“I was trying to ‘feel fire’ since it seems to come more easily to me than ‘feeling the earth’,” I tell him honestly. Actually…. “Do you know anything about controlling fire? Was anyone in your village capable of it?” I know it’s probably a long-shot considering what I know of the lizard-folk, but I’ll kick myself if I don’t ask and then later it turns out that he did know something and I just didn’t bother to ask.
I don’t believe so, River answers, predictably, after a moment of thought. Is it possible to tame the Life-Devourer? I shrug.
“I don’t know. I’m going to try, though.”
If anyone can do it, I believe you can, River declares loyally after a moment. I’m touched, not at all as certain as he sounds. I feel a sudden added pressure to succeed – I don’t want to betray his faith in me.
“Thanks,” I say in return, feeling a little awkward. “My problem is that I need to work out how to move mana externally. At least, I think that that might help. Certainly I need it for Flesh-Shaping or I’ll be stuck using only a fraction of what I think the Skill is capable of.”
Shall we test what you wished to do in the forest yesterday? River asked. That’s true: he’d already agreed to be my guinea pig but we’d thought that the middle of the forest wasn’t the best idea to test out potentially damaging things.
“Alright,” I agree. “Let’s do it. If you’re hungry, maybe get something to eat first, though: I don’t know how long we’re going to need for the experimentation.”
There are a hundred and one other jobs to do, top of my list being dealing with the tree we felled yesterday. However, I think this is more important. It won’t do the tree any harm to lie in the forest for a few days; it might cause harm to my Bound if we get attacked when I still haven’t figured out how to heal them.
Very well, he agrees. I will have a bite to eat. Where do you wish to do this? Inside or out?
“Uh, out in the sun, perhaps? If it’s sunny, that is.” River shrugged.
It probably is. We have had the first rainstorm of the season; the second is not likely to be for a while yet. Though after that they tend to be more and more frequent until the sun is as rare as the rain is now.
“Fun,” I say sarcastically. That sounds worse than London’s weather. I’m definitely going to have to make sure the hides I tan are sealed from the wet otherwise all my hard work is likely to go to waste the first time I get caught out in the rain. And I need to remember to keep up the oiling of my bow and string or that’s going to take damage too. The downside of having things made out of natural materials.
With an unspoken agreement to meet up outside, River slips out of the alcove quietly. I stoke the fire and then set some water to boil on it, making a mental note to fill my canteen and water pot the next time I go down to the stream. I also think about finding more edible plants when I head down with River to deal with the rest of the tree – maybe I can even find something which I can use to make tea.
It will be nice to drink something with a taste other than boiled water. I think wistfully of a bottle of whiskey, but then again, maybe better not. While I’m in a much better state emotionally-speaking than I was before I came here – which seems odd considering everything – having a bottle of whiskey around might be a bit too much of a temptation.
No, maybe a reward for succeeding with Flesh-Shaping should be for me to give myself the time to explore the edible plants in the environment: I’ve become sick of roast meat and potato and pondweed soup.
When my water boils, I take it off the fire and bring it outside with me, my make-shift oven-gloves doing enough of a job at protecting my hands that I don’t have to heal any burns when I set it down. Since we’re not having to rush off, I might as well let it cool down before adding it to my Inventory.
By this point the cubs have woken up and they’re playing together with Lathani outside. I can’t help observing them for a bit, particularly Lathani. Although her physical appearance hasn’t changed, her movements have. Even in the short time since her mum has started taking her out hunting, she’s learned an economy and grace of movement which is beautiful to see. And then she stumbles over her own paw and she’s the gawky half-grown cub again.
I wonder how long she’ll want to continue playing with the cubs. They’re so much younger than her in size. Though as I watch them, I realise how much the cubs have grown too. They’re more than twice the size they were when I met Bastet a month and a half ago. They’re still definitely cubs, but their bodies are changing too, lengthening and strengthening.
I should probably ask Bastet how long it normally takes them to mature, though I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to communicate the question well enough, or whether her answer will be helpful. Perhaps after she’s evolved she’ll be better at communicating. Actually, thinking that….
Bound – Companion – ‘Bastet’
Health units: 650/650
Mana units: 50/50
Stamina units: 280/280
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Progress to Tier 2: 98%
Lifespan remaining: ~1y 6m
I stare in surprise at the screen. Bastet is only two percent away from evolving. Alright, that settles it.
“Fenrir, Sirocco, can you keep an eye on the cubs for now, please? Alert me if they’re about to get into danger or run off into the forest, and you don’t think you’ll be able to stop them, OK?” Fenrir agrees happily. Sirocco, who I’ve identified as being settled in one of the trees, is less happy, but still willing. “Bastet,” I continue, sending wordless thanks down the Bond to the bird and lizog, “I want you to concentrate on getting enough Energy to evolve. Do you need another Heart?”
The raptorcat sends a sense of denial and gratitude down the Bond, as well as a touch of excitement. I don’t blame her: I’d be excited too if I was facing an unknown evolution. She goes and fetches the much-diminished Energy Heart that she obviously tucked away somewhere in the alcove, and settles down with it not far from the cubs. I guess that even with the reassurance that there are two sets of eyes watching out for her babies, she’s still not willing to leave them completely alone. Fair enough; as long as she is able to concentrate, it’s up to her to choose where she goes.
Now for my task.
“Ready, River?” I ask hopefully as he stands up from where he’s been crouching next to the half-eaten carcass in the shade, tearing bits of meat off with his claws and tossing them into his toothy maw.
Ready, he confirms and stands up. How do you wish to do this?
“Come over here and we’ll sit down together,” I tell him, having had a chance to think about it while waiting for my water to boil. “You need to tell me exactly how everything feels, if it hurts especially. In fact, if it hurts, interrupt me. Right now, I’m just going to try to move some of my mana from me to you, and then control it in your body.” I try not to think about how that could be misinterpreted; fortunately, River doesn’t seem to do so.
Instead, he just tilts his chin up and sends agreement over the Bond to me. Now, how to do this?
With Lay-on-hands I needed to actually physically touch my target to heal them. Although I doubt that that is a requirement of the new Skill, I decide to start there: it’s more familiar for me and maybe more familiar for my Energy channels, for all I know.
Going into my Core space, I do the mental equivalent of frowning as I consider the situation. I see two options here. Either I need to do something like I did before: find the right connection between me and River, and then send mana down it, or maybe I should send the mana to my hand, and then...let it seep into River’s skin by osmosis? Well, let’s try both, shall we?
Deciding to start with the second as I think that might be the easier one to test, I pull four beads of mana from my Core and focus on sending them to the fingers which are touching River. With my practice yesterday in this task, it’s relatively easy to get the beads to the right spot.
It’s harder to keep all the mana controlled once it has seeped out of my mana channels into my flesh, but I don’t see another way of doing it: My mana channels will move close to my skin, but I sense that they won’t go through it. Not the ones which curve back into the mandala, anyway.
Struggling to control the cloud of mana, I focus on pushing it closer to the barrier of my skin. From my Core space, my skin feels impossibly thick; my fingers enormous. The mana moves fast, though, and would move faster if I let it. I don’t, though: I fear that it would just fly completely out of control if I release my tight grip on it.
The barrier of my skin requires only a small push before it can be overcome, which is when I hit another barrier. This one holds against me for a moment, before it gives way. And then I’m suddenly in a new space.
The difference is relatively subtle. The Energy has a strange feel to it; my ability to navigate abruptly reduced. There is no resistance, though I sense that there could be. Perhaps because River is my Bound, I theorise. Or because he’s consented to this.
That my consciousness is somehow inside River is undeniable. Although I cannot sense all the details of his body, I do sense the outline of it. The differently shaped head, clawed fingers, elongated and clawed feet are all hallmarks of exactly where I am.
The mana I’ve passed into his body via osmosis is actually easier to control in River’s body than it is in mine, oddly enough: I’d have expected it to be the reverse, actually. In my own body, the mana always felt like it was eager to go. Whether it was zipping down my Energy channels and out of my body entirely, or, once it had seeped out of the Energy channels completely, into the luminous black space, my Energy always pulled at my control like a dog on a leash.
Here, it’s like that same dog is now uneasy in a new place and wanting to stick close to me. I have to exert more concentration on wading through the different Energy of River’s body than in holding my mana together. Still, since he’s not resisting me, it’s not difficult.
Wondering what I can do here, I start ‘wandering’ around River’s body with my little bead of mana, like a blood clot which has taken on a life of its own and decided to go see the sights.
As I ‘move’, I start getting more of a sense of River’s body. The veins and arteries that form a network around it to deliver vital nutrients. The lungs, differently shaped from my own, which do as good a job as mine does to oxygenate his blood. Better, even. The heart, again, slightly differently shaped and more centrally-placed than my own. The organs, mostly similar to my own, but not entirely, the appendix missing entirely and other organs added in.
I sense that after understanding comes the ability to modify, and resolve to do this kind of ‘scan’ in my own body. At the same time, I sense that my understanding is limited, perhaps due to the level of Flesh-Shaping or my knowledge of anatomy. I have no sense of how mana moves around River’s body, or how Energy interacts with his body to heal injuries.
Perhaps I need to study that in myself and others to be able to detect it more easily, I wonder. For once, the addition of a job to my to-do list doesn’t fill me with dismay, but excitement.
However, that’s for another time. Right now, I search to see if I can find any area which is less than healed. Eventually, I find a small scratch on his side. Perhaps it was from the tree yesterday as it already seems more than half-healed. Feeding the mana into it and concentrating on the flesh coming together and healing, I’m pleased to see my intentions take shape. Of course, it was only a relatively small amount of mana, and I seem to have lost some while ‘exploring’ River’s body, so just that action used it all up.
With no more mana to hand, I find myself being pushed inexorably back to my own body. Much as I fight, I can’t seem to find purchase on the odd Energy which surrounds me that I’d been using to navigate. No matter, I’ve learnt a lot.
Back in my body, I open my eyes and smile. A success, I think.