Letting my arms lower I saw my shadow doing the same. Apparently it was possible to spook you're own shadow, if you suddenly screech at it and throw your arms up that is. Listening intently I didn't hear anybody clambering toward my door. Thankfully I hadn't cried out that loudly. "This feels so strange" came a voice from right in front of me. This time I refrained from either jerking or crying. "That it is" I replied to myself. Looking back at my shadow I thought again, literally to myself. "How about you.." I started and realized the shadow had spoken as well "Head out to explore?" the completed my thought. I nodded but it quickly turned into shaking my head "Great minds think alike, I guess" I mumbled, and heard the echo of the same from the shadow heading toward the door. Which was also shaking it's head. We both snickered a bit. I guess there was really no point in talking to myself if I already knew exactly what I was going to say. I wondered if separation would result in a larger divergence over time. Right now it seemed we weren't just the same person but had the exact same thought processes going on at the same time. Just another question I'd apparently have to address on my own.

Getting up and heading over to the bed I was glad to feel that I was slightly more open to sleep but still a bit to shaken up. Luckily I had some memories to parse through that might lull me into sleep. Lying down I perused through what my shadow had learned from Caroline. Before I'd gotten into it too far I heard a throat cleared from the door, and looking up saw my shadow sheepishly looking back at me. "I ... can't actually open the door". Right, I had remembered the door was a bit stiff and difficult to open for me. Damn having such a weak summon was annoying. Frowning I thought through the options, but decided I needed more info first. "One sec" I said while closing my eyes. Realizing as I did that we had already diverged a bit. I guess even mildly different experiences already broke the seemingly identical thought processes.

Sifting through the most poignant memories of what Caroline had called extensive testing I checked if there was anything obvious we could do. Most of the memories contained simple tasks like picking things up, jumping, and running. None really stood out per se. Although one gave me a thought. Caroline had punched my shadow in the chest which caused it to burst like a fog bank being hit with a gust of wind. It appeared at first to have been completely destroyed, but after a moment it simply coalesced back into it's humanoid shape. Never one to give an order that I wouldn't do myself I turned to the nodes in my mind. Opening my eyes in my shadow by the door I walked to the window, luckily this was not as stiff as the door had been and I was able to open it. Stepping through the small opening I slammed onto the ground 4 paces below. Even having the memories of being burst apart before It was incredibly odd to experience it firsthand. A bit like doing a somersault, but continually and in every direction at once as different wisps of myself roiled from the impact. While I slowly coalesced back into my normal shape I realized I wasn't in pain, or nauseous. Although I was disoriented there didn't seem to be any of the normal feedback loops of a flesh and blood body. I guess there were some upsides to this.

After my shape stabilized I got back up then returned to my original body and closed the window, before going back to bed. For about an hour I sifted through more of the memories from the shadow trapped with Caroline. Extensive was probably an understatement for the testing. They'd tried seemingly random things. Squeezing things, pouring different liquids onto my misty hands, pressing different solids to my 'skin', as well as numerous other things I personally wouldn't have thought of. Another of the memories stood out. In fact it both gave me a headache and made me nauseous. Making me wish I was back in the shadow body. Caroline had lead my shadow back into the initial meeting room and presented a single one of the instruments from the operating room to it. There the shadow had closed it's eyes and looked internally like I do. I was surprised to see it also had a 'skill node'. Couldn't really call it a neuron if it was made of shadow could I? It gave the same feel as my connections to the shadow, that of a pane of glass. When it pressed itself to the glass though something completely different happened. It didn't open it's eyes in my body, but rather it fell through the glass. Violently bright colors, sharp tangential lines, and swirling mists of all kinds assaulted me. I'm sure the actual experience was slightly different and probably much worse than the memory. The image stabilized to show essentially the same scene from before. Caroline sitting on the other side of the table, the tool between them, and the shadow sitting as well. Now though things appeared as if through a filter. The 'shadow' was now a glowing mist, the air looked hazy, the instrument in front of me glowed slightly with intricate patterns, Caroline however looked exactly as she did previously. Apparently she wasn't kidding when she'd said I would see only what she wanted me to see. This ability was apparently very hard to control though as the vision wavered and changed. Not just the colors though. The shapes of the table, the instrument, and the shadow warped and undulated changing to spheres, morphing into lines that stretched to infinity and shook as if they were displays in a media player for an audio file. As well as many other shapes between and beyond comprehension. Luckily that portion of the memory ended there as the shadow jerked back to it's body and refused to continue that portion of the testing.

On and on my mind sifted through the memories. Usually just giving them a quick once over as I scrolled through. There were clearly many hours, possibly days worth of tests having been done here. I guess I wasn't wrong that some kind of time warping was happening in that weird place. From all this I was repeatedly returning to one very bleak point. These shadows were very weak. Essentially powerless except for niche capabilities and uses. For a while I kept perusing the memories, But eventually their almost identical nature lulled me into a deep sleep. I was surprised to find myself waking up after dawn to a knock on my door. Edward, who'd been the other chosen to stay here for the night, let me know breakfast was ready. Informing him I'd be down shortly, I sat up slowly looking out the window. Doing so Recognition brought something to my attention. Every building I could see I knew, and had a reasonable understanding of where it was and what was around it. Assimilating information from my shadows was apparently a background process while asleep. I was hoping to continue finding little surprises like this as without them I think I may have royally screwed myself.

Dismissing the errant thought I turned back to my newly assimilated knowledge. I had a reasonably good mental map of the entire town. It seemed my initial guess was reasonably good. From the number of currently functional buildings it could easily house over 1000 people. Although if that many were left I didn't yet know. That wasn't one of the questions we'd thought to ask the town counsel last night. The excursion showed that the town had been much larger initially. It had sprawled across both sides of the abutted river in the past. The husks of broken, burnt, but mostly clearly intentionally deconstructed buildings showed as much.

From the layout it looked like this had been a rather new section of the town that had been abandoned pulling back to this side of the river. There was a large section of the town on this side that appeared to have been walled for several generations due to the clear difference in age, and that the older portion circled what was likely the initially small village. The other side of the river still held the many fields of the town. The fields were surrounded by a much simpler rope fence. The purpose was clearly not direct defense, and after peeking into one of the small wooden outpost towers along it my shadow had confirmed those ropes connected to bells in the tower to alert if something crossed into the fields. These outposts had each housed a few guards up top, but as a being of literal shadow it wasn't too hard to stay hidden at night. Although I didn't expect I would be in trouble for exploring I was rather sure guards wouldn't respond well to meeting an entity of shadow in the middle of the night.

This knowledge resurfaced as I got up and pulled my cloths back on. For a half second I wondered where my shadow had run off to, but even as the thought came a realized I already knew. It was merged with the shadow of the very building I was standing in. This gave me even further hope of growth. Apparently this was something we could do now. "Hmm" I said out loud with a nod of surprised approval. This gave me an idea. Sitting back on the rug in the middle of the room I was glad to find my skill node was ready and soon another shadow was sitting behind me. As I stood and walked to the door the shadow merged with the natural one trailing behind me without being told, as I'd been thinking of doing so when it'd been created. Twisting my head about I saw absolutely nothing other than the natural shadow. "That's pretty awesome" two voices said. I chuckled as I stepped out the door, but didn't correct my shadow-self as I knew the other me would also realize doing that around others would make things weird. As I got to the stairs I paused once more realizing I hadn't actually looked at the other point of view. Shifting inward again I looked through the eyes of this third shadow. The view was strange I could see myself as I expected but it was much more similar to a third person camera view than one of looking at someone while standing right behind them.

Continuing down the stairs I realized I'd almost instantly looked inward, shifted my view to the shadow, and done all that while standing up. I was definitely improving with this. Strange how quickly you become familiar with such things. The moment I stepped onto the ground floor Marilla handed me what looked exactly like an egg and bacon sandwich from earth. She shuffled us out the door and pointed to the crowd of other earthlings telling us Kendrick, who I saw standing in front of them would hand out tasks. In front of the house, where the morning shadows were cast, the other shadow hoped from the buildings into my natural shadow. I was surprised that was even possible but a quick shift of focus showed me how. Apparently to a shadow different shadows, even one's melded together, were as obviously different as, no pun intended, night and day. It was a bit like the vision Carolina's trapped shadow saw while looking through it's own internal node. Although calling the difference a color wasn't right. But trying to discern or describe it was like trying to describe to someone what any color looked like. Without something to compare it too doing so was useless.

Having the skill to slip two shadows in my shadow, say that ten times fast, was useful. Although it didn't make any obvious difference to me. I hadn't even felt a difference with one vs none. I followed Edward to the group of us Earthlings standing near Kendrick. Looking over the crowd I realized there were significantly more than had actually shown up yesterday. There were about 45-50 of us yesterday, but there were around 200 people milling about. It seemed these were the others who'd showed up earlier than us. It made me wonder about the exact mechanics of the translation, but I doubted anybody here knew how it worked. Should have asked Caroline about that. We were not the last to arrive but pretty close too it. Only a few others showed up before Kendrick gave some basic introductions to the others from earth. Despite what Marilla said it was them who began splitting those of us who were new into different guard, attack, and labor groups based on our 'system' abilities.