1 Almost Heaven, West Virginia...

I stared up at the night sky and sighed. There wasn't another soul in miles, and for a heartbroken man like myself, it was perfect. However, I needed to consider beginning my hike back to civilisation, if not by tomorrow, then at least by the next day if I wanted to keep it leisurely. I didn't know if I was over my breakup, but being out here in the forest was exactly what the doctor ordered.

At least the breakup wasn't acrimonious; we had just drifted apart, and finally, she sat me down and told me that she was leaving. Personally, I would have been alright to continue things as they were just for the companionship, but it wouldn't have been fair on her, and I appreciated that she cut things off instead of continuing things while trying to get what she needed elsewhere.

I had taken several weeks of saved vacation time and travelled to Colorado. I saw the sights and went up Pike's Peak, but mostly, I had spent an entire week just hiking through the Grand Mesa National Forest. I didn't hike in the approved trails or campgrounds either. I didn't want to be around people, nor the edifices of people, and the campgrounds and hiking trails everyone took were just a bit too civilised. I had just wanted to be alone. Well, and truly alone.

It was actually fairly dangerous what I was doing, walking and sleeping out here alone, but I had a satellite phone in my pack. Such things were ruinously expensive to actually use, but as a piece of emergency equipment, they were alright. It wasn't like I was poor, either. I was only in my thirties but was close to being Senior Operator at the Palo Verde nuclear power station. I had gotten the job as soon as I left the Navy, about a decade ago.

Not surprisingly, the people trained and trusted enough to press buttons on a nuclear reactor's control panel were well compensated, and it wasn't like I spent much money on anything. I still drove the same compact Toyota truck I had bought used when I joined the Navy.

I initially intended to stay reasonably close to the edges, as I couldn't actually carry enough supplies to last as long as I had stayed out here, but I managed to stretch my food supplies with a little judicious poaching. I hadn't intended to take the animal out of season and with no tag for one, but it had been a perfect opportunity when I had seen the injured elk, and I had taken it. I didn't regret my felony, except that I left most of the kill to waste.

Well, actually, I'm sure it would be well appreciated by the animals of the forest. I wasn't used to taking an extra twenty to thirty pounds with me while walking, and if that was something I really liked to do, I would have joined the Marines when I was a kid instead of the Navy. Still, I managed it, and the meat meant I never had to return to civilisation for more supplies, even if I only had salt to season it with. Strictly speaking, open fires in this area of the National Forest at this time of the year were probably illegal, too, but I wasn't a poseur. I not only ensured that my campfires were safe, but I left nothing behind when I left, taking all of my trash with me.

As I started to get up to create a hang for my supplies between a couple of trees to protect them from hypothetical bears, I started to hear something unusual. The sound was fairly high-pitched, and I immediately rushed to my pack to grab my carbine. There were cougars in these forests, even if not many, and I was definitely more afraid of the large cats than the black bear, which was the only other really dangerous predator in the area.

However, I couldn't precisely put a direction on where I was hearing the sound, but it was getting a little louder and more intelligible as if it was both all around me and getting closer. Finally, I identified it as human speech, which was a surprise because I was almost certain I was the only human within fifteen kilometres, at least.

It was a woman or girl speaking, or perhaps chanting might be a better description. The language, once the phonemes could be differentiated, was unknown at first, but suddenly, I started hearing very accented English words, "Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! I hunger and desire you, All-Mother!"

Immediately, I yanked back the charging handle on my rifle, depositing a six-point eight-millimetre cartridge into the chamber, and flicked off the safety, saying aloud in barely more than a whisper, "Nope, nope, nope." 

There would be no summoning of Great Old Ones in these woods if I had something to say about it. I was a proper West Virginian hillbilly, even if I was somewhat more civilised and educated now. The important thing was that we didn't cotton to that sort of thing, of summoning eldritch abominations, 'round these parts.

I crouched low, still turning around, trying to localise the direction of the chanting. I caught movement in my peripheral vision and turned and saw... something. Something expansive, large, a cloud of darkness that was darker than the darkest night... It was like a void in the world, and inside was moving and squirming!

That was when I exploded.

---xxxxxx---

Okay, perhaps I didn't explode, except perhaps in agony. It only felt like I exploded. What does it feel like to have your soul ripped from your body? It turned out that it hurt a lot.

As a disembodied spirit, I had no mouth, but I needed to scream. I'm not sure how long this period of almost interminable suffering lasted, but it seemed like a very long time to me. Eventually, though, I learned how to see with no eyes and learned how to think with no brain, including thinking about the huge sum of memories that had been shoved into... well, I would have said brain, since before I exploded, I had been something of an atheist. Shoved into my soul, then.

I was floating, disembodied, in an obvious sacrificial ritual circle straight out of a horror movie or fantasy video game. A young woman with braided blonde hair, wearing a black robe, had a wicked-looking dagger shoved into the heart of some poor fool in the middle of the circle, with two adults on either side, presumably assisting her. She resembled the older woman assisting her so much that she was obviously her daughter. A little family-based ritual sacrifice, eh?

I would have certainly put being abducted by aliens at a higher likelihood than being yanked out of my body by what might or might not be a Great Old One out of a fictional mythos. Thinking about what I had seen, the dark cloud of...

I short-circuited, finally shaking my spiritual head. I didn't know how much time I had lost when I recalled that because everything around me was completely frozen in time. The sacrifice's face was frozen in a rictus of terror and pain, and even a globule of blood that had been splashed was frozen in the air.

Not only that, but I knew everyone here. I had in the back of my... soul, I suppose since I didn't have a head, the entire life's memories of the young woman who had expertly shoved a dagger into the man's heart, along with a knowing of what had happened and what I should expect.

The latter, I think I received from...

I short-circuited again. It was a mistake even thinking about...

I short-circuited again. This loop continued for an unknown period of time, but I didn't think it was very good for my continued sanity. Eventually, I managed to compartmentalise the memories enough not to bring them up as soon as I thought about them through sheer self-preservation. Instead, I mentally shifted to thinking about a small kid whenever I thought about it/her. Specifically, a small baby goat that I had raised on my grandpa's ranch when I was also a kid of a different kind.

What happened was that these three had sacrificed this guy to summon my pet goat to help them because they were desperate. They were desperate to get out of the predicament they were in, and my pet goat had answered their call—and my pet goat had helped them by ripping both my soul as well as the soul of the young woman, the daughter of the other two, and swapping them around.

It was, and I mentally sighed with deep distaste at the trope... an isekai. Not only that, but I wouldn't even be going in my own body. I also had no idea how putting me in the body of this young necromancer was supposed to help their situation at all. I had a narrow field of expertise—nuclear energy, engineering, the repair of the above, novels and video games. And that was it.

Time was frozen because I wasn't actually in that universe yet. I was in a kind of limbo to get used to the extra memories I had, and I could apparently stay here as long as I liked. I should move myself inside the young woman's body when I was ready, and Bob's your uncle. Time would resume—at least, from my perspective.

Instead, I floated disembodied and wanted to cry but couldn't. I had no body yet. I wanted to mourn all I had lost but found myself conflicted. To be honest, there weren't actually many ties of karma keeping me to my old life. I had been raised by my grandparents, and I hadn't spoken to any member of my family since I joined the Navy after both my grandpa and grandma passed. None of them were good people.

I went to work; I came home. I read books and played video games. My last tie was with my girlfriend, but she had dumped me. The only thing that I was really upset about was the possibility that the young woman who took my body would turn into a serial killer and, worse, get caught. This hadn't been the first person she had killed, after all. I could feel a connection to her, although I had the feeling that it would dim and fade to nothing over time with the wound in reality that we were both drawn to closed like a canker sore.

But, I felt from her the certainty that magic would work on Earth, so I was a little bit concerned that she would begin practising the major school of magic that she had been born, bred and educated in—necromancy. I could just see her doing it and getting caught if she wasn't careful. I could just see it, news reporters interviewing my neighbours, them saying, "He was such a quiet man, you would never have suspected he was The Organ Thief Killer."

She was also one of the reasons that this ritual had gone awry. She hadn't intended to screw her parents, but her subconscious was more interested in saving herself, and that coloured how my pet goat responded. Really, they were all lucky that my pet goat hadn't spirited them all away into some cenobite hell dimension, as that would have fulfilled the request of saving them from their present problems, and my pet goat was foreign enough to think such a thing was helpful. I wouldn't say that I was an expert on the entity, but I wouldn't say I wasn't, either. I knew it in a way that I wish I didn't. 

And while it did want to be helpful, I suspected it would think an eternity of torment would have been helpful. They'd have tons of new problems, but they'd be safe from the people rushing to murder them, plus they'd live forever! Win-win!

I didn't yet see how I could help their problems, either, so I thought this was pointless. Well, they would also be my problems soon enough, too—unless I wanted to spend eternity frozen in time with only my own thoughts for company. While I liked very much to be alone sometimes, that was a bit much.

I floated around, careful not to get too close to the centre of the ritual. I didn't want to touch her body with my spirit self until I was good and ready. I needed time to really dive into her memories. I didn't know anything much more than the basics, as I was mentally holding the mass of memories away from me at spiritual arm's length by force of will.

I floated too close to the man at the edge of the ritual circle and accidentally floated inside his body, which gave me an up-close and personal view of his large intestine. I didn't know how I could smell anything at all, both because I didn't have a body and because scent required airflow and, therefore, time to function, but I could! I backed hastily away and shook my spirit body in disgust.

There was a tether, visible to me in whatever senses I was utilising, tying me to the centre of the ritual, but I suddenly decided I wanted to see how far away from it I could get in this limbo. We were underground, but I didn't presently need light to see. It would be weird if I did, as, like scent, it required time to pass so active photons could bounce off my retinas. 

Still, I floated as fast as I could in one direction, floating down the corridor until I got lost in what appeared to be a fairly complex underground cave complex. It wasn't the largest cave system, but it did have a number of odd turns and chambers in it. 

Some of them were naturally formed, while most near the ritual were either carved completely out of the ground or helped along. Finally, I glanced up and, gritting my proverbial teeth, just floated up through the dirt. I learned to turn off my sense of taste and smell about halfway through the ascent, and eventually, I came out to a nondescript desert biome. 

It wasn't a desert like the Sahara, but more like New Mexico or Australia. Brush, rocks and what might be considered cactuses. And two moons above in the night sky, one of which was almost three times as large as what I remembered Luna ever being back on Earth. Fascinated, I flew up into the air. I didn't float much faster than I could have jogged in my past life, although I was slowly getting faster, but if there was one virtue that I had, it was that I was patient. 

This moon looked a lot closer in orbit than I remembered, but was I patient enough to float for hundreds of "days" if it meant I could step my spiritual foot on the surface of a fucking moon?! HELL, YES, I WAS. I always wanted to be an astronaut.

Besides, I would need a lot of "time" to go through these memories. I finally stopped holding them at arm's length and allowed them to make contact with my spiritual body.

---xxxxxx---

I was Merildwen, the sole daughter of my mother, the elf Serinre and my father, her human husband Delgaroth. Privately, I felt that wasn't likely my father's real name, but if he had another, he never told me, so I just called him dad.

My parents were acolytes of a somewhat famous coven of necromancers and dark Wizards that had been eradicated in the last war before I was born. They had managed to escape, being assigned a mission at the time and felt fortunate to keep their lives. Necromancy wasn't entirely forbidden, but it wasn't really tolerated, either—especially the types that both my parents and later myself were trained in.

From when I could remember, we travelled from place to place, living on the periphery of society and fleeing whenever things got too serious. Fires and pitchforks were real dangers in the small villages, and the larger cities were scarcely any better. That said, there was always work for my parents. While necromancy was their focus, they were fully trained wizards, and my mother was an alchemist, too.

Ultimately, there were innumerable people and organisations that had little care for the fact that both my parents were wanted for execution simply by being living members of the Cavern of Lost Souls. I'd probably be hung, too, just on general principles. These people and groups provided the money we needed to live and thrive. A ward on someone's home here, a potion brewed there, a skeleton or two raised from the dead somewhere else—work was easy to come by, to the point where I was trained in the arcane arts as a child myself, just to help with the family business all the sooner.

There were numerous problems in such a life, but our current issues manifested when one of the newer organisations that provided work to us, specifically a guild of assassins, discovered the identity of my mother and father. We had done good work for them, and it was a really good match—it was quite surprising how well an interrogation could be conducted when the interviewee knew that even death wouldn't save their secrets. Even I could raise a dead man's shade and compel it to answer as many questions as I wanted, and I was only a novice in the arcane arts.

Still, they both discovered that my parents were former acolytes, as well as rumours that the Cavern of Lost Souls had special treasures in one of their abandoned and of course, haunted, ruined headquarters. We had just arrived in this city, so it was a different branch of the cult, but they were sure that my parents could get through the traps, ravenous spirits and other protections—so they had thrown us all, along with a man meant to be our minder, into the underground dungeon.

That poor bastard must have pulled the short straw. He was with us to "keep us honest" or, more likely, ensure we didn't somehow make off with any treasures. He had a magical device, a way to communicate with his several dozen friends waiting outside, too.

Still, localised telepathy was just a cantrip, so all three of us could communicate privately during the exploration of the ruined cave complex. We all agreed that there was just no way that this guild of assassins would leave us alive after we were finished being useful. You didn't enslave, however, temporarily, a group of necromancers and then expect them not to get even. Plus, our deaths would neatly solve the distribution of loot questions, too.

It was simple enough for my mom and dad to secretly bind some of the wraiths we found, but it wouldn't be enough to save our skins. Three or four wraiths would just slow down the proficient killers outside. We were desperate but not desperate enough to summon a devil strong enough to save us. He or she would demand our souls, at a minimum.

So, we did something even more stupid. My parents, you see, found this book in the branch leader's room. How it escaped the notice of the paladins who had destroyed the branch, I wasn't sure.

---xxxxxx---

I returned to find myself not on the surface of the moon but roughly as high as I remembered airliners flying. The connection I had to the ritual was firm now and permitting me no further travel. Or perhaps I had run into the "invisible wall" of this limbo simulation. Depending on how far beneath the ground we had been, it seemed like the tether was a little more than ten kilometres—quite a lot when you thought about it.

It didn't feel like I had lived Merlidwen's life, but it wasn't too far from that, either, so I just hung in the air, trying not to be swallowed by the over two decades of memories.

After a long while, I started floating back down to the ground. It didn't seem to change the way I thought. I was still me. All of her memories were held at a bit of a distance compared to my own, yet at the same time, I could step into them if I wanted, as if I was wearing a mask or suit of clothes and become her. That was nice. Otherwise, my "parents" would discover my identity rapidly and probably treat me as some sort of disembodied possessor entity that had murdered their daughter. There were a variety of such creatures and spirits, after all.

Even death wouldn't save me from such a misapprehension.

It was strange how much you took for granted having a body until you wanted to sigh, shake your head or punch something, and you couldn't. I floated quite fast now, though, so I wondered how long I had struggled at my fetters while vicariously experiencing Merildwen's life. Probably quite a long time, I thought.

I was kind of lost, so I just followed the tether back to the ritual room. It hadn't been difficult for Meril's dad to render the man insensate with a spell and take the magical device he had been using to communicate with him. But they had prepared for this contingency and transmitted at set intervals. It was basic tradecraft, so I wasn't surprised a group of semi-secret assassins would utilise it.

It, like some magical devices, couldn't really be used by the dead, either, so it was a pretty good defence against, say, a necromancer raising your compatriot from the dead and forcing him to tell you everything was okay.

As it had taken a few hours to set up the ritual, even moving at reckless speed, it was likely that his compatriots knew of his capture or death by now. Really, they might have been following behind us the whole way. I decided to find out where they were, first things.

This wasn't a band of cops or paladins dealing righteous justice against us three necromancers. It was a cabal of assassins. I didn't feel bad at all saving my skin, even if it meant they lost theirs. I didn't even have skin right now! I was entitled to protect myself.

I used Merildwen's memories to retrace our steps through the cave complex, occasionally taking a wrong turn. However, it wasn't a maze or even a proper labyrinth—we wouldn't have been so lucky. I found a group of over twenty men frozen, about three caverns from the entrance. They looked mean, cautious and looked like sudden death from both hands. The weapons they carried looked magical, as did several devices, and they definitely appeared to be making their way through the tunnels.

Wizards were feared, but Meril's memories were telling me that this type of "rogue" archetype could murder them fairly well, especially if they had magical support in terms of their kit and equipment. Certainly, her parents hadn't thought it wise to fight it out when they had confronted them. 

Perhaps these men wouldn't have succeeded in attacking Meril's parents' strong place, as a lot of undead and magic were waiting there. Wizards were all about preparation, after all. A lot of preparation went into those defences. Preparation that they didn't appear willing to give us a second time.

I returned back to the more finished walls of the coven's headquarters. It had been mostly looted, with most valuables taken or destroyed, and they hadn't found much of interest. But I would check every square centimetre myself. 

Then, I would check every square centimetre of this entire cave system. There didn't appear to be a back way out of the caves, but that didn't matter. There might be! And, if one existed, I would find it. Even if I spent subjective months or years examining all... wait, how much volume is in a sphere with about a ten-kilometre radius?

I did some quick math: over four thousand cubed kilometres of volume that my tether allowed me. After all, if I had one virtue, it was that I was patient. Perhaps that was what my pet goat saw in me.

I got started.