Tooth

Dorin watched as everything around him blew away in a circle around him. Even the trees bent, and an odd silence overtook the area. Dorin was unharmed, but he couldn't say the same for Muata or Morah. 

Dorin couldn't see either of them, but he still started running. He doubted that Morah was the only one sent to find him. 

Dorin had no idea where he was going but he ran the opposite way from where Morah and Muata were blasted away to. 

The cabin had been completely dismantled, what was left of it was either thrown meters away or obliterated into the brown dust that covered the area around Dorin. 

The coin was gone, and what seemed to be a black marble was in its place. Dorin held onto it as tight as he could, there was no telling how valuable it could be. 

Dorin struggled to pull a knife out of a tree on his way out. He added his left hand to the struggle and the knife turned black and disintegrated. 

'COME ON.' Dorin felt rage take over, and that fueled his sprint into the forest. He didn't care how much noise he made or where he was going, just that it was as far away from Tur as possible. 

The forest only got darker the further Dorin ran. Strange sounds and shadows surrounded him, but he only feared capture. 

Eventually Dorin could no longer see, so he ran back to a hollow tree he had seen a few moments ago. He rolled the marble around in his hand, but for some reason it felt different. 

What had been a small smooth ball was now a four-sided die. It looked like a black tooth with ridges and pits like a molar, but there were still clear numbers on each side from one to four. 

Dorin felt a sense of joy knowing that he had made his first ego. It was completely by chance, but he now he wouldn't be at the whims of whomever found him.

Something furiously scratched his tree from the outside. To Dorin, it felt like it was searching for an opening. Its claws tore into the tree and Dorin felt fear for the first time in this life. 

'Hopefully this works.' Dorin rolled his new ego, and it landed on a four. Four bright lights followed by shadowy tails converged into Dorin's left hand. They combined into a canine of black ivory. One side was sharp, and the other serrated.

Dorin prepared to meet his foe, but it never came. The scratching stopped and was replaced by a whisper. "What are you doing here, boy?" 

Dorin couldn't see anything, but the voice came from right beside him. 

"Answer me."

"I'm escaping from the Spire."

Dorin sat in silence, gripping his blade tightly as he waited for a response.

"Escape . . ." The whispering continued, but Dorin couldn't understand any of it.

"Why are you speaking to me?"

"Your blade called to me, its hunger eclipses my own."

"You can have it." 

"It is connected to you. I want you to consume me."

Dorin was speechless once again. He saw a web of red eyes in the darkness staring at him and his knife. 

"PIERCE ME AND FEAST ON MY SOUL!"

Dorin thrust out his blade and the creature screamed as it was inhaled by his ego. His blade was now covered in darkness, with a red eye just above the handle that could be seen from both sides. 

A deep hunger filled Dorin, and suddenly he could sense the life around him. The trees and plants around him, the small animals, and the larger beasts. Anything that could move was running away from him, leaving the boundary of his new sight. 

The darkness from the blade began to run up Dorin's arm. Dorin tried to stop it, but he didn't know how to fight darkness. 

Eventually it covered Dorin's entire body, his head last. He could see now perfectly in the dark, and he felt the hunger multiply. 

Dorin began to tear apart the tree around him, slicing it up with his new blade. He felt the serrations jump along the grooves of the wood, and he felt a trickle of energy enter his body. 'That feels good. Really good.'

Dorin stretched his new body, and he realized that he was much taller than before. He couldn't fit through the entrance of the tree anymore, so he tore it apart completely. 

Once there was nothing left he cut into the living trees around him, and the hunger dimmed a little as he gained a little more energy than he did from the hollow tree. 'More.'

Dorin ran into the forest, slicing apart tree after tree. His blade grew with each slash, and it was now as big as his entire arm.

The sated feeling he got from tearing apart trees stopped after a while, and he felt his mind become one with his hunger. 'MORE.'

Every time an animal came into his sight, he chased after it as fast as he could to no avail. The power and size he had obtained was starting to fade, but the hunger only increased. 

The desperation became too much, and the next animal he saw brought back memories. It was a similar elk to what he had fought in his previous life, but it had antlers that glistened with blood which angled downwards towards its fanged mouth. 

Dorin was never going to catch such a beast on foot, so he used the same strategy as he did against Ara. He pulled his arm back and let the blade fly towards the beast.

Dorin heard a twang as the beast was impaled against a tree, and he ran towards it. He needed it to be alive when he devoured it.