“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

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It had been a week since Ormonde’s training to use raw Arcane had begun. He sucked at it. After all this time he could barely even sense it and if he did, the best he could do was move it a little. In an effort to curb my boredom while he trained, or tried to, I was reviewing the basics of my Arcane to see if I could make any self improvements.

I knew very little about raw Arcane and I mostly used it as a jack of all trades protection when in a pinch. Sure links supplied me with raw Arcane and I needed to convert either it or my own personal store into a desired type by filtering it, but other than that I didn’t know what else to use it for. Raw Arcane couldn’t be turned into Aldite and I had tried and subsequently failed to reproduce both the condensing effect of my lantern and the devouring effect of Akhan’s knife.

Both were possible but I was faced with a wall that couldn’t be climbed without help. I knew lots about fire based Arcane and could just barely use its third tier, plasma. Practicing with metal or gravity would get me no where since I was missing something that led to their development from earth Arcane. Wind was wind; nothing more to say in that aspect and mind Arcane was also a dead end. Music Arcane wasn’t practical and I only knew it because of my heritage, an apparent similarity to space Arcane. All that remained was water Arcane.

Water Arcane left me with a bitter copper taste in my mouth each time I used it, not that I could do anything other than extreme basics. I could make ice but that was only if I used heat Arcane to pull the heat from the water and made it cold enough to freeze. My thoughts slowly drifted off to wishing for things that couldn’t come to pass. A gentle nudging that quickly became more forceful and painful pulled me out of my trance.

“Hum? What?”

“I’m bored! Looking from the candy feeling’s boring!”

‘No matter how many times I correct him he still calls raw Arcane the ‘candy feeling’. ’

“It’s called raw Arcane for the umpteenth time and I suppose we can do something different. Do you remember a week ago when I lifted the dirt and told you that you would be able to do that?”

“Yeah and you still haven’t shown me how.”

Ormonde crossed his arms and huffed; the pout on his face made me want to slap him but I held myself back.

‘Taking my own time and energy to teach him and this is the thanks I get? Spoiled rotten.’

“Well in order to lift the dirt I had to turn the raw Arcane into earth Arcane. You remember the feeling that I sent to you?”

He nodded in confirmation.

“Well if you feel like that while focusing on raw Arcane it should turn into earth Arcane.”

“That’s just more sitting! I wanna explore!”

“Ugh. Fine we can walk around a little.”

‘At least I won’t get a headache from his complaining now.’

Ormonde took off and was out of sight in a heartbeat. If not for the piece of my soul within him, I wouldn’t have a clue as to where he went. With a sigh of resignation my pursuit began.

The trees in the area had already started to lose their leaves and the ground was covered in a red and orange matting that was slowly fading to brown. It was a pleasing atmosphere that was enjoyable to every one of my sense. I didn’t know much about the local climate and was unsure as to whether it would snow later into the year. I missed the snow and the damp coolness it brought.

I heard shouting that could only be from Ormonde and increase my pace until I found him. He was with what looked like a dog that came up to his knees; it didn’t seem to be attacking him.

‘What’s a dog doing out here?’

I approached slowly was not to startle the dog; I didn’t need to get bitten. Ormonde noticed me and began babbling nonsense.

“Yes, yes, I see the dog. You really should run off so fast though, I had a hard time finding you.”

‘Lies but better for teaching than the truth.’

I crouched and stared at the dog, giving it a long hard look. Its paws were a solid white that then turned into a brown and black mixture on the rest of its body. From what I could tell the dog was normal but it gave off an aura that felt wrong. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it but I didn’t trust the dog.

While I was observing it, the dog walked over and, while wagging its tail, licked my knee and ran off. It returned to Ormonde and the two played while I watched.

Eventually the dog ran into the forest and didn’t return so I herded Ormonde back to the mansion.

“Vio you never come this close to my house, why now?”

“I don’t trust that dog. Plain and simple.”

“Seemed fine to me.”

“Whatever. You coming to the pond tomorrow?”

“I’ll try but no promises.”

“Just practice trying to feel raw Arcane if you can’t come, got it?”

“Yeah.”

Ormonde left for the house and I to the pond. It was a few days before he returned and from the look on his face he seemed to have made some progress.

“What’s with the smile?”

“I did it!”

“Did what?”

Ormonde’s prideful look was replaced with one of mild annoyment; it was fun to tease him.

“I made some dirt fly like you did.”

“Great, ready to play a game with it?”

“Yeah! What do we do?”

“Can you lift two rocks?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good, then here’s the game. We’ll use one rock to try and hit the other person’s rock while the other rock is to be kept above our heads.”

“Sounds hard.”

“Nah, should be easy.”

We started to play and I watched how Ormonde did. His control was subpar but he was filtering the Arcane at a nice rate and could gather tiny bits of raw Arcane on his own. I hadn’t taught him how to do that; maybe he asked for some help. Regardless of his current skill level I was aiming to improve him until it matched my own.

Our game lasted until Ormonde got fed up with his horribly low chances of winning and we move on to tag and hide and go seek. He wanted to see if the dog had come back and we walked in that direction. I was surprised he remembered how to get there since I didn’t.

Much to my displeasure the dog had returned; the same uneasy feeling hung in my gut when I saw it. Once again I watched and didn’t participate, at least that was true until Ormonde walked towards me with a stick.

“You’re not going to play?”

“No. The dog makes me uneasy.”

“You’re scared of dogs?”

“Not really. I just don’t like this one.”

“He’s done nothing wrong. Come on you’re playing too.”

Ormonde grabbed my hand and started to drag me along behind him. The dog ran up to us, its tail wagging happily, and Ormonde handed me the stick. I looked at it and the drool that covered it and then looked up at Ormonde.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Throw it.”

“Why?”

“So the dog can chase it.”

He said it like what I should be doing was incredibly obvious.

“Fine, but don’t blame me if it takes the dog a while to get it.”

I threw the stick as hard as I could into the air. It landed on the ground some fifteen feet away.

‘That throw sucked. Am I really that weak?’

“You didn’t throw it very far.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

The dog had retrieved the stick by now and I was once again handed it and told to try again. After a few more failed throws I gave up and watched Ormonde play instead. He was happy and not driving me up a wall so I was content to sit and do nothing. Ormonde came over to me once the dog ran off again and we headed back to the pond.

Playing with the dog became a common event and I started to get a little more involved. By the sixth time my feeling of unease had faded and I was more inclined to get near it. Ormonde had grown again in more ways than one. I was now barely able to see over his head and his steady progress with earth Arcane was impressive.

My plan for today was to tell Ormonde about links and to get him to start fostering his own so I didn’t have to do it. I was going to share the feeling of pulsing with him since no spirit can explain to someone how to do it.

“Learning something new today.”

“What?!”

‘Why does he get so happy when I teach him stuff? I’m never going to understand him.’

“Well first you need to meditate a little.”

“Ugh. Do I have to?”

“If you want to learn then yes.”

“Fine.”

Both of us sat and I focused on sending the feeling of pulsing to him while doing it. Trying to use the part of my soul Ormonde had was disorientating if I did it for too long, we had both had to suffer while I was helping him get better at controlling raw Arcane. When I finished I stood and addressed Ormonde.

“Ok now when you use this you have to be ethereal. Got it?”

“Yup.”

“Give it a try when you’re ready. And you’ll need your eyes closed by the way.”

Ormonde huffed and then closed his eyes again.

“And?”

“I can, feel them? See them? How do you describe it? What are they?”

“They’re called links. As for how I describe them? I don’t. I just observe them and use them. They look like threads to me. Threads of different colors and pattern but everyone sees something different.”

He closed his eyes again.

“They kinda look like bridges. You’re right, each one’s different.”

“Ready to learn what you use them for?”

“Yeah.”

The reply lacked its usual enthusiasm. I didn’t know why and I wasn’t going to ask. Regardless, I moved on to telling him how to use his links and passed control of his link to him so it could finally grow. We left to play with the dog again, assuming it was there, and I couldn’t get the look Ormonde had on his face earlier out of my head.

‘Why do I care? Ormonde isn’t my concern nor will anything good ever come out of our relationship, for me at least. It’s another case of spirits being used for someone else’s purpose. Although I doubt as to whether or not Ormonde cares to use me as others would.’

“Vio you ok?”

We had come to the clearing where the dog usually appeared and I had been staring off into space for a while.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“ ‘bout what?”

“Nothing good. Don’t worry about it.”

He shrugged and went to play with the dog. I didn’t join in and instead sat while mulling over what was bouncing around inside my head.

My thoughts continued to remain in turmoil so I gave up on them and went to join Ormonde and the dog. I was running over to join them and tripped.

“Ow.”

Ormonde hadn’t heard me and I stood up and dusted myself off. My knee was bleeding. That shouldn’t be possible. I recounted what I had done walking to the area and realized I had never turned myself corporeal. Only one thing turned me corporeal aside from myself.

“Ormonde get away from the dog.”

He heard me and turned to look.

“What?”

“Get away from the dog.”

“Why?”

“It’s not safe.”

“How’s it not safe?”

“I don’t have time to explain, just come here.”

Ormonde complied begrudgingly, the dog following closely behind him. My fear of the dog was back in full force, there was a chance that it was normal but I couldn’t be sure without checking. The moment I checked, however, was going to be the start of something nasty if it was the dog.

I tried to gather raw Arcane and failed to do so; something in the area was absorbing it.

“Vio?”

“What?”

“Are dogs supposed to do that?”

I turned to look at the dog and felt pain in my left leg before I could see it. Looking down, a pink tentacle with spikes on the end had pierced me. I followed it with my eyes; it lead me back to the dog. It head was beginning to split into three and two more tentacles slid out of its mouth, landing on the ground with a wet crunching noise.

‘Well fuck.’

“Ormonde.”

“Y-yeah?”

“I need you to go get Maka. Can you do that for me?”

I was met with silence and felt something rushing through me It was panic and fear, but It wasn’t my panic and fear. I had dealt with similar situations before, albeit this one was starting off remarkable bad when compared to the others, so that meant the fear was coming from Ormonde. I guess he was feeding me his emotions like I had done with my feeling of using Arcane and pulsing. This didn’t seem like he had consciously decided to pass them, I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with them constantly.

“Ormonde. Yes or no?”

‘Come on, snap out of it I can’t help you get over this.’

“Y-yes.”

“Then go!”

Ormonde started to run and I bent to try and remove the tentacle, a task that proved near impossible due to the saliva on the tentacle, while keeping an eye on the dog. In order to take the tentacle out I was going to have to break my line of sight and that wasn’t happening.

During this time the dog’s, or really the Eldritch dog’s, tentacles had finished coming out of its mouth, a triangular piece of fanged flesh that had once been the head of a dog. The center of this large maw had a dark grey spiral from which the tentacle where emerging. Two large fully red domelike eyes sat on the hind legs of the dog, one eye per haunch. It had to turn itself slightly to see me.

This Eldritch was one of Nix’s. Anything that went into that spiral was gone, as in no longer existing gone. Nix couldn’t manifest any of his Eldritch physically and they always had to turn creatures into Eldritch horrors. This should be good news given that Eldritch horrors were easier to deal with than their counterparts. The only snafu was that Nix was an expert in using Edin and so were his spawn.

Edin feeds off of Arcane and life energy, or souls, and I had walking into this fight with no way of winning. There was no way for me to gather or filter Arcane, even my internal supply would be useless since I couldn’t get it to materialize. My battle form wouldn’t work either. It required Arcane or my own energy to start the fire to a point where it was able to burn things and my capacity was too small to provide that spark and keep it lit.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a tentacle flick up and shoot out towards Ormonde who was now a dozen or so feet away. There was little I could do but I still moved to intercept it with the only thing I had available to me, myself.

The first tentacle was still in my left hamstring and it hurt to move. The second one shattered my right shoulder by punching through it with enough force to knock me down. It was a whole different level of pain and my arm was now next to useless. I must have cried out without realizing it because Ormonde shouted something at me. More fear that didn’t belong to me coursed through me alongside concern and panic.

“Go! I’ll be fine! Keep running and don’t look back!”

‘I really shouldn’t get into the habit of lying to him, but better safe than sorry since he’ll only hold me back.’

I pulled myself back up into a standing position; the ground around me was slowly being painted red from my wounds. Breathing hurt my right side meaning some muscles must have been torn out of position in my chest, yet another thing to worry about. Without Akhan’s help I couldn’t heal myself quickly or at all really, and I wasn’t about to rely on him since the last time he was out he tried to eat me, again.

The Eldritch dog had been eyeing me cautiously and finally decided to act. The tentacles were pulled out of me while making a squelching noise, leaving me to bleed even more profusely than before and pulling me forward by about ten feet. My wounds itched, the saliva was either poisoned or had some other agent in it to make me sick.

The remaining tentacle that was still by the dog twitched and shot towards me like a whip. I wasn’t going to be able to take another hit like I had from the other two and entered my battle form to use my lantern as a shield. My lantern was on my right hip and I was barely able to grab it and swing before the tentacle reached me.

‘Lets see how you like hitting metal with that tentacle fo yours.’

Both objects struck each other with the clang of bone on metal; yet another permanent nick on the dull black metal of my lantern to remind me of my weakness. The impact almost made me drop the lantern and my hand was numb from the resulting vibrations that had been passed to it. I needed to get closer and out of the Eldritch dog’s sight and it was going to be a slow venture even though speed was needed.

One step and another blocked tentacle and I was no closer that I had been. My adrenaline wasn’t helping me, only making me bleed out faster, so calming myself down was my main goal. It would have been easy if not for the foreign emotions running rampant through me; even when he wasn’t here Ormonde was causing me grief.

‘At this rate I won’t be hit again. Seems like I was worried for nothing.’

A third block and a side step, or attempt at one, to defend against two tentacles put me a little closer to the Eldritch dog. It had been retracting each tentacle before whipping it at me so I wasn’t worried when it only withdrew one of the tentacles that lay near me after its last attack. My confidence in knowing what the enemy would do was a fatal mistake.

My leg was pulled out from underneath me and I fell, dropping my lantern in the process. Apparently the tentacles could be controlled like they were prehensile tails regardless of how slippery the saliva on them was. The tentacle was tight enough that I couldn’t get it off when I tried and it tightened even more as it began to drag me towards the Eldritch dog’s mouth.

I dispersed my battle form, my lantern was out of reach and not having it with me was going to make any escape attempts impossible. Changing into my battle form the first time took a large portion of my capacity to do and I doubted I had enough left for more than one change.

While I was being dragged my good hand searched the passing ground for anything I could use as a weapon or to slow down my approach to the spiral within the triangular maw. The autumn leaves, now disheveled and stained red, held nothing but dirt under them leaving me to be brought to the Eldritch dog without anything to show for my search.

Instead of starting with my leg, another tentacle grabbed my damaged arm and forced it to the center of the mouth with a few audible pops and cracks. The triangular mouth closed around my arm, engulfing it in a wet and warm flesh that hid the teeth I had seen earlier. What started out as chewing quickly became what felt like hundreds of tiny cuts that were slowly stripping the flesh from my arm.

I had to resist screaming and tears came unabided to my eyes blurring my vision slightly. Placing my good leg onto the Eldritch dog’s head-mouth-thing I pushed, hoping to either pull my arm out or off and gain a bit of time to fight back. If my shattered shoulder wasn’t completely destroyed before it was now since I had to pull against the strong suction that was keeping my arm inside the mouth. My arm was released with a raspy gurgling noise and a spray of blood flecks and shredded flesh and muscle.

What had once been an arm was now just bone attached to me with a few strips of muscle, veins, and nerves. The exposed nerves made my arm feel like it was on fire and the prolific bleeding was only going further to dull my already addled mind. Tearing my arm off to use as a distraction or weapon was an idea but it was a bad one as I would need to sever the few remaining veins that were intact to fully remove my arm.

When the tentacles around my arm and leg began to tighten again I moved myself to the Eldritch dog’s left eye and stabbed it with my good hand. Eyes are soft and this eye was no different in that regard allowing my hand to go through it with almost no resistance. I removed my hand from the eye, thankful that this Eldritch didn’t have acidic blood like the last one I fought.

The Eldritch dog began to thrash its tentacles around trying to hit me since it couldn’t see at the moment and I stepped back to avoid them. I almost fell when I placed all of my weight onto my good leg, it had gone numb from whatever had been left in the wound and it seemed to be spreading, or was that the blood loss?

My chest still hurt and my breathing had become dangerously shallow gasps for air despite the layer of sweat that was caused by the heavy fatigue I was feeling. All of my senses were making me dizzy and disorientated as I could only hear the rapid beating of my heart. Everything I tried to do was met with a slightly delayed response and my thoughts seemed to be sluggish.

I was able to tell that the eye I had damaged was beginning to heal even with the red haze and black at the edges of my vision that was obscuring my sight. A tentacle whipped towards my head from the right and one of my own stopped it. My body was acting on instinct instead of logic and it had pulled part of my Eldritch part out.

The tentacle coming out of the area behind my right shoulder blade coiled itself around my destroyed arm and stayed still. The bleeding from my leg had stopped and the tentacle around my arm was acting as a replacement for the veins that were no longer whole. Unlike the normal murky tentacle that appeared this one was clear with only my own blood tainting its clarity.

I was waiting for the voice that told to destroy, kill, and maim that always came with my liquid tentacles, but only the only sound that reached me was that of my heart and the Eldritch dog’s growls. It had backed away and was snarling at me so I returned the gesture with a low guttural warning. The numbness in my leg has stopped spreading once my body started producing Edin in exchange for my Arcane. My arm was being fixed as was my leg, but I would run out of Arcane before either of them was fully repaired and I didn’t intend to let my soul be eaten away just for a momentary power boost.

We continued to exchange growls and snarls while observing each other, the eye I had damaged was nearly back to normal. Relief flooded me; Ormonde must have reached Maka. It was time to act.

I had no control over my tentacle so attacking was a no go and I began to back away from the Eldritch dog. It started to cough and a fourth tentacle was added to the previous trifecta of tentacles. The hope was that I could get it to burn through more Edin than I was so it would burn itself out before I succumbed to my blood loss.

A tentacle twitched and shot at me only to be once again blocked by my own. Blood began to spill out of my arm again now that there was nothing to help keep it in. I could feel my body begin to slow down while the Eldritch dog seemed to speed up.

Another tentacle shot towards me followed by another and another. I was under assault by a constant barrage and was slowly being brought to my knees in order to keep myself inside the protective range of my tentacle. My hope of escape would be ephemeral once I was on my knees and each attack brought me closer and closer to the ground.

The area around me was an expanding and thickening red puddle of blood and sweat mixed with the liquid that was knocked from my tentacle whenever it stopped on of the Eldritch dog’s. My head throbbed with a steadily growing ache and I had shut my eyes once my vision became too blurry to see anything. The sound of tentacles colliding and cracking provided a background to the weak pulse that was resounding in my ears. My chest hurt to the point where breathing was almost impossible, each breath I could take felt like I was choking on the air that entered my lungs.

‘Five hits till I’m out of Arcane.’

‘Four.’

‘Two.’

‘One.’

The next attack burst my tentacle and made a laceration along my back that immediately soaked my it red. There was nothing I could do. I was too tired to move and didn’t have any Arcane to manifest anything using Edin, plus I was still bleeding heavily. Fear and panic was once again present inside me but this time it wasn’t Ormonde’s.

Knowing it had won the Eldritch dog retracted its tentacles and moved closer seemingly unfazed even after having to use Edin to heal and grow. Nothing in my current arsenal could hurt it, that had been made very clear, but I did have a plan and it involved the handful of unused souls in my lantern. They would hopefully provide enough of a boost to get me out of the Eldritch dog’s area so I could use Arcane without Edin disrupting and devouring it. Pulling myself to the Highway or Upper plane were my only chance of salvation.

Getting the souls out of the lantern required me to enter my battle form and I didn’t have any Arcane to do that; I was going to have to trade in some of myself. Letting myself be eaten wasn’t an option this time because Nix’s spawn had the ability to destroy souls regardless of how powerful they were since Nix was the embodiment of nothingness.

Amidst my inner conflict I failed to notice that the Eldritch dog had stopped moving. It was only when it let out a noise that fell in between a strangled howl and a screaming infant that I realized something else was attacking it. Maka must have finally shown up. I looked for her but failed to see anything and was unsure as to whether or not that was due to her being somewhere I couldn’t see her or my vision was just that impaired at the moment.

The Eldritch dog began to thrash its tentacles around again and lost one as it was severed near the base of its mouth. Another nails-on-chalkboard screech escaped it while it began to move with even more fervent rage. Some of the air around the Eldritch seemed to be rippling like it was moving, but for all I knew I was hallucinating from blood loss.

More screams sounded until a loud squelch noise and the crashing influx of raw Arcane signaled the end of the Eldritch dog’s life. I still couldn’t see Maka but talked anyway.

“Back away from it. It’s one of Nix’s so it’ll implode soon now that it’s dead.”

“Got it.”

Either Maka was here somewhere or I was crazy. The same feeling of being submersed in water fell over me and I could feel my back slowly stitching itself back together. Once my back was finished Maka move on to the remnants of my arm. My arms reconstruction hurt almost as bad as its destruction but I was too tired to care and just let the pain knock me out.

I woke up to find myself in a bed with someone stroking my head; it was easy to tell from the slender fingers that the hand belonged to Maka. I felt like crap, almost as bad as when I finished fixing Ormonde’s soul. Maka probably knew I had woken up but she hadn’t spoken nor did she stop caressing me. I could feel the relief and worry coming off of Ormonde from wherever he was. Finally working up the courage I spoke.

“Hey Maka?”

Speaking hurt my chest for several reasons and my words came out only slightly louder than a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Can we create that link?”

Maka replied with a soft hum of agreement.

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AN: Hello readers! Am I an asshole for using misleading titles? Either way we're 15 chapters in and I want to know if you think the tags I've given this piece are appropriate for it. Any questions, comments or concerns? Let me know and for now I'll bid you adieu.

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