Nadeen, Thing Two, and I scurried along the ground, following the massive cliff. In a fit of paranoia that I was starting to think might be the best way to live my life going forward, I forced us to hug the cliff wall as closely as possible. My reasoning was, that if there was someone standing at the top of the sheer rock wall looking down, they would be less likely to see two monsters and a child creeping up on civilized lands than if we were further out.

Or at the very least, the theoretical watcher would have to put himself in danger of falling in order to see us.

“I keep telling you, Shardshire doesn’t patrol this far out.” Nadeen complained. As though I was going to take a thirteen year olds advice on the military structure of a settlement.

“Was that before or after two ‘Binders’ and some rich guy disappeared into the - what did you call it again?” I paused to ask.

“The Devilwood.” Nadeen replied petulantly

“Fine. Before they disappeared into the Devilwood. You people have a horrible naming sense.” I snarked.

“You named your species THINGS and then named your brother THING TWO.” Nadeen cried out in protest at my accusation. Over the course of the last three hours walking along this stupid cliff, I had managed to convince her that - since only one of us was a monster - naming rights for my species were mine and mine alone. Not counting Thing Two - who was still kind of an idiot.

And also couldn’t talk.

“Yeah well. Them’s the breaks.” I quipped, choosing selectively to ignore her jab at my own naming sense.

I was feeling… pretty good honestly. Life was finally starting to feel like it had some… direction. Meaning I suppose. Oh there was still all that lurking bullshit in the back of my head. Killing and eating people and all that. But Nadeen wasn’t a bloated corpse, I wasn’t a slave, and the only human who had a demonstrated fear of my relative intelligence was dead.

So, happy times all around basically.

We bickered like that for a bit longer, until we came upon a steep ditch that narrowed as it approached the cliff face, and seemed to go under it. I eyed the ditch critically, pretty positive that if I tried to approach a Balrog or something would appear to kick the shit out of me. That was the direction my luck had been running since I got here. Nadeen though, squealed like a child - which was disconcerting to me - and then hopped down into the ditch without anything even vaguely like fear.

One thing I had found about her now that she wasn’t either A) Dying, or B) Trying to enslave me, was that Nadeen tended to flicker between acting uncommonly sensible and adult like, and behaving exactly like the kid she was. I wondered how much of that had to do with the medieval like society she seemed to hail from, and how much was just the tiny cracks in her sanity the Devilwood had been inflicting on her since our meeting. She probably didn’t realize it, but when she thought I wasn’t looking - which, because I had three extra faces I always was - I would occasionally catch her staring out into the woods, or back the way we had come, with a look of positively craven hunger on her face. Then just as quickly she’d shake herself, like a wet dog, and go back to normal.

It was usually at about those times that she’d ask me something stupid, or start giving me shit about Thing Two’s name.

It was probably a testament to how fucked I was in general though, that I actually considered a little sanity slippage to be kind of a minor problem at the moment.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I cried in a discordant voice, scrambling to peer over the edge of the ditch. What I saw stopped the torrent of faux parental rage I was about to unleash. There at the bottom of the ditch, where the cliff wall should have continued, was a huge crack in the wall. It looked like teacup had fallen and a chunk had come off - only on a much, much larger scale. The crack was easily wide enough to fit Thing Two of he angled himself right, and a dull purple glow emanated out from it.

“Fuck is this now?” I asked curiously, hopping down into the ditch with Thing Two to pad up to Nadeen.

“It’s probably an entrance to the mines. I used to play in them as a kid.” Nadeen said, somehow embarrassed by admitting she used to play.

“Okay so… why isn’t anyone here?” I queried, my guard instantly up now that I knew other people could be about.

“The mines are huge, and the deeper you go the more likely you are to meet monsters. No one knows how deep it goes.” Nadeen said with a shrug.

A minor exertion of my will brought all three of my extra faces together in a hideous mixing of eyes and teeth on my chest. I could feel my flesh warp and twist as the extremities literally flowed through me to where I wanted them. It was largely unnecessary, but I felt the need to drive my point home, so eight pairs of eyes turned to stare at Nadeen for a few seconds before I spoke.

“So this cave.” I pointed for emphasis

“Has an equal chance of containing hideous monsters that want to kill you, and angry humans that want to kill me.

“And not only that, you don’t know how deep this particular tunnel goes - which means it could lead directly into a dragon’s lair for all we know.” I concluded.

“It’s full of Magic Crystals! And Prey! We have to eat!” She jabbing a finger at me that I - very briefly - considered biting off.

And that just about proved her point now didn’t it?

“Fine. Stay between me and Thing Two.” I finally admitted. Then I eyed the tunnel suspiciously.

“Does it get bigger after the entrance?” I asked, not sure if Thing Two was going to be able to do anything but wiggle if a fight broke out.

“Yeah, turns into a proper tunnel after a while.” she confirmed.

I considered for a few minutes, before making a decision. With an exertion of my will, the ignition I recognized as magic usage exploded to providence. Where before it was the barest of sparks I was using to maintain the extra eyes and mouths I had been using, this was a full blown inferno. I bore with the temporary discomfort, allowing the extra limbs to push uncomfortably out of me. This time, I had a plan of sorts. The limbs didn’t escape me in the same haphazard and random way they had when I was fighting Thane.

This time, with slightly more experience, I forced them into a sort of rough pattern. The legs appeared first. Six of them red and painful exploding from my torso, three to each side. Falling forward onto my stomach so the new legs could hold me up, the arms came next, four of them extended from different portions of my shoulders and neck, creating a set of fleshy, grasping mandibles. The last two arms stretched from my tailbone, first one, and then the other stretching out from the forearm of the first. This took my slightly longer, as I pushed my magic to its utmost, stretching ligaments and muscles to create two, much longer arms than a human being should possess. Finally, I spread two pairs of eyes along my back, and grew two more on my original pair of hands. The extra mouths I allowed to remain on my stomach, where they had been when I had been staring Nadeen down.

All this was, of course, accompanied by a series of sickening crunches and pops, in addition to not an insignificant amount of pain. I had realized early in my attempts at mastering this new ability that while shifting my body parts around at random while fighting was useful, it also hurt like hell, and made it difficult to focus on fighting. This new arrangement was my first attempt at a semi permanent form - made to look like a scorpion.

I quickly reached down with my ‘tail’ to the side of Thing Two’s bags, taking a firm grasp on the blade Thane had used to nearly murder me. My muscles rippled and tightened as I accustomed myself to controlling them all over again, and slowly, I crept forward into the cave.

“For the record - I hate this.” I said, still not fully on board with invading the creepy murder cave.

“I… don’t have much love for it myself…” choked Nadeen, clearly resisting the urge to gag. I turned my head to look at her and understood immediately that she was talking about me and not the cave.

“Sorry.” I offered, before crawling forward once more.