You're Roommates Until You Get Your Life Together

Today is the tenth day since I first met Geiger. He is an accommodating fellow, a real stand-up guy. Sometimes I wonder if I have the better end of our deal. Although I proposed the original, Geiger’s wording is considered the final say between us. “I’ll find someone for you to work with. It’ll give you a real purpose in life and make me feel like I’ve done my part for the both of you. Until then, I’ll give you a place to stay, and you’ll do some chores for me. And we both agree you can feed yourself, right?”

He keeps a big iron bucket under a wooden counter next to his stove. He rarely uses it, except to clean things. As such, it’s probably one of the cleanest places in the house, where I’m happy to be resting. It sure beats dusty stone and leafy ground. In exchange I help out with cleaning and managing Geiger’s dried herbs and meats. The dried herbs range from spices to medicinal **** to recreational ****.

Geiger has a garden for most of his herbs. Turns out a lot of recreational **** aren’t illegal yet. Not yet anyway. For some of the others he goes out into the woods to pick them up. The illegal ones, I imagine. I don’t really bother helping him find anything, he seems to have a system for it. I thought about maybe bringing back some of the prey I hunted up in my spare time, but I find I often just want to eat the meat I scrounge up. I have been recruited to help out with grinding up the leaves. It’s a simple process, and Geiger finds the speed of my work incredibly convenient.

It’s nice to know I’m not a complete burden. It makes me feel better for ignoring Geiger and whatever he’s doing to fulfill his end of the bargain. Most of the day I’m out and about, finding more things to eat and daydreaming about memorizing some of these spells. I have noticed, however, that Geiger seems to be screening people to come see me. He has a genuine interest in getting me out into the world with someone who will take care of me. He seems to be having little success. It’s no surprise, as I don’t think he wants to mention some mysterious slime monster in casual conversation. Still, he has made surprising progress in so little time. He had even brought someone back to his house for introductions. It didn’t work out, but he still tried.

Madame Hera Killian is a little old lady who apparently lives on the other side of town. I am told she has no family that lives around here, and she makes a living by weaving and doing sewing repairs. Geiger had told me she was coming down, and I should pay attention to decide what I thought of her. She is quite healthy for an old lady, and she seems full of energy. I also do not want to meet her. Regardless of whether the two supermagical beings that brought me into this world would be pleased with me hanging out with an old lady, it sounds super boring. Besides, Killian herself made a good point.

“I don’t mind living alone,” She said. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to hold anyone back by having them look after my old bones. People young and old need to go out and live their life, do some cool stuff in the world.”

She seems like a cool old lady, but she doesn’t want anyone looking after her. Geiger, understanding everyone’s hesitance, promptly dropped the matter. Now, instead of trying to find a local for me to settle down with, he's trying to get me on the road with someone from out of town.

To that end, I have been to town once. Once we figured Geiger could tote me around in his bag he showed me the way to Berkolsen. Geiger went around peddling his wares, black bags for spices, green bags for ****. He later told me this wasn’t his usual route, as he didn’t want me being seen. I imagine it’s frustrating for him, trying to find a place to send me when neither of us want me seen.

I have a lot of spare time these days. I haven’t slept more than four hours in these ten days, and I’d call what little rest I got more of daydreaming and spacing out more than actual sleep. It seems when I’m not deliberately engaged in a task my mind and senses start to branch out, casually observing things until it finds something to do. Usually it’s eating something, but any involved task will take some attention. So, either I’m doing something, looking for something to do, or half-awake. I haven’t slept since my dream with the twin goddesses.

In the meantime I’ve been practicing my disguises, my modular form. It turns out, making a genuinely convincing approximation of any living thing is a real challenge and requires a lot of practice. I can generally mimic the shape of anything stationary (whoop-de-doo), but the moment I try to move my disturbing nature becomes obvious. I thought I could maybe approximate some clothes, but Geiger doesn’t want to go around with extra layers until later in the season. At least, no extra living layers.

The most progress I’ve made has been by studying the small game I’m eating. I often take a long hard look at whatever it is I’m chomping down on. That’s how I manage to make statuesque representations of rabbits and voles. Well, and snakes, but snakes are easy.

It is during one of my meals I finally make a breakthrough on my shapeshifting. Without going into too much detail, I’m playing around with my food and I realize that muscle is not a solid mass. Instead, a muscle is made up of many long parallel fibers, which work together to impel motion. This whole time I’ve been flopping around, holding myself up and forcing myself into a shape. If, however, I make some cords out of my slime-flesh, I can use them to support each other. I try to make fine cords for muscles, but I fail. Instead I make my body into several thick ropes wrapped around each other. It is today, on this tenth day, that I finally mold myself into something human in appearance. At least, at a cursory glance.

I take the chance to walk around for a while. You know, like someone would do for fun. Walking around on two feet fills me with confidence. I feel oddly secure for the first time since I came to this world. I am becoming more and more familiar with this monster body, but part of me still remembers being human.

I never feel I miss my old life. Still, it’s nice to remember that I was once something more substantial than a pile of sludge.

I feel energized by my new stature. I feel more free, like I can go where I want. I want to try something new for a change. I’ve had plenty of time to get comfortable in this new world. If I do nothing now, when will I do something with my life? I want to avoid anything dramatic, but I want to look around. Maybe if I take a peek into town I can make better progress than Geiger. What does he know about me anyway? He’s not my dad!