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69. Enter the cage
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 11:16:48 +0000 UTCI went back into the house. Ester’s ghost would soon dissipate, but it would take quite some time for the mana to disappear as well. For now, the energy would keep its attunement and stay as one clump.
Once we were inside the house, I went to the living room and sat down.
“It will take me around three to four hours to completely regain the energy and recover some of my strength. After that, I will go fetch your brother’s soul,” I told Daniel.
“Can’t you just go now?”
“No, it could be dangerous. Killing the ghost bought your brother some time,” I explained.
Daniel was clearly not too happy about the plan, but he relented.
I sat down in meditation and focused on my last mana crystal. It took me a bit over two hours to regain my energy, but my willpower was still a bit sore, like a muscle after a workout. However, I was almost back to my full power.
Technically speaking, Liam’s soul shouldn’t dissipate if the artifact functioned properly, but there was always the danger that the soul would collapse if Ester injured it.
I looked at Ophelia and Daniel. Ophelia seemed to be in good shape. Daniel was also looking better, but worry was still etched into his face.
They reacted to my movement as I got up.
“I’ll go get your brother now.”
I led them into the room where Liam’s body was resting. I put the box down and turned to the two.
“I will lock the doors for now. Under no circumstances are you to enter this room until I open the doors back up. If you do, it might injure Liam’s soul,” I said in a heavy voice.
That wasn’t exactly true, but leaving my body without a soul was always dangerous, and I wasn’t taking any chances, so I would seal the room as much as I could. I doubted this was some convoluted assassination attempt, but still, better to be safe than sorry, especially when it was about one’s spirit.
I placed the box down and started drawing seals on the doors and windows. I then shut the window covers and constructed the salt circle around myself.
With all the preparations complete, I sat down in a meditative position and placed the box in front of me. The mirror served as an entrance and a way to communicate with what was inside.
I first activated the contraption. Without going through the whole ritual, I simply powered the runes on the cage with my own mana.
I then tried to spell out different greetings in different languages using the planchette.
No answer.
Well, hopefully it would be empty, aside from Liam’s soul, of course.
I waited a bit and looked over the artifact once again. It was a cage, and I would be entering it, so I needed to make sure I had the key. Losing my soul because I locked myself out of my own body would be the dumbest way to go.
Even if Ophelia figured it out and contacted Q’Shar, the cat would not let me live that down.
Looking it over, I finally sensed the controls. There was a pulling force from the mouth of the skull. I let a drop of my blood fall into it, and a few runes came into my senses.
I activated one of the new runes I could sense, and I felt the cage open. It was a strange sensation. There was no physical movement, but all of a sudden, I felt as if the space in front of me was much larger.
Nodding in satisfaction, I then closed and opened the artifact a couple of times to ensure I had control of it. I checked it for fail-safes or overrides to ensure it didn’t close behind me. Lastly, I wrote the instructions for opening it, just in case Ophelia had to open it, or the cats.
After all was finished, I took a deep breath and placed my hand on my solar plexus. Picking the right spot, I hit myself with the side of my palm, using the sensation to push myself out of my own body.
The sensation of the spirit letting go of the flesh it was controlling was unusual.
The world around me changed. It seemed to be etched only by a flowing white fog outlining all things in the room. I floated over my own body, which glowed like a gold statue in the middle of the room.
Another one that glowed as well was Liam’s, lying on the bed, but his light was weak, slowly fading. It took a while to reconnect my mind to the spirit properly.
This was a crucial step if one wanted to move around in this state. What was a step forward would now mean floating forward. The complicated movement of turning around without falling over was now a simple spin in the air, and the easy motion of sitting or lying down was now a complex operation of changing your spirit’s orientation in the air.
Floating, or rather hovering, was tough to get used to. So I did what most astral-projecting people did. I simply forced myself down and walked more or less like I used to. It was still floating in principle, but the movements were much more natural. I then rewired my mind to interpret the useless movements of my limbs as impulses to float in a given direction.
I moved around a bit until I finally felt in control once again and looked toward the cage.
It was outlined sharply in the room, as if the mist that made up the whole place was concentrating around it.
There was also a vortex in front of the skull’s mouth.
Taking a deep breath, or rather mimicking the movement of one, I went toward the vortex.
Vertigo assaulted me. It felt as if my spiritual self had jumped into a blender while still aware. My own limbs flashed before my eyes as they raced my torso to get out of the spatial tunnel. After what felt like forever, my spirit was spat out on the other side.
I’m pretty sure I would be vomiting if not for the fact that I was a ghost currently. But to make it worse, I rewired basic motor controls to move, but dry heaving was not among them, so I was currently spasming as my mind was set on doing something it was not meant to do in this state.
After some time swearing at myself for the poor job I did of connecting my motor functions, I finally regained control over my ghostly body. I made a mental note to pay attention to involuntary actions in the future when astral projecting.
I looked around. The first thing I noticed was that the place didn’t seem to be made of the flowing mist that the outside world was. That effect was caused by spiritual vision encountering a fully physical object, which created the strange look.
I was nowhere near good enough with astral projection to reroute my senses, so I was used to seeing everything in a strange, white form, but here my vision was as usual. I was in an entirely spiritual place.
The room looked like a medieval prison merged with a labyrinth.
I was standing at the end of a corridor made of stone and mortar. The walls were really high, multiple meters tall. While pondering what the point of that was, I realised that gravity was once again interested in my body, making floating impossible, so right now I was hover-walking around.
But the most interesting part was the sky, or rather the lack of it. The mirror replaced it, like a massive screen suspended over me. I could see my own body reflected in it from the other side, still sitting in the meditative position.
I stopped looking up and focused my gaze forward. In front of me was a long corridor opening into what looked like a prison with one wider room, where I could see cages on both sides.
I started walking, slowly, ready to bolt out of there just in case, as fighting in astral projection was asking for a soul injury.
I entered the holding room. All of the cages were empty. They could each fit around five souls, with something akin to hooks to hold the spirits up as if for display.
At the end of the corridor were massive metal doors. If it were a jail, that would be where the jailer sat. They were closed.
I was interested. The technique used by Ester wasn’t anywhere in the books. Could there be something more here?
But first things first. I walked slowly until I finally noticed something.
There was a soul in one of the cages. It looked like a see-through statue of a man. The cage was closed, but the spirit was not hooked up.
I approached the cell door slowly. The person was sitting by the cell’s wall, propped up by the wall. The spirit lifted his head slightly, and I recognized him as the owner of the comatose body I’d seen.
But before I could say anything, I froze on the spot.
There was someone else here.
The sensation was fleeting, but I sensed someone’s eyes on me.
I turned quickly and looked around, slowly scanning all the cells. But the place was empty, no sound, no movement, nothing.
I moved forward slowly, approaching the cell. Liam looked on silently as I stretched my hand toward the cell’s door. I thought he would be crying or shouting, but he stayed silent. Was it tiredness or reason? I was not sure. I was just hoping it wasn’t fear of something else here with us.
I opened the door wide to make sure no one slammed it back after me and approached the boy.
“Who?” he asked slowly when I got closer.
“Is there anyone else here with us?” I whispered.
He took some time to gather his thoughts, but then shook his head.
I furrowed my brows and turned around. As if on cue, that feeling again. I was expecting someone by the cell’s door and was ready to lunge at the thing, but once again, it was empty.
I slowly turned back to the boy and whispered, “I’ll get you out of here. Just stay silent.”
He nodded weakly, but I could see the hope in him as the spirit seemed to solidify slightly.
I tried picking up his ghostly body. It was surprisingly heavy, weighed down by despair, sadness, and whatever had been going on over the past few days. Luckily, with my Soul attribute at almost 19, lifting him up wasn’t much of a problem.
“Hey, your brother sent me for you. He is waiting on the other side, worried,” I said to him.
I could immediately feel his soul becoming lighter.
With the kid on my shoulders, I turned toward the entrance of the cell, ready to slowly make my way out of that place. But then I immediately stopped in place.
I slowly looked down as I met a pair of small, black, beady eyes.
