"Here," I said, reaching into my spatial ring and pulling out my cookie jar. I held it out to the purring shoggoth. "Have one of these instead."
Mary looked up from the swirling soul soup and I could see she was weighing the relative benefits of each offering. Her violet eyes glowed with the mysterious energy of the void and the long black tentacles flowing from her back's soft white fur wiggled thoughtfully.
I knew her well enough to know she was struggling with this one.
On one hand, the soul soup promised a stream of effervescent life energy. On the other hand, chocolate chip cookies as baked by Mudge.
Moments later, she was shuffling along beside me and munching on a cookie. Tentacles whipped out now and then to snatch stray crumbs which were pushed into her mouth.
"What Taran doing?"
"I was hoping to find a home for these."
She patted my head.
"You good Taran."
Being a little uncomfortable with compliments, I directed the cauldron in front of me, pushing it along mostly with a stick I'd picked up from a passing asteroid. I used the stick to prod the cauldron to take a path through a forest of planets which circled two stars.
One star was bright red. The other cold blue.
A dark shadow detached from the rings of one of the planets and swam over to see what we were. Mary waved at it.
It waved back, then slunk away. Balancing precariously on its back, a troupe of musicians belted out a song which made Mary wince.
"Not good," she said softly, not wanting to offend them.
"I hear that sort of thing is very popular in Betelgeuse," I told her.
"Yes," she said. "They strange eaters. Eat bugs."
I smiled, remembering a time we'd gone to a restaurant together. "That's called Lobster, Mary. They're more like fish."
"Fish not have shell," she insisted, flipping her tentacles stubbornly as she remembered an old argument. "It bug. Bug ick."
I shooed a small planetoid out of our way, sending it careening into a nearby moon. The two didn't get along and the remnants of their explosive meeting scattered through the solar system.
We skipped through the void and, in a few short steps, found another system where the local star was milder.
Unfortunately, the planets were mostly gas giants.
"Smell farts," Mary said, holding her tentacles over her nose as we passed one of them. "Not good for baby ghosts."
"Hmm," I said, scratching my head.
I didn't have very long.
While the cauldron's contents wouldn't be driven mad by the void, they might degrade with too much exposure. I couldn't predict how they'd be affected.
"I know place," she said helpfully.
"Really?"
"Follow Mary," she said, booping the cauldron so it skipped onwards.
She led us past a black hole, which tried to pull us into its mouth. Mary laughed at it and I threw my stick. It let out a squeak and rushed off to find the stick which had landed in a distant galaxy.
Stars were shredded as it bounded through them in an excited frenzy.
"Stupid thing," I muttered.
"It cute," she said, her gaze following the black hole as it warped the light around it.
The world she took me to was a small planet, but its primordial ooze was already swarming with insects and little crustaceans. Mary's tentacles slapped bugs out of the air around her as we stood on a small island surrounded by slow-moving streams of thick salty fluid.
Grasses flourished among taller tree-like fungi.
Under the glowing domes, I could see tiny monkey-like mammals with wide moonlike eyes.
"What Taran think?"
"It's not bad," I said, setting the cauldron down. "It's got potential. The oceans looked fairly lively."
"There fish," she said happily. "Lots fish. No shells."
"Birds?"
"Bats." One of her tendrils pointed off to some nearby mountains. "Big lizards there. Lots."
I held out my cookie jar. "Thanks, Mary. I appreciate your help."
"It good," she said, taking a cookie with one tentacle while patting my head with another. "Nice ghost home."
"Yeah," I said. The air didn't smell too bad. "It is."
With that, I kicked the cauldron over, sending its contents spilling across the muddy earth. They tumbled out in a slimy puddle of ectoplasm before nervously twitching and stretching apart.
Mary and I watched as, one by one, the pale glowing souls detached from the others and drifted away.
This was the best I could do for them.
If I'd released them on my own world, they would have found it difficult to reincarnate. They would have become simple people and endured difficult lives. Here, they'd grow.
And, with each new reincarnation, they'd develop and become something new.
This world didn't have any souls yet. It hadn't reached that level of sophistication.
So, technically, I was giving it a head start.
"You're all welcome," I said softly under my breath.
Mary reached out and touched my cheek. "Taran cry?"
"I knew some of them," I told her.
"Oh." She frowned. "Not baby ghosts?"
"No. They were stripped by a necromancer."
She shuddered. "Bad magic."
"Yeah, it is."
"Where bad man?"
"Grimsby is holding him for me. I'll deal with him when I return."
"Good." She used a tentacle to prod a smaller soul. It skittered away from her, flitting across the mud towards a nearby cluster of the monkey-like things.
I smiled as it dived into the bloated belly of one of the females.
"Hopefully everything will be fine," I said. "This will give them a chance to grow."
"Mary watch," she promised, pushing the last of the cookie into her mouth. "Make nice place."
I felt a warm pressure fall on us both as the Old Twit drew his gaze in our direction.
Mary's tentacle snatched the last few crumbs of cookie and hid them behind her back.
The Old Twit stared at her for a moment.
Then, meekly, she held out one of the crumbs.
He focused on me.
"I only gave her one," I said.
He focused on me tighter.
"Alright," I said. "I gave her two. But they're Mudge's cookies."
The Old Twit rolled every one of his countless eyes.
Then turned to look at the cauldron. The souls had all scattered, leaving only a thin dribble of ectoplasm on the floor. A slight crack in reality split space and the cauldron dropped into it.
I don't know what he wanted to do with the cauldron, but nor did I care.
I felt his gaze again, this time filled with sympathy. Then he was gone.
Mary quickly put the crumbs into her mouth, purring loudly.
"I have to go," I said, offering her another cookie, which she took swiftly. "I have to deal with that necromancer."
She nodded, squinting at where one of the souls was trying to push itself into the trunk of a giant mushroom. It kept bouncing back, unable to enter it.
I had a feeling that if we weren't here, it'd keep trying until it lost the last of its life energy and dissipated.
"Mary help ghosts," she said, shuffling away towards it. "They need help."
I watched her as she cradled the little thing with a delicate grip before heading towards an awed gathering of the monkey-like things.
One of them hopped from one leg to another, waving its arms.
She waved her tentacled at it.
The monkey-like things let out a chorus of moans and dropped down on their knees to bow before her. Smiling, I knew she'd take care of them for now.
Especially now they thought she was a goddess. They'd probably start bringing her food soon.
Mary liked being a goddess.
"I'll come back in a few days," I called to her. "After I see my ex-wife."
"Taran see her?" The shoggoth looked over her shoulder, a critical look in her eyes. "Why? Taran lose brain?"
I had nothing I could say to that.