“I wonder if you would be able to emulate my katra spect and path? I saw you do something similar when you summoned that gauntlet.”

I look at him, his idea spinning around my aching head. Could I manipulate my gauntlet to form a weapon, or even use my katra to make a weapon?

It seems so unlikely, but I can’t help remember the near complete set of bone armor that formed when I supplied the gauntlet with enough katra. If I think back even further, I can remember when I was messing around in the Soul Space, and spikes formed from my arm.

“I-I don’t know, maybe?” I say, still unsure of it. I close my eyes, sighing, “I think I need to sleep, my head is killing me.”

Kamar nods and pats me on the shoulder, “We will discuss this when you are feeling better.”

I give a slight nod and mumble, “Need to figure out the guards’ schedule.”

Then I am laying down and the sweet abyss of sleep takes me.

I wake slowly, stepping to consciousness from the black pool of sleep.

Sitting up, I look to Kamar’s sleeping form. He is curled into a ball, laying on his side. His snores could wake the dead.

I rub my now calmed head, the pain but a distant memory.

It might be time to check on my core.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and move my mind’s eye inwards. I focus on my core, and what I find confounds me.

There is a rippling around my core, like a tear in reality and space. If I focus, I can see into these folds of reality, and on the other side is the shifting scripts of the Origin.

The ripples are few and only stay open for a second or two, but they are most definitely there.

What is this?

I don’t attempt to touch the ripples, that just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Ideas of what they are flit through my mind and I can only pin one down.

Vengeance said something about the Soul Space nearing completion and assimilating with me. Could this have something to do with it?

I move past the ripples, as they don’t seem to be harmful. I check on my core, the cyclone in its center whips lazaly at the sides of my core, slowly drilling an ever deeper well of katra. I push the image of it turning onto the cyclone, starting up my cycling technique.

Maybe if I can get a large enough katra pool, then I would be able to summon the bone armor.

I look at the crust of my core, or my world. It is still gray and jagged, a thin layer of Gray Earth spread across it. The large crags glow brightly from the fire that has heated up the lower layers of the crust, and the basins of water dot the surface.

Forming my phantom body on the surface of my world, I look up at the tree.

It has grown a foot since I was last here, and its base seems to have gotten wider. The leaves are still tilted towards the light coming from the crag, and its roots are sucking up water steadily.

What interests me most is the grove that has cropped up around it. What used to be a handful of small plants has grown into a small grove of trees. They go a little above my head, but are nowhere near the same height of the original.

I marvel at the tiny forest, still not completely believing that this is on my core, growing. I still don’t understand where this plant came from.

Sensing the katra, I am able to tell that there is a complex network of roots under my feet, exchanging water and food. It goes deep into the soil, the roots reaching even further out.

I follow a curious deviation of the roots to the edge of the water.

They stick into the water, a few weaving together to form a new sprout next to the bank of the lake. The sprout has already started growing, sitting a foot off the bank and in the water.

I look around at the grove. Where did the spider go?

Wandering around, I am unable to find it in the grove. Stopping at the edge of the trees, I look at the barren and jagged landscape the encompasses my world.

Could it have gone out there?

It was possible, I had designed it in mind for surviving in a barren environment for long periods of time.

There’s no way I will be able to find it. My world is far too big to search completely, and it was dumb luck I even came across the small plant here. It would be nigh impossible to find the spider, my only saving grace being that it couldn’t have gotten too far.

But it couldn’t possibly have maturaded enough by now that it would be able to survive out there long enough.

I look back at the grove, and this time look at the katra that makes it up. I look carefully at the ground, and find a strange, hollow pocket under the original tree.

Could it be...?

I move back over to the tree and find the entrance to the hole on the side that faces the water. It is hidden in between two large roots, cloaked in shadow.

Crouching down, I peer into the cat sized hole. Leafy vines cover the entrance and walls, something that I had never seen before here.

A shape shifts in the foliage, and then crawls out.

My creation walks out cautiously, a coating of tiny leaves over its now full water sack. It is about the size of a cat, maybe a little smaller. What was once fragile, green skin has now started to take on a bark like texture along it’s legs.

It looks up at me with its black eyes, making clicking noises with its pair of mandibles. A arm folds out from where it was pressed into its shadow, reaching a four fingered hand out.

I hold out my hand, and the plant spider grips my index finger tightly. A shock runs up my hand, not altogether unpleasant, and through my arm to my head.

‘I get an feeling of intent, questions. Not exactly in words, more emotions. What is my name? What am I?’ She asks, it sounds more female in my mind than male.

Blinking, I am surprised that by it. I can feel a thin thread of a connection in my mind with this creature, fragile like a strand of spider’s web.

A name? I had never given a name to my creation. Vengeance had chosen his from what I can only assume what I called the cold flame in my heart, a flame of vengeance.

What can I call it? I mull with names, thinking them through. I finally settle on what I should call it a few minutes later.

‘You are an Asren, your name is Hala.’ I want to smack myself for it, but it is the best I can come up with. Asren is Old Tongue, meaning spider. Hala is a type of spider found in The Jungle of The Gods.

The spider squeezes my finger, transmitting another thought. ‘Hala? Strong. I am Asren.’

Hala sends another thought to me. ‘We are The Asren, we serve the Progenitor.’

I furrow my astral brow. It spoke as if there are more of them. ‘What do you mean?’

She gives another squeeze of my finger and lets go, scurrying back into its hole.

Did I scare Her off?

I wait for a minute before deciding that Hala has finished talking with me. Then the leafy vines are shifting again, and Hala emerges carrying something.

It is a lumpy, oval shaped sac, made of delicate, small, tightly wound vines. She gently takes it off the top of her head, showing surprising strength in her two small arms.

Hala sets it down at the mouth of the hole, laying it out for me to look at. She holds up her left arm again, and I allow her to grip my finger again.

‘My children, we shall serve.’

That's when it hits me, It’s an egg sac.

I am bewildered, I never had intended for my creation to reproduce, or at least had never thought of it. I had created it to just live, to experiment with my newfound powers, I don’t ever remember designing it for reproduction. Or did I? Did something similar happen with it, like with Vengeance?

I cannot be sure, because I am unsure of what I had completely thought about in her inception. I know I had pressed many images in there of how I wanted it to work, shaping it.

A sense of pride flows through my connection with Hala, and her poster radiates pride.

Well, it matters little now. It can’t hurt to have more of them to keep her company. What do I say to her? I mull it over for a second, before deciding on something with pride, happiness and also encouragement.

I send my thoughts over our link, ‘I am proud of you, be a strong mother. Protect and nurture your young, and you shall flourish.’

Hala straightens even more, raising herself up on her four legs with pride. ‘Yes, Progenitor. What do you wish of us?’ There is excitement in her words, along with a tinge of worry.

For her to do? I look around at the grove of trees, and it hits me. I push my thoughts along our connection, ‘Nurture the grove, water it and help it grow. It shall become your home as long as it stands, you will be safe here.’

Hala the Asren nods, ‘Yes, Progenitor. Me and my children shall nurture and take care of your Grove.’

She lets go of my hand, picking up the egg sac and gently placing it on her head. Then he carefully crawls back into her home, disappearing into the darkness and vines.

I stand, knowing that our conversation is over.

My mind is reeling from the conversation and the revelation that I may have just created an entirely new species. An intelligent one that clearly has emotions.

Looking around at the grove of trees, I feel something is missing. There’s only trees, no grass or bushes or fruits.

A large part of my diet in The Jungle had been frutis I was able to scavenge from the tree tops, but most of it had been up high, above the canopy and in the sunshine.

A instinct runs through me, and I pluck a leaf from a low hanging branch of the large tree. Gripping it between my knuckle and thumb, I look at it.

Lets see if I can make something more simple. Closing my eyes, I focus on the image of grass. It’s long, thin blades and how it can grow all the way up to your waist. How a grass directs rain drops down to its roots from the curve of its blade.

I smirk a little, Normal grass is kinda boring.

Keeping a image of normal grass in my mind, I imprint on it what I want.

Gathering Gray Life katra from the center of my world, my core, it streams up through the soil, but is quickly absorbed by the roots of the trees. Strange, it doesn’t seem to be able to come through the roots.

I try a different route this time, and the imprinted katra streams out of the crag next to the grove, flowing between the trees in gray, silk like ribbons. It forms into a ball of ribbons in my hand.

Then I start channeling it into the leaf, imprinting the image of grass onto it. The Gray Life katra is quickly burned up, but not much of it is used because I am making something relatively simple.

When I am done, I open my eyes and stare at my palm. In the center of it rests a small, round seed.

Stooping down, I dig my left hand into the soil, moving it to the side. Then I drop the seed in, burrowing it.

I grab a few ribbons of my katra, and send them into the ground where the seed is. They coil through the Gray Earth soil, wrapping around and dissolving into the seed.

I watch the small mound of turned up soil with bated breath. A few seconds later, a shoot of grass pushes itself up through the soil.

It rises a couple inches out of the ground, a small, woody like cylinder following it, but not going a centimeter above the ground.

I can sense that its roots are coiling and connecting with the roots of the tree, creating something like a symbiotic relationship.

I touch it with my index finger, poking it gently. The stalk shivers, then quickly shoots back into the ground, in the safety of the small wooden cylinder.

Chuckling, I beam at it. This didn’t take up nearly as much katra as Hala or Vengeance.

From the images I had planted, once it grows big enough, it will form more seeds and then turn brittle, forming a grain. The seeds would fall off and eventually get spread around. My hope was that with how I didn’t have to use katra to form the eggs, that this wouldn’t use up katra, and eventually spread a layer of grass around the grove.

Standing up, I look at the trees. Now for some fruits.