I expanded my metal with as much speed as I could muster, my spherical form at first springing from Rufel's grasp before solidifying into his requested shape. I'd become a simple broadsword, just as he asked—I merely made my own decision on which way to point the bde, aiming the sharp tip at my captor instead of the Py'riel before us. Anchored by the tension of my neckce chain tangled around his wrist, I vaulted towards the burly mercenary like a snake uncoiling to attack its prey, the momentum of my shapeshifting providing enough force to embed deep into the thief's shoulder.
Rufel's eyes widened in shock, gripping my handle to brace against the sudden, stinging pain. "Augh!" His agonized yells were swallowed up by the snow, now that we'd come too far to be heard by anyone who might take pity on the peril in which the mercenary found himself.
Seeing an opportunity, the Py'riel pounced at Rufel as the man stumbled backward, caught in the act of trying to dislodge me from his shoulder. I gave him a little help by retracting back into my more compact form, waiting for my chance to escape. As the tree creature gripped Rufel with its gnarled branches, Rufel fumbled his grasp of me, and I dropped into the snow at his feet. The whole encounter had worked out even better than I'd hoped!
At least, until the riverbank gave out from under us.
The snow had covered up the signs of unstable ground beneath us, and the weight of the attacking Py'riel triggered a chain reaction of tumbling rocks and dirt to break away from the path, sending each of us plummeting into the churning waters. I lost sight of both Rufel and the Py'riel as the swift current swept me downstream through the rapids, tumbling against rock after rock in an underwater nightmare.
Why had I been so impatient? I should have just pyed along with Rufel and waited for a better opportunity to get away from him. The Fates certainly didn't approve of my hasty pn, punishing me with a new camity as the powerful waters forced me further from home. Unable to swim and without a pn, I succumbed to my scattered thoughts hypothesizing the worst-case scenarios. Could I drift down this river so far that I could never return home? What if I settle too deep under the water somewhere that nobody could see me glowing from the surface? I might not be found for months, years... if I'm ever found at all...
Those questions weren't going to stop my travels down the river—I cleared my mind, searching for a pn. Could I not just shapeshift out of this situation somehow? Maybe I could become a rge sword or a spear in the right spot in the river, I could stick out above the current and someone would have to come across me eventually. Easy!
At least it sounded easy until I tried and found my shape-changing abilities to be muted at best. The surrounding water had a simir effect on my enchanted mist as the magic absorption cloth, diffusing my ethereal mist before I could make much use of it, meaning I couldn't get a grip on the metal exterior and pull it far from my core at all. Even when I focused on increasing the intensity of my magic, I struggled to alter myself at all—I could barely form the features of a teaspoon, so a sword was out of the question. At least with some spoon-shaped fins, I could try to impart some control over my trajectory, searching for an eddy or a bend in the river where I could maximize my chances of rescue. I was taking a desperate gamble in searching for calmer waters that might still be miles downriver. Still, people who fish or pan for gold in these waters might—
Oh no. A tree ying across the water stood in the way of my pns, its branches submerged deep across the river's width. I tried to divert away from the thickest tangle of limbs, but I couldn't react fast enough to avoid the branches. My neckce chain snagged on a limb beyond the reach of my diminished shapeshifting capabilities. In a panic, I tried to wedge myself between the slippery limbs, to snap or cut them away with any utensil that came to mind, but luck had left me entirely. The tangle of wood flexed and bent in response to everything I tried, mocking my efforts to untangle myself from the puzzle of the limbs and break away to freedom.
Why did it have to be a tree! I had no problem sying enchanted trees, but it's a dead tree in a river that gets the better of me? I would go no further in my journey that day, or the next day, or the day after that. The nights grew longer, the river iced over, and the hope that I'd find my way home anytime soon dwindled. Nobody was going to find me hidden under a log anytime soon, not during the winter at its most brutal. I'd burned through most of my magic mist in my escape efforts, having to wait for days for the magic to regenerate before trying—and failing—to untangle again.
Thus began my first true brush with accepting a relic's grim reality. Janine and Quinn's Peak could take care of themselves, I knew. For a while, at least, they'd have to.
