The next day was long, and not just because we were moving at a faster clip to make up for our late start. The badger from the morning was enough for me to function, but compared to a person it simply didn’t have too much vitae, and it was a drop in the bucket compared to me. That problem was exacerbated by not using my newly discovered form, which used less vitae for upkeep and thus gave me more to utilise.

  This lack of energy was leaking into most other parts of the day. I felt a little like I had missed a night of sleep, and everything just felt harder than it needed to. My mood was low as well, something which had clearly annoyed Cassie because after the third time I snapped at her for no reason she had given up talking to me for the time. I felt terrible about it each time, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

  It was for these reasons that I was overjoyed when Cassie suggested taking a short break about an hour after noon. Almost as soon as we had found somewhere to rest, I took off into the woods to see about feeding my reserves. I could tell that I was generating some naturally, but at the rate I was seeing it would be another day or so before I was even comfortable, let alone anywhere near the kind of capacity I needed to heal anything more complicated than a bad cut.

  With a short explanation to Cassie, I took off into the woodland. As I ran through the forest, I decided to shift back to my newer form, which I mentally named my Fey form just for ease of thought. As my body stretched and lengthened, I marvelled at the ease of transformation. Normally when I was changing things about my body I had to mentally plan everything out. I didn’t quite need a blueprint, but I had to be able to focus on the ways I wanted my body to change. For whatever reason though, this form felt more natural than my manual changes, like my body was expecting to change like this.

  After a few seconds I was done, having not even slowed as I shifted. The process was a far cry from the minutes spent in total concentration when I first began, that was for sure. Now taller, with longer limbs taking me from a human run to more of a loping motion, I was noticeably faster than before. My movements were graceful bordering on sinuous, and I found myself able to weave around objects in my path with an unnatural fluidity. I was almost uncomfortable how natural it felt to move like this, twisting around obstacles rather than truly avoiding them.

  I was a little uncomfortable in my clothing, but I wasn’t wearing anything especially restrictive. Plus, most of my new height came from my suddenly longer limbs, so while my arms and legs were poking from their respective fabrics it wasn’t too bad.

  Intellectually, I knew that sprinting through the forest wasn’t the best way to find something to drain. Still, I wanted to find something big enough to not need to worry about the weakness that had overtaken me last night. I couldn’t deny that part of me wanted to test drive this new form a bit, maybe find a bear or something. Hopefully anything big enough to be worth my time wouldn’t be frightened off by some ruckus.

  The thought struck me that my sword was a little bit small for my new build, more shortsword than arming sword in relative length. Still, having something sharp would be very helpful, especially if I did end up finding something big. Most creatures tended to dislike being stabbed, after all.

  I broke into a clearing with a laugh, unable and unwilling to restrain my joy at the feeling of moving with such ease. I had always been a fairly active person, but this was something else. I was constantly discovering new ways the form was different to my baseline human one. For one thing, my eyesight was definitely sharper than usual, and it seemed to be more focused on movement than usual. Every time a bird flung itself from the trees or a rabbit darted beneath a huge log to avoid my passing my eyes would be drawn to the sudden shift.

  Lost in my thoughts, my flowing sprint came to a stumbling halt part way through that clearing when a creature lunged at me from seemingly nowhere. I stopped in a hurry to avoid the creature, failing to catch myself and ending up on all fours somehow. After a moment I realised that my legs were bent forward!

  By all that is sacred, that is freaky. Helpful to be sure, but I may never look down again.

  After another moment of staring at my legs, which felt completely fine and looked terrifying, I remembered why I stopped. I looked up, not rising from my almost prone positioning as I took in the creature that had leapt at me. It was large, maybe eight feet long and towered over me as I crouched. It had a vaguely feline appearance, but most of that was in general body shape. It had six legs, two sets close together at the front and one at the back, and it was covered in a thick layer of bark-like chitin that explained why I hadn’t seen it before.

  My eyes were drawn to its face, which diverged completely from the feline template. Rather than a cat-like structure this creature’s snout was wide and flat. Its eyes were large and dark, glinting in the sunlight with naked hunger. It made a strange chittering sound and opened its maw wider than I had expected, allowing me a horrifying moment to stare at the fangs that it had tucked away somehow in its mouth, which were almost as long as my regular forearm. It began to pace, its steps solid but surprisingly quiet. Unwilling to let this thing get behind me, I rose to my feet and mirrored its motion until we were slowly circling each other.

  I guess I did want something big. Of course I would get a full on monster.

  I unsheathed my sword and waited for it to make a move, my eyes scanning its form for somewhere that looked vulnerable. While I couldn’t see anything, I had a suspicion that it was keeping itself low to the ground for a reason. While its legs were long enough that it could be very tall, it maintained a crouched position that left its stomach almost against the floor. Before I could plan out how to take open up what I assumed to be its weak point, it made a move.

  The creature lunged at me again, forcing me to scramble to the side on a moment’s notice. Attempting to capitalise on the moment of readjustment, I twisted my body almost fully around and struck at the creature, only for my blow to glance of the bark-like chitin covering it. As the creature recovered and turned, it makes that strange chittering sound again.

  This time the creature wasted no time sizing me up and leapt again, and rather than move to the side I ducked under the beast. As it passed over me I struck up at a softer underbelly, cutting through the skin and showering me in dark blood. The creature yowled as it landed, clearly in pain but certainly not incapacitated. Satisfying as it was to make it bleed, my cut wasn’t nearly as deep as it could have been. At least I had confirmation that I could pierce the skin on its underside.

  The creature stared at me warily, eyeing me up as though re-evaluating me. It stalked closer, and I unconsciously stepped back as it approached. It crouched lower as it prepared for another leap, this time keeping its front pair of legs open as the other four steadied it for the jump. As it flew through the air it caught me on the shoulder mid-dodge, spinning me even with a glancing blow. My shoulder ignited in pain as I staggered from the injury, and the creature seemed almost smug as it stared unblinkingly at me.

  Despite its success, it was breathing heavily by now. As close as we were, I could feel that its vitae was starting to weaken a little. Nowhere near fast enough though. It was clearly some kind of ambush predator, so I guess I must have been a really good meal. I decided to go for a different approach, sheathing my sword and clutching at my shoulder, hating the feeling of heat leaving my body through the wound. I tested my wounded arm, but while I could use it the movement caused the burning pain to progress to searing agony. I hissed through my teeth as I let my injured arm hang. While my vitae was slowly knitting the wound closed, I didn’t have enough to waste on properly healing it.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I had a new plan, although it was likely foolish. Nonetheless, I needed contact with this creature to heal my arm, so it was all I had. The monster seemed a lot more patient now that I was wounded, and I couldn’t really blame it. Glancing blow or not, this thing had some claws on it. For the first time I took the initiative.

  With a moment of focus I manifested an illusion, although it was nothing complicated. I shut my eyes and created an illusion of a bright light directly in front of its eyes. The light only lasted a moment, but I heard a scraping hiss from the creature, opening my eyes to see it shaking its head, its own eyes screwed shut. In the moment of disorientation I ran for the beast and jumped, propelling my body through the air until I landed heavily on the creature’s back.

  Now in contact with the beast, I began to tear at the resistance stopping me from drinking in its vitae. There was more of a wall than I had felt as of yet, but like usual there was nothing consciously stopping me. In moments I got a taste of the creature’s lifeforce and was almost overwhelmed with the sheer vitality of it. There was a density to it that made that first wolf seem like stale water in comparison.

  I didn’t have time to savour it though, because the creature began to buck almost as soon as I landed on it. With only one arm, it was a struggle to hold on even with the natural handholds created by its chitin. Fortunately with the amount of lifeforce I was drawing in from this thing my arm was healed up at record speed. After a moment of searching, I found a gap in the chitin, drawing my sword and using my free arm to slam it into the gap. I heard the creature’s chittering wail even as I grabbed hold of my sword, using it as an artificial handhold with one arm while the other kept contact and allowed me to continue drawing in its life.

  The creature shook as I drank its vitae, slamming itself against a tree as it continued to weaken. I decided to just take the blow, feeling my body break on the impact. Still, even through the fog of pain I kept draining the creature. Slowly but surely my body recovered, thankfully not needing my conscious direction like when I healed another. Over the course of another minute I recovered and strengthened while the beast weakened, slowing until its legs buckled beneath it.

  By the time it failed stand, my body was fully recovered. The memory of being crushed against a tree would stay with me for a long time, but the pain had less sting when I knew it was temporary. I continued to drink, finally feeling my reserves top out at levels far beyond what I’d had when we had set off. I actually felt a little bloated, but I was sure Cassie would have some bruises or something for me to burn the excess on. Worst case scenario I could just test my shapeshifting very enthusiastically.

  Maybe Cassie can miscast another spell for me to heal. Actually, best not.

  When I was finally full, I ripped my sword from the back of the beast. It released a pained whimper as I reached under its head, and although it gave an admirable attempt at a bite with its horrifying mouth there was no real strength behind it. I reached under its head and strained, lifting it and exposing a vulnerable point around the creature’s throat. After taking a moment to rearrange my grip on the blade, I drove my sword through its throat and up into its head, causing the monster to spasm once before its heavy breathing finally stilled.

  I stared at the body, before falling to my knees and collapsing against it. After several seconds of recovery, I said the only thing on my mind.

  “That was AMAZING!” I shouted, fading into mildly maniacal giggling as I listened to my words carry through the otherwise silent forest.

  Sure, the whole process was scary and painful, and I could very well have died to that monster. Despite that, the fight had been exhilarating in a way that being ambushed by some wolves in the woods hadn’t been. Maybe it was because I knew about my healing in advance, or because I had kind of come into this forest with the hope of a big creature to fight. Something about the process just made me feel alive, and my heart was still racing minutes after the drawn-out conclusion.

  After several more minutes of laying against the body and revelling in the afterglow of a fight to the death, I realised that I had no idea how long I’d been gone for. I hurriedly stood up, before pausing and sitting back down again. Then I stood once more, paying close attention to how I stood up. I noticed that rather than hunch over and bunch up my legs, using my arms to supplement the motion of standing up, this form seemed to have other ideas. From completely supine, I took my arms and rotated them, both from the shoulder and the elbow. This allowed my arms to function like I was prone, working in tandem with my legs to push me up like a spider.

  It had felt so natural that I hadn’t even realised I was doing it. Thinking back, I had moved like that a few times in my clash with the big wooden cat monster, when I was way too focused on not dying to notice. I felt like I should be freaked out by such a revelation, and I kind of was. All in all though, I was in a spectacular mood after my fight, so I didn’t really mind much. Still, I decided to pay more attention to how I moved in this form, since it was probably a bad idea to not even know how my own body was moving, no matter how natural it felt.

  I glanced back at the body, briefly wondering what to do with it. It felt wrong to just leave it, and I didn’t even know what it was. It could be valuable for all I knew. So I did the only reasonable thing and decided to take the body with me. With my uncomfortably long limbs, I could spread out my grip enough to hoist the thing above me, at least in theory. Despite being significantly stronger than I should be, there was no way I could actually carry this thing, since it was longer than I was tall and covered in chitin.

  Realising this, I decided to once again be completely reasonable and spend the next ten minutes sawing of its head with my sword. The combination of thick chitin and strong bones, combined with the fact that I was definitely not using my sword correctly, made the process take a while longer than expected. Nonetheless, I was determined to bring something back in case it was valuable. Once the job was done, I took the head in both hands and set off. Thankfully, I had been running directly towards the sun, so it wasn’t hard to find my way back.

  On the run back I spent some more time examining my Fey form. I realised that just about everything I did in this form cause me to shift slightly. For example, I was holding the head in both hands in front of me, being careful not to drop it. Completely unconsciously, my hands had both shifted to be more radially symmetrical, which made my grip on the roughly ball-shaped head more secure. Thinking back to the fight, my body had definitely melded to make it easier for me to keep my grip on the monster when I was clinging to its back.

  With this realisation in mind, I spent the rest of the run back trying out various shapeshifting tricks in this form. As it turned out, my idea from earlier that this form would be more malleable because of its more skewed mana:body ratio was an understatement. It barely took a thought to perform smaller changes like changing the length of my fingers or moulding my nose. More major changes I decided to wait on though, because by the time I got around to them I was closing in on where Cassie was waiting.

  I broke through the trees to see her sat leaning against a tree, reading from her spell guide again. She didn’t even look up as she heard me coming.

  “Hey. Have a good run?” She asked.

  “You could say that. It was certainly productive.” I responded, prompting her to look up.

  “What do you mea- FUCK!” She cut herself off with a shriek. “What happened? Why are you all stretched again? Actually, why are you covered in blood?”

  I couldn’t help but grin as she spoke. This was exactly the reaction I’d been hoping for. At least, I had thought it was until I saw the concern in her eyes, which caused my grin to fall away. “Yeah, It’s been an eventful half an hour.”

  She sighed. “Can you at least go back to being less… you know,” she waved at me, which prompted me to shift back into my more human form. When I did so I was hit with a wave of relief, like the release of a pressure I hadn’t even known about. While I was certainly more limited like this, I felt more… stable, in a way. I had definitely made some chaotic decisions before that I probably shouldn’t have. One of which was still in my suddenly much smaller hands, and which Cassie only just noticed.

  “Why are you carrying a head!?”

  Extract from 'The Biology of Monsters and Men' by Aia Adams.

  "The average layman will confuse many things for a true monster. This is understandable, of course. To the average person an arachne is as far from natural as can be, because their idea of a 'natural' animal is something between a cat and pig. This, of course, is not the case. Later in this volume we will look over the various ways the biology of most monsters is non-sensical and reliant entirely on magic. Each and every species of slime for example, simply could not function without mana. They have no brain, no nerves, no electro-chemical receptors, nothing.

  This is not true for magical animals. For all of their nightmare inducing qualities, stripping an arachne of their magic will not kill it. Not immediately, anyway. While their biology may not depend upon magic, their hunting strategies do. Without the potent hallucinatory illusions in their venom or the ability to perceive in its entirety anything in contact with their webs, arachne would struggle greatly to maintain their spot at the top of their subterranean ecosystem.

  Of course, it is a rare situation indeed when you have the chance to perform a proper autopsy of a creature in the field, especially if you do not already know whether or not it is monster or beast [See page 487 for the study of a field exam done of an adolescent griffin]. Due to this, there are the more common and outwardly observable signs that can be used to tell if something is a monster or a magical animal. The first is simple: How does it look. This is fair from a flawless technique, and is best combined with another for reliable results. However, one does not always have time to track a subject's behaviour.

  There are many monsters whose classification as such is obvious. The aforementioned slimes are one such group, as few people would assume them to be natural. Other creatures, such as the notorious chimera are similarly clear, since there are no recorded examples of creatures that have three independent heads all operating the same body without infighting. While cerberi are magical animals, it is understood that their three heads are only semi-separate, all functioning close to three aspects of a single consciousness than three separate beings. It is in part this inherent telepathy that makes cerberi magical, as well as their equally well-known affinity for fire.

  The second technique for identification is based on diet. Magical animals will feed much like mundane animals, for nutrition, as well as occasionally sport if they are one of the more intelligent varieties. Monsters feed to sate a hunger for mana, not flesh or vegetation. Due to this, they can be identified by behaviours that would not be seen elsewhere, like how many monsters will ignore prime feeding locations and choose to hunt lone adventurers, since the mana gathered by an enchantment can feed smaller monsters for weeks.

  The third observable sign is reproduction, or more notably a lack thereof. Monsters are created by abundancies in ambient mana, following imprints on that mana from this plane and the next to create recognisable forms of creature. As such, they have no reproductive biology, behaviour or instinct. It was this that declassified rocs as monsters, as they are known to be incredibly territorial nesters. This behaviour would of course not be necessary if they could not reproduce. [See page 212 for Roc behavioural patterns in mating season.]"

  Extract End.