Chapter Fifty-one

I was proud of Krissy: she had done well.

Scout-master Sitanel Niraki — or Sini — had been right: the mossy-green monsters might have been large and strong, but they were slow. Well, slowish, compared to the rangers. A human like Krissy, or even an untrained, civilian elf, wouldn’t have stood a chance against the buggers one-on-one. So, I was pleased to see the bloodied, split-open head of the ork — no thickness of skull was going to stop a Mana-blade, coming from a Mana-enhanced Krissy, that was for sure.

Fried mushrooms had never been among my favourites — I wouldn’t go as far as to say it would take a gun to my head to eat them, but if there were other options, I’d go for the other options. Unfortunately, the ork’s soul tasted like fried mushrooms — or at least that was the kind of spiritual flavour-impression I had got from it as I slurped up the liquified Soul-Stuff after Krissy had slain the creature. Other than that, I couldn’t complain; it gave me around 80 EXP, which was pretty damn good, considering a teal coloured human soul was worth only about 40 to 45 EXP. But mushroomy or not, it was orks on the menu, and I wasn’t one to let food go to waste. So, when Krissy jumped off the boulder and trudged over to the rest of the rangers, I quickly reached out with three of my tenties and latched onto the other three, fading and flickering ork souls before they would vanish. Yeah. The taste wasn’t great, and I wished there were some humans around I could eat — their minty, teal coloured souls would have surely washed away the earthy flavour. Hm. Was it my Tentacle Horror instinct pushing this thought? Maybe.

I knew it was selfish, inconsiderate and inappropriate, but I was beginning to see this invasion of the elf-snatchers as a godsend. The four ork souls meant nearly 320 EXP. That left around 1600 - 1700 EXP to be collected. Just twenty more of the assholes, and I’d reach Level 32. I could grow my body again. I could expand my pools, and I could finally expand that damn Spirit-Room, store the parts of the new costume as I was making it, and just get on with the whole thing.

But first, I had a cute little elven boy to rescue from the clutches of the lone, surviving mushroom-souled twat.

Actually, as I looked at the boy, dangling from the ork’s hand, flapping his arms and legs about, I wasn’t sure how everyone knew he was a boy. I looked at the girl whom Arde and another ranger were taking care of — both kids were about six or seven, and they looked nearly identical to each other. Maybe they were twins, I wasn’t sure. But this wasn’t the time to ponder the question, or to salivate over the children’s small, bronze coloured souls. Krissy was eager for me to eat the ork, eager enough that she had thought it out loud for everyone to hear.

She had slipped up, hadn’t she? I didn’t know she had such a soft spot for kids, but then again, the topic had never come up before. I wanted to believe letting the soul-eating cat out of the bag was a part of her elaborate PR campaign to sell me to the public as a heroic tentacle-thingy rescuing the kid, thus increasing the social acceptance of soul based dining. But I was sure she had just slipped up. I wanted to be angry with her. But she had just fought a short but intense battle against an ork, only to come face to face with a hostage situation right after. So I forgave her completely and immediately. Huh. And the elves claimed they were nice and reasonable? I was nice and reasonable.

I just sighed on the inside; it was what it was, and it was time to get to work, and kill two birds with one tentacle.

Well, six tentacles, really.

Sini ordered the rangers to back away from the ork — just as I had asked — giving the monstrous thing some room. Krissy, who was standing with the rangers, hesitated to step back.

‘My tenties are long enough to do this, just back away,’ I sent a thought to her.

Krissy breathed out hard under her mask. I thought she’d protest, but after a moment she stepped back and joined the others. None of them took their eyes off the ork though, none of them lowered their swords or spears.

Something like a smile flashed through the ork’s face — it bared its tusks, or fangs, or whatever they were, and it grunted some words that nobody understood. Had it been able to see the five tentacles slowly but surely creeping up and coiling around each of its fingers, and the one that I had stuck inside its soul, I doubted it would have been smiling.

What now? Sini asked, glancing at Krissy, trying not to look worried.

‘Now? Just watch yours truly work his magic,’ I said.

I willed an MP’s worth of Mana into each of the five tentacles, getting ready to pry the fingers off the boy’s neck. At the same time, I sloshed 10 EP out of the pool, gathering it in the tentie I had stuck into the ork’s soul. In theory I could have tried to yank the soul out of the body without using Essence, just as I had done with ants in the beginning. But the creature was big, and I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. And this was where I had to commit all my mental power to the coordination of my tenties.

I injected the Essence into the green bastard’s soul — the wires formed in a second, finding their way to every node. As that was happening, I willed the Mana in my tenties to coat the parts touching the creature’s thick, green sausage fingers.

The ork froze as it stood — I was sure it felt the cold touch of Mana as well as the Essence wires connecting to the nodes of its soul. It caught him completely off guard.

And it was showtime.

‘Hello there,’ I greeted the giant brute.

‘Whadda fuck?’ it grunted.

It wasn’t the rough-sounding words I understood, it was its thoughts that reached me through the newly established connection. But I wasn’t going to stop and chat with the creature.

I pried its fingers and I pulled its soul.

The kid fell to the ground with a yelp as I nearly ripped the ork’s fingers off, probably breaking a few of them. I didn’t think it could feel it though, not anymore; its soul hung at the tip of my tentacle, a safe distance from the body, invisible to most, but not to me.

The rangers watched in open mouthed astonishment as the ork stiffened for a moment, dropped the kid, then fell to the ground like a tree after meeting a lumberjack.

Sini was the first to react. One moment she was standing and gawking like everyone else, and the next she was with the boy as if she had teleported there, scooping him up and taking him away from the dead beast. Damn, she was fast.

I gobbled up the ork’s soul, wondering if there was anything that could be done to make it taste better. But, another 80-something EXP was nothing to sneeze at — about nineteen more orks to go until Level 32.

‘Kevin,’ Krissy whispered, not sending her thoughts through my comm-node this time. ‘I’m sorry, I … should have thought it through before speaking. But …’ she looked down at the soulless corpse of the ork ‘… this really pissed me off.’

***

Hey! Sini! Misery! What’s happening? And who said “what the fuck”? Dimal’s thoughts came, sounding panicked. No one was saying or thinking anything, and he had no way of knowing what was going on from where he was.

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This was a bad idea. Timo commented, the tone of his thoughts not so much panicky, but an “I told you so” kind of thing.

He had had the good sense to stay out of the discussions of the scout-masters so far, but it seemed he was unable to hold it back any more, and just had to inform us of his opinion. Even though he was a mile away from the happenings.

Misery! Are you alright? Hisa also joined in, but at least she was concerned for Krissy, and thus scoring points with me.

Krissy snapped out of her bewilderment.

We’re good. The barbarian is dead, the boy is safe. We’re all safe. She sent a thought to put everyone at ease.

Sini delivered the elven boy to the little girl — presumably his twin-sister — and left him in Arde and the female ranger’s care, then she started talking through the voice-chat.

Yeah. We’re good. I … I think it was the barbarian. The one who yelled “what the fuck”. A second before it … just … collapsed and died. She recounted the events to Dimal.

Spirit-kill? Dimal asked with an interesting mixture of relief and apprehension in his thought-voice.

Spirit-kill. Sini confirmed it.

Just as advertised. I chimed in.

I wasn’t surprised at the reaction of the elves. I imagined seeing someone — even an ork — collapse and die in the same manner as they might have seen comrades die in the face of evil spirits, was disconcerting to them. Sini, Havan and their rangers were working hard to process the scene, gawking at the dead bugger with all they had. Even Arde and the woman with him were scowling, holding onto the two kids. They were eying Krissy, maybe not with suspicion, but clearly waiting for some answers. I was sure that the question was going to pop up any second. Again. And it did.

‘So, your familiar. Is he an evil spirit or not? For real?’ Sini turned to Krissy, asking aloud so everyone could hear it.

‘I’ll let you explain this one,’ I said to Krissy, confident in her ability to talk her way out of anything better than I could.

Sini grunted, or scoffed, I wasn’t sure.

Krissy took a deep breath, then reached for her mask. I released the spirit glue as she took it off, and I took it back into Jack’s Room. Some of the rangers flinched at that, but not Sini. Krissy looked straight into her eyes.

‘He isn’t,’ she said to her.

‘Explain,’ Sini promted her, stepping closer, but to my relief, sheathing her sword, and nodding to the other rangers to be at ease. Maybe Toven hadn’t been lying and they really were nice and reasonable.

Krissy suppressed a sigh before resuming her explanation.

‘Honestly, the fact that you are speaking with and through him should be enough of an answer. I mean, I understand witnessing a spirit-kill isn’t … a pleasant experience, but he’s a familiar. My familiar,’ Krissy explained, forcing a casual tone, as if she was just pointing out how nice the sun over the sea was. ‘Besides, being able to do certain things doesn’t make someone evil, spirit or not. It’s what he does, not how he does it. In this case …’ Krissy said, looking at the two, reunited elven kids instead of finishing the sentence.

Not only Sini, but Havan and all the rangers looked, too, and observed the children as they hugged and cried and laughed.

‘Fine. We’ve got more to do anyway,’ Sini said, turning back to Krissy. ‘Just be aware that everything will be in my report to Master Sivaren Tal and the Defence Committee.’

‘Uh … alright,’ Krissy said, shrugging.

‘Huh. We’ll be in the limelight, it seems,’ I commented.

I had to silently applaud the mindset of the military types: get the job done by any means necessary, then let the higher-ups deal with the rest. I recalled Master Fenar’s wife was on this committee, so I figured we didn’t have much to worry about. Surely, she knew about me already, courtesy of her loving, hellspawn-husband. And even without that, I was sure elven leadership would prefer to look at us as assets or allies, rather than enemies.

Sini? Talk to me! Is there a problem? Dimal pleaded over the voice-chat, having missed the part of the conversation that had been said out loud.

We’re good. Everything will be in my report. Sini replied, her effort to sound calm and confident more or less successful.

Alright, that aside, was it really the barbarian we heard? Dimal asked.

‘It was,’ I spoke up, because I felt I needed to explain this one myself. ‘I connected to the green miscreant, but only briefly. Easier to pull the soul from the body that way. Hearing its thoughts was a … side effect.’

Uh … that’s worrying. Dimal said, and I was sure I felt mental shudders and shivers coming from each of the elves I was connected to.

‘Never fear, scout-master, I don’t go around eating souls indiscriminately, and I can say with certainty that rangers aren’t on the menu,’ I said, hoping it would alleviate everyone’s concerns.

U-huh, good to know. Dimal said, still sounding somewhat apprehensive, but then he got to what he wanted to say. So, you can … connect and talk to barbarians? Is that right?

‘It is,’ I said, wondering where he was going with this.

Can you do it again? Can you talk to these animals? He asked.

‘Why? You want me to do a Dr Doolittle?’ I asked, getting an inkling of what he was getting at.

And it kind of made sense. No one seemed to understand the wet, guttural gurgling that passed for a language with the green assholes — I certainly didn’t — so capture and interrogation must have been something the rangers never even considered. But I suspected scout-master Dimal had just had an idea.

Uhm … does that mean “yes”? He asked, somewhat confused.

Kevin, be nice! Krissy interjected, sounding rather annoyed. I had no choice but to take this seriously.

‘Yes. I can do it. What do you have in mind, scout-master? Interrogation?’ I said to him.

Something like that. Dimal said, confirming my suspicion.

***

Krissy walked over to Arde, who was on his knees, and in the process of calming the two children. He was stroking their heads, gently talking to them, telling them everything was fine. One of the women from Sini’s team, the archer, was there with him, too, trying to help, but she seemed to be out of her element. Her name was Narak, I thought, but I wasn’t sure if I remembered it correctly.

Arde was doing his best not to let the kids see the dead bodies around.

I looked at the dead, barbarian elf lying on the beach — he wasn’t far from Arde and the kids, maybe ten metres, just out tentacle range. Arrows sticking out of his chest, his blood was drying already on the rocks and pebbles under and around him. My Tentacle Horror instinct wasn’t happy with me — it lamented the lost opportunity to finally sample an elf, and of course my bold declaration that elven rangers were friends, not food. The instinct was doing its best, nudging, whispering, demanding that I satisfy a hunger I didn’t actually feel. Well, it was what it was. I was sure there were going to be more opportunities soon.

One of the rangers had searched the dead elf’s body already for anything that could be useful, just as they were still searching the dead orks. The only useful thing the search yielded so far was a spyglass. I supposed even orks needed one if they wanted to see their ship approaching the shore. Other than that, the green fucks had nothing the rangers could have used for anything — their weapons were too large and cumbersome for an elf, and the few, crumpled maps and pieces of parchment or paper weren’t going to reveal any secrets.

‘Are you alright?’ Krissy asked Arde as she stopped in front of the little gathering of rangers and children.

Arde looked down at himself, at the bloodstains on his clothes, then up at her.

‘Yeah. Barbarian blood, not mine,’ he said, sighing. ‘You?’

‘I’m okay, I think,’ Krissy said.

Arde turned his head to glance at the dead ork I had masterfully robbed of its soul.

‘That was … terrifying,’ he said, then looked back at Krissy. ‘I mean … it just collapsed, so it shouldn’t be ... but it was terrifying. Is this … is this how my mother died?’

Krissy took a deep breath. I had no doubt memories of our fight with the so-called evil spirit were flashing through her mind — they were certainly popping up in mine — and of course the image of Ardeela Erini, one of many who had lost their souls and lives to that invisible monstrosity.

‘Yes. I’m afraid so,’ Krissy said, nodding. ‘But listen, Kevin would never …’

‘I know, I know,’ Arde said, cutting her short. ‘I’m not saying that. It’s just … you know.’

‘I know,’ Krissy nodded.

Then none of them spoke, they were just looking at each other.

The archer woman — Narak, I was sure now — was looking at the two of them like a lost puppy, and decided it was better to keep her attention on the kids. I wasn’t socially inept, not at all, but even I wasn’t sure if this was one of those touching, emotional moments after shared traumatic experiences, bonding over it and such, or if it was an uncomfortable silence where both had more to say to the other but couldn’t find the words. I was considering saying something — maybe thanking Krissy for trying to defend me in front of Arde, or to reassure the young ranger trainee that I considered him a friend. Perhaps I could tell him more about how his mother died, fighting that abomination of a spirit.

Luckily, scout-master Sitanel Niraki beat me to it, and saved me from making a fool of myself by saying something inappropriate for the mood.

‘Arde!’ she said as she arrived to us along with the other team-leader, Havan. ‘First fight? I mean real fight?’

‘Yes sir,’ Arde replied, standing up and startling the two kids.

‘You’ve done well,’ she said to him, then looked at Krissy, sighing. ‘Oh, to hell with it, you too, Misery.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ the two of them chorused.

‘Alright, let’s go and see what the rest of the greens are up to in that cave,’ Sini announced.