Ghosts of the Past

CHAPTER 2 – Lost Souls

Date: 6th of February. First Year of the Game. Location: Canterlot.

“The train traveled at around fourty or fifty kilometers per hour. Only if I’m not mistaken, and that is possible since my impression of speed may be false due to the look of things here. Anyway. The travel to Canterlot lasted a bit less than half a day, so the distance between Ponyville and Canterlot should be approximately five hundred kilometers. This place is huge. The country must be about as big as the whole United States, if not bigger… And let’s not mention the rest of the continent, and the entire world. This planet probably is the size of Jupiter.”

Lost in my thoughts, I stayed in the train a little too long, and had to jump off of it when it started to go to its next destination. The train was already at full speed and I rolled around on the ground. I was nothing more than a disjointed puppet, with limbs bending at improbable angles constantly.

Lifting myself up after jumping wasn’t hard, and I didn’t feel any pain. Somehow, I wish I could have hurt myself. The memories of the last time I felt pain were comforting. At least, I was home. I know that I asked Mercury to send me in another reality, but I still missed my place a little.

I headed to the castle, hoping to find a solution there.

Date: 7th of February. First Year of the Game. Location: Canterlot Castle.

When I first got to the castle, the most unsettling was the layout. Not only was it absolutely nonsensical; it was also impractical in case of a siege. In the medieval castles I visited during my youth, each room had a purpose and a means of defense. Stairs were made a certain way to ease the residents’ resistance to their opponents; and there were big portcullises, moats, thick walls, and several gigantic armories filled with various weapons.

Celestia’s castle did not look like any of these old vestiges; and was instead rather similar to castles dating back to the Renaissance. It was full of precious furniture and various artifacts displayed in glass cases, there were large fancy windows on every wall, and paintings decorated the inside while statues stood in the garden outside…

However, these were the only real similarities with the most recent castles I’ve seen. Most of the royal castle here was, simply put, the embodied nightmare of a lunatic architect with a fetish for towers. It didn't really have anything to do with what one would call a castle on Earth.

In fact, it was almost as if there was no actual castle... As if there only was a group of towers piled up somewhere on the flank of a mountain. Yet, some rooms did justify the name of this place. For example, the throne room. A place with a dedicated throne room can't really be called anything else than a castle, I guess.

Regarding that throne room, it was quite impressive, and it showed an undeniable megalomania oozing from all the decorations and furniture. Celestia and Luna certainly didn’t live in poverty.

Or, well, Celestia certainly didn’t. I don’t think there are a lot of castles like this one on the moon.

Date: 10th of February. First Year of the Game. Location: Canterlot Castle.

As I was watching the two princesses fulfilling their royal duties, answering queries, I had a glorious idea. The kind of idea that a man with an overdeveloped sense of humor can only make real, after spending several months without anyone to prank.

I walked in front of the princess and her subject, and while Celestia was talking, I waved my hand and made it pass through her face several times quickly. The expected result happened quickly: she sneezed on the plaintiff, and he was instantly covered in a million microscopic droplets of royal saliva, his eyes and mouth clamped shut instinctively.

While she was apologizing, I kept waving my hand, and she sneezed on him again in the middle of a sentence.

The stallion walked away laughing, certain to tell that humorous tale to children some day, while Celestia looked at him from the corners of her eyes, hiding her blushing face with a hoof.

During the next hour, I never stopped waving my arm. She constantly sneezed, wondering what was happening to her, as various magicians and doctors examined her. For most of the ordeal, Luna was laughing quietly, and during the moments when she didn’t try to conceal her laugh, the Moon Princess downright rolled over the floor laughing. Even some of the theoretically stolid guards couldn’t refrain from grinning under their helmets.

Unfortunately for me, she didn’t solve her sneezing problem, nor did her army of servants. I actually expected her to, but it seemed that the magic isolating me from the rest of the world wasn’t something she knew about.

Seeing as this prank distracted me for the time being, I kept fooling around for a while. Indeed, a few hours later, I also did it to Luna while she was raising the moon. The look on her face was incredible. The moon kept shaking in the sky, often ceasing its ascent and going back down while she was sneezing… Cursing in old English, Luna was hilarious, and Celestia took advantage of the situation to mock her too. It was her revenge, in some way.

I guess this is what trickster gods feel like. It must be fun to be one of them.

Date: 16th of February, First Year of the Game. Location: Canterlot Castle.

I stayed in the library during that week, and didn’t see any book specifically about intangible people. I knew it wouldn’t be very helpful anyway since I couldn’t open them, but I wanted to be sure.

I also visited a lot of the “treasure rooms”, several tiny museums with invaluable goods scattered around the castle. It was interesting, and very instructive. I wish I had a camera at that time though; some of the art objects displayed there were absolutely breathtaking. Among them, I recognized a few, including a certain piece of enchanted stained glass given to the Princesses not so long ago.

Date: 20th of February, First Year of the Game. Location: Canterlot.

The day before, I decided the castle was useless to me. I couldn’t do anything there, and the only people who might have been able to help me had been reduced to sneezing hairballs without understanding what caused their unending torment.

Therefore, I decided to visit the town itself and distract myself a while, in order to forget about my general helplessness.

Canterlot was pretty, but even more nightmare-inducing than the castle. There were small alleyways about everywhere behind the houses, bridges suspended in the air between some houses, a multi-level system of districts even worse than that of Minas Tirith, an impressive network of stairs and sewers that led to each of the city’s corners… It was mind-blowing, but not always in a good way. Without a map, it’s very easy to get lost in Canterlot, unless you’re a native. And, honestly, I think that even natives must have trouble with that town.

My trip through the city was instructive regarding the ponies’ way of life; but it didn’t get me closer to a remedy for my condition. I decided it was time to get out of here, and maybe go back to the Everfree Forest, in that cursed mausoleum. After all, some Pieces had all they needed right under their noses at the beginning, according to their stories. It could have been my case too.

On my way to the city gates, I had to pass through a mob of agape onlookers, who happened to be the witnesses of an entertaining fight between a drunkard and a city guard.

I kept looking at the fight while walking, and my foot bumped into someone.

“Oh, sorry.”

And I kept on walking.

Ten seconds later, I realized what I did. Instantly, I turned back and screamed at the top of my lungs: “HEY! YOU THERE! WAIT!”

The pony looked at me for a while, and I could see him more clearly. He watched me with colorless eyes, not as frightening as they were strange; before bolting away inside the unaware mob.

“Ha! Probably an enchanter or something who is under the effects of a spell related to the one Mercury cast on me. The hunt is on. I’m not letting you escape.”

The fleeing pony tried everything to make me get lost. Running through other mobs, running in circles around some buildings, going in the underground sewer systems… He even tried jumping on a few roofs, but that didn’t work particularly well for him and he fell on the street.

Several times, he almost managed to outwit me. But, as I noticed when the chase began, there was a long floating cable that followed him everywhere. Sometimes, it really helped me to locate him, for example when he turned in another street twice in a row.

However, he did not ever seem to get tired, just like I did, and that made everything considerably more complicated.

After half an hour of running around, I lost him for a few minutes and walked around randomly.

When I saw the floating white cable coming out of a door, unmoving, I understood this was my greatest chance to catch him. My hands pressing firmly on a wall near the door, I closed my eyes and passed through it.

Once inside, the first thing I saw was a terrified translucent pony who was almost crying, sitting on the ground in a corner of the room.

“Bu-bu-bu-buh, I don’t want to die again! Waaaaaaah…”

“Wait. What did you say?”

He looked at me with pleading eyes, crying a river of glowy white water that sunk through the floor. “I… Don’t want to d-die again. Please.”

“Why ‘again’? You are dead, seriously?”

I looked at him, my right brow furrowing by itself. He was still crying, but by the looks he gave me, it was obvious that he was unsettled by my question, albeit unable to answer it in his emotional state. I decided to shake him up a bit. “Listen to me, because I won’t repeat this. Either you answer my questions, or you ask me some questions of your own. But I need to know what happened to me.”

After he ceased crying, he managed to ask me something, although he stuttered a lot: “W-what are you ex-exactly? I’ve nev-never s-seen things like you bef-fore. I t-th-thought you came fo-for m-me.”

“Uh… I’m not from here, as you can see. But I’m not a monster, only a traveler! Please, believe me!”

“Oo-o-ok-ay. A-and I-I’m a, uh, a p-pony,” he asked, trembling in fear.

“Yes, I saw that. What else?”

“Uh… I’m also d-dead?” he asked hesitantly.

“I meant, what’s your name. But, well, being dead would be a rather logical explanation to why you are partially see-through and have this weird cable coming out of your back. Then, I have to ask you a question: am I dead too? Since I’ve arrived here, no one ever saw me, except you.”

He put his hoof under his chin, thought about it for a while, looked at me, pondered a few seconds again, before finally answering: “I can’t say you’re entirely d-dead, and that is very str-str-strange. I cannot see th-th-th-through you. You als-also walk through walls. I c-can’t do that.”

“Huh. So I’m not really dead. Somehow. Or I’m not only dead, at least.”

“W-w-what was that c-cable you spoke ab-about?” asked the dead pony.

“Look.” I grabbed the cable, and put it in front of his eyes.

“I don’t see any-any-thing,” he looked at me, confused.

“Huh? Strange.”

I tried tugging on it, but it only made him squeal. “Hey! This t-thing hu-urts!” he almost cried again.

“Oh, okay, I’ll stop, I’m really sorry, I don't know what it is either.

"So… Well, glad to meet you, sir. Please call me… JC,” I stated, before offering my hand to help him stand up. I didn’t really trust anyone here with my actual name.

He reluctantly put his hoof in my hand, and quickly jumped away as soon as he stood up.

“I-I’m- My name’s Shiny Ring. I was a j-jewel designer. I made lots of things like, uh, necklaces, t-tiaras, for example,” he hastily said, before shutting his mouth with an audible clap.

Looking at his flank, I indeed saw a very faint emblem: a golden ring.

“Things would be much easier if you stopped being so afraid of me. I’m not here to kill you again or anything else, I just wanted to know what happened to me,” I told him in my most comforting voice. It wasn’t exactly comforting, but it was the best I could do.

Hearing that, Shiny Ring calmed down a bit. “So, uh, JC, why d-did you chase me like this?”

“You are the first non-pass-through person I saw in months. I had to do something.”

“And, uh, if you don’t know what you are, d-do you know why you are here?” he asked with a curious expression.

“I str-HNNNNNNNNGaaaah!”

As soon as I tried to tell him the answer, every single nerve in my body activated itself. My brain received pain signals from everywhere at the same time. I collapsed on the ground, panting heavily, my hands on my head. The sensation was akin to being burned alive while also being tortured by a mad acupuncturist.

“Are you okay? What’s happening!” The pony was already panicking, almost crying again.

Fortunately for me, the “pain blast” lasted only about five seconds. After that, I fell unconscious.

Ten minutes later, I woke up, and managed to slowly stand up. “Apparently, this is what happens when I try to tell you something I don’t have the right to talk about.” Still aching from the experience, I sat on a table nearby.

“That is weird. I never felt any pain since I died,” he said.

“It’s new for me too, Mr. Shiny. I can’t say I liked it but it’s reassuring… Sort of.”

Wondering about his reason to be there, chatting with me, instead of living another life; I asked him a question. “So, since you’re dead, but not in Tartarus or already reincarnated, why are you there?”

“I… I don’t remember why. I died several decades ago at least, and some of my memories faded away with time. Now I’m just waiting for something to happen to me.”

“Well, sorry, but I don’t think I can help you. I’m trying to find out why I’m here too… And I don’t have a single clue. Do you know somepony –or any other species for that matter– that can see dead people?” I asked, hoping for a positive answer.

He scratched his head, not really enthusiastic: “Maybe in Tartarus…”

“Yeah, no, that won’t do it. I don’t want to go to hell just because I have questions to ask.”

“Maybe it sounds strange, but… Did anyone bring you here? After all, you aren't like this for no reason,” he asked, visibly still unsettled but less afraid of me.

I nodded silently in agreement.

“Then, maybe that person can help you.”

The Game’s rules popped up in my mind.

“Rule number eight: The Piece can talk to the God if he or she feels like he or she has been wronged.

“How exactly am I supposed to do that? I have no parchment, I’m not even sure I can send him a message…

“Unless that bastard gave me a way to do it without warning me, like he did with the ‘going through walls’ thing.”

Unsure of what would happen; I put my hands on the wall and looked at the scared pony.

“Wait for me, okay? I’ll be back soon. I just need to try something.”

I didn’t leave him the time to answer, and slithered through the wall again. Once I was back in the street, I walked around until I found a quiet place, near the sewers. Sitting on the ground, I closed my eyes and thought hard about Mercury appearing from nowhere, right beside me.

When I opened my eyes, he wasn’t there. Sighing, I started to walk back to Shiny Ring, when I heard an engine noise. My “employer” finally decided to show himself, riding his chromed motorbike.

“Took you some time to figure that one out, huh? I guess I should’ve given you a ‘user’s manual’ for magic matters,” the god mockingly told me.

“Heh. At least you took some time to learn about your surroundings, these months weren’t completely wasted.”

Mercury marked a little pause and jumped out of his bike’s seat, before coming to the point: “Now what do you want exactly?”

“I have a lot of questions, so please don’t vanish after the first one. Firstly: Why am I dead?”

“No. You’re not dead, only wandering in the same dimension as dead people. A-k-a the Soul Dimension.”

“Dimension? But I thought my original reality was a parallel dimension,” I said, not quite understanding what he was saying.

He examined me with the concerned look of a psychiatrist examining one of his patients, and answered: “You’ve got it all wrong… A dimension is a layer of a given universe. You come from another universe, which is a layer of the multiverse. It’s just two different types of layers. When you move between dimensions, you stay in the same reality. And 'reality' is a synonym for 'universe'. Get it?”

“Uh-huh. So… What do I do in the dimension where dead people reside?”

“First, because I’m the God of Boundaries as well as the Guide of Souls to the Underworld, and you should know that, because it implies that I gave you powers related to both these titles. And secondly, because I wanted you to discover your new powers without bothering people. Also, thirdly, keeping trying to get out of this dimension – even though you couldn’t – was a test of your will to live. You failed, since you stopped after a few tries. But I wasn’t expecting you to pass it anyway, it wasn’t important, and I didn’t want anyone to see you.”

“Why is it unimportant?”

“Because of the fourth reason: you are not exactly my Piece.”

“Huh? I’m not your Piece? What does that mean? Why am I here then?! And why did the contract say I was your Chess Piece?” I shouted, halfway between anger and incomprehension.

He rolled his eyes, and answered me with a condescending look: “Listen. The first few clauses said you would be referred as the Piece in the contract, but that didn’t mean you would be my Piece on Equestria. It was just a trick. All it was about was bringing you here, not making you my champion. Take it like this: you’re not a Piece, you’re a gift for my Piece, who will come here later.”

“I don’t want to be the useless sidekick!”

“Oh, you won’t, I can assure you. You role will be to make the Piece look good, but you will actually do most of the job. So what I want you to do, until my plan is ready, is to train. Use the few powers I gave you, and master them.”

“The only two powers I’m aware of are passing through walls and asking you to come here. I’m an expert at walking or running through walls, but now I’d appreciate some more magic to use.”

“Well, I guess I could unlock a part of your magic potential soon.”

Mercury marked a pause, his eyes drifting in the horizon, contemplating the situation. “Yeah… I’ll let you have some of my powers. Since I’m a nice guy, I’ll even make a list of my attributions as a God, so you can imagine what kinds of powers you will have, in the meantime. Hmm, let’s see.”

He pulled a surprisingly well-preserved scroll out of one of his jacket’s pockets, unrolled it and started reading.

“God of messages and other forms of communication, you saw why on Earth; God of contracts, commerce, and financial gain, so consider yourself the proud owner of the Merchant perk; Guide of Souls to the Underworld, which means I have to carry ‘lost’ souls back to Tartarus, just like your friend over there,” he said while gesturing towards the house where Shiny Ring was. “God of trickery – I love that one,” he said with a smirk. “God of thieves, very practical when it comes to agility and camouflage. God of eloquence, useful when you have to convince people to agree with you. God of arts – I’ve got to thank your Gaul ancestors for that one, they gave it to me and I didn’t even ask for it. God of boundaries – hopping through dimensions and realities is my hobby… Oh, yeah, this too. God of luck, although not as powerful as Lady Luck herself.”

He closed the scroll and put it back in his pocket. “And, finally, this is not really godhood-related, but I’m also a fantastic healer thanks to my caduceus; and certainly the best of all shapeshifters to ever exist. I fooled all of my relatives back in the day, and stole about everything they had at least twice.”

He gazed into the distance, looking nostalgic after reminding about that.

“I guess gods have an interesting life, to say the least.”

“Okay. Second question: when will your ‘plan’ get completed?”

“I don’t have to answer that, but since you ask and I’m in a good mood... It’ll more or less be done when you’ll be used to your new abilities. Most of your abilities are still locked. I don’t want you to be seen. However, you can interact with the material world now, through the use of the levitation spell that I just unlocked. Although your body cannot move between dimensions, I allowed your magic to do so.”

“Fine. Third question: Why do I see a weird cable coming out of dead people’s backs while they do not see it themselves?”

“Oh, that? It’s because you’re my employee. Since you have a part of my powers, you’re also a Soul Guide. And one of the perks to being a Soul Guide is to be able to see the Soul Links. These ‘cables’, as you call them, are in fact, during life, the connection between souls and bodies. But it’s mostly useful when you have to lead a soul to Tartarus and it doesn’t want to. It’s basically a leash for ghosts,” he said, laughing a bit. “And if you focus well enough, you can even see it on alive people, and eventually use it to kill them by separating their soul from their body.”

“Wow. Neat. Do I have the right to do that?”

“Avoid doing it. But you already can, actually. Any more questions?” he asked, visibly hurried to go back to whatever he was doing.

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, right. An important one. Why did timberwolves chase me, even though I wasn’t even in the same dimension as them, according to what you said earlier?”

Mercury looked at me like I was retarded – again – and answered: “They’re magical beings. They don’t only feed on flesh, but also on raw magic if they can. And, well, you are in another dimension indeed, but a tiny, tiny stream of magic goes through the dimensions when you move, so you appear like you’re made of raw magic. It’s like… Like if you were a magical stew pot running everywhere. They smell the ‘magical food’ inside you when you run, because your lid opens a bit. But when you stop, the lid closes, and they’re lost since they don’t smell anything. Get it?”

I laughed a bit before answering: “Yeah, yeah. But for a god of art, you suck at metaphors.”

“Poetry isn’t my thing. I’m more into music.”

“Now if you’re done mocking me, I’ll go,” he said, visibly vexed.

“No, wait! I still have a lot of questions! For example: Why did I feel a terrible pain when I tried to tell that ghost about the deal I struck with you?”

“Ah. That.

“Let’s just say it’s a part of my plan. It’s one of the sacrifices I had to make, to be able to do what I intend to do. It might cause a lot of suffering for you, but it only requires you to keep your mouth shut about who you were, and what you did with me. If you want to answer people when they ask you who you are, simply tell them you are a Soul Guide. It’ll be enough.

“Still more questions or may I leave?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Come on, let’s make this quick.”

“Okay. So… Let’s just expand a bit on the Soul Guide thing. What am I supposed to do exactly as a Soul Guide? I want to be credible if any powerful being asks me that…”

He pondered the question before answering: “In this world, I believe there is not much else to do than bringing the spirits of the dead to Tartarus, and more accurately, to Styx. Then, she brings them to Hades if they are worthy, and Hades brings them to the Fount, source of all life, where souls find a new body to use. But in fact, almost all spirits go there automatically and don’t need your intervention. It is only sometimes that this process is interrupted by a particular link between the person and the world. Some beings, like your new pony friend, actually really want to do something at the moment they die. Their mind clings to an idea so hard their spirit can’t go away from the body. And then, they get stuck here until their deed accomplishes itself by pure coincidence; or until a Soul Guide comes and takes them away.”

“Also, Soul Guides can destroy spirits, thus entirely excluding them from the cycle of reincarnation. No more questions?”

“ONE MORE THING!” I yelled, with my index raised in the air. “Why am I still a human?”

“Oh, come on. You’re not supposed to be seen by anyone under your true form, so it doesn’t really matter… However, you somehow have a point there, since you actually managed to find one of the very few sentient beings that can see you.”

He waved his arm, and a huge cloud of black smoke was raised from the ground, until it completely surrounded me. I levitated a bit, and went back down on the ground. The cloud disappeared.

“Ha. Better. Consider this your standard form, from now on! And I’m warning you: if you try to show your human form to anyone, you’ll suffer. A lot. Just like when you talk too much.”

Without bidding me adieu, he jumped on his chopper and drove through the wall.

I looked at my hands. Again, a chromed scythe and a dark gray glove appeared over them. My body was covered with an opaque black garment, so dark it did not reflect any light. I could feel cold metal against my cheeks, although I did not see anything. For some reason, the mask I knew so well was invisible to me, yet I knew it was there, I could feel it on my cheeks, and I could touch it with my scythe-less hand. It was as slick as I expected to, even though I touched it with gloves over my fingers.

“Well, that escalated quickly.”

Strangely, I could see my fingers touching the air in front of my eyes, and the gloves bending slightly on the mask’s curves; without actually feeling any pressure on my face.

This entire disguise felt like an illusion, sometimes intangible but visible, and sometimes invisible but tangible.

Behind me, a large tattered cape was flowing in the wind, grey on the inside and black on the outside. A similar hoodie appeared around my head, effectively hiding my entire body from anyone.

“Classy.”

At least, it went well with my “Soul Guide” new role.

“Meet the new me: the Angel of Death.”

A few seconds later, a ragged scroll appeared in my left hand with a green flash of light.

“Oh and by the way. I just unlocked your telekinesis ability. Prove you’re a decent Soul Guide, and bring your dead friend to Tartarus. Take care of his problems if you want, but he has to be brought to the Fount.

“PS: Tell me when you’re done, I’ll reward you.

“ – Mercury”

“What am I, a butler from outer space? Seriously... This guy is even lazier than me.

“If I knew he’d make me do that earlier, I would have told Shiny Ring my name was Alfred.”