Threads of the Soul

Having left that worthless little rat sitting in a puddle of his own piss, in a bloodied and beaten state with his true colours branded on his forehead for all to see, Seth felt a weight being lifted off his shoulders. He had said previously that he couldn't burden himself with the thoughts of revenge, and it was true. Up until the ride over here, he had completely put it out of his head and focused on other things.

But the journey over itself and the knowledge that he was about to confront this traitor put it all into the forefront of his mind. He would be lying if he said he knew how he was going to handle it. The wounded part of him wanted nothing but bloody death and destruction yet the rational part of him that still clung to thoughts of civilised society thought that justice and forgiveness should be the way to go.

For the entire journey, while that Shelled Drake ride was sapping away at his energy, he had been mentally toiling himself over that moral dilemma, wondering which was right. Should he simply return to primal emotions now that society is collapsed? Or perhaps cling to its rules and show that even without government that he is a good person, that just because society collapses doesn't mean they have to along with it.

Yet, for all his moral postering and questioning, for all the philosophical questions he was debating with himself. It all went away the moment that smug little prick sauntered past him like he didn't even exist at all.

When Sirius had looked at him without a single shred of recognition despite what he had done to him, Seth couldn't help but laugh. Not at the situation, but at his own stupidity. The stupidity of devoting so much time and mental anguish towards a man who didn't even think of him a second after he abandoned him.

If Sirius didn't care about him, why the hell should he waste a single second caring about Sirius. All those thoughts of vengeance or justice, how utterly pointless they were. You don't seek vengeance on an mosquito for biting you or demand justice over the blood it stole. No, you just swat it and move on with your life.

So that's exactly what he did. This insect tried to bite him, so he swatted it to remind it of its place in the world and moved on with his life. The forehead carving? Well... that one was a little bit of revenge. He wasn't perfect after all, he still had some hatred for his betrayal. But that was gone now.

The best vengeance is a life well lived. Seth had heard that somewhere before, god knows where it was from. But he had certainly heard it and it sounded pretty good. Although in this world, a life well lived was hard to achieve, so he settled for making sure Sirius' life going forward would be utterly miserable.

Now that that little detour was out of the way and forgotten about, he could move onto much more important things. By complete and utter coincidence, but a happy one at that, the same moment that he decided to move on was the same moment that he received a mental prompt from Bob that he had completed the task he was given. Isn't that nice?

Their mental connection was steadily growing, Bob absorbing more of Seth's life experience while Seth absorbed much of the knowledge that Bob spent all of his time studying. Bob had yet to find out if he had any abilities at all or if he had the capability of developing them at all. One thing they knew, however, was that he couldn't develop them by eating evolved creature meat, simply because he couldn't eat at all.

While he had a mouth and he could open it, although didn't need to to talk, eating was just something he was incapable of doing. He couldn't swallow it, after all, and had no stomach to process the food even if he could.

The living mannequin, who referred to himself as Seth's son, was a bit of an oddity not because of his lack of abilities, but because of the ambiguity of it all.

You see, every living thing in this world, after the awakening incident, has access to their own information through the guardians. To different species it appears as different things. For some it comes in the form of instincts guiding them or instructing them in certain ways. For others it could be a binary output or a mental oasis. Whatever was suitable for their species understanding.

For humans, it appeared as a panel of information referred to by many names, such as; 'The System', 'The Interface', 'Word of God', 'Heavens blessing' or even 'Robot Lady'. That last one wasn't as popular as the rest.

Regardless, no matter what form it took or name it was given. Every single living thing had access to it, from the smartest of humans to the dumbest of animals. Even the trees above their heads and the grass beneath their feet had some form of access, however limited and simplistic it might be. Even new-borns like the mighty Omelette had their own guardians appear at birth.

All except for Bob.

Bob was the only living thing on the entirety of the planet, as far as Seth was aware, that had no access to the system nor a guardian to guide him. Seth's Spirit Animal also had no access, but that was not considered a living thing, according to Angel. It was simply an extension of Seth's ability, a secondary mutation.

While it had limited free will, it was ultimately just a reflection of his more primal thoughts and instincts. It was just a part of him. He could take it over at any time he liked.

Bob, on the other hand, had complete free will. If it weren't for the mental connection to Seth and their odd ability to share experiences, then Bob would be a completely separate person. Seth had no ability to overpower his will nor control his body. Bob simply decided of his own volition to follow Seth's instructions, no doubt out of loyalty to his 'father'.

A term he insisted was correct despite neither of them even understanding where Bob even came from. It's not like Seth didn't know where babies come from, he had had the talk, seen the videos and done the deed plenty to know that. But it's not like Bob was a traditional son either. He was just yet another puzzling enigma in this new, impossible world just waiting to be solved.

What wasn't an enigma, on the other hand, was the task Bob had just confirmed that he had completed. That was actually pretty simple to understand.

He had been left on top of the Shelled Drake and, while Seth was teaching a rat a lesson, he had been busy unpacking Seth's bag. Specifically, the small pouch with an enigmatically large storage that he had borrowed from the hunting party.

The key word of course being borrowed. He didn't want to give it up, it was simply too useful and convenient, but alas he had to. So Bob had been tasked with taking out all the useful things and stuffing them into plain, boring old backpacks which had also been stuffed inside the little pouch less than half their size. God that thing was so useful.

Holding back a few tears at the loss of such a useful piece of equipment, Seth made his way back to the corpse of the Shelled Drake whilst making sure that Corvus was walking in front while he followed dutifully behind him alongside the statues. He had to keep up his good little serf act, after all.

Under Seth's instructions, Bob slid off the back of the Shelled Drake, and presented the emptied pouch to the moist knight.

"It has been emptied and is ready to be returned. All that is left is a gift for you."

"A gift? For me? Are... are you sure its for me? What did I do to deserve a gift?"

"That is not for me to say, however it was Fathers insistence that it be you that receives it, so please."

Bob pushed the pouch into the arms of the still wounded knight, his voice remaining completely neutral despite his instance and the clearly forced, and slightly unnerving, smile he had across his plastered face. Forced not because he didn't feel anything, but simply because Bob was not very good at smiling yet, or displaying emotions in general. He was still having trouble reading them from other people too, but that was a different story entirely. Seth had also, begrudgingly, allowed him to be referred to as Father, but only when he was referring to Corvus. He's was just hoping that it would add to the ruse and not turn him into some cult leader.

Suppressing the shivers that Bob's smile gave him, the Knight Erik gave a genuine smile back before reaching into the pouch. Despite its size, looking like it would struggle to fit more than his fist, Erik dug his entire arm, right up to the shoulder, into the bag as he routed around for what was left inside.

When he finally wrapped his hand around his, surprisingly slimy, gift, he retracted his arm to see what it was. Gazing upon his gift, he couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle, as resting in the palm of his hand was a small yet dazzling goldfish. It's eyes glassy and lifeless.

Whilst Erik was admiring his new gift, Seth was about to ask the rest of the group how they would get inside the library, and more importantly passed the clearly labelled wall. But before he could even part his lips, never mind get the words out of his mouth, one of the statues shouted.

"What the hell is going on out here? Is that a dragon?"