The echocrystals appeared to have tiny spectral figures inside, bashing their ectoplasm against the sides of the crystal prisons. They glowed with nasty purple energy, which coalesced into reddish bursts wherever they slammed against the walls. Clear facial features, screaming in pain and rage, came up against the eight inch long, two inch thick… what, soul repositories?

“We should destroy those,” he said. “No good can come from holding onto them.”

Kyessy’s apathetic stoic logic mode won out. “They’ll be worth a lot, especially to a wizard or a warlock. We could barter them in return for your human changey ritual thing.”

They might also be used in the ritual itself, he surmised. Which was disgusting and he hated it, but he couldn’t really argue with the logic.

“How can you do that?” he asked.

“What?”

“Just ignore that people are in each one of those.”

“People throw things away,” she said, and this time her voice resonated with neither apathy nor fury, but it was so out of nowhere and gone so fast that Corbin didn’t know what to make of it. Plus, he had a Charm of 3 and hadn’t bothered to increase it.

Oh well, he’d have to survive not knowing, because he desperately needed Luck in his life forever.

While he increased his Luck and his Intelligence (for a bonus bit of mana in his mana pool), Kyessy went through and sorted all the loot into different piles. She left the ability cards off to one side, sorted weapons and armor in the center, and threw anything of sentimental knickknack value over onto the dessicated corpses. A jade figurine went flying over him, along with a necklace with some monster teeth and a diadem.

“Why the circlet?”

“It’s got an inscription on it from her mother,” she remarked. “You put me off looting these poor souls, because we’ve already looted their souls.”

He thought better of remarking that her grinch-form was finally growing a heart where the empty void currently sat, but instead ambled over toward the various cards. A grinch was probably the name of a swamp creature anyhow.

Wight Hood was the first, a rare magic item card which provided a tiny amount of protection but a huge boost in that it turned you into an ethereal undead monster type for the next minute. It of course provided stat adjustments, decreasing your Charm down to 3 for all non-fear or intimidation purposes. It also allowed you to drift through solid objects you were moving toward by concentrating while moving. This probably wouldn’t work in combat, because Corbin knew how spells like this worked. If you didn’t concentrate hard, the ability would mistake the floor for something you were trying to phase through, which could end you stuck thirty foot under the earth then its effect ran out. Still, Kyessy could equip it and it could be incredibly useful.

“You uh… you okay with that thing?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a… not a problem in this world to wear that?”

He certainly wouldn’t be doing any phasing through walls with it, given that he couldn’t use items she had equipped. He also wouldn’t use it just on principle.

“Why would it be?” She equipped it, which gave her a hood, not a full on mask, but it was stark white and it did taper into a cone above her, instead of folding over the back like most cloaks. If he had teeth, he’d be gritting them right now, and hissing in that way that showed you disapproved of something.

“You guys don’t have racism in this world?”

“Never heard of it… is it where you’re really interested in having races or something? There is organized racing over in Fellwroth.”

“Definitely not it,” he said. “Is there any group of people that most people just really hate… what am I even doing? You know what, never mind. We’re in a perfect beautiful land of muffins and candy canes and cotton candy clouds and people just wear white hoods without any trouble.”

She stared at him for a second like he’d suddenly transformed into a huge raven-shaped head of broccoli, then went to the next card.

“Just put the hood back so I don’t have to see you looking like a grand dragon.”

She shrugged and put the hood down.

In the uncommons he found a couple of scoundrel cards that she couldn’t equip: Masterful Concentration, which was primarily for sussing out traps or unlocking locks, but also boosted your intelligence for those purposes. The other was a dodge and luck bonus called Eyes in the Back of Your Head. Too bad she was already a ranger, though honestly he wasn’t sure he wanted to see if eyes actually appeared on the back of Kyessy’s head when she tried to use this. He found another Silent Step, which was apparently everywhere. It was something she could use, and there was no reason not to equip it, unless it filled up her ability slots.

After that, they got a couple of paladin cards: Might of Justice, The Scales of Justice, and Holy Awareness. The rare paladin-only card was Armor of Purity. Apparently one of these dead bodies had been a rogue, the other a paladin. Neither had had mind magic protection.

The last few did seem to show promise: the first of course was Fiery Eruption, the spell that blasted fire out of Corbin’s mouth. It did cost a lot of mana, but was rated at 10-60 damage, an unthinkable amount compared to when he’d started with Prissy just a few days ago, and on top of that, it had a chance to burn, create light, and in some cases blind opponents. She seemed unsure that she’d be able to use it, but it equipped just fine.

The other seemingly useful card showed a ghostly dog leaping at a town guardsman. This wasn’t a Familiar though, but instead a Summon. You paid an absurdly high mana cost, 25 MP, and the ethereal form of a hound appeared to help you for 2-8 minutes. It could follow basic commands, such as fetch, track based on scent, or of course aid in combat, and had 50 HP at first level. This was rare, and was known as Tereffen’s Faithful Companion (summon canidian).

“I think you’ll want this one, eh?” he told her.

“What’s that smirk for?” she asked.

“You don’t have to be suspicious all the time.”

“There it is again. You’re laughing with your mind.”

“It’s another of those other world jokes. Probably not as funny as I think it is.”

She lapsed into silence, and picked up one of the items belonging to the dead folks.

Corbin had a thought, “Won’t they respawn and come after their belongings?”

“Respawn… come back from the dead where they slept? This is what you mean?”

“Yes… it’s another video game thing.”

“It is a curious phenomenon.”

“Really strange,” he admitted. “I’ve seen people’s ghosts after they died on the battlefield. Some of them were ripped away, back toward their bodies. Others hung around… another video game thing.”

“In these games, you die and are able to remain to survey the scene?”

He nodded. “To see who wins.”

“Most of these items now have a tag on them, explaining that they belong to this or that person, who was killed. Most of these we leave so they may claim them upon waking… but for items that carry enough value, the greedy amongst us don’t abide by this unspoken rule.”

“And… these items?”

“No owner tags on these,” she said, and regarded the crystals seriously. “These echocrystals must have the souls residing within them. Imprison the soul and they can’t respawn?”

Corbin shuddered. God, if this were a movie series, this insidious horror of a plotline wouldn’t happen until the second or third sequel.

“Let’s get moving. I don’t want to sleep here, and we definitely finished the quest. This place is clear.”

“I find it kind of peaceful.”

He stared at her.

“At least they don’t smell,” she said, gesturing to the pile of bodies in the other corner.

***

Magistrate Findell took his sweet time in finishing off his pipeweed, cleaning out his pipe, climbing down off his rocking chair and approaching them. It was bizarre enough seeing the man in the waning light of day, but it felt even stranger seeing all the color leeched out of him in the predawn light.

The magistrate’s hair still held up in that poofy, ridiculous hairstyle somehow, and while it was maybe five in the morning, he didn’t have the someone who’d just staggered home drunk or moseyed home after a long brothel stay.

“Long night,” Findell said. “Why don’t you secure lodgings and, and come visit again when you’re rested?”

Kyessy nodded. “We’ll do that.”

“I understand the, the brigands are defeated?”

“Unless somebody else moves into that cemetery, you won’t find any more trouble from there…” her voice trailed off. She turned to Corbin.

Findell nodded. “Well then, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

They made their way to the tavern and inn, she slowly, and him just resting on her shoulder.

“That Shardmage won’t be a problem anymore, right?” she muttered.

“Correct.”

She swore under her breath. “The mind control was the worst.”

“You… want to talk about it?”

She gave him the sort of expression that spoke ‘Absolutely not’ without her having to say a thing. Okay, she was in fury mode, got it. Still, a few moments later, in a quiet voice, she asked, “What are the chances he’ll come back?”

“Close to zero, I think,” he repeated. “I’d guess he needs to procure a specific card to become one of those again, and that won’t be easy. Either he came upon it in a lucky loot drop, or he brokered a deal with a demon or something.” He didn’t know what the real chances were of that particular soul stealer coming into possession of the levels or the cards he needed to capture souls again, but she needed reassuring.

The vague images coming from her mind were of helplessness. Having her entire body locked up, and the pain it caused her to attempt resistance, only to have that fail utterly.

“But he shouldn’t end up coming after us.”

“You can handle him if he does.”

The room at this inn had the same sort of security as the one Prissy had stayed in, and this time he didn’t bother hanging out with the locals. He was too exhausted from trekking all the way over here all day, trekking through the woods all night, and nearly being crushed to death by a soultaker wizard.

He watched as Kyessy secured the windows with the magic keys, and locked all seven of the locks on the door. Luckily the bed had been given a bit of spellwork, because while it appeared very uncomfortable, he settled right into it and it felt silky soft.

“Out of my bed,” she said.

“Don’t be like that.”

In the end she did kick him out with exaggerated, slow sword slashes approaching the place he’d tried to stake out on the bed. He did manage to snag a pillow and set up a large enough bed for himself over near the fireplace. He still didn’t feel safe, for some reason, but eventually sleep caught him and dragged him under.

The sunlight brought him back to the surface, being a natural enemy of sleep. Kyessy wasn’t the type to pull drapes in front of the windows to try to prolong sleep, and he didn’t have opposable thumbs, so he really had no choice. She was, however, the type of person who could sleep through an earthquake apparently, because she remained softly snoring on the bed with her hair in a curtain over her goaty face.

So, with perhaps three hours of sleep, he staggered to his feet and bothered her awake.

“Merf?” she managed eventually.

“Let’s go get a look at this town, and see about a wizard.”

He had expected the towns beyond the portal to be the same sort of medieval Europe that dominated the whole situation on the other side: inn and tavern, temple, market area, tanner, smith, and some random houses for people who lived in the center of town, and ran things. To an extent, that was both true and not true. The streets of Densmeer weren’t paved, yet people didn’t have mud up to their elbows. The tanner’s shop and the leatherworker didn’t smell of piss, and the butcher’s shop didn’t have a cloud of flies buzzing about the back area. Ice, or at least cold temperatures, weren’t a luxury available to the very few.

He hadn’t noticed previously, but Kyessy had a pair of specially built mocassin-like items that rolled halfway up her legs and tied up top. For whatever reason, these weren’t caked in mud and filth from traveling through plain, swamp, plain again, and forest (both there and back).

‘Self-cleaning’ was a feature available to almost all items here in Densmeer. Kyessy explained that there were a number of craftswizards in most cities. In fact, she pointed out one house just off the main area of town, a well-to-do and quaint two story house surrounded by a waist-high wall and sporting a huge fruit-bearing tree in the yard, along with several other shrubs and trees nearby.

“A wizard lives there?” he asked. “Let’s go meet him then!”

“Corbin…” she said.

“Wizard, Kyessy. We need a wizard; there’s a wizard.”

“He doesn’t–”

He had a lot to learn. Chief among the lessons was that wizards were assholes.

He barely breached the wall surrounding the wizard’s house when a number of loose objects lying around swirled up into the rough shape of a human. Pots, buckets, a rake, a shovel, some loose gravel, some screws, and random bits of wood all coalesced into a thing held together by orangey magic lightning, both crackling and somehow liquid at the same time. Well, he didn’t have time to inspect, because the thing very quickly sent a solid punch directly in his birdy face and sent him rocketing back out of the property.

The sentinel golem dealt you 9 damage and knocked you prone. You failed a Luck (Kismet) check, and took an additional damage from the fall.

Are you sure it was a good idea to just go flying into someone’s house uninvited?

Oh, is that how that worked then? Corbin flopped and flapped until he was back to standing, then went and rapped at the gate. When no one answered, he went and rapped on the gate again.

He was about to start rapping, gently tapping on this wizard’s door when it creaked open and a nellwynian woman stood there frowning at him.

“Have you got a letter then?”

“What–”

The gate closed in his face, and he distinctly heard the lock click back into place before the tell-tale hum of magic sprang to life.

When he started tapping, gently tapping at the wizard’s door once again, the little woman wrenched the door open and stared at him.

“Have. You. Got. A. Letter. Then?”

“Why would I need a letter to talk with someone?”

“A letter of introduction?”

Kyessy finally caught up, and apologized so profusely Corbin wondered if she hadn’t finally been convinced to flip increase her Charm with that Versatility skill card.

“He’s a stubborn little stak, he is,” Kyessy said. “He won’t bother you again.”

“See that he doesn’t!” the woman snarled. He heard ‘Bloody hideous stupid beast’ before the gate rammed closed again, and locked.

He went to peck at the door again, but this time a wall of magical force propelled him backwards so high and so far, he was level with the top of the temple when he got control over his trajectory.

“What in the bejesus was that?”

“Is that the name of a god?” she asked. “There is to be no blasphemy while we’re doing this, understand?”

“I ask the questions around here,” he said. “What happened there?”

“Follow me. I’m starving. We talk on the way to food.”

He did so, and reluctantly settled onto her shoulder.

“Wizards,” she explained, “are competitive. You have to understand that first. All of them want to be the most powerful wizard in existence. You see that one back there? You’ll never hear anyone say this within earshot, and only a fool will say it in the same town.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “… but he’s most likely a garbage wizard.”

“I…” his mind swirled with questions. “It was a lady who answered the gate though.”

“Yes, there are crap lady wizards also. Witches they’re called in my world.” He didn’t correct her. “She probably wasn’t the wizard of the house anyhow, but more likely a house servant. In any event, your average wizard’s talent for magic is… I don’t want to say it’s limited by bloodline, because that’s most likely a bad rumor, but it is limited by how much you can understand. Most wizards can only fathom a certain amount of magic before their brains just go ‘nope, that’s it, I can’t process a bit more.’”

This felt a lot like a sudden memory flash: Corbin had been pretty good at math in high school. Until the end, when suddenly math had gone all wonky in his brain. He’d sat next to people whose names he couldn’t remember, and just could not conceptually put anything from calculus into his mind. He’d run into a brick wall, and that hyper sucked, because for the longest time all the math just made sense. It had been easy: you put numbers into a formula you memorized. Now it no longer made sense, and it was hard, and he hated that. From then on he struggled to get a B.

And still couldn’t remember the voice of the girl with the black hair. Or her name. Ugh.

“I get it,” he said.

“That’s a blessing. I half expected you to fly back in there and have that golem mop the floor with you.”

“Ha ha.”

She gave him some of the best side eye of his life, which wasn’t saying much because his memories only ran less than a week, but she was quite good at it.

“In any case, some enchantments are simple… or at least they follow a single school of magic and don’t break your fairly-capable-but-not-world-class wizard brain. These are for wizards who give up on ambition and move into a life of ease… the ones who work your scabbard to keep from rotting away, or keep your moccasins clean even though I was in hip deep swamp water the other day.”

“And these moccasins will last forever?” Why did they have mocassins here, and not some stupid otherworld word?

“Not at all,” she said. “I have to go get the enchantments renewed every few years for a few silver. Permanent would cost me gold, or electrum for the heavily worked materials like blades, or my bow. Anyway there are wizards who fix up running water to keep the filth from accumulating in towns, or wizards who enchant materials to make them more durable, wizards who make your average rings and arrow-producing quivers, wizards who do all the things that make life easier… they just can’t do any better, so they do that.”

“You’re awfully talkative.”

She stopped walking. “You’ve… saved my life now. That nerfin’ card of yours has its uses. It just means I have to put up with you being insufferable whenever you choose. Which is always.”

“Oh, me, insufferable? You looked in a mirror lately, or listened to yourself speak, uh, ever?”

She snorted and headed into the tavern.