No fuckin way. I looked around, definitely wasn’t Spot, or Rath for that matter. Logic dictates that it’s probably the magical shape-shifting weapon that I bound to me with buckets of blood. I looked the bloody Spear up and down, then reached towards it with my mind.

“I’VE ONLY BEEN BEGGING FOR ATTENTION, BUT NOOOOO.”

The mental shouting from the spear felt like a jackhammer inside of my skull trying to burrow its way out.

“Way too loud asshat,” I grunted out, massaging my head, “Please turn down the volume or I’ll throw you in the fucking river.”

“Not likely,” it retorted, “I’m too epic for that.” I could feel its smugness through our link. “AND, I’m gorgeous. Check out these lines of POWER!” The inner veins of magic and metal flowing through the wood lit up different colors. “Dude, let’s go slay goblins or wreck some nightwalker’s day!” it crowed, then adopted a grunting chant, “We got monsters to kill and mana to drink, blood to spill and thoughts to think!”

Way too much energy this early in the morning. It’s like I combined the yappy energy of a Chihuahua with my own inner sadistic, sarcastic dark side. “POWER OVERWHELMING BITCHES!” Gungnir shouted, sending out an omni-directional pulse of multi-colored mana.

"HEY!” I said, blasting my thoughts at the weapon, “You are mine! No doing crazy shit unless I fucking say so. GOT IT?!”

Gungnir sent thoughts of a dog tucking its tail between its legs. “All right,” I said, “Now, with all that crazy energy ya go going on there, what smart thing would you recommend I do?”

“Dude, you need a familiar,” it answered, “I’m awesome, but you need a set of eyes and ears watching your back, like that furry thing over there, forty feet behind you. My scans show that its senses are far superior to yours as well as its stamina. Does that translate sexually?”

I didn’t even know how to answer that, so I just ignored that last part. I can’t be seen arguing with my own spear about the sexual complexities of humans. “Familiar? Spot? Wouldn’t some awesome magical creature like a dragon or wyvern be better?” I asked.

“Hahahahaha, you couldn’t handle bonding with one of those if they were unconscious and brain dead!” Gungnir replied, vibrating with laughter, “The dog is man’s best friend, practically pre-made to be your traveling partner. Besides, who says you can’t give it an upgrade?”

It’s right. I could totally pimp out Spot. I let out a sharp whistle and Spot came running, jumping right into my arms and knocking me over, licking every scrap of skin he could find. Pushing him off and petting him, I lay back against a tree and started to think, which of course Gungnir just had to interrupt, “Yo! Make it bigger! Make the fur sharp and spiny! OH WAIT, merge it with an elemental or expand its brain! WAIT! Use one of those morphing rocks to give it sorcery! That would be so cool, a furry attack thing shooting fire or riding the earth!”

Ya know, maybe the incessant spear had a point. I could experiment with the dog, see if some of the upgrades I had planned for myself were viable in other living things. But I gotta make sure this dog actually likes me and plans on sticking around, so that’s how I spent the next couple days. I formed a tiny mental link with Spot and slowly strengthened it while keeping him fed, weaving a bond of magic between us. Soon I could feel his emotions and things he wanted, such as [FOOD] or [PEE]. Very basic but understandable drives. I also took the time to flesh out my three bolt holes with furniture and canned food that I looted from the surrounding houses while playing fetch with Spot. I used baseballs and tennis balls that I found in the abandoned houses. I also began knocking down buildings with Gungnir to get Spot used to my various attack magics. The damn spear was all too happy to fuck shit up, finding different ways to blow up cars and houses after I had looted them. Some things I definitely made sure to get were various cooking items and toiletry things, enough for all three hideouts. But as the week drew to a close, I began getting nervous. I had almost lost track of the days because the last few were fun and relaxing. But I knew that another Ripple would be here soon, and I needed to prepare.

It had been almost a week since the last Ripple came through town, leaving everything untouched except the magical entities of this world. The Ripple seemed to take the mundane and make it magical, and exacerbate or twist or enhance the existing magical. That’s probably why I was in such pain last time, the Ripple inundating me with Change while my flesh sorceries tried to keep me in one piece. The pain was from resisting the change, I think. Then again, I could be totally fucked up in my thinking. But I am not the creature to test this out on. I conjured a standard diamond, about the size of my thumbnail, and conjured a thin shackle of stone around it, making a large ring. Calling Norn to me, I placed it around his ankle. If the big bird survived the waves of a dying god, then I could test him and the stone for weird magical energy or unexplained changes. I thought about testing my theories out on Spot, but needed to make our master and familiar bond more permanent. I went to my river-bottom bolthole and set up about gathering and conjuring materials to keep me busy; I planned on enchanting some awesome weapons while the Ripple rewrote the surface, and having Spot around to keep me company.

Pacing around in the cavern was not helping anyone, least of all Spot. Fucking spaz kept thinking we were going for a walk or something, running around barking and hopping. I had conjured a nice ten by ten foot plot of soft loam and sprouted lush green grass all over it so he could crap all over it. Of course he chose the furthest corner of the cavern to do his business in. I had bars of gold, silver, iron and stone laid out near the power generator that were calling my name, and a small plot of land with several small different kinds of trees growing there, rowan next to cedar and oak. I had an idea for small disposable wands to serve as foci for different works of magic that I normally wouldn’t be able to do along with permanent wards based in living wood and control ring enchantments etched in precious metals for stability and flexibility. Maybe after this Ripple I could begin to knock down buildings and create a dense forest soaked in my magic, the land itself resisting my enemies at every turn. Whew, good thing my flesh sorcery can reverse old age, cause I got a lot of shit to do.