Stray Soul

Standing in front of the gates of the encampment, Gram watched the men he chose to escort him in the hunt for the plant being prepare for a few moments before continuing to inspect the medallion given to him by Krone.

The medallion itself was simple, made from a metal of some kind, probably iron, but he couldn’t say for sure.

But what caught his attention was the mana stone radiating holy mana that was inside the medallion, and even though he wasn’t actively doing anything, he could feel and see the medallion searching its surroundings, trying to find the plant being.

He just hoped the medallion wouldn’t run out of mana before he found something.

He could always just load in more mana, but doing so would dilute the holy mana inside medallion even more than it already was and may even turn the artefact crafted by the shaman into nothing more than simple child’s toy.

Though he was not sure if something made by a priest overnight could be classified as an artefact as that would imply a more masterfully crafted item, but he didn’t really care.

What he held in his hands was a divine artefact, crafted by a priest and empowered by the Dark Lord’s divinity, it didn’t matter if it was made overnight or through the hard work of many craftsmen over days or weeks.

An artefact was an artefact, and he would use what he had in his hands to accomplish his orders as well as he could.

Shaking his head, Gram closed the medallion to conserve its mana, and also because he was sure the plant being wouldn’t be anywhere near the encampment, otherwise their hunt would be too easy, no?

As his men finished mounting the undead, he too mounted the Cave Terror after putting the medallion inside his armour and they rode off towards west, to hopefully find the plant being.

If they did not, he was allowed to return after 7 days, and they would then attempt to escape with as many people as they could save.

...

..

.

As they rode their undead, Gram opened the medallion every half an hour and kept it open for a minute or 2, letting it look for the plant being they were after, and after 2 minutes, he just closed it and put it back inside his armour.

This continued for the rest of the day, and the night. Then he ordered his men to stop the undead and rest for the night, and kept the medallion open the whole night just in case the plant being they were hunting, or another like it, came around.

The next morning, after they had breakfast and set off, he once again opened the medallion, but this time instead of medallion just doing nothing other than pulsating with a dark light, he momentarily felt something, the direction where the plant being was.

“Well, that was easy...” he muttered to himself, and though he was lucky to have found the plant being so easily, he didn’t believe in luck, and immediately became cautious.

After all, there was no guarantee that the Mother wouldn’t know what they were trying to do, so this might just be a trap set for them.

And he wasn’t planning on falling into a trap and losing his men while he could always retreat and try another day, after all they had found their hunt easily, had they not? There was no reason to rush things.

For now at least, after all he had 6 more days. If he could complete his mission now, he would. If he couldn’t, he’d wait and plan for a few more days.

Quickly ordering his men to closely follow him, Gram kept the medallion open, and let its occasional pulses guide him to the location of the plant being, and by night, he was able to locate the plant being.

Checking his medallion to be sure, he first put his men into groups and sent them around the perimeter to make sure there weren’t any other plant beings around.

He couldn’t sense any plant being other than the one that was sat under the tree, but artefacts could always fail. Be they be divine or not.

After all his men came back and reported they hadn’t found any plant beings, or anything suspicious, he ordered them to encircle the plant being, still keeping his medallion open in case any plant beings appeared around them.

Watching his men disappear into the forest, he got off of the Cave Terror and closed the medallion and ordered the undead to start marching forwards, towards the plant being, and as the Cave Terror approached the plant being, it took notice and got off of the ground.

Following the undead from a few steps behind, I saw that my men had encircled the plant being and gotten off their undead as well, and for the last time I opened the medallion and looked if any other plant beings were approaching us.

There were none. So, I closed the medallion for one last time as keeping it open would distract me from fighting, though I doubted I or anyone else would have to fight for much with the Cave Terror here.

Putting the medallion back into my armour, I ordered the undead that had stopped a next to me to continue its march and attack the undead and watched it from behind it.

But after the undead started walking, something curious happened.

The plant being got up and started walking towards it too! Which wasn’t something I expected to happen.

Did the plant being have a way to explode itself and take out the Cave Terror with it? Was the trap I suspected the subject of our hunt from the beginning?

Did the Mother want to incapacitate the Cave Terror so our force of undead would be weakened enough for whatever plant beings left under her command in this forest could finish us?

I didn’t know and doubted that the other dozen or so undead I had under my command could safely dispatch of the plant being, so I just let the scene play out.

The Cave Terror lifted one of its front claws, ready to strike at the plant being, and the moment the undead started attacking, the plant being stopped.

After the undead’s attack hit the plant being, it exploded into a thousand branches all rushing up the undead’s claw, and quickly into its body from its nose and mouth, leaving the carcass of the hog on the ground.

Surprized by this, I couldn’t react fast enough to order the Cave Terror to dispatch the swarm of branches climbing up its arm, but the moment my confusion went away, I quickly tried order the undead to move, but it didn’t.

I pulled on the thread connecting us a few more times, but even though my orders went through, it would at best give me a twitch as a respond.

But then, suddenly, my connection to the Cave Terror disappeared, and it fell to the ground.

Looking at the scene in front of me in bewilderment, I couldn’t quite understand what was going on, and before I could put 2 and 2 together, and get an idea of what was going on, branches and leaves started coming out from seemingly random parts of the Cave Terror, and it slowly lifted itself up, and turned towards me.

And as the pale scaled creature with crimson eyes started at me, branches and leaves adorning its body as if some sort of primitive armour, it suddenly roared like a beast set free from its chains.

And the only thing I could say was,

“Well, fuck.”

GET SCARED, RUN OFF, GET SCARED, RUN OFF, GET SCARED, RUN OFF!!!

C’MON RUN YOU GREEN PIECE OF SHI—

Oh, hello there, we meet once again.

As you can see, as the master of souls and the legal owner of all undead in this forest, I took control of this pale lizard or whatever it is by simply throwing its busted soul out of this body!

Though its soul was in a much, much better shape than the undead I fought in the dungeon, and I could even feel a few weird locations where a lot of mana was located in weird shapes, you know what that means, enchantments!

I think... but whatever they were, I now know for sure that these goblins have a necromancer of sorts with them that can control and keep undead from decomposing! So, I just have to somehow decipher how these seemingly random shapes and symbols make magic... but I am sure I’ll pull it off somehow!

...Hopefully... anyways, that’s not the important thing right now! Its goblins surrounding me!

Staring at who I assumed to be the leader of the goblins while also watching the other goblins and undead with my other eyes, I saw him take a mace from his back and scream instead of running... which was not what I hoped at all.

As he screamed, the undead and the goblins surrounding me moved with unison, though the goblins were quite a few steps behind the undead, probably wanting to use their expendables, as expendables and striking me while I was dealing with them.

But sadly for them, I couldn’t even walk yet! So, jokes on them, this is going to turn into a very awkward staring contest while I rush to connect my soul and the body!

And rush to expand my mana cloud network I did! Though, while doing that, I realised that my mana cloud seemed... bloated. More than it usually was, so I summoned my status window while I worked on improving my mana cloud network, for which I should really make a code word for as MCN doesn’t sound cool.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Pale Lizard)

Level: 18 Exp: 0/55 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/553 Mana Points: 841/857

Strength: 0 (90)

Vitality: 0 (55)

Agility: 0 (77)

Intelligence: 38 (47)

Wisdom: 34 (30)

Charisma: 0 (40)

Free Stat Points: 0

Skills: Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (Z), Soul Sense (H), Soul Manipulation (H), Mana Control (Z), Mana Strengthening (Z) +

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S), What Lays Beyond? (C)

Seeing that I had more than 800 mana nearly made me mess up and do a mistake while building my new mana cloud network, and the happiness I felt at seeing such stats just couldn’t be described!

After I get out of this battle, I would basically be a god amongst whatever sad sobs I lived amongst!

But the 40 points in charisma... kinda hurt. Though the lizard looked pretty cool when I was looking at it so... maybe it wasn’t such a waste after all?

Though I wished to look at the stat window more, and bask in the glory of my new power, I couldn’t due to the goblins and the undead approaching me.

Quickly putting a half-baked mana cloud network together, I got up from my place, and stretched my body outwards, swinging my large tail around, tough I didn’t know its actual length, it would be somewhere around 3 meters, so if my tail is 3 meters my body proper should be around that much too, and I was like 150, 180 centimetres tall too!

So, I was a big boy all around and... I honestly don’t have any idea why these goblins haven’t escaped yet, I mean, they stand no chance against my greatness no?

They should drop to their feet and bask in my semi-draconic glory, praying to me as a god! And maybe I won’t rob them of their shiny magical artefacts.

That’s a lie. I want that pulsating medallion.

Diverting a few dozen points from my now incredibly large mana pool towards my legs, I rushed towards the undead near me, and quickly destroyed their bodies and freed their souls, but left the goblins as... well, there just wasn’t any reason for me to kill them.

And killing thinking, breathing beings that I could’ve been friends in different circumstances... yeah, not something I was going to do unless it was the absolute last thing I could do to keep myself alive, and I didn’t see the goblins as a threat, so no reason to hurt them.

*CRUNCH*

But unbeknownst to me, the leader of the goblins rushed towards me at speeds I just couldn’t react to, and it probably would’ve destroyed my tail or one of my hind legs... if not for the fact that I had left a miniscule part of my soul in the body of the hog, which jumped and met its mace before it could connect to me.

Which prompted me to quickly swing my tail in the direction of the goblin, but it moved out of the way of my tail by just stepping behind which... while cool, felt infuriating as I hoped to disable him, steal his medallion, and make my escape.

Felling the hog’s body that was slowly sliding down the tree it hit while flying, I felt that my lesser soul was still relatively safe inside the body of the hog, and I just decided to ignore it ‘till the end of the battle as I found the goblins’ second triumph a more pressing issue than the lesser soul that could be saved anytime.

Seeing the drops of stale blood on his mace, the goblin commander swinged it, and the drops of blood fell off of it.

Then he screamed once more, which caused the goblins to retreat and the undead to stay, which made sense as I doubted that the goblins were that much stronger than the undead, I absolutely decimated just now.

As my 2 front eyes met the goblin commander’s eyes... I knew this wasn’t going to be as fast and easy as I had hoped... maybe I could still bounce off?