Swept

Rachel walked through the spiritual dimension of Ambruce Realm. Tall hazy grass stroked her legs as if a quiet gentle breeze moved through it.

The dimension was in subdued shades of grey. Everything was flat. No mountains, no hills, and no valleys. As she looked across the bland landscape she saw a brilliant star in the distance. Even when she enhanced her vision she still couldn't see it clearly.

She stopped walking. Her head swam slightly and then she heard the voice. At first it was just garbled words, high pitched screams, sobs, and maniacal laughter.

She narrowed her eyes, cleared all her thoughts, and focused her perception. She brushed passed all of the noise and nonsense and the voice became crystal clear.

'Do you not want to come to me?'

Rachel's mind trembled. The voice was pure power with the sound of a petulant child.

The voice gasped. 'You can hear me already? It usually takes so long to get others to hear me, weeks, months, or longer, but for you it was almost instantaneous. What is your name? For some reason I can not read your mind.'

All of it entered Rachel's mind in one chaotic rush. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut to maintain her focus.

'Are you Ambruce?'

Rachel felt the radiating smile envelope her soul body.

'I am. You know me.' The smile bloomed even more.

Rachel returned to her body. Her eyes opening, her mind immersed in calculating thoughts.

"Milana? What happened?" Rachel looked up to see Smral looking in the direction of the spirit form of Ambruce Realm.

She rose from the ground. "Call me Rachel and don't look at it. If it realizes you can see it's spirit body it will become interested in you."

She walked closer at Smral but said nothing for a long while.

She looked to the other three. "We need to create a strong protection formation and connect Smral and Cramnal to our power circle."

"Sister I am not Antrunie."

"You should have been a long time ago."

Cramnal looked at Rebecca with a frown on his face, which deepened when he noticed Struns nodding.

The formation was constructed of fourteen rings. Everyone except Rachel were sprawled out on the ground in exhaustion. Orange and yellow light flowed over the four of them.

As Smral regained strength he set up and looked at Rachel with incredulity. "How are you always so strong!? Is you soul well bottomless."

Rachel smirked. "stop being so dramatic." She smiled "And don't be jealous."

"Why shouldn't I be jealous or dramatic.? You have what I have always wanted!" He shrugged. "Okay I am a bit excitable. I will work on that."

Rachel walked away. "Let's eat." She began pulling things out of one of her dimensional storages and started prepping ingredients to cook. She wasn't really hungry but she usually thought better in her spirit form. Since that was out of the question for now she decided to cook.

The Azmin loved spicy food with loads of vegetables so Rachel cooked the food in that way. She had okra with tomatoes, onions and spice; cabbage sautéed with onions, bell peppers, garlic and marinated shredded beef; and a seafood paella. She also made different types of salads and two soups.

The others sat at the table looking a little awed. They could not believe that she cooked so much food. They sat in silence just looking at the food for a long time.

Rachel was the first to move. She sighed and started piling food onto her plate. "I have not figured things out yet. I may need to make some desserts as well."

Smral began piling his plate as well. "Don't worry. I can eat all of this and more. Make some of that Azmin chocolate pie. It looks really delicious. I have wanted to try it"

Everyone turned to him in unison but Struns was the one who spoke. "How do you know about Azmin desserts?"

He shrugged. "Sorry guys. I'm a thrall. I had some Azmins under my control until you severed my connection."

"You had people enthralled!?" Struns was almost shrieking. He looked at Rachel as she chewed a mouthful of food.

"Calm down Struns."

"Why because you're in love?"

Rebecca's eyes opened wide and her nostrils flared. Cramnal's hand froze with his food inches from his mouth. Rachel was still chewing and looking at her plate and Smral was smiling brightly as he swallowed his last mouthful.

Rachel finally swallowed. "Calm down Struns. He enthralled many people of different ethnicities. He had been in our realm for a long time unchecked." She paused and looked at Smral in curiosity. "Why did you tell us to call you he?"

There was silence at the table and then a light sparked in Rachel's eyes and she nodded in thought. "Let's finish eating so that we can complete the ritual and get some rest."

Cramnal swallowed his food and looked at Smral. He ate some more food before asking; "I would like to know why you want to be considered a man. You are very muscular but your curves are not masculine.'

Smral shrugged. "I guess I feel masculine." He winked at Rebecca and Cramnal looked at them both in confusion.

Rachel shook her head "Cramnal not everyone is like you and marries their best friend because it is convenient and practical."

Cramnal frowned. "My wife is not my best friend. You are. And I love her. You know I lost my emotions when I first started using my traveler abilities and I went to the realm of Lost Sea."

She nodded. "I know. I miss how you used to be. And you're right; you and Dalia love each other very much."

Smral sat with his back straight. He was looking off into the distance but he was not really looking at anything. Rachel watched him not looking at the spirit body of Ambruce.

It had already tried to enter their formation several times. It now stood outside the outermost ring of the formation staring at Smral.

Rachel sighed. "Let's get this done so we can all talk. We may need to leave here quickly. I do not want to risk any of you."

Smral stood and walked swiftly to her. Cramnal came and stood next to him.

"Are you sure that I can participate in this? Doesn't the realm need to approve of me first?"

"Cramnal the realm approved of you as my Antrunie a long time ago. Besides I am always connected to the realm. I can perform any ritual I want in any realm I want."

Rachel wrote runes in the air, but merely thinking of the runes and the location she wanted it in, and a multicolored wall of runes surrounded the five of them. She spoke words of power that echoed around them. She then wrote five different runes of light onto it, that flared brighter than the rest. One of these five runes attached to each of them.

First there were whispers, and the voices grew louder and louder until they were shouting into their minds. Then there was silence. Rachel wrote five more runes on the walls and they connected as well. Suddenly there was a flood of information entering their soul wells or soul sea. They learned how to separate and decipher the information.

Once they learned how to separate and decipher the information Rachel began another set if runes that connected to them, entered their bodies, and then connected all of them by their soul wells and soul sea.

Now all of them could enter each other's soul well or sea. They could fight to defend but not harm the soul and they could understand the current condition of each other's soul.

Rachel then wrote two new runes onto the wall and they connected to Smral and Cramnal. These runes connected the two to Rachel in a unique way, the runes etching themselves silently, and painlessly onto their bodies.

The runes named them as Antrunie and gave them an additional connection to Trannisa. They were unique to the person and sometimes intertwined into existing tattoos and looked like tattoos themselves.

The soul bodies of Cramnal and Struns rose and entered into a large bubbles of multicolored light. The bubbles shown in rotating color patterns as if Trannisa was having to separate conversations.

As the ritual continued Rebecca and Struns set still in poses of serene meditation. Trannisa altered the soul bodies of Cramnal and Smral in an evolutionary way that was quick but felt gradual.

Antrunie rituals can be different for each individual because soulsand perceptions were unique to the individual. This time it was very similar partially because I needed to be done quickly and it was being done in a different dimension.

When all was done Rachel sat with the others 'Smral has drawn the attention of this realm. It is not going to let us leave easily. Rebecca you need to send one of your dream weavers out to monitor his dream and maybe even protect him.'

There was a pause. 'Send all three of your dream weavers. This realm is very strong. I should have done some more reconnaissance before I brought all of you here. I am sorry for that.'

'Okay. I will prepare as well. I can not work dream magic but I can strengthen my soul well and barriers. And don't apologize. I think this place is too dangerous to roam alone.'

'Exactly. I will send them out and we can monitor both of you.'

'Smral never truly looked at anything. How did it even focus on him?'

'That's a good question Cramnal. It is probably because Smral's soul and mental strength is so high. They are probably drawn to each other.'

'This may be how grandmother was entrapped.'

'I think you're right. I was trying to figure out how it could have entrapped her. You remember how cautious and suspicious of everything she was.'

'I do.'

'Do we need to reinforce the protection formation?'

'Don't worry about that Struns I will create a more focused one inside the one we made together.'

There was suddenly the sound of crystal hitting against crystal. They all froze 'Don't look in its direction and pretend to not have heard anything! It may be upset because it knows we are speaking but it can not hear our soul communication.'

She stood and her body became a statue as her soul continued forward. Her soul body walked to the wall of the formation. 'We have no choice. We may need to confront the realm.'

Ambruce realm's spirit body was still outside the farthest ring of the formation. It smiled at her and waved like an excited child.

'I want to get to know you and your friend, the interesting serpent dragon person. Can you come out and talk? I will not bother the others. They are not interesting.'

Rachel extended her shielding magic and covered the others as the realm's spirit body spoke to her. She could feel a strain on her soul and knew the others would feel it as well and it could possibly be detrimental to the others.

'I am sorry, he does not want to be friends. Would you mind if we left and came another day to speak with you?'

As she spoke three dense spirit body's stepped from her.. she told them to shroud themselves to make it difficult to be recognized. They began setting up a tight formation in the center of the current formation. They drew magic from Rachel and followed her strict instructions on its construction.

The second formation quickly flared to life and the three spirit bodies stood with the Antrunie as if to protect them. Rachel was still at the inner most wall of the outer formation and did not have the protection of the inner formation.

As they created the inner formation Rachel and the realm continued talking.

'No I want to talk to you now. The other three can leave. I can send them out if you like.'

Rachel felt the smile bloom within the realm, a devious malicious smile and she knew instinctively that it would send them somewhere but never reveal where.

'We can not stay here with you and I have a sense that you are very selfish.'

'Selfish? Why shouldn't I be selfish? I deserve everything I want. And I do not think I will break you two so that is even more exciting.'

'So it knows it "breaks" people.' Rachel thought to herself as she determined the level of danger in the situation.

'Sorry. We can not stay but we can have a short conversation. We need sleep after our ritual. When we wake up we will come find you for a nice talk.'

Rachel felt the excitement flare within the realm's spirit body.

'Of course you want to sleep. All of your kind needs sleep. Fine, sleep and come to me when you wake. We will have a very nice talk.'

And it was gone. Rachel could not pinpoint where it went. But this was normal because the spirit of a realm was everywhere.

She stepped back and re-entered her body.

She hated half ass plans.