I had returned to my workshop with a big smile on my face. Turned out I had gained two whole levels and was now level four. How did I know this? I was able to spin the dials 35 times, not 15! Consuming monsters for three years had really paid off!

Currently, my stats sat at:

Strength / Fortitude:

1 [Mitchell Shield]

Agility / Folding:

1 [Air compressor]

Dexterity / Dominion:

5 [Pneumasomatic Actuators]

25 [Dominion Saplings]

Vitality / Anima:

1 [Slow Mirror]

Charisma / Resonance:

1 [Allure Halo]

Magic / Power:

1 [Battery]

4 [Generators]

Luck / Destiny:

1 [Probability Tree]

Intelligence / Mind:

1 [Calculator]

Wisdom / Seeking:

1 [Seeking Arrow] - [Damaged]

I had mentally reorganized the chart a little to better define everything. It was still gibberish static visually, but it was color-coded static so I knew what everything was.

1 point went into fixing my Mitchell Shield.

3 points were spent on fixing up three damaged Pneumasomatic Actuators in my right arm.

I also spent 1 point on refilling the Slow Mirror and 1 point on repairing my Luck Tree. Three points went into more Generator threads so that my mana could refresh faster. I didn’t bother repairing the damaged Wisdom Arrow.

As for the biggest investment, I spent 25 points making Dominion Saplings so that I could easily take control of a Folding Seed. Our whole trip depended on capturing and dominating a Seed as it would be far too dangerous to traverse the Twisted Forest outside of one.

I thought it wise to have extra Dominion saplings in case our walking Seed died halfway through our trip or if I got lucky and found a flying beast inside of another Seed which we could maybe use to return home quicker.

The saplings were relatively easy to grow. I didn’t overcomplicate them - each one was a very thin Dexterity thread that I’ve rolled up into a thick spiral at the end of my arm, just as Eunice had shown me.

Twenty five of them were hanging like ripe fruit all over my arms, ready to be released and cut off. I somewhat dreaded chopping up my soul, due to how unpleasant it felt, but alas such was the price for taking control of monsters.

“Did you grow your magical branches?” Alessi asked cheerfully as she greeted me in the workshop room. The two person glider was occupying most of the circular room’s interior in a state of disassembly.

“I have twenty five Dominion branches," I nodded. "But… um. Here’s the thing. I'd like to practice putting one or two of them into… something… before we head to our destination."

"Hmmm?" Alessi looked at me. She knew that I had more to say.

I took a deep pause. "Eunice said that I could put one in you so that we can find each other better in the labyrinth but…”

“Oh? Do you want to try to put one into my arm?” She offered me her pale hand covered in minute silver flakes.

I blinked, processing her words. “You don't…?”

"I don’t mind,” Alessi nodded.

“Are you sure?” I inquired.

“We aren’t blood sisters, but we can be soul-sisters,” she said. “If I carry a branch of your soul in me it'll be like… you are always with me.”

“I don't think it works exactly like that…” I mulled. “Plus… I’ll have to set up an anti-phantom barrier around you as well. Wouldn't want your soul pulled into the Still Forest just because a shard of my soul is sitting in your body and doing magic.”

Alessi nodded. I took off my nightcrawler armor to get comfortable. She curiously looked at the red, glittering bodysuit that was covering almost all of my skin.

“This isn’t anything like the high-cendai’s runes,” she noted.

“No, it's based on three years of my study of her shield," I said. "I improved with my knowledge from Earth."

"I like it," Alessi circled me, examining the bodysuit.

"It’s an absolute barrier that holds itself up,” I explained. “Each grain of sand in it functions as a tiny rune. It’s akin to a very thin dress, held together by the glue of the spiderwebs and its own form, not magic. From what I understand, Eunice holds the runes on top of her body with her magic and the energy of the soul-infused sand. It’s an unnecessary waste of mana - my magical power isn’t limitless like hers, so I have to conserve it.”

“I see,” she nodded. “The spiderwebs do the job of what magic is normally spent on.”

I nodded.

“You’ll need a helmet like mine too,” I said, pointing at the nightcrawler skull helmet that was hanging by the rooftop hatch.

“Way ahead of you,” Alessi rushed off into one of the storage rooms and returned with a silver-looking skull.

“What creature is that?” I asked curiously.

“A young thunderbird,” she replied smugly. “I traded some of the smoked steaks to a young hunter for one. You told me that I need a helmet too.”

“Right,” I said. “Lets make your armor ghost proof! We can use a beetle wing to make a lens and cover up that large mouth-eye hole at the front of the Thunderbird's skull.

Thankfully, four years worth of chimera’s hair made for a good amount of magical sand. If I were to run out of my own magic sand, there was still Alessi’s hair. It would take a long time and it would be a lot harder to infuse it with my soul and purpose, but it was still an extra resource for me to use if I needed to make more anti-phantom shields in the future.

. . .

We spent the next week putting together phantom-repelling armor for Alessi. She couldn't do magic like me, but I wanted her to be completely safe while I was doing magic on her.

After I was done covering her body in glittering paint, I had two bottles worth of my anti-phantom assigned soul-sand remaining. I hoped that it would be enough to protect my future Folding Seed from phantoms. This sand was incredibly precious to me, worth more than gold, as it contained three years of incredibly-focused work and days of icy pain recovering and regrowing the cut-off bits of my soul.

Alessi explained that the Seeds were generally the size of a two year old chimera, but they unfolded to be a lot bigger during the day. I hoped that this unfolding process would not completely demolish the protection shield.

Soon enough, Alessi was standing in the middle of the workshop dressed in a metallic-looking mask and her reflective, beetle-carapace armor.

“I’m ready,” she said, her face hidden behind her silver helmet-skull.

I walked around her. My anti-phantom shield sat atop her firmly. It felt like a part of me and also not really.

It wasn’t anywhere as potent as the double-barrier on me and didn't even synchronize properly with her soul or core, but it was good enough since Alessi wasn’t actively radiating death-magic like I was. This shield's purpose wasn’t to hide Alessi - it was to hide my Soul Sapling inside of her.

“Let's do it," I said. "I honestly don’t know how long it’s going to take, so let's sit down.”

We moved to a fur-draped bone-couch.

I grabbed my sister's left hand, made a tiny cut on it with the soul-carving knife and unfurled one of the curled up Dominion threads, injecting the shimmering gold spiral right into her right arm. I was the one who had put power into her armor, so I wasn’t blocked from injecting a part of my soul right through the phantom-barrier shield on her skin.

“This feels… odd,” she noted.

“Right… I’m going to set up the joint control now,” I said.

I started to form a Pneumasomatic Actuator inside my sister’s arm, based on the ones I had in my own hands. It wasn’t working very well. Her body and soul were moving too much. After a while, I started to feel that I was losing control of my Sapling, losing concentration.

“Argh,” I growled, failing to focus.

“What’s wrong?” Alessi asked.

“It’s not working… our arms are moving too much I think,” I sighed. “It’s not stabilizing right. I designed the ones in my hands while I was asleep...”

“Why don’t both of us go into a Still trance?” She asked.

“Ohh,” I smiled. “That’s an excellent idea!”

"Right. I'll try to poke your soul in the following pattern let you know when I'm done," I said.

I knocked the couch with the "Shave and a Haircut" a quick five-note musical pattern with two knocks after a delay. I had used this pattern often to start off a bounce of back and forth knock-messages with my friends via pipes during urbex trips in deep, underground tunnels.

Alessi nodded, having memorized the pattern of knocks.

We sang the cendai-chorus of Stillness together, winding the words and slowing our bodies down. We Stilled our hearts and lungs, crystallizing our bodies. When both of us stopped moving, the muscles in her arm stopped twitching. There!

I finally felt that my Dominion thread fused properly, taking control of the muscles in her hand.

It took all of my concentration to put the Pneumasomatic Actuator fully into place, to root it into her soul, to thread it to her core. Once it was done, I synchronized the Dominion Sapling with the sand-shield that surrounded Alessi's body, so that her core could actually resonate through my sapling and power up the shield from within.

It was a complicated process, but no more difficult than modding my grandfather's old bike. My grandfather's old Dnepr was reliable in how often it broke down and required repairs, but thanks to it I had grown up as a half-decent mechanic.

I had used Alessi's core to power my shield via my thread sort of like secondhand magic. The power was incredibly weak, but the shield was now pulsating from within, keeping the magic completely contained inside it, just like the shield on my body.

I felt that I was done. The magical mechanism sat securely inside of her arm, deeply rooted in her body and soul. I squeezed the connection to her soul in a "Shave and a Haircut" pattern and her soul responded. She squeezed the root back in exactly the same pattern.

Yes! We had a way to communicate! Maybe I could teach Alessi Morse code. Well, I’d have to reinvent Morse code first. Sadly, I couldn't remember all of the letters but I knew the concept behind it well enough.

It was indeed a great idea to practice injecting a Dominion branch into someone, because when I emerged from Still trance, it was pitch-black outside. I had no idea how much time had passed. Maybe a day… or maybe a week. I really needed to design a clock or something!

“That… tingles,” Alessi emerged out of her trance right after me and squinted at her left arm. Her fingers were twitching.

I made the base of the Dominion thread as thin as possible, pulled the soul-cutting knife from its sheath and sliced the thread off myself with an angry hiss. The Sapling didn’t dissolve into my sister, simply sitting in her arm! Great success. I flexed it and her arm flexed too.

“Whoa,” she gasped. “My arm is… moving on its own. Are you doing that?”

I nodded.

“Let me see if I can try to resist it,” she said, pulling her arm back.

I felt her resistance. I pushed against it a little and the sapling delayed her motion, burning away a bit of its power. If I fought against her soul, then the sapling would eventually die. Interesting. So this was why the dominated beasts had to be weakened first. At least the sapling wasn’t losing any of its energy to the Still Forest because of my shield around Alessi’s body.

“Are you stopping me? I can’t control my arm how I want to… this is scary stuff,” she muttered.

“Yep, I was testing it out,” I let my sister move her arm freely.

“I want another one,” she said.

“Um?” I blinked.

“I won't suspend my body this time,” Alessi said. “Put another one into my left arm. The Folding Seed isn’t going to go into a Stillness trance for you. You need more practice!”

I sighed. She was right.

"How far does the connection reach?" She asked.

"Eunice didn't specify a limit," I replied. "I do wonder if I can make your arm move from the meeting grove?"

"Why don't we find out?" She asked with a smile. "You could fly there later and try to write me a note using my own arm!"

I nodded with determination. I would put another Dominion Branch into her left arm and then… test out how far the connection went. The experiment was on!

It took me almost an entire day to plant the second Dominion Sapling into Alessi. It wasn’t easy, but I was getting better at it. I placed a third one into her right leg and that one took approximately four hours. The fourth one that I placed into her left leg only took somewhere around an hour to root. I felt that this was good enough, not wanting to spend any more of my precious Soul Saplings on mere practice.

After I was done taking over Alessi's limbs, I moved onto the next step - trying to make her walk with my control.

This too, took me painfully long to master. I got frustrated, after walking Alessi into things and making her fall several times. I decided to take a break and went to work on our helmets, readjusting leather straps on them so that they would not simply fly off if one of us tumbled into a hole. Controlling Alessi was akin to trying to ride a bike all over again, except that I wasn’t even sitting on the bike - she was. It was a completely alien task to me.

“You’ll get there,” Alessi hissed out, rubbing her elbow after I managed to bump her into a wall for the 6th time.

“Sorry,” I said, fretting. “I just can’t seem to control two bodies at once.”

“What if you weren’t controlling your own body?” She raised a silver eyebrow.

“Hmmm, you’re right!” I nodded. “Let me try walking you around while my body is Still.”

. . .

Stilling my body with the exception of my eyes and eardrums had done the trick, but this left me limited and I couldn't see where I was walking Alessi to if she was out of my field of vision. It felt like I was controlling a character in a 3rd person-style game with the screen stuck on one spot. In the end, we had figured out a workable-ish system in which she was carrying me on her back like an oversized backpack while my body was Still.

“This is weird but fun!” Alessi laughed as I walked her around our workshop, feeling like I was some sort of a flesh-mech pilot. “Turn me left! More left, damn it! Watch out for the couch!”

“Walking the Seed is going to be complicated,” I sighed when I uncrystallized my body.

“You can do it, sis! You’re the smartest chimera I know,” Alessi pumped her fist. I smiled. Her upbeat attitude was contagious.

I went over my checklist. Everything was ready. All of our supplies and tools sat in leather backpacks. Beetle-bottles filled with highly flammable oil were hanging from belts at the entrance.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would notify the high-cendai that we were leaving and finally set out for the Twisted Forest.

I felt too tuckered to do anything else tonight, but wasn’t sleepy yet, so I pulled out the little gray leather book from a shelf.

Alessi sat next to me as I started to read “The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cole” to her, showing my sister the adorable, animated chimera depictomancy cards bound to the interior pages.