Chapter 58 - 11-15

Chapter 11 - The Predator

I can feel it like an ache in my soul. Like a crack in reality. Like a numb limb, like the cold of a chasm, the burn before inhale, a stab of electricity—

Space stretches around Trenevalt and I, distorting like a funhouse mirror. The room seems to elongate, my vision warped senselessly, as a black seam etches itself upon reality and the fabric of space is pulled so wide it rips the stitches open.

Void spills out.

The black is infinite and it's empty, the concentrated essence of nothing, and yet somehow, impossibly, some thing emerges from the dark.

A nearly-forgotten pain tears through me like a reopened scar. Raw emotions swell from the black and overflow into me: victorious, malicious… starving.

Trenevalt gives a shout as the void swirls around him, purple energy crackling to life in his fingertips. I catch a glimpse of the magic still glowing faintly about the homunculus shell—the ceiling vanishing behind a curtain of black—a lightning bolt summoned to Trenevalt's grasp—and then the dark clamps down on us.

Something stabs through me. My glass cracks, and I feel my surroundings shatter. I fall to the floor with a jarring impact and can hear Echo distantly reporting, [3 points of Fall damage sustained,] as agony lances through me. I writhe, trying to escape the searing sensation, and then—

All light vanishes from the world. The pain dulls. It's still there, pulsing faintly in my soul, but my limbs, my glass, everything else has gone numb.

"Begone, beast!" It's Trenevalt's voice. Distant. I try to turn, to look for the source of his voice, but this place doesn't seem to have direction, or depth, or…

I'm Between.

Alarm and fear shoot through me. Does this mean it killed me? That… predator in the dark? What had even just happened? How did it reach us?

The spell Trenevalt had been performing. Did it harness the Between, just like the original spell he'd created to siphon energy (and Noli and I) into his homunculus core? Did the predator use that opportunity to jump into reality? Maybe. I can't come up with any other explanations with my limited understanding. But I suppose it doesn't matter, because now it's out there, and I'm in here.

"Back!" Trenevalt's voice wafts from an indistinguishable direction. Something ripples through the dark. An effect of his magic, maybe? Or something to do with the predator. I shiver, hoping it's not the latter. If he does send it back here, and it finds me waiting…

Well, I guess I'm already dead. But that can't be the whole explanation, can it? If it did kill me—again—then why am I still Between? Why not snapped back to Earth or moved beyond?

Another ripple passes through the black. This time, I latch onto the sensation. It's not from any direction, exactly, but grasping it seems to bring me closer to reality. Like I'm still connected to what's happening with Trenevalt and the creature—somehow tethered…

Ah! That's it. I am tethered. Where there should be nothing, I can feel the finest thread of magic strung through the dark. On this end, it's bound to my soul. And on the other side, if I follow it back…

"Gods give me strength." Energy ripples past me. There's an impression of movement, of struggle, and I press harder at the sensations, pulling myself along the thread.

Pain. My chest is icy cold, my hand throbbing and frail. Weakness trembles through my limbs as I stumbled back against a wall with the dawning fear that this might be it—

But these aren't my thoughts. I don't have a stomach or a hand. It's what Trenevalt is feeling, his emotions leaking through this tenuous tether of magic. But tangled with his impressions, I can feel an echo of the predator: satisfied, wolfish, and triumphant.

A surge of defiance from Trenevalt. Magic crackles back along the connection, stinging me with its ferocity even at this ethereal distance.

Surprise—a burning heat searing into my essence—anger and disbelief. The predator's elation evaporates into fury and spite as Trenevalt's magic lashes around it. Shockwaves of the struggle tremble back into the Between, and it's all I can do to clutch at my lifeline as their anger and fear and determination wash over me.

The void shudders. Trenevalt's magic pulls at it, digging its claws into the fabric of nothing, and slowly, steadily, he drags it toward existence. Reality and Between strain against each other like two negative poles of a magnet. And just as obstinate, the predator is fighting Trenevalt's hold.

I can feel something. Me, I feel it, not some projection from another. It's the warmth of reality. The cradle of sensation. And it's growing stronger, more distinct, as the gap between these two planes close.

And with it, like the radiating heat of a fire, I feel the predator's attention fall over me.

I don't waste a moment—I just jump. I seize the spell tethering me back to this world, and I leap for reality. The line separating Between from the physical plane blurs, the boundary evaporating for an instant, and in that moment I can see the room open up below me, blood and ichor and burns and deep grooves etched across every surface—

And the predator, formless, achromic, existing only as hate and hunger, coils in anticipation as our paths converge.

Whorls of Trenevalt's magic are cinched around it, forcing it back Between—back toward me. But it resists the pull, waiting for me to fall toward it, and at this rate I don't know that I can stop my descent. The magic tether is snapping me back toward my glass vial, reality rushing up to meet me. The predator waits until the last moment, when we're passing each other by, then lashes out toward me, and I desperately twist away—

Silence.

The room is still. Empty. I'm on the floor, dim light filtering through a window clouded by… something. The signs of battle are all that's left of the study. The desk is demolished. Books and pages scattered. Around me are mountains of ice—no. The fractured remains of the homunculus shell. No longer sinister, but sad and broken.

And the predator is nowhere to be seen.

I'm… alive. The realization doesn't fill me with as much relief as I would have thought. I just feel weary. Anxious. Exposed. I might have made it back to reality, but that doesn't mean the predator is back Between. There's no sign of Noli or Trenevalt either.

Gingerly, I roll myself over. Fragments of glass crunch beneath me. Half my vision is obscured by a smear of grime—dark and muddy, likely a mix of dust and whatever else I'd rolled through. There's also a stark white lightning bolt cutting through my sight. I recall the moment of stabbing pain before I was thrown Between, and I immediately stop moving.

Echo? I call, wondering if she's even still there. She's been so silent through all this. Check. Health Check.

[Check,] Echo says, and somehow just hearing her voice eases some of my dread. [HP: 4/10. Passive healing limited to a max health of 6.]

Why? I ask. Because of the crack?

[Affirmative.]

The temporary hit points are gone too, probably because my Attuned glass is out of range—or, more likely, destroyed. Not ideal, but I've got bigger things to worry about right now. The crack is at least just a crack, and not the gaping hole I'd feared to find. It's made me more fragile, but it won't kill me. Not now, at least.

Unwilling to roll through the debris that surrounds me, I summon the last four Attuned pieces of glass still left in my inventory. It takes me a minute to get the limbs situated under me. Two of them are smaller than the others, designed for signing instead of walking. I'll just have to make do.

I begin to maneuver out of the shattered remains of the homunculus shell, but I don't even know where I'm going. The floor and walls are scarred with claw marks and blackened as if there were a fire. Stains in the floorboards present mental images I don't want to think about. How could all of this have happened so fast? I couldn't have been Between for more than a handful of… the concept slips away from me. Time is meaningless Between. So how much passed out here?

Papers crinkle as I walk over them, and I cringe at the slight noise. Paranoia tells me I'm being watched, but I try to shove the anxiety aside. If it is the predator, if it is waiting to pounce, there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

Several of Trenevalt's books are scattered around the collapsed remains of the desk. Uneasily, I wade through the litter, searching for any glints of copper among the debris. Any springs, gears. Bits of metal.

And to my relief, I find none. She's not here, at least.

Do I leave? Is now the time to escape this place for good? Maybe Noli made it outside and is waiting for me. I could search the rest of the house, but the quiet is pressing on me like gravity. It still feels like there's danger in the air. Something left hidden.

It's time to go. Literally or metaphysically, the predator is still too close for comfort. I need to get out of here.

I wince at every tinkle of broken glass and rustle of paper as I pick my way over the floor as fast as I dare. My path out of the study and toward the front door carries me past Trenevalt's bedroom, a room I heretofore avoided out of a strict aversion to seeing (or cleaning) any grandpa underpants. Despite my best efforts to ignore the dark, yawning door frame, I can make out a figure in the dim.

I freeze. It's Trenevalt, seated against the back wall. He doesn't move, so maybe he didn't see me. I take a slow, cautious step forward—and slip on a piece of glass. I stumble with a jolt of alarm, and pieces of debris go rolling and clinking across the floor.

But Trenevalt still doesn't move.

Ice creeps over me. This time I take a step toward his bedroom instead of away from it. I tap at the ground, intentionally, and as loud as I can manage. He doesn't react.

Echo? I start to ask. Can you… But I stop myself. I'm not sure if I actually want to know. At least, not in her clinical terms.

There's something glowing dimly next to him in the darkness. A hint of magic. Some of my dread creeps away; if he's still doing magic, then maybe he isn't…

I move cautiously into the bedroom. The floor here is clear from most of the debris. Yet each faint tap of my limbs seems like a thunderclap in the still air, each footfall a crack snapping through the frozen ice of this moment. And as I grow closer, details resolve into horrific clarity.

He's slumped against the wall, head fallen against his chest. The faint glow of magic is from his charmed bracelet, splattered with blood and still on his wrist, which is laying limply at his side. And that's when I realize what I'm covered in—what's obscuring my vision. This by itself is gruesome enough, but I hardly even register it when I see—

There's a gaping hole in Trenevalt's chest. His entire shirt is stained deep with blood, so dark it had been indistinguishable from the shadows. But now that I've noticed, I can't tear my gaze away, and I follow the macabre river down his robes, across the floor, pooled in a great grisly lake toward—

I take an appalled step back from what I'd been mere inches from stepping in. And now, finally, the reality hits me.

Oh god. He's dead. He's really dead. I'm standing feet away from an actual body. I want to puke, but I have no bile. I wish I could cry, but I have no tears. I want to scream, or yell, or hyperventilate or—anything, anything to be able to release these feelings, to cast them out into the world so they're no longer building up in me, like a pressure that's going to make me crack.

There's a scraping sound behind me and I whip around. The smear of Trenevalt's blood is still obscuring half my vision, so I have to pivot, swiveling around wildly to catch sight of—

Noli. She's in the doorframe, whole and uninjured. Relief spills through me like a burst dam. She's okay. She's okay. After Trenevalt—after everything—this one miracle is enough to keep me going. At least there's this. At least she's okay.

But she's not moving into the room. She lifts a limb, as if to sign something, then hesitates. My brief elation sinks back into subdued exhaustion once more.

I lower myself to the ground so I can use my limbs for signing instead.

"You?" I sign, asking if she's okay, or as close as I can manage. I could use Echo to Check, but it's not her HP I'm worried about.

"I'm okay," she signs, as if the spell is broken, and takes a few hesitant steps toward me. "Are you alright?"

I start to sign a "Yes," then hesitate. I don't know. No. But I'm alive, aren't I? That should be enough, shouldn't it? Instead, I shrug.

She nods as if she understands. Carefully picking her way over to me, she stops at my side. She looks at Trenevalt for a moment in silence.

"He's dead," she finally signs. "That thing killed him. From Between. I watched it happen, and I couldn't do anything."

I don't know what to say. "Where?" I sign.

"That monster?" Noli asks, and I confirm. "I don't know. It was just… chaos. I'm not even sure about everything that happened. It was like—like the world wasn't right. Like it was flimsy. Like this house had stopped being a real house and it was just—just a drawing of one. I don't know. I can't explain it."

Something to do with Between, I guess. But that doesn't answer where the predator vanished to. I'd like to hope the spell Trenevalt used to try to send it back Between had worked in the end, but there's no way to know.

"We need to leave," Noli signs, and I couldn't agree more. I pick myself back up as Noli heads for the doorframe, then I hesitate, looking back at Trenevalt's body. Shit. I'd rather not, but we can't leave this place empty-handed.

"Kanin?" Noli notices as I creep over to Trenevalt's side. I try not to think about what I'm walking toward as I cautiously approach his hand. I try not to think about what I'm walking through. I try not to feel it. The horror of the situation is too heavy to truly grasp.

The beads of his bracelet shine faintly through the dark. We'll need this if we want to keep track of how long we've got before our spell expires. Before we're thrown Between once more. I don't know if that's something we should stop or not—or even if it's something we can stop—but it's better for us to prepare for it, I think. I tap my glass against the bracelet, and like flexing a mental muscle, try to add it to my inventory.

[Charmed bracelet added to inventory,] Echo says as the bracelet vanishes.

"What was that?" Noli asks as I join her at the door.

I don't have the vocabulary to even begin to explain.

She seems to realize this too. "We'll talk about it later. Now, I've figured out how to get the door open if—Kanin, where are you going?"

I don't plan on coming back here, so we'll need to snag anything that might help us before we go. I detour to the remains of the desk, searching for familiar leather bindings. I can't pick up all the loose pages, but a single book will just count as one item in my inventory. I find two of the ones Trenevalt had consulted before… well, everything went to shit. They might tell us something about our spells. And if they don't… At least I tried. I add them both to my inventory as well.

"Ready?" Noli asks. She's waiting, but by the way she's wringing her limbs and shifting back and forth, I can tell she's anxious to get out of here. I don't blame her—but there's one last thing for me to grab.

How many inventory spaces have I got left? I ask Echo.

[Inventory: 38/50]

Okay. Right.

I begin to weave my way through the wreckage, mentally counting down as I add twelve of the largest pieces of glass I can find to my inventory. When I'm done, I pause to survey what remains of the homunculus shell. Something that had caused me so much anxiety these past few days, and now I'm looting it for scraps.

In addition to the bracelet and books, that's 47 shards for me to work with, not counting the four I currently have out and Attuned. Somehow, it doesn't feel like enough.

Noli, loyal as ever, is still waiting for me when I'm done. I wait for her to say something, to comment on what I'm grabbing, or why I'm wasting time. Instead, she's only subdued as she signs, "Let's go."

At the front door, Noli climbs a curtain up to a nearby windowsill. From there she jumps across to the handle, leveraging it open. The door swings inward a few inches. I wonder how many times Noli has practiced this.

Then… we're outside.

It's sunset, our surroundings cast in a gilded orange light, and strange sounds hush around us. The buzz of insects. The chirping of birds. A breeze nudges faintly against me and sends murmurs through the canopy of nearby trees. It all seems far too peaceful out here for the death and carnage that lies in the shadows just behind us.

We both stand there for a moment, absorbing the paradoxical sights and sounds of life. Before us is a road, an opportunity to start taking our fate into our own hands. The first step forward, to move past all of this.

But for all this opportunity and potential, I'm just as keenly aware of the predator that's lurking somewhere just out of sight, as inescapable as my shadow.

Chapter 12 - The Opposite of Fast Travel

Noli leads the way, taking us around the side of the house, past the workshop, and onto a faint trail that slopes up a hill. I consider stopping in the workshop before we leave to see if there's anything else that might be useful for our journey, but Noli doesn't seem intent on lingering, and I don't blame her. I'm not sure what I'd be looking for, anyway. I already don't even know if what I brought with me will be of any help.

After days in the cabin, the outside world seems so exposed and open. I never realized what intense details my fish-eyed vision could pick up from my limited vantage point on the desk. Out here, everything feels staggeringly wide. There's a valley beneath us, and clouds miles above—mountain peaks misting into the distance. I'm overcome by a sudden and inexplicable feeling of vertigo, as if gravity flipped and I'm about to fall into the sky. I shrink lower to the ground and keep walking.

The trail weaves through knee-high stalks of grass that stretch far overhead. Maneuvering this unfamiliar terrain is surprisingly easy, despite its uneven surface. My glass sinks into the earth with each step, providing sturdy footholds, unlike the slick hardwood floors of Trenevalt's cabin. I still wish I had properly-sized pieces of glass for walking, but I'd rather put as much distance between us and that cabin as possible before I Attune anything else.

Noli doesn't say much as we walk, using her signing limbs to help navigate the trail. Her silence is uncharacteristic, but I can understand why. The blood—that hole in Trenevalt's chest—it's an image I don't think I'll ever be able to burn from my memory.

Rather abruptly, shade falls over us as we pass into the shadow of a forest. The trees seem to start all at once, clustered close together, extending miles and miles overhead. And though our path seems broad, Noli and I comfortably able to walk side by side, it now occurs to me the trail would barely be wide enough for a single human-sized traveler. I wonder if anyone else has used this road besides Trenevalt, when the last time was he'd walked this path, and if anyone would ever find him out here in the wilderness. Or would the cabin just become his tomb, both left to decay beneath weather and time?

"We should find some shelter before nightfall," Noli abruptly signs.

I have to stop walking and reposition my glass to ask her, "Why?" It's not like we need to sleep.

"Dark creatures about," she says. "I saw signs of them the past few days when I could get out to scout the area. Nightbanes, I think, which gives me an idea of where we are, but… Well, anyway, I don't know if they'd try to eat something like us, but if we're in their territory, probably best not to chance it."

I'd forgotten she's a ranger. Thank god for Noli. I don't know what I'd do without someone else to keep me sane through all this—and, you know, keep me from being devoured at night by some kind of evil-sounding fantasy animal in a strange forest.

"When?" I ask.

"Less than an hour before dark," Noli signs. "Maybe half that. It's so hard to gauge from down here… Ugh, and the eyes in this thing are terrible. How are yours?"

I don't think I've heard Noli say two negative things at once before. I just shrug in response; mine might be a little too good. I can make out the leaves in the trees, I catch every flit of bugs through the grass, I can peer far into the woods, where our trail vanishes behind a curtain of trunks, I can count the bits of cotton fluff drifting on the breeze… and I also have a far-too-close-for-comfort view of the dirt rushing beneath me, providing dizzying contrast to the much slower parallax of movement in every other direction. Not for the first time, I wish I could turn portions of my sight off; most of my left side currently has a blind spot where Trenevalt's blood has dried, but that doesn't exactly provide the comfort I'm looking for.

"At any rate, I'll keep an eye out," Noli signs, starting forward again after I pick myself up.

The silence that stretches between us becomes oppressive. I miss the optimistic and talkative Noli—though I'm finding it equally difficult for my thoughts to not dwell in dark places. I'm such a mess of emotions. I'm free from Trenevalt's Commands, at least. No more being forced to do anything against my will. But was the cost worth it? Did he deserve to die for his screw up? Did he even know he'd screwed up at all? Was all this just a terrible culmination of mistakes he made due to an aging and degrading mind? That sucks. This all just sucks.

Not to mention, he might have been the only one who could have undone our predicament. Will we be able to find anyone else who'll know the magic that might get us back in our bodies? And will we even have enough time before the spell keeping us out of the Between ran out?

I guess that should be our first priority. Figure out how long we've got, then find someone who can help us in time.

Framing it like that makes it sound easy—it also pointedly ignores the fact we're more likely to get stepped on than find someone who can understand us.

The sky has deepened from an orange-red to a twilit purple. Still heading along the path, the distant trees vanishing into the gloom, I'm starting to worry about these nightbanes Noli mentioned. Weren't we supposed to find cover?

"Ah." Noli stops, gesturing off the path. "I think that'll work."

I don't really see anything that could be considered shelter, but when Noli starts to forge off the road, I quickly follow before the stalks of grass can pop back up and knock me over.

I yearn for the days when grass did not pose a threat to my wellbeing.

Noli stops before a fallen branch, arched and propped up like a makeshift tent. "Sorry, I know. It's not much," she signs, "But I think it'll work for tonight. The leaves will provide some cover. What do you think?"

I think not much is an astute assessment, but the arrival of dusk isn't leaving us much of a choice. I follow her beneath, and what little light we had soon becomes obscured by our makeshift roof of twigs and leaves.

"So." Noli wrings two of her limbs together.

Now that we don't have walking to keep us busy, the fact that we're still not talking about everything has become especially loud. But we have to talk about it. We need to be on the same page here; we only have each other.

"I figure, we make it to the nearest city first," Noli signs. "Then we can figure out where we really are—and how far home is. If we can make it back there, Rezira should be able to help us."

Rezira? Who the heck is—it doesn't matter. Any allies at all would be amazing, but Noli still doesn't know about the time limit of our spell. I need to get her in the loop.

Echo, remove the beaded bracelet from my inventory, I say.

[Affirmative.]

The bracelet appears abruptly between us, causing Noli to hop back.

"A little warning next time!" she cries, and I feel a bit bad about startling her. I guess we're both a little jumpy, given the circumstances.

The bracelet lights up our shelter with a soft purple glow. Two of the beads are dark, and a third one is significantly dimmed. I tap my glass on each of the lit ones, counting them out. Nineteen. And if it had been about three days since we were summoned, that means each bead roughly corresponds to a day's worth of time. A sickly unease settles in me.

Three weeks on the spell, and two days are already up.

Noli creeps forward to nudge the bracelet. "You took this from the wizard. Is it important?"

"Yes," I sign.

"What's it for?"

Sheesh. How do I even begin to explain? "You and me," I sign haltingly. I need more words for this.

"It has to do with us?" Noli repeats. "How?"

My signing arsenal is depressingly empty. But maybe I don't need to know all the words.

I shuffle back, away from Noli, and she starts to follow. "No!" I quickly sign, shooing her back. She tips her head, curious, but gives me space.

Echo, summon one of Trenevalt's books.

The spell book bursts into reality beneath our flimsy cover, scattering leaves and twigs with a gust of displaced air. Noli still jumps but doesn't seem as startled as the first time.

"Sorry," I sign.

"Don't worry," she assures me. "I'm sure we can patch up the shelter later."

Oh yeah, that.

The book is already open, how I'd found it in the midst of the debris, and I'd hazard that several pages are missing as well. But I'm not as concerned about which page I'm on, so much as what I can find on it.

First, I crawl around the book to get Trenevalt's bracelet, which I drag up onto the page. Attempting to not skewer too much of the paper, I nudge the bracelet over the text, reading what I can make out in its dim ring of light.

There.

I tap my glass on a word, urging Noli over to look.

She reads it. "Spell?"

I watch her signs carefully, and then tap the page again, prompting her to repeat the sign. Next, I try it, though with my four limbs, it's not nearly enough to replicate the more complicated shapes and movements Noli is making.

But she catches on. "Spell. Okay. Yes. I'll teach you how to do that better later—you'll need at least three more pieces of glass. But good try!"

I continue my search down the page, looking for more relevant words, and I find one.

"Time," Noli reads. "Oh, that's a tricky sign—no, don't even try, oh that's terrible, please put your glass down. What's next?"

Nothing else on this page I want. Noli excitedly helps me move the bracelet over to the other side of the book, and we find several more words I need: End. Limit. Day. I'm missing the grammar, but that's enough to string the idea together.

Noli slowly repeats my embarrassingly basic attempts at the signs. "Our… spell… end. Our spell's going to end? When? Oh, sorry. Limit… Day… Wait, today?! Oh, no—sorry! Okay, I'll let you finish."

I haven't learned my numbers yet so I just scratch out nineteen lines in the dirt.

Noli puts it all together. "Our spell has a time limit. Nineteen days."

I tap the bracelet, pointing to the dark and lit beads in turn. She takes a moment to count them.

"The bracelet's tracking it?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Noli sits back, clearly digesting all this. "Oh. Wow. Okay, so this is a lot. What does the end of our spell mean, though? Which spell are we talking about here?"

I just gesture between us, too impatient to go hunting for more words.

"Us. Our bodies? The spell that keeps us in our bodies." Noli is silent for a moment. "So when the time's up, we should be released, right? I'll go back to my body?"

I shrug. Maybe. But we don't know. And besides that…

I sign, "Big."

This seems to thoroughly perplex Noli. "I need more to go off of than that."

I mentally sigh. I doubt there will be the word "Predator" or "Between" on this page. I start with one of the new signs. "Day."

"Day?" she repeats.

"Yes." Then I go back to the dirt, smoothing out the marks I made before. I draw a crescent moon.

"Night?" Noli guesses.

"Yes!" Nice job. Now, gotta extract that one further.

I make a crude approximation of her "Night," and then gesture around us. She considers for a moment.

"Night time?"

"No."

"Erm. Stars? Moons? Dark?"

"No!" She's getting further from my point. I tap our shelter, shaking the leaves.

"Night shelter. From… the nightbane?" she finally guesses.

"Yes!"

"Nightbane," she repeats, seemingly confused. "You are worried about the nightbane?"

Existentially speaking. But she's still not getting it. I use two pieces of glass to mimic an alligator mouth, opening and shutting on end like biting jaws. Noli chuckles a little at the display.

"Eating? Hungry?"

I guess that's close enough; I squash a few of the new signs together. "Hungry night."

"You're worried about getting hungry at night?"

I press my limbs against my glass surface in the closest approximation of a face palm I can achieve. "No."

But Noli doesn't seem dissuaded, listing out all her guesses as I confirm or deny. "You're worried about the nightbanes being hungry? You're worried about me being hungry? You're worried about the night being hungry—"

"Yes," I quickly sign. So close.

She pauses, digesting this. "But the night can't be… Oh." She seems to grow a little smaller. "You mean that monster from Between."

"Yes."

"I see." Noli nudges the charmed bracelet. "So you think the spell that's keeping us bound to our bodies will expire in less than three weeks. And at that time we'll return Between, where that creature will be waiting for us."

"Yes." That about sums it up.

Noli can't sigh, but I can see the tension wind up and release in all her limbs. "Well, that's quite the predicament, isn't it?"

I'll say. "Time small," I sign.

"There's not much time," she corrects, slowing the signs down so I can try to mimic them. She's right; I need to Attune more glass if I want to start communicating clearly. "But I agree: There might not be time to make it home to Rezira. And I'm sure she's already plenty worried by now. We might at least have enough time to make it to the nearest town. And then from there…"

…From there, then what? It's a good question. We still don't understand the first thing about how to get back in our real bodies—or if that's even possible. Which means our first priority should be to buy ourselves more time. Figure out how to extend our spell's time limit a little bit longer—at least, just long enough to learn if it's safe to move Between, and if doing so would really get us back to our original bodies.

And if that's even something that would be in my best interest. My body had a broken neck, last we'd been together. Noli's might be whole and intact—assuming it's still even in this plane of existence—but how long would it last without food and water?

Or a soul?

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter," Noli signs, completing my thoughts. "We just have to focus on one problem at a time, right? Get to a town first, then we can worry about the magic. Sound good to you?"

"Yes." It doesn't help either of us to worry about things we can't know or control. Then again, easier to say that than feel it.

Noli nods. "Well! Glad that's all settled. I feel much better about all this, don't you? There's something comforting in knowing what you need to do next."

I would laugh if I could. Feel better? Noli, I'm stuck in a glass bottle. You're living as a tiny clockwork toy. The only wizard who knows how we got here was murdered by a monster that's equally likely to eviscerate us upon our spell's expiration, and I'm covered in his blood. Comforting is not the word I would use to describe this situation.

"I'll take watch," Noli signs, moving to the edge of our feeble shelter. "You don't really know what to look for anyway, right? Don't worry about it. Maybe practice some of the signs I taught you."

And yet, there is something comforting about not going through this alone.

I return Trenevalt's book and bracelet to my inventory, and bring out four pieces of glass instead. The sign practice was a good suggestion, but we'll be on the road again tomorrow, and I'll need better legs to make the journey.

Alright, Echo, I say. Let's get some Attunements started.

Chapter 13 - Ball and Chain

The night vanishes in a moment of sleepless black, and when I wake from my Attunements, it's nearly dawn. There's a moment of disorientation—of wondering where I am, and if everything that had happened was just a strange, horrific dream. But the surrounding forest, highlighted with slivers of pink and orange, doesn't make it hard to remember what I'm doing out here.

Something is pressed up against my glass that I don't remember being there before, and when I start to stir, it moves away.

"Oh!" Noli signs, lowering a leaf. "Sorry. I thought you were still asleep. I just figured maybe I could get that mess off of you while I waited."

Mess? As I shift, I finally notice most of the dark smudge on my glass is gone. I look again at the leaf Noli's holding: She was using it to scrub Trenevalt's blood away. I'm filled with a strange mix of revulsion and relief.

"Thank you," I sign.

"Of course!" Noli signs. She gestures to my newly Attuned pieces of glass. "Think those'll help you walk better? They're kinda big."

It's better than my current mismatched legs, and I figure longer legs means faster travel; time is against us.

"Day, time?" I ask Noli. When are we hitting the road?

"It's nearly dawn," she signs. "I heard the nightbanes in the distance last night, but I don't think there's any about now. Still, we should probably wait another thirty minutes, just to be safe."

Enough time to Sculpt some of my glass then. At the very least I can make them a little more even for walking, and now that I have eight Attuned pieces, I'll be able to walk and talk at the same time.

I start to Sculpt the first piece of glass, smoothing it out and even adding a handful of bumpy prongs on one end to give myself more grip. The leg still feels very long, though. Curious, I focus on one end of the glass and try to "Snip" it off from the rest of the length.

And to my surprise, it works. Suddenly I have two pieces of Attuned glass I'm Sculpting.

Neat! This opens more possibilities for me. If I halve each piece of signing glass as well, then I'll have twice as many to work with—which will go a lot further to replicating the complicated shapes Noli makes.

My Sculpting time limit runs out, and I'm about to cast Sculpt on the other pieces of glass, too, when I hesitate. If I keep chopping everything in half, sooner or later I'll just have a handful of sand. Not exactly great tools for walking around on.

Hey Echo, I say. Can two pieces of Attuned glass be joined back together again?

[Affirmative,] Echo says. [Attuned items may be joined through Sculpt or Chain spells.]

Hello, there. What's the Chain spell do?

[Chain: to magically link two or more Attuned items together at specified anchor points.]

And what are anchor points? I ask.

[Anchor points are designated surfaces where objects may be magically bound.]

I feel like this explanation is going in circles. Maybe a demonstration would clear things up.

I hold up one of the pieces of glass. Alright, Echo, let's Chain this piece here.

I swear I hear her give a disappointed sniff. [To cast Chain, at least two Attuned objects must be targeted.]

Psh, I knew that. Okay, Echo, let's Chain these two pieces, then. The two I'd originally separated.

[Magic cost: 3 mana,] Echo says. [Proceed?]

Proceed.

[Activating Chain,] Echo confirms. [Designate desired anchor points.]

Might as well start with what's easy: I focus on the two ends of the glass I'd originally separated. A spot of black begins to form at each of the two points I'd imagined, glowing faintly in the dark. I still can't quite wrap my head around how something that's black can produce light, but I suppose that's just magic for you. The two pieces of glass snap together, like magnets, and then the glow vanishes.

[Chain complete.]

Well that's underwhelming. It basically just glued them back together, didn't it? How was that any different from using Sculpt? Except it cost one more point of mana. What a rip off!

It isn't until I start to move the glass that I feel it—they're not glued together after all. Cautiously, I pull one piece of glass one way, and pull the other one in a different direction. The pieces both respond independently, bending like a number 7 where they're still Chained together.

Chain isn't glue: It's a joint. A magical joint.

Oh. Oh. This is just what I need!

I wave the glass around excitedly. Echo, can I Chain this to my own body, too? 

[Negative,] Echo says. [Only Attuned objects may be Chained.]

Oh well. That's a little inconvenient, but I can still work with this.

Echo, gimme a Check? I ask, realizing I haven't done that in a while. If I'm about to do a lot of magic, I need to ration out my mana. Plus, I'm curious if this Chained thing helps my Bonus HP at all.

The words appear in my vision and mind.

[Name: Kanin]

[Species: N/A]

[Class: Wizard]

[Level: 2]

[HP: 6/10]

[Bonus HP: 16]

[Mana: 9/21]

[Void: 29%]

[Role: Homunculus]

Dang, that crack is really hurting my max HP. But at least I've got more Bonus HP to help absorb some blows. Seems like my mana is still recovering from last night's Attunements, so I'll have to be careful about how I use the rest of these Sculpt and Chains. And Void looks about the same as it was before. That's… good, probably? Who knows.

Mana is the bigger issue. After all those Attunements last night, and now another Sculpt and Chain, I'm quickly running dry. Okay, If I Sculpt all three of the remaining legs at once, I'll get a mana discount and it will only cost me 5. Then I'll have 4 mana left for one last Chain. To do the last two Chains, I'll have to wait an hour for my mana to passively recover. Annoying, but doable.

I get to work Sculpting the other three legs, smoothing out and breaking them all in two, and then chaining one of them back together again.

"It's fascinating watching you work," Noli signs, and I nearly jump out of my skin (or glass, as the case may be). I was so focused on my magic, I hadn't realized she was watching. "I saw a metalworker once who was skilled in the arcane. It was a lot like this. He could bend the molten metal in half with just his mind, then run it through his forge. Made a whole sword without any tools. But what you're doing is something else."

I mean, I'm only level 2 and hardly the size of a teacup. I doubt any of this is that amazing. Concentration broken, I nearly drop one of the limbs as I'm Sculpting it, but catch it just in time. Metal sounds a whole hell of a lot more useful than glass, that's for sure. At least it wouldn't break when you dropped it.

"Maybe it's rude to say this, but I'm glad you're stuck with me, Kanin," Noli suddenly blurts. "I mean, I'm not glad you're stuck in that body, and I'm definitely not glad I'm stuck in this body—not that there's anything wrong with your body, of course—but I'm just trying to say, I'm glad I have your help."

My help? I haven't done shit since I got here, if you exclude some soapy plates and a half-swept floor. What do I even have to offer, apart from comic relief?

"I mean, I wouldn't even have known about the time limit on our spell without you," Noli continues. Oh, well, I guess there's that. "And if you hadn't gotten caught up in all this, and I'd have been by myself in the Between, it would probably be me stuck in that glass vial instead."

Oh. Well. Congrats on dodging that bullet.

[Spell complete. Remaining Mana: 1.]

I flex one of my newly crafted limbs, bending the elbows—or are those knees?—rather pleased with myself. I have two stiff legs and two bendy legs to work with for now. Time to practice walking on them.

Like usual, I collect the four limbs around my body, wide end pointed toward myself. I use the four contact points to press inward and leverage myself up—and immediately slip and fall on my face.

Ow. But hey, no fall damage, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I go slower this time, focusing on both the contact points and the joints as I edge myself to my feet. Whew! I'm up. I stand there for a moment, testing each of my newly articulated legs. Okay. I think I—

"Wow! That's amazing!" Noli skitters around me. "You're really getting the hang of this thing, aren't you?"

Well I'm trying to! But it's way harder to control two moving parts per leg than it is to focus on just the four stilts I'd been using before. And Noli certainly isn't helping that concentration.

Like some kind of drunk toddler, I do a couple stumbling laps around our shelter as Noli cheers me on with distracting levels of enthusiasm. Eventually, my impatience outpaces my desire to practice.

"When go?" I sign.

Noli checks the sky. "I think it's probably safe to start now. Are you ready?"

Still need to save up another 5 mana for the last two Chains, but I'd rather not wait around for that. "Yes."

Noli stretches out her limbs. "Then let's get to it!"

I follow her out of the shelter, cringing as I brush against some leaves and dew drips down my surface, leaving streaks in my vision. Noli seems back to her normal bubbly self again—or maybe that's just how she copes with all of this. I guess I can't judge either way, and I don't have much brain power to spend thinking about it. We've a long way to travel, and I just learned how to walk.

While I silently focus on placing one foot in front of the other, Noli resorts to her typical ramblings. "I'm hoping this road will lead to a main one before long," she signs. "That wizard wasn't doing so hot even before he—well, he wasn't doing great to begin with, so I doubt he'd be able to walk very far on his own. Either he magicked all his food up, or he bought it from a nearby marketplace. I suppose summoning his food is possible, given his skillset. In which case, we'd be well and truly stuffed." She pauses a beat. "But I'm sure it'll be fine!"

Noli may be treating this with an abundance of optimism, but perhaps it's best not to think too hard about the reality that we might already be too far from anyone to make a difference.

"Time?" I ask, managing to keep my focus on my legs while also operating the signing shards. Doing both at once feels like trying to juggle Jell-O.

"Time?" Noli repeats. Then she reaches out to correct a few of my angles. "You mean how long we've got before we find the village?"

"Yes." Thank god she can make sense of my broken English. Signs? What language is this, anyway?

"I don't really know," she admits. "If he didn't use magic, then I'd guess he's within a day's walk of some city. The same distance might take us three or four days. And it might not be a very big city, mind—I mean, we can always hope so!—but any form of town will be a good starting point to get help or even find a telepad."

Wasn't a telepad how…

"Although I guess a telepad's what got me into this situation in the first place," she continues, reading my mind. "Still, couldn't hurt to try if it might get me home quicker. I mean, I guess it couldn't hurt more than it already has. Although, if it sends me Between again…"

Where the predator might be waiting. Yeah, I'd be hesitant to use a telepad, too. Although if it really will take days to reach civilization, then we'll only have two weeks, tops, to find someone who can help us. And depending on how long that takes, we might not have much of a choice than to try for a telepad.

One of the extremely few benefits our bodies have to offer is that we don't need to rest. We walk throughout the day, chatting (mostly Noli) and practicing signs (mostly me) as we go. I finish Chaining the last two legs on the way, leveling the spell up to 2 and gaining the now typical 10% mana discount. I also get Sculpt up to level 4, earning a 30% discount, when Noli has me split a couple more of my signing shards into smaller pieces. Now I'm able to cluster them together in a larger variety of shapes and come closer to approximating actual hands. They're smaller, less useful as tools—but I guess I've got plenty more glass I still need to Attune that can serve as backup legs if I need them.

It's when I'm in the midst of working out the correct movement for "Travel" that I miss a step. One of my glass legs slips up the side of my vial, and before I even have a chance to react and try to catch myself with the other three, I crash into the dirt, a jarring clink ringing out as I strike a rock.

[1 point of Fall damage sustained,] Echo says.

"Kanin!" Noli hurries over. "Are you alright?"

"Okay," I weakly sign, still somewhat stunned from the fall. I'm more shaken by the suddenness of it than the damage. My attention had just slipped. I'd stopped thinking about the shards that were keeping me walking, too focused on the signs. This multitasking is bordering on dangerous. What if I'd been higher up? Or landed on my cracked side?

I Check my health: [5/11]. So much for my signing glass protecting me. Last time a level up healed me: What does a guy need to do to get another level up around here?

Actually, I know someone who can help with that.

Echo are there any stats on, like, leveling up? I wonder.

[Affirmative,] Echo says. [EXP needed to level up: 6/23]

Oh, well that's nice. I could have used that info before now. What causes increases in EXP? I ask

[Various experiences contribute toward an increase in leveling, including utilizing your Attack, HP, and Mana.]

So… doing damage, taking damage, and using spells?

[Affirmative.]

Well it's nice to know I don't just have to kill cockroaches to level up. And as much as I'd love to level up from continued Fall damage, it sounds like working on my glass is the best way to go about it.

But sheesh, all this magic I've been doing recently and I only got 6 EXP out of it. Looks like that's about a quarter of the way to leveling up again. If it means avoiding fights or taking damage, however, I'll just have to deal with it.

I start to pick myself back up, glass limbs slipping against my surface, struggling for grip, when I stop. There's a better way to do this—a safer way. In fact, I'd been using it in Trenevalt's house most days (through no choice of my own). That stand had kept me pretty secure. If I'd been able to make the legs on that thing move, it would have been the perfect way to get around. I don't have a stand out here to use, but making one is within the realm of possibilities. Honestly, I should have thought of this when I originally figured out what Chaining could do.

I call a medium piece of Attuned glass from my inventory, considering it.

"What's up?" Noli asks, watching as I start to Sculpt the glass. "What are you making?"

A better way to walk, ideally. One where I won't have to worry about keeping my limbs pinched up against my side, because they'll be Chained in place instead.

I finish Sculpting the glass into a loop, slightly smaller around than I am wide. Next I Chain the four legs to the glass circlet, spreading them out equally around it. And finally…

I set the loop down onto the ground, then roll myself onto it. Ordering the legs to straighten up, the circlet lifts me into the air, where I'm now riding comfortably atop my walking creation.

"Oh!" Noli signs, clapping two of her limbs together. "Great idea. Do you think that will help us go faster?"

I hope so. Already, focusing on controlling fewer shards at once has eased a tension in my mind. There will be no more dropping myself, now.

I mean, that's the plan, anyway.

If I'm lucky.

But I'll be the first to admit that Lady Luck seems to have taken issue with my existence.

Chapter 14 - Pedantic Linguistics

I get Attunement leveled up to 3 that night as I'm skipping the time away, this time focusing on Attuning the largest—and hopefully most useful—pieces of glass I picked up. One of them I think used to be part of the homunculus shell's head. The irony that I'd been doing everything in my power to avoid being bound to this body, just to use it to make a new one, does not escape me. It feels vaguely cannibalistic to be dissecting all this glass and stitching it back together again. I try to channel my inner Noli. It's not cannibalism, Kanin, it's recycling!

The next two days are more walking, more talking, and more practice at doing both. And I'm not half bad, if I do say so myself. Two skills I'd developed as an actor were quickly memorizing lines and being hyper aware of my body. Both of which are now coming in handy as I learn Noli's signs and get control of my new legs. In fact, my Foreign Language skill even levels up twice to level 3: I'm not sure if that's the Echo equivalent of getting a gold sticker on my homework, or if there's any real measurable benefit, but I guess I'll take it.

The trek is monotonous. Noli helps stem the boredom and give me something to focus on, but without the need to eat or drink or sleep, there's no reason to take breaks, either. The forest grows more dense, trees and brush pressing in over our meager trail, but it never quite disappears into the undergrowth. We come across no other people—or even any signs that people have been here in the last decade—but still Noli's enthusiasm never wavers.

"If I'm right about which direction we're headed, and I usually am, then once we crest this hill, it'll be all downhill from here," Noli signs as we walk, the third afternoon of our travels. "If we find some sign of a creek or river, that will probably lead down into a valley, and that should lead to civilization! We're close, now, I can feel it in my bones. Er… gears?"

It's a nice thought, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. I mean, it's physically impossible to hold my breath, but that's beside the point. I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't try to figure out some kind of backup plan. Maybe at night I should be spending my time reading through Trenevalt's spell books, seeing if there's anything useful in there, instead of Attuning more glass. Ugh, these time limits are killing me. If Attuning didn't take hours—if our spell didn't come with an expiration date—we'd be able to stop and actually think about what we wanted to do, instead of just relying on dumb luck for us to just stumble across some kind of—

"Oh!" Noli stops. "Look, Kanin, a road!"

Well I'll be damned. Maybe there is something to this ranger class Noli has. Our faint trail opens out onto a much wider road, ruts carved into the now-dried mud from the wheels of whatever vehicles they have in this world. There are impressions of footprints as well; maybe we're not as remote as I'd feared. And if anyone else comes by, there's a chance we could hitchhike. Huh. Maybe we're not totally, absolutely, completely, 100% fucked after all. Maybe just like… 50% fucked.

I'll take those odds.

Cautiously, I follow Noli out onto the road. I realize this is only to our benefit, and we were equally blind to any predators in the woods, but out here I still feel extremely uneasy. Noli must notice my hesitation, because she gives me a reassuring pat with a small clink.

"Don't worry, we definitely won't get run over by anything," she signs, putting that new fear into my head. "I can feel the vibrations of anything that's approaching. We should be able to get out of the way in time."

Great. Well, I've put my faith in her this far and it hasn't led me astray. Besides following the road in the nearby underbrush, which will definitely be harder to traverse and take more time, I don't see any alternatives anyway.

"Okay," I sign, gesturing for Noli to lead the way. "Let's go."

She takes us in the opposite direction I would have picked—another reason I count myself lucky to have her help. I try to see if there's anything in the dried imprints in the road that led her to that conclusion, but it's all mud to me. Some ranger instincts I guess.

We follow the road for several more uneventful hours, until sunset begins to blush the sky. We make better progress on the road—far less roots to climb over—but with dusk approaching, I'm unsure what our next move should be.

"Nightbanes?" I question, wondering if they'd be an issue out here as well.

"Not sure," Noli admits. "I didn't hear anything last night, so maybe we're out of their territory now. But if we want to play it safe, it would probably be best to shelter again…?"

She's asking me if I want to play it safe. Why she'd trust my opinion on any survival skills, I have no idea. Although, I guess our spells are just as much tied to our survival as anything else.

"One hour," I sign. I want to push it just a little further. We can go until twilight, at least; it's not like we need much more shelter than a fallen branch or rotten log, anyway.

"Aye aye," she signs, heading on once more. "You know, your signs are getting better already, I'm impressed! We should work on more complex sentences. I could really use the conversation. Not that your current conversation is lacking,mind…"

Hah, sure, Noli. But thanks for the encouragement.

I wait for her to continue her thought, but she's stopped walking, head tipped to the side.

"What?" I ask.

She doesn't respond for another moment, then abruptly jerks upright. "Travelers! Coming fast. Hurry, Kanin, off the trail!"

Noli skitters off into the woods and I follow her as quickly as I dare, awkwardly forcing my legs faster. It's only as I'm stepping off into the grass that I can feel the rumble of approaching footfalls.

Noli's under a bush, and I edge in next to her as the travelers come around the bend. There are four figures, each leading a… creature laden with supplies. The pack animals aren't horses, that's for sure. They look kind of like overgrown armadillos, a net of supplies draped over their arched backs. The reminder that this isn't Earth strikes me all over again. The not-horses are so strange, it takes me a moment to notice the travelers.

The first one appears to be human, a brown-skinned woman in leather gear, laughing at some unheard joke. But her companions are significantly more fantastical. The man she's talking to is covered in blue lizard-scales, with horns curling up from his head and serrated teeth decorating his smile. The second stands a head above her companions, skin green, muscles bulging from bare arms. That one, at least, I can pick out from characters I'd seen on the set of Cryptid Hunter: I'm pretty sure she's an orc. The last is… er… a cat person? Am I seeing that right? He's got fuzzy black ears and a cat tail, anyway.

I call on Echo for a Check.

[Name: Saru]

[Species: Human]

[Class: Rogue]

[Level: 13]

[HP—]

Okay, okay, I get it! You can spill their whole medical history. Just give me the short version, I tell Echo. Species, level, you know.

[Affirmative,] Echo says, restarting her analysis.

[Saru: Level 13 Human Rogue.]

[Chatil: Level 12 Dracid Healer.]

[Tetara: Level 14 Orc Bruiser.]

[Lark: Level 9 Felis Wizard.]

As the group grows close, the first thing that strikes me (after the scales and ears and green skin, that is,) is how huge they are. Trenevalt already seemed to dwarf me, but it's only really sinking in now that he was a halfling, and all the other kinds of people I'll meet in this world will be twice as tall.

Because I didn't feel small and fragile enough as it is.

"What do you think?" Noli signs, the ground thrumming from their steeds' footfalls as they pass. "Should we ask them for help?"

It's a tempting idea. And boy could I use that healer's help right about now. But I'm not even sure how we'd go about it. If one of them can sign, Noli will be our saving grace. But if they can't, what would they think of us? Would they help? See us as some kind of novelty? Or use us for target practice?

Not to mention, can we even wave them down without getting stepped on?

"Let's wait," I sign. "Follow."

If nothing else, it's worth getting closer and waiting until they stop for something.

Noli nods. "Good idea. Well, come on then. We better not let them get much of a head start."

Already they're leaving us in the dust. I follow Noli as she carves a path through the woods, struggling to keep pace. But before long, the travelers are out of sight. Shit. Did we miss our chance? Was I wrong to suggest we bide our time? God knows we don't have that much of it.

However, as the dark begins to settle in, their voices waft back through the trees once more, easing my worry. A few more minutes on, and an orange glow flickers through the trees—a campfire.

As we cautiously approach their camp, I can't help but again feel alien to my surroundings. Campfires are familiar. I'd gone camping with my dad all the time when I was a kid. Those memories are strongly tied with the smell of woodsmoke, pine, and roasting trout. But I can't smell anything with this body, and the lack of those scents makes the camp seem fake, somehow. Two dimensional.

But the fire's real enough. I can begin to feel the heat on my glass as we stop just shy of the clearing, hidden in the underbrush.

The party is in good spirits, seated on logs and stones about the firepit as they laugh and cook their dinner. They seem friendly enough. Maybe we should just waltz on out there asking for help. It hadn't worked out with Trenevalt, but maybe these guys will listen. Sooner or later we'll have to convince someone to hear us out if we're going to get help with our spells.

"Think they are friends?" I ask Noli.

"Friendly." She corrects my signs. "And it seems like. Think it's worth a shot?"

We probably won't have another opportunity to get people's attention as easily as we do now. At least their armadillo steeds are tied up and unlikely to trample us here.

"I'll go first, since I can sign better," Noli signs. "Not that you can't sign well! I mean, you can't, but it's pretty good considering how much time you've had to practice! Still, I think it'll be more clear if I do the talking."

Probably deciding it's best for all parties involved if she cuts herself off, she skitters out from our shelter.

The party continues to chat with each other even when Noli comes to a stop before the fire, light dancing off her metal. "Hello!" she signs widely, though even then they don't notice right away.

"I'm really hoping one of you here can understand me!" she continues with large exaggerated signs, as if yelling. "We are but weary, tiny travelers in dire need of assistance—"

"Ah!" The dracid jerks back, losing his balance and falling off his log.

The human bursts into laughter. "I think that's more than enough ale for tonight."

"No!" He scrambles upright, staying behind the log as he jabs a finger at Noli. "It's a spider! A poison fang!"

All eyes fall on Noli, the flames glinting off her many wriggling legs.

Well, shit.

"Now hold on," she signs. "While I do see the resemblance, actually I'm not—"

And the camp erupts into chaos.

"Kill it!" The cat-boy jumps up onto his log, back arched. "Kill it!"

The orc grabs an axe and starts edging around the fire, clearly hesitant to get too close.

"This is all a grave misunderstanding!" Noli signs as she hurries to stay on the opposite side of the fire as the orc, causing the human to leap back, tripping into a nearby tree.

The dracid is wielding some kind of staff, which he stabs at the ground as Noli darts past. "Don't let it bite you! Its poison can fell a rockbeak!"

The cat-boy brandishes a skewered piece of meat. "Don't you mean venom? It's a common misconception. Poison is when—"

"Now's not the time for pedantic linguistics!" the human cries, drawing her bow. She nocks an arrow and draws as Noli skitters back around toward the orc, who in turn stumbles away and falls into a bush.

My bush, in fact.

I skip to the side right as the orc stumbles by, her feet shaking the ground with each lumbering step. Leaves are shredded from the bush with her passing, cascading down over the top of me and obscuring my vision. I use my signing arms to swat them away as I try to get out of the orc's path and see what's become of Noli.

I catch sight of her just in time to see her dart between the felis and the dracid, retreating to the safety of the undergrowth.

Or, so I thought.

"Where'd it go?" the human cries.

The dracid stabs his staff toward the woods. "Over here! Hurry, someone has to kill it before it comes back with friends!"

"I don't think poison fangs travel in packs," the felis considers. "But it might come back when we're asleep and try to—"

"It doesn't matter," the human snaps. "Someone just find it!"

"On it!" the felis cries. Withdrawing a wand from his robes, he flicks it through the air, its tip lighting up yellow like a miniature sun. He quickly sketches out a shape—the outline of a housecat. Then, the outline becomes much more real as a glowing, transparent cat shakes itself off, pulls away from the wand's light, and jumps down to the forest floor. It considers its surroundings for a moment, ears flicking left and right. They snap to attention, and the ethereal feline jumps into the brush.

Right where Noli had vanished moments before.

Crap! I have to help her.

Paying careful attention to staying out of the firelight—and the arachnophobes' line of sight—I hurry through the undergrowth, trying to keep track of where I'd last seen Noli and the felis's spell. As if maneuvering roots and trees and bushes in the dark weren't bad enough, now there's a murder cat to keep track of. I have no idea how I am supposed to help with that. All my spells amount to making glass float, slowly change shape, and stick together. But I can't leave Noli to face it on her own. At least with the two of us, maybe we can split its attention.

But where is she? I'm sure I've passed where I last saw her. Shit. What if we get separated out here? Screw the cat—how would we even find each other again? The woods are enormous, and neither of us can even call out for each other. Crap, crap, crap. Why didn't I think of this before? I shouldn't have agreed to let her go out and try to talk. We need to stick together. Next time—if there is a next time—

I stumble out from beneath a bush and the cat is right in front of me. Up close, it's four times my size, and I can see the trees and sky and stars behind it, shining through its yellow haze. The cat's head snaps toward me, pupils becoming narrow slits—and Noli hanging limply from its mouth.

Chapter 15 - Cat Got Your Tongue

[Spell: Spiritual Familiar]

[Level: 3]

[HP: 15/15]

[Mana: 0/0]

Noli! I take a step forward before I even have a chance to think—then a hasty step back as the cat swipes a paw at me. Noli isn't moving. She isn't even trying to sign at me. No, no, no—

The spell cat growls, advancing on me as I continue to retreat toward the bushes. Does it think like a cat? Is it after me out of curiosity, or because it was spelled to hunt down prey? I don't know, and I don't have time to figure it out. The cat abruptly stops and crouches, but I don't feel any relief as I notice it tense, getting ready to spring—

Echo summon a spell book!

The cat leaps just as the tome manifests in the air before me, and I'm rewarded with a solid thwump as the cat collides with the book.

[2 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt.]

The book tips back, falling toward me—

Echo, back in my inventory!

I feel the slightest brush of breeze against my glass, a ghost of sensation as the book falls back on top of me—just for it to vanish the moment before it makes contact. Whew.

But now there's nothing between me and the cat. It picks itself up, shaking its head, whipping Noli from side to side like a rag doll. My stomach drops through the ground. I have to end this and get Noli out of there ASAP.

The cat turns its attention back on me and, to my relief, it drops Noli. Placing one paw on her back, the cat hisses in a very life-like manner. Those aren't real teeth, right? And no animal in its right mind would try to bite through glass, right? Well, no real animal.

The cat steps over Noli, apparently having decided its prey is dealt with and I am course number two. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I summon four pieces of Attuned glass from my inventory, the largest of which is the size of a grapefruit. It's still significantly smaller than the cat, but it's twice the size of me, and now I have the advantage of numbers. The cat stops, ears flicking about as I fan out my glass. We stare each other down for a moment. My glass hovers in place. Its tail snaps from side to side. Then, it strikes.

I collapse my glass in at the same moment. I don't stand a chance at dodging, but if I can knock it off course—

My largest piece hits the cat at the same moment it tries to arch away, glancing off its shoulder instead of striking its head. Two other pieces miss, a third clipping its back as it yowls. A lightning flash of yellow fills my vision, then—

My legs are swiped from underneath me and I fall back, hard.

[3 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt.]

[1 point of Fall damage sustained.]

I roll away from my legs, but don't bother trying to summon them back—there's no time. Instead, I focus on my shards, whipping them around blindly as I roll to a stop and gather my bearings.

I feel another piece of glass connect and am rewarded with an angry hiss.

[5 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt.]

Lucky! But I can't rely on luck to win this; I only had a handful of hit points to begin with, and there's even less now. All it will take is one direct hit from the cat, and I'll be finished.

When the world stops spinning, I can see the cat has backed off outside the range of my glass and is watching me warily. I call my glass closer, clustering it around me in a makeshift shield. We're both low on HP. Whoever deals the next strike will decide it. I tense, mind racing, ready for the slightest movement. Would it come straight at me again? Or come around the side, looking for a blind spot? Or try something else, something tricky—

The cat yowls in surprise as it jumps into the air. It spins around as it lands, only to stagger to one side as if slapped, whereupon it promptly vanishes in a plume of yellow embers. I freeze, completely bewildered. What happened? I hadn't touched it.

A familiar warm sensation is the only warning I receive before Echo announces, [Level Up!]

[Name: Kanin]

[Species: N/A]

[Class: Wizard]

[Level: 3]

[HP: 10/10]

[Bonus HP: 24]

[Mana: 23/23]

[Void: 72%]

[Role: Homunculus]

I'm healed. The crack in my glass is gone. But how? The magic cat just poofed. What on earth…

"Sneak attack!" Noli signs triumphantly as the specks of yellow magic flicker out around her. "That's what you get for biting me! Hah, I knew playing dead would trick that stupid spell."

I let all my glass sag to the ground in weary relief. She was faking it. Thank god.

Then, irritation flashes through me. She was faking it! What the fuck, Noli! Way to give me a heart attack for no reason. Angrily, I roll back over to my legs, and use my Attuned and signing glass to help push myself to my feet.

"No!" I sharply sign at her. "Bad!" Then I rap one of my pieces of glass on her for good measure.

She pushes the glass away. "Sorry! Didn't mean to scare you. But it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

Concerned voices drift through the woods.

"Well, mostly," Noli amends. "Maybe we should get out of here before they come looking for their familiar."

The best idea I've heard all day.

Noli and I retreat deeper into the woods as the party investigates the site of our battle. Luckily, they're all fairly loud and easy to avoid. The darkness sufficiently obscures our hasty retreat.

"What now?" I ask Noli as we run. I suppose we could still try to hitch a ride on one of their steeds, but if they found us at any point we probably wouldn't have the same opportunity to escape.

"I don't know," Noli admits. "Even if we do make it to town, we're going to run into the same problem."

I hadn't even been thinking that far ahead, but she's right. If we can't find anyone who signs, we'll be in trouble—and judging by the reactions of this group, it's not like we can go around asking people one at a time. Shit. I was just kind of hoping everything would fall into place once we could talk to someone—once someone could help us—but that possibility is starting to seem remote.

"Arg!" Noli throws up her limbs in frustration. "I'd give an arm for a translator charm right now."

A translator? My soul leaps. They have translators in this world! That's exactly what we needed. The question is: How to get one?

I gesture for Noli to continue that train of thought.

"Rezira would give me grief if she saw me saying this," Noli signs. "I always hated using them. It just doesn't pick up the nuance of signs, you know?"

I don't know, actually. A translator sounds absolutely fantastic. But there's another asset she's mentioned a few times now that could maybe help us.

"Re…" I pause, unable to remember the rest of the signs. She's been signing a name, I can see. But her signs are too fast, and the name is too nuanced for me to capture.

"Rezira?" Noli gathers.

"Rezi…" Shit this was way more complicated than the other basic signs she'd taught me. At least a lot of those were kind of intuitive.

Noli chuckles. "I'll teach you names later. What is it?"

"Who?" I ask. Can they help us?

"Who's Rezira?" Noli fills in. "Oh! I really haven't said? Gosh, I can't believe I haven't talked your ear off about her already. Although, I suppose we have had more pressing matters. Still, I could have sworn I mentioned it. She's my wife!"

A stumble as I miss a step. Wife? Noli is married? Someone out there has the patience to put up with this soul for a lifetime?

More importantly… "She can sign?" I ask.

Noli laughs. "Of course she can. She's married to me, isn't she?"

Someone who can understand us. Finally, a breakthrough! Except we still have no idea where we are, or how far away Rezira is, or even if we have time to find her before our spells are up.

Back where we started, then. But maybe a couple more cards we'll have to deal down the road. In the meantime, we have to focus on surviving the night.

"Nightbanes?" I ask as the firelight of the travelers becomes a distant smudge of red.

"Could still be a problem," Noli admits. "Haven't really had time to keep an eye out while on the run. But based on last night, we might be safe. Do you think it's worth it to push through tonight? Get a head start on the road?"

With only the moonlight to guide us, it would certainly be easier to walk the road than these woods. But we don't need to risk our lives by rushing things. Not yet, at least.

"We stop," I reluctantly decide.

"We should stop," Noli signs, showing me the proper grammar. "Or 'We can stop.' Or 'We will stop…'"

It's going to be a long night.

Finding a hollow at the base of a tree, sheltered on either side by its twisting roots, we settle in to wait out another long night. This time, however, I decide to leave Attunements for another night. Afterall, I've already Attuned my largest pieces of glass, which should give me plenty more ammo whenever I want to Sculpt it into many more (and smaller) pieces.

"Book," I sign, giving Noli a head's up. Then I summon one of Trenevalt's tomes. It's opened up already to some random page in the middle, which doesn't help answer the question I'm looking for. I put it back in my inventory, then summon it again, but this time upside down.

Its spine is pointing up, spindly silver letters catching the moonlight: Vessel Construction and Binding. 

I repeat the process with the second book I'd picked up: Planar Theories.

This second one feels less useful than the first, so I put it back in my inventory, but at least I know what I'm working with now. Wish I would have picked up all his other books while I was at it—and I hope none of the important pages are missing.

"More practice?" Noli asks, shuffling over after I've put Vessel Construction page-side-up once more. "We don't really need the book for that, unless there's any words in particular you want to learn."

That's not exactly what I have in mind. I quickly Sculpt a couple pieces of signing glass to be more flat, then slot them between two pages of the book, and flip the stack of papers over. The book is thicker than I am tall, so it'll take me a minute to turn the book all the way to the beginning, but I suppose that's the best place to start.

"You want to read that thing?" Noli asks, catching on as I steadily flip the papers a few at a time. "Whatever for?"

Learn something about our spell, ideally. If there's one thing those travelers taught us, it's that we might not be able to rely on others to solve our problem for us. At least this way, if we knew the first thing about what our spell entailed, or how it could be renewed, at least we'd know what sort of help to even ask for if someone gave us a chance to explain.

I make it to the first page. Vessel Construction and Binding, it reads, by Loquacious Skyheart.

Psh, well that's a pen name if I've ever heard one. I flip the page, hoping to find some kind of index. Instead, it appears to be some kind of foreword.

It's hard to make out by moonlight, but I try to skim the first couple lines.

"Though I doubt, by this level of reading, the text herein needs any introduction, I wish to impart upon the reader the importance of prior mastery within the fields of elemental kinematics, planar deracination, and receptacle harmonics…"

"Dense stuff," Noli comments as I summon Trenevalt's charmed bracelet as a makeshift flashlight. Six beads are dark, now. Fifteen days left. "Way over my head. You think you'll be able to jump into all this without some lower-level stuff first? I mean, I know you're a wizard and all. I definitely am not doubting your ability or anything. Well, maybe a little. But it takes years of practice to learn these sorts of spells, doesn't it? It's not that I don't think you could learn, but you know, I'm not wild about you practicing in the general vicinity of… me."

"I'm reading," I reassure her. Just reading. "No spells."

"Oh, well in that case." Noli grabs the bracelet I've been trying to shuffle over the page and positions it for me. "Maybe I can help. Anything you're looking for in particular?"

I tap on the word "Vessel" at the top of the page.

Noli reads it. "Ah. You really think you'll be able to learn something about our spell?"

I can always try.

With Noli's help, I flip the pages while she illuminates the areas I point to with my glass. Unfortunately, it's starting to feel like she's right. There's no table of contents, and for that matter there's hardly even chapter divisions—just the dense, hand-written instructions of a very smart and very incoherent wizard. There's discussions of proper spell circle drawings: of what each symbol and positioning means relative to one another, and how different intersections of circles would alter the intent of the spell. There are pages dedicated to honing the proper magical frequency of the target vessel. There are even graphs for proper sizing of homunculus shells versus the "Mana density" its core has been imbued with.

Am I reading a book about magic or physics?

Eventually my mind is buzzing with too much information. It feels like the ink in me has been replaced with the contents of a shaken-up bottle of Coke. Wearily, after who knows how many hours, I return the book and bracelet to my Inventory.

[New spells obtained,] Echo abruptly says.

Oh? What spells? I ask.

[Core Bond: Level 1. Mana Stowage: Level 1. Sever Bond: Level 1. Bond Trace: Level 1.]

These all sound like stuff I was reading about in the book. Does that mean I can learn a spell just by reading about it? Nice!

Echo, what does Sever Bond do?

[Sever Bond,] Echo recites. [Prematurely ends a magical tether between two objects. Mana Cost: Equivalent to the Mana sustaining the spell.]

Vague. But maybe it could be used to end our spell, on our own terms. And how much mana is sustaining my spell?

[The spell which binds your soul to the homunculus core is currently consuming 720 mana.]

Or maybe not.

But I still have other spells I learned. Okay, how about Core Bond? What does that do? How much mana does that cost?

[Core Bond: A spell which secures a target energy source to a vessel of the caster's choosing. Requirements: 30 mana—]

Well that's not so bad.

[—one spell circle—]

Okay, I could learn that.

[—a target foci—]

Don't know what that is, but—

[—and null arcanum-enriched salt from the undersea ruins of Emrox, refined into the chalk to be used for the spell circle.]

Okay. That one might be a little harder to get a hold of. But at least now I have a list of ingredients. That's something, right?

I try to remember the other spells Echo had mentioned. Mana Stowage?

[Mana Stowage,] Echo repeats. [A spell used to temporarily contain magical energy, most frequently used to collect and store power from an arcanum source. Requirements: 50 mana, target arcanum, and the corresponding spell circle.]

Interesting. Was that what Trenevalt had done to catch Noli and I? Some combination of Mana Stowage and Core Bond? But what had gone wrong in all that? The spell, the vessel, the circle… Or maybe it really was just a case of "Wrong place, wrong time."

Either way, this is a good starting point. It's something to work with. I don't have the mana for any of these spells, but maybe an experienced wizard would.

There's one more spell I'm forgetting. Echo, what was the last one you said?

[Bond Trace: A spell which reveals the arcane threads of a bond. Range: 5 feet. Mana: 10.]

Oh hey, that one at least I can do. Compared to the others, it sounds pretty benign, too.

Alright, Echo. Let's use Bond Trace. I mentally focus on the spell and feel something click into place.

[Activated.]

A pulse of black emanates from me, passing through Noli and the rest of my surroundings.

She shivers. "Did you feel that?"

No, but I can see it. There's a light inside Noli that I'd never noticed before, warm and radiating, like a sun. It's burning so fiercely, with so much sincerity and hope and compassion. It's so Noli. It's so… it's her soul. And barely visible against her light is a strand of light, no thicker than a hair, that's threaded through her soul and body. The more I look for it, the more I see it, as fine as cobwebs, a gossamer of magic that's binding Noli's soul to her clockwork vessel.

Echo, I ask. What happens to Noli if that thread is cut? Or for that matter, if the spell ends on its own.

[A soul which is not bonded in any planar dimension would move Between,] Echo replies.

A resigned dread settles in me. It wouldn't go back to her body? I ask.

[A soul may only be bound to one physical object at a time,] Echo says.

Echo was right: I didn't see any other threads coming off of Noli. Was the bond between her body and soul severed when Trenevalt inadvertently bound her to that toy instead? And did that mean that if this thread is similarly severed, she'll go Between—and then move beyond?

Even more reason to extend our spell until we can figure out how to return to our original bodies. As if the threat of the predator wasn't enough. Even if it doesn't catch us, our spell ending means we'll be perma-dead.

At least, I assume it's the same for me. Unfortunately I have no easy method of looking at myself while this Bond Trace spell is in effect. Lifting the two flattened pieces of glass I'd been using for page turning, I try to angle them toward myself to catch any glimpse of a reflection I could manage in this half-light. And surprisingly, it works.

The first thing I see is my soul. Glowing so bright my glass seems to vanish behind it, it's shimmering with all the hues of stubbornness, and resilience, and creativity. Hah, is that really me? I'm flattered. Well, except for that first part. I like to think 'stubborn' is just a jealous term for determined.

The thread of magic is there, too. That same tether I'd used to pull myself out from Between when Trenevalt and the predator fought. Woven all about my soul and glass, it appears so thin and insubstantial. Must be stronger than it looks.

But there's something else there, too. Hidden behind my soul—invisible if I weren't looking so intently—is a second thread. It's that same dark-light color as my magic. This thread doesn't seem to be woven into my glass, however. It's more like a cut string. It just seems to… end.

Echo, I thought you said a soul can't be bound to more than one thing. 

[Affirmative.]

Then does that mean this string isn't bound to anything? Maybe it's the remnants of a string that was cut.

Could it be the string that went to my body? That one was definitely severed. But Noli doesn't have one. Is it because I died, while Noli was snatched away from her body?

I suppose it could make sense. I don't have any other ideas.

I let the spell fade.

Now that I'm nearly out of mana, Attunements are seeming less likely—not to mention it's probably an hour or two before dawn. My mind is spinning with all this new information—spells, the magic book, trying to understand what all this means for us. In other more corporeal circumstances, this would be a great time to get some rest. Let the information digest. But given sleep is no longer an option for me, I opt for a different form of distraction.

"Noli," I sign, gesturing her over. "Practice?"

"You are a diligent student, Apprentice Kanin," Noli teases. But she seems as excited as ever to work with me. I settle in, copying Noli's movements, letting her nudge my glass around in the proper configuration, as the night grows old and the stars wheel above us.