Mash landed atop the desert sands and was surprised by how solid it felt. The grains didn’t separate around his toes like normal sand. It was kind of like it was one solid mass.

“It’s magnetic, isn’t it?”

Lisa spoke, grabbing a handful of the sand and letting it slip between her fingers. He bent down and examined the sand himself. He grabbed a fistful of the sand and felt the pull of the ground on it. It was magnetic, and they were not weak either. Each grain of sand had a fairly strong pull to it, and there was an entire desert’s worth. Just how valuable was this? He knew that enchanters needed metallic metal for some of the things they made, and this was a lot.

He let the sand fall from his hand and looked deeper into the ground. The insects had somehow noticed him, and several of them were moving to block entrances. Seeing as they were several hundred feet beneath the surface, he wondered how exactly they had detected him.

“What happened? Why did we stop here?”

Arthur sounded tense, and his eyes darted about to no avail. The surface was barren. This dessert didn’t have any signs of life on it at all. Mash could see how that could be creepy and answered his brother as best as he could.

“There are indigenous people down there.”

That probably had been the right way to soothe his brother though. His brother seemed even more worried now. Even Luna was looking around a bit skeptically now. Lisa’s eyes widened.

“Wait, what do mean? I thought this world was like a year old. How would there be intelligent people?”

Lisa brought up something that Mash hadn’t even fully considered. He turned that question to Priscilla since she had been observing the planet for a while now.

[The world is responding to your changes. But they have not even changed. Some things had changed, been given life beyond their age. Think of Damah. These are like some of the smaller insects you have noticed so far. There is another in the waters to the south that is like a blend between man and fish.’

Mash’s imagination ran wild at those words. He tried to imagine what a half-fishman would look like. He guessed it would be someone like Luke, except with gills and fins or something. Maybe even scales instead of hair. That image broke when Priscilla provided him with one.

He saw what looked like a person, although rather than legs they had long fishy tails. Also, they had scales all along the side of their bodies going all the way up to their arms. And there were some gills along their sides too. The other really odd thing he noticed about them was their extremely sharp teeth. The kind of teeth that were obviously designed to tear through flesh. It was something he was distinctly aware of as, as his teeth were basically upgraded versions of that.

[Ok, creepy fish people, and insect people. Anyone that looks less dangerous?]

He sent that message to Priscilla. His friends got a different response.

“Yeah, Priscilla just told me that they were created in the same way as Damah, but not tied to a tree. “

Lisa nodded, but Luna and Arthur didn’t know what that meant. That didn’t stop Luna from being annoying about it though.

“So, they are all your children? Just how many kids do you have?”

Luna smiled widely, and Mash told Priscilla to tell them the truth. He didn’t want to explain.

He wanted to go see what these people were about. He used his domain, to find a safe place to go, and started tearing into the ground. At first, he formed a wooden drill to cut through the sand and then thought better of it. So long as something was within his domain, it was susceptible to his magic. This sand was included in that list. Tossing the wooden drill to the side, he instead just tried moving the sand directly. Mash didn’t specifically have magic for controlling whatever this type of sand was, but he didn’t need it. He just needed to destroy it.

He was the Chimera of the End, and he hadn’t been utilizing that enough. Just as he could add, he could subtract. Mash imagined consuming the sound, turning it into nothing. His focus sharpened, and he felt his energy drop. The drop was so sudden that he sucked in a breath, as he felt power leave him. It was almost as much energy as it took for him to use his aspects.

“What are you doing?”

Lisa must have noticed the magic because she had moved to shield Arthur and Luna. Her words were loud, but they were not filled with anger or anxiety, just a burning curiosity. Mash grinned and felt his domain almost solidify into something for a moment. It looked like something was taking a bite out of the world, and it lasted only an instant. However, when it vanished so did the sand. And just like that, there was a crater in front of him. One that led straight into a tunnel that he had seen earlier.

“What was that!”

Luna’s shout echoed across the now-silent desert. Lisa was more practical, and Mash could feel her man spread out to stop the sand from falling and filling the new hole. He nodded at her but didn’t know if it was needed. He figured the fact that it was magnetic would stop anything like that from happening. His attention turned to his siblings that were staring at the crater in obvious fascination. Luna caught his glance and shouted with excitement.

“Was that mouth thing your real body or something? I know when you said that you turned into a monster, you said it didn’t change your body much, but it looked like it was connected to you.”

Luna was prattling, probably trying to hide her own fear. Mash looked back toward the sand and shuddered. He could understand her fear. This was a lot like when Jill cut something out of space. Seeing something just vanish as if it never existed in the first place was jarring.

“No, I told you, what you see is what you get. This is as natural as my body can be.”

Mash hadn’t altered his body since the dagger had revealed his true form. He liked how he looked and didn’t care about people calling him a monster anymore. His gaze swung down to the tunnel as he felt people walking through it.

The first person to walk out of the tunnel was a beetle-like creature, the same as the one he had seen earlier. The man or woman, he wasn’t sure, had something like a tusk on their face. It protruded like a nose would, but was easily several feet long, and ended in a shovel-like appendage. They didn’t have skin, but carapace, and a large circular abdomen rather than a humanoid body. Unlike a beetle, the person had two thick arms, that kind of seemed like four insect legs woven together. They even ended in four fingers. It was the same for their feet. When they stepped completely into the sun, he noticed that their carapace was red like sand and that their head was odd. It was wide, and their eyes were small black circles nearly on the side of their face.

“Ok, I’m just gonna say this once now, but that is weird.”

“They.”

Mash corrected his sister automatically, as another almost identical creature walked out from the tunnel. He barely paid any more attention to the beetles and focused on the creature that had definitely just teleported to the tunnel entrance.

[Let them know, tell Lisa to guard Luna.]

He knew that Arthur would agree with that decision. The new insect person didn’t feel as strong as Arthur, but teleportation skills of any kind were dangerous. Mash stared at the tunnel, taking in the person as they stepped into the light. They momentarily silenced everyone.

The new insect person looked disturbingly humanoid. Like humans, they had a distinct torso in the shape of a human. They were wearing a dress too, but it was their face that was the most startling. They had peach-colored carapace that was eerily close to a normal skin tone, and if not for the attendees and eyes, they would look human. However, seeing those multifaceted eyes drew attention to the hardness of their skin, giving their face a mask-like appearance.

The face was somewhat human too, except for the fact that they didn’t have a mouth. A girl’s face, someone who seemed to be around the same age as Red did now. Unlike Red this person was over six feet tall, making them only slightly shorter than Mash. He couldn’t tell their gender as the rest of their body was smooth and flat, and clearly made of carapace despite the human shape. They even had normal arms and legs, though their body was segmented like a puppet. If not for the insectoid parts like the eyes, and antennae, he probably would’ve assumed it was a puppet.

They opened their mouth, and Mash stared at them. They didn’t have lips, their faces simply parted revealing a lack of tongue within their mouth. Their carapace parted, forming a row of sharpened teeth as the creature spoke. Well, not exactly speak. Their mouths opened and closed rapidly, and a click of carapace against carapace filled the air.

“Hello, I have been named Tlik. I have come to greet my creator.”

The creature preceded to perform a perfect bow that no human could match. His siblings didn’t understand anything and had just heard some very loud clicking noises. Arthur’s arm was held out as if to summon his sword, but Lisa quickly stopped him. Relieved, Mash responded to the very oddly named person, in that Mash couldn’t match the sound with his human mouth.

“How do you know who I am? And just call me Mash.”

The insect tilted them at an impossible angle.

“Priscilla has informed us of your existence. We have modeled out bodies after her.”

Mash focused a bit on Priscilla who he felt turned away within him. He pressed her about it.

[Did you change to look like a human here?]

While sending the message to Priscilla, he asked Tlik about something else.

“So, you can transform, or something?”

Tlik shook her head.

“When we are within our eggs, our bodies are very changeable. This form is our current peak, many of us die as we attempt further modifications. Human bodies are difficult to mimic.”

“What! No, stop doing that, your fine as is. I’m not even human, and neither is Priscilla. We can change our bodies at will.”

Mash shouted at Tlik, horrified at the idea of it. He focused and antennae grew from his head to match Tlik so that she could see what he meant. How many of their own kind have they killed to become more human?

“We will cease all alterations.”

Tlik spoke, and her antennae waved in the air. He almost said that they didn’t need to but stopped himself. It was one thing to give people total freedom, and another to let them slaughter their children pointlessly.

[I will tell you about it after. Finish with Tlik first.]

“Okay. And what is your class Tlik, if you’re willing to tell me.”

Mash spoke aloud, though the first part was for both of them. The second was just something he was curious about. The bug person held tilted to the other side. He thought that was the equivalent of a nod, and eagerly awaited her response. Lisa had stepped closer; her eyes were filled with the same curiosity. He remembered than just how interested she had been in the subject of classes before. He held his breath at the clicks of Tlik’s mouth.

“I am a-“