After the unsettling encounter with the morel-turtles I hurried back the way I’d come, out of the mushroom forest towards the open wetlands.
Ahead I saw more shapes moving. As I approached through the haze of spores they resolved into more of the revolting mushroom-tortoises. I circled around the first few, giving each a wide berth, but soon found myself confronted by a quietly shambling horde.
I hadn’t noticed any of the herd I met outside giving chase, but nor had I passed many of the morels on the way into the forest. They had to have followed me en-masse out of the wetland, tracking me into the fungal labyrinth.
But why chase me if they weren’t going to keep up? Had I not turned back I’d have left them far behind.
If they were planning on attacking me then the wetlands had been as good a place as any. They also made no move to attack or approach; in fact they waddled away as I approached.
Judging by the one I’d left feeding so gruesomely up ahead, these were scavengers, so why follow live targets at all?
Perhaps the spores filling the air were meant to kill me. If so my pursuers would likely be disappointed.
It was as I was cautiously skirting around the creatures that a call reverberated from somewhere behind me. The source was deeper into the blighted landscape, back towards the scene of my earlier confrontation. Not one of the morels, but something else entirely.
The cry undulated, rising and falling with an inhuman trill that made the hairs of my neck bristle. Carried with it on the soupy air there came the sensation of mana, powerful magical essence spreading out through the trees. Quite unlike the mana of the Harpies, it was thick and viscous, with a malevolent edge that was utterly alien.
Slaying the scavenger had roused something else; something worse.
Well I wasn’t so foolish as to let a hostile creature stalk me from the murk of the fungi-woods while I simply stood around mindlessly. As the echoes of the call faded I was already incanting.
A shape slipped between deep shadows, standing taller than I by a foot, but many times more massive.
Keen sight negated the cover of darkness, but I wasn’t glad of that.
My eyes defined a hairless, fleshy animal with a powerful build. Its skin was smooth and slick, pale green and grey blotched with darker patches, blooms of necrosis as if its body were spoiling beneath the surface. Was it not still moving I’d have taken it for the decaying corpse of some aquatic beast.
Perhaps it was just that, and my true enemy was some parasite that had overtaken it. Could it be the mature stage of the organisms within the morels? Or the result of the ‘feeding’ I witnessed earlier?
The creature emerged into the open, prowling forwards on four legs like some warped hound, larger than even a bear, a long tail streaming behind it. It called again, a painful, choked sound like a death rattle.
Where a head should have been the mottled flesh gathered up like an empty sheath, as if the thing had once had a skull but the flesh had sloughed away from the bone, expelling it to leave a ball of skin and meat that ended in a gaping blossom of black meat.
From that repulsive flower there grew branching red fronds of flesh, emerging like stamens. The root-like growths waved in the air, curling and extending, probing towards me with eyeless sight.
The body below the neck was little better. The hide was pockmarked with holes riddling the back and shoulders, each oozing with sludge as if it was rotting from within. In some, round shapes nestled, like buds preparing to sprout. Others already had, pushing up on thin stems, a forest of oily black spheres, glowing faintly with a dark radiance from the accumulation of mana in each.
The monstrosity gurgled as it sprung forwards, the tendrils from its ‘head’ whipping out to grab me!
Just the thought of those groping appendages against my bare skin was disturbing. I dug into the undergrowth as I thrust my legs, kicking up chunks as I leapt low to one side, towards the cover of the nearest mushroom trunk.
The attacker was fast enough that it could have kept up with Karlya, but worse it could stop and start with supernatural ease, even on the soft mushroom floor. Judging by the mana released as it moved it was creating footholds for itself with some supernatural power.
As I landed it was already changing direction to sprint towards me again, trees of worming tendrils spasming out at me. With the soft footing dodging took me many times longer; I couldn’t evade it.
Tendrils whipped around my arm, gripping tight. I unleashed the magic I’d been charging.
A dazzling flash announced the electrical discharge, surging through my foe, lightning raking the beast and its surroundings alike.
The grasping appendage sizzled, the surface cracking and burning, the furcated limb convulsing in anguish and tossing me through the air as if hurling away the source of its torment.
I landed on my feet, skidding on the soft ground until another mushroom stopped my slide.
The fully charged spell could reduce even giant war machines to molten slag. I’d been forced to release it early, but even with only a few seconds to cast and charge the spell, the energy should have been enough to fry most enemies.
Yet the creature seemed enraged more than injured, tentacles lashing the air in agitation.
It sprung once more, impossibly fast on the soft ground, leaving no time for me to sidestep, let alone incant.
I grabbed the stem of the huge mushroom behind me, fingers sinking into the flesh to launch myself upwards, contacting the trunk again high above the monster as it slammed into the plant, crushing the fleshy side of the stalk and setting the mushroom swaying unstably.
My fingers and toes dug into the stalk. Green sap oozed out, threatening to dislodge me, but I’d won myself a moment. I voiced a simple, rapid chant, racing to finish before I lost my grip.
The rock I created took shape in midair even as my hands lost hold of the weeping trunk. I grabbed the improvised weapon and kicked off the mushroom, soaring over the hunter to land behind it, the abused ‘tree’ toppling with a crash and a blossoming cloud of spores.
The predator turned slowly, forking tentacles lashing the air like a hundred snakes tasting for scent – for prey. They found me.
Should I have encountered such a monstrosity with my previous form I’d have been disgusted, horrified even – anyone would – but now there was an added focus to the dread.
Never had I felt so naked. My body, the body I had come to love, so powerful and beautiful, felt suddenly vulnerable, terribly exposed. My sensitive skin was bare, unprotected from the invading appendages that groped towards me.
If it caught me, what would it do? There would be nothing to stop the tentacles piercing into me, spreading the seeds of its disease and decay into my body, violating me in ways I couldn’t even understand… making me into… that….
It charged.
My throw came a moment after it kicked off, the manufactured projectile giving a dangerous sound as it cut the air fast as a bullet.
More accustomed to my body as I now was, my aim had greatly improved compared to when I fought Ael. I even managed to hit this time!
The stone shattered on impact with the monster’s shoulder, fragments perforating and lacerating the muscle, exposing festering black flesh that bled a slick of dark blood. Stumbling as it landed, the creature was sent sprawling with a shrill wail.
I thought that would be it; the beast would turn and flee. Or if not, or at the least give me the opening I needed for the follow-up spell I was already reciting. What I hadn’t expected was for the creature to back off and gather its own mana, the spheres on its back glowing brighter.
With no idea what magic or supernatural powers it might command I had to kill it before it finished… whatever it was trying to do.
Sacrificing power to speed the completion my magic finished first. A broad tongue of fire blossomed in the air a few inches from the palm of my outstretched hand, a swirling wave of raging orange and red leaping out to engulf my foe.
I was prepared for it to survive the first hit, perhaps even to try to fight back, despite grave wounds. Seeing the monster emerge from the conflagration with only surface burns was shocking.
All around it the mushroom carpet was reduced to ash, yet while its hide had blistered and blackened, the wounds were all shallow; surface-level burns.
The monster straddled the border between what I could conceive as life and the realm of death and decay, yet despite all appearance of fragility its gruesome flesh was shockingly tough. It wasn’t just fire and electricity that had failed to take good effect – the rock I threw should have destroyed at least a limb, tearing through the nightmare creature as if bursting an overripe fruit.
The only enemy I’d faced with a stronger body was the Stormqueen herself.
The black spheres growing from my foe’s back were intact too, overflowing with power now. Before I could attack again they grew brighter, giving a dazzling wash of light, followed by deep darkness.
But when I could see again nothing had changed. It must have tried to cast a spell and failed due to the pain of its injuries. I wasn’t going to give it another chance.
Intensifying the magic I’d used before I loosed another burst of flames, but it leapt aside, dodging the comparatively slow-moving fire. It knew better than to let me keep hitting it.
Putting in as all the energy the incantation could accept, I formed another shot.
The attacker sprinted forwards again, trying to close the distance. I was ready to fire, but I held off a moment, delaying the completion of the magic. Sharpening my focus I watched its movements.
Touching down with all four legs a few yards away, the monster leapt at me, body momentarily aloft and unable to dodge. I wore a grim smile as I unleashed the blaze I’d prepared. Even if it could create the perfect footing from the mushy ground, that magic would do nothing if there was no ground under it at all.
The flames spread out, a twisting, roaring cloud whose heat I could feel on my skin. After a few seconds the conflagration dissipated, revealing several incinerated mushrooms, toppling with a series of crashes after the obliteration of large chunks of their stems.
Scanning the devastation my victorious smile slipped as I found no trace of my target, no clump of charcoaled remains that could confirm my win.
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A moment later cold forms clutched my body. Chilling proboscises slick like viscera ensnared my arm and chest, coiling around my breasts and neck!
The worming appendages pushed and plied at my skin as if seeking entry, the red flesh stinging where it grasped at me, the scent of undergrowth and carrion filling my lungs. One of the branches was tightening around my throat, slithering its way towards my mouth with revolting insistence.
I couldn’t even see my attacker. Somehow it had grabbed me from behind with terrifying power. The tentacles were muscular and loaded with mana, supernaturally strong and pliable, stretching rather than breaking, yet tougher than steel.
Another branch caught hold, entangling my legs, deathly fingers of engorged meat pressing up my thighs. There was no eroticism to the maddening intrusion – the thing meant only to violate me, to invade and defile my body; to corrupt everything I treasured about myself!
My teeth clenched against the tongue of cold flesh that pushed at my lips.
I recalled the whips that had bound me on the surface, almost leading to my death.
I’d overcome them. No foe I’d faced yet could overpower me, and this sickening monstrosity wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t let it.
One of the tendrils closed around my back, pressing something far colder to my skin. The monster gave an alarmed trill, its grip slackening for a moment.
It was enough; I tore myself free, tearing and ripping the monster’s body, tentacles snapping between my hands.
Rending the limb from around my throat I screamed in rage and fear, acrid blood splattering my bare skin and staining my flesh.
The rest of the tentacles retreated as a blind kick behind me caught something, wetting my calf with sticky blood. The presence was gone before I could even turn to face it.
Anger, determination and humiliation mixed together as I searched for my attacker.
“Come out and fight me, you coward!” I shouted, vaguely aware but uncaring that the monster likely couldn’t understand any language, let alone English.
I caught movement as the thing was already springing for me once more. Digging into the soft ground I met the leap with all my strength behind my fist.
The creature seemed to blink out of existence before my punch landed, as if it had teleported.
My suspicion was confirmed as tendrils caught my trailing ankle, pulling me off-balance, the monster behind me once more.
I overpowered its grasp before more limbs could take hold, but it kept advancing. I shot another plume of flames and it teleported away again.
After that it kept its distance, using its mobility.
Each time it attacked I met it with fast, simple spells to counter, and each time it vanished again – it was too fast and aggressive for me to recite more complex incantations between attacks and my horrible footing made it impossible to rely on dodging long enough to prepare a stronger spell.
My enemy was impossibly quiet, not a sound coming from its footfalls, even when it was about to strike. The supernatural effect it was creating to gain traction seemed to deaden the impacts to an inaudible level.
That left me no way to find it but sight – I had mere moments to spot it after each jump before it was upon me again, the tireless attacks unrelenting. If I was too slow the tentacles would entangle me.
I tried to feel its mana, for some sign of it running low, but the sensation of its mana had grown diffuse, impossible to get a clear read on, as though it were coming from all around me.
Even if I could stop its teleportation, its body was tough enough that half-hearted attacks would do little damage and the tentacles I'd destroyed seemed to have already regenerated.
The situation wasn’t dire yet however. The monster it was quick to withdraw the coiling limbs that tried to trap me should I threaten to trap them instead, and it only lashed out with a few at a time, careful not to over-commit.
Whenever it struck there was an exchange of blows, grappling with each other, the vile creature retreating if I got too strong a grip on its slick, oily mouthparts. For all its mana and magic the depraved beast couldn’t overcome my sheer strength.
But I could overcome its tricks by leveling the playing field.
The land was mostly flat, but even so there were small undulations and dips. I made for the lowest point of the shallow valley, luring my attacker into a wide bowl in the terrain.
In the moment after the predator’s next teleport I summoned a great flow of water from my outstretched palm. It was one of the first spells I’d seen in Arcadia, the same magic that Agytha used to fill my bath, but with hundreds, thousands of times more mana poured into it.
The flood spread out, a satisfying tidal wave that rushed in all directions, the monster teleporting to evade it – but my goal wasn’t to drench my enemy; it was to alter the battlefield itself.
Through another exchange I maintained the spell, the vast outpouring soaking into the spongy ground and rising up above the carpet of fluted trumpet stalks. In mere seconds the landscape was submerged under enough water to form an entire lake.
With no more ground to tread the monstrosity would lose its advantage in speed, and with so much water to push through I’d hear it a mile away – the fight was as good as mine.
Or so I’d believed.
Aghast, I watched the thing run atop the flood, its magic letting it walk on water just as easily and silently as it had on land.
Yet I was up to my chest in murky water and mud, making it even harder for me to fight the grotesque being. My brilliant plan had backfired.
It charged again, the water leaving me no avenue of escape but upwards. I jumped over the monster, clearing its shoulder and the forest of glowing nodules, even as I sent an icicle lancing down at the beast to spear it.
The creature vanished once more before the blade hit, but before it did I noticed something.
The shoulder I’d passed over was the same one that I’d hit before, but the wound looked all wrong. Given the way its tentacles had replenished themselves I might have expected that injury to have also healed, but the glimpse I got was not a wound healing, but a totally different injury. Not an impact where a rock crushed and tore the flesh, but a trio of elongated slashes as if claws had lacerated the putrid meat.
My distraction was a mistake.
My jump had left me airborne, unable to dodge follow-up attacks.
Even as I fell back towards the water tendrils engulfed my legs, slamming me down into the mire below.
I struggled, kicking and pulling at the appendages, but the chilling branches of flesh ensnared me, countless dead hands dragging me onto my back and forcing me down into the flooded mass of mushrooms, pushing my chest and head beneath the waves, the morass closing over me!
Writhing and slimy as they were, I couldn’t get a grip on the greasy whips binding me, the repulsive forking tendrils assaulting my body, trying to force their way into my mouth once more.
Every time I caught hold of one it would pull back, another replacing it, the monster keeping me under the surface, never letting me up for air no matter how I struggled.
I was choking on the water, spluttering for snatched gulps of oxygen amid my thrashing and writhing. The monster loomed over me above the surface, a forest of red branches descending, groping to catch my arms too.
It meant to drown me.
In the dire moment of that realization, even as fear was gripping my mind, something floated up between my attacker and I, and for a moment I thought I’d gone mad.
It was the block of frozen fish I’d caught earlier that day, bobbing to the surface of the water.
The creature recoiled as the miniature iceberg bumped up against one of its branching tentacles, the fork assaulting my mouth and neck withdrawing, making it possible for me to force my head up, the water parting around my face.
I gasped for air, spitting out black brackish water, but the serendipity had bought me only a moment.
The sight of the claw-wound on its shoulder focused my mind.
Setting aside the bizarre discrepancy, why hadn’t it healed? The beast’s tentacles were all intact even after I’d ripped apart a dozen of them, yet that one wound remained.
Understanding came to me, even as I was struggling against the nest of fleshy hands trying to drag me back into the depths.
The monster had more tentacles than it was using to pin me, but while they squirmed and twisted menacingly, the extras never tried to actually grip me. I’d thought it was just being cautious, afraid to over-commit and suffer more painful wounds, but what better time to use them than now?
Surprising the creature with a burst of strength I grabbed at one of the appendages that hung back – and my hand passed straight through it without a trace of resistance.
There was only one way out.
I began another incantation, fighting desperately against the clustered tongues that were reaching towards my throat and mouth to drag my head back under; if I let it stop my sorcery I was dead.
Fresh strength filled my arms as I fought off the tendrils, ripping and snapping any I caught hold of, the monster giving anguished alien shrieks but not backing off this time, still trying to force me back under the black churning waters.
I held my concentration, forcing the words out against the resistance of the incantation. The magic was almost done.
It knew something was about happen. Giving up on forcing my head back down, it yanked my legs out from under me, raking me through the muck by my ankles, my head slipping once more into the sickening mull. I kicked and clawed at it blindly, but the disgusting predator refused to let go, my spell teetering on the verge of disintegration as the water threatened to flood my mouth and stifle the final words.
Scraping against soaking turf and rock my fingers caught a boulder and sunk into the stone. Tearing off a chunk I hurled it at the creature with all the force I could muster. The beast disengaged; I was free!
The monster had teleported away once again, rather than take the hit to its main body – that was how it appeared – but I knew better now.
Without a moment to spare I rose from the lake, mud and tangles of roots slopping off my head and shoulders. A chunk of mushroom had gotten into my mouth. I ignored it, all my concentration on the spell. I uttered the final line.
A ring of frost swept out, dusting water and mushrooms alike with crystals that grew to a thick hoar.
That was merely the shockwave - the real spell had only begun.
Mana shaped the water around me, ethereal crystalline structures of supernatural essence spreading invisibly outwards from my body, aligning the particles around me and leeching away the heat in an instant, mana rushing through the waters as I turned the flooded landscape to solid ice.
I was already chanting another spell as I heard the splash of something moving, leaping as the spreading freeze threatened to engulf it. Straining my ears I listened for the thud of a landing.
As it sounded it gave me my target. I met it with a spire of jagged ice, bursting up from the fungal glacier to impale the attacker through the chest, an unearthly screech announcing that I’d hit the mark!
An empty patch of air melted into shimmering mana as the illusion dissolved, revealing the true body of my enemy, the monster reappearing, run through by the attack.
This version had the impact wound I’d dealt it, rather than the slash of claws, but it also bled from the ripped and twisted tendrils which I’d broken, none of which had regenerated.
It all made sense if the monster couldn’t directly see the damage I’d dealt it. If it only knew that it had been injured, that its shoulder hurt from some impact, it would have no way to know its illusory double was displaying the wrong type of injury.
Hiding its true position and obfuscating its mana, the predator sent illusions to attack, to misdirect and manipulate my movements while lining up its actual attacks with the fabrications. That was why it seemed to move so silently, why it healed so rapidly.
The impaled monster writhed and wailed with its strange ululations, echoing off the arctic landscape. The glow in its spherical protrusions was fading and the movements of its nest of worming limbs had grown pained.
I wiped sludge from my mouth and eyes as I watched it. “I guess you really hate ice, huh? Probably never even seen it down here before today….”
I’d experienced enough of this place that I didn't let my guard down. I had no pity for the sickening thing after what it tried to do to me. I could still feel the lingering grip of those horribly powerful tendrils on my neck and thighs.
Taking my time I charged mana into a spell, until it was at the very limit of my control. I’d have to touch my assailant one last time, but I’d make sure there was nothing left. I would give it no second chance to recover and chase after me again.
Tendrils twitched languidly as I approached across the frozen surface.
With a scream I struck, fist caving in the beast’s chest and unleashing explosive lightning, bathing the monster in my mana. Forking tendrils of my own violated the body of my attacker, shredding the inky black innards and bursting the thing open with a blinding flash, the discharge burning up all organic matter it struck until the monster was reduced to cinders.
Even the glacier around it evaporated away, nothing remaining but a crater in the ice and molten bedrock at the bottom.
Nearby, one last surviving mushroom-tree toppled, after a stray frond of lightning had arced to strike it.
The thud punctuated the end of the fight.
I took a deep breath, then another, looking around for any signs of other enemies.
Dimly I recalled the scavengers that had been pursuing me.
Most of the morel-turtles that had lingered nearby were dead, frozen solid in the ice. In the distance I spotted a few survivors scattering into the haze of spores floating on the air. It was as if they’d seen their champion defeated and feared they might be next.
The diversion had lost me too much time already, and even if the morels wanted to chase me, I doubted they could keep up once I was on solid ground.
Ignoring them I checked myself over for any injuries, then recovered my frozen fish.
They were locked in the sheet of ice, but it was easy enough to break them out. I laughed as I looked at the block of preserved meat that had been living animals a few hours earlier. I’d never imagined that dead fish could save my life.
With that I continued retracing my steps back out of the fungal forest before any more of the illusory hunters came.
~~~
The wetlands were just where I’d left them, a welcome relief when I reached them at last. There were still a few morels around, but they made no efforts to interfere with me as I ran by, throwing up a spray of water.
I kept my speed up the whole way through the huge flood plain. The ‘easy’ way out of the wetlands had been via the mushroom forest, but with that route proving so hostile I was making for the seemingly harder path; the cliffs that bordered the submerged terrain on the other side. Had I known what I'd face in the forest I would have taken the cliffs in a heartbeat.
They were quite a sight, rising up hundreds of yards over the glowing pools where herds of less gruesome fungal creatures grazed.
With a rugged face pocked by caves, the cliffs were home to a surprising array of life, including glowing creepers that lit the surface in blues and greens. Many of the bat-like creatures that flittered about the roof of the cavern seemed to nest in the smaller holes, while from many of the larger ones there vented waterfalls, cascading down the rocks.
They were minute when one looked back at the gargantuan floods emerging from the roof of the cavern, but still they were producing enough water to wear smooth channels through which they descended the rock face. All around them clusters of ferns and mossy plants burst from any open crevices, their light tracing out the paths of the water.
To an ordinary human the cliff would have been a challenge – the water made the stone slippery, even slimy in places where algae-like growth formed a slick layer – but I was no ordinary human. Ael and Shukra had made that abundantly, mercilessly clear.
But while I could clear the hurdle easily, I paused, a thought coming to me.
Certainly I could climb up with a little effort, but was the same true of others? There were many hostile creatures around in the underground world I found myself lost in; the caves might provide good shelter.
A place to stop and rest, wash myself off and eat my life-saving fish. Perhaps even allow any pursuit to pass me by, after I’d confounded them by travelling through the water for miles.
My body could keep going with ease, but the idea of a rest, a chance to recover from the many trials I’d faced and overcome, was too compelling to resist.
I only had to close my eyes to see the corpse-like hands of the centipede-people, or feel the piercing grip of the monster around my body, and taste the fetid water choking my lungs.
What I wanted more than anything was to curl up somewhere out of the way and out of sight, somewhere I could feel safe for a while, and have some food. If I’d been hungry earlier I was famished now.
The cave I chose for that purpose was one two thirds of the way up, difficult to see from below thanks to the way the stone curved out, impossible to detect from above unless one were to lean out several foot past the cliff edge. It had the added advantage of lacking any flowing water emerging from its lip. Better still, it had a bend a short way past the entrance that would allow anyone inside to hide from view, even if someone were to look in from a distance.
The ascent proved tricky mostly because I was trying not to leave any visible markers of my passing. I was able to obfuscate my trail by climbing up through a waterfall, driving my digits into the rock behind the rushing water.
Initially I’d hesitated to submerge myself after my recent experiences with water, but it was very different when I knew the only danger was that I might slip and end up back at the bottom of the cliff. After Grand Chasm I was confident I had nothing to fear from a fall whose bottom I could see.
By the time I reached the top I was actually quite enjoying the much-needed hybrid bath and shower.
Emerging, dripping wet but clean, I explored the interior of the small cave. The floor was scattered with dried vegetation similar to straw, clumps of a fluffy grey material like down piled up in one corner. Towards the back the stone narrowed to a small crack and a cluster of eggs lay empty, the transparent casings slightly dusty, as were most of the surfaces away from the entrance. Apparently I’d discovered an abandoned nest.
Settling in for what I decided felt like the ‘night’ I made a bed for myself from the soft materials and got to work on my dinner, defrosting the fish with the same spell Chione had used to heat water for me.
Actually cooking my fish was more difficult, if I wanted to avoid burning them.
Based on my simple illumination spell I improvised an enchantment to generate a hovering fire like a wisp. It could move about by my will but I had to repeat the incantation regularly to stop it burning out and the flame lacked any setting other than ‘on’, making cooking with it a challenge.
Even so, once the scent of crisping skin and fish oil hit my nose my mouth was soon watering.
I tore into the first of my catch while the others were cooking, the meat bursting with juices in my mouth. It was undercooked in the middle, almost raw, and wanted for seasoning, but to me it tasted divine.
It was only as I caught a sour taste after a big bite that I realized I’d forgotten to remove the guts from my catch. Rather than attempt to take them out now I just ate around them, letting the bones guide me.
After eating I collected up the carcasses, freezing them into another block and hurling it as far out into the wetlands below as I could. With my strength that was pretty far. I did wonder if they might give me away with their smell, but locked in ice as they were there shouldn’t be any trail through which an enemy might connect them to my cave, high up the cliff.
It was impossible to tell the time, but after my makeshift feast I felt a weariness that demanded sleep. Curling up amid layers of down and straw I was glad to oblige. After cooking the cave felt pleasantly warm and the bedding was very soft.
It was no guest room at the Eyrie, with a roaring fire and furs to snuggle under, but given how my day had started – and how it had proceeded to go – I felt I was doing quite well for myself.