Waking up from hopefully, the last blackout of my foreseeable future, I cracked open my eyes to see, thankful not the full glory of the sun attempting to peer into my brain, but rather gentle, feathery coconut palm fronds. The shade they offered was a pleasant surprise but past the fronds the sun had definitely begun its journey toward the horizon, which meant the familiar bond had knocked me out for at least a few hours.

Speaking of which. It was time to see if it had been worth it, pulling up my notifications I was relieved to see:

Familiar successfully bonded.

Tatter Moth Swarm

Once they were merely another creation of The Life Weaver: Feedle. But now, they are the familiar of a sloth, on the centremost island, of the Greifswald Archipelago.

Additionally, they are able to reweave themselves into anything, from a single large sheet, a rope, or an outfit. The discerning gentleman who likes having a suit made of moths, may also find a fine collection of turnip watches to accompany it.

You are now bonded to your familiar on an intrinsic level.

The process seemed to have worked without issue. Thank Christ. I needed a win right now. Looking around there wasn’t any sign of my familiar but, checking my status I saw it once again under the [Haverhide] header. Reaching into my fur this time however was quite different, as soon as the claws sank past where my skin should be, the portal was opened, and the Moth Swarm escaped.

Hundreds of mini versions of the large moth, from pre-most-recent-blackout, flew out and hung in a whispery, ethereal cloud just over my head. Each was an exact copy of the larger one but only about 2 inches long and 1 wide. A passing breeze briefly drew my gaze downward, to what was technically my naked body (fur was weird) lying on the ground, the moths seemed to track my gaze and flew into a central mass over me. Suddenly, with an almost choreographed movement, they wove each of their bodies like a single patch into a blanket, that then drifted down covering my body.

Looking down at the sheet made of a thousand insects, I noticed a large white patch in the centre of the blanket. Craning my neck up to better see, I felt my eyes widen slightly as I beheld the mid-twirl frozen form of Oogie-Boogie.

Recognising the design from my T-shirt I realised I’d never noticed which part of the moth had been sourced from that particular item of clothing. Now, I guessed it was in the patterns.

A random thought drifted lazily past my mind’s eye, curiosity combined with the confidence of a man who’d been turned into a sloth and now believed anything was possible, lead me to try. With a mental push along the connection I felt with the blanket, Oogie-Boogie completed his twirl, performed a bow, then refroze.

“It’s like the greatest, magic etch-a-sketch that never was…woooooow…”

A sense of pride resonated along the link and instinctively stroking the blanket’s surface, I was rewarded by another burst of emotion that reminded me of a pet’s instinctual smile after any form of stroke, pet or scratch.

Next to test if the moths could work as a scout I tried to push my mind along the link but found it unable to contain my spirit, or consciousness. Whatever you’d call it, trying to get through the link felt like trying to squeeze a balloon through a funnel.

Feeling an upwell of hopelessness on the horizon, I tried instead to reach along the connection and grasp the creature’s eyes, as opposed to trying to possess it entirely.

Mentally following the connection with one long psychic machine game claw, or at least that’s how I was trying to envision it, not really knowing how these things worked. Keeping an idea of the buttons in mind I felt a sudden mental tug and hurriedly reeled in the claw.

It came rushing back into my mind’s eye, depositing a black thread, that, upon being released seemed to hover there as if waiting, I hesitantly reached out and touched the end. A starkly different image was thrust into my mind, as a disorienting vision of what looked like the normal view of the sky as I was lying on my back unfolded in front of me.

Frustrated that it appeared to be a failed experiment I went to lean forwards and felt an enormous sense of vertigo as I was propelled up into the air. Instinctual I flung myself back toward the ground and snapped my eyes open… again?

It was the sight of the blanket drifting down onto my face that finally caused the penny to drop, the experiment had worked, it’s just that with the form of the blanket I must have instinctually been looking via Oogie’s eyes on the front of the cover.

A couple follow up experiments further revealed the existence of the ability to expand the number of views, though this caused the blanket to burst back into a hovering swarm. Once in swarm form, I tested my influence over the moth’s movements.

I could direct the swarm while dispersed as a group and as a single or couple pieces of fabric, but my normal single body brain found it was unwieldy and migraine inducing to control while also looking their eyes. Narrowing it down to only a single moth allowed me to both control the moth and see without issue.

Control of the moths as pieces of fabric was limited by what I could keep track of which, for now, was two. Fine control still eluded me, but I was only a beginner at controlling moths of living fabric, so I thought that was pretty good. With time, my understanding of the familiar bond would hopefully grow, but for now the results, on the whole, were clear.

Operation I-Spy-With-My-Little-Fly-Moth was a-go.

………………

Thud

That was the second bloody tree I’d hit already. Turns out the tales of my deft and precise control were slightlyexaggerated.

Otherwise the scouting mission was a success, if a boring one. There had been no sign of any dragons, nagas or minotaur, not even goblins, goblins for Christ’s sake those green midgets were everywhere in fantasy stories.

I’d seen the forest beyond the coconut palms though and it appeared to be made up of Chilean pines or at least an incredibly similar species with the same long curving branches covered in tightly compacted, sturdy, scale like leaves. But in terms of fauna beyond some basic species of detritovores that scurried on many legs between the small plumes of dry grass dotted throughout the wood, there wasn’t much to see. Though the setting sun had created many shadowed nooks and crannies that all manner of beasts could be hiding in from the admittedly limited vision of one small moth.

Opening my eyes, trusting the moth to find its way back on its own, I began to look around once more, knowing that with no signs of anything significant nearby I would have to make my own shelter. Feeling the general exhaustion of the days turmoil catching up with me I decided to test out this core trait if it worked like I think it may then I’ll be able to make my own shelter for the night and get back to figuring my shit out tomorrow.

I spent the next couple minutes moving slowly (so I don’t exhaust myself again) over to a nearby protruding boulder of basalt left over from some previous eruption. I lay down in the sand at the front of the boulder, so it was between me and any forest predators waiting for the stupid delicious looking sloth to go to sleep, and closed my eyes drifting off into slumber only to be interrupted by the expected screen.

Do you wish to activate Core Trait {[Sleeping Giant]}?

Y/N

Mentally clicking the yes with a mix of curiosity and the giddy anticipation of being about to use magic I was really quite disappointed when I saw:

Core Trait {[Sleeping Giant]} cannot be activated on land within another’s dominion.

Land currently occupied resides within the dominion of [Phlegethon: Deep Wyrm of Burning Blood]

COOOOOOMM OOOONNN! JESUS WEPT! COULD NOTHING WORK OUT FIRST TRY SMOOTH AND SIMPLE FOR ONCE!

Rudely ejected from the screen I was at a loss as to how I was now supposed to survive with zero shelter and zero… everything else, along with the fact that whatever a “Phlegethon” was, it sounded big, dangerous and, I feel quite comfortable saying, just generally bad.

Looking over my status I couldn’t see anything that would help me in my current situation beyond the Miner’s Lantern that should at least provide some light as the sun began setting over the volcano plunging the beach into darkness lit only by the dim and unusually cerulean moon that was only half full.

Not really sure about how to cast a spell now that I think about it, despite what the yanks may believe not every English child got invited to a school of wizardly and had their house stuffed with half a rainforest worth of postage (HA imagine Greta Thunberg chocking out Dumbledore over his rampant deforestation of the Forbidden Forest lol).

Trying the simplest method, I just said it.

“Miner’s Lantern”

Worryingly at first nothing appeared to happen which was an issue because that was my only idea, but then gradually a point of light opened in existence like a pinprick in a blackout curtain and slowly grew. As it did it began to gain a rough surrounding structure, made of moonlight spilled into the familiar shape of a traditional miner’s lantern, with a small plate on the front that displayed a crossed shovel and pick beneath the arch of a tunnel support.

Now with additional lighting I reassessed the situation, yep boulder and some sand, now what. Feeling at the very least more vulnerable out in the open and on the ground, I decided to try climbing the boulder so that I was at least in a position of relative safety. Walking up to the side of the boulder, lantern bobbing over my shoulder, I reached as high as I could, which was pretty fuckin’ high with these sloth limbs, I felt like one of those inflatable noodle men from every car dealership that has ever and will ever exist.

Reaching as high as I could, I tried to grip a shelf I could see round 4/5ths of the way up but quickly ran into an issue, or rather 10 of them, the claws. Sloths are meant to climb trees, not rocks, and I couldn’t get a grip on the stone with the length of the claws and the inflexibility of my new fingers, even with the increase of friction from the mountain goat skill.

Back to the drawing board I guess…unless. [Mountain Goat’s Grip] may not be strong enough on its own but another skill or should I say spell should assist with that. Reaching my arms up again I cast:

“Newton’s Binding”

A deep rich astral purple glow seeped out of the crack between my right palm and the boulder, then suddenly sucked back in sealing my hand to the stone with enough force that I couldn’t pull it off even when dangling my whole weight. Testing complete, I heaved myself rapidly swinging my left arm over to slap down on the relatively flat shelf that made up the boulders top,

“Newton’s Binding”.

Again, the glow was followed by the suction of my hand to the stone and the release of old righty from what had become a somewhat uncomfortable position. I then scrambled my feet to catch a gap in the rock hauling myself the last bit to the top.

Unsure of how to release my hand without creating another link I went for the first thing that came to mind, seemed to work last time, and imagined the link severing, freeing my hand. Don’t say maybe I’m getting a hang of things, don’t say maybe I’m getting a hang of things, don’t summon the karmic hoodoo to come fuck my life up. Clear mind happy thoughts.

Now that I was up here and wasn’t exerting myself I began to feel the chill of the ocean breeze sink its icy teeth into the marrow of my bones. Wrapping the swarm around me, once more in blanket form…I could have just made a rope and attached it with the spell. The silent beach echoed with the thwap of hairy palm impacting hairy forehead.

Wrapped snug in a somewhat macabre blanket that somehow showed dozens of repetitions of Jack’s face pulling various skeletal expressions, despite the fact that it hadn’t even been on my shirt. Frankly it was a very small blip on the radar by today’s standards. I closed my eyes and dispelled the still bobbing lantern, once more trying to drift off to sleep this time not to be interrupted by any screens.

However again I was disturbed but this time by something very different, as my mind entered the half-awake realm of dream I felt a deep bassy thrum from below. Rapidly as a man sloth can, I spun (rolled slowly) over and raised myself to tactical crouch (rocked up onto my arse nearly falling over).

However, my Seal Team Six like reactions appeared unnecessary as there didn’t appear to be anything around. The air was still, broken only by the crash of waves, the soft rustle of the trees and my own slightly laboured breath.

Lying back down I failed to notice anything odd and decided it was 1 of 2 things. 1: I misheard or imagined whatever it was. 2: whatever it was that made the noise was too good at sneaking to be seen by my incompetent ass and was going to eat me in my sleep.

With a mumble of,

“Fuck it I’m tired, the fucker can choke on me.”

I lay my head back down to sleep, the fabric piling itself into a pillow for me to rest it on. Then, again, I heard the thrum below me.

Staying still to try and pinpoint the noise this time instead of moving, I held my breath and focused.

Thruuuuummm

That was odd…

It seemed…

To be coming from below?

For a second, I was worried I had climbed the cousin to those rock crabs from Captain Jack’s purgatory, but focusing more on the sound once more I realised something. It was too deep?

The sound seemed as if to resonate from some subterranean forge.

The more I listened the more my mind felt drawn down, deeper and deeper into the earth, sinking further I could almost feel the layers pass me by, crust, mantle, outer and then inner-core.

Suddenly I felt suspended in the centre of the earth feeling every iridescent flow of the convection currents like my own heart beat pushing magma through my veins, each earthquake was like goosebumps on my skin accompanied by a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Feeling pressure I twisted, popping my back, and felt a chain of volcano’s violently erupt in unison followed by a gargantuan yawn that created sink holes and swallowed cities.

Snapping my eyes open I was greeted by,

Alert!

Your High Affinity for Earth has unlocked the spell:

[Geomancy]

You mould the materials of the earth as if they were clay in the hands of the unenlightened, with will and mana alone.

This spell has been subsumed by the Core Trait: {[Sleeping Giant]} but may be used while not in slumber.

Shaking my head and suddenly feeling like my body was too tight and small I focused on what the alert meant.

Re-summoning the lantern, I then pressed my palm to the rough stone and hoped this worked like imagined, I visualised the stone smoothing beneath me.

With a ripple, like the after effects of a pebble thrown in a still pond, the rock smoothed centring on my hand flowing outwards till a foot radius around my body was flattened and polished. It hadn’t created a flat surface like a marble counter, as I had envisioned, but rather followed the natural contours of the rock, still, significantly more comfortable than before.

Giddy at the physical effect of the spell I played with it for a minute shaping the stone around me into waves and pillars till I felt a weight begin to press on my mind causing me to nearly blackout.

Remembering where I was and the current situation I stopped for a second and felt the looming headache alleviate. It appeared that continuous casting had some negative mental effects, presumably as my mana decreased, though I lacked any useful bar or gauge of any kind to tell how much.

Waiting a few more minutes to recover, I began to shape the stone up and around me from below sinking down in the rock till I was in an almost entirely sealed cubby, leaving some gaps at the side facing along the beach, so I wouldn’t suffocate or have sea spray come in the holes.

I then mentally gave the order for a few moths to cover the holes in patch form to stop insects and to wake me up if anything tried to get in.

With that I allowed myself to relax and fell swiftly asleep.