---Eliza---

I'm pretty sure Brian is not aware, but the mental link he's been using to see goes both ways.

I've been sharing the new concepts, language, and any new secrets I've managed to scrounge from Brian's thoughts with my brethren. The more hours I can make myself useful, the more information I seem to get. Until recently that was a good thing. Learning how little thought he puts into most risky decisions is very concerning.

It's only blind luck he hasn't killed himself yet.

Don't get me started on that oversized wood louse.

Even now, the woodlouse is rambling on, though I don't believe we can trust a word that comes out of its mouth.

“... and so the story says the moon was made using the power of the Archons, those with powers above mortal men, so they would have a place to watch over the world and intervene if the inevitable truly came to pass. The Archons built cities on its surface, and vast underground complexes. It was a great accomplishment. They even brought mortals to its surface to tour their grand palaces.

This all came with an agenda of course. They built schools across the land to train people in the ways of magic so they could become Archons. The leaders of the Archons all desperately wanted recruits, as they knew what was coming, but the six leaders grew in power, influence and greed, and slowly split their numbers into factions.

The faction under the Grand Vizier, The Condors, clashed with the forces of General Tacivi, who called themselves The Red Banner, over many different disagreements in policy concerning mortals and the use of the power the Archons wielded. Eventually the other factions ended up dragged into the squabble, and the conflict escalated to a war. No one was ready when The Breach occurred. In fact, it turned out to be a side effect of an experimental weapon developed by The Pale Deer. Considering most believe the predicted destruction was actually the foreseen calamity the Archons banded together to prevent, it's quite ironic. Ah, give me a moment to eat and catch my breath, there's still a lot to tell.”

Ah, what drivel. The wood louse has been talking for almost an hour, and said almost nothing useful. Brian thinks it knows secrets of magic, but for some reason, he is more than happy to let it ramble about inconsequential knowledge. How will this aid our struggle? I know from Brian's thoughts that he is resting and building up more soul, mana, and lifeforce, but he's also genuinely interested in this “Lore”. Honestly I don't understand.

I have grown extremely bored, and Brian is entirely distracted. If anything useful comes up I can probably skim Brian's thoughts for it later. It's a good time to go hunting.

If that sojourn into the dreamlike wastes we experienced taught me anything, it's that I am too weak. After the tower gave up on incinerating us, it took all my focus and will to keep myself and Herman safe from the hunters it sent to destroy us.

Death came so close I could taste it in the air. I never want to taste that again. A hint now and then adds some spice to life, but that terror and helplessness... I refuse.

A long flight with several stops to rest leads me to the swamp. As I thought, the giant lizards completely ignore me. There is other prey here though, and I'm ready to hunt.

---Brian--- This is really interesting. It's almost too much, I need to condense it down a bit or I'll never remember it all. Let's see, while Grimal is taking his breather, I'll go through and see if I can commit this to memory, I have a strong feeling it will come in handy. Apparently this whole planet was built by some super powerful mage, as I understand it, as a place to raise soldiers for an upcoming war he foresaw off in the distant future. The only problem is, the squabbling factions developed and used some experimental weapon that actually started the war by letting some kind of otherworldly nasties in. They're called mistweavers. I'm not really clear on the details, Grimal got a little too technical, and he doesn't like interruptions. The place we're currently in used to be a school belonging to the Ghost Cats faction. Honestly these faction names remind me of school mascots or something. Anyway, after the war broke out, the teachers of the school shunted the whole entire school into a pocket dimension they kept around to breed and hunt monsters in. It all got jumbled together, which is probably why there's a swamp next to the cafeteria. It's now a cross between a massive underground maze and a school. Grimal is one of the old students. I'm really eager to hear the rest of the story, but I think he's fallen asleep. I'll let him rest a while, he's pretty old and a bit heavily injured. I'll bring him some of those black pebbles he seems to like munching on when I come back, too. I need an explanation for those smaller versions of him, what the heck that weird blasted wasteland with the black tower was, and... well, a lot really, but I'm the one who made him start with the history of the planet, that one's on me. I can be patient. In the mean time, I've filled up my life force again, and there's a lot of flat ground in the school sections. I wonder if I can make wheels out of wood? Let's experiment! My first few wooden wheels are not very good. The wheel surface itself is easy, it's the axle that's the issue. I cant seem to make a decent axle out of wood, it can't handle the friction or the strain and they wear absurdly quickly. Also it really hurts. Fortunately, there's bolts holding together the dish carts in the kitchen, so I steal all of them and melt and bend pieces of sheet metal from the old stove into crude sleeve bearings. Since I don't want to have to run around with wheels on my feet, that sounds awkward, I make a total of 16 sleeve bearings, 4 of which are longer than the others for the wheels. It takes me a few tries, but I settle on arranging them in a rhombus with the point at the bottom, with a pair of pseudo-muscles to extend and retract the wheels. I need to make the entire arrangement flexible only at the joints and the muscles strong enough to support me. I also need to rework one of the sleeve bearings, as it rubs too much under heavy weight, but the end result is worth it! Using my fairly long viney toes to propel myself up to speed looks really creepy, but I don't care, I'm fast now! I'm burning ground at a breakneck pace! This is a lot of fun! Wow, there's a lot of obstacles in this cafeteria, I forgot how much random dross was lying on the ground. Oh, shit, I forgot to make brakes! Steer! Steer! *Crash!* *Bang* *Crunch* Man, I really showed that table who's boss. And the wall too. The hive didn't appreciate the jostling though and I've scored my limbs up pretty thoroughly. It's a testament to how tired Grimal is that he literally slept right through it though. I spend the next few hours calming down bees, directing repairs on the hive, and forcing my bark heal up properly instead of scarring itself. The jostling convinced one of the baby bees to crawl out of his cell early though, and I've got to say, he's somehow cute and ugly at the same time. I have a few adults set up a larger cell with little footholds so he doesn't get jostled too much while he finishes maturing, because after adding some little vine thumbs and fabricating some crude stone brake pads for them to hold, I'm ready to see what's on the end of that tunnel! ---Eliza--- *chew chew chew* *chew chew chew* I've been thinking about it for a while, but I don't have room to put cores like Brian. All my body space is being used by my organs. I've been watching the creatures in this swamp kill each other for a while though, and they all seem to dig out the mana crystal first then eat them before they eat the rest of the body. I'm not really sure why, but I'm tired of being weak and they're all still alive. But why are these crystals so hard to chew? My mandibles hurt and I haven't even managed to break any off yet. *chew chew chew* *chew chew chew* Ah, there's a fragment. *crunch* Foxglove! I can't believe it! This is the stuff! I can feel power coursing through me, and I'm instantly strong enough to crush the crystal in my jaws and eat more. Within seconds, it's gone, but I want more! More! MORE! Blood glistens in an appealing manner on my carapace, and I pause for a moment to admire how the light glistens crimson of my legs. The moment passes, and soon I climb out of the bloody crater I've made in the chest of a frog and start looking around for new prey. The frog's single remaining eye stares out into the fog as its swollen and lacerated legs twitch feebly even after death. Brian *Bssssoooooooooooom!* *PSHHHHHHHHHHHHH* After a while traveling down the long hallway going off the cafeteria, I sped up. I passed a number of side passages along the way, but at this point, I'm traveling extremely fast. The wheels are making a loud buzzing sound, and it's a good thing I greased the axles up with some old cooking oil before I left, because it's starting to smoke off. That might be a fault of the oil quality and the shoddy bearings though. This is extremely dangerous, but I'm having the time of my life. Unfortunately, all things must pass, and after another minute or so, I come to a screeching halt as I see brighter light ahead. I never thought I'd need to use STAB braking after the advent of ABS, but I guess I was wrong. Stopping so fast tears up my wheels, looks like I'm walking back. I'm not exactly ready to sit down for 20 minutes in hostile territory growing a new set. Proceeding slowly, I enter the lit up portion of the hallway and spy a doorway ahead, silouetted in light. There's strange but faint noises coming from that direction. After approaching slowly and silently, I lean around the corner. It's a jungle! Cool! I even see a bird! It might be dangerous but I've always liked jungles. Plus, I'm a plant chimera now, maybe I can get a little stronger if I'm cautious!