Just as expected, Sigmir’s enthusiasm for the idea that I would head off in the middle of the night for some magical experimentation with the ability that had brought our current troubles was… impactful. She didn’t even try to talk or let me explain, instead she simply said no, before grabbing me, carrying me off and doing her very best that the only sounds coming from my body were moans, some panting and screams of pleasure.

Sadly, as great as both of our stamina was, at some point, our bodies simply couldn’t indulge any longer. Still, our activities had successfully made Adra and Rai scurry off, giving us perfect privacy so I could explain my dilemma. It was either to feed the Soul Prison or get driven mad quite quickly, the incessant knocking would likely accomplish that within a few days. Just a single night of it had left me irritated and thoroughly annoyed, so I didn’t even want to consider how I would feel after a week. And that was assuming the inmate didn’t have any other tricks up their disembodied sleeve, it might just play nice at the moment, trying to get me to work with it on my own accord.

She suggested that I should give her the Soul Prison to carry and I seriously considered her idea, but there were a few things that made me hesitant. One was that I wasn’t sure if the Soul Prison benefited from the constant concealment I maintained around me, the Cloak of Twilight that hid such problematic traits like my Mortal Hubris. If so, it might also conceal the Soul Prison from those divine Powers that had originally sealed it, something that might be necessary, especially now that it was becoming more active thanks to the feeding.

Another was that I was somewhat confident in my own mental defences, thanks to my high mental attributes and magical abilities, especially Mind Magic. Sigmir was a wonderful being, but her focus was on her physical body, leaving her mental abilities only somewhat enhanced, far from my level.

And lastly, I simply didn’t want her to be at risk, not if I could carry that risk. It was an opinion she mirrored, unwilling to let me carry the burden but with a few gentle kisses and soft coaxing, she accepted, letting me keep the Prison. And accepted that I would have to move somewhere in the night and feed the soul inside.

After another exciting day of running, I shifted into my Hallow, after Adra and I had warded the campsite to the best of our abilities, and Lenore took off, carrying me northwards. We didn’t plan to go too far, only about half an hour of her flying her top speed just above the forest’s canopy, with plans to further that distance each coming night. That way, it would hopefully look like we were on a somewhat curved trajectory, leading towards the Mountains of Fire and the border between Arbortoma and Helar. Hopefully, that would be enough of a false trail to let us slip any net they might put up.

As soon as Lenore and I found a suitable location, I began my hard work. Instead of putting a formation into one tree, I carefully drew out a formation on the ground, shifting and designing it in such a way that each of the focal points was located beneath one of the giant trees. Those giant trees on the focal points were then carved with a formation of their own, hopefully linking them into the greater whole.

It was incredibly exhausting, hard work, but when I put a hand on the Soul Prison, the hunger was now joined with salivating anticipation and exuberant joy, to the point that I had a mental image of a dog, hopping around and wagging its tail hard enough to almost tumble to the ground, just because it heard the soft rattling of food in its bowl.

With a grin on my face, I stood in the middle of the formation, each of the trees around me anointed with my blood and raised my hands, one holding the Soul Prison, the other the slightly bloody Athame. It was a bit of a risk, using my own blood as the link to connect the ritual, but at the end of the day, it was a necessity. Otherwise, I’d have to drain each tree individually, making the feeding a lot harder and slower.

Letting out a hiss, I focused and began channelling my magic, the formation beneath me glowing with pulsing, red light, even as dim tendrils of ashen grey spread around me, slowly infusing and priming the trees for the ritual. At first, it was a slow process, the trees needing to be stimulated with Death Magic until I felt the tipping point, their Vitality at its strongest and most motile, completely energised to push out the Death Magic I had infused them with.

In that moment, I felt Overflow activate and my heart started pounding, my eyes glowing with that crimson light and pulsing to the beating of my heart. The Blood Magic around me focused on the blood coating my Athame, thrumming with power until I placed the bloody knife against the Soul Prison in my other hand.

And suddenly, there was another burst of power, even stronger than the pulse last time, draining some of my Astral Power and stamina in the process, leaving me reeling in body and mind. The sheer amount and quality of power that had surged through me, stronger and so incredibly pure that I could only compare it to Eternal Ice, robbed me of my breath, the rush of power flowing through me almost orgasmic.

Despite the incredibly high I was experiencing, I didn’t forget that I wanted to communicate with the being inside the Soul Prison and tried to send images along the power, entreating it for patience and promising that I would try to feed it to the best of my ability. I didn’t try to negotiate for a reward at this point, simply because of the limited method of communication, but I had a feeling the being inside could understand more than I could communicate.

As I came down from my high, I stood there, grey ashes from the drained trees raining around me and, to my surprise, strange, bone-grey flames flickering on the crumbled remains of those trees. For a moment, I was utterly flabbergasted, staring at the flames and wondering just why I didn’t get the usual feeling of revulsion before I realised that hanging around would be utterly retarded. Considering the meaning of those dark flames would have to wait for later when I wasn’t standing on a crime against the very realm I was currently in.

Utilising what power I had left, I caused Darkness to surge, destroying and purging the traces of magic in the environment, trying to destroy as much of the evidence as possible. The formation I had set up shattered, the magic that had seeped into the ground turning the clearing into an utter mess, before I did my best to guide the Darkness back into the Astral, leaving nothing but torn earth and a locally jumbled Astral River.

Once that was achieved, I pushed myself back into my Hallow, before Lenore pushed herself, darting away through the darkness, leaving the place behind as quickly as possible. I had no doubt that someone, somewhere had noticed the events and there would be trouble coming.

As if to confirm my impression, just a few minutes after Lenore and I had fled, I felt a surge of Astral Power behind me, nothing I could identify but powerful. Possibly some sort of teleport and if so, it was likely a good idea that Lenore was wrapped in a concealing Cloak of Twilight and flying above the canopy again, trying to remain out of sight as much as possible. And heading north.

Only after moving north for half an hour would we double back, hopefully avoiding any tracking and escaping potential pursuit. Trying to guess what countermeasures were necessary and what measures were unnecessary without understanding the options our foes had to track us was a pain in the neck, but there was little we could do about it.

But one thing we could try and so, after some ten minutes of swift flight, Lenore headed into the canopy, landing on one of the branches where I shifted out of my Hallow, creating a window of Darkness, through which we could observe the images from a scrying construct. It was an indirect way to scry, designed to avoid backlash if anyone noticed our construct and destroyed it, but it had its drawbacks, mostly in regards to controlling the focus.

Not that we needed a lot of control, the jumbled mess we had made of the area we had fled was easily recognisable in the Astral, especially for us who had caused it. From there, it was simple to create the scrying focus, nothing but a particularly dense cloud of darkness in the shadow of a tree, letting us see what was going on.

There were a few elves scurrying around the clearing, some of them with weird, winged cats and none of them looked happy. But they also didn’t look like they were actually getting anything from it, until one of them looked up, suddenly focusing on the construct I had created.

Immediately, I forced the Astral Power back into the Astral River, letting it merge with the mess there and withdrew, before turning the Astral Power I had invested into the window of Darkness into a magic-devouring shadow that swiftly devoured itself, leaving very little evidence, while I shifted back into my Hallow and Lenore started to dart to the east, hopefully making sure that nobody was able to follow us.