After arriving back in private quarters, Archmage Jennings immediately began reworking his scrying spell to overcome the changes occurring in the ether around the anchor point. The interplanar connection was flooding the area with changing essence signatures and he didn’t feel like putting in the effort to compensate for it when he could just have the Tower of Magic do it for him.

  Plopping down into his chair with a sigh, he poured himself some coffee to combat his stress headache and waited for the scrying stabilizers to finish their calculations.

  Closing his eyes with a wince, he focused on the numerous connections from the mage council, the local leadership council, and whoever else was trying to contact him. Pushing them all to the back of his mind and locking them down, he sighed in relief as he took a sip from his favorite cup while letting the tension in his shoulders slowly fall away.

  Right on time, he received an alert from the tower telling him that his scry was back online and available for viewing.

  Turning his attention back to the battle, he watched as the extra-planar kobalds fought with Lord Walker’s forces. Ignoring that, he quickly located Lord Walker and watched as he slipped through the fighting using the technique the young man had picked up from the evaluators.

  Chuckling to himself, Archmage Jennings noted, ‘He’s gotten surprisingly good at that, surprisingly fast. What a remarkable ability he has…’

  Seeing as how Lord Walker had begun doing something with the portal, the archmage began manipulating the tower’s controls to try and figure out exactly what was happening. While he himself didn’t have the talent to observe the essence flows in the way Lord Walker could, with the help of the tower he was at least able to understand what the young man was doing. Perking up in his chair, he watched in awe as he tried to follow along with Lord Walker’s efforts.

  ‘Fascinating… he’s separating the entwined essence flows manually,’ he thought to himself as he watched the anchor point slowly destabilize.

  When the interplanar forces that had been in tension finally gave out, winking the portal away, he couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at how much foreign essence had been left behind. It wasn’t enough to be considered a successful extraplanar expedition, but it was more than enough to earn the young man a title or two if he hadn’t already been awarded the title of a unique. Regardless, the capital would have to tack on another reward to the multiple ones waiting for him when he eventually made his way to Hennings.

  By increasing the amount of essence on their plane, he strengthened their world at the expense of the one that had tried to invade them. He hadn’t just successfully repelled the invasion, he’d reverse-invaded THEM.

  “Remarkable!” he muttered as he enthusiastically went over the data.

  While he was in the grip of his scientific interest, he wasn’t paying attention to what was happening with the battle. His mind was racing with ideas on how he could adapt what Lord Walker had done to aid in the kingdom’s efforts to raid other planes for more essence when the part of his mind that had been maintaining the scry alerted him to what Lord Walker was doing.

  Dropping his jaw in shock, he quickly began reconfiguring the tower’s observational matrixes to show him the extraplanar essence that had been left behind when the portal had closed.

  Standing up from his chair and slamming both his palms on his desk, he shouted into the air, “What are you doing? Stop that!”

  The moronic young man was directly injecting himself with essence that had not been filtered through the world around him. He was going to obliterate himself.

  Punching his desk in a futile effort to release his anger, he watched as Lord Walker collapsed back onto the pile of dead kobalds he’d been using as a firing position.

  The Archmage wasn’t sure what to do. Despite how quickly his mind worked, he couldn’t think of a method to save him. Even if he teleported there right now, it would be too late. The damage to the young man’s center was already done.

  Hating himself for a moment concerning how absolutely right he always was, he watched as Lord Walker’s dead body appeared on the floor of his quarters due to the emergency teleport spell he’d had in place.

  Grumbling curses left and right, he raced around his desk toward the corpse, immediately reaching out with a delving spell to try and see if there was anything he could do. Collapsing onto his knees, he gritted his teeth in anger at the waste of potentially his greatest chance at achieving true ascension. There was still so much he needed to learn from observing the young anomaly.

  No matter how hard he searched, there was no sign of Lord Walker’s center. He was gone… his soul scoured clean of identity. Aside from a small tether leading off into the higher planes, there was no sign of it ever having even been there. It was most assuredly a case of complete and utter soul death.

  “Stupid… Stupid boy…” he muttered in sadness.

  Rubbing his temples to alleviate the headache which had returned with a vengeance, he tried to distract himself by watching the arriving Battleborns wipe out the remainder of the kobalds. The Populators were right behind them, practically guaranteeing a political nightmare he knew he’d eventually be dragged into.

  “I never should have left my tower,” he muttered to himself.

  —--

  The concentrated ball of essence that was Nero floated in silence within his soul space, staring blankly at its former body while suffering from decision paralysis.

  Although to be fair, it hadn’t originally been his to begin with… he’d only appropriated it after seeing it abandoned by its former occupant. His original body was probably nothing but mulch back on earth somewhere. He’d never bothered with a will, so he couldn’t possibly guess as to what had happened to it.

  No longer having a body to go back to as an option, Nero immediately began thinking of himself as a displaced soul. His thoughts flitted through potential ideas as to how he should handle this new and decidedly unpleasant little wrinkle.

  Before anything else, now that he was once again just a soul he obviously needed a new body… Wait, was he a soul?

  His senses allowed him to see everything around him, including himself, and while in many ways he resembled what he remembered a soul looked like, his appearance wasn’t the same as what he’d remembered. While he couldn’t recall what exactly he’d experienced while he’d floated around this universe looking for a body, he had no trouble remembering his journey through the void before he’d arrived here.

  Back then, when he’d been nothing more than an incorporeal soul flittering around the heavens, he’d resembled a loose ball of energy, a flaming ball of burning cotton candy. He hadn’t been made up of essence or anything that could be considered ‘matter’. Not to mention that he sure as shit hadn’t been golden, or had he? He couldn’t remember.

  That didn’t matter. What mattered was that now that he thought about it, he was currently inside his soul space, which he assumed was located inside his soul. So, unless his existence had become an Esher painting, something else was going on here.

  If he’d had a chin to scratch to express his utter confusion, he would have done so.

  Looking down at his fading connection to his body, he wondered if the answer to his questions might be on the other side of that ethereal tunnel. But, considering how slowly it was fading, he thought it might be worth looking around a bit more before committing himself to trying to survive the trip.

  His senses were still available, and he still had options. Before doing anything drastic, he instead focused on trying to figure out what he now was.

  Turning his senses inward, he looked at himself. He really was nothing more than a ball of ‘Nero’ essence. But something about his own makeup was bugging him. There had to be a connection to his soul somewhere around here, didn’t there? If it wasn’t outside him, then there was only one other place to look.

  Reaching down with his senses into the ball of essence in which he currently resided, he poked around for a bit before he finally found it. Just as he’d thought, there was in fact a connection leading off into somewhere else.

  Suddenly realizing what was going on. Nero mentally summarized his situation.

  ‘I’m currently only my mind. My soul, body, and mind are currently just disconnected. Souls can’t affect anything on the plane of existence without a mind and body, so the connection to my soul probably leads to wherever it is in the outer planes. My body is still probably back on the material plane, hopefully not being enjoyed by kobalds as a victory snack,’ he thought to himself.

  He already knew that he could survive as just a soul, so fixing that connection should probably be his first priority.

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  No longer worrying about the consequences, he reached down deep into himself and delved into the connection leading off toward his soul. His senses were immediately assaulted with information that had him questioning the intelligence of his decision.

  Much like the time when he’d delved into the essence disturbance, his mind began receiving background information like it was downloading the truths of what was on the other side. Like his mind was enjoying the most potent acid trip he could ever imagine, he suddenly understood how his soul was connected to the material plane.

  It wasn’t like the soul could ever actually fully appear outside of the outer planes. It was more like an iceberg simply poking up through the water with the majority of it remaining below. It didn’t exist anywhere specific, as the outer planes were everywhere and nowhere. Physical reality was required for something to have a place in spatial existence. So, the soul could only poke itself into the material plane, and wherever it popped up… there it was. To have a place, it needed an anchor… a body. And to have a way of understanding what was happening, it needed a mind… one that had been built from compatible metaphysical materials like essence.

  The sudden understanding of how this one little aspect of reality actually worked almost shattered his mind. He felt his entire existence trembling as he tried not to think too much about it. Of course, he still had questions. Like, if he had no issue existing as a soul before he’d arrived in this universe, then why couldn’t he do so now? Also, was he currently just his mind, or was he still a projection of his soul? But, while he could probably find out the answers to those questions by thinking about them, it was all he could do to keep himself together while he focused on reinforcing his connection with his soul.

  The connection point was both right inside him and so… so… far away. Trying not to think too much about it, he bent the entirety of his thoughts onto the task of rebuilding his connection. He felt parts of his little ball of essence being used up as he imagined the connection reestablishing itself.

  When it snapped into place, he felt it immediately. It felt like he’d been nothing more than a phone without a wifi connection. But, now, the connection was back up and he was now able to sync with the cloud. His soul, of course, serving as the role of the cloud in this analogy.

  Flashes of his time floating around looking for a body flitted through his mind. Half-forgotten memories assaulted him like sledgehammers, his mind struggling to comprehend his existence during that time. The connection went both ways and he could feel himself becoming both more and less at the same time. His soul pulled on him, copying and altering itself to more resemble his current existence. While the little ball of essence that made up his center was now less than it was before, he felt more complete… more whole.

  The connection was now solid. In the core of his being, he could feel it.

  If he still had lips, he’d be grinning like a lunatic.

  Retreating out of his center, he returned to his soul space eager to do the same with his body. But, when he reached out to it, he found the experience altogether different than what he’d expected.

  The connection with his body was not even remotely as easy to access as the one he’d had with his soul. Instead of feeling like he was right next to it, he felt like it was incredibly far away. While he could still sense it, it was nowhere near where he currently was. And even worse, he had no ability to follow it.

  ‘Did some asshole steal my body?’ he wondered.

  That was the only conclusion he could come to. On the other side of the connection, he could sense the material plane. He recognized it clearly, as he’d become somewhat familiar with how it felt. While he couldn’t see anything, he was still absolutely sure that there was no body there for him to go back to. Wherever his current connection led, it was nothing more than just some ‘place’ on the material plane. If he went back there now, he’d be nothing more than a ball of soul stuff. Granted, he’d probably be a big ass ball of soul stuff compared to the ones he’d gobbled up to use as fuel for his spells. However, he didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d begin fading away just like they did without a body to protect them.

  He could just imagine how it would happen. The world would begin digesting his mind as it did with everything else, incorporating it into the ether while pushing his connection with his soul back toward the upper planes. Even with his incomprehensible ability to stay aware of what was happening, he doubted he’d be able to do anything to stop it.

  So, he could either try and race toward his body by hopefully following the weak connection… if he could even manage to move at all, or he could… well… he had no idea what else he could do.

  Once again floating in thought, he spent longer than he probably should have considering his options, what annoyingly few of them there were.

  Eventually, he got fed up with the idea of just waiting there as the connection between his soul space and material reality continued to destabilize. He needed to do something… anything… and he needed to do it NOW.

  If he didn’t have a body to go back to, he’d just have to make one. And if he did it right, it wouldn’t be just a spell construct. After all, he had plenty of potential to use for it. All he had to do was infuse enough center into it and let the essence of ‘Nero’ determine its form. Worst case scenario, nothing happened and the world ate him. He still had his soul downloaded with all his current memories, and he’d eventually figure out another way to get a body… he’d done it before. Currently, he was nothing more than a mind without a body… an incarnation of the Nero safely still existing somewhere in the outer planes. While being absorbed by the world’s ether might look like death, and probably feel like death, it wouldn’t actually be ‘death’ if the world ended up eating him.

  Having now made his decision, he didn’t bother with any more nerd-like overthinking. Whatever would happen, would happen. There was no point in worrying about it.

  Throwing his ball of center toward the connection, he pushed with all of his being down the metaphysical tunnel back toward reality, using his weak connection with his former body as his guide.

  Emerging into the ether like he was intent on causing his own personal essence disturbance, he began pouring his essence out like an ink stain onto reality’s pants, displacing the essence flowing around him. His senses showed him that he was still on top of the kobald pile, but for some reason, there were now a bunch of dwarves staring at him with angry faces along with a bunch of silver-clad populators. None of them looked particularly happy to see him.

  ‘Is that asshole with a hammer casting something? What the hell are they even doing there? Did I get the wrong reality or something? Is this one of those mirror-world situations that I’ve read about?’ he wondered before dismissing the differences as currently not worth thinking about.

  He’d deal with whatever he found AFTER he re-corporealized himself by bleeding off enough essence for the world to recognize that he was actually there. If Archmage Jennings could use his own essence to create a spike out of nothing, then he could do the same with his body. He had an entire courtyard of essence he’d stolen from another plane to work with, so he doubted one little body would be too difficult to enchant.

  Turning his attention entirely to what he was doing, he pushed center out into the world and attempted to compress it. He didn’t concern himself with what the center was actually doing and was instead entirely focused on attempting to ensure none of it was bled off into the surrounding ether. Wherever little wisps began to peel off, he clamped down on them with a vengeance. He honestly had no idea whether what he was doing was working, but he was committed enough to continue doing it while simply trusting in the fact that it would either work out or it wouldn’t.

  He now knew for a fact that his soul was still safe wherever it was, and his being here was just an expression of his true self. There was a surprising amount of comfort in that knowledge which allowed him to focus fully on what he was doing while not concerning himself with the possible consequences.

  More and more center poured out of him, and he felt his ball of essence shrinking inch by inch, or at least what looked like inch by inch. Judging distance was hard for him, as he wasn’t able to compare his size in the ether to his size in the material plane. There were too many dimensions to pay attention to. But, something was happening… he was sure of it.

  While he continued to monitor the edges of the essence he’d cast out, he began to see spell-form shapes come together in a tapestry of essence that was hard to describe. While he’d played around with mostly two-dimensional spell forms, he’d also seen more complicated ones that required three. But whatever was happening was so much more complicated than anything he’d ever seen before.

  He’d once tried to wrap his head around how a four-dimensional cube worked. He’d even watched a few YouTube videos about it… but he’d never been able to successfully visualize it. But what he was witnessing now, it was like that times a hundred. The spell form of his body, if he could even call it that, was so far beyond what he could conceptualize that he had quickly gotten lost in all the little loops and turns that the essence was taking.

  Having completely lost track of time with how invested he was in what he was doing, he was almost surprised when it was over. One second, he was in the fight of his life to keep his essence from being absorbed by the essence flowing around him, and the next he was looking at a fully formed, albeit naked, Nero falling down from where it had appeared out of nothing onto the pile of kobalds below it like a corpse.

  He couldn’t stop himself from mentally laughing his ass off as his body landed with its ass tipped up, unapologetically mooning the assembled people like a boss.

  While his little ball of essence was now much smaller, he could feel the body wrapping around him and the slight but present connection he had with it. All he had to do was reinforce it, and he would be able to slip right in and wear it like a coat.

  When he did, it felt like legos snapping together somewhere inside him. Where before, he was a separate entity, now he was just sleeping. He felt it the moment his body began pumping blood through its heart again. He could feel his brain begin firing its neurons and flooding his body with all the little chemicals that made the thing run. He was aware of everything… right up until he wasn’t. Everything felt normal again, and he was whole.

  Fluttering his eyes open, he took a deep breath before gagging and coughing. The smell of dead kobald bodies flooded his senses, and for the first time in what felt like forever, his understanding of reality was once again contained with a corporeal body. He could feel that he could still reach out to the ether like he always could, but his main senses were now all back up and running.

  Pushing himself slowly to his feet, he slipped on some kobald and once again faceplanted.

  Groaning in annoyance, he rolled over and remained sitting while he looked around. Despite so many people staring at him, and how dark it was in the former throne room. He was happy as hell to be back. He hadn’t realized it, but being ‘here’, in the physical world, with time and space once again making sense… it was amazing.

  He wanted to take a shower, to eat something, to run, to fight, to see the sky. He wanted to LIVE!

  But, first, he had to deal with the annoyances standing around him like disapproving parents waiting for him to realize what he’d done wrong. So, he looked around at the assembled powerhouses, allowing their incredibly strong presences to roll over his senses like a wave. He could feel that they were practically warping the ether around them despite them not even meaning to. Whatever his ability was that allowed him to see and interact with the essence flows around him, it had either been enhanced or he’d gotten much better at using it.

  Taking a moment, he lifted his hand and watched as the essence flowed and bent around him. He could see the influence both his and their essence fields were having on it.

  Meeting the eye-line of the closest dwarf, he said, “So, are any of you going to help me up and maybe find me some pants? Or are you just going to sit there and appreciate how better-looking I am than you are when I’m naked?”