“So, what are we working on today?” Greg asked.
“We're going to test how effective your transformation is when it comes to others.” Lapodala explained. “It's clear it isn't as effective as when you transform yourself, but if we can pin down the exact difference, it could provide significant insight into what exactly your smoke is doing.”
“Oh, actually, on that point, I figured out last night that I can transform other things too, like a stick into a hotdog and dirt into ketchup.” Greg commented. “Which… probably should have been obvious? I feel like transforming dead things is easier than transforming living ones.”
Lapodala raised an eyebrow. “I see. Very well, that gives us a simple starting point.” She tapped at her network device and a few boxes appeared a moment later. “Let's start simple.” She picked out two rocks from one of the boxes, placing them in the scanner. “Transform this rock into this one.”
“Easy enough.” Greg shrugged, sending out some smoke and attaching it to the two rocks. “Okay, so that rock is actually slightly larger than the other one, so I think I should transform it instead, otherwise my smoke is going to be used to make up for the missing mass. That shouldn't be an issue, right?”
“No, that would be fine.” Lapodala agreed, and a moment later the rock transformed. Or at least, most of it did, since there was an extra bit of mass that Greg had to convert to smoke. She frowned for a moment as she studied the data. “Take your smoke out?” Greg nodded, pulling it out. “Hm… well, I'm not sure what I expected, but they're exactly the same now. Let's move on to something a bit more complicated.” She pulled a small package out of one of the boxes, opening it to reveal some kind of snack bar, putting it in the scanner. “Now, turn the rock into this.”
Greg sent his smoke into the rock and snack bar, scanning the snack bar and transforming a chunk of the rock into a copy of it. He paused for a moment as he noticed there was just enough mass to make a second snack bar, shrugging as he decided to just do that. “Heh, two for one.”
Lapodala gave him a weird look. “Why did you make two?”
“Well, the rock had enough mass for two, and there didn't seem to be much point in converting it all to smoke, you know? I mean, I already have more than enough of the stuff, and if I want more, I can just make it with my mana.” Greg explained. “It just seemed better to have two snack bars instead.”
“Mhmm.” Lapodala grunted vaguely, refocusing on the data from the scanner, her eyes widening slightly as she noticed something. “Greg, how did you separate the snack bars?”
Greg cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“The rock was one solid piece, right?” Lapodala elaborated. “But now it's in two pieces, a few finger widths apart. If it was pure conversion, then it would have turned into a rock shaped ration bar. Instead you shaped it as well, creating an exact copy of the ration bar. The question is how.”
“Well… my smoke is telekinetic.” Greg pointed out. He'd never actually tried moving his smoke while it was attached to something, but there shouldn't be any reason why he couldn't, right?
Lapodala hesitated. “Yes… it is. And it clearly has effects that occur on the molecular level…” She tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment, before shaking her head. “Let's move on.” She pulled out a small plant and another rock. “I assume you know what to do by this point.”
“Yeah, I got you.” Greg chuckled, transforming the rock into a copy of the plant.
Lapodala frowned as the plant began to wilt the moment Greg pulled his smoke out. “Strange…”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Is it? I mean, transforming a rock into a plant isn't that much different than turning smoke into a plant.”
Lapodala shook her head. “When you created a plant out of smoke, you created it without any nutrients, so it dying made sense. But here… you copied the plant exactly, including all the nutrients. By all accounts, the plant should be perfectly healthy! But instead… it's dead.”
“That is weird.” Greg agreed.
“Yes… let's try this.” Lapodala muttered, pulling out another insectoid rat thing and a rock.
Greg shrugged, doing his thing, aaaand… “It's a dead rat-thing.”
“Yes it is.” Lapodala scowled at her network device. “But it's an exact copy, right down to its natural mana.” She shook her head, grumbling under her breath. “Every time I think your smoke is about to make sense…” She sighed. “Okay, now for some more significant tests.” She waved him over to the cages from yesterday, which were now sitting in a larger scanning circle. “Alright, transform this one into that one.”
“Done.” Greg nodded. His smoke was already attached to these creatures, so transforming them didn't take more than a thought.
Lapodala glanced at her network device, taking note of the changes, before raising a hand and sending a beam of energy through the transformed creature's head, then glancing back at her network device. “That- makes no sense!?!”
“What?” Greg asked, cocking his head.
“You transformed the creature, making it an exact physical copy of the other, except with a different natural mana, but the moment it died, its natural mana shifted to match the other's!” Lapodala growled.
Greg blinked. “How- how does that work?”
“I don't know!” Lapodala exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Some aspect of life somehow resists your smoke, obviously, but how?!?” She scowled at the dead creature for a moment, before letting out a grunt. “Okay, let's try this with the plants and see if we get the same results.” She grumbled, gesturing to a plant. “Transform that one into… any of them, it doesn't matter.” She sighed.
“Okay…” Greg agreed, transforming the plant Lapodala indicated into a copy of the one next to it.
“It's maintaining its original natural mana, and-” Lapodala paused as she stared at the plant, not actually sure what her next step was. “I suppose we'll have to wait for it to die?”
“Maybe I could try pulling out all the nutrients?” Greg offered. “That sounds like something I might be able to do.”
Lapodala waved her hand in defeated acceptance. “Do whatever you want. If you mess up, we have plenty of other plants.”
“True.” Greg agreed, focusing on the plant, considering how he could pull this off, since he wasn't sure if ‘nutrients’ was broad enough to take care of everything keeping the plant alive. Then again, his smoke seemed to work somewhat unconsciously, so maybe the intent behind trying to take the nutrients would be enough? It wasn't like he ever told his smoke exactly how to turn into something, he just told it to do it, and it did. He was sure there was some kind of inherent database of everything he'd dissolved some- Greg blinked as he was suddenly made aware of just such a database, before promptly electing to ignore it for now as he returned his focus to killing the plant. He paused at the thought. Why not just go for that? He focused on the plant, sending the intent to kill at his smoke, and… it caught on fire.
“Do I even want to know?” Lapodala sighed as Greg gaped at the burning plant, tapping at her network device to make a suppression field around the plant so the fire would quickly burn itself out.
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“I- don't think I could even tell you?” Greg replied hesitantly. “I just kinda told my smoke to kill it, and… well, fwoosh.”
“You- told your smoke to kill it?” Lapodala asked hesitantly.
“Well… yeah? I mean, that's how I do everything with my smoke. It isn't like I know how to make a person, or even a rock, it's all the smoke. I just give it… direction?” Greg explained, trying to make sense of his experience with the smoke.
Lapodala stared at him. “But… you are the smoke?”
“Well, sure, but… okay, it's like- you don't tell your body how to pump your blood or digest your food, right? Hell, even stuff like walking or punching is largely unconscious… oh, or talking! You don't tell your vocal cords how to vibrate, it just happens when you want to talk. And that's kinda how my smoke is. I don't really know how I do anything, I just want it to happen, and it does.” Greg finished with a shrug.
Lapodala nodded slowly. “That makes a certain sort of sense… I suppose I've never considered making fire as something a body can naturally do. Unless you could create some kind of spray… hm, maybe it's more that the discontinuous aspect of your existence still has exactly clicked, since from a certain perspective, you are in essence simply managing your internal temperature.”
Greg blinked. “Okay, now that is a trippy way to look at my smoke.”
Lapodala rolled her eyes. “Every way of looking at your smoke is ‘trippy’. Now, since you have ruined our previous experiment, shall we try again?”
“Right, yeah.” Greg nodded. “Which one?”
“Any of them.” Lapodala sighed.
Greg nodded, picking a random plant and transforming it into the one next to it again, frowning as he thought through how he wanted to try this again. Trying to kill the plant had worked, just not in the way he intended. He didn't want it destroyed, just wanted to… drain it? Could that work? Greg looked around. They still had plenty of plants to work with, so why not give it a shot? Greg focused on the plant, telling his smoke to drain it this time, and- Greg froze as he felt something flow out of the plant and into his smoke. Something… delicious. Like he'd gone his entire life not even knowing what food was, then someone had just handed him a french fry, and now all he wanted was more.
“There, it just changed.” Lapodala announced, shaking Greg out of his thoughts.
Greg blinked. “What?”
“The plant. It's dead. Or at least, its natural mana has changed, which I assume means it's died… though it may be wise to leave it to see if it recovers and grows as the other plant or if its natural mana reverts.” Lapodala replied.
“Right…” Greg muttered, seriously considering whether it was worth ignoring that comment to finish draining the oh so delicious plant, before letting out a sigh and pulling out his smoke to remove the temptation. Then he paused as he noticed all the other things he still had his smoke connected to. “So… how many of these things do you need to be alive?”
Lapodala eyed him cautiously. “Why?”
“Well… okay, so I ended up draining the plant, not entirely sure of what, but it was super fucking delicious, like holy fucking damn! Like better than the best meal I've ever had! So… I kinda want to drain the rest. Because, you know, it's delicious.” Greg explained.
Lapodala glared at him for a moment, before letting out a sigh. “I want to see if there are any long-term effects from your transformation, so transform these four plants and these four creatures and keep the originals around. Also keep these four and these four so we can make sure there aren't any long-term effects from being connected to your smoke. Otherwise… as long as I can get a scan of what's happening, you can do what you like.”
Greg grinned. “Outstanding.” He quickly did what she asked, getting everything set before turning his focus to one of the remaining plants. “I'll start with this one.”
Lapodala nodded, setting things up with her network device. “Okay, go.” Greg immediately began to drain the plant, letting out a satisfied sigh as he did, and Lapodala watched as the plant began to wilt and brown then crumble and crack, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until there was nothing but hard chunks and dust. She quickly checked the results of her scan. “You- it's- petrified?”
“Pretty much.” Greg muttered, examining the remains of the plant with his smoke. He couldn't even tell it used to be a plant anymore!
Lapodala shook her head incredulously. “It's as if you drained it of everything that could support life.”
“That… checks out?” Greg cocked his head. “Maybe that's what my smoke does? It somehow interacts with whatever it is that let's things live? Which could explain why living things resist my smoke?”
Lapodala frowned. “But why would that allow you to interact with inorganics?”
Greg paused. “I- have no idea.”
Lapodala let out an exasperated sigh. “I would expect nothing less.” There wasn't much to say to that, so they simply moved on, draining a few more plants before Lapodala spoke up again. “Are you going to see what happens when you drain a creature?”
Greg blinked, looking between her and one of the desiccated plants. “You- want me to do that to something that can actually feel? I mean, I suppose I don't care, but that seems like the sort of thing that would verge on torture, and I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to avoid that.”
“That is true, and I agree that torture should be avoided whenever possible. However, if we wish to understand the nature of your smoke, it is imperative that we understand how it interacts with creatures that can feel.” Lapodala retorted. “The complexity of an animal can provide data that relatively simplistic plants cannot.”
Greg frowned. “If you say so… which one?” Lapodala pointed to a random creature, setting things up for him. He hesitated for a moment, before letting out a sigh and starting the drain, letting out a grunt as he did. “Fuck that's good.” This creature tasted ten times better than a plant! He quickly shook himself out of the slight daze the rush had pushed him into, focusing on the creature he was draining, raising an eyebrow as he realized something. The creature… didn't actually seem to be suffering? Actually, he knew it wasn't suffering. Through the connection his smoke formed between the two of them, he knew everything the creature was feeling, and right now all it felt was tired and a little hungry. Both feelings continued to grow until the creature fell unconscious, well before the feeling of hunger grew to starvation levels, and it stopped feeling anything at all until it finally died. “Huh… that might actually be the nicest way I've ever killed anything.” Greg commented. “Almost peaceful even.”
Lapodala raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“I can connect to their senses with my smoke, remember?” Greg replied. “All it felt was tired and a little hungry.”
“Interesting.” Lapodala muttered. “That almost sounds like a natural death.”
“Does that tell you anything?” Greg asked.
Lapodala considered it for a moment, before shaking her head. “Not particularly, no. But it's at least another data point in the web of confusion that is your smoke.”
Greg snorted. “Fair. Want to do a few more then? Cause I gotta say, animals taste so much better than plants.” He paused. “Which is pretty much how I feel about food too… Do you think the two might be related somehow?”
“Do you?” Lapodala retorted. “All I can tell you is what your smoke is actually doing. You are the only one who can evaluate what you experience.”
Greg paused. “Well… I guess it's because whatever I'm getting from animals, or at least from this one, feels more… substantial? Which is a part of why I prefer meat over vegetables as well. I like my food to be filling. Which, of course, is why I was fat. Oh, shit, is draining animals unhealthy?”
Lapodala gave him a bland glare. “I don't think health is something you need to concern yourself with.”
“Hey, I may be a smoke cloud, but I don't want to be a fat smoke cloud.” Greg protested with a slight smirk. “Just rolling around, barely capable of getting off the ground… huh, is that what fog is? Just fat clouds?”
“It seems we've reached the end of our session for the day.” Lapodala announced, completely ignoring his comment. “You don't want to be late for your combat lesson.”
Greg chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Have a nice day.”
“You as well.” Lapodala sighed. “You utterly incomprehensible smoke being.”