Then I hear gouts of flame, a familiar fwsh sound, but much louder and stronger than normal. Where Lilagni was laying is now some sort of enormous winged gecko. They’re taller than me to the shoulders, and almost twice as long before even counting their tail or wings. What had been tough scales along their backside and tail now seems a bit softer. This new creature gets batted around and gashed by the bear with ease, they seem almost unused to their own body.

The one I believe to possibly be Lil experimentally flaps their wings, bunches their haunches, and leaps. This new Lilagnewt creature ends up taking to the air. From the air, Lil’s flames seem overpowering for the bear, its feathery fur sizzling and crackling, creating an awful stench that even reaches my little nose barely held above the surface of the rapids. The bear creature, frustrated, begins to retreat. It ends up lumbering away until they can reach a full lope, or maybe a gallop. It must have realized that it can’t fight back against something flying out of reach that’s burning it.

Slightly afraid, but mostly worried for Lil, I come up with a plan to launch myself over to the shore. I build a bit of a heavy cushion, and try to thrust it out of my inventory at high speeds from my hands. Utilizing Newton’s Third Law, I’m launched in the opposite direction, while in the air I recall my walking stick, and cushion, to my inventory. I brace myself for a painful impact on the ground that never comes.

Lil, flitting above me, apparently just swooped my way and caught me in their new digits. The digits are toes I guess. They’re not exactly talons, though I think they have little claws. Lil lets me down gently, at least I hope it’s Lil, and I scramble to my feet. I cautiously ask, “Are you… Lil? Are you alright?”

“Yep yep, told you someday I’d have all the arms!” Lil laughs as if it was the most normal thing in the world to transform into another creature. They don’t have arms though, they’re a quadruped, but I don’t want to get pedantic with my buddy right now.

“Do you think you could maybe take us to the other side? My blue bar keeps dropping, my energy I guess. I don’t want to be caught over here, and out of energy, if it comes back.” I fret aloud.

“Sure thing partner, happy to oblige.” Lil states, and takes wing once more. Just as we’re reaching the other shore, my energy bar bottoms out. I suddenly fall the last few feet to the other shore with a thud, and brace for Lil’s new large form to crush me. Instead, I hear a little ‘poyoing’ bounce, as a spherical creature lands on my back and bounces to my side. Curious, and worried, I look over to see Lil in their usual sphere shape with reptilian tail, but Lil isn’t moving again.

I try to shake Lil awake for a moment, but if they need to rest I also don’t want to disturb that rest. Maybe the fight took a lot out of them. I sit by, minute after minute, and Lil shows no signs of waking. I know Lil isn’t dead, because they didn’t derez. I’m still terribly worried, and I don’t want to hang around here. I mostly want to vamoose in case the bear can jump across the rocks between the shores of the river.

Unsure of what else to do, I fashion a sort of hood-like backpack, and set Lil inside. Carrying Lil doesn’t hamper my pace too much, they’re incredibly light. Lil’s lightness should be surprising, since they’re around half my size and I’m scrawny. We’ve hung out enough that I already knew they weigh almost nothing though. I continue traveling south as we had planned, trying to put as much distance as possible between us and the bear.

I trek along the river’s shore for another day, and bed down keeping Lil close. I have frightful dreams that night though, of losing my only friend. Thoughts of not being able to protect them while they’re helpless haunt my dreams. I awaken to rustling, but Lil is completely still, out cold yet. I pull my spear from my inventory to my hand. My pulse quickens as I focus on listening to my surroundings.

Things seem silent, but I can almost feel it before it happens. A red-eyed, fanged-mawed sphere leaps into the tent. I bat it away with a golf swing, and chase it out of the tent. It seems almost identical to the one from Day One, with slightly discolored markings. As my thoughts wander to Day One, I clutch my chest in panic. My pulse pounds in my ears and my breathing feels like it happens in slow motion, like I’m sucking air through a straw filled with molasses. My vision tunnels, and I stumble vaguely in the direction of the creature.

I can’t let Lil down, if this thing defeats me, Lil is helpless against it right now. If it gets past me, it could attack Lil. I combine bark, sap, and vines into what’s essentially a tower shield for someone my size, and apparate it directly in front of me, hoping to buy myself time. I feel the bark shield vibrate against my arm as the creature slams into it. It pauses for a moment, either confused or stunned, buying me enough time to calm my breathing slightly. Still barely able to see, my vision is clouded on all sides by images of Day One. The actual events, and the nightmares I had whilst sleeping. I flail wildly.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

My flailing has only one useful effect, the creature, which was edging around the side of my shield, retreated to the other side of the shield again. Furious with myself for falling prey to traumatic thoughts, and furious at this creature for attacking us, I withdraw the shield back to my inventory. In what I guess one could call a blind rage, I launch every sharp object from my inventory in rapid fashion, vaguely in the direction that I heard the creature last.

The thing is a slightly darker sphere just barely visible within my tunnel of vision. I launch and recall and launch and recall everything at my disposal until my energy depletes, then for good measure I swipe wildly in the direction I last saw the beast. The bad news, I definitely swiped in the wrong direction. The good news, I heard a little puff of flame, and the glass-shattering sound of the derezzing of the beast, coming from different areas. This means Lil is safe, and the beast is dealt with.

I sink to my knees, breathing heavily. I gulp down ragged, soblike breaths. I let my energy bar recover, and gather up everything around the area. Leaving the scene and entering the tent, I find Lil still fast asleep, but their breathing is more noticeable now. I wasn’t even sure they were breathing until a moment ago when I heard their fire snores. I grab Lil into my lap and hug them tightly while sitting cross legged, leaning my back against the tree. Tired, and bleary eyed, I try not to fall back asleep, but pleasant dreams take me away to slumber.

Memory Logged, Dream:

Those lollipops are the size of trees, that tree is cotton candy, the bees are hauling buckets of chocolate instead of pollen, the sun is singing, the birds are shining, everything is as it should be.

What?

As it should be? This land is insane, the birds glow with the light of a thousand suns, and the sun has a happy smiling face as it bounces around the sky yodeling a tune. Fish that appear to be made of sweets fly through the air, there’s a cacophony of life and its endless circle, as creatures from small to big leap at and swallow one another whole, til eventually the largest thing around melts down and grows into new sweet creatures. Everything and everyone is smiling while it happens too. I don’t know whether it’s because they are genuinely enjoying this dreamscape, or if it’s because they welcome the escape from such a crazy land.

My head lolls hard to one side in my sleep, snapping me to wakefulness. I rapidly shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs as it were, rattling my brainpan. Did I just dream about cotton candy mountains flying chocolate fish, and reflective rock candy birds? I don’t even know. I’ve never even experienced sweets. Why would my imagination be acting on knowledge I probably shouldn’t even have?

I summon our camping supplies to my inventory, and set Lil in the little hoodie pouch so I can keep carrying them whilst we walk. Well, whilst I walk. I’m a little bit worried about my energy pool being limited. I’d like to always have enough energy to get us out of a dangerous situation. While hiking along the riverside, I focus more intensely on my inventory shenanigans. My focus is about as intense as it was in the past. Actually, moreso.

As I’m walking southward, focusing on this, I’m of course attacked once again, but curiously, this creature’s eyes are normal they aren’t stark-red, pupil-less. It also doesn’t seem as vicious, ferocious, or willing to battle to the death. We circle each other, and I make patient swings each time it appears to bunch itself down for a leap. Now I’m not sure I should kill it. It just seems like a hungry animal going about its life. As opposed to the red eyed ones that almost seem to specifically want to hunt down and kill me in particular.

I fight off a wave of panic while the thing is still wary of me from my last swipe. I’m lucky that it’s short lived. Or maybe lucky that the small creature is cautious. It doesn’t seem to have Lil’s intelligence though. Now it’s scooting away in reverse, keeping me trained in its vision. Should I kill it before it escapes? So that it can’t keep hunting us?

Or would some fish be enough to prevent it from hunting us? I think, I think I’d rather try that. I set out half a dozen sashimi platters as it disappears into the treeline. Hopefully instead of following us, it’ll go for the easy food. It seems to have self-preservation instincts at least, and some kind of risk-assessment cognitive functions.

In the various previous weeks of my short life thus far, I had generally always tried at least something out with my inventory space skill magic stuff. Now though, I’m rapidly combining and disassembling everything in my inventory. This of course ends up bottoming out the blue bar in my mind’s eye. When it’s empty, I rest, letting it refill. I repeat this cycle over and over.

Trying to figure out if I can trigger that unlimiting or delimiting or limit breaking thing again is met with no luck. It’s probably some sort of emergency response. There’s some boxes that are grayed out in my mind’s eye, over to the left and right that I can’t quite bring into focus. Maybe it’s in one of those.

Working with the materials I have, I’m tempted to try to disassemble the identification scroll, but what if I don’t have the ability to put it back together? If I turn it into just paper and ink, will my space skill or crafting skill know how to turn it back into a magical scroll? Somehow I doubt it, even with as great as my space and crafting skills have been.