Chapter Three

I peered into the second pool. I wasn’t looking at it in the old and traditional sense of the word, because I couldn’t. It was more like knowing it was there. Like when you got a sense of your stomach: the fact that it was there, whether it was full or empty, or when it wanted to send the contents back up the way they came — you just knew that it was happening. In a similar manner, I could now feel this pool and the stuff it contained. And the stuff it contained wasn’t Essence. I found this strange for two reasons: firstly, because I could have sworn it was Essence I’d ladled over from one pool to the other, and secondly, the quantity wasn’t right. The new and unknown stuff filling the pool amounted to roughly half of what I’d taken out of the Essence pool. The only explanation I could think of was that my body somehow changed the Essence into something else on the way between the two pools. And if that was the case, the conversion rate was about two to one. I had no evidence per-se, but the idea just felt right. Tentacle Horror Instinct, huh? It didn’t sound as catchy as Spider-Sense, but I was right, wasn’t I?

It was time to figure out what this new stuff did, if anything at all. My body could basically manufacture it from Essence, I even had a pool for it, so it must have had some purpose.

I focused on the stuff in the pool, and holy shit it was reacting immediately. It moved. It roiled. It didn’t take much mental nudging: the stuff flowed from pool through my body and into one of my tentacles as I directed it with ease, quite unlike the rather passive Essence. This new stuff? It obeyed.

I willed the stuff to gather at the tip of my tentacle. I could feel it. I could feel it wanted to do something, wanted to leave my body and wanted to be used. Well, if it wanted to be used, then who was I to argue?

I ejected the stuff through the tip of my tentacle. It flowed out, spreading on the outside of what amounted to the spiritual skin of my appendage. The stuff coated the end of my tentacle, and I could see a dim sheen appearing on it, and … that was it. What now? The stuff began to bleed off into the air, dissipating. I had to will some more of it to flow there to replace the quantity I was losing. It seemed that once outside of my body, the stuff would dissipate and disappear if there wasn’t a constant stream to replace it.

I held up that tentacle in front of me, just staring at it. There must be more to this stuff than just to make an expensive tentacle-glove. I kept the stuff flowing. The pool was dipping slowly but surely, but I kept it up and kept staring at the tip of my tentacle. It was time to do something. Anything. So I flailed that particular appendage around: I shook it, I punched ahead with it, then I tried to will it to form fingers, hoping I could practice flipping the bird at Wensah. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but what did happen was even better.

My tentacle brushed against a pile of earth on the ground. Oh, the joy I felt as little bits and pieces of earth went flying. It was magic. True, undisputed, joyous magic. I could touch things. With this stuff coating my tentacles, I could touch things. I could interact with the world around me.

I wasted no time: I willed my Essence pool to pour everything into the other pool. There wasn’t enough to fill the second pool completely, but I didn’t mind. I directed the new stuff into two tentacles, coating the tips of both. Earth and dirt kicked up as I punched holes into the tunnel walls, and I laughed with satisfaction.

I plunged the tips of both tentacles into the ground. I had enough purchase to pull myself forward, so I pulled and I pulled, and … my tentacles carved two small grooves into the ground. And I didn’t move. I stayed right where I was. What the hell? I didn’t think I was heavy, for shit’s sake, I didn’t think I weighed anything at all. I was some sort of spirit, hovering in the air, wasn’t I? So I tried again and again, and each time the only thing that happened was my tentacles digging and dredging up some dirt. And that was it. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. I screamed in frustration, and more then ever, I wanted to punch something. Minutes later, I was just staring at the holes in the walls all around me, with no magic stuff left in the pool. I needed to calm down and think this through.

***

I considered the two pools. Essence and the magic stuff.

I knew it was childish to draw on the long days and hours I’d spent on my PC, playing games in my high school days, but being childish was the least of my concerns. I took what I knew and I used it. I didn’t have anything better to do, did I?

First, I wanted a unit of measurement for both pools and for the stuff in them. I declared that Essence shall be referred to as Essence Points, or EP, and since I was using this kind of analogy, the magic stuff became Mana Points, or MP.

I counted the seconds as my Essence Pool refilled from empty to full. About eight minutes. This became my standard unit of measurement: one EP was the amount of Essence I collected in one minute. Based on this, the size of my Essence pool was 8. The level of EP was of course fluctuating: I lost EP to Wensah here and there. She was diligently siphoning the stuff, wasn’t she? Nonetheless my body was collecting Essence without any conscious effort on my part, and it seemed I could count on having 6 or 7 EP in my Essence pool at any given time. Well, six, realistically.

The conversion rate as I transfered EP to the Mana pool was about two to one. I started my experiment with 6 EP, for which I got 3 MP. I had to do this twice to fill it up, which meant I could store a maximum of 6 MP in the Mana pool. And unlike the Essence pool, the Mana pool stayed full — I was the only one who could siphon it away, the only one who could use it.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In the end and all things considered, I had 6 EP and 6 MP to use when the pools were full.

Next, I drew on my Mana pool, coating one of my tentacles with the stuff. I counted the seconds up to a minute. As it turned out, it cost me half an MP to keep one tentacle mana-coated for one minute. I repeated the procedure once more, just to make sure I got it right. It was the same. Half an MP per minute.

Next, I did the same with two tentacles, and it added up perfectly: 1 MP per minute for two tentacles.

With this, my Mana pool was down to two-thirds, to 4 MP. I ladled 4 EP over to the Mana pool, and lo and behold, it became the exact 2 MP I’d expected, bringing my Mana pool back to full at 6 MP.

I was ecstatic. My brand new system of measurement worked: it made sense, it was absolutely fit for purpose, and no-one was around to tell me it was childish. This was a victory for me: a victory in a time of great discoveries about my new spiritual body. Sure, Spiritual Tentacle Horror sounded … hm … ominous, but I didn’t care.

This was me now and I had no choice but to accept it.

I’d spent most of my life just going with the flow. “It is what it is, just deal with it!” had been my unsaid motto. Covering for Bert all the time so he could have more breaks than anyone else? It was what it was. Boss choosing someone else over me to manage the kitchen? It was what it was. Getting shot and then becoming a multi-tentacled spirit creature? Weird, but it was what it was. Sure, sometimes I got angry like anyone else, but it took a lot — for instance women in red dresses kidnapping the soul from my dead body. Anyhow, I liked to think that my mentality of quiet acceptance was a virtue rather than a vice, and it certainly made it easier to accept my new reality.

I was a spirit in another world and I’d likely never see anyone I knew ever again.

It was what it was, and I just had to deal with it.

But … how was I to deal with it?

The answer came a day later in the form of an ant.

***

It was just one ant at first.

The little critter came out of the tunnel the worm had left behind. For the most part it looked like an ant of the normal, Earth variety: it had its black, segmented body, the usual six legs, wiggled its weird, little antennas, and … it had a pair of horns on its head, above its eyes. Long, sharp horns, like some insect-devil.

It crawled into my tunnel, looking left and right, probably trying to decide which way to go. After a second or two, it looked my way and it came my way. It was unsettling — I wasn’t an expert on bugs, but I was fairly certain ants weren’t supposed to have horns. But more worrying than the horns was that … it was an ant. Just as the worm had been a worm. And I had a feeling that its size corresponded to the ants I knew from back home. That gave me a sense of scale.

The ant crawled past me, not even noticing I was there, and I could feel my soul shudder. I stretched out all five of my tentacles, and even then I wasn’t much bigger than the ant. I wasn’t just a Spiritual Tentacle Horror. I was a tiny Spiritual Tentacle Horror. This place wasn’t the system of tunnels and caves running for miles and miles as I had first thought, but a hole in the topsoil left by some purple earthworm. I could have been under the lawn in someone’s garden for all I knew. Bollocks!

This new and alarming certainty brought a slew of questions with it, questions I hadn’t even thought of until now.

Why was I so small? Was I a baby spirit? Is this how all spirits started out in the world, well, this world? And if I was a baby Tentacle Horror, was it the reason I couldn’t move? Did I have to just … wait and grow and learn to walk like kids did? Wensah had said this particular spirit could eat and grow. But I didn't feel hunger, didn't feel the need to eat ever since I arrived here. And what did spirits eat anyway? Spirit-food? How was I to find some if I couldn’t move in the first place?

I spent some time pondering these questions, but all I could come up with were useless guesses and even more questions. Things weren’t looking great.

Then, another ant appeared. It was identical to the first one as far as I could tell, and just as the first one, it opted to come my way. It scuttled past me, following the first ant off into the distance behind me, disappearing as the tunnel turned. Then more ants came. One after another ten of them went past me, some of them through me as if I hadn’t even been there. Now I knew how ghosts felt in movies when people walked through them without knowing.

I could see a translucent outline over each ant, just as I’d seen with the worm. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I figured it must have been the soul, or spiritual body of the creatures. Maybe I could see it because I was a spirit myself and I was made of similar if not the same stuff. Spirit stuff. Yet, they walked through me with no resistance or reaction whatsoever.

I was neither smart nor educated enough to speculate on theories of quantum mechanics and dimensions and such, and how they might relate to the nature of immaterial spirits, so I didn’t. I wasn’t even sure how I was able to see and hear; seeing surely counted as an interaction with the physical, didn’t it? Well, I wasn’t a scientist, so I dropped the topic, happy I was able to see at all. Then, I simply watched as the ants marched on.

After the twentieth of them, I was getting irritated. I did appreciate that something was happening — the alternative being a boring, empty tunnel — but I was feeling more and more helpless, just hovering there, completely immobile. Helpless? That … wasn’t it. I felt jealous. Of the ants. They could move, and I couldn’t. How was this fair? The ants were really putting my motto to the test.

It was what it was … but did it have to be?

***

I had enough. Thirty of the little buggers, thirty! They all marched on like soldiers, and I was still stuck in one place. My motto needed to be thrown out a window. I had to do something and if I couldn’t join their march and go exploring, I at least wanted to vent my frustration.

I activated the skill “Mana-Glove” and I chuckled — it seemed I wasn’t going to stop using the role playing game terminology, so when I willed Mana to coat two of my tentacles, I decided to call it a skill and I named it Mana-Glove. Because that’s what it was, and there was no-one to stop me from doing so.

Then ant number thirty-one came along.