Styak raged.
"Vile mortal! Dismal worm! You dare defy me!?"
It hurled its tiny spiritual body against the prison within Parry's soul, finding the walls solid, extending up seemingly for miles, as if Styak were at the bottom of some clean, antiseptic but fathomless well.
"Your life shall be mine, your body and spirit, your pitiful cries will ring in the emptiness for eternity and a day!"
Closing both eyes, Styak could see through Parry's, only to find him smiling, shaking hands with his father, helping put away materials, talking about lunch. Lunch!
"I will spill curses on you the likes of which human thought cannot even conceive. I will build you a thousand bodies and tear them to ribbons one by one!"
Apparently they decided on onion stew.
Styak looked at his narrow but roofless cell, running a paw over the surfaces, detecting only complete, flawless smooth substance. Like stone but also like metal, providing light somehow without illumination.
Paw?
He stared down, to find himself shaped like a small male calico cat. Kitten.
Styak raged.
***
Parry had been smiling all day. His father shone with pride, not even putting him to work, beyond helping reset the workshop--but not back to its original configuration.
"I'm putting most of my other work on hold," Pharryl announced, pushing a rack of clamps into storage. "Everything depends now on bringing my boy up to snuff."
From the rafters of the shop came down books, reagents, specialized tools, containers of all shapes and sizes. The only thing common to them was dust. Clearly these hadn't been used in years.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
One crate Domo wrestled down bore a stencil that surprised Parry, so much he forgot himself.
"Lyshan Academy?"
Pharryl peeked out from under a tarp. "You know I left Lyshan before you were born. By my own choice, not reflecting my grades or my test scores or my moral character. They were so sorry to see me go, I was gifted a few redundant supplies."
Parry already had the lid off and was rummaging through the contents. He held up a dark glass jar with a peeling label. "Mmm hmm. All that redundant powdered silver they didn't need."
Domo laughed and put a broad hand on the lid, closing it. "Later, later. Help me move the rock tumbler."
They stopped at sundown, more from the exhaustion of the ritual than for lack of light. A shaper's shop can and frequently does run around the clock, but they all needed a good night's sleep.
***
In his room before bed, Parry gazed into the light of his two candles, not wanting to surrender to night-blindness just yet.
It had been an astonishing day. Advancement past the Ritual of the Second Step brought most of his stats into alignment, opened up half a dozen new spell slots, and most critically, jolted his father out of his intellectual torpor.
How many times did I graduate from Lyshan Academy? Forty, fifty? I know I was its chancellor at least twice.
He didn't remember Pharryl as a student, but that's no surprise. It would have been before his time...before any of his times. The chronology of reincarnations isn't fixed, but it doesn't drift more than a couple of decades either way. This particular one was back quite far, so if his father had left the school years before, it would have been out of Parry's range.
I'm going to have access to solid equipment and supplies, a motivated teacher to help me brush up my knowledge and the relative security of being far from most dangers until I'm ready to approach them on my terms.
Even with his vision curse, it was a promising beginning.
And I lucked into a source of demonic power right from the start! Speaking of...
Parry blew out the candles, embracing the darkness and drifted into meditation. With practiced ease, he looked into the entrapping well he'd made.
The demon had managed to scratch the pristine walls of his narrow, deep prison, but nothing more. Sensing a presence, he looked up and spotted a face at the distant opening
"Release me this instant!"
"Aww! You're cute!"
"I will rend your limbs and flense you!"
"Meow meow meow."
"Shut up!"
"I'll be sure to drop down some mice to flense. Have to keep you well-fed and happy. We're going to be together for a very long time. You'd best get comfortable."