“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

---------------------

With the appearance of the tiny crying pain in my side most of my plans had to be thrown out the window and reworked. I had wanted to find the spirits who had killed me and return the favor, but doing that while having the brat was a huge liability. In addition, it would be some time before I could send either him or both of us back to the material plane since it took a lot out of me to do so. I walked over to the little mess and crouched down to look at him.

“Well looks like I’ll have to bring you along and figure out what to do with you in the mean time.”

I reached out to touch him and immediately retracted my hand as they felt like they had been burned.

“Right. A material soul in the ethereal plane will destabilize spirits since it’s not supposed to be here. This is gonna be an issue if I can’t touch him and dragging him along is too cruel. Another issue to solve as I walk I suppose.”

Using some earth Arcane I lifted him out of the water and onto a patch of dry land. Water Arcane quickly dried him and I set off using wind Arcane to have him float along beside me.

‘I’m going to burn through most of my reserves at this rate of consumption. Guess this will be a slower trip than I initially though.’

While walking and keeping the brat dry kept me busy it did not, sadly, do the same for my passenger. Somewhere along my walk he decided to start moving all over the place and keeping wind steady around a moving target is not an easy feat.

“Can you please be still? It’s not easy to keep you in the air like this. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, oh crap.”

Needless to say he quickly ended up back in the water due to my lack of skill and his constant movement. I repeated the same process I used to dry him the first time and sat down against the earthen mound to recover.

“This is going to be a long walk at this rate and now I’m talking to someone who can’t even understand me or respond. Oh how low I have fallen.”

I could have stayed right where I was for much longer, but crying broke the peaceful silence.

“What now?”

I turned around and checked the brat for any signs of injury. Finding that he was uninjured and hadn’t messed himself I was at a momentary loss.

“You’re not tired, you’re not hurt and you didn’t crap yourself. What do you want?”

The realization hit me like a brick to the face and I shamefully buried my face in my hands.

“You’re hungry and I’m an idiot.”

I plopped myself down in the water and crossed my legs while looking at the brat.

“What to do. I didn’t bring anything that I could use as food as I’m not equipped to feed you myself nor would I if I could.”

I didn’t need the reminder on how child like my body was despite my age.

“That leaves me with one option and that’s to set you up with a link as well. The question is; do I link you to me or the plane?”

Both plans had their merits and each had its problems. If I linked him to the plane I wouldn’t have to worry about my own stores being taken but if the kid couldn’t handle the influx of power it would kill him. On the other hand, if I linked him to me I could control how much raw Arcane when into him but it would mean I was doing double duty on the Arcane consumption.

“There has to be a happy medium that won’t kill him or drain me, but what is it.”

Once again the brick of realization smacked me in the face. If one didn’t work well by itself who’s to say I can’t use both? I could create a link with him as a limiter and then feed his link to the plane through me first in order to take what he couldn’t or shouldn’t. Not only did it solve the issue but it also came with the added bonus of an increase in how much Arcane was headed my way.

Already in a comfortable enough position, I concentrated on the link I already had with the brat. I didn’t want to use a link that deeply ingrained, but it would serve as a good basis since I could use it to figure out what his colors and patterns were for when I had to link him to the plane. Unlike the struggle I face when connecting to the ethereal plane, this was relatively simple and was done in a fraction of the time.

“Ok, first step done, let’s shut the brat up.”

I sent some raw Arcane to him to sustain him. Not enough to have any real effect, but enough that it should keep him quiet while I repeated the proxy link creation for him this time. I had to take some of the brat’s energy; just enough to start the linking process but not enough to cause any lasting changes or harm. The process was similar to the first time but was made much easier since I had my own link to keep me going where before I would have fallen short. With the link in hand, I wiped my brow and set about setting everything up correctly. Instead of attaching the link to the brat, I connected it to the link I had just created with him. This meant that even though it was technically his link, I had full control over it as well as being able to limit the flow of raw Arcane that went his way.

I looked over at the now complacent babe and sighed.

“I hope you’re happy now because I need a nap.”

I laid back in the water and let the minute motions of the water slowly lull me to sleep, happy to have most if not all of the problems revolving around the brat solved.

‘I wonder if I can touch him now since I have a link to him under my control. Regardless, a nap seems so nice right now and I’m not in the mood to let anything get in the way of it.’

Sleep soon followed the thought and I was left to dream. If only the dreams had been pleasant and not the nightmare that was my past, retold in fine detail until I could either rouse myself or the dream ended. By the time I finally roused myself, I had relived my past a half a dozen times and was in a perfectly foul mood. I looked around to confirm I was in reality and then proceeded to check on the brat.

He was fast asleep and seemed to have calmed down after I had established the link to keep him constantly fed. I honestly have no clue if it will have some effect on his biology since raw Arcane is powerful stuff. Remembering my query as to whether or not I would be able to touch him, I tried to pick him up. Whatever the link had changed, I was now able to touch him without being burned away into nothing.

‘Well this is slightly more convenient than having to carry him with Arcane, but it’s still not a solution merely a preventative.’

With babe in hand I continued onward through the water constantly scanning for either a landmass or train tracks. It was a good walk and I really don’t know how long I walked for, but I did eventually find some train tracks. The train track are in place so that a spirit can create a train if need be and travel quickly from one location to another. It also meant that I would be able to find a certain individual who could help me much faster than I had anticipated. I leaned down to touch one of the rails on the track.

‘Let’s see if I remember how to do this correctly. Raw Arcane first and then earth type Arcane afterwards I believe.’

After a quick infusion of the two Arcanes a small train car big enough for three materialized on the tracks. I entered, setting Ormonde down on one of the seats to give my arms a break, how such a small thing weighed so much I will never know. I sent the train on its way and sat down myself to both concentrate on keeping the train there and on what I was going to do next. The train had a destination, a friend who owed me a bit of a debt and I intended to collect on part of it today to get the information I needed in order to find my prey.

The train came to a stop just outside a forest. The trees were easily a couple hundred feet tall and some equally thick in diameter. Both the old growth and new growth were covered with mosses and the floral landscape was mainly plain greens with small dashes of color here and there. An ancient looking grey torii adorned with bloody pelts and furs served as the entryway to the forest, a literal den of wolves. Entering via the torii would be the best and most respectful thing to do if I was to follow the customs of the spirits who lived here and I was tempted to ignore it, but the small lump of warm fresh meat I had been carrying around was a good enough reason not to.

To say I was slightly unnerved to walk through the torii would be an understatement. It was creepy and far to close to something a human would do for my liking, but I had a spirit to meet and others to find. Walking through the torii was like entering a different world as both sounds and smell that were not present beforehand bombarded me. The humidity would have been an issue, but a little bit of water Arcane kept the brat and myself dry. I continued along a path that had been made from constant travel over the foliage, crushing the plants there into path that lead to who knows where.

The further into the forest I went the denser the forest became and the more aware I was that someone was trying to follow me stealthily without much success. Normally I wouldn’t care about someone trying to follow me, but for some reason the lack of skill my stalker had was starting to get onto my nerves. At one point they even fell out of their hiding spot and they made so much noise while moving they might as well been next to me talking. After the second time they fell out of hiding I snapped.

“Oh for fucks sake.”

I held them in place using earth Arcane and walked over to them. It was a gangly wolf spirit in its half wolf form, ugly looking thing and at most only a few years old. I flipped my captive over with my foot and stared him in the eyes, wolf spirits hate it when you do that.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I, um, you see, um, it was just . . .”

The quiet rambling continued until I stopped him. This was going no where and I needed answers or to be left alone, having one brat with me was more than enough.

“I’m going to ask you a few yes or no questions and you are going to nod in response. If I think you’ve lied at all I won’t hesitate to leave you buried when I leave here. Understand?”

The wolf spirit nodded quickly, obviously scared out of his mind.

“Great. So my first question; do you live here.” I gestured to the forest around me. A nod.

“Do you know your way around?” Another nod.

“Do you know Jaab?”

The wolf spirit, who I’ve decided to call Twitchy, hesitated before nodding very slowly trying to figure out how I knew that name.

“Great. You’re going to lead me to him.”

Not waiting for another nod, I removed the earthen shackles from him and let him stand unhindered. He stood up shaking his fur and testing his limbs while doing so. Once he deemed himself to be alright Twitchy apparently found his courage again.

“An - and why should I take you to him?”

“Because if you don’t you’ll be leaving a lovely corpse for Jaab to collect once I find him.”

“My father would never let you get away with that!” An indignant reply from someone who didn’t know any better.

‘Well I can’t say I’m surprised that he’s got a kid now, but jeez, teach the kid some manners at least.’

“He wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, I’m stronger than he is.”

The shock on Twitchy’s face was wonderful. Another quirk of wolf spirits is that they hate it when you insult their pack leader and they take so many different things as offensive.

“That can’t be true! You’re barely taller than I am!”

I scoffed at his reply. “Please don’t tell me that you think the size of your opponent determines how strong they are.”

Twitchy looked at the ground sheepishly and nodded.

“Either you’re dumb as a bag or rocks or your father has taught you nothing. Regardless of which of you is at fault I’m still waiting for you to take me to Jaab.”

“Fine. It’s this way. Try and keep up.”

Twitchy huffed out his last bit of resistance and started running away from me. It didn’t matter how fast he went, I had a lock on him and wasn’t going to lose it no matter what he did short of dying. It had become quite clear that I needed to work on my pulsing skills and I had been practicing since arriving to the ethereal plane. I followed twitchy at a pace more common to someone who didn’t spend every waking moment in a forest and was happy to see that he didn’t try anything like setting up traps or backtracking.

By the time I caught up to Twitchy, he had gone to a shallow cave that I can only assume acted as home.

“Alright Twitchy, bring out Jaab.”

“He’s asleep at the moment. You’re going to have to wait.”

The little brat was trying to get some authority back after losing it all, but I wasn’t one to let him. Collecting a large amount of water from the air, I turned to Twitchy.

“Anything valuable in there?”

“No? It’s just where we sleep.”

“Great!”

With a smile on my face and a wave of my hand, I sent the ball of water into the cave flooding it. If I had some way of capturing the look of horror on Twitchy’s face you bet I would have that thing framed. Hopefully he had gotten the message, bigger fish have more power and do not like to be disrespected. The result was slower than I had hoped, but the eventual cursing and motion where good enough to let me know that someone was coming to the mouth of the cave.

A soaking wet man with wolf ear and tail emerged from the cave with a thoroughly annoyed look on his face.

“There’s only one person I know who has the audacity to wake me up like that.”

Seeing me, his eyes lit up and a huge grin appeared on his face. He spread his arms wide in anticipation of a hug of some sorts. It never came.

“Ah ha! I was right! Vio it’s been too long.”

“Hasn’t been long enough if you ask me and back off, you’re soaking wet and I intend to stay dry.”

“Same old Vio as always I see.”

He looked me over and froze when he got to Ormonde. I swear his jaw would have fallen off if it wasn’t connected to him. Getting over his shock he began to jump slightly and was filled with energy.

“Vio when did you have a kid? We should have a party! I can’t believe it, you hated kids.”

“Calm down you hyperactive dog, he’s not mine and I still don’t have a fond interest in children. Just ask Twitchy over there.”

My look of pure boredom and annoyance quickly killed his enthusiasm and he settled down to a manageable temperament.

“So if the kid’s not why you’re here, what do you need from me?”

“I’m here to collect on part of the debt that you owe me. ”

Jaab’s face paled at the word debt and he began to fidget nervously.

“Should I prepare a will of some sorts?”

“Relax, it’s nothing that will endanger you. I just need to make use of your specialty. First I should tell you why I need you to do this though and I’m sure you’re curious about Ormonde here.”

I hoisted the brat in my arms to make my point.

After a brief explanation of everything that had happened to lead to my current situation Jaab was more than willing to help. Unlike myself, Jaab specialized in pulsing and was able to find any link just by someone else's description.

“I’ve found all three of them, you want the information directly or a hard copy? ”

“Hard copy please.”

Jaab handed me some Arcane that would act like a compass for the three spirits.

“Be careful alright. One of those links did not feel right. Are you sure you don’t want any help since you have a kid with you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I still have my part of our link if you ever want to connect again. You wouldn’t have to see me to get the information you needed and I could send you Arcane when you required it.”

Although Jaab seemed worried about bringing the topic up, I wasn’t going to take that into consideration. He had done the one thing I hated the most, bringing up my past, specifically the part with him in it or lack thereof. I was angry enough that the more complex Arcane in the area started to break down into raw Arcane and flee from me.

“You seem to forget I’m not the one that severed that link! You did that yourself eleven years ago. The first sign of danger and you fled! You left me alone and when you couldn’t handle what I was forced to go through! You ignored my pleas for help and when you couldn’t take it you cut the connection!”

My voice turned callous and cold, each word spoken slowly and deliberately.

”You were honor bound to protect me and you failed on all accounts. So don’t try and make up for your mistake now. Nothing can undo what happened to me and there is not enough time in the world for you to fix it.”

The area where I was standing had returned to the clear water that made up the empty parts of the ethereal plane. Not caring for the effect it would have on my body, I turned and forcibly suppressed the Arcane in a straight line in front of me all the way to the edge of Jaab’s domain. The forest melted away into nothingness leaving a path of clear water for me to leave on.

“Good bye Jacob. The next time we meet I hope you have a no regrets.”

I addressed him by his true name, the name I had given him. Not waiting for his reply, I left while holding back tears.

I had spirits to kill.

------------------

------------------