Can I solo party or do I have to have at least one other person... I attempt to form a new party. It lets me. And there's immediately information in my party chat window. From me. But I'm not thinking about any of it.

[Party Chat]

[S: Yes, I'm real.]

[S: Yes, we've talked.]

[S: No, I'm not gonna say we're not crazy,]

[S: and, yes, I'm you.]

Yay, positive affirmations, but how do I group text back?

[Party Chat]

[S: You're a frickin' bug. You were supposed to find this when you grew wings.]

[S: You don't need to, 'cause *I* can hear *you* ALWAYS.]

RIP.

[Party Chat]

[S: There's a lot and you're just a frustrating drop.]

[S: Like, figuring this stuff out is hard, but you keep breaking stuff.]

Oh. My gods. Did Me find all my broken shit? And recognize it? How do we fix us?!

[Party Chat]

[S: We could *totally* do that.]

I'm nauseous, waves of energy and excitement rolling over me, and I know part of it is me, and part of it is Me. And we can talk. Alright, voice in my head. Get to work!

[Party Chat]

[S: Fuck off, with your broken ass.]

Heh.

[Party Chat]

[S: Don't use the Qi pools. I'm gonna try something real quick.]

[S: Go take a nap or go cook or something.]

-*Where do you guys want me to drop my anchor?*-

Priorities! Get myself put in a spot where they can defend me and set up a nice food bowl.

"Anchor?" Quiet boy says at a normal volume, his bass trying to stop my heart.

Did I say that out loud?

[Party Chat]

[S: Almost always.]

I thought I got better...

[Party Chat]

[S: You started humming instead of actually talking talking,]

[S: But you are vocal AF.]

I meant did I broadcast it! I huff and watch as the kids talk to one another, Salt Lord head on his arms, passed out, tired and angry mumbling in his sleep, Emo Lady gently rubbing his back while she and Lady Lord try to figure out the riddle of an anchor.

[Party Chat]

[S: I'm not gonna tell you to stop wasting time, you taking so long gives me more time to do stuff.]

I want to know what they think I'm talking about. We're gonna unlock all kinds of good information. Wait. How do I access the stuff you know?

[Party Chat]

[S: Gimme a few minutes.]

[S: Getting stuff done.]

I'm not familiar with stories like this, and I know practice makes perfect, but have you been the reason stuff automatically upgrades? 'Cause I hadn't done the tutorial and some of my shit was unlocking and upgrading crazy fast.

[Party Chat]

[S: Part of that is from all the essence and Qi, and I have been dumping it so you don't turn into a crazed monster.]

Quoi?

[Party Chat]

[S: Too little Qi or essence bad. Too much Qi or essence bad.]

Been a few minutes yet? If I add other people to the party how do I talk?

[Party Chat]

[S: You can talk to them via Send.]

Wow, not about to be okay with me dismissing me. Especially with information that I have. What do I know, and why won't I tell me? My anger in myself and being able to find and focus on the feeling of me in myself is a thing.

It kinda feels like absorbing Persephone minus the Qi and essence. There's a ton of stuff I just know, but there's an over layer of "I need to hurry" attached to it. Time's running out. For. Something.

And now I know that I'm trying to work on attaining godhood. This dumbass thinks I'm godhood worthy? They're me and they've been watching and futzing with stuff in the background, and they think we can do it. Nah, but why so "let's go"? To speedrun a quest line? For what?

Oh. The emperor's gonna leave, and he can't until I'm a big bad, and by then I'll be able to take over. Why the fuck would I want to do that? Nope, I'm out. I'm not gonna be responsible for people's welfares. Whoever this dumbass is isn't me me. I don't even want pets or kids 'cause I know I'm gonna fuck up something important. To be responsible for an entire Empire's economy and logistics? I can't even read to figure out what foods have the best Qi! Not even for the sake of Ascended Darkness --.

Don't like that. I've got more windows I can access. Cool. I'm part of Ascended Darkness and trying to become a ranking member. Not a fan. I've completed bounties on undead and things that cause problems to the empire. What is this?

My head hurts. There's so much stuff I know reflexively mentally that I have no idea about. I've been working on this shit for days. And my name is Silent Howl. Wait. No the fuck it's not.

Oh! S wasn't for Sandy or Sanders. Wait. I'm being remote --. Hold on. Ooh. I'm losing access to Ascended Darkness windows. My name is Silent Howl. I failed the true Ascended Darkness entry qualifications so I found some shady ass dark wizard assassin version that wants to use me as fodder, but I can control bugs.

Mm. Nope. Cool. What? When?

Him. Him? Him. He was controlling a swarm of those fucking puppet bugs, puppeted my essence and Qi rich ass and then unlocked the Queen line. But I'm sterile. Wow. Dodged a bullet there.

Aw. That means my Queen thing isn't my Queen thing, and it's never gonna work. Then what the fuck's the point? Fack!

"Can you anchor to objects or just locations?"

Hmm? I come to my senses sitting up after rocking to the side. Swole Grampa has a finger extended so I guess he poked me. What's going on? Anchor? Oh! Bank! I member.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

-*I'm still learning,*- I admit 'cause I don't have time to play around right now.

I'm literally in the middle of hacking someone's brain I just ate. Mm. Not a fan of that. Someone remoting into me and operating me like a bot then I ate their brain through the connection thinking I was reabsorbing stray thoughts and processing power. Wow. Nightmare fuel.

Do I dream?

"You should be fine here for now," Swole Grampa says thoughtfully, placing me in the corner and arranging two palm frond looking plants to flank my pillow.

He carried me on my pillow to a corner and redecorated. We're probably not going to get along. If he pisses me off I can probably literally just move the pillow to a different corner just to fuck with him. Will probably test very soon.

I shift on the pet pillow, shift into my bank, then get my mill going again. I mill the raw flour veg into puree-- I've still got my mill clouds, pretty sure Woodcock would have taken them if he could 'cause the basin that sits below them is missing. --, hang several pots over the burners with rope, -- I'll upgrade to chain eventually, -- throw in some cooked fish with the puree, add some random diced veggies to that and cover the pots while making shelves lining my cooking pit so I can bulk cook with any shed heat while I'm using the main burners. Maybe I should put little doors on sliders around the outside of the shelves to trap the heat between them, like mini ovens.

So much Qi and essence but I've still got plenty of shit to eat through. I check my bank to find out that I don't in fact have much stuff left, just the plants and stuff that I created with excess qi and essence, -- dude was dumping my stuff where exactly? -- and it looks like I emptied out most of the spatial storages. Or someone did.

A god? Really? I know that if you get strong enough you're considered one and the emperor is on that level even though he keeps dumping shit. Ooh... I know what I'm gonna eat...

I flip my makeshift potato fish cakes in the pot, line the shelves with wicker plates and wonder if this is gonna be more drying than baking, then try to figure out how to make a lake. I made a river. Wait. Why do I need a lake? I can deepen the river, make little inlets and fish spawning spots, get that bitch to curve more and have wetland plants to --. Was Silent Howl a farmer? What the fuck is all this? Besides good ideas. New batch of fish cakes in the pots, shelf cooking items rotated, and I'm off to pour some of the Qi into carving a proper river instead of just a long narrow lake.

Was there supposed to be a way for me to absorb their body when I tried to reabsorb them? Well, absorb their body and shiz when I absorbed their mind. Did I make a copy of they're mind and they're in a coma they'll wake up from or are they just straight up braindead?

I dump some of the fish in their new home, -- how did the stuff that I couldn't hold in my void space survive? Bank bug stuff? -- remember I had whole groups of peoples in different biomes before. Expanding now would be a bad, I don't have energy to supplement it long term, but I've got some hills I can use, right? I've got random plants, but what about those saint trees?

Check on the food first. Overcooked fishcakes, unevenly broiled fish, so can I put the fishcakes on the shelves? I set up a round of fishcakes, using the inside edges of my legs, my combs, as serrated knives, casually sawing things into smaller pieces. Why did I stop making stew? Stew is good shit. Four pots of just veggies and water because I'm fishcaking, and I need to figure out how to complete combat quests for Qi and Karma. And find stuff to eat for essence, Qi, and Karma. And people. 'Cause eating people is okay as long as everyone agrees they're dicks. Life lessons.

I kinda wouldn't mind a hilltop scenic pond. I gasp as I think of having underground tributaries and aquifers where the fish can also hang out, and I won't lose them to poachers.

Not enough resources

Still my void, so they're not hiding from me when I go into my bank interface, and I don't have enough resources. I blank as I process this new turn of events. Hm? I open my bank envision me, and see that my will is low. Wait, what? I see my hunan form, covered in chunky gold jewellery, but now there are some gems embedded in them. There's a variety of jugs and jars of various sizes, and the one representing my Will is stew pot size, but empty. But why? To the logs, boo~ooh...? Oh, wow. Took 1k condensed Qi to remote soul suck someone, but I got so much good information. Not mad. I'm so gonna do that again.

Is that why most spirits don't communicate with people? The temptation too high or the fact that --. Were my advisors soul sucking me? How the hell wouldn't they know that dude was fucking with my stuff? No, they probably wanted me to attain godhoo~...! Were they working with that asshole? Was I supposed to go braindead and then he puppeted my body? Bro... I'm so eating then when I find them. Not just absorbing... Imma take my time...

So. Much. Bullshit.

-* ♪ Papa, can you hear me? ♪ *- I reach out to the emperor to--.

-*Where are you?! Are you hiding?*- That was fast.

-*No, I got 'napped outta the empire,*- so you can't fuck with me. -*Was checking to see if this worked and if you could eat orbs. Could try orbing the shit outta your star so you can actually use the energy. For a fee, of course.*- Ew, I sound smarmy as fuck. Let's get into some spirit beast litigation.

-*No, you can't eat my star.*- I can hear him narrowing his eyes, but in my head its his eyeball not his kid form. At least he didn't say yes with the unspoken caveat that he's going to then eat me. -*You... feel different. Again. What did you do now?*-

-*Met Silent Howl,*- I am a dick. Entrapment.

-*Oh, he's actually helping? He's a bug manipulator, not from the clans, and you two were on two separate pages and both of you survived.*- He sounds so excited. Imma tell him that I killed his pet.

-*He convinced me that he was me, I'd noticed a voice and impulses but could never find them,*- wait for it... Nah. -*I absorbed him thinking it'd be like absorbing Persephone. I learned so much...*-

-*You fucking what?!*- I'm getting pulses of unhappy. Fear flavored? -*How? When? Where did you meet him? When did you meet him? How'd he trick you into thinking he was a physical projection of your inner voice?*-

-*Never met him, didn't get his body, he might be brain dead somewhere,*- I rub my legs over the warmth I feel in the back of my head when I talk to the emperor, -- I thought it was like a signature when I spoke to him, -- and feel my legs get slapped. -*When I talk to people I can feel them. That weird too?*-

-*Yeah, no, that's advanced divination. It requires a great deal of empathy to develop,*- the emperor is starting to trail off.

-*Found out that some of my bug stuff was advanced because of my connection to Bug Boy.*- I'm still pissed at him, but he's my buddy. I can't not tell him. -*So you guys were borking me, not me.*-

Suck it! Everyone telling me I'm messed up and dysfunctional --. And they knew.

-*Where are you?*-

-*No clue,*- and even if I knew I wouldn't tell you, jackass. -*Be back later. Cooking and going over stuff I unlocked that's not sealed away by some fucking puppet master.*-

And click. I close my end of the send and head back to the kitchen to check on my foods and keep production up. Stews are good, fish cakes weren't rotated but they're fine, and I can just make some veg cakes. I get started with a shrug, putting on more stews, grinding and chopping more veg, and eating the 10 worst offenders of all my failed cakes. Go me for the shelves letting me make 13 cakes at a time.

Where's my hunger meter? Do I have one? Ooh, what's my will lookin' like? Pause, bank screen up and focus on bank for me all gaudy as faq with medium will jar. Which one is food? I watch as I reach out disdainfully nudging a jar big enough for my hunan form to stand in and it's only 1/3 full. ... Why the fuck is my stomach so big?

Back to remodelin' muh kitchen! So... Wasn't I going to make drying racks along the walls? What about grated shelves? Yeah, boi. I got enough will to do this thing. So far. Grated stone shelves lining the walls over the stone foundations, make-uh duh heat elements, and now I'm tired. Banking all the food, -- wow, cooked up a storm, and feels like no time has passed. Productivity! -- I dip out to see what the kids have left me.

There's a nice unlocked trunk with a latch against the wall -- I don't have thumbs in this form, were they gonna try to teach me to do tricks? Psych! Flick of the end of my leg, hooking under the latch and up it goes. What? The tip of my leg fits in the little notch? Crazy~. I open the lid, and hold it open -- I got six legs, bitches, -- when it turns out the back of the lid bumps the wall lightly. Is this supposed to fall back on me? How many layers of "no" did they think were going to stop me?

Inside the trunk are 10 failed fan balls, 3 mirrors, and 2 brushes. Guess they ran out of gas? What time is it? What day is it? Guess it doesn't really matter. I bank the goods, go into a bedroom, see there's no bed, remember the bed was stolen, walk to where the bed should be, lie down and unbank the failed projects around me, hope there's shiver thorn growing along the sides of the house to prevent anyone from going out back, -- if there wasn't there is now -- and turn in.

And wake up realizing I'm a team killing fucktard.

-Fack!-

Ah, well. I nestle back into my fluffiness. No helping it now.