《The Giant that Eats》 Chapter 1 Hunger. For the first moments of my existence, all I knew was Hunger. Then, I knew pain. My mind exploded into being, warped and conflicting. I began to use limbs I hadn''t known existed to thrash madly, in some vain attempt to express the insanity suddenly thrust upon me. It only took a few minutes to gain enough coherence to put something in my mouth, but those first few minutes were the worst. I shoveled things into my mouth, anything to get rid of the Hunger. Slowly, oh so slowly, the hunger began to fade away. And suddenly, I could eat no more. Not a single speck. I froze. The Hunger was gone. All that was left was... Me? Who an I? What am I? What is this? What am I seeing? How am I thinking? How do I know what thinking is? What... I tried to make sense of my mind. It held memories from many different points of view, not all sharing viewpoints, some having conflicting values and priorities. I decided that whosevers memories they were, they were useful, as they gave me context for reality, structure, language, and so much more. I spent a bit more time going through them, integrating them full into myself. Finally finished with my minds immediate concerns, I turned my attention to my body. Finally able to actually process and understand what I was seeing/hearing/feeling. I was face first in a small hole in the ground. Very small. Slowly, I leveraged my arms and legs to stand up. I was in a small clearing, with several shallow gouges dug in the ground, dirt flung every which way. I hold my arms up for inspection. Rainbow. Waitaminute, arms aren''t supposed to be rainbow. As if listening to my thoughts, my arms disappear from perception for a moment, before returning, now a pale white. My eyes widen slightly. I can change color? I look down at the rest of me. Also rainbow. It fixes itself in a few moments, becoming the same pale white as my arms. I examine myself again, the colors of my skin no longer a distraction. I''m... nondescript is the best term to describe me. I have two arms, two legs, a torso, and presumably a head. Will check when I find a reflective surface. All of my limbs are the color I imagined, the color of the clouds. Thatexactcolor, everywhere. They look like someone imprinted that color into reality in the shape of an arm. I turn my arm, almost unable to notice that it''s even moving. I resemble a hole in reality, color given shape. It''s unnatural. So I mix a few other colors in, my skin quickly resembling a kids fingerpainting. But it works. My limbs have definition now, and one would no longer mistake me for a 2D object. I move my left arm (I know directions exist!) to the right, slowly approaching my right arm. Smooth. I''m smooth. I have no wrinkles or imperfections on the surface that makes up my body. I slide my hand across my arm, noticing that I feel no resistance at all. I touch my leg, and it feels the same. I examine my torso, comparing it to the memories of others bodies. I lack anything between my legs, and my chest is blank. I don''t have nipples, abs, a belly button, nor any visible distortions that would come from having muscles and bones. Am I made of a jelly of some kind? I give my torso a light smack to if it will ripple, and it doesn''t. I guess I''m not human then, something else. In hindsight, that should''ve been obvious with the whole color change thing, but the identity of being human kinda came with the memory package, and that whole thing''s still being sorted out. I move on to my neck and shoulders, both just as smooth and unassuming as the rest of me. I note that they are also a mishmash of colors, despite me not specifically changing their color. I guess thinking about changing the color(s) of my whole body works just as well as being specific. I touch my jaw, finding the first not-smooth part of my body. My jaw. It''s not really sharp, just not smooth. There is a noticeably abrupt turn upwards, instead of a smooth curve like everywhere else on my body. I open my mouth and put my fingers in the empty space. Surprisingly, I can fit my whole hand in my mouth without even touching my lips. I reach back into my head, wondering where my throat is. Then my forearm hits my lower jaw, and can''t reach any further. I wave my arm around in the seeming emptiness that is is my mouth, even straightening it out to where my head should be. I encounter resistance when trying to bend it past where my skin would be, but only in the direction my mouth faces. Extremely confused, I feel the back of head with my other arm. It fells like a normal head. I pull my arm out of the weirdness that is my insides and feel the other side of my head, confirming that yes, my head has normal dimensions it should have. So what on earth is going on with my mouth??? I''m about to reach back in when a massive roar snatches my attention away. "ROOOOOOOAR" I turn to the sound, remembering that I know almost nothing about my current surroundings other than green plants, and am met with the distant sight of aDragonsoaring through the clouds, heading straight for... another dragon, moving much faster than it in the opposite direction. They both seem to be heading away from me, so that''s good. I''m not in imminent danger of being dragon chow.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. However if there''s dragons here... My mind floods with all kinds of fantasy information, all kinds of information on the races, languages, and customs of those who lived here. Unlike a bunch of the other stuff in my head, most of this information seems immediately relevant to the world I''m in. I''m clearly not on Earth after all. I now know where I am, sorta. I''m in the wilds, a massive, almost entirely unexplored continent composed entirely of trees and things that want to kill you. The continent takes up roughly 40% of the planets surface, and the further away from the coast you get, the deadlier. There are all kinds of sentient races who compete and collaborate for the mystical and magical resources hidden within, including but not limited to: Demons, Humans, Dragons, Kobolds, Elves, Orcs, Angels, and Plant people. I blink, back in the present. The dragons are slightly further away now. I look up, my neck letting me look straight up into the air without discomfort. A yellow sun floats in the sky, and no extra moons are visible. In fact, consulting my memories, this planet doesn''t have a moon. That''s a term that only exists from Earth. I decide that if dragons are here, there are probably other airborne predators, and I should get to cover. I move over to the closest tree, hiding behind it. My multicolor skin sticks out like a splotch of paint on a white shirt, so I take a moment to copy the color of the tree. I reach up to retry figuring out my mouth, when i notice something else. My skin feels... different. I touch my face, and to my surprise, I''ve adopted the texture of the tree along with it''s color! I have built in camouflage! Sweet. Returning to the issue of my mouth... how wide is it? I open my mouth as wide as I can, but my the end my eyes are almost facing the tree. I reach back with my arms and- yep, my mouth really is opening that wide. I feel along the edge of my lip, and compare it to what I feel connecting my lower jaw and upper jaw. A bit of estimation later, and I''ve determined that my mouth is FAR wider than a human''s. If my head was viewed from the side, I''m pretty sure the line representing my lip would be about 80% of it''s length. In the process of feeling around my face, I also figured out that I don''t have a nose. Following that train of thought, I haven''t been breathing this whole time. I panic for a moment, desperately trying to draw in air, only to find I can''t. I don''t have lungs, do I? To confirm, I plunge my arm into my mouth and feel around where my lungs would be if I had any. Nope, no lungs. Nothing else in there either. I mean, if I feel around the boundary of my jaw, I can feel my skin, and I feel my hand inside me, which is weird. Wait, I''m empty inside. I''m hollow. I feel like that should cause some existential issues, but I don''t really mind.Wait, if I''m empty inside, how did I eat earlier??? Finally reminded of the Hunger, I extract my hand from my mouth. I lean down and pick up a bit of dirt and grass and try to put it in my mouth. I drop the small scoop into my open hatch of a mouth and wait. Nothing happens. Confused, I reach in again. I feel the dirt, its just kind of sitting on nothing. I try to push it in, but it''s like there''s a steel wall in the way. I move my hand below the dirt, and try to pull it deeper into my mouth, but it encounters that invisible wall again. What is going on? I know I''m full, but maybe there''s some way of making room- The second I think about making room, my fullness disappears, like I''d never eaten anything in the first place. The Hunger returns. The next few seconds are a blur as my hands move faster than they''d ever moved before, all for the purpose of getting as much as possible into my mouth. I''m full almost immediately, and have to stop myself from trying to squeeze more dirt into the invisible wall within my mouth. There''s an energy now, existing in the back of my mind. I ignore it for just a moment, deciding that I should probably blend into the tree better before diving into what just happened. Don''t want to be attacked by some wild beast way stronger than me while I''m figuring out magic stuff. I press myself into the tree, my body flattening out against it''s bark. Within a few moments, at a glance, you''d easily mistake me for just part of a weirdly shaped tree. Woah. My body is way more malleable than I expected. I thought it was just the color and texture changing thing. Confident that I was relatively safe (for the moment), I finally addressed the energy sitting inside me... somewhere. It wasn''t moving, and it felt kind of like a stack of cubes. I mentally grabbed one of the cubes. Nothing happened. So I picked up another one. Still nothing. So I tried eating one. As soon as it touched my mental mouth, I knew what these weird conceptual cubes of energy were for. Upgrades I looked at the four upgrades which had always been there, unnoticed. Capacity,Speed,Growth,Multiplier. The only one I could afford was Capacity, and I had to resist the urge to purchase it immediately. This was gamified magic bullshit, and rule one of gamified magic bullshit was:Don''t touch shit until you have examined everything and gotten as much information as possible. A very important rule. So, following the rule, I mentally felt the upgrades to try and get a sense of what they actually upgraded. Capacity: Upgrades how much I can eat. (currently 100) Speed: Upgrades my speed. (currently 10) Growth: Upgrades how much I grow for every bite. (currently 1) Multiplier:Increases the multiplier for my other three upgrades. (currently 1) Doesn''t seem like any of these are harmful, and I can only afford capacity anyway. Time to press the big red button and see what happens!I upgrade my Capacity. The Hunger returns. I lunge off the tree, biting into the ground like it ate my grandma. I''m full after only a single, perfectly round bite in the ground. I stare around at the forest. A squirrel stands frozen some two feet away, an acorn in it''s frozen grip. Slowly, while maintaining eye contact, I rise up off the ground and become part of the tree again. The squirrel doesn''t move a muscle. Soooo... capacity gives me more room in my stomach before i''m full. Makes sense. I check back in on the upgrades, and to my surprise, Capacity is still purchasable! Capacity: Level 2 (currently 200) After upgrading it again, the Hunger comes back, but far weaker. I''m actually able to resist lunging off of the tree onto the ground. As I stand against the tree, fighting the urge to consume, I notice something. Wind. On my lips. And nowhere else. Curious, I carefully lift my arm in front of my mouth. I can feel a current of air flowing toward my face, but why... Oh! I''m eating the air! Thats whats happening! Now that i''m paying closer attention, i''m feeling less hungry by the second! Interesting. It takes longer to become full this way, and it takes great restraint to not just shove a bit of dirt into my face, but eventually i''m full again. I mentally make a switch for "selling" my current fullness so that I don''t accidentally do it like I did the first time, and hit it. The Hunger returns full force, but i''m ready. To eat dirt. Again. Chapter 2 I mentally flick the switch that sells my accumulated... cubes, and tear into the ground. I manage to take two whole bites of the ground around the tree (and some roots caught in the crossfire) before i''m full. While a lot more than my couple handfuls earlier, it''s still not a lot. My bite marks look perfectly smooth. Wait, do I have teeth? My hand goes back up to feel the inside of my mouth, and to my surprise, no, I do not have teeth. Just lips. Very thin, incredibly sharp lips. I was sure I felt teeth earlier, and that my lips were thicker than this. Either way, if this is going to be my mouth, I don''t want it to be a straight line. I want teeth! My lip shudders for a moment, before changing beneath my very fingers. It''s perfectly straight line breaks up into smaller ones. They tilt, extending as they do so. Within moments i''ve gained a rather fearsome pair of chompers. I wonder, did that affect the invisible boundary preventing me from eating more? To test it, I grab a bit more dirt from the side of my second bite. It pains me to ruin such a perfectly smooth surface, but my curiosity must be sated! I place the small bit of dirt roughly in the middle of my mouth, giving it a few pats to squish it down. Then I maneuver my hand beneath it to feel if it''s flat or not. It''s not! Interesting. Very interesting. I shove the dirt all the way to the back of my throat, where it hits the other invisible wall. I feel it again, but it''s different. Where the two walls meet it''s flat as can be, but as it moves away, towards my lip-teeth, it gradually gets spikier until it matches the outline of my lips. I''m sure I''ll find some use for this information later, but for now it''s just kind of neat. I mentally look at my upgrades, and none of them are available. I sell again, and the dirt that was previously floating falls into the- wait what. Oh, so that''s what actually happens to things that go in my mouth. The dirt fell into the invisible wall, disappearing as it did so. So the invisible wall acts as my stomach? Sort of? My whole body is weird. Speaking of, I probably look ridiculous. Arm halfway in my mouth, eyes staring off into the distance, bark skin preventing me from sticking out but still being pretty noticeable. If anyone saw me I bet they''d either shriek and jump a foot in the air, ignore me, or wonder just how much they drank last night. I snicker at the mental image, but nothing happens. Frowning, I try again. Nothing happens. I try to speak, to make noise, but all I end up doing is flapping my mouth. Oh shit, I can''t talk. That''s a problem. How am I gonna convince people I''m friendly if I can''t speak?! Can''t even talk to myself! I got no lungs to breath out air, no mouth or tongue to shape the vibrations into words! That is going to cause so many issues later down the road. Here and now though, it''s just an inconvenience. Frustrated, I chomp down on the tree next to me. There''s a horrible crunching sound, and then I''m half full. I step back, noting the new gaping hole in the tree. Sap slowly begins to leak out of the sides of the bark. Oops? I step back further and trip in one of my bites, falling flat on my back. It hurts, way more than it should. I try to scream, but nothing happens. I lay there, on the slightly grassy dirt, just trying to deal with the sudden and entirely unexpected pain. Slowly, it begins to fade away. Carefully, I sit up, not sure if moving too fast will aggravate the wound. Thankfully, it doesn''t, the pain just continues to fade until it''s gone. I maneuver my arms to my back and feel it, checking for some kind of damage. There''s nothing. I turn, looking at the ground where I fell. A couple small bits of bark lie on the ground where my back was. I grab one and put it in the palm of my hand. It''s practically invisible against my bark skin, so I change just that palm into a dull orange. It''s the same. Did it break off from me? is this made of my flesh? Am I holding a piece of my own skin? This... doesn''t bode well for my survival. If i''m so fragile that merely falling to the ground breaks off pieces of me, what would an actual attack do? I know that there''s actual dragons here, and from these memories people seem to be able to get strong enough to fight things on that level, which means... I''d probably just shatter into a million pieces if they hit me. I''m distracted once again by a pulse of Hunger. Oh right, i''m not full. I drop the small shard of bark(me?) and take another bite of dirt. Full again. I mentally glance at the upgrades, noticing that Capacity can be upgraded. I do so. Capacity: level 3 (600) ¡ú level 4 (currently 1000) Huh. So that''s how it works. The amount of size I gain is equal to it''s current level times 100. It''s exponential, but on the slow side of exponentials. Better than a linear upgrade, that''s for sure. I bite into the dirt once again, but still don''t feel full after one bite. I take a second one, but halfway through i''m full. I withdraw my face from the ground and almost whistle. Since I stopped halfway, the imprint of my new teeth is visible, and let me tell you, it looks like something much scarier than me took that bite. I stand up and look around at the lush green trees, mostly dirt floor with a bit of grass, and not much else. Is it just me, or does it look kinda unnatural? I mean, no bushes, barely any grass, no herbs or miscellaneous plants, and perfectly healthy, bright green trees? Something''s off. I go to sniff the tree I took a bite of, only to realize I don''t have a nose. Do I even have ears? A quick check confirms that no, I do not have ears. I examine the bark with my eyes instead, noticing that some of the layers of the tree appear to be black. I touch one, and it crumbles like ash. I turn to the ground and examine it a bit more closely. Yes, it''s mostly dirt and roots and other normal things, but a concerning amount of it appears to be ash too. A forest fire? No, this looks too recent and frequent. Forest fires don''t happen that often, even here.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. How do I know that? More miscellaneous memories revealing themselves, I guess. I stand back up, my hand rubbing my chin in thought. What could be causing such frequent forest fires? The answer comes quickly enough. The dragons! The dragons must burn the forest every now and then, but why? I walk away from the tree, back to the clearing to try and catch a glance of the dragons again. Instead, I notice that on the other side of the clearing, the shrubbery seems to be doing just fine. In fact, as I watch, a couple of squirrels clamber through the branches of a few trees, and a bird flies close to the trees overhead. I look back and forth between the seemingly normal forest and the one i''m in that looks half dead. Normal forest it is! I don''t wanna get burned to death by dragon fire. Making my way over to the seemingly normal greenery, I keep my ears(?) peeled for any loud or sudden noises, but all I can hear are insects. And Squirrels. And birds. Nothing out of the ordinary. Y''know, my bites would be a lot more noticeable over here, maybe I should go back to the half dead part of the forest... No! Bad me! Do not risk being burned by dragonfire for stealth! Speaking of stealth, i''m not so sure bark is going to blend in as here as it did in the burned section. I try to shift to become greenish shrubbery colored, and it looks perfect, but as soon as I step into the forest I can tell it''s not going to work. There''s just too many different colors moving and shifting, and I, being a static image in motion, still stick out. What if... I could turn the color of air? My body has already shown it has capabilities outside of my current knowledge and understanding, and this is technically covered by my whole color changing thing, so it should work. My body shimmers, then disappears from sight. Success! I''m now semi invisible! I''m still probably visible in all kinds of other vision though, like heat vision- wait no, I''m hollow. I don''t emit heat. I''m definitely still visible to magic whatever sight. I don''t really think i''m visible in many other types of vision, because if I was, so would the rest of the air. So they wouldn''t be able to see anything except air, and certainly not me. Invisibility! This is going to solve soooo many problems ahead of time. Can''t spot me from the air if i''m invisible! can''t shoot me if you can''t see me! I think evil laughter thoughts for a moment, then turn my attention back to reality. The floor here looks mighty tasty. Time for a bit of grinding! Oh hey what''s that word me- ------------------------ I startle awake from the floor, brain feeling both twice as big and like it''d just run a marathon. Tapping into that ginormous amount of memories was not intentional, and it kinda hurt. It also took a while, judging by the fact that it''s night now. The sounds are different, so I take a moment to adjust to that. Now, to address what just happened. When I tried to learn what the word "grinding" meant, that opened the floodgates to way more memories than I knew what to do with. Most of them had to do with long hours sat in front of a computer, completing tasks over and over for virtual rewards. Along with all that, came a bunch of knowledge about science. It wasn''t perfect, but I now have a general grasp on how the world is supposed to work. (excluding magic and stuff.) The videogame stuff also came with it''s fair share of meta-knowledge, patterns and formulas and ways of thinking about the world that seemed to give one an advantage if any aspect of reality had been gamified. Especially all the stuff from people who liked to find ways to break games using just the stuff they were given in said game. I''m sure that my powers, nascent as they are, will eventually have something to take advantage of. I should probably sell and eat now. Can''t make any progress if I just stay full all the time. I sell, and begin taking bites out of the ground. Y''know, a human form isn''t exactly the most optimal for this. It feels clunky and strangely demeaning, having to bend down on my hands and knees like this just to take a bite. I get full again, and sell. Checking on the upgrades, capacity is once again available. I buy it. Capacity: level 4 (1000) ¡ú level 5 (currently 1500) Sweet. I go back to eating, and quickly eat enough to become full. While i''m doing so I slowly change my body, lengthening my neck and arms while shortening my legs. I elongate and enlarge my mouth to get more with each bite and move my eyes to the side of my head to better watch for anything coming to investigate what''s making the ground vanish. By the end of my modifications I resemble some sort of weird deer-giraffe-wolf hybrid. Still invisible, of course. I keep eating, staying in roughly the same area and getting Capacity up to level 7 (2800 capacity). Then, on my way to level 8, I notice something. Speed has become available for purchase. Speed: level 1 (10) ¡ú level 2 (12) I don''t really notice a difference. Kinda disappointing, but maybe that''s because it''s night and I can barely see anything. There''s no moon, which makes it a lot darker than nights on Earth. It''s part of the reason i''m staying in one general area instead of wandering off while I eat. The other part is, I kinda like digging, and eating a massive hole into the ground with my strange void mouth is far faster than digging using shovels. I continue eating, eventually getting my Capacity all the way up to level 11 (6600). I upgrade Speed one more time on the way, but I still don''t notice a difference. I also changed my hands and feet into inverted claws, helps keep them from sliding out from under me every time I try to take a step. I keep eating, slowly going deeper and deeper into the earth. Not that deep, if I stand up on my hind legs my head still peeks out, but for like 30 minutes of work, this is insane progress. I decide to make the hole a little wider, and go around the edge taking bites out of the walls, starting from the top and working my way down. The Hunger has diminished quite a bit, even when I reset back down to zero fullness. Maybe the Hunger had something to do with the upgrades? It would explain why it''s going down over time, but what does that mean? Is there something deeper i''m missing? Thinking about the Hunger isn''t gonna make it go away, back to eating! I lean down to take another chunk out of the earth when I realize something. The stars. There''s less of them. It''s a very slight difference, 1 in every 20 or so gone, but it''s noticeable. I quickly bring up memories of the night sky from Earth for comparison and yup, less stars. Different stars, don''t get me wrong, I''m not on Earth and these have totally different constellations, but there is a difference in the sheer amount of stars. More new information to add to the pile I guess. I turn my attention back down to solid ground and resume eating, widening the hole and reaching level 12 (7800) in Capacity. 78 times more room than when I first started, and it shows. It takes me more than 2 seconds to max, even with my larger mouth taking bigger bites out of the ground. And, it seems to be taking more cubes to upgrade than before. It''s mostly balanced out by my increased Capacity, but not completely. I''m not complaining though, just observing a pattern. A few minutes later, I reach level 3 in Speed. Still not sure what it does, but it''s an upgrade, and I don''t say no to upgrades. Nothing has interrupted me so far, so this is looking to be a great first night here in the wilds! And reality! Of course, having thought such a thing, several howls suddenly echo through the forest, shaking the trees with their intensity and volume. I just jinxed myself, didn''t I. Chapter 3 Whatever made that roar must be huge, not something I have even the slightest chance of fighting. Or running from, really. I''m slow. I redouble my pace, eating through dirt as fast as I could. If I could get deep enough, maybe whatever made that roar won''t notice me! Several roars answer the howls, from the opposite side. Uh oh. That''s the side the Dragons were on. Am I about to get caught between some Wolf vs Dragon drama?! That might explain the deadish zone I initially came from, it must be a spot they''ve fought before! If I wasn''t digging at max speed, I certainly am now. I''ve reshaped my mouth into a flat scoop that I just drag across the ground, allowing me to just run around and dig that way. I hit my max capacity, sell, then keep eating. I hit capacity level 13 (9100), which grants me a bit more scooping time. I begin to hear footsteps. Hundreds of massive, thudding footfalls from the side of the wolves. Those are some massive wolfs if i''m able to hear that from this far away. I max again, sell, and upgrade speed to level 4 (18). Probably didn''t make much of a difference, but if it helps me dig this hole faster, I don''t care. Speaking of which, i''m already pretty deep. My eyes are practically useless at this point. Maybe i''m deep enough? It''s already gonna be a pain in the ass climbing back up in the morning. The top of my tunnel is suddenly lit up by the bright blue of dragonfire, and I watch as a wolf leaps over where my hole is. It¡äs legs look bigger than trees and it¡äs body is bigger than most buildings, but my momentary glimpse is cut short by more dragonfire flashing through it''s torso, killing it instantly and sending it hurtling away. Meanwhile, I feel like i''m melting. I definitely underestimated dragonfire, because that brief, less than a second long exposure to it from just 20 feet away (I dug pretty deep didn''t I?), was enough to nearly kill me. The trees on the surface were on fire, and dirt was scalding, but none of that meant much to me when I was little more than a painful puddle trying not to die. I heard more bursts of fire, clashes between claws the size of greatswords and scales bigger than most shields, growls and howls and cries of pain and anger. Thankfully, I was not immediately dosed with even more dragon fire. That would have killed me. It took a bit of time, but my body slowly pulled itself back together into it''s humanoid form. Not the dog-giraffe thing i''d shifted myself into, just me. Well, this clearly wasn''t working. Digging a hole as big as this is inefficient and time consuming, and I need to be out of here before another accidental attack actually kills me. What''s really good at digging... Worms! I can be a worm! Turning down towards the earth, I open my mouth as wide as it can go, then widen my head until my mouth becomes a perfect circle. I shove my mouth into the wall, and it slides in like there wasn''t anything there in the first place. I morph my body into a circular tube with a bunch of tiny limbs to help direct me through the soil, and set off. I quickly max again, sell, and purchase another Capacity upgrade. Capacity: level 13 (9100) ¡ú level 14 (10500) Speed: level 4 (18) Growth: level 1 (1) Multiplier: level 1 (1) I carve through the earth, moving deeper and deeper. One of those things might have earth magic or something, and I saw other colors of breath reflecting off the walls while I was recovering from being a puddle. This world has magic. That I have basically no information on. The deeper I get, the further away from them I get, and the less likely I am to get caught in something not intended for me. As I''m close to my maximum capacity, something weird happens. I grow. Suddenly, I''m a bit wider and longer. I stop eating as soon as it happens, partly from surprise, partly from the fact that this tunnel no longer fits me, and my sides squishing into the wall prevent me from moving any further. I''m almost full, but not quite. I''m sorry, since when did I grow when I ate?! Until now, the only sign that i''d even eaten anything was the fact that material was missing and the difference in fullness! What changed? It only takes a moment of introspection to find the change. Level 14 of Capacity. When I entered quintuple digits. That must be it. And it didn''t happen when I was full, it happened just before. Probably around when I hit 10000... energy. Cubes? Yeah, cubes. If it''s related to hitting 10000 points, surely it''ll happen again. I shunt my extra mass into making my tail slightly longer, and continue on my way. I hit my maximum capacity and sell, shrinking when I do so. Good, I was hoping it wasn''t a permanent change. It can be good to be small sometimes. I reach out with my wormy tendrils and push myself forward. I''m not heading directly down or straight up, i''m doing more of a slight incline downwards, in what I think is away from whatever giant battle I got caught in. Who knows, my sense of direction is terrible. Or is it? I mentally recall every twist and turn I made on my journey down here beneath the dirt, and try to make some kind of mental map that''ll inform me of what direction i''m actually heading in. I fail. Miserably. This part goes here, this part goes there, wait how long did I turn here? Was this angle 45 degrees of like 60? None of these measurements are precise! GAH! I keep eating while I wrestle with concepts of distance and angles and precise things that I really have no reference for other than fragments of others minds. It''d probably feel like stealing, but I don''t even know if these are from real people. They could just be random information that holds no real weight in reality. Doesn''t really seem that way, but i''ve only been alive for like a day, and if they were random, shouldn''t something in here come from something that isn''t a human? It felt a bit too intentional for it to be completely random, but it was also so disjointed and fragmented that it seemed like no real thought was put into it either. Whatever the answer is, it doesn''t help me. I''ll still need to deal with the mess that is my mind. Eventually. But for now, I''ll just keep on chugging, upgrading capacity and speed one more time each. Capacity: level 14 (10500) ¡ú level 15 (12000) Speed: level 4 (18) ¡ú level 5 (20) Well, speed is now twice what it was in the beginning. Following that line of logic, I should be twice as fast. I don''t feel twice as fast, but I also haven''t been able to see anything to compare myself to since I started upgrading speed. I was mostly just digging my hole in pitch darkness, then the dragons and wolves came, and then for the last like 20 minutes I¡äve been underground. Not much to do down here other than eat. I continue in silence for a while longer. Not that I had any choice in my silence. It''s peaceful. I find I quite like it. From the moment of my... birth, it''s just been question after question and bite after bite. This is my first time ever zoning out, and it is wonderful. I almost wish nothing would interrupt it. Unfortunately, I still have a limit to how much I can eat, and when I hit it my implement of digging suddenly stops working, abruptly halting me. It doesn''t shatter me, like I feared such an impact would, but it doesn''t feel good either. Like hitting your head on the ceiling when you go to change a lightbulb. I sell, check my Upgrades and find that I finally have enough cubes to upgrade Growth. It''s absolutely related to how I grow whenever I hit 10k points, but more size isn''t gonna hurt me. The cubes flow into it, and something changes within me. When I buy Capacity, it feels like whatever I have for a stomach grows. When I upgrade Speed, something I can''t quite put my finger on yet changes. Just now, when I upgraded Growth, It felt like whatever my human equivalent was for bones suddenly became twice as strong. It was very visceral, and momentarily overwhelmed my poor, inexperienced mind. I stood (did not! Still a noodle) very still for a minute, just processing the sensation. Then, slowly, I started moving forward again. I wanted to know what changed. I carefully watched my fullness as I plodded forward, waiting for the inevitable growth at about 5/6ths fullness (10k). Instead, it came when I was less than halfway full, at around 5k points. I keep eating, hoping that i''ll grow again. when I hit the 10k mark, just as I hoped, I grow even more. and I become an even bigger worm.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. It''s worm time baby! ------------------------ A very large amount of worming later, i''d managed to upgrade Capacity 10 times, Speed 6 times, and Growth another two times, which made my stats look like this Capacity: level 15 (12000) ¡ú level 25 (32500) Speed: level 5 (20) ¡ú level 11 (32) Growth: level 2 (2) ¡ú level 4 (4) Multiplier: Level 1 (1) I felt like that was enough worming for a day. Actually, I don''t know how long I''ve been down here. It didn''t feel like too long, but I haven''t tested how accurate my sense of time is yet, so who knows how much time actually passed. It was time for me to return to the surface. Man, that sounded so epic yet also cringe. Glad there''s nobody here that can read my thoughts. I turned my little wormy mouth away from where I felt gravity trying to pull me, and began the long climb up. I had to use a lot more little stabby limbs to climb upwards than to essentially slide downwards. During my worm time, i''d shifted my skin from air color to bright white, and made it the same smoothness of when I initially popped up here. This change allowed me to, in essence, slide through the ground. Now, when I was going up, I needed friction back. So I changed the texture of my stabby limbs (and ONLY my stabby limbs) to that of bark. It helped a lot. I don''t think i''d ever really thought about where my eyes were on my body, since even if I did move them to somewhere they''d see, it''s pitch dark down here. They''re on the sides of my mouth, pointing opposite directions, but soon they''ll be back on my actual head. I hit my max again, so, almost on autopilot, I sold. Then, I started to fall. Tendrils shot out of my flesh, digging into walls and anchoring me in place. Holy shit. If I had a heart, it''d be racing. I nearly fell all the way back down. I hauled myself up using more tendrils, making sure I had at least six firmly planted in the wall at any given time. When I reached the top, I felt around for the center, then dug right back in. This time, as I was going up, I occasionally moved to the side, so that, should I fall and fail to catch myself, It wouldn''t be a straight shot to the bottom like the first time. Maybe I should keep physics in mind while i''m digging. To be honest, I kinda forgot about them while I was digging. It was just that calming and freeing down here in the earth. ... Man, I''ve been digging up for a while now. Just how deep did I go? Did I hit bedrock? Maybe, I probably wouldn''t have even noticed with how i''m tunneli- I burst out of the surface, the sudden light catching me off guard. It''s daytime, and the forest, what I can see of it, is ruined. Smoke clouds the sky, ashes mingle in the air, and there isn''t a hint of green or wildlife in sight. All that''s there are blackened husks of trees and mountains, reaching far up into the sky. There''s still some green on the mountains, but I don''t get much time to appreciate that as my flight through the sky abruptly ends. I closed my mouth while I was flying, thankfully. Otherwise I would''ve gone right back under. Also, ow. That hurt. I shift out of my worm state and back into my default humanoid one. I stand up, having made the mistake of shifting without specifying a direction, and pause. Is it just me or am I bigger now? I''m at about half capacity but everything looks smaller. Like I grew a couple inches while I was a worm. I see, so my size changing isn''t exclusive to the form I change in. It just makes me bigger, end of story. Looking down at my body, I notice that my proportions hadn''t changed at all with the increase in size. Another thing to note. Now, what to do? I''d grown bored of worming, so I came up here, but there doesn''t seem to be much to do up here other than eat dead trees and dirt. watch the smoke maybe? Or maybe, I could go check the mountains! They''ve still got some green on them! A good idea. I start to walk towards the nearest one, but not two steps in I realize that this is yet another thing the human form is unsuited for. In a purely mechanical sense of course, I know all about human endurance. I morph my body into a spiderlike form, with eight legs, two omnidirectional joints each, with traction claws on the ends, two eyes, and a body connecting all the legs. Maybe when I get bigger, I could made an abdomen. Or more legs. More legs sounds better. Can never have to many legs. I speed off, much faster with more, grippier limbs. I zoom around trees, over boulders, and under logs. Along the way I eat a little by extending a small proboscis into the ground, scraping off bits of material as I run. I grow a couple more times with my eating, and reach my max halfway to the mountain. Instead of selling, I just allocate most of my mass to making my long, spindly limbs even longer and spindlier. If there were more, smaller obstacles like bushes or grass or just more trees, making my legs longer would have slowed me down. But since everything was burnt and smaller than it used to be, even the trees, I was able to shoot through the gaps like jumping spider on steroids. Steroids? I''m nearly caught off guard by the burst of memories, as it hadn''t happened in a while. It''s a bunch of stuff about anatomy, the deeper intricacies of human and animal physiology, a bit of chemistry, and workout things. Most of it is completely irrelevant to me, as I do not possess muscles that would need growing, nor do I possess a brain that would emit chemicals. I only stumble a little, instead of passing out or being stunned into inaction like the last couple times this happened. At the speeds I¡äm moving, freezing up would be very bad. I''m almost at the base of the mountain! It looks a lot bigger from down here. like, nearly pierces the clouds big. Wooooooow. I stare up at the mountain as I run, belatedly realizing that it''s the biggest mountain I can see. None of the others in my vision reach quite as high as this one. Means that the climb is going to take a while, but the view when I reach the top will be unmatched. The ground starts to slope upwards, but I keep my pace high. The forest is still very much dead around me, but I know that there¡äs greenery higher up. I wanna see some animals! All i''ve ever seen is a couple squirrels and two birds. I wanna see a bear! And a lion! And an elephant! And a deer! Ooooh, I wonder if they have ants up there! Will there be berries? Can I eat berries? Who am I kidding, of course I can eat berries. It doesn''t matter if they''re poisonous, I don''t have innards to poison! Just a massive empty void. I keep running, getting higher and higher up until I start to hear noises. The noises of insects and small animals, in fact. I would speed up, but i''m already going as fast as I can. The noises do sound odd though. They seem off, not quite right. The trees abruptly switch from dead to alive, and I screech to a halt. The transition from dead looking to perfectly fine trees wasn''t gradual at all. I walked back, and found the border. It was like someone had drawn a line and said ¡§no fire shall pass this line.¡§ and no fire dared to disobey them. For all I know, that was exactly what happened. I shrink, selling my size. If I had to guess the rough size difference shrinking made, right now i''m the size of a medium dog. Before, I was a pure white spider bigger than most large dogs. Either one would probably give an arachnophobe a heart attack. Heh heh heh, sneaky sneaky! No one will ever find me! Hold on, I forgot something. I quickly shift my color from bright white to air, and I vanish from sight. Oops. I would have been painfully obvious to any passing dragon, very glad I remembered to switch back into stealth mode before any such thing happened. I start heading up the mountain again, moving much slower, eyes constantly scanning for animals. Or water. I still don''t know what my face looks like. I don''t see any signs of animal life for a while, and i''m beginning to become frustrated when I hear noise. Footsteps. Pawsteps? I move toward the sound, slowing down even more and watching where I place my feet to make as little noise as possible. I creep around a tree and find a group of... deer things. I mean, they look like deer to me. Four legs. Small tail. Hooves. Antlers. Four eyes. One mouth. Seems normal enough. But they still seem off. It takes me a moment to place whats wrong, but when I do, everything clicks into place. They''re slow. Like someone set them to .4 speed. Of course! I finally figured out what speed does! It speeds up every aspect of me, including my mind! That''s why I never noticed a change after upgrading it, because I never had anything to compare it to! To test it, I pick up a rock and drop it. It falls, but slower than it it should. When I had ten Speed, everything looked normal, moved at the rates one would expect. But since my speed is now over twice that number, reality seems like it has slowed down around me. That explains why, even though It felt like I was underground for so long, not even a day had passed when I came back up the surface, not even a day had passed. Satisfied with my discovery, I turn my attention back to the deer, but they''re gone. Oh, me dropping the rock must have scared them off. Oops. Now all I need to do is find a pool of water. I skitter off through the underbrush, heading even higher. Sometimes mountains have naturally occurring hot springs, right? I don''t think I''m going to find any rivers up here, but maybe a hot spring. Or, when I reach the top, i''ll be able to use the view to find some source of water. I continue my skittering, resisting the urge to eat anything when I''m certain I need to be in my smallest form. The higher I get, the closer i''ll be to any dragons who happen to fly by, and the more likely they are to detect me with magic bullshit. Speaking of, there''s one right now! Flying off by some of the other mountains comes a slightly golden dragon, gaudy jewelry faintly glinting off it even from this distance. Several more dragons of varying colors of the rainbow follow the first one, all of them larger and stronger looking than the lead dragon. They aren''t heading towards me, but towards something on the other side of the mountain. Shit. Jewelry? That implies intelligence. And those big ones look like guards of some sort, so that lead dragon might be nobility of some kind, or a politician. Going by the fact that they''re the only gold dragon i''ve seen, I''m gonna guess nobility of some kind. Worst case scenario, royalty. I tiptoe behind a tree, and watch the procession as it goes, several mountains away. The fact that they look so big from so far away does not give me happy feelings. Growing like a foot in height is great and all, doesn''t mean much when your opponent is bigger than most warehouses. I really need to see what''s on the other side of this mountain. Must be important. Once the last of the dragons move out of my sight, I take off, moving as fast as I can. Getting to the top of the mountain was no longer something I was doing just for fun. I needed information, and that was the highest point around. Several times, I considered trying to grow wings and fly there, but I didn''t, for a couple reasons. One. I don''t know if it would actually work. Two. Intelligent dragons in a world of magic probably have detection systems for other dragons, which may have been generalized to flying things in general. It''s a bit of a stretch, but I''m not taking the chance. The ground starts becoming steeper, but that doesn''t stop me. My traction claws dig into the ground, providing plenty of friction and leverage to push off of. The ground starts to get more rocky, there are no more trees, and dirt becoming sparser. I suddenly realize that it''s very cold up here, and that it doesn''t affect me in the slightest. Good to know. My mad dash for the top begins to slow. I can see the end. When I''m almost there I shift back into my base form and clamber up the last little ridge. If I had any breath, the sight would have taken it away. Is that a goddamn dragon city?!? Chapter 4 A massive wall almost as tall as the mountain I stand on stretches far in the distance on either side of me. It''s an obsidian black, with all kinds of battle scars and markings covering its surface. Behind it, Even bigger buildings stretch high into the sky, many being far larger, in both width and height, than this mountain. But the most important, and worrying part, was that it was all full of dragons. I could see thousands, ten of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dragons just moving and flying around in the massive metropolis. The golden dragon was being paraded through what looked like some sort of main street, towards the biggest building I could see. Compared to the towering structures, the dragons looked regular people-sized. They weren''t. They were still bigger than most human buildings. I feel like I really underestimated what my memories meant when they told me I was deep in the wilds, and that the deeper you go the stronger things get. The more intelligent too, by the looks of all that engineering, organization, and communication. Now, I was ready to bolt at this point. I wanted no part in any of that. But as I turned to leave, something caught my eye. A reflection of the sun, coming off of the wall. No. Yes. I am not going closer to the giant city of dragons. But it''s the first reflective surface I''ve seen! I have to try! Reluctantly, I turn into a worm and dive into the mountain. If i''m gonna go to the dragon city, i''m at least going to be stealthy about it. Which calls for some tunneling. I shoot downwards at first, then angle myself towards the dragon city. I grow every now and then, and like 1/4th of the way down I reach my max, so I sell and get Capacity again. Capacity: level 25 (32500) ¡ú level 26 (35100) I move closer to the side of the mountain (from inside), and carefully move so that the top of my wormy form peeks out of the ground while my speed picks up. I move both my eyes to the top so that I can actually use them to see, and watch the wall carefully. I don''t know how good dragon eyesight is, so I need to keep an eye on them, just in case one of them spots me and I need to run. I zip through the ground with my frictionless body and all-consuming maw combining to make my descent off the mountain the fastest thing i''d ever done. The wall looms in my sight as I reach level (It still has an incline, it''s just barely noticeable compared to the mountain) ground, and alter my trajectory to stay partially above the surface. I notice I''m about to reach my max again, so I sell the instant I max, barely preventing me from slamming into the ground. As I get closer to the wall, I notice just how scarred and roughed up it is. It has the looks of something that has endured countless tribulations, a monument of time and probably dragon crafting. I wanna eat it. I reign in the urge to eat it. It does look very tasty, but I''m here for one thing and one thing only. To see my reflection. Which might be a bit hard with how scratched up this bottom portion of the wall is. It''s only reflective in the middle portion, the top portion dulled from so much dragon foot traffic. I guess I''ll have to climb. I emerge from the ground, sliding into my spider form as I do so. Regular feet don''t seem like they''d work to scale this wall, so I taper the ends of the limbs into thin points, then widen them along a single axis. This should allow me to stick them into the scratches and pull myself up without damaging the wall further. I hook my first limb onto the wall and begin climbing. I clamber up the wall, one eye roaming around the underside of my body to help find places to put my limbs, the other watching the dragons above for any hint that they''ve spotted me. They seem mostly focused on the things going on within the wall, with only a few looking outwards. None look down. I manage to navigate all the way to the middle, sometimes following the puncture marks of something else''s attempt to scale the wall. I gaze at my reflection with both eyes, which are visible as two perfectly circular dots floating in midair. Huh. Good thing I came and checked, otherwise I never would have known that my invisibility was imperfect in such a way. I revert just my head back into my humanoid form, and color it a dull grey. looks like a cartoon cutout. My eyes don''t even have any definition or depth, just void. It was what I expected, but not what I hoped for. Well, I got what I came for. Time to leave. I turn my head invisible again and absorb it back into the rest of my body, returning to full nightmare spider mode. One eye watching the dragons, one coordinating my limbs. As I''m almost to the ground, I spot something unusual out of the corner of my dragon watching eye. A bit further away, leaning over the wall, head drooped down, is a sharp, spiky dark grey dragon. Watching me. Not moving to attack or alerting any of it''s companions, just watching. I turn dull white, revealing my form but not broadcasting my existence like the pure white color does. I wave at the dragon with one spider limb. The dragon lazily waves back, and I dive back into the ground, becoming a worm as I do so. So there are some friendly dragons, good to know.
A Friendly dragon, several minutes ago
¡§ Sigh.¡§ I rest my head on the side of the great barrier, my posture screaming boredom and exhaustion. Guard duty is the most boring. Nothing ever happens. Sure, the Prince is here now, but i''m probably the least patriotic dracona this side of the Golden City. The prince holds little importance to me. There was another fight with the wolves last night, and we killed them all, as per usual. Not that I got to participate. Movement. I whip my head up off the ground, eyes training on the tall mountain, trying to spot the source of the movement I noticed. There! At the bottom of the mountain, some sort of weird line is making its way towards us. I consider telling the others, but they''re still so enamored by the sight of the prince I don''t even bother. Not that it matters. Anything the seers don''t pick up that gets this close isn''t a threat. As the line gets closer, I become able to pick out more details. It''s pretty small, with two black dots traveling forward on seemingly nothing. Is it using some kind of cloaking spell? It should probably hide those black spots then, or someone else might see it. It reaches the great barrier and, still invisible, climbs out of its tunnel. It pauses for a moment, then starts scaling it. It''s close enough that I should be able to sense what it''s doing to cloak itself, but I can''t. So I just watch as the strange dots make their way up. If it gets close to the top I''ll sound the alarm and attack. Halfway up, It pauses, examining the wall. Not sure why, the great barrier is just a giant slab of ancient dragon scales. Not much difference from one part to the other. As I watch the tiny thing, It seemingly de-cloaks part of itself, still staring at the wall. It moves it''s ¡§head¡§ side to side, what I now know to be it''s eyes glued to the wall. It''s using the great barrier as a mirror. A surge of indignant anger rises from within me, but I squash it. The thing probably isn''t even sentient. Seemingly satisfied with it''s examination, the creature cloaks itself again and starts moving back down. I can still see your eyes you lower life form! I mock shake my fist at it. Yithanor, the hot red dragon who usually gets stationed up here with me turns, a questioning look on his face. I wave him away. ¡§Go back to staring off into the distance menacingly, don''t mind me.¡ä ¡§I wasn''t going to say anything.¡§ He turns his menacing face back to its normal position, eyes locking onto something in the distance once more. Seriously, I don''t understand how he''s able to hold that pose the entire time we''re up here. I get tired after just an hour. The creature is almost to the bottom when it suddenly stops. Both eyes turn to me. Oh, finally noticed me, have you? To my surprise the thing removes it''s cloak entirely, revealing a rather large white spider. It frantically waves at me with one of its eight legs. I wave back. Then it dives into the ground, somehow transforming into a worm midair. Then it vanishes into the ground. It leaves a hole open behind it, and the long tunnel it dug from the tall mountain to all the way over here is still there, but it''s so small, nobody''s gonna notice it. Huh. Maybe guard duty isn''t the most boring job. Just among them.
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If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I slide under the ground, moving parallel to the tunnel I made getting here. I now know that even when my skin is the color of air, my eyes are still visible. Troublesome, but I can''t really do anything about it. I still need to see after all. I can''t just get rid of my eyes. Maybe if I had sonar or something, but that would create other issues. Can I go back and pet the friendly dragon? I don''t think that''s a good idea. I''m too small to do that, for one, and the dragon would probably take offense to such an action. Maybe when I get a lot bigger I could come back and do that. I keep digging, getting another level in speed and two more in maximum capacity while I go. Yay, Upgrades! Other than that, I just travel in a straight line away from the wall. The only reason I was this close in the first place was because I didn''t know it was there. I''m still way less powerful than even a single dragon, so a city of them is several orders of magnitude out of my league. Maybe I should go live in the wolves territory? They can''t fly. They''re wolves, so they probably have great noses, which means they might smell me and track me down. Or not, if I''m disguised as air, and tiny bits of me break off in the wind like what happened with the wood chips, won''t they just smell air? The more I think about it, the better an Idea it becomes. The wolves might be faster than me on land (might, i''m getting faster and who knows how fast i''ll be by the time I reach them), but I can always just go underground again. I doubt many could follow me down here. My decision made, I alter course slightly, heading towards where I''m pretty sure the wolves are. I''m sure that, since they''re willing to and able to fight with the dragons, they''ll also have a decent amount of territory that I can hide in. I''m going to get big, and it''d be nice to have enough room to move around when I''m at my biggest. Oh hey, another max Capacity upgrade! That makes it level 29 now. I wonder when I''ll be able to upgrade Multiplier? I am very interested to see what it does. I think about forms I could become that might be better at digging, but really, nothing can beat the tendril worm. Every now and then I grow, and it got really annoying having to constantly shrink myself by shunting mass to the back, then doing it again every two seconds. So instead, I widened the rim of my mouth. That way, the hole I''m moving through is slightly bigger than me, and when I grow I still fit inside it. I implemented this solution a while ago, and just didn''t really think about it. I should be past the mountain by now, but that''s nowhere near far enough. I know what that means! WORM TIME! ------------------------ I have absolutely no idea how long I''ve been down here. I''ve just been eating and eating and eating, I''ve upgraded things so many times. Capacity: level 29 (43500) ¡úlevel 43 (94600) Speed: level 12 (34) ¡ú level 25 (60) Growth: level 4 (4) ¡ú level 9 (9) Multiplier: level 1 (1) I zoned out while doing all this upgrading, and ended up assimilating more memories without any pain or other side effects. Most of them were related to languages, specifically, languages in this world. A bit of elvish, some orcish, a couple different human ones, and a surprising amount of draconian language. Not enough to make me sound like a native speaker by any means, but enough to understand a dragon when it talks. Anyway, that''s not why I''m freaking out right now. I''m freaking out because Multiplier, after so much grinding and a lot of missing ground that no one will miss, can be purchased. I feel like purchased isn''t the right word for it, acquired? Obtained? Reinforced! Reinforced doesn''t make sense grammatically, but it feels closer to what actually happens when I put cubes into each upgrade. Speaking of which, in the cubes go. Capacity: level 43 (94600) ¡ú level 43 (104060) Speed: level 25 (60) ¡ú level 25 (66) Growth: level 9 (9) ¡ú level 9 (9.9) Multiplier: level 1 (1) ¡ú level 2 (1.1) I feel it as pure P?o???w???e???r??? floods my entire body, enhancing every aspect of my existence. Everything, not just the Upgrades themselves, gets multiplied. I can feel my control over my body increase, gain depth. Everything feels more real all of a sudden, like a haze had been lifted from my eyes that never close. HOLY SHIT! I wanna do that again! Not right now. It''s time to go back up to the surface. I''ve been down here for way longer than last time, so we should be out of the dragons territory. All these upgrades have been great, but I can''t just stay down here forever. Awwwww. Okaaaaay~ I rouse my body from where it''d been laying down in the tunnel, and resume digging upwards. I find that I can morph and move my tendrils slightly faster, which helps. I''m very deep right now, but even at the deepest I''d ever gone, I still didn''t feel it getting any warmer. Planets really are bigger than one can comprehend, aren''t they. I turn, heading to the side for a bit, then I max and sell. The difference between my empty state and my full state has grown massively, to the point that my full state is almost bigger widthwise than my empty state is lengthwise, even in worm form. Another upgrade for speed, and I continue upwards. ... This is boring! Is there anything I can do to speed up all this digging? I think for a moment. The main limiting factor is propulsion, as I am fighting gravity for every inch of height gained. My tendrils stop hauling me up, and I hang, suspended over the massive drop into darkness. Inspiration strikes me, and I begin changing. Three curved spikes dig into the walls on each of my four sides. Then, my body elongates while becoming thinner, except for the general area around the spikes. The bottom of my form widens, and four long tentacles sprout from it. The tentacles head upwards, and connect to the blocks holding the spikes into the wall. The blocks disconnect from the rest of my body, and now I''m held in place by the tension between the tentacles, the pillar in the middle of my body, and the spikes in the walls. I go in and adjust a few proportions, making the limbs more evenly balanced and the spikes a little shorter. The plan is for these tentacles to fling me up by contracting extremely quickly, then having the spikes withdraw from the wall before they slow me down. Satisfied that none of my parts are going to snap off from the sudden force about to be exerted on them, I yanked. Shooting upward far faster than before, I only barely managed to retract the spikes in time. The only way I have to gauge my speed is how fast I was filling up, and I''ve been monitoring my hunger the whole time. Judging by how much the influx of material changed, this method is about 4-5 times faster. Means I max quicker too. I bring the tentacles back up, then ram them into the walls while shoving downwards. This adds to my speed even more, and I fall into a rythme. I rapidly approach my max, at which point I sell just before becoming full. This lets me upgrade Capacity yet again, and my momentum keeps me going up, even when there are no walls around me to push off of. That''s why I sold a little early, to prevent myself from suddenly slamming into the ground. I might be tougher than I was in the beginning, but F=MA. My mass has continually increased, to the point I don''t even know how much bigger and heavier I am. And my speed increased by over 4 times with my new form, so slamming into solid earth at those kinds of speeds could outright kill me. I just don''t know, and a few points are not worth the risk of potential death. While I fly through the earth, I realize that when I reach the surface, I''m going to come flying out of the ground at top speed. Due to my method of travel, I have no actual way of telling when that will be, so it could happen at any moment. I''ll just grow wings. That should work. I consider the thought. I don''t know how heavy I am, again, haven''t been able to compare myself to anything for a while. Thats a big reason I''m going back to the surface. Also, I haven''t seen any color other than black for DAYS! It''s dark down here! The half dead forests aren''t any fun either! And while the mountaintops have actual interesting plant life, I STILL can''t eat there because then the dragons will find me! ARGH! That was a horrible place to appear. My tentacles whiff, missing the walls when I haven''t even maxxed. It takes me a second to realize that I''m seeing light again. And that I''m very, very high up. Finally, I''ve reached the surface. The blue sky stretches out before me, the evening sun bathing everything in warm tones. Beautiful scenery aside, I''m starting to fall. Wings! I need wings, or even just a parachute! Parachute would probably be better! I mush together all of my limbs and I close my mouth, then spread myself out in a wide sheet, as thin I as I think will hold. Essentially, I become a giant invisible piece of paper (you thought I changed into some other color? Wrong! I''ve been air color this whole time!) being pulled back to earth. I pull my corners down as best as I can to direct the pressure and slow me down, but the wind starts to pick up. It becomes more difficult to hold this form every moment as I slowly gain momentum. The momentum gain stops pretty quickly, to my surprise and great relief. I''m only barely able to hold my paper thin form together, and I''m still descending decently fast, but not at a rate that will kill me. I take a moment to observe the world beneath me. It''s dark green, filled with animals and birds, the sunlight reflecting off all kinds of things and casting long shadows across the land. The hole I made sits almost directly beneath me, A bit bigger than most trees, but not actually that visible from up here. I look further out, and spot a giant, kinda squished outpost in the distance. It''s got wolves in it, not dragons, thank god. I''m only barely able to see it because of my height, as it''s actually pretty well camouflaged. If I was just a little higher or a little lower- and it''s gone. Must be how they hide from the dragons. Smart. If I ever make someplace to live I''ll probably also need to hide it. I land. It''s not as gentle as I was hoping, but also isn''t the crash landing I feared. It does jar me a bit, but I don''t break. Or fall into the hole. I flap my thin self upright, away from the hole, and transition back into my base form. At half my maximum height, I''m past the level where I can walk under the trees without bending down. Speaking of, I don''t think I ever really thought about how big the trees are. They seem to be normal tree height, at about 30 to 40 feet tall. Those dragons and wolves were walking and leaping over them, so I have quite a ways to go, even with how big I am already. If I assume that I''m kinda short in my base form, then at this point I''m already taller than any human who has ever lived. Wait, no, magic. There''s totally someone out there bigger than me. I start walking, away from the hole and where I saw the outpost. I''m sure they''ll come to investigate the hole eventually, and I want to be nowhere near here when they do so. They could find me while i''m sleeping but... do I even need to sleep? The purpose of sleep is to allow your bodies cells to rest and recover, while your brain sorts through information and organizes itself. I do not have either of those things, and my memories... What happens to my memories? I know that all of my initial ones are a mess, but what about the ones I''ve made? Looking through my most recent memories, I can recall them all perfectly. Every hour of boredom, every turn, every twist, the precise details of every form. Nothing I observed or felt was forgotten. Oh goodie, I have eidetic memory on steroids! Bet the world won''t somehow find a way to make that a problem. I think, to myself, definitely not invoking the curse of inevitable ironic tragedy. I shrug away the pesky thoughts that aren''t helpful anymore (Hey!) and keep walking. I dislike having to bend down constantly, so I flow into my dog/giraffe/satan spawn form. I also give myself three asymmetrical horns and a tail, because why not? It makes me look even more ridiculous. I start grazing, eating small bits of ground, pretending to chew for a moment, before going back for another bite. At this point I don''t even know what animal I''m pretending to be. Either way, the ground is getting eaten. And I''m getting bigger. Once I hit my maximum capacity, even in this hunched over form, My back is almost bumping into the tree branches. I flow back into my base form, and compare myself to the surrounding trees. Still smaller. little bit more than half their size, but smaller. I almost equal them in girth, but i''m still just not big enough! I''ll never be able to defend myself from the other giants of this forest like this! I must grow BIGGER. More. I need to eat more.