Veles the fox wizard was currently attempting to research how Glitz managed keeping souls in figurines.
Somehow, the stag had managed to keep the souls from floating away. There had to be a reason Veles’ words were disappearing. Was it simply that he needed a full soul? That would make sense, but it would also mean that Geoffrey really would have to wait until the likely ambush in order for Veles to perform the spell properly.
That was the other thing. Geoffrey and Jeff were NOT fully merged. Most of Jeff was in the figurine, along with Geoffrey’s personality. Most of Geoffrey, on the other hand, was currently in the polar bear’s body, along with Jeff’s personality.
He’d have to calculate a way to separate and merge the personalities with the right bodies. Which meant Trimming Jeff into his figurine. Probably. And Jeff had been adamant about NOT doing such a thing. In the end, Jeff might be screwed.
“Veles!” Charlie called, walking back into camp.
Veles looked up from his work. “Yes?”
“Got a sheet and some spells.”
“What do they do?” Veles frowned.
“Copy and Paste. Take a guess.” Charlie replied.
“Ah.” Veles nodded.
Of course spells like that would exist, why he hadn’t thought of it earlier? Well… because he was still a total newbie to this kind of magic. It would mitigate some risk, but if he screwed up, then they’d likely be paying lots of money to undo his fuck up.
“How much to undo my fuck up if and when it occurs?”
“1000 gold.”
“Of course.” Veles rolled his eyes. “We should probably Copy and Paste his Character Sheet now, before Jeff loses himself any more than he has already.”
“Yeah. Uh…I also have a vessel in case we need to emergency transfer his personality.” Charlie said.
“We have the figurine.”
“The one with the polar bear’s personality. We’ll need to graft that back into Geoffrey.” Charlie said.
“I see the logic… so by ‘vessel’, I’m assuming you DON’T mean a living being?”
“Boots.”
“Yeah, that’s a dick move. But…” Veles hesitated. “…I think you’re right. We don’t have a choice. Jeff needs to take a break for a few days.”
“What about Greg?”
“Personally, I think Finn should let him go home. Barring that…Trim him onto one of the fat former bandits and let him live a life of comfort on the trail while we go on an adventure.”
“Or we just leave him an object.” Charlie replied.
“I mean, that’s death. The closest you can get in the simulation. Give him some kind of life and move on without him.”
“Fine,” Charlie rolled his eyes, “I just think he needs to be-”
“Punished?”
“Well… I dunno, yeah. Fuck him.”
“You realize holding someone against their will is the legal definition of kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, right?”
“We aren’t in our world anymore! He should have been having fun instead of ruining everyone else’s!”
“And I am going to address it in a manner that is not morally dubious, okay?” Veles rolled his eyes, “I swear, if Finn started a cult, you’d be the first to join.”
“Look at this world!” Charlie spread his arms, “It’s absolutely amazing! Who throws this away for the real world?”
“Greg. Apparently” Veles replied. “Let’s not argue over this, we have to focus on optimizing our party before we get into our first real combat.”
“Right.” Charlie shook his head, “Sorry. I get really worked up over this stuff, ya know?”
“Yes. Can you call Geoffrey for me?”
“Are you…”
“Copy/Paste.”
“Okay,” Charlie walked over to Gregory’s tent, “Geoffrey?”
“Yes, Charles?” Geoffrey’s voice came from inside the tent.
“Can you come out to the fire? We’re making a backup of yourself in case…”
“In case?”
“Well, you know.”
The tent flap opened and the massively muscled polar bear strode out towards the campfire. Charlie had to jump aside before he pushed out of the way by the determined polar bear, who marched straight to Veles and stood in front of the fat fox.
“You called for me, Veles?” Geoffrey asked.
Gregory hurried out of the tent, shrugging his armor on as he ran up to the two at the campfire. Veles thought he looked more than bit disheveled. Had he and Geoffrey been…?
“You cannot Trim Geoffrey! I won’t allow it!” Gregory said firmly.
“My liege…” Geoffrey eyed the parchment in Veles’ paws.
“I’m not. I’m simply making a backup of his biography. Just in case.”
“I do not wish to be trimmed away.” Geoffrey said.
“I’m not getting rid of either of you.” Veles said, looking into Geoffrey dumb bear eyes. “Trimming you two apart is going to take all day. I won’t do it until at least after I’ve copied you.”
“So not today? What is this ‘Copying’?”
“I’m prepping today, I’m not going to do the whole thing right now.” Veles explained to Gregory. “It’s like getting a check-up at the doctor’s. I’m going to look over his backstory and if there is something I can move to make him more intelligent, I’ll do that. No radical deletions or insertions of verbs.”
“Alright,” Gregory swallowed, looking away, “You aren’t going to erase him?”
“No. Separating Geoffrey and Jeff is beyond me right now. I’m not even going to attempt that when I do the Trim anyways. Just a minor adjustment to make his intelligence higher by fiddling with his backstory.”
“Just his backstory? Not his ability score?’ Charlie asked.
“Well, if I’m right, his ability score should adjust to fit his backstory. Like me. When I suddenly got fatter, my Constitution score rose but my Dexterity score decreased.”
“Hold on,” Charlie held up a paw. “What if it doesn’t?”
“See, that’s the thing. I don’t know Geoffrey or Jeff’s sexual predilections. That’s why I’m not doing anything too wild.”
“Predilections?” Gregory asked.
“Yes, the...Gods, shall we say, turn us into our fetishes. I have a fat fetish.”
“Ew.”
“Yes, well, do you know what Geoffrey or Jeff really want?”
“No,” Gregory looked away, “Jeff wants to kill me.”
Charlie glanced at Veles, “See?”
“He’s trapped in a body that isn’t his. He’s losing his mind,” Veles shrugged. “Let’s get Geoffrey copied.”
Wait.
There was something to that, Veles realized. But no, it couldn’t be. Jeff hadn’t chosen to have this happen to him. But if it were the case, if his fetish was THIS exact scenario…. That would be a problem. Then again, he wouldn’t be murderous and desperate to escape the scenario if it were his fetish, right? Veles, as an example, was fine with getting fatter. He was just embarrassed about what other people would think.
Shoving those thoughts from his mind and focusing on the task at hand, Veles drew out the pieces of parchment Palseks had given him. They were from the middle of the citizenship papers that didn’t require signatures and would likely be missed on casual perusal.
Still, the sound of crumpling of paper caused Palseks to emerge next to the campfire. Veles assumed that she was nervous about what he was going to do with her paperwork, but her alien reptilian expression was unreadable to his mammal eyes as she watched him work.
Getting back to the task at hand, Veles took Nicolas’ essence and placed it on the parchment. Then he took out another paper, one that would serve as an intermediary if the initial backstory adjustment worked. He also took a quill with ink and had it ready at his side. When he Trimmed Geoffrey, he’d instruct a Spectral Servant to write down the initial backstory verbatim. Veles wasn’t expecting failure, but he wanted to make sure there was a backup just in case.
“Alright,” Veles looked up at the anxious polar bear, “ready?”
“Yes.”
“Trim.” Veles brought up the bear’s character sheet. “Copy,” Veles highlighted the character sheet. “Paste,” Veles finished, pointing at the parchment.
IT glowed and an exact copy of the polar bear’s sheet appeared in glowing light on the parchment. Veles studied the backstory for a few minutes and a smile appeared on his face.
“I think we’ve got something.” Veles said.
“What?” Charlie asked, appearing next to the fox.
“Jesus Christ Charlie!” Veles jumped a foot in the air, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Sorry.” Charlie grinned, not sorry in the slightest.
“Here,” Veles pulled out the glasses that had the detect magic enchantment cast on them. “Wear these.”
Charlie pulled the spectacles onto his muzzle and peered at the parchment.
“Alright, I can see the backstory. What are you planning?”
“You see, Charlie? I’m going to delete these two words.”
“That’s it?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. Look at the rest of the backstory. He’s always mentioned as the most intelligent. It’s only this line right here that indicates he’s dumb. Will this work?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that would work!”
“No. I need you to detect any flaws in my logic before I do it. Detect traps.”
“Okay,” Charlie frowned, lips moving as he read the sentences, “No, it looks flawless, I can’t detect any logic traps.”
“Not even anything like ‘pretending to be fat’?”
“No.”
“What’s he doing?” Gregory whispered to Charlie.
“He’s deleting one word.”
“What’s that?”
“’Below’. As in, below-average intelligence. When Veles is finished, Geoffrey should have average intelligence.”
“Ah,” Gregory nodded, “I’ll allow it.”