"How in the hell do you have Korl?" Timon yelled in what looked to be more exasperation than anger.

After a quick relaying of the story, he just stared at us in disbelief for nearly a minute before speaking again. "So he's a Mimic? That explains a lot. Wonder who he finally pissed off enough to make this play. Though there are only a few reasons I can think of that he'd choose us for help, and I think I'd prefer it to be some sort of trap to any of those."

"Wait, you aren't getting out of this one without an explanation. How in the hell did you have a weaver mother?" Elody asked, an unusual anger in her question.

"That's a very long story, and not one I'm sure Mel is comfortable being told in full just yet. Let's just say I once needed to find a way around a certainty, and she needed a place to avoid some enemies she made. It's the reason I built this house in the first place. I guess she's done with that," he replied.

"Look, this is all great and whatnot, but I need to get equipment to check on Korl. We've already had enough delays. As much as I may think it's in our best interest if he were dead, I admit my curiosity is piqued on what he knows," Karlinovo said, before pushing past Timon on his way out of the house.

"Once Mel returns, I intend to push him to hear the full story. But Ivan has a point. There are pressing concerns," Elody added.

"Go get your equipment, but Korl is fine. Honestly, good thinking putting him in one of my cells. I designed those to make it very hard to die in them," Timon said.

"Well, if that's the case. I'll let you all focus on that. My own body scans aren't showing any infection in me. And if I'm feeling good enough for what we just did today, even if I'm not one hundred percent yet, I want to go take care of another soul knot. The sooner those are all gone, the sooner I get to feel a lot more comfortable sleeping," I said.

That had been a side effect of learning about the jester infection. I was having a whole new class of nightmares full of jesters morphing into monstrous wasps that I did my best not to think about when I was awake. I didn't want to risk the infection spreading any further than it already had.

"Probably a good idea. We need everyone back up to snuff," Pryte said as he led us back out of Timon's little world. Timon didn't return with us.

"Rabyn, if you have any recipe for replenishing soul energy, I imagine that will help speed up recovery this time," I said to the Orc as we both headed for the hall. I was in search of the Twinoges. One of them was about to get their soul purified.

"Maybe. I've been working on a few things, but this whole venture into soul energy is still incredibly new to me. Experimenting on you may not be the safest choice, but I'm guessing you aren't worried about that," he replied.

"You've guessed right. If you could get some stuff prepared and bring it over to my house, not sure I'll be in any shape to get back to the hall once I'm done." If it were anything like my last attempt, I'd collapse onto my bed the moment we returned.

We parted as Rabyn headed for the kitchen, and I made my way toward where I spotted the brothers eating alongside Orglina and Red. It was a strange sight to watch a polar bear very carefully working at and then picking up something that resembled sushi with her claws before dropping it into her open mouth.

She was becoming inseparable from the youngest of Glorp's siblings. Considering the moose had followed Alex in search of William, it was probably long past time I did some research into primal mana beasts and their bonds. That had been something Maud had looked into before the jester attack, and with her gone, I was going to need to learn it myself.

"Dave! I didn't know you were finally out of bed. Wait, does this mean it's one of our turns?" Cecile asked, his words gaining excitement halfway through as he realized what just what my presence possibly meant.

"Well, I hadn't actually decided on which of you two was first, but it does sound like you just volunteered Cecile," I replied, pulling out a chair across from Orglina and quickly stealing a few pieces of sushi from the platter in the center of the table.

"It's very good. There are many kinds of fish I had never had before, and the way they taste combined with these other ingredients is nearly unbelievable," Red said.

There was still some sadness in her voice, but it didn't drown out the enjoyment. Considering the loss of her cubs to the invading Orcs, she had every right to be. If anything, she was doing remarkably well, considering the horror she had gone through.

"It is. Any idea what kind of fish this is?" I asked. The food was almost tasty enough to distract from Korl and the weaver, almost, but not quite. Those thoughts would plague me for the foreseeable future.

In the case of Korl, that at least had a tentative solution. We just needed him to heal enough to start talking. The weaver mother's words, on the other hand, were much more open-ended. Would I even know I was past them once I was? There were plenty of no-win situations out there. How would I know which was the correct one?

"Nope, haven't had a chance to ask big sis what it is yet," Orglina answered.

"How is Gorpila handling the increased workload without John? Is she doing okay? I can find more people to help if she needs it," I asked.

I was worried we were putting too much on her. While she seemed to thrive in the kitchens, and she was taking to Rabyn's teaching as well as John had, possibly better, she was still just a kid. It wouldn't be fair to overwork her.

"Oh, she's doing good. Don't worry. She's actually going to join us in a couple of classes at the school. After that dungeon, she decided she wanted to learn a few other things besides just cooking," Orglina beamed as she answered.

Her excitement at having cleared out the pseudo-dungeon still hadn't vanished. Considering everything she and Red had been through during the jester attack, it was a welcome change. The fact that she and her sister had enrolled in school was even better. Hopefully, their other two siblings followed suit.

"So, when do we start? Not that I want to spoil lunch, but um, I really wanna get this out of me," Cecile said awkwardly.

"We can start now if you're both ready. Let's head back to the house. We'll need Chip's help." I entirely understood Cecile's point of view. If I could get the knots out of all three of them right now, I'd do it. The fact that this was going to take a couple more weeks only added to my anxiety.

"Can we come?!" Orglina asked.

I didn't really have a good reason that they couldn't. Though I would likely need to soul bond them if they wanted to go as far as the soul realm. Adding both of them to the chat, especially Red, seemed like it could be a good idea, but it was also something I'd need to talk over with Glorp. And that meant tabling it for now.

"Not this time. But maybe next time. I'll talk to Glorp and see how he feels about a few things. As far as I know right now, leaving the soul realm requires a soul bond with me, and that's a big decision. We don't really know how to break them or the full implications of them yet," I answered.

"Aww, okay, guess Red and I will just go poke Glord then," Orglina said, not sounding that disappointed.

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The brothers and I quickly made our way back to my house and into the workshop that connected to my bedroom. "So first, I need to soul bond you. As I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work, it's probably best I do both of you at once."

"What exactly does that mean?" Elicec asked.

"Honestly, not entirely sure yet. I told Orglina the truth as far as we know. You'll be in the chat system we are all in. Beyond that, though, we haven't fully figured out what it means," I answered.

"And Rabyn was entirely okay with this?" Elicec sounded nervous now.

"He was worried about the implications of us being so tied to him, but beyond that, yes, he was okay with it." Despite his fears about his enemies becoming ours, I still found it hard to believe they could add that much more danger to what already existed in our lives.

"That's really it?" Cecile asked, cutting off something his brother was about to say.

"As far as I know."

Elicec started to speak, but again Cecile cut him off. "No, there's no reason to argue about this. We have to be ready to fight for our home."

Elicec turned his head away slightly, looking guilty. "Sorry, Cecile's right. I'm just worried."

"It's alright, I get it, screwing with your soul sounds weird, but I promise everything has been fine so far," I replied.

"Okay, let's get it done then," Elicec replied, not sounding enthusiastic, but accepting nonetheless.

I started the same as I had with Rabyn, activating soul detection and taking a hard look at Cecile's soul. That was where the similarities to last time ended. Unlike Rabyn's singular bonfire, Cecile's was more like a highway that connected through a bright node in the center of their shared body, terminating in another highway-like system that belonged to Elicec. Their souls may be their own, but they were deeply intertwined with each other.

It was a good thing I had decided to soul bond both of them already. The best idea seemed to be bonding them both at exactly the same time, but what about their mass in the center? Did I need to do anything with that? I wasn't detecting it as a true unique soul, so I didn't think so, but there was no way to be sure until I tried it.

Raising both my hands at once, I tried channeling a different casting of soul bond in each. With a surprising bit of difficulty, I split my focus onto both souls at the same time and released the energy into them. Across the new connections, an intense feeling of responsibility hit me.

So it seemed that the feeling I had gotten after bonding Rabyn had little do with the strength of his soul and more to do with his own internal struggles. Both Cecile and Elicec felt a duty to save their people, and it was manifesting here in our new bond. Rabyn's soul had rebelled against the idea of anyone holding power over it. At least that was my new theory, I had no way to prove any of it.

What did that say for Chip? His soul hadn't pushed anything back at me as we formed the bond. Then again, the pumakey and I had nearly already been bonded from the experience in the soul realm. It was possible he had just been totally prepared for it.

As I pulled my hands back from the exchange, I pulled up the soul chat to test out my potential success.

Dave: Cecile, Elicec, can you see this?

Cecile: Oh, that's weird. I didn't realize that was how you all talked. I kind of figured it was by voice, not text.

Elicec: …How? They've described it as text multiple times.

Cecile: I don't know, I guess I missed that.

Dave: Alright, good to see that that worked. Chip, I'm going to need you in the soul realm.

Chip: asfasdf

Cecile: Chip can use this? That's awesome.

Karlinovo: We are really going to have to teach him to write at some point. Though I question how he can even read these. Do you have any idea how much he understands Dave?

Dave: Not at all. Chip, remind me to test you at some point.

Chip: ;;']'[aassassaaaaaaaaaaaa

Alpha: Chip smart. Knows best bird spots.

Dave: Really? I think we really are going to have to figure out how much you understand Chip.

Chip: 888771221878114888888*

Elicec: Can we get Cecile the same test?

Cecile: Hey! I know plenty!

After closing out the chat window, I led the brothers to my soul anchor, reminding me that I was going to need to create a second anchor at some point. I didn't need my bedroom to be the only way to access the soul realm. Everyone who was bonded to it needed to have an easier way to visit, especially Karlinovo, considering his stronger connection after reforming his core.

"Sit down on the ground before you touch that," I said, spotting Chip already lying on the bed.

Neither of them said anything. They just flopped down on the ground, eyes focused on the anchor. I made a mental note to make sure the room I put this in had chairs around it. It would be easiest if people could touch it and just slump back. Was it possible to set up some kind of magic automation that moved the chairs away when done? I added that to the list of future projects with Karlinovo.

Soon, the four of us were standing on the central platform of the soul realm. The Twinoges had a look of wonder in their eyes. Chip just looked ready to get to work.

"Come on, your platform should be over here," I said, leading them toward the hub that had been branching off non-dungeon core or awakened stone members of the group.

"Do each of these places lead to one of the people you're bonded with?" Elicec asked as we walked.

"Yep, each platform belongs to one person. So far, only Maud's hasn't been finished, well, other than you two," I replied.

Once we reached it, the difference between their platforms was immediately noticeable. There were two bridges leading to the same platform, except that down the center of it was a thick black line. Even stranger on each side of the platform stood a two-armed, one-headed Twinoge. Each head matched one of the brothers. And without their usual body sharing, they looked surprisingly human.

"I think I'm on the right," Cecile said.

Considering his head's placement on his body, that made sense. "If this is like what I did for Rabyn, this will hurt a bit, but you're going to feel a lot better once it's done," I said as I started across the bridge. The Twinoges followed behind me. This time, Chip joined us. It was finally time to remove another soul knot.

Timon

"So, it's really you, eh? What the hell were you thinking coming here, Korl?" Timon asked the half-formed Mimic that was currently collapsed in on themselves in the corner of the cell.

He didn't expect an answer. No, that probably wasn't coming for a while. Whatever had tried to kill him had come surprisingly close. Even Korl was going to take some time to regenerate from that one. Considering how much of his brain was goo, he was especially lucky he was a mimic.

"What did you learn that was so dangerous you ran to us? And why would you possibly think we'd be of any help?" Timon was mostly just thinking out loud at this point. That and he wanted the jester to hear him.

His current working theory was tied to the jesters. The surprise everyone had seemed to show that day when they were attacked in the Arena, plus the fact that the other factions on the floor had all been taken down, had convinced him long before the other discoveries that Earth wasn't some special target for them. They were just here to collect what they had already started.

For that to be true, though, it meant the jesters were entrenched in the Spiral, something that could only happen if one of the bigger factions had brought them back in. If, and Timon knew it was still a pretty big if at this point, Korl had gone in search of why the jesters had interrupted his own plans in the Arena, it was possible he had learned something that led to this. And it would explain why he'd run here, the only faction he knew that had completed that floor mostly unscathed, and possibly dealt with the soul knots.

The biggest problem with Timon's theories wasn't that they didn't fit the facts at hand. No, it was that he didn't want it to be right. Because if this were true, that was a problem so far above any of their pay grade, he didn't have the slightest idea what to do about it.

Humans are such an odd species. In most cases, blending in as a human is rather simple, but that only lasts until an attempt needs to be made to think like one of them in a dire situation. For whatever reason, Humans, almost as a whole, are unwilling to believe in their own mortality. And while there are individuals within other species that do the same, it is near constant with Humans.

This refusal to do so can manifest in both amazing deeds and horrendous evils, but somehow they do seem to fight back against it. I have witnessed Humans survive things that would kill virtually anyone else of comparable abilities. It is only after I have spent centuries living among them that I am finally starting to be able to think like that.

Life Through the Eyes of a Mimic by Guy Person

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