[Ferret Drewson’s Point of View]
I had told my interface to alert me after 18 minutes instead of the full 20. I’ve learned a lot today and wanted some time to think about it consciously. Onre was standing for his half of the watch. He noticed I was alert and asked me quietly, “Can you fly? You’ve learned two flying forms now, right?”
Just as quietly, “Yeah, but I pro’bly can’ fly yet. Most of what Ahhshaww does is aethereal, and I won’ be able to do any of that until I’m higher rank. Maybe with the flying snake form, though. If their flight is all physical, nothing should stop me but inexperience. I can’ shed enough mass to fly as a bird yet, but the snake was pretty heavy. “
Not good speech.
I activated Clear Mind. I hear it when my words are elided like that, but they come out so naturally. “Allow me to get Ahhshaww up and off my shoulders. I’m pretty sure this armor won’t be able to handle a snake’s form.”
“Ahhshaww? Daughter, can you get up now? Daddy would like to strip.”
{Yes, Daddy. Why? You change Ferretman to Earth Elemental just fine in your armor.}
“Daddy Onre wonders if I can fly, and I’ll need to remove my armor before becoming a flying snake.”
{You try Air Elemental, too? I fly!}
“I’m sure I would be too heavy. I cannot lower my mass to anywhere near yours. Plus I can’t use any of your aetherial capabilities. Just like with Uncle Odd, I can’t use his Damage Shunt, yet.”
{When you can?}
“Shapeshifting needs to be at Rank C before doing anything more than a being’s basic form and motions. It is at D now. So probably in several days I may be able to Wind. I believe I will still be too heavy to fly, though.”
She flew off my shoulders and reformed into a sphere. Almost a sphere; she is always sort of oblong. But now she left an indentation at the bottom of her 2-foot diameter. A tendril reached down to my forehead.
{Take off your helmet, Daddy.}
I first removed my boots,then stood and did so. She rested atop my head as what probably looked kind of absurd. Others were starting to get up, with Forrest commenting, “Nice hat.” Kossa and Arrjee giggled. I told them they were just jealous, then began removing the rest of my armor.
Onre explained, “I wondered if he could fly now. He is stripping because his charmed armor wouldn’t be able to adapt to a flying snake’s form.”
“If we are not in a hurry, I would like to show our daughter some of my other forms. She has just seen Ferret and Odd.”
Forrest replied, “Unless anyone objects, I’d like to see that as well. You leveled during my sixdays, and all I have seen is what you have done so far today.” Everyone agreed with taking some time for me to demonstrate a few forms and maybe fly.
“Okay, then. One of my most significant forms will be Harron Ronvaldt’s. He is of an interbreedable race, so I learned his form at E. He is significant, especially for Norrus, because beginning at Rank C, our aging will be slowed to his rate while we are in his form. I age a little quicker than you guys, so I’ll probably be spending a fair amount of time as Harron also.” I morphed into his Human Skolturi hybrid primitive form. “Fleshy bipeds are pretty easy to be. It is what I grew up as, so I don’t feel all that different in most of your forms. Forrest, I would like to learn your Covargh Hybrid form, maybe this evening.” Ahhshaww had flown off my head and was floating a little over two feet in front of me, with a tendril extended to my right cheek. With a quick laugh, “Ahhshaww says Daddy Arrjee and Mommy Kossa are cuter than Harron.”
I reverted back to my default form. “Within my or someone’s form, I can alter my mass and height, that sort of thing. But between forms I need to go back to my default for a minute. The hardest form I have attempted so far has been Sun’s. Almost as soon as I reached Rank D, I learned and tried it. I’ve tried morphing into him twice, and I have been barely able to move, or do much at all. Sun you know I love you, but it is so vastly different being a Trichyan.”
“Bad biped I make.” || I would make a very bad biped. shiver
“Creepy forward.” || It must be so creepy seeing only forward. imagines
“It’s just as creepy for me to see all around at once with four eyes. And to try to walk with three legs, or know what to do with three arms at once. I can’t yet experience thinking with your three semi-independent brain lobes. Maybe at C I will be able to be a more full you. I have an idea, though. Having Share Thoughts now might allow me to form a much better mental connection with you than I could before. In a sense, Ahhshaww and I come close to melding our minds. I don’t know how well that will work with your split mind. Is it okay if we try?”
“Yes.” || Yes. certainly
I explained to Ahhshaww that I can only use Mindsmith on one person at once, at least at my low rank. She withdrew her tendril and I walked over to stand next to Sun. He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“First, Sun and I are going to see how effective my Mindsmith skills are now.”
“Sun, you can hear me right? I didn’t have Share Thoughts before.”
{Yes, I hear you. Do you hear me any better now? calmness, hope} || calmness, hope
“Yes! I have continuity between my thoughts and yours. It is so much better now that I can do more than listen only.”
I said, “It is working very well. With 4 out of 5 of my main skills, it is like each one makes the others better. I can barely imagine what Share Emotions will add. Please don’t expect a lot as I morph into Sun’s form. At my rank, I only have my two tightly bound brain lobes, even in Sun’s form. Their much more independent three lobes limit how I control a Trichyans body and understand their senses. The main thing I have accomplished so far is to have each of my lobes handle two eyes instead of their normal one. So I could sort of see all around me, but my coordination will probably still suck. Here goes.”
“This process feels so unnatural. Making an extra arm, an extra leg, and a neck that can turn a third circle either way. 4 eyes, 3 noses, 3 ears. It is a lot.”
{Become Trichyan. You will learn its naturalness over time. confidence} || confidence
Knowing I would be unsteady, he had kept the one hand on my shoulder and wrapped another arm around my far side. I was still standing erect. That’s an improvement over what I could do before.
{Would you like to take three steps towards the wall? patience} || patience
“I’ll try. I have to focus on one leg at a time. I’m sure it will be nicer when I have a lobe for each leg.”
I picked up my leg that was farthest from the wall, and moved it a little forward. Then the other, and the third. Repeat, with Sun’s physical support the whole time. I made it! And then I placed all three hands on the wall using the same deliberate steps I used while walking.”
Fortunately, I was used to having one mouth. “You guys probably see how inefficient this still is. And I am starting to get a headache, trying to manage a tripedal body with a bipedal brain. Seeing you guys behind me is totally freaky.”
“Thank you for your support, Sun. Physical and emotional. Going back to Ferret for now.”
“Welcome you.” || You are welcome. Ferret:proud
“Later we try.” || We’ll try again later. expectation
“Much we practice.” || We will practice as much as you need. commit
Ferret again. This is a relief; I know me. One thing about shapeshifting surprises me. Well, a lot of things do, but one I didn’t expect was to continue gaining knowledge of anatomy as I changed forms. I thought learning someone’s form would be it; I would know how to be them. But as I spend time as Odd, Sun, Ferret, or Swagger, it is like I learn more about them, or at least how they are them. Sun is definitely the toughest. Sure, Swagger has four legs, but in the big scheme of things, how much different is four legs from two legs and two arms? And he only sees forward!
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
I stepped back into the center of the tunnel. Ahhshaww took her place as my hat.
{Daddy not a good parent Sun. You learn, right?}
“Yes, I will learn. Sun has committed to helping me as much as I need. You’ll probably have to help me almost as much to be a good daughter Ahhshaww.”
{I help! Daddy Ferret become very good Ahhshaww. commit}
Kossa asked, “Are you going to try the flying snake next? It was very interesting to see you as Sun, but not even they can fly.”
“Yes, I’ll try that next, then a quick attempt at being an Air Elemental, and then we can continue with this floor. I just need a few more seconds before I can adopt a new form.”
Arrjee observed, “It didn’t look very easy to be a Trichyan. Do you think you will ever be able to do Sun well?”
“Yes. I learn more each time I try any form, Sun’s included. What really makes it hard right now is that I can’t think like them yet. Internally I still have my bipedal brain, but I should be able to be more fully Trichyan at Rank C. It should be a lot easier once I have three lobes to handle their three legs, arms, ears, noses, and four eyes. A given transform starts from the outside and one learns their way in with practice.”
Forrest asked, “Once you have three lobes, will you be able to use Group Mind while in Trichyan form?”
“Yes, I think so. It is not a class skill, so I don’t know why I could not learn it just like Sun, Arrjee, and you did. Anyway, let’s try this snake thing.”
“I am going to lay down, daughter hat.”
{I not hat, silly Daddy.}
She lifted up above my head, and then down to almost ground level, probably to watch me better. I laid on my stomach, with the cold uneven stones of the floor being a bit uncomfortable. I don’t know how she knew, but Ahhshaww started blowing a warm breeze; it was somehow able to affect under me, and the stones weren’t so cold any more. I envisioned the snake and started transforming. It did not take long; this is probably the simplest form I had taken. The wings were kind of weird to have, especially with them being at my back – but two limbs total. I tried flapping them to see if they would lift me up. Nothing, and I tried harder. Still no good.
“Forrest, you mentioned how these snakes probably couldn’t fly horizontally. They are having no effect in lifting me. Can you guys shift and support me so I am vertical?”
He, Onre, and Sun all lifted me up so I was in a ‘standing’ position. Ahhshaww ended her wind. I started flapping again, hoping to feel me starting to support myself. It didn’t happen, no matter how hard I flapped. “Do you think I am flapping wrong?”
Forrest replied, “I think I see the problem. Your mass is too great for those wings. The monster snakes must have an aethereal assist for them to fly. You could be a giant Ferret; can you do the opposite now and be a small snake with your current wings? Or maybe bigger wings?”
I doubled the size of my wings, until the right and left wing muscles started interfering with each other. They still weren’t lifting me enough. I lowered my mass, but as I got thinner, the wing muscles interfered again, and I had to shrink my wing anatomy. No combination of overall mass and achievable wing size at that mass worked. If I shrunk to small, my base strength got less, and I couldn’t beat the wings as hard as we had witnessed the real snakes do.
“Forrest, I think you are right. This just isn’t working. I’ll try again when my Shapeshifting rank advances. That will let me use the aethereal capabilities of monsters.”
While they still held me, I shifted back to my default form, and my friends released me. I got my hat back.
{Daddy is a better snake than Trichyan. You learn to fly good, I know.}
“Thank you. In a minute I’ll try to adopt your form. If I couldn’t fly as a snake with wings, I’m sure I won’t be able to fly as you yet, either. But I’m curious to see what being an Air Elemental is like.”
{It like normal, Daddy.}
Kossa said, “One more form, then you can cover back up that scrawny body of yours.” She winked at me, and I stuck out my tongue at her.
They speculated how successful this would be. On the one hand, I’m a pretty good Earth El. On the other, Odd is solid, and I easily understand what he is. How does one be airish? One way to find out. I sat down on my butt.
“Guys, this may not be pretty. Being Sun is very hard, but at least they have a solid body. Here goes.”
I transformed, and everyone was laughing, especially Ahhshaww. “Guys, can one of you stop laughing and tell me what I look like? I can see outward, not inward.” Well, maybe I can. Ahhshaww had projected part of her head area as if it had a very long neck, and turned it down and around so she could see herself. She moved so we touched.
{Can gooey Daddy do this?}
“I’ll try.”
It wasn’t hard to stretch myself. It wasn’t that much different than being a 9-foot giant. It took a minute to have a neck long enough to be able to look back at myself. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be disgusted by my three-foot bulbous form. Similar to Odd, I had an elemental’s outside. But my ‘skin’ wasn’t stone plates, but mostly transparent air stuff. Inside a couple inches of that airish layer was inner Ferret, heart, blood vessels, lungs, brain, “Well, I don’t look edible. That’s something.” I repeated the same joke to our daughter, and unstretched to be basically globular again.
I tried flying, basically just by thinking about it real hard. No luck. Then I tried moving, puffing little tendrils of wind and pushing against the ground. That worked, but I rolled instead of scooting like I had expected. I kept at it, but soon got dizzy. Too much me, too little her. Ahhshaww wondered if I could use wind capabilities, and I reminded her that a shapeshifter cannot do any aethereal stuff until C. I got tired of being a transparent sack of goo, and allowed myself to shift back to my default form.
To his credit, Arrjee rid himself of his amused smile. “Well, it’s a start.” I started dressing without comment, feeling more naked than I ever had before.
----------------------------------------
[Forrest Rhodes’ Point of View]
Being a shapeshifter is a lot harder than Jacques had ever read about. It was always an almost instant shift, and the person became a fully functional whatever. I knew Norrus had to work at it, too, but it is different to watch someone just starting out.
Ferret has only been shapeshifting for four days. I’m sure next Tuesday he’ll be amazing.
Yes. And in fairness, he is amazing now.
“You’re right. At Level 3 he has been more than holding his own against foes double his level.”
He had become shield-wielding Hulky Odd again, in form and persona. And with a big smile.
“Hey, I just reached my Level 4 brake. You suckers better accept my shared XP, and like it.” Then he laughed, and we responded in kind. Everyone but me would start getting 30% of the XP he earns.
Arrjee said, “I should be joining you again after the next fight or two. The XP needed between 4 and 5 is only a little more than a thousand than between 3 and 4.”
Onre speculated, “Others of us might reach our brakes, also. With all the extra XP, I won’t be too surprised if Ahhshaww makes it to 5, especially if we challenge the next floor.”
I said, “We probably should finish this one first.”
He stealthed himself, and we allowed him to take point about 20 feet ahead of us. The path changed direction three times before he encountered something new.
OL: I think there is a room or a cavern here beyond a narrow, open doorway. It is fairly dark inside. Should we investigate it? I’m not feeling there is a trap, at least not outside the doorway.
FR: Yes, let’s take a look.Sun and I will enter first. If Sun casts Torch, and you don’t hear a commotion, everyone follow us in. If there are foes, we’ll back out and use the doorway as a bottleneck again.
Sun and I entered and slowly took a couple steps forward. I didn’t hear or smell anything. The only light in the room was from the doorway behind us.
ES: Torch I cast? || Should I cast Torch now? probably safe
FR: Yes.
They did, and the brighter room verified what I had seen in the dark. We were in a small, oblong cavern, about 30 by 20 feet wide, with a roof about 8 feet high. It was mostly empty. With the light as a signal, Onre and everyone else followed.
“There may not be anything here,” Onre said. “Hidden treasures, maybe. It is likely the swarm of snakes and worms which had attacked from the front had been waiting in here. If we hadn’t triggered the alarm trap, they probably would have swarmed out as we got near, and we wouldn’t have been able to easily bottleneck them inside the way we did with those flying snakes.”
Arrjee speculated, “So the ‘trap’ was actually good in a way? It gave us a few seconds to prepare for battle, even if it were from two sides.” Ferret and Kossa agreed with him.
Arrjee and Kossa added their torches to the room’s light. Sun and Onre walked to the far side of the room. “Sun, stop!” Onre commanded. That chest may be trapped.” As I walked forward, I saw what he meant. The somewhat ornate wooden chest was small, ten by six inches on its sides and about seven inches high. It could not be seen from the doorway. Part of the wall had been hollowed out, leaving a narrow cubby hole which could only be seen from the side. Everyone positioned themselves so they could see it, but remained several steps back.
Onre was carefully feeling around the nook. Something occurred to me. If there were a trap of some sort of liquid or gaseous spray, here we all were, standing clumped together for something behind the nook to get everyone at once. I suggested everyone but Onre move further away, out of sight of the nook, so we wouldn’t be in the line of fire.
As we started moving closer to the doorway, Onre said, “It is okay; there is no trap. It looked very suspicious for the only item in this room to be here, semi-hidden by the room’s structure.” We moved back to see it.
Kossa asked, “Well, are you going to open it, then?” He did.
It sprang fully open, releasing three, spring-loaded toy snakes which shot into the air. “Crap!” he exclaimed as he stepped back, but the snakes did nothing but fall to the floor after hitting the roof. Fully extended, they were about 12 inches in length.
“Trap not that?” || That wasn’t a trap? surprise
“Detect Trap allows an explorer to sense danger and hidden paths. While the snakes popping out startled me, there was nothing dangerous or anything further to explore. The snakes were basically somebody’s joke.”
Ferret said, “Ahhshaww wonders if we can keep them. Maybe we can surprise someone else later.” Kossa said we would, and turned around, asking Arrjee to put them in her backpack. As he did so, Sun and Onre tried getting the chest itself, but it was embedded into the wall. They decided it would break if they forced it, so they let it be.
We followed Onre out of the cavern and kept walking through the long winding cave for another 20 minutes. We reached another dead end, and our maps showed that the rightmost section of the cave had been fully explored. During the walk, Arrjee had discovered a ten-bronze stack, and I found a small pouch of sleeping powder. We headed back to the fork to explore what was on the left.