[Jolt]. [Jolt]. [Jolt]. The hairs of electricity that crackled between her claws filled the air with static, but Lisa barely noticed them. Her focus was directed inward.
Rose had told her to create a ‘shell’ around the Tower essence that was a part of her mana, but the mind was no static thing. The same way she’d learned to create her spells every time she cast one of them, until it became a ‘Skill,’ she now had to learn to add a shell, too.
It meant walking backward, retracting her steps, facing the worst of the difficulties in altering Skills you already possessed.
But as she did it, she became more and more familiar with the magic inside of her, the Tower essence, Dwarf’s essence, or East, as Rose called her.
Mana was flexible. Incredibly so. As much as, if not more so than, reality essence. She certainly found it easier to use. But that flexibility came with a malleability, like clay, metal, or a brain. It developed forms not unlike the patterns of the flesh, yet firmer, fixed in stone.
It was similar to reality essence. As well as something else. Almost like an alloy …
Something Ara had said stirred in the recesses of her mind. A memory. Pain clawed its way up her skull like pegs pulling her bone together—
Lisa winced and shifted her weight.
“Focus,” Rose reminded her, pulling her back into the moment on the grass beneath the Sky Forum, where Lisa had returned to every day of the week for her house arrest.
The sun had begun its descent, painting the grass yellow. A few dragons lounged in their seats above to have discussions before dinner. Their distant voices quaked the air, firm and reassuring. So different from the silent murmurs of libraries and study halls.
“Don’t waver. Actively acknowledge this moment,” Rose instructed her, “yourself, your actions, the spell. The less you focus, the longer it will take.”
Of course, she was right, but her mind liked to drift. It was used to wandering, stuck inside a human body for the last few years, and she’d been casting these all day—cantrips.
The magic of a foreign divinity nestled inside of her! Part of her was as terrified by that as her family had impressed on her she should be, but another part was intrigued. She would rather explore its nature than the painstaking monotony of spells her siblings could master.
Any memory involving Ara would be more painstaking, but if the Tower essence itself was an alloy, it meant she had more than one lead …
‘East,’ Rose had called the Dwarf. A name. Or a title?
The Eonian Empire had spanned across two continents, from the ocean west to Lin to the one east of their own continent. It had been so large, its rule had been split among four Ladies, each claiming dominion over, and named after, a cardinal direction.
Eight hundred years ago, East Eonia had been an island in the ocean not far from the Five Cities, before it had been obliterated. Nothing but remnants and its colonies had remained. Could she have survived that?
Rose was here. Lisa could ask her …
[Jolt].
Electricity crackled. Lisa pointedly looked away and wrapped the spell in a shell of her own mind.
Why did it matter? Why was everyone so hung up on the past? Allison, the Tors, her family … The Heswarens, at least, didn’t care. And Lisa wouldn’t, either. She would protect her friends no matter what others thought of them.
“Perhaps a break is in order,” Rose said in a softer tone. Surprised, Lisa looked up and found her aunt studying her with a concerned expression.
“You look frustrated. I know I’m hounding you, but you can’t expect to complete this task in a matter of days, Lisa.”
Almost habitually, she glanced at her claws but there was no electricity there. “It’s more that I expect better of myself. Why did I lie about knowing [Jolt] as a Skill?” It almost made her laugh. “I practiced conjuring sparks for weeks to cover for that fib. Now I’m wasting my days here, all so I could put a word on a page proving I can summon sparks. ‘Wow. So impressive!’” Lisa sighed. “Idiot …
“I wonder if I could consolidate them into [Minor Evocation] somehow. How do the minor arcane even work, spiritually speaking?”
At least, zapping Ryan in their sparring matches had been fun. He’d squirm. And rote learning was a familiar pastime to her by now.
… Really, she was conflating two frustrations to cover for her distraction. Rose deserved better than that lie, but Lisa didn’t want to direct any more eyes toward Micah than necessary. He deserved to live in peace.
“We all make mistakes,” her aunt said. “Life is about adaptation, external or internal. I think what you are doing is commendable, Lisa.”
Her guilt writhed like a ball of worms. Why was there no way to protect her friends and do right by her family?
“You really don’t need to keep me company, you know? What about your … suit? ‘Dreamsuit?’” It had seemed so important to her when Lisa had visited her lab. And not just her.
She glanced at a small group of her aunts and uncles who had conjured their air thrones together to lounge and chat. They had tried to coax Rose into a conversation earlier, when Lisa had been taking a lunch break, and failed.
“Surely, there has to be interest in your project? Do they want to collaborate?”
“They …” Rose looked and trailed off. One of her aunts noticed them and caught her eye, but she turned away. “The Sea isn’t going anywhere. You will be gone in a month.”
“Maybe,” Lisa said. She wasn’t convinced her family would let her leave, despite their claims that there was nothing to worry about—they were good at contradicting themselves in the things they said and did. “But you shouldn’t delay a project that big to keep me company while I cast cantrips for a week on end.”
Rose spoke with affection. “Think of it as taking a break. Maybe I need perspective myself.”
The smile in her voice was real, but her words seemed hollow, and Lisa felt like she wasn’t the only one lying. But why would she lie to her?
Was it something about Lisa, about this East, or the words Ara had said …? Her aunt wasn’t duplicitous like that. When Lisa lied, it was to avoid conflict. Or to protect.
What had changed between the feast and now? What would finishing her project mean?
Dividing them. Their family had always wanted to leave this world behind, ever since the Mother had abandoned them, and this was not their first attempt. Some had flown east to explore the Plane of Seasons, and not all had returned. Some had physically left the planet behind and explored the stars for a bit, but there wasn’t much out there. Others had sought out contacts, factions known to travel between worlds, and the knowledge to do so on their own.
Those weren’t the only people who had left. A group of Myconids had split off from the main family a century ago because they’d felt they were being treated like second-class children.
Would everyone be as happy to leave today as they had been when the wound had been fresh? Lisa had never known their Mother, she did know the life they had here …
The feast had been fun. Maybe she wasn’t alone in having to balance her wants with the good of the family.
“Thank you, then,” Lisa said. “And you’re welcome?”
Rose smiled. She was about to say something else when something caught her eye. “Perfect timing.”
In the distance, her uncle Aber flew toward them. He carried a stack of cylindrical tins in one arm, a meter wide and half a meter tall, bound in rope, and all but one warm against the summer heat.
The earth shook when he landed, and he walked on three limbs to set the tins down. “Hungry?”
Lisa answered, “Famished.”
Dragons ate sporadically. They needed a lot of food, that was true, but they were the closest thing to an omnivore that could likely exist—the magic that went into their wings to fly, or to breathe fire, or to heal their wounds, were all the same as a quick lunch. A muffin and a coffee.
Their digestive systems were efficient on their own, too. Whereas other living beings had to evolve the means to break down different resources into usable parts, their stomachs could magically transmute one substance into another.
And they could stockpile energy as life essence instead of having to use methods like fat.
It meant they had a lot of freedom in choosing how and when to dine, and they had chosen freedom over dining altogether, only eating to stockpile resources, to appreciate excellent food, or even better company.
Of course, Lisa wasn’t fully grown. She could appreciate none of those freedoms. So her family took turns keeping her growing body fed. Today, the warm smell of stuffed pumpkins filled the air as Aber lifted the first lid.
When he moved to the second, Rose stole one and popped it in her mouth—distracted, he was too slow to swat her hand away. “Get your own food. These are for Lisa.”
“Recompense,” Rose mumbled as she crushed the pumpkin, “for my teachings, I should think.”
Normally, Lisa would have balked at the idea of someone stealing her food, but this wasn’t hers. It was free, delivered to her. “Who is paying today?” she asked as she grabbed a pumpkin of her own.
“Saph’ and Lofnor. They were already cooking for the others, though. I just stole a few.”
“Thanks. And I’ll have to thank them when I get out.”
“‘Get out,’” Aber said in a bemused tone, “what, are you imprisoned?”
“Practically? I have to spend all my days here, and my nights wearing so many wards I feel numb.” All because she might be an unwitting spy in their midst. Ugh.
He set the second tin in front of her like a distraction, filled with warm bundles of leaf rolls.
“A few more days, from what you’ve said. Hang in there. What else are you going to do, when you ‘get out’?”
“Read through the feedback I got from my parents—” Lisa said and immediately corrected herself, “No. Visit my siblings first, and then read the feedback so I can continue on to my next step in my project.”
She could feel their approval, but also a hint of awkwardness. Not every adult visited, or even liked to interact with, their children. They supported anyone who wanted to care for them, or to help them, but actually being there …
Not all of course, but even her parents … Lisa didn’t know the last time they’d visited.
“Oh, that reminds me!” She forced herself to think better thoughts. “Wiggle dropped by—”
“Wiggle? You still call him that?”
“The poor boy,” Rose shook her head, and their smiles returned. “What did he ever do to deserve it?”
Lisa hesitated, abashed. Nothing. He’d been kind.
Wiggle was only a few years older than her, but he used to watch over her when she had been little. Not like the adults, who would study her from a distance after putting her in a controlled environment. He’d be at her side during lessons and exams.
He would nervously shift from foot to foot as she got herself into trouble. It had made his cap tip, and she’d thought it funny so he’d overdone it, stretching left and right to make her laugh.
The name had stuck. He probably cringed at the memory nowadays.
“Viglif,” Lisa corrected herself, “said he could help me collect ingredients. I’m not sure what changes mom will suggest, but I’ll probably need three veins. He said he knew some good spots, though he’s keeping them secret. I think he wants to surprise me?”
She bit into her pumpkin carefully. She couldn’t swallow it whole like them and didn’t want to make a mess. The skin was soft. The insides revealed a ground meat stuffing.
Her aunt and uncle shared a look, and he told her, “Go easy on him, alright?”
“He’s finished his training,” Lisa garbled, tilting her head back as she spoke with food in her mouth, “he can probably survive the forest better than I can.”
Aber smiled. The last tin held squat jugs of cool liquid, and she gladly washed her meal down.
Despite the cold, her chest felt warm as she drank, and she smiled as she watched the sun on its slow descent. She could hear aunts and uncles above making dinner plans.
This. Why wasn’t this enough for them? … And why wasn’t it enough for her?
There had been a time when the entrance to her parents’ home had been nothing more than a cave in a hill. A long tunnel had led to a series of underground chambers, and she had slept next to her parents at night.
Then, more and more people had come to visit, and her parents had quickly learned to child-proof their home. So, they’d renovated.
A stone yard large enough for four full-grown dragons to sit cut into the hill like the basement of a house on a slope. A living room, training rooms, library, smithy, and a second kitchen with its own storage rooms had been added along the tunnel, reinforced for stability.
The yard connected directly to the first room, one that was open to the outside, little more than an extension to offer shade.
Lisa found her mom there, sorting through a pile of tins next to an open closet.
A few leaves fell with her passing, and she touched down on stone tiles as smooth as tortoise shells. The sculpted pillars looked like petrified trees curving into the ceiling.
Her finger paintings surrounded her then, adorning the walls in a child-high ring. Here and there, streaks of color stretched where she’d tried to paint while flying. In a corner, she had leaned down from the hill above to scribble in a corner of the ceiling instead.
The colors were muted. Dark. Unlike the vibrant dyes of Trest or Hadica, they made their colors from more natural ingredients. And the contents of her paintings didn’t remind her of the vibrant first pictures children drew in Hadica. Instead of a child coming to terms with the world around themselves—animals, trees, and houses—she’d come to terms with what was inside of her, her own nature, and her separation from her siblings. The difference between ‘candletail’ and ‘drake,’ ‘drake’ and ‘dragon,’ ‘little sister’ and ‘daughter.’
Lots of blood and viscera—hunting and wrestling had been much of what they’d done together—with a few words were sprinkled in as she’d learned to write.
She remembered the paints she’d gotten for her birthday. She hadn’t used them yet, but it wasn’t like painting was a passion for her. It was a family activity.
The adults had taught themselves to draw, and then write, to communicate with their Mother and the villagers. Artistry owned a soft spot in their hearts.
They wouldn’t let it go so easily.
“Lisa,” her mom sounded surprised. “I was about to come find you. What about your siblings?”
“They gave me the cold shoulder. They just got to go on flying lessons again, so I think they are afraid I’ll convince them to cause trouble again, and they’ll end right back in house arrest.”
She couldn’t fault them for that. She was almost proud. Hopefully, some of them had retained part of the lesson house arrest intended to teach.
With a sweep of her wing and a hollow ruckus, her mom shoved the tins back in the closet.
“What are you doing, cleaning?”
“I was looking for a nice tin to put our notes in. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore … Here.”
She held a thick bundle of notes out that looked like an engorged atlas held together by a single thread.
Lisa’s heart skipped, and she couldn’t help but smile. Feedback from her family was worth more than a year of research on her own.
But, she couldn’t accept it yet. She placed the tome on a smooth tile between them and said, “Mom.” Her voice was serious.
Her mom sighed, and Lisa almost echoed her. “I’m not sure if I was clear before, but I am going back. I can’t let it go. I know you don’t want me to do this, but—”
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Her mom interrupted her, “I wanted you.”
“—I, uh … Huh?”
“I’ve always wanted children, you know? My Mother said five words to me. Even if She hadn’t, I could see how proud She was in Her eyes. She listened in rapt attention as we babbled like fools.
“We invented languages, learned to write and speak. It was only later we realized we didn’t need it at all. She understood us perfectly. And it was much later we understood she was speaking to us all along …”
The sudden shift in her mom’s tone had caught her off-guard, but Lisa smiled at a memory.
“‘You cannot not communicate,’” she told her mom. “My grammar teacher said that to us once. I almost burst out laughing in the middle of class.”
Such a simple truth. It had taken her family two hundred years to figure it out. Every word the Mother had said had changed them. So had every other thing She had done.
After they had discovered her condition, her family had realized that and used it to raise Muri, but it was too late to help her other siblings in the same way.
“‘You cannot not communicate,’” her mom repeated the words. “An apt way to put it. Though it can be difficult sometimes …”
She spoke with the awkward love that had filled Lisa with pride as a child, then later made her shy away as a teen. “You were my miracle. Not that of our family, not that of your father and me. Mine.
“I’ve always wanted children to raise, teach, and have discussions with about gods and the world. Without the difficulties that separated us from our Mother. I wanted what She never could have. I just … I never imagined there would be so much fear.”
“You don’t have to be afraid for me,” Lisa said and tried to inject a bit of levity, “you were quick to dismiss His words?”
She shook her head, brushing her words aside. “You were gone for so long. I was worried. Then you came back and the first thing you wanted to do is leave again—”
“And I’ll come back again!”
“I know.”
Her voice had begun to drift back into that irritated, melancholy tone that defied reason again, so Lisa had readied herself for an argument. The confidence of her response brought her preparations to a halt.
“Wait, you mean …?”
“You can go back to your friends, Lisa—warn Garen or your aunt, have them investigate, and finish your project. Make us proud.” She gestured at the tome, but Lisa stared in silence for a long moment.
Then she felt like Muri, a child again, as she tackled her into a hug.
----------------------------------------
With claws like knives, she sliced the seed of the Compost Tree to pieces. It looked like a ghostly pomegranate jewel, but it was structured more like a cluster of eggs.
The Alders of the Compost Tree planted its seeds, so it didn’t have to rely on external sources to spread; it could keep its resources to itself instead of having to attract animals.
It meant she didn’t have to be as careful. The life essence was bound to the seeds, and the seeds only germinated under the right conditions. Moving it like this would not move it to action as the currents in the veins had.
She skinned the fruit’s peel and pith, washed everything with distilled water, put them into a bucket next to the red shard of her own baby shell, and laid the individual seeds out for later.
Everyone in her family had a personal lab or workspace at home where they could pursue their interests like a hobby. She’d always wanted one of her own. To her, that had seemed essential to becoming an adult: a hobby close to your heart. And a place to pursue it.
But of course, some interests had higher standards. So, her family had created this great leviathan of knowledge that stretched beneath the earth, their labs and warehouses.
Part of her couldn’t help but feel like she would rather have done this at home. She wasn’t growing new life in a vat over weeks after all, she was doing this quick and dirty. Two days. A home lab might have been enough.
Instead, she was in one of her parents’ more recent shared labs, larger than Rose’s, but loosely sectioned off into rooms by supporting pillars.
Her family had a central divination center where they spied on other factions, but her dad was a bit of a diplomat and her mom good with projections. They liked to keep their own tabs.
The front left section was covered in lenses, maps, and portraits. The lenses had shown persons of interest earlier:
A great beast of tattered red cloth had dragged itself across an endless desert, chains like clusters of broken glass connecting it to stumbling humanoid husks by spearing them through the chest.
A woman with light skin and soft brown hair had kissed the scraped knee of a bawling child. The wound had healed an imperceptible fraction, and the child hiccoughed as it sniffled.
A man with short black hair in a t-shirt and shorts had been eating a sandwich on a rainy beach in Lighthouse.
Her parents had turned them off and left. They trusted her to do this on her own, though they would no doubt come to her rescue if she needed them.
Lisa was determined not to. She’d pored over their notes for days and even approached some of the people who had contributed with follow-up questions.
In a way, this was fitting. The construct that would become Sam had been with her for over a year. The only home it knew was by her side. She could do this wherever she had to.
She opened the lid of a thick metal chest and set its ruby inside. She shut it, secured the latches, and turned the handle on the side. Immediately, with a rattling noise and hissing sound that filled the air, a gauge came to life. The air inside the box was pumped out through a tube. And when she had a vacuum, she used another handle to pump pressurized helium in instead. A switch caused the box to cool its contents far below any temperature life would want to be active in.
That was the easy part. Lisa had practiced for this next one: controlling four spells at the same time.
With a spark of magic, she connected to the gem inside the box along guiding lines and released the first sample they had collected at a trickle. At the same time, she used her elemental spirit to push both the helium essence inside the box, and the physical impurities within the sample back, while she drew on her Spark of Life to aid the enchantment of the gem and haul the life essence out.
It felt like using her hands, one foot, and her teeth to drag something in four different directions, but it kept the physical impurities inside the gem while the life essence filled the pocket of reduced magical pressure she had created.
There, it found a cold, dark, lifeless environment that encouraged it to preserve its strength instead of, say, birthing microorganisms from its impurities because of the motion.
When she shut the box off and opened the lid, she found the purified life essence pooled inside like a miniature vein of power, a kaleidoscope of colors and fractal borders, hairs of black corruption threading through it.
Lisa removed the crystal, emptied the impurities into the trash, washed and sterilized the compartment within the gem where they’d been stored, and collected the sample again.
Then, she had to repeat the process with the second sample she had stolen at the siege.
Her mood darkened as she thought of the people and beasts she’d left behind, and she wrenched the handle down with more force than necessary.
Next, the seeds went in, and she had to use a spell to keep the helium in the box as she placed them inside—the vacuum pump would harm the seeds otherwise.
She undid a second set of latches inside of the lid after she closed and opened half of it up to a glass partition that let her look inside.
The seeds didn’t care about sunlight anyway, but she had to remove their cores with care so they wouldn’t germinate, though the rest of the seed would still contain a copy of its pattern.
Magically purifying veins was far more difficult. The easiest method she knew of was to eat and digest it, but that only worked for dragons … She wondered how Northerners did it.
It didn’t matter in any case: Lisa wanted the samples to be impure. Sam was going to be a … consolidation of sorts.
The thought made her frown, and her frustration welled up like a miasma as she felt she was forgetting something, but her aunt’s voice rang her in mind, Focus.
Actively acknowledge this moment. Yourself, your actions. She listened to her aunt’s advice as she went through the old mantra her mom had taught her.
Lungs, stomach, heart. She felt the essences inside of her churning as they distilled life essence, but she acknowledged the world outside of her as well:
The cold stone against her feet. The sterile air in the room. The hard lines cutting her vision along the counter of the workstation. Her chest rising and falling with every breath, and her tongue resting against her teeth.
With a symbolic breath, Lisa drew a wisp of life essence from her Spark and wove it into the patterns of her hands to coat them like gloves.
And she wove something else in, her mental essences, because she needed control now more than ever. The Tower essence followed it like a current.
She hesitated—then let it, pushing even more mental essences in to keep an eye on it as it spoke to her:
[Of the Daughter Path explored!]
[Skill — Lifeshaper’s Gloves obtained!]
At least, that was a Skill her mom would approve of. It had taken the adults a while to figure it out themselves.
Lisa undid another hatch on the side of the box and pushed her hand through a glove that adapted to fit her size to reach in.
Thanks to the other gloves she had donned, she could flood her hands with life essence without fear of it spilling out into her flesh and causing mutations.
Without touching the cores directly, she used the control the life essence gave her to wiggle them out—carefully, without disturbing the sacs of life essence they were embedded in.
It was patient work, but it wasn’t very hard. When she was done, Lisa set everything she would need on a platter—the gem, the seeds, their peel and pith, the shard of her own eggshell, her notes, and bottles of pills and liquids.
She took them with her and moved over to an industrial-sized furnace on the side of the room.
With another spark of magic, she turned the furnace and its ventilation on. The gem went into a container on the rack inside, and she withdrew the remnants of Sam’s old crystal from it, a tiny pile of rubble that anchored its pattern.
Still maintaining her gloves, she used them to rip that pattern apart, tossing shreds she didn’t need aside, trimming some aspects, expanding others, and sorting the pieces into groups.
When she finished, she withdrew the samples to do the same, and she had to work quickly before the life essence did.
She took the majority of the Fire Fiend sample, two-fifths of the Compost Tree seeds, parts of the Teacup Salamander, and hints of the Fire Olm, and consolidated them, taking the best versions of what they had in common and discarding the rest.
The Fire Fiend sample acted as a dilution. The ‘patterns’ inside of veins of power were ephemeral things, constantly shifting fimbriae life essence used to reach out into the world. Over time, they settled as the vein grew older, as they had with the Olms, but for this part of Sam’s design, Lisa didn’t want them to settle.
She was designing a malleable outer mass like a primordial soup. Her first choice would have been a Slime, but Fiends, little more than bundles of flesh and emotion, worked, too.
The parts of the Teacup Salamander she’d put in were more stable than the samples, so she used them as scaffolding to feed the outer mass heat and fire essence. At the same time, she cracked a pill, opened a bottle, and fed them sprinkles of powder and drops of liquid—nutrients.
The life essence began to rapidly grow the samples’ patterns to consume those, but the fire and heat essence diluted the life essence within those patterns, as if she’d breathed living fire into them, and forced the patterns to adapt into something that could use heat and fire.
Bits of cells grew from the fractal lines, and quickly withered under the heat of the forge.
Lisa kept it up, feeding the patterns far too few nutrients and far too many essences until the patterns themselves began to crumble under the strain of their exertion.
Then, she cut off the heat and fire essence for a moment, and forced the life essence to regrow them, stronger this time.
Over and over, like creating a potion and using it in rapid succession, she gave it a variety of resources and pruned the patterns if they grew too far.
This method was used to artificially grow and strengthen patterns, but she didn’t want them to be too strong or too mature. She just wanted them to be flexible and fire-resistant so she erred on the side of caution. There were other steps she needed to complete before she could continue to work on this one anyway.
A glance at her notes kept her on the right track. She broke a chunk of her eggshell off.
Her parents had tracked it down after they’d discovered her condition—or what was left of it, at least. She had been two years old at that point after all, and drakes often ate their eggs after they had hatched as to not waste food.
But they’d found a large chunk buried in the remains of her old nest, and she’d gotten permission to use half.
She put the smaller piece aside for later, took the larger whole, as well as the seed peel, and placed them next to the separated pieces of the Teacup Salamander and Fire Olm scale patterns.
Using her thumb and index finger, she began to fuse those together.
It was simple work. Mostly, she was breaking it down into a semi-permeable cell wall for the sac that would contain the inner organs and brain later, the ‘fetus.’ So at the same time, she began to roll the pith into the beginnings of a vascular system with her left hand.
She checked her notes again. The brain came next, but that was mostly transplanting the ‘brain’ of the summoning crystal and diluting it within the rest of the Fire Fiend. The only difficult part would be teaching it to use the pocket dimension.
And then she had to create the digestive system from scratch. Oof. Monsters often had patchwork digestive systems, and she had higher standards than that for Sam.
Finally … she had to link it all, and teach the disparate pieces to work together. As one.
That was tricky. She was reluctant to use mental essences to check her work because she didn’t want to contaminate Sam with traces of herself … but then again, every other part of it would be of her design.
No. It was too late to change her mind now. She had more important things to think about.
She still had to strengthen the patterns so they were strong enough for the life essence to extrapolate cell structures and information. Because there was no way Lisa was going to build those herself.
But she didn’t want them to be too strong, or she wouldn’t leave them with any room to grow.
Slow and steady, she reminded herself. But even when she finished, she would have to watch over Sam for days while it grew … It was horrible. She was so excited, she couldn’t wait.
----------------------------------------
The world was dark and peaceful. That would have been fine, but it couldn’t see. And the space it was in was somewhat … cramped.
It shifted, though it was unsure why. It could barely move and when it tried— Was it stuck to something? It felt like something was smothering it. A blanket …? Or a box …? Or a bag!
Bags were familiar. Bags had an exit flap.
It went to dig through the contents to pop its head out and have a quick peek around, to check for enemies, but the fabric wouldn’t give. And if it pushed too hard, it felt a tenderness there that kept it from pushing further. Was it wounded? Where were its claws? It needed—
It shifted again and this time, something shifted with it. A sudden heat grew as something flowed. It found its claws, pushed, and there came a tiny crack. Light poured in, but that was odd. Bags didn’t usually ‘crack.’ If it was surrounded by fluid … was it stuck in ice?
But it was so warm and comfortable. It felt an odd sensation again, one that welled up from within. Almost as if it had been given a command when it was sure it hadn’t. Maybe it could stay a bit longer …?
No! It needed to check for enemies.
It crawled toward the blurry light, the heat rose, the fluid shifted again, and its vision sharpened.
Sam pushed its way out of an egg and came face to face with a titanic monster.
She was larger than any enemy it had slain before, with teeth like daggers, and a dark red hide. Her mouth was slightly parted, and she breathed with a gluttonous glint in her eyes.
She would gobble it up in one bite!
Another fake command welled up inside it, and Sam bolted. It turned, the egg tipped, and it spilled out onto warm stone. It tried to scramble away, but— Where were its legs?
Sam had spilled onto the stone like a slime ally. Close to it, that slime transitioned to an arm it could control and a second— It felt like it had two heads?
A hollow one was attached to the slimed like a helmet. It had teeth. Eyes. And the other one was somewhere fuzzy and warm.
Sam didn’t know what was wrong with its body. It panicked, searching for its foot, and the goop shifted before its eyes, heating up, and sprouting a bright red leg.
Leg! Sam tried to run again, but it wasn’t enough to support its weight on. It fell on its fake face.
The great enemy followed behind it around the table, and Sam realized it stood on a table. Its summoner and its allies sometimes ate on tables … Was it dinner?
The monster spoke in a deep voice that shook the air, and Sam didn’t understand the words she said, but it dragged himself closer to the edge away from her.
It was about to jump when it hesitated. It was afraid the drop would make its slime go splat, but also … something about the tone of the enemy seemed familiar.
It turned its head to stare, and the monster said a few more words, slowed down, and jerked her head back as if wounded. “Draconic. I’m an idiot. Sam, listen.”
Those words, Sam recognized, but it still didn’t understand the challenge. She could speak?
“It’s me,” she said and leaned closer, so Sam dragged itself further away. “Ah. Don’t be afraid. Don’t you— Try growing your body first?”
Sam hesitated, looked down, and searched for its body without understanding why. It hadn’t been given a command by its summoner and the words didn’t make sense anyway.
What did ‘grow’ mean? Was that a command? Like ‘fetch’? Was it supposed to fetch its body from somewhere? Had its summoner dropped it on the floor?
Sam wanted to find its body, but it could barely move, and then— Suddenly, the slime attached to it heated up again, shifted, and sprouted limbs and scales with a cloud of steam.
Sam shot up. It could move! It did a quick spin, finally checking the room for enemies, found none other than the great enemy, and let itself relax.
Wait, no. That was also odd. It shouldn’t relax around that titanic monster, so it turned to glare at her, but somehow …
The great enemy made a high-pitched noise sound shifted on the spot, fanning her wings and whipping her tail. The body language seemed familiar, like nonverbal confirmation of a command completed.
It remembered its summoner teaching it to respond to gestures and … keywords and … Sam stared. The giant figure leaned in close, smiling, and this time it didn’t pull back.
Lisa?
----------------------------------------
Her parents fussed over Sam, who stared up with wide eyes, shrinking back whenever they moved, or spinning to keep them in its line of sight.
Lisa was a little worried she had traumatized it, but she was mostly relieved. And grateful that her parents had taken over. She was still reluctant to cast appraisal spells on Sam, and her parents had more experience with delicate matters like this.
… Well, they did now. She was only the way she was because someone had messed up and exposed her to divine words as a child.
Many of the adults she had consulted on this matter had suggested she do the same to Sam, but she wouldn’t. That wasn’t the point of its existence.
Divine words wouldn’t help her older siblings and cousins. It was too late for that now. She had to explore other avenues to help them, and she already had a few ideas in mind.
She was going to test them on Sam, and she was going to study it as it grew and take that knowledge back to her family. Because she wasn’t sure any of them were interested now that they were on the right track to having children they didn’t have to help.
For now, though, Lisa needed to rest. She had barely gotten any sleep these last two days as she had watched over Sam. That was another reason to pass the reigns.
She told Sam she was going to leave and assured it that she would be back in a few hours.
It seemed afraid, but it behaved and stayed where it was. Lisa couldn’t help but smile at that. She was pretty sure Sam recognized her, even like this.
The flames’ warmth was soothing as she decontaminated herself, lulling her to sleep, but as she passed another tear in space in the halls, something resonated within her. The Tower essence was trying to do something.
Almost too late, she moved her mental spirit to interfere. She could have stopped it, but she hesitated, then let it happen. What if she interfered? Would she lose the level up?
Too late. The Tower essence sent out a signal, and her spirit connected to something within the Sea of Dreams. She heard a voice:
[Grand Summoner level ‘19’ shifted!]
[Grand Summoner level 18!]
[Conditions met: Biomancer Class obtained!]
[Biomancer level 0 → level 4!]
[Skill — Sterile Cast obtained!]
[Pattern — Primordial Fire Whelp obtained!]
The blessing washed over her spirit and this time, Lisa was prepared for its workings. She could vaguely feel the essences inside of her and let her vague impressions guide her as she rapidly shifted through frequencies to pin it down, before the rush faded.
When she found it, they felt so familiar. Like family. The safety she felt when she held life essence in gloved hands under her control.
‘Biomancer essence’ wasn’t far from life essence’s frequency, but … it wasn’t the same. An island of comfort in an ocean of doubt, made all the stronger by the contrast on the dark beach.
She could retreat deeper into the island for safety, but as she looked out at the crashing waves, they reminded her of the shifting lines of her uncle’s scales. This power was so fickle. The Heswarens tempered theirs through oaths. Could she do the same?
The moment was fleeting. Lisa had to act, but she was unsure of what to do. Hadn’t she wanted to try intercepting the essences, or make preparations for this …? Her spirit was already eating it up and … Ugh, her brain was tired. She hadn’t expected to level so soon.
If she told her parents, they would fuss over her again when they were supposed to be taking care of Sam. She’d have to stay awake for another few hours when all she wanted to do was sleep.
But … they loved her.
So with an annoyed groan, Lisa turned back and yelled, “Mom! Dad! I leveled again!”