As much as Ozzy wanted to continue discovering all the strange rules that governed the new existence he found himself residing in, he felt a bit put out from the last oddity he’d found. Not necessarily the contact attempt from what he supposed was the first rat haven. Instead the vast emptiness that sent his mind reeling and ended in him taking a nap in a pile of fresh vomit was a bit much. He was actually excited to eventually understand the how and why of that contact. Maybe he could gain some more tricks of the trade through that connection. But, he needed a bit of familiarity after the other worldly experience of falling into that infinitesimal hole only to find himself in a void that made the observable universe seem microscopic by comparison.

That did bring up the question, if he’d find himself in the same voidspace if he reached beyond a haven’s membrane at the edge of its domain without trying to connect to another haven. That was a great addition to his notebook for now. As he had no desire to visit there again any time soon. Jotting it down he got out of his recliner and continued the process of cleaning himself up. Having already wiped off the majority of the sick from his face. Cutting another little square off the blanket he walked over to one of the trees. He’d finally been lucky enough to get a tile that had a little puddle on it. He hadn’t even realized it was there until seeing one of the trees was growing faster than the others.

When planting he’d utilized his domain to speed up the process so hadn’t looked too closely at either side of the new tiles. Dabbing the square of cloth into the puddle he then used it to do a better job of wiping himself down. Swishing out his mouth came next, and although there were little bits of dirt in the water, it was far better than the taste in his mouth. Once clean, or relatively so, Ozzy was ready to get started on his little break that he’d imposed on himself. That didn’t mean he was going to sit back and relax. He’d already been sitting in his recliner all day. He just didn’t want to do any more testing for the moment.

The first thing he did was check on the few different nodes he had connections to. Looking at the haven where he found the intelligent rat there was nothing new. It still sat with a total of nine squares and no new occupant. Though the most obvious indication it hadn’t been re-occupied was at the center still sat the corpse of the rat. Feeling out for the offspring of the first and second rat square he found it nearly the same as he’d left it. There was no resident, but it did somehow have a discernibly larger amount of energy than it had before. Something worth noting but he didn’t want to investigate just yet. Into his notebook it went.

The next two places to look were the imp and rat line of havens. He started with the imps as he was sure he could get further with them than the rats. He wondered for a moment if he hadn’t made a mistake with choosing to focus on his metaphysical advancement rather than the physical as the rats had. Seeing as the imps were seemingly much weaker, while the rats he was already having trouble breaking through their skulls. Though who knew what capabilities and tricks the imps would grow to have. Especially since the last one could already tell when he invaded its space with his domain. It may be that he would have more trouble with them in the long run. He also suspected that he would not regret his choice either. Especially with all he’d been able to figure out with it so far.

Reaching out to the ninth imp haven with his improved domain extension he saw the imp perk up the moment his domain breached the membrane. The imp just stared at it though. With its baby features and innocent uncaring gaze locked onto him he was frozen for a moment, but he knew if it opened its mouth the illusion would be broken. This wasn’t some innocent child, it was a demonic one. Ending its life quickly, he collected its core and smiled as he saw its haven’s square progney appear at the end of the path where he’d breached the edge of his haven from.

While it wasn’t some amazing accomplishment it was nice to know how things worked so that he didn’t need to fiddle with things afterward to get them how he wanted. There was only one more connection revealed with this imps death. Which while par for the course, was a little disheartening. Ozzy was hoping to keep finding other haven’s like Cederick had. Maybe he’d need to sit and feel them until one wiggled like he’d said they would, but Ozzy got the impression from him that it took quite some time for that to pan out. While Ozzy had found at least one intelligent rat after only a few days of randomly killing things. That did make him wonder exactly how that had worked.

He didn’t miss the fact that he’d found a connection to a haven that had the exact same number of extra tiles that he did at the time. He suspected the other rat had recently connected to that particular haven and what he was detecting was the remnant of whatever form it was that the connection took. It was likely he only found it after killing the eighth rat because he had only looked for connections after killing the rat. He wasn’t really sure. At the least he could check before killing the rest of his targets today. Which at least wouldn’t entirely derail his plan to take a break from testing things. It was hard to stop entirely with his inquisitive nature. When he thought of a question, and he did almost constantly, it was hard not to do what he could to answer them. At the last he didn’t suspect the results of this simple adjustment to his plans weren’t going to result in some new existential crisis.

At the tenth imp haven he checked before killing its occupant and found that he could feel a new connection, but it was just the next imp in the line. Which of course made him wonder if he could just skip any further killing and reach all the way down to wherever this line of havens lead. Which of course he could, but while he was willing to break his own ultimatum on testing he was going to try at least a little not to do things that might end poorly for him. There was no telling what was at the other end of that line, nor how even the next few imps might change. As this one’s domain was still more dense and complex than the last. He didn’t see any pseudo appendages as he’d made for himself though he doubted they were far off.

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He killed the tenth imp, and the next two without any noticeable change beyond the slow increase of the imps domain strength and density. Which did make it harder to kill them but only marginally so. None of them netted anything more than their energy, core, and the connection to the next haven down the line. The thirteenth upon first inspection didn’t seem to be any great deviation from the norm either. As he checked for other connections it watched his pseudopod just as the others had. The expected single further connection showed up and he turned his attention to the denisen in front of him to find that its domain had been expanding slowly toward his extension as he’d been exploring the connections.

For a moment he watched the creeping advancement but it stayed just that. A slow inching forward with no seeming change in speed. Like a hand there was an indentation in the middle and the edges were spread further forward. It was more like a bowl than a palm and fingers though. Not wanting to see what it would do to him he reared back his spearlike appendage and struck. Which is of course when things went sideways. The moment his domain extension pulled back the domain of the imp stopped its advance and morphed slightly. The indentation deepening and the protrusions extending wider. Then as his shot forward the opponent's domain adjusted its position to match where he’d strike. As they neared one another the enemies' domain began moving backwards at an increasing speed. Seemingly attempting to match his own.

When they finally touched in what seemed to be slow motion the opposing domain clamped down and began to resist his attack actively. Which resulted in his strike stopping well shy of his intended target. As he struggled with the imp to start moving again, either forward or to pull back, it opened its mouth in a slow and foreboding smile which only got more terrifying as he struggled. All the while it’s domain was creeping along his previously overpowered weapon as if it were a child's arm. Clamping down harder while smiling at him like a big brother about to tell him to “stop hitting himself”. Unsure as to exactly how this was going to end, and not wanting to find out exactly how bad it would be he did the only thing he could.

Forcing the cell like structures of his appendage to disintegrate a bit past where the imp was currently holding him hostage he yanked back the rest of his structured domain. As quick as he could he pulled back through the haven membrane to his own. Falling back despite the imp not coming after him he eyed the edge of his lands with apprehension. Nothing followed his retreat. The imps image still sat in his third eye. Not because it was burned there in some fight or flight instinct or terror response. No he could actually still see the imp through the portion of domain he’d left behind.

In that thirteenth imp haven the resident wrapped its domain tighter and tighter around the prize it had stolen like a boa with its prey. Thankfully he couldn’t feel pain from the appendage but he sure felt panic setting in. As the lost piece of him was brought closer to an ever enlarging mouth he felt himself hyperventilating. Wanting to look away he took a step back but found he couldn’t get himself to close off the connection. Instead he watched as the imp took its first bite of the speartip. There was mercifully still no pain but there was something. A sense of loss and rejection from the limb. Like it was a person who’d been abandoned to die and was rejecting his authority over itself as it was being torn apart.

Over the next few moments the rest of the limb, although still intact, seemed to give up on him. The connection grew fuzzy and fading out as the imp continued to snack on a part of him. As grossly visceral and real as that felt there was no lasting physical pain or nausea from the attack. He felt a bit like he still wanted to empty his stomach, but it was only an intellectual response to the situation, not a physical one. There wasn’t a feedback loop of hormones and steroids causing him to lose his lunch. Glad for that he shook his head. There was no reason to get caught up in emotion when he could be continuing his return to normalcy instead. The portion of his domain he’d lost was barely a noticeable fraction of the whole and whatever he’d lost in energy, he’d gained in understanding.

If he went further down that line he suspected he’d be as afraid of what he found as Benjamin and Cederick seemed to be at whatever they’d found. So instead he turned to the rat havens to see how far he could get there. While he did so, keeping an eye out just in case that imp did somehow reach out to his haven. Though he saw nothing to indicate it would. Even without repairing his damaged appendage he was still able to kill up to the thirteenth rat and beyond without much effort. After seeing this latest imp and its nonchalant attitude toward using whatever tactics it could to succeed he’d changed his mind on his own. The fact it used an unaltered portion of its domain to obliterate his own had reminded him there was more than one way to skin a cat.

So, he’d strangled the last five rats. He’d initially had a poor reaction to how he’d taken out the intelligent rat. If he wanted to continue being afraid and squeamish he’d already seen where that had gotten Benjamin. He didn’t want to end up holed away in a fallout shelter of a haven with only one way in and out. Locked down in ways that likely wouldn’t work if someone stronger really wanted to come after him. Ozzy was going to adapt to the place he found himself. He was going to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate anything he needed to in order to do so.