"Ow," Valerie grunts, staring at her newly-clawed fingertips. "This really hurts."

"Yeah, I mean, that's how it usually happens," I agree.

"Aaaand my fingertips are all bleeding," she sighs.

"Oh, I've got some stuff for that, uh… in my… backpack. Which I do not have with me."

"We didn't think this through well at all, did we?" Valerie asks.

"No," I agree. "No we did not."

"Boof!" Fartbuns barks.

Valerie and I both turn to stare at her dog, happily panting at the bottom of the basement stairs and completely bathing himself in the wild Transmutation magic I just unleashed everywhere.

"Fuck," Valerie summarizes. "Alright, no more of this shit."

She licks a finger clean as best she can (which makes me weirdly hungry and jealous) and starts poking away at her phone gallery again.

"Dreamer's Spellbook: Vivian's Rapid Dispel."

Her own magic rushes out through the room, consuming every lingering remnant of my own. The basement is now flush clean of magic, but Valerie still has her claws. Which… well, I don't see anything wrong with Fartbuns, but who even knows if that means anything.

"We really didn't think this through well at all, did we!?" Valerie whines.

"I mean, was there a good way to think this all through?" I ask, still giddy.

"Yes! Probably!" Br—Valerie groans, patting herself down all over. "This is a horrible situation! I have claws and nothing but claws, the whole rest of my body feels the same!"

"Uh, yeah, it'll probably take a while for whatever other changes are happening to finish happening," I shrug. "Autumn didn't grow anything on day one, and her tail took a second dose to come in. Besides, claws are neat!"

"Since when are you so excited about having claws?" Valerie asks.

"Uh… good question," I admit, trying to think back. "I think using my 'transform other' spell makes me a little manic? But also just, I had a really good coming out at the therapist, so I hate myself a lot less than usual!"

"Well that's something good, at least," Valerie grumbles.

"Don't worry! I'm sure your boobs will grow in soon!"

"...Like actually, or are you just being supportive?"

"Um… I don't know." I try to imagine Valerie with big boobs. Hmm! Surprisingly easy. "Yeah, I got a good feeling about this."

"Oh boy," she deadpans. "I guess I get to look forward to magical HRT, now with countless unknown side effects."

"Oh, don't act like you weren't enthusiastically consenting to that just a moment ago," I complain. "Come on, let's check over your dog and make sure he's okay."

"I suppose you of all people are in the unique position of being able to think this isn't a big deal," Brendan sighs.

"No, look, I get it," I promise, kneeling down next to Fartbuns and giving him fervent pats as I look over his body with my spatial sense. "It's a huge deal. One of the hugest deals. And while part of me is definitely sorry I did this to you, part of me is also just happy I don't have to do this alone. My inevitable reveal is rapidly approaching, you know? And you in particular are in a unique position to actually like what's going to happen to you."

Hmm… yeah, something is definitely up with the dog. His internal organs look weird. Muscular differences, especially?

"...I can't deny there are aspects I will appreciate," Valerie sighs. "How's FB?"

"I think he's gonna grow more limbs," I admit.

"Oh boy."

"I believe you mean good boy," I coo, scritching Fartbuns behind the ears. "Who's gonna be a monstrous little spider dog? You are! Yes you are!"

"God, you are in a mood today."

"Goddess," I correct automatically.

"Right. Yeah. Goddess."

There's a pause as I continue checking Fartbuns over. I'm not a veterinarian, but nothing seems outright harmful and Fartbuns isn't acting like he's in pain, so we're probably in the clear for now. Which is good! The last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt Fartbuns.

"...Well, I'm going to go to the bathroom and get my fingers bandaged," Valerie sighs.

"Alright," I nod. "I guess I'll go outside and see if Fartbuns is okay with a bit of exercise."

"Please don't do anything crazy," Valerie begs.

"I will do my absolute best but no promises!"

Brendan—dang it, I mean Valerie again, geez—shuffles off to the bathroom as Fartbuns and I tromp upstairs, heading for the backyard. I am intellectually aware that I should be a lot more worried and concerned about everything that just happened, but I'm just… not. I am far too busy being excited. I'm really looking forward to helping Valerie with her transformation, especially since I feel like I messed up super hard with Autumn and haven't really had the opportunity to do much for them. Alma and I hang out, chat, and enjoy each other's company, but the monster transformation thing is usually a taboo topic. And Jet, well… Jet just insists on handling everything herself. With Valerie, however, I know we'll both be comfortable reaching out to each other when we need it.

Is it messed up to be excited that I'll be able to help my friend with a problem that I caused? Yes, probably. I guess I'll add that to the list of things to talk to Dr. Carson about! Boy, it's getting really long. Therapy sure is a lot nicer when no one is trying to sexually exploit me.

…Haha, wow, nope. My brain tried to make it a joke but it's still not very funny! Geez, that's a bucket of ice water over my mood. I'm genuinely startled by how much progress I've made in therapy already. I guess I really did need it. Just like literally every single person who knows and cares about me insisted was the case. It kinda sucks how when everybody who loves you tells you about something you need, they're usually right.

Fartbuns scampers excitedly out into the yard when I open the backdoor, and soon enough I'm tearing after him, luxuriating in the feeling of my claws digging through the dirt. We wrestle for a while, I don't know how long, but he seems totally fine and having a good time so I guess the transformation isn't hurting him. At least for now.

Wrestling Fartbuns is fun, but sandbagging so I don't hurt him does give me an urge to let loose. So after a while, I break away from him and just… run. Brendan's huge yard works as a perfectly functional track if I just sprint around the circumference of the grassy area, and holy crap is it fun. I'm so gosh dang fast! I'm pretty sure I could outrun the average cyclist, at least while sprinting.

I giggle excitedly to myself between gulps for air, my body actually feeling the burn for the first time in forever. It feels good. I've never really loved exercise, having always been more of the curl-up-at-home type, but I suppose that's just another part of me that's changing. My new body sings with joy as exertions that would have been unwelcome irritation before now feel instead like cathartic release. It's an interesting experience, one that I'm not sure if I should be worried about. More signs that my body is messing with my head are never fun.

But I guess that's the thing: the body always messes with the head. The head, after all, is part of the body. I remember when I was little, coming home at the end of Halloween with a massive bag overflowing with candy. My mom would always put so much effort into helping me make homemade costumes of whatever I wanted to dress up as, and I took pride in having cool costumes that no one else did. Most of them were various Pokémon, of course, but I digress. My point is that after coming home, I would engorge myself on that candy.

Endless streams of sugar would drop down my gullet, and I would love every bit of it. I'd often make myself sick with so much at once, but it felt worth it. I loved candy. But then, as I got older, I just… didn't. It wasn't just the fact that I was more cognizant of the consequences; Goddess knows I still don't have any self-control. I just simply did not like candy anywhere near as much as I did when I was little. And obviously nowadays I can't really eat candy, but this was all back before the monster transformation stuff. People grow, people change, and their tastes change with them. Sometimes, a thing you used to love stops bringing you joy. Sometimes, a thing you used to hate starts tasting good. The body grows, the body changes, and the person trapped inside is beholden to that body's whims. That's just how people are.

I spend a couple laps running in different ways, using my extra limbs or scuttling on my arms and legs, but it seems like in terms of pure speed, running like a human and just leaving the rest of my limbs out of it is best. My chitinous, humanoid legs tear easily through the dirt, propelling me forward in long leaps. My feet pound into the earth at rapid intervals, feeling just like a normal run, but when I look back each footstep is several yards away from the last. It's like I'm flying.

My laughter grows as I continue running around, overjoyed by it all. This beautiful moment truly is exactly what I needed to relax. There's nothing here but me, Fartbuns, the wind, and Valerie's family gardener.

…Wait, hold on.

I skid to a stop, using my hip-legs to arrest my momentum since my feet don't have any backwards-facing claws. Holy crap there's just. A person? Trimming hedges!? When did they get here?

They do not seem to care about me at all.

"Um," I clear my throat. "Hello?"

They turn to look at me and give me a polite nod. It's an older man, maybe forty or fifty.

"Hello," he greets me placidly.

"When, um. When did you get here?" I ask.

"One o'clock," he answers. "I work here."

"I, um," I sputter, my various limbs gesticulating in confusion. I was not… I never expected my reveal would be like this…! "You're not… scared of me?"

He shrugs, returning his attention to the hedges.

"I thought the dog was the one digging up the yard," he comments idly.

I blink, utterly dumbfounded. I'm not sure what to say to that. I'm not sure what I can say to that. My thoughts churn for a little before I finally manage to speak up again.

"I, um. Could you not tell anyone about me?" I ask.

"If I gossiped about what I heard or saw at work, I would not have a job," the man answers tiredly. "So I do not. Who you are and what you are doing does not matter to me."

He snips the hedge clippers and then taps the bush lightly with them.

"This hedge matters to me. Let us all mind our own business and focus on what matters, okay?"

…I think I've just been politely asked to shut up and leave him alone. Still somewhat shellshocked, I wander back inside to look for Valerie, finding her in the basement on her computer as expected. She seems like she's already got an idea for more art.

"Uh. So. How are you doing?" I ask.

"Typing and holding a stylus still really hurts, so not great," she answers.

"Oh. Sorry. Um. I got spotted by your gardener?"

"Huh?" Valerie asks, turning to look at me. "Oh, fuck! I forgot Alejandro was working today. Shit. What happened?"

"He, um. Didn't really care? He just kept doing his job."

Valerie snorts.

"...Wow, really? Yeah, that checks out, honestly. Alejandro is pretty great. He's been working here for ten years now. So… nothing bad happened? No freakouts? No catastrophes?"

"Um, not that I know of," I shrug. "Didn't spot anything weird about his internal organs, either."

"Well… that's good, right?" she asks. "Bodes well. The average person thinking we're a strange curiosity at most is kind of the goal, right? I mean, I guess Alejandro is decidedly above-average, so maybe not the best measure, but it's still good."

"Huh. Yeah. I guess so."

I hold my hands behind my back, drumming my toes against the floor.

"...Is there anything I can do for you, Valerie?" I ask.

"Huh?" she asks.

"Is there anything I can do for you," I repeat. "I've just… a lot has happened. You've been helping me out, and now I went and did this to you. I wanna make it up to you somehow."

She gives me a lopsided grin.

"Well, if I get to grow tits because of this I'll happily call it even," she says. "Otherwise, we'll just have to wait and see. The claws are a little unwieldy, but nothing I can't get used to. I just ordered some capacitive gloves online, and as for everything else, well… we'll figure it out as it comes, I guess. Claws aren't really indicative of any particular final form, you can kind of slap them on anything."

"Oh yeah? Any particular sort of changes you're looking forward to?" I ask. "Other than the girl stuff, I mean."

"Eh, not really?" she considers. "I've RP'd just about everything under the sun, I don't really have a set preference. Catgirls, hellhounds, liches, eldritch flesh masses, raptors—both dino and bird—it's all cool. I think I'd prefer feathers, fur, or just normal skin over something rougher like scales, just for the nice texture, but honestly I wouldn't complain about much of anything."

I chuckle a little.

"Gosh, that was a thorough answer. I guess you know a thing or two about designing monster-human hybrids, huh? You furry, you."

She waves me off.

"Furries can be neat, but muzzles aren't my thing and that's what I consider their defining feature," Valerie corrects. "I much prefer humanoid faces. Of course, the only real definition of 'furry' is 'a person who considers themselves a furry in good faith,' because it's just one of those largely undefined social terms. Either way though, I'm not technically a furry."

"I see, I see," I nod solemnly. "So what are you, then?"

"Uh. I dunno if there's really a snappy term for it," she considers. "A monster girl enthusiast, I guess? I like monstrous features on humanoid forms."

"Well, that seems to sum me up," I grin teasingly. "Find me attractive, do you?"

"Hannah, you were unbearably sexy before you started growing chitin," Valerie answers bluntly. "If not for the gender dysphoria and resulting emotional repression I've lived with my whole life, I'm not sure I'd be able to stay sane around you."

I gape, completely poleaxed by the sudden, intense compliment. My brain whirls with confusion as a burning blush rises up my face.

Stolen novel; please report.

"I… wh… you think I'm…? You always thought I'm…?"

"Yes. Extremely. Did you seriously not know?" Valerie sighs.

"I thought you didn't want to date me, though!?"

"Of course I wanted to date you!" she snaps. "I just didn't want you to date me! You're attracted to women! You would have been miserable!"

"But you're a woman!"

Now it's her turn to blush.

"S-sure, but I didn't know that at the time!" she grouses. "You think this was easy to figure out? For ninety-five percent of my life I had literally never heard of transgender people outside of shitty jokes on TV about how gross it is when they try to seduce the main character. I got through it by refusing to think about it and dissociating so hard that half our grade thinks I'm mute. It took way too much prodding from my friends online for me to actually grok that being more comfortable representing myself as a woman—not to mention desperately wanting to be one—isn't particularly cisgender behavior."

I stare at her, all too consciously aware of both my awkward blush and hers. I wonder which one of us is redder. Probably her, since her skin is normally so pale. Mine just keeps getting darker, though I'm pretty sure it's turning gray instead of… well, any sort of normal color for skin to be.

"I had no idea," I admit. "I really don't know what any of this is like. Sorry."

She shrugs, affecting an awkward, forced smile.

"Yeah, I know," she says. "I appreciate that you're trying, though. It… you have no idea how happy it makes me just hearing you say 'Valerie.'"

"Heh. I mean, I have some idea," I grin. "I have been appreciating getting to see you wiggle, Valerie."

That prompts a still-deeper blush and, on cue, a wiggle. So cute!

"...Well, anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest before it gets any heavier," Valerie mutters. "Don't worry about it. I get that you're already dating someone else, and I'm completely unprepared to date anyone right now anyway. So. Friends?"

My heart flutters a bit unexpectedly, but I push it away and nod.

"Of course," I agree. "Best friends."

"Best friends," she confirms.

"...Although," I muse, tapping my chin, "I do kind of want to meet your online friends. I oughta thank the people that helped you out, if nothing else."

"Uh, really?" Valerie asks.

"If that's not a problem, yeah," I nod. "I know I don't hang out with your friends very often. Your school friends can be… a little tiring to be around?"

"No, I get that," Valerie nods. "They can be… yeah. I'm honestly really worried about coming out to them."

"Yeah…" I agree. "But like, you've talked about your online friends before and all the cool games you do together and now I'm hearing how they helped you figure out this really big thing about yourself and they just… sound neat, you know? You're my best friend, but I feel like it's really rare that we hang out these days. I wanna be a bigger part of your life. …Maybe ask for fewer hours at work. Maybe I'll even quit."

"I struggle to imagine you quitting any sort of job, honestly," Br—Valerie answers. And I mean, she's got me there.

"...Maybe I'll get fired after coming out as a freaky inhuman magical monster," I correct. "That's not protected by equal opportunity laws. I checked."

"No, but a lawyer would probably be excited to help you sue anyway if your boss tried," Valerie muses. "That'd be some crazy publicity."

"Which means there's not a ding dang chance I'd be interested," I sigh. "Oh, well."

"To answer your actual question," Valerie says, spinning around in her chair to look back at her computer, "I'll ask my friends if they're down to meet you now. And if they are, which they probably will be, I'll send you the link to the Discord server."

Oh geez, Discord. I haven't used that in a while.

"Sure," I nod.

Nothing notable happens the rest of the day, which is honestly pretty nice. Valerie and I just hang out like old times, playing Super Smash Bros. until her new claws get too sore and then just chatting about nothing in particular. When I return home, I'm feeling pretty great, despite having to bundle up all my extra parts again.

Then I walk inside, and find my mother waiting for me.

"Hannah," she greets me, sounding tired. "I half-expected you to stay the night."

I freeze as my brain churns into overdrive, trying to figure out all the little implications and disapprovals that one sentence carries. Already my stress levels rise, desperately searching for every detail of what I did wrong this time and how I can just make it go away. But I'm tired of this. For a little while, today, I was finally above this. I had something better.

"Maybe I should have," I answer.

"Hmm. You think so?" my mother asks, her lips pursed in an expression somewhere between irritated and sad. I don't answer and I don't leave, either possibility a little too terrifying. She asked me a question so the conversation isn't over and she won't tolerate me departing. But also, it was a rhetorical question, and I can either make her mad and possibly be punished for reasserting my opinion, or I can take back what I said. Neither option is appealing.

So we wait in silence for a bit, and then my mom continues.

"I don't understand what I've done wrong, Hannah," my mother tells me. "Your brother doesn't seem to want to talk to me anymore either. Your therapist tells me I should give you more space, but I don't know how much more space I can give someone who refuses to interact with me or even look at me when I'm talking to her."

My gaze snaps up to her eyes, more or less involuntarily, and I grit my teeth. You don't know how to give me more space? Have you tried maybe not cornering me literally the day my therapist recommended that? Except no, I can't say that. She'll take it as snark, which always makes things worse, and then she'll point out that we literally haven't talked at all since Wednesday, which I won't be able to refute, and everything will just escalate.

What's the answer to this puzzle? How do I communicate my feelings while also telling her exactly what she wants to hear?

"Why won't you just tell me what's going on?" my mother asks after I take too long to respond. "You know I'll do everything I can to help you, Hannah. No matter what it is. You know I love you."

I almost say 'I know,' because I do know, she's been telling me that her whole life. And the evidence for it is obvious: my mother will drop everything to help me, she constantly works hard for me, she always devotes her time to me, and when she's apart from me for too long she gets depressed and distressed—which is why I'm having so much trouble getting her to give me space. So she loves me. I've known this my whole life. But if that's true, then why does it feel so different?

"Why does your idea of love involve repeatedly pressing me about things I don't want to talk about?" I ask.

"Because I'm your mother," she answers simply, crossing her arms. "You're distressed. You're struggling. You need help, and helping their children is what mothers do."

"Well, I don't always want your help!"

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," she gripes. "You didn't want me to potty train you when you were two, you didn't want me to teach you to cook when you were ten, and you didn't want me to make you get a job when you were fifteen, but they're all things you need to survive in this world. Am I wrong about that?"

I glower. Well, if you want to cherry-pick every good thing you've—

"Am I wrong?" she presses.

"No, mother," I grit out.

"Don't give me that face," she orders. "I've done nothing to deserve this hostility."

"Then why is it that I feel so hostile around you and not anyone else!?" I snap. "Look, you've already helped, mom! You made me go back to therapy. The therapist is helping. I was already feeling better until I had to come home and have this stupid conversation with you!"

She stares me down just long enough for my anger to fade and get replaced by fear, and then she sighs.

"Okay. 'The therapist is helping.' That's all I needed to hear."

And then she walks away, leaving me feeling embarrassed and gross. I trudge upstairs, and after an hour of agonizing about the conversation in bed I finally manage to fall asleep.

"Hannah, wake up," Helen says, jostling me slightly. It feels really uncomfortable, so I groan and hiss and do not move an inch. "Come on, Hannah, the boat's about to make landfall. And since it's a stolen pirate ship, we might need to be prepared for trouble."

I groan, glancing around the room with my spatial sense. I'm curled up at the foot of the bed as Kagiso groggily cuddles the pillow that's supposed to separate her side of the bed from Helen's. Helen, of course, is already up and dressed.

Normally I'd be happy to get going for the day, but I overwhelmingly do not want to move. I don't even want to move my mouth to try and speak real words. The crappy conversation with my mom pretty thoroughly killed my high from earlier yesterday, but even beyond that I just feel exhausted.

"Oi, come on, get up," Helen says, trying to scoop me up from where my legs are curled underneath me. I groan again, the feeling of her hands on my body uncomfortably sensitive for some reason. She jerks her hands away, frowning.

"...You're kinda squishy," Helen comments. "Everything okay?"

Squishy? I take a closer look at myself, and sure enough my carapace is not looking so hot. Rather than my usual pristine bone-white shell, my chitin looks partially dissolved underneath the still-stuck cast-off skin of my molt. My body is a little different from when I went to sleep, too; I'm a bit longer, like someone grabbed either side of me, pulled, and stretched me like taffy. Radial symmetry is officially, one hundred percent out. Bilateral symmetry is in. Shame.

"Hhhngh," I grumble, moving my mouth against my intense desire to stay still. "Big molt. Moving bad."

"Ah. Fuck, okay," Helen scowls. "Transmutation stuff?"

"Mmmngh," I confirm.

"Well, not the best timing, but I guess you're mostly just backup. If shit is going to start over me being a Chaos mage or… well, or really anything, it's gonna start today."

"Sorry," I mumble. "Not really controlling this."

She nods understandingly.

"It is what it is. We'll manage. You okay to be shoved in a backpack for the day?"

"Mmmngh."

"Right, have a good rest, then."

She gingerly lifts me up, the pressure really weird and uncomfortable on my temporarily-squishy body. I'm sure my carapace will harden back up once I'm done growing, but for now it's just… ugh. But then Helen carefully deposits me in her backpack and surrounds me with a comfy nest of clothing, and my burrower instincts kick in to tell me that everything is okay now, actually. I settle in and relax.

Kagiso is eventually coaxed out of bed, Sela and the rest of our gear strapped firmly to her torso as we head to the deck. The sailors give us respectful nods and greetings, Helen keeping us out of their way as they work. I can't see the port from here, but presumably everyone else can as they all frequently glance nervously in the same direction. Most of them seem to relax whenever they see us, though. I take that as a good sign. We freed them from slavery, so they trust us to protect them from any problems making landfall, too. I wish I was in a better position to help, but hopefully I won't need to help them anyway.

"What do you think our odds are of this going smoothly?" Helen asks someone who doesn't seem very busy.

"Eh. Decent," the sailor shrugs. "We slashed the ship markings, which is as good a way to indicate the pirates are dead as any. So that should prevent us from being shot. The tricky thing is that we have no way of telling anyone who killed the pirates until we land. For all the dock knows we could just be a different group of pirates, so tensions will be high. But honestly, as long as no one does anything stupid we probably won't need to worry about much."

"Doesn't seem to stop people from worrying anyway," Helen comments.

The sailor barks out a laugh.

"Does it stop you?"

Helen inclines her head, conceding the point, and the sailor gets back to what he was doing. When we start getting close to port, the sailors start speaking spells that might be useful if things go badly. Nothing flashy, we don't want to scare anyone, but we're ready. Sela even casts Graveyard Soul again, the spell it used to prevent a Pneuma spell from targeting Kagiso all the way back when we were fighting the branch serpent… though I don't really know what it does, exactly. I'm tempted to ask it, but I'm pretty sure it was waiting for other people to start casting spells before casting its own in order to go unnoticed. We are currently pretending that Sela is dead.

And then… we land at port. It's similarly disgusting to the port we launched from, all sticky and bacteria-ridden, but at least it isn't rotting. Rather than being entirely made of wood, this place is almost entirely metal. Helen is waiting by the gangplank, so we're close enough for me to see the armed and cautious group waiting for us at the dock.

"Ho there, gentlemen!" one of the sailors calls out with a wave. "If you're here to wait for pirates and slavers, I'm happy to report this is now a free ship!"

The dockworkers seem to relax considerably at that, and to my thankful surprise things do indeed go well from there. Someone at the port recognizes one of the former slaves as someone that went missing at sea, and that pretty much settles things. Everyone seems quite happy to have that particular group of pirates gone for good, and while there's apparently a bunch of legal crap about who gets to own the boat now, only the people who actually care about that have to deal with it. Which means we're basically free to go. A quick Aura Sight check and both Helen and Kagiso are let into the city.

The dock itself isn't all that interesting at first; from where we were on the boat, it just looked to me like a big stick of metal extending out over the sea. But as we walk down it, I realize that, yes, that's all the dock is, but it has to be that because I can't see the bottom. There are no pillars holding the dock up by connecting it to the seafloor, and I suspect this might be because the seafloor is still well over fifty feet below us. Instead, the dock is supported by a diagonal strut welded into the side of what appears to be an old, beaten-down skyscraper.

Which I also can't see the bottom of. It's mostly submerged in the sap. Have we even made landfall?

It turns out the answer to that question is 'kind of.' As we move further away from the boat, the sap level rapidly plummets. I forgot how sticky and viscous the sap is; it's not so much a flat body of water as it is a giant droplet. We're on the tail edge now, so what seemed to be flat before is rapidly turning into a thick, liquid cliff. It's not totally dewdrop-shaped, of course, not at scales this huge, but the sea level has still fallen well below us by the time we make it to the city proper. It's still horrendously uncomfortable to move, but I can't help shuffling to peek out of the backpack a little.

And just… wow. It's a beautiful city, but also a really sad one. After all, it's obviously built on the ruins of an even more impressive place.

Half-collapsed skyscraper skeletons, tilted over or missing entire walls of windows, form the bedrock of the port town. Extending well above the foul, rotting sap below, the city itself stays relatively clean from the constant sticky grime of the port, if not the smell. We walk now on a great metal bridge extended between and fused to the sides of two tall buildings, clearly not part of their original design, and far below us I can spot countless shorter buildings still barely peeking above the sap, if not fully submerged.

People are all over the place, both inside and outside the carcasses of buildings, each repurposed without care for their original function. Rooms of former office buildings have become small apartments. Apartments have had their walls torn out and repurposed into workspaces. It seems that no one knew and no one cared what these places were originally for, only that they were here and they had both a floor and a ceiling. The haphazard reconstruction seems aimless and patchy, the methods used to form bridges and roofing and windows obviously far more primitive than whatever made the skyscrapers originally. People came here and saw the rotting bones of something glorious, and they piled it up with trash because trash is all they have.

It's slapdash, but it at least looks like it functions. While the settlers of these post-apocalyptic ruins certainly didn't have anything even remotely approaching the technology of its creators, they have a pretty decent substitute: magic. I see construction crews of Motion, Matter, and Heat mages, levitating giant steel beams into the air and welding them in place with raw force of will. The humans here—and they are almost all human—are resourceful and industrious, not sparing the time to look back when they still have so much work to do. Or perhaps it's exactly the fact that they're living in the bones of what they lost which presses them to move forward.

Very quietly, I hear a furious hissing noise from Sela, and I feel all too aware of what made them lose their civilization in the first place.

"Alright, well… we pretty much made it," Helen announces. "Welcome to the Pillar. We have a decent chunk of money that I swiped from the pirates, so given Hannah's current situation, I vote we just find an inn to hunker down in until she feels better. Sound good?"

"Okay," Kagiso yawns. "Still sleepy anyway."

"Geez, I don't think I'm even physically capable of sleeping as much as you," Helen chuckles, shaking her head.

"What else to do?" Kagiso shrugs. "Nothing to hunt on boat. Nothing to hunt in city. May as well sleep."

"You could pick up some hobbies other than looking at organs, you know," Helen prods. "Ooh, we could buy a board game or something. There are a couple I've always wanted to try."

"As long as I don't have to move to play it," I mumble.

Helen grins and jostles the backpack, causing me to hiss at her.

"I'll take that as a yes?" she smirks.

"Sure," I relent. "I like board games."

"Hrm. Okay," Kagiso nods.

"Think the murderbot will play with us?" Helen asks.

"Sela would completely destroy us," I point out. "It's a friggin' robot."

"I'm sure it wants to destroy us, but this is just a board game."

"Huh?" I say. "No, I mean like… Helen, what do you know about robots, exactly?"

"...They kill people?"

Uh. Hmm. I guess Sela did react pretty poorly to me seeming to understand even a little of how it worked. I guess it's been trying to suppress information, and apparently succeeding. …Or Helen just never had the opportunity to learn, but given the tech level of modern humans I'm seeing…

"Well I guess if Sela wants to play that's up to it," I allow. "But let's wait to decide that until we're somewhere a bit more private."

"Yeah, fair enough," Helen shrugs, and then we head towards some kind of market district to try and find a place that sells board games. I gotta say, it's nice to know that things here aren't so apocalyptic that they don't even have cheap leisure activities for sale. I guess the collapse of human civilization either wasn't all that bad or they've just had enough time and peace to rebuild.

I snuggle back into the backpack and let Helen do all the shopping, happy to be in my burrow once again. Gosh, my body is really messed up right now. Some limbs are elongating, some limbs are thickening, and I'm pretty sure my eyes are starting to migrate up my back a little rather than being nestled in between all my legs. The ends of a couple of my feet are even starting to split into… toes? Proto-fingers? Who knows! Not me! All I know is that my carapace is mush until whatever stage of my growth cycle decides to finish so I can harden back up.

I'm so caught up in my weird body and the funny-looking pieces of the board game Helen just bought that I almost don't notice the group of people with centipede talismans around their necks enter the marketplace.

"Cultists are here," I whisper into Helen's ear, and though I know she heard me she doesn't react even the slightest bit. "They're coming from the direction of the port. Three humans, all male, wearing cloaks."

Helen thanks the shopkeep for the game and casually walks in the opposite direction of the cultists like a normal shopper. She looks basically the same as every other human here, with the same plain clothes, dark skin, and dark hair as literally the entire crowd. She doesn't have to do anything to avoid being noticed.

Kagiso, unfortunately, is a tall, shirtless dentron with albino-white fur, and she is spotted immediately. I watch them look at her, talk quietly amongst themselves, and immediately start following us from a distance. They let themselves fall back out of my fifty-foot range, but a cautious peek out from under the lip of the backpack proves they're still following.

"Kagiso, we've got stalkers," Helen says quietly. "We're splitting up. Keep walking."

Kagiso answers only by smiling, and as Helen turns to start looking at another shop, Kagiso continues wandering away from us. The cultists follow her, completely ignoring Helen and I. They recognize her description, but they haven't spotted me. They might not even know Helen and Kagiso were a group.

"What do you think?" Helen mutters to me. "Do we interrogate them, or just make them disappear?"

I shiver, not sure what to say. One thing's for sure, though: those poor bastards are about to have a really bad day.