Wish upon the Stars chapter 1248 (Patreon)

The preparations for forming the Soul Seed weren’t complicated at all. Since he’d seen me made my blueprint so many times, and since we were inside his Domain, Dabrock was more than capable of forming a mold for the Soul Seed using the Domain itself as a mechanism. It was, oddly, sort of like the Domain version of a technique, and it involved manipulating the Worldforce in a way that I hadn’t seen before.

I remembered what my friend Sorwen had told me back at the Frozen Moment Academy when she was explaining Mythcrafting to me. Worldforce was kind of like a technique but not. Seeing the way he applied his Worldforce, I could see what she meant. It wasn’t the same thing, but the freedom involved was similar. Worldforce opened up the ability to truly influence reality in ways that related to its composition. The same way techniques could be used to essentially bully realspace into doing what you wanted, Worldforce could do the same to the Domain, but on a MUCH deeper level.

Which meant whatever the Worldforce was that Dabrock had created, it was probably related to the soul or more likely to life. As a Demigod, Dabrock was able to form his Worldforce already, and given his age it wasn’t surprising he had, but it was clear he’d had access for a long time, because he was quite proficient in its use.

Still, despite not knowing the specifics, it was kind of amazing to watch him work. The same golden motes from earlier had begun to come together, and I could see that he’d been helping me so much more than I’d expected. This was his Worldforce, the crystallization of his power and the mortar of the bricks he would use to build his divinity when and if he took that step. With this completed, I wondered if he was capable of making that final step already, or if he still needed more time. Maybe he had to create more Domain Seeds or objects of power.

Now wasn’t the time to worry about that though, instead, I focused on the mold for the Soul Seed. It had begun about two hours ago, the motes gathering slowly together, forming a shape that I couldn’t really put into words. Despite looking right at it, it seemed to be functionally impossible to define or understand. Like an inside out mobius strip in the shape of a hypercube. It physically hurt to look at it for too long, and that was with MY Focus.

After what felt like an eternity watching it form in short bursts, not to mention Dantalion studying it with his senses as we waited, it was finally time to begin the process. “Now, this is going to be painful and difficult,” Dabrock said as he stared at the mold. “More than just the soul strain, this is going to feel strange. You’ll need to force your power into the mold, then through it, the further it goes the more attributes and mythology will be stripped away, until finally only soul energy will remain.”

“That does sound exhausting,” I admitted. “How much power will that take?”

“Oh, that isn’t the hard part,” he clarified. “The hard part is controlling the soul energy once it’s been exposed. If I had to compare it to something, it would be trying to flex a muscle that you’ve never used before, and in fact were not aware existed before now, and not just flex it, flex it in a complicated rhythm to a defined beat at high speeds.”

I grimaced at that. It sounded miserable, but I knew I’d have to put in the work. I’d never been afraid of pain or effort, even when I probably should have. This sounded a bit different, but not too much different than some of the things I’d done on Rakham for the trials.

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the mold. Trying to extend energy was…hard. It was a strange sensation, not using a skill or a technique. Just effort and will. It was almost a technique, which helped, my natural Mythcrafting talent made it possible in a short time I think, and had I not been who I was I would have probably spent days learning to do that, but finally, I managed to rouse my energy and push it towards the mold hanging in front of me in the air.

Behind me, I felt Bennu working on the next puppet. I’d manifested the Archdemon to work on the smelting while I focused on this, and I was glad I’d decided to go that route, because there would have been no way I’d have managed otherwise.

The energy permeated the air, saturating the space in front of me in a way that made it hard to conclusively say anything was happening. It was a lot like trying to herd fog by moving my hands really fast. Finally, the strange potential energy met with the mold and was siphoned in, and I felt a sort of barrier being broken. Much like Dabrock had said, it got harder from there. I gritted my teeth, forcing my full attention into moving the power forward.

It was impossibly difficult. Not exerting the force, but trying not to DO something with it. It was like someone had told me not to think about pink elephants. My power wanted to be expressed in some way, and every time I thought about it my mind tried to wander and manifest a skill or a demon. A flame, a pit, any one of a dozen different paths I was consciously choosing not to take. Finally, after what felt like days but was probably hours, I finished the first circuit. The attributes I’d been ignoring and suppressing vanished, and I was suddenly driving pure soul force forward.

I wasn’t sure how I KNEW that’s what it was, because I did know, in a way much deeper than you can being told something. But I did know. I could feel it, feel the part of me that had never been anywhere else inside the strange mindbending shape, and feel that it was still part of me despite no longer exactly being connected.

One would think that getting rid of the outside influences would have been helpful, made it easier to move the soul force because I could focus, but it was strangely just the opposite. Now that I didn’t have the distractions, I could focus entirely on the energy itself, and rather than make things easier, it was making it even harder to control. Like trying not to spill the contents of a very full cup, thinking too much about it made my control even more slipshod, and the energy became about twenty times harder to hold onto, slipping through my mental grip like I was trying to keep hold of a buttered up fish.

My head hurt, my soul ached, my teeth might have cracked slightly from the pressure. I didn’t care. Because while I couldn’t say I’d ever done this before, couldn’t claim to understand what was going on, I had a reference point for this.

The feeling of my soul existing outside my body wasn’t new to me. It had been doing that for years. My wife was my soul. My heart and my meaning. And thinking about that made any inconvenience or difficulty just melt away like snow in the hot sun. This wasn’t just for me, or for the demons, it was for Callie. For our children. This would help me get stronger, and more importantly, this was the right thing to do. Callie would be thrilled to hear about this decision. She would be so proud that I’d chosen to remain true to who I was, to the person she loved.

And that was enough to give me metaphorical wings in the process. My mind clamped down on the slippery energy, an iron grip of mental effort fixing it in place before I started feeding it into the mold faster and faster. It moved through the twisting channels of the mold, thread through a needle until it met up with itself on the other side. Then again, and again, and again.

The more I pushed it through, the faster it moved, beginning to rotate on its own without any of my effort. As it sped up, it started to do more than just self sustain, it started to draw soul energy out of me. Not enough to be alarming, but enough to be noticeable. Dantalion tracked every single loop and whorl, every inch of progress and speck of soul, noting it all down for later so we could recreate this on our own.

It took another three hours before it finished, and the golden energy of the mold shattered as the seed actualized. The soul energy had been dispersed through the shape, but when that last step was taken, a wave of force erupted from the seed, shattering the golden motes as the glasslike soulstuff snapped into a smaller, more condensed shape.

I reached out and caught the small crystal walnut that fell from the air, staring down at it in disbelief. “Was that…was that it?” I asked Dabrock. “You said it was going to take a day or something, right?”

“Shane,” he chuckled. “It took three. You’ve been standing there working for as long as we had been going to begin with. Bennu has already finished the rest of the puppets, in fact. The corruption the Blood Witch was attempting to press into my Domain has been cleansed, and we can leave at any time.”

I blinked at him. Three days? That was…how did I not notice that? I stared down at the crystalline walnut. “So this is a Soul Seed?” I asked, ignoring the ache in my chest and head as I let myself feel pride in my accomplishment.

“It is,” he nodded. “Though I confess I’m surprised you manifested a physical object. I expected you to summon a demon and imbue it directly. Do you often use physical totems for your manifestations?” He sounded more intrigued than judgemental, and I suspected he was as interested in our differences as I was.

“I do,” I confirmed. “I have a demon imbued with Worldforce from a god I’ve never met. He was created from a broken piece of an object of power, and his ability lets him do strange things with holes and pits. He can open up conceptual entrances to things that let me interact in a physical way with metaphysical concepts. Combined with the fact that my Mythcrafting skill is based on clockmaking and involves physical manifestations of watch pieces, physical objects are kind of ideal for me.”

Besides which, Callie could contribute to my Domain more easily that way, and I liked when we did things together. Being able to share in my growth with her was always a happy thing for me, and considering those times made me miss her even more. I couldn’t wait until we could get to the castle and get her out.

Speaking of which, I turned to look at Dabrock. “If we’re finished the smeltings, then we can head out soon, right?” I asked cautiously. “We’re not going to be going straight there, because we need to cleanse a few more of the fragments before we arrive, I think, but the sooner we leave the sooner we get there.” Of course, I was exhausted, but I didn’t care about that, not if I could finally get back on the road.

Which of course, I couldn’t. “You need to recover,” he said mildly. “We’ll spend a night in Sunshineville proper. While I’m not a known quantity, my friends are, and their return will be celebrated. After we’ve had a good meal and some rest, we’ll set off tomorrow.” He said it in a tone that brooked no argument, so I didn’t try to make one, I just sighed and nodded. One more day then, and we’d be on the way once more. One step closer to rescuing my wife and children.