After Dawn’s surprising outburst that revealed falling could be fatal, Niphru immediately decided against trying to stand on his own again. He didn’t want to worry Dawn, after all, nor did he want to risk death. Instead, he decided he would only try it if she was there with him and able to help catch him.

  As he made his choice, he told Dawn, and she sat down, wiped her tears away, and hugged him, staying there for several minutes. Niphru thought about it further as she held him, and realized he had grown so aced to their bond that he couldn’t even imagi having it there.

  While he already thought proteg Dawn was important, this simply hammered home how deeply ected they were, even if they didn’t actively use their mutual e very often. With this thought, Niphru sent a f feeling through the link to Dawn, feeling her rex somewhat as he did so.

  Eventually, they separated, and Niphru asked if she could help him practibsp; Unlike his expectation, she instead shook her head.

  “We’re nearly done here, and with just a little more work, we’ll be able to head bae. The others are expeg me to help. They’d also appreciate your help, if you are willing; we o figure out how dangerous the ke is. None of us fly like you , so we only see the edges, standing at the shore,” she expined as she frowned.

  She then sighed deeply before tinuing, “I don’t like the idea much, because who knows what is out there in the middle—maybe something there could threaten you even in the air. But I promised I’d ask you in the m.”

  Niphru paused for a moment, sidering if he even could do that anymore. He had grown in size a, after all. Before he answered, he stepped up into the air, f barriers of force magic beloaw. As he stepped onto the third ohey shattered, and he found himself falling back to the floor with a light thump.

  “Well, maybe I , maybe I ’t,” he remarked with some amusement before fog on being a smaller fox, feeling his form shift.

  While he was limited in how much of his foxfire he could use, he didn’t think it would affect his normal magid tried his experiment again. This time, he had no difficulty standing oforms he created, and he didn’t feel it would be terribly difficult to keep his focus like this.

  “I think I mahat, Dawn,” he finally answered, pausing a moment before he tinued, “I’ll be very careful, so don’t worry too much!”

  Dawn nodded, still somewhat nervously, and they headed outside, splitting up almost immediately as Dawn headed toward the ter of the vilge, and Niphru moved in the dire of the ke beside it.

  Well before he reached the keside wall, he smelled blood, and sped up. As he arrived, he rexed, seeing several of the vilgers butchering a rge reptilia against the wall, one of them keeping a wary eye oer.

  “Niphru, I was hoping you’d be willing to help!” excimed Viera from just beyond his vision, aurned his head, seeing her wave at him as she pushed herself away from where she was leaning against the wall.

  As he approached, she stated, “I make an orb of light that floats below you and follows the ground, so you should be able to see most of the ke if you run above it. Just be safe, okay? I know you haven’t been around us much, but we’ve been worried about you. If Dawn wasn’t telling us you were okay, we’d have asked Morris to che you.”

  Niphru wasn’t sure how to respond to her statement of worry, so instead, he focused on the first part of her remark, replying, “That sounds like it should work, and I’ll be careful, I don’t want to get wet, let alotacked.”

  Viera frow the ck of respoo the sed half of her words, but sighed, shrugged, and produced the sphere of light that slowly bobbled its way toward him. Niphru oward her and began to jog toward the water, the light speeding up as it followed.

  While the others had supposedly explored the edges of the ke, Niphru felt it best to do a proper job and check everything, so he set off in a circle around the ke. Each time he made a p, he moved inward slightly for his rip.

  Around the e, he mostly saw groups of fairly normal fish, with the occasional outlier, typically abnormally shiny fish, though there were occasional reptiliaures simir to the one being butchered back at the wall.

  Further inward, there were several much rger fish, and when one looked like it was going to try to swim up toward him, with rge teeth visible, he swiftly moved higher above the water. Occasionally, there were glimpses of extremely long necks snaking out from even deeper that often succeeded in striking smaller fish and pulling them back out of sight, but none of those showed any i in the flying fox.

  Even deeper in the ke, he began to see the bodies of those creatures, looking like rge squashed blobs with flippers on the sides. He was surprised by a massive shape swimming by, its mouth open wide as it sucked in water and expelled it through openings on its sides, rge amounts of fish being pulled inside as it traveled. Perhaps it was the same one he had seen several days before in the distance, but it seemed much rger up close.

  he deepest part of the ke, however, the light moved far enough down that he could barely make out anything, only a handful of silhouettes moving through the water. He did, however, feel a sense of danger, and moved even further upward above the water. Not long after, there was a rumble that set the surface of the water dang, and a rge eye opened deep uer, light refleg from it with enough brighto pierce the depths of the ke with ease.

  As he began to flee back to shore, a hissing echoed across the ke, and his hair stood on end while numerous twitg fish floated to the surfabsp; Looking back, he saw the eye close, and the electrical charge in the air slowly dissipated again.

  Feeling he had done enough, Niphru quickly returo the vilge, finding no trace of the body from earlier, aside from a bunch of blood soaked into the ground. Since Viera wasn’t arouher, he tried to remember where the elder’s house was, and headed in that dire. After several minutes of growing irritation, he focused on his nose, not wanting to admit to ahat he was lost.

  It took a while, but he finally picked up the st of Morris and Kel, quickly turning to head their dire. As expected, he found them ihe home, helping direct the as of those who came to see him.

  As Morris noticed him, Niphru saw his eyes widen and realized he was still in his smaller form, not the rger one Morris had to be expeg. Not wanting the man to think he wasn’t himself, he released his grip on his transformation, quickly expanding back to the size Morris had seen him grow to not long ago. Morris shook his head, looked closely at him, and he felt a wave of mana wash over him before the man sighed and resumed speaking to the woman who had bee in line.

  Several moments ter, Niphru found himself having to expin, “It turns out I shapeshift, which is what I’ve been fog on for a while now. I ’t hold myself in the air anymore with how much rger I am, but I turn into a smaller version of myself and keep doing it. I just fot I wasn’t my new normal size because I’ve spent so long at that smaller size.”

  After Morris sighed again and asked why he was there, he remarked, “I was asked to explore the ke, so I did, and most of it looks safe, but there is something huge and scary in the middle. Whatever was there rumbled with enough forake the water jump, and I think it had electrical abilities, because my fur stood on end until I got away. Its eye was also absolutely massive!”Once again, Morris sighed before shaking his head and muttering, “Figures, guess that means only limited fishing from very close to shore…”

  He then raised his voice again and stated, “Thank you for your help, Niphru. We are looking at leaving in another day or two, depending on how long it takes Miana and Thomas to reinforce the well. If you’ve been busy practig your neeshifting, I uand if you want to return to that, but please be ready to help load ear bato the wagons when we do end up leaving.”

  After nodding and assuring him that he would, Niphru returo where he and Dawn were staying. As usual, he knocked on the door before entering, and found the owner of the home sitting there carving something again. He greeted the man before returning to the bedroom and closing the dain.

  Since he still hadn’t mastered it, he decided to practice his bance again, this time only while seated, and more safely. First, he tacted Dawn and informed her of his pn, asking if she was okay with it through their bond.

  “If you promise you stay in the middle of the bed, it should be fihen if you fall, you’ll nd on the bed, and sitting down is much safer than falling from a standing position. Just don’t try to stand!” she excimed in the link, only a minor amount of worry making it through pared to the massive amount earlier in the m.

  Quickly giving his agreement, Niphru leapt up to the bed and shifted bato humanoid form, then sat up and pushed her way to the ter of the bed. By the time dinner came around, she had finally mao remain upright for almost a full two minutes with her arms held across her chest instead of using them for bance.

  Eventually, the door opened, and Dawn walked in, an annoyed expression on her fabsp; As she saw Niphru sitting upright, she rexed a little before remarking, “Why weren’t you answering me? And where were you during luniphru looked up, wobbled, then fell over. After a deep sigh, she used an illusion to reply, “I must have been more focused than I thought; I didn’t notiything!”As she pushed herself back to a seated position, she tinued, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, Dawn.”

  Dawn simply shook her head and sighed before replying, “e on, it is time for dinner; you don’t want to miss that, too! I’d have been a lot more worried if I couldn’t feel your sense of aplishment every now and then…”

  In response, Niphru shifted into a small fox form, leapt from the bed, theuro his true form and followed Dawn out into the vilge.

  Later, after dihey returo the bedroom, and Dawn informed him, “I do have some free time now, so if you want to practice standing, we should be able to do that.”

  With aed nod, Niphru moved toward the bed before shifting bato the humanoid form and pulling herself half onto the bed, like before.

  “From this point, I ushing myself up and trying to stand, so what should I do now?” she asked, looking over at Dawn.

  Dawn nodded before remarking, “At least you were intelligent about that and n to stand in the middle of the room or something… Here, I’ll stand beside you, then you try to stand. When you lose your bance, I’ll catch you, and you try tain your bance.”

  After Dawn had moved to stand just behind her, Niphru attempted to stand, quickly falling forward bato the bed before trying again. Ohird try, she began to fall sideways and was caught by Dawn, who gently pushed her back upright.

  After about two hours of falling in various dires and being helped back upright, Niphru’s practice was interrupted as Dawn stated, “We should stop for tonight. I think we’ll be leaving tomorrow, and we should be well-rested.”

  With a nod, Niphru toppled forward onto the bed, crawled the rest of the , and shifted bato a fox, curling up as he waited for Dawn to prepare for bed.