Interconnected: Spliced Souls

 

“…and that’s another thing, you self-centered jackasses! How can you just let your student wander with a lame goal such as independence? If you don’t want to actually act like a mentor, why in Elrune’s name did you volunteer?!” Dineria slammed her hands on the table after ripping into the one-armed man wearing silver armor adorned with an emblem of a fish. She hit it so hard the helmet sitting nearby jumped off the table, landing in his lap.    

After leaving her students, Dineria wandered through Waveret to search for Feral’s mentors. And she quickly found them having breakfast inside a café. Instantly, a scowl formed on her face as she charged in, sat down, and verbally tore into the two of them for forty-five minutes without stopping.   

All the employees and customers had their eyes glued to the scene as she brushed off the trembling young elf chosen to ask her to leave.    

The black-armored man nearby couldn’t hold back his laughs. He had his helmet beside him, a charming smile across his pale-ish, punchable face.    

“And I don’t see why this is funny! A kobold as young as Feral is in his most formative years! He might be an adult in his culture, but he’s still just a kid! I swear, it’s idiots like you that make me want to scream! If you don’t properly look after him, I’ll have to take it up with the guild master. And I’ll request a visit with Duchess Ashford to have your asses demoted! I mean, why do something like this and half-ass it? It just pisses me off, and you should be ashamed! Especially you! You have daughters, so is that the example you want to set for them? Will your wife be proud to find out you left a LITERAL child alone to fend for themselves?”  

Fisher met her eyes.   

He was a man of great mental anguish.    

But he was also weak-minded, a coward, and a fool chained to his past. The one who held the reigns was the one sitting near him, and try as he might, Fisher couldn’t escape his influence.   

He wanted to.   

The great divines above knew Fisher wanted to change…  

But it was Arnold’s idea to sign up.   

It was his idea to request a kobold to mentor.   

It was his idea to leave Feral running around aimlessly, even when they both knew these years were the most important years of his life.   

And it was his idea…to stage an accident at the end of this mentorship and kill Feral.   

Just because he was a kobold.    

Fisher and Arnold were born in the same village, only a few months apart. And they were friends from an early age. After working the fields, it wasn’t rare for the two young boys to fish in the nearby lake or hunt for fruit and mushrooms in the nearby forest. Or maybe they would visit the small church. The new sister there was transferred from Adenaford. Fisher often remembered becoming embarrassed when looking at her cute face, something Arnold relentlessly teased him about.   

After that, they would visit Fisher’s house. He lived with his older sister, whom he loved so very much. Their parents died from a sudden sickness that overcame the village a year after his birth, so he didn’t know them that much. But he loved to lay in bed and listen to his sister tell him stories about them.   

And stargaze. He loved it when winter arrived because she would make coffee, and the two would sit under the skies and just watch the sparkly diamonds that seemed so far away. 

However, things changed around his tenth birthday. It happened when they were fishing. Arnold had spotted black smoke rising from the village. When they arrived, they found the place under attack by a group of kobold bandits. Even now, when he closed his eyes, Fisher perfectly saw the corpses.   

He saw the bodies cut open…   

He saw the mutilated children…  

He saw blood gushing from hearts and livers and stomachs and lungs from where the kobolds were eating the dead…  

And he saw the most horrific sight of all when he rushed to his house. There...in the front yard…near the broken birdhouse his sister had promised to help fix…was his only remaining family member.   

She was stripped bare. A large, scaly hand gripped her stomach tightly, picked her up, and forced himself upon her. Three other kobolds played with themselves while watching. After the first was done, he threw her limp, convulsing body to the ground and walked away, letting another take his place.   

Fisher was hidden in the bushes. But she saw his eyes. She used the last of her strength to mouth two words. 

Run away.   

But Fisher couldn't run. He was terrified. He was shocked. He was frozen to the ground. The screaming from the remaining survivors was like shackles binding him to the earth where he stood.   

He…  

Fisher believed himself to be a coward from way back when. But the anger he felt burned his soul… He hated those goddamn kobolds with every fiber of his being as they used his sister like a toy.   

And that was when they were the most distracted. Fisher grabbed a sword one of them had dropped and launched into a maniac rage.   

He vividly remembered the dull edge pushing past the red-scaled skin and tasting flesh.    

It was here that Fisher picked up a sword for the first TIME, and it was here he took a life for the first time. This single act changed the course of his life dramatically. A whimsical sphere of light appeared in front of him.   

It was his Skill Tablet…  

Suddenly, [Champion’s Trance], the sole skill provided by his god, kicked in. To him, it looked like the world slowed to a crawl. He saw every attack as a standstill, enabling him to dodge and duck the incoming blows. But the amount of data he perceived directly translated into raw combat experience, making him go from a mere novice to a trained swordsman in ten seconds.   

After three minutes…he was an undisputed savant-- with more skill than warriors four times his age.   

And around him laid the corpses of the bandit troupe. All had come once the fighting started, and they all fell by his bloodied hands. With an abject, expressionless look, he walked to his sister and held her hands.   

They were cold.   

He touched her face.   

It was cold.   

Her body was stiff… She had passed on during the fight, but Fisher was so consumed by hate that he just had to kill the ones responsible.   

Fisher didn’t know how long he had stayed there. But it was the dead of night when a hand touched his back. He reacted with deadly intent and nearly severed his only surviving friend’s head, but Fisher stayed his hand at the last moment.   

And he emotionally shattered like a glass house, wailing and venting his impossible-to-understand emotions in Arnold’s arms.   

Two boys… Just a hair over ten years old… They were left alone in a village filled with the dead. No one was spared. Everything was burning…and life as they knew it was uprooted in a single day.   

Fisher and Arnold spent the next week digging graves and burying the dead.   

“We’re going to kill every last one of those bastards,” Arnold had said. He formed two fists hard enough to break his skin. Similar hatred invaded Fisher’s heart.   

They promised revenge for their village and left it…  

However, within the week, the two were captured by another roving band of bandits made of branded wildkin criminals. They appealed to the last remaining innocence in their hearts and took them in, but they wanted to sell Fisher and Arnold to slavers because children were worth more.    

Three days later, Fisher and Arnold would emerge as the only survivors. Their hands were bloodied. They stood in the middle of the camp and mercilessly mutilated those slavers until the latrines were flooded with their blood. 

“We can’t rely on anything,” Arnold had said when the deed was done. He overlooked the massacre and gripped his spear. “They need to die… Wildkin…koena…kobolds… They need to die… And we’ll kill them all, Fisher.”   

Fisher was mentally gone. He had resolved himself to be the perfect weapon—an unkillable soldier who grew faster than most prodigies.   

The next twenty years saw Fisher and Arnold terrorize Lando—only Arnold had used Fisher as a weapon. He was a tool to steal lives—a tool that, as the years progressed, had no equal. He was part of the reason why the two ascended through the guild. They didn’t care about making the world a better place.  They joined a few other like-minded groups during those long years, but it always ended with Fisher exterminating them after an order from Arnold. 

Arnold just wanted power. Arnold forced Fisher to only do what he commanded. In a way, he was as much of a slave, yet instead of it being a kobold or wildkin to hold the leash, it was someone he thought of as a friend because he had been there when Fisher needed him the most.   

The sole reason they stopped their atrocities was Canary. A new city was being built, and it was rapidly growing. Arnold had the bright idea to join the guards. He wanted to acquire influence and power, then slowly spread his hateful ideology until he amassed a loyal following. Arnold never forgot his hate. And Fisher was forever at his side like a loyal hound without noticing he was being abused. 

If Fisher hadn’t had that chance run-in with a particular noblewoman who showed him that he was still capable of loving…and if he hadn’t been blessed with two sweet little girls…  

He loved his family.   

He would die for them.   

But Arnold?  

Arnold still held that leash tied around his neck.   

And Fisher couldn't deny the sparse hatred in his heart towards kobold and wildkin. He knew he couldn’t blame the actions of the few on the entire species. But that trauma was etched deep in his heart.   

Truth be told, he was happy when Arnold suggested the mentorship. Fisher wanted to become a better man. He desired to face this dark blemish on his soul and move past it. He truly wanted to become the heroic man his daughters believed him to be.   

His family didn’t know about his murderous past—although his only wife knew he was born in a fishing village. Their hatred? If it somehow got out, if they were somehow privy to the dark skeletons in his closet... The saving light that brought him back from being a broken man…would merely extinguish itself.   

And the cold, dark, deadly night that was his former life as a reaper would be all he had left.   

And Arnold knew that. Arnold carried that close to his chest and was ready to whip it out if Fisher showed signs of forgiving what he believed was unforgivable.    

That was why Fisher believed himself to be a weak man with a weak resolve—It was why he hadn’t gotten any restful sleep in many years…  

“Forgive me, Dineria,” Fisher suddenly said. “It was not my intention to act befitting what you believed me to me. I wasn't aware of the customs, so I believed independence is what Feral needed to become an upstanding kobold his swamp can be proud of.” 

“Ah—Well, that’s right. But it’s not enough to say sorry. Actions speak louder than words.” Dineria leaned back with a huff and crossed her legs. She still stared daggers at him and Arnold. “To start, you can pay for my breakfast.”  

“What? All that bitchin’, and you want a free meal?”  

“Shut it, Arnold. Your ass is in the hot seat, too. Don’t think I’m just pissed at Fisher.”  

“If it’s so hot, why don’t you come over and cool it down.” Arnold raised an eyebrow, causing another scowl to cast over Dineria’s face.    

“Ugh! You idiots are insufferable…”  

“You can’t force a kobold to follow the rite of adulthood for another species. To do anything else would be disregarding how Feral was raised.” Arnold may have had an inextinguishable hatred of kobolds and other wildkin, yet he devoted more time and effort to learning their culture to more readily befriend them... 

…just to end their lives when they were least expecting it.   

“I’ll just say you’re wrong, and we’re dropping it at that.”  

“What? Can’t stand being wrong once in your life? I thought the great and powerful Dreadwood Shadow was above being petty.”  

Dineria glared at Arnold with eyes full of venomous rage. She crossed her arms and looked away at a waiter. 

---

After Dineria had mooched off Fisher’s wallet and eaten her fill of food and drink, she graciously offered her kind, scholarly support to establish a proper training regiment for the young Feral. Since the friendly elf was known to not cut any corners, the planning lasted for about seven hours, at which she dragged the two men to the guild to oversee them choose the correct quests to reinforce Feral’s strength while overcoming his weaknesses.   

“You guys are back already?” Dineria saw a familiar group of three girls and a kobold walking their way. The bubbly singi held a glowing orb to her chest.    

“Yep! Check it out!” Momo raised the orb for Dineria to see.   

“Well, congratulations, you three. That’s the Battle Mage Skill Path, yeah?” Arnold asked, faking a smile. His friendly nature was unknown to everyone there but two.   

Instinctively, Fisher felt a thump in his heart. And it wasn’t just from looking at a cat-eared girl his ‘friend’ wanted to kill.   

It was from staring into the eyes of a demon…  

That furious scowl… That black hair… Those hellfire-like eyes…  

The one Fisher had witnessed an angry Arnold stab in the chest... 

But here she was…walking—talking, even, and communicating as if her life had never ended.   

Just what was she doing here? 

Did she know we were going to be here? Is she here to kill us? That look… Does she not remember us? Has she forgotten about it? 

“…Mr. Fisher? Are you okay? Is your wound bothering you?” Srassa’s voice returned Fisher’s mind to the present.   

“Forgive me, Miss Srassa. I didn’t mean to ignore you.” He came up with an excuse. “Feral, I’m sorry for not acting more like an instructor. Dineria’s made me see the error of my way, so we’ll do more hands-on training tomorrow. Is that okay?”  

“It is. I will appreciate your guidance.” Feral slammed his tail to the ground—a sign he was happy.  

Upon first seeing that armor, Servi nearly threw herself into a rage. She wanted nothing more than to rip their heads off and burn their bodies to a crisp. Perhaps she’d use her scythe and carve them up, then throw the meat to the Merfolk monsters. Better yet,  why not cleave their limbs and hand them alive to those aquatic snakes?  

There was nothing better than fresh meat.  

But there were two people inside her soul that calmed her.   

They didn’t do anything to extinguish the yearning for revenge—they merely told her displaying it would cause trouble for all. The goddess sitting on the fountain in the soul world recognized who Fisher and Arnold were from the stories Servi told her, and she passed it to Albert. The old, now young, revenant had experience in categories and fields most common folk weren’t aware of.   

He knew the price of revenge.   

He knew how hatred felt.   

It would be the pinnacle of hypocrisy to suggest Servi let bygones be bygones, so he never dreamt of ever telling her that.   

But he cared for Momo and Srassa.     

Pretending to be amicable will cause you pain. Trust me, I know it all too well, but please keep your feelings restrained for the moment.

That advice was invaluable, and it falsely caused Fisher to believe Servi, who had somehow survived having her heart split into two, didn’t remember him.   

But it was difficult for her. Keeping that sweet smile and talking with two people she hated most really stretched her to the limit.   

Dineria ushered them inside and talked with Fisher and Arnold while Servi, Momo, and Srassa turned in the orb. They gained an influx of SP and agreed to wait before spending. They’d have time to talk after dinner, so that was the plan.   

It was in the late afternoon, so it was the perfect time to hit up a place and have dinner on Fisher. But before that, Momo made sure to sell the jewels they gathered from the brine serpents. It gave them enough money to afford four more nights in their fancy hotel.