Unbound Soul Side Story: Monsters (Patreon)

With the unwavering craftsman side story finished, today and next Monday will be occupied by Unbound Soul. (Next week's isn't a continuation of this one, though.) For July, I'm not intending anything in the Monday slot; I want to get An Unprepared Castaway world-building and plotting properly started, and start building up a backlog for it, so that's where my focus will be* for the next while.

*Assuming I don't get distracted again. But the last distraction resulted in An Unborn Hero existing, so I suppose it's not all bad...

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In a village to the south of the town of Dawnhold, a group of over fifty villagers gathered around a carved stone obelisk. The majority of the villagers were beastkin, which was unusual for the area; most settlements around Dawnhold were split almost evenly between beastkin and humans. Here, humans were in the minority.

Not that they were the smallest minority in the village, in either sense of the word.

As a few of the village elders said a few words, commemorating the fallen of the plague, and thanking those that worked to prevent its spread, a low growl sounded from the back of the crowd.

"What's wrong, Benjamin?" telepathically whispered Mia.

"They're thanking that damn murderer again," responded the wolf, even his telepathy laced with anger.

Mia's eyes glazed over as his answer slipped from her mind.

"What is wrong with everyone?" asked Emma, utilising the connection Mia had formed.

"You might want to forget that day, but for the sake of the dead, we really should remember..." answered Mia, not at all realising what the question had actually been directed at. "It's the first anniversary."

"That wasn't..." started Emma, before psychically sighing. "You know what? It doesn't matter. The worst part is, if I had meant it like that, you should have slapped me, not been nice about it."

Mia tilted her head in confusion, but her eyes remained clear. The act of slapping someone in anger was a disallowed concept, but monsters didn't count as 'someone', so she could imagine striking Emma. The problem was that spending her whole life exposed to the Law, she had never known anyone to lash out in anger, nor ever done so herself. That someone might want to lash out in anger went completely against common sense.

"You know, sometimes, looking at people from the outside, I'm kinda glad I'm not one anymore," added Noah, who was yet to master legs. He had managed to sprout a bulbous offshoot atop his main body that could be, if you squinted, a head. There were also a pair of slimy tentacles that could have been arms, if arms had two dozen elbows and no hands at the end. The road back to the land of humanoids was a long one.

"Huh? Why?" asked Mia.

"Because they're a bit... stupid?"

"That's not very nice."

Noah bubbled in a way that hinted at a giggle.

"Be glad you aren't a full monster," sighed Emma. "You might be able to think about slapping someone, but a full monster would do worse."

"True. Have you ever wondered if anything's real, when you get right down to it?"

"Huh?" asked not only Noah's fellow monsters, but also Mia.

"I mean, humans and beastkin obviously have big holes in their brains," he explained, causing Mia to once again go blank," but so do monsters. They just sit there forever, violently attacking anyone they see, waiting to get killed. So what reason do we have to believe that we're thinking clearly? For all we know, none of this world is real, and we're all just hallucinating it. Or worse, someone else is hallucinating us."

"Well, that's depressing," whimpered Benjamin. "Today's awful enough already without adding thoughts like that."

"Yeah, come on. This is a memorial for our parents and friends. Don't let him spoil it."

"Who?" asked a confused Mia, regaining a sufficient amount of consciousness to realise she had no idea what anyone was talking about.

"Never mind."

The trio of monsters managed to maintain a suitably solemn air for the rest of the event, helped by the way no-one saw fit to thank Maximilian again for his efforts to save the dead, but after it, they found themselves drifting off, putting a bit of distance between themselves and the village.

"Not every person is so... blinded," commented Emma, the only one of the three able to speak without the aid of [Telepathy].

"Peter knew," scratched Benjamin into the soil.

"Exactly. He knew it was Maximilian's fault. So did the dragons. Not to mention Maximilian himself."

"Find them?" scratched Benjamin.

"We can't just wander into Dawnhold. It wouldn't be safe..."

"Mia? Lucas?"

"I dunno... Dragging them feels like taking advantage."

Noah bubbled, stretching out a tentacle and scraping it along the ground, taking far longer to carve his thoughts than Benjamin's sharp claws. The other two waited patiently.

"What if only villages? Brainwashed food source? Admitting broke free unsafe."

Benjamin huffed, an action that worked equally well as a wolf as it had as a human.

"We've had this exact same conversation before," sighed Emma.

"Lots," scratched Benjamin.

"Vote Mia Lucas," scraped Noah.

The three monsters shared a look between them. Benjamin nodded. A few seconds later, somewhat more reluctantly, so did Emma.

"Fine. We visit Dawnhold and search for someone who knows what's going on."

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"... You do know we have no idea how to get to Dawnhold," pointed out Lucas a short while later.

"It's a big target, and the land is nice and flat," replied Noah, glad to be able to utilise the telepathic link again. "We should be able to see some sight of it."

"Even if that's true, how do we get back?" asked Mia.

"By retreading the way we came?" suggested Benjamin, as if it was obvious.

"You really think you can remember the way?" asked Emma. "What if we get lost?"

"Hey. Whose side are you on?" asked Noah.

"The one that doesn't get lost miles away from civilization!"

"Why don't we ask if we can travel with Krail?" suggested Lucas.

The monsters shared another look. Yes, they'd have to wait until his next resupply run, but at least they wouldn't end up wandering the wilderness.

"That's a far more sensible suggestion," agreed Emma.

Benjamin nodded. A few seconds later, somewhat more reluctantly, so did Noah. Although, in his case, he accidentally nodded a bit too far and his 'head' fell off.

"I wish I was the wolf," he complained.

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It was a little over a week later that the group set off to Dawnhold, the five children having talked Krail into letting them accompany him on a trip to buy goods to bring back to the village.

"I wish I was the slime," complained Benjamin, who was running alongside the cart, Noah and Emma on his back.

Emma giggled, an odd raspy noise coming from a goblin. She was wearing a hooded cloak, which, from a distance, did a decent job of hiding her inhumanity.

"You could have ridden in the cart on the way there," replied Mia, who was indeed seated in the cart.

"It's easier to learn the way if I run it myself," grumbled Benjamin, who was wearing a brightly coloured collar. He also had ribbons around each leg, tied by Emma and Mia, after they had ganged up on him, giggling and pointing out his collar wouldn't be visible to anyone seeing him from behind. Of course, they'd deliberately left it so late to make that observation that there had been no time to find any alternatives. "Of course, that doesn't explain why these two insisted on riding me."

Noah wasn't wearing anything, not really having a body on which to wear things. Thankfully, his attempts at blobbing himself into a humanoid form were clearly apparent, even if not exactly resoundingly successful.

"So, what's the plan for when we arrive?" he asked.

"Ask around if anyone knows Peter or the dragons?" answered Emma, not adding on anything about the other subtle questions she wanted to ask, knowing they would just cause Mia and Lucas to blank out.

"Asking random strangers isn't going to help much, unless they're some sort of celebrities."

"I mean... dragons. They've got to be at least slightly famous."

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"Dragons? Sorry, but no. I don't know any dragons," answered a woman they'd stopped on the outskirts of Dawnhold.

"I think I heard something about one living in the mountains up north," added someone else who happened to be in earshot, squinting suspiciously at the group of kids. "Why are you looking for dragons? And why are you with monsters? How do you control them?"

"We aren't monsters," sighed Emma.

"I know a slime when I see one, gal," answered the man, squinting at her hood. "And that's a suspiciously pointy green nose you have there."

"There was a disease," said Emma. "Most infected people died, but those who didn't... well..."

"Oh! You're from that village down south. I'm so sorry!"

"You've heard of us?"

"How could we not? A disaster that terrible... I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, it was terrible how someone could claim to be there to help, but then murder everyone so horribly," responded Emma, keeping a close eye on the pair of pedestrians.

Both of them blanked, as did Mia, Lucas and Krail.

Benjamin gave a brief growl.

"I don't suppose you've heard of someone called Peter, then?" asked Lucas, leaving the monsters guessing how much of the conversation the humans had just lost. "A long shot, if you haven't heard of the dragons, but we might as well check."

"Hah. Peter? That Peter? Everyone knows that Peter."

The group of villages blinked, except for Noah, who released a few surprised bubbles.

"So cute how he always assumes no-one has sensory skills that he doesn't," giggled the woman. "With [Enhanced Hearing], I could hear the pair of them from two streets away."

"Uh... What?"

"Never mind. Maybe ask again when you're older."

The kids shared another, somewhat more confused, look.

"So, you're looking for an older teen, human, but with catkin features? Married to Cluma?"

"Uh... I thought he was catkin?" said Mia. "That's why the plague didn't infect him?"

"Who's Cluma?" asked Lucas.

"You don't know Cluma? Oh dear..."

The group tensed up. "Oh dear?" asked Emma, with just a touch of nerves.

"Oh, don't worry. It's nothing bad, as such. It's just that if she sees you, you will get hugged. And she's invisible and can teleport, so you will not see it coming. Just... brace yourselves."

The group peered at their interviewees.

"How do we brace ourselves when we can't see it coming?" asked Mia.

"Wait, you're not going to question this?" asked Emma, before remembering that they couldn't. "No, never mind."

"Just remain generally braced at all times. Don't worry; anyone who hangs out in Dawnhold for long soon gets the hang of it."

"And don't I know it," muttered Krail. "Sorry, I should have mentioned her, but I guess you just get used to it and don't think about how it must be to first-time visitors after a while. Anyway, it sounds like you have somewhere to visit, so meet back up here at fifth bell?"

"Yup. Thanks for the lift," nodded Lucas.

"Their house is on the street of delvers," said the woman, before giving some directions.

"Thanks. We should be able to find it from that."

They made it halfway up the street before Lucas screamed, finding a catgirl suddenly clamped onto his back.

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By the time the group knocked on Peter's door, Cluma was riding Benjamin, with Emma and Noah respectively forced to walk and roll. No-one was quite sure how it had happened, but no-one had the heart to dislodge her.

"So fluffy!" she mumbled, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in the fur on his back.

A clatter sounded from inside the house.

"Huh? Is everyone okay in there?" asked Lucas, reaching for the door, but hesitating.

"Just go in," said Cluma, somewhat muffled by the fluff.

Lucas opened the door, revealing a very nervous Peter frozen in the entranceway.

"I can't help but notice that you don't seem very happy to see us," commented Emma.

"I... Sorry. Come on in," was the reply. "To be honest, I was expecting you sooner."

"Oh? Then you know what we want to ask?" asked Emma, still standing outside.

"Why your friends and everyone else you know are brainwashed, I imagine," answered Peter, causing Mia and Lucas to go blank. "I would have mentioned it at the time, but... you had more important things to deal with."

A frozen Cluma gently slid off Benjamin's back.

Benjamin turned to look, barking in surprise.

"Even your wife is affected?" asked Emma, causing Peter to twitch oddly. "Is this going to get us into trouble for asking? Would we be better off returning to our village and not asking questions?"

"Huh? Oh, no, you aren't going to get into trouble. My reaction was nothing to do with the Law. I'm just not used to people calling Cluma my wife. It's weird."

"It's been ages! Get used to it already!" complained Cluma from the street. "Also, that fluff is dangerous! I completely spaced out there!"

Peter just sighed, knowing full well he should have visited the village long ago, but as long as Maximilian's victims hadn't wanted to leave, he'd been able to put it off. Now that they'd turned up here, that was no longer an option. It was finally time to deal with the monsters.