Rezira refills Zyneth’s cup of tea as he sits back in his chair, eyebrows raised, blinking repeatedly after I finish my story. Finally, he takes a sip of the tea, then sets the mug down.
“Well all that certainly explains your financial illiteracy,” he says.
Not exactly the response to ‘I’m a dead alien from another planet’ I was expecting. And what does he mean, illiterate? “I know how to use money.”
As usual, Rezira translates for Zyneth any time Noli or I sign.
“But no concept of value,” Zyneth replies. “I noticed when we were in Harrowood. And the last few times I’ve brought back glass for your project. You never commented on the cost.”
Should I have? I’m suddenly playing back all the interactions we’ve had around money in a new light. “Was it expensive?”
Rezira gives me a flat look. “He paid for all the materials to fix Attiru’s shop.”
“Yes, he’s quite rich,” Noli adds with a laugh.
Zyneth grimaces. “I’d assumed you didn’t say anything because you were just being polite.”
Rezira barks out a laugh. “Well I wasn’t terribly interested in scaring off our mysterious, yet affluent, benefactor.”
“Oh.” I awkwardly shuffle my glass. I don’t have two pennies to my name—or whatever goes for pennies in this world. I haven’t really been paying attention. I’d offer to pay him back, but the prospect of finding a job here seems about as unlikely as it is unattractive. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… use your kindness.”
“Take advantage,” Noli supplies, slowing the signs down for me. I’m getting pretty fluent with the basics, but Noli still slips me some more complex words and concepts a few times a day.
“I don’t particularly see the point of having money if it can’t be used to help others,” Zyneth says. “But that’s enough about me. I must say, I thought I was done being surprised by you. You’re really set on trying to find a way home to retrieve your body?”
“I am.”
Noli glances away when I say this, and Rezira just frowns.
Zyneth, however, scratches thoughtfully at his chin. “Binding your soul back to your body would be tricky enough as it is without the fact that it’s on another world. I suppose the best place to start looking into the issue would be at the Athenaeum of Miasmere.”
Noli looks at him in surprise. “Really?”
“You’re not serious about helping him?” Rezira adds. “I expected you to see the folly in this idea.”
“Kanin is his own person,” Zyneth says. “He’s fully capable of making decisions for himself. I’m merely offering insight on the best path forward.”
Rezira shakes her head. “It’s reckless.”
“If suggesting a trip to the library is reckless,” Zyneth says, “then I shudder to think what alternatives you would suggest.”
His support fills me with gratitude. Noli and Rezira had me starting to question myself, but it’s nice to know Zyneth has my back.
“Where is it?” I ask. “The library.”
“A few days’ travel, by way of telepads,” Zyneth says. “The Athenaeum boasts Valenia’s largest scholastic collection, so it should be no surprise it’s in the capital.” He pauses for a moment. “Which is Miasmere,” he adds. “Sorry, I forget you aren’t familiar with geography here. Retroactively, so much of our interactions make more sense now.”
That’s not bad. I could draw up a circle, refresh my spell, and be ready to go by this afternoon. “When can we leave? Will you come with?”
“Hold up, now,” Rezira says.
“Zyneth is likely too busy for such a venture,” Noli adds, looking at him. “You always have so many jobs to return to.”
Zyneth’s mouth pulls tight for a moment, but then he waves it off. “I can take time away. It shouldn’t be a problem.” He turns to me. “However, you may be getting ahead of yourself. If you want to peruse a library with any efficiency, you’ll need a form more suited to the job.”
We all look down at my creation. Practically complete, save the head. He’s right, though. If I want to carry around books and flip through pages—not to mention draw less attention and avoid getting crushed by any misplaced tomes—this body is the answer.
“It’s almost done,” I sign. And it’s about time I tested it out.
“Are you waiting on anything?” Zyneth asks. “You could control it now if you wanted to, right?”
“Yes.” I just wanted to finish all of it, first. It would be harder to get used to walking around on two legs again, only to change the design and throw myself off balance once more.
Or maybe that’s just what I’ve been telling myself.
“You have an idea for the head?” I ask. He’d been saying something about that when he first came in.
“Oh yes! I’d nearly forgotten.” Zyneth grabs his pack, then roots around for something inside it. “It’s not glass, but the shape got me thinking. A current issue of yours is seeing out all angles at once, correct?”
“Yes.” I’ve gotten used to it somewhat, but too much motion on different sides gets dizzying.
“Well what about having different parts of your vision you could turn on and off,” Zyneth suggests. He pulls a carved wooden decoration out of his bag. It’s shaped like a pyramid.
“You want his head to be a paperweight?” Rezira asks, skeptical.
I’m also not really getting it. “I can’t turn parts of my vision in a piece of glass on or off. The whole piece sees, or doesn’t.” Add in the vision from my core vial—which I can’t ever turn off—and it all can get a bit overwhelming. The last time I dealt with too many sources of sight at once, it just about broke my mind.
Zyneth shakes his head. “If you created the shape from four separate pieces of glass that you then Chain together, you could activate your sight in just one side at a time. Or two if you like.” He flips the pyramid upside down, tapping each of the four triangle-shaped sides. “Maybe just start with one in the front. Or two, if you wanted to treat each side like an eye. Might give you better depth perception—honestly, I don’t really understand how your vision works.”
That makes two of us.
“And then you could cover up your core,” he continues. “Hide it beneath a cloth or something—that might help stop you from seeing things from multiple angles at once.”
It’s an interesting idea. And there’s no reason not to give it a shot, I suppose. “Alright. Let’s try.”
I summon the hunk of glass that’s slated to be the head and activate a Sculpt.
If I keep it as a single piece, then I’ll be seeing out of all sides at once, just like I currently do with my core. To try what Zyneth is suggesting, I’ll need to break it into separate pieces. I set to work on that, segmenting the glass into five different chunks. Then, I start to replicate the shape of Zyneth’s inverted pyramid. One square piece, four triangles. I hold them together to make sure they all line up properly, then activate a Chain. The pieces snap together, snuggly secured in the form of a prism, yet still five distinct planes of glass.
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That’s the easy part.
Echo, I want to activate vision on the front piece of glass, I say.
[Affirmative,] Echo says. [Mana cost: 0. Activated.]
Like flipping on a TV, a second vision source appears abruptly in my mind. I’m looking at myself: a three-inch glass vial full of black ink. Four glass legs strapped to the sphere, with a pair of small glass hands hovering nearby. But I can also see the pane of glass that I’m looking through: I’m looking at myself, looking at myself, looking at myself…
Ugh. I can already feel a headache coming on. I turn the pane of glass away, and my whole vision swivels with its movement. I tip to the side, dizzy, and nearly fall over before I catch myself. It’s too much. I can’t parse all the different things I’m seeing at once.
Turn it off, I tell Echo, wishing I had eyes I could squeeze shut.
[Deactivating vision in Attuned glass.]
Abruptly, the second source of sight vanishes.
Whew. That was awful.
“Are you alright?” Noli signs, leaning forward. “You almost fell!”
“I’m okay now,” I reply. “Just too much at once. Not used to seeing twice.” Sensory overload.
Noli nods with a grimace. “I think I understand. I could hear when I was in that body.” She gestures toward the clockwork octopus toy still sitting on a bookshelf.
“What?” Rezira looks at her. “You could?”
I hadn’t realized either. She’d never said anything about that. How much had Noli been grinning and bearing everything for my benefit?
Noli chews at a lip. “It was uncomfortable. Confusing, at first. I started to get used to it a bit toward the end, but… I couldn’t really make sense of it. I didn’t like it.”
Rezira squeezes her shoulder. “Sorry.”
Noli smiles back at her, putting a hand over her wife’s.
“Is it not an option, then?” Zyneth asks me. He looks disappointed. “Blast. I thought I was onto something.”
“It might work,” I sign, considering the head. The sight through that piece of glass had actually been pretty clear, when it wasn’t incredibly disorienting. At least it wasn’t all warped like my current vision, as if everything I see is through a fish-eye lens. “If I cover up my core, like you suggested.”
“Don’t push yourself,” Noli signs. “You’ve already spent the whole day working on building your body—your construct—up.”
“I’m okay,” I sign. Besides, I’ve already waited long enough, and with the library waiting for me, I’m ready to be on the move. “I want to try.”
“Is there any way we can help?” Noli asks.
I set the head back down on the table, then hoist myself up onto the body’s chest. “Yes. Do you have a cloth?”
“I’ll get something,” Rezira grumbles, standing up to go rummage around in the kitchen.
While Rezira works on that, I consider the chest area. I could create a cavity here for my core to fit into, like some kind of crystalline heart. But there’s a part of me that feels claustrophobic about embedding myself in this glass form. What if I fall and get skewered by my own broken shards? What if I run out of mana and can’t Sculpt my way out?
“I’ll need a way to hold my core,” I sign. “A way to keep it safe.”
“Hmm,” Noli considers, tapping her lips. “Wait! I know.” She gets up and digs around a chest near her bed. A moment later, she returns with a necklace.
She grins sheepishly, removing the piece of jewelry that hangs from the middle. “You are shaped like a pendant with that little hook on your back. What if you wore it like a necklace? Er. Wore yourself?”
“The body has no neck,” Zyneth points out, eying the chain. “How would he wear it?”
Excuse me, I haven’t even agreed to this idea yet.
“Good point,” Noli signs. She holds the necklace up to my glass construct, turning it this way and that. Then, she taps a spot on each shoulder. “Could you put little hooks here? I could use that to tie them to either side.”
Still not wild about this idea. But Noli seems so excited, so… I guess I could give it a shot. I activate a Sculpt and start creating the hooks Noli suggested.
“Next will be to attach it to you, I suppose,” Noli signs. “Do you mind, Kanin?”
I wave her over, still focusing on my Sculpt.
“Alright then. Hold still.” Noli delicately latches the clasp around my hook, which suffice to say is an extremely weird sensation. “There! All done. Now we just need to fix it to the body, once you’re ready.”
I finish the Sculpt as Rezira returns with a small drawstring bag. “Would this work?”
As uncomfortable as I am with the idea of getting stuffed into a bag, that’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. “Yes, thank you. Noli, can you help again?”
“Of course.” She holds out her hand, and I step into her palm. Noli holds the cloth sack with her other hand, looking between us with a grimace. Hah. Nothing like stuffing your friend into a cloth sack.
Noli smiles apologetically, then gently slips me into the bag and cinches the top shut.
My world goes dark.
Panic wells up for a moment, all too reminded of Between and the predator. But I can still feel the rough texture of the fabric around me. And more than that, I can feel my glass. I force my nerves to calm.
I’d heard that shutting one sense off can make the other ones more attuned to your surroundings, and now I’m experiencing that in a very disembodied sort of way. I can feel my glass construct on the table almost as if I’m seeing it. And while I can no longer hear Noli speak—well, see, I guess—it’s still odd to hear the quiet shuffles of the others in the room. Rezira and Zyneth are remaining quiet—I guess everyone’s holding their breath to see what happens next.
My world swivels, and then abruptly stops moving as I come to rest on a surface. From the outside, I can also feel something soft resting on my construct’s chest.
For a moment, I think of the homunculus shell in Trenevalt’s cabin. That was what—two months ago? It feels like worlds away. That small, fragile homunculus shell I had found so terrifying. The horrific idea of being bound to it. And here I am, replicating the same thing. But this one is bigger—more human looking. And I’m doing it on my own terms.
“Okay,” Zyneth says, after a moment. “The necklace is secure.”
I reactivate my vision in one of the panes of the head piece, and the world lights up once more.
It’s way less disorienting this time. At least now I’m not seeing double. Although actually, weirdly enough, only having vision that can see in one direction at a time feels a little restrictive now. Maybe I’ve gotten more used to that omni-vision than I thought. But this way helps me feel a little more human.
“Kanin?” Zyneth ventures. They probably don’t know if I can see yet. “You alright?”
“Yes,” I sign with my signing glass. But wait—now I have actual hands I can do that with, don’t I?
I lift one arm. It feels like trying to control a wet noodle. The fingers flop uselessly until I focus on them, forming a fist. The glass tinkles quietly as the fingers close around each other. I try again, bobbing it to sign, “Yes.”
Noli lets out a relieved breath. “Good! Can you sit up? Do you need help?”
One thing at a time, jeeze.
Which is about how I need to take it.
I move a hand to either side and press them against the table, leveraging myself upright. And I’m greeted with the bizarre image of a glass torso sitting up in front of me. Oops. I left the head on the table. Since I haven’t Chained it to the torso yet, it’s still just sitting there, watching the rest of me get situated. I summon it next, levitating the inverted pyramid to float above the neck. I can worry about Chaining it later, if I need to. Although with the current flexibility in how I can swivel and point it, maybe a Chain isn’t necessary after all. I’ll just have to remember to not leave it anywhere.
I take a moment to gather myself as I look around, and find Noli, Zyneth, and Rezira staring back at me with expressions that range from awe to horror.
Rezira is the first to break the ice. “Well this is the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Zyneth’s eyes are dancing with amusement. “This makes getting stabbed by the void monster entirely worth it.”
“How do you feel?” Noli asks. “Be careful! Go slow.”
No shit. I already feel like I’m about to capsize. It’s the strangest sensation. I have to concentrate on each piece of glass to get it to do what I need it to do. That’s nothing new, but doing that for hundreds of connected pieces at once is a bit much. I’m also levitating them, in a way, just like my signing glass, but their weight—and the weight of all the pieces they’re Chained to—is keeping the body completely grounded. Maybe, if I was able to consciously hold every piece in my mind at once, I could make it float. For now, though, it’s baby steps.
“Strange,” I sign, fumbling through the movements. I try to focus harder. Elbows, wrists, fingers. “I feel heavy.”
Rezira snorts. “You managed to get even worse at signing.”
Noli covers her mouth, behind which is an obvious smile. “No, he’s doing great! It’s just a little stiff. And make sure to close your hand all the way there, otherwise that’s, ah, a slightly different meaning…”
“Yeah, this way means shit,” Rezira says. Then she helpfully repeats the sign so I can see the difference. What a bro.
Noli slaps at her hands, dissolving the signs, and Rezira laughs.
I bring my own hands back down to the table, curling my fingers around the lip and squeezing tightly. Slowly, I pull myself around to dangle my legs toward the floor. Toes, feet, legs, hips, knees… Whoops! I catch myself just as an arm starts to go out. And arms. Don’t forget to focus on arms.
“Careful!” Noli signs. “Don’t go too fast.”
I’ve been stuck at a crawl for two months now. Fast is a dream.
I scoot forward a little more, trying to hold as many pieces of glass in my mind as I can. Still sitting, I press one foot against the floor. Then the other.
“Might want to give it a minute,” Zyneth says. “Feel everything out. There’s no rush.”
Now I know what Neo must have felt like after escaping the Matrix. Nothing is moving quite how I expect it to—every limb threatens to keep giving out. But if I want any of this to change, if I want a shot at recovering my real body, then this is the first step on that road.
I push myself to my feet.
I’m taller than Noli. Just as tall as Zyneth. A few inches shorter than Rezira. But I’m meeting their gazes at eye level, and it feels absolutely amazing. It might not be my body, but I finally have a proper body. A humanoid body. I have two legs, two arms, a head—
The world tips. Noli’s eyes go wide. Zyneth reaches out a hand. Rezira says, “Oh, shit—”
Ankles, I realize as my legs collapse. I forgot about the ankles.
And then I fall to the floor in a shattering heap of glass.
[253 points of Fall Damage sustained,] Echo says.