Stray Soul

Looking around, I was overtaken by a sense of worry, and anxiousness because neither did I know how to get out of... wherever this place was, nor how I got here in the first place.

Though my life was... probably not at risk, because there were at least trees around me which I could break in case this body started to rot.

But more than worrying about my life, I was worrying about my mental health which would take a sizable hit it to it if I stayed here for a prolonged period of time.

After looking around for a bit, I quickly discovered that everything was seriously repeating for seemingly ever, with no change in the space between the trees, the height of the grass, and in the horizon.

Everything was static, but I did not know for sure if this static environment would last forever.

But even though I didn’t know how to escape this place for sure, and for how long the liminality of this space would continue for, I could see 2 paths in front of me that I could take which... might lead me to freedom?

Honestly, not sure. I might already be in the belly of the beast with no hopes of escaping but for some reason... I don’t feel any fear.

Sure, I am worried and anxious... but not truly in fear, which is not normal as... I am literally in a place that repeats forever. This is not how a human should react to something like this.

I mean... I might be consider as no longer being a human, with me manipulating my soul and constantly grafting my soul onto different things, but I’d like to think that I am holding onto my humanity and my morals and will continue to do so forever.

But no matter what I am right now, human or not, the me I know would at least feel some fear in this situation. But for some reason I don’t.

Thinking about... are the spirits the reason for my unnatural calmness?

I mean I’ve always felt some sort of warmth whenever I was in the aura of the... what I assume to be a spirit tree of sorts, so maybe they are calming me down like they’ve always done.

But no matter if they are the ones giving me a calm mind or not, I need to get going because spending all of my new life in a fantasy world being stuck in a liminal space doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.

So, to make any progress, my first option is to stay on the dirt path and just walk forwards.

Is it a good idea? Who knows! I can, of course, try to ask the spirits for their opinion... but I am sure they’ll just ignore me, so no reason to waste my time on that.

My second option is, and the one I am going to choose is, to get out of the dirt path and traverse the endless woodlands while keeping a sense of direction so I can return to the path any time.

Is this option worse than the first one? Yes. Undoubtedly so, because choosing the first option allows me to do the second option at a later date.

But at the same time, I have no idea how I got here! For all I know the fucking Dark Lord casted some sort of divine spell at me from his medallion which is conveniently tucked into my chest!

So, following the path may lead to my death, while not following the path may be just the thing that saves me!

Confidently, I then stepped out of the dirt path onto the sea of short grass with only a few trees that appeared as if in a grid pattern, and started walking while keeping a trace of where I was and soon, I was... back at the dirt path?

Looking back, I saw a clear print of my claws on the grass, and I seemed to have taken a U turn?

What?

But I just walked forwards?

Giving it another try, I once again set off onto the verdant plane and... once again I found myself somehow returned to the dirt path with another imprint of my claws on the grass that seemed to indicate that I had taken a U turn...

“Well, that was a waste of my time.” I muttered, and started walking down the dirt path that went over the horizon and... nothing happened.

I just walked and walked, not daring to let my lesser souls take control of my movements once again as I didn’t want to get teleported to the actual backrooms because they lacked necessary brain functions to allow them to realize they had entered a liminal plane.

How did they not realize the forest around them just disappeared? No goddamn clue. While they are only fractions of my soul that do not possess the capability of complex thought and exist only to follow the goals I give them, they should still be able to realize something like this happening like when they see animals and alert me.

This is no different then seeing a random rabbit and going into full defence mode and alerting me to its presence.

They should be able to do it, but they didn’t for some reason that I cannot tell.

After walking for an hour or so with nothing of notice happening, I finally gave in to boredom and let my lesser souls take control of my body once again and started focusing on my spirit communion.

Was it a good idea to do so in hindsight? No, most definitely not.

But man, is it really boring and annoying to walk in a place as boring as wherever this place is.

As I focused on the voices I heard, I realized that some spirits were still following me, and chanting warp without pause... or were they?

Spirits didn’t really talk or think like normal, at least they didn’t think and talk like normal to me.

So, they might not be necessarily chanting warp, but just... feeling it? Wishing it??

I’ll have to test how they function and what they are exactly, but later, because I don’t really have the time to do so right now because I am kind of stuck in a liminal plane.

But testing should be... relatively easy as I will have this branch with me for a long time, and hopefully nothing bad happens to it and I don’t have to use it to kill a demon or some stupid shit like that...

Further listening to the voices, I was once again subjected to some stupid conversations between spirits, and listening to greater whole, I heard they still wanted me to follow them...

*bam*

Slapping myself in the face for my stupidity, I just ignored everything and started pushing mana into my legs to sprint, so I’d get where the spirits were bringing me faster.

How did they warp space? By chanting... somehow...

Though I was not sure how they did the things they did, I’d find out in the future... hopefully.

And I definitely wanted to find out how they warped space because I wanted a spatial bag like the elf’s, and as I happen to be living in a forest seemingly devoid of civilization, the only way I was going to get one is by learning how to do it myself.

Then I started checking my eyes every half an hour or so, so I would be aware of when something changed.

And after a couple of hours, I realized that we had left the weird liminal space that the spirits created... or sent me to and were in a proper forest.

And I could maybe escape or go my way now... I didn’t know how the spirits warped the space around me without me even realizing in the first place, so I wasn’t in a hurry to find out if they could do so again.

Stopping sprinting, I started to walk forwards normally, and soon, I saw the gigantic tree in front of me, with the familiar grassland around it.

From the direction I came from, I knew that I somehow ended up south... even though when I first started walking, I was heading north.

Which was... weird, but less so than the endless woodlands I went through to get here so I was willing to let it pass.

Entering the area around the spirit tree, I was once again greeted by the familiar aura of warmth that permeated its surroundings.

Then I focused on the voices of the spirits to hear what they wanted me to do, and they wished for me to come closer... which probably meant they wanted me to come closer to the tree as I doubt spirits have a physical form... or any form for that matter.

Deciding to approach the tree until the spirits were satisfied ended up with me just touching the tree with one of my claws, and after a few moments, the spirts’ voices stopped suddenly, as if they were never there, and a voice resounded in my mind.

“Greetings, undead.” Said a voice that I could only classify as... other. It wasn’t feminine or masculine, but it wasn’t androgynous either. If I had to classify it, I’d say... green. Nature. And all those things.

Not having talked with anything or anyone for a long time, and not understood their language when something spoke with me for a long time too, I just stood there for a moment, not being able to do anything because I was just baffled by what I was hearing.

“You can respond to me by focusing on the tree you are touching or thinking of my voice.” The spirit once again said, which put me out of my stupor.

“Y-yes, what do you want of me?” I said a bit robotically, still having some trouble understanding what was going on.

“Hand me the medallion inside of you, its very existence inside my forest annoys me greatly.”

Not wanting to annoy what I assumed to be a forest spirit of sorts, I quickly opened my rib cage and brough the medallion outside of my body.

“Where should I put this?”

“Bring it to the tree’s bark or drop it to the ground. It matters not where it is, what matters is it that it touches me.”

So, its not the tree... but also is the tree and the ground, or the grass, got it.

Without saying anything else, I just brought the medallion forwards using my branches and touched it upon the bark.

“Open it.” the voice said once again, which I did.

Inside the medallion, a dark void revealed itself and started pulsating and spreading an absolute darkness which disappeared a few centimetres away from it.

After a few moments, I saw something seeping into the medallion from the tree’s bark, and after mere seconds, the medallion stopped pulsing with an absolute darkness, and turned into a lively green, which notably didn’t pulse.

Trying to inspect it, I was met with another description, different from the first one I saw.

Medallion Of The All Mother (H)

Description: A medallion made from a low-ranking spirit stone by the All Mother herself, extinguishing the holy mana of the Dark Lord by overpowering it with her own.

Okay, another god. Got it. Totally happy to become a part of divine politics.

Yup, happy as ever! You know, when they asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up as a child, I always said that I wanted to become a tool for the gods to play with! Oh, how joyful am I that my dreams are coming true!

After celebrating my luck for a bit more, I pulled the medallion back and put it inside of me and left my claw on the bark of the tree, waiting for the All Mother to say something.

She did not.

“Umm... did you only bring me here for the medallion?” I asked, not quite sure how to talk with a god.

“When I first sensed your presence near my tree, I thought of killing you.”

“Wow, what a great start to a conversation!” I muttered, but not through our connection, as I wasn’t sure how a god would respond to that. She might just decide to kill me, which would be not so great for me.

“...Are you going to say something else, or can I go?” I asked her after a few more seconds of silence.

“You amuse me. When I first sensed your presence, I found it weird that an undead here without the taint of the Dark Lord was weird. But I decided to ignore you, because I’ve seen weirder, and more improbable things happen.

But you came back to me, again. But this time, you somehow had split your being into 2 bodies, and were possessing both at the same time.

Then you went away for days and returned, covered in bushes, and tried to climb my tree and break a branch off of it.

Normally, I’d not let a transgression like this pass, but I did. Because I wanted to know what you’d do, though sadly some unwelcome guests decided to take the branch with them... though I am happy they’ve returned it.

And now, you come back here with a medallion, tainted by darkness, and your being split into chunks inside your own body... you amuse me, interest me.

You are a weird anomaly I never expected to find... and yet, your existence makes me think...”

Uh huh... not happy at all that I’ve somehow managed to catch the attention of a god of sorts but... did she not bring me here?

The way she talks implies that she is not aware of the spirits... or at least wants me to think like that but... maybe not. After all, I am pretty sure I am quite killable, especially for a god.

But that matters not... what matters is.

“So... what do you want of me?” I asked, wanting to know where she was going with this.

“...Little undead, would you like to become a deity?"