Green. Looking upon myself, I was green. A rock too. Some sort of magical rock if I were to assume. Now that I think about it… think about it?

How can a rock think? Wait again, how can I know a rock is not supposed to think.

It's… strange. I can think with my memories but not remember them? This is confusing.

And all this thinking, it's making my head hurt.

Head? I don’t have one, and yet, it feels as if I am stroking my forehead in confused thought.

Something is wrong with my thoughts. Or maybe I am just thinking differently. Are my thoughts wrong or different? Hmmm…

I stroked my non-existent forehead in existential plight. How about I take all I know and corroborate it.

I am different than I once was before. I do not know what I was once before.

I once before possessed a forehead. And a stroking apparatus to rub said forehead.

I am green. And a rock too.

And I am underground. The only light in this cave is a soft one, coming from my green body and cascading around me.

Now that I have gathered all I know, I know that I know nothing. No, wait. I know what I am, I just can’t remember it. And I am confused again.

And now? I am rubbing the non-existent bridge of my nose.

And promptly learning about noses. Or maybe I unlocked noses.

Aaaaannnd I am rubbing my forehead again. Bah. I am getting off task. But wait? What is the task.

Shit, shut up brain. Ooh! Brain. Bah again! I slap my forehead in irritation at myself.

Focus. Pool your knowledge.

You are underground, sentient, and a rock. I am-

“You are a dungeon,” a phantom voice stated. Its voice spilled smooth, like a clear lake.

“Yes, yes, I was getting to that brain. I am a dungeon…” I responded.

Wait a minute, that wasn’t me. How dare someone confuse me! Only I can do that!

“Stop reading my mind bastard! That’s rude! I think?” It should be. I'll decide later…

“My, my, you are an uppity one. I guess that’s what happens when I-” the voice continued, this time echoing around my tiny cave. It didn’t matter what was about to be said by the voice because I promptly interrupted it there.

“Uppity! Why I oughtta smack you. Get back into my mind so I can imagine smacking you!”

“But what would you imagine me as? You can’t smack a voice.” It responded, seemingly smug and curious at the same time.

“Id imagine you just as you are! A disembodied voice! See-”

The voice chuckled, interrupting me. “You can’t smack a voice, think about it.”

A moment of pause and silence echoed in my head for but a moment.

“Shit, you're right. Fine! I'll yell at you then! Interrupting is my thing!”

The voice snickered. I could imagine the voice was face-palming at my stupidity. Wait MY stupidity? How dare you think that me!

“I guess this what I get by using a broken soul.” The voice added, finishing with a light laugh.

Broken soul? That explains a lot. Or does it. Using though? I haven’t done anything. I thought rubbed my forehead again. Used… I guess this voice created me? With a broken soul, he made a thinking rock.

“Did you create me? That’s what I am piecing together from all of this.”

“Yup. I did indeed. Pulled you right out of the void with a 'flick of the wrist' as they say. There was something that called to me about a strange soul yelling at nothing. Oh, and by the way, you don’t need to speak at me. Just think.”

I just need to think? Oh perfect, I had no actual idea as to how I was speaking.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Mana vibrations.” the voice responded.

Oh neat. Focusing, I felt myself drawn to where the voice should be, Then, like flexing a muscle, I feel the thought leave my head.

"So, what do you want anyways?" leaks from my non-existent skull as I try the new form of communication.

“Nothing." the voice responds. "I just wanted to pass some time with one of my creations. Throw some pointers here and there. I figured I would let you know there is a bit of your soul around the area. You may want to dig it up before you unintentionally split your soul in two with your constant self-bickering. Cosmic glue only works for so long."

I don’t bicker!

Or do I?

Shit. I definitely do.

Imagining a box of text, I grasped it with my mind.

"Do you mind pointing me to the nearest chunk?" I hurled.

“Sure,” my creator responded, an arrow apparating in my mind.

"Now that I think about it, why didn’t you just start me off with all my bits in the first place?"

Trying a boomerang throw, I flung the question.

“Limited ability to change the physical realm without consequence and boredom. Mostly the second bit.”

"Oh. So how do I get to it?"

“You will have to figure that one out yourself.”

“…,” I loudly thought. Huh, I can now loudly think. Anyways, Dig I guess? How should I dig though? Just… chip away at the rock?

Ooh! A bit of stone chipped off. And disappeared. Neat.

“Well looks like you are good here, I’m gonna bounce. I Just found a really nice piece of cheese and I am in the mood for a good prank. I think I am going to enchant it so fate decree’s it as impossible to eat. I mean, it already smells really good. That should tide me over a bit...”

And with that, the voice disappeared, along with my target for word arrows.

I had been chipping away at the stone for a while before I found something of interest.

Dirt. I had found the next layer of earth. And with soil, came insects. Well more like an insect.

A small worm with pincers specifically. It was a welcome change to earth and stone. Once I found the bugger, I had tried to poke it first. Lacking fingers stopped that immediately. Instead, I reached out just like I had chipped away at the stone.

With softer intent of course. And I disintegrated the bugger. It kinda disintegrated me back too!

Just a little thought, I felt the slightest of a burning sensation as I did it. That led me to another truth about myself. I absorbed its essence. I hadn’t noticed where the rock and stone had been going, but I had been absorbing them too. It took something with a lot of energy before I felt the actual flow, backtracked its source, and reincarnated a new worm in its place.

This worm, however, I felt a connection to. It was mine. And I could command it to do… things. Mostly flop around. Worms aren’t very utilitarian. But, I could command the worm to help me dig, speeding along the process. Once I found that out, I used the excess energy from the stone I absorbed to summon more worms. A whole 47 of them.

And I must say? Bad idea. I should have just summoned a couple because it knocked me out straight cold.

Well, I woke up to news. Good and bad.

On the good spectrum, I found a bit of my soul! There was a little green hunk of stone, radiating with the same colors as me. Sucked it right into me and then bam.

My name was Alexander. So I know who I was, which is great. Non-existent thumbs up.

On the other end, however, the worms I had commanded lacked further direction. They just kept digging. At some point, they reached the surface and continued.

So, I am exposed. And seeing as I felt none of the familiar connections I had before, 48 of my worms are dead. At least I learned three things from the arrangement.

My worms can’t last outside and they follow orders to the death. Additionally, being exposed to the surface provides a steady stream of mana to fuel me.

Now, had I not regained bits of my memory, this would appear to be great. But the new me, with reinvigorated control of my thoughts, realized how awful this was. I have a hole leading directly to me with nothing in between to defend against intruders.

At least the hole is like the size of a head so someone might just assume it to be some sort of rabbit burrow. It's really uneven though. And I really want to fix it…

I mean, this hole is kind of my body. And no one likes being messy…

Sigh.

I fixed the hole. Blew what seemed to be like three hours, based on how the sun's light reflected into the hole. But now, at least, it's even. Now rather than a rabbit burrow, I have a coyote den. I just wish I could just close it back up. However, when I attempted to do that I felt a sensation of asphyxiation.

And once more, sigh.

I guess I better start setting up some sort of defense. Looking inwards, I tried to sense my pool of magick. I could feel it, yet visualizing it was quite the challenge. "Primal", or rather, primitive me was able to do it so easily when summoning the worms, perhaps instinctively, but human-minded me had a lot more problems doing so.

I would need the same source of power to try and traceback. Luckily, there was plenty of dirt around. And with dirt, comes insects. So, somewhere near the middle of my hole, I dug down.

Multi-tasking see, dig a pit and find bugs at the same time. And boy did I find them.

Three more of the pincer worms and some weird, solid blue rock. Now while I was glad to have found more worms, the rock is what intrigued me the most. It was blue, wet, and emanating a slight aura of mana. So, I absorbed it.

And whew…

To describe the sensation I felt when consuming that rock would be impossible with the human language. A divine pleasure I felt to my very soul.

And, my mana pool. Traced that blue into the depths of my pretty green body. Inside I found a vast swath of energies coalescing around a small, condensed bead of pure mana.

Finding my mana once more, I attempted to make a worm. Copying what primal me had done, I poured the mana right out of my core into a sort of mental mold. It seems I was imagining the form as some sort of blueprint, but, it worked. And there was a new pincer worm, ready for orders. So, I sent it to clear a path behind me, in hopes I could move my core to a safer area.

And boy he did try. Chipped his little pincers on the stone and continued to do so until he was essentially a normal worm. Ordering him to stop, I promptly remembered that discovery I made a while ago. Fanatical loyalty to orders. Honestly? I kind of felt bad for injuring it. I wonder if I can fix the poor bugger.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a big insect person myself. In fact, the three worms squiggling around in my new pit disgusted me.

My worm, however? It seems I had some sort of paternal connection to the beast.

So, I tried to fix him. Imagining that same blueprint, I attempted to reform the pincers. With a small push of mana, they reformed.

Neat. My mobs won’t be deformed by my stupidity. With renewed vigor and pincers, the worm squirmed in happiness at the miracle I performed.

Honestly, that little squiggle made me squee a little at its adorableness. Luckily, nothing sentient saw that and I can retain my manly pride. I can’t let myself be distracted by this adorableness right now! I am way too vulnerable.

So, I ordered floppy to burrow a new side tunnel, right next to the transition between dirt and stone.

Of course, not wanting to lose my precious worm friend, I made sure to include a “don’t injure yourself” in the order.

Next, I moved onto the three worms in the hole I dug. They would be experiment fodder.

With the first, rather than consuming, I tried to surround in my mana. It squirmed in resistance, seemingly in pain from my invasion. After a while of resisting, however, it slowly stopped its fighting. Shortly after that, the connection was made and it was mine. That happened just before it exploded.

So I can claim creatures, it just kills them? Or maybe it's something else.

I guess I would have to experiment more. Focusing on the second worm, I poured a stream of raw mana into it.

And it exploded just like the last worm. This time, however, there was no claiming it. So I guess there's a limit to how much mana a living thing can absorb. I think I just did the equivalent of putting too much air into a balloon.

So, with the third, I just absorbed it. Just like when the primal me has consumed it, there was a burn in response. I don’t know what the hell it is that causes it. I can only assume that the little worm has a soul and that souls naturally don’t want to be consumed and turned into raw mana. My meals bite back, I guess.

So now I have a worm, a pit, and a hole leading directly to me. I guess I have to decide:

What next?