Suddenly I was aware again. But I was back in that same weird dreamland. The boiling metal clouds roiled just like I remembered, and the ground shook slightly with giant footsteps.

There was a huge difference though. I could see my soul now, and I could also see little bits of other souls drifting about and flowing towards the tower...

And with my new ability to see soul stuff, what a tower it was!The outside was lit up with spell components I had never seen before. They were made out of soulstuff, too! Closer to the tower, the soul stuff lazily drifting towards it turned in to a raging maelstrom. The vortex was like unto a hurricane.

And then I noticed. There was a trickle of soulstuff coming out of me!

No! That's mine! I earned that! I refuse to give it up!

Despite all the pitiful movement I can inspire in my soulstuff, it's still escaping. At least it's polishing off all the lumpy bits that I accidentally added on.

Desperate, my brain runs at a breakneck pace as I try to come up with a solution.

The tower! It's sucking away my soulstuff, and it's doing it with those soul-based spell constructs on it's surface. I can see about 5/12 of the tower clearly, and I can see that it has 6 sections with the same soul circuitry repeated on them. I can only assume it continues repeating on the far side the same way, so I memorize the pattern and shapes, and do my best to replicate it around my soul jar with the wisps of soul trying to escape my core.

It's like wrestling with a bag of snakes, and I watch helplessly as the streamers coming off my soul join up with the maelstrom.

The soulstuff swirls up and enters through the first balcony of the tower, the one with the big spikes on it that shot at me. I get a bad feeling.... and sure enough, the spike nearest me lights up with a vile red light.

“Screw you you stupid tower!” I scream. I take off running towards the nearest hole I can find. It looks like it might be the trench I got incinerated in last time, but it's hard to tell. The whole landscape is pretty torn up after all. The ground isn't molten anymore, so I hop in and try to escape the tower's line of sight. I dive in and crawl into a deep glassified groove in the pitted surface.

Suddenly I hear buzzing. I look around as two bees fly in and hover. They look extremely tired, but I'm glad to see them nonetheless. At least until Herman stars talking.

“I'm surprised to see you again, after you got blasted to vapor by that death beam. What sort of place is this anyway, and what kind of trouble are you getting us in now?”

“Shut it, Herman. If I hadn't dragged your scrawny thorax out of there you'd have been blasted right along with him.” Eliza alights on my shoulder and turns to me. “Hiya boss, nice to see you! You're not even crisped, how'd you do that?”

“The light orb protects and provides for it's flock. By the way, did you happen to bring any food? I think I speak for both of us when I say we're both quite peckish. Neither of us are feeling very well. This light forsaken land has not even a drop of nectar.”

Herman alights on my other shoulder and ruffles his wings a few times.

Eliza pipes up “While he is a pretentious prig, he's got a point. I'm famished. If you hadn't have shown up I'd have started wondering if Herman was edible.”

“Though the adversary attempts to worm his way into your soul, you must resist! Be strong and have faith, Eliza, for we shall be delivered from this place, and the agent of our deliverance is here.”

“It was a joke, Herman, quit preaching your crap at me...”

“Shut it, both of you.” I say. “We've got bigger problems. Eliza, poke your head up and see if I'm about to get shot with that red beam again for me. Herman, I'm going to use your senses for a moment, I need to see the state of your soul.”

While I could see my own soul, and bits of unclaimed soul everywhere, I couldn't actually see other living being's souls so far. I was pretty sure this was some kind of defense. I could see tiny streamers of soul leaving Herman and Eliza, however, and this left me feeling nervous. They'd been here way longer than I had. At least apparently my condition wasn't as urgent as I thought. What I saw when I looked inside Herman with his own eyes confirmed my suspicions. I didn't know how big their souls had been on arriving here, but Herman's was tiny. Fortunately the siphon was also fairly small, but the situation was looking pretty critical.

“The red thing is still glowing, boss. They sent out the bat things again, I think they're trying to find us.”

After a quick ponder, I spoke.

“All right, do you guys trust me? I can get us out of here, but we have to get shot by that red beam.”

“Sounds like a terrible idea, but you're not dead, so I'll do it.” I heard from my left shoulder.

“Why didn't I think of that? The light will protect us. I am prepared.” Came from my right.

I took a deep breath and hopped out of the trench waving my arms in the air. “Hey, over here!”

I waved my arms in the air again.

I jumped up and down.

Eliza piped up “This is taking a long time, boss.”

Then a spear of light shot out of the tower spike, and I was burning again.