Sleep is unneccessary if you don't have a body that demands it. Nevertheless, old habits die hard, and a bodyless being is slumbering inside an old, wooden holy symbol that happens to have the shape of an upside-down teardrop. Although 'slumbering' is not really what is happening here, seeing as the lack of closable eyes leaves the being still well aware of it's surroundings, a fact that it is currently appreciating and cursing at the same time.
Appreciating, because over the past day it managed to witness it's shards doing some interesting stuff, like the former bandit drawing on it to dispatch a particular dangerous beast and, with some prodding from the spirit, to at least try to cure some of the meat for long-term presevation. Both the being and the bandit know that finding a good amount of food in some random forest is hard, and that every opportunity to get hold of something should be used, but apart from some otherworldly youtube-tutorials and other various sources of knowledge, both have an unlikely equal lack of knowledge when it comes to preserving food long term, ending up with what the formless being ends up calling 'survival experiments'. Not that there's anyone around it could tell that to, due to the lack of a shared language more than to the lack of listeners.
Cursing it, because the night is boring, with everyone asleep and not much happening. The fire aparently keeps animals at bay, as they are usually used to the smell of fire being associated to forest fires, and surprisingly many wild monsters and animals are neither fireproof nor stupid enough to risk finding out wether or not they are. But watching the girl bonded to him through the link and finding two girls freezing among a little hole surrounded by roots, it felt glad that it could help them by using some of it's energies to keep them comfortably warm, making it feel like the night was not entirely wasted.
And of course, watching it's 'rescue puppy' beating up a feral wolf using it's powers and a single punch was equally amusing, and it just took a bit of shared emotions to make sure that there's absolutely no hostility between it's... colonists? Gathering people and indirectly controling them through suggestion does remind it of some of the colony management games it played in the past. The sci-fi one, where you crash land on an alien world, of course. The one with the dwarves was a little bit too hard and realistic. Sadly this right here seems to be very real, and not an alien world but a rather familiar style of fantasy woods. Luckily what humans need to survive doesn't really change, wether they're in an unfamiliar environment or not.
And the spirit has an entire library of videos, articles and videogame knowledge to draw from, in order to survive. What started as a desire to simply get better at those games ended up becoming a kind-of manic obsession with knowing how to survive in the wilds. Without potatoes, however, it's long-term ideas are currently rather limited, and the lack of opportunity for practical applications mean that a lot of experiments have to be done.
Not now, however, since something else currently demands it's attention. Another girl, to be more precise, deposited deliberately at it's... feet? It wonders if figures of speech are still applicable if it doesn't really have a body. Well, seeing as there is no one around to judge it on it, it decides that they are.
So back to the girl at it's metaphorical feet, who stares at the holy symbol with her one eye that is not shyly hiding behind a curtain of black hair, feeling the power and energy of what is in front of her, and being curious about the girl itself, it reaches out.
At first, Sana recoils in surprise, mostly because she is not being used to formless beings touching her soul, but what she feels, or rather the feelings and concepts she receives from that strange being, keep her calm, and her own curiosity also drives her forward. That the being is also nibbling at her fear, something she barely notices.
The shy girl rights herself up, now sitting cross-legged in front of the altar, on the mat of moss with her hands in her lap. She hesitantly looks up, knowing whatever is inside this thing intends to speak to her, directly, demanding her attention. However, not being used to conversations on account of her being, well, her, she still hesitates. But the being is patient. It knows what it's like to be shy, and all it does for now is it to send wordless signals of encouragement over.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She didn't have to look at the symbol. The being is already inside of her, carefully hugging her soul and listening to her. Having something to look at and project some semblance of manifestation helps her in focusing her thoughts a little. She is still scared, and the illusion of being able to hide from whatever It is calms her nerves. So she focuses on that, telling herself that she is not in any danger. In truth, there is currently no place in this world where she could be any safer, with the being in front of her, or rather around her, having a strong desire to protect this innocent and fragile young girl in front of it, like a little sister it never had.
After a few more moments, the diminuitive girl opens her mouth. "who... are you?", she carefully asks, her voice barely loud enough to reach the altar. She expects some kind of answer, and braces for the worst, but instead, the answer that reaches her is not in the form of words, as she expected. Instead, raw concepts reach her mind, some carefully woven-together meanings that it carefully bound together. A small bundle of information, pre-packed by the being into a metaphysical bundle to hopefully explain itself to anyone who asks.
Name. Absence. Protect. Bond.
The girl immediately understands. To her, words were always hard. She can listen easy enough, but trying to put her thoughts into words always was a challenge to her, leading to her not talking a lot in general and exacerbating her shyness. She doesn't mind it, really, usually prefering the company of farm animals over the loud mess that is other people.
This being, however, strikes a nerve that she didn't know she needed, or wanted. It just... speaks. No words required, she can simply send her intent at it, just what she wants to say, without the pesky need to wrap her thoughts into words. She sends an answer. A statement and question in one. About how she wants to stay close, how she has nowhere else to go. About how scared she is of this world.
The being listens to the girl, and if it could, it would have smiled. Instead, it starts to sing to the girl, stories it had learned from books it read and games it played, in the raw form of understanding, of moving images, raw memories, sounds and concepts. The diminuitive gil closes her eyes as she listens to the being, to fairytals from lands further away than she could ever imagine, and she smiles. No one expects anything from her, not even an answer. She is content with listening, and her conversation partner is content with sharing it's memories, lapping up the emotions the girl shares with it, her emotional reactions to the stories fueling the core forming at the edge of her soul.
Where the other two have been forced to funnel the entirety of their emotional aspects into their cores, leaving them unable to feel those for the rest of their lives, the shy girl freely shares what she feels, letting it drip slowly into her core, which in turn forms much more slowly than the bright orbs of her new brethren, and hours pass until she starts to notices that any time has passed at all, yet with the sun having set a while ago, she falls asleep on her makeshift bed under the watchful gaze of her new protector.
Once again, the lack of a body translates to a lack of sleep, which means that the being once again has time to contemplate it's existence. For example, even though it lacks a brain, it still has all it's memories and knowledge readily available, and upon checking further, it also notices how that information is easily accessible; when it still had a body in another world, sometimes some time was needed to organize thoughts, knowledge and memories, especially when it came to more complex topics. Now, however, every piece of memory, every little snippit of information is readily available, like a file sitting on the desktop, or a quick google search in his mind, just more efficient.
"huh. So I have a retroactive photographic memory", the being ponders, "that's gotta be super helpful, but it's also kind of weird. I don't even know what I know, but I can remember things with great detail! Now those wikipedia binges are actually helpful in this world. And all the survival stuff I watched. Never would have thought I would find a legitimate use for these. I bet if i can find some ingredients, I could probably teach some people how to build guns. But that might be a bad idea in the long term. Also, I have no idea if I need them, and considering how that girl took down that wolf, maybe I should figure out what I am actually doing when I give people a piece of myself.
"Actually, why am I even giving them a piece of myself? That bandit kind of was an accident, but it came natural to me and worked out well. That first girl was due to a desire to protect her, and she seems... happy about it? That second girl, I took my time in properly integrating myself into her, and it felt... nourishing? Fulfilling? She was happy talking to me, and I felt that. I really FELT that! And it filled me aswell, I think. Am I getting bigger? Hmm."
With a mental stretch the soul tries to fill itself into the entirety of the wooden sculpture. It expands, trying to fill itself from the bottom up, as if the upside-down teardrop was a container and the soul itself a liquid being poured. It barely filled a quarter, which is not much with this shape. "At least I have room to grow, if I do grow. Not sure if I can grow, but I've only been here for a short time, so that's something the future will tell. Definitely something I should keep an eye on."
And as the thoughts and plans spin around in it's head, it suddenly has an epiphany: "Wait a second. I am enjoying this!"