21 Quella: Heart-eater
The screams came to a sudden stop, and with the soul-bond formed both Arishia, and Drake fell unconscious, their minds finally succumbing, overwhelmed by each other's collective memories and emotions.
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Elsewhere in the castled lands of Lothric, a black-cloaked figure, carrying a luminescent white straight sword, flew above the hollowed undead below. Occasionally a pilgrims butterfly would float by the cloaked figure to attack him, giant skeletal humanoid creatures with wings, formed from a rotting mishmash flesh and wood, only to be chopped down by his sword.
The figure stopped pulling out a flat circular shard of glass, and out of the glass, little rays of light shone, forming a to-scale model of the surrounding world. It was a map containing the nearest hundred miles, and at its center, an arrow pointed towards a strobing red dot.
He was here to hunt down an escapee from the planet Earth, his lord was otherwise occupied and far too powerful to deal with such small matters, so he had been sent in his place to deal with the dream god's champion.
The robed figure stared at the holographic map as the strobing red dot pulsated more frequently for a few seconds before disappearing.
"Hmm, the prey is either dead, or it has changed its flavor, tricky, too tricky... oh no, the lord will definitely not like this, I have to find out what has changed otherwise... no!... I don't want to return, I don't want to, no, no, no! I don't...", The robed man spoke in a voice that shifted back and forth between the deep majestic tone of a king and the high pitch whine of a madman's hysteria.
"Ahh, I mustn't get mad... food... a little food to ease my mind, yes," he muttered to himself, pulling out something from his robe. It was a maggoty lump of living flesh, a heart to be precise, still beating in rhythm, ba bump, ba bump. The cloaked man devoured the heart viciously, tearing at it with his teeth and consuming it. After finishing his meal, all that was left was a splattering of blood on his hands that he soon licked clean.
"Ahh, that's better, much better... hunger... never again... mhmm." He started to make his way to where the dot had disappeared.
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Quella saw the happenings of the world from her realm, she watched as Drake fought and struggled to survive against the mighty foes of the cemetery, she watched him meet the firekeeper and sent whispers asking for her to help him. She watched as the world invader was overcome with madness when the primordial serpent formed a soul bond with Drake, halting his tracking of Drake's soul.
With Drake now unconscious, she could pull him into her realm, and so she did.
From the blue moss-covered ground, a small grey-fog tornado formed, when it settled in its place stood Drake, with a silver serpent gliding about above his head.
"I'm back," Drake muttered calmly, having grown somewhat used to being pulled into Quella's realm.
He looked around admiringly before locking eyes with Quella and asking her.
"What's exactly has happened to me, It feels like I'm no longer just myself when I focus I can..."
Quella remained silent, and Drake could feel Arishia's desire to tell him something through their bond, so he turned and asked her instead.
"Arishia... can you tell me exactly what you have done."
She spoke directly in his mind. It lacked the snake's hiss of before and rang out as the clear voice of an aged woman.
"I have conjoined our souls, bonded we are as one soul, I am you, and you are me, separate yet the same... I did not want to do this is as you well know, but now it has been done... hughh... the bonding of souls is not something so easily undone... it is common logic that it's far easier to mix two things together rather than to separate those two things."
Drake could feel directly through his connection with her the emotions that played out in Arishia's mind, she was as worried as he was and as desperate as him too, but most of all, she was afraid of his rejection.
To be bound to someone that hated her, it would not be a pleasant experience, feelings of constant hatred, and disgust directed at her from the bounded soul of another, it could send her insane.
Drake let out a sigh, "I guess we are partners, for now, I won't blame you for this... as long as you don't blame me for forcing your hand." She replied, also sighing, "I won't I saw it, the burden that plagues you, and my offer remains, I will aid you in return for you housing my soul."
Quella interrupted the two, "Sir Drake and Madam Arishia. I have both good and bad news about your current predicament. The bad news first, the champion sent by the time god has arrived, and it's currently searching for you as we speak. The good news is that with the alterations to your soul, made by the forming of the bond between you two, it can no longer directly track you."
"Does that mean if I leave this world, it cant track me?" Drake asked, and Quella replied, "no, not exactly Sir Drake, when you leave this world like when you left your own the trace will be reapplied, but worry not I have a plan, it's not a direct solution, but it should give you enough time to gain the strength you need to fight back. When you leave, I will send out fakes, doubles to redirect the attentions of the time god's champion, and with the changes in your soul, he will have to hunt each one of them down to determine which one is the real you."
Drake's brow furrowed in thought as he asked.
"How long will this give me, and I need to ask if you can you determine where I will end up when I leave, it wasn't really my idea to come to a world like this after all, and I would prefer to choose if possible."
Quella answered Drake's questions. " The length of time, it's hard to say with any luck it could be years and if your unfortunate, the champion could find you in a matter of days. As for choosing your destination... hmm... possible, definitely possible, if you share some more of your memories with me, I can send you to one of the worlds that has seeped into the dreams of your kin."
