Threads of the Soul

As Seth stepped through the conveniently marked hole in the clearly labelled wall, he had left Corvus outside to 'mingle' with the rest of the hunting group, which simply meant standing there like a silent creep until someone spoke to him. Which is about how his normal social interactions went, especially at parties. Not that he ever got invited to many, no idea as to why though.

It also give him the perfect look at the utter disgrace that was Cynthia, her entire body turned crimson and the liquid inside her body constantly bubbling and boiling, in her own version of blushing. He didn't even know if she was aware that she was doing it, but it seemed that Alexandra was too preoccupied with the story to notice or simply too nice to point it out. Even when the slime girls legs turned into a puddle of jelly as she literally melted from the compliments she was receiving from the chiselled Amazonian.

Adorable.

Turning his attention away from that utter mess of a big, gay disaster, Seth listened in on the conversation that was happening nearby with Astra and Fox.

"We brought it all the way here, surely she can do something with it. Chop it up, take some chunks. Something. We should at least skin the big bastard so that we can make something out of it's leather."

"Go right ahead. But it took everything we had to make that one deep cut. Alexandra says she can't do anything, I believe her."

"So what? We just leave it to rot? Seems like an utter waste if you ask me."

Their quiet argument continued on, Fox poking and prodding as he tried to find any way to use the body while Astra remained completely stoic and firm in her stance. Her gaze was fixed forwards, staring daggers into the gigantic corpse that laid before them. Even dead, she could still feel subtle ebbs of magic, or whatever the energy was, pulsing from the slowly rotting flesh.

She knew he was right, but she also trusted Alexandra. Her expertise when it came to handling meat and prey was second to none, at least when it came to their little community. Such were the benefits of growing up on a farm, surrounded by animals and dealing with their meat whenever her father took her hunting for supper. Unlike the rest of them, who's best experience at hunting, before everything went wrong, was hunting for the cheapest takeaway place before settling on fast food.

So when she said that the meat was too thick and that she could barely cut into it, never mind probably cook it into something edible, Astra believed her. No matter how irritating or disappointing a conclusion it might be.

However, before she and Fox could go into yet another round of subdued argument, a third voice sounded from behind them.

"I can use it."

Watching from behind Corvus' eyes, which were in turn hidden behind his beaked mask, Seth saw Astra slowly turn to face him and narrow her eyes in a scrutinising gaze that made his soul tremble. If he didn't know any better, he would think she wasn't looking at the puppet but the man controlling it. And it did not seem like a very happy look either.

After a few seconds of eery silence, in which they had a mostly one sided staring competition, Seth finally realised that she was waiting for him to explain further what he meant by that.

'Could have asked but... Okay then.'

Mentally sighing, and making sure his exasperation didn't reflect onto Corvus, Seth forced his voice through his puppet once again in his own special act of Ventriloquism. An act that was getting easier not only with practice, but as his soul strength increased.

"Not as undead. But as a food. What do you know of secondary evolutions?"

Noticing Astra's glare intensify ever so slightly, Seth knew that he had intrigued her with such an offer. As part of his mind focused on Corvus' intricate speech, dictating the mystery of secondary evolution and how it only came from pushing yourself to extreme limits as well as a material cost, another part of Seth's mind wandered to the matter of his other stat increases.

The fact that he was able to do such a thing at all was a merit towards the benefits of increasing his soul stat. Previously, when he had wanted to speak through his puppets, it took every ounce of his concentration, to the point where he would even have to stand still in his own body just to focus on speaking through the puppet.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was used to speaking through breathe, while his puppets rarely had lungs to begin with never mind the ability to speak of their own volition. Or maybe it was because he was brute forcing a technique that wasn't supposed to work in this manner, or a half dozen other explanations that he could imagine for why it was difficult. Whatever it was, he had no conformation of it.

What he did know was that it was definitely getting easier. While Corvus' voice was still strained and he often grunted out half his words, that seemed more a quirk of the speech than a reflection of Seth's difficulty in the matter.

As his soul stat increased, it felt like the connection was being upgraded from basic cable to fibre optic. His consciousness could be spread thinner as it took less energy for him to do many of his actions, his Spirit Animal became capable of connecting to more puppets. He wondered if one day he might be able to feel through his puppets.

It would definitely be nice to feel with a right arm again. All that training in that arm throughout his lonely years, utterly wasted.

It was the two remaining stats, Psychic and Elemental, that truly baffled him. If his consciousness was becoming more stable through his spiritual stat, then what he hell did the Psychic one do? Would it make him smarter or able to remember more things? That would absolutely be useful with his cheese brained tendencies, but it was simply too hard to increase.

In the entirety of his time after the apocalypse he had only managed to increase it by a measly 4 points. But what was he supposed to do? Start eating brains and hope that it would boost that score without knowing what it did?

No, not only was that pointless it was also incredibly disgusting, so he planned on avoiding it. Elemental was another tricky one. It was clear someone like Astra had that trait as their catalyst for their abilities, but other than consuming meat from elemental based beasts he had no idea how to increase that either.

At least those were a little less rare than the Psychic ones. But even if he did increase it, again he had no clue what it would do. Make him less susceptible to being set on fire? Tempting, but not something he was willing to test.

No... If his 'Soul Vision', a name he still hadn't found a better term for, could reveal the appearance of souls and was focused on people, then perhaps elemental was focused on the source of elemental energy. Also known as the world itself. Perhaps if he increased that stat, he would become more attituded to the energies within the world, such as the one that invaded and mutated them.

Maybe that's how the mage was doing that. Was that just another elemental evolution? Or was he really conducting the energies of the universe like an orchestra and bending them to his perverse will? Only time would tell.

In the time that it took for Seth to have these thoughts, as well as to walk the distance from the wall to the grandeurs doors of the library, Corvus had finished his explanation of secondary evolutions and how to achieve them. At least the general explanation of them, which basically amounted to self inflicted torture in the hopes that it would improve yourself.

He could see the scary eyed woman taking in his explanation, tapping her forearm as she stood with her arms crossed and contemplated the undertaking that this masochistic training method would entail, as well as the possible risks. The main one being that you could fall into a suspended state for god knows how long, or that it might not work at all and you were torturing yourself for nothing.

After a few heavy seconds of silence, Astra finally sighed and turned her head to Fox.

"If the cities power were to go out tonight, would we be able to manage?"

"What? Well... We have some fuel for the backup generators in the basement and we scavenged some batteries from the wrecked cars. If we only used them for the important things, cooked on fires and made tallow candles... We could last a month or so before the fuel runs out for electric cookers. Why?"

She let out another sigh, uncrossing her arms and brushing a stray strand of ashen hair from her face, she turned on her heels and stormed towards the Shelled Drake without another word. A determined look in her chocolate coloured eyes.