Buttopia
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Chapter 105: Soul Train
🕑 Added 2025-02-08 04:21:30 +0000 UTC“Considering it’s the middle of the night, I think you can sleep for a few more hours before you start,” John said.
“Yeah, Rabyn and Connie are gonna be out fer a bit still anyway,” Mel added.
“Wait, what happened to them?” I asked. It seemed unlikely they would have been hurt handling the orcs. They were two of our powerhouses.
“As I said, I ran my mana reservoirs nearly dry. Before utilizing those, I siphoned what I could from those two as they were the only other ones with cores powerful enough to tap,” Elody explained.
“They’re going to be fine, though, right?” I asked. Had my own problems hurt someone else again?
“Yes, they are just in need of a few days of recovery to be at full strength again. Honestly I’m a little surprised we were able to hold the creatures off at all. None of us are well versed in soul magic,” Elody answered—the breath I had been holding released, along with some of the tension.
“How did you manage it then?” I asked.
“The link between you and Corey. I was able to connect through that and slowly build a shield around your soul,” she answered.
“Oh! That’s probably why I became aware at all. I bet that was enough to let my soul make contact with the other presence again,” I said, suddenly understanding how so much time could have passed. For most of it, I had likely been totally unaware.
“Yes, that would make sense,” Elody replied with a gentle smile, her eyes seeming to scan the room for something. “My apologies, but I no longer think he can sleep for the rest of the night. Now that I know what to look for, I am somewhat able to see the creatures. There are two of them, and they are returning for their prey.”
“Damn!” Mel cursed loudly, his voice calming slightly before resuming. “Okay, what can we do?”
“Go fetch Timon and Chip. I will need them both. Dave, I need you to start working on whatever you just did, but try to build it even bigger,” Elody ordered, her upper eyes still frantically moving about the room even as the lower two settled firmly on me.
“Uh, we might want to go outside for this. It was a bit explosive last time,” I suggested, not really sure what would happen if my soul energy flared out of me inside.
“No, I’ve already set up as many seals in this room as I could. I do not have the time or energy to replicate that outside. We will have to make do and hope not to damage the house too much more,” Elody answered firmly. I looked up at the ceiling. Just how strong was my roof anyway?
“Alright, I’ll do what I can then,” I said before pulling up a chat window.
>Dave: You doing okay, Corey?
>Corey: I feel strange, the connection between us is both stronger and weaker somehow.
>Dave: Yeah sorry about, not sure what’s going to happen when I really ignite my soul, but I’m going to go for it.
>Corey: Understood. Please be careful.
>Dave: I’ll do my best.
With that out of the way and hoping none of this hurt them, I focused on my soul as I had done earlier. This time, instead of trying to force it all through my core, a new idea occurred to me. I focused on the connection between my core and soul and tried to close that like I would any of the other switches I had built into my system. In this case, though, there was no simple mechanism to flip, leaving me forced to bend the path in half like a kinked hose. It hurt like hell, but my core reactor came to a grinding halt as the power source was cut off. Hopefully, I hadn’t done any irreversible damage here, but desperate times and all that.
Slowly, painfully, agonizingly slowly, I felt the energy build in my soul. With no outlet, the pressure continued to grow, intensifying the pain as whatever force contained my soul energy was forced to stretch in ways my body associated with sharp needles being stabbed deeply into my flesh.
No, scratch that. It wasn’t just an association. It was closer to reality. Some of the energy had coalesced into sharp spikes that were being forced into the walls as the pressure pushed them outward. It was hard to focus on the world around me. I was vaguely aware that Elody was telling Timon something, but the words were slowed down beyond my ability to decipher them.
Finally, the stretching hit as far as it could, and something started to tear. Before it could entirely rupture, I released my stranglehold on the channel to my core and let the soul energy flood through it faster than it had any chance to burn. My entire body overflowed with the soul energy again, and this time, when my core ignited, it did so without the tiniest space for anything else in the reactor. I really hoped this was the right path because I doubted I could do this twice.
All across my body, every single mana channel flared to life again. Unlike before, they didn’t just swell and scar. They burst as small cracks formed across them, bleeding more of the soul mana directly into my body. I screamed in pain. I forced my eyes open, hoping Elody had whatever she was planning ready, as there was nothing else I could do. The flow was pouring from me entirely unregulated.
“Dave, focus on me!” Elody’s voice cut through some of the pain, finally registering as I saw her lips mouth the words. I tried opening my mouth to respond, only to realize it already was, as soul energy shot from it.
Wait, why wasn’t anything destroyed yet? I forced myself to focus on Elody as she had ordered. There was something twinkling in her hand, pulling the energy in. Was that why the house was still together? Was she trying to tell me to push even harder and not worry?
I squeezed down on my soul, trying to force every drop of energy out even faster. My core exploded. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was still there. It was like a flame rollout that you can see in a damaged furnace. The energy had ignited in front of the core and burned the area around it. I collapsed backward into the couch cushion as the realization hit me.
It had worked, and I even understood what happened for once.
“I did it,” I managed to say, the exhaustion and pain mixing together in a fight for which had more control of my brain. I felt the newly developed mana channel directly between my soul and the cavity that had formed in front of my core.
“Good, now for the second problem,” Elody said. Doing my best to ignore how badly my body wanted to rest, I again focused my vision on her. The thing in her hand wasn’t twinkling anymore. It was burning her flesh. Several charred black patches were already forming.
“How do I get rid of that?” I asked, my voice coming out in a raspy whisper. Could I even help in my current state?
“You can’t,” she shuddered in pain before her lips moved again. “Thought I could contain this myself. I was wrong. Maud, are you serious when you say you want a core?” Elody asked, turning toward the woman.
“Uh, I’m guessing I don’t have time to think about it? What happens if I say no,” She asked.
“I don’t know, but I won’t make you take it,” Elody answered, falling to her knees as the burn spread further up her arm.
“Fine, yeah, give it to me,” Maud replied, running over to where Elody had collapsed, reaching out for her hands. Instead, Elody shoved the burnt hand into the woman’s chest. The strange twinkling object seemed to melt its way into her body.
Maud screamed. John cursed.
“John, find Cecile!” Elody yelled as she collapsed onto the floor next to Maud. I moved my head enough to scan the room as John raced out of the front door, following her orders. Timon and Mel were both collapsed on the ground, unconscious, near Elody. What had happened there?
“What the hell’s going on?” Elicec yelled as they burst into the room, followed by John and Glorp. Elody didn’t answer.
“I don’t know. Elody asked Maud if she wanted a core after Dad did something with his soul. Elody had to drain Timon and Mel just to keep the energy contained. I didn’t fully understand what was happening,” John explained while Chip angrily screeched from atop the Elody.
“Elody wanted Cecile, has to be healing. Heal her!” I croaked out the words, my throat feeling like I had drank fire.
“Okay, I’ll try,” Cecile said nervously, dashing to her collapsed form and leaning over it. Green energy surrounded her as several patches of it affixed to her body. She groaned loudly, her body starting to come back to life.
“Good, now I hope you two remember what we did for Dave. I need you to go over there and help align the artificial core we just put into Maud. Once you’ve got it where it should be, start healing her as well,” Elody said, coughing loudly.
I tried to speak again, but I had nothing left to give, and my eyelids were just too heavy to stay awake. Exhaustion had beaten pain. I felt myself fall sideways as sleep overtook me.
Soul adepts are the most common soul-channeling class, primarily because they pair well with a traditional core. They use their soul magic to better enhance their other abilities; instead of only utilizing soul mana, they often blend it together with mana orbs, forming powerful combinations. Rarely a soul adept has been known to specialize in a soul orb. The combination is both powerful and dangerous as the process to gain the ability to channel soul mana often leaves a person with damage to their soul containment, which can easily lead to backlashes from mana orbs attuned to that energy.
Classes Volume 2 by Zolinjar
