048.001

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Empyreal

Soul Engine

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Alyssa knew what was going on.

It was something she had experienced before. That same sensation of being adrift in an empty universe that came when she started connecting with Tenebrael. It was a floating feeling. A bodiless experience. One without time. Without sound. Without sight. It was a dimension of mind. Or, as she now suspected, a dimension of soul. The things she had thought she had seen or felt in those attempts before were nothing more than impulses acting on her soul while her body remained wherever it had been beforehand.

There were three things that Alyssa felt at the moment. Impulses on her soul. First was the Throne. It had to be. It was a hot burning furnace of divine heat. Far more intense and far more pure than anything Alyssa had felt from an angel. It churned and burned, bubbling and boiling. Yet, unlike a chaotic flame above a roaring bonfire, the Throne had order to it. Like a machine made from fire. In fact, that was almost too apt a description. As soon as she thought of it in that context, the impulses against her soul were… translated, for lack of a better word. She could suddenly see it all the better.

Jason and Guillem’s Farmer came to mind almost immediately. A million gears. Pistons pounding. Vents belching steam. Shuddering and vibrating as it rolled across the fields, reaping wheat. Except the Throne was so much more… refined. More like precision clockwork compared to the Farmer’s steam engine. Each piece had been crafted with intense forethought, designed to fulfill a specific task. Where the Farmer harvested crops, the Throne harvested souls.

Alyssa could see them. Just as she could see the souls of her friends and everyone else around her, she could see souls lining up to enter the Throne. The complexity and size of the machine that was the Throne was far too great to understand what it was doing to the souls. Had she not thought of the Farmer, she might have thought that the souls were merely going to fuel the flames it felt like it was made from.

But now, she wondered if it wasn’t a great machine, packaging and feeding gods that Lovecraft would have had a hard time imagining.

She didn’t know how she could have missed it before. The other times she had been in this adrift world of nothingness, Tenebrael had to have been shielding her. The first time she connected with Tenebrael, perhaps she had put a mental block in place to keep her from perceiving it. One that stuck with her, hiding it even when she unintentionally connected with Tenebrael those other times. That was the only thing that made sense. And it made a frightening amount of sense.

If she had seen that before, she might just have gone insane. Not to mention that accidentally connecting with it might have caused her physical body to literally explode. Even now, having learned so much and being far more prepared, it was a terrific thing to behold.

So much so that Alyssa felt the need to avert her very soul. The impulses against her soul were still there, but luckily, there were two other, far far smaller things that could provide a modicum of distraction.

The first of which that Alyssa could feel here was obviously Tenebrael. A sensation filled with nostalgia, clearly able to be felt beneath the fury of the Throne… though she couldn’t quite explain why. She didn’t think enough time had passed to form any nostalgic memories with that bond. However, it was familiar. Intimately so. An old lover? Not that she would know anything about that, but it seemed like the poetic way of putting it. She spent so long connected to the angel that it was impossible to mistake that divine warmth for anything else. Reaching out, grabbing hold of it—or using her own soul to link them together—and awaking with her connection reestablished… it would be simple. She had done it before. Not many times, but enough to know that it was an easy task to accomplish.

But she wasn’t here for that.

The third and final feeling was familiar as well. Not in the intimate sense like Tenebrael. Yet, at the same time, it was almost like that. There was far more nostalgia associated with this feeling. It was ever-changing. A cool chilly spot in the empty universe of this strange soul realm, different from the warmth of an angel or the heat of the Throne. Yet despite that, Alyssa was quite confident that it wasn’t an enemy. It was comforting, even. Something that lacked that divine might that could grind her up in its gears if she got too close.

It did remind her of something unfortunate. Once, when connecting to Tenebrael early on, Alyssa had passed out in front of the demon ember. She had definitely felt that thing inside this soul world. Its malevolence had warded her off then. This thing somewhat reminded her of that, except almost the opposite.

It was scared, if she had to put it into a single word. Using Enochian, Alyssa could probably have described it more accurately, but that took effort that she wasn’t sure she could put forward while the Throne was pressing on her soul. She didn’t need to think too hard if she was just using her native tongue. Fear did not sound like a sensation the Throne or any divine being would emit, however. It was too small. It lacked that divine warmth.

Kasita.

That had to be it.

Now that the realization had hit, it became so much more obvious. There was nothing else it could be. Alyssa didn’t think physical proximity mattered in this empty world, but it might have mattered back in reality. And, to the best of her knowledge, Kasita had not stepped aside before Tenebrael did the thing with her wings. If that had pulled Kasita in as well…

It was no wonder she was scared. If she was feeling the Throne, unfiltered and unshielded as Alyssa was at the moment…

Alyssa drifted closer to what she was now confident was Kasita. Not to connect with her—though she suspected she could do that if she tried, likely ending up with something similar to what Companion and Irulon shared—but rather to help comfort her. To place her soul close enough that it might act as a bulwark against the impulses of the Throne.

Tenebrael was going to get a long earful the moment Alyssa got out of here.

But she didn’t want to leave just yet. If she could figure out some way to shove Kasita back into the real world, that would be nice. Unfortunately, while Alyssa understood far more about this strange place than she used to, she really only understood it in relation to herself. She didn’t have a problem understanding how to get back herself. Kasita was another story entirely.

Alyssa tried talking, to whisper to Kasita the method she used to get back to her body the first few times. But it didn’t work. Of course not. In this empty world, there could be no sound.

But… she might have been onto something earlier, when she suspected that there might be a way to bridge their souls to communicate in a manner similar to Irulon and Companion. There was no need to stay connected. Just long enough for her to get a message across.

Alyssa reached out, pushing her own soul, her own impulses toward Kasita. She didn’t need to imagine it as if she were striking the other person—which probably wouldn’t have worked as well for Kasita as it had for Tenebrael. Her familiarity with souls couldn’t be quantified like Irulon would be able to do. But she did have far more of an innate sense of… being.

The second her soul lightly grazed against Kasita’s, she felt it. The fear and terror at suddenly being subjected to such an unknown situation. Not just the situation, but the Throne itself. Kasita’s powerful feelings tore at Alyssa. The mimic was lashing out. Alyssa couldn’t blame her, but at the same time, it was painful. Disgusting. A rotting feeling deep inside her every time Kasita’s fear welled into an unconscious weapon.

Projecting feelings of calm and, hopefully, familiarity back through the light contact of their souls helped. Kasita started reeling back the moment Alyssa projected her own feelings. At first, Alyssa thought she was concerned for Alyssa, worried she had hurt her in her panic. But that wasn’t true at all. With their light connection, Alyssa could feel Kasita’s shock and, again, fear. This time, it seemed to be more of a fear that she was being manipulated. Like her feelings weren’t her own.

Which, Alyssa supposed, was partially true. Her own feelings imposed upon Kasita’s, trying to overwrite them.

At least it got her to stop attacking. That gave Alyssa a little bit of time to inspect the minor link between them. To try to figure out a proper way of communicating. Irulon and Companion made it seem so easy. They just checked in with each other. There wasn’t any humming or hawing about it. Although she couldn’t have expected a situation like this, she still wished she would have asked about their early days together. Back just after the ritual that bound the dragon’s soul to Irulon. Had they had trouble communicating? Did their emotions affect each other? Was there a trick to it?

Nothing to do but try again.

This time, Alyssa didn’t try to push an emotion toward Kasita. She didn’t want to override her thoughts either. Alyssa would never forgive herself if she ended up… erasing Kasita’s personality or memories or anything like that. No. This time, Alyssa injected nothing more than a concept. A simple concept boiled down to a single word that even Kasita in a panicked and disembodied state would be able to recognize.

~Sister~

That did it. Alyssa wasn’t even sure how she knew. Some sensation over their link came across as acknowledging. Kasita was still frightened, but the utter terror faded down to… not nothing, but something close to nothing. Kasita wasn’t responding intelligibly though. Just reactively. There were no concepts coming across their link. Just emotions.

Alyssa had to wonder if more practice or more exposure to this strange place would help Kasita fix that. Not that Alyssa thought she should be coming to this place again. Just connecting with Tenebrael was dangerous enough. And with the Throne present…

If Kasita accidentally reached out to it and touched it, there probably wouldn’t be anything left of her.

Alyssa tried sending a few more concepts across the link between them. Simple things only—forming longer sentences seemed impossible, though practice might change that.

~Self~ ~Pain~ ~Return~

A pinch of the cheek like waking from a dream should help her get back. At least, that was what had worked for Alyssa during her first few times. Now, she thought she could return just by imagining her body. The pinch of her arm or cheek worked because they essentially forced her to remember her body properly.

Even after sending those simple concepts, plus a few others, Kasita’s soul was still in the adrift. Alyssa was getting a lot of confusion from her. Still fear, of course. But it was like a cake. Fear made up the bulk, but now confusion had layered itself on top. Was she unable to return, thus eliciting confusion? Or did she not understand in the first place?

Both, possibly. Now that she thought about it, Kasita didn’t sit around in her original body often. Or at all, as far as Alyssa knew. Perhaps that unfamiliarity with her real body was a hindrance. Or it could be that Kasita didn’t really feel pain. Not in the way someone with a body made of flesh did. Pinching herself probably didn’t even enter into her mind as it would have done nothing.

With a mental scowl, Alyssa turned away. She still kept contact with Kasita and still did her best to shield her from the overwhelming might of the Throne—which Alyssa was trying to ignore—but her target now was a certain angel who wasn’t far off.

Physical space meant nothing in this realm. All Alyssa had to do was to reach out and ping the angel with an impulse of her soul. That got Tenebrael’s attention really quick. Though, unlike Kasita, Alyssa couldn’t just read Tenebrael’s emotions. She wasn’t even sure that the angel had emotions. Not in any way that Alyssa’s mind could translate, anyway.

Tenebrael’s soul, or whatever she had in its place, was similar to the Throne. It was a machine. Where the Throne was an endless inferno of a clockwork factory, Tenebrael was more of… a proper computer. There were moving parts, but most of it was all static pieces that presumably were there for processing reasons. Looking closer, however, revealed some unpleasant growths in Tenebrael’s computer. The souls she consumed, perhaps? If they were, they didn’t look anything like what Alyssa or Kasita were like. Maybe those growths were the containers. Not the souls themselves.

Regardless of that oddity, Alyssa reached out and tapped an impulse against Tenebrael’s being, more of a knock than just a glance this time.

The angel took notice and acted immediately. A dozen different concepts came across that brief tap in an instant. And they weren’t just single word concepts like what a caveman might use. The concepts came across in pure Enochian. Entire novels came across to Alyssa. A tale of a horror that something had gone wrong. A ballad of warning, discussing the idea of a friend lost forever. Merriment in the hopes that the dangerous situation might somehow be repaired.

It was overwhelming in a completely different sense than the Throne. Too much information. So much that it was actually a little difficult to decipher the exact meaning of the notions. Once upon a time, Alyssa might have thought that the more information there was, the clearer the picture got. After learning just a little Enochian, Alyssa was quite sure that there was definitely such a thing as too much bloat. Were Alyssa to translate Tenebrael’s thoughts down to something a little more manageable, she probably would have said that Tenebrael was worried that Alyssa wouldn’t be able to come back, but maybe there was something that could be done to fix everything if she thought hard enough about it.

To all that, Alyssa had but a simple concept to say in return.

~Calm~

Tenebrael was overreacting. The vast set of Enochian that she sent in return to that simple message took a long moment for Alyssa to process. Partially because she was preoccupied with wondering just how much of a computer she would have to become in order to use Enochian as a regular language. Carrying on a conversation with so many words seemed absolutely impossible.

After doing the equivalent of reading through five full-sized novels, Alyssa figured out a close approximation to what Tenebrael was trying to say.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright, Alyssa? I’m so sorry, I’m just a screwup of an angel. I didn’t understand what you were trying to say. Could you please elaborate? I’m way too dumb to understand a single simple concept like calm without someone putting it into Enochian and blowing it way out of proportion.”

A close approximation.

Not knowing the right way to form Enochian for this kind of communication, even in the very basics of the language, Alyssa had nothing to do but send more concepts over to her in the way that she understood them.

~Angel~ ~Negative~ ~Careless~ ~Sister~ ~Presence~

“You’re calling me a bad sister? You’re calling me your sister? That’s not what I wanted out of this relationship.”

~Negative~ ~Prior relationship~ ~You messed up, angel~

“I messed up? Excuse me? You’re the one who is chatting with me and not the Throne at the moment. Aren’t you messing up?”

“You pulled me into this place before giving Kasita time to get out of my pocket!”

“Kasita? The relic?”

“She is here. In here. I won’t let you say that you forgot that she came with us.”

“Alyssa… I don’t forget much of anything. But I am quite certain that only those who can interface with divinity would be here. That is you and you alone, my little reaper.”

“I’m not… Look, Kasita can sense when angels are nearby. She can almost see you. That must be close enough for this. Just… Help me put her back into her body. Then I can focus on that thing I have been doing my best to ignore this whole time.”

Somehow or other, they managed to get communicating. It was still a bit of a pain, but it was serviceable. Tenebrael seemed to understand what Alyssa was saying and Alyssa was relatively sure that she got the gist of Tenebrael’s novels. The small amount of practice let them talk much more efficiently.

“Unfortunately,” Tenebrael continued after a short pause that felt like a small eternity in this timeless place, “even if what you say is true, I do not believe that would be a good idea. Me reaching out and touching the relic might irreparably damage her in the same way that reaching out and touching the Throne may cause you… problems.”

“She’ll explode?”

“Find a way to help her yourself. Or leave her. Kasita is smart, isn’t she? She’ll figure it out with or without our help.”

Parting with a bit of a nasty impulse directed toward the angel, Alyssa pulled back from their communication.

Figures. Tenebrael pulled her into this mess but now wouldn’t help get her out? Alyssa really should have expected that. Even if touching her wouldn’t make her explode, Tenebrael probably wouldn’t do it anyway simply because her programming prevented interfering with regular mortals.

Reaching out to Kasita again, Alyssa discovered a change. Fear was still the predominant emotion over their link, but this time, there was a heavy undercurrent of excitement and wonder.

~Visualize~ ~Pinch self~ ~Return~ ~Home~

Alyssa tried communicating in the same way that she had to Tenebrael, but she could almost feel that her concepts weren’t getting across as clearly. If she talked to Kasita as much as she had to Tenebrael, maybe they would get clearer. But she could feel something missing in this link. With Tenebrael, their two-way talk had put them on the same… wavelength. Which helped to facilitate clearer communication. Maybe she could get on that wavelength with Kasita too, but Kasita wasn’t talking back. Not in the same way, anyway. Getting on that wavelength without feedback might be difficult.

Still, Alyssa did get some change in emotion coming back her way.

Indigence. Loneliness. And stubbornness. Those three, among several others, slipped in to prominence.

With a mental sigh, Alyssa had a feeling like she knew what Kasita was getting at even without words or concepts.

Experimentally, Alyssa tried pulling back from the constant impulses of communication between them…

Only for Kasita’s soul to reach out and grasp hold.

“I said I wasn’t going to leave you behind,” Alyssa thought Kasita might be thinking. “So I’m sticking with you.”

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