Interconnected: Spliced Souls

Morning arrived, and my friends woke to discover me chipping away at a crudely designed flute I attempted to make out of my blood. It was difficult getting the holes, and the mouthpiece was a total bitch to chisel with the limited tools [Blood Crystal Crafting] gave me.   

“Wait, is that for me, Servy?” Srassa asked when I held it towards her. She sat on her knees and sleepily rubbed her eyes.   

“Yep. I bought [War Cry] this morning and enchanted it into this. You can’t buy skills, but I’m sure you can use them if they’re like this.”  

“But…you spent SP on me… Why?”  

“Uhh… Because we’re friends? And I wanted to? And we’re Butterfly Rumble? And you’re the tank. [War Cry] sounds like something we’ll need sooner or later.” The skill buffed our speed and demoralized our opponents, weakening them. They would sometimes turn tail and run away, leaving them defenseless from behind.  

“I’ll…value this forever, Servy!” Srassa hugged the flute. I said it needed a name, so she decided on Victory.   

“That’s badass. When you blow it, you gotta shout at the top of your lungs.” Momo’s eyes were glowing. After explaining I couldn’t have two crystals with the same skill, she became happy when I said I’d make her something next.   

“To do that, you must take on quests. Recall what I said. For the training to be complete, you must ascend out of Novice and obtain Beginner Rank 1. A good way to do that is to see if any Skill Path quests are available at the guild. You get bonus SP upon completion.”   

We were well-rested from yesterday’s events, so after changing, it was time to fill our bellies with breakfast. Hearthstone porridge, a hearty blend of grains, fruits, and spices left to roast over a fire, and an omelet of tropical dragonfruit and seagull eggs were the only choices.   

Srassa and Momo chose the former, I got the latter, and Dineria nibbled on a bag of nuts and veggies she brought.   

The dining hall wasn’t filled, but most of the ones here were like us—adventurers getting ready to take on the day. The kind innkeepers went from table to table and refilled our drinks. They asked if we would be staying another night, and we nodded.  

She smiled at Momo through those old, weathered eyes. “We’ll keep the room ready for you. Be safe, you hear? And that goes for all of you.” She turned to the other diners.   

“Bwhaha! Got it, grannie. I ain’t kickin’ the grave just yet. Not after trying your booze! Save a tankard fer me, will ye?” asked a dwarf. Momo tapped me on the shoulder and said she overheard that man saying he was Advanced Rank 7. He didn’t look all that special, but his stubby nose had two glowing piercings. His beard was laced with jewels, too. Dineria said those were enchanted—not unlike my crystals.   

So, what? Were those jewels the finished version of my prototype skill?    

That’s… probably it. There are other gods and goddesses out there. Servi, it’s likely someone else finished my work if I had started on my skills before losing my memory. That would explain their prototype state.   

Itarr had a good point. But we didn’t have any way of verifying her claim. Momo ate three helpings and rubbed her stomach, saying she was good to go. Dineria couldn’t up but ask where Momo kept it all. “My grandpa once thought I was part cow because he said I had three stomachs. That year, he called me MooMoo instead of Momo. But I need my energy. Grandpa says it’s better to have more than what you need than not enough.”   

“A healthy appetite is a good omen. It means your body isn’t suffering from sickness or disease,” Dineria said, drinking a coffee she had ordered. She wanted it black—without cream or sugar. “Now, shall we get to it? The day is long.”  

We nodded, stood up, pushed our chairs in, and left the inn to head to the guild.   

---

“It’s a small world out there, isn’t it, big guy?”  

“It must be especially tiny for a human, Servi. Bwhaha!!”  

Our new kobold companion was at the guild when we arrived. His large, hulking body almost took up the entire quest board.   

“Can’t say you’re wrong,” I replied.   

“Oh, Servy! Here it is.” Momo snagged a document off the bulletin board and passed it to me.   

Srassa peeked over my shoulder. “The Mage’s Trial? Ms. Momo, are we ready to tackle this?”  

“Yep. Completing it gets us a new Skill Path. And when you get your tablet, Srassa, you’ll have it available. It’s retroactive.”  

“The place it’s asking you to go isn’t the dungeon… I’ve never heard of this cavern before.” Dineria looked over the paper twice more. She said it shouldn’t be too dangerous, but we'd best prepared to fight against water monsters. Srassa asked if that included merfolk, and our mentor nodded.   

From her grimace, I knew our noble friend hated them. It was subtle, but Srassa whined in her sleep. I had sat up a few times to check on her to find tears dripping down her cheeks.   

“Feral?” I turned to the kobold. “Do you want to come with us?”  

“Is that okay? Will you not mind?”  

Momo shook her head and patted him on the arm. “The more the merrier, right? It’ll be fun. Besides, it’s super lame that your mentors just abandoned you. It’s not right.”  

“Agreed,” added Dineria. “I’m going to trust you to see this done without my guidance.”  

“Gonna give Fisher and Arnold a piece of your mind?” I asked.   

“More than that. I’ll try not to chew em' out that badly, but I can’t make any promises.” Dineria turned to leave after wishing us well, and then it was time to take on the quest. The cavern was a few hours away, and we were burning the morning oil.   

---

“Crap! Two more brine serpents coming in from behind! I hear them slithering! [Acid Arrow]!” Momo shouted a warning and used her poison bolt to dissolve the strut beams supporting a large boulder suspended in the air. I thought it up, but Feral did the heavy lifting and constructed it upon my orders.    

It slammed down, killing 26 shorelings—little crabs that shot pressurized gusts of water from their eight pincers.    

Srassa was being set up on five adult shorelings. They were four feet tall and scampered around the walls and ceiling. Albert rushed to her aid and used a pair of tridents to swat the water blasts away. A few pierced his shoulder and cheek, but the damage healed in seconds. Before this, my friends had witnessed Albert taking a bite to the arm, so they knew he possessed the power of regeneration.   

It's a good thing spirits can regenerate. Not in the same manner as bone and flesh regrowing like a parasitical infection, but it’s whatever.    

“[War Cry]!” Srassa jumped back and played Victory as loud as she could. An invisible aura immediately came over us, giving us a boost of strength, a shot of adrenaline, and a second wind while causing the crabs to fall to the ground.    

They were frozen for just a handful of seconds, but it was enough for Feral to catch them in his large hands. He ripped away the shelled carapaces with pure strength and tore the claws. He couldn’t shoot water out of them, but they more than functioned as weapons as Feral took advantage of his raw muscle. His tail was similarly dangerous. He kept it fiercely wagging to prevent crabs from sneaking up behind, running their chance of stealth.    

Momo ducked under a blast of water that left a narrow, deep hole in the wall behind her, rushed to an adult shoreling, and jabbed her sword between the eyes. She looked at the large holes in the wall furthest away and said the snakes were here.   

Right on cue, ten four-foot-long snakes—colored like the pristine, shiny water we fought in that came to our knees—emerged.  Their fangs were long and pronounced, dripping with vile, corrosive acid that burnt away the very water they lived in. The brine-colored jewels on their foreheads beamed with energy.    

I looked up at the hole in the ground. When we had entered the cavern thirty minutes ago, we were distracted by the azure glow of the radiant mushrooms littering the place. There wasn’t really a path forward. The objective was to reach a secret room somewhere within the cavern. A guild employee would be waiting with an orb, and we needed to return to the guild with it.   

This cavern had a backdoor entrance that led directly to our goal, but we were forbidden from using it if we could find it in the first place because they were very well hidden. The middle of the opening room contained a flimsy floor, which broke apart when we stepped on it. We had fallen, landing in the middle of a large arena, then fought two brine serpents. We couldn’t kill them before the snakes ran away.    

The snakes made weird sounds, leading to an influx of shorelings.  

The fight had been raging for half an hour, and it showed no signs of stopping other than having a brief respite every ten minutes for a minute or two. Srassa’s adrenaline kept her going, but Momo had used a lot of skill energy thus far. Her breathing was heavy and dire.  

The saving case was [War Cry]. Its cooldown was five minutes, but Srassa didn’t need to spend any energy. The resources came from the crystal itself, and I believed it sucked skill energy from the air to use a replenishment.   

“Albert, you know what to do!” I retrieved Duskwand and fired off four shots, hitting the one bleeding from the neck. It was a survivor from our initial attack. “Kill one, then bring it back!”  

Albert nodded and used [Skeletal Hold] to make bony arms sprout from the walls, except he used them as footholds. Srassa ducked behind Feral and drew her bow, trusting him to keep the adult shorelings away while she laid down covering fire. I joined her. Momo attempted to, but she dropped her bow and clutched her side.   

She quickly shouted she wasn’t hurt.   

It was her skill energy. Momo had used too much, and it slowed her body. If she continued, the agony would exacerbate, like you were being eaten from the inside.  

“Don’t even think about raising your arm, captain!” I moved to her and fired while Albert dodged, ducked, swerved the snakes’ brine-colored spells and spitting acid.   

Seeing him fight was like watching the moon and stars intermingle in the night sky. At a sheer glance, he was so far and away above everyone. Had he been in his prime, I didn’t think Dineria could match him. He jabbed a trident in one of the serpent’s heads and pulled it away from the wall, using the other weapon to keep the others at bay. It smashed into the bloody water, and I used four shadowy bolts to kill it. Albert jumped and landed, then used [Reanimate] to bring it back to life.   

The dead snake received its soul and fought for us, extinguishing all it had while it curled and jumped to the other serpents. Those fangs were bared, and it latched onto its kin, throwing it far behind.    

“What is this?! The dead? Back to life?” Feral roared and caught the snake. He squeezed the life dry and tore it in half.   

“It’s my spirit’s special ability,” I replied. “Captain, are you good?”  

“Ye—yeah, I am,” Momo said. She reached for my outstretched hand, and I pulled her to her feet. Srassa announced she was out of arrows, but by then, the reanimated brine serpent and Albert had killed the rest. The only enemies in this dank, water-filled cavern were the shorelings. But the brine serpents’ acid was fatal to them. It seemed they were mortal enemies and constantly fought for control over this place. The acid would hurt us if touched directly, but the water heavily diluted it.   

“It seems we have yet another respite,” said Albert. He joined us after canceling [Reanimate]. The snake dissolved into goo and died for a second time.   

“Servy, we need to find a way out of here. Overuse of [War Cry] will be detrimental to our bodies. We can delay fatigue and exhaustion, but it’ll eventually catch up. Ms. Momo, you…”  

“I…just need a minute…to catch my breath…” Momo leaned against me for support. “Sorry…Servy…”  

“Don’t apologize, captain. Here…” I escorted Momo to the only dry spot within this circular arena.   

We had options available to us. We discussed whether to go down one of the side passages, climb to the hole we fell through, or crawl through the tunnels the snakes escaped and returned from.   

In the end, we picked a passage. There were four, so we randomly chose after I absorbed the corpses. The jewels on the brine serpents were decently valuable, according to Albert.   

Momo used Srassa and me for support until we came to a fork in the road. Albert said goodbye and returned to my ring, and we continued forward, braving the water-logged tunnels.   

That led us to a room filled with more shorelings, but Feral handled them after discovering their attacks couldn’t pierce his scaly skin.   

“Two more paths? I’m starting to think this place is a maze,” Momo said.    

Albert’s voice echoed around my head and explained he was remembering the corridors we took. 

I told my friends, and Momo’s expression softened. While we appeared to be in a dangerous situation, it wasn’t all bad because when you broke them down, the monsters weren’t strong. They weren’t weak, of course.   

But we continued walking, and walking, and walking, and even more walking. The tunnels never seemed to end, and it was always an arena with a few monsters. Those brine serpents were MIA. But the crabs were getting annoying- not because they were difficult, but because they were so goddamn commonplace I saw them when I blinked!  

But there it was… After dispatching the latest group, we discovered a tunnel different from the rest. It was the only one lined with blue torches rather than being illuminated by glowing mushrooms. Momo took the lead since she was feeling better, and our destination was at the end.   

“Congratulations on making it this far,” said an old man with a cane. He wore a finely pressed suit. The emblem of the guild rested across his chest. He stood in front of a closed beige tent. Albert said the glowing circle nearby was probably a teleporter to take us out of here.    

“Wait, so this is the end?”  

The man nodded. He turned around and opened the tent, revealing a shimmering orb of golden light. “Take it to the guild, and you’ll obtain the Battle Mage Skill Path.”  

Momo approached and took the orb. When she walked away, another one appeared in its place. The man said it contained the power of a Skill Path. Breaking it apart would grant us its secrets, but we could only touch one if we had the quest the Skill Path required active. If I had wandered here alone, my hands would phase through it. Srassa’s family emblem worked the same if you weren’t on the registry.    

But what about absorbing it? Admittedly, I was deeply intrigued to see how much Itarr’s authority as a goddess affected the rules. But now wasn’t the time.   

The man saw us off with a wave when we stepped into the magic circle, and in the blink of an eye, we were at the cavern’s entrance. A curious peek inside revealed a non-damaged floor.   

I wondered if the entire place was designed as a test? It wasn’t that difficult since the primary trouble came from the initial onslaught of enemies, but it wasn’t that hard. Granted, it appeared as if Battle Mage was designed to be one of the first Skill Paths, so the difficulty was on the low end.    

“Well, that didn’t happen like I thought it would.” Momo raised the orb and watched its sparkly shimmer. “But the quest is done! Come on, let’s get back to the guild and crack this baby open.” 

We didn't encounter any merfolk, which Srassa was thankful for. It was their mating season, so maybe most were just gone? 

I wasn't going to spend more time thinking about it than I needed because it didn't matter.