maddy saw herself moving in a strange manner through the city. Her body walked naturally and yet with a robotic twitch that was almost creepy in its regularity. Like clockwork every 10 or so seconds her body would pop upwards slightly.

Her current vision also revealed the hint of a shimmer about her body.

It wasn’t quite an illusion but Maddy was pretty confident there was some magic surrounding her body that was preventing people from noticing or caring…

Why.

Why was that her body? And why wasn’t she in it?

Maddy hadn’t been reincarnated yet.

For some reason she had been imagining her body would appear fully formed wherever the necromancer reincarnated her at.

“How naïve” A voice spoke from beside her.

Maddy suddenly realized she must have been projecting her thoughts because suddenly a small puppet shaped creature floated beside her.

Not just any puppet – her puppet. The one she had used to summon the necromancer all that time ago in.

“Is…is that a person? Are you shoving me into someone else’s body?” Maddy asked glancing between the invisible figure beside her and the still wandering body below.

“Will you tell me not to save your silly little ass if I say yes?” The creature spoke. Mirth filled his…soul voice as his intent radiated down on her.

Maddy was tempted to say yes just to spite him. The lack of a brain removing many filters she didn’t know she had.

And yet those same filters showed her true thoughts without hiding them from herself.

The answer was no. She would still want to be saved. She’d just feel guilty about it.

She hadn’t responded and yet the necromancer seemed to see every one of her thoughts. He actually laughed out ‘loud’ this time as his skeletal hands squeezed her bag lightly.

“I like you more like this girlie. To answer your question. That meat puppet is no more a person than a baby is. It has the potential to be a person, but it isn’t one yet. Besides, as fun as it would be to see how long you can last as a spirit – Your soul defense is what. 20? 22? That would let you survive something like a day without a body unless you actively tried to kill yourself. Wouldn’t put it past you hah. Anyways. As fun as that might be, that bastard R would find out and I can’t afford to break a deal with the big scary demon,” the necromancer trailed off. With a shift as if he was suddenly bored of the conversation, the necromancer grabbed the bag surrounding her tightly and dragged it towards her body down below.

“Wait,” Maddy called without quite knowing why. She wanted to prepare herself or something? Ignoring her cry the necromancer continued to pull her into her body a final slightly muffled response the last thing she heard.

“You don’t technically need to re apply the rune to your leg. This zone is close enough to reality I can bypass most of the restrictions and your soul defense isn’t an issue as is…try to stay under 27 if you are planning on dying again and don’t want to piss me off but whatever. I could handle triple that in this zone anyways even if it would be a colossal pain in my ass…”