As the large imp was dropped into the pool I stretched the large tendril I made off the pool toward the edge of the miasma. I pour more power out of the tendril making the miasma thicker so if the fire imps do try to charge me they will fall apart. The large imp slowly lowered toward the bottom of my pool, joining the bird's wings. The imp was heavy but the wings were surprisingly light so I dragged those down with tendrils to keep them on the bottom letting my influence seep into the bones. I dragged out the imp essence in the bones but in the wings, I found a new essence. A green essence flowed through the wings with the imp essence but as my tendrils broke the bones the energy slowly floated out of the pool.

  My tendrils snaked out to take the essence but it continued to float out unable to be contained. I tear the wings apart and try to use the broken bones to contain the essence but they merely float around them. As the essence leaves my pool it fades away in the miasma leaving no trace of it. ‘A waste but maybe the miasma will find some use for it.’ I thought as my tendrils ripped the wings apart letting the little flesh on the bones dissolve. My tendrils dug into the imp’s body finding a different essence inside of it that is a lighter shade of red than the regular imp essence. It fought against the tendrils making it difficult to dig into the body than the bird.

  I’m almost tempted to bring the body outside of the pool since the blue flames could drain this essence making it easier to burrow through it but as I lifted the body off the bottom the worm had finally awakened from its hibernation. It was smaller than before but as it swam through the pool I could feel the waves it was making were far greater than even larger worms. It swam toward the imp and tried to burrow into the open neck where its head was but it was struggling. Tendrils joined it as it tried to burrow sucking out any essence that was in the way as I felt the network flood with the new essence. It itched and I felt shocks randomly across all of my tendrils but unlike the pure imp essence that nature was so against my own this was far easier to eat.

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  The shocks subsided as the essence condensed inside the center of the network, my brain. I struggled as all the tendrils writhed and my brain sent dark energy wrapping the strange essence to all corners of the network. Through pools and the ceiling the essence fused with each piece of myself until the feeling faded away as my tendrils stopped helping the worm. It had reached its heart and the closer the tendrils reached the more essence flowed out. The tendrils pulled away from the body without me thinking as I felt a force try to drag me to sleep. I resisted the force as more pain flowed through everything and it kept building. I tried to eject it into the miasma and the sand, but it didn’t work as I felt the memories stored inside my brain boil. Tendrils grew down and out or receded as I felt everything shake. The black sand shook the tendrils grew around pools or disconnected from pools. The ceiling cracked and stalactites fell to the sand as tendrils ripped out of their casing and cracked anything they hit.

  I tried my best to redirect all the chaos to growing across the floor below the sand. The weight of the sand made it difficult to burrow so deep but right now that is what I need. A calm settled over everything on the surface of the sand as the tendrils calmed down but there were still shocks that caused damage. The ceiling will take time to heal and I have to reconnect to all of the pools that got disconnected but I still felt shocks that resulted in damage in one way or another. The urge to tear that imp apart for all the pain it made me go through but the body was dissolving. Hesitantly my tendrils dug under its skin into the muscle finding no trace of the strange essence but as I dug further I found the worm writhing as it absorbed the essence. Without the essence, the body is falling apart but to help the worm I injected the body with even more dark energy. It broke down faster leaving a worm that had stopped writhing and heavy bones. I let the worm digest all of that essence while tendrils broke the bones entering the bone marrow finding traces of the strange essence. I stored that essence in some tendrils before cutting the tendrils off from the rest of me creating balls of tendrils filled with essence, they writhed as they floated in my pool.