Chapter Ten
Summer passed. The flowers disappeared from the fields, the forest changed colour and began to slowly undress.
Then winter came. It didn't snow once, but rain was almost constant, storms were coming and going, and I felt reluctance from Gladys whenever she went hunting. The days were short, nights were long, but Gladys more or less kept to the same schedule as always.
Without a clock it was difficult to say how long a day was here, and I wasn’t so patient or determined as to count the minutes just to find out. It was easier to count days.
Sixty-five days after my arrival I declared that autumn had arrived, and another hundred or so days later I could safely say it was winter. It seemed seasons here were a little longer than back home, but oher than that everything was as normal as it could get.
Mostly I left Gladys to her own devices. She didn’t need my help: she was as high on the food-chain as a bird could get. She hunted, and nothing hunted her. Some larger snakes tried for her every once in a while, but that was it. I was sure as long as she was able to fly she was safe.
I spent most of my time eating the souls of the animals she hunted and I reached Level 15 before winter ended. At Level 15 my body was the size of a tennis ball, my tentacles were about 25 centimeters long, and on top of that, I grew a sixth one. I wasn’t sure how that happened, but once I completed my latest growth spurt, it included a brand new tentacle.
I got used to having six of the little buggers in no time.
The problem was that I needed over eighty-thousand EXP to reach Level 16. With a mouse giving anywhere between one thousand and seventeen-hundred depending on size, it would take some time to get to the next level. Gladys usually ate two, sometimes three mice a day, or one or two squirrels.
But I wasn’t in a rush. Gladys was on top of things and I was invisible. The denizens of this island didn’t even know I was here. I had no natural predators, I didn't really have any goals to work toward, so I wasn't in any rush.
I did however conduct some experiments with the Holy Trinity of spiritual existence: Essence, Mana, Spirit-Stuff.
For obvious, sentimental reasons the first thing I wanted to figure out was Jack’s Room. It wasn’t an original part of me; it was more like an add-on, and it had to be upgraded separately. By mid-winter, I figured out how.
I pictured Jack’s Room as a … well, room, hence the name. It was an enclosed space — it had a floor, a ceiling and walls, metaphorically speaking. After a few close looks, I concluded that the room was made of Essence, Mana and Spirit-Stuff in a five-one-four ratio. Roughly. Then, after weeks and months of experimenting, I figured out how to expand this spiritual storage room.
As I consumed souls I was able to withhold some of the Spirit-Stuff from becoming EXP. I could do this by using my spiritual muscles to knead Essence and Spirit-Stuff together into a dough. Then I’d add an amount of Mana equal to the dough’s mass. When I ordered the dough to go to Jack’s Room, Mana conveyed my wishes, Essence opened the way to enter the spiritual dimension in which Jack’s Room was located, taking the dough there. After that Essence and Spirit-Stuff acted as the brick and mortar, expanding the room. Most of the Mana and a little of the Spirit Stuff disappeared in the process, but the room would grow, its walls standing strong, made of five part Essence, one part Mana and four part Spirit-Stuff.
I was excited to test Jack's Room as soon as I succeeded with the expansion. I was much less excited when the only thing in tentacle range was a regurgitated fur and bone pellet that Gladys had expelled after her dinner. I did it anyway, coating it with Essence. Then lo and behold, it vanished, and I knew it was in Jack’s room. I got rid of that pellet in short order, and got to work on a second expansion of the room.
***
Winter ended and spring came. The forest was starting to show little patches of green again. Sunshine once again became a more frequent and longer lasting affair. By the time the first flowers on the fields appeared, I had expanded Jack’s Room four more times. This of course slowed my progress towards the next level, but I didn’t care.
After the fifth expansion of Jack’s Room, I could store a surprising amount of physical matter in it. Putting the carcasses of mice, squirrels and snakes into it — much to the annoyance of Gladys — I gauged its capacity to be about two hundred mice. I decided to call the new unit of measurement “space”. One hundred mice’ worth of capacity was one space. Therefore I had two spaces in Jack’s Room.
On one occasion I tried to put a live mouse in the room. Gladys was outright furious when I snatched the critter from her. As the body of the mouse landed in Jack’s Room, its soul stayed outside. The poor thing died instantly, so I gave it back to Gladys. She didn’t talk to me for a day.
***
Between winter and spring I was busy.
I constructed a second Essence pool. It was similar to Jack’s Room as far as the construction process went. The only difference was its composition. I thought it would be useful to have a secondary Essence pool. Firstly, Wensah had no access to it, secondly, I could rely on it if I suddenly needed more Mana for something. I considered making a secondary Mana pool, too, but it wasn’t something I was in immediate need of, so I put it off.
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The other important discovery I made was about Mana.
My Tentacle Horror instinct kept telling me that there was a way to make my Mana available for Gladys to use. I had to be careful with this; the last thing I wanted was to hurt the owl. But after weeks and weeks of careful fiddling and deciphering my instinct’s vague guidance, I figured it out.
The Essence wires that connected me to Gladys were running in bundles, each bundle connecting to some sort of node within her soul. I sent a little Mana along the wires to see where it would go. Mana went along the wires, arriving at one of the nodes in her chest. Gladys did not like that process; it must have been painful. I did feel a little bad, but in the end it worked. From that point on she could draw on my Mana, and Mana would go to her and do her bidding. She tried it once, lost interest in it immediately, and she never tried it again.
***
Summer was ending when Gladys died.
It could have been old age, or it could have been an owl-disease, I didn’t know. One evening she just didn’t open her eyes, and her soul detached itself from her body. It saddened me. I’d grown to like Gladys a lot, but her death didn’t have the kind of profound impact on me as Jack’s. Jack’s death had been my fault. Gladys’ death was nature running its course. It made me wonder whether spirits like me had a natural life-span, or we were immortal creatures. I didn’t have an answer and I thought it best not to dwell on it.
I consumed the old owl’s soul, thanking her for putting up with me, and I took her body into Jack’s Room, placing her in the same corner next to Jack. Here they wouldn’t rot, they wouldn’t decay. Here, they’d stay as they were: a reminder that I couldn’t have gotten where I was without them.
***
I was alone and immobile in the tree-hollow where Gladys had left me. Alone and immobile was not a winning combination; after having the old owl for company for almost a year, I loathed being stuck by myself. Gladys had been a good listener once she got used to my voice in her head and learned to ignore it.
For two days I was immersed in an unwelcome solitude, until one of the ugly squirrel creatures wandered into the tree-hollow. I didn’t hesitate: I reached out for the animal and I quickly brought it under my control. It was a much simpler creature than an owl but a mount was a mount, and I had places to go.
During my time with Gladys, growth hadn’t been a priority, and in a time almost as long as a year I’d only gained two levels. I was at least fifty-thousand EXP short of Level 16, so it was time to get to work.
My destination was the forest on the western side of the Rockies, as I’d named the pseudo-mountain range. It was a long and arduous journey for the squirrel, but Mana-Armor kept the critter safe, and I wasn’t shy in fending off snakes and other predators with my Mana-Gloved tentacles.
The squirrel got tired quickly, needed frequent rest and food, but we made it to the western forest in seven days. I was ready to begin the search for the wolf type creatures I’d seen while flying over these parts with Gladys.
***
It didn’t take long to find one.
The wolf stood among the trees, looking at us. Its jet black fur made the animal almost invisible in the meager sunlight barely breaking through the foliage. The wolf walked towards us, slowly, and its bright, red eyes sparkled whenever it crossed one of the small patches of light coming from above.
On Earth wolves were large, but here they were about the size of a German Shepherd. And for some inexplicable reason they didn’t have horns. Still, I was awed by the sight. With its body looking like it was made of living darkness, its eyes a violent red, almost glowing, the wolf looked like a demonic beast that came up from the depths of hell to spread death and destruction. If any creature should have had horns, it was the wolves. Nature was weird in this world.
The squirrel wanted to run and climb up a tree. I apologized to it and I held it in place through Critter Control. I needed that wolf to get into tentacle reach. Unfortunately for the squirrel, it meant a final resting place in the belly of a small but scary wolf.
I yanked the squirrel's soul out of its body and ate it, just as the wolf bit down on the critter. At the same time I drove a tentacle into the wolf’s soul, expelling 10 EP into it. The wolf froze for a second, then ate the squirrel, chomping down on it, swallowing it in one go. To something like a wolf, this was a light afternoon snack. To me, it was also a light afternoon snack. I needed more substantial meals, and as far as I could tell, the best caterers on this island were the wolves.
And thus began my partnership with Akela.
***
Yes, I named him Akela, because what else was I going to name a wolf?
Akela was a lone wolf and he adapted to my presence quickly. For the first few days he was startled every time I spoke to him. After a week, he got used to it. After thirty days we were the best of friends.
We wandered the whole island. I’d seen a few packs of three or four wolves in the north and south. They seemed to have their own territories, which they vehemently protected from other wolves. Whenever Akela and I wandered into such places, we were met with the pack, growling at us, and we’d leave. I didn’t know why Akela was an outcast. He was by far the most intelligent creature I’d met here, but he wasn’t capable of explaining things in detail. Luckily there were no packs in the western parts of the island, so we returned to the forest there, and it became our hunting ground.
Akela was a lazy bastard when he wasn’t hungry. He’d spend most of his time lounging in the sun. If it was raining, he’d settle in the alcoves and hollows of large, rocky outcroppings, which were plentiful in the western forest. Other times he’d just stroll around leisurely, sniffing things like trees, rocks, or anything really, like a curious puppy. But when he was hungry he quickly became an unrelenting, merciless hunter. He sniffed out his prey, he tracked it for hours or even days, and when he was ready and the time was right, he struck. When he missed, I helped him out with a well placed, Mana-Gloved tentacle here and there.
By the time my second winter on this island of misery ended, I was a mere ten-thousand EXP away from Level 20. And it didn't matter any more, it was just in my head. Instead, I realised it was time to just accept the fact that this was how the rest of my existence would be, and to stop waiting for something to happen.