In the end, after many, many tears, Christine was able to convince the cashier of Gawth Topic to let her keep her soul... working as a ghoul for all eternity restocking spiked collars was just not an appealing prospect. The condition? She would have to pay a hefty fine for both the potion and a shipment of black corsets that had been turned a hideous non-blood red by Kafei's "accident." The total rang up to an ungodly 100 million TC; the corsets had, apparently, been made from genuine Nuanox leather. That, and the cashier was bitter about losing a perfectly good soul to do a little manual labor around the place.

Well, while it was some comfort that she would not be the handmaiden of the cashier (who looked like she had literally sold her own soul for the color black) until the Second Coming, Christine had nowhere near enough TC in her bank account to cover such an immense cost. Writing out an IOU and probably her own death sentence, she resigned herself to the worst.

"How in the world am I supposed to make that much money?" she wondered aloud as she escorted a now guilty-eyed Kafei back to their flat on the outskirts of United Central. "I guess I could start selling off furniture... or organs...."

Feeling miserable despite his fabulous new visage, Kafei nudged up against his master's leg and let out a sad squeak, drawing the girl's attention to the ground where he was now working with his right fin to produce a crude drawing in the dirt. Christine squinted hard, trying to make out the lopsided stick-figure, then began hesitantly, "Is that the Shadow Zulf?" (The dripping fangs, even if poorly drawn, were the real giveaway.) Kafei nodded encouragingly, eyes sparkling. "I've heard of him," the girl continued, stooping down to inspect the drawing further. "He's reputed to have founded the Training Camp near here with Master Zoya... no one's seen him for ages, though, and I've heard rumors that he's the omen of death himself. What about him?"

A determined look in his eyes, the Ikana gestured towards himself, the drawing, then back again. Christine wasn't incredible at deciphering Kafei's frequent sign language, but even she could figure this one out. "You've... met him?" Almost chirping, Kafei nodded again, his demented, fanged smile returning to his face. "Where?" The Ikana gave a meaningful look towards the northwest.

"... the bookstore?"

Kafei smacked his head against the ground and resumed his illustration.

When he drew back, the dirt around the stick-Zulf was embellished with scratchy sand dunes, shaky cacti and scribbly shorelines that looked a little like malformed worms (though Christine would never say so aloud). It was the desert where she had first met Kafei a month ago and had lived herself until her recent move back to United Central. "You saw him in Saeyr?" In all the time she'd been there she'd never seen hide nor hair of the creature... she'd always been under the impression that he would have ventured off someplace suitably mysterious like the Forgotten Realms... Saeyr seemed far too sunny to be dramatic, and how would he ever camouflage that black against the sand? But Kafei's eyes said Yes quite clearly, and the fish had never lied to her before.

Well... okay, maybe every now and then – whenever food was involved, really – but she understood the point he was trying to make now. The two of them had been raking in some extra pocket money from Kafei's matches in the battle realm (most of which had been spent on things like pet plushies for Christine and gigantic slabs of raw meat for Kafei) – nothing near the amount they now needed to keep their souls... but the Shadow Zulf was the king pin of the battle realm... if they could track him down and convince him to take them under his wing as apprentices (or just beat the bloody pulp out of him, though this seemed considerably less likely) they would be heros... they could chop down opponents for several thousand TC a pop back at home, and winning back their freedom would be a piece of deliciously chocolate cake that was really starting to make Christine wonder who would ever invent a metaphor designed specifically to subliminally advertise the bakery store a mile back (which suddenly seemed to be beckoning to her).

There was only the minor issue of tracking him down in the first place....

As posted on the Teripedia League Homepage:

It was eight o'clock at night, and Christine was settling into her usual steamy bubblebath after a long, vigorous day of not working or doing anything otherwise productive. She had just propped her feet up onto the rim of the tub when she heard a SPLASH from outside the door, a SPLASH from inside the door, and found a now-bubbly Kafei sitting in her lap (if it is possible for a fish to sit). She was beginning to resent the fact that he could flop for long distances out of water; it made it much harder to keep him in his tank.

He was not altogether noisy, and she probably would've been able to nap even with the wriggling fish in her lap, but he seemed troubled over something – she could see it in the gigantic eyes that had so often manipulated her in the past. He was looking at her feet as if to say, What's that? "That's toenail polish," she explained, wiggling her toes. "It makes your nails look pretty."

Let me try, the fish's eyes begged, but Christine had no idea how to go about getting nail polish on a fish... and quite honestly, she wasn't sure if she could deal with a bout of gender-confusion from the Ikana. She had to decline (gently, so as not to get bitten by the rather toothy creature) and Kafei seemed to accept the answer without any reproach. He flopped back out of the tub and Christine finished her bath in peace.

But when the girl woke up the next morning, she found the house completely empty – Kafei was nowhere in sight. She tried calling his name, and even offered a few blood sacrifices, but he was gone. Frantic, she followed the trail of water from his empty tank out the door and through United Central.

As it so happened, Kafei was currently flopping around in front of a small wooden kiosk titled GAWTH TOPIC, just outside the old beauty salon. He had wriggled through piles of chains, collars, and very heavy belts made out of about ten types of leather when he saw it: a giant bottle full of gleaming red liquid – just like his master's nails! Christine spotted him as she raced into the parking lot and screamed a loud, "NOOO, KAFEI!" but it was too late. In the blink of an eye, Kafei had knocked the bottle over, exploded the contents, and engulfed the entire street in smoke. When everything had cleared, Kafei was admiring his new black and red scales; he seemed quite pleased with himself.

"Are you that Ikana's owner?" asked a girl dully from behind the kiosk. In stupefied horror, Christine nodded.

"How much do I owe you for the potion?"

"Your immortal soul."

Christine cried for a very long time.

As posted on the Teripedia League Forums:

Exhausted from a day of doing essentially nothing (but in the hot sun, you know) Christine walked the length of the rocky shore she'd been doing essentially nothing on, let out a long breath, and approached the frothy sea that crept up around the beach's muddy pebbles and wandering sand-crabs with each passing minute of the high tide. The murky water was mercifully cool, and with a little noise of satisfaction she lay back against the grainy sand and allowed the waves to wash over her feet and legs.

Unfortunately for our heroine, high tide at the shores of the Saeyr desert were often call for hungry sea-going predators, prowling for fish that had been washed up on the otherwise unforgiving sands by the tide. As the water level descended, already beginning to leave sparkling silver fish along the shoreline, Christine felt an odd sensation at her foot. Something soft, slippery and smooth was nuzzling against her toes, and she was just about to sit up to inspect the disturbance when the soft, slippery something took a large bite into her foot.

"AARRRGGGHJHHHHHGHGRG!" she screamed, very elegantly, and managed a backwards bicycle kick that sent the creature at her foot flying overhead. When she turned around with the force of a small motorboat propellor, she got her first real look at her assailant: a silver, streamlined Ikana with beautiful green eyes and HOLY #$*&@#*%&@ ONE OF HER TOES IN ITS MOUTH!

Christine attempted to wrestle the toe away from the beaming creature, but after a good five minutes of what the fish seemed to think was an absolutely brilliant game, she realized that she wasn't really a surgeon anyway and probably wouldn't be able to reattach the toe even if she were to retrieve it from the very contented Ikana. She watched with mournful eyes as the fish swallowed her beloved little toe and proceeded to find it the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.

As the legend goes, the Ikana continued to stalk the nine-toed girl for the next several days, hoping for another taste, until she finally cracked and offered to buy him some real food if he would stop looking at her feet like that. The overjoyed fish took this as an invitation and moved in the next day, curling up on her bed and leaving it very, very wet.

After realizing that the Ikana was there to stay, she gave in, adopted him properly, and named him "Kafei" because she's a Zelda nerd and couldn't help herself.