Chương 11: It's not just an orb...

Toz had slept like a baby in the dark and narrow cave, while Nil set up traps and Lucy kept watch. But all good things come to an end and he eventually woke up. Nil and Lucy ran over to him with excited looks on their faces that said more than any words could, they wanted to look at the treasure as soon as possible, preferably at once.

Toz couldn't bear to make them wait so he obediently pulled out the orb. As the two cats saw the perfectly orange orb, slightly bigger than Toz's head leaving one of his pockets and being placed on the ground in front of them they were confused, to say the least.

Before they went into the familiar space Toz had mentioned that the changes in climate might be because of the appearance of treasure. And although they couldn't yet see into the outside world when in there, they had a basic understanding of what happened anyways. Toz had gotten the treasure. So where was it? Why had he pulled a seemingly useless ball out of his pocket? Where was the chest of gold, the shining swords, and jewels?

Although the two were dumbfounded, Lucy couldn't sate his curiosity and approached the orb, seeing his reflection in it was fun but weird since it was all wrangled. He touched it as well but it only felt and looked like an orb made of orange glass. Surprise and curiosity quickly turned into disappointment. However after a few seconds hope reignited in Lucy's eyes as he said,

"Haha, real funny Tozzie, now bring out the real treasure now."

"I am not being funny, the treasure I found in that pit over there is this ball of orange"

"...I recall there being promises of treasure. I see no treasure, only junk! It's a scam! Give! Me! Back! My! Money!"

Although Toz didn't know what the orb was he knew it couldn't be junk since it had first emitted and then sucked away all the mana in the air, in addition to that it had absorbed a bunch of mana from both Toz, and the ground for who knows how long.

Although Toz was only a second level mage his mana reserves were out of the ordinary thanks to being twice refined and using his cats as sources of mana. With the amplification of his natural inclination for cats, the benefits were numerous. Not only was he more effective in refining his body with mana and had an easier time manipulating attributes of the same kind as his cats he also had a greater capacity for mana from his cats. Kind of like a second integrated storage room, exclusively for cat-sourced mana.

Since different inclinations and people's natural talents were difficult to compare and account for, Toz wasn't completely sure, but he knew he was stronger than most second level mages thanks to his inclination.

An orb that could emit mana enough to cover a mountain range and the grassy hills and plains around it, before storing that same amount in itself, and then some, was definitely not useless junk.

But since it was in a seemingly dormant state without any mana fluctuations whatsoever it did indeed look lacking for being called a treasure so Toz understood Lucy's response.

"I know what it looks like but that is indeed what drew all the wild beasts here, it's also what emitted that terrifying fire mana and turned the mountains into a sauna. I think we just need to wait a bit for it to show its true value."

"So we didn't get scammed…?"

"No"

"And I didn't waste my money...?" Lucy asked carefully with a pitiful look on his face as he stared up at Toz.

"Not at all, some investments just take longer to bring profit" Toz answered while gently, lovingly, patting Lucy.

Although Lucy hadn't used any money for this endeavor he still let out a sigh of relief and crawled into his lap after hearing Toz's consolations.

As Lucy decided to take a nap, Nil investigated the orb closer and came to the same conclusion as Lucy, it looked like a useless piece of orange glass. But he wasn't as obsessed with treasure as Lucy was and as a former street cat felt rather close to something others might consider garbage.

With inspiration from Lucy's go-to position when laying on Toz's head, Nil laid down on the orb in a star shape and relaxed. Although the orb was solid it wasn't uncomfortable and instead gave a soft hearty feeling, like relaxing in front of a fireplace, on top of a blanket in the favorite chair during fall.

Nil continued enjoying the feeling before it slowly shifted to the feeling of laying in a stroke of sunlight. Then it was the spot on a table where a pot of tea had just stood. Different similar feelings were projected to Nil as he lay on the orb. At first, he didn't notice but one feeling stood out as it was extremely clear, almost like he was reliving a memory. During a cold winter, before he had met Toz, Nil and a few other street cats had borrowed several blankets before grouping up and cuddling to share body warmth, next to a chimney. The feeling had been so close to what he had personally experienced he came to, leaving his dreams of warm happiness.

Nil looked around before looking down on the orb below him, perplexed. Was the orb responsible for making him feel so relaxed, was it a trap to lull him into a false sense of comfort before eating him in his sleep? Although he might be overthinking he quickly jumped off the orb and the pleasant feelings immediately left him. His thoughts might be an exaggeration but his instincts telling him something was out of the ordinary were definitely not wrong.

Nil's alarmed appearance had shocked Toz since the cat had gone from laying on the orb, drooling, to flying off it and staring at it with strong vigilance. Toz personally didn't feel any danger but he still readied himself before sending a questioning look toward Nil.

"I don't know what its purpose is, but that orb is way too relaxing, suspiciously so in fact," Nil said without moving his eyes away from the orb.

"Too relaxing, huh? Maybe you've been working too hard lately?" Toz said jokingly but without actually joking.

In preparation for their journey, all three, mostly Toz and Nil, had read up on all kinds of dangers to watch out for, one pretty obscure danger was related to beings capable of making their prey fall asleep, without them even knowing they would never wake up again. They had found various similar methods and since it was so scary they had made it a point to remember it, and of the methods had been to put the unsuspecting prey into a relaxed state, after which they would fall into a deep sleep and after that an eternal slumber.

The orb was beginning to look a lot less like treasure and a lot more like a ticking time bomb as there seemed to be an ominous air coming from it.

Nil and Toz kept looking at it vigilantly, waiting for something to happen, for it to try and make them relax, attack them, or run away, anything really. But even after a long while, long enough for Lucy to wake up, ask what happened, and fall asleep again, nothing happened.

Since nothing seemed to be happening anytime soon, Toz decided to store it away again. But when he tried to shove it down his pockets it wouldn't enter no matter what. It surprised both Toz and Nil on several levels, apart from it having already been stored in the pocket previously there were only a couple of reasons the pocket's enchantments would block something from entering. Either the object was larger in some way than the spatially expanded pocket, or it harbored a soul.

Since the space between the outside and the inside of the pocket doesn't match in their dimensions, when objects pass through they get temporarily stretched out and distorted. The distortion affects physical and immaterial things differently, and while inanimate objects can handle the distortion, souls tend to not withstand getting bent out of shape, like a balloon animal. If one is lucky the soul just get's detached and floats away before dissipating or getting reattached but in most cases the soul just shatters on the spot. To prevent any such accidents most items with a pocket space have enchantments to prevent souls entering.

Since the orb had already been inside the pocket earlier there was nothing wrong with the size and available space. This meant it could only be because the orb had started containing a soul.

With the ominous air around the orb Nil and Toz had felt earlier, and with the suspicion it contained a soul, there was an obvious conclusion. Toz reached the answer a moment faster than Nil and looked at the cat with an aghast expression before throwing the orb away from them.

The orb was haunted!

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