Once again, the taste reminded Serenity of curiosity. For a moment, he almost understood it, before it dissolved into energy and joined his healing pool. It wasn’t just mana touched by an affinity, it was something more.

  That was why it tasted of curiosity. It was still connected to what it was, what it had been.

  Serenity was about to tell Russ that he couldn’t imitate the remnant usefully for a non-mage when he suddenly felt something shift. His healing pool felt different. It felt like curiosity.

  As soon as he realized that, Serenity’s attention snapped to inside himself. It was the fastest he’d managed it since his return through time, but he didn’t notice the speed. Instead, what he noticed was a dark stain spreading in his stomach.

  He’d trusted his body too far. It was losing to the foreign magic.

  Liminal Void had separated it before; he reached for that Affinity and recklessly used it inside himself. The way liminal magic worked, it needed a boundary at the same time it reinforced the threshold, so he defined the border as his stomach. Containment was the first step; he needed time to think. He’d never seen magic behave this way, almost like it was alive.

  He could feel the strange magic as it explored the limits of the cage he’d enclosed it in. It still felt more like something alive than like magic, and suddenly he realized that was partly true.

  He knew it, and it knew him.

  It was a being of magic, more an idea or a thought than a being; neither sentient nor sapient, yet it had Intent. The Intent of this one was simply curiosity; that was why it tasted of an idea. It was a mere fragment of the whole.

  It was a voidling. It had to be. Vengeance had learned of them at Blackthorn; they were supposed to be the least harmful inhabitants of the Void, if there was such a place that could be lived in. From what he was feeling now, Serenity wasn’t even confident it was truly alive; there simply wasn’t enough to it. Whether or not it was, it acted alive.

  He started to reach out and explore it and nearly dropped the liminality barrier before he realized it was the thing’s curiosity influencing him. Yes, he was normally very curious, but it had already shown itself to be more dangerous than expected.

  As he fought down the impulse, Serenity suddenly realized that even though he hadn’t let anything past the border, everything including his body had vanished and his awareness was embedded in a mana that glowed slightly in a color that was such a deep purple that it was nearly black.

  You are.

  Serenity would have blinked if he’d had eyes. He was certain he’d just heard someone speak, even though he didn’t seem to have a body. He felt like he probably should be panicking, but it seemed like that also required a body.

  I am.

  You are.

  Yes, someone had definitely spoken. It wasn’t like speaking to the Voice, but Serenity knew his experiences with the Voice were helping him. Being in a featureless void with no body and only a voice for company was not new.

  Who are you?

  I am.

  I am called the Void. It is not an accurate name.

  I am. I am me. I am We.

  You are. You are you.

  Are you we?

  The void? That wasn’t concerning at all.

  Why am I here?

  You called.

  I called? What are you talking about?

  You reached out to a voidling with the very portion of myself it embodies. Where any voidling is, I am.

  Voidlings are pieces of you?

  Yes and No. I am. My voidlings are me. My voidlings are we.

  Your voidlings are you?

  That didn’t make Serenity feel any less confused.

  It was just magical residue. Does that mean you’re in all sorts of residue?

  Traces are reality. Residue is the object.

  Serenity had the feeling that this “Void” didn’t actually know what an object was. It definitely saw reality differently from how Serenity saw it.

  How do I go back?

  You called.

  Few call. Fewer see.

  Most leave something behind.

  You are. Most are not.

  Mine. We.

  Ours.

  Indulge us.

  Call.

  I am.

  Serenity had no idea what it was saying. It wanted him to come back, maybe? There was definitely something about him not being “most”, whatever that meant. It was trying to express an idea Serenity didn’t have in words that didn’t quite work.

  Serenity was sure he could understand, if he just listened harder. There was something about it that reminded him of the time at the end of it all, the time after the Final Reaper won. Perhaps if the Final Reaper listened, he could understand.

  No.

  Serenity was not the Final Reaper, and he never would be again.

  You are.

  Be.

  Serenity could see the outside world again and feel his body. For a moment, he felt relief. Whatever had just happened, it was over.

  What he’d just seen matched some of the ramblings in the book on the Void, and Serenity was confident he’d finally figured out the problem; the Void wasn’t one thing, it was many things. Some of the entries had said as much, but he hadn’t really understood until now. Void was a very bad term for it, because it meant different things to different people.

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever have realized that without this experience; so many of the entries in the book made more sense now.

  He was pretty sure he’d just been talking to one of those forms of “the Void”; it was a being, rather than the place or magic he’d always thought it was. At the same time, “the Void” was many beings, and it was also a place with its own magic. No, not only its own magic; its own laws and rules. Rules that weren’t entirely compatible with reality as he knew it.

  Serenity was so caught up in his own thoughts that he barely registered Russ’s words. “That definitely got my attention but it wasn’t what I meant-”

  Thinking about rules of the creature of Void made Serenity feel ill.

  No, it wasn’t just that.

  Serenity grabbed for the door handle and barely made it out of the car before he was violently sick.

  The next thing he knew, Serenity was on his hands and knees in the grass next to the parking spot, kneeling over a surprisingly large puddle that glowed slightly with a purple light that was so dark it was nearly black.

  [Void merge rejected]

  [Voidling Species evolution rejected]

  [Voidling heritage recognized]

  [[Food for Power] and [Heal (almost) Anything] have become [Amorphous Restoration]]

  [Amorphous Restoration]

  Why should a cut matter when a body has no fixed form?

  Turns energy into whatever the body needs, wherever it needs it. Can convert physical mass to energy; increased purity or organization or interest improves the conversion.

  Serenity knelt there for a moment. He felt better, but the puddle was much, much larger than the tiny bit of residual magic he’d swallowed. The messages told the rest of the story - he’d almost messed up badly.

  He didn’t feel amorphous; he felt like himself. His arms and hands looked normal, as best he could tell. The only shapeshifting that felt available was to change back to his dragon form, and he certainly wasn't going to do that here.

  “Hey, are you alright there?” An unknown voice interrupted Serenity’s self-reflection. He started to look, but there was movement where there shouldn’t be any and he turned back to the puddle.

  The puddle in front of Serenity moved again, and this time he felt a wash of emotion. It was curiosity and … not quite loneliness. It was more like alone-ness.

  Serenity reflexively Analyzed the puddle.

  Voidling, Curiosity (Fragment)

  Created to be one piece of a larger whole, voidlings embody a portion of the will of the Void. The Voidling of Curiosity is one of the most likely to be called from the Void and forced into the form of its summoner’s desires.

  This fragment was left behind when the rest of the voidling was dismissed. Unusually, it has taken the first step in becoming its own being: it has separated itself from its creator. A voidling is not made to be alone; a voidling that has separated itself from the Void almost always finds something that reminds itself of what it once was to attach itself to.

  It is naturally amorphous both physically and mentally, but will grow to become what it learns, though it will never fully shed its origin as a creature of Curiosity.

  Oh. That was what it was. It was magical residue: it was Intent. In this case, the Intent was Curiosity. The Void was curious.

  Serenity wondered if that was why it had talked to him.

  The description also answered why so many void summoners could call something different from what others called: whatever they called was shaped by them, not naturally in that form. Serenity wondered if this explained more about summoning than he’d known; was it possible that many more summoners used the Void than just those known as Void Summoners, but imposed what they expected on their summons? Was the reason Void Summoners called crazy, unnatural beings the result of the summoner rather than a difference in the being?

  Serenity was grateful he’d never been a summoner of any sort.

  If this item could easily be used to summon creatures that were shaped by the summoner, it would also explain why Rissa was so insistent that no one needed to have it. Some true horrors could happen that way, especially if the summoner summoned something they couldn’t control.

  The puddle - no, the voidling - moved again. This time, it clearly reached out for Serenity, extending a pseudopod towards his hand. He let it touch him.

  It felt a little cool, more like touching a fresh leaf than the slime he’d half-expected. There was a feeling of together-ness and comfort. It somehow reminded him of a cat purring, and for a brief moment, he’d have sworn it was a tiny kitten clinging to him instead of an amorphous blob.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” The unknown voice sounded a little closer this time. “You don’t look quite well. And … is that a slime?”

  This time, Serenity looked up. He didn’t even need the tracking spell active to see the residue on the man who stood there; it was nearly as obvious on him as it was on the voidling in front of Serenity.

  As Serenity stood up, he felt the pseudopod try to grab him, but it seemed like it didn’t know it needed to wrap around something to hang on. Serenity watched it fall, and the pseudopod landed on his right boot. The entire voidling seemed to bulge upwards before it sprang through the air to join the pseudopod on the boot. “No, it’s not a slime.”

  “Huh. Looks like what I always thought they would, and since I heard there were some now…” the man trailed off.

  It didn’t look at all like a slime. The magic was completely different, and Serenity had never seen a slime move that way. They sort of oozed; more advanced slimes could roll and some could even manage pseudopods that could pull the slime across a gap, but he’d never seen one jump.

  The shape was sort of like a slime, admittedly.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Thomas! Are you…” Rissa’s voice trailed off.

  Serenity paused internally. She’d called him Thomas. She was either really worried or she was trying to tell him something. “I’m fine.”

  Serenity glanced around. His door was still open, as was Rissa’s. He didn’t see her parents anywhere, which meant they were probably still in the car.

  The voidling grabbed Serenity’s attention again by tightening around his boot. Serenity leaned down and picked it up. As soon as he touched it, there was a sense of “not-alone-happy” that he knew had to be coming from the little thing.

  It was strangely cute.

  Serenity started to put it in a pocket, but realized that would make the voidling unhappy. It couldn’t tell he was there if there was something between them.

  Serenity looked directly at the voidling. “You’re more trouble than you know.”

  All he felt from it was happy-not-alone, followed by a hint of curiosity.

  Serenity shook his head and set it on his shoulder, just under where his wing wrapped over the body armor.

  He couldn’t think of a better place, but apparently the voidling could. It slid down his back a little, until it came to rest in the joint where his wing met his back. It seemed comfortable there, and Serenity turned his attention to the void-touched man in front of him.

  The man was staring at him with his mouth open.

  It's Status time. I'll list the changes next to each section title. There aren't that many, since the last Status was recent.

  General: None

  Magic: Void (Liminal) and Void (Nihility) changed to Liminal and Nihility respectively; Serenity no longer has a "Void" affinity. Both also increased in Concept.

  Physical: Voidling, Curiosity added to Chimeric Heritage section

  Abilities: Food for Power and Heal Almost Anything removed; Amorphous Restoration added