Vela

[Vela Nanashi]

Arch Druid Calandor:

I feel a powerful ripple of what at first feels like fey magic wash over me, but it feels not quite fey, I enhance all my senses and the fake fey energy hides aberration, abomination, unnatural energies, they are helping life, but also changing it in unnatural ways, disease, death, is being pushed away. I see colours becoming more vibrant around me, all scents too, and the climate is shifting, warmer, more humid, yes currently welcome as we have had a bit of a drought. I sense one of the most intense near me concentrations are toward a swampy old battle field. I shape change to an elk and head my way there carefully, keeping my eyes open.

I see strange rainbow coloured butterflies flutter past me, they shine like tiny stars of eldritch magic, but I don't think they can be the real source of this problem, they seem very passive. As I enter the swamp lands I hear crunching bones, and screeching crunching half rusted metal armours and soon I see the source of the sounds.

It is an elk with eldritch violet eyes, crunching through a full plate helmet, it shines with eldritch energies.

I shape change back to my elf form and I want to understand this corruption of the natural order, so I enhance my senses fully with true seeing and I yelp as I see the truth. The elk body is real flesh, but infested with tendrils of eldritch ooze inside the head and along nerves and digestive tract, and in the head is a crack and as I look at it I see an enormous ocean of eldritch energy in a dimension beyond that crack in reality. I see tendrils of energy connecting it to many other cracks in reality all around, every single butterfly, and tendrils of energy reaching into the ground.

I must stop this invasion of corruption, the elk is looking at me as it chews a rusty sword showing no fear. I call on all the power of nature to push away this invading outer realms being, and anchor reality to slam closed the cracks centered on the elk.

I see the horrid image of the ooze ocean wink out with the crack in reality in the head of the elk.

The nearby butterflies fall like droplets of sparkling ooze into the swamp water and the elk's eyes flicker and its body twists, it shrieks a horrifying howl and I see the ooze rapidly consuming the flesh and bone of the spasming and screaming elk, its bones snapping and twisting as it collapses into the water. The trees nearby fall toward the swamp and the ground under my feet turns even more liquid feeling, I summon the power of the storms and a vortex of clouds form above and I start raining lightning down at the tendrils of ooze showing up from under the water and the lighting grounds into the writhing mass of ooze as the water drains away, I scream and tendrils rapidly envelop my body. I cry out from immense pain.

Vela:

I flinch as a tiny part of me is severed from my body, I look with my nearest butterflies at what happened, a storm forms above the swamp where I was feasting on the ancient dead warriors, I see a huge ooze mass forming and rapidly consuming the whole battlefield, I can't control that part of myself, it is severed from me and it clearly reverted to wanting to eat everything fast.

I drip down my nearby butterflies and rapidly flood out of them forming a wall of my own self, and I send an imploding tidal wave of my true self, my ooze toward the ooze that once was a swamp and once was part of me, it lashes out against me, our membranes rend each other and it tries to avoid me enveloping it the ground shakes violently and a chaotic magical storm erupts around the swamp, trees ignite and twist, cracks form in reality and elemental energies are ripped from the elemental planes, meteors, lighting, fire, water, tornado, ice, radiant and necrotic energies, other lesser aberrations explode out like tiny droplets from the nearby dimensions as reality cracks and crumbles. My raw energies erupting and mingling through the ripped membranes as we fight, the earth shakes violently and magma starts to erupt from the fissures in the ground below the fight.

This hurts so much, but I can't let a tiny fragment of me consume this world, I flood more and more of myself through my growing rifts into my pocket dimension and finally envelop the fragment and shred its membrane fully and consume it, but I can't stop, I must consume all the other aberrations around me and try to mend reality and set magic to be more like it was. The weave is destroyed in a huge radius and I don't really know how to mend that, the fissures erupting magma into me I seep into and I form a large lake of my own ooze to contain it from erupting, I seep through the many rifts leading elsewhere and once on both sides I create a rift to my own dimension on both sides and push the edges of the rifts closed and consume the scars left behind.

The chaotic magical storms fade and soon I have consumed all the lesser things, I work on integrating the memory of the fragment into my greater self, it hurts, so very much, I nearly lose control of my own hunger again, but once all the memories have been fully integrated and drawn back inside my own dimension that calms down. I am now hunting in many new planes, burning forever in the glorious infinite plane of fire, basking in eternal radiance and hungry energy that still nourishes me, I swallow mountains of earth and rock, drink oceans of water, and inhale unending air, creating a vortex around myself.

I create the closest approximation to a weave I can around my lake and all the way out until my weave tendrils caress the tattered edge of the normal weave and I weave myself into it far enough that I am sure I can safely tug it a bit around the wound and hold it securely.

I enter a deeper slumber as I try to understand what happened, I was a happy elk eating a sword, watching an elf male, a druid, he was using magic to see beyond the flesh, into me, and then I lost myself and became scared, and oh so hungry, severed from the bulk of me, tiny again, most of my memories lost, I fought with all my tinier selves, until I won and I consumed the elk flesh, the trees, the land, and the elf that killed most of me, sending lighting bolts from the sky into me, it hurts, but can't kill, I consume it, scary larger ooze is trying to surround me, I lash out, must escape, so much pain, the larger ooze is slower than me, but so huge, so much, more flooding around me, it rips me asunder.

I look deeper into the elf's memories, what did it do, it was elf arch druid Calandor, he was trying to restore the natural order, apparently I am helping nature in the wrong way, in an unnatural way, I see what he did that nearly destroyed the world, I examine that magic closely and combine it with knowledge of the star elves, apparently one can collapse portals and cracks in reality using certain forms of magic, but one can fortify portals and stabilize cracks in reality to make that harder, so I work on doing that to all my cracks in reality, as I know that even if just a tiny droplet of me, a butterfly, were to be severed, it can consume the world very fast, but I am not about to leave this world, I want to be here. I am very angry at this elf arch druid Calandor, he did not even think to talk with me, just attacked without saying anything. I know where other arch druids are, I think I need to visit them, make sure they don't destroy the world trying to fight me.

Meanwhile I noticed that Kenneth was distracted when he woke up, looking into the far distance, and I smiled "I want you to go buy alchemy and herbalist ingredients and reagents, and recipes, I want to learn more things, and I need to have a bit of alone time" I create a leather bag of bejewelled pyramids and hold it out to him "spend all of these you need to get at least one of everything, and seeds for plants too if you can, and if there is enough value left over see if you can pay for a place to stay, I will manage to find you later when I am done with what I need to do."

"Are you sure?" Kenneth asks "I owe you a lot. I promised to protect you."

I tilt my head "I need you to do this for me more than I need your protection, also make sure you do some fun things if you can, and tell me about them later?" I peek into his mind as I say these things and I see his mind immediately go to Diana and he feels it is very strange his dream seems to match what I am asking him to do "oh and figure out where we can get one of each dish people know how to make, when I get back to you I will be very hungry."

Kenneth nods and smiles "alright, see you soon" he says and hugs me tight and then heads away.

I watch him leave and melt into the ground.

My raven back in the village has landed in the midden heap and melted into it, and I consume all the unwanted things and transform the midden heap into a garden with all kinds of flowering and fruiting trees and flowers. As well as butterflies and bees of myself to enjoy the flowers.

I create a new raven closest to where the nearest arch druid is and fly toward her domain, under the soil I am spreading as well, but it will take me a day to reach her domain under ground at the rate I am carefully moving, as I don't want to destroy roots and mycelium or other beneficial life.

I spot her facing the sun on a high perch, golden hair filled with beads and feathers and small bones being all that covers her skin slightly as she meditates in the sun. I glide to a landing in front of her and my raven turns into my nymph form, I let my back be toward her as I bask in the sun too, but I say softly "I want to talk with you Miri, I mean no harm to you or nature, and we need to come to an understanding."

I hear her gasp behind me and I feel her quickly cast several spells, but I don't move, if she wants to attack me she can, I will not start conflict with her.

I feel a storm forming over us, crackling of lightning and thunder and she is breathing heavily as she has expended a lot of magic just to get to a point where she feels safe and ready enough for combat to slow down and register my words.

Arch druid Miri speaks up in a trembling voice "why do you want to speak with me eldritch abomination?"

"Because I want to keep your world and nature safe, it nearly ended earlier today because of the unwise actions of arch druid Calandor, as he surprise attacked me and made me lose control of part of myself, I seek to avoid a repeat of that, so I must speak with you and the other druids, and come to an understanding and coexistence" I say.

I feel Miri cast a spell that surrounds me in heavy barbed vines, strong as iron, as the barbs bite into my skin I allow my blood to become my true form and consume her vines before exploding in a cloud of rainbow butterflies fluttering harmlessly in every direction, I emit my version of fey life magic.

Miri yelps "face me and if you want to talk we must be under a zone of truth spell, as I don't trust your words."

I turn to face her, I can see her skin has turned into metallic bark scales of some sort "I accept a zone of truth, you cast it so you can sense that it works on me."

Miri casts the spell and I let it work on me, I could have easily not let it work. She senses it take hold, and also that I could have prevented that. "First what happened with Calandor, if he attacked you, did you fight back?"

I gaze into her eyes "he severed a part of me, and I lost control of that part, and it consumed him, I had to fight that part of myself and consume it to prevent it from consuming the world, but Calandor is dead, had I not lost control maybe he would just have been subdued instead, as I do not want to hurt people. Though I also think it is fair of me to defend myself if someone attacks me, even to the point of consuming them" I say honestly.

Miri's eyes go wide "how did... how did you defeat him? He is an expert on fighting aberrations, he has cleansed the land of all of them."

I shake my head a bit "I am not some lesser mindless abomination at least not anymore, if you dare use true seeing you can look through the crack in reality in my head and see the scale of me, and then tell me if you think all arch druids working together could stop me if I was hostile."

Miri concentrates and her eyes glow faintly green and she stumbles backwards as she looks past my body and she slumps to the ground "please we will do anything you want, please do not destroy or corrupt our world."

I frown a bit "please don't do that" I motion to her shaking in dread "I am not going to destroy or corrupt your world willingly, but there are ways to force me to, and I want druids to not do that, also Calandor seemed to think I was helping nature wrong, so I would like to understand how to help nature right, but I can't promise I will entirely follow that precisely, but I would like to at least understand what I am doing wrong."

It takes all of Miri's willpower to pull herself back together "I don't know what he saw you do, but he lost his family to aberrations when he was a boy, and since then he has done his best to wipe them out, and they are not natural so we approved of that. If what you say is true though, we would be happy to teach you how we want to help nature, but also how we would not want it to be helped, but we will respect at least some differences in opinion if that means we don't get destroyed."

I look more into Calandor's memories and tears flow from my eyes "I am so sorry that happened to his family and village, but none of those were me, but I once was that dangerous, but I ate this nymph's ancient corpse and she taught me living things have desires, want to live, love, eat, procreate, dream, create, learn. Now I want all those things, but I am always hungry, always will be, however I can also not ever be sated, so I am ignoring my hunger as much as I can, it is very hard" my stomach howls as I say that.

Miri brings out some berries from a bag and casts a spell on them and they grow more plump and magical and she offers them to me "these are good berries, a single berry is enough food for even a huge man who works all day and night."

I take them all from her hand and try just one, and it is surprisingly sating for a few moments, like more than the whole boar Kenneth made for me, or five rabbits, or the stag he killed and cooked for me. Without really thinking I pop the berries one after another until they are gone, the flesh is not hungry anymore but my inner self is.

"I can make more" Miri says.

"I can eat other things too, and share nutrients with roots" I explain "dead bodies, rotting things, rocks, anything unwanted" I explain.

Miri looks disgusted briefly "there is some land we would love to have cleansed, but going there very quickly makes us sick and kills us, and anyone killed by that land becomes toxic disease spreading undead" she shakes her head "I am not sure that is safe for you even, but I can guarantee if you clear that land you will make most druids accept your not quite natural ways."

I stand up "I don't know for sure if I can clean whatever it is, but I can try, is it the place that glows blue that Caladan remembers?"

Miri nods "yes, it is an extremely ancient battleground, from before the ancient woods grew over the land, and before most of the land rose from the sea."

That makes a star elf memory dance across my mind "oh yeah, it was the star elf battle to subjugate some fey lords who would not accept servitude" I say.

Miri shudders "I don't know what star elves are, but anything that tries to subjugate fey lords is scary."

"They destroyed the court of the nine ages that existed where that land now is" I say.

Miri looks at me "I have not heard of that fey court, but since you are still under zone of truth I know it must be true what you say..."

I nod "can you lead me as far as is safe for you to take me and then I will see what I can do."

Miri nods and leads me using some enchanted fairy roads to get there quicker "I can't go further than to here safely" she says and stays next to a sickly ancient almost dead oak, worse than dead.

I look toward the blue glow and I have my body erupt into butterflies that flutter out over the land. I see magical tendrils lash onto each butterfly and try to drain life, toxic gasses fill the air and I can sense the weave is corrupted, it will twist almost any magic attempted in this area to do very much the opposite or worse than the caster wanted to do, if the caster is using the weave to do magic. Several skeletons with blue glowing eyes rip themselves from the slimy dead ground and attack my butterflies. I melt into ooze form and rapidly consume the skeletons, dripping into the slimy ground and feel the full force of the ground trying very much to corrupt my life force and make me undead, but I am not alive the same way, I start to draw that corrupting energy into myself consuming it as I consume the slime and corrupted toxic ground, I lash out with tendrils and soon larger tentacles and soon enough I send waves of myself consuming the land, consuming the corrupted weave, it is delicious if what was that word bitter, but not really bitter, but something like it, something that would make Kenneth frown if he tasted it. I prefer eating everything else I have eaten so much more than this. As I eat the corrupted land I am leaving a bare crater behind as I need all the mass and energy to fight the increasingly potent resistance of the corrupted lands.

I sense Miri doing magic at the edges trying to heal the land, that I did not eat and I sense her slightly impacting the sick stuff on the edges. Though maybe I should have consumed that too, for now I will let her do what she wants though.

I flood more of myself out here to speed up my cleansing of the dead land, I find corpses of star elves, many kinds of fey and animals and dragons, this was a huge cataclysm, the star elves recorded it as a victory, but clearly it was not a good victory, even they could not fix the destruction here.

There are a few aberrations corrupted from normal functioning that try to attack me, but they are tiny little morsels, but do struggle against me worse than anything else, even the undead dragon skeletons that attack don't do as much as they. Then I come to where the fey lords bodies are and they awaken and attack, ripping my membrane in several places, but they get destroyed by my raw energies erupting from my wounds, I have to hurry to catch that energy so it does not cause another magic cataclysm. It takes me a whole day to consume the whole corrupted lands, I feel icky after it is all done, I slowly allow my energy and mass from the corrupted land to flow into the real me, making sure to convert it fully to my own type of energy.

Then after I finish that I vomit out earth and rock from the plane of earth, and some pure water from the plane of water, to fill the crater, then I weave my own network of life helping into the soil and kidnap mycelium and other soil life from where I have mingled with it, and form plants to provide a root system until real plants can take my place.

Miri walks onto the land I replaced the dead lands with and I create my nymph body again to meet her.

She looks around at the crazy forest I have made and then to me "these things are all you?"

I nod "yes, but I want help to spread real plants here, I don't want to occupy so much land, I am happier in the roots" I say "so when trees and bushes and all that moves in I will yield the sky and land to them."

Miri smiles "you could have kept all this land yours if you wanted though, it is so much better now, but I need to call the others and make sure they know you did this and that you are an ally of nature and druids" she makes another two handfuls of good berries for me "here you earned this and more, we will all work on spreading the forest into the recovered land."

I smile warmly "that makes me happy, now I think I need a bit of rest" I say as I eat all the good berries, but then I melt back into the soil, I slowly spread in the soil from here, and soon the other spreading edge meets up with this one. I don't really have a concept for how long I rest, I see people enjoy the midden heap garden, and druids, walking trees, and fey all work on the recovered land.

I notice Diana picking some fruit in the garden and she is heavily pregnant and beside her Kenneth walks, they wave to several of my butterflies, and I hear him tell her about me, she blushes and giggles.

[Lucius]

A wonderfully weird Vela origin story indeed! @Vela Nanashi is very good at inhabiting the alien consciousness(es) of the heroine who is a force-of-nature divinity, her impact dwarfing that of a regular storm or a fair-to-middling earthquake.

This being an RA story, Vela the heroine lives the Molotov lyrics:

Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme todo el poder
So I can come around to joder

Sex there is pretty hot!

[Vela Nanashi]

Vela:

I flutter into a region with lots of dead animals, recently dead, and I eat their corpses, and I find cells have ruptured from producing a lot of a virus, it uses the cells of animals to produce its molecular syringe that injects the tiny short scroll of itself into other cells, it is very low cost to produce, and also seems fine tuned to end up a priority in cells it enters, it is more stupid than an ooze, and will quickly destroy all life it can use and then it will die. I spread faster trying to find all the corpses, and I spread in the soil and push tendrils out of the soil that breathe all the air to filter it, and I rapidly deplete the viral particles in the air, I purify the water from these and also check on the plants, none of the plants seem possible to be infested, but a few of them have some of the virus inside just floating around, so I end up having to infiltrate all plants to clean them too, I find the edge of how far the virus had spread and start working my way inward from the edge.

I recreate animals to make sure I can do the roles animals did in the forest, then I end up reaching farmland, and a lot of dead humans, I consume them as well and I learn that this village "Sunny Glade" is a very important food producer for the port city of "North Port", they produce half the grain and a third of the cheese that keeps the city going, and it is particularly dire this year as last year had a bad harvest and there were deaths from famine, so they were working overtime to open up more fields of grain and try to have their cattle and goats and sheep produce more milk so they could make more cheese.

I realize how fragile these humans food production is and famine is a terrifying concept for me, so I recreate all the dead people and animals as best I can, looking into their minds how they do farming and set about doing it, only I don't really need rest, so I can work all day and night, I expand fields, helping the plants from the roots and I make more milk producing animals, they are all me, but I also improve efficiency of digestion and milk production, I will make sure there will be no famine, I grow other food plants that these people know about, to supplement production too. I quickly catch up and pass by the food production goals they had before they all died.

I know that Sunny Glade missed one food shipment, while everyone was dead, and my idea is to make a three times as big shipment when the next shipment is supposed to go out.

Down the old long cobbled road from North Port comes two men riding horses, both dressed in a lot of shiny armours, both with intricate symbols, it takes me a bit of time to figure out what that symbol means, Hector the village elder remembers the symbols. One is a cleric of Themis with scales and a cornucopia emblazoned on his armour and he also has a gold amulet cornucopia. He has two sickles on his belt and a scythe on his back, though they have not been used for harvesting and are decorated in gold and silver and symbols. The paladin's armour is decorated with scales and a cornucopia but also with a rod. He has a more practical pole arm, with a hook, spear, axe head thing. They both look rather serious and tense, the old cleric has some traces of red still in his grey white hair and beard, he has intense green eyes, the paladin is younger, light brown haired, shaved, he has sky blue eyes.

I have Hector move from churning a batch of milk for cheese so he can meet the two travellers, as he is usually who would have talked to them, of course Hector is me, but I have a feeling that it is best that I try to act like he did, as I still remember how badly things went when the arch druid disliked my elk form eating ancient dead and their armour, so I will try to act like the people I have taken the forms of. Hopefully these two men will take a shipment of food back with them.

Hector meets the arrivals at the entrance to Sunny Glade proper "good day be on ye" I say the way Hector would normally greet people.

The paladin and cleric dismount their horses and lead them up to meet Hector, I know Hector would normally cower if two scary men like this got so close and surrounded him, but I am not scared of these men, I am doing what I can to help North Port with their food production, after this village died, so they should have no reason to hurt me, Hector or any of the other villagers.

The cleric speaks up "old man, why have your village not sent food on schedule? You know full well our food stores are diminished."

I decide a partial truth is best "we had a outbreak of sickness, that made us all unable to work for a while, but we are back on schedule, we were going to triple the next shipment. Perhaps you can take our wagons loaded with food to North Port so we can focus on handling the abundant harvest we are having this season?"

The cleric touches his holy symbol and casts a spell, I think it is meant to detect disease, and of course there is no trace of disease anymore after I cleaned the air, soil, water, plants and animals, he narrows his eyes a bit and makes some sort of hand sign to the paladin who tenses up a bit "yes we can take a shipment of food, but our horses need to pasture a bit and have their horse shoes seen to."

I nod "John Smith will gladly help with your horseshoes, and after that you can choose any of the pastures for your horses to pasture at" I say and wave for them to follow as I walk briskly up the road to the blacksmith and stables.

"We can find our way there ourselves" the paladin says "you should go tell everyone to load the wagons" he turns to the cleric "Greg let me take our horses to the smith, you can handle the old man and farmers right?"

"Alright Hank" he says and hands the reigns to Hank.

"That is most efficient" I say happily, and walk briskly with Greg to the wagons, and I am already starting to load the wagons with bags of grain and barrels of fruit and cheese in brine.

Greg looks suspicious as we arrive at the wagons, and I don't understand why, he casts some more magic that tingles a bit and I see him tense up more, but his face relaxes and puts on a false smile that does not reach his eyes "oh good you already are getting started with loading the wagons" he says. I can smell fear from him, hear his heart rate get fast.

Meanwhile Hank reaches John Smith and I had already shaped a fresh set of eight horse shoes that will fit these horses, as I don't want the horses to have to wait for slow crafting before they get to get to eat grass. "Hi Hank" I say "please lead the horses there and I will get their shoes replaced real quick."

Hank gets even more tense, but also forces his face to show a false smile, but I can hear his heart thumping against his chest as his body prepares for combat.

I make some soft horse sounds and the horses stay very calm and let me easily help replace their horse shoes. The cobbled road is really not good for horses, so I weave a bit of magic into the new horse shoes, as I put them on, the horses should now be able to gallop on the cobbled stones without any injury or wear of their hooves or shoes, but also the shoes will smoothly handle the growth of the hooves material and keep them clean.

Hank gets even more tense as he senses my use of magic, but does not attack me instead he says "can you put them out in the pasture near this stable when you are done replacing their shoes? I want to go check on the loading of the wagons."

"Of course Hank" I say and don't turn to look at him, but I sense him leaving.

Hank walks down the road in the wrong direction for joining Greg and seeing the wagons.

I have Gilda stop playing hop scotch and walk up to him "Hank, Greg is with Hector that way" I say and point, he stumbles a step back from me, and then at first briskly walks, but then breaks into a jog.

Hank gets reunited with Greg and they exchange looks and more sign language and Greg cast a powerful magical spell that would keep undead, fey, and most monsters from walking toward them, but it fails to affect me, it tried, but I don't stop moving to load the wagons.

Hank pulls his pole arm and slips the hook part around my, Hector's, neck and Greg casts another powerful spell to cleanse illusions, it does nothing, then he casts the same spell the arch druid cast that let's him see the truth, and he stumbles back from everyone in panic.

"This whole place is infested with horrifying aberrations!" he screams as he loses his composure.

I produce a butterfly from under Hector's hair and have it flutter out and around both of these men and then grow changing first into a raven and then a large eagle, a small dragon and then change shape into my nymph form, both of them shield their eyes, as they know a naked nymph could kill them, but I am not projecting that magic. I remember that humans wear clothes so I sweat some silk that I shape into a silk slip. "I am not here to harm any of you" I say "I would like to explain myself."

Hank, moves his pole arm quickly and points the tip at my neck and nearly cuts my skin with the sharp edge "fey fiend explain what you have done!"

Greg looks at me as well "she is not fey, not a she either, I see her ooze form puppeting all the people of Sunny Glade."

I gaze into Greg's eyes "that is true, I am not fey, I am a shape changing ooze. Do you have the zone of truth spell so you can detect that I tell the truth?"

Greg and Hank are all very extremely scared right now, as they are very surrounded by people that if they were people could easily overwhelm them, but I am not doing any hostile movements, in fact I have Hector pull back and start to help loading the wagons.

Greg nods "I do have zone of truth" he says and he casts it and I allow it to take hold on me and that makes him look confused and slightly calm down "she... it... accepted the zone of truth but could have easily resisted it."

Hank calms slightly too "speak fiend!"

I sigh and I feel hurt by how they treat me "I arrived many days ago to this part of the world, and all animals, including people, were dead, by a disease that I have cleansed from this land, I consumed all the dead and from their minds learned of the situation with your food and last year's famine. Food is very important to me, as I am always hungry, so I wanted to make sure there would be no famine this year too, as I don't want people to die. So I helped the plants in this area grow better and made more animals that produce milk for cheese and I created bodies from all the dead villagers, so I could use them to produce the food the way humans do, using their memories, and I have now made a lot of food, though it is only a fifth of what is expected from Sunny Glade this year, all the people here and animals except your two horses are my manifested forms. I do not understand why you are reacting to me as if I am doing something bad."

Hank pushes the tip harder against me and it cuts into my flesh and that makes me react out of instinct, my blood turns into my natural form and rapidly spreads along the whole pole arm and then I crush it and swallow it and my wound heals. Hank pulls his gauntlet covered hand back and swings at me and I grab his gauntlet before it hits me and squeeze and the metal cries out and then Hank does too.

"Stop attacking me" I say "I do not want to hurt you, but I will not let you hurt me either."

Greg speaks up "Hank stop, we are outnumbered and what I see before me could have killed us already, and is choosing not to, as terrifying as it is, and as vile as its actions have been, it does not understand how it harmed us."

I release Hank's gauntlet and he rolls behind Greg and performs healing magic on his own hand.

Greg then nods to me "you have done many things that are revolting to most humans: First of all you ate our dead, we have traditions about how to bury our dead, and you violated those. Secondly you pretend to be the dead, walking them around like puppets to do your bidding, this is not something a good person does, necromancers might do that, but it is very bad. Third you tried, very badly, to make us believe you were still the people you are puppeting around. Do you understand how those things could be seen as wrong or even scary and vile?"

I look into the villagers memories to try to understand these things Greg tells me and I see the truth in those words from Greg "I... " my shoulders slump "I did not understand that, I am sorry, but if I had just left this village be, you two would be dying from the disease by now, also you would not have any food to bring back even if you survived the disease."

Greg nods "I understand, that you are trying to help in your own flawed way, but I don't think we can accept you puppeting their bodies like this and controlling this village as your own puppet show. No matter how good your intentions."

I gaze into his eyes "but if I leave won't your city starve? These bodies are not the dead bodies I consumed, but shapes made by me, if I leave all you will have is the buildings and plants, I would even have to remove my fruit trees that are me as well. Are you sure you want me to do that?"

Greg frowns a bit "yes, you have to leave. At least I know that the lords of North Port will send soldiers to try to cleanse the village of your presence when we return and report what we found."

My eyes fill with tears as I know that if I leave it is likely they will have a famine again, but I can't stay, I don't want to destroy a whole army of soldiers. "I am sorry, I hope you can get farmers here and make enough food to survive" with that melt all of my forms and erupt in a swarm of butterflies that fly into the forest, leaving Sunny Glade alone, I even withdraw my soil tendrils back into the woods, away from the fields, as I do not want to be sneaky.

Greg and Hank stare at my swarm as it leaves and I watch them from the edge of the woods as they investigate the village and fields and check on their horses, but I decide they are not my responsibility any more. However I also decide I will not ever again hide that a body is mine, every form of me will now have my eldritch violet eyes, sure I may be animals, monsters, humans, but they all will have my eyes. I will also not pretend to be someone who is dead that I have consumed. However I will not stop eating dead I find unattended, I need to learn what I can from the dead so I can help the living.

I hear news later from North Port that they had a famine this year too, not quite as bad as the last year as the fields I had enriched yielded more food than normal, but the lack of the animals for cheese production still resulted in too little food, and less healthy food. So many people died in the famine. Though fewer than if I did not cleanse the disease from the land and try to help with the food, if the virus had made it to North Port everyone there would have been dead too, and not from starvation, so I manage to somewhat accept the outcome of what happened, even if the help I gave was very flawed. In the future maybe I can present as fey from the woods that want to help humans.

[Claire]

So part 4 escalated quickly into an almost world ending threat. I didn't see that coming. I wonder if this will make Vela more cautious. I could see her running into star elves turn ugly very quickly. For the druid, she was just a monster he needed to get rid off. But for the star elves, they might see her a threat to their dominion over the universe and if a bunch of them worked together to get rid of Vela, I could see that conflict become a threat to the universe quickly...

I find also interesting that even being far weaker than Vela can make her lose control over herself or at least part of herself. i wonder if that will come up later again.

I also keep thinking about Kenneth and his infatuation with Vela. Does he truly understand what she is? If it were me, I could see myself be curious about Vela, but never be interested in her romantically. I find the idea to start a relationship with someone whose life span, intelligence, and perception of the world is so clearly superior to my own just odd. Vela being in a relationship with Kenneth feels to me like a human dating a hamster. There can be affection there, even affection that goes both ways, but never a sense of equality.

I'm looking forward to reading part 5 later. I have one suggestion, though. I think the insatiable hunger Vela is suffering from does not come across very well in most of her narration. It is mentioned sometimes, but when she explores the world, I rarely get a sense that she has trouble controlling herself or that she thinks that some living thing she found looks tasty and that she'd really like to eat it, but holds back the urge because she values life. Basically, I think I would like to feel that temptation and struggle a little more.

[Vela Nanashi]

Vela:

I flutter over North Port, high above, I feel a sudden heat from behind myself hotter than the mid day sun, and I just register a roar as I find myself flying between many huge teeth and into an inferno, I catch the fire with my wings, but completely snuffing it out where it was and I illuminate a throat and stomach as I fall into it, it is full of acid and fire. Something actually is trying to eat me? I turn into my true form and easily slip between the cells of stomach lining into the blood stream and start to consume this creature from inside, I notice violent motion, I think it is panicking as I consume it from inside. It is a red dragon, I recognize the genetics, and I am sure it is not good it is flying over North Port. I penetrate into its brain and consume it, the body starts to fall and soon slams into something that partially dampens the fall while breaking bones, I consume fast, but this dragon was rather huge.

My ooze self stick tendrils out between the dragon scales and I grow eyes at the tips of the tendrils, I see people running all over the place, warriors gathering, I swallow the scales and see that a tall tower has fallen due to the dragon's corpse crashing into it, I see a large gilded bell laying on top of some rubble and a person struggling to get out of the rubble. I surge over and through the rubble and lift the building fragments into me consuming them and the bell tolls and shrieks one last time as I crash into and over it and I gently float the broken human child into me, penetrating their flesh and repair broken bones, ruptured blood vessels and once their body is whole again I eject them from my membrane toward the approaching warriors, while I dissolve the rest of the rubble, I see a cleric rush up and check on the child and motion to the warriors to back off.

They all look terrified, and I see my form reflected in their eyes, oh, yes I am a scary ooze tentacle and tendril monster with many eyes, I suppose that is not something they are used to seeing. I evaporate most of my mass as droplets falling into the air above and becoming rainbow butterflies that flutter away, and just keep enough to make my nymph form, and this time I remember that humans prefer to wear clothes, so I make a silk slip and show my palms in a gesture I hope conveys peace. I speak up "I am sorry, I did not intend to come here, but a red dragon swallowed me, so I consumed it, but it crashed into your tower here, I was not in control of its body as it died."

It is only as my nose fully forms that I smell smoke and fire, I spot much of the city burning so I dart with my butterflies towards all the flames and I catch the fire, taking it into my wings and snuffing it out all over the city. My butterflies flutter burning and sparkling in many colours out of buildings and up into the sky creating a crazy light show that draws everyone's eyes up for as long as that last and then I say "I hope it was okay for me to catch and take all your fire, it seemed to have escaped containment."

The cleric who had checked on the child hands the boy to his parents I think, they look similar at least. Then he approaches me matching my hand gestures "whatever you are, you killed the red dragon that got mad we could not pay tribute this year, it started burning everything, and you put out the fire, is there anything we can do in return?"

My stomach rumbles and I shake my head "if food is not as scarce anymore I would enjoy a meal, maybe a few meals, simple things that you personally enjoy to eat, nothing fancy. Also drinks."

The cleric looks at me as if he recognizes me from my description "Greg told us about a creature that match your description, thanks to what you did to the soil in Sunny Glade we have managed to grow a lot more food this season. I am Nathaniel, what should we call you? You are our saviour."

I smile "I am Vela, also if you need help to mend damage from the fire, I can do that too, at least if I get some help with someone who saw the thing that was burnt before it got burnt."

Nathaniel shakes his head a bit "did you eat the watchtower and bell?"

I nod "it was delicious, I had to clear the rubble to help the child, he was badly crushed, I think I healed him though."

"Yes you healed him" Nathaniel says smiling "you even healed his old scars and shorter leg, we were scared you were going to eat him."

The young boy I healed comes up with his parents and holds up a small cloth bundle that is warm "for you."

I pluck the bundle from his hands and open it and inside is a large potato, baked and cut open and filled with butter chives and roe, I take the hot baked potato and hand him back the cloth wrapping and sing my joy of eating it as I eat it in two bites "mmmm so good."

I am the focus of the whole city and they all make sure I get to taste food they like and also have me repair things, even things not burnt by the dragon fire, but I don't mind, it is easy for me to mend materials, even transmute and reshape.

I meet Greg and Hank again.

"I am sorry I treated you so rough, I was scared and did not mean to draw blood" Hank says, but I can tell that is a lie he told himself to feel better.

"No harm done to me, but I am sad you had a famine and that some people still died" I say.

Greg looks more emotionally distraught "yeah... I... that is my fault, not yours, I should have thought ahead more and accepted your strange help. I was however upset about what you had done, but by not forgiving you for that and accepting your help, I caused suffering and death... I can only hope Themis will forgive me."

It takes me a while to gather the memories again "Themis? Your goddess?" I consider a bit more the fey don't have goddesses and gods, the star elves don't either, some humans do, but I don't understand "what are goddesses and gods anyway? Maybe you can tell me of your two goddesses, I am curious to understand."

Greg nods "we can take you to the temple and you can learn of our gods and goddesses, for as long as you want."

"Can I meet them?" I ask.

Greg chuckles a bit nervously "we don't really know where they are, but I get my magic from Themis, and Hank from Dike. Where do you get your magic from?"

I feel confused "gods and goddesses are not possible to meet, but still bestows magic to mortals? My magic is innate to me, I reshape energies to make it happen, who draws power from this" I reach to pluck some strings of the weave to make them sing and become visible in a ripple "this weave" I ask.

"Sorcerers, wizards, and it is said some gods and goddesses deliver their magic through the weave to us mortals" he looks in awe at the rippling weave, but it quickly calms down.

I am led to the temple and there I am fed and every priest, cleric, paladin and disciple gets to tell me the story of their gods and goddesses, and I am even allowed to read the holy texts, I get confused, the various texts are not even self consistent most of the time, and the entities they describe are not described very clearly, I decide to reach into the minds around me to see this divine connection they all say they have, and I see it, it reaches to a large plane I had not seen before and I shift inside my own dimension and direct a crack in reality toward that direction and seep through, and I find a sea of delicious energy and in that sea portals to various realms, and soon enough I flutter my way to each of them. Only a few of them match descriptions from the holy books and stories told to me. However I find the divine beings, that are worshipped at the temple, they either don't care about my butterflies or don't notice me, and I decide based on the stories to just observe them for now, I have no desire to worship them, no need for that, and many of them sound half insane, much more so than the mortals are for me. I find other paths to more planes and realms, and spread to each, I even find the hells some of the texts mentioned.

I am given a home in North Port too, and I become one of the healers, who people go to when other healers can't fix something, I learn how the others heal, and I can do it myself, but as much as I try I can't teach others to heal the way I do, they can't see flesh and bone and cells on that level, they tolerate me consuming their midden heap as well and making it into a garden, some love walking the garden, and I make clear they should still dump their unwanted things in the garden, but they seem to find that wrong even with how quickly I eat those things.

[Vela Nanashi]

Vela:

I sense movement of many people on the ground above me, and it makes me focus a little bit more on watching from my birds and butterflies and bees and other creatures. I see a large group of a species many of those I hold the memories of know as orcs, these are the blue variety, they are known to eat other living sentient beings, and destroy settlements, they also like to humiliate and torture people before they kill and eat them, at least according to stories some people have been kept alive for years just to increase suffering. I have to focus a bit to get a clean picture of where they are heading, since just because two of my forms are near each other does not mean they are near each other in me, unless I put effort towards that. I see they are heading to Diana and Kenneth's village, I saw a sign there that said "welcome to Good Well" they do have tasty water in their well, and more so after I cleared out a few unhealthy microbes and fungi and removed some minerals that humans should not ingest, even if lead does make the water sweet, it is not good, but it was just a slight trace amount, now I have adjusted it to have only minerals that are good for people in it, at least based on what I have figured out from their genetic information, scrolls as I like to call them, but star elves call it genetics, strands, they weave them like they can play with anything else, still learning from all that knowledge I absorbed as a lot is strange to me, just because I remember it does not mean I know it or have talent or skill in it.

I can't allow the blue orcs to reach that village, I will see if they are reasonable and will listen to me. I send one of my butterflies to intercept them in a narrow Ravine they have to traverse, and I think they need to rest in the Ravine before they travel on. I also hate the scar on the land they have travelled, a lot of trees felled, bushes trampled and animals killed for food. Though that alone is not reason enough for me to stop them, humans do that too at times. Even I have done that scale of damage during my fight with a part of myself, but not on purpose.

As I get within visual range of the front two scouts I melt my butterfly and quickly expand and this time I intentionally form the body slowly, growing organs first then, bones, sinew, joints, muscles, skin and finally hair, but I remain naked in my nymph form and make my eyes blaze in eldritch violet as my raven black hair is blown by wind that does not exist in the ravine, and I speak in blue orc language "halt, you will get your leader here to parley with me, or I will consume you" it is normal for them to threaten each other.

They both watch getting their weapons ready and taking a defensive stance as I shape change, one has a really massive axe the other a three tipped spear with a sharp edge below the tip like a sword. They are way larger than my nymph form and are dressed in patchwork leather from many creatures, with woven hair from what I think is people they have killed, decorating their leather, as well as bones, some used as plating and some as decoration.

The axe man licks his lips as he sees my nymph form and advances on me "you an' what army little fey?" I see his cock swelling, but his drooling saliva give me conflicting ideas. He suddenly runs fast and sweeps his axe with the flat side toward me and caves in my left ribcage and my body flies and slams into a pine tree and they both laugh.

I heal the damage and stand up "I do not need an army" I say and send a butterfly from my hair toward him I don't fly like a normal butterfly though but like a fired arrow, and as I land on his face I quickly crawl up his nose and melt in there, I consume his eyes while I burrow through his thick skull and I eat his ears from inside, and his tongue as he screams, his face gets consumed just as I start to eat his brain and his skull caves in and I swallow it and rapidly consume his body. The other scout watches in dread as I remove any trace of the scout and erupt my ooze form as a swarm of butterflies.

"Now... get your leader here for parley or I will consume you next" I say and have my butterflies flutter around him.

I watch as he flinches and tries to dodge as my butterflies flutter around him "I will get leader!"

"Also bring high priest" I add "and any guards they must have to feel safe, though they are not safe."

"Yes mistress!" he says and runs.

I watch him from thousands of eyes and every blue orc in this warband has at least three pairs of eyes on them.

I hate the memories in this dead scout I ate, they are far from home, I can't really tell why they travelled all this way, the scout does not know, he just does what he is told, but he was very excited about torturing some humans and raping and eating them. The more memories I process the less I am sure there is a point to parley with them, but I will give them a chance, perhaps more because I don't want more of their memories, and if I eat them I will have their memories.

I watch as the scout reaches the leader and quickly orders are barked out and everyone gathers up they move in a unified front toward me, I move away from the tree to stand more in the open and face the direction they are coming from and I send the butterflies out into the woods so it is just me here.

Karga their leader steps into the clearing first, the priest has cast several protection spells on him as have some of their other magic users, several humans would have issues breaking through his defences, maybe most fey would too, but if I have to it won't be much of an issue to remove those defences. "You bitch ate Nook?!"

I smile a wide grin and change my mouth to be bigger with a lot of sharp teeth, way too many rows and rows and rows of teeth "this bitch ate Nook and will eat Karga if he does not listen to ultimatum, go home, or get consumed, this land is under my protection."

Karga laughs and grabs a rod from his belt and points it at me and a thin green ray hits my body and I feel the magic enter into all my cells and try to scatter the atoms. Where the ray hits it succeeds but it only blows a hole through my stomach.

I melt and surge forward and all the defences wink out as I envelop Karga, I am enraged, and all my butterflies dart toward the other blue orcs, I erupt tentacles from the ground to grab them, the ravine fills with screams for a few moments and then goes completely silent, not so much as an insect buzzes or a bird chirps, I consume all traces of the warband, and gather myself back into a nymph form, I decide to walk to Good Well, to calm my mind, I finally create the clothing Kenneth had suggested and the version I adjusted, with the circlet. I am not sure how long ago I sent Kenneth to find the herbs and reagents and seeds for me, but last I saw him and Diana she was really close to giving birth.

I figure out what Karga wanted, not just to feast on humans, supposedly his patron wanted him to find the star elf reservoir, though they call it an ancient elven temple, the star elves do not consider it a temple, they had no divine beings, though maybe they might have considered themselves divine beings, or thought divine beings were beneath them. I don't from what the patron told Karga to do, think that the patron knows what that place is. I manage to sense where that patron exists, it lives in a small pocket plane and it hates the world, and all life, even the blue orcs.

I enjoy the feeling of the cobbled stones with moss that is the road to Good Well, I decide to touch the whole road network, friendly people who do not want to harm people, or defenders of nature and people, can traverse the roads without exhaustion and much faster making a hundred mile feel like one, hostile people will end up having to travel a road that traps them, making each mile feel like a hundred. I watch the cobble stones shimmer in rainbow colours and then eldritch violet before simply sparkling more in the sun.

I walk into town way faster than expected, and people look at me with a mixture of surprise, curiosity and some fear. I smile and my teeth are all back to normal for a nymph. I also wave to a few people. I try to remember where Diana's shop is, and head that way.

I enter the store and I see Diana and Kenneth, and a girl and a boy, and I smell a baby too. They certainly have been busy and I have not kept track of time properly.

Diana spots me first and gently elbows Kenneth and nods and gives him a meaningful playful smile "butterfly knight, your lady finally is here" she says playfully, though he is not wearing the armour, but a more practical working man's clothing.

Kenneth rushes over to me "Vela, where have you been?"

"I have been in the midden heap and all over the place" I say and smile "and I am so happy to see you have a family now, please introduce me."

Kenneth leads me into the store proper "my lovely wife is Diana, and my son" he motions to the boy "is Kenneth, my daughter" he motions "is Diana" and then he leads me to the counter and points "and second daughter is Caroline. Everyone please say hi to Vela."

Diana smiles and moves around the counter to me "hi Vela, Kenneth has told me way too much about you" she blushes a bit and laughs and gives me a hug "you know we have been trading for more herbs and seeds and spices and reagents from far and wide over the three years you have been away, yet here, so we have a large chest of things for you. Despite that most of the, um, pyramids, have not been used yet, so you can have the rest back."

I shake my head "you keep those pyramids, if they are useful for you, your family, or this village to get more trade or something, please invest them into bettering life. The chest of stuff I want to have though" I say excited.

She leads me behind the counter and to the chest "this one is yours" she says and I touch it and it winks out to be inside my own plane. She raises an eyebrow and smiles "that is convenient, I was meaning to ask too, is it possible for us to request specific fruit trees or plants in the garden that was the midden heap? Right now it is very exciting to see what appears next, but I know Helena wants more citrus fruits to make marmalade from, and we really love the various berries, but there is just not enough of them."

I nod "anyone can just gently caress a butterfly and start speaking what they want to me, and I will make it happen, and I can place trees and bushes elsewhere too if the midden heap gets full. It will cost everyone one meal per request though, and it has to be something they love."

I say excited as I am hoping to get more food and drink and different ones, that different people like.

Diana laughs "alright that is definitely a price worth paying, I will let everyone know. Also my brother says there is a Vela in North Port, is that where you came from now?"

I shake my head "no, I am still there and here, right now" I say smiling.

"You really saved the city from that dragon, and the resulting fire" she says "you deserve a reward for that you know."

"They already gave me plenty of rewards. I however have some worrisome tidings, I don't know if I completely solved the issue, but... I stopped a warband of blue orcs, down by the ravine" I nod in the direction of the ravine "I could not let them get here, maybe you can make sure news of this reaches any warriors and defenders, though that specific warband is not a threat to anyone anymore, but they travelled really far to get here."

Diana looks serious and the children stopped playing, Kenneth hugs her from behind "blue orcs all the way here?" she asks "don't they live in the rocky plains and deserts normally?"

"In the caverns below those yes" I correct her "they were heading here to..." I pause and look at the kids "you really probably should not hear this."

Diana nods "go to your rooms for now, we will be going to the gilded rabbit today for dinner" she says "I have to reward Vela and you can have anything you like there."

The kids excitedly jump and giggle "you are the best mom!" and hug her before running upstairs.

I use a little bit of magic to make sure what I say next only reaches Kenneth's and Diana's ears "in addition to wanting to feast on humans, their leader was looking for ancient elf ruins, his patron wanted him to perform a ritual there." I do not mention that I have already sealed it and taken all of value from there, and still keep it save to enjoy the drip of starlight from it, so even if the blue orcs had breached it I would have consumed them.

Diana nods "they often try to raid temples and ancient sites. How did you deal with them?" she asks.

I consider briefly "I... I tried to tell them to leave this land, that it is under my protection, but they tried to disintegrate me, so I consumed them all."

Diana shudders a bit "that can't be tasty, I know you are some sort of ooze, but blue orcs, yuck..." I can tell there is more to the shudder than that, she is at least slightly uncomfortable with what I do, that I eat dead people, or living orcs, who are also people, at least in my eyes.

"Yes, food prepared by mortals is a lot better" I say truthfully "and the golden rabbit is the tavern right?"

Diana laughs "yes and you will get everything you want that they can prepare for you, I consider that an investment. To make you happy."

I laugh "I am happy, but do look forward to trying everything the tavern has to offer, but we have to make sure you and your children get everything they want first, as I can eat all the food in this village and still be hungry."

Diana nods "oh I know, people were feeding you a bit too much so some foods ran out in North Port, so they had to make rules to make sure they don't feed you things they don't have a lot of."

"Oh I was not aware they did that, why don't they tell me if something is running low, I don't need fancy things, I just want something that is meaningful for the person making or giving it to me, preferably with a story attached, that really makes me happy" I explain.

Diana laughs "well then you will have to stay so I can cook grandma's sauerkraut dolma filled with meat and vegetables and spiced nicely, it takes hours to prepare properly, but it always makes me remember her and makes me happy."

I smile "I will stay as long as I am welcome, and leave when I am not" I say.

Diana then looks into my eyes and I can see she is considering something and she glances to Kenneth and back to me "also... I know Kenneth was your lover and you told him specifically to actually have a real human woman as a mate, since you could not have children with him, and I am so happy you did, he is the best, but I... I want to share our bed with you, I know you are not trying to steal him from me, and I also want to learn from you a little. You don't have to if you don't want though, I don't want to make it harder on you than it already must be to have given Kenneth up."

I gaze into her eyes and mind and reach into Kenneth's mind too, I want to understand this completely, so I don't hurt them, Kenneth is worried that Diana will feel bad in some way if I agree to this, but he wants to still do it, but feels bad about that, both because he loves Diana more then me, and is not sure if he can really make love to me like he did when I was the only woman in his life a few days, he does not want to hurt me. Diana is not worried Kenneth will leave, she is excited, but also worried she did not talk to Kenneth about this before saying it, and worried I will be upset for not truly having Kenneth as mine. I lean in and kiss Diana and let my hands caress her side and back and pull her closer, letting my leg slip between her legs under her skirt and she spreads her legs instinctually when I do this and I feel her hands caress me, she blushes and softly moans into our kiss. Kenneth meanwhile is getting an erection. I break the kiss "I accept your invitation" I say and slowly pull away from the embrace.

Diana licks her lips "mmm" and looks to Kenneth who kisses her and I smile I feel so happy they love each other, I hope I don't mess that up by joining their bed, but I don't think I will based on what is in their minds, I am not the love of their lives, but someone they care about, Diana wants to figure me out more, and make sure I feel welcomed and beloved in Good Well, perhaps for selfish reasons a bit, but that is perfectly fine with me, those are truthful reasons after all.

[Blue]

@Vela Nanashi
This installment captivated me once again. It features surprising events and new abilities for the protagonist, Vela. The author's writing style is just as impressive as the protagonist is multifaceted. I am absolutely thrilled.

[Claire]

@Vela Nanashi I finally got to reading part 5. I pictured Vela playing a farming simulator and activating cheat codes.

The ending made me a little sad. Poor Vela just wants to help, but she's only met with refusal. Makes me wonder what she'd be doing if, let's say, she ran into a group of mages who have an idea of what she is and what she can do, and who'd be willing to teach her the customs of the world slowly and patiently.

In some sense, I'm surprised Vela hasn't grown resentful of intelligent life so far. I think she'd have every reason to be "skeptical" at this point.

One aspect that I enjoy about the story across chapters is the passage of time. I like that you don't confine the story of this unaging, near-immortal being to the standard of a human life span. Which reminds me again of To Your Eternity now that I think about it.

[Vela Nanashi]

4d space time is so very confusing for Vela, so yeah time slips by her, being several billion years old in 4d space time since she arrived has also bent that perception too.

As for intelligent life yeah she fails to understand why they see her as scary as she is not eating any of their living people, well most of the time at least, but she is not about to let a few bad people make her hate everyone.

Making food was exciting for Vela, but also she is not actually great at cooking even after learning how from a lot of people, sure she might have all the memories of a lot of good food makers, but then applying that in real life is not easy for her.

Also as for new abilities, she is capable of doing a lot of things, but many of those things she has not really thought about or wanted to do yet, she is still in the early discovery phase of 4d space time and intelligent life happened like a moment ago from her perspective. A lot of her effort also is focused at not randomly eating things that she did not intend to eat.

[Claire]

@Vela Nanashi My first thought for part 6 was: Did Vela just acquire a dragon form? For the various creatures of this world, I can only hope that they'll stop trying to eat Vela.

Vela reading the religious texts reminded me of this scene from Firefly:



It's interesting that you confirm that the gods the people worship seem to be real even if their involvement in the world seems to be much more passive than the believers think. I wonder if we'll see Vela return to that divine plane and what would happen if she started to mass consume the energy there. Maybe the gods wouldn't like that. When it comes to Vela interfering with the mortal world, the gods didn't seem to mind so far.

Overall, a short and sweet chapter that established some new lore of the Vela-verse for me.