Chapter Thirty-three

I was surprised and relieved: the first of Sivera’s people to appear did not have a familiar. It was a human man, wearing a dark grey hooded cloak, carrying a rather long spear, or pike, I wasn’t sure. It was similar to the spears some of the elves had, maybe slightly longer.

Tovaron Ento and his elven rangers eyed the newcomer, gripping their own weapons, but no-one did or said anything. The hooded man looked around, his gaze stopping at my three, masked companions.

Another man walked out from among the trees and stopped a couple of meters from the first one. An elf. He wore the same kind of grey cape as the human, had a sword at his hip, and a translucent, blue apparition on his shoulders. So this was one of Sivera’s spiritualists, and probably one of those “Sitanese” elves I’d heard mentioned on a few occasions. He looked exactly the same as the Solace elves, and I figured the difference between the two types was ideological rather than racial.

The familiar, hovering above the man’s shoulders was similar to Jevan’s ill-fated spiritual companion — it was vaguely humanoid, had a featureless head, a torso, the same genie-like tail that penetrated the elf’s soul, connecting to it with Essence wires. It didn’t look particularly dangerous. I had seven tentacles, one of which had the Essence wires running through it, connecting me to Krissy’s soul. The familiar’s arms weren’t that long, and I was sure six tenties would be enough to restrain and eat that familiar quick enough if it came to a fight.

Then the third of them arrived. An elven woman. She didn’t wear a cape — her clothes were simple, hugging her body tightly, her silver-grey hair tied into a pony-tail. She was beautiful, alluring, the very definition of sexy — if anyone could have resurrected my dead libido, it would have been this elven woman. The only problem with the picture was her familiar.

The spirit was humanoid, just like the other one, but … it had four arms, ending in hands and fingers with long, sharp looking nails, almost claws. Another strange thing about this spirit was that it looked … feminine. It was slender, its chest had … well, bumps, and it even had something on its featureless head that resembled a pony-tail. I wasn’t sure if spirits actually had genders; my best guess was that familiars could sort of adapt their appearance to resemble their hosts in some ways, and … the result was spine-chilling. Seriously, material creatures were so lucky they couldn’t see spirits, such as this four-armed, female-looking Mortal Kombat escapee. Or me.

The three newcomers observed the scene before them. The two familiars were staring at me, then they turned their heads to look at each other. I wanted to gulp: this was the moment of truth. My tentacles squirmed inside my spirit-costume, and I hoped to everything that was holy, unholy or just plain regular, that they wouldn’t start screaming at their hosts to go kill the Tentacle Horror.

Even Krissy tensed; I heard her taking faster and more shallow breaths than before.

But … nothing happened. The spirits remained quiet — my weird and clumsy costume seemed to have worked. For now.

‘Spirit-kill,’ the gorgeous, elf woman said, looking at the body of Tovaron-Ento’s fallen comrade and the dead wolves. She spoke Treini; I figured it was for the benefit of her human team-mate.

‘Yes.’ Tovaron Ento said also in Treini, stepping forward. ‘Ten minutes ago.’

‘It can’t be far then,’ the woman said. ‘Which way?’

Tovaron Ento looked at the dead elf’s companions. One of them pointed to a direction that didn’t mean anything to me. The woman nodded, then turned her attention to the three, masked figures in the midst of the elven rangers.

‘Who are they?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows, looking Krissy up and down.

I heard Krissy taking a deep breath under her mask, wanting to say something, but Tovaron Ento beat her to it.

‘None of your business. They’re with us,’ he said.

‘Alright,’ the woman said, nodding, her voice as perfectly beautiful as the rest of her. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. Evil spirits first, am I right?’

Tovaron Ento just lifted his arm and pointed in the same direction as the other ranger had, scowling at the woman, seemingly eager to be rid of her. I understood that the two factions of elves had a dislike and distrust towards each other, but seeing the rangers’ reactions, I thought the animosity must have ran quite a lot deeper than what we’d been led to belive.

The woman didn't move, instead, she was still eying Krissy.

‘Just the three of you?’ Tovaron Ento asked.

‘None of your business,’ the woman replied, sneering at him.

Then she beckoned her team-mates to follow her and she walked off into the direction the rangers had indicated. Their familiars took a long look at me as their hosts left, disappearing between trees. I shuddered inside my soul: they were suspicious of me, weren’t they? But luckily not so suspicious as to start talking to their hosts. I supposed this was a win, at least for the moment.

‘This bunch is worse than the last.’ Tovaron Ento muttered, shaking his head, then turned to the rangers and gave them orders in their own language. The teams got ready to move out.

‘Are you … going to leave him like that?’ Krissy asked, pointing at the slain elf.

‘Another team will be here soon. They’ll take care of him,’ Tovaron Ento said. ‘We’ll go after those torture-jesters. We’ll see if there’s more of them. And if they can’t kill the evil spirit, then you and your familiar will take to the stage and show us what your Bureau-thing can do.’

***

My humans followed the rangers the best they could — keeping up with trained and experienced people wasn’t easy when they were in a hurry, and from what I’d seen so far, elves were faster and more nimble than humans to begin with. I was in no rush to face down one of those so called “evil spirits” or Sivera’s spirtualists, so I was more than happy to arrive late to this party. I felt tempted to ask Krissy to slow down even more, then I could just tell Wensah that her rival’s people were faster. Whether this excuse would work with that wench was another question, but the more immediate problem was the spiritualists.

‘Listen, Krissy, I don’t like those spiritualists. Their familiars were glaring at me,’ I said.

Yeah? What do you want me to do about it, huh? Krissy huffed mentally, panting as she was almost running, trying not to lose sight of the single elf ranger we could still see a dozen paces in front of us.

‘I don’t know, but I can’t start eating the evil spirit while their watching. They’ll see my tentacles,’ I said. ‘Jevan’s familiar attacked me the moment it saw me, so … I’d like to avoid that this time.’

We can just stand back and let them do the work. Krissy suggested.

‘We could, but that would put us on Wensah’s bad side. I’m not sure what she meant by “hindering” them, but I think she wants us to steal their kill,’ I said.

So … if we do what Wensah wants, then the spiritualists will try to kill us, and if we don’t, then the bitch will? Is that what’ you’re saying? She demanded, her thoughts carrying a distinctly angry undertone.

‘Basically, yes,’ I said. ‘And the thing is, even if we somehow get a chance to fight the evil spirit on our terms, we still might lose. Or die. Who knows how big or strong that thing is.’

That’s just great. Am I the only one thinking this stupid god of yours brought us here to die? She said, even angrier.

‘No, I’m thinking the same thing. I barely managed to talk my way out of being killed, you know, right after the kraken,’ I said, starting to get the picture myself of why we were here. ‘I think she thinks this is a win-win thing for her: if we succeed, great: she gets something she wants. And if we fail and die, that’s also great, because she wants me dead anyway.’

‘Oh, for all the holy shrines in the world, why am I stuck with you?’ Krissy complained, saying it out loud this time.

‘Regretting your life-choices?’ I asked, teasing her. I couldn’t help it.

I didn’t have a choice, you stupid pile of tentacles! So what do we do? She sent her growly thoughts to me.

‘Well … we’ll improvise. You know, go with the flow,’ I said.

Go … with the flow? Do you think one of those spiritualists would be willing to swap familiars with me?

‘You hurt me, Krissy,’ I said, feigning offence.

Good!

***

The forest came to an abrupt end before long, giving way to tall grass, flowers and small bushes. The place wasn’t like the many, small clearings we’d seen before: this was a picturesque meadow, straight out of painting. Unlike the constant twilight of the forest, it was bright out here under the open sky, and I could see the mountain range again in the distance, and … some buildings, too, a few hundred meters up ahead — a farmstead, perhaps. If it wasn’t for the fighting that was already happening, I would have just enjoyed the view for a few moments.

‘Ruennen Itora,’ one of the rangers whispered.

So this was the owner of the sword we had found. I was unable to tell if the elf was alive or dead. Same with the two wolves the spirit seemed to have also attached itself to, almost as if it was keeping them for spares. The evil spirit itself was nothing short of a nightmare — I was sure special effects guys who worked on creating insect-like space monsters for cheap sci-fi flicks would drool over this abomination.

The spirit was part crab, part spider, part something else I couldn’t place anywhere amongst the creatures I knew. Twelve long, segmented legs — or maybe arms, I wasn’t sure — protruded from the body, three of them lodged into the souls of its three host, nine of them fending off the assault of the spiritualists’ familiars. The spirit-creature was large, twice the size of the elf which it was using, each spider-leg appendage at least three meters long. It absolutely deserved the “evil spirit” moniker people used. Unlike me. I found a sudden and new appreciation for my own, round and symmetrical body and my smooth tentacles.

The poor guy, Ruennen Itora, still had his soul, but it wasn’t a clear, bronze colour any more: the insect-like leg of the spirit pierced deep into it, and it looked like the two were merging or fusing, the man’s soul turning a murky blue. The elf’s body didn’t fare any better: I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, but his arms dangled like zombie’s, his neck and head twisting in a creepy, unnatural way, looking like a possessed person from the Exorcist. The two wolves, prancing and clawing at Sivera’s people, looked like puppets on tangled strings, their souls tainted with the spirit’s blue colour. Possession. This is what this was. The spirit had taken over the souls and bodies of its hosts, using them as meat-puppets. I wondered if I could do the same, and my Tentacle Horror instinct was positive that I could. I wasn't sure I wanted to even try.

Krissy gasped, and she wasn’t the only one. Judging by the reactions of Toven and the rangers, this wasn’t what they had expected, and they could only see the hosts.

By the look of it, this evil spirit had taken even Sivera’s people by surprise. When we’d seen them not fifteen minutes ago, the spiritualists — especially the woman — had struck me as confident. Arrogant, even. Not any more. They were struggling. All five of them.

I had no idea when or how the extra two people got here, but instead of three, five of Sivera’s flunkies were trying and failing to hold the hosts back, their familiars hacking away at the spirit itself, or just simply defending themselves.

The human man kept one of the wolves at a distance, piercing its chest with his long spear, groaning and cursing. The elf spiritualist, one of the two men, was rushing in and out, Mana flowing around him and his weapin, stabbing at the wolf with his sword, his familiar trying and failing to slice off the crab’s legs.

The gorgeous woman moved like the wind: she slashed at the zombified Ruennen Itora with her Mana-coated sword, backed away quickly, then attacked from a different side, stabbing, then backing away again. She was fast, she was graceful, and she was ineffective: the evil spirit’s Mana was roiling around the possessed man, deflecting her every strike. The woman’s familiar did its best, but even with four arms, it had a difficult time fending off the evil spirits spindly legs.

The fourth one in their group, another elven man, stabbed at Ruennen Itora’s back with his long, Mana infused spear. His familiar was unlucky: it had found itself in a tangle of death with two of the evil spirit’s legs, both its arms occupied, and from what I could see, there was some eating involved.

The fifth of the group was … I wasn’t sure. A dwarf? Or something similar? The short, stocky, bearded thing was wielding a pair of Mana-infused axes, running around, trying to help each of his comrades, attacking all three of the possessed hosts one after another, giving the others moments of relief and opportunity. His rust coloured soul was strangely appetising, making me wonder what it would taste like. His two-armed familiar was similar to the others’, and it was desperately trying to take the pressure off the others whenever it could.

Three elves, a human and a dwarf-type creature — it seemed Sivera was an equal opportunities employer. On any other day I would have applauded this kind of forward thinking policy. On any other day I would have been excited to see a dwarf for the first time. But today I wanted to see a rampaging horde of bloodthirsty orks rushing and crushing the evil spirit and its host, because this team wasn’t going to cut it. It might not have been obvious to Krissy or to the rangers — maybe not even to Sivera’s team — but I could see the evil spirit all too well, and I could hear snippets of the familiars’ voices: they were panicking.

I wondered what level the evil spirit was, or if I could even apply my imaginary system to it. I didn’t know how long it had been here, but I was sure it had been doing what an evil spirit was supposed to do: eat and eat and eat and grow.

I had to figure out what to do. Fight? Run? Just watch? Damn! Whatever I was going to chose, I knew I would not like the result.

‘What now?’ I heard Krissintha ask the very question I was furiously trying to answer myself.