Within her mind she stood upon an island. This island held her and all the possibilities her stolen memories held. There was a forge, a training area, and all the water she could drink. To her this island was a paradise her place a peace. Wild flowers grew around the island and the temperature was perfect.

Below her island existed writhing pit. It was made of the individuality of those she devoured. Small pieces of them merged together and crawled for the surface. Its face was made of the grinning knights that enjoyed their conquests of female monsters in dungeons. Its armor a collaboration of leather and steel. Various heads of pigs hung loosely from it.

Their eyes empty as this beast piled up the refuse of her meals to bring itself to her consciousness. It took parts that meshed together with it and climbed higher. This monster was the vengeance of her victim’s, her penance for her gluttony. Yellow eyes covered the beast as tendrils ripped lesser individualities apart and made its way up from the depths.

It looked at her and she looked back. The more she consumed the closer it would get to her and the longer reaching adulthood would take. It was a balancing act, a curse from the gods to limit her strength. As a descendent of a great monster, perhaps she deserved it.

“I will keep up.” It was her mantra. As fearsome as the monster was, her guilt would be far worse if she abandoned her path. If she was to stand beside her Markus, then balancing on a knife’s edge wouldn’t do. She needed to jump over and embrace what she was. Trixie turned her back on the monster and declared it inconsequential.

It roared and squealed to gain her attention. But she couldn’t be bothered with something like fear. 1000 minds existed within her. More than any mind flayer recorded. It wasn’t enough. So, she decided to start trimming the fat.

Her goal was to be Markus’s assassin, lover, healer, and priestess. Any skills or memory that didn’t help with her class was useless. Memories and knowledge were ejected and torn asunder. Anything that didn’t look useful was discarded.

Once the first culling was finished, it was time to go over it all with a fine comb and illuminate the rest.

Other mind flayers prided themselves with the variance in their skills. A skill for every situation that was their modo. It was the safest path for them to tread.

Safe was weakness. A bunch of skills that couldn’t go together would give you plenty of options but little direction. Anatomy, bestiary, knowledge of herbs, surgery, charming, and political maneuvering were kept. Abilities like fire, water, earth, metal, life, and qi were kept. Every weapon training skill was kept. How to correctly spit a water melon seed wasn’t kept. She tossed out knowledge on how to bait a trot line in favor of knowing how to clean the fish. Trixie learned several buffing spells and forgot the recipe for cake. Child hood memories were thrown away. She had no use for the smell of truffles. The social networking of the wild psychic boars was kept.

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When she finished, she stood taller than before. Her tentacles were shorter, and the monster had gained enough enough trash to rise to her level. It roared at her and charged like an animal.

She was a mind flayer and had the flexibility of one who’s bones were made of cartilage. Trixie could see the beasts moves before it made them. It was chaos darkness itself and that was its weakness. With no direction it would never be able to touch her. Pillars of black flames chased her, and she leapt between them.

Holding up her hand a rapier appeared made of her memories of Markus. It was darkness directed and sharpened to a destructive point. The beast shot out whipping tendrils and Trixie cartwheeled behind it, casting illusions on the beast.

It turned around and struck with all its might. Then it slammed its head down to devour something. Trixie aimed her rapier and stabbed it forward. Her weapon pierced through the beast’s back striking at the heart of the monster. It crumpled in a mess of tentacles trying to put the body back together.

She held a hand up and focused on creating a single fireball. Once formed, she launched it at the creature. It caught fire and screeched as it burned alive. Trixie grinned at the noise.

Trixie watched the chaos around her little island of consciousness. Other monsters were watching they were craftier than this one. They waited to see if it could beat her. She tossed a fireball on the pile of refuse. It caught fire and soon spread. Once it was gone only the strongest of the beasts remained. The first stage was complete

She opened her eyes to the waking world. There were char marks all over the walls, she tasted blood I her mouth. No, her teeth were sunk into something. It was Markus’s arm. She opened her mouth to see the wounds from her teeth healing quickly. Light snoring from Markus told her all she needed to know.

He hadn’t woken up through the whole debacle. Most likely he trained to exhaustion again. Trixie go up and stretched. Walking past the hole covered wall she visited the restroom shortly. She was hungry again and she knew the cause. The beasts within her were irritating her hunger to get more garbage to increase their power and climb to make their way to her.

Trixie looked herself in the mirror. She had grown a foot and her tentacles were off the ground again. Not only that but her hips were wider. She wasn’t a mammal so no tits thankfully. Her frame was so small they would look silly.

Two more of those episodes and she would be an adult. She would need to eat even more to find the skills she would need as an adult.