[center][img]https://see.fontimg.com/api/renderfont4/RRdW/eyJyIjoiZnMiLCJoIjo4NywidyI6MTUwMCwiZnMiOjU4LCJmZ2MiOiIjOTI5NEZGIiwiYmdjIjoiIzM2MjM2QiIsInQiOjF9/UGV0cmE/grime.png[/img][h3]??? — Dilapidated Shack[/h3][@Zeroth][@ERode][@PKMNB0Y][hr][/center]Petra stared at the message box, partially because it was the only thing she could see and partially because there was a fair bit of information for her to dissect there. 

Firstly, ‘universal translation’ supposedly being common in fantasy stories – at least in whatever stories Down had read – was yet another big point in favour of the fantasy logic hypothesis, even if it still wasn’t nearly enough to count as conclusive evidence. What could she do to get more concrete evidence? How exactly does one imperially test whether or not the world follows formal logic? She needed something testable. Perhaps she could think up a list of fantasy tropes and then try to verify whether they applied or not? Petra wasn’t sure.

Pushing the matter aside, Petra turned to Down’s next observation, one that was far more immediately useful; they were in a shantytown – or at the very least something that appeared to be one. Petra supposed that if this world truly was running of some foreign logic, it was entirely possible that shantytowns were somehow natural formations here, but at that point she’d have to start throwing out basic assumptions, so for the time being she decided to go with the far more reasonable assumption; this world had intelligent life in it – beyond her companions and her, that was – and moreover, whatever that life was, it was probably at least somewhat human-like. 

Even more interesting than Down’s observations on their surrounding, though, were their comments on magic and their own Skill. It seemed as though their Skill was also one pertaining to magic, and while they didn’t say specifically what it was Petra was certainly very interested to find out. Did the third person that’d come with them also have a magic Skill? Petra wondered how Down’s Skill would compare to her own. Two examples obviously wouldn’t be enough for her to establish a pattern as to how magic worked, but it’d at least be a boon in helping her make guesses, certainly a lot better than just one.

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Me][code]I think you’ve just got to think about it really hard to use magic and there’ll be a sort of draining feeling once you manage.[/code][/quote][quote= Me][code]Maybe… I’m pretty sure it’s enough to do something at least. There’s probably more to actually doing things properly.[/code][/quote]
Even more than magic, though, the final part of Down’s message was what interested Petra the most. Shapeshifting and gaining abilities from things she ate? There certainly wasn’t anything like that listed on her status, but neither did universal translation show up, nor did anything governed by her biology, so it might be possible. 

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Me]
[code]I don’t see anything like that on my status and I was already eating dirt or something when I woke up which didn’t seem to do anything, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to try.[/code][/quote]
Not long after, Petra was watching her body digest several bugs, along with a not insignificant amount of dirt. At first she’d tried not to think about the fact that she was eating bugs, reasoning to herself that any perceived grossness was only on a superficial level and that is was probably perfectly normal for slime monsters or whatever it was she was. 

Her apprehension only lasted a moment after she engulfed the bugs, however, before it gave way to curiosity, and she stared transfixed at her digestive cells peeling apart the dead insects layer by layer, in a manner that was simultaneously both slow and shockingly fast. No, it wasn’t fast so much as it was efficient; her cells dancing to incomprehensible chemical music, swarming towards the feast for just long enough to tear away and engulf their fill before vacating to digest and distribute their nutrient payloads. 

Beyond watching her digestive processes, Petra was also looking out for any change that might indicate something had happened. No matter how frequently she checked her status, though, there was never once a change to the sheet, nor was there any miraculous moment where she gained access to one of the insect's senses, or method of moving, or otherwise felt any different at all. She tried willing her body to take the shape of one of the insects she’d digested with all her might, but unsurprisingly, that to failed to work. 

Petra mentally sighed to herself. It was about as much as she’d expected, but it was still pretty disappointing. If she’d been able to shapeshift into the things she ate, then it might have been possible to gain a human form… or at least something closer to human than an amorphous blob, since she wasn’t quite yet up for eating people. Hell, if she’d been able to gain a bug's abilities, that might have at least solved her vision and movement problems… Wait. 

…

Petra paused – or at least she imagined herself pausing, considering her body was already more or less as still as it was going to get. She wasn’t so lucky as to gain some mystical ability to steal creatures abilities just by eating them, but she did still have magic. Magic that supposedly operated on biological systems. Could she emulate something similar? 

Petra focused her attention on one of the as yet less digested insects within her. She observed the insect as a whole for only a moment, before zooming in on the structure she was interested in; its eye. Petra had a pretty decent idea of how a human eye worked, but unsurprisingly the compound eyes of an insect were quite different, more specifically, they were a hell of a lot more complicated. 

Perhaps if the insect were still alive and its eyes hadn’t already been partially digested, Petra might have been able to figure out some of the underlying mechanisms behind its eyes, as it were now though, she figured she had little chance. That was okay though; she wouldn’t need the whole eye for the idea she wanted to test. 

Delving deeper into one of the ommatidium that made up the compound eye, Petra closed in on the part she was looking for. While a lot of the insect’s eye was fundamentally different from a human one, Petra was glad to see that at least the most fundamental components were more or less the same. Petra flexed her will once more, uncertainly straining her thoughts until she felt the magic give in – the draining sensation picking up ever so slightly –  and with any luck, directing her digestive cells not to consume the rod cells at the back of the insect's eyes.

Petra patiently waited until the rods were free-floating before continuing her work. Somehow the effort of actually moving the rods towards her exterior was far more draining than actually liberating them in the first place and while the draining sensation itself grew no worse with time, Petra began to feel what she could only describe as an aching in some metaphysical part of herself; an ache she was pretty sure was connected to her use of magic. Or perhaps overuse of magic? She refused to stop quite there though.

Identifying one of her own sensory cells – one of the multitude of chemical receptors she was pretty confident was part of her ability to taste and smell – Petra forced the thing to disconnect itself from the nerve it was attached to through sheer force of will, before attempting to implant one of her sequestered rods in its place. Her first attempt at getting the cell to connect failed, or at least it failed to produce a functioning result, as did her second and third attempts. If moving the rods throughout her body had given her a headache, then this task was giving her the beginnings of a migraine. 

It didn’t matter though, because on her fourth attempt Petra actually succeeded at getting the cell to attach to the nerve properly and suddenly she could see. Not see in any useful sense of the word – a single rod certainly wouldn’t be enough to do that, nor would completely covering herself in the things for that matter; she’d need to figure out more complex eye structures for anything like that – but it was sight nonetheless. A tiny pinprick of light, visible only for the fact that it encompassed the entirety of Petra’s ability to see, nothing more than a single data point informing her of the presence or absence of light. 

Feeling surprisingly emotional at such a tiny change, Petra gave one last push with her magic, commanding her newly minted sensor to start dividing, before finally dropping her magic. 

Petra realised that pushing her magic as she had, had been a very stupid thing to do considering her lack of understanding about what exactly she was doing; for all she knew souls were real and she’d just irrevocable damaged hers, or maybe she’d just barely survived and another moment of pushing would have killed her. Even if it were ‘safe’ Petra was certainly feeling the consequences of her actions, an impossible to describe aching sensation in a part of her being that she had not previously been aware of and didn’t particularly want to be now. 

Even as Petra mentally berated herself for her bad decisions, she would have smiled if she could. She’d already told herself she’d fix her hearing, but now she was almost certain that she could, and more than that, that she could fix her whole body. Her understanding wasn’t nearly good enough yet, and if it had taken this much out of her to steal just a single cell she hesitated to think what it’d take to build an entire human body, but even so, with enough time and effort, Petra was sure she could figure it out. 

[quote][b][code]Contacts: "Down"[/code][/b][/quote][quote= Me][code]I can do the stealing thing with Biomancy! I was only able to take a single cell for now, but I can do it! Oh and if you are going to do magic try not to push it too far. This is kinda painful.[/code][/quote]