“You literally Awakened me, my liege,” Geoffrey’s voice remained flat and devoid of inflection. “I was your brother’s fuck toy, then his war beast, then you took me and turned me into an anthropomorphic creature. And I should thank Veles for giving me an average intelligence.”
“Veles,” Gregory’s voice was low and his back hunched, “did you make a copy of his previous backstory, by any chance?”
“Of course, Prince Gregory.”
“And I arranged to have someone step in, just in case something like this happened, my liege,” Charlie bowed.
The mink sighed, straightened himself up, then turned to face them. His face was perfectly composed, though Veles thought Gregory’s eyes were red and watery.
“I don’t blame you Veles. Jeff insisted and pushed you when you weren’t ready. I should also disclose that we had… issues the other night when I attempted a similar extrication of Geoffrey and Jeff’s souls.” Gregory nodded at Veles, then turned to Charlie, “Please fetch the… blacksmith, was it?”
“Yes, my liege,” Charlie bowed and hurried off.
“I don’t understand, my liege,” Geoffrey said, “What is wrong?”
“Do you love me?” Gregory asked the polar bear.
“Love? I… serve you in whatever capacity you wish, my liege.” Geoffrey bowed solemnly.
“I love you.” Gregory said, staring directly into the polar bear’s eyes, “I have loved you for a long time. Take it from me when I say you have always been an anthropomorphic bear. I didn’t Awaken you. Veles screwed up your backstory.”
“I…” Geoffrey blinked, “Don’t recall that.”
“Of course you don’t, silly bear,” Geoffrey playfully booped the bear’s nose.
Geoffrey simply regarded him silently. “I do not understand.”
“I altered your reality. To you, this is how you’ve always been.” Veles said, handing the bear his magical glasses and the parchment with a copy of his backstory on it. “here, read. I recorded this before I cast the spell.”
Geoffrey read the papers. He was a slower reader than most, but he could, in fact, read. That was a step forward, Veles thought, but what a step backwards that personality was! What the fuck had gone wrong?
“What do you think went wrong?” Gregory asked quietly, his eyes on Geoffrey’s face as he read his former backstory.
“It’s their fetishes. Jeff basically wants to be a sex toy. Geoffrey wants to be a perfect pet or servant. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Or both of them share the same fetishes because, at the end of the day, they are actually the same person. When I tried to make him smarter, that pet fetish kicked in and it turned him into a bear. As for the sex doll...” Veles kicked the ground. “I have no idea. I could be using the spell wrong. There’s no real explanation.”
“Is there anyone who can tutor you?”
“It seems to be one of those ‘hidden powers’ sort of situations, where a spellcaster will eventually stumble on the ability to alter reality. I think they expect me to go through this as a trial by fire. In other words, unless someone takes pity on me, no, there are no tutors.”
As they were talking, a muscular shark lumbered into the light of the party’s campfire, accompanied by Charlie.
“Guys, this is Santiago. He’s here to fix the mistake.” Charlie nodded to the shark.
“What happened?” Santiago asked Veles.
“I just altered his backstory. I deleted ‘below’ in ‘below-average intelligence’. Then everything went wrong.”
“You cast Trim?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” Santiago pulled out a backpack full of equipment. “The issue is that you altered the backstory and then failed to alter the Ability Scores to fit the new bonuses. Thus, the system had to correct that error.”
“But it auto-corrected with the bandits! And me!” Veles indicated his gut, “I was skinny and had high Dexterity, then I fucked up and became fat and my Dexterity automatically decreased.”
“Obesity is a status effect.” The shark said, “And the system is nicer when you subtract from your stats. Adding is much harsher.”
“Oh,” Veles blinked.
“Why are there so many soul magic users in this caravan?” Gregory asked.
“Many?” Santiago glanced up at the mink, “There’s maybe five, including you and myself, out of almost 1500 people in this caravan. That’s not unusual when traveling to the Holy City, especially when the caravan gets delayed a week and multiple caravans are merged together. Any others aren’t true soul mages, they’re just using artifacts from Ancient Paranor.”
“Ah, I see.” The Prince glanced away.
“I heard about your antics as well,” Santiago grinned as he worked, “Did you actually trust a Goblynized artifact?”
“Yes,”
“Lesson learned, eh?” The shark’s triangular teeth gleamed a pearly white. He pulled out a strip of leather and some nails. “So, boots, then?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Steel toed, please.”
“Martial artist?” The shark paused.
“Yes, pugilist,” Charlie replied.
“I’m going to need better leather.” The shark rummaged through his bag. “That’ll be an extra 100 on top for the rare materials.”
Charlie winced but nodded.
“Wait, why can’t you just Dispel magic?” Gregory asked Veles.
“Permanent versus instantaneous spells,” Veles replied. “Polymorph is permanent, which means dispel works because there is an active spell effect. Trim is instantaneous, which means when I dismiss the spell, that’s it. Reality has been altered. There is no ongoing spell effect to cancel. You could Dispel it while I am Trimming and that would work, though.”
“Hand me the back-up character sheet, please,” The shark interrupted.
Geoffrey did so, bowing to the shark stiffly, before bluntly stating “Please get rid of me so my master is happy.”
“...” The shark replied, staring at the bear. “I’ll make some adjustments.”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“You’ve created a third person. I’ll merge him with the butler so he doesn’t die.” Santiago replied, “That’s what you want, right?”
“Yeah, no deaths, please,” Veles nodded.
“It is unnecessary, but thank you,” The polar bear said quietly. “Master gave me life so it is his right to take it away.”
“Oh do shut up Geoffrey and stop self-sacrificing. I love you too, you know.” Gregory rolled his eyes.
“Yes, my liege,” The polar bear bowed, and Veles thought the new Geoffrey was blushing under his fur.
“How much are you paying him, then?” Gregory asked Charlie.
“1,200 gold.” Charlie replied.
Gregory’s eyes bugged, “Th-that’s!”
“The cost of a resurrection.” The shark replied. “Is he worth it?”
Gregory turned to Geoffrey before nodding, “Yes, he’s priceless. Geoffrey is worth every star in the sky.”
“M-my liege!” The polar bear choked.
“And you wanted the skunk’s intelligence score added in, correct?” The shark turned to Charlie.
“If possible. Don’t do it if it isn’t.”
“Oh, it is. You there,” Santiago said as he made a come hither gesture with his finger, “Veles, was it? Come here”
Veles sat besides the shark. “Yes?”
“You failed for one reason. He is NOT two souls in one body.”
“What?”
“You didn’t read his entire backstory, did you?” The shark grinned and pointed at a few paragraphs. “He’s ‘spirit-touched. It seems that when your friend evaded the original Trimming spell, reality adjusted him to fit.”
“What are you saying?”
“Geoffrey is mentally ill. ‘Spirit touched’ is what the Northern Polar Tribes say when they refer to those with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders. Jeff is a split personality, not a real person. That’s why you can’t fix him by trimming the way you were.”
“But he IS a real person,” Veles objected.
“Not anymore. Don’t worry, you still have his figurine with the rest of his lived experiences, but when you Trim Jeff out of these boots, things will be different about him.”
“How so?” Veles asked.
“Well, depending on how long he’s in these boots, he may not be… a person anymore either. Now, his ‘self’ from his figurine will help, but his memory of his time as Geoffrey and the boots will be roughshod at best.” Santiago explained. “Any long-term Polymorph magic can degrade a person’s mind. The vessel shapes the mind, not the other way around. If you were placed in the body of a dog, eventually, you’d think and act just like a dog.”
“I see. Disturbing.” Veles licked his lips, “What if someone became a dragon?”
“What? A dragon?” Santiago’s brows shot up, “Who would do something so stupid? Dragons are the most greedy, sociopathic creature sin existence. Even the so-called ‘good’ dragon have engaged in ethnic genocide campaigns and eugenic programs. Like, say, the Kobolds and dragonborn. Those aren’t natural creatures, but draconic experimentation to produce ‘useful’ mammals.”
“Oh. Well, shit.”
“Who?” Santiago demanded, his inky black eyes narrowed.
“The one who sent us in this world and is currently monitoring our party. Finn.” Veles sighed.
“Cone of non-detection!” Santiago declared.
Immediately, a veil of pure silence descended around the two.
“He cannot see us or hear us for another five minutes,” Santiago said, “Prepare to kill him when you leave this world.”
“You want me to kill Finn?” Veles squeaked.
“Dragons are the second… no, third worst thing in this world.” Santiago explained. “Avarice is their main attribute. And worse, they are intelligent enough to always have a reasonable excuse for their debased actions. Never deal with a dragon, unless it’s with a sharp blade, understand?”
Veles nodded.
“Now, come. Watch me work. If you want to beat this ‘Finn’ you’ll need to listen carefully,” Santiago said.
Veles sat beside the shark and listened as he went over the proper applications and techniques of the Trim spell. He felt like a complete fool and an incompetent. The shark worked masterfully. By the end of the night, Geoffrey had been successfully Trimmed.
And Veles was now officially terrified of Finn.