It’s the evening of the fourth day since I Bound the Tier two members of the samuran hunting party. Tomorrow, I have a promise to Kalanthia to fulfil.

The sun has been gone from the sky for a while and I’m starting to feel tired, but not quite tired enough to go to sleep. It’s odd: I remember when I first got here that the elongated and laborious days meant that my head would happily hit the pillow as soon as the sun had set. Now, I find myself still a little restless.

Perhaps I have just got used to the length of the days, or it’s the fact that magic is making my life easier. Or maybe it’s my stats at work here – I don’t know what impact they have on sleeping patterns.

Either way, I settle down next to the campfire I have outside. The nights are getting colder, and even if I doubt I’ll ever have to worry about frostbite with my Flesh-Shaping Skill, it’s more comfortable to sit next to a nice fire. My new clothes are definitely helping though: I’ve managed to find time to turn the spider-web I made for the samurans’ trap into clothes – after clearing it of poison, of course.

Well, I call them clothes, but it’s really more of a onesie undersuit which I made for myself and basically only take off when I want to have a bath.

Disgusting? Not so much when my mana is soaked into the whole of the fabric and can prevent dirt from sticking. I do find that there’s a bit of dust that comes out when I shake it, though, so taking it off every so often is still necessary. Going from my ankles to my wrists, it’s basically a wetsuit. Even better? No need for zips when mana’s involved, so no chance of accidentally catching a very sensitive bit of flesh when needing to answer nature’s call.

Most of the time I have my armour on top of it; I’m getting used to its weight though I’m still slowed a bit by it. I guess that that will continue until I manage to increase my Strength or Dexterity or something. It’s good that I’m not too slowed, though, as I’ve upgraded my armour a bit, adding to its weight.

I reinforced the armour with chitin from the danaris, covering the tough hide almost completely. By this point, it almost looks like I’m wearing black dragonhide armour, the tough substance reformed into hand-sized scales which I’ve melded into the body of the armour itself. It’s truly amazing what Flesh-Shaping is able to do – frankly, it’s come in far more useful than I ever thought in my preparations.

I’ve also been working on my other Shaping Skill, and I decide to do a little more of that now.

Focussing on the fire, I place a new log on the glowing embers and try to make the flames leap merely through my will.

Just as yesterday and the day before, it doesn’t work. I sigh, and reach out to the fire, both physically and mentally. Feeding it mana, I see it leap and start devouring the new log happily.

Knowing what lies before us, I’ve been doing my best to get a handle on my fire-related abilities. I’ve discovered a lot, and my control over the fire both in macro and micro tasks has improved immensely, but I still can’t control a fire I’m not connected to. Perhaps that’s just a natural limit, but without any guidance, I find all I can do is push and push at the limits, finding which will move and which stay firm.

Though, at least I can affect it through two types of connection: simply feeding it my own mana after bargaining with it through Fire-Taming, and transforming my own mana into fire magic and controlling it through Fire-Shaping. What I’ve discovered is that, at my current Skill level, anyway, it’s easier to work with an established fire with Fire-Taming where Fire-Shaping is better when creating fire. They feel…different.

It’s hard to explain, but fire which is established has more…presence. If I try to use Fire-Shaping on it, I tend to have very poor results as something seems to be fighting me for control. On the other hand, I’ve discovered that I get much better results with Fire-Taming if I offer it fire magic rather than just my normal mana. I only discovered that this morning, so I’m keen to experiment a little with it.

Closing my eyes, I extend my hand towards the fire, working more with the lines of connection than anything else. I don’t need to drop into any level of Meditation: I’ve basically been in a permanent state of Light Meditation except for when I’ve needed to move quickly or have dipped into a deeper state.

Feeding the small bead of mana down my channels, I transform it into fire magic. With the amount of practice I’ve had with this, the speed at which I’ve become able to transform magic has increased significantly, as has the ease.

Holding the magic within ‘me’ I feel how interested the fire is in the bead of magic. Actually, it’s less a sense of ‘interest’, and more confusion. Contemplating exactly what I’m feeling, I realise that it’s that the fire feels like it is ‘here’ and ‘there’ and is confused about why it can’t affect ‘there’.

It reminds me of that experience I had where I felt like I had become the flames, only this time it’s the fire which is confused, not me. I sense some hint of inspiration there, some understanding which is just outside my reach. Trying to grasp it only makes it skip further away, like some teasing child playing keep-away with something of mine.

Giving up, I instead test what I discovered this morning: that because the fire considers the magic to already be part of it, it is far less hesitant to agree to any sort of bargain. After all, why would it deny itself something? That is not the nature of fire.

Allowing it the bead of fire-magic, I find that I don’t even have to keep a constant stream of mana going towards it: I am part of it, so it follows my wishes willingly – as long as I don’t try to quench it.

I’m able to move it off one area of fuel and onto another, or to exchange wood for mana, but the moment I try to smother it entirely, it seems to recognise that I am not part of it. It was the same before, I remember: it was my desire not to let the fire burn my clothes which caused me to return to my own mind. Fortunately, in that case. Equally, it is my desire to stop the fire burning entirely which causes it to realise that I am other. I manage to reduce the fire to a single branch, but it resists firmly being snuffed out completely.

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Not wanting to build resentment within the greater body of Fire, I release the fire from my control completely. It roars back to life, swiftly regaining access to the still-hot branches, half-burnt logs, and cinders.

Opening my eyes, I stare at the fire contemplatively. It should be possible, my plan, I decide. But I’m going to have to make sure I’m as rested as possible: I’ll need all my wits about me. And, frankly, as much willpower as possible.

I sigh and lean back, staring up at the sky. Should I?

My work in my soul space gave me more Willpower last time, but that was only after three days of effort. Though was the Willpower from the three days? Or was it from the end, after I had finished healing my soul and started pushing?

And there’s that challenge. Might that not help me in some way? But then how long might it take? After all, last time my Bound were unable to wake me. We have a time pressure now, is this really the time to be trying something new?

But what if this can give me the edge? Despite my time in Meditation, despite my Bound hunting regularly, I’m only halfway towards my next level. I’m unlikely to acquire enough Energy to level up in our route deeper into the valley; what if the challenge gives me a boost which will make achieving my objectives even possible?

Feeling restless, I check my Inventory: better make sure everything else is prepared.

Plenty of food, both cooked and not, I say to myself, noting all the slots filled with different foodstuffs, some for me, some for my Bound. Having been in my Inventory, they will be Energy-less unless I decide to spend some of my own mana to infuse them, but that’s better than starving. Plenty of water too. I’ve taken some time to create more containers out of flesh, or at least what counts as flesh for my flesh shaping.

What that actually means is bones, fused together to become watertight, chitin extended and reshaped to work as a bowl or a bottle or an urn, thick water-proof hide reinforced with bone to create sturdy pouches, and more. I didn’t bother tanning the hide I used for the water-skins: I figured that since they’ll be spending most of the time in my Inventory, they shouldn’t end up rotting. If they do anyway, I’ll be able to replace them easily enough.

I’ve discovered that items which are made of the same materials and are almost exactly the same size and shape stack, so have done my best to make as many uniform receptacles as possible. That’s not always easy when working with natural materials, however.

I’ve also created plenty more arrows. In some ways, I’m glad about having waited for one reason in particular: no more of the dreaded flint-knapping! With Flesh-shaping able to manipulate any part of the body, I’ve found a solution to my projectile needs: tooth arrows. Well, kind of tooth since I’m using purely the tooth enamel and reforming it into a sharp point.

It took a fair bit of experimentation, but I’ve managed to create arrow shafts made of bone which have enough flexibility to be almost as good as wooden shafts, and have the added benefit of being able to be melded with the fletching feathers and enamel tips.

It’s almost anti-climactic: my first set of arrows took so much time and effort to craft, requiring me to make pitch and spend hours knapping the heads. My second set took an afternoon after determining the right kind of bone to make the shafts. An afternoon to make about fifty arrows. Insane.

Still, I’m grateful. I even made some equivalent spears, though this necessitated even more testing since a spear shaft is put under a lot more stress than an arrow shaft. Finally, I kind of used wood as an inspiration and melded some of the qualities of sinew together with bone, creating a flexible yet strong structure which I hope will work well enough.

The arrow points are wickedly sharp, my Flesh-Shaping able to create a point which no human would be able to achieve with filing alone. My spear points are a lot less sharp since I decided that given it needs to hold its point more reliably than the arrows, it was worth losing a bit of the sharpness for durability. As a result, they’re much thicker around and the point is relatively blunt. Then again, with my Strength behind it, they should still be able to pack a punch.

To help with durability for all my weapons, I’ve used magic to reinforce them to the extent that they’re almost able to compete with flint for pure hardness. Almost. But what I give up in terms of hardness and sharpness, I gain in terms of the ease of replacing my weaponry and flexibility in battle.

Other than that, I have clothing, boots, armour, and have even made some for some of my Bound. I haven’t had time to outfit them all, but River has been convinced to wear light hide armour and even Bastet has agreed to a layer of spider-web that covers her neck, chest, between her wings, and even has a sort of barding that offers a little protection to her flanks. It’s thin and light by necessity because of the way she fights, but should help ward off glancing blows and provide a little protection against direct ones. Since the spiderweb itself is naturally white, and that doesn’t go at all with Bastet’s role, I intentionally made it a bit sticky and then rolled it in mud so it was completely covered.

At River’s request, I even reshaped his eyes – apparently the job I did on Catch was good enough that River wanted better eyesight too. He approached me very apologetically, apparently feeling like he was asking too much. I suspect that that’s why it took him several days to ask me. Honestly, I was kicking myself for not thinking of it myself. In the end, I also improved his sense of smell and hearing as it turned out that Catch had much better senses in both areas – unsurprising considering how much they needed to compensate for his poor eyesight.

I considered trying to help my other Bound but, honestly, I’m reluctant to try to improve things without a template. That Catch’s eyes ended up better than River’s was a bit of an accident; it could easily have gone the other way. River’s hearing and sense of smell ended up being about the same as Catch’s, but no better. And I’m not inclined to offer the Warriors and Pathwalker the same benefits that I’ve given Catch. Not yet – they haven’t earned it, in my opinion. Nor are they as disabled as Catch was when we first met.

It’s a bit odd not to have had River with us for the last few nights though I invited Catch into the alcove so at least it hasn’t been as empty as it could have been. Though the other samurans have been behaving themselves so far, apart from a few tests of his authority that we both agree was most likely calculated to see our reactions, River’s thoughts have been that he ought to stay with them. I agreed, unfortunately, so I have just had to deal with one of my closest Bound, and one I consider a friend, not being around much.

They’ve been quite industrious, making a little camp out there in the woods – three huts have sprung up around a small pile of bones – and a campfire. Although I wasn’t there at the time, River shared with me the memory of his people’s faces when he first lit a fire. I decided to give him the fire starter because with my new Fire-Shaping abilities, I don’t need it so much. Probably that’s one reason they haven’t caused much trouble: that I was able to share my ‘magical’ control of fire with River has to have impressed them a fair bit.

So far, they’ve been quite stand-offish around my other Bound, though. While that’s worked OK until now, since they didn’t need to interact much, the trip back down is likely to force them into closer contact. Hopefully they’re not going to let their cultural biases cloud their vision too much. River didn’t, but then he approached the whole thing from a different perspective.

Either way, I think that they are as prepared as possible for the return down into the valley and, from the looks of my Inventory, so am I. But should I take the risk of trying to enhance my Willpower in my soul space before we go?