Growing up in a forest that can warp space, tends to give one a distorted sense of distance. Growing up on Earth with all of its technology does the same, but to a lesser extent. And treants have no sense of urgency. So as our group began their journey, only Vaelin seemed to truly understand what it meant to travel overland on Fracture. Even then the pixie clan had only made a small journey overland before reaching the Lost Woods. The journey our group was embarking upon would be far more treacherous.

The area around the Lost Woods was, or rather is, relatively safe since most anything dangerous was either destroyed or consumed. That however was beginning to change, but for now it was still true. It was a general rule that the farther you go away from any kind of civilization the more dangerous Fracture becomes. Every podunk village and 2-bit town will have what the humans refer to as a Guardian. It's the same as the pixies Lord protector, or what the Aväk refer to as Nobles. Whichever you prefer, it basically refers to the strongest, most martially or magically skilled and dangerous person in that settlement. Such a being is usually leagues above everyone else. The only way that civilization has thrived is because the strong act as a shield against the true horrors of Fracture. It is why scarce few travel, and those that do tend to do so with haste.

So the general idea behind traveling on Fracture is to do it fast and stay as close to the territory around a settlement. For a group of monsters it's a little more difficult, but by keeping to the very edge of a territory and increasing their pace, our party just might make it.

However, for now our party remained unhurried. Blame it on ignorance, or carelessness, it matters not. The days always started the same, Stygian would wake first, glare at Leon, and ask if he had heard anything in the night. If anything had happened Leon would have dealt with it or his new companion treant would have. Only on rare occasions were there threats deemed hostile enough to warrant a response from Stygian and Vaelin. Everytime such a monster appeared Vae seemed to grow increasingly nervous. As though she was expecting each new encounter to be their last.

The situation with the parties treant was getting stranger by the day it seemed. Apparently the treant that hosted Leon had gained a soul while it was empty, and though our party of misfits was surprised at this development, Tekanis was not. The wizard had suspected that the treant would be an empty vessel since it didn't lose its soul. Technically the treant never had its own soul. But more peculiar was that the treant's attitude, the thing downright worshipped Leon, but would snarl, or the tree equivalent, at everyone else. The pair had no particular need for sleep being a living tree and an incorporeal ghost. Thus they were voluntold for permanent nightwatch.

The wood lovers could handle themselves, and so there usually wasn't anything to report at night. Occasionally there would be some fresh meat by morning, but otherwise nothing important happened. Leon would use most of the night to try and understand the treant thoughts, which were highly erratic and violent. Leon had a calming effect on the monster for reasons unknown and after soothing the nameless treant, Leon would work on a technique that Tekanis had imparted on the nymph.

Tekanis is one of the foremost experts on using Mana in unusual ways. One of these techniques was known as Mana Hardening, basically you compact a layer of Mana to produce a rudimentary sense of touch. It's a tricky skill and not very useful until it reaches a high level. Useless, unless you just so happen to have lost all feeling, or just so happen to be made up of mostly Mana. So Leon whittled away his night with this frustrating exercise. Thus in the morning Leon was less than amicable to Stygian, and Stygian was all too happy to return the feeling.

Residual anger from the near loss of individuality, and a bit of rebellious anger. The dislike and disdain for the idea that it wasn't a unique individual wrankled. That and the idea that Stygian half-light was merely a mashed up combination of different personality traits. So Stygian was rebelling against its normally docile demeanor.

After some growling and rude gestures from both parties, Stygian would enter into mediation. First and foremost our bug would focus on sufusing it's maxed out stats with its body. Stygian imagined energy flooding its body, specifically it's brain, and then focused on holding the energy still and not letting it return. Stygian did this until a few more points of each stat clicked into place, but I hear you ask why just the maxed out stats? Why not all of the stats. Well my friends when locking in stats the new amount you can gain is double the previous amount, meaning that even a point less than the maximum means missing out on points for the entirety of your life. If you max out at 50 and lock in stats at 49 then your new max will be 98, then 196, and so on. The more stats you can lock in the better.

Then the bug moved on to the next exercise. The most important tool for a mage is not a spell nor a wand. It is the quantity of energy they have available, and understanding of your thread, and it is important to gain as much of both you can.

So Stygian focused on its center, the magical place where bonded threads of magic resided. Now this part is up to the mage, but when you focus on the center you have to imagine where it would be located within your body. Be it in your heart or your head or even your feet, you must anchor your center there. This has no real impact, except for helping one draw out their Mana faster. For the bug it imagined its center just below its stomach, in the place that anatomy textbooks call your core or your abs. It seemed fitting for the bug. Next you would pull energy from your bonded thread or threads and once again imagine. The imagery is up to the mage in question, but you must imagine a place for the power to collect. Some do wells, others imagine a spoole to store the magical threads, some do prisons, but by far the strangest I've seen is an accurate representation of the mitochondria. The powerhouse of the cell.

Stygian imagined a pond. Every time the bug adds more energy the ponds get deeper and a bit wider. After making the magical ponds deeper and wider, Stygian begins the task Tekanis described as, 'most vital' for new mages. You must, must, draw pathways from your pools to the rest of your body. This is less about speed than it is about making spells less mentally draining. It is important to draw the paths everyday, since it is a mental exercise. The purpose of the paths is to train your mana to flow in the most direct manor, along a well worn path. Eventually a mage will not need to consciously guide the magic power. In essence magic muscle memory.

After that is done our bug is usually pretty exhausted, but there is still one more task left, or two depending on how you look at it. This one is of the bugs own design. Stygian takes a good long look at its own soul. It was and is odd to be able to look at one's own soul, but Soul Eater had some hidden effects that allowed the process to feel quite natural. The firmly packed mass that Stygian had originally crafted was... frade like a time worn cloth. It was wispy near the edges and every time Stygian saw it, a spike of panic coursed through the bug. It was odd, well more than just odd and Stygian was sure souls weren't supposed to look like that. Something was wrong, and Stygian was too afraid of making it worse to meddle further. So every evening and every morning Stygian would compact its soul back down to what it used to be.

Then Stygian checked on the spears, they were in the same boat after all, so the bug had to compact their souls as well. Reya and Nora, the Soul Familiars. The title was impressive, but the information about such Familiars was limited. There was a bond between Stygian and the spears. It was quite powerful, but Stygian had no idea what to do with it. So the bug just ran its consciousness along the bonds getting a good sense of their physical and emotional states.

The spears were vicious and desired to bathe in blood, yet every time Stygian checked they seemed ecstatic at the bugs presents. Oddly enough, Stygian felt restored after contacting the spears. Though Stygian didn't know it yet, the familiars were taking on some of the bugs' exhaustion. Reducing its fatigue to a third of what it should be.

After all of this Stygian was ready to begin the day of walking. The first few days nexts to no real progress was, as the party would investigate every little disturbance, and insisted on a leisurely pace. The fifth day brought some more intrigue as the party discovered some unusual flowers.

"What are theey?" Asked an increasingly eloquent Leon.

"While I have never actually seen them, they should be mesmer flowers. As you can see for yourself the name is apt." As Vae spoke she gestured to the flowers, as the flowers visibly shifted color, some fast, some slow, all mesmerizing.

Leon was slowly drawing closer as he watched the display, and soon collided with a barrier that Vaelin had erected. The collision of separate energies caused Leon to get forcibly thrown back.

"Ow! What was thaat for?" Asked the nymph, his pride the only thing injured.

"Just because they look like mesmer flowers, doesn't mean that they are! There are several creatures that either hide amongst them or impersonate the flowers. Though pretty they are quite-" Suddenly the sound of muffled and angry cursing reached Vaelin's ears. She sighed deeply and continued, "-Dangerous. Come on we should see if the moron is okay."

After a brief search, well all they really did was was follow the sound of a struggle and enraged deväk screeching. The pair found their insidious insect companion wrestling with a mesmer flower. Although this one was different. The stem that was wrapped around Stygian restricting movement was thorned and the flower petals had, for lack of a better of a better description, grown teeth. When closed, the flower bud would form an impressively savage maw.

This flower wasn't really a flower at all, but a low level mimic known as a mez-mur-der. Or usually just a mez-mur. Which sounds exactly like mesmer and if mez-mur-der's were any more deadly than they probably would have gotten a different name. Fortunately they aren't that dangerous and the amusing name scheme was allowed to exist.

While I deeply enjoy the names, our shelled friend couldn't have cared less. Well more accurately Stygian was fuming, and was ready to destroy all flowers. Using its armored tentacles Stygian began to rip and tear at the flower's stem. To the bugs' consternation the damn flower had impressive regeneration. So instead the bug used its tentacles to pin the not-flower and with the barest of thoughts Stygian's soul familiars were in hand and in the shape of A Knight's Fork. Then Stygian's awareness shifted. All three forged souls were acting in concert, the area around Stygian seemed to fade out a bit, but the flower came into hyper focus. Every thrashing movement seemed to take minutes instead of seconds.

This new state was what Stygian was referring to as its Battle State. It happened every time our bug called it's soul familiars for battle. Whether it's because they are soul familiars or just because all three had powerful souls it was hard to say. What's easier to say was that this state was quite mentally draining for all three. Though it did have the upside of making our bug feel untouchable.

Though it was intoxicating, Stygian thought it was a bit overkill for just one flower, and returned Nora to the garden. Reya, the fire aspect, would be perfect for getting rid of some weeds. With only the two of them the battle state was reduced by almost a third. A much more manageable state. The tip of Reya transformed into a needle and pierced the still struggling plant in its petal maw. The Stygian proceeded to pump its insides full of fire killing it rather quickly. And as the murder bug is prone to do, it started consuming the corpse.

Mez-mur-der added to the Morphis/Annelid gene pool. 1/250.

And with that the only remaining obstacle for metamorphosis was the aväk gene pool. Well that and fully doubling every pool, but that was just a molehill compared to the mountain that had been climbed already. Stygian desperately wanted to obtain the high that was rapid physical growth, but it seemed the bug was destined to wait. At least until the party reached the Midnight Sands and found The Ways.

For now though Stygian was more than happy to vent its frustration upon a field of flowers. Cutting down the whole field mesmer and then taming the murder counterparts was a great balm to our bug. But it was like sandpaper on a sunburn to our treant. The menacing white space distorting treant already had a profound hatred for our black shelled friend, but she couldn't just sit by and watch the damn thing decimate nature like it was.

So as Stygian was mutilating the flower, our treant with a violent thought and a sweeping gesture launched a crescent blade of warped space. The blade screamed through the air just above our bugs head. Thankfully the treant had thrown the attack wildly, otherwise Stygian might be having a very bad day indeed. It was then during a moment of stunned disbelief that everyone realized something. The treant they had been traveling with wasn't tamed by Stygian. Leon was, but now that the treant was its own entity? Well it's sheer luck that their party hadn't been torn apart in the night. It became apparent just how much of a hold the nymph had over the monster.

It also became apparent that Stygian wasn't willing to let that be the only means of control. Before the others could blink Stygian was sprinting towards the treant. The tree took a defensive posture, but with a mental command to Leon and then a mental command from Leon, the treant relaxed. With a pounce, and less fanfare than one might expect, Stygian tamed the walking tree. With that done Stygian tried to command the treant to reveal its status page, but the damn thing was even dumber than a certain shapeshifting insect. Stygian did learn a few things about the treant's skills and spells with the aid of Leon.

Most were run of the mill and Stygian only asked for a causal summary of each, that is until Stygian heard about one. Then Leon and Stygian both spent the next hour trying to coax a description prompt from the reluctant treant

Distortion Level 1

Can distort space around the user or can be projected from the user. The only limits are one's imagination and Mana levels.

Maddeningly short, the spell seemed to have no limits, at least no limits yet. None knew what the spell could grow into, but the party, Vaelin, realized that with this spell at their disposal they could cover vastly more distance then they had been. Almost like they were back in Lost Woods. Or more accurately like they had brought a piece of it with them.