Jake Drifted.

Mist swirled around him, caressing his body.

He tried to mov—

Jake might have tried to move at some point.

But that was then, and he could not remember now.

Lifting his arm—

The mist, lighter than a feather, wrapped around Jake like brackets.

He did not know why, but Jake felt like he was trapped. The feeling that the mist, no matter how comfortable, was not as benevolent as it seemed, would not pass.

Panic began to rear up as Jake fought to move. One after another, he began trying to move parts of his body. His arms, legs, even his fingers, Jake tried to move them all. He could move nothing.

The once feather-light strands of mist clamped down on Jake, squeezing his body. More and more strands of mist began wrapping around Jake's body until he was completely encased.

Without warning, the mass compressed, squeezing Jake into a smaller and smaller space. A scream of agony tour from Jake as he was crushed.

It was as if Jake's very soul was compressed smaller and smaller, for there was no way a body could survive being crushed to this degree. The pressure mounted, doubling again and again to the point Jake felt his vary being would shatter.

As Jake could take no more, the mist surrounding him began to seep into him. Suffusing his soul until—

Jake floated in the mist.

He knew he wanted to remain in the mist. He wanted to. Nothing could ever, would ever, give him the incentive to leave. But Jake was bored.

It was fine being encased and infused with so much of the surrounding mist that he could not move. Jake was content and comfortable.

But you can only relax so much before you just need to move around and have to do something. Even watching something would be fin—

**********

Jake stood high above a seemingly endless grassland.

Clumps of trees gathered in shallow basin-like valleys and along the few rivers slicing across the land in the distance.

Spinning around, Jake saw a granite wall.

Looking to the sides, Jake was staggered to see the wall extending untold miles before blurring into ambiguity. Glancing up, Jake was treated to the wall of stone disappearing into the clouds, though on occasion, when the clouds parted just right, you could see it extending even further.

Calling the structure before Jake a pillar might be loosely accurate, as far as Jake could see. That comparison, however, was like saying a blue whale and a trout are the same kind of fish.

"Pillar" did not do the humbling wonder in front of Jake's eyes justice. It was the only thing Jake could currently think of that seemed right, so he guessed he would stick with it.

Turning back around, which was more challenging than Jake would like to admit, Jake noticed a shimmer hanging in the air. Focusing on it, Jake saw that it ran in a vail encasing the entire area before The Pillar—whatever the name becomes, it deserves capital letters.

Reaching his hand out towards the vail, Jake paused for a moment, fingers playing over the surface, before pressing into it. There was nothing.

At least as far as Jake could tell. His hand passed through without any resistance at all.

However, as soon as his hand was sticking out past the shimmering veil, Jake could feel a slight pull on his hand.

When Jake stopped resisting the constant pull, his hand was flung back behind the veil, smacking him in the chest. Inspecting his hand in curiosity, Jake's eyes widened in shock as he started patting down and visually examining his body.

"Ahh! What th~!" Jake shouted as he fell onto his backside, breathing hard.

Call Jake dense all you want, but looking down over an endless grassland. Then looking up at a slab of rock so colossal, Jake might as well be standing at the base of an architectural mix between a space elevator and the Great Wall of China; Jake was a little distracted.

So Jake thought it was reasonable he didn't notice he was a ghost.

You could also call Jake an ethereal being, soul, or spirit. They would all accurately describe Jake.

Jake's body was see-through, and guess what? He was standing on air!

Cause that's what body-less beings do in their spare time. Jake would know since he was now a professional and all.

He was fine, standing—currently sitting—on the air as a professional ghost. It did not bother him at all that he was at least hundreds if not thousands of feet up. You would have to be crazy to have a hysterical voice constantly screaming, "I'M GOING TO FALL!" in the back of your mind.

As a spirit, a being without any physical form, that was a ridiculous thing to be worried about.

Taking a breath, or whatever a creature without a body does when it mimes breathing, Jake squinted at the vail as he inspected it.

Cautiously, like the responsible, safety-conscious adult he was, Jake jumped forward through the shimmering wall. Well, it might have been after throwing a few looks behind himself. It was a rather captivating sight.

Landing crouched with his arms stretched out, Jake paused, shouting "Ten points!" before casually straitening and turning around.

He tried to, at least. Jake stumbled a bit as he stood and turned due to the constant low-level pulling the vail inflicted on him. It took a moment to get used to, but it was little more than ignoring a strong wind after the initial shock.

Completing his turn, Jake's eyes widened as, instead of a monolithic stone tower, Jake saw an opaque wall of fog.

Have you ever driven on the country road in the middle of the night? Then suddenly, you come around a corner, and a hundred feet out is a grayish-white wall of fog cutting everything beyond it off. It can cause a moment or two of indecision as you process what his going on, and that's if you are used to such a situation.

Jake knew what was behind him. He looked back and saw the same thing a half-dozen times before jumping forward. Turning around and suddenly having the whole thing be gone was shocking, to say the least.

Hesitantly, Jake took a step forward to the edge of the fog and poked it a few times before sticking his hand through and waving it around.

Still feeling nothing, Jake pulled his hand back and glanced through it, ensuring everything was ok. Not seeing a problem, Jake stuck his head through the fog wall.

Taking a moment to make sure he saw the unmissable pile of stone, Jake pulled his head back, going back to what really mattered.

Inspecting the unending grasslands with all of its unique scenery. Ain’t nowhere else am I ever going see a bunch of grass, Jake thought as he glanced around. Despite the sarcasm, the sheer scope of the wild grasslands was rather impressive.

Never in his life did he ever think that he would find himself in a land completely untouched by humans.

Looking down and over to the right as something caught his attention, Jake stopped cold.

Turns out Jake was right. Even in his most extraordinary and wild dreams, he could not escape the touch of humans.

"That doesn't look good..." Jake muttered to himself.

Jake did not feel bad for not spotting it immediately. A person can only process so much, and he was rather busy taking everything in.

It was not like Jake intentionally failed to look down at the land below his feet so he could pretend he still had a proper body. And who wants to feel the queasy stomach-dropping feeling of looking over a cliff. That would be rather childish and stupid; no way those could be applied to Jake.

One summer in Jake's mid-teens, he and his friends decided to have a little contest. The contest entailed all of them going to a cliff and finding a rocky outcropping sticking over the edge. One at a time, they inched themselves forward along the outcropping until they were surrounded by little more than six inches of stone on any side but the way they came.

It was plenty of room to avoid the hundred-plus foot drop if they slipped, so long they weren't stupid.

While ignoring the catcalls and insults of those still on solid ground, they closed their eyes, looked up as far as possible, and lifted their arms, keeping them out to the sides, trying to raise them above their heads.

Doesn't really sound like much, but anyone who can actually do it has balls of steel.

Jake lifted his hands a little more than halfway.

The queasiness Jake felt during that competition with his friends had stuck with him. More to the point, his desire to never feel it again.

Well, Jake did want to see how far he could raise his hands the next time he did it, but the feeling without the challenge was a no-no for Jake.

The fact he felt nothing as he looked straight down while standing in midair did not leave Jake with a slight feeling of disappointment...

Anyway, as Jake tried to move around, he found he could either walk on the air, spending hours to get anywhere, or he could will himself forward and fly, practically appearing anywhere in a few miles in a second.

Jake guessed that slowly drifting around was also an option, but why waste time.

On a side note, as Jake made his way above the town's outskirts, AKA fucking around in front of the barrier, Jake experimented with the constant pull of the veil.

These tests included progressively increasing the distance between him and the fog to see if the pull increased. It did not, from what Jake could tell.

And after moving away from the veil, the obvious next step was letting the constant force take hold of him and tow him back. Jake had to know what would happen. It could be a potential danger if he didn't.

After Jake passed through the veil, he tumbled over himself a few times before coming to a halt. Taking a breath and smoothing his already smooth, ethereal shirt, Jake slipped beyond the veil once more.

To make it a proper experiment, Jake had to test it a few more... dozen times as he made his way over to the town. Only way to be sure.

Getting the serious business of science out of the way, Jake began to inspect the town from above in the evening sunlight. It's not sunlight, though...this ain't Earth. Ehh, who cares.

The best way to describe the buildings below was slapdash. And that was not due to what they were made of.

From what Jake could tell with his limited knowledge, he would guess that most of the buildings were adobe, with a few others made entirely or partially of wood.

People worked with what they had, and adobe buildings could be rather nice. Besides the fact that many of the buildings on the outskirts of the town were little more than rubble, and many more were bonfires, the buildings were rough.

Jake jumped in surprise as his vision sharpened like binoculars onto the exterior of the house he was focused on.

Chalking it up to another dream thing, Jake continued to inspect the building.

Every part was coarse and unfinished. There were no frivolous frills and decoration. Anything not absolutely needed was nowhere to be seen.

As he began floating down, the reason why anything beyond utility was a distant second thought became apparent.

Stopping a few hundred feet up, Jake used his binocular vision to inspect the horrors below.

Jake could see thousands of humans running around, through, and over the maze of buildings. Most were being chased by massive wolves; some might have been foxes or coyotes. The differences in size and appearance were so minor Jake could not tell—canine is a good term for the animals. No need to miss label and offend them making them act out.

Simply put, canines were everywhere.

These canines were not the friendly neighborhood Sammy-boy type of dog. Sammy-boy was a dog its owner could ignore just short of it starving to death. And then, when it finally barks loud and long enough to get the owner's attention to come feed it, the owner decides to play fetch—throw a ball at Sammy-boy to see how well he can dodge. Sammy-boy was a sweetheart compared to these canines.

No, these were the starving wolfs slinking around the neighborhood rumored to have rabies; that was some sort of half-wolf, half-raccoon, and full-brown-bear abominations.

The things made horses look small.

However, the wolves were nothing to the triceratops mixed with rhinos stomping around. I name you tri-nos. Well, you do have to reverse the horn placements.

The things have two tusks like an elephant—though they were more like warthogs in placement if not size—and a horn-like rhino along with both of their hides. Though the horn was on the forehead, not above the nose.

So I guess you should add an elephant and unicorn. Half-rhino, half-triceratops, half-elephant, and half-unicorn makes…a monster guaranteed to induce nightmares if it ever charges at you.

Like that unlucky group of a half dozen standing at the end of an al—oops. They should have run.

If one is getting technical, triceratops does not need to be there. The creature wasn't feathered—like everyone nowadays is saying dinosaurs are supposed to be. The thing also didn't have a beak, but how often do you get the chance to describe something using dinosaurs? It should just be an elephant rhino combination if you're getting nit-picky, but that's boring. Tri-nos it remains.

Jake could see the behemoth monstrosities scattered about. It usually involved stomping men and women into a paste, with a few impalings thrown in.

Occasionally, the humans managed to trap the beasts in an alley or pit. Though the things seemed to actively avoid alleys and digging a pit large enough to contain a tri-nos was a lot of effort.

Jake was surprised at the number of pits he saw.

When a tri-nos was trapped in an alley, the humans would sprint up the sides of the alley before jumping onto the backs of the seven to ten-foot-tall monsters. Spears in hand, they would try stabbing down to puncture its skin. The handful of times Jake saw it, the spearmen could not pierce the beast's hide before it escaped the alley, which was when the groups ended up retreating a few members short.

Brave as the humans were, it was fruitless as far as Jake saw in all but one occasion where a woman speared a beast through the eye.

The woman fell off almost immediately, but when the monster thrashed about, it hit the base of the spear shaft against a wall jamming it deeper into its skull, killing itself.

While the beasts roared and slammed around in a rage, the fallen woman was squashed like a blood grape.

Over and over again, Jake witnessed one act of courage and sacrifice after another. It was humbling to watch.

A few times, he tried to pick up a spear, throw a stone, or push a wolf as it savaged a person, but his body passed through the objects without effect every time.

It was a type of mental torture watching women and men be ripped apart without being able to help. Eventually, however, Jake began to become numb to it all. You can only give so much worthless effort before giving up and accepting reality. Fuck these dogs…

Jake was now slowly walking around the streets of the broken adobe town, watching men and women alike run around with spears, cudgels, and massive clubs.

Some of the people had stone shards and fangs at the end of their spears or berried into clubs, but most weapons were only fire-hardened.

If the warriors, for that was what they were, were lucky, they would have an ally at their back and be out massed ten to one.

Not many were lucky. Wolves like to run in packs.

Jake had never witnessed such visceral carnage. Sure video games and movies had scenes similar, but they did not hold nearly the same weight.

Oh, there are videos of actual war. And watching someone die by a bullet is terrible, but it stems from the fact someone died, not how. A bullet is a relatively civil and painless way to go, all things considered.

Some of the worst content someone could find online would be a beheading video. Even then, it's not the act so much as the build-up of knowing they are about to die, and you are helpless to stop it. That's not even considering the disconnect a viewer gets from sitting in front of a monitor. There may be a gruesome death on screen, but they can pretend it's fake or watch it in the abstract as something that could never happen to THEM. The savagery of violent death does not click with people unless it happens right in front of them.

Nothing Jake ever saw prepared Jake for the vicious gut-churning horror of watching a two-ton wolf clamping its jaws around a young man’s abdomen then whipping its head from one side to the other.

It would be horrible if the wolf let go mid-shake. The teenager would have gone flying, slamming into a wall and breaking his ribs and a limb or two if he wasn't lucky. If he was lucky, he would snap his neck.

Jake did not know how well these people were at pain tolerance, but he doubted they could do much with a broken body. Most would have had to lay there helpless as the wolf nom-nom-ed their stomach.

At least with a broken neck, death is quick.

But the wolf didn't let go. After flailing the body around a few times, the flesh of the young man's stomach tore open, and he flew to the side of the dirt street.

Entrails connected the man and wolf in a perverse leash; the scene lasted a second before the wolf snapped its jaws shut with a click, severing the entrails.

The macabre sight burned itself into Jake's mind as Jake stood their numbly.

Explosions are terrifying and cause horrific damage. But it was over in an instant.

After the sudden burst, it's all dealing with the aftermath.

You did not have to stare into the impassive predatory eyes of a wolf as it stalks forward one step at a time with your own blood drip-drip-dripping from its fanged maw.

The wolf was the young man's death. That fact had already been decided.

Jake stood still a few more moments as the wolf's jaws tore out the young man's throat before turning away. There was more to witness, the man—and he was a man despite his young age—was not alone in his desperate, futile struggle.

Jake floated like a ghost through the streets of the dead and dying. When he walked across the bodies of a wolf, more often than not, it was surrounded by three warriors.

Scattered throughout the streets, women and men, in groups or individually, lay in the growing river of blood. Their bodies felt to rot after being ripped apart.

The humans were losing this fight.

And Jake could do nothing. Nothing but a witness. Then that’s what I’ll do. Jake thought with resolve.

Shaking the numb horror off of himself, he looked up.

With a thought, Jake began flickering up into the air. His head swiveled as he began searching for the fiercest fighting. Unsurprisingly, it was in the center of the town.

Jake was in the middle of a nightmare, one he could not wake up from. Because it’s not a nightmare.

On the whole, Jake was a believer in the idea that you are what you make of yourself. Luck does play a role, and maybe you could never achieve what you imagined, but people's actions make them what they are.

At least that was what Jake thought of adults.

The dead and dying warriors made their choice. They could have left, made better defenses, trained harder, or any number of endless things which could have been done to make the situation better.

It was still a tragedy what was happening to these people, but they made their choice.

The children did not. They deserved to live and make something of themselves, not suffer from their parents' decisions.

There were thousands of children huddled together in the town’s great square. At each of the four sides of the square stood a massive building made of stone dwarfing everything else in the area.

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The four corners, where roads came into the square, stood barricades with massive bonfires behind them, which were manned by thousands of men and women.

On top of the barricades desperate parents jabbed down with spears at the wolves trying to climb or tear away chunks. Though the beasts failed to break the resolve of these people, it was only a matter of time until the beasts broke through the barricades.

One of the barricades must have had a close call when a tri-nos came around. They apparently killed it, the corpse telling that much of a story, and assimilated the body into their defensive structure.

A constant stream of wounded could be seen clambering off the improvised walls, whose spots were filled just as fast.

To one of the sides of the square stood a totem pole. It stood before the entrance of one of the buildings. The only difference between that large building and the others was that you faced The Pillar—or rather the veil of mist because you can’t see The Pillar—when you entered it.

Though the square swarmed with chaos, twenty feet around the totem pole were clear, except for a single young girl.

Kneeling before the pole, the young girl's head was bowed, hands clasped together.

Jake drifted over to stand next to the girl as he looked up at the carved heads of animals on the totem, "What do you pray for?" Jake whispered, focusing on the girl. It was a stupid question, a fleeting impulse leftover from when he tried to pull a canine off a young woman screaming in fear.

One glance around could tell him the answer to his question, and that was without hours of walking through their broken town.

Jake sighed. He expected no response. He was, after all, a ghost in all this. A silent witness of the last moments of a noble people.

The girl's head snapped up, eyes opening in surprise and shock as they flicked up and over to Jake before lowering again.

Though her position was the same, her body radiated tension.

Jake's mouth twitched as he could almost see the focus and determination pouring off her. Jake closed his eyes, letting out a soft sigh of resignation as she responded to his words, unnoticed by all around them in the din of battle.

He wanted to help. He really did. But Jake did not want to tell the girl that he could do nothing. He was unsure if he could bear the light of hope leaving her eyes.

"I am praying for our survival, honored ancestor." Jake could taste the hope dripping off the girl's words and the unasked question hanging in the air, "can you help us?"

Jake could float away. He was physically—spiritually?—capable of it. All he had to do was stop resisting, and he would be whisked back behind the vale of mist. He would no longer bear silent witness to these brave people's last stand.

All he had to do was damn these children to being ripped to shreds, to pretend this was all a dream. He knew it wasn't. Dreams for Jake were never so vivid. He was never really able to think or act of his own free will while having one. It was always like he was watching a movie, jumping from one contradicting scene to the next without any connection.

From the moment Jake opened his eyes behind the veil, Jake remembered every horrifying moment as it chronologically progressed. Things were weird, but they had a reason and order to them.

No, what this was, Jake did not know. But it was no dream. And if his mom ever found out, he turned his back on helpless children. Even if all he could offer was a kind word, she would never say it, but the disappointment would be there.

Jake wanted to help them. And whatever the risks, if he could, he would.

Taking a breath, Jake answered the girl, "Ancestor? Don't think so. The only thing I've been honored in was a game of League. Call me Jake."

"Joak? And what's League?" The girl butchered his name like she was trying to speak through rocks. She's kind of young and looks white, but the eyes are too slanted.

And who's never heard of League. Should have at least heard references to…

Ethereal heart skipping a beat, Jake looked around. He studied the rough buildings, at the lack of any metal tools, and the abundance of wood and leather.

Without really looking, Jake's eyes slid by the occasional jewel and button on clothes. Most of it was a yellow-white sliver—bone? Ivory?—while a few people had some stones of different colors woven into their clothing.

None of it was what Jake would call fine, or even decent, craftsmanship.

Jake knew he wasn't on Earth. Shit, he was confident Earth no longer existed, but if he was here, why couldn't others. It was a reasonable assumption that a society of people with little to no survival and crafting skills would build a community similar to this.

Some might have some theoretical knowledge on how to survive, but few, if any, would have any practical experience.

So if these people originated from Earth, the generation who came here would inevitably talk about the good old days with all of their technology and games. League of Cancer was large enough that a few people should talk about it, right? Which leaves…

How much time has passed? Jake knew that he had been… trapped? Contained? For what felt like… Where the fuck is my body? Have I been sleeping for? Seeing these people's hard work over decades, of not centuries was driving a point home to Jake he was not sure he wanted to know. Focus! Focus on the present and what you can do now.

Taking a moment, Jake centered himself while looking out over the people in the square.

Their lives were so far out of Jake's experience that he could not even begin to relate. His life on Earth was paradise if what he had seen so far was the norm.

I really might be their ancestor. Jake thought in half shock, not directly, but I had a lot of cousins. There could be a blood relation somewhere in the past, though it would have to be pretty far back, their appearance is just…weird.

Everyone here seem to share the same pale-skinned, slanted-eyed, and sharp-featured appearance. The weirdest thing was that the darkest person's hair was a light brunet, though there were a few with really dark red hair, but that might just have been blood. While the lightest was actually a shimmering silver-white.

Needless to say, they were unlike any human race he had ever seen.

Even if there is no blood relation, Jake felt something deep inside himself stir. A force that wanted—needed to help, to be used. These people cried out for it.

Jake pulled himself from his thoughts as the girl began to fidget, lifting her head slightly as if to look up at him before dropping it back down, only to repeat it a few seconds later out of pure nervous anxiety.

Thinking back, Jake chuckled a bit before saying, “It’s pronounced Jaaake, and don’t worry about league.” Must have thought I was mad she mispronounced my n—

"I humbly apologize, Ancestor! I did not mean an—

“Whoa whoa, don’t worry about it," Jake said, cutting her off the mid apology, "It must be strange to you. New names can be hard, but what is your name?"

The girl's face turned red before she bowed lower, saying, "I am Kalee. Eldest of Kalee and Joken. I cannot join the hunters, so I pray at the Ancestors Pole, hoping you answer my pleas. And you are here again!" The last part can out in an excited whisper, one Jake did not think he was supposed to hear.

Jake looked at the girl's bowed head. He could tell hope was blossoming within her. A hope Jake was not sure he could fulfill.

To give a child hope in the depths of their greatest terror and despair and then rip it away. Jake was not sure he could live with himself.

He would do his best and have to live with it, but something the girl said caught his attention, "There have been others like me?"

Bobbing her head up and down, the girl said, "Yes! Yes, our Elders tell the stories passed down from their Elders. They tell of The Splintering, when Zhao Cho destroyed our technological world in a single night, then sent us here. They say how our first forbears found themselves in a new land without the tools or knowledge to survive, but then the Ancestors Pole arrived. It acted as the medium for the Ancestors to teach and guid us. Thus where the origins of the Mistrunners."

She said the last bit ceremonially, though Jake was barely paying attention. He was studying the pole.

It appeared to be a regular brightly colored totem pole, though Jake had only seen one, and that one was in front of some tourist-trap gift shop.

Seen one, though; you've seen them all.

Its Animal faces are carved into the wood with some shapes and patterns on the edges. Not much that can change. There was probably a large amount of meaning behind everything, not that Jake could really tell or partially cared to find out.

The pole had the face of a wolf, eagle, falcon, bear, and boar, nothing Jake found strange. Reaching out, Jake intended to touch the totem.

His hand would most likely go through the totem, like everything else he had tried to touch thus far, but it was worth a shot. You can never do anything if you never try.

The ground exploded.

The cobblestone making up the center of the square flew into the air, taking dozens of the massed children along for the ride.

The safest place in the town was the center of the square…right?

A roar shattered the silence that had fallen over the square. Moments later, a massive lizard reared up in the center of the falling dirt. The lizard hung in the air before slamming down on its four front legs, shaking the ground.

Frills along its neck raised and lowered as it arched its sinuous neck before lashing forward in a horizontal slash, exhaling a green vapor onto its surroundings.

Nothing happened for a second, then its sinuous tail, longer than its body, lashed forward into the cloud. Lightning began arching from the tip as the tail swung through the mist.

The cloud of gas ignited in the tail’s wake. Dozens of children, coughing and screaming as they stumbled around in fear, were consumed in fire.

Jake's hand reached the totem. Impotent rage surged through him as he watched dozens of children die, and hundreds more running from an implacable monster.

Hand slipping past the surface of the totem, Jake's heart fell. He had hoped something would happen. But like everything else, his spirit body passed throug—

His had stopped.

It was not like bumping against a wall. This was nothing so...solid. It was like pushing through a pool of water for Jake.

Jake swirled his hand around and tried to feel the surrounding substance. It was... energy? Yeah, something like that.

Jake was sure it was some form of energy, similar too, but not identical to Qi.

As Jake held his hand in the pool of energy at the center of the totem, some of Jake's essence began to seep into it. It was impossible to stop, considering he was literally a walking ball of Qi encased in whatever a soul was.

While Jake's power began to seep into the totem, the totem's energy bled into him in turn. With the energy, came knowledge.

The Mistrunners—for that was this people's name—were connected to the totem through belief and history. And now Jake, through the totem.

It was the power of manifested faith. The Mistrunners believed that the totem was the physical connection to their forefathers. A belief founded in the stories of their Elders' about the wisdom and aid passed through the totem.

Though the original purpose of the totem was to provide just enough help for the transmigrated humans to potentially survive, the totem turned into something more through the Mistrunners' continuous faith.

Over time the totem became a well containing the collected faith of the people. It was a power the Mistrunners gave willingly, if unconsciously, as they offered prayer to their ancestors.

Every prayer, whether for a fallen comrade, asking for guidance, or celebration in front of the totem, added to both the quantity and quality of the faith pool over centuries.

As Jake studied the Faith Energy, he realized that Qi was the base of the energy, the fuel that made it able to act. But far more important were the layers upon layers of intent and collective will of the Mistrunners.

When they pray to their Ancestors, a fraction of their Qi leaves their body carrying their intent to the totem, adding one more spark to the bonfire of burning faith.

The totem went through a fundamental change as the pool of faith grew, and so did its purpose. The pool of power stemmed from the belief that the Ancestors would take it and use it to help their descendants. Descendants meaning the Mistrunners. And that power was being returned.

Jake could feel Faith Energy siphoning out of the pool in tiny tendrils shooting off toward individuals hardening the skin of those about to be injured and staunching the bleeding of those who already were. The energy would also strengthen warriors in a moment of need as they struggled to yank their spear out of a wolf's body so they could point it at the one leaping for their throat.

Everything the F.E. did was small, but it was enough that dozens of lives that would have been lost were saved every second in the frenzied battle.

In the end, however, these people needed far more than this reservoir of power was able to give.

For Jake, though, it was precisely what he needed, a pathway to exert his power through.

Each moment that Jake's hand was submerged in the F.E., it felt like more of his hand was dissolving. On the bright side, his soon-to-be stump did make it easier to push Qi, and his perception, into the pool.

It was actually getting to the point that it was harder to stop his Qi from flowing out than forcing it.

He could—wanted to, help these people. He yearned to use his Qi, even if all it could do was add to the quantity of the faith pool. But he knew he could do more. He could invoke change.

"Kalee!" Jake's voice snapped out, pulling the girl's attention back from the tragedy behind her, "Come to the totem." Jake's words left no room for questions, and she didn't ask any as she began to move.

Jake felt a twinge run through his body as the pool of F.E. shivered, latching onto his arm for a moment before releasing him. Throwing off the feeling, he focused and said, "If you wish to help your people, touch the totem."

The girl looked up at Jake, eyes wider than ever before. For the first time, she looked him in the eye, tears streaming down her cheeks.

It dawned on Jake that she had only ever heard his voice before. A twitch from the totem made him smile. One more nudge, huh?

Buried under the bone-deep despair in the girl's eyes, Jake saw a flame of hope ignite.

As she searched Jake's eyes, her face suddenly lit up with wonder before resolve solidified across her face. She nodded once before placing her hand on the totem.

Jake could feel Kalee. The rapid beating of her heart. The Qi permeating her body. He could even feel the edges of her soul, which encompassed all that she was.

Kalee acted as a transformer for Jake, allowing him to process a deeper level of information within the totem. The totem was supposed to be the Ancestors, containing all their knowledge. It would be a lousy Ancestor that did not know, and overly-reminisce, about the past.

He could see how the Mistrunners lived on the land, trying to cut out a spot within the ecosystem. Still, they never attempted to join the land by evolving and changing themselves.

Eyes flicking to the land dragon—how did Jake know it was a dragon? Because seeing a dragon is one of those you know it when you see it things, this was a dragon—Jake felt a connection with it.

It was weak, but combined with the totem, it was enough.

Reaching out with his mind through the totem, Jake tried to grabbed hold of the dragon's mind. The beast froze in primal fear as Jake's mind slammed into its own.

Before it got the chance to rally itself from the shock of having its mind invaded and fight back, Jake pushed his Qi to wrap the beast with bands of chain.

Nothing happened for long moments as the Qi in Jakes body only rippled with his intent to use it. Then Jake's Qi reserves dropped as his Qi was suddenly sucked into the totem. A moment later, F.E. chains shot out of the totem, wrapping up the dragon.

Jake was startled for a moment before shaking it off. The reasons why it all took so long didn't really matter, just that it did.

On another note, from the contact with the dragon's mind, Jake could tell that the thing was not quite as intelligent as humans, but its savage cunning was not far off.

Now that the dragon was no longer a distraction, Jake refocused on Kalee. If he was to help her with his Qi, she and her people needed to be one with nature. Why that was the case he did not know, he just knew it was.

But there was a wall. A disconnect between the Mistrunners and the world around them that would take generations to overcome, if it was to be overcome at all. Jake could try to force it with his Qi, but he got the impression Kalee was more likely to die than not.

So Kalee needed a bridge. A bond to facilitate Jake’s Qi as it was awakening long-suppressed instincts and abilities, while enhancing her body.

A Smile stretched across Jake's face as his eyes flicked between the dragon and Kalee; he already had the perfect bridge.

Probing the edges of both the girl's and dragon's souls with his mind, Jake let power gather inside of him. He needed to make a soul bond between the dragon and girl.

Not a bond of life and death where if one party should die, so will the other, but a bond of companionship.

A bond that prioritizes empathy and understanding. Jake intended the bond to be that if one side should die, it might hurt physically and emotionally, but the other can still live on.

Jake had no idea what the ultimate results of connecting two souls together would be. He knew he could do it and what he wanted to happen, bond the two together so his Qi can strengthen and enhance Kalee's without killing her.

Jake did not know or care about anything more than that because, honestly, this was all he was able to do. At least this way, she could become some kind of superhuman and save her people. Though if you are talking about bonding two souls, Jake had to believe some sort of telepathic or empathic connection between the two would form.

If the dragon just stopped killing people, it would be worth it. And whatever the ultimate result of the power he pumped into the two was, it would be beneficial. At least, that was what his instincts told him.

Jake could see two outcomes in this situation, either they died, in which case it would be sad the girl died, but then again, so did the dragon. Or they bonded, increasing the power of both in ways he could not imagine. Though Jake suspected the dragon would not attack any people, being soul bonded to a human and all.

Worst case, Kalee could probably convince it to leave. She might even convince it to fight with them.

That was his hope, at least. A hope that was added to the intent of his Qi as Jake began compressing half his Qi into a ball and pushed it into the totem.

When Jake's ball of Qi hit the Faith Energy comprising the core of the totem, it began to dissipate into the pool. It quickly became apparent that it was too much.

His Qi would push out all of the Faith Energy collected within the totem, assuming the totem could even withstand the strain of the competing energies.

As more energy was released from Jake's ball of Qi, a white light began emanating from the totem. With each passing moment, the brightness of the light grew in parallel with the pressure.

A strange feeling overcame Jake as his Qi began to fill more of the totem. He felt more and more connected to the totem and Mistwalkers. Before, it was like reading a book and feeling connected to the characters as the novel progressed. Now it was like living out the plot.

It was a disconcerting and moderately concerning development.

Closing his eyes to begin focusing on making the cord, Jake tried to push everything away, like how he didn’t actually know how to use Qi.

The main problem Jake could see with the bond was permanently anchoring it between the two. He was going off of instinct and no practical knowledge, but he doubted powers capable of interacting and altering the body and SOUL, to any degree, were common.

Another problem was the bond needed to be charged. No matter how common or uncommon the power was, it could only last so long while running off a battery. The only things guaranteed to always be available to the bond would be the individuals involved.

Just connecting it to the soul would charge it, though, right?

Anyway, Jake needed to connect two unsubstantial invisible objects together. How is he going to do this? A lasso, that's how.

Jake's mind formed a picture of what he wanted to happen. Dreaming up ideas was easy. Making it actually happen, well, that's where skill comes in. Jake thought as he metaphorically cracked his knuckles preparing to get to work.

Before he could figure out how to control his Qi. And then form a lasso made entirely out of Qi. And then throw one lasso across the square to the dragon and one to the girl. And then get them to stick to the bodies, let alone a soul. And then do whatever was needed to be done to attach the lassos to the souls, the totem shivered.

A consciousness rose up from the depths of the totem, a place Jake's Qi had not reached yet. The mind brushed Jake's own, imparting and sense of gratitude. As it pulled away, Jake heard a horse whisper say, "I leave them to you~ Ancestor~."

The consciousness paused in the zone contested by Jake's Qi and the F.E.. Abruptly, Jake was metaphorically kicked to the curb as a pulse ran through the massed energy.

He could still see the energy within the totem, but he could no longer touch or control it.

Jake was further surprised as the two energies within the totem began to spin. Jake's Qi was being forced to the edges of the totem while the F.E. was being filtered to the center.

Once all of the F.E. was concentrated, it congealed into a single mass and shot towards the edge of the totem.

The ball of Jake's Qi had dissipated into its surroundings during all of this. Although Jake had already pushed half of his Qi into the totem, that did not prevent even more from being siphoned into the totem as the mass of F.E. left.

To put it simply, before, it was like a dam that only had half of its flood gates open. Now it was like the dam had exploded, and the entire river was surging through the rubble.

Jake was using most of his mental strength to keep himself from being sucked into the totem along with his Qi.

Concern for his safety did not stop him from cracking his eyes open to see the Ancestor appear. After his effort, he was damn well seeing what was about to happen.

“Fecking asshole used me as a battery..." hissed Jake under his breath as he gave a halfhearted yank on his arm.

The figure was ghostly-green in color. It being was half-formed. The face was a blur, and anything below the waist was a swirl of ghostly-green mist like some genie.It paused, after raising both of its arms, whispy ragged clothing hanging from its wrists.

The light radiating off the totem vanished. At the same moment, the figure flicked its wrists, lashing out with two ropes of light.

One whipped around Kalee while the other slammed into the dragon.

Kalee and the dragon began to radiate the same glow that had just vanished from the totem. Jake could see and feel pulses of his Qi running down the cords connecting the Ancestor to the two.

The gathered Qi in the two was getting to the point that Jake was beginning to fear how large an explosion it would be if the two could not take the strain.

At this point, Jake was mostly sucked dry of Qi and realized he could not escape the totem, so he accepted his relegation as an observer, as he gave up fighting to see what would happen next.

A funny thing happened as the totem relentlessly sucked Jake dry. Once his Qi began dropping below a quarter of his reserves, the veil began pulling exponentially harder on him. It was similar to how a gust of wind could pick and fling around a loose piece of paper but not a rock.

Anywho, Jake's Qi was a part of him, go figure, and was subject to the same force exerted on him by the veil as the rest of his body. Thus, Jake’s immovable stump was being tested by the implacable force of the veil.

It felt like two cars were chained together on opposite sides of a hill, and Jake was the center link. It hadn't happened yet, but it was only a matter of time until he was ripped in half.

Jake was now keeping the near-equilibrium that had been reached between the two forces. It felt like the totem would only be able to get one last sliver of Qi before the veil became too much.

It was not the greatest achievement holding a single strand of Qi in place as it inched its way to the totem, considering the totem already stole half his Qi. But it lessened the pain a bit, so Jake was happy with it.

When your dying of thirst, a drop of water is a godsend.

Jake hovered, stump clamped into the totem feet pointed towards the veil, and watched Kalee and the dragon grow into two blinding lights as the cords from the Ancestor fed them power from the totem. Jake could feel it was almost the climax of this little show. Something will have to chan—

At the thought, Jake felt a single bone-shattering pulse from deep inside of himself. The beat shook Jake's whole being, causing the world around him to blur and spin as he felt more exhausted than at any other moment in his life.

Enough of Jake's vision swam into focus for him to see the after-effects of the beat. The Ancestor was now a new light-green sun.

At the very least, looking at it and the sun was the same as far as discomfort went. Gradually, over the course of a few seconds, the Ancestor sent off an increasingly rapid series of pulses along the cord towards Kelee and the land dragon.

The strobe light cumulated in a final blinding flash as a new energy cord became visible between the dragon and Kalee for an instant. The appearance of the new cord caused a wave of force to roll off the pair kicking up dusk in its wake as it spread through the square.

As the light fell back to the typical darkness of night, lit by distant bonfires, the Ancestor had already dissipated into a few ghostly-green flickers of light, while the blinding white cord between the Kalee and the dragon was gone.

Jake wasn't paying that much attention now that he was exhausted along with being an over stretched rubber band, but he would have noticed the Ancestor returning to the totem. The fuck you go?

Everything was still for a moment; there was no movement or sound after the events that had just transpired. The few not huddled against one of the buildings in fear were staring in slack-jawed wonder at Kalee.

Jake's eyes jerked to Kalee as she began walking up to the dragon. She stopped before stepping into the monster's mouth, even if it was a close thing, then waited for a second.

The dragon’s muzzle twitched, and she slowly reached up, slightly pressing her hand against its scales. Wonder was written across her face as she looked into the creature's eyes, a wonder mirrored in the dragon.

Sighing in relief, Jake finally took another look around the square. He knew he had little time left here.

Many of the people Jake thought were huddled against the buildings in fear were, in fact, lying in a collective pool of blood.

Even the dozen people who had stood witness to Kalee had collapsed to the ground shaking in a seizure. Everyone besides Kalee and the dragon, who were stuck in their own world, was unconscious.

Horror filled Jake as the last of his remaining resolve left him. He had no desire to remain and be forced to see the death and destruction he had wrought on these people.

They would have more than likely died regardless of what he did or didn't do, but this was his fault, and he was too tired to face that fact right now. I hope this ain’t real…

One last wisp of Qi left Jake, and the fragile equilibrium he was at shattered. The force of the veil began to grow stronger and stronger, but Jake did not move.

With the totem continuing to suck more Qi out of Jake, the pull of the veil grew to the point it was crushing him, but his hand remained fixed to the totem, refusing to budge.

Desperation gave Jake a burst of power as he tried to spiritually pull his hand free. When that failed, he tried to rally his mental strength and stop any more Qi from being sucked out of him. He even tried pushing against the crushing mountain-like weight of the veil, as each attempt after the next failed. In the end, all that was left for him to do was grit his teeth and bear it.

He had started screaming at some point. Whether he was still screaming was beyond him. Jake now existed in a world of crushing pain.

This wasn't the normal everyday pain of breaking your arm or being kicked in the balls; that kind of pain was a basic bitch to this new type.

It was the pain of your soul being ripped in half. A pain no mortal would ever feel. Because if they did feel it, it meant something so horrible and catastrophic happened that it managed to hurt their souls.

In other words, they were already dead, thus not technically mortal.

Something tore an—

Jake Drifted.

Mist swirled around him, caressing his body.