Volume 1, Chapter 30: My Soul Would Like to File a Complaint (Patreon)

At that exact moment, Khufu'Ri, Eli and Rodrick burst in from opposite sides of the barricade. Bone spikes protruded from Khufu'Ri's fingers, and blood had turned his mane into a dark, matted mess. In the firelight, he looked like something dragged out of a demon's nightmare.

The goblins reacted accordingly. They threw themselves face-first onto the ground and started shouting that they surrendered.

The orc who had been carrying pieces of the barricade, and who stood closer to the soldier, saw the man approaching with a sword and immediately dropped to his knees, placing his hands behind his back.

The one standing across from me, still holding the longbow, looked at me for a moment, then dropped to the ground as well and tossed the weapon aside. He seemed to mutter some kind of curse under his breath, but he didn’t cause any trouble.

“Fuck,” I muttered, ending the spell and making both the ball of fire and the column beneath it vanish completely. “Good thing you’re here,” I added, before vomiting onto the floor in front of myself once again.

“Your body is rebelling against the limitations of your soul,” the lion told me. “You pushed too far and overused your Psyche.”

He added that while using the rope which, as far as I could tell, was the same one I had used to get beneath the bridge. He cut off a piece of the appropriate length and used it to tie up the orc standing beneath him.

Eli did the same to the other orc with his own rope, though he did it without using magic.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I replied, wiping my mouth and closing my eyes to lessen the vertigo caused by my condition.

“Your sacrifice is appreciated, but you look as though you are about to lose consciousness. It would be better to let your Psyche regenerate.”

He finished tying the orc’s hands and sat him against the wall, then tossed a similarly prepared piece of rope to Rodrick and walked over to the goblins.

“It can regenerate all it wants. I need to get out of this cursed place,” I replied.

Leaning first against a column and then against the wall, I began staggering toward the temple exit.

As I went, I wondered how much abuse my soul could endure before it broke completely, whether such a thing was even possible, and whether anyone in this artificially created world could honestly answer a question like that.

When the light from both the bioluminescent plants outside the building and the fire finally reached my eyes, showing me where the exit was, I came to the conclusion that Molbob might be my only hope of unraveling at least some of the mysteries surrounding how magic worked.

I wasn’t sure whether he realized that I had somehow been able to connect the thoughts he sent me to specific Concepts and, through them, interpret his intent.

Then again, he might have been doing it deliberately, consciously influencing how I perceived the words he spoke directly into my mind.

“It’s not, um, my fault!” Bri's voice cracked through the air, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

I quickened my pace as much as I could, dragging one foot across the stone-tiled floor. The walls I leaned against were damp and smelled of iron, suggesting that what coated them wasn’t water but blood.

Several times along the way, I had to pull away from the wall because bodies—orc, goblin, and human alike—blocked my path.

Some of them were already covered in those strange little invertebrates that seemed to serve as the insects of this place. Their bodies shimmered with colors from within as they crawled into open wounds, sometimes disappearing completely inside the corpses. They converged en masse, descending from the higher crevices near the ceiling. Their march down the walls toward the food they had scented looked like stars falling from the night sky to earth.

Every time I had to detour around one of those bodies, I forced myself to take another step through sheer willpower. It felt as though I no longer owned my body and had instead become some outside puppeteer, pulling invisible strings and ordering each individual part to perform a specific movement.

“Ifrits, djinn, spirits of sand and fire—you are all the same…” Plasario answered Bri. “You tempt good people with promises, whisper of treasures and fulfilled dreams, and lead them astray, where you wait only to blaze brighter, fed by hope, consuming everything a man holds dear!”

“But I’m not, um, any of those things! I don’t know any djinn, ifrit, or whatever else! I just want to help! To heal!” my companion replied, and I could practically feel the tension rising in the air.

Fortunately, I was only a step away from the shattered entrance gate by then—planting my hand on the massive dented steel frame, and I could see what was happening outside.

Plasario stood several paces from it. Though he held his sword in one hand, the blade pointed toward the grass, while Bri’s light hovered a good several feet away from him.

“Healing? You call what you did to Master Milo healing? His manhood was burned so badly that it would have been better if you had simply allowed it to heal naturally. No wonder he ran for his life.”

Plasario took a step forward, dragging his sword through the grass.

“Milo ran away,” I said, and felt just how much effort even those words cost me. The moment I opened my mouth out there, I could practically taste the sweet flavor of death on my tongue. I barely stopped myself from vomiting, clutching my stomach. “Master Plasario, he ran because you mutilated him. It had nothing to do with what Brigid did,” I added as I stepped into the light of that strange place, forever submerged in twilight.

“Lex!” Bri shouted the moment she saw me.

The flames that made up her hair suddenly flared, doubling in volume and sending black smoke curling into the air. For some reason, it was only then that I realized she normally didn’t smoke at all. It only happened when she experienced some deeper emotion.

“I mean, um, Arthur!” Bri turned toward Plasario. “Lex is just our, um... private little affectionate nickname! Right, Arthur?”

“Exactly,” I replied, forcing myself to smile at her. “Master… Plasario,” I turned my face toward the man with the sword, whose deformed chest was literally dripping with blood. “I managed to eliminate the archers from both towers and break the standoff inside the temple. At this very moment, Khufu’Ri and Mr. Rodrick are tying up the orcs and goblins who surrendered thanks to my little deception.” I swallowed and steadied myself. “I would like my sacrifice to be properly acknowledged, and my good companion cleared of every accusation that has been leveled against her. She is the source of the fire-controlling power that allowed me to accomplish both of those things.” I lied for Bri’s sake.

“As I said before,” the swordsman whispered through clenched teeth, wrinkling his nose as he spoke, “as long as we remain here, outside the city and within the domain of fire spirits, I have no intention of taking any action against that creature.” He pointed his sword toward Bri and spat onto the grass in front of himself. “Your accomplishments, Master Arthur Linrem, will not go unnoticed by me. I promise to repay you at the first opportunity.”

Linrem, but close enough. A fake name becomes considerably safer when everyone remembers it differently.

“Come on, Bri,” I said to her.

She eagerly flattened herself horizontally and vertically and flew closer to me, holding my gaze for longer as her expression gradually shifted from pleased to worried the nearer she got. Fortunately for her, she didn’t comment on my condition.

“Where is Milo, and what exactly happened to the rest of my companions?”

“Master Milo fled a moment ago, accelerated by his magic to such a degree that I was unable to stop him. He was heading toward the camp we came from, so I will most likely be forced to follow him and prevent him from committing some thoughtless act that could endanger others. As for the ladies, Ms. Sophie DeLonge was saved from the imminent violation of her virtue. Ms. Nickolette Leben was unfortunately struck unconscious by him, but by the Mercy of the Morning Light Vizier Saladin Pasha the Seventeenth’s providence, her life remains, clinging stubbornly to her mortal shell. Miss Mara Vélez perished in combat.”

“She shared the fate of most of your men then. Only Rodrick is left with us, and he’s helping Khufu inside the temple. What are we supposed to do here? Should we expect the orcs to come back?”

“Master Rodrick will remain here on guard. He will use the temple tower to create a beacon and light it in case of any kind of trouble—its glow will be visible from our camp. Then I will know that the threat has returned,” Plasario said. He started walking toward me, keeping his eyes on Bri the entire time. When he came closer, he reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I recommend rest. You do not look well, Master of Fire.”

Then he passed me and entered the temple.

“Bri, take me to Sophie and Nicky, okay?”

“Of course,” she replied.

I felt her gaze trying to push through the barrier of my Authority, but in the state I was in, I couldn’t resist her, and the conflict was resolved almost immediately in her favor.

“Bri…” I drew out her name. “I asked you not to do that…”

“You’re my friend, and whether you like it or not, I had to, um… make sure nothing was threatening your health or your life,” she replied as she flew toward the trees, their leaves rustling in a breeze that seemed to be coming from somewhere high above in the enormous cavern.

“Fuck. And what did you find?” I asked, feeling as though my privacy had been completely violated.

Still, now that she had already done it, there was no reason not to find out what was wrong with me.

“Goodness, um, gracious, Lex.”

“What?”

“You’re severely dehydrated, burned, and cut in a lot of places. You’ve lost about half a liter of blood—although, um… I don’t know whether that’s a lot or not. You’re dizzy because of both your, um… physical and spiritual condition. You have food poisoning from something you ate, but your body has already dealt with most of the toxin. There are faint traces of something I sense as cancerous blood cells, but your body is actively fighting them, and they should disappear completely soon.”

“Fuck me. I knew this would happen,” I replied, extending a hand toward her as I continued walking slowly. “Can you deal with the poison? Get rid of it completely?”

“Of course I, um… can!”

She immediately brightened and flew closer. When she came near and her flames danced across the skin of my hand, bringing a burning heat that made me want to pull away, relief came with it as the nausea faded. My body—or rather, my soul—didn’t even attempt to fight against her foreign Authority. I however consciously made an effort to endure the pain coming from her hot physicality.

I closed my eyes and immediately was attacked by strange disembodied sensations. Blue-green light spread somewhere that wasn't really vision, the warmth that touched me from within the skin and there was another sensation beneath it now too: bitterness fading from the back of my tongue as something poisonous was pulled apart inside me.

“Can you assess the condition of my soul too?” I asked, finally retreating my hand to safety.

“No, um… not yet. Only the body. Is something bothering you? Is it Mara’s death? I could not, um, save her.” Her flames dimmed.

“I knew Mara very little, Bri. The fact that she was an Earthling doesn’t make her death any more impactful to me than the deaths of those other men in here.”

“I see,” she replied, looking at the ground, avoiding the sight of the woman in question’s crumpled body leaning against the tree.

“I’d like to understand more about the Psyche and how it works. That’s all.” I tried to make her focus on something less drastic and, at the same time, important to me.

“Mhm. Why?”

“If it’s a muscle of the soul, I’m wondering how it reacts to the stress I keep putting it under. Whether it can break completely if I keep overdoing it, and leave me unable to use magic at all.”

“Oh!” Bri’s eyes widened at the question, and she stopped between the trees, just before the two women lying on the ground. “I hadn’t, um… thought about that. Maybe I should be more careful too.”

“A little caution definitely wouldn’t hurt. Take it from me, considering I keep ignoring the limits I set for myself,” I told her as I moved closer to Nicky.

Her messy red hair, spread across the bloodstained grass beneath her, reminded me of another girl I had known a long time ago, long before I ever ended up here. I crouched beside her and gently lifted her head, checking the wound Milo had given her with his blow. The skin was split, but the bone underneath seemed intact.

“Did you check on her?”

“Yes. Her magic is keeping her, um… alive and repairing the damage. She’ll be healthy again, probably… definitely, within a few hours, you know?”

“Sophie?”

“Healthy, but exhausted from overusing her Authority, I think. Kind of like, um… you.”

“All right.”

I looked at her, leaned against a nearby tree, then slid down to the ground and slowly lay back on the grass beside the women.

“I’m going to sleep, Bri. You’re my lookout, so please don’t go too far. You have my permission to literally burn me awake if nothing else works, if any of us are in danger. Can I count on you?”

“Yes, um… of course!” she replied as I closed my eyes.

“Thank you, my dear… thank you very much…” I murmured as my thoughts began to drift away.