Following Madame Illusia’s advice, Veles checked the jars and figurines they had on hand.
Not many of them were left, save for the jar in Geoffrey’s bag, but it was enough to study. Still, he would have preferred to do it by himself. Unfortunately, the polar bear just sat there watching him as he studied the jar. Veles kinda wanted to tell him to kindly fuck off, but he knew how much getting his intelligence back meant to Geoffrey.
He flipped through Glitz’ notes and his own spellbook while studying the enchantment on the jar. It seemed that it was meant to gradually siphon the soul essence out of a victim. The end effect would be a catboi or catgirl. There was a template inscribed in the jar that replaced the victim’s stats with pre-generated ones for Granny’s Kitty’s.
So each jar did it all.
He studied the enchantments on the jar and then shifted over to Jeff’s figurine. The fat bear was still hanging in there, as the figurine’s demeanor was still servile. Veles guessed that if Jeff ever lost himself to Geoffrey completely, the figurine would change as it siphoned the rest of Jeff’s soul essence out and replaced it.
But now that he was looking at the figurine that Glitz had made, Veles realized that it was both more and less intricate in enchantment design.
More intricate, since it took a soul in exchange for a soul. Less, because the soul wasn’t pre-recorded. Either way, he copied down the enchantments and compared the jar and the figurine’s. There were stark differences and areas of overlap.
Veles rubbed his eyes, feeling a bit tired, but was determined to decipher the enchantment.
After another hour of math and formulas and analysis, he’d finally found the basics of the soul trap enchantments. It took another hour for him to figure out how to exchange one thing for another and a third to invent his own pre-generated character sheet.
By now, it was nearing midnight.
The sounds outside had died down. No one had come back inside to sleep yet, likely enjoying the comfort of the fire and company. Veles wanted to share that with his party, but he had a job to do. Wearily, he pulled out some parchment and started jotting down rough character sheets.
Half an hour later, he stood, stretching, joints popping pleasantly, then trotted outside.
“Eureka?” Geoffrey asked.
The rest of the party looked up at the arctic fox.
“Eureka,” Veles nodded, thrusting the papers into the sky, “I think I’ve got it!”
“Fuck yeah, man!” Charlie laughed. “We were worried for an hour there.”
“I told you he would figure it out,” Gregory rolled his eyes, “It’s literally his only job right now.”
“Palseks glad you learned spell,” came a happy chirp from the kobold.
Veles looked at her and saw he hidden question in her eyes. He nodded and she smiled and turned back to the fire. Geoffrey was looking at Nicolas’ soul-jar, which was in Veles’ paw, and licking his lips.
“Not yet Geoffrey, Geezus!” Veles said.
“Aw!”
“I need to test this on the bandits. Are they still tied up?”
Charlie nodded.
“Are we sure they are bandits?” Veles asked.
Charlie sighed and nodded, “They confessed and asked us to join them for a portion of the loot.”
“You said fuck no, right?” Veles replied.
“Of course.” Charlie said indignantly.
“Good, because there are a bunch of people in this caravan I wouldn’t want to fuck with.” Veles replied. “I’m going to test some spells.”
“Good luck,” Charlie said.
“You guys should go to sleep, the caravan leaves at dawn and it’s almost midnight.” Veles said.
“What?” Gregory blinked, “Geoffrey, is that true?”
Geoffrey checked his watch, “Oh my, it appears so, my liege. Let us get to bed.”
While the others quietly got ready for bed, Veles went around the back of their carriage where the bandits had been tied up.
The little anthro arctic fox stuck an ever-burning torch in the ground, illuminating the angry, scowling faces of the three faux guards. They cursed at him through their gags. Veles glanced around, making sure no one was watching him. Not like he cared, but they were dressed like guards and he didn’t want people to get the wrong impression.
With a few words and a wave of his hands, he activated the Trimming spell.
Instantly, a 3-dimensional hologram of a character sheet hovered over the heads of all three bandits.
He looked over the background of the badger.
‘Cress Stilwater, badger, male, 32, member of the Northern Forest Bandits. Currently pretending to be a guard on the caravan. Is gruff and mean, with a stout build and heavy muscles, starvation removing any fat on his body.’
Veles couldn’t add anything to the background, but could he subtract things? He smiled at the gruff, dirty badger, and went through to edit his background. The badger seemed to understand Veles was doing something and struggled in his bonds.
Veles reached out and grabbed some of the words off the badger’s character sheet, until what he was left with was:
‘Cress Stilwater, badger, male, 32, member of the Northern Forest Band. Currently a guard on the caravan. Is gruff, with a stout build and heavy fat on his body.’
In Veles hand, words glowed on the previously blank parchment – just as he expected everything that he had cut from the badger’s sheet had reappeared on the parchment in his hand. He looked up at the badger just in time to see the effects his edits had on the anthro.
Cress sagged in his bonds and started to bloat, his body swelling with fat. The badger’s cheeks grew puffy and a double chin sagged below his muzzle. The former bandit’s struggles eased and he seemed to relax as his belly grew rotund, spilling into his lap, his leather armor unable to fully cover his furry gut.
A banjo appeared, slung across Cress’s back, and the rough look he had about him disappeared, his fur shiny and well-groomed. Fluffy, even. While the badger changed, the other bandits stared at him in horror at first, but as the changes progressed, their anxiety lessened. He was no longer a fellow bandit, after all.
Veles giggled, realizing his alterations of the badger’s background had been perfectly executed.
Now on to the others. He had a bunch of words he could insert into their backstories. And with a little adjustments to the wordings, he could make them into whatever he wanted. As long as he had the right words saved up, anything he used Trim on was done for. Of course, the spell required concentration, so he couldn’t use it in battle unless he could ambush someone before they could react to him.
Let’s see… Shiloh the Weasel.
‘Shiloh Callahan, weasel, male, 19, member of the Northern Forest Bandits. Currently pretending to be a guard on the caravan. Is vicious and cruel, with a wiry build and very little fat due to starvation.’
Now, Veles could do exactly the same thing to the weasel as he did to the badger, making him a legit guard. But he had words to play with now! What could he do to the evil little shit? He started editing.
‘Shiloh Callahan, weasel, male, 19, member of the Northern Forest Band. Currently pretending to be a guard on the caravan. Is pretending to be vicious and cruel, with a wiry build and very little muscles due to fat.’
He’d swapped a few words around and not entirely deleted them while inserting some from the badger’s sheet. It should have the same effect on the weasel as it had on the badger. But how would his background resolve if he had a wiry build but without muscles, just fat?
The weasel also seemed to sag in his bonds, his wiry muscles deflating, replaced with droopy mooblets and a sallow little belly. He was still slim and wiry-looking but definitely out of shape. Shiloh relaxed in his bonds as well, a flute appearing in a case at his side.
That left the otter for the last experiment. Veles rubbed his paws together, elated to turn the bandit into a musician-turned guard. Once this was done, he would pull out the big guns. He pulled up the otter’s character sheet, focusing on the background. It only took a few seconds to edit it to say:
‘Amicus Riverfisher, otter, male, 26, member of the Northern Forest Band. Currently a guard on the caravan. Is quiet and thoughtful and pretending to be slim with very fat build.’
The otter, too, sagged, both in body language and physically before he swelled with fat like the badger had. A heavy tunic appeared, hiding his flabby breasts, his fat belly squashed and stuffed into a vest to appear more slim than the obese otter actually was. The corpulent otter looked like he was an overfull sausage stuffed to bursting. A harmonica attached itself to his wide hips.
Veles smiled in satisfaction as the last bandit became a docile guard.
He could let them go right now and they’d be rather useless guards on a caravan. But he wasn’t done experimenting with them yet. Unfortunately, Veles had also used up all his spell slots for the day, so he’d need to rest and continue another night. The arctic fox hurried over and untied all of the former bandits.
“What was that all about?” The badger said, annoyed.
“Sorry,” Veles shrugged, “we had to verify your identities. Why don’t you have a beer with us tomorrow night as an apology?”
“We don’t want your damn beer!’ The weasel said angrily. “I’ll rip your guts out!”
“Shiloh!” Amicus hissed, then panted trying to catch his breath in the overly tight outfit he was wearing, “We’ll swing by.”
“Thanks. And sorry again for the inconvenience.” Veles said before hurrying to his room.
He needed eight full hours of sleep to get all his spells back.