Stray Soul

*THUD*

“Ugh... well, this is no good...” I muttered after the plant being fell down on me, thankfully though I was strong enough to keep it from crushing me.

Though plant beings are normally lighter than their size would imply... it made sense that this one would be heavier than others as it seemed to possess the eyes of other creatures. It somehow puppeteering the corpse of something else wouldn’t be weird.

Actually, that would make perfect sense as its substantial increase in size would be plausible then. It could’ve just come across the corpse of something big, and just started puppeteering it.

Nonetheless, this could’ve been worse. I could’ve always been just crushed, or blood might’ve started pouring on me—

*drip*

And the moment I said that a single drop of stale blood fell down on my cheek, which was as disgusting as it was unfortunate.

“Get off me!” I said, pushing the plant being to the side, and it gave way without much of a problem, letting me get up.

And, though the branches and the leaves of the tree were annoying, it wasn’t that difficult to get out of the tree.

Looking around, I saw that Lazarus and Heinrich were helping out Caroline get out of the tree while Xavier and Xylene were mostly fine and out of the tree already, with above normal amounts of twigs and leaves covering their body, of course.

“Soo... how did it go?” asked Lazarus, approaching me with Heinrich and Caroline in tow.

Coming near me he paused for a moment and continued.

“Is that blood? I would’ve thought Mrs. Explorer’s skin would be tougher than the branches of some random plant being, but oh well. Are you fine?”

“I am fine, its not my blood either.”

Hearing me say that Lazarus stared at the fallen tree for a moment before turning to me.

“Aren’t plant beings, you know, made from plants? How did it have blood?” He asked, confused.

“It must’ve been puppeteering the corpse of something larger. It would explain how it became significantly larger than before, and the weird organic eyes on it.”

“And since when did plant beings start puppeteering corpses?”

“Never, as far as I am aware. Its probably not a plant being, just something acting like one. Probably some sort of parasite if you ask me, but I don’t think it’s dangerous to us seeing that it didn’t try to attack me when we were alone in there.”

“Uh huh... do you think we can bring it back with us and sell it to a guild or the mayor? I don’t remember hearing about something like it before, so if it’s a previously unknown species, we’ll be swimming in silver and gold after we bring back a living specimen.”

“Leave it be. The spirits seem to have taken an interest in that one, better not disrupt their games lest we become a part in them.”

“Fair.”

“...I wonder if there are more like it around.” Muttered someone behind us, and turning around, I saw it was Caroline.

“What? You know not only plants can be used in alchemy, maybe it has some magical properties I can experiment with. Maybe we are looking at a miracle ingredient capable of solving all our issues and bring in a new age of alchemy! You never know!”

Rolling my eyes, I turned around after I heard a noise coming from the tree.

*rustle~ rustle~*

Taking a few steps back, we saw a mass of greenery exiting the tree, its head limp and the spirt tree branch stuck in its neck dripping stale blood to the ground.

Upon exiting the tree, it started holding its head with one of its arms, and eyed us, locking its eyes with mine for a moment before looking at the others.

“Do we fight this thing now?” Voiced out Xylene.

“No need to, we can just leave now and return to the spirit tree, the spirits accept the branch as having been returned.” I replied.

“Cool.” She replied.

But as I was preparing to order the others to slowly back off, the plant being’s chest suddenly flew open with a snapping sound.

*snap*

And out from it a few branches started coming out, and in the grasps of the branches were a few pieces of paper.

Bringing the pieces of paper to the claw that was holding its head up, it let its head fall limp once more and grasped the papers with its claws, and the branches quickly retreated back, and its chest quickly closed back up with another snapping sound.

*snap*

Then it bringed its claw back down and opened it after bringing it closer to me.

But as I was about to grab the papers, Heinrich flew forwards and took them from the clutches of the beast, and started looking over them, and as he read them, he started giggling like a maniac.

“hehehehe...HEHEHEHE!”

Suddenly snapping back into his composed self once again, he turned towards the plant being and asked.

“Where did you get these papers from!” And as expected, the beast didn’t answer, probably because it lacked the most basic concept of a language, and not because of Heinrich’s previous mad giggling.

“Where—did—you—get—these—from!” Heinrich once again said, this time pointing at the papers repeatedly, which wasn’t going to work as the thing he was trying to talk with was not intelligent—okay, why is it pointing towards the mountains now?

“OKAY EVERYONE! We move towards the mountains!”

“No, we do not!” I yelled, stopping Heinrich from doing something stupid.

“WHY?!” He asked back.

“Because we cannot trust every random beast we encounter! How can you be sure that its pointing towards the correct direction, and even if it is, how can you be sure that we’ll be able to find where it’s pointing soon! If we just go back to the spirit tree, they’ll help us out, and we’ll know where the black site you’re talking about is, if it is here that is!” I answered, and after taking a moment to process what I said, he deflated, and his arms snooped low.

“Okay, now that we have returned the branch, we can just go back to the tree, won’t take more than 3 days, so if we start going back now, we’ll be there soon—okay, what’s it doing now?” I started trying to bring Heinrich’s mood back up, but as I was doing that, I realized the beast was drawing something on the dirt with its claws.

“Oh?” What the beast was doing piqued his interest, and Heinrich moved towards it to look at what it was drawing.

“Is this an... entrance of sorts? A gate? And... hmm? Are those... goblins? I have to say, for a random beast in a forest, its drawings are passable. But only for a beast.” Heinrich voiced out what he was seeing, which piqued the interest of everyone, so we moved a bit closer to take a look at the drawing.

It depicted an archway with a few short figures holding spears with loincloths defending it.

Then the beast pointed at the papers in Heinrich’s hand, and at the archway a few times and backed off, and looked at us from the distance, supporting its limp head with a claw.

“What were you saying about us not having a way to know where it took the papers from?” Heinrich said a few seconds later, while staring at the crude drawing on the ground.

“It still stands true. We still don’t know where it is, only that its east, towards the mountains, and it is being defended by goblins for some reason. But I am still of the opinion that we should return to the spirit tree and talk with the spirits, even if we do not need their help, we still need to placate them as they can get very angry very quickly if we make them wait for us.”

Taking a few moments to think, Heinrich soon responded.

“Yes, you are right. We would not want to make them angry while we are this close to our goal. And here I thought that this expedition would last 3 months... we might be back in 2.5 months!”

After a bit more of looking at the drawing, we all backed off from the beast, and headed towards the spirit tree, after all, there was no reason to slack off here.

“Well, that was... interesting.” I muttered, looking at the direction of the people that broke my fucking spine and still had the audacity to expect payment!

How the fuck did they even know I had those papers?!

I am starting to think living in a magical world might not be the best... and I cannot even begin to fathom how annoying the IRS or scammers are in this world... or will be, as I doubt people using bows and swords have developed the concept of car warranty scammers.

Though I gotta say, I don’t look forward to it!

Shaking my thoughts off I looked at the drawing I made on the ground and... I seriously hope I didn’t just start a race war or something.

I mean, I hope this is not one of those cliché worlds where goblins are treated like pests, and those people will just pay to use their dungeon, instead of just introducing the goblins to Stabby McStabface...

But anyways, I should probably fix my neck before it becomes even less useless.

Reinforcing my neck with branches for a second, I quickly pulled the branch of the gigantic tree from my neck, and immediately started filling the emptiness left in its place with branches and reinforcing my spine and pushing the bits of bones to their right places.

After I was done, I moved my neck to the sides and... while it worked, it was definitely a bit stiffer than before.

But hopefully I could fix it in the future because I really wanted to let some medieval peasants see my totally semi-draconic glory and give me their gold to placate me.

“And now... onto the star of the show!” I said, moving my attention onto the branch of the gigantic tree which lacked the feeling of warmth I had come to associate with the gigantic tree itself, which I hoped didn’t mean it had lost all of its magical properties.

Grabbing the branch with my branches... I really wasn’t sure where to put it.

I mean, seriously, where do I put this? Inside my body? Outside?

And if I put it outside, where exactly? I don’t want to be a unicorn so not my head, my tail already has a mace so that’s a no go too...

Eh, fuck it, I am just going to put it on my back until I come up with a better place to put it.

Then I dragged it towards my back with my branches, and locked it in place, and slowly filled it with my soul.

“...I-is something going to happen or—ACHK! FUCK!” Suddenly, thousands of voices filled my mind.

“Ow ow ow ow ow ow... it hurts...” The voices felt like they were coming from every direction, above me, below me, from my back, from my front, and even from inside me!

They were just... everywhere! And the voices didn’t talk... I mean, they didn’t talk in a sense that I knew of at least. They didn’t say any words or sentences, but each voice carried a different meaning behind them, and together they made a chorus that was mixing and matching with seemingly no cohesion.

“Well... I guess schizophrenia is a racial skill... just not one I wanted to have.” I muttered and opened my status window to see the name of the racial skill I got from the branch.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Pale Lizard)

Level: 25 Exp: 60/90 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/553 Mana Points: 1.070/1.070

Strength: 0 (90)

Vitality: 0 (55)

Agility: 0 (77)

Intelligence: 60 (47)

Wisdom: 40 (30)

Charisma: 0 (40)

Free Stat Points: 0

Skills: Spirit Communion (C), Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (H), Soul Sense (H), Soul Manipulation (H), Mana Control (H), Mana Strengthening (H) +

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S), What Lays Beyond? (C)

Spirit Communion... huh, so these voices are the voices of the spirits?

Well, that’s... less cool than a skill that just makes you schizophrenic, but one I’d rather have.

So... what do you do Spirit Communion?

*ding*

Description Spirit Communion (C): Allows the being in possession of it to commune with the spirits.

...T-that’s it?

I mean... its short and to the point but can’t you just tell me how to use the skill too?

*ding*

Skill Spirit Communion (C) allows the being in possession it to hear the voices of the spirits. By focusing on individual voices or the greater whole a being can discern the wishes of an individual spirit or all nearby ones

...And how do I focus on an individual voice? There’s like thousands of them! It’s not exactly easy to focus on one.

...

..

.

Hello? System?

...

Argh... System, I just want you to know that I hate you with a passion hotter than a thousand suns...

Shaking my head I started listening to the spirits, and their voices were just chaotic. They overlapped everywhere and forget about the whole, even listening to one was nearly impossible.

Though their voices together were somehow... calming. At the start, the overflow just hurt my head but now it was fine. Actually, I felt better than normal!

Which is weird because... hearing voices isn’t the type of stuff that normally makes you calm and collected, and in peace, if you know what I am saying.

But I had some time so I guess I could just start focusing on the voices... while walking that is because I sure as hell am not standing here like a dumbass for no reason.

Giving the control of my body to my lesser souls, I selected an individual voice and started trying to focus on it and hear its wishes.

And for some reason, the other voices started getting quieter! Which broke my concentration and bringed them all back in full force but, yeah, wtf?!

“...I guess it’s the skill? I mean its a C rank after all, so it’d make sense for it to be just better than any skill I’ve had so far...”

Once again focusing on a singular voice, I heard the other voices getting quieter and the one I was focusing on get louder and it was saying... nothing?

Focusing on the voice for a bit more I realized it was seriously just making white noise, there was some emotion and meaning behind it, but whichever spirit was making this noise was just trolling me.

“...At least better than getting rick rolled... if I got rick rolled in a fantasy world, I might actually turn off ethereal body and kill myself.”

Turning my attention on another voice, I felt that it was saying... blue?

What? I-is that it? Blue? A-are these spirits retarted or something?

Turning my attention on another voice, I found out that it was whole heartedly saying orange, and another one was saying green... after shifting through a few more voices I soon realized a few were just talking to other spirits and not me, so I was basically just eavesdropping on their conversations, which made their... intellectual conversations seem not as weird as they were.

They were still weird, but I could see them having some sort of meaning behind them, to the other spirits, not to me or any actually intellectual creatures.

Going over individual voices for a bit more, I realized quickly that some of the spirits I heard earlier had disappeared, probably because they were too far away for me to hear, but I also realized quite a few spirits were following me or going in the same direction as me.

And a quite few of those spirits going in the same direction as me were repeating the word ‘warp’.

What did ‘warp’ mean? No clue, hopefully not the 40k one though. I tried talking to them, mentally of course, but I got no response, so I assume I am not able to talk to them, period. Or they are just ignoring me... which would be a real beta move if any of you spirits are able to hear me... you hear?!

It’s a real beta move to ignore when someone is talking to you!

... Don’t think they hear me... hopefully.

“I think I am ready now...” I muttered to myself and tried to hear all of the spirits near me because, as you probably remember, the system didn’t only talk about hearing the voices of individual spirits and learning their ‘wishes’, it talked about learning the wishes of the whole by listening to every sound.

So, trusting in my skill and my small experience in listening to individual spirits which were totally intelligent and made coherent sentences and I debated with one about the socio-economic state of gypsies in eastern europe from 1825-1925 in detail, so I totally expect the greater whole to be a singularity of some sorts, and didn’t think it was going to be a shit fest.

Totally not.

And as expected... wait actually, no, unexpectedly, the spirits as a whole actually were able to make coherent words and they were saying... follow?

“Huh? What are they—” Focusing on my eyes for a moment to make sure everything was alright, like how I routinely do, I immediately came to a stop and stopped my thought process.

Rummaging through the memories of my lesser souls, there was nothing weird.

They had been just walking through a normal forest with the occasional animal showing face and the sounds of wind, birds and bugs.

Things you’d normally expect from a forest, you know?

Dense trees and animals.

Just normal things.

But what I was seeing was anything BUT normal.

The trees around me were standing in a grid pattern that seemed to go beyond horizon with no bushes, flowers, or anything else than the same tree repeating over and over again with short grass.

The sky seemed static and fake, and I could neither see the sun nor any clouds, but the world was light as ever.

And there weren’t any clouds in the distance either, nor the mountains towards east that I had seen every day for the last 2 weeks or so.

And there was no sound.

No wind, no birds, no bugs.

Just a basic dirt path that went beyond the horizon with weird trees that were in a perfect grid.

“...HOW THE FUCK DID YOU LESSER SOULS NOT REALIZE THIS!”

“...”

“I SPECIFICALLY DESGINED YOU TO NOTIFY ME OF ANYTHING WEIRD THAT WAS HAPPENING.”

“...”

“OF COURSE I WOULD’VE REALIZED THIS, SO YOU SHOULD’VE TOO!”

“...”

“DON’T CALL ME A FUCKING BOOMER WHEN WE ARE STUCK IN FUCKING BACKROOMS:FOREST EDITONTM BECAUSE OF YOUR INCOMPETENCE!”