Grim Ruination, Birth of a Soul (On Hiatus)

The Thief

Darris heard a faint 'his penmanship is shit' from under Svalken's breath before he continued.
"- Truix. Said he should be stationed at the stable on the eastern side of town."

Darris craned his neck to investigate the writing on the page. "Does it say when they'll be leaving?"

Svalken folded up the note. "Around the evening."

Darris looked up at the sky, at the sun hanging in the center of the sky. "Don't you think we should ask the caravan when they leave? Specially I mean."

Svalken handed the note to Darris. "You can. I'm going by the inn. I'm tired, you aren't." He said as he began walking away.

Darris wanted to make a rebuttal, but Svalken was right. Darris couldn't technically get tired, as was one of the upsides of being undead.

While he still got fatigued, it was nothing a short breather couldn't solve. On top of not needing sleep, he also didn't need to consume food or hydrate.

He was more of an automaton then a humanoid. A fact he'd grown all too familiar with in the passed several months.

As Darris started towards the easternmost section of town as he began to fidget with a silvery ring on his finger, spinning it gingerly around his finger.

As he spun the ring, a voice in his mind faded into existence. "How are you enjoying yourself?" They asked.

It was the voice of Tempest, Darris's old squad captain back when he was alive. Through a sequence of events Darris didn't fully understand, Tempest's soul had been fractured, half of it being stored within the ring he now wore.

"It's enjoyable for the most part." Darris replied in his mind. He could almost see the horned figure of Tempest walking around within his head.

"Excited to escort a caravan?" He asked, as if it was a much more enjoyable activity then it was. "Do you remember when squad 12 used to guard caravans going to and from Sigereshi?"

"I remember a lot of walking." Darris replied.

Darris heard laughter echo through his hollow skull. "That is true. If only we'd had access to teleportation circles like squad 3.... or 4.... or 7. I think squad 20 had a mage who could scribe teleportation circles as well." Tempest rambled.

"I don't think we'll be fortunate enough to find someone who can teleport." Darris sighed, reaching into his satchel and producing a small leather-bound journal.

He flipped it open, catching a loose note as it fell from the book and putting it back. The journal was littered with writing and diagrams and theories among many other things, few Darris fully understood.

Susain had done so much research in such little time of having known of reapers' existence. While, with trial and error, she had seemed to have been more correct about some things then others. Such as her hypothesis that souls emit a trace of the weave, the source of all magic, within them. However no form of magic detection can see a soul, not to say they can't be seen by non-reapers entirely, just simply not using spells that detect traces of magic.

In reality reapers manipulated souls they absorb and morph them as they need in a variety of ways, weather it be creating a barrier or healing wounds. Darris had even seen Svalken 'infect' someone else with a portion of the souls he collected and caused their body to convulse. Svalken had explained it as something similar to 'bestowing a curse' upon them.

Darris himself had tried to expand his use of souls, although the furthest he'd gotten was transforming himself into souls and briefly teleporting somewhere nearby. Regardless he always tried to refrain from using it constantly; it was hard to control at times.