All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 264: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Chapter 264: Dead Men Tell No Tales

The thing could see me. I wasn't sure what to make of that. I was still bending the light around me such that nothing should be able to register visually. A quick check indicated that no light was escaping my carefully designated patterns, so clearly, it was using some other senses. He also knew I was a god.

It was fairly obvious that this thing wasn't really a human. No human besides Arthur had ever called me a godling, and he'd only taken up the name after Beatrice's introduction. But this thing before me seemed to have picked it up immediately.

It was weird. His sudden change in appearance was alarming, but the figure hadn't made any aggressive moves yet. I simply kept the cat safe and watched.

After a handful of seconds of an uneventful staring contest, I eventually decided to respond. I still couldn't actually talk, but I wasn't sure if it could see my illusions even though it knew I was there. So, I took a chance and displayed a simple question in front of me. "Who are you?"

The thing didn't react. Apparently, it couldn't actually see my illusions. Or maybe it just couldn't see me at all, and it was guessing that some godling had saved the kitten. Well, that was a rather out-there guess. I can't imagine what the odds would be, but they were so small that no reasonable being would bet on them. So I assumed it couldn't see me as it glanced around the room, not stopping on anything.

Letting out a beep, I returned the greeting. This was frustrating. I got so used to being able to spell things out using my illusions that communicating without them was going to be very difficult.

The weird red creature took a second to even react to my presence, and for a moment, I thought that it couldn't hear sound. But he nodded. "So you are there."

Dang. He really had been guessing that a godling had saved the cat. This guy must be terrible with statistics. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that his soul was crushed. Hmm. That did seem more likely now that I thought about it. Was it only gods and godlings that had abilities to affect souls? That would be interesting. The system had considered me a god ever since I had formed my own religion back at level 50, but I hadn't gotten soul skills until much later. Maybe it was more of a necessary but not sufficient sort of condition.

The demonic ghost didn't seem to be able to perceive it the same way. He couldn't perceive my energy or me because of. My hiding. It's weird. It's weird that he couldn't see me because of my sensory disruption skill, but I couldn't project something to him at the same time.

I responded in kind, indicating that yes, I was here. And what was he going to do about it? The creature tilted its head, and I watched its processes and thoughts play across its face as it swung wildly between emotions. Concern, wariness, fear, arrogance... it was all over the place.

This was not a stable creature, despite how posh it had sounded when it first greeted me. Slowly, its fanged maw turned up into a grin. "I will tell my lord that a welcoming party has been assembled to greet him when he finally comes."

Well, that seemed like useful information. Was there another god visiting the capital like me?

"He will reward me greatly for my diligence. Now banish me. Banish me and I shall be forever free!" the guy finished with a shout. He opened its eyes from where it had closed them when it finished its declaration of being banished and looked at me strangely.

I had no idea what this lunatic was talking about. I didn't know how to banish him. As far as I could tell, I couldn't even interact with him. He was only visible to me. But I watched air currents move through his semi-transparent body as he spoke and breathed. Maybe the void could reach into him? But it seemed like he had somehow shifted off from the physical world as far as I knew.

What was going on? Clearly, something about his existence was just wrong. To check something, I tossed a little pebble at him, and it flew right through him. Was this a demonic ghost or something? I pulled out one of the soul shards, still unable to be affected by my air manipulation, and set it on the ground.

If I had to, I suppose I could try to clean him like I would a soul, but his few soul pieces were still isolated in my dustbin. Diving in, I examined those for a split second before I needed to respond. There were a few chunks of the reddened crystal floating about within me, sequestered from everything else.

I tried to examine the structure and couldn't find any molecule lattice. It was as if the things were made from pure energy waveforms that had formed into a large object, not the tiny atoms the world was constituted of. So some new kind of matter. It had a little bit of mass but no more than a feather might. Despite that, it was impossible for me to bend, even within my dustbin. I couldn't imagine being able to crush it with my arm, either. But none of that gave me any idea about what it was.

Maybe I could try transmuting the pieces of soul, but then they would vanish. If breaking the thing had done this much, I could only imagine the untold effects that unmaking it would have on his remaining body. Also, I really wasn't sure if I wanted to banish him. It sounded like if I did, he would be delivering a message to someone I didn't know, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

I activated Spiritual Cleanse and tried to waft its effects through the creature. Nothing happened. "You're going to banish me, right? You're not going to leave a demonic specter to wander the world unchecked. Right?"

After a second, I let out a questioning beep. I wasn't sure what a demonic specter was. That was a new one for me. I had seen no mention of that in the entire castle library, nor had Beatrice mentioned the term. Was it a type of undead? It said demonic. But it wasn't a demon that the humans were apparently aware of.

So, if it wandered around unchecked, what could it do? It couldn't interact with anything. At least, not so far. People probably couldn't even see it. People probably couldn't even see it.

An idea formed in my processors. I surrounded it in a ball of air and slipped around it in a wide circle, spraying my protective sealant on it. The stuff hardened into a smooth spherical shell.

Now, I wasn't sure if that would work in the slightest. If this thing really had phased out of the material plane or something, it might not. But the protective sealant was a pretty potent ability, and I figured it was worth a shot. It might have some sort of unexpected properties that I wasn't aware of to exist on the same plane that this red demonic specter, as it called itself, was doing. Then it wouldn't be free to roam around, and it wouldn't tell its boss about me. It seemed like a win-win, in my opinion. Even if it didn't work well, all I'd lose is a little bit of time.

Now, I supposed the only thing left to do was try to get some information. If it really tried to do something weird, I might consume the soul crystals it dropped, but I saved that as a last resort. Especially because I wasn't sure what would happen. Could I transmute them to energy? Was it even energy I could use? Would transmuting them from their weird solid state to an energy state do anything besides free the demon? Could I even contain them? Everything that was happening here went against the basic tenets of how I interpreted the world. Worse, I had no solid historical information to work my models off of to understand what was happening, so I had nothing to do but take a risk.

Before I had a chance to act on my decision, the guy spoke up again. "Uh, why am I still here?"

How could I talk to him? Looking around the room, I floated a piece of paper to myself. I watched as the guy's eyes tracked the paper. Good, he could still see the world, even if not my projections or me. Hovering the paper in front of me, I used the narrowest beam of my sanitization lamp to burn tiny inverted letters into the paper for him to read.

I watched the demon's red face turn the same color as the floating piece of paper as my words appeared. Once my first sentence was fully completed, he wet his lips before trying to speak.

"What is your name? Uh-- I can't tell you that. I can't give you that sort of power over me. Just banish me and be done with me!" The guy blustered.

"Why can't you tell me your name?" I printed.

"Well, uh... What demon would tell you his true name?"

Oh, he was a demon. That was good to know. I kind of assumed that, but it was nice to confirm.

"Why should I banish you?" I asked.

He seemed thoroughly confused by this. For a moment, he stammered before finally getting something out. "Oh um. That's what you do to demons? We get defeated and banished and sent back to our plane. Why wouldn't you? Do you want me around here causing problems? I could do that. I can serve you, too. I'll serve you if you keep me around."

His expression suddenly lit up into a... well, a devilish grin. I didn't think I could trust this guy. Besides, I had no idea how to banish them. "Serve me, how?"

The next line appeared in the paper. The man-demon started sweating, and I could see drops of red liquid pour from his temples and drip down onto the remains of his suit; he wiped his head nervously.

"Your eminence, divine eminence, I can serve you in many ways..." He trailed off, not nearly as confident as he was at the beginning of our conversation.

"What tasks can you perform?" I printed onto the paper.