Chapter 244: 244
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
"Was that thing stronger than you?" she asked.
Orison said, "I don't think so but there's nothing to gain by fighting it either."
The young woman searched the magician's face for signs of lying. "That was Gus, right? Even if you didn't care about him, there was the car and all of the things you've gathered in it."
"There are plenty of vehicles and anything that was in the car was junk convenience. The lion's share of the important things, I keep with me... We walk for now. If your legs start cramping up, let me know." they said.
The young woman nodded.
A few minutes later, unable to bear the silence after she had found the inner strength to break it, said, "How are you broken?"
Orison stopped walking. "Why would you ask that?"
"You said I need to save my soul... Give me something to work with," the young woman said.
The magician chuckled. "You want to fix me?"
"No, I want to fix myself. Trying to think about someone else's problems might help with that," she said, mustering up the best poker face she could.
Orison smirked, "Fishing for weaknesses to exploit won't help you with your problems. But, why not? I'll tell you what I know about myself. Maybe it'll help, anyway.
"I used a spiritual clone residing in a previous life's body to impregnate another version of myself. I tried picking someone with a decently powerful spiritual bloodline, at first, only to find out that my soul rejects them and the idea of having a lover or a close friend be my parent was a more disturbing proposition... So, if you ever get fed up with me and tell me to go f*** myself, I can tell you from personal experience. It's a lot more empty of a proposition than you'd think.
"Although I can't remember them, I had a lot of people I cared about erased from existence. They weren't killed. They were erased. As in, it was like they never were.
"That should have been the end of me too but I survived. I survived and have no one... yet. I can feel that parts and bits are scattered all over greater creation and I might find them. I also know that not everyone I knew was there on the world that was erased.
"I was having an identity crisis of epic proportion before the monster who took everything away came. You'd be surprised how much of a person is defined by the desires and expectations of others. Even after they've left your life or passed away, they still remain... Not so much for me anymore.
"Three separate personalities that didn't clique well, vying for dominance inside of me, drove me to the brink of madness. It took losing nearly everything but myself to realize how vain and shallow that conflict was. Three people's worth of knowledge, wisdom and perspective may have had a hard time all fitting into one person. But after losing everything else, it's like a few fireflies in a giant jar left sitting in a dark and abandoned house.
"Oh, there's shadows, lots of them. That abandoned house is full of ghosts. Empty but without room for anything else, that's what it feels like. The thing is, I can't clear it all away.
"All those ghosts might be the only anchor and compass to saving what was lost. Maybe it would be better to say that I'm a theater with all the seats reserved but no one coming to sit in them. If I start taking the cards off the seats, I can bring new life into the place but that's a person lost for good."
They walked in silence for awhile. Eventually, the young woman needed to rest. After giving her some water and something to eat, the magician gave her some space to take care of business. They endured some trauma induced wailing to massage out a bad cramp while running some healing through her before getting on the road again.
More to distract herself from her own ghosts than for Orison's benefit, she said, "My aunt married one of those rich over night app designers. They bought a big house, a really nice car and a lot of other things. After awhile, my uncle's one hit wonder app's popularity started to fade and they suddenly found themselves facing a shortage of cash flow.
"Neither of them had been particularly poor before. And after growing accustomed to living a certain way, they found a hard time readjusting to living on less. Not too long after mom and dad talked about how my aunt and uncle were about to lose everything, mom called grandma to go chew them out and talk some sense into them.
"Permanent staff became a once a week cleaning service. The cars, jet skis and boat were pared down to more affordable and easier to upkeep options. But the house, that was their dream home. Grandma couldn't get them to give an inch of ground on it. It was a nun from overseas that helped them with that.
She stopped talking for awhile but picked back up where she left off on the next rest break. "The old nun's great grandparents bought a countryside manor that was a sinkhole of money but she had many fond memories of the place. Among those memories were ways that her great grandparents found to make it work. Most of that won't really matter to you but one thing might help. She taught my aunt and uncle how to only use the parts of the house they needed while keeping the rest of it closed up safely.
"After getting used to the idea, my aunt and uncle ended up liking their home more. It was too big and made them feel small inside of it. The didn't need to fill it with stuff. They just had to limit themselves to the parts they needed.
"It sounds like you're house is too big. Cover the furniture and close some of it off until you need it again. Rooms don't disappear if you don't aimlessly wander through them everyday.
She paused to gauge if he was listening or was getting annoyed before adding, "A person can't cling to everything, either. It's sad to let things go. But if you keep trying to live beyond your means, won't you lose everything anyway?"
The young woman couldn't tell if Orison had listened or not but forcing herself to reach out and try felt like it had exercised other atrophied parts of herself. It made her ache and feel a little emotionally tired but a little rest might find her a little stronger too. That was, if she didn't run out of energy for herself. She felt cast adrift in an emotional and spiritual famine, giving out a precious bit of nourishment that could keep herself going.
The magician stopped to consider. A single tear fell down their cheek as a gust of wind blew a nearly translucent smoke away from them. Within danced thousands of people, buildings and even animals. Fragile patterns, barely preserved, were set free to disintegrate into the air.
It was a grim realization but the young woman witnessed that her words may have helped Orison survive some kind of internal struggle but that bore a cost. She couldn't understand it fully but she knew. Those things that just disappeared on the wind would never return, never exist again.
It didn't stop there either. As they kept walking, the magician continued winnowing through and letting go of the easiest of their hard choices and started going through the more difficult, the more painful ones. The next rest stop wasn't for her but her rescuer. They needed a moment to mourn the concession, acknowledge what was too much to bear and still have the ability to strengthen and grow rather than just maintain.
They said, "There's something inside of me. A key shaped something that helps me hold on to all this, granting me a chance to restore what was lost, but I was holding on to more than it could handle. I held hope that I might find something outside of myself to give me what I needed, to not give anything away. But I had hours, days at most."
"What do you think the most precious resource in all of greater reality is?" they asked her.
The young woman thought it over carefully. Her words held more weight than they ever had in her entire life. She was speaking to an entity struggling to maintain and determine if an ark full of beings teetering on oblivion would be lost forever or exist again.
She said, "Doesn't that change depending on need? It would be the thing you need the most to survive at any given time, I guess. It's water when you're thirsty, food when you're hungry. That keeps going til it's relaxation when you're stressed and an outlet for your emotional needs when all the other basic ones are met."
Orison grew thoughtful again. "How does one trade resources of situational value for resources of incredible value only to yourself and those like you, without being opportunistic?"
"How likely are they to becoming like you or those like you, themselves?" she asked.
They shook their head. "There's no clearer answer than; not likely but always possible."
Head spinning with possibilities and personal benefit, she answered, "Offer to share the secret to become like you to a few in exchange for a reasonable percentage. You can show them how to make the exchange for a percentage of what they earn. You can leave the morality of choices to them."
Orison chuckled bitterly. "A pyramid scheme? That's how a devil would do it, I think."
Startled, she said, "Are you talking about selling a soul?!"
"No. Although, a soul is involved," the magician said.
Thinking harder, she asked, "The thing you want to exchange for, do people make it continuously throughout their lives or do they only have a limited amount that they're born with?"
Orison said, "I'm not sure about that. It takes active effort for souls to produce it, though. So, making a tie to collect long term would be the most profitable. That could apply to both parties since an ongoing exchange IS possible."
She stopped walking and sat down. "Then, set a personal rate of exchange that seems fair to you. Once a certain amount is collected, meet a need. Alternately, meet a need up to what they have to offer and take it, making yourself available to exchange again once they have more... A series of micro-transactions would be the best, if what they need and what you want to meet that need can be provided in small amounts continuously."
Orison sat beside her with ample space between. "The first is how gods do it, I think. The only way to make that work fairly has serious drawbacks, since you're constantly in debt to the other parties. Once all those debts accumulate among a large amount of similarly minded people, they can subconsciously leverage that debt to alter you into their image of you. Completely out of the question.
"With varying degrees of the second part of the second option, I think that's how demons and djinn do it. If one was willing to devote most of their time searching for large paying individual exchanges, that would make them like the fairy godmothers and such from children's stories. That sounds fun and good spirited but awfully invested in what amounts to only one of multiple resources needed.
"Now, the last one I know. That's pact making. It's not a bad option but it does have the downside of requiring semi-permanent connections with others. Those connections can be traced or even used against you."
The young woman took her shoes off to help rub the soreness and ache out of her own feet. "Work through an intermediary or multiple intermediaries. Combine the best of devil and pact. Just because it's how devils do it doesn't mean you have to do everything else about it like devils do, right? And, micro-transactions really are the best method.
"It gives you a lot more control over balancing your supply with demand. You can make adjustments easier to suit your needs... or fairness, as well. The only real challenge is choosing a trustworthy intermediate willing to take the risk of...tracing and whatnot for you. Oh, and paying them a decent wage of course."
As Orison pondered it over seriously, she looked at him with a face full of expectation. After a few minutes, the magician was looking at her with a mirror of her own look.
At first, she was puzzled and then frowned. "Um, have you made any decisions?... There's a strange buzz in my ears. Is that monster thing coming back?"
Orison sighed and said. "They're not strong enough to communicate directly, huh? The buzzing in your ears is one of the stronger shadows at the fringe trying to communicate with you. It's offering you a choice of three pacts. Right now it can only hold one specific ability but as it grows in strength, it can offer more..."
After having the magician explain for the shadow, although she was disappointed, she accepted a pact for a burning needle that she could summon and direct at will. Although the power was at will, she still needed to rest after using it beyond a certain point and there were lots of other minor details. Some of which would become unimportant or no longer be a problem with time.
"How did you do that?" the young woman asked.
Thinking it over carefully, the magician explained in a limited way. "The thing that holds the shadows is my primary intermediate. And when the shadows are strong enough to volunteer, they can work for their own strengthening. I have a source of inner power that my body can't use directly but can be funneled through my intermediate to empower pact holder abilities. The shadows are taking the greatest risk and get the greatest reward while some of what they earn trickles to my intermediate to replenish what it spends. After some time passes, I'll get a little too."
Disgruntled, she said, "I gave you the idea. Is being an intermediary off the table?"
Orison shook their head. "It IS off the table. You don't have the ability to act as one but you do have a spot reserved to work for some personal strengthening after you die. Work as little or as much as you want before passing on to your next life.
"Just so you know. If you accept being a pact shadow, you'll be expected to work until your pact holder dies or the two of you mutually dissolve your pact. My intermediate will enforce fairness. You wouldn't be offered the option but you are my first new pact using this method and deserve a chance to benefit from it."
What they didn't tell her was that debts had to be repaid. They didn't know if it would matter or not. It worked both ways and it would take time to find the right balance but Orison was determined not to cheat others or be cheated by them.
As they walked, the young woman played with her new supernatural weapon some. Orison let them do that for awhile but finally intervened after it looked like she had it's basic uses down. They explained that she had a lifetime of 'essence of existence', what They renamed 'faith essence'. Once that was burned through, she would have limited use between rests.
"Once you're down to daily limited use, you can more easily overdraft and burn through spirit essence and even life reserves. Frugal and judicious use is best but do what you will," the magician said.
A ghost of a genuine smile drifted over her face. "It would be in your best interest to withhold information like that but thank you."
Orison gave her the ghost of a smile in return and nodded. "'Fair' might be a nearly impossible standard to nail but balance is easy enough."
"So, when will I be able to heal wounds and regenerate missing body parts?" she asked.
Black lines formed down the magician's face as They attempted to explain current versus future limitations. That conversation was still ongoing when the two saw the SUV Gus was driving, off into a ditch on its side.
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
"Was that thing stronger than you?" she asked.
Orison said, "I don't think so but there's nothing to gain by fighting it either."
The young woman searched the magician's face for signs of lying. "That was Gus, right? Even if you didn't care about him, there was the car and all of the things you've gathered in it."
"There are plenty of vehicles and anything that was in the car was junk convenience. The lion's share of the important things, I keep with me... We walk for now. If your legs start cramping up, let me know." they said.
The young woman nodded.
A few minutes later, unable to bear the silence after she had found the inner strength to break it, said, "How are you broken?"
Orison stopped walking. "Why would you ask that?"
"You said I need to save my soul... Give me something to work with," the young woman said.
The magician chuckled. "You want to fix me?"
"No, I want to fix myself. Trying to think about someone else's problems might help with that," she said, mustering up the best poker face she could.
Orison smirked, "Fishing for weaknesses to exploit won't help you with your problems. But, why not? I'll tell you what I know about myself. Maybe it'll help, anyway.
"I used a spiritual clone residing in a previous life's body to impregnate another version of myself. I tried picking someone with a decently powerful spiritual bloodline, at first, only to find out that my soul rejects them and the idea of having a lover or a close friend be my parent was a more disturbing proposition... So, if you ever get fed up with me and tell me to go f*** myself, I can tell you from personal experience. It's a lot more empty of a proposition than you'd think.
"Although I can't remember them, I had a lot of people I cared about erased from existence. They weren't killed. They were erased. As in, it was like they never were.
"That should have been the end of me too but I survived. I survived and have no one... yet. I can feel that parts and bits are scattered all over greater creation and I might find them. I also know that not everyone I knew was there on the world that was erased.
"I was having an identity crisis of epic proportion before the monster who took everything away came. You'd be surprised how much of a person is defined by the desires and expectations of others. Even after they've left your life or passed away, they still remain... Not so much for me anymore.
"Three separate personalities that didn't clique well, vying for dominance inside of me, drove me to the brink of madness. It took losing nearly everything but myself to realize how vain and shallow that conflict was. Three people's worth of knowledge, wisdom and perspective may have had a hard time all fitting into one person. But after losing everything else, it's like a few fireflies in a giant jar left sitting in a dark and abandoned house.
"Oh, there's shadows, lots of them. That abandoned house is full of ghosts. Empty but without room for anything else, that's what it feels like. The thing is, I can't clear it all away.
"All those ghosts might be the only anchor and compass to saving what was lost. Maybe it would be better to say that I'm a theater with all the seats reserved but no one coming to sit in them. If I start taking the cards off the seats, I can bring new life into the place but that's a person lost for good."
They walked in silence for awhile. Eventually, the young woman needed to rest. After giving her some water and something to eat, the magician gave her some space to take care of business. They endured some trauma induced wailing to massage out a bad cramp while running some healing through her before getting on the road again.
More to distract herself from her own ghosts than for Orison's benefit, she said, "My aunt married one of those rich over night app designers. They bought a big house, a really nice car and a lot of other things. After awhile, my uncle's one hit wonder app's popularity started to fade and they suddenly found themselves facing a shortage of cash flow.
"Neither of them had been particularly poor before. And after growing accustomed to living a certain way, they found a hard time readjusting to living on less. Not too long after mom and dad talked about how my aunt and uncle were about to lose everything, mom called grandma to go chew them out and talk some sense into them.
"Permanent staff became a once a week cleaning service. The cars, jet skis and boat were pared down to more affordable and easier to upkeep options. But the house, that was their dream home. Grandma couldn't get them to give an inch of ground on it. It was a nun from overseas that helped them with that.
She stopped talking for awhile but picked back up where she left off on the next rest break. "The old nun's great grandparents bought a countryside manor that was a sinkhole of money but she had many fond memories of the place. Among those memories were ways that her great grandparents found to make it work. Most of that won't really matter to you but one thing might help. She taught my aunt and uncle how to only use the parts of the house they needed while keeping the rest of it closed up safely.
"After getting used to the idea, my aunt and uncle ended up liking their home more. It was too big and made them feel small inside of it. The didn't need to fill it with stuff. They just had to limit themselves to the parts they needed.
"It sounds like you're house is too big. Cover the furniture and close some of it off until you need it again. Rooms don't disappear if you don't aimlessly wander through them everyday.
She paused to gauge if he was listening or was getting annoyed before adding, "A person can't cling to everything, either. It's sad to let things go. But if you keep trying to live beyond your means, won't you lose everything anyway?"
The young woman couldn't tell if Orison had listened or not but forcing herself to reach out and try felt like it had exercised other atrophied parts of herself. It made her ache and feel a little emotionally tired but a little rest might find her a little stronger too. That was, if she didn't run out of energy for herself. She felt cast adrift in an emotional and spiritual famine, giving out a precious bit of nourishment that could keep herself going.
The magician stopped to consider. A single tear fell down their cheek as a gust of wind blew a nearly translucent smoke away from them. Within danced thousands of people, buildings and even animals. Fragile patterns, barely preserved, were set free to disintegrate into the air.
It was a grim realization but the young woman witnessed that her words may have helped Orison survive some kind of internal struggle but that bore a cost. She couldn't understand it fully but she knew. Those things that just disappeared on the wind would never return, never exist again.
It didn't stop there either. As they kept walking, the magician continued winnowing through and letting go of the easiest of their hard choices and started going through the more difficult, the more painful ones. The next rest stop wasn't for her but her rescuer. They needed a moment to mourn the concession, acknowledge what was too much to bear and still have the ability to strengthen and grow rather than just maintain.
They said, "There's something inside of me. A key shaped something that helps me hold on to all this, granting me a chance to restore what was lost, but I was holding on to more than it could handle. I held hope that I might find something outside of myself to give me what I needed, to not give anything away. But I had hours, days at most."
"What do you think the most precious resource in all of greater reality is?" they asked her.
The young woman thought it over carefully. Her words held more weight than they ever had in her entire life. She was speaking to an entity struggling to maintain and determine if an ark full of beings teetering on oblivion would be lost forever or exist again.
She said, "Doesn't that change depending on need? It would be the thing you need the most to survive at any given time, I guess. It's water when you're thirsty, food when you're hungry. That keeps going til it's relaxation when you're stressed and an outlet for your emotional needs when all the other basic ones are met."
Orison grew thoughtful again. "How does one trade resources of situational value for resources of incredible value only to yourself and those like you, without being opportunistic?"
"How likely are they to becoming like you or those like you, themselves?" she asked.
They shook their head. "There's no clearer answer than; not likely but always possible."
Head spinning with possibilities and personal benefit, she answered, "Offer to share the secret to become like you to a few in exchange for a reasonable percentage. You can show them how to make the exchange for a percentage of what they earn. You can leave the morality of choices to them."
Orison chuckled bitterly. "A pyramid scheme? That's how a devil would do it, I think."
Startled, she said, "Are you talking about selling a soul?!"
"No. Although, a soul is involved," the magician said.
Thinking harder, she asked, "The thing you want to exchange for, do people make it continuously throughout their lives or do they only have a limited amount that they're born with?"
Orison said, "I'm not sure about that. It takes active effort for souls to produce it, though. So, making a tie to collect long term would be the most profitable. That could apply to both parties since an ongoing exchange IS possible."
She stopped walking and sat down. "Then, set a personal rate of exchange that seems fair to you. Once a certain amount is collected, meet a need. Alternately, meet a need up to what they have to offer and take it, making yourself available to exchange again once they have more... A series of micro-transactions would be the best, if what they need and what you want to meet that need can be provided in small amounts continuously."
Orison sat beside her with ample space between. "The first is how gods do it, I think. The only way to make that work fairly has serious drawbacks, since you're constantly in debt to the other parties. Once all those debts accumulate among a large amount of similarly minded people, they can subconsciously leverage that debt to alter you into their image of you. Completely out of the question.
"With varying degrees of the second part of the second option, I think that's how demons and djinn do it. If one was willing to devote most of their time searching for large paying individual exchanges, that would make them like the fairy godmothers and such from children's stories. That sounds fun and good spirited but awfully invested in what amounts to only one of multiple resources needed.
"Now, the last one I know. That's pact making. It's not a bad option but it does have the downside of requiring semi-permanent connections with others. Those connections can be traced or even used against you."
The young woman took her shoes off to help rub the soreness and ache out of her own feet. "Work through an intermediary or multiple intermediaries. Combine the best of devil and pact. Just because it's how devils do it doesn't mean you have to do everything else about it like devils do, right? And, micro-transactions really are the best method.
"It gives you a lot more control over balancing your supply with demand. You can make adjustments easier to suit your needs... or fairness, as well. The only real challenge is choosing a trustworthy intermediate willing to take the risk of...tracing and whatnot for you. Oh, and paying them a decent wage of course."
As Orison pondered it over seriously, she looked at him with a face full of expectation. After a few minutes, the magician was looking at her with a mirror of her own look.
At first, she was puzzled and then frowned. "Um, have you made any decisions?... There's a strange buzz in my ears. Is that monster thing coming back?"
Orison sighed and said. "They're not strong enough to communicate directly, huh? The buzzing in your ears is one of the stronger shadows at the fringe trying to communicate with you. It's offering you a choice of three pacts. Right now it can only hold one specific ability but as it grows in strength, it can offer more..."
After having the magician explain for the shadow, although she was disappointed, she accepted a pact for a burning needle that she could summon and direct at will. Although the power was at will, she still needed to rest after using it beyond a certain point and there were lots of other minor details. Some of which would become unimportant or no longer be a problem with time.
"How did you do that?" the young woman asked.
Thinking it over carefully, the magician explained in a limited way. "The thing that holds the shadows is my primary intermediate. And when the shadows are strong enough to volunteer, they can work for their own strengthening. I have a source of inner power that my body can't use directly but can be funneled through my intermediate to empower pact holder abilities. The shadows are taking the greatest risk and get the greatest reward while some of what they earn trickles to my intermediate to replenish what it spends. After some time passes, I'll get a little too."
Disgruntled, she said, "I gave you the idea. Is being an intermediary off the table?"
Orison shook their head. "It IS off the table. You don't have the ability to act as one but you do have a spot reserved to work for some personal strengthening after you die. Work as little or as much as you want before passing on to your next life.
"Just so you know. If you accept being a pact shadow, you'll be expected to work until your pact holder dies or the two of you mutually dissolve your pact. My intermediate will enforce fairness. You wouldn't be offered the option but you are my first new pact using this method and deserve a chance to benefit from it."
What they didn't tell her was that debts had to be repaid. They didn't know if it would matter or not. It worked both ways and it would take time to find the right balance but Orison was determined not to cheat others or be cheated by them.
As they walked, the young woman played with her new supernatural weapon some. Orison let them do that for awhile but finally intervened after it looked like she had it's basic uses down. They explained that she had a lifetime of 'essence of existence', what They renamed 'faith essence'. Once that was burned through, she would have limited use between rests.
"Once you're down to daily limited use, you can more easily overdraft and burn through spirit essence and even life reserves. Frugal and judicious use is best but do what you will," the magician said.
A ghost of a genuine smile drifted over her face. "It would be in your best interest to withhold information like that but thank you."
Orison gave her the ghost of a smile in return and nodded. "'Fair' might be a nearly impossible standard to nail but balance is easy enough."
"So, when will I be able to heal wounds and regenerate missing body parts?" she asked.
Black lines formed down the magician's face as They attempted to explain current versus future limitations. That conversation was still ongoing when the two saw the SUV Gus was driving, off into a ditch on its side.
"Was that thing stronger than you?" she asked. Orison said, "I don't think so but there's nothing to gain by fighting it either." The young woman searched the magician's face for signs of lying. "That was Gus, right? Even if you didn't care about him, there was the car and all of the things you've gathered in it." "There are plenty of vehicles and anything that was in the car was junk convenience. The lion's share of the important things, I keep with me... We walk for now. If your legs start cramping up, let me know." they said. The young woman nodded. A few minutes later, unable to bear the silence after she had found the inner strength to break it, said, "How are you broken?" Orison stopped walking. "Why would you ask that?" "You said I need to save my soul... Give me something to work with," the young woman said. The magician chuckled. "You want to fix me?" "No, I want to fix myself. Trying to think about someone else's problems might help with that," she said, mustering up the best poker face she could. Orison smirked, "Fishing for weaknesses to exploit won't help you with your problems. But, why not? I'll tell you what I know about myself. Maybe it'll help, anyway. "I used a spiritual clone residing in a previous life's body to impregnate another version of myself. I tried picking someone with a decently powerful spiritual bloodline, at first, only to find out that my soul rejects them and the idea of having a lover or a close friend be my parent was a more disturbing proposition... So, if you ever get fed up with me and tell me to go f*** myself, I can tell you from personal experience. It's a lot more empty of a proposition than you'd think. "Although I can't remember them, I had a lot of people I cared about erased from existence. They weren't killed. They were erased. As in, it was like they never were. "That should have been the end of me too but I survived. I survived and have no one... yet. I can feel that parts and bits are scattered all over greater creation and I might find them. I also know that not everyone I knew was there on the world that was erased. "I was having an identity crisis of epic proportion before the monster who took everything away came. You'd be surprised how much of a person is defined by the desires and expectations of others. Even after they've left your life or passed away, they still remain... Not so much for me anymore. "Three separate personalities that didn't clique well, vying for dominance inside of me, drove me to the brink of madness. It took losing nearly everything but myself to realize how vain and shallow that conflict was. Three people's worth of knowledge, wisdom and perspective may have had a hard time all fitting into one person. But after losing everything else, it's like a few fireflies in a giant jar left sitting in a dark and abandoned house. "Oh, there's shadows, lots of them. That abandoned house is full of ghosts. Empty but without room for anything else, that's what it feels like. The thing is, I can't clear it all away. "All those ghosts might be the only anchor and compass to saving what was lost. Maybe it would be better to say that I'm a theater with all the seats reserved but no one coming to sit in them. If I start taking the cards off the seats, I can bring new life into the place but that's a person lost for good." They walked in silence for awhile. Eventually, the young woman needed to rest. After giving her some water and something to eat, the magician gave her some space to take care of business. They endured some trauma induced wailing to massage out a bad cramp while running some healing through her before getting on the road again. More to distract herself from her own ghosts than for Orison's benefit, she said, "My aunt married one of those rich over night app designers. They bought a big house, a really nice car and a lot of other things. After awhile, my uncle's one hit wonder app's popularity started to fade and they suddenly found themselves facing a shortage of cash flow. "Neither of them had been particularly poor before. And after growing accustomed to living a certain way, they found a hard time readjusting to living on less. Not too long after mom and dad talked about how my aunt and uncle were about to lose everything, mom called grandma to go chew them out and talk some sense into them. "Permanent staff became a once a week cleaning service. The cars, jet skis and boat were pared down to more affordable and easier to upkeep options. But the house, that was their dream home. Grandma couldn't get them to give an inch of ground on it. It was a nun from overseas that helped them with that. She stopped talking for awhile but picked back up where she left off on the next rest break. "The old nun's great grandparents bought a countryside manor that was a sinkhole of money but she had many fond memories of the place. Among those memories were ways that her great grandparents found to make it work. Most of that won't really matter to you but one thing might help. She taught my aunt and uncle how to only use the parts of the house they needed while keeping the rest of it closed up safely. "After getting used to the idea, my aunt and uncle ended up liking their home more. It was too big and made them feel small inside of it. The didn't need to fill it with stuff. They just had to limit themselves to the parts they needed. "It sounds like you're house is too big. Cover the furniture and close some of it off until you need it again. Rooms don't disappear if you don't aimlessly wander through them everyday. She paused to gauge if he was listening or was getting annoyed before adding, "A person can't cling to everything, either. It's sad to let things go. But if you keep trying to live beyond your means, won't you lose everything anyway?" The young woman couldn't tell if Orison had listened or not but forcing herself to reach out and try felt like it had exercised other atrophied parts of herself. It made her ache and feel a little emotionally tired but a little rest might find her a little stronger too. That was, if she didn't run out of energy for herself. She felt cast adrift in an emotional and spiritual famine, giving out a precious bit of nourishment that could keep herself going. The magician stopped to consider. A single tear fell down their cheek as a gust of wind blew a nearly translucent smoke away from them. Within danced thousands of people, buildings and even animals. Fragile patterns, barely preserved, were set free to disintegrate into the air. It was a grim realization but the young woman witnessed that her words may have helped Orison survive some kind of internal struggle but that bore a cost. She couldn't understand it fully but she knew. Those things that just disappeared on the wind would never return, never exist again. It didn't stop there either. As they kept walking, the magician continued winnowing through and letting go of the easiest of their hard choices and started going through the more difficult, the more painful ones. The next rest stop wasn't for her but her rescuer. They needed a moment to mourn the concession, acknowledge what was too much to bear and still have the ability to strengthen and grow rather than just maintain. They said, "There's something inside of me. A key shaped something that helps me hold on to all this, granting me a chance to restore what was lost, but I was holding on to more than it could handle. I held hope that I might find something outside of myself to give me what I needed, to not give anything away. But I had hours, days at most." "What do you think the most precious resource in all of greater reality is?" they asked her. The young woman thought it over carefully. Her words held more weight than they ever had in her entire life. She was speaking to an entity struggling to maintain and determine if an ark full of beings teetering on oblivion would be lost forever or exist again. She said, "Doesn't that change depending on need? It would be the thing you need the most to survive at any given time, I guess. It's water when you're thirsty, food when you're hungry. That keeps going til it's relaxation when you're stressed and an outlet for your emotional needs when all the other basic ones are met." Orison grew thoughtful again. "How does one trade resources of situational value for resources of incredible value only to yourself and those like you, without being opportunistic?" "How likely are they to becoming like you or those like you, themselves?" she asked. They shook their head. "There's no clearer answer than; not likely but always possible." Head spinning with possibilities and personal benefit, she answered, "Offer to share the secret to become like you to a few in exchange for a reasonable percentage. You can show them how to make the exchange for a percentage of what they earn. You can leave the morality of choices to them." Orison chuckled bitterly. "A pyramid scheme? That's how a devil would do it, I think." Startled, she said, "Are you talking about selling a soul?!" "No. Although, a soul is involved," the magician said. Thinking harder, she asked, "The thing you want to exchange for, do people make it continuously throughout their lives or do they only have a limited amount that they're born with?" Orison said, "I'm not sure about that. It takes active effort for souls to produce it, though. So, making a tie to collect long term would be the most profitable. That could apply to both parties since an ongoing exchange IS possible." She stopped walking and sat down. "Then, set a personal rate of exchange that seems fair to you. Once a certain amount is collected, meet a need. Alternately, meet a need up to what they have to offer and take it, making yourself available to exchange again once they have more... A series of micro-transactions would be the best, if what they need and what you want to meet that need can be provided in small amounts continuously." Orison sat beside her with ample space between. "The first is how gods do it, I think. The only way to make that work fairly has serious drawbacks, since you're constantly in debt to the other parties. Once all those debts accumulate among a large amount of similarly minded people, they can subconsciously leverage that debt to alter you into their image of you. Completely out of the question. "With varying degrees of the second part of the second option, I think that's how demons and djinn do it. If one was willing to devote most of their time searching for large paying individual exchanges, that would make them like the fairy godmothers and such from children's stories. That sounds fun and good spirited but awfully invested in what amounts to only one of multiple resources needed. "Now, the last one I know. That's pact making. It's not a bad option but it does have the downside of requiring semi-permanent connections with others. Those connections can be traced or even used against you." The young woman took her shoes off to help rub the soreness and ache out of her own feet. "Work through an intermediary or multiple intermediaries. Combine the best of devil and pact. Just because it's how devils do it doesn't mean you have to do everything else about it like devils do, right? And, micro-transactions really are the best method. "It gives you a lot more control over balancing your supply with demand. You can make adjustments easier to suit your needs... or fairness, as well. The only real challenge is choosing a trustworthy intermediate willing to take the risk of...tracing and whatnot for you. Oh, and paying them a decent wage of course." As Orison pondered it over seriously, she looked at him with a face full of expectation. After a few minutes, the magician was looking at her with a mirror of her own look. At first, she was puzzled and then frowned. "Um, have you made any decisions?... There's a strange buzz in my ears. Is that monster thing coming back?" Orison sighed and said. "They're not strong enough to communicate directly, huh? The buzzing in your ears is one of the stronger shadows at the fringe trying to communicate with you. It's offering you a choice of three pacts. Right now it can only hold one specific ability but as it grows in strength, it can offer more..." After having the magician explain for the shadow, although she was disappointed, she accepted a pact for a burning needle that she could summon and direct at will. Although the power was at will, she still needed to rest after using it beyond a certain point and there were lots of other minor details. Some of which would become unimportant or no longer be a problem with time. "How did you do that?" the young woman asked. Thinking it over carefully, the magician explained in a limited way. "The thing that holds the shadows is my primary intermediate. And when the shadows are strong enough to volunteer, they can work for their own strengthening. I have a source of inner power that my body can't use directly but can be funneled through my intermediate to empower pact holder abilities. The shadows are taking the greatest risk and get the greatest reward while some of what they earn trickles to my intermediate to replenish what it spends. After some time passes, I'll get a little too." Disgruntled, she said, "I gave you the idea. Is being an intermediary off the table?" Orison shook their head. "It IS off the table. You don't have the ability to act as one but you do have a spot reserved to work for some personal strengthening after you die. Work as little or as much as you want before passing on to your next life. "Just so you know. If you accept being a pact shadow, you'll be expected to work until your pact holder dies or the two of you mutually dissolve your pact. My intermediate will enforce fairness. You wouldn't be offered the option but you are my first new pact using this method and deserve a chance to benefit from it." What they didn't tell her was that debts had to be repaid. They didn't know if it would matter or not. It worked both ways and it would take time to find the right balance but Orison was determined not to cheat others or be cheated by them. As they walked, the young woman played with her new supernatural weapon some. Orison let them do that for awhile but finally intervened after it looked like she had it's basic uses down. They explained that she had a lifetime of 'essence of existence', what They renamed 'faith essence'. Once that was burned through, she would have limited use between rests. "Once you're down to daily limited use, you can more easily overdraft and burn through spirit essence and even life reserves. Frugal and judicious use is best but do what you will," the magician said. A ghost of a genuine smile drifted over her face. "It would be in your best interest to withhold information like that but thank you." Orison gave her the ghost of a smile in return and nodded. "'Fair' might be a nearly impossible standard to nail but balance is easy enough." "So, when will I be able to heal wounds and regenerate missing body parts?" she asked. Black lines formed down the magician's face as They attempted to explain current versus future limitations. That conversation was still ongoing when the two saw the SUV Gus was driving, off into a ditch on its side.
