39 Summer 516
Sitting in his room on the edge of his bed, Clyde stared down into a hand mirror and inspected his face.
With his one free hand he slowly felt at his face, feeling the texture and touch of the skin of his fingers as they connected with the skin of his face. His face and fingers were two of the things he’d attempted to alter with morphing so far. Pinching at the skin, pushing and prodding at it, he pondered for a moment. He didn’t think anything had changed, didn’t think he was any different than when he started, but he couldn’t be sure.
His memory wasn’t perhaps the best, and he’d never overly focused on his own appearance. He shook his head as he thought on this, Cha clutched in his other hand, as he disregarded the thought. It was at odds with morphing and the mindset he needed for the magic, he knew. If he wanted to get better he needed to forget himself, not place more importance on his current appearance.
Fighting off the momentary bit of fear, and disregarding his instinctive clutching at his current form, Clyde focused instead on a clay doll within his mind. A golem ready to be shaped. It was a featureless lump of clay vaguely shaped like a person, and ready to be shaped into anything. That was as he knew he must become, in his mind if not physically, if he wanted to excel with the magic. He, his soul and mind, were the important things, not his body.
Clyde took a few moments thinking back on his past morphings, his past models and things he’d done and learned. He’d changed the tone of his skin, albeit in a limited range. He’d changed the color and length of his hair. He’d shifted Cha herself, as she was an extension of himself, and made her pliable and loose. He’d even tried to shift his fingers into those of a cats, altering the nails into claws at the fingertips as they had instead of the nails he currently had.
Turning his mind back to his old staff, he recalled the claw marks cut into it, made as he defended himself as best he could by holding the creature in question at bay with the length of wood as he cast a spell to kill it. A zith. He’d met friendlier ones, but he’d also met ones that had tried to kill him.
In his mind he focused on the mental image of Zith claws. They were more akin to a cats claws in how they worked, but not quite the same. They were also longer and sharper, the cats claws more of a tiny prick while the Zith claws were more akin to small blades on their hands. Not cats claws, not human nails, neither but somewhere perhaps in the middle?
Putting down the mirror Clyde laid Cha across his lap, and focused on the image of Zith claws as he began to kneed and feel at his fingertips, focusing on the fingers on his left hand for the intent of the effect he desired.
In his mind he breathed, focusing his djed as he cleared his mind of everything but a candle burning in darkness, and the disembodied hand of a Zith with intact claws.
