I checked the rose-pink list in my dispy again, grateful that bringing it up didn’t cost anything. Okay, two items on the list were things we definitely had on hand, one a shore pnt Serru had gathered and the other my weird orange crystal that I’d been reluctant to leave behind in case I found someone to ask what it was.
Serru was certain that we’d left enough of other components in the house, and that we could find others easily.
The proprietors of the general store were accommodating and patient despite odd requests, and one had taken Serru on a short ride in their small boat to visit a neighbour who had one rare list item, which she’d bargained for better than I could have.
Two more I’d found after some extensive diving in the immediate area while using my extremely-useful new Find Nearest spell.
Just one more thing, something called a morning star crystal, although it was worrying that Serru had never even heard of it and that my Find spell turned up nothing. She’d even used the post office by the shelter to ask everyone she could think of who might have come across the name, many of them alchemist customers and some of those highly-experienced. So far, they were coming up bnk as well.
Because I was staying on nd and in my felid form, I’d taken a turn at wearing one of the communicators. That meant Serru could, while fishing, listen to something on her pyer that sometimes made her giggle audibly.
So I was the one who heard Aryennos’ cheerful, “Hello? Are you close enough to hear? We’re near the shelter, just giving Peace and Cheer a chance for a drink and a snack after their first boat ride.”
“Right here!” I said, pressing the bead on the choker. “We’ll come meet you! Serru! They’re by the shelter!”
Serru turned in pce, then quickly pulled in her line and abandoned her pole next to her basket as she got to her feet.
We didn’t bother cleaning up. No one would mess with anything before we came back to collect it. We just headed for the shelter isnd at something faster than a walk but not quite an all-out run, passing the shop and a small group currently going inside, dodging a wagon drawn by a pair of donkeys on the causeway that was going the same way we were.
A happy ornithian greeting trill, echoed by a second one before the first had entirely died, echoed off the buildings.
Why wasn’t it a surprise that Myu was in the centre of the front seat of the wagon, sitting up and looking around, while Aryennos and Terenei were near the heads of the ornithians and Heket talked to someone at the rge ft-bottomed boat by the dock?
Reunion greetings involved enthusiastic hugs, which I was good with, and Serru didn’t leave Heket out so I couldn’t think of a good reason I should, either. Myu, of course, got her own attention from Serru and I, without hugs, and she leaned into it with happy purrs. We wouldn’t have skipped the ornithians even had they not been making happy trills and stamping in pce in an attempt to get noticed.
“Well, you’re still here and apparently still intact,” Terenei said. “You found the next site?”
I nodded, still rubbing Cheer around the base of his beak while he hummed in pleasure, eyes halfway closed. “All done. More than halfway through. And now I have gatherer skills, or maybe more generally supplier. Abilities to let me encourage pnts to grow and develop faster, to identify and find items I want, that kind of thing.”
“You’d be popur on a farm,” Heket chuckled.
Terenei fshed her a grin, then looked back at me. “At this rate, you won’t need anyone else at all.”
I shrugged. “Oh, it’s pretty clear that none of it is as good as genuine experience and skill, no matter how useful it is.”
“Well, yes, that would be consistent with those discussions we had about how magic works. You’re getting a rge push in the form of immediate access to advanced abilities without the learned experience and skill to support them. I suppose ideally, with time, you’d acquire that to improve your understanding of them and possibly increase their flexibility, but without it, at least it’s a way to have useful abilities without waiting.”
“I suppose that comes with another new form?” Aryennos said.
“That was probably inevitable,” I said. “But yes.”
“So, let us see,” Terenei said patiently.
I hesitated, rubbing one of the shells on my neckce. Probably I didn’t need the soft cttery rattle of the earrings or the feel of the neckce just to be in felid form to work, but I liked them. “It still feels really strange, changing back and forth in front of anyone. It’s not so bad in a crisis when there’s a good reason, but it feels... uncomfortable.” Having options was great and all, but at moments it really did feel like it was just... a bit much. I still hadn’t figured out how much of that was swapping species and how much of it was about gender and how much was the mood states that came with forms, or which I felt most at home in. I had worryingly strong suspicions it wasn’t my own human form.
“With an exception or two,” Terenei said in amusement. “Such as to watch a sunrise with someone you’d hardly met at the time. You’ve said that before, but it has been much less perceptible since we dyed your hair and got you more local clothes and especially whenever we have been outside settlements. We can step into the shelter and then there will be no one to see except your friends, who have seen you human and centaur and felid and accept that you are yourself in any of them.”
“They’re understandably curious,” Serru said, still scritching Peace under his chin, and he stretched his head out to give her optimal access. “And it would be best if they can recognize you if you change for more practical reasons. Just step inside the shelter so you’re not in anyone’s line of sight.”
“You have a point. Both of you. Several of them.” I spread both hands, and went through the nearest archway into the shelter’s interior with everyone but Serru. Inside, I gestured my dispy into sight and switched to my aquian form. I’d spent enough time in it over the past couple of days, alone with Serru, for it to feel more genuinely natural and familiar, but it was still objectively new and they hadn’t seen it yet and I still hadn’t entirely worked out how I felt about aquian sexuality.
“Aquian?” Heket said, head cocked to the side. “Useful in the Gss Shallows. Probably less so if you’re going into the Highnds, although there are rivers everywhere, and aquians are good at tolerating cold.”
Terenei, eyes wide, ran the fingers of one hand through my hip-length hair. In the sunlight, it was pale silver but had streaky highlights of pastel blue and green, violet and rose. “I can think of so many clothes I could paint for you like that, to go with three other sets for your other forms. And so many fun things I could do with all that hair. I wonder what that shop we just passed has?”
“I saw that coming,” Serru chuckled from outside. “There are aquian beads and ribbons and such in my bag.”
“You know me much too well.”
“Centaur on the Grassnds,” Aryennos said thoughtfully. “Centaurs come from farther out in the Grassnds somewhere. Felid in the Forest, which has the highest felid popution. Aquian in the Shallows, which is obviously where most aquians live. I bet the one in the Highnds will give you jotun or one of the less-common Highnds folks. It’s certainly giving you options for ways to settle and live somewhere.”
“Humans do have at least a small popution nearly everywhere,” Heket pointed out. “A change of species isn’t necessary. For that matter, people of most kinds are at least occasionally everywhere.”
“True, but might not feel like a completely alternative identity? I’m just specuting. Healer, then alchemist, then gatherer. Did your other abilities increase again?”
That pragmatism actually helped me focus on something other than self-consciousness. Of course Aryennos would want to know that kind of information so he could write it down. “I’m quite sure my avaible pool of mana is bigger, and I have a few extra abilities that go with healer and alchemist. Including instructions on how to upgrade all my alchemy tools so that I can make more complex potions, and also a whole set of locked recipes I can’t use or even see until I have that.”
“That should be fascinating,” Terenei said, shaking himself out of artistic specution at least briefly and switching to the grandson of a high-level alchemist. “I wonder whether it’s going to give you advanced-level formus or expand your list of basic ones. I imagine it’ll continue the focus on healing-reted alchemy, either way.”
“I won’t know until I can get everything I need and unlock the other recipes. That would be handy, but the upgrade is turning out to have a complication. It needs something called a morning star crystal.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither has your grandfather,” Serru sighed, stepping inside where it would be easier to talk. “Or anyone else I’ve sent messages to. One is checking an archive for me to see if it might have an alternative name.”
“I don’t suppose it’s that odd orange crystal.”
“We thought of that. Nathan’s new Identify Mineral ability comes up with the name aleksite for that, which I’ve also never heard of and an awful lot of alchemists are currently extremely interested in what under the moons it is. Once we’re done this trip, I need to ask Jaelis to take some time off so we can do a better exploration of that cave system looking specifically for enough of that to at least give them something to work with.”
“Um, yes. You just told them you found an orange version of karisite, which is already rare and useful mostly for really powerful potions that change sex or species, and no one has ever seen it before so it could do anything... I can just imagine how intense that interest is.”
“Nothing happened while you were waiting?” Serru asked.
“Completely peaceful,” Aryennos said. “We had plenty of food and all and a comfortable house, the ornithians are all rested and maybe even tired of pying in the water for the moment. No attacks.”
“Two of Heket’s neighbours got hurt working on repairs,” Terenei added. “None of it was immediately dangerous but it was more than they could deal with at home. I had more than enough medical supplies at hand to help out. One only needed Ointment and a Bandage. The other had some very bad bruising and breathing was uncomfortable, so I used your monitor to check. Their blood pressure was a bit low and their heart rhythm was erratic, so it seemed safe to conclude that there was enough soft tissue damage for a Softcure.”
“It sounds like it,” I said. “Erratic heart rhythms aren’t something to mess around with. Did it help?”
“Along with Anodyne, they were able to have dinner with us and the pair who brought them and Heket and Myu, although Myu decided that was too many people and slept upstairs on the bed the whole time. Heket’s a really good storyteller and wasn’t hard to persuade to tell us a story even if it was only for an audience of six, that was a lot of fun. By the time they left, the bruising was turning yellow and it was easier to breathe and the monitor had been showing a stable rhythm for a while.”
“Definitely an excellent sign. Good call.”
“I did some sketching and painting, Aryennos did some writing, we listened to a py reading that I did not realize had so many obscure references in it and now I have a whole new appreciation for just how clever it is. I introduced Aryennos and Heket to a few of my favourite bands who live in or regurly travel through Coppersands. It turns out that Garnd isn’t the only game Aryennos can win at consistently. The three of us experimented a little with the food we had. Myu got thoroughly cuddled and the ornithians were duly spoiled, it turns out they like it when Aryennos sings to them. All in all, despite a few worrying moments around the neighbours, it was probably a more rexing and enjoyable time than you had.”
“Good to hear,” I said. “No mosslings or zombies?”
Heket shook her head. “I’ve been listening. No one has seen anything. By this time, any zombies he lost would be back to earth, and the otter was the only mossling I know of.”
“I doubt they’ve given up, but if those st idiotic moves slowed them down for the moment, that’s fine by me. And if that’s the best they can do, I’m not all that worried.”
“Don’t underestimate them,” Aryennos said. “Either one can be dangerous. They do have a lot of power.”
“Literally the only power I’ve seen or heard of from either is making zombies and making mosslings. How am I collecting forms and abilities if they didn’t?”
“Maybe,” Heket suggested, “they also have abilities associated with other forms, but they refuse to change to make use of them?” She shrugged. “I know very little about either, however.”
I considered that. “That might be pusible. If any of his other forms feel weak to him, or not...” ‘Manly’ failed to transte. Big surprise. “Or don’t live up to his standards of what it means to be a man, he might avoid them. We know less about her and her history and priorities, so it’s anyone’s guess.”
“I wonder,” Terenei said thoughtfully. “Research on how they create zombies or mosslings is a subject of high interest but it’s limited, for understandable reasons.” Without making any show of it, I saw him wrap a hand around Serru’s free one. “But they are presumably using abilities the way you use yours, even if the precise method may not be identical. If you were in your centaur form and... suppose you created light. If you switched to felid or aquian or human while it was active, it would stop the light, because you would no longer be in the form that has that specific ability.”
“So,” Aryennos said, “you’re thinking that if the Zombie King switches forms, he’d lose his connection to all zombies? From what little we do know, they’d all just cease to be zombies and die properly. I’m a lot less sure what would happen with mosslings.”
“Mosslings are alive,” Serru said. I gnced at her. That measured tone sounded... almost normal. I’d heard it before, when Myu had been in danger. “I doubt the infection would simply end. But it seems likely that she would, for that time, no longer be the dominant mind controlling that collective consciousness, and that might have consequences she would not like.”
I needed to talk to Terenei. Alone. Soon.
And I needed to make sure the Moss Queen never got near Serru at any cost.
Aryennos nodded. “Okay, so, if that’s the case, then for both of them, switching to a different form to use different skills would have a price. That could account for why we never hear about them doing anything else. It might also be reted to the gaps now and then when there just doesn’t seem to be any sign of one or the other. Usually no zombies, but now and then, no mosslings. I mean, we could be wrong, and maybe they have other forms and sets of abilities and sometimes they just go live with other people or something...”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know about her, but from what we do know about him, even if he decided to try his best to rolepy, he’d never be able to maintain it for long, not in a setting where no one has any hangups about the behaviour of men and women and he’d have to treat everyone with respect. He might even see darker skin colours as inferior, and I have no idea how he’d process the idea of people who aren’t human.”
Aryennos looked in perplexity at his own brown arm, then over at Terenei’s paler one which was somewhat more pink than Serru’s light cream. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“About as much as being a woman does. I didn’t say it makes sense. At least some of my world is trying to outgrow stupid backwards stuff like that but it’s all uphill against some people who don’t want the world to change in ways that don’t let them expect special treatment anymore. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that no matter how hard he tried to py a role as a local, he’d slip and start acting badly. Remember, he doesn’t think anyone here is actually a person. Um. Sorry, Heket, that probably sounds like nonsense.”
“I asked Ary to read any less-personal parts of his journal to me,” she said. “I was curious and we thought you wouldn’t object. I won’t pass them on or turn them into a story to tell without permission.”
“No, of course I don’t mind. At least the things I say sometimes are less likely to sound completely ridiculous. I suppose that means that they probably do have the potential to do things we haven’t yet seen, if they get desperate enough. I don’t know why they’re so offended by me but I suppose that might be enough to do it. But they probably won’t do it willingly or happily.”
“In other words,” Serru said, “stay alert and stay careful, just as we have been.”
“And aware that things could become more complicated,” Aryennos said. “Yes, obviously.”
“Before we move on,” Terenei said, “I really, really need to take a very good look at this shelter and what the builders have done with it.”
I nodded. “I’ll stay with you, if you want company. Heket, you’re staying at least for tonight, right? I need to set the house up so I can have my workroom, there’s enough space here on this isnd without being in anyone’s way overnight, and we have lots of tents if you’d rather be alone. Serru’s been fishing since she ran out of pnts and minerals to gather, and we should probably eat some of it before we run out of room to store it.”
“I got lucky,” Serru said, “and caught a rge amber seabass, which I believe is a felid favourite. It’s too big for one, and I’m not familiar with the best way to preserve half of it. I’ve never cooked one before, so I’m also open to suggestions on the best way to do so. With a fish that size, I would normally just clean it, split it into two fillets, and fry each in turn with whatever vegetables I have avaible.”
“It never tastes as good ter,” Heket said automatically. “And it really should be cleaned, split halfway, stuffed with red seacress, and steamed wrapped in goosewing kelp, otherwise it gets tough. That is unfair temptation, when I should probably go now that you’ve gotten this far.”
“Now see,” I said, “I did not even know that felids particurly like that one. There’s probably a lot about being a felid that I don’t know, actually. I might have tried eating that fish as a human or an aquian and missed out on something.”
“Aquians usually don’t care for it. There are exceptions, of course, and there are felids who don’t like it. But there are good reasons it’s famously popur with felids. And it could be sold for quite a good price.”
“I’m not going to sell it with two felids present,” Serru said firmly. “Especially not when we have the necessary ingredients to cook it to best advantage. We can all have quite a good meal, and I’m including Myu and the ornithians of course, before we get back on the road tomorrow towards the Highnds site. We’ve been deyed a few simultaneously frustrating and rexing days, but we will continue no matter what.”
