After they left the cave Penny and Leesie found themselves on a rocky shore. Waves crashed beneath them in walls of white spray. There was no sand or easy path in any direction. In the far distance,, Penny could make out the ruined castle she’d seen before, and beyond that a smattering of dots looked like tents. There had been a campfire there before, Penny thought.
Now it was gone.
A shiver sketched its way down her spine.
Penny looked right, and found herself noticing something, a collection of slate houses nestled into the cliffside, bordered by a few noble looking cypress trees standing sentry about a mile away
That had to be Bayrock.
“Okay, so. So we’ll get some fish for you and then head there and – ” Penny looked down toward Leesie, and then swore. “Son of a bitch.”
Leesie had stuffed Penny’s entire hand into her mouth, and because Penny’s sensory settings were so low, she hadn’t even noticed. Thankfully, Lessie hadn’t bitten down yet.
“I told you, you can’t bite me,” Penny said.
Leesie looked up at her with big, pleading eyes.
“Okay, I warned you.”
With her non-attacked hand, Penny navigated to her settings, and then brought everything down, slipping into her Astral form. Penny’s body went limp, falling over the rocks. There was a thump, and again, looking down at her body from above as it lay awkwardly one the stone.
Both her HP and MP ticked town.
HP:
[25/30]
MP:
[4/10]
Lessie began to cry.
Penny didn’t move her settings. She just waited. One second, then two seconds and then three.
Lessies cries got louder.
After ten seconds, Penny walked back to her body. As she moved, she kicked up a few pebbles in her wake, like she was a small wind. So she wasn’t entirely insubstantial. Interesting. And she felt a slight pull back towards her body.
In the corner of her vision a timer counted the seconds she could remain in her Astral form.
27 seconds.
Penny slipped back into her body, and stood.
Leesie cried in joy, and then scrambled up Penny’s legs like a spider monkey, pressing herself into Penny in a desperate hug. “Mamma. Mamma.”
“If you bite me,” Penny said. “I won’t leave forever, but I will take a small time-out, okay? So don’t bite”
Leesie pouted and looked away, but she didn’t lunge for Penny’s hand again. A blue box appeared.
RELATIONSHIP BONUS
You are now RESPECTED by Leesie Shoalheart. It can be hard to establish clear boundaries, but you’ve managed it! Leesie will now listen to you and be more likely to follow your orders. (You have gained one leadership point. You can access leadership points after completing The Tutorial.
Penny rolled her eyes, even as she felt a twist of nausea. Leadership points, this was the Academy all over again.
Yeah, she was just going to get food, find this girl’s village and then get out. Even if she didn’t have a mother there, there had to be someone who would care for her.
XXX
Finding food turned out to be harder than it looked.
“Ma, Ma, Ma,” Leesie babbled, playing the top of Pennys head like a bongo, as she rode on Penny’s shoulders as they picked their way down the coast. They’d been walking now for about twenty minutes.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
If this were a normal video game, there would’ve been a tidepool of conveniently placed fat, lazy carp, who swam slow enough you could grab them with their bare hands.
But Astrea wasn’t a normal video game. It really was more like a world, full of difficult terrain, that looked generated by centuries of sea eroding the shore, and not by a game designer. There were no convenient footholds. None that Penny could see yet anyway.
Finally, Penny found a trio of sea birds, cawing and swooping down a bit off the shore. When they came up, more than once something silver glinted in their mouths.
Fish.
Penny stopped. She needed a way to get those fish.
Her first thought was to simply swim out of them, then Astral project from her body, somehow kill-herself, and detonate her Supernova ability, but there were too many problems with that. The least of which was at the end of that, she’d be dead, and Leesie would still not have any fish.
She had another idea, but it was kind of crazy, and seemed unlikely to work.
“Mamma?” Leesie peered around Penny’s head, her nose almost butting against Penny’s
“Hi,” Penny said. “Still not your Mamma.”
“Mamma,” the girl echoed.
The girl’s voice was soft, and full of so much trust. It was odd. Penny had never met a character in an Oroborus game like this girl before. Prince wasn’t usually a man who believed in innocence.
It was almost like this girl had been generated by the world itself. It made her feel so real. It made Penny feel like if Leesie could trust her, maybe Penny could try, just for a second, to trust herself, too.
xxx
Five minutes later, Penny was kneeling on the edge of the rock, and bringing up her bare arm, against the sharp edge of it.
It was odd to watch her flesh cleave under the pressure, while feeling only a slight nausea. Still she kept up the pressure until she was left with shallow gash on her arm. More than big enough for Leesie to drink from.
HP:
[24/30]
“Okay,” Penny called to Lessie, who was standing on another rock, peering curiously at her. “I’m going to try something now, and if it works I think we’ll be able to get some fish, but if it doesn’t, and take a while to come back, I need you to feed on my body okay.”
The girl cocked her head.
“I know, I know I said not to, but if something happens you need to eat.”
The girl just shrugged her shoulders, holding her arms out.
Penny sighed. “If I don’t come back. I can be a snack.” Penny mimed chomping down on her arm.
Leesie looked suddenly panicked, and realizing that Penny was about to leave her body, lunged toward her.
“Stop. I promise I’m coming back”. Penny said. “I promise.” She gave Leesie one last hug, and then set her back down the rock.
That seemed to work, because the Leesie’s went back to quietly watching Penny.
[[Due to to your respect rating with Leesie Shoalheart, she will obey your command! ]]
Penny let out a sigh of relief, then she laid herself down on the rock. A wall of wet spray crashed above her. With a flick she brought all her settings down to zero, and Penny closed her eyes, stepped away from her body and jumped into the sea.
XXX
For a moment she was the air, a current of motion, a breeze in the wind. Then she hit the water. There was no splash, and she was surrounded suddenly by the murky green of choppy surf. Her skin felt like it was prickling with electricity, with focus.
She had to be quick. She only had thirty seconds.
With a single stroke, she came back to the surface, checked the position of the fish, and then swam towards them. Her body undulated, as she rode the flow of the water. She wanted to laugh.
She felt more like she was flying than swimming. In her Astral form the water gave no resistance at all.
Seconds later she reached the fish.
Penny swam closer, and a few flitted away in the shadows, flashes of silver, but more than a few stayed. They couldn’t see Penny, as her body wasn’t a body, but more of a force, like a wind. Which meant that now underwater it was a current.
And as a current, she could move the fish, without them even noticing.
God, it felt good to be the one moving things, instead of the one being moved.
But she had a problem.
There was a limit to her power. She could move the fish around within the water, but getting them out of the water was another story, She couldn’t have more than ten seconds left.
First Penny tried coming up from underneath the fishes and pushing them upward. But the best she got was moving them a few inches towrd the surface.
Worse, the more she pushed the fish to the surface, the more they resisted.
On her third try one flitted away, leaving her with only one more fish remaining. She felt a pulling sensation on her spine, as she if she was being dragged back to her body.
The last fish wiggled in terror, shooting away.
No.
Penny reached, strained, the water whirling around her insubstantial fingers, and then she brushed against the scales of the fish. There was a snapping feeling and –
Holy shit.
The world was suddenly so much wider, and slightly distorted, she could could feel water streaming through her gills, filtering hydrogen from oxygen.
Wait, her gills?
Penny flicked her tail and she knifed through the water, so fast, lean and small it was like she was a Ferrari.
A blue box appeared.
SOUL MAGIC ABILITY UNLOCKED
POSSESSION Lv. 1
STATUS: Unlocked
1/10 Players Have Unlocked This Skill Tree
You have learned how to meld your spirit with that of another.
Perks
Can manipulate the body of one creature or living thing who has intelligence no greater than half of your own.
Constraints
Possession lasts ten seconds for every level gained.
Projection has a cool down of ten minutes.
Must be within ten feet of your body.
Another blue box came up with the stats of the fish, but Penny ignored it. Instead she pushed herself in her fish’s body, to leap out of the water. The dry feeling of air against her scales was like fire, but she ignored it.
She even ignored the thwapping sensation as she landed on the rock, flailing. Then she went to adjust her settings, but as she did, she quickly realized she now had one very big problem.
She didn't have any hands.
Fuck.