"You don't need to do anything, Theodora. You just need to watch."
Ironically, the person least excited to be performing animancy is one of the two people here who happens to be animated by it. Theodora seems to quite enjoy the biomancy research she and Penelope have been getting up to most of every day now, but messing with the living man's soul crosses a line for her, apparently. Penelope, who has been trying to convince her to help, turned slightly to give me a meaningful look.
2021-08-19 04:42:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
"Capita," I growl, spear still raised. "What are you doing here?"
She doesn't feel hostile, but emotionally, Capita is one of the most complicated people I’ve ever tried to read. Something about being two fragments of a person spliced together makes it difficult for me to understand her as a singular entity, as her emotional responses are spread between two souls that demonstrate those responses in very different ways, not to mention the purple ooze between them which sort of acts lik...
2021-08-16 19:06:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
The sight of my body being ripped apart in front of me is different when it's not a simple bug. I designed Evelyn Tinkerbell, after all. Those deaths and the resulting macabre horror show I witnessed as they got disemboweled was terrifying, and are certainly memories I will always dread, but it is so similar to watching an insect back home get picked apart. It is the kind of thing I have done before on purpose, and I knew what to expect from the sight. It feels very different to watching the ...
2021-08-14 17:55:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
About a tenday later, as I sit through the incredibly surreal experience of eating breakfast with my family, I'm mildly surprised to hear a knock on the door.
Not in the sense that I don't see it coming, since of course I can feel a person approaching our house from anywhere within a thousand yards and this is especially notable when that person happens to be Penelope, but in the sense that this is not at all the time Penelope normally drops by every day. Penelope likes to stick to a fi...
2021-08-13 17:01:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
(Hey everyone, Thundamoo here. This cha
2021-08-11 23:42:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
Obviously I pull my blow on Lyn, not wanting to hurt her or myself. I'm not moving as fast as I can, I'm not stabbing as directly at a vital as I might otherwise. Yet when my mom flashes me a contemptuous grin and easily steps to the side, I start to wonder if I'm about to once again get a lesson on arrogance.
Even with the way my soul's core grows much denser than a human's does, I have significantly surpassed the size of my mother's soul. Lyn is powerful, extremely powerful by most me...
2021-08-09 21:13:41 +0000 UTC
View Post
My hill looks exactly the same as when I left it, which I suppose is only to be expected when all of my enemies live underground. Now, however, I have new ways of seeing.
It doesn't take long to find a hole, and I saunter up to it as Evelyn Bork and stick my tongue down inside. Yes, extending my prehensile tongue down a dirt tunnel doesn't sound very tasty, but I've placed the same whisker structure that the triloweasels use to navigate their underground homes onto the tongue of the Bor...
2021-08-08 17:30:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
After all the crap I've been getting lately about not looking at people, finally someone is looking at me. Two people, actually, and they feel the same way about the sight.
I feel very differently about each reaction, however.
The response from my Revenant is to be expected. They love me and they are in awe of me by nature. It is a comforting and happy feeling, one that makes me want to love them back. They are so pure, so pleasant, so mine. Vitamin is mine, my b...
2021-08-06 18:48:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
"So, Penelope," Vita tells me, speaking up as soon as I finish weaving a bubble of silence around us. "I think the two month mark is a good time to betray him. What do you think? I want to fuck up his plans but I figure he probably gave himself a buffer."
I glance down at my short little companion, at her smooth, unblemished skin. At the toned muscles growing underneath it. Her frame, her face, pointed away from me of course, all of it part of my own design except the two piercing blue ...
2021-08-05 05:44:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
Real quick before we start, I actually added a few paragraphs to the prior chapter. I'll post them here.
"What the fuck am I, Mr. Mooshi?" I hiss.
"You're Evelyn, last time I checked," he answers.
Which means what, exactly? I’m not even surprised by this. It almost feels like some part of me, some little bit in the back of my brain knew I wouldn’t die all along, and had never been afraid of from the start. Of course I can try again and again, fail as muc...
2021-08-04 18:22:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Day arrives too soon, light oozing in through the windows and frustrating my body enough to force it awake. I lie motionlessly in bed for quite some time after, however, not paying attention to my soul sense or meditating or cycling mana or thinking or planning or anything at all. I just stay still, holding Rosco and wishing that I was still unconscious.
I haven't done this sort of thing in a long time. Back when I was starving, back when I was alone on the street with nothing to look f...
2021-08-02 20:23:27 +0000 UTC
View Post
"W-what did you just do?"
Bently stands shaking, so overwhelmed by confusion and terror that he denies the obvious reality I made sure to keep explicitly clear. Norah's corpse lies face down in the grass and dirt of the forest, collapsed like a doll after I cut her strings. The inflexibility of her armor forces her into an awkwardly slumped-over position, her knee caught under her belly and her arm splayed at an awkward angle that keeps her chest up off the ground. Only after a slight n...
2021-07-30 20:42:41 +0000 UTC
View Post
Okay. Okay! Things are progressing nicely! Evelyn Bork has managed to catch a decent amount of food with which to get her impending sister, Evelyn Bork 2, quickly up to speed. Then, I'll see how the pair of them do against the weasels plaguing my home. Evelyn Experimental continues to get me a steady supply of fish and Evelyn Tinkerbell is just really fun to be. I'm not totally sure how having ten more of that body is going to feel, but I guess I'll just—
AaaAaAaAAAAAaaaaaaGaGaaaa...
2021-07-30 03:15:45 +0000 UTC
View Post
I explode into motion, fueled by panic and terror. As is our habit, I sleep when most of the rest of the team is awake to ensure that while best scout is down, we are at our best versus potential ambushes. This time, I had been in a particularly deep and comfortable sleep thanks to Mateo curling around me like a loyal snake-monster cocoon. I think I was even having a nice dream for once, though I don't really remember it.
This all ends in an instant as Alan's soul becomes dust. Bo...
2021-07-29 01:33:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
It always feels nice to do a good deed.
I walk away from the storage shed with a spring in my step. I admit to being a bit leery to let Lark go, but I'll trust my instincts on the matter. Ultimately, isn't our job as hunters to protect people from monsters by any means necessary, not specifically by just killing them? That kid isn't going to bite another person. No way, no how.
Frankly, she's more human than I am now.
Maybe not physically, sure, but she is where it counts. T...
2021-07-26 20:03:40 +0000 UTC
View Post
Waking up is a procedure of increasing confusion, wherein I slowly begin to acknowledge the uncomfortable position of my body parts, certain that each one could not possibly be more absurd than the next, and repeatedly being proven wrong.
I am woken first by a mild pain in my shoulder, which is rightfully protesting having to support the weight of my entire body. I try to adjust slightly and flop face-first into the pool of drool I've apparently been cultivating overnight. ...
2021-07-25 17:41:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
I don't know what I was expecting this fish to be, but it definitely wasn't a jet engine. Not that I'm complaining; whatever it was I had in mind, this is definitely way cooler.
Rather than acquiring propulsion through lateral water displacement, this aquatic alien—which I'm going to call the piston fish—possesses a series of hollow body cavities running down its full length. Opening the siphons from the front, it can suck water in by expanding the cavity, then close the forward ope...
2021-07-25 05:38:35 +0000 UTC
View Post
Dripping tears mix with black splotches of blood as I sob quietly on the floor, one lower arm clutching the stub of my other in a half-hearted attempt to prevent myself from bleeding out. My fight with Vita left me broken, and I know her biomancer ally will heal off all the damage I managed to do to her. This isn't even accounting for the rest of her team, any of which could easily slay me now. Even if they didn't see where I went, which I doubt, I left a trail of my blood here. Lightheaded a...
2021-07-23 19:34:40 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Rawr! Got you, Lark!”
“No you didn’t!” I protest. “I dodged!”
“You can’t always dodge, Lark!” one of the other kids protests. His name is Danny. "It's no fun that way!"
"But I'm the hunter!" I protest. "The hunter gets to win! Pchew pew!"
I fire some more invisible arrows at the menagerie of whiny monsters before me, many of whom shriek excitedly and pretend to dodge, many more of whom gasp dramatically, lolling out their tongu...
2021-07-21 23:02:44 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ugh... what's going on? Where am I? Oh yeah, I’m in bed. Nice and warm. Actually, it's kind of cold. Where are my blankets? What time is it? Oh shit, what time is it!? Damnit, I was up too late last night playing with Blubie and I slept through my alarm! I can't miss ANOTHER day of class! I burst out of bed and sprint all the way there. Geez, why is it so cold? I slink into class, entering my seat quietly, hoping nobody n...
2021-07-21 18:32:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
Panic shrieks through me, and I have to take a split second to confirm which of my bodies actually got injured before I understand what just happened. It's Evelyn Prime, my original body back at the cave! Evelyn Experimental is potentially about to free a giant angry space dinosaur, which maybe isn't my best decision of all time, but even more immediately is the sharp realization that I am getting attacked by subterranean acid monsters.
I feel it start to happen, my oldes...
2021-07-20 23:55:51 +0000 UTC
View Post
A nightmarish beast towers before me, reeling up on its snake-like body. It must be over twenty feet long from tip to tip, with a tail ending in a wicked spike and a head fused seamlessly to its main body, jawless and horrifying. The monster’s mouth extends well down its body, opening sideways like a valve to reveal rows and rows of vicious teeth. Surrounding the lips of the wretched maw are limbs halfway between giant centipede legs and human fingers, dexterous and multi-...
2021-07-19 23:38:48 +0000 UTC
View Post
"Blubie… did you just talk!?"
I'm more than a little incredulous about the prospect of a talking arachnid. They don't even have lungs, at least not ones that expand or contract or otherwise make any noise. Mr. Bubbles hisses by rubbing her pedipalps together, not by expelling air.
And yet.
"Klukie," the creature deliberately parrots. "Chid. Hyoo. Tus. Kalk."
Slowly, carefully. As if… memorizing. Lacking lips, the mispronuncia...
2021-07-18 06:29:45 +0000 UTC
View Post
Well. That happened. Nothing remains of the creature I smashed with a rock. I have to give myself this: if nothing else, my body is not wasteful.
I dismount the best of all Mooshis and walk over to myself. I've got a lot going through my head right now. I still feel like me, mostly. But I am more than me. I'm thinking in parallel, more rapidly and more convolutedly than I ever have before. My ADHD is normally pretty bad, but this is getting ridiculous. I need to slow down for a moment, ...
2021-07-18 06:28:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
"Blubie!" I chastise, lifting the huge bug from the terrarium I scrounged together for it. Mr. Bubbles wasn't happy I took her big tank, but she is never happy so she can deal.
"Blubie, you can't eat that much, you'll get sick! Give those back!"
Blubie is profoundly uninterested in giving anything back. The huge, beetle-like arachnid immediately devours everything I put in its tank, so long as it is small enough to fit in the fat bug's mouth. A lot of creatur...
2021-07-18 06:26:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
A rush of ecstasy fills my body, one that is quickly becoming all-too-familiar. The grass’ fuzzy fronds tickle my tongue as they dissolve, decomposing cell by cell, protein by protein to tell the story of how they germinate. It's pollen, kind of. The fuzz holds the gametes, which pass their way onto the ankles of animals, brushing through the fields and pollinating as they travel, none the wiser to the stowaways. The long, red blades blow in the breeze, catching glimpses of sunlight that th...
2021-07-18 06:24:14 +0000 UTC
View Post
"I can't believe my pelvis unhinged itself," I mutter, too shocked to care very much about how I'm clearly suffering from shock. "A pelvis isn't even supposed to have a hinge, Mr. Mooshi."
And as intellectually interesting as that is, the process of experiencing it probably ranks higher on the Trauma Scale than nearly getting eaten alive, so it's probably best that I don't think about it even a second longer. I can just save all of that panic for my future nightmares.
So! Now I ha...
2021-07-18 06:20:43 +0000 UTC
View Post
It was a bug.
That's right, I found a bug that day. Of course I did. That's normal, I find bugs all the time. It's why I go out to the forest, after all. But this was a very special bug. A kind I've never seen before in all my life.
It looks like a beetle, colored a stunning pale blue. On closer inspection, though, it can't be a beetle. Maybe an arachnid? It clearly has eight legs, the two front legs tucked in behind the mouth, probably repurposed for graspin...
2021-07-18 06:16:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
I hit the river with a crash, opening my eyes underwater to find myself face-to-face with a lamprey-like maw of teeth. The creature's mouth is wide open, two long, thin tongues protruding from its gullet and strangling me. I manage to catch panicked glimpses of whatever has me dead to rights. It’s probably much too small to swallow a Mooshian.
...But it can certainly manage me. My split second of calm analysis vanishes instantly, replaced entirely by raw, primal panic.
Holy shit...
2021-07-18 06:07:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
The rest of my unnatural, smooth-bored cave is entirely uninteresting. There's nothing else to note inside its dull, grey walls. In many ways, this is fortunate. No critters are hiding within. I'm no closer to getting a source of food or water, though.
No sense sticking around, then. I head out of the cave, stopping only to look for and pick up a nice, sharp rock. I doubt I can really fight with it, but it could be a handy tool.
So. Let's go over what I know. I woke up inside an e...
2021-07-18 06:07:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
