Using a stick, I poke at the hide stretched on the frame in front of me. Prodding carefully, I stretch the crocodile skin in multiple places, then walk around the frame and start doing the same to the other side.

I’ve already done this process several times in the last few hours and expect to do it several times more. The hide is bound to the frame with my bark-fibre cord threaded through holes around the edges of the skin. Normally, I would have made those holes with my knife, but this is where my Flesh-Shaping has come in handy: with holes shaped instead of cut, there should be less chance of the hide ripping free.

The frame is standing in the middle of the cave. Using my chunks of wood, I created ‘feet’ for it. Two chunks are perpendicular to the frame and resting on the floor. The other four pieces of wood are braces, spanning the diagonal between the ends of the ‘feet’ and the frame itself.

When I first started doing this job, the feet worked perfectly well, stopping the frame from falling over. What happened instead, though, was that the force of my efforts made the whole thing slide back. To prevent that, I grabbed four big chunks of stone and placed them so that they hold the frame in one place. Now, I’m able to work uninterrupted.

With another two pokes with my stick, I’m done for this round. I feel the skin, then nod in satisfaction – the drying is coming along nicely. The fire I have burning cleanly at the end of the cave is doing exactly what I’d hoped – pulling in a strong draught from the door and sending its smoke out of the top hole. The wind helps the drying go faster, as does the warmth that fills the cave.

Putting my stick down on the ground, I walk back over to the fire, sitting down next to it and closing my eyes.

Since it’s my first time actually tanning something, I have to admit to feeling some anxiety over making sure everything goes well and don’t want to go too far away from my skin. Obviously, I also don’t want to waste time. So, I figure that trying to improve my magical abilities is a good use of the time between needing to stretch the skin.

Previously, I’ve just stared at the fire with my mental eyes, finding the fire heart and contemplating it. That has felt…it’s hard to say ‘productive’ when there is nothing to measure how things have improved. Yet I sense that, somehow, I have made progress. Each time I’ve spent more than a few minutes staring at the connections within the fire and between it and everything around, I’ve felt more…implicit. More like I’m not merely an observer, but actually part of the action, part of the dance.

Maybe that’s what the dream which woke me with flames licking at my ‘bed’ was about – the fire inviting me to join it properly.

This time, instead of looking at the fire heart, I just stare into the fire’s physical appearance. And for the first time, I think I might be catching glimpses of the world I usually only see when engaging in meditation. Flickers of connections seem to shift at the corner of my vision, the flames almost perfectly hiding the world I can normally only see with my mind’s eyes. Almost.

Thoughts go around my head but I don’t try to direct them much, merely let them come and go, my gaze soft and my mind unfocussed. It’s like star-gazing – try to look at them and they vanish. So instead, I just…relax. Invite them to be seen, to be known. To be acknowledged. But coaxed, not ordered.

Slowly, like the first hesitant licks of fire caressing a new piece of fuel, like the initial tentative connections built from the fire to its surroundings, ideas coalesce. My mind is taken back to talking through the fire triangle with River. Fuel, oxygen, heat. Necessary for a fire; just as necessary for me.

Are we that different?

I suffocate as easily as a fire, if I am buried below earth or my openings are blocked.

I starve just as a fire does if all my fuel is taken away from me.

I will freeze and expire if I have no heat to keep me moving and working.

Instinctively, I reach a hand out to the fire. I’m not afraid, not fearful of being burned. Because we’re the same and, as I’ve learned, all fire is the same fire.

The flames lick around my hand playfully, the dance of the physical matching the movement of the connections that I now see plainly, even with my physical eyes.

But all of that is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we are one.

A bubble of excitement rises inside me, a desire to dance, to make merry, to enjoy the present. For what is the past? What is the future? There is only the present. And in the present, we have everything we need, so why not dance?

We move together, the heat warming but not burning. Why would it burn? We are fire, we do not burn, we cannot. Everything else burns in our presence but we ourselves are exempt.

We realise that there is more fuel nearby, enveloping us. Hungry, always hungry for more, we start munching it happily.

But something is wrong.

What is wrong?

What is this ‘wrong’? Wrong does not exist. We feed, we consume, we live. That is all.

But no, something is wrong. The coverings are not fuel, are not food.

We hesitate for a long moment as we war with ourselves. All that burns is fuel, yet this can burn but is not fuel?

We pause, and in that pause become suddenly aware that we are not we. There is an outsider. Or we are an outsider?

Like a brick wall suddenly giving way to the heat of a house fire, my sense of self returns and fills me with cold fear.

I’m kneeling in the fire, having somehow crawled close enough to it to actually be in it. The flames which had been licking harmlessly at my skin suddenly burn me.

I yelp and push myself backwards. My clothes have caught fire; so has my hair and beard. Doing the old drop and roll, I keep going until I’m sure that all the fire is out.

A nasty smell fills the air – burnt hair is never pleasant. I suddenly can’t bear to be in the cave and quickly make my way out of it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

River is my only Bound present – the others have gone out hunting. I can tell they’ve been doing well with hunting: I’m already at nine percent towards my next level. OK, five of those are my daily accumulation over the last two days, but for me to have already another four percent just from the ‘tax’ on their kills, proves that they’re terrorising the forest.

Are you well, master? River asks with a hint of concern, glancing up from where he’s stirring a pot over his own fire. More concern goes through him as he looks at me properly. You’ve got something here, he says, raising his clawed fingers to brush under his long muzzle.

I lift my hand as a mirror image, finding that I have a much shorter patch of beard on one side. I pull my hand away from it quickly, not liking the reminder. Maybe I’ll have to properly shave just to get rid of it.

“Yeah,” I say, brushing myself down with slightly shaky fingers. It’s not every day I almost lose my sense of self completely. “How are your experiments going?” River eyes me, but then decides to go along with my obvious desire to change the subject.

Well. The, uh, reducing, seems to strengthen the potion, but it also reduces its quantity.

“Expected,” I comment, since that basically is the idea of reducing – getting rid of the dilution doesn’t change how much active product is in the brew.

Yes. He holds up a small bowl of liquid which is the same shade as the one I Inspected earlier but more opaque. This is what I was able to produce. The same mouthful seems to work at least three times as fast.

“Alright, let me see if I can get any information about this,” I comment with interest. As before, I trigger all three of my Inspect Skills, receiving a notification.

%otiµ% N&§e: $?ss¤r H%@l+n%

#n?&edie&t§: Aslebellum, Harash, Water

/§ff”cts: H%@l+n% for 11u of he§l§: #v&r 2 /@nu!es

S§&e-/§ff”cts: none

Close message? Y/N

Still a lot of gibberish, I sigh. And not even the same gibberish. If I’d thought there might be some sort of code within the messages, that hope is gone now as I compare the two notifications to each other. Even the words which are clearly the same don’t have the same symbols, or are made difficult to read in the same way.

I add trying to make my Inspect Skills to play more nicely together to my to-do list. Still, at least it appears the same actual words have been used so it doesn’t take me too long to work out what this notification is saying.

It seems like this potion is still classified as ‘Lesser Healing’, though its effects definitely are better. Eleven units of health over two minutes is a lot better than three units over five minutes. In fact, it’s even starting to verge on the useful – the healing is equivalent to one of my original Lay-on-hands casts, though significantly slower.

Assuming it can be used in conjunction with my Flesh-Shaping, it could help in the situation where I’m just not able to channel healing fast enough. Or, if I have multiple injured Bound, it could be enough to keep the lesser injured one in the game while I deal with the more injured one.

“Not bad,” I say to River. “Eleven units of healing over two minutes.” He makes a face of disgust.

Still very poor, he comments. The Herbalist could make concoctions with at least four times the healing power of that one with her eyes closed. I shrug, passing the bowl back to him.

“She is probably using magic to do so,” I point out. “On that front, any success?”

No, River admits. I’ve tried, but…I don’t even know where to start. I nod slowly. Honestly, if I hadn’t had to do all that work on my Core and then internal matrix, I probably wouldn’t have known where to begin with Flesh-Shaping either. I didn’t think I’d ever be glad about the damage the Pure Energy did, but the experience has taught me a hell of a lot.

“Maybe I can help you with that,” I suggest tentatively. “I’m not promising anything but…I’ve had some experience recently with using mana in different ways.”

I would appreciate it, River says with gratitude. I have tried your other suggestion of reducing the amount of venom.

“Has it helped?” I ask in interest. He makes his equivalent of a shrug.

Some. There are still the side effects. He holds up two bowls, both with black, lumpy liquid. Appealing. Not. This one is with half as much venom as I originally used. This other is with a quarter as much.

I use my Inspection Skills on the first potion, once more rolling my eyes at the gibberish that appears.

P§tiµn N&m!: Ac!?ic #?a§in@

§?gre&#e&ts: Aslebellum, Harash, (unknown) venom

Ef§”c&s: #?a§in@ for 25u of he§l§: #v&r 2 mi?u!§s

§id&-ef§”c&s: 6 acidic d#m!?e e/e%y mi?u!§ /or 4 mi?u!§s

Close message? Y/N

“It’s no longer classed as a Lesser Healing potion,” is the first thing I comment on with interest. Squinting, I try to work out what it is classed as. Ac something ic. Ac-ic. Acidic! Well, that makes sense, considering what River said.

Interesting that the venom is identified as ‘unknown’. Because I haven’t identified the creature it comes from? Perhaps.

The healing on this is much better even than the reduced health potion: twenty-five units over two minutes. But there’s something written in the ‘side-effects’ section. It takes me a little time to work my way through.

“Six acidic…dme…damage? That would work. So, six acidic damage something minutes? No, minute – there’s no ‘s’ at the end. Six acidic damage over…no, every minute for four minutes? Yes, that makes sense.” Which really sucks. Twenty-five units of healing for twenty-four units of damage.

I wonder why it’s not outright saying ‘health damage’. Maybe some creatures would be resistant to acid damage, so drinking this would be like a normal health potion? Perhaps.

I check the other potion, but it’s much of the same, just lower healing and commensurately lower damage.

“Seventeen health points healed over two minutes, but fifteen points of acidic damage in total over three minutes,” I tell River. He looks a little depressed, but not surprised.

Much as I thought, he comments a moment later, shaking his head.

I itch to give helping him a go, but I feel like I need to actually consider what’s just happened with the fire first before I start doing more new experiments with mana. What if the fire changed something inside me?

“Look, let me just work on something for a bit, then I’ll come and we can see what’s possible to do with mana. OK?”

I’ll be ready for you when you are, is River’s immediate response.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” I promise hoping that I’ll be able to keep it.