Chapter Forty

I flung one of my tentacles forward. The weird, horned bird that looked almost like a woodpecker froze up as I pierced its little, pink soul. I liked that pinkish colour — only a few of the forest birds had souls like that. The taste, on the other hand, was underwhelming. So was the quantity. It wasn’t that I ever felt hungry, but eating souls at five, ten or twenty EXP at a time wasn’t going to get me to Level 32 any time soon, not with the requirement being around 2000 EXP.

The bird fell from the tree branch as I slurped up its soul. I pulled the little, dead thing into Jack’s Room before it could land and Krissy would trip over it.

Krissy didn’t notice it. She shambled through the day old snow, trudging through the training ground like a zombie, her breath a white mist in the air. She was spent, as she usually was at the end of the day, and I doubted she even saw where she was going. I was worried she’d just walk into one of trees.

I didn’t understand why a training ground paved with stone tiles needed trees. Even the nearby town, Gal-Themar, was a city sized village that looked like a forest-y park — no two houses were closer to each other than twenty meters, every wall, every door, every roof had carvings of trees and other plant motifs, and the tree-to-house ratio was around 30-to-1 across town. Bloody tree-hugging new-age hippies, the elves. I liked them.

Krissy arrived at the empty barrack without any tree-related incidents, trod through the corridor to her room, and when she finally reached her bed, she collapsed onto it with a groan, burying her face into the pillow. She didn’t even bother to change her clothes. She could have at least taken her practice sword off her belt, but no, it looked like she was going to sleep with it. Again.

‘Are you going to go another day without bathing?’ I asked.

I knew she was knackered — Tovaron Ento’s endurance training combined with Fenirig Arte’s “swordsmanship for dummies” lessons managed to do that to her every day. But three days in a row with only a few, quick splashes of cold water to her face in the mornings … well, I couldn’t say I approved.

‘Leave me alone,’ she squeaked, her voice muffled by the pillow.

‘Oi, get up, Krissy! Hygiene! We’ve talked about this,’ I yelled at her.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t move an inch. I was beginning to think she had fallen asleep already, but then she moved one of her arms.

‘I’m sore everywhere,’ she whimpered, trying to detach the scabbard from her belt, still lying on her belly.

I wanted to help her, I really did. I could have easily removed the sword, her dark green cloak and all her clothes. Hell, I felt tempted to try to drag her to the bath myself, but that was beyond my capabilities. Not to mention, both Toven and Fenirig Arte had made it clear that I was not to help Krissy with anything during her training. As much as I hated seeing her worn and torn like this, I had begrudgingly agreed and accepted that she needed to do this on her own, otherwise it would be pointless.

Pups! Pups coming! Akela’s growly thoughts came to me and to Krissy.

Krissy lifted her head, her eyes wide open, suddenly awake as if I had poured a bucket of ice cold water on her.

‘You hear that? Akela’s gonna be a dad,’ I screamed with excitement.

***

My Mana pool had a maximum capacity of 40. Krissy drew on it, and Mana rushed to aid her aching muscles as she ran out of the barrack — at a cost of 2 MP per minute, she could sprint almost as fast as an elf for at least twenty minutes without getting too tired. If I used all my stored Essence to replenish my Mana pool — and I had plenty of Essence — maybe even longer. My primary Essence pool had a max capacity of 68, my secondary was at 35. Wensah had only been taking five or six EP at time, so Krissy had nothing to worry about: I got it covered.

On one hand, I was a little annoyed: neither my nagging nor the general appeal of a bath had been enough to get her to move. On the other hand, I completely understood: Akela and Misty were finally having their pups, and I was as excited about it as she was, if not more.

Krissy rushed past another barrack, much to the surprise and amusement of the ranger trainees loitering in front of the building, discussing the day’s training. Some of them yelled after us, in Elvish of course, something like “What’s the rush, Misery” and “Would Misery like company?” Krissy paid them no mind and focused on the paved road ahead of us, and we left the compound behind, heading to town.

I focused my thoughts on my brand new secondary communication node, and called out to Kenta and Tommi.

‘Hey, guys, Misty’s giving birth. Get to Toven’s house!’ I told them.

Uh … Kevin, so … the pups are finally comin’, eh? Kenta’s distinctly hoarse thoughts came to me.

‘Yes, hurry up!’ I said to him.

Oh, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Tommi’s clear and excited thoughts came, too.

‘We’re heading there now, so see you in a bit,’ I said to the both of them.

***

Gal-Themar was less then a kilometer from the rangers’ training compound. Krissy ran like the wind, panting and wheezing, and it didn’t take long to reach the edge of town. Tommi and Kenta had already arrived — they had been staying in a house close to Toven’s.

Krissy couldn’t hear my conversation with the ex-sailors, in fact she wasn’t even aware that I could talk to them. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep secrets from her, I just wanted to be able to achieve some of my own goals without distracting her from her training.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Over the past three months I’d come to understand how my spiritual body worked — well, mostly. To nobody’s surprise, the key was Essence. Wensah annoyed the hell out of me whenever she appeared, but the undeniable fact was that every time she did, I learned something new simply by paying attention to the things she said and did. During her last visit, back in that farmstead, I’d had had a major epiphany. No, not that she was a bossy bitch, that had been clear from the start. It was about Essence.

Everything was Essence. The other two members of the Holy Trinity of spiritual existence — Mana and Spirit Stuff — weren’t their own, unique things after all. They were Essence, too, altered and refined in different ways, but Essence nonetheless. My new perspective on it was this: Essence was something like stem-cells. Not that I knew much about stem-cells, but it was the best analogy I could think of. Just as stem-cells could turn into a number of different things depending on the needs of the body, so could Essence.

I had spent two months figuring out how to make that damn second comm-node.

First I had to take a closer look at my existing, natural comm-node. I was a Tentacle Horror not a microscope, but weeks of gazing at the thing had given me a good idea of how I needed to refine Essence into the kind of Spirit Stuff I needed to make a replica of it.

Base Essence wasn’t a responsive substance, so I used the same trick I had used when making the thread to connect to Akela. I overlaid a lot of Mana over a lot of Essence, and Mana did its job altering Essence according to my wishes. It wasn’t an economical process — I had used over 1000 EP and even more MP throughout the trials and errors. But after two months, I had a working prototype, and a little bit of fine tuning and fiddling later my body had accepted the new node. And with the new node I could finally talk to Kenta and Tommi without Krissy overhearing us.

My success in the field of manufacturing spiritual materials, a few and short conversations with Tilry, and what I could glean from Wensah’s words and actions, had led me to a conclusion: spirits existed in both the Spirit World and in the material plane simultaneously. In other words: I existed in two places at once. My human soul and the bulk of the Tentacle Horror’s body — including my pools and Jack’s Room — were in the Spirit World. I had thought that my cute little tentacled body was an avatar perhaps, like a puppet or something. But that wasn’t exactly right. It was an intrinsic part of the entity I was, located in the material world.

When a spirit’s “avatar” was hurt, the entire entity was hurt, both here and in the Spirit World. When I’d eaten Jevan’s familiar, I hadn’t just eaten the “avatar”. I had eaten the entire entity. I wasn’t sure if I could ever understand the mechanics of it — the kind of spiritual-dimensional shenanigans involved must have been stupidly complex and mind-bending — but my Tentacle Horror instinct was on board with the theory.

I had to get my tentacles on some Black Essence, or figure out how to make it. I was curious about the Spirit World, there was that too, but what I really wanted to do was to take a good look at my full self. Unlike normal spirits and familiars, I had only ever seen the part of me that existed here in the material world. If I could go to the Spirit World, or at least somehow send my consciousness over to have a quick look-see, I was sure I’d get a few ideas how to grow into a grand spirit.

But that had to wait. Right now, my best buddy, ladies’ wolf and hell-hound extraordinaire, Akela, was becoming a father.

Krissy whooshed past the first house at the edge of town. Toven’s residence wasn’t difficult to find. The ranger lived in the outskirts — although one could argue that the whole town was a giant, tree-riddled outskirts — and Krissy knew the way.

She stopped drawing on my Mana as we arrived at Toven’s house. She wobbled the moment Mana left her legs, slipped on the frost that covered the paved walkway leading to the door, but regained her balance quickly. She exhaled a stream of white mist and some elven curses into the cold, evening air, then she calmed herself and rapped her fist against the door.

Devalet Niraki opened the door for us. She blinked once, then stood aside, inviting Krissy in with a gesture.

‘Good evening. So … you’ve heard the news already?’ Toven’s wife asked in Treini.

‘Yeah. Are they all at the back?’ Krissy asked in her heavily accented Elvish.

‘They are. Come in, Misery,’ the woman said — in Treini once again.

Krissy followed Deni inside, through the living room and to the back door in the kitchen, then out into the garden.

I was sure there was a permanent, town-wide competition to see who could grow the most magnificent trees in their gardens. Toven and Deni certainly weren’t going to be outdone: they had something that looked like a giant bonsai tree, right in the middle, and a few meters behind it lay Toven’s prized rock garden. Akela and Misty had set up their den in a small alcove-like structure.

Toven, Kenta and Tommy were standing a few steps away from the mouth of the artificial cave, trying to peek inside. Akela sat there like a guard dog, alert and proud.

Toven glanced at Krissy as we came out into the garden

‘Shouldn’t you be sleeping? It’s endurance training tomorrow,’ he said to Krissy as we approached.

‘U-huh,’ Krissy said.

‘Oh, Lady Krissintha, you came,’ Tommy greeted her.

Kenta turned and nodded his head in greeting, then turned back to the small garden-cave, from which a constant, low growl emanated. It wasn’t a deep cave or anything of the like, but it was too dark to properly see the occupants.

Too close. Too many not-prey. Mate worried. Akela said as Krissy stepped closer.

Pups? Are they alright? Krissy asked him.

Pups good. Mate good. Akela replied.

‘Three pups,’ Tommy said, grinning. ‘They are adorable.’

‘You saw them?’ Krissy asked, looking at the sailor, struggling to keep her eyes open.

‘Just for a moment. Misty almost went bitin’ me,’ Tommy said.

‘I told you goin’ closer ain’t a good idea,’ Kenta grumbled. ‘Misty’s a wild animal. I’m surprised she’s puttin’ up with stayin’ ‘ere instead of the forest. And with us.’

‘It’s because of Akela, isn’t it?’ Deni said, bending down to pat my buddy on the head.

Akela of course graciously accepted it and growled with delight. I was convinced that my connection to him had played a big part in him accepting the company of humans and elves. Misty, on the other hand, seemed to be almost constantly on edge. Well, she was a wild wolf.

‘So … how long are they staying here for?’ Toven asked, looking at Krissy, 'Not that I mind, but ... you know.'

‘Spring, probably. I think when the pups can travel they’ll go settle in a forest somewhere,’ Krissy relayed my thoughts to Toven.

The elf just nodded. He had begrudgingly agreed to host them in his garden, but he wasn’t overly happy about it. “The neighbors will not like it” had been his main concern.

My main concern was that my journey with Akela was slowly but inexorably coming to an end — it was clear to me he’d choose his new, self-made pack over me. It made me a little sad, but what else could I do except let him go? He had a family now, and I would not stand in his way.

Deni went back to the house and returned with an oil lantern in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. She handed the tea to Krissy, who took it, mumbled thanks, then started sipping the hot drink. Deni then took the lamp as close to the alcove as Akela let her. She put it down on the ground. It shone brightly, and finally we could see the occupants of the mini-cave properly.

I stretched one of my tenties, poking into the small cave, focusing my vision through it, on the three, tiny pups squirming and snuggling up to their tired looking mother.

They were adorable.