Book 1 Chapter 25: The souls of the past

Chapter 25: The souls of the past

Moaning wails filled the entirety of Jaeger's sense of hearing.

Crying of those lost, crying of those dying.

Crying.

It filled Jaeger with the same type of feeling as when the ghost woman touched him, throwing into Jaeger her pent up emotion and sorrow. It was a flood of sadness, of pain, of anger and regret.

'Change that of the past to never occur again…'

This was about the only thought mingled amongst the noise that kept Jaeger from going insane.

"I won't let it happen to you again!" Jaeger screamed as hard as he could. He couldn't hear his own voice, but the voices soon quieted down.

"Save us then…or you'll die either way." A singular voice called out.

"Why…is that?" Jaeger asked, reassured of the fact he could hear his own voice again even though he couldn't see.

"Because…you'd be alone to face it all, standing together means we both live…"

The voice faded as a sudden pulling force ejected Jaeger out of what felt like thin air, with a *plat* Jaeger landed hard on the ground. Luckily the height wasn't so bad, or he may have cracked his nose.

*cough*

With a brush, any loose dirt was flung off from side to side while Jaeger's eyes gazed with bewilderment to the surrounding environment.

"How…no…I shouldn't ask that…"

The once gruesome and eerie swamp was now lush foliage, with countless examples of blooming plant life to showcase its health and prosperity. The full 180 degree turn left Jaeger feeling as if he may be stuck in a dream.

"Come on! I heard an elk over here!" A voice called out of what seemed to be a young male.

'Elk? I've never seen elk here…' Jaeger muttered as his pistol slowly slid from his armpit holster.

Not knowing what was to come, simply preparing oneself was not an ignorant thing to do.

"Huh?" A young male indeed came around a large tree with a bow strapped to his shoulder and several arrows in his hand. He looked Jaeger up and down along with his strange attire, but didn't seem to be worried at all.

Then, Jaeger felt it.

"Don't move" A voice said with the slight creak sounds of a bow from behind.

"I don't plan to" Jaeger holstered his gun and held his hands up, "I come from far away…I don't know why…but I was told to come help the people of this forest"

"Hmm…" Back and forth mutters sounded out, hidden by bushes of deep green and trees of dark brown.

A female voice like the ringing of bells sound out even closer, feeling like a breathe on the ear Jaeger whips around and takes a step back only to see a beautiful maiden in leather armor. For a second he is taken aback by her beauty, and also…who she is.

The ghost woman of the base.

"Uh…i…I am so sorry…" Jaeger mutters.

"HUH?" She says with a raised eyebrow.

"My name is Jaeger"

"MMmm…strange name, but it seems nice. Come with us, our village isn't far and you don't seem the bad type. If you are, we can just take you out from behind." She points leisurely in a direction, and with one step after another follows behind Jaeger as a group of ten more people including the first young male follows behind.

Jaeger twirls his bracelet, lighting up two runes for lightning.

'If…I save her…do I lose that in which I gain in the 'future'? or will there be a separate effect…the boon of mystery could give me something to replace it or…hmm…I might as well use it while I can…'

Jaeger 'reaches' under his cloak and from the mouth of a frog appears the lyre, with a flip the strap flies over his shoulder and then his hands begin to dance.

All the people behind are enamored by the sound that suddenly appeared from around Jaeger. It is sad, melancholy, happy, simply a mix of feelings that can't be defined merely by words.

Letting go of the wailing, the crying, and the feeling of the ghost woman now alive behind him, Jaeger plays the lyre to let the feelings escape him. At the cost of this, several people behind him become teary eyed. They wipe their eyes in bewilderment 'Is he that good?' they ask themselves.

Jaeger however as he releases his emotion begins to think deeply about what is happening.

'1. The ghost woman came from the same era as those of the ghosts that surrounded me…'

The strums of music die down as the lyre disappears under a cloak.

'2. I was sent to what seems to be the past…and the current era in which both the crowd of ghosts and the ghost woman herself came from…there is a village…set in the same plane as the one I had fought through originally.'

'3. Something happened that changed the very fold of reality, or withered it…until it became what I first saw, and without intervention was doomed to occur….the undead may be a part of the same plane…or even the bodies of the very people who lived here.'

Several of these points are what need to be considered the most. Jaeger has to 'stop' the past from becoming the present future, and yet without knowing the natural or unnatural antagonist of what occurred he is still without the variables he needs to find an answer.

Regardless of not knowing the answer, the equation itself can still be drawn.

P for the people of this plane that need to be saved, T for the time that occurred before resulting in the current present timeline, and lastly J for Jaeger who has to be the outlying variable to change the result.

(P+T) x (Jx) = Result.

The X was for that in which came to be the problem of this place.

'Why am I so nerdy about this?' Jaeger thought as several buildings came into view.

"Come in…in our village we have elders, and those are the ones that decide things." The 'ghost' woman spoke softly as she entered a large door through a wall well over 15 feet in height.

Jaeger stepped through and could finally see the rest of the bodies of the buildings. Each was in its own way unique and with purpose, some were elegant and crafted meticulously while others kept a very rural jungle vibe to them.

What was strange was the fact these buildings looked so modern, for a group of people to be using bows and arrows.

A black smith shop, a botany shop, hell there was even what looked like a item shop?

'Wait…item shop?' Jaeger tried peering through a dark oak door as the building had low hanging windows that only saw the floor boards. Before he got a chance to see what was inside he was dragged away by the woman.

'She sure is a confident fiery fire of a woman…' She almost reminded him of Alexandra, but with a few quick head shakes the thought instantly left his mind.

An old man swept the terrace of a normal plain looking building. He cast his gaze down below from the second level of it to a group of people walking in his direction. With a sigh he sets down the broom, and several quick steps later arrives at the front door to greet them.

"And…what brings you here again sigh" He asks amused.

"Stop being so crafty, I'm too young for you! I brought a stranger from outside the town who says he was 'sent' here to help with something to happen…he seems to be a bard…he plays the lyre very well."

"Lyre hmm…send him in, this old man is not worried." He looks past her shoulder to a cloaked man who equally gazes right back at him.

Jaeger nods and steps forth through the 11 people in front of him before disappearing inside.

The old man closes the front door after waving to them with few parting words. He looks Jaeger up and down before asking, "So…you must be the one they sent"

Jaeger holds up a cig in his hand which to the old mans keen nose seems to give off a faint sweet smell? He nods and pulls out a rolled cig of his own.

"Sent?...then do you know the future to come?" Jaeger asked straight forwardly.

"No…I have premonitions, and your arrival and a doomed future is one of them. Who is to say you aren't the doom? Or rather, the variable the stops that doom from occurring?" The old man smiles and with a faint glow, brings a candle to light his cig before blowing it out.

Jaeger twirls the vanilla smoke in his hand several times before lighting his up too.

The two sit in silence for a while before the old man has a 'oh I forgot I had that going' face and walks over to a kettle. He pulls out a thin sheet of wood and set it on the closest table between the two, and grabs two cups from a drawer.

"Van…no…sigh…" Jaeger smells the tea, it's close to vanilla but is not. Its chai, with several other things in it.

The old man sips his tea while enjoying his smoke, while Jaeger simply sits there and takes a breath of the tea several times before sipping.

"So?" He asks after a while to break the ice.

"Want me to be brutally honest rather then go about this like those of a book trying to fool someone to succeed?" Jaeger asked with a smirk.

The old man raised a brow, and equally raised his cup to his mouth before stopping to think for a second.

*sip*

*sip*

"Fuck it come on hit this old man with it…"

"Hahaha…" They laughed together before a serious aura was emanated from the two.

"I come from a 'future' in which this place is merely a piece of a preexisting plane or planet…I accessed this place through a portal, meaning somehow this place was contained and created into a demiplane after something occurred in the past. Beyond a point, I was tasked by a god to rescue people inside that plane and through a turn of events must come back to the past to change what occurred…to most likely change the future and my place in it."

"Who of us did you see…you mean." He placed his cup down after flicking his cig.

Jaeger took a deep breathe in as he breathed out a cloud of sweet smoke, "I saw the girl that led me here…she was the third 'boss' of that place and summoned large creatures to attack my comrades, before being taken out by me…she was a cursed ghost…then, I saw countless spirits of unknown people as I came back to the place I vanquished her, where I was then tasked with coming to the past…"

"The past…" The old man was thinking quite deeply, his gaze stayed put on the ember at the end of his fingers.