The power within you surges and boils, as you begin to work, creating your first monster. The vaporized flesh of the rats is spat out, turned to a black as dark as your own substance. You struggle to make it bend to your will, gradually sculpting it into the shape of a creature, with its tail long and lashing and whiskers twitching. Then you draw your will through it like a child running their hand through mud, drawing a long trough into the creature’s shape.
You manage to lengthen the rat’s mouth and widen it somewhat as well. However, you find that you cannot make it close its mouth all the way, and the unnatural appearance of its fur – it would unsettle any creature of the Five who saw it – makes it difficult to disguise itself. The best you can do is use some of the souls you consumed to give it a slight glamour, and even that exhausts your resources.
That task done, you pour spirit into the body. The creature inflates, its teeth lengthening, its muscles strengthening. The Toothling may have the body of a rat, but this rat is the size of a large housecat, with fur that will turn aside most bites or knives. Its eyes glitter dully, even in the darkness of the basement, and it immediately turns to obey you, even as its tail continues to form out of your darkness. You feel exhausted – it may be some time before you can make anything new.
And the Toothling is gone for a long time. It comes back dragging an unusually large snaked with scales in a riot of colors. The Toothling is dragging itself to, it’s back half crushed and useless. As it touches you you gain an impression of what happened.
running through dark. long tunnels. no prey for Sarahden-master. smell where they went. all dead. find trail, leads to snake.You break away, uncomfortable with the contact. It seems a horrible thing, to be slaved to the will of another, to be confined to nothing more than a sack of meat. To distract yourself from the lingering impression of the Toothling, you turn to absorbing the snake. You learn a great deal – this snake is a most unusual creature. It can hypnotize other creatures with its scintillating scales and its dark eyes. And it is very capable of crushing the life out of nearly any creature smaller than it. (+0.3 spirit, +0.5 soul)
The Toothling comes back with a several small rats and some crawling, carrion eating insects trapped in its jaw, adding them to your mass. (+0.5 spirit, +0.2 soul)