Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin sat in the warm bath. He was also sitting in his calming chair, located in the void space. It was a strange feeling, being surrounded by water in his physical body while being dry in the void space. He felt the warm pressure of the water in some small part of his mind, while he worked on his soul seal.

He didn’t know how long he had been working on the knots. It had been very slow to start, but as he worked them loose it became easier and easier. There was something about the water that was helping him focus his soul essence on the task.

As the hours slowly passed by, he realized the ambient essence around his physical body was gradually rising. It was seeping into him with the steam, rising from the bath water. Every handful of breaths he absorbed enough essence vapor that it condensed into a sort of liquid.

Benjamin wasn’t sure how or why he was getting this new inflow of essence, but he was funneling every drop of it into removing his seal. As the flow increased, so did the rate the knots came apart. Until finally the whole thing unraveled, dissipating into nothingness.

He was elated, that seal had stifled his growth since he arrived in this new life and now it was gone. He looked beyond the seal to catch his first glimpse of his core. To say he was disappointed would be a bit of an overstatement, but it wasn’t what he had expected.

After a few sullen heartbeats, Benjamin rallied himself. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see once the seal was removed. He had thought it was going to be something amazing though. Instead, it was just an essence container. Very similar to the creation cores he had gathered from his kills.

He peered closer, trying to discover any differences. He couldn’t see colors exactly; his core was like a globe of starlight in an endless darkness. It was similar to the creation cores. Where they were solid however, this was hazy around the outside. Like the wisps of essence vapor, he was gathering and condensing from the bath. Further in it looked to be liquid, undulating slowly beneath the surrounding vapor cloud.

Deeper still, he thought he could see at its center a solid core of soul essence. The edges reminded him of the northern lights against the blackness, the deeper he looked into the core the brighter and more solid the starlight became. Bringing his mental focus back, he scanned the area around the core. He could see the channels he had dug into his body when he accidentally transformed himself.

The wisps of vapor that rose from his core, were slowly being drawn into those channels and spread to the rest of his body. It eventually circled back around to his core. It reminded him of a diagram of the circulatory system he had seen in bio. Except unlike bio. there weren’t any handy labels to explain what was going on. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

There were more lines branching out from his core, these went beyond his body’s channels. Benjamin took another mental step back, bringing himself into his void space again. There were connection lines going to each of the patterns imprinted on his soul. Most of the lines were dark but the one that connected with Grace’s outline had a steady flow of essence going into it.

It looked like each creation he summoned into reality would be a drain on his essence reserves. He would have to keep that in mind when he grew strong enough to summon multiple creations. Coupled with his passive regeneration he could deplete his core very quickly. With a mental shrug he figured he might as well do a little experimenting.

Focusing on Silver’s line he pulled, attempting to summon the little spider into existence. Just like he had tried doing after his talk with the Arbiter. This time his soul wasn’t sealed, and he watched as some of the liquid essence flowed from his core and through the line connected to Silver.

As he pulled, his core dimmed slightly from essence drain and Silver manifested into reality. It now sat on the edge of the tub. The figure of silver in his void space grew dim, and became just an outline as the spider became physical. A trickle of essence flowed from his core into Silver, maintaining its form.

Looking through several layers of reality simultaneously, gave him a touch of vertigo. He could see his core, his void space and the bath like a pealed back slice of reality. Not to mention all the connecting lines that crisscrossed between them. He couldn’t explain it and even though he watched it happen, didn’t understand what was happening.

The process was instinctual, and he just…did it. Otherwise, without a teacher he wouldn’t have been able to do what he just had. Peering again at his core, he saw that even though its size hadn’t changed the liquid portion had shrunk slightly. Vapor now taking up the space it left behind. It looked like a tiny star burning in his soul to power his body and the changes he made to reality.

The ambient essence from the bath slowly flowed into him and condensed. one drop at a time and began refilling his core. Benjamin reached outside the bath to his belongings and fished out the case made from the fighter ant’s abdomen. He had asked Grace for it when they separated.

Rummaging around inside, he pulled out the core of a worker ant, wrapped in a leaf. Dumping the little marble into his palm, he watched as the essence inside was sucked into his channels and headed toward his core. With an effort of will he was able to cut off that flow. He could hold the core now without drawing its power into himself.

Releasing that hold he let the essence continue its flow into his body. He watched it flow into his core and expand. There was perhaps four times as much essence in this core than he had used to summon Silver. The vapor layer around the outside shrank as the liquid essence poured in. After a time, it seemed to compress again and the solid core at the center grew slightly. until the liquid layer and the vapor outside all balanced. The worker’s core steadily shrinking until it vanished.

That was interesting. It seemed that the essence vapor would gather and condense into a liquid. When enough liquid essence pooled in his core it would condense again into the solid state at the center. Again, he didn’t understand what that meant or how it affected him but he was getting closer.

Drawing back out of his void space he let the ambient essence flow into his core passively. He wanted to greet Silver, it had been a long time since he had seen the little spider and he missed it. The spider hadn’t changed dimensionally, it was still roughly the size of his fist. Since it last left the void space however, its metal body had become sleek and biological vs the wire covered limbs and bolted joints it had before.

There were two, liquid filled, clear vials on its back now as well. One vial’s contents glowed blue; the other vial held a sickly glowing green fluid. They sat side by side and ran parallel to its body. There were clear hoses extending from these vials. They ran the length of its body and ended at the two front limbs. Those limbs were now hollow, needle like, proboscis. likely to eject the liquid in the vials. Benjamin could guess from the swamp encounters what each did, the blue liquid would be some sort of healing concoction and the green was likely a poison.

That might come in handy, if he or Grace were injured. Thinking of Grace, Benjamin became a little morose. He had upset her when he butchered that lizard. He wanted to do something to help smooth over the gaff, but didn’t know what he could do.

Thinking about that, brought his mind around to Stomper’s pattern. He had his seal removed now, perhaps he could safely absorb it? Reaching into the case again he pulled it out, along with a few extra worker cores. Just in case he couldn’t suppress the Erlking’s extra programming without help.

He relaxed into the wooden bath. Placing the worker cores on the lip of the tub, close to hand. Holding the egg-shaped pattern of the fighter goblin, he focused on drawing it into himself. The draw was easy, just as it had been with the more bestial patterns.

As it entered his void space, he could feel the Erlking’s directives start to stir. He focused on it and funneled his essence to crush that part of the pattern. Just like he had done with Grace, he left a small portion of it behind. Enough so there wasn’t a gap in the pattern, but weakened sufficiently to not be a controlling force.

His core was much smaller than the dire boars had been. So, the draw on his essence was substantial. When the questioning feeling started to pull from his mind, he again repeated what he did for Grace. Allowing the goblin to be himself, and to feel at home with Benjamin. As the draw faded away, Benjamin looked into his void space and saw a burly male goblin standing next to Grace’s outline.

Entering the void space again Benjamin walked around them, comparing the two. Grace’s image was just an outline but he knew her form well enough to fill in the gaps. The pair were of a height, approximately four feet tall.

Back when Benjamin first saw them, Stomper had been the bulkier of the two. Now, they were closer in size thanks to Grace’s increased strength. There was a corded denseness to Stomper’s muscles however, that Grace lacked. While Grace held the contained power of a hunting cat, Stomper exuded a destructive force like the dire bore. Again, goblin naming conventions at their finest.

Benjamin looked to his core, the solid section at its center was nearly gone. He had used most of his energy binding Stomper’s pattern to his soul. Giving an experimental tug on the line, he figured it would take more then he currently had to summon him into reality. He debated whether to use the ant cores to fill up on essence quickly, and summon him now.

In the end he decided against it. The bath was replenishing the loss, slowly, but faster than it would happen naturally. He could wait a little while. Besides if he waited and summoned him in front of Grace it might be enough to cheer her out of the funk, she was in.

As he wrapped the cores back up and slid them into the ant case, he looked regretfully at the other goblin patterns. He wanted to absorb them, to be able to bring them back to life. He just wasn’t strong enough yet. Setting the case aside once more, he settled his body back into the water. He didn’t know how long he would get the chance to grab free essence, so he was going to make the most of it while he could. Focusing on the essence around him, he settled into his calming chair. The added focus allowed him to increase the draw rate slightly. Not a lot, but every little bit helped.

From his seat in the calming chair, he looked around at the small collection of creatures he would one day be able to access. It would have to wait though; his core didn’t hold enough essence even at full capacity to summon most of them yet. Letting the idle thoughts go, Benjamin focused all his attention on absorbing the essence around him. One way or another, he would get the essence he needed.