"All of his pools are full, but he's obviously not properly healed. You can tell how much pain he's in from his face."

Huh, had someone else arrived in the room? I opened my eyes a fraction, but it was too bright. Did I fall asleep at some point despite my efforts not to?

"Peter! Are you awake?!" exclaimed mum.

"Loud..." I muttered. The headache had faded a little more, but now my whole body was aching. Or maybe it had been aching before, and the headache had been bad enough to mask it. I performed my usual cast of [Endurance] and made a second attempt at opening my eyes.

"Can you tell us what happened?" asked a voice I didn't know.

"I..." I tried, before my tongue got caught in my bone-dry mouth. "Water..." I managed.

A couple of arms gently raised my head, although in my current state, I couldn't even tell who they belonged to. Another arm held a mug to my lips, and after a few sips, my mouth felt much better. I followed the arm up to a man I didn't recognise, but who was wearing a white robe with the symbol of the Dawnhold hospital embroidered at the neck. Was I in Dawnhold? How did I get there? How long was I out?

"I was talking to the great dungeon's sixth floor boss about the reincarnated twins. I accidentally made her angry."

"That's hardly a rare occurrence. I used to work in Synklisi back when I was an apprentice, and we'd have unfortunate delvers in every other week. Fix up their broken bones, and they'd be fine by the next day. Whatever is wrong with you wasn't something I've ever seen that slime do."

"My fault for trying to fight back," I said with a wry smile. "Where am I?"

"The Dawnhold hospital. Your parents brought you in during a snowstorm, three days ago."

Three days?! I'd been in the middle of teleporting to the village, so I must have made it there, and then they'd brought me here in a snowstorm? How did they even survive the journey?! I suppose they are both rank three now, but still...

"Can you give us any clue how to treat you?" the healer asked.

"I don't think you can," I answered. "No... There is something. Something enchanted with mana shackle."

Not that it was a treatment, but at least it would let me sleep without worrying about going on an insane murder spree. But would it be a good idea? I'd only found my way back to my body thanks to a pathway of mana. If I cut myself off from that, I might just make things worse.

"Mana shackle? What's that?"

"Never mind. On second thoughts, I don't think it would be safe. I think I just need time."

I struggled to look around, spotting mum nearby, wringing her hands and obviously desperate to talk, but understanding that the healer needed to take precedence. I saw dad walk out from behind me, and stand next to her. It must have been him that was supporting me earlier.

"And food," added the healer. "We've kept you hydrated, but we couldn't feed you properly while you were unconscious. You must eat something before sleeping again."

The healer left, presumably to find me something to eat. It was a valid point; if I'd been out for three days, plus however long it had taken to get here, then I certainly needed to eat something. I didn't feel hungry, though. Probably because my body was too busy with the pain.

I looked weakly over at my parents. "Thanks for getting me here, but it was too dangerous... You travelled here in a snowstorm? What did Richard say?"

They looked at each other, almost guiltily. "To be honest, we both thought the snowstorm was too dangerous too," admitted dad. "But Richard had no idea what was wrong with you, and we didn't know what to do. His [Analysis] just said 'human', with no more information whatsoever. It wasn't until yesterday that it started showing your name again."

"Darren was the one who convinced us to bring you here," added mum. "We didn't travel in a snowstorm, so much as we did in a big bubble of flame. It was a surprisingly pleasant trip."

I had no response to that. After causing us so much trouble as a baby, now he's marching through winter snowstorms, dragging our parents behind him? The thought made me giggle, which alas caused the pain to flare back up. I took another quick look with [Soul Perception], but if I'd healed any, it wasn't obvious.

The healer came back with a bowl of soup, and after mum and dad helped me to sit upright, I made an attempt at eating some. It didn't go well, my motor control still sorely lacking. I attempted to cast [Dexterity], only to find nothing happened. The metaphorical button had simply gone, replaced by an empty void. How many branches of the System's crystal tree had been torn off along with my lost portion of soul? Had I lost skills, despite them still appearing on my status? Would they return in time?

[Strength] was still there, so I cast it in the hopes of making some difference, but found myself still unable to eat. Mum had to spoon feed me. I could at least swallow, and the healer had been insightful enough to have picked a meal that didn't require chewing. I really should get his name.

Nope, my appraisal skills were all missing, too.

By the time I'd finished the bowl of soup, I could barely keep my eyes open. My parents lowered me back into bed, before I fell asleep once more, hoping that my mana control skills had also been ripped out from me, and I couldn't use them in my sleep.

When I woke up next, it was the evening. I still felt weak, but the pain had lessened further, and was no longer agonising. This time, I was fully aware of how hungry and thirsty I was. Attempts to force myself upright failed, though; I simply couldn't put enough weight on my arms.

"Good evening, Peter. Whenever you're here, you always seem to have the most unusual problems."

It was a voice I'd heard before, but I couldn't put a name to it. At least until I managed to look around and pair it up with a face. "Carys. Apparently I'm in your care once again."

"Apparently so," she giggled. "Are you able to eat?"

I managed a yes, and with her help, consumed another bowl of soup. And so went my next few days, confined to a hospital bed, too feeble to even sit upright on my own, too clumsy to use a spoon. Far, far too weak to use a toilet on my own. Apparently, my days of toilet-related embarrassment were beginning anew. The pain continued to lessen, but there was no sign of recovery. It was like all my stats had been reset to one. With the damage done to the shard of the System embedded in me, maybe they had been.

I had visits from Cluma and Clana, Cluma taking far too much pleasure in spoon feeding me, acting like she was feeding a baby and revelling in my embarrassment. Darren came with my parents from time to time. Even Kari and Grover visited, probably out of interest for my unusual condition. On day four after my awakening, eight days after my injury, the guild master came to visit.

"You've come to gawk at me too, have you?" I asked, struggling to sit up and just about managing it on my own. Progress!

"Hardly. I came because even stuck in a hospital bed, you're causing me work, you ungrateful brat."

"Hey, I've not done anything this time."

"Then tell me why there's a slime camping over at headquarters demanding to be taken to you."

"Okay... Maybe I injured her, but she started it. I only defended myself. Not to mention I injured myself as badly as her! Given how helpless I am at the moment, she'd just kill me the moment we met."

"I'd be impressed if she managed that. She's as weakened as you are. She needed a delver to carry her out of the dungeon, and she can't even hold her usual shape. It was only yesterday that she regained the ability to talk, hence why I'm here now."

Am I really going to have to meet her again? I'd planned on staying away from Synklisi forever, or at least until I was strong enough to face the slime without deploying my nuclear option. "I can't exactly travel right now. I can't get out of bed."

"Stop making excuses. Besides, there's a rank four [Life Archmage] in Synklisi who can take another look at you. Raymond has already told me that you're barely improving here."

Who's Raymond? Was that the guy I failed to appraise? But if there was a chance a rank four healer could get me back onto my feet, I was willing to risk another encounter with the slime. It wasn't as if they were going to leave us in a room alone together. I hoped. "Fine, then how are you going to get me there?"

The guild master didn't answer, but pulled me out of bed and over his shoulders, before starting to walk off.

"Hey!" I called, only to get ignored. I continued to be ignored all the way out of the hospital and the entire distance to the delvers guild, where my whole family, Darren included, were waiting inside.

"What is this? Some sort of family trip?" I asked.

"Obviously. We aren't going to send a sick patient off on his own, are we?" pointed out dad.

The guild master wasn't coming with us, so I was transferred to dad's back, doing my best to cling on with my sapped strength. We took the two hops to Synklisi, successfully stopped Darren from collapsing the portal when he got interested and started poking it, and emerged onto the busy street. Dru'hazzak was standing in front of the warehouse entrance, all four of his arms crossed, looking significantly vexed.

"So, care to fill me in on what Elanor wants with you, and why she's so... blobby? She says it's your fault."

So, that's her current name. I can stop calling her 'that slime' again for a bit. "She attacked me. I defended myself. We both got injured."

"And what did you do to provoke her?"

"Admitted having a System skill that she didn't approve of."

"And what skill would that be?"

"[Soul Perception]"

I watched the expression of vexation turn to one of blankness for a few moments. "Well, whatever you did, she's being even more insufferable than normal. Only somewhat tempered by the fact that she can barely move on her own."

My family was led into a room which contain a large blob of slime sitting on a table. It looked just like a regular emperor slime, except maybe a bit bigger and with a floating yellow orb in the middle, and with my appraisal skills broken, I never would have guessed it was Elanor. I didn't really want my family anywhere near that thing, but they didn't want to leave me on my own, and if Dru'hazzak could be believed, she wasn't currently a threat to anyone.

"You..." she screeched, the voice distorted and inhuman. "What did you do to me?!"

"The blob of jelly is talking!" exclaimed Darren.

"I'm not... argg... keep the little human quiet! Tell me what you did and fix it!"

"If I could fix it, don't you think I'd have fixed myself already? Or do you think I'm being carried for the fun of it?"

"What. Did. You. DO?!"

"What do you think?! What one skill do I have that could fend off a monster of your level? One that happens to have a soul."

"You... Don't tell me, in the middle of an argument about soul affinity, you used a soul affinity attack?!"

"You were trying to kill me!"

"So? You'd have survived."

"Are you certain? If I'm immune to the Law, how do you know the dungeon resurrection magic will work on me?"

This time, Elanor didn't immediately yell back. I guess she wasn't certain, after all.

"Why couldn't you have just calmly explained that soul perception skills are dangerous, instead of launching straight into an attack? Or do you not know that for sure, either?"

She stayed silent again. By this point, everyone else in the room was well out of it, wearing the usual glazed over expression of someone not permitted to understand the conversation.

With a sigh, I invoked [Soul Perception] to take a look at her damage. Her spherical soul was still whole, but a new growth was present on one side of it, filled with patterns completely unlike her usual yellow, mechanical designs. Designs that were, on reflection, very similar to the ones that decorated my own wound. Conversely, the patterns in her own growth looked suspiciously like my own. And were those bits of System crystal I could see in there? Well then, at least I found my soul's missing arm.

"Looks like we've done a bit of a swap. You've got part of my soul lodged in yours, and I've got a bit of yours lodged in mine."

"What?!"

"If it makes you feel better, you seem to have come out on top."

"It doesn't! Fix it!"

"And how am I supposed to do that? You know more about this stuff than I do."

"I don't know anything about this!"

I looked more carefully and noticed that the growth on Elanor's soul was responding to my emotions rather than hers. Likewise, the yellow patterns on myself, which until now had been sedentary, were racing. Out of interest, I tried to activate [Inspection], and while it still didn't work, this time it felt like it was there somewhere on the edge of my perception. I could see a bit of the System crystal in Elanor vibrate. Maybe proximity would be sufficient?

"Dad, carry me closer," I asked, and he complied in a dreamy, half-sleep sort of way.

"What are you doing?" asked Elanor.

"The grafted bits of soul are reacting to each other. If we get closer, maybe they'll snap back."

"All we have to do is touch?"

Elanor stuck out a protrusion of slime as I reached for her with my arm that still had an intact soul.

"Your soul is in your core, not the slime."

"You expect me to trust you with my core, after you did this to me?"

"I'm trying to fix it, dammit! This probably isn't going to do anything, anyway."

Elanor huffed, which was an interesting sound effect coming from a ball of slime, then floated her core out to the surface. I touched it, eliciting something that felt like a strong static shock, then slowly slid off dad's back as I once more lost consciousness.

Error: System shard #1978846 corrupted. Working...
Incongruity detected: System shard #1978846 present in two separate entities. Resolving conflict. Entity 'Peter' is registered shard owner. Entity 'Blobby' registered as a unique monster. Repairing shard.
Error: Shard repair impossible due to soul disruption. Working... Bonding souls of entity 'Peter' and entity 'Blobby'.
Incongruity detected: Monster tamer subsystem disabled. Resolving conflict. Forming new trait. Repairing shard. Working... Shard repair successful.