Chapter Twenty-four

Wensah dumped us on solid ground rather unceremoniously, bubble and all. For a moment I was scared we were back on Misery Island, but when we plonked down on a sandy beach instead of a rocky one, I knew we were somewhere else.

I dismissed the bubble, Mana, Essence and Spirit Stuff slowly disappearing, and the bubble was no more. I looked over my unconscious companions sprawled out on the soft sand. Akela lay next to Krissy, breathing and alive. Kenta and Tommi were next to them, huddling together even when passed out. We were alive. All of us. And as unexpected as it was, it was Wensah whom I had to thank for it.

The blond wench stood over my friends, looking around as if she was a tourist at some famous spot. Then she looked at me.

‘So. This is the place, and this is what I want you to do,’ she said without preamble and began to explain what it was she expected of me.

Maybe it was a little too early to be thankful — I did not like what she was saying, what she wanted us to do. But we didn’t really have a choice. At least I didn’t have to go through weird and ancient texts containing indecipherable prophecies to know what she wanted, so that was a plus.

‘Is everything clear?’ Wensah barked the words, glaring at me menacingly.

‘Crystal clear,’ I said, having a sudden urge to snap to attention and to salute her.

In truth, I had a lot of questions, but I had a feeling she wasn’t in the mood to answer any, so I pretended I understood everything. Which I sort of did.

‘Good,’ Wensah said. ‘A piece of advice: you might want to hang onto one of the humans instead of the dog. It will make things easier for you.’

‘It’s a wolf,’ I said.

‘Don’t you start nitpicking!’ she snapped at me. ‘Wolf, dog, kraken … same thing. Material creatures.’

‘Alright, alright. Fine,’ I said. ‘But is it even possible to … let the dog go without ripping his soul out?’

‘What? You haven’t figured it out yet?’ she asked, staring at me like I was a dumb kid struggling with the times tables at school.

‘How do I do it?’ I asked.

‘Easy. If you can’t rip the tether out at on one end, then rip it out at the other end,’ she said, shaking her head, giving me a pitying look.

My imaginary mouth hung open. It … made sense, actually. How had I not considered this before? Maybe Wensah was right, and I was dumb.

'Alright then, you know what to do, so good luck and good-bye.’ Wensah said, sneering at me, then she vanished without a trace.

So this was it. I hoped Krissy and and the others wouldn’t be too angry that we suddenly owed a debt to an annoying godling.

***

Akela, Krissy and the two sailors were still unconscious. But they were dry, the sand under them was soft, and judging by the bright sun in the clear sky it wasn’t a cold day. They would wake up soon, I hoped, and I decided to take stock of my own affairs while waiting.

I was Level 29. I had seven tenties, each of them almost five meters long now. It was impressive — if I stretched two of them out in opposite directions, I was ten meters long, resembling a bunch ropes tangled into a lump in the middle. Yeah, I looked a little weird with such long tenties attached to a basket-ball sized body. But all in all, I couldn’t complain.

Since my spherical body hadn’t done any growing, my pools remained the same size. Primary Essence 62, secondary 30, Mana 35, and Jack’s Room the same 50 spaces, filled to the brim with food, wooden bits and all the various things I’d collected from the crates and barrels on Misery Island.

The one thing I was very happy about was the speed at which my tentacles were collecting Essence now: it had more then doubled, and my Essence pools were filling up quickly.

***

It was time to figure out how to swap hosts. I looked at Akela as he slept, and I focused on the Essence wires connecting him to me. They ran from his soul-nodes, through my tentacle, to my own nodes. I wasn’t sure what all of the nodes did; all I knew that if I tried to pull my tentie and the wires out, I would yank Akela’s soul out of his body and he’d die. Wensah was right: I could just do it the other way around and pull the Essence wires out of my own body. I was sure it was going to hurt like hell, but what choice did I have? But before I jumped into the operation, I had an even closer look at Akela’s soul.

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I sent a little bit of Mana along the Essence wires and I watched it as it went. It arrived at one of the nodes in Akela’s soul, somewhere in his chest, and it stayed there, waiting to be used by him. That node must have been responsible for Akela’s ability to use my Mana.

Then I spoke to him. Akela was still asleep, but the node in his head seemed to react. I’d never noticed it before, but then again, I had never really looked. The node in his soul-head vibrated or pulsed a little, barely perceptible even to me. I figured the node was responsible for our ability to talk to each other. I saw ten others to which my Essence wires had connected. I was sure one or more of those were the ones that enabled my body to tag along Akela as he moved. There were more, unconnected nodes dotting Akela’s soul, but I had no idea what they did.

I wanted to free my furry friend. But I also wanted to be able to talk to him, and I wanted him to be able to use my Mana. This was the next thing to figure out.

I turned my attention to the nodes in my own body. I found them quickly and I found the Mana and comm-wires. I pulled on them a little, but my Tentacle Horror instinct warned me they were made of pure Essence and they weren’t particularly stretchy. On top of that, they only worked when inside of a soul or a spirit body. This is where Wensah’s thread came into play.

I had managed to take a long enough look at Wensah’s thread. It was also made of pure Essence, but it was lighter or less dense, and it somehow stretched and expanded as Wensah moved. She could even make it invisible to me — although I hadn’t figure it out how she could do that. I had some serious work to do, and my Tentacle Horror instinct was raring to go.

I took a little bit of Essence and little bit of Mana. I formed Essence into a short thread inside one of my tentacles, doing the same with Mana. Then I overlaid one wire on top of the other — according to my Tentacle Horror instinct, this way Essence would gain some of the properties Mana possessed. So I willed Mana to impart its wisdom onto the Essence string.

My instinct hadn't been wrong. The string became different: lighter, stretchy and responsive, like Wensah’s Essence. The little bit of Mana I had used lost its own responsiveness in the process, so I expelled it.

A considerable amount of Essence and Mana later, I had the kind of strings I wanted. I couldn’t make them invisble like Wensah could, but I was confident they would serve their purpose: they would stretch, they’d even draw more Essence and Mana from my pools if they needed to expand, and most of all, they would provide me with a connection to Akela. And with that done, it was time for some pain.

I took a deep, mental breath, and I pierced my own body with a tentacle. It hurt, but the real pain came when I touched one of my nodes, trying to tear the bundle of Essence wires out of it. The wires didn’t budge, instead they brought the node with them. At that moment I learned what burning alive in the fires of hell felt like — I could feel it in my body and in my soul, and when you’re a spirit, no-one could hear you scream.

I had no choice but to tear the nodes out of my body. It was outright self-mutilation as far as I was concerned — pure torture. I screamed as I tore the first node out, wires and all. The pain was bad, but it didn’t seem like a fatal wound, and my spiritual body began to … sort of heal, almost immediately, I felt Essence leaving my pool, mixing into Spirit-Stuff my body was re-allocating to form something I could perhaps call scab, or something like it, to fill the self-inflicted wound. I marveled at how my spirit-body was dealing with the damage.

Pain clouding my mind, I began repeating this appalling procedure until Akela was completely free of me. Once it was done, I had to take a break to let the pain subside. I started feeling better after a few minutes, and I got to work again. I made long, Wensah-style wires, and I carefully attached them to the Mana and comm nodes in both Akela’s soul and my own body. I was happy with the result — neither me nor my Tentacle Horror instinct had any doubt it would work.

All that was left to do now was to attach myself to Krissy.

***

I wondered what kind of face Krissy would make if she woke up to my voice in her head. I was sure she’d be scared and confused at first, but I was also sure she’d get used to it. Eventually.

I was looking forward to talking to her directly. I was as excited as I was nervous about it. I knew enough of the language to have basic conversations, enough to explain what was going on, although I wasn’t sure whether language was going to play a part in the kind of communication we were going to have. I had been talking to a wolf after all, and as clever as Akela was, he didn’t have a language. I couldn’t help but feel a kind of stage-fright. I hoped Krissy wouldn’t immediately demand that I release her. I was having all kinds of second thoughts about this, but in the end I had to suck it up and get it over with.

I took a deep mental breath and turned my attention to the girl lying on the sand. I willed 15 EP to gather at the tip of one of my tenties and I slowly, carefully drove it into her beautiful, teal coloured soul.

It was done. Krissy was mine. Well, in a manner of speaking.

Back on Misery Island, when I had first met Krissy, I had decided I would not let her be hurt, not without knowing what was going on and why. I hadn’t wanted to be that kind of person, and I didn’t want to be one now. It had been the right decision. Now I made another decision: I wouldn’t be the kind of person who forced himself on someone. So I swore to myself that if she demanded to be rid of me, I wouldn’t argue and I would go through the painful process of letting her go. If that happened, perhaps Kenta or Tommy would be willing to take me on and put up with me for some time, just until I found some other, suitable and willing host.

***

Akela stirred, flicking his tail into Krissy’s face, tickling her. Krissy slowly opened her eyes and moved one of her arms, trying to scratch her face. She took a few deep breaths, groaning. Oxygen deprivation could have serious, long term effects, but she seemed to be fine, and I could barely contain my joy at that.

Krissy sat up, supporting herself with her hands. She took a fistful of sand, staring at it and letting it flow out between her fingers. She clambered to her feet groggily, then her gaze fell on Akela and the two sailors. She quickly knelt down to check if they were alive or not. She sighed with relief when she saw Kenta and Tommy were breathing.

Akela opened his red eyes.

It was time.

‘Good morning,’ I said to Krissy.

Hungry. Akela complained.