Eidolons: A Monster Girl Manuscript

“Please! Save us!” The text was scrawled on a roughly folded piece of paper and shoved into his decrepit, wooden mailbox. Someone had written it in a hurry, but even his well-trained eye couldn’t make out footprints in the moisture-bare clay that had been baking under the summer sun. The only water that the resilient, sparse greenery which still dotted the landscape had seen that summer was from the brow-sweat of the villagers that walked past hauling their trade goods from the small village to the cathedral up on the hill. It was a hard summer to be a farmer, and an even harder summer to be a new eidolon. But this letter was going to be the thing that reversed the winds of his fortune, and a smile alighted on his face as a cool breeze fluttered the letter in his hand; the sound of rustling paper was the sound of the fame he had always dreamt of, and this call for help was a siren’s song that would guide him all the way to Avalon.

Rivermarch was a small town not more than three day’s walk from the cottage on a hill that had served as the traditional home for eidolons in the parish even if it had stood empty for generations. As he set out on foot, carrying nothing but his walking staff and a bag with dried meats and bread, the cloaked figure boasted a smile on his face that not even the sweltering summer heat could harm. The training of an eidolon was long and lonely, and he looked forward to seeing people even though he knew how they might react to him.

Eidolons are named as such because they occupy a space between the worlds of men and monsters. Viewed as a necessary evil by the church and religiously avoided by the townspeople as bringers of the evil they seek to exorcise. They travel from town to town, tackling cases where monsters are suspected and protecting the sanctity of the church and state by taking the spiritual taint of the monsters upon their own shoulders. For generations, the parish had stood empty as the result of an agreement between the leader of the monsters in the area, Porsiphus, and the eidolons, but with the death of the monster leader the population was growing rowdy and the long-vacant post had to be filled.

Halt meditated on this unlikely chain of events which had occurred right as he finished training, the first eidolon to do so in years, and landed him in his current job. He had long been hoping to be assigned to one of the southern, coastal parishes where the eidolons’ cottages overlooked the beaches and most of the monsters weren’t more intimidating than confused mermaids in need of a map. He stilled his yearning for the sea in his heart while he kicked up dust plumes with his boots.

“Sure,” he acquiesced aloud with a wave of his hands, “I could be lounging on the beach right now, kicking back and relaxing.” He closed his eyes while he walked and envisaged how nice the sea spray would feel right now, how nice the water would feel while he walked ankle deep in the sand, how nice and plump the first mermaid he dealt with’s breasts would be, how he would… No, he couldn’t think about that type of thing right now. “I can make a real difference to the people here, save lives.” He spoke in an upbeat tone but seemed to be failing to convince himself.

He couldn’t bring himself to voice it, but the real anxiety that had nested in his heart was the lack of companionship that he could see clearly stretching out in front of himself and into the future. Six years ago, when a twelve-year-old boy had volunteered to go into training the prospect was Elysium. Anything that got him away from his family would have been. Now, an adult Halt found himself wanting a little more out of life.

He kicked himself. That kind of thinking wasn’t befitting of an eidolon. He forced himself to walk in complete silence for the rest of the journey and filled his mind with only the songs of the birds that soared over the rolling hills, making their nests in small copses of trees that dotted the parched landscape.

Eventually, Halt found himself standing in the town square of Rivermarch, other than the well that stood in the center, none of the buildings were made of stone. This would have discouraged a lesser eidolon, but Halt had little concern for the size of the paycheck that would accompany his work. The life of an eidolon was meant to be an ascetic one. The townsfolk that he saw, not that many seemed to be about, were nothing unusual, they pulled their windows shut as he walked past and avoided acknowledging him as if that would keep away the evil he dealt with, but this was the expected reaction. The ones that had called him there would find him.

Indeed, just as the thought crossed his mind, he felt a small tug on the hem of his cloak and turned to see a young boy standing there. He had the round cheeks of pre-pubescence, but his bright, blue eyes shone with an intelligence that should have been far beyond his years. Halt liked children; they often hadn’t yet developed the same prejudice against eidolons that they would invariably develop as adults.

He dropped to one knee with a smile on his face, “What can I do for you, young sir?”

“You’re an eidolon?” The boy’s voice was small and shrill, but it too seemed to betray an intelligence beyond expectation.

“Yes, I am.” Halt looked for the boy’s parents, but there was no one to be seen. “Are your parents the ones that called me here.” He needed to get a move on; it wouldn’t be good for the boy to be seen talking to him by too many people.

“Everybody’s up at the field.” The boy pointed a grubby finger towards a wheat field that lay behind what seemed to be the city hall. “Heard they caught a monster. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” Before the boy had finished his sentence, Halt sprung to action. Whatever fatigue that had been brought on by the heat was forgotten as he flew over the parched land and plowed into the field, sending waves of wheat crashing to the ground as he closed in on the source of the commotion he could now hear. Townspeople with a monster meant a mob, and if he wasn’t careful the whole thing could turn into a nightmare war of retaliation between the average citizenry and the monsters.

He burst into a clearing where a ring of men holding pitchforks and torches were poking at something that lay in the middle as they closed in on it. The women of the town craned their necks to get a look over their husbands as the greatest entertainment they had seen in years played out in front of their eyes.

“Die scum! It’s what you get for showing up here!” The townspeople hurled insults, and the energy in the air was rising to a fever pitch.

Halt yelled with a practiced voice that echoed over the fields with the weight of spiritual authority, “No one touch it lest you wish to become suspended between worlds, tainted with its essence.

A hush fell over the crowd as the ring parted to let him in, each townsperson careful not to so much as brush the hem of his cloak. The grotesque monster that lay in the center of the circle stole the air from his lungs with its visage, and he had to fight to keep his vision from turning red at the sight of what the villagers had done. Cuts crisscrossed the monster’s skin, and her fur was matted with more blood than it seemed like there should be in her whole body. This was bad. Halt needed to help her and fast, otherwise the situation was bound to escalate out of control.

He scooped the unconscious monster in his arms, hands carefully placed between cuts and pressing into her light brown fur. It was one of the most beautifully cared for coats he had ever seen, and it was a crime that such a perfectly manicured and bushy tail couldn’t wag with abandon. “I will take her to the river to conduct the ritual, do not follow me there unless you all wish to be cursed with the mark of the monster and blinded.” If nothing else, he was grateful that the townspeople’s superstition could occasionally be used to his advantage.

She moaned softly while he ran her to the river, she was in a lot of pain, and he could see that each step he took sent a fresh wave coursing through her body. Could he have picked the river up instead he would have, but without such an option he carried her forward, grateful when he could at last lay her on the soft moss that grew on the riverside. He pulled the basic medical equipment out of his bag and immediately got to work.

The first order of business was to clean and bandage each of the myriad wounds the townsfolk had given her, with any luck he could still get her back on her feet and save Rivermarch from evoking the monsters revenge—he could salvage his own relationship with the intelligent monsters of the parish who he hadn’t even met yet.

He started with her head, gently cleaning the two upright dog ears that graced the top of it. Luckily neither of them appeared to have taken any direct hits—that would have been a tragedy beyond contempt—but the left one was nicked in a way that he didn’t think would heal. He bandaged it while trying not to think about how fluffy and soft her ears were before moving on.

The fur on her face was thin, and it too seemed to have taken less of a beating than the rest of her body. He rubbed some water on her small, wet nose before following her gently sloping jawline down the neck, bandaging and cleaning all the while. The fight he fought to keep his thoughts in check was one of the most difficult he had been in. Why did it have to be a kobold, couldn’t it have been some lesser monster. He shook his head, there wasn’t time to think, he had to help.

Only the tattered remnants of a shirt covered her shapely breasts, so he pulled it off, he had to be thorough if he wanted to help. He couldn’t afford to miss even a single scratch on her body. Her whole body was firm, and her small, perky breasts were no exception. He quickly washed the blood out from between them, remaining focused as he did so, then bandage her chest, the cuts on which were too great to count.

The rest of it was a blur of fur and toned muscle, and once he finished, he pulled off his cloak and wrapped the kobold in it. The sun had fallen in the sky during the hours he had slaved over her, and the last of the pastels were being erased form it now. He didn’t think he would be able to forgive the townsfolk for what they had done to her but hoped that he might cool off by the time morning came around.

“Please be okay.” The sound escaped from his throat as a whisper as he lay down next to his kobold charge and cast a final gaze over her figure before trying to get some sleep for himself.

A weight not so heavy as to be painful but just heavy enough to wake Halt up pressed into his stomach, and he felt the back-and-forth swishing of something as it brushed over his thighs.

Okay Halt, be calm. He told himself while slowly opening his eyes. Kobolds are known to be playful and capricious. If we just explain the…Oh no! Once his eyes were opened, he caught sight of the kobold sitting on him which definitely had its pros and cons. Good: the increased healing factor of monsters appeared to have closed up all of her wounds overnight and she looked healthy. Bad: Her muscular thighs were pulled close to his body, pinning him to the ground, her light brown hair was falling just so onto her breasts, the strands had split to allow her perky nipples to peek through the curtain, and, from Halt’s vantage point, the place where her toned midriff met the underside of her breasts was on full display, and that was very bad.

She spoke in a voice that was soft and wild and flowed like honey, “Good morning, mister eidolon.” As she spoke, she brought her face within inches of his own, entrancing him with her large, emerald eyes while she allowed the tips of her nipples to draw patterns on his chest.

“G-good morning, miss kobold.” He was fully erect now, and his mind was starting to go fuzzy. Dammit. It just had to be a kobold. The smile on his face in no way betrayed his inner thoughts.

She pulled herself even closer to him, and the scent of her, like the forest during spring with a strong note of juniper berries, further undermined this eidolon’s already weak resolve. Her voice was now a whisper of honey in his ear, “I trust that you’re the one that saved me from those villagers and got me all bandaged up.” A tantalizing silence filled the air while she rubbed the side of her face against his, sending a shiver running down his spine. “That wasn’t very eidolon like of you.”

She pulled back with an innocent look on her face while shifted her weight back to sit on Halt’s now erect member. She twisted around thoughtfully; the emotions she didn’t show on her face fully expressed by the excited, playful wagging of her bushy tail. “My name is Lisanna, but you can call me Liz. Since you saved my life, I think it’s only fair that I thank you properly,” she reached back and slid her hand across his throbbing penis, “and it looks like you agree.”

With the end of her sentence, she launched herself forwards, locking her lips onto his and releasing her carnal desires as their tongues began to engage in their complicated, slimy dance. He fought back, shuddering with waves of pleasure as his tongue played around the sharp canines of her mouth and his hands played over the short fur of her back, feeling each crevice and dimple of the well-developed musculature that lay underneath. She tasted like honey and apples, like the forest green, and, most of all, like the companionship that he had been longing for over the past few years. Who cared if she was a monster as long as she was willing to accept him—and it certainly seemed like she was.

Their mouths disconnected only temporarily, so that she could slide his shirt up and over his head, releasing his well-built body so that hers could play on it. Fresh waves of desire coursed through both of them when his skin made contact with her body. Soon, she had his pants off as well. Her large, wolflike hands were surprisingly deft with the required movements, and the feeling of his long, neglected cock rubbing against her well-developed ass was the last straw for him.

He used the years of martial training to smoothly flip their positioning and land his mouth on her nipple in one deft movement even as he began to tease her vagina with the tip of his penis. She let out a soft moan, and her face seemed to go blank with pleasure. This was going better than either of them had expected, and now the sunrise had painted the river in pastels and crowned the wheat with a golden halo; it was as if the gods were lending them their approval by providing such a scenic idyll to fulfill their carnal desires in. He sucked her nipple for a moment, then gently blew across the top of it, stiffening it with the cold and giving her further pleasure. She tensed her muscular legs and grabbed onto his back with her feet and hands, well-manicured claws leaving scratch marks as a testament to the ferocity of their battle. Her fur didn’t taste bad or shed into his mouth, so he launched into a full assault. He ran his mouth over all the smooth surfaces of her body, all the while teasing her opening with his penis.

Once neither of them could hold out anymore, he plunged himself fully into her, and they both let out fresh moans of pleasure as fresh waves of the rapturous feeling exploded out from their genitals. They were only allowed to continue in this way for a short moment, a defining moment in the development of the young eidolon, a moment that held more importance than any other, but a short moment nonetheless.

“Mr. Eidolon! Were you victorious?” They had both missed it in the throes of rapture, but it sounded like a number of townsfolk were now walking towards them through the wheat. They would be upon them in seconds.

Liz pressed herself hard into him one last time, leaving her mark on his back, then she disentangled herself from him with a lusty smile stretched across her face. As she stood there, his cloak clinging to the curves of her well-developed body, he panted, “My name is Halt, you know where to find me if you would like.”

“Nice to meet you Halt.” She disappeared into the wheat, leaving only her paw prints behind and Halt kneeling on the moss with his penis still throbbing a mournful song for its lost partner.

He struggled back into his pants, and slipped his boots back on, but he felt a delicious pain rippling down his back as he struggled back into his shirt. Small lines of fire marked it, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to forget his encounter with Liz anytime soon.

I hope all the monsters in this parish are that friendly. He shook the thoughts from his head as he saw the first villager cautiously peek into the clearing.

“Stay back!” The sound ripped from his throat with a passion he didn’t expect; it was going to take him a little while to calm down after what had just happened. “It will take a couple days for the magical residue from the ritual to fade from this area.” He didn’t know if any of the townsfolk were hunters, and he couldn’t risk the chance that one of them would be able to identify and follow Liz’s footprints.

He strode back into the wheat field where the monstrous townsfolk awaited him and away from the place where a more human monster had accepted him. After all, he still had a job to do.

“I assume,” Halt said to the burly man that must have been sent to check on him as they walked through the amber waves of grain and back to the town, “that she was not the monster I was originally called here to deal with.” His voice was stern, and his brows carried a deep furrow. The companionship he desired could not come from those capable of the cruelty he had seen yesterday, and he distinctly remembered the burly man’s form in wielding a pitchfork.

“No, I’m told that it was the merchant Babbit that sent you that letter. His wife left in the still of the night to seek the sanctuary of the cathedral almost a week ago.” That matched up with when Halt had received the letter.

“Is there anything els-”

The burly man snapped his sentence with a curt yet reverent tone, “Sorry, I’m just here to make sure you didn’t die. You’ll have to talk with Babbit yourself if you want to know anything else.” The man closed his mouth like the devil was trying to steal his tongue, and Halt knew that he wouldn’t be able to get anything else out of him. So be it, from what he’d seen there was probably nothing serious going on except for the merchant’s overreaction.

The rest of their walk passed in a tense silence that was almost heavy enough to bend the wheat around them: Halt’s mind eventually wandered to ponder the events, and the girl, of the previous night, and the burly man thought of nothing except for the horror stories he knew about those who associated with eidolons.

By the time the sun had fully resumed its torturous onslaught, they found themselves standing before a large wooden house that seemed to cast a shadow over those near it. Indeed, Halt noticed that it was made of a different type of wood than the others which meant it had been imported at a hefty price. His paycheck may be higher than he had initially assumed, but at the cost of dealing with what type of man.

Feeling the beginning of a headache already forming behind his eyes, he rapped twice on the red painted door, the fact that this was a local practice for marking a haunted site flitted through his mind, but the door was soon replaced by a clearly haunted face.

“Hello, Mr. Babbit.” Halt gave a short nod. “My name is Halt. I believe that your wife brought this letter to me.” A courteous smile was spread across his face, this was a customer service industry after all, but the other man never seemed to notice. He merely glanced over the parchment with bloodshot eyes hidden under a heavy brow.

“Yes, indeed.” The man stepped back and gave Halt a full view of his heavyset frame and fine clothing. Every aspect of his appearance screamed of an opulence that had corrupted his character. “Please, come in.”

The inside of his home was dark, with drapes drawn over all of the windows so that what little sunlight did seep in served only to cast long, fuzzy shadows that created holes in the floor and monsters in the corners of the rooms.

It was clear that the merchant thought his house was haunted; all the mirrors in the house had been turned upside down and encircled in salt. That was good, it meant that at least some of the superstitions were based in fact.

Mr. Babbit plopped himself into a chair with his shoulders slumped and head hung. He gestured for Halt to follow his example but didn’t look up to verify before wearily beginning to speak.

He gesticulated slowly while words fell out of his mouth like week-old slugs, “It all started about a month ago.” His knuckles were white on the arms of his chair as he forced himself to remember and relive. “That was when we started to see them: the visions.” He spat the last word and locked in terror while an ominous creak rose up from the floorboards to emphasize his point. “They weren’t awful the first night. Just a happy family playing with their little girl on the bank of a river. The only reason my wife or I thought it was strange was because we had both had the same dream.”

Halt could already see where this was going, so he leaned forward to pay close attention to the man’s words; a vengeful spirit wasn’t something he would trifle with lightly.

“The next night, it was my wife and I laying on the bank of the river, but the little girl was nowhere in sight. A disgusting song, a lullaby that is popular in the town, was invading our heads from all directions while we watched ourselves slowly sink into the river mud. We both woke at the same time with a tightness in our chests.” He took a deep, ragged breath, and Halt thought that he saw the shadows behind the man wriggling slowly like a mass of tentacles. He shook the image from his head as the merchant continued.

“For days, we saw ourselves die in increasingly violent ways, with messages we couldn’t read written in blood each time we went to sleep. Always there was that same damned tightness in our chests when we woke up. My wife was beginning to crack, but we hoped we could wait it out. Then it began to come in the day. Every time we blinked, every time we touched each other, every time one of us so much as thought about it, we saw ourselves dismembered or worse.” What little facade the man had left was starting to crack, and Halt could see tears welling up in his eyes.

“My wife stopped seeing anything else, and her mind left her. She joined up with a caravan of traders I knew heading for the cathedral almost a week ago now. I closed the door and draped the windows, hoping to appease the spirit by keeping it in darkness, but I’m not sure how much m-more I can take.” His voice cracked with desperation and his eyes were wild.

“Everything I own is in this house, I can’t lose it.” There it was, more than even his wife, this man was concerned for his wealth. Halt hated him. He reminded Halt of his own father, but he couldn’t walk away from what was clearly a ghost and retain his pride as an eidolon. No matter how much he wanted this man to suffer, there was a job to do.

“I’ll investigate it.” A glimmer of hope returned to the man’s eyes, and Halt wearily took note of the desperation that was required to make a townsperson happy to see him. “I’ll need to stay here while I do so that I can start to experience the same thing as you.” In order to exorcise a ghost, he knew that he had to know more about it.

“Of course, and I’ll pay you whatever you want if you save the house.” He started to rise from his chair but froze when he blinked. Moments later he continued what he was doing, looking slightly more defeated than before, but Halt thought that he appeared to have been largely desensitized to it. Halt wondered if he even cared about his own life as much as he did the fortune he had built, not that it made much of a difference to the work at hand. The most successful way to get rid of a haunted house is to burn it to the ground along with everything in it. The look on the merchant’s face when that came to pass was something Halt was very much looking forward to.

He followed the bounce of the merchant’s chin to a small, bare room in the back of the house. No decorations garnished it’s walls, and it was the only room of the house to not have a lavish fur rug strewn across the floor.

“I hope that you’ll be okay staying in here.” He gestured to a small bed pushed into one corner of the room. “It should have everything you need.” It was surprising to see such a bare room in such an expensive house; this man’s demeanor and actions grew ever more suspicious. He shifted from foot to foot in the doorway with a furrow in his brow and his bloodshot eyes trained on Halt.

After a long moment of silence, Halt realized what was going on, “I’ll let you know if I need anything. For now, silence is my only request.” He felt a little bad for thinking it, but it would be too soon if he ever heard the depressed man’s sluggish voice irritate his ears again. He nodded, turned, and heavy footsteps sounded an unsteady gait while he trudged back to his armchair.

It was time for Halt to get to work. He didn’t feel a malicious presence in the room with him, but he announced himself anyway, speaking in the low tone usually reserved for the congregation of a church service, “My name is Halt, and I’m here to help. I’m going to close my eyes now and reach out to you. If you let me know what your side of the story is, I’m sure I’ll be able to work towards an amicable solution.” He thought he might be being a little optimistic given the bloody visions that had been described to him, but the visions of the merchant’s first night hadn’t set well with him. He thought that there might be something more. After all, a vengeful spirit rarely decided to prey on a complete stranger.

He closed his eyes and lay back on the bed, hands folded behind his head. Not even the poking from the mattress could detract from the fact that this was the first bed he had seen since he walked from his cottage and across the surface of the sun to Rivermarch. A tingle of pain from the scratches that decorated his back brought a smile dancing across his face. Darkness blossomed out from the inside of his mind, and he was out.

A girl danced on the riverside, taking delight in each step as the silky mud squished between her toes, and her spotless white dress twirled around her. Her mother and father nodded their faceless heads along to the same imaginary song that the girl danced to, and all that could be seen of them was their smile. There was no sun in the sky, but a relaxed, ambient light seemed to be flooding in from all directions regardless. There was love in the air.

The angle changed, and now a young girl with a dirty face and mud-caked dress peered out at them from the wheat field. Tears were waves cresting on the sea of her azure eyes as she watched the girl with a palpable longing. Bruises marked her wrists, and the faint brown of dried blood was visible on the back of her dress. As she turned to walk away, the lacerations that covered the bottoms of her feet were brought to view.

The girl aged as she walked through the wheat, growing taller and more mature. It was only for the bruises that she was still recognizable, only for the tears that poured like rain from gemstone eyes.

The now grown woman stopped to drop to her knees in front of two barely raised plots of earth decorated with only sticks, and Halt’s point of view fell through the ground at dizzying speed only to land back in the bed where he lay.

Halt lay still as he attempted to process what the ghost had shown him; he had just confirmed that diagnosis at least. He needed to take a look at the rest of the house. Now that he thought about it, the house was much too large for just the Mister and Misses Babbit to live comfortably.

Given that it was a ghost, he had a limited amount of time to deal with it before it acquired enough energy to take on a material form and acquired the ability to go beyond the grounds of the house. He yawned wide and planted his feet carefully on the creaky wood flooring of the small room; the last thing he needed right now was to wake up Mr. Babbit. He pulled open the door to his room and started his investigation.

There were three other doors he had seen in the small hallway that terminated in the room he had been given. One of the rooms had to be a bedroom for the Babbits, and the room he was in could be explained away as a guest room, but what of the other two? There was no need for a bathroom in this town as it had a number of public buildings built for the purpose. He prayed he would yet find the damning evidence he so hoped to stumble across; the bruises he had seen on the girl in the dream reminded him all too much of the ones he had known so well as a child.

A lock on a door was no more obstacle for him than if it had been tied shut with a string, and within seconds he was standing inside a room mostly identical to his own: a single bed was pushed into the corner, and no other decoration was there except for a tapestry that covered almost the entirety of one wall.

A sharp tug later, and the expensive tapestry was fluttering to the ground. Behind it, carved into the wall, were three stick figures riding on a boat. The largest of the three had a ‘C’ scratched into the wood above it, and the other two had a ‘M’ and ‘S’. The drawings were made with all the precision expected of a child. This was the chase. Halt had his prey in his sights, and soon he would be able to pounce. Had it been up to him entirely, he would have struck down Babbit where he slept and drug him to the local magistrate, but he was going to need more evidence than he had if he wanted to take the side of the monster in an official capacity.

He carefully hung the tapestry back over the wall and walked back out into the hallway, realizing by now that the ghost was helping him by keeping Babbit asleep while he searched through the house.

The door to the next room had well-greased hinges, the master bedroom no doubt. Halt moved on; he was not seeking things that would be kept on relaxed display in a bedroom. The last door on the hall had the veneer of dust on the hinges which he sought. The lock on it was made of cheese, and no sooner than Halt realized it was there, it clattered to the floor with a jarring sound that made him jump. It looked like he was a little more on edge than he had thought.

Worn children’s clothing was heaped in one corner of the room, and a long unused spinner’s wheel stood solitary in another corner. By it, hidden in a shadow thrown by the wheel, a steel ring was bolted into the wooden paneling of the wall. His vision flashed red not for the first time since he had arrived in Rivermarch, and he wondered if there were any moral lines that the people of this town wouldn’t cross.

Halt had found his smoking gun and he had only been on the scene less than a day. To him, that meant it stood to reason that he had only uncovered the tip of the iceberg, but he had no more time to search.

“Halt.” A weak moan called out to him from the room he had assumed to be the bedroom. The voice was followed by the heavy thud of feet on the floor, so he slowly shut the door behind him and stepped back out into the hallway.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Babbit.” He hoped the forced courtesy in his voice didn’t sound too fake, but he needn’t have worried. Mr. Babbit was too far gone himself to be worried about others.

“I’ve just seen myself die again, chained to the wall and left to die while centipedes and roaches ate me from the feet up.” His voice was picked up some from the sluggish pace of earlier, but the tone remained dismal. He was a man who knew he had sold his soul to the devil and could see the end drawing near. “I…felt…every second of it.” Halt sighed, it was no doubt the fate the man deserved, but if the ghost ended up killing him, her personality might become warped. He needed to materialize her.

“I’m very close to a solution now, Mr. Babbit.” He smiled a smile that gave the shadows chills. “Just go back to sleep. There shouldn’t be any more visions tonight.” The ghost would be busy after all, he would make sure of it.

“C,” He whispered to the abyss once he was sitting on the bed in his room once again, “I’m going to pull you to me now so that you can absorb my energy and materialize.” Willing transfer of energy by contact was the fastest way to feed a ghost energy. “Don’t resist, I’m trying to help.” He dropped a splash of myrrh oil on the sheets and took a pill of crossweed extract that he had made during one of the long summer days; it would bring him halfway to her by slowing his heartbeat to incredibly low levels.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes became hours as he probed into the darkness with his mind, reaching for the consciousness that he knew only as C. He passed over the murky aura of the merchant and blocked out the far away colors of the townsfolk peacefully sleeping in their beds. He plunged headlong through the dark with his mind, pushing deeper into the space between spaces until his extremities began to go numb. It was there that he found her. Her back was turned to him, but no dress covered her slender shoulders or silky skin, and there was no mistaking the marks he had seen in his vision. Who knew how long she had been languishing in this place?

“I know that you know who I am.” Halt’s voice was soft here, for fear of bringing other unwanted guests upon them. He walked in front of her and held out his hand for hers, but as she picked up her head, he saw something in her eyes. Dark shadows had crept over her azure irises; it was the sign of spiritual corruption, a process that would leave her as a malicious shadow of her former self.

“I can help you.” He was careful not to touch her, but he brought his face closer to hers. “I understand how you feel, and I can help you.” His forced his self-image to morph to an adolescent state where he too bore bruises around his wrists and a busted face.

A glimmer of recognition passed behind her eyes, so he pushed on. “Please, let me help you!” His voice squeaked with the desperate energy of a young boy, and it was enough to convince her to reach out her hand to touch his.

With a swell of nausea, he was laying back in the bed. Tingles of static were racing up and down his right arm, and he found his left following the smooth curve of a woman’s spine up to the back of her head. He kept his eyes closed and pulled her head in to his chest as she slowly entwined her thick thighs around his legs. Her fists clasped on his shirt, and she pulled herself until her large breasts were almost pressed flat against him. His penis had long since enlarged itself, but this was neither the time nor place for him to placate his desires. She was feeding on his energy and his only concern was to make her feel safe until she was done.

Already, all traces of abuse had vanished from her body, and the constant tremor had stilled. This was all he had ever wanted out of this job, to make someone feel safe; he had never anticipated that it might be the monsters he would be comforting.

“It’s okay.” He stroked her hair, and it grew smoother by the second. “I’m here for you. Drink as much as you want.” As an eidolon, he had access to an ocean of spiritual energy, and he had never found a better way to use it than this.

“Thank you.” Her voice squeaked out from his shirt. It was a parfait, delicate and sweet, and a far cry from the aggressive, thick honey that Liz had wielded. Nevertheless, the effect on Halt was similar. He melted. Now that the darkness had been expunged from her, he could see that there was no way she was the villain here. Sure, she had been trying to kill her parents and had driven her mother mad, but emotions are amplified in the spirit world. Besides, who knew what heinous acts she was seeking vengeance for?

He wrapped her more tightly in his arms, and they laid there for an hour that they both wished would last forever. Their memories and minds intermingled as well, both fully vulnerable in the other’s arms. It was a deeper and more peaceful camaraderie than Halt had ever known, and without saying a word they came to know each other better than anyone ever had. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Babbit did not find in himself the same desire for peace, and they soon heard the sound of heavy footfalls approaching the door. Halt assumed that the habit of waking in cold sweats every couple hours was a hard one to break.

“What’d you do, son.” There was jubilation in his voice, but at the sound of it C recoiled like a slave hearing the crack of their masters whip.

“Shh. Circe.” He whispered her name into her ear, and it calmed her. She didn’t know the last time it had been anything other than a scream; she didn’t know that it could sound so peaceful. “Wait for me just outside, but out of sight. I’ll free you from this man.” She had a determined look in her eyes as she stood, their azure glow had returned and was the sole point of illumination in the room, but Halt still couldn’t make out her features clearly. She gave a final squeeze of his hand before turning incorporeal and passing through the wooden panels of the wall. Now it was Halt’s turn.

He slapped himself a few times and put on the most distressed air he could. “Mr. Babbit!” He slammed the door open, blowing a hole in the wood paneling of the wall as he did so.

“What’re you-” Spittle flew from the swollen lips of the lobster man, but Halt refused to allow him time to react. Striking while the enemy is confused is the first principle of fighting a monster, and this man was as bad a monster as any.

“I’ve lost. The spirit has grown too strong.” He clutched the man’s shoulders, dripping fire dust behind him as they flew into the main room. The floor became a river of wood beneath them.

“Wai-” Flustered and sputtering, the merchants already stressed mind appeared to be overheating, and Halt fancied that he could see gears getting stuck and warning lights going off behind his eyes.

“No time to wait! We’ve got seconds at most before desublimation!” He impressed himself with the quiver he forced into his voice, and he dumped the rest of the pouch of fire dust onto the floor.

“N-”

“We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t escape.” The merchant’s timid, baffled voice was flooded by Halt’s. He never had a chance. “Get outside!” He grabbed the merchant, still dressed in his nightclothes, by the scruff of his neck and tossed him out into the dirt. Seconds later he followed, shaking the house as he slammed the door behind him. The smell of smoke was already folding itself into the air, and the light of the righteous conflagration was being cast out into the street. He caught a glimpse of Circe submerged in the shadows of some nearby shrubbery and discreetly gestured for her to stay down.

The light of the full moon was spilling onto this momentous occasion, but the wordless sobs of the merchant were beginning to draw folks from their homes.

“How could you?” Snot spilled from his nose as he clung to Halt’s cloak while still on his knees. The young eidolon’s stomach turned, but he only had to put up with him for a few moments longer.

“Get a horse. Go to the cathedral. Tell them what happened here. Only the priest there can help you now.” He stared blankly at Halt, still planted in the dirt.

“Go! Now!” He tore into Babbit’s eardrums with the more pent up aggression than he thought he had, and it was finally enough to shake the man. He stumbled off, down the dusty road and to the stables. Hopefully it was the last that Halt would see of his oversized ass.

All that was left separating him from Circe now was the growing crowd of rubberneckers, and that was but a trifle after the days he had been through.

“All your houses are made of wood. You might want to do something.” The fire had grown far too large to be stopped in the home behind him, and as he finished his sentence the ceiling toppled in a beautiful shower of sparks dancing with ash. It was enough to send the town into a frenzy of men and buckets.

“Circe.” He called with a new positivity in his voice while he took her hand in his own. “Time for us to go.” She nodded happily and led him by the hand back towards the wheat field and the river that lay beyond.

“There’s somewhere I want to stop by first.” He wondered if the power of her voice would ever decline but decided that it was unlikely. Kobolds and now ghosts: that was a list that he didn’t need to keep growing.

He took his time to study her while they walked in contented silence through the idyllic waves of grain illuminated just so by the silver sea of moonlight.

Her hair was moonlight, caught by the goddess and woven into silky strands. Within it, St. Elmo’s fire danced in streaks that matched the burning intensity of her azure eyes. The patterns etched within pirouetted captivating patterns, but with some great effort he managed to pull his eyes away.

Her skin was a flawless porcelain, the sanguineous tint of life had been replaced by a pale blue glow that shone faintly beneath the smooth, white surface. Her eyebrows were low and thin, meeting just above a delicate nose that crested beautifully above her plump lips. Her jawline was soft, in fact, all the lines of her body was soft. How strange it was that he would come across two such different women in a small stretch of time.

Her large breasts disappeared into the white, billowing gown that she seemed to have procured from nowhere. He wondered if he might be able to pass her off to the church as an angel descended from the heavens to aid him in his duties but decided that he was getting ahead of himself. It was understood that she would have to follow him to his house in order to continue receiving the flow of spiritual energy to maintain stability; sublimation would be a death sentence.

It is a common misconception that ghosts are a part of the spirit of the dead left behind to fulfill what they could not in life, and it is a ridiculous misconception at that. How could a mere part of a spirit possess any such agency? No, a ghost is a full copy made of the energy that departs a dead body. It exists completely separate as an entity. It cannot be guided towards the light because it is not dead but rather a living being composed of energy.

It was with all this information in mind that Halt had acted, and it was with all this information in mind that he had resolved to take responsibility for the decisions he had made. She was his to protect and take care of now.

The mesmerizing patterns in her hair led him to be absorbed into his own thoughts while they walked, and now when they stopped his focus was shattered.

“This is it.” Her voice was little more than a whisper that became part of the wind rushing between the wheat before it reached Halt, but he didn’t need any explanation to know what the three mounds of earth he saw before him were. He grabbed her around the shoulders and held her tight while they looked down on her grave. The tears he was expecting didn’t begin to fall.

“They died six months before I did.” Her voice was filled with nothing of resolve. “I promised them that when they did, I would escape and carry out their dreams. I spent the next six months chained to that spinner’s wheel before I followed them.” Tears still didn’t fall from her eyes, but rather a smile spread across her face. “You’ve given me a second chance at life, and I won’t let memories from the last one ruin it.” He could see the tears now; they were shimmering just behind the surface of her gemstone eyes.

“C’mon, I want to see that world.” She took his hand back in hers and pulled him towards the road with an intense focus as if to turn back would leave her a pillar of salt, and maybe it would have.

“I’ll start by showing you your new home.” Halt pulled ahead and led her down the start of the road, the image of the stick figures on a boat now forever lodged in his mind. If she wanted to see the world, he would show her a world of magic and monsters that she had never dreamt of.

The warm scent of sizzling bacon was the scent that gently caressed his brain to waking, and it was with a satisfied smile, the type that would generally be considered mutually exclusive with such an early morning, that he awoke to face the day. The sound of rain drumming its incessant song against the roof, and the plinking accompaniment of dripping water could not serve to cast a shadow on the day either. The whole of the parish would be celebrating the end of the long drought, and it gave Halt an excuse to spend the rest of the day lazing about with his new roommate.

A week had passed since he had taken Circe into his home with him. It was a week of companionship and camaraderie the likes of which he had only ever dreamt of. Their mental link kept them connected with an intimacy neither of them had ever experienced, and it was through this link that he felt vague waves of her emotions as she stood in the doorway of the bedroom with breakfast in her hands. Her skin was still porcelain and her hair remained as glistening moonlight, but her glowing blue eyes had a loving new warmth, and her body was more stable than it had ever been.

“Good morning.” Her voice was that of a morning songbird; it swept under his eyelids and pulled them open. She wore nothing but a white apron, showing off the gentle swell of her thick thighs and barely containing the robust mountain range of her breasts. Her smile was as innocent as it could be, and she pretended not to notice the change of elevation in their sheets while Halt feasted his eyes on the figure that stood in his doorway.

“So, which one of us is going to eat first?” She picked up a single piece of bacon with her delicate fingers and crunched off the tip. “You?” She set the plate she carried down on the night table as she pushed herself onto the bed; working herself around until she was in full mount with Halt’s engorged member nestled snugly between her cheeks.

He wasn’t sure if she ever finished her question out loud, but the rush of lust he felt through their connection was more than enough for him. After all, he had read in a book that the polite thing to do is to first serve the guest.

He pulled her onto him, her nipples coming to rest on his chest with only the thin barrier of cotton between them. Her pink lips raced to close the gap between them; she appeared to be exceptionally hungry. The cocktail of pleasure, desire, and warmth that they both felt as their mouths collided began to resonate across their link, each bounce sending shudders through Halt and Circe as they loved each other.

He flipped her onto her back and tore off her apron. The desire was being built up into a crescendo through their mental link, and both of them lay still for a moment as they struggled back and forth in their mindscapes. She pushed into his, and him into hers as they entangled not only their bodies but their spirits in the purest expression of affection.

They rose ethereally above the bed and above the roof to continue their fight on the roof above. Her fingers were pinpricks of ecstasy on his skin, and the rapturous look on her face showed that she felt the same.

The rain now danced and slid across their skin, cutting traces of pleasure with the enhanced sensations of their spiritual forms. Would an observer have noticed, they would only have reported another case of St. Elmo’s fire dancing across the rooftop, but for Halt and Circe they meant to dance no more than the wind meant to dance across the plains.

They were a force of nature having cast off physical bodies and mental limitations. Their souls were laid bare to each other in that moment, and even as their spiritual bodies tangled in ecstasy ephemeral and eternal, they gave no thought to themselves.

His spiritual body entered hers on the roof of the eidolon’s cottage, and their bodies fully merged into one spirit overflowing with a mind-numbing pleasure. How long they stayed like that, neither of them could say. They only knew that when they returned to their bodies, they were heaped on top of each other in a mess of sweat and cum and that it was still raining outside.

They washed themselves together in a cold shower, both feeling rejuvenated from the experience they had shared.

The rest of the day passed in relative peace, the two simply enjoying each other’s presence as the grey outside faded to darker grey, but as the last of the twilight was fading from the sky outside, there came a sharp knock at the door. The sound filled Halt with some excitement, maybe the rain had encouraged the people of the parish that they could afford to pay for an eidolon’s services. He desperately needed payment after leaving his last job with hands full, but not of what he expected.

“I’ll get it.” Halt rose and moved Circe off of his chest. He put on his best sales face while he opened the door and threw Circe a reassuring smile when he pulled it open. It wasn’t likely that this was the church looking for her, but it wouldn’t hurt to be safe.

A girl wearing nothing but a soaked cloak sat on his doorstep, and her face lit up with a broad smile that would have likely terrified any other as she bared her sharp teeth at him. Her small, perky breasts and perfectly muscled body rippled under the cloak as she seemed to crouch down a bit. It was a dazzling display, and Halt was forced to lean over with his hands on his knees to hide his reaction.

“Halt.” She pounced into action, knocking him backwards onto the floor. Her paws were pressed hard into his shoulders, and her wet nose was pressed against his own while her tail smacked his fully erect penis from side to side.

“Liz!?” The shock of the situation—and the muscular kobold—kept him pinned to the ground while he struggled to grasp the situation. She seemed to be in full health other than the notch that remained torn into her ear.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” He was disappointed in himself as the lame response fell limp from his mouth.

Her smile further twisted her face as she started to excitedly lick him, and he could feel a confusion laced with malice emanating from Circe as she watched from her hiding place. It was going to be a much longer night than he had thought.