Interconnected: Spliced Souls

I woke minutes ago in a bed much too expensive for me, inside a building that had to cost millions of whatever currency this country used. Itarr was there to greet me with a lovely good morning, and I returned the heartfelt words to the goddess of souls and immortality. Just seconds prior, I was happily sitting on the corner of the blood fountain while talking about the future and what we hoped to accomplish.  

Other than getting Itarr’s memories back.  

The world was open to us. With our unique abilities, there wasn’t much we couldn’t do, but we both agreed to take it easy since we were venturing into the unknown. You couldn't go wrong with practicing caution, especially if you were in our shoes.  

Kicking my legs off the bed, I stretched and involuntarily yawned before putting my pants and shoes on. “Hmm…” 

Is something wrong? 

“Not really. I was thinking maybe a change of clothes might be on the docket. But we need some money.” 

Do we? Can we not take what we need? 

“I mean, we can. There’s not much anyone can do to stop us, but let’s try not to hurt those that don’t deserve it,” I said, talking to myself as I left my room. The smell of eggs and meat filled the hallway, so I followed the scent to the kitchen to find Nimyra cooking breakfast. She wore a skimpy black nightgown with slits to expose her nipples and a black thong barely wide enough to cover her crotch, which dug into her shapely ass.   

“Ah, good morning, Servi. Did you sleep well?” she asked with a bubbly smile. She looked at my speechless face, then she looked down to see her bare nipples and realized her state of attire. And then she went back to cooking. To a prostitute, nudity was probably as normal as breathing.  

“I did,” I replied, staring at her for a few seconds longer. She carried a beautiful face, but her body was nothing to scoff at.  

“Oh~~ If you keep staring that hard, my dear, I might charge you for a session.” The sultry elf spread her index and middle finger, then placed her tongue through it. 

Does she mean sex? 

“Yeah, she does. But I don’t have any money. I’m broke as a joke.”  

“She does? Talking to yourself? Whoops, how rude of me. I should be offering you one on the house after you helped Lucy. I’m serious, Servi, if you weren’t there, she…”  

“But I was the reason why that fat fucker hurt her so much,” I rebutted. Nimyra shook her head and said that didn’t matter. The Patron had a reputation for being awfully sadistic, and this wasn’t the first time he’d been so brutal. But Nimyra didn’t want to speak on it anymore, so we talked about Lucy while she finished preparing a basic breakfast of eggs over easy and sausage. The elf’s Goatkin companion hadn’t regained consciousness, but Lucy wasn’t squirming or groaning in her sleep. She didn’t look peaceful, but this was probably the best-case scenario.  

“So,” Nimyra said after we sat at the table with our plates. “You said you don’t have any money?”  

I nodded with a mouth full of delicious pork. It was fat and juicy, cooked in a mix of spices that gave it a dash of heat. I stabbed it with a wooden fork and broke the egg’s yolk, covering it in even more flavor.  

“You’re not a member of Warden? Can you summon your Skill Tablet?” As befitting her beauty, Nimyra was delicate and proper when eating, wiping her lips after each bite, even if nothing dirtied them.   

“You mean this thing?” I snatched a silver stone tablet after it materialized and placed it on the kitchen table beside my plate.   

“Yes, that ‘thing.’ Do you not know what Warden is?” I shook my head and swallowed a mouthful. Even if I didn’t need to eat, I could still enjoy deliciousness when I encountered it. “How strange. I thought Warden was an organization known to everyone and everywhere, but to think there must still be places where it hasn’t reached.”  

Warden was an organization that almost acted like a peace-keeping federation. If you had a problem, whether it was trouble with bandits, monsters that wouldn’t leave your farm alone, or a group of nasty beasts holed up within a cave, you could go to Warden and pay to put up a quest. Adventurers would then take those quests and complete them. The quest giver was responsible for putting up a monetary reward, but the guild offered SP, or skill points, to further entice people to take on quests. I suppose it was like an economy of sorts. You took on weak quests to gain SP. In the process, you helped protect the world, and then you would grow more powerful, and then you’d take on more difficult missions that you couldn’t complete before, earn even more SP, and spend that to acquire more powerful abilities.   

So it’s not skill potential? Skill points make more sense, I suppose.  

But the abilities available to you were restricted by both your rank and the Skill Path you chose. There were paths focusing on melee combat, ranged combat, and magical combat, and there were other guilds within Warden that offered even more specialized Skill Paths. 

We are not enrolled in any Skill Path. Perhaps that is why we have a large amount of negative space on our tablet. Now, it's making more sense, Servi. This Warden seems to be key in our progression.  

In that case, it was better to think of Warden as the primary organization that contained smaller guilds, all of which held the same general objective.   

As Nimyra explained it to me, she had this listlessness in her eyes, like she was looking at a past that didn’t come to fruition.   

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.  

“Oh, just thinking… I tried to summon my Skill Tablet for dozens of decades, but I couldn’t do it. Even if you’re blessed by a god or goddess, you can’t use what they give you without one, much less acquire any skills, spells, or abilities. You know, I never wanted to live this life. When I was born 400 years ago, my parents had great aspirations for me. I could have been a fantastic archer like my uncle, an excellent mage of mystics like my mother, or a warrior with an unstoppable shield like my father… But no. No matter how much I trained, the disappointment in my family’s eyes grew stalwart. They didn’t say it to my face, of course, but I read their feelings. And then the war came.”  

“War? What war?”  

“You don’t know about that either?” I shook my head again. “226 years ago, there was a decade-long war between the Drow Elves of Droelvia and Inith– the name of the combined forces Keywater, Westera, and Lando. A country versus a unified continent. The foolish fools believed they could win. Everywhere else, Drow Elves were treated as lower-class citizens for actions we had nothing to do with. We couldn’t get a job without getting abused, and there was no food. People would poison the scraps they didn’t eat to see us writhe in pain. People hated us just because we looked the way we did… It was…hell.”  

Nimyra said that eventually, she had nothing else to give but her body, which marked the beginning of her new life. But she didn’t sell her body out of want. It was out of necessity– out of survival– to satisfy her growling stomach to prevent becoming another statistic for the record book of unnecessary genocide against Drow Elves. She was beaten, punched, raped, and attacked– left for dead more times than she could count without ever receiving the money she was promised, but her desire for life kept her going. When the treaty ending the war was signed a decade after it started, Droelvia was no more and became Elviria.   

It was a word that meant ‘separation equality’ in some ancient language. It was considered a ‘country,’ but it was broken up into different city-states– each with a leader of a separate race leading it as its ruler while remaining loyal to Inith.   

That was centuries ago, and history was oft forgotten. Those city-states eventually came into their own, developing their own beliefs, religion, culture, and history. Nimyra almost hinted that this development had been predicted by a seer. The ancient rulers of Keywater, Westera, and Lando orchestrated the events like puppet masters to fit their desires. Doing it this way drastically lessened the chances of the individual communities finding peace and forming treaties. I didn't see why they had to go this far. Then again, I didn't have all the facts. Perhaps they knew something no one else did and decided this was the best chance to carve everlasting peace? 

Was it really that important?  

Maybe, but not to me.   

But the way Drow Elves and Nimyra were treated didn’t change overnight. It took many years before they were looked at with neutral eyes. By then, Nimyra had spent so long selling her body to the highest bidder that she couldn’t find the strength to do anything else. She continued for the next two hundred years, eventually becoming famous for her sexual prowess and exceptional beauty, which led to her being able to pick and choose her clients. That was the Queen of Night– a woman who endured hell with suffering through torment for survival.   

Nimyra was a fighter. She was strong— much more than someone like me. If I didn’t have Itarr, I’d have probably taken my own life if I was forced with what she endured. Itarr was my strength, but a different type of support.  

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean...for this to happen,” Nimyra said as parallel streams of water leaked from her orange eyes. “I don’t know what came over me. Once I started talking…I just couldn’t stop.” I told her there was no need to apologize before walking over and hugging her. Her tender hands were softer than silk, and her skin was as lovely as velvet. Even as tall as she was, she felt…fragile and vulnerable. She buried her head between my chest while I gently rubbed her hair. The waterworks stopped eventually, and I realized I wasn’t crying. Her story was sorrowful, so why…  

I shook my mind free of intrusive thoughts.  

“Sorry about that… Maybe you've been keeping it too long?” I asked if she had told anyone her story, and she shook her head.

“I don’t have anyone to listen to it. My parents… My family is no more, and it’s terribly hard to support children in my line of work… Who’d want to be known as the daughter of a whore?” 

---

Fifteen minutes later, after we had cleaned our plates, Nimyra pressed a button near the entrance. It was connected to the front desk, and Meghann soon knocked at the door. My gracious host acted on her promise to get me fitted, which took about an extra ten minutes.   

Stripping naked, they clearly saw the bulge in my panties. The obvious questions came, and I just said I was born with the genitalia of a man. That led to me stripping nude, and my flaccid penis flopped out. Meghann’s hands were smooth and warm– her fingers glancing more than twice against my shaft while she took all the measurements. She needed them to pick out the correct size panties to not restrict or cut off the circulation of anything, which made a ton of sense.   

Nimyra stared at my dangling appendage and continued to look even while I got dressed. She offered to hold it so it could get measured. I didn't see a reason to refuse, so I enjoyed her soft fingers as Meghann measured my cock.   

It was an odd feeling.  

But an enjoyable one, nonetheless.   

“Now, what style of clothing do you prefer?”  

“Uhh? I guess something comfortable? It has to be easy to move around in. And tough, I suppose. Don't want it breaking or ripping on me.”  

“Understood. I'll return in about thirty minutes.” Meghann slightly bowed her head and left, leaving me to answer even more lewd questions from Nimyra, who wished to know how my cock worked.   

That was an exhausting time. I was grateful to the Drow Elf for giving me a place to stay, but you could only answer the question of ‘how do you jack off?’ in a finite number of ways.   

Meghann’s knocking at the door was a welcome noise. I leapt from the couch and let her and the suitcase she held in, and she left it to me to open.   

I knew I asked for practicality...  

The overalls were a deep, denim blue– made from tough and durable cotton dyed azure. Rugged, it was more than breathable and also acted as my pants.   

It was also almost like what a farmer’s daughter would wear when plowing the fields.  

There was a red and white striped button-up shirt with a white tank top to go under that. The receptionist chose a sexy pair of red underwear. The thin panties were altered to comfortably hold my dick, and to finish it off, there was a pair of black boots with a slight heel to them. Like the overalls, they were made with durability in mind.   

“I hope your smile means you like them. Care to try them on, Miss Servi?”  

“Why not? Oh, and please call me Servi,” I said. A pair of gasps echoed around the room when the outfit vanished, and they repeated when the clothes I wore were replaced by it.   

“How fascinating! Is that storage magic? I've never seen it used without a chant? Where is it held? What's the source?” Meghann blurted. As expected of someone in her position, she calmed herself and apologized for her nerdy outburst. It turned out Meghann had a side hobby of researching magic. Unfortunately, she also couldn't summon her Skill Tablet.   

Servi, I wonder if that is a rare trait? 

“I dunno.”  

“You don't know how it works?” Meghann tilted her head.   

“Ah, I was thinking out loud. No, I know how it works. It's my ring. It handles everything for me.” I lifted my hand to show the two onlookers, and we descended into a calming chat about artifacts and embedded skills.   

Itarr had told me our ring was bound to my soul. If it somehow left my possession, it would automatically return to me. 

Everything Nimyra and Meghann spoke about went way over my head.   

A knock at the door came fifteen minutes later, a signal for Meghann that she needed to return to her post. She wished me well, offered a small prayer for Lucy, and hugged Nimyra before leaving.   

The Drow stretched and said she was spending the day with Lucy. Meanwhile, she gave me directions to the local Warden Guild. She also handed me a card sprinkled with diamond dust. It held her signature and effectively worked as an all-access pass to the building. The holder was an exclusive guest of the Queen of Night, so I wouldn't run into any trouble.