Nothing pulled all four chunks of Pelos up against their body, the homunculus looking up at Lindle expectantly. He looked back at them, hesitating.

  “I know we’ve discussed this dozens of times, but are you sure I need to mush you up?”

  Yes Lindle. My Ethos needs to be mixed in with all the Pelos we’re using as you mold my final body.

  “Yeah, I know… just feels weird. It’s gonna look like I’m crushing you.”

  I’ll be fine. The Ethos holding my mind and aspects are all stabilized. All you’ll be able to do is move them all into the right places.

  They called the aspects Lindle had crafted theirs already, a good sign that they had bonded well. That reminder helped cool his nerves, and he put his hands around his friend.

  “Alright, um… here I go,” Lindle said awkwardly before squeezing. Nothing’s face and body deformed as Lindle smashed the four chunks of Pelos together into them. He massaged the mass of black clay-like material until it was a single ball. Even though they no longer resembled anything living anymore, Lindle still felt his connection to Nothing.

  “All good?” He asked.

  Yep!

  The Pelos ball wriggled a little. Letting out a small breath in relief, Lindle moved to check on the aspects, confirming that they were unchanged as well. Everything seemed good, so he began sculpting.

  It had taken a long time for Lindle and Nothing to puzzle out what the homunculus’s complete body would look like. The most important piece was to create something that Nothing would be able to identify with. Even with the additions of aspects to allow for limited shapeshifting, they would need a base form to attach their sense of self to and to which they’d return. This meant that Nothing had taken the lead on the design standpoint, Lindle mostly only contributing ideas and suggestions.

  When Lindle had suggested making Nothing a humanoid body, they had shot him down almost instantly. Not only would making anything larger than a human toddler be far above his limit, but a humanoid form didn’t appeal to Nothing whatsoever. It was apparently a preference hard-coded into almost every homunculus, whatever that meant. So, instead, they had looked to nature and monsters for inspiration.

  They had flipped through various ecological manuals provided by Humphrey detailing the anatomy of different common monsters across the Glacial Reach, and Thalia had volunteered a couple of uses of her [Wildshape] Skill every so often to turn into various small animals. Nothing had been uninterested in the majority of feline and canine animals, though they were taken by a few physical features of foxes, such as the ears and tails. They went through birds, reptiles, amphibians, hoofed animals, and monkeys, but when Thalia had turned into something called a porcupine, their interest had been piqued.

  As a base, it wasn’t exactly what they wanted, but Nothing had asked Thalia to turn into any other relatives or similar animals to it she could, and after a few similar animals, Thalia transformed into a hedgehog. As far as Lindle knew, they only lived in the fourth True Grove, the grove in the Cycle before the one Glacerhine currently occupied, so that meant they wouldn’t be able to find a real one to use as a reference, but Thalia had been okay with letting Lindle sketch and inspect her hedgehog form, even if it was a bit embarrassing asking her to make various poses for him as a small animal, and then later making clay sculptures of her based on those sketches. At least she liked them enough to take home afterward.

  That was all to say, Lindle’s hands were moving in practiced motions as he molded the ball of Pelos into the shape of a quadruped animal with a round body, the frame being the first thing he made. There were several noticeable differences to a regular hedgehog present. The legs were a bit thicker and longer, better able to support them in vertical movement such as climbing. The neck was longer too, the head having a more distinct separation from the body. Instead of their hindquarters in the typical rounded shape, they had a wide, flat tail that extended out like a pangolin's.

  The head itself probably had the most obvious difference, where instead of a stout face and the rounded ears of a hedgehog, distinctly vulpine fox ears sat atop an overhanging round shape like a hat over the top half of the head. Essentially, Nothing had wanted their head to have a mushroom hat with fox ears poking out. It was a convenient place to concentrate the fungal and devouring aspect, so the aesthetic choice went uncommented on by Lindle.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Once the basic shape had been completed, Lindle started on the detail work, especially on the back. Nothing would have quills, sorta. They’d have a forest of quills made of stone and thorns to protect the patches of soil where Lindle would plant the magical herbs Nothing would grow on their back. That left their back a bit bare, but it would be temporary. Until then, Lindle sculpted various small flowers and grasses across Nothing’s back. Thankfully, it required a lot less effort than it would have if Nothing had decided on a more traditional animal body. Fur would have taken hours to detail by itself, but instead, Lindle just needed to make patches of grass.

  The area most thickly covered in stone and thorn quills was the wide flat tail. Nothing would be able to curl into a ball similar to a regular hedgehog, but the mushroom hat would make for a weak spot in the armor, so the tail was designed to be able to cover the mushroom when curled up.

  Bit by bit, Nothing’s body gained more detail and realism. With a sufficient visual to fit his intentions onto, he began to match the various aspects he’d prepared to various parts of the body. The fungal aspect obviously went to the mushroom hat. The plant aspect filled every piece of Pelos he had designed to look like plant matter, and the earth aspect filled everything else. The animation aspect didn’t have any specific part of the body it needed to be linked to, it simply was spread across the entirety of the body to influence how the material acted and not what the material itself would be. He did something similar with the two aspects from the Cackling Tundra Paw, the fur coat aspect covering the majority of the outer layer of the body except for the places where it simply wouldn't make sense, like the paws and mouth, and the stealth aspect spread out as well, though with a concentration in the paws and ears.

  Lindle treated the Moonstone aspect a bit differently. The majority of his intention was to concentrate the aspect internally, forming a ‘heart’ of Moonstone deep inside of Nothing that radiated out to everything else. Thankfully, Lindle didn’t actually have to design any real biology for Nothing, the animation aspect allowed Nothing’s body to behave just like an elementals did as long as they had a core, which their Moonstone heart would act as.

  Lindle used the aspects to designate certain parts of Nothing’s body as specific materials, their eyes being made out of the same gemstone as the elementals' core and the small claws and teeth being made out of the densest stone he could push the earth aspect to use. He pulled from the alchemy and herbalism lessons he had received, imagining fertile soil covering their back and binding roots to give extra stability. Even the inside of Nothing’s mouth was meticulously detailed. Though Nothing would never swallow anything, their mushroom taking the place of a stomach, he used a mixture of carnivorous properties of the plant aspect and the edge aspects leftover from the sensory half of the stealth aspect to give them a tongue that could taste

  Hours passed, the manual work many times less mentally demanding than the aspect work, but the focus needed and tedium added up, Lindle drawing on both Res and Con to keep himself pushing as time moved in a blur. Eventually, Lindle realized he was adding definition to a grass blade that was already perfect. He looked over Nothing’s body. He did it again. It was… done?

  An amused chuckle passed through their bond.

  In my opinion, it would have been enough about half an hour ago. The transformation to real matter would have smoothed out the edges, but you were so focused that I couldn’t bring myself to pull you out of your flow.

  Red tinted Lindle’s cheeks, but it was overshadowed by the excitement he felt flowing from the both of them. “So… you have something picked out? I think you’ve definitely had enough time.”

  The last piece of the puzzle, Nothing deciding on their true name. The placeholder Lindle had picked out months ago in the dungeon had long since transformed into something like a real name in both their minds, but whatever loophole in their nature as an unfinished Ethos being that permitted the title had thankfully held anyways. Perhaps it had only been the initial intention behind it that mattered, but even so, their true name was a necessary component to complete their identity now that they had a vessel to contain it.

  Yes… I certainly have.

  The Pelos sculpture shook a little, having attempted a nervous sigh. Lindle remained quiet, letting them take their time. Slowly, a resolve radiated from the little homunculus, growing into a conviction.

  My name… is Notwick.

  Lindle grinned widely. “Notwick,” He echoed back, naming them. Lindle then deactivated his Skill, and there was a flash of light.

  Lindle raised a hand to help block out the light as he watched the black Pelos transform into pale stone and clay, white grass and flowers. The sculpture twitched before they moved a paw. They stretched their back, and their eyes opened. In front of Lindle, standing on four legs, was a complete, living homunculus.

  Notwick’s eyes swished back and forth, their animalistic face somehow still perfectly conveying wonder. Their muzzle opened. A soft voice came out. “Lindle?”

  Lindle’s grin twitched, and before he could stop himself, he parroted Notwick again, raising up both his hands cheerfully. “Lindle!”

  The hedgehog looked at Lindle incredulously for several seconds, before they started giggling, with Lindle joining them as they both broke out into shaking laughter.