El took a moment to just process what her senses were sharing. There was a welling pressure within her that was urging her to do… something, but she didn’t know what exactly she was supposed to do. The air felt heavy and cold. Even though she had nothing with which to actually sense the pressure or temperature. At least, she didn’t think she did. What she felt was confusion. She also felt frustration, which was quickly becoming agravation. And annoyance.
I hate being annoyed. What the heck am I supposed to be doing here. She waited a few moments, the pressure was starting to get uncomfortable, but nothing worse that a little heartburn, easily held off, not even a tums would be needed. “Um, Hello?” El was surprised when she projected a thought outloud. “Is anyone there?” Or she hoped it was projected outloud. No one responded in any case.
El waited a few more moments, but the silence remained unbroken. The pressure within her core continued to build, becoming more insistent. It was as if some primal force was urging her to act.
"Alright, alright," she muttered to herself. "I guess I'm supposed to do something. But what?”
As if in response to her question, a surge of energy pulsed through her crystalline form. Suddenly, she became acutely aware of the space around her. It wasn't just a pocket of space anymore; it was potential. She could feel the malleability of the rock, the possibility in the air.
With a thought, she spread out her senses, and for a moment she visualized herself as a cloud of tiny nano-particles flying out and touching the air molecules, the stone of the walls, the dirt of the ground. She knew that she could interact with each element she came into contact with. She felt a rush of excitement and as she made contact with the solid matter around her, felt a rush of something else, hunger. It wasn’t noticeable until the moment she made contact, but apparently, spreading herself out had used up her energy and now she was empty or hungry, or whatever this new messed up way of life was.
The tendrils of her essence that spread from her core pulsed with a need and then they simply absorbed matter. whoa. A wave of energy came at El as her senses processed stone, dirt, and other bits of matter from the immediate area. El’s center warmed and felt fuller. It was strange but she could almost taste the knowledge of what had been absorbed. After thinking about it for a moment and she realized that it would make sense and provide her with a boon to be able to learn about the materials she was… eating?
When El had first come to awareness, she couldn’t remember much, however, as time had been passing and she had been trying more and more to piece together memories. It was not as fast or as smooth as she may have liked, but she was putting things together and was able to recall that she was a human and that what she was experiencing was something that related to a fantastical tale. But something that had many tropes and hopefully, she’d have some benefits for… if she could figure things out.
So it was that El quickly started thinking and saying every single gaming term she could, in the hopes that it would magically generate a helpful aid. Status, Stat, Info, Information, Character, Pixie, Help, Guide, Admin, Come On, You MOfOID10T Help Me OB1, IHateYouALL…
Unfortunately, after a long and thorough use of common words, nothing had happened. El sat in a small cavern, she wasn’t sure as to her size or the size of her “cave” as she had absolutely no point of reference. While there seemed to be some manner of light to generate some shadows, there wasn’t actually a source of light persey. No torches, no glowing moss or mushrooms, no handy dandy goblin squad baring a glow stone to come and storm the dungeon. sigh.
El sent her sense cloud out again in a ring to brush against the stone and absorb everything within touch. The first time El had done that, it had been an overwhelming rush and she really hadn’t been able to see what happened. Since that first time, the rush had faded and she’d been able to actually observe the process. Basically, she had a small field that she could exude from her core and it would spread around an area that she could direct. Anything within that area, she could eat. At least, she thought she was eating it.
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She felt full when she ate it. And for a while after, she wouldn’t be able to send her cloud out again. Until she didn’t feel as full. Once she didn’t feel as full, out her little cloud could go to eat some more, rinse and repeat. It was dreadfully boring and El simply hated being bored. Idle hands tended to get into trouble after all!
This place is really rather dreary, all grey and black and dull.I wonder if I can make my little cloud do designs or something.
El focused on her cloud, focusing on her visualization, it took concentration but she had endless time and with a force of will she began to shape the blob into a tendril. Aiming the directionless mass to a point and then pressing it to move slightly beyond the rest. She then attempted to move it across the stone wall. A very slight mark was left behind to mark its passing. Hah. Well, now she could draw, or write maybe. I wonder what the language is for the world, although, does it matter if I’m the only one who ever sees it?
El metaphorically shrugged and decided to play with her ability and began to poke and swipe with sharpened tendrils of her cloud particles in the space around her. This continued for some time until one wall had been flattened and decorated with trees and flowers with little v shaped birds. Another wall had been decorated by different emoji shaped smiling faces. A third wall had simply been slashed and carved in random shapes and angles. The final wall had been cut in the middle with a tunnel slowly being formed.
As El had absorbed and rested she noticed she was able to absorb more each time. It seemed the action of filling herself up to full would stretch her ability to hold more. She had turned it into a game to try and suck up as much as possible and hold it as long as possible before it disappeared to wherever it went. But, as all good things must, the entertainment factor was again waning. She was bored. again.
She had decided to try and create a tunnel and reach as far as she possibly could in one direction. With a mental inhalation she pulled her senses up into a tight ball and then with a press of momentum she pushed her senses toward the tunnel she had started when her senses hit the barrier of stone she quickly began to absorb everything as quickly as possible while keeping her senses moving. At first she covered a fairly wide area but as her senses seeped further away the edges bled away and the diameter of range narrowed. She felt a strain in her core as her senses weakened and she almost released her hold but as she prepared to do so, she felt a strange flicker of energy from the edges.
What was that? Before she could do anything, her core pulsed and her control over her senses dissipated and returned to her. Her center brimming to fullness and aching with a pressure she didn’t know how to ease. She had really pushed it that time. She knew she was now a crystal or stone or whatever and she hoped that she couldn’t crack herself with this stuff. She sure felt like she was on the edge of cracking. She mostly wished she had some idea of what she was supposed to be doing. She imagined the fullness inside of her just condensing down, packing itself tighter into the space to make more room, easing up some of the pressure. She also took a few pretend breaths, not that they did anything really, but she was so used to them from her old life that the habit was so ingrained she couldn’t even stop herself if she tried.
It was like the old her was still there, simply floating in a metaphysical void above a hunk of rock. In fact, she decided to envision just that. She pictured herself, as she was, an older caucasian woman with dark hair, some grey hair poking here and there, bifocals (a necessary evil after too many screen time hours), comfy lounge pants and a spongebob sweatshirt, can’t forget the fuzzy socks. Her grandkids always gave her fuzzy socks. They were the best. Let’s see, her mood resetting vape in her pocket. Now she’d need some yarn and a crochet hook or some knitting needles… idle hands, you know. She felt much better picturing herself in her little cavern of solitary despair.
Years and years of therapy and meditation in the world before were slowly trickling in as memories returned to El. She wondered if it wasn’t the nature of those exercises that weren’t helping her with their reclamation. Her brain was already wired to do avoidance, compartmentalization and recall. Well, needs must. “What now?” She mused.