He was doubled over, panting, as the water moved past his calves and slowly settled back down into the regular motion of a shallow river. He stared into his reflection, momentarily alarmed at how close this horned humanoid creature had gotten to him but was jolted back into calmness and despondency before he fell backward when he remembered that the ugly ashen hued pale face looking at him with the… somewhat attractive looking horns, was in fact, himself now. He was a Tiefling. Whatever the fuck that was.

He stood up, feeling better for letting out his emotions. He stretched his arms above his head, luxuriating in the sun which was overhead and beating down on him. Sunning, it seemed, would still be quite enjoyable.

Something seemed strange to him though, and for a moment his vertical slitted eyes glanced upward once more in the briefest of hesitations. His body, new though it was, had briefly rested after his very brief and very ferocious bout with the Goblin leaders of this horrid world. It had hardly seemed to take any time at all. When he was a dragon he had a very good sense of time when he was sleeping and his inner alarm clock told him it couldn’t have been more than a half a wink or two. The sun should still be rising primarily, it should not be directly over his head.

Ruth mentally filed the thought away. Either the days were shorter for some reason, he was on a different world, or this body really fucking sucked in just every possible way and he wouldn’t be able to tell time anymore.

Thinking about the sun had calmed him down a great deal.

Ruth turned toward the shore once more, noticing with a bit of helplessness that the weirdly shaped floating text thing had actually turned toward him so he could read it from where he was, but hadn’t actually advanced over the water. Maybe it was afraid of water? He dismissed the thought immediately. Nothing was going his way today and the sooner he realized that the sooner he could get through this.

“What do you want?” Ruth was just going to stay in the stream. He wasn’t afraid of the hovering immortal death text or anything! It was just comfortable!

★ Choose School Specialization

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Patron Bonus: Wish 1/1

The two lines were now more richly emphasized. Ruth dismissed the idea of continuing to speculate about wishing, deciding that the immortal and deadly box was just having a lark with him and would just keep telling him ‘no’.

Choosing a school specialization sounded interesting, but could the thing be trusted? It had already been quite duplicitous about wishes. Ruth squinted, trying to decide whether or not to give it a shot. After a moment, he brightened, remembering that the thing had told him that he had spells available. He wasn’t sure what that meant. When he was a dragon he had abilities and mana. He could cast the abilities in any sort of manner without worrying about how many he did a day as long as he had mana.

Ruth closed his eyes and thought about it, and confirmed that his body did seem to possess five shiny black spots hovering within reach. When he thought about how to utilize them though, nothing happened. He went through his aforementioned repertoire of dragon abilities and nothing happened, though he did open up his mouth and let out another impressive steam breath when he tried the breath innate ability once more.

Ruth was somewhat confused though.

Why did he have a certain amount of spell slots? Why did they seem to be tied to his mana? What was his mana like? More questions began popping into his head and a frown started to overtake his face as he continued to think.

Perhaps the box knew.

Ruth opened his eyes and immediately flailed his arms in a circle as he tried to back up. Splashing heavily and then falling immediately onto his back into the water, he must have hit a rock with his tailbone because he yelped, bounced, and fell into a slightly deeper hole further back, submerging for a moment before popping back up to the surface. Black hair plastered against the back and front of his face as he erupted into a standing position again.

HISSSSSSSSSS.

The deadly text and scripture had moved right in front of his face, bouncing up and down while his eyes were closed earlier, and it startled him so badly that he had fallen into the river.

Worse, that damn ‘wish’ statement with its flashy yellow stars had been right in front of his eyes.

“Fuck, I wish you’d just choose for me since you won’t kill Tamara!” He howled in Draconic, panting and dripping and otherwise throwing a quick tantrum.

The box ceased bouncing and became absolutely still.

Ruth paused, startled by how preternaturally still the box had become and stared at it nervously. He replayed the last few moments in his head. A sudden premonition of danger appeared in his heart. He felt the tiny hairs across his stupid and hairless body begin to raise up all at once.

Without a second thought to how it would appear to the lineage of dragons across the universe. With nary a look back to see what horrible thing the box was about to wish into existence. With absolutely no plan other than getting the hell out of the water and away from this place this very instant. He turned and fled, completely undignified with the large steps that revealed flashes of butt under his makeshift kilt.

Ruth splashed hurriedly to the shore, glancing down once to check his footing as he took a big step upward into the dirt, and then abruptly came to a crashing halt. There was a brief moment of self-congratulations going through his mind for not falling again, but it was mostly buried under a blind and sort of monkey gibbering terror that started to darken his brain.

Would you like to buy a vowel?

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggh!!!” Ruth immediately blacked out, not even knowing the reason why.

↢↦

To be honest, even if it had taken several months of minute by minute precision and a great deal of her attention being taken away from matters that she should, rightly, have been attending -- this whole venture was worth it to Tamara because of the large number of guffaws and caws she had startled out of Arathan.

The god candidacy program itself made no difference to Tamara, who was now still pretty young in her godhood. Tamara could be traced back about 400 years, and if you tried to look further than that one of two things would happen. You would either find nothing or start to find the hints of something and great golden eyes of death and misfortune would fall onto you. Wisely, mostly other gods paid attention to their own matters and were generous enough to stay out of her way so she wasn’t forced to rip their feet off and beat them to death with them. Not even gods wanted to be defeated.

Tamara was in no particular rush to push her little tiefling into any sort of danger after the Goblins, not out of any such generosity, but because she and Arathan were shooting the shit.

They were talking about what they thought he would choose, laughing about how many times Tamara would get to say ‘no way’ before he just gave up, and wondering how many levels and adventures would pass before he remembered he had a wish spell and tried to use it again. Tamara was patient and could amuse herself in the long run.

At some point, out of the corner of her eye, she had noted that Ruth was standing stock still with his eyes closed. She lazily pushed her tendril of consciousness toward him and turned back to Arathan, about to tell her how spell slots worked in relation to mana for the body type that she had arranged when a splash alerted them both to new activities with their toy.

Neither one of the beings snickered when he fell into the water, scared by the consciousness tendril, but mirth danced in their eyes. Tamara was about to briefly lose interest, again, getting ready to tell Arathan how spell slots would work in conjunction with mana and spells themselves when she heard the low Draconic growl.

Arathan had turned back to the screen, a thoughtful look on her avian face. “Hoooooo…”

Tamara looked back slowly, eyes flickering with the barest hint of true interest. “Did that little thing just accidentally subjugate itself to my will?”

Arathan opened her beak in a slightly lazy approximation of a smile. “You could pretend you didn’t hear it, or just say no, I suppose.”

Tamara smiled, and spoke into the window for the first time as Ruth scrambled away from the tendril of consciousness. Pointless because she was already reaching out across the universe to him. What did he think a few seconds headstart on land would accomplish?

“Would you like to buy a vowel?” Tamara and Arathan both snickered to themselves as the Ruth creature screamed out an appropriate vowel.

↢↦

Pain wreathed Ruth even as he was unconscious, great spasms shuffling over his body in waves that he couldn’t have managed to live through if he had been awake. His mind simply would have broken, which is why Tamara had turned it off. The small evil spirit in his sea of consciousness stirred slightly, not being so lucky. It noted that a huge sea of grey clouds thundered nearby and moved toward the draconic image. The eyes opened, simple white vertical lines as it considered this thing that was approaching. In this place, there was no concept such as ‘weather’. This could only be the enemy. Everything was enemy.

Shake-shake....

Before the tail could begin its customary warning the draconic image was swept up into the clouds, actually startling a hiss out of the small creature buoyed within. It was like an ocean of clouds with great, towering waves of grey and smoky dust that somehow had the power to move things. Each of these waves crashed against the draconic image, smoothing it out slightly around the edges, as if it were a stone being worn away. The creature inside hung on for dear life as that wasn’t the end, things were just getting started it seemed! Flashes of intense and painful golden lightning began to strike around the edges of the consciousness.

Suddenly the creature within turned from less of a ball into more of a four legged beast, wings flaring slightly as its tail raised behind it in alarm. Tiny claws formed and poked out through sudden necessity as it scrambled against the consciousness for footing. It charged toward the barrier that separated the consciousness from the ocean of grey clouds and lightning and stuck its face out, turning sideways as it tried to bite the clouds that were rolling against the draconic shape.

Lightning crashed down, enveloping the now roundish shape of consciousness and casually knocking the creature back into the center, where it lay on its back twitching in slower and slower spasms. Its tail shook every once in a while, not in threat, but in random spasms.

Sh-k...shake...shake….

↢↦

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Patron Bonus: Wish 1/1 : Resolved, removing wish.

Wish, “Fuck, I wish you’d just choose for me.”

Granted: I’ll do it for you, from now on.

Distributing Points - Favor Intelligence

Selecting Specialization - Lightning Specialization

★ Choose School Specialization 1/1

★ Specialization Chosen: Lightning Aspect (Evolution Possible)

1 ★ Spells Unlocked:

Generic Magnetic Field Generic Shock Generic Thunder Struck

Innate Feature Unlocked: ★★★ Limited Electrical Immunity. (Evolution Possible)

↢↦

“Not to rush you, but you should flip him over.” Arathan momentarily distracted Tamara just as she was finishing the charging of Ruth’s sea of consciousness and adjusting his stats. At least this way he would get smarter faster, she thought dryly.

She looked up to see that Ruth was floating on the river face-down. She rolled her eyes and sent her tendril of consciousness over. The box relaying the information used a corner to flip him like it was a spatula and he was on the grill.

Arathan nodded, and she glanced at Tamara who had gone back to sorting through Ruth’s future abilities. There was a hint of excitement in the golden eyes. Arathan was less excited about that since she couldn’t see all the choices. Arathan was just trying to decide if she should remind Tamara that the Ruth may be breathing and floating on his back now, but he was still drifting down the river.

Arathan decided it wasn’t any of her business. The crow closed its eyes and settled down slightly, perching on the woman’s shoulder as if enjoying the contact. The crow briefly hoped that when it opened its eyes the Ruth creature would be screaming and flailing as it went over a waterfall. Watching the frustration or laughter barking from Tamara would give it much pleasure.