The Iron Sole Alchemist in the Benders' World (Chapter 1) Where Are We Now?
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)
Note:
This story is an immediate sequel to The Iron Sole Alchemist and the Magical Girls, which is part of a series of stories. Those stories introduce characters, events, and concepts. You may not understand everything if you have not read the previous stories.
A circle of blue light drew itself on a smooth patch of ice, filling in the details of a complex transmutation circle almost as fast as the circle itself appeared. Once it was complete, the glowing structure raised into the air, depositing myself, my wife Sloth, and our dog Loki on the ice before vanishing.
"This is not what I pictured for our vacation trip," said Sloth, speaking loudly to be heard over the howling wind.
We'd arrived in a large, high ceilinged ice cave. Thick tree trunks were frozen inside the cave's walls, like this place had once been a forest before freezing over. There was a storm outside, and from the sound of it, we were lucky for the shelter.
Sloth focused for a moment, and her short, sleeveless black dress was replaced with boots, snow pants, a fur lined coat with a hood, and a pair of mittens. My open vest wasn't any better suited to the cold weather than her dress had been, but I had other priorities. I could feel the presence of spiritual beings surrounding us. Their energies felt dark like those of a hollow.
Loki felt them too and growled low in his chest. With his hackles raised, Loki's body flared with brilliant blue alchemic light as the transmutation circle tattooed under his fur transformed him. The floppy eared brown dog became a three hundred pound, heavily muscled chimera with green scales covering most of his body, a gold, leonine mane, a thick, club like tail, and fangs and claws that could slice through stone.
As Loki transformed, the creatures attacked. There were a dozen snakelike creatures with glowing purple auras. They were fast, but I was much, much faster. An act of will caused a katana to appear on my belt. I drew the weapon and sliced each of the snake creatures in half faster than the eye could see. I slid the katana back into its sheath and willed it to vanish again as the peculiar spirits dissolved into motes of light and vanished entirely.
"What were those?" asked Sloth as Loki transformed back into a dog.
"Spirits of some sort," I said. "It felt like they were corrupted somehow. The zanpakto purified them just like if they were hollows, then they crossed over somewhere."
"Too bad they just attacked us," said Sloth. "We could use some help figuring out where we are."
"Yeah," I acknowledged, willing a heavy winter coat of my own to appear on me.
The three of us picked our way through the ice cave until we could see open sky. There was a heavy blizzard blowing snow around and limiting visibility. What we managed to glimpse through the occasional gaps in the snow showed us only icy tundra in all directions as far as the eye could seen. I could sense the presence of more dark spirits in the distance.
"Did we end up in a world with no humans, or are we just miles from civilization?" asked Sloth.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Hold on. Let me try something."
I took a glass eye and a brass telescope out of my utility belt. Clapping my hands, I fused the two objects with a burst of blue alchemic light. The eye itself was completely intact, but the telescope had been heavily modified to accommodate the eye being mounted at the far end.
I looked through the telescope. The enchantments on the false eye allowed it to see through illusions and invisibility. More important to what I Was doing at the moment, it could also see through solid matter. I used it to filter out the storm and gaze into the distance.
"We're at the south pole," I reported after getting a look at the stars. "I'm not seeing any settlements for miles in any direction."
Sloth stared into the swirling snow for a long moment before pointing and saying, "That way. The snow made a shape like a candle flame for just an instant. If we don't have anything more solid to go on, I think following the omens is our best bet."
"Sounds fair to me," I said, and we struck out into the storm.
We hiked through the frozen tundra for two days. We had plenty of food and the ability to magically multiply what food we did have so it would never run out. Alchemy allowed us to turn the plentiful ice into igloo style structures to sleep in whenever any of us got tired. Between our heavy clothing, alchemy used to ensure our food and drinks were hot when we consumed them, and general purpose fire charms, none of us was suffering from the cold.
I sensed the presence of humans before we caught sight of the lights of a city in the distance. Most were spiritually unremarkable, but I could detect a handful of people with useful levels of spirit energy. As we approached, I sensed the arrival of a dark spirit at the outskirts of the city.
I rushed to where I felt the spirit, Sloth and Loki trailing behind me. The spirit, this one slightly more humanoid, was fighting with a group of humans. One man punched in the spirit's direction and a blast of fire shot from his fist and impacted the spirit. A second man gestured and caused a wall of stone to rise up out of the ground to try and contain the spirit. The spirit, for its part, was attacking physically, grabbing up humans and tossing them around like rag dolls.
I entered the scene as the spirit was about to attack a man in red and yellow robes who was trying to calm it down and reason with it. My flash step brought be behind the spirit in the blink of an eye, where I stood in midair on footholds of compressed spirit energy. I willed my zanpakto to appear, then drew the sword, cutting through the back of the spirit's neck in a single motion. I resheathed my zanpakto and willed the spiritual weapon to once again disappear inside my body, then I hopped down to the ground. The spirit's corrupted purple aura vanished thanks to the purifying power of my zanpakto and it dissolved back into whatever world it belonged in as motes of golden light.
"Is anybody hurt?" I asked the people who'd been fighting the dark spirit just as Sloth and Loki arrived.
"I'm okay," said the one I'd seen tossed. He was bruised and battered, but not in need of medical treatment.
"How did you kill that dark spirit?" asked a blue eyed, dark haired young woman dressed in blue. "Our bending attacks didn't seem to be doing anything to it."
"Spirits can't be killed, Korra," said the man in the red and yellow robes. "At least, not ordinarily."
"I didn't kill it," I said. "The weapon I used is called a zanpakto. It's a tool with the power to purify spiritual beings, cleanse them of corruption,a nd send them on to the realm they belong in. Though, admittedly, I've never seen corruption quite like that before."
"It was lucky you came by when you did," said a broad shouldered man dressed in blue. "I am Tanraq, leader of the Southern Water Tribe, and I would be honored if you would stay the night with me and my family."
"My name is Greed," I said. "This is my wife Sloth, and our dog Loki."
"Aren't you a little young to get married?" asked one of the young men.
"No," said Sloth. "I'm an ageless shape shifter." She transformed briefly into him to prove her point before resuming her usual form of a four year old girl with blue eyes and brown hair. "I look like this because I like looking like this."
"Are you spirits?" asked Korra, boggling slightly at the display.
"No," I said. "We're not exactly human either. We'll be happy to explain when we're all out of the cold. We've been hiking through the tundra for two days and could use a rest somewhere civilized."
"Of course," said Tanraq. "This way."
He led us into a large house nearby. Everyone from outside joined us. A fire was lit so everyone could warm themselves.
"Thank you," I said, sitting down at a table. "We're explorers. We've visited half a dozen worlds, and usually we arrive somewhere civilized. This is the first time we've arrived int he middle of a frozen wasteland days away from civilization."
"Where exactly are you from?" asked the young man I'd seen shooting fire at the spirit.
"I didn't catch your name," I said.
"My name's Mako. This is my brother Bolin," he said, indicating the other young man I'd seen raise a wall of stone.
"Mako," I said, nodding. "I'm from a small desert town called Liore. It's on the eastern border of Amestris, a country in our home world. Sloth and Loki are from a different part of Amestris."
"Is that where you learned about spirits?" asked Korra.
"No," I said, shaking my head. "Sloth and I have been studying the magic and science of the various worlds we visit. While we've never run into spirits quite like those, the last world we explored had a kind of corrupted ghosts called hollows. The zanpakto was invented there as a way to purify hollows and send them on to the afterlife."
"We're happy to tell you more and answer any questions you may have, but can you tell us a little about the world we just landed in?" asked Sloth.
The world we'd arrived in was divided between the Norther and Southern Water Tribes at the frozen poles, the Earth Kingdom on a large continent in the east, and the Fire Nation occupying a large island chain in the west. A handful of air temples were hidden away in the mountains across the world where they served as home to the nearly extinct Air Nomads. These were collectively known as the four great nations. Recently, a territory carved out of disputed land between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation called the United Republic had gained independence.
The four great nations were unified internally and divided between them by an ability called bending. A percentage of the population of each nation was born with the ability to manipulate the element associated with their nation. As a melting pot, the United Republic possessed earth, water, and fire benders.
Despite mixed heritage resulting in brothers like Mako and Bolin, it was an iron clad rule that a person could be born with the ability to bend, at most, one element. The sole exception to this rule was the Avatar. The Avatar was a reincarnating hero with the potential to master all four elements. Each time the old Avatar died, the new one would be born into the next nation in the cycle: Earth, Fire, Air, Water. Korra, in addition to being Tanraq's daughter, was the Avatar of this generation.
Korra's predecessor, Avatar Aang, had been the sole survivor of the Air Nomad genocide, perpetrated by the Fire Nation. Tenzin was Aang's son. Aside from the Avatar, Tenzin and his children were the only air benders on the planet, and Tenzin himself was the only true master of the art. The air temples were currently occupied by non bender immigrants from the Earth Kingdom called Air Acolytes who cared deeply about the culture and were dedicated to keeping alive what traditions they could.
"I hate to be rude," said Mako after Tenzin finished explaining the situation of the Air Nomads, "but we still have questions for you. You said you aren't human and you aren't spirits. What exactly are you?"
"We're homunculi," said Sloth. "Artificial humans created using alchemy. Greed was born human and transferred his soul into a homunculus body. I was never human."
"What does being a homunculus mean?" asked Korra.
"Mostly it means we don't age, we have superhuman strength and speed, and we can regenerate any injury," I explained. "Our bodies are more alchemically malleable than a human's, letting us do things like shape shifting."
"That sounds like a pretty sweet deal," said Bolin.
"I thought so too," I said, nodding.
"Is this the part where we find out there's some horrible catch like you need to feed on the blood of the living or you're burned by the light of the sun?" asked Bolin.
"Nope," I said. "We require red stones to fuel our superhuman abilities that can be made from living humans, but there's a purely chemical alternative. And even without any red stones, we're just reduced to human levels of ability. The only real downside is that the conversion process is really painful."
"How painful?" asked Bolin.
"Imagine you've been skinned alive, all your organs have been dumped in a pile, your muscles and bones are all torn and dislocated," I said. "It's something a human would just die in agony from. That's what a homunculus is like when it's born. On the plus side, after living through that, there's not a lot left that'll phase you."
"When you say these stones can be derived from living humans..." began Mako.
"For a long time, that was the only way anyone knew how to make them," I said. "The method for creating red stones without killing people was recently developed by a pair of brilliant alchemists named Russel and Fletcher Tringam."
"You mention alchemy a lot," noted Korra. "What exactly is that?"
"Alchemy is the science of understanding matter, breaking it down into its component parts, and rebuilding it as something new," I explained. "Maybe you have a different term for it. Who made your pet?"
Looking at her massive, white furred pet with features of a dog and a polar bear, Korra asked, "You mean Naga? Who 'made' her?"
I nodded. "I'm a proud bio alchemist myself. You don't get to the point of making a homunculus body without some grounding there. Loki may not look it right now, but he's actually an advanced, military grade chimera. As for Naga, whoever put her together did really impressive work."
Sloth nodded. "I couldn't have blended the animals that smoothly."
"Naga isn't anyone's creation," said Korra incredulously. "I raised her as a pup after she was born with a litter of other polar bear dogs."
"So what's Loki made of?" asked Bolin hesitantly.
"He's got dog, lion, and crocodile in him," I said absentmindedly. "Polar bear dogs are just a normal animal in this world?"
"Well sure," said Korra. "Just like otter penguins, turtle ducks, and platypus bears."
"This world is weird," deadpanned Sloth.
"Can we talk about the dark spirits?" asked Tanraq. "They've shown up only very recently. Most of them have been attacking boats at sea. This was the first one to come into the city itself. I'm worried more will come and we'll have to defend ourselves again."
I manifested my zanpakto an placed it on the table. Korra was the only one in the room with spirit energy, so she was the only one who saw the sword. To everyone else, I'd just made an odd miming gesture.
"A zanpakto is a symbiotic weapon," I said. "I can provide blanks, but they'll need to bond with the souls of their wielders. There are currently about three people in the city who have enough spirit energy to bond with a zanpakto. Korra's one of them. I have the technology to infuse other people with spirit energy safely, at which point, they'll be able to bond with a zanpakto."
"Of course, granting large numbers of people spirit energy has social and international consequences you'd need to be ready to manage," Sloth pointed out. "The powers they'd develop could be used against their fellow humans just as easily as they could be used against spirits."
"And we could end up with the Equalist problem all over again," said Korra. "You said there were three people in the city who could bond with a zanpakto. Can you arm those three and let us think about the next step?"
"Sure," I said, carefully snapping three chips off the blade of my zanpakto. "What was the Equalist problem?" I asked as I gripped the hilt of my sword and channeled spirit energy into the weapon to regenerate the damage.
"A few months ago, an organization of non benders took over Republic City," said Korra. "They believed benders were abusing their power and oppressing them."
Returning my regenerated sword to its sheath, I willed it to vanish back inside my body. "Were they?"
"Some of them were," said Korra, "but their actions just made the situation worse. Their leader, Amon, was secretly a blood bender, and found a way to take away a person's bending permanently. In response, the council cracked down hard, which drove more non benders over to the Equalists' side, which made the council more nervous. It was a complete mess."
I created a glowing, orange cube shaped barrier on the table, covering the three chips I'd broken off my sword. Under the light of the barrier, the three chips each began growing into new swords. "What happened next?"
"The short version is I defeated Amon, exposed him as a water bender, discredited him among his followers and he hasn't resurfaced to cause trouble again," said Korra. "Afterward, I made contact with my past lives and Aang taught me energy bending. I used it to restore the bending of the people Amon had taken it from. The council was disbanded and a new president was elected to deal with the underlying issues that led to the Equalists in the first place."
"I have a question," I said, maintaining the space time reversion kido I was using to produce the blank zanpaktos. "Why aren't there more air benders?"
"What do you mean?" asked Tenzin. "My father Aang was the only air bender to survive the Fire Nation genocide. I'm the youngest of three siblings, and the only one who inherited my father's air bending abilities. Pemma and I have been fortunate that all of our children have been air benders. Not that we'd love them any less if they weren't."
"I mean, why did your father need to have children at all for there to be more air benders?" I said. "If you can use energy bending to make people benders, why not use it to grant the Air Acolytes air bending?"
"Would that work?" asked Mako.
"I... don't know," said Korra. "I've only ever used it to restore bending to people who already had it. It never occurred to me to try turning non benders into benders."
"I see your game here," said Bolin. "You don't have bending where you come from and you want Korra to make you a bender."
"Well... yeah," I said. "Why wouldn't I want bending?"
Raising his finger, Bolin opened his mouth, paused, then closed it. "I... can't think of a response to that."
"If it's possible, I'd like the full Avatar package with all four elements," I said, handing Korra one of the three finished blank zanpaktos. "You'll want to keep that with you at all times. Eventually, a piece of your soul will imprint on it and you can start developing a relationship with it."
"What do you mean a relationship?" asked Korra hesitantly.
"A zanpakto is a person," I said. "When you learn its name, you gain access to a portion of its power. As your relationship deepens, both of you are strengthened."
"How do you talk to a sword?" asked Korra.
"It's still a piece of your soul, so meditation and introspection will let you communicate with that part of you," I explained.
"Great... more meditation," sighed Korra.
"Tools or no, there are no shortcuts to spiritual development," said Tenzin in the voice of a long suffering teacher.
"Look, I don't know if it's safe for you to have more than one kind of bending," said Korra, getting up and heading around the table to me.
"I'm willing to take the risk," I said. "My body, mind, and soul are all pretty resilient, so if something goes wrong, you should have enough warning to reverse it."
"Even so, let's do this one at a time. I've never granted bending to a non bender at all before. Which element did you want to start with?"
"Air," I said. "It sounds like that's the art in greatest danger of dying out."
Korra nodded and placed one thumb on my chest and the other on my forehead. Her eyes glowed with a brilliant white light, a sign that her soul was being dangerously overclocked. I had spiritual weapons that could trigger that effect, and I saved them as absolute last resorts due to the risks involved.
I could feel Korra's soul reach into mine. Suppressing a reflexive impulse to push her away, I let her do her work. When the glow faded and she removed her hands, I took inventory and found nothing immediately wrong with myself."
"Did it work?" asked Korra.
"Try this," suggested Tenzin, making a gesture and sending a gust of wind out the door.
I copied his movement and a blast of air tore the door from its hinges and dug a furrow into the bare rock under the glacial ice. Eyes were wide and jaws hung open at the display. Embarrassed, I took a pair of metal bracers from my utility belt and clamped them on my wrists. Repeating the gesture resulted in a weak puff of air. While I sorted myself out, Sloth repaired the door with a quick transmutation, using a red stone to generate new mass due to the old door being miles away by now.
"What was that?" asked Tenzin, the first to recover his power of speech.
"Some of the things I use to be superhumanly strong and powerful must enhance bending too. These bracers suppress those abilities, bringing my strength down to normal human levels. I use them for training."
"What bracers?" asked Mako, examining my wrists.
"There's a visual barrier on them," I explained. "Only people with spirit energy can see them, just like the zanpaktos."
"Are you sure you want to try a second element?" asked Korra.
I nodded and we repeated the process. I felt no worse for wear and could now bend air and water. Next came earth, then finally fire, with no sign my body or soul was under any particular strain.
"I'm surprised no one came to investigate that wind blast," said Sloth.
"They probably thought that was me," said Korra embarrassed. "Dad, Tenzin, and I have been arguing a lot lately."
"No point bringing those hurt feelings back to the surface," I said. "Good news is the energy bending worked just fine."
"Ooh, do me next," said Bolin, raising his hand and waving it.
Korra shrugged and touched the young earth bender's forehead and chest. When her eyes stopped glowing and she took a step back, Bolin glanced around. Suddenly, he clutched his chest, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed, foaming at the mouth. To my spiritual senses, I felt a brief spike in his soul's spirit energy before his soul lost integrity and popped like a balloon. Korra looked horrified.
"It's okay," said Sloth quickly. Opening her hand, the silver ring on her finger transformed into a crimson, egg shaped crystal wrapped in elaborate gold wire work. A pulse of crimson light put Bolin's soul back together, purging the unstable energy that triggered the collapse in the first place. Then Sloth closed her hand and the crystal turned back into a ring.
Bolin sat up, gasping and said, "Okay, now we know why most people only get one element."
"Bolin, I'm so sorry," began Korra.
"No, no," Bolin waved her off. "I let me eagerness for cool new powers get in the way of safety. But seriously, why did that work for you and not me?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say because my soul's very different from yours," I said. "I have three different symbiotic spirit beings living inside me that help regulate my powers. I imagine they're taking some of the strain off."
"This should still be safe to use to empower the Air Acolytes," said Tenzin happily. "We were already planning a trip to visit all the air temples. You can grant air bending as we go."
"Tenzin, the south pole is under attack by dark spirits," said Korra. "I can't just leave. As the Avatar, I have a duty to help fix this."
"You won't be any help until you've improved your spiritual abilities, which is what this visit to the air temples is all about," argued Tenzin.
"You can go if you want, but I'm staying," said Korra stubbornly. "Ulanaq already offered to teach me what I need to know about spirits."
"Look, this really isn't any of our business," I said, gathering up the two blank swords. "Why don't we go deliver these while you talk amongst yourselves."
I slipped out with Sloth and Loki following close behind. Raised voices from the house we'd left tole me we got out just in time. After we'd walked a short distance in silence under the bright moon and stars, Sloth veered suddenly off the path and down a dead end alley.
"What's up?" I asked her.
"I was reading Korra's mind when she was energy bending you," said Sloth. "I know exactly what she was doing and how it felt from her prospective."
Sloth took a fingerless glove out of her utility belt and pressed it to her chest. The supernatural tool separated her homunculus body from her reigai, the artificial spiritual body animated by her Soul Gem. Reigai Sloth was invisible and inaudible except to people with spirit energy like me. Even her homunculus self couldn't see her reigai.
"Here's what I'm thinking," said homunculus Sloth, taking out a soul coin. "I'll put this blank soul in and you work with the other me to make me a bender."
"Okay," I said.
She pressed the coin to the oroboros mark on her shoulder blade, loading the blank soul in a burst of red alchemic light. Her reigai self passed on the process telepathically and I touched the two points on Sloth that Korra had touched on me. I pressed into her soul, made the change and backed off, breaking physical contact.
With a gesture, Sloth generated a puff of wind with air bending. She removed the soul and put it back in. After that, she tried a few times but was unable to air bend again.
"Looks like the process we use to blank them clears out any bending ability," noted Sloth, removing the soul and merging with her reigai self again. "Since you can energy bend, we can experiment more later."
"Tenzin, is that you?" asked the woman who answered the door I'd led us to. She had brown hair and was dressed in yellow and tan robes. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you might be my husband."
"You're Tenzin's wife?" I confirmed.
"Do you know my husband? Has something happened to him?"
"He's fine," I hastened to clarify. "There was an incident involving a dark spirit. No one was hurt and the spirit's gone back to the spirit world, but he ended up staying to talk to Korra about it."
"Well, thank you for letting me know," said Pemma.
"Wait," I said as she went to close the door. "We aren't actually here to relay a message from Tenzin. That was just a coincidence. We've brought a weapon that can help against future attacks by dark spirits. There's someone in the house who can learn to wield it. Tenzin knows the details and can explain when everone wakes up."
"What's this weapon and who's supposed to use it?" asked Pemma.
I took her hand and pressed the sheathed zanpakto into it, surprising her. "The weapon is invisible to most people. The person who can see it when they wake up is the one meant to wield it."
"I'll... be sure to talk to Tenzin about this when he gets home," said Pemma, taking the sword she could feel but couldn't see and closing the door.
Our last stop before returning to Tonraq's house and hoping the argument was over by then turned out to be a large, elaborately decorated ship. A pair of guards holding pole arms blocked the way aboard.
"What is your business on Chief Ulanaq's vessel?" asked the guard.
"Ulanaq?" I asked. "I thought Tanraq was the chief."
The guards looked at one another, then the one who spoke before said, "Tanraq is well respected in the Southern Water Tribe, but Ulanaq is the Chief of the Water Tribes. Who are you and why are you here?"
"My name is Greed. This is Sloth and Loki," I said, gesturing to them. "Dark spirits have attacked the city. There is someone aboard with the power to help fight them off. I'm bringing a weapon for that person to use."
"I don't see any weapon," said the guard.
I drew the blank zanpakto from its sheath and cut the head of his polearm off with the sword he couldn't see. That got their attention.
"Come with us."
I directed the guards where we needed to go. Ultimately, they knocked on a door I indicated.
"Yes?" came a voice from inside.
"Chief Ulanaq, there are some people here I think you'll want to speak with," said the guard.
Ulanaq opened the door. He was a tall, thin faced man, dressed in blue fur robes and with long dark hair. He had a great deal of spirit energy, and it had the feeling of something he'd purposefully cultivated.
"This is the man 'm here to see," I told the guards. "Chief Ulanaq, I've come to give you a weapon to help you defend the people of this city against dark spirits."
"Where did you get this?" asked Ulanaq, accepting the offered sword. "I've never felt anything quite like what I feel from this sword."
"It comes from another world and had the power to purify dark spirits and return them to their world," I explained.
"Who are you?" asked Ulanaq.
"Sloth, Greed, Loki," I said, gesturing. "If you'll excuse us, it's very late. I expect you'll want to get some sleep and I know I do. If you want to talk more in the morning, Avatar Korra knows where to find us. We just wanted to drop off the weapon as soon as possible in case of another dark spirit attack."
"Of course. Sleep well," said Ulanaq, staring at his new zanpakto.
Tonraq's house on the edge of the city was silent when we arrived back. Most of the others had gone. Only Tonraq and his wife were still there. She'd gone to bed, but he'd waited up for us.
"How'd it go?" asked Sloth.
"Korra's decided Tenzin is no longer her teacher," said Tanraq. "She's decided to study the spiritual practices of the water tribes under my brother Ulanaq while she seeks a way to calm the dark spirits."
"You don't sound happy," I noted.
"I think Korra's making a mistake," said Tanraq with a sigh, "but who her teachers are is Korra's decision."
"I hope it's nothing we said," said Sloth.
"No, this is something that's been building for some time," said Tanraq. "I'm sorry you had to arrive in the middle of it."
I yawned and stretched saying, "Hopefully everyone's tempers will have cooled off after a good night's rest."
Tanraq showed us to a guest room. It had a bed covered in heavy fur blankets. After turning out the lights, Sloth and I climbed under the covers, snuggled together, and closed our eyes. Loki climbed up on the foot of the bed and curled up at our feet. After two days hiking through the tundra, a warm bed was just what I needed.
Author's comments:
Acquiring bending is the easy part. Mastering it to the point it's more a help than a hindrance will be a far greater challenge.