Wandering Souls

As usually happened, Gil and the girls settled into life on the skyblock again without much difficulty. Nessa, as it turned out, practiced yoga and had a playbook of exercises and martial arts katas a mile long. If she wasn’t invited to something else, she could entertain herself for most of the day with the various tasks involved in maintaining her physique. Surprisingly, she’d latched onto Snow of all people, and quickly invited the princess to join her in her morning exercises.

While she wasn’t actually vegan, she was fairly opinionated about food. Thankfully, this worked in Gil’s favor because it was mostly oriented around natural, “pure” food that hadn’t been processed much. Steaks and sausages made using historical techniques and garnished with raw or pickled vegetables were a topic of great enthusiasm to her, as well as the primary food they had available anyway. Gil had bought a few dozen cans of “Campbell’s Soup” and tuna from Kevin, but according to the labels and Kevin’s report, those could be kept in reserve for many months without risk. Nessa and Snow bonded much more than Gil might have expected as they jointly planned meals, and Keilnei seemed happy to keep her distance after the initial “vegan” conversation.

Gil reviewed his rewards and options carefully. When he brought out Boulder, for example, the big dog had been enthusiastic about being allowed to run around a bit and play with Blackpaw. Gil was quite amused to note that the dog was more than a third larger than the wolf. Factoring in his fluffy mane of hair, the visual contrast was even more striking. If Gil remembered correctly, most dog breeds had less than half the jaw strength of a wolf, but he was pretty sure that Boulder would blow Blackpaw out of the water by almost any other metric.

Of course, the question was whether or not Gil wanted two giant dogs. It’s not that they wouldn’t both be useful. More that he might be able to secure something better; Silky was an excellent proof of concept, after all. He examined his current character cards, pursing his lips and considering each in turn.

Shiho and the Piura were both basically a non-issue. They didn’t add enough unless he just wanted to have a near feral dog that looked like an Asian teenager. He briefly considered bulking up Blackpaw with the piura, which was closer to Boulder’s weight class, but decided against it. Better to keep the low level monster card as a one-up for later instead of marginally improving the wolf now.

Fiona seemed more interesting, as a T2. Her card made it clear she was a noncombatant, but noncombatants in a horror story were still hard motherfuckers as often as not. Gil’s mind almost resolved on that time he’d killed Satan in a foggy town as an asthmatic trucker, but the memory didn’t quite crystallize. More of a distraction than anything else, but he dared not complain. Old testers all knew that the Company could probably go much deeper with their memory wipes if provoked, they just didn’t bother most of the time.

In any event, Fiona Belli’s description hinted at a natural talent for alchemy, an inner reserve of magic that had MacGuffin written all over it, and a skill for befriending and training animals in a combat situation. She had high ratings in resourcefulness and situational awareness, and Gil suspected that she’d be a good mage if he slapped a few materia onto her arm. That “Azoth” thing might even let her use magic in low magic settings like Brockton, which would be huge. She’d be a fantastic overlay on Snow, honestly. Nearly every tag or ability she had would synergize fantastically with the princess. What a shame Waifusion wasn’t a default option; he could have even given Snow bigger breasts.

The idea of Boulder or Blackpaw transformed into a pretty girl they could train with magic and martial arts until she was a solid magic specialist was certainly worth considering, but not enough for Gil to get too attached to the idea. Too much of a lateral move, too much investment to make it actually useful. He finally decided to use the card on Snow to hopefully compensate for one of her weaknesses: she was a bit of a ditz. Not truly stupid, but so blissfully optimistic that she missed things frequently. She was lucky enough to get away with it, but luck worked best when you were aware enough to capitalize on it.

Fiona Belli character card -> Snow White

Trait acquired: high situational awareness. Level - can analyze the contents of a strange room and mark out anything particularly useful in seconds, even under pressure.

There were no clear signs when he looked over at Snow, but he hadn’t expected any. She was busily slicing vegetables and making them into a thick, meaty stew for dinner. Well, Gil called it dinner but days and nights were odd here. It was the middle of the night out in the worlds where he visited once a week. That gave him an idea.

Gil jogged over to the sanctum, where Keilnei was meditating and trying to commune with the Naaru. The mana reserves were at about 80% after Gil had spent a few hours practicing the magic Candress taught him independently. He didn’t think he made much progress, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Hey, are you willing to help me test a theory?” Gil asked, without preamble.

Keilnei opened her faintly glowing eyes and regarded him.

“What kind of theory?” She asked, raising one eyebrow. “And why not ask the new girl. She seems eager enough.”

Was that jealousy? Or just irritation? Either way, Gil’s response would be the same.

“Because I trust you a lot more than her.” He said, shrugging. “I don’t know her as well, and I get the impression her response to a strange situation defaults to a lot more **** than yours. I want to see how the body swapper works if the target is asleep, that’s all.”

Keilnei ambled to her feet, stretching her arms above her head.

“Very well. I suppose the moth might wander off and sleep with someone at random, and Snow doesn’t seem to take to danger well.” She said, “I have not done this before. What should I know?”

“Ideally you won’t even wake them up. You’ll just be asleep in their body while they are awake in yours.” Gil said, “That would be extremely tidy. I don’t actually know what to expect, though. That’s why I’d like to experiment with it, so that we can know before there’s some kind of danger we are facing.”

A few minutes later, Keilnei was strapped down to the table and Gil was tapping through his options.

“I feel like Ireena would be best for our first check in.” Gil said, “She’s reasonably level headed, she knows me, and it’ll let us get some information about what’s going on in your world. She invited two people to join us, so I assume she’s up to something, but we just kinda left her there. I figure she’s still among your people, so if you’re awake when you arrive you can have a look around and see how things are going.”

“That certainly appeals.” Keilnei said. “You are sure there is no major danger?”

“The machine will break and I’ll need to buy another if one of you two dies while swapped.” Gil said, shrugging. “The description implies the swap will stand, permanently. So that would probably mean Ireena here on the skyblock in your body, while you would need to be resurrected. Shouldn’t be a serious problem though; you’re not supposed to be fighting.”

••••••••••

Pain.

When Keilnei arrived in Ireena’s body, it was in utter, agonizing, delirious pain. Her entire leg felt like a burning, leaden log. She jolted awake and looked down to see a wound wrapped in bandages that were oozing with yellowed pus.

Pus wasn’t yellow. It was supposed to be green, if she could remember correctly. That was probably bad, unless it was normal for humans. It didn’t feel normal. It felt awful. How could someone let a wound get this bad? Why hadn’t Ireena healed herself?

A woman with pale pink skin and dark blue hair pushed Keilnei down gently and held a waterskin to her mouth.

“It’s ok,” she whispered, “My father will come back any moment. Felore should be able to fix this right up.”

She didn’t sound confident. She sounded like a woman on the edge of panic trying to convince herself as much as her audience. The water tasted like the light itself, however.

••••••••••

“Oh. Oh that’s bad.” Gil said. “So how did you get injured?”

“Fishmen. The elves called them murlocs?” Ireena said, “They attacked us while we were returning to the mainland. I had to fight them off, but we didn’t manage to get back to the draenei camp before I needed to stop and rest. It didn’t get better, though.”

“Yeah, because it got infected!” Gil groaned. “Fucking high magic worlds and their shit medical knowledge. This happens a lot if you don’t have magical healing and you don’t properly clean the wound. You’re lucky you’re not already dead, and if you’d thought about it your Skill Upload should have told you better. Cow Lady was a trained paramedic, you said! You’ve been down for more than a day?”

“Maybe?” Ireena said, “I haven’t been able to think straight. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“Yeah, well, you fucked up. Luckily, I may have a solution.”

Gil pulled up his tablet and navigated to Ireena’s character sheet.

“I acquired a method to grant my companions bespoke additional abilities.” He explained. “I was planning on consulting you first, but… well, needs must.”

He scrolled through the available tags, dismissing the currently useless ones like Past Life Regressor, Princess, and Witch.

“Clergy might have been a decent pick if I’d known before now, but apparently my tablet doesn’t tell me as much as I thought when I’m not in the same world as you.” Gil said, “I’m sure you’d have been an excellent Paladin. Unfortunately there are only two of these that seem most likely to ensure your life at this point. Vampire and regenerator.”

“Regenerator.” Ireena said, without hesitation.

“Ok, but I need to point out that it’s the less likely-“

“Regenerator. Then send me back, immediately. I don’t want to risk another life or subject that poor woman to any more of my pain.”

“Fine, fine.” Gil said, tapping the relevant option on his tablet and locking it in. “You know, I think you two will get along pretty well when you have the chance. I might send her along to borrow the bodies of the other two, just to explain the situation and make sure you’re doing alright. Ok?”

“Ok.” Ireena said, and Gil swapped her back.

“Oi!” He said, turning before Keilnei had fully realized she was back, “Nessa! You have first aid training, right? At least a little?”

It was unlikely she’d be at her best taking over the body of an unknown elf, but the academic basics usually survived transfer. She’d provide better care, even with that little knowledge, than what someone whose only idea of medicine was “wrap it in rags and hope you can find a healing potion” would be likely to come up with.

••••••••••

Magwin proved shockingly open to being magically whisked away into the body of a human pinup girl on a floating rock in space. Which is to say she didn’t start hyperventilating or threatening anyone, which in Gil’s books was as good as could possibly be expected from someone who didn’t have context.

His explanation that he had sent someone who knew non-magical medicine to help Ireena was accepted with a degree of confusion. As expected, the concept seemed strange in a society that had multiple ubiquitous religious orders capable of closing wounds with a wave of the hand.

“It’s for exactly this kind of situation.” Gil said, “I prefer healing magic too, everyone does, but anyone with sense learns how to keep someone alive long enough to get to a healer. Ireena will be fine. Worst case scenario I’ll need to resurrect her remotely.”

“You can resurrect her from here?” Magwin asked, “But you can’t heal her?”

“Completely different process, and I am already trying to heal her remotely.” Gil explained. “If I were **** to resurrect her, I’d be putting her into an entirely new body. Which would be a shame, since she has a particularly good one at the moment.”

Magwin looked down at her own current body, in particular the bountiful chest that blocked her vision of her feet, and accepted his explanation as plausible. If he could put Magwin in this body, then it didn’t seem impossible that he could transfer Ireena’s soul to a new body after ****.

“Could… could you do something like that with someone who has already departed?” Magwin asked hopefully. “It’s just that my mother, and many others recently…”

“Honestly, I wish I could. I come across a lot of bad aftermath in my line of work.” Gil said, trying to be gentle. “Unfortunately, I need to get permission from someone directly to use most of my powers on them. I can use a proxy to establish the bond, like Ireena, which is why I could swap you and Nessa, but I’m pretty limited in details. If you have a way of contacting your mother’s spirit, there might be a chance.”

Magwin seemed to wilt at that, and reflexively pulled away when Keilnei tried to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“My people do have soulpriests, who act as guides of the dead.” Keilnei said, folding her hands and looking away, “Perhaps some might be willing to facilitate an invitation. If… well, when our dead are addressed.”

Gil kept a neutral expression at that. He was fairly sure that the weakest ghost alive would be a T3 or T4. Even a no-name at that tier would sell for a few credits and some kind of additional perk or consumable. If he could convince the Draenei to dredge up the souls of the dead as an elaborate resurrection plan, he’d have an excellent use for all of the low tier cards he’d been getting his hands on recently. Sure, the resurrected would lose their skillset, but if you primarily cared about their personality continuing, that was probably fine. Better to keep that as a hypothetical, however, especially since Keilnei was already suggesting it.

Magwin looked at Keilnei, still an Eredar to her vision and thus very suspect, and nodded.

“Perhaps.” She said, “We shall see.”

•••••••••

Gil swapped Magwin back after about half an hour. As it turned out, Nessa’s best plan for treatment was both disgusting and uniquely suited to one capable of regeneration.

Ireena had apparently transformed into her cow form, which for whatever reason was now bright red and accompanied with glowing orange eyes. More importantly, this newly enhanced cow-form came with rapid regeneration. The problem was that the infection was still present to some degree, so Nessa had elected to simply cut it away.

She’d started by lancing the injury to drain the puss, but the regeneration grew back exclusively healthy flesh, so a few more judicious cuts with Ireena’s survival knife had tremendous medical value. They’d also been excruciating for the woman in question, but she was mostly healthy at this point. The real problem had been Cowlin’s return.

Nessa didn’t know Cowlin. She didn’t speak like Magwin. As far as he was concerned, she’d spontaneously gone crazy and started stabbing their new companion in the leg, all while Ireena displayed some of his setting’s most common signs of demon possession. Magwin had returned to the middle of an argument in which her father had wrestled away a knife and was demanding answers she didn’t have.

The fact that Ireena sat up and was able to hobble well enough to lead them back to the Draenei settlement calmed him, but only so much. Everyone was on edge for the rest of the day, enough that Magwin waited until after they reunited with Felore to even try to share her revelations with her father.

For now, the three last survivors of Bristlelimb Village cried together. She could accept Gil’s request that they help the Draenei join the Alliance, but she wasn’t quite ready to broach that topic yet.

••••••••••

Golden Timeline

Secure an alliance between the Draenei and Alliance Naval Command

Reward: 5 credits, Flag of Truce