Another World?

“Uhm, hey! Nice meet you…. please, not trying to destroy me!”

After I had completely decimated their room, I hoped Olgore would not just ignore me.

“Who is talking to me?” I heard him say. He wasn’t aware that he didn’t need to speak out loud, but that was fine, just that I heard everything double.
“I uh am ball. Sorry about room!” I was painfully aware that I probably sounded quite stupid. But barely knowing a language does that.
“So you are telling me that you are the ball in front of us?”

I noticed something. His words I understand all of them. Why was that? That was new. Maybe I never noticed because I only connected with people I shared a language with until now? Maybe the spell is also able to communicate the meaning and intention of words?

“Olgore, who are you ******* to?” Dust said into the room. But in return, he only got silence, with Olgore being seemingly too distracted by our conversation. It was a bit mean, since Dust couldn’t hear me, but I was too happy that I could finally speak at all.

That broke me from my thoughts. Don’t get distracted again! Damnit, you are in a conversation, Tepin! “Yes I am ball. I am no bad!” Then I realized that I could understand him almost perfectly. Maybe all I had to do was fill in the words I did not know in a language I do know. And the spell does the rest? Might as well try.

“Let me start again. I am the soulcore. Are you able to understand me?”

“So you are the one who woke me up? What exactly keeps me from squashing you and going back to sleep?”
Good question… “Because that would be murder?”

“Olgore, stop ******** me. What is going on?”

“How did you get in there? I think we would have noticed if that soulcore was inhabited.” That was easy to answer.
“You are right, the core was empty. I was stuck in that bottle over there. For reasons I don’t even know myself, I just woke up in it. Let me tell you, it was extremely boring in there!”

“Huh.” is all I got from Olgore.

Suddenly, Olgore’s head snaps to the side, I hear a dry, brittle sound. Splinters fly in all directions as Dust throws a piece of wood against his head. “Dust, what was that for?”

“Hey, uhm, Olgore, if I am allowed to call you that? How about we include him in this conversation? It would not be difficult for me to connect him to us. That would also make it easier for me to understand him.” I hoped I wasn’t pushing my luck here!

“Why do you ask? You put that weird spell on me without asking either!”
Fair point. “I didn’t have a choice, you know. I don’t have a mouth at the moment. This spell was simpler than one that allowed me to speak normally. Plus, you were attacking me.”

“Sorry for that, but to my defense, you did kind of explode.” He said in return.
Right, I did that. “Sorry. Anyways, the reason I did that was simple. I don’t want to just suddenly cast something, now that the situation isn’t as hostile. And I chose you because the chance that Dust can resist magic seemed higher to me. He has to be OK with me connecting to him.” I explained, as my soul relaxed slightly. This was going well.

“That makes sen…”
Olgore’s head again snapped back, as I could hear another broken piece of wood hitting the floor with a bang as we were showered by splinters once more.
“If you continue to ******** me. The next ***** won’t be a ***** of wood! Olgore!”

“Sorry, sorry, Dust! It’s just very distracting when someone is talking to you in your head. Let me catch you up. The ball that woke us up is talking to me, and they, she? Also wants to talk to you. They can cast a spell for you to enter our conversation. But don’t resist it, or it will fail. So there you have it. What do you think, want to join in?”

“Yes, I am a she, thank you for asking, also my name is Tepin.”

“Her name is Tepin.” He added.

“Okay, I cannot say that I am not ******. But let me ******** you first. I won’t just let ********* be cast on me.” Not wasting any time, Dust walked up to Olgore. The lighting that was still coiling around his hand slowly diminishing.
“Alright, do your thing, Dust.” He said, while his friend lifted his hand in front of his face.
Then I felt the buzzing of mana flowing from his hand. Purple lightning curled around his hand, jumping from his fingertips onto Olgore’s head. Wait, he didn’t use rota for his magic? He wasn’t drawing any runes using his mana! I was only able to feel that he was doing something using the energy, but what exactly eluded me. How was he checking out the connection without a proper examination spell?

“Mhm, this spell doesn’t seem *******. Tell this Tepin I ******!”
I didn’t quite understand what he said, but it sounded positive?
“Eh, she can hear you.” Olgore said.

“Yes, I can hear him, Olgore, but understanding him is a different story.”
He scratched his head. “But I can understand you just fine, and that goes the other way around too, no?”

“Yes, well, that is mostly thanks to the spell that connects us. Without it, I can barely understand you two, and I am pretty sure that would go both ways. Whatever language we are speaking, is not my native one. Anyways, did Dust accept?”

“Yes, he is okay with it.”

Didn’t need to hear that twice! I started constructing the spell once again, but this time took it slow. Giving Dust the chance to observe the spell before I completed it. Hoping this would help him trust me more. Spell completed! A string of purple light shots towards Dust and connected us. Now this should make the conversation a lot easier.

“Okay, one more time. My name is Tepin….” I told them everything that happened from my perspective, since I woke up in that darn bottle. With that, both of them should be caught up. “Also, I’m sorry about the room. I would repay you, but considering the circumstances, I don’t really own anything.” My soulcore turned to a darker hue of blue and purple.

Dust started first. “You are telling me the corrupted Specter that Olgore caught in that mine is you? How did you become a Specter in the first place, and what were you doing in that mine?”
Well, that raised several questions for me. “If he caught me in the bottle over there, then yes, that was me. But before I answer the rest, I need to know, what is a Specter, and what Mine are you talking about?” Yes, I had more questions, like where are we, what year is it? Where are the Kirin, but all in due time.

“Okay, so about 5 months ago…” Dust started to answer. “…we had to secure an abandoned mine for a job. It was full of Specters that were corrupted by something. They looked like inky black flying masses of thick liquid and attacked us on sight! We fought them, then Olgore saw that one of them survived. He promptly stuffed it in his bottle. He thought it might be worth coin.”
Olgore interjected. “And I still do. But now it would not be quite so moral to sell her anymore.”

That was nice to hear.

“Yes, Olgore, either way, after we finished our job and left the mine. You suddenly turned from a dark, inky black mass into more of a purple-blue. That made you look like a normal Specter. While Olgore found that quite exciting, we didn’t really think much more of it.”
Mhm, at some point I would have to visit that mine.

“And to answer your other question.” Dust continued. “A Specter is created when someone dies a death so traumatic, they cannot let go of our world yet. They are known to be mindless and are usually harmless. The ones we saw in the mine, including you, were, however, unique. They attacked us on sight and, as I mentioned, were corrupted by something.”

I remember seeing something inky dark entering the artificial soulcore back then. Maybe that took hold of me and kept me from being conscious? I shuddered on the inside when I realized I might have attacked people without knowing. And he said there were multiple of these Specters! No, I wasn’t ready to think about what that might mean and pushed those thoughts back down.

“I am sorry, I have some more questions. What year is it? And where are we exactly? Like, what planet are we on? Also, what language are we speaking?” My questions just kept coming, I had to know!

“Okay, okay, I’ll answer them! We are speaking Inacian and are currently on Tendria in the Republic of Inas. Today is the thirty-fifth day in the third month of Sinstere in the year 1429.” Dust said.

Uh what? None of that meant anything to me. Except the country, since it shared a name with the city we were in. That date made no sense. What was a Sinstere? Also, Tendria? Never heard of that planet, but it confirmed that I was not on Eriphynia anymore, my home world. But then, how did I get here, and what did I do in that mine?

Ugh, the more answers I got, the more questions I had. “Thank you so much for all the answers. I really appreciate it. Considering what I have done to your room. I am still quite helpless at the moment, and I hate to ask, but can I stick with you two for a while? I will, of course, try and compensate you for all this once I can?” I mimicked arms with mana and used them to gesture around the room.

For a second, I wondered why nobody had come to check on us when I remembered the room had noise-canceling enchantments. Plus, it was night, so nobody probably had noticed the broken window.

“You won’t have to worry about the room; incidents like this are covered by the Guild.” Olgore said.
Now that was convenient. Wait, were incidents like that usual?
That’s when Dust also answered. “Well, now we know that you are not a danger. Though your mana-sphere is quite unusual. Either way, I don’t mind having you around; it wouldn’t be the first time we have someone tagging along.”

They calmed down fast, considering what I had accidentally done just moments ago.

“Yes, what Dust says, wouldn’t be the first time, it’s just a bit of a bummer that you won’t make us any money anymore.”
My, how nice of you Olgore… “I guess I am sorry for that, but I appreciate you letting me stay with you! And well, my new sphere is unusual because I had the chance to use the knowledge I already had on them.”

“That is… I never thought about that! Interesting, you will have to tell me about that later!” Dust said.
Olgore decided to chime in. “By the way, Tepin, could you make it a bit more obvious who you are speaking to? You are currently just a glowing ball.”

“Yes, I can, sorry.” Am I apologizing too much? Doesn’t matter. To fulfill Olgores’ request, I formed two eyes on my sphere and, in addition, let two small horns sprout from the top. This way, my current self would reflect my old looks a bit.

“Why horns? Actually, what were you before we found you as a bodiless soul?” Asked Olgore.
A fair question. “I was, no, I am a Kirin.”

“What is a Kirin?”
“Never heard of those.” They both said.

“Oh…”

They didn’t know Kirin? “No!” I thought, “This can’t be it. My life, my people still exist out there, right? Right! After all, I saw Rota used on this world. Yes! Maybe the word Kirin just didn’t mean anything to them. After all, there was still a language barrier. That must be it.