Withers Is Watching

Neither you nor Wyll moved, but he tensed up beside you. Each of you waited for the Spectator to move, but it just floats there, eyes on you and maw agape.

“Please tell me that’s your work,” Wyll whispers.

You want to respond, shrug, murmur, anything but your body doesn’t obey. You’re tapped in its gaze, mind blank except for that little tingle in your head. Except it’s not in the back of your head now, it’s in your left temple, like a little bit of static is settled on your skin.

“Why isn’t it moving?” you whisper to Wyll.

“I think,” Wyll says slowly, “you’re controlling it.”

“I beg to differ.” You try to cut the cord, the connection you just barely feel to it but nothing happens. The creature still stares at you and you at it. Two large thumps are heard behind you and you catch the Spectator’s eyes flick to the two tieflings you know landed behind you. It soon looks back to you.

Wyll sticks his arm in front of you and slowly starts to push you back, ensuring he’s between you and the aberration.

“Minutus!” a voice calls.

The Spectator flinches and a purple light surrounds it. Wyll gives you another small push back but rather than attaching the creature shrinks. It gets smaller and smaller until it’s the size of a large rat, blinking up at you and flexing its jaws.

You and Wyll peer down at it, quickly joined by Tav and Karlach.

“It’s so cute,” Tav says. His eyes sparkle down at the thing he killed just last night.

You hate to admit it, but he’s right. Now that it isn’t the size of a small school bus it’s not quite as scary, and the fact that its eyes take up most of its head makes it look like a Disney animal companion.

“That should take care of that.” You all turn to find Gale approaching, Shadowheart at his side. He looks at you. “Perhaps we should start those lessons sooner rather than later.”

You nod. You can feel the Spectator watching you but now that it’s smaller it seems to look around more. Its eyes roll towards the tieflings, then to Gale as if knowing he was the one that cast the spell.

“I can’t cut the thread,” you say.

“Thread?” Tav asks.

“When I…raise something,” you explain, “it feels like a thread between them and me. But with this—“ you gesture to the Spectator, “—I can’t cut it like I did with the redcaps.”

“Perhaps it’s a familiar now,” Wyll suggests. He crouches down to poke at the Spectator and when it gives a small snap at him he pulls back and stands. “When I could summon creatures from the Hells I could feel where they were, I suppose you might consider it like a thread.”

You nod again, unable to do anything else.

“Congratulations,” Shadowheart says, “you now have a familiar the size of a large potato.”

She laughs at her own joke and you scratch your nose to hide a smile. It really is the size of a large potato. The Spectator floats towards your ankles and circles you, then rubs against your boot as a cat would.

“Aww,” Karlach says, “it’s kinda cute, the little ‘tator-tot.”

“Tator,” you mumble. The Spectator looks up at you.

“I think it likes the name,” Wyll tells you. It might be a joke, but you crouch down all the same.

“Can it talk?” you ask. Shovel could talk, as could all animals given the right spell or potion.

“Perhaps, given the proper training for you both,” Gale says.

You’re not sure if you want to hear what a Spectator has to say, but there is something endearing about the way it gazes up at you. You ask, “Can you understand me?”

The creature wavers over the ground, maybe saying it does.

“Do you want to be my familiar?”

The Spectator appears to startle at the question before hurrying to circle your ankles three times. You watch it go, as do the others until it settles in front of you and opens its jaws wide, releasing a yawning screech.

“Master!” it says. Not with its mouth, but you hear the words all the same in your head.

“I don’t think you need its permission,” Wyll tells you, “but it seems to be agreeable.”

“Let’s just hope the spell doesn’t wear off in the middle of the night,” Shadowheart adds.

Gale makes a huff of indignation. “It most certainly will not!”

“Even if it did, it’s a familiar now,” Tav says. He crouches before the Spectator, ready to poke it when it moves swiftly behind your legs. You turn and reach down, carefully taking it into your arms and holding it not unlike a baby. The eyes in its tentacles close and smooth back as it relaxes into your arms. It can’t weigh more than ten pounds as it settles, all eyes closing now.

“I think it may be best to stay at camp,” Gale says. “We can go over some of the basics of controlling the weave, among other things.”

“Yeah,” you relent. At least if Gale was teaching you magic Astarion wouldn’t be hanging around. The pale elf is probably more than willing to get out of camp and stab something, and you’d prefer to avoid the myconids, at least until you have your necromancy under control.

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