Ethereal: Part 2

The ritual for temples was really complicated, though, so I'd need a long time to incorporate those statues into the makeup of temples in and of themselves. I'd probably need to include balance as well, so Arthur could make Urt into a hero and Ryne a villain as she probably believed. Nothing to stoke a war for millenia better than religious conflict. Disagreeing on who the good guy was in a story was the fundamental of that conflict, so Arthur should have her own story.

Before I could change the ritual for temples, though, I'd need to actually make temples for my new species. They'd have their own take as well, no doubt. More in line with mine than Arthur's, but not exactly the same. Maybe if the temples in the elven temples on my continent reflected Zezhria they'd become Dark Elf cities. That would give Arthur another set of crown gear, but at this point that didn't really matter.

I teleported back to my throne room to consider how to get my new species into their domains, as well as clearing out the current residents. Cities had to come before temples, after all. The city areas would already be filling with the flying serpents, so it would probably be similar to how I'd slaughtered the army. But that depended on the population density of the indigenous monsters. If there were too many, I could have to fall back and attack again with a larger force. Or it could be very sparsely populated and the indigenous would flee before I even got there. I'd never made a city without knowledge of exactly what I was displacing before. Even the angelic army had been a calculated expansion, not this blatant disregard. I equipped the tower and round shields to my back for the defensive buffs as I considered my problem, realizing that the Os'Minog racial ability was much better than I'd given it credit for. It would be tedious to slaughter every monster in the city and pasture areas of my new cities. Then I glanced around, looking for a solution of some sort. 

I'd equipped more items. Was I nervous? Nervous of what? I noticed that all of the nobles that were normally chattering away like machines had gone silent. Now that I noticed the abnormality I noticed they hadn't made a sound since I'd teleported in. What the fuck?

As I thought about the possible cause of such an event, I realized that they were all looking in the same direction. Not perfectly aimed at my throne, but just off by a bit. I glanced around the throne and realized Phyx was standing behind it. She hadn't been kidding when she said she wanted to redo her armor. It looked nothing like it had before. The ornate helm had been replaced with a crimson skull mask that smoked at the eyes and mouth. Her cloak had a hood, but she'd thrown it back to show that her mask wrapped all the way around her head, making her look like a skeleton that had just lost its skin and muscle, but hadn't yet been cleaned. Her pauldrons were ridged, but not bulky. Her gauntlets looked almost like a fist weapon used by a Monk, there were so many black spikes protruding from every red surface. Each spike bled slowly, like the liquid was being pressed out through a needle inside. She had boots to match, as well. Her staves seemed to be designed after her gear, a red skull on either end with black needles protruding from it like it had been used to house a sea urchin. The shaft was rather nondescript, for all the work put into everything else. At least it was usable, as opposed to her last idea. What had everyone staring wasn't any of those things, or her black cloak. She was wearing a crimson bikini where the majority of the armor should be. It wasn't even a chainkini or scalekini. It looked somewhere between leather and latex. Even Htaed and Edge were staring at her flaunted assets. She might not have the bust of an orc, but she was by no means flat. She had the exact same proportions as her mother. Utter physical perfection in female form, as far as I was concerned. 

"What do you think, Father? These morons haven't stopped gaping since I walked into the room. I'm not sure if they want replicas of their own or if they're trying to find the words to reprimand me for such a useless set of armor." If it wasn't mythic quality, I'd have agreed. That much open skin was a clear weakness, but the shield covered all those vulnerabilities with all the durability of the armor itself, based on quality and not quantity. Technically speaking, all mythic armor had the exact same amount of material, and none of it was actually material after forging. Once you broke the shielding, the armor itself was as defensive as smoke. She could flaunt all she wanted without leaving a single weakness in her armor. Even the defense rating would be identical. "Do you think I should change it again? Mom demanded I ask for another set immediately, so I figured I'd humor her and get a second opinion."

She was thinking about doing something different? When she'd silenced an entire room of morons with her very presence? She was an anti-player weapon, since a large portion of them were hormone-ridden boys, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. There was something else tickling at the back of my mind, but I couldn't place it. "I'd say the value of a constant distraction for any and all attracted to your body is valuable for a wizard. Even those that aren't attracted will be distracted because of the irregularity and utter preposterous nature of wearing armor with so many holes. Any thinking enemy will be slowed, and that is a valuable advantage. Assuming you can close the cloak to make a surprise, that is."

"Of course you think about the tactical advantage given by that…monstrous attire." Lethe snarled in my ear. She hadn't been sitting in her throne, so I assumed she wasn't here. Apparently her habit of vanishing when she got embarrassed hadn't changed. "Don't you have a problem with your daughter flaunting what I gave her so openly? What if I started walking around nude with a necklace?"

I wouldn't mind her walking around nude in the least. I'd enjoy it, actually. Watching her vanish any time anyone entered her line of sight would be hilarious. Not to mention the view I'd get. "If she wants to look like a whore for the tactical advantage or any other reason, that's her decision. If she's not powerful enough to destroy rapists, she doesn't belong at the tip of my empire. If she wants to be constantly raped…I'll punish her for that. You're letting old-world issues into this one. My daughter is not a weak child to be protected from the world, but a monster that the world should fear." With that sentence, the resemblance became clear. She looked like Ryne. Something about her posture and the blatant disregard for the opinions of everyone she thought didn't matter. Apart from the head, wings, and tail, of course. If she ever decided to impersonate a Dark Elf, I assumed she'd look a lot like Phyx did right now. I wondered if she'd notice. Or care. I hoped not. I was starting to like Phyx. Ryne killing her would be more than merely annoying for me. Not quite as much as if she killed Lethe, but Phyx was growing on me. She'd seemed whiny to me before, but this outfit proved she had more to her than I'd seen outside of her test.

"When you put it like that, worrying about her looking like a slut becomes less of an issue." Her face didn't seem to agree with her words. The black lightning arching across her form agreed with her face. "So long as she can kill the rapists, that's all that matters. Let's talk somewhere I can scream without causing a scene." She vanished into black mist and lightning as she rushed from the room. Damn. I needed to end this argument while it was still fresh. I couldn't have Lethe turning on me for something like this. I followed her to the dungeon, which was now empty. Such a pity. I'd have to find some reason to lock people up. "She might as well walk around naked as wear that shit!"

"So what if she does? She's wearing mythic armor! That is a hell of a lot more protective than a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. Her curves are clearly visible, but it's not like skin-tight clothes leave much more to the imagination." Had she never gone to school? Did she think literally every girl on campus was a slut? "Plus, she's got the cloak. If she wants to hide her curves, she has that option."

"Her wanting to hide her curves isn't the problem! How can you not care about how much lust she generates now? I could almost taste the boner of every single male in the room, including her brother!" her voice was emanating from a black storm. Her rage had grown to a point that she was literally becoming a force of nature. The angel had called me a god…could I influence the weather? A problem for another day. Lethe was very angry. "She won't listen to me! You need to get her to change."

So that was the real issue. Phyx wouldn't listen to Lethe. I almost sniggered at how typical it was to have strife between the daughter and the mother. "The lust is usable. It is a distraction for those that feel it, as I said before. If she can slow down everyone, even by a tiny margin, that is a huge difference in a fight. She'll have the time required to activate her spells without fear of being interrupted. It might become a crutch that will make fighting monsters more difficult, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. As for her listening to you…I don't know how to fix that."

"She could start by being more logical and less emotional." Phyx had caught up to us, Edge and Htaed on her heels. She glared at the storm that was Lethe. "This is about using what I've got as an advantage. You're a rogue, you wouldn't understand." Damn, that was harsh. Lethe was as much a Necromancer as a rogue, despite how often she entered stealth.

Apparently, Lethe was giving Phyx the cold shoulder. Her cloud hissed at me. "You just want to fuck her, don't you? You're just like everybody else!" low blow. I might have an excessively sexy daughter, or two, but that didn't mean I was about to mess with the excessively sexy empress I'd already convinced to have sex with me. "Incestuous, perverted, daughter-fucker!"

"Technically that's incestuous, perverted, daughter-fucking wannabe, as I haven't done anything to deserve any of those titles yet. Except pervert. I'll admit to being a pervert. Haven't had sex with anyone sharing my blood yet, though. Daughter or otherwise." Lethe continued to snap and hiss as lightning ripped through her cloud. Apparently she didn't appreciate my critique of her insult. "What? Your insult was incorrect. I didn't admit to wanting to fuck my daughter, I just pointed out the way your insult was worded incorrectly." Shit. Grammar lessons probably wouldn't calm her down. Deescalation…deescalation…definitely not my forte.

She didn't wait for me to find another topic to change to. "Insults aren't beholden to the rules of grammar or correctness!" Lethe screamed wordlessly, going through three octaves before the crash of thunder took over. She was becoming more of a storm and less of a person every second. Could she actually lose herself in the storm? Dissipate into weather until the person was gone and the storm was all that remained?

"When do we get to become storms?" Edge was brave for speaking up in such a situation. Maybe she just really wanted to be a dark divinity. Though…if they turned to white smoke it would be an excellent way of weeding out spies that were actually loyal to the light of Camelot or Heaven. I answered by turning my hand to smoke and shoving it down her throat. As soon as my hand had recovered, I did the same to Phyx and Htaed. Apparently she took that to mean "shut up as the grownups talk" because she immediately crouched against the wall and waited, watching Lethe's storm with more interest than I thought the display was worth.

Confusion! That busted through all sorts of emotions, right? "You want to talk about immodesty, think about this; what are you showing the world right now?" whatever made her surface seethe and twist stumbled. The currents calmed and twisted for a few seconds. When she didn't reply, I assumed she'd come to the same conjecture I had. "You're showing the world your soul. The dark roiling mass of violence and power is what you are at your core. Showing that off…how can you think a pair of boobs comes close to actually letting people see what your soul looks like? She could walk around buck nude and still be more modest than you in that form. At least she's only showing her body." Her cloud was fully static now. Excellent. Confusion for the win! But I didn't want her to come to her own answers. Who knew where she could go with that. "If you're wondering why I'm not offended that you showed your soul to the nobles, it's because of the same reason I'm not offended that Phyx shows off her body. It isn't a measure of modesty, it is a challenge. Phyx states her power clearly by tempting with the threat hanging over it all that if they act on the urge they will be destroyed. Yours is just more explicit, actually showing then the truth of the threat that Phyx uses to keep them away after she's drawn them in. Both are means of controlling others, and thus deemed useful." Besides, this storm was almost as sexy as Phyx. Simply because it was a reflection of her mind. Truly, she was a being of destruction and rage. When she let it out. Her shyness was a crutch that hindered her, but I didn't know how to cure her of that.

Lethe's body became visible again as she, apparently, calmed down. Her face didn't look calm, though. She hadn't manifested completely, so her armor wasn't visible. She was modestly covered by the roiling mist, but her face was exposed. "My soul is not hard to see. One glance at me and almost everyone sees the darkness within. It's why I like necromancy so much."

"A guess. Just as it's not hard to guess that you're sexy without seeing you take your armor off. The storm and Phyx's partial nudity function in much the same way. Both clear away the guessing and mess with the minds of the viewer at the same time." Fear and lust were both things that fighters all knew to avoid while fighting. Forcing them to feel either, or in Phyx's case both, would mess with their fighting trance. It wouldn't always work, but the probability was good. Plus, I'd solved my dilemma. If I killed off the indigenous with my family at my side, it wouldn't be tedious. "Regardless of all that, I'm going to start clearing out some indigenous monsters. Anyone care to join me?"

All of them perked up at that. Two birds with one stone. Perfect. I opened the gate to Upper Zezhria, wondering which cities I'd clear out. I flashed through and took a deep breath of the fresh air, savoring the corruption of its purity to come. I should probably clear out the capitals first. They could clear the rest of the cities themselves when they were good enough. I waited for the others to follow me before I opened a gate to Upper Hill and another one to Upper Naieura before heading into Upper Hill. I activated a compression spell just like I had against the army. The beaked snakes ripped into monstrous serpents of bone before assaulting the angels that milled around uselessly. I studied them carefully, looking for any npcs among their number. I found one. A winged human was flapping as hard as he could to get away from one of my new snakes. I streaked toward him as I commanded the serpent to choose another target. I grabbed him by the throat as I considered my problem. I'd become a divinity by consuming some of an existing divinity. Did it work the same way for angels?

"If I take a bite out of you, will I become an angel?" the winged human struggled in my grip, but he wasn't fighting. He seemed to know how outmatched he was, despite the fact that he was probably a similar level. I shook him and repeated my question. He still didn't reply. I decided to put my theory to the test. One of his arms passed in front of my face just as I put my helm into my inventory so I could bite it. He screamed as blood flooded into my mouth. The angel had used the word 'consume' so I assumed I'd need to do more than drink. I ground my teeth in and felt the meat tear. I swallowed it whole because I didn't think chewing would do all that much good for the vaguely disgusting texture. I glanced through my stats and didn't see "angel" anywhere. Or divinity. How could I tell if I'd succeeded? "Did it work? Tell me, coward!" I increased the pressure on his throat only to realize he'd stopped thrashing. I'd choked him out without meaning to. Damn it. I hadn't realized there were angels this weak. I hadn't been reminded that asphyxiation was a cause of death for a while. I should have actually checked his information before I started interrogating him about how to become part of his species, or a dark parody of his species.

"Why, exactly, did you eat that guy's arm?" Lethe asked from behind me. I turned to look at her. I hadn't eaten his arm. I'd taken a bite out of his arm. It was hardly the same thing. Was she still mad? That would explain the odd phrasing; purposely getting it wrong so I would correct her and she would have an excuse to blow up some more. She wasn't, that I could tell. The mist was slowly drifting off of her, just like it was with me. A simple expression of power, not a glimpse of a soul. Or she was just controlling herself better than before.

Maybe she'd show anger if I didn't fall for the ploy, if a ploy was indeed involved in her thought process. "We became mist people because we ate one. I wondered if it worked the same way with angels." Apparently it didn't. But I hadn't seen divinity in my stats either. What did that mean? "I'm not sure if it worked. Do you know where it tells you that you're a divinity?"

"Is that what it is? I was wondering what 'divinity' meant and where I'd gotten it from. It's a status impairment. Comes up with your passives." Huh. Hadn't thought to look there. I glanced through and found both racial modifiers. "Did it work or not? Why would you want to be an angel anyway? You can already fly."

"I thought there might be benefits to having more of whatever these things are. More power can't hurt. It worked…" so what did being an angel do for me? What did being a divinity do for me? Citizenry of Heaven? What did that mean? I could walk around in the heavenly cities without getting attacked? Seriously? That was awesome! And…vision improvement. That was underwhelming compared to the ridiculous speed and mist form of a divinity. Maybe it had something to do with why angels were everywhere and divinities were more common the higher up you went into Heaven. 

Though…this world was flat. How much could my vision improve? I glanced back toward Upper Zezhria and tried to focus in on it. We were so far away that normal eyes would have seen it as less than a dot. As I concentrated, though, I could see it as if I was floating above the budding city. There were no mountains in the way, so I had a clear line of sight to the city, but the hurricane of bone serpents was difficult to see through. It filled me with pride that I had a swarm of vicious undead so powerful and plentiful that they could block my ability to see an entire city by surrounding it. I could see everything that wasn't cloaked by the fog of war, though the sudden shift from massively populated to empty plains was a bit jarring. An interesting phenomenon for an actual world, but I stopped thinking about that as I turned my attention back to the ground below me. 

The area was already clean. My kids sure did quick work. Or the indigenous were all cowards. I could see some of the monsters fleeing into the surrounding territory, so I assumed it was a mixture of both. My serpents here were already working on making another bone hurricane. I flashed to the ground before opening my gate to the Dark Chapel's exterior. Black mist seeped through the spell. That was new. I'd need to keep that in mind when I went underwater. 

I told my Chiropteran vassals to come start their capital. I considered going to the rest of the cities to make sure all of them were clean, but I thought the Chiropterans could grow the species as well with one city as they could with many. Since they were all vassals, and ordered to make their children vassals at the first opportunity as well, they would reproduce faster than monsters. Eventually, I'd need to alter their orders to let them become combat-proficient, but that would come later. The serpents would do as a defense force for now. 

As the Chiropterans entered the space, though, a massive block shuddered and groaned as it excavated itself from the surroundings. When it finally stopped building itself, I was staring at a brand new bank. That was interesting. What was even more interesting was what the Chiropterans were doing. They seemed to be vomiting all over the place and then playing with the result.

"You made…vomiting vampires?" Lethe's voice was dry. She didn't think it was interesting? She didn't see that they were vomiting in patterns? Were they actually building with vomit? And what had they eaten to give them so much to work with? "Or do you prefer the name barfing bloodsuckers?"

"They're building with it. I definitely didn't anticipate that." Or Lethe being able to see despite being in the darkness buff they produced. Apparently the Dark Elf ability to see regardless of light worked even in the darkness produced by a racial ability of another species. Good to know. Lethe put her hand over her mouth as she realized I was right about their construction preferences.

A Chiropteran dived at me. I almost attacked it before I realized it was Phyx. She'd taken off her helm for some reason, so she looked like one of the naked natives while her arms were wings and her feet were bigger than her boots could accommodate. Why had she used an illusion instead of shifting into one? Had she shifted, the armor would have shifted with her, altering to accommodate the different species. Hopefully. "These guys are awesome! I'll never have to see that damn sun again!" She dispelled her illusion and returned to a Dark Elf form when her feet touched the ground. "Where are we going next?"

I linked with my gate to Upper Naieura and moved the base point to my position. Magic was so awesome in this game! I mimicked the compression spell and watched with satisfaction as the serpents attacked everything for a few seconds before I looked to see if there were any npcs around. There were. A whole raiding party of them, at least fifty. Damn, I hadn't been prepared for that. One of them wasn't an angel, though. He looked like a pearly version of Nobody that guarded the Dark Chapel. Another modifier? Only one way to find out.

"Will you stop acting without any warning whatsoever? Ever?" Lethe grumbled as she followed through the gate. I remembered her enjoying my spontaneity on several occasions. "What's your real objective up here?"

"Setting up capitals for my new species. As we'll do in a bit when we go for the aquatic cities I'm building. The subterranean ones already have their cities, so no worries on that front." Speaking of which…I opened a gate to each of the capitals for the stone species and told them to continue their repopulation inside their own capitals instead of mine. Explicitly, this time. No interpretation or tiered orders to decipher. Now, how to eat a ghost? I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. First I had to defeat the ghost. "Come on, we've got a ghost to eat." It worked with the divinity and angel, why not a ghost too?

My lightning was a little out of control as I blasted into the ground in the middle of the npc camp. The explosion of black mist sizzled when it came in contact with the angels bodies, even sizzling as it touched the essence of the ghost. That was good to know. Could I use that as my weapon against him? "A dark god? Flee, my brethren!" the ghost shouted. That worked for me just fine. Four more black clouds crashed to earth, spreading the dark mist even more. Damn, kids grew up way faster than you'd think they would. "Flee while you still live, brothers! Spread word of these abominations!" I shook my head at how naive they were. None of them appreciated the critique on their life choices, or changed their plan. 

I stalked Ghost as my family slaughtered his friends. The mist hurt him, that much I knew. What else hurt him? I shocked him with my Cultist lightning, but it passed right through him after barely pausing long enough to shock him a bit. He'd paused, though. Had he just moved really fast and pretended it went through him to confuse me? Could he think that far ahead or was he just immune to magic? Either would be new. Since divinities were weak to magical effects passing through them it would be awesome if ghosts didn't have that weakness. 

Still, if he was immune to magical and physical effects…that would be really hard to beat. I levitated a bit to start the cloud-building as I delved into the depths of my rage. It was a new experience for me. I'd always tried to keep a tight lid on my emotions, releasing them was not…comfortable. My body was consumed by a maelstrom of darkness. If I moved my cloud into the same space as the ghost…would that count as consumption? It was worth a shot. I shot forward, and the ghost screamed as we met. I didn't go through him, though. My mist warred against his pearly luminescence like they were exact opposites. That's when I realized that I was exposing my weakness to the exact same force I was using to destroy him. Pain wracked me as I realized his essence was a holy buff that I'd just jammed into my unprotected storm. Fuck this. I delved deeper into the maelstrom and wrapped my form around him, making sure he had nowhere to run. I'd be willing to bet I was harder to kill than him. "You will not survive this, dark god! Even you are no match for me without your armor!"

He was right, but not in a way that would let him win. This wasn't a test of power, it was a test of will. My vitality wasn't getting hurt, it was pure pain. Well, it was, but my regeneration was fast enough that it equaled out. "How do I consume something I can't touch? The answer, envelop it and hope it dissolves like a hard candy." Very painful hard candy. As I increased the pressure, I started seeing my vitality drop a bit. His light was guttering out, though. He was hurting more than me. Or he was trying to goad me into thinking he was weakening while he wasn't hurt at all. I thought that was a little unlikely for an npc, though. I increased the pressure more. I drank a few health potions, just in case, but I doubted it would be necessary. In a war with pure vitality I had the advantage over just about anyone. Not only did I have all of the classes, raising all of my stats far higher than they should be, but I'd consumed enough grass to have ridiculously high values on top of that. It was impossible for anyone of any type to have more vitality than me at the same level. 

He proved my point by shifting into a normal human and dropping toward the ground. I followed him, making sure it wasn't a ploy of some sort, before shifting into a form with teeth so I could eat some of him. Unconsciously, I chose an Os'Minog to get as much of a bite out of him as possible and ended up eating his entire body before I realized how different the function of biting would be between a human and a worm. He hadn't screamed once after he became corporeal again. Even as I digested him, he didn't seem uncomfortable. I realized why when I studied him closer. He was dead. As I checked my modifier, I realized why. Poltergeists subsumed all of their defenses into a shield when they went incorporeal that allowed them to move through anything without a soul. Contact with the other soul, or magic, activated any and all shielding available to the area including above legendary armor, spells, passives, and resistances. It was the perfect union with the divinity ability, making objects pass through harmlessly regardless of the spells used to augment them. The combination of the mist ability to part around objects and the soul shielding of the ghost made both stronger than either had been before. I could become mist to avoid a magical attack, now. That combined with my lack of vital areas…I wasn't even sure I could die anymore. It proved that the ghost hadn't let my lighting pass through him, though. It was just an illusion.

I shifted back into my normal form as the body was finally finished dissolving. "That…was…gorgeous!" Lethe was panting right behind me. Did Os'Minog not have ears? It made sense, seeing as how they'd be useless under water or earth, but it was still an annoying loss of perception. Maybe they had something else to fill the gap? "You were a storm! A real storm, not that pitiful parody I make!"

"What was the difference? Apart from size." I knew I'd expanded to cover a larger area than Lethe's storm had ever come close to reaching, but I thought that was the only difference. Was there more to it than that? A visually noticeable difference? If so, it would be good to know exactly how different I was from the other divinities I'd met so far. Was there a ranking system, or was it a true reflection of the soul and had no reflection on power or rank at all? I stopped thinking so I could hear the answer.

"You were so much more badass than Mom." Phyx dropped from one of my serpents. So they obeyed her orders well enough for her to ride them. Was that due to her access to the guild or her status as my child? A theory I'd have to test another day. The question was almost enough to overcome the weirdness of hearing Lethe referred to as "Mom" by anyone, regardless of the truth behind the word. "She looked like a little cloud sparking lighting. You gave the impression that the whole sky's worth of storm clouds was compressed into a single space. The lightning actually ripped through all sorts of stuff you weren't focused on, for one thing." I glanced around and saw a large number of charred corpses. "You seemed more like a plasma storm than a cloud." Interesting. So I discharged more electricity. And looked slightly different. As I looked at the charred corpses…I had to admit that I discharged a significant value more electricity than Lethe. And it had a much larger range of motion. Maybe it was how much I'd let it take control. This brought me back to the question of ruling the weather being a possibility. And if Lethe had maintained a lot more control than she'd appeared to.

Htaed and Edge approached cautiously. I glanced at them questioningly, but they were looking at Lethe. When they'd changed their angle to see her face, they stopped looking bashful. That was weird. She was wearing a mask, like always.

Phyx decided to explain the oddity to me. "They bolted when they saw Mom flicking one out as she watched you eat someone. Apparently she's not the only one embarrassed by sexuality." She said that, but she'd been riding one of my snakes, not waiting for me to finish next to her mother, which sounded even weirder when I thought it than when she said it. I doubted she was as indifferent as she let on. "So, where to next? I really like killing stuff, but this is getting kind of old. These monsters are all weak." Proof of their amazing progression speed. It hadn't been long since the test. Or had it. Had it? Fuck time. It didn't matter.

I opened a gate for the Direhawks before I opened one that sat directly over Atlantis. Could they breathe underwater? I knew I could, since I'd shifted into three that could survive underwater indefinitely, but I wasn't sure about them. Maybe divinities didn't need to breathe? Just in case I shifted into a Tyderun. "Shift into this species. We're going for a swim."