I hadn’t known a human’s body had so many muscles! It was only now, when every single one of them ached in my body, that I truly realized what a complex biological machine we all were. Pain was an excellent teacher, I finally had to admit. But, due to my immense willpower, I stopped groaning miserably after the first couple of hours. I tried focusing on the positive side of things, like how impossibly ripped my body will be when this was all over. My body was going to be a work of art.

Everyone in our little group needed some time to recuperate, so we had set camp higher up the river, away from the massacred spiders. We washed ourselves, and I shaved my face; not an easy feat without a mirror, but at least my soul-eating demonic razor was razor-sharp. Next, we used up most of our bandages to treat our wounds – well, the others did, because I had none – then proceeded to sleep on the hard stone, foregoing the small moldy beds within the houses. Although our collars had told us that all the monsters were killed, we tried to keep our distance from the buildings; there were just way too many nooks and crannies where swellers could hide. Imaya took it upon herself to keep watch whenever her mana allowed, but the cavern had been blissfully quiet so far. We gave ourselves a few more hours of rest after waking up, which Pell and Teva’ryn took to scout the perimeter of the cavern. I would have offered to join them, if only I hadn’t had more important things to do.

“Lean back a little,” I told Devi, pulling her head closer. She was sitting on the edge of the river, dangling her bare feet into the cold water. I perched on a rock behind her, which granted me easy access to her hair. It took me a while to explain that I was going to set her hair in a Viking-style braid; she was hesitant at first, but calling it a warrior braid got her curious enough to accept.

Devi’s hair was slightly damp from the bath she had taken, the silvery strands looking darker than usual. Soft to the touch, voluminous, and long enough to reach the middle of her back; to tell the truth, I really enjoyed braiding her hair. But I was only human, and Devi was a Sylven woman sitting between my legs. It was only natural that I had ulterior motives too; looking at her from this angle, I had a very good view on her pair of ivory horns and pointy ears. And I was thoroughly charmed! Sitting this close to her, I could see that her horns weren’t entirely smooth, but had tiny ridges and notches across their surface. They jutted out of her skull right behind her ears and just below her hairline, angled slightly backward at the base but twisting sharply forward before they circled her head. Her pointed ears didn’t point upwards because of this; they had to be slightly slanted to the side to accommodate the horns.

“Done,” I said, tying up her main braid with a piece of string.

The multiple smaller braids at the sides of her head put more emphasis on her horns and ears, which I wasn’t sure she preferred—but the overall result was, in my opinion, striking. Devi leaned forward to watch her hair in the water’s reflection, turning her head this way and that. She reached up cautiously, feeling out the braids at the back.

“You don’t need to be so careful,” I said. “It won’t come apart; I pulled it quite tight.”

She turned back to smile at me. The appreciation in her amber-colored eyes felt way better than I had thought it would.

“Thank you,” she warmly said. “Where you learn this?”

“Where did you learn this,” I corrected her. “And the answer is that I learned it on the Internet.”

Devi pursed her dark blue lips as she processed my words.

“There is place where they teach hair-braid to men?” she asked.

“There is,” I said. “And they teach women too. Many places on Earth don’t separate genders as much as you Sylven do.”

“I see,” she said. After a moment of pause, she pulled her feet out of the water and stood up. “I want to visit Earth one day.”

“You’d probably like it,” I said. “You should visit during Halloween though, otherwise people would look at you strangely. We have many skin colors, but blue isn’t one of them.”

Devi set her mouth in a tiny frown, which was her nonverbal way of telling me that she didn’t understand everything I said but wouldn’t bother to ask. Fair enough. I scooted a bit aside on the rock to make some space for her, and she sat down with a small sigh. I tried to sneak a glance at her bandaged hands, but she caught me looking.

“You need not worry,” Devi said, clenching her left hand into a fist. “Hands hurt, but I can fight still.”

“Of course you can,” I said dryly. “You know, I can’t really decide if you Sylven are made out of tougher stuff than us humans, or if you’re just way too stubborn.”

“Hey, you are tough too,” Devi said, jostling my shoulder. “No scratchies.”

“That’s not what I meant…” I said, trailing off. Now that she brought it up, I figured it was a good time to confess. “Devi, I’m not sure how to say this, but I’m not—well, in spite of what you’ve seen, I’m not actually good at any kind of combat. I’ve never learned how to fight. It’s just that whenever my life is in danger, I become … someone else. I change.”

“I know.”

“You do?” I asked in surprise, turning my head to look at her.

“Of course,” she said, meeting my eyes. “I watch you, and I see.”

“Ah. I didn’t think it was so obvious.”

“Why you change?”

“Why do you change,” I corrected her. “And the answer is Soul Eater, I think.”

“I don’t understand,” Devi said. “Explain?”

“I can try,” I said. I found it impressive that she had kept up with me so far; I wouldn’t have been able to talk about this on her language at all. The difference between our knack for new languages was becoming more and more glaring.

“Like Weapon Skill?” Devi prompted me when I stayed quiet for too long.

“No, it’s different,” I said. “I move my body on my own. Soul Eater is guiding me, I think, though it’s not noticeable. During a fight I just know what to do, how to move, what my body’s limits are. It’s strange. I think you might even call this power awesome, if not for the fact that—”

“Are you the people who killed the swellers?” a high-pitched voice asked from behind us.

Devi jumped to her feet, whirling around to face the source of the voice. A small stooping man stood by the stone houses, leaning onto an adorned staff.

“Please wait a moment sir, we’re discussing something important,” I said over my shoulder, then turned back to Devi. “Anyway, as I was saying, there’s a bit of a problem with Soul Eater’s power; anything that changes the way I think can technically be called mind-control. I lose who I am, after all. No matter how useful this power is—you aren’t listening anymore, are you?”

Devi had created a clone and was using it as a cover, eyeing the old man suspiciously.

“Randel, who is he?” she asked.

Shoulders slumping in disappointment, I turned around on my rock to take a good look at the old dude. The pale light of my collar barely reached him, but he had his own source of light in the form of a dark purple orb set into the top his wooden staff. In the swirling light of that magical artifact, I could tell easily that the newcomer wasn’t human. His elongated face was covered in short gray hair, and he had a few thick whiskers drooping off his nose—or rather, his snout. A pair of beady eyes watched us from below his bushy eyebrows, and two bat-like ears sat high atop his head. The rest of his body looked quite humanoid, however. Pale-skinned, wrinkled hands kept a tight grip on his staff, and his dirty clothes hung loose on his thin frame. He didn’t even have any tail, as far as I could tell.

“I don’t want to be rude sir, but you have a terrible timing,” I said. “This could have been such a sweet romantic moment between me and her, one where she accepts me as I am despite my flaws, but your intervention ruined it completely.”

The old man stood silently, turning his head to Devi and then back to me.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t taught her the r-word yet,” I added, noticing his confusion. “She’s completely clueless about what I have just said.”

“Randel, I hear you,” Devi said.

“Well, almost completely clueless.”

The old man seemed even more bewildered now.

“I, uh, apologize for the intrusion,” he eventually said. “My name is Vuplu.”

His voice sounded a bit sharp and he had a peculiar accent, but otherwise he spoke quite well for someone with a snout.

“Nice to meet you, Vuplu,” I said. “To answer your earlier question, yes, we are the ones who killed those spiders. Sorry for your loss.”

“That’s, uh, not what I meant,” Vuplu said. “You don’t need to be sorry. Those monsters took my people. I thank you for killing them.”

“Your people or the monsters?”

“Killing the, uh, monsters,” Vuplu clarified, clearing his throat awkwardly. “My people died in a different way. They turned into those abominations.”

“Sorry for your loss,” I said, bowing my head briefly. “Would you mind sharing how you managed to survive?”

“This staff hides me from the swellers’ sight,” the old man replied on a grim tone. “I watched everyone around me get eaten.”

The glowing orb on the top of his staff seemed to pulse a little brighter at his words. A magical item that would allow someone to pass through this Dungeon unhindered? It posed some interesting questions. Questions like, why hadn’t Vuplu killed all the swellers if they couldn’t see him? Would he let us borrow his staff if I complimented his hair? Would the staff be able to hide me from Tamara if she got pissed at me? As I hesitated which question to bring up first, Devi joined the conversation.

“What do you want?” she asked, her tone making the old man shy away a bit and pull his staff closer to his chest.

“I, uh, don’t want much. I came here to thank you, but also to warn you. There are more of the swellers, deeper down in Stonehearth. Stonehearth is, uh, the name of this settlement. If it’s within your power, I would be greatly indebted to you if you could—”

“Woah, please wait a second,” I said, holding up a hand. “Is this going to be a Quest? With rewards and stuff?”

Vuplu tilted his head, his whiskers swaying up and down.

“It’s, uh, maybe a Quest? I can find some form of compensation for you, if you wish.”

“In that case, Imaya is your woman,” I said. “Come with me, I’ll introduce you to her.”

I slid off of my rock to stretch my sore limbs, loosening my muscles. Devi came to my side, still wary of Vuplu. I didn’t really get why; if the old man had wished us harm, he wouldn’t have announced his presence when we were distracted. I started walking in a sedate pace, making sure that Vuplu was able to keep up.

Back in the Bolob camp, Non had warned me about the many different species we would encounter as we neared the city. Fortram was part of the Terran Empire, but it had its fair share of alien species. If I remembered correctly, Vuplu was a Thardos—or as humans usually referred to his species, a Ratkin. Most Thardos lived underground in close-knit communities, which – looking at the small houses of Stonehearth – had probably been the case here. Vuplu’s reactions seemed to be genuine too, and his explanation about why he was alive could potentially make sense. I’ve encountered enough random magic so far to believe in a spider-repelling staff.

I felt some uneasiness settle in my stomach anyway.

Perhaps it was because of the sweller-totems I had seen here and there. The monsters might have killed everyone in this town, but unless they carved sculptures about themselves, they were hardly an unexpected threat to the Thardos. I found it likely that Vuplu hadn’t told us the full story yet.

My other concern was that the Inspector had a hand in this. If this alien technology could create perfect copies of Devi, how difficult would it be to fake a person like Vuplu? This wasn’t a line of thought I was willing to entertain too long however, because it meant doubting everyone I had ever met in this world. I could also start doubting my very own being, which—yeah, I wasn’t going to have any of that. The circuits in my brain were programmed to allow existential crises only after a certain amount of alcohol intake.

Nevertheless, the Inspector’s intervention was not inconceivable. Perhaps she had so many tools that impersonating Vuplu wasn’t even necessary. Could she have slaughtered an entire Thardos settlement just to create a playground for us? Could she have founded Stonehearth long ago, expecting us to find it one day? From what I knew of her after our brief conversation, it certainly was a possibility. Playing the puppet-master while hiding all the strings seemed like a thing that someone with her vocation would enjoy.

If she truly had that kind of power and influence, we were deeper in the rabbit hole than I had realized. I had already figured that I would need to face literal gods, but if these gods weren’t content to just sit back and observe their creation … well, it would be much harder to beat them in their own game. Not that I really wanted that. What I would have preferred instead was taking their entire gameboard and smacking them in the face with it. I wasn’t an advocate of undue violence, but these aliens had dragged me out of my comfortable room to play with my life. Upending their precious gameboard was the least that they deserved.