Gazing down at his form, Tom came up with a brilliant idea, “Hey, you said we’re not in a physical body, right?”
“Yes,” Boggy answered, as if he knew what was coming next.
“Well then, why can’t we alter our forms, at least back to the original?”
“Bright lad.” Tizzy hummed.
“Good question. Actually, some can do it, the most powerful demons, generally speaking, the Lords of the Abyss and such can do so anywhere they please; however, in practice, it is extremely difficult, takes an awful lot of willpower, and is not comfortable, and most importantly, would only last until you’re called back to Astlan. There, the person calling you has the same idea of what you should look like, so back you go to demon form, and that means the same painful quick reformation and materialization in Astlan that you went through before.”
“So, I have to go through all that pain every time?”
“Only if you’ve changed your pattern to something different from what they’re expecting, and when you change on your own, it’s slower, so less painful, and also it’s by your own will, so it’s more natural; assuming, of course, that you can do it. Besides all of which, your present body is much better adapted to living in this environment than your old human body.” Boggy told him.
“You may not have noticed, but the ambient temperature here is very nearly the boiling point of water. The air in many of the lower, hotter regions is rather acidic and can burn humans, and because of the terrain, it really pays to have wings.” Tizzy chipped in.
“So, to sum up my point: many demons are capable of doing it, but don’t go to all the trouble of changing forms,” Boggy concluded.
“Uh, huh.” Well, that answers that, thought Tom. He looked about, and concentrated, yes, he guessed it was probably relatively hot here, but it was hard to tell, since the temperature felt comfortable.
“Kinda squashes that idea, don’t it?” Tizzy asked leeringly. Tizzy, Tom decided, was not quite right in the head. Enough however, why worry about an octopodal demon, when he had enough problems of his own.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it, we all do,” Boggy said sympathetically. “Look on the bright side; at least you’re big and impressive enough so that not many trouble makers will bother you.”
That sparked another question in Tom’s weary mind, “Why, am I so much bigger than you? I mean, what was it that made the people decide I looked like this?”
“What makes any man think the way he does?” Boggy asked philosophically. “However, in your case it’s fairly obvious. As I said when I flew up here, you must have given your capturer a good fight, or fright. Basically you resisted him or her quite strongly, or impressed him enough, so that he thought of you as a fairly powerful demon. Now that in itself isn’t enough of course, otherwise any half assed new demon could scare the shit out of a wimpy conjuror.
“No, you must have done something to absolutely convince several people that you were quite powerful. The Astlanians do, by the way, have a scale for rating demons, I won’t bother with it now, but there is at least a scale to judge demon power. It’s that scale, in the mind of trained wizards that they weigh all new demons on, and that kind of fixes their mental images of how big and powerful you are. You resisted them pretty well, so they figured you had to be some big powerful demon, so that’s what appeared before them, a big powerful demon. Add to that, the fact your own will power and thoughts had something to do with it too, they can’t just make you something you aren’t, just reshape you.”
“And, most importantly, the bigger they think you are, the more powerful spells they bind you with; it’s these bindings that infuse the Mana into your form, giving you the power you have. The bindings infuse you with a shit load of magical energy.” Tizzy suddenly interjected. “It’s oozing out of you, like butta!” He did the yenta voice again.
“Wow,” Tom said., He felt he wasn’t saying much that was intelligent or worthwhile most of the time; but the whole thing was just too much, too overwhelming to handle at once. It was exceedingly difficult to think of worthwhile responses at this stage. Besides, his bone deep weariness was rapidly returning.
Boggy said “I know it’s quite a bit much to handle at first, but you’ll get over it. Why don’t you rest now, we’ll come back and see you after you’ve had some sleep. Actually, you normally don’t need sleep, but after heavy expenditures of energy, like you’ve just been through, sleeping is the easiest and fastest way to regenerate your energy field.”
“And it keeps you from going insane!” inserted Tizzy.
“He’s got a point, it does allow one to relax and get rid of tensions and frustrations,” agreed Boggy.
“Yeah... well, I guess I’ll just lie down here and rest,” Tom stated.
“If you like, or off over that way,” Boggy pointed behind him and over the pillar, “there are some mountains with caves. You’re welcome to find an unoccupied one and move in.”
“Um,” Tom stared over the edge of the ledge and looked pointedly down at the nearly bottomless depths below, “how do I get over there?”
“Why, use your wings of course, that’s what they’re there for!” exclaimed Tizzy.
“But, I don’t know how, I’ve never flown before.”
“Easy enough, just relax, think of which direction you want to go and go. It’s almost like walking; don’t think about what you’re doing and let it happen naturally. It’s natural, comes built in. But, just like when first walking, don’t think about what you’re doing, otherwise you’ll screw up and fall,” said Boggy.
“Just, step off the cliff?”
“Yep, easy as that, those wings know what they’re doing, even if you don’t.”
“I don’t know...” Tom said nervously, eyeing the long way down.
“Just try it. Here watch me.” With that Boggy stepped off the edge and flew a few feet out before turning around to face Tom and hover.
“Well, got to try sometime.” Tom tried relaxing, attempting to clear his mind of all the wild things that had happened to him. He looked toward Boggy and took a step forward. Trying to brace himself, yet remain calm, he walked three steps forward and off.
He lurched a little, but he kept concentrating on heading toward Boggy. It worked! He was moving towards Boggy, and his feet weren’t moving. This was totally wild! It took very little effort, even in his weakened and tired state. Considering the nature of his new legs and feet, it was even easier than walking. Thinking of his feet he looked down at them, to make sure they weren’t actually what was carrying him along.
Mistake! The ground was incredibly far below him, he was suspended in complete nothingness. His fright caused his wings to falter. He lost altitude. Quickly he tried flapping his wings to bring himself back up to Boggy. This didn’t work, in fact he began to fall even more. Unless he could get the proper rhythm, his wings wouldn’t support his massive bulk. He fell. Frantically he tried harder and harder, the more he worked at it, the less good it seemed to do. He was panicking, he didn’t know what to do. “Help, someone please help!”
Up above, Boggy shook his head in dismay, an ironic grin of futility. “They always have to learn the hard way,” he muttered to himself. He took off after the plummeting Tom.
Tom’s frantic attempts at catching his fall only half worked; occasionally he managed to slow down a little bit, but not enough. He fell. His back quickly began to ache as the new muscles were taxed harder than they were intended to. The ground was rushing up. A miracle I’m still thinking, thought Tom. The long fall had certainly given him a chance to try everything he could. His muscles ached; he could hardly move his wings anymore.