Andrew threw his body to the grass. Apparently, he had been sitting in a lotus position before he realized it. Did Nyx move his body around while he was away trying to fight the flood of siso within his system?

Speaking of Nyx, the great serpent was currently coiling around herself and stayed silent, perhaps meditating. She looked so calm and serene on the outside, but who knew what was happening on the inside. She was fighting her own inner demon for all he knew. The not-Goddess was as much of a mystery to him as he was to her.

Andrew glanced at his other companion. Ghetto was sipping on something, and its smell stimulated the caffeine-deprived part of Andrew’s brain. WIthout further ado, he stood up and walked closer to him, hoping for another goodwill from the beaver, “is that coffee?”

“Hey, you’re up. Not bad for a first-timer,” Ghetto said between his sips. “No, this is Yuko bark. Coffee beans are hard to get where I am from, though I’ve seen them a few times on the market a few floors down.”

“Can I have a taste?” Andrew asked, intrigued.

“Be my guest.”

He received the cup from Ghetto’s hands and brought it to his lips, and it didn’t take him a full sip to push it away. He expected the bitterness, but the aftertaste was shocking. Literally. His tongue felt a bit numb, like a jolt of electricity just passed through it. “How does it taste?” Ghetto asked, looking amused.

“It tastes like soil and dry battery.”

“The taste of home,” Ghetto hummed.

Either this meant Ghetto had skewed tastes or the drink was simply impotable for species other than beavers. Either way, he couldn’t get his supply of caffeine, despite it being right in front of him. Andrew frowned, but then he recalled that, going by Ghetto’s words, coffee existed in this world. He wasn’t much of a coffee lover as he was a caffeine junkie, and the prospect of drinking fantasy coffee gave him enough copium to last.

Andrew sat down closer to the bonfire. Nyx was in her own world and Ghetto was busy sipping the bark juice. Andrew had none of his books to pass by time, neither did he had his harmonica, but he was content with just watching the night sky by a lakeside. Stars rarely caught his interest back then, but if they were moving around so much like they were here, he couldn’t help but wonder.

“Can I ask what you have in mind?” Once again, the snake crept up to him. This time, tough, he could feel her presence slithering towards him.

“I wonder just how far away those stars are from us, how big they are, whether I can reach them or not.” Also, if any of those stars were a planet like Earth, would its people get dizzy because their planet was moving around so fast?

“You can reach them, silly. Just climb the tower.”The answer that came out of Nyx’s mouth was a bit more surprising than usual.

“Wait, climbing the tower means getting to outer space?”

“What, no! Outer space is filled with void siso. Go out there without any proper core protection art and you will literally become nothing. Nasty stuff, nasty stuff.” It was Ghetto who answered, a bit too flustered he almost choked on his bark juice. “The stars represent the Gods above us. Climb the tower and you’ll meet them, that’s what she meant.”

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That tackled a question, if not at the rise of a thousand more. Really, the more he tried to understand this world, the more he got lost. He started to really consider living an idyllic life if the rest of his journey would be just as confusing.

But then, Andrew put his hand to his stomach. His core was now on the verge of going Chernobyl on him. There was no knowing what would happen if he got too far away from Nyx. He had no choice but to climb the tower with her, not until he found a more permanent solution.

“I would guess that potage wasn’t enough for you,” Nyx’ voice reached him. Andrew wondered what she meant before he realized what he was doing. Did she think he held his stomach because he was still hungry?

“Err, no. It was enough, and I feel full right now.” It wasn’t, and he didn’t, but he’d rather not burden both Nyx and Ghetto again. He could relieve his hunger with siso, and he was full of siso.

Though, apparently, he couldn’t keep a lie from the not-Goddess of mystery. “Come,” Nyx invited, slithering away from the lake and into the grassland, “I’ll teach you how to hunt.” Although bewildered, Andrew couldn’t refuse the offer and stood up and followed the snake.

Following the jet-black Nyx under the veil of the night proved to be a challenge for his eyes, and yet, oddly enough, he could sense where she was by a pull-like sensation from within his body. It was as if there was something inside of him that acted like a compass that pointed exclusively towards Nyx. Was it her siso that invaded him, or her boon that encircled his core, or maybe something else, he didn’t know. Another question to tackle for another time.

“Stop. This place should be enough,” Nyx ordered, and Andrew stopped. “Give me your hand.” He gave her his right hand, no hesitation this time. Nyx gave him a sheet of paper with a weird symbol on it with her tail. “Fill this with your siso and offer it to the Land God.” He filled - wait.

“How?”

Andrew was new to all this siso thing. The first and last time he tried to touch upon the matter, he almost died, or ceased to exist, or obscured into the night, or whatever that going transparent thing would entail. Nyx, however, sounded sure and told him again, “you know how to do it.”

With his life literally on her palm, despite snakes having no palms whatsoever, Andrew couldn’t say no. So, he focused his senses into his body. More accurately, into the siso veins in his right hand. The flow of siso was out of his control, but he could manipulate his veins. Maybe he just needed to open up his veins so his siso would go out of his body?

Andrew tried just that. He connected a siso vein to an open orifice, letting some of his siso to escape from his body. Much to his disappointment, or perhaps he should have expected it, it didn’t work. The Andrew siso was dissipated into the air before it could do anything to the piece of paper he was holding. Perhaps it was the amount? Andrew connected more veins to the open orifices on his skin. More Andrew siso escaped his system. A majority of them dissipated into air right away, while the few that actually managed to last a few moments outside of his body didn’t do much of anything to the paper. Worse even, some foreign siso started to flow in from those orifices, making Andrew hurriedly close them again in panic.

No, no, he was fine. These foreign siso would be processed by his core into his own siso, and there were the twin snake rings that prevented his core from going berserk again. Fear bottle, fear bottle.

Andrew opened his eyes. He studied the piece of paper and soon realized that he was a huge idiot. The symbol that was drawn on it was made of one long strike of brush that started and ended on the same side. He aligned those ends with two of his open orifices and let his siso flow out again. This time, instead of dissipating into the air, his siso flowed into the symbol, filling in the paper.

This was a matter of putting two and two together.

“Good,” Nyx complimented him. “Now, offer it to the Land God so she doesn’t think you are here to invade her territory.” Andrew was elated only for a moment, before he got anxious again.

“...how?”