Call me Michaelangelo.
I’m a right Frida Kahlo. A fucking Leonardo da Vinci—and let’s just throw the rest of the Ninja Turtles in while we’re at it, because no one in the history of art has seen anything like this. Not on Earth, anyway.
I finish Sculpting a piece of glass, breaking the rod into three sections in the air before me. Like puppets on invisible strings, the glass levitates at my beck and call. I line them up with the rest of the construct: Good. They’re all the right size.
Chain, I think, activating the spell.
[Activated,] Echo replies, the mental voice accompanying a visual overlay of the mana I lose from casting the spell.
The three pieces of glass snap together like magic, which, I suppose, it is. I Chain the string of glass to the main body as well. When my magic is active, it glows with an eerie black light. As I complete the spell, however, the color fades away, and now the glass pieces remain attached to each other despite having no apparent connective tissue. I take a step back to admire my work.
Spread across the kitchen table like a body at a morgue, the construct is incomplete, but starting to look human. It’s got arms, legs, hands, and now, thanks to my latest addition, some toes. All made of glass, of course. If I could work with other materials, I would.
The head remains a bit of an enigma. Currently a large chunk of glass is just sitting next to me on the table, waiting to be Sculpted, but I haven’t decided on a shape yet. Since my soul is in my vial, I figure that should go in the chest. But what should the head look like? Once I Sculpted it into a stagnant face, like an ice statue, but Rezira was very adamant about not keeping any creepy decapitated doll heads in her house. And to be fair, it did fall pretty squarely in Uncanny Valley. More to the point, though, looking out of a wobbly bumpy surface like that was pretty disorienting. Maybe something simple, like an orb, would be best for now. I don’t need a mouth, ears, or eyes, anyway, so basic is probably better.
I cast Sculpt, deciding to play with the shape of the head once more. Maybe this time I’ll figure something out.
[Activated,] Echo says. Then, [EXP threshold reached. Level up!]
[Name: Kanin]
[Species: N/A]
[Class: Wizard]
[Level: 9]
[HP: 10/10]
[Temp HP: 325]
[Mana: 56/56]
[Void: 100%]
[Role: Homunculus]
About damn time! I’ve only been Attuning, Sculpting, and Chaining glass 24/7 for the last month. I’ll take that tiny boost in mana reserves, too, thank you very much. Still no increases to base HP, looks like. Underwhelming. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Without the body to give me a boost in temporary hit points, I’m still just a little glass vial that can die via misplaced boot.
But not forever, hopefully. If I’m going to learn a way to get my real body back, step one is to become more mobile. And for that, this glass shell will have to do.
It’s kind of ironic, really. When I first got shunted into this world, I was doing everything in my power to stop from getting stuffed into a glass homunculus body. Now, I’m spending every waking hour of the day trying to make one. Funny how that happens.
The cottage door swings open and Noli steps inside. “Oh!” the elf signs with a delighted flourish. “He’s got feet now! That’s adorable.”
I set down the piece of glass I was working with. Adorable is not really what I’m going for. “And manly,” I sign back. By now my signing glass is more than just floating clusters of toothpick-sized shards; I’ve got fully articulated hands at my disposal. It doesn’t have great grip for picking stuff up, but it’s a far cry from what I was working with just four weeks ago.
Rezira snorts. She pauses chopping up the vegetables for dinner in order to face us and sign, though she simultaneously speaks aloud for my benefit. “It’s glass. Unless you’re going for anatomical accuracy, it’s not going to be manly.”
“I could do that,” I threaten. Don’t mock me, it’ll only make me more determined.
Rezira grimaces. “Oh please, no. It’s bad enough we’ve sacrificed our kitchen table to this freaky glass marionette. That’s the last thing I need to look at while I’m cooking.”
“Your fault,” I sign, glancing around the cramped living space. “Should have made the room bigger.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Rezira says. “I didn’t plan on housing a snarky pint-sized freeloader when I built this place for my wife.”
“That’s enough, you two,” Noli signs, smiling gently at our banter. She sets a dead rabbit she was carrying on the counter, gives Rezira a quick kiss, and then goes to hang up her bow and quiver. “Need help with dinner?”
“No, no.” Rezira waves her off. “I’ve got this.” She turns back to her chopping board as Noli wanders over to me, standing above the kitchen-table-turned-assembly-line.
“You’re almost done,” she observes. Noli picks up the hand of the glass body, rolling its wrist and articulating its fingers. In a weird disembodied way, I can feel everything she’s doing—every bit of that body is glass I first Attuned, after all. It’s how I’ll control it once it’s finished. I suppose I could even have it march around by itself, but that sort of defeats the purpose.
“Do you know what you’ll do once it’s done?” she asks.
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Isn’t that the million-dollar question. “I need to learn more,” I sign. “About the void. The predator. Between.” Not to mention magic in general, and this entire world. I don’t even know what I don’t know.
Noli nods. “That makes sense. The predator… is it still…?”
“No sign of it coming back,” I sign. It’s been a month now. Hopefully that means it’s permanent. But I should be prepared in case it’s not.
However, that’s not my top priority. “Also, I want to get my body back. Like you.”
A flicker of something flits over Noli’s face. A grimace? Noli doesn’t grimace. “I definitely understand wanting to be in a normal body again,” Noli signs. “But… er… Well, it’s been a few months, hasn’t it? And when we first met, you told me the reason you ended up Between was because you’d died.”
Ah. Right. She’s not wrong, but she’s also lacking a crucial piece of information: my body didn’t die in this world. I had to pass Between to get here, and that place seems to exist outside of space and time—maybe it’s not a stretch to hope for a Narnia type situation. Maybe I can get back to Earth right when I left it. If I can just reach my body within a few seconds or minutes of the accident, if I can use magic to heal it up… maybe I still have a way to reclaim some sense of normalcy.
Maybe there’s a way to go back to being me again.
Which brings me to a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for a while, but lacked the vocabulary to really dig into. I still don’t have all the words I want, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.
“I didn’t die on Lusio,” I sign. I’d only learned the name of this planet a few days ago.
Noli tips her head. “You didn’t die?”
“No,” I tell her. “I did die. But not here. Not in this world.”
Noli stares at me for a moment. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not from Lusio,” I sign. “I’m not from this world.”
Noli blinks. Then she turns around and tugs on Rezira’s elbow. “Dear?” she signs as Rezira turns to look. “I think you better be part of this conversation.”
----------------------------------------
“A human?” Rezira repeats after I’ve explained everything I can. “I always pegged you for a halfling.”
I don’t know if I should be offended or flattered. “You believe me?”
The women exchange a look.
“Different planes of existence are well known,” Rezira says. “But they’re pretty much just arcana sources. They’re not worlds—they’re not full of people, and you certainly can’t live there. There’s stories of the Old People world-walking, bringing technologies and cultures and languages back from other places—but those are just stories. Any truth to them crumbled away with the Ruins thousands of years ago.”
“But of course we believe you,” Noli adds. “I don’t know why you would make such a thing up. And it explains quite a few things, like why you can’t write in the common script.”
“Or why you don’t recognize any cities or countries,” Rezira says.
“Not to mention, how you were able to understand my signs when I was just a little toy,” Noli agrees with a chuckle. “Rezira could barely even understand me like that. But you said that’s because you have a… what was it… an echo in your head, translating these things for you?”
“Yes,” I sign. “She tells me information about the world. Magic. Levels. Experience. You don’t hear her, too?”
Rezira shakes her head. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
Well that confirms what I’ve suspected from the start. If it was that easy, I would have been able to write in English and their Echos would have translated it for them. But the question is, why am I the only one with an Echo? Why can I see stats and numbers like all of this is some kind of video game when no one else seems to be aware of them? It has to be linked to the fact that I’m not from this world. But I’m stumped on the why.
“But if your world really doesn’t have magic,” Noli asks, “how are you so good at it?”
Rezira nods along. “That’s why I thought you must have been a halfling. They’ve got a natural inclination for the arcane. But really? Human?” She laughs. “They’re like the least magical people out there.”
Maybe that’s why no one on Earth can do magic. Or… maybe they could? I mean, I’d always chalked that kind of stuff up to superstition, but given what I know now…
“Echo,” I sign again. “She helped me learn.”
Rezira grunts. “Handy.”
Noli shakes her head. “What does all this have to do with your body? You don’t think… I mean… you’re not planning on leaving?”
My insides twist unpleasantly. “My body isn’t here. I want to get it back.”
Noli and Rezira exchange another look. I hate it when they do that. It’s like they can convey a whole conversation in just a glance, and I’m the one left wondering what they’ve just said behind my back.
“Like I said, traveling to other worlds is practically unheard of,” Rezira says. “It’s myth. Stories. Where would you even start?”
“I came through the Between,” I sign. “I must be able to go back that way.”
“Maybe,” Noli signs, hesitant. “If it is possible, I’ve never heard of anyone achieving such a thing.”
But Trenevalt did. He pulled Noli and I from Between. And I have access to the Between as well—even if that tiny pocket of null space is currently occupied by a murderous shadow monster that wants to control my mind and eat every soul within reach.
Details.
“What about this?” I ask. I mentally reach for a jar tucked away behind the bookshelf, placed out of the way—and out of sight—intentionally. Most times I can forget it’s there. But anytime I’m within range, just like with my glass, I can feel it, like an extension of my body.
I call my Attuned void from the jar, and the ink-like shadows swirl up onto the table and settle around me. Even just holding their form in my mind like this makes me feel slimy. They might no longer belong to the predator—they might have been crucial in saving Noli’s life—but accessing them still summons too many bad memories.
Unfortunately, it’s also the only lead I’ve got.
“Void is related to Between,” I sign. “And also powering my homunculus spell.” I tap my glass, inside which my hollow form also seems to be full of the stuff. Ever since I trapped the predator in my inventory, the ink level in my vial hasn’t decreased. “If I learn where it comes from, how to use it, maybe I can find a way back.”
Noli frowns, her brows pinched in concern. “I don’t like this. You just said you know practically nothing about magic. And now you want to play with something none of us understand? Try to reinvent space-rending magic lost millennia ago? Assuming it ever existed at all.” She shakes her head. “Why not leave well enough alone? You’re nearly done with your body.” She gestures to the lifeless glass shell. “You could just live here in peace. Move on. Make this second chance at life whatever you wish.”
Move on? Easy to say for someone who got their body back. Who can sleep and eat and smile. Who doesn’t have to worry about the smallest accident shattering them to pieces. Who doesn’t have to relive the memories of killing people and consuming their souls.
Anger boils up inside me. I jab a hand at the glass shell on the table. “This isn’t my body! It’s not me. Just temporary. A tool.”
Even Rezira looks concerned now. “You know that’s not what she meant. But if you really died, then your real body is probably long gone by now. Noli’s right—you’ve got a second chance, which is more than most. This body might not be ideal, but—”
“Ideal?” I interrupt, clumsily and angrily repeating her sign. That’s the understatement of a century. “You have no idea what it’s like.”
Noli smiles, small and sad. “Maybe not Rezira, but I do. I might be the only one who does.”
My glass falters. Of course she does. But some selfish part of myself only feels a sting of jealousy at her words. She knows what it’s like—but for her, it ended a month ago.
“Then you understand why I can’t stay like this,” I sign.
Noli presses her mouth in an unhappy line. Instead of responding, she holds a hand out to me. My frustration deflates as I touch my glass to her finger. She doesn’t have to say anything. Whatever I decide, she’s here to help. She always is.
A knock comes at the front door, and a line of runes above the entrance light up in response. Noli and Rezira glance its way as the door opens, and a friendly form steps inside.
“I think I’ve found it,” Zyneth says, taking in the three of us as he flashes a smile. “The perfect shape for the head. I got the idea in…” He trails off, belatedly registering the room’s tense mood. He glances from Noli, to me, to the void I have hovering nearby. “I feel as though I’m interrupting something,” he remarks, awkwardly shutting the door behind him. “Pray tell. What did I miss?”