Chapter 11: 3 little boulders
NORMAL Merging : Stealthy Shadows(value 1p) + Silent Feathers (value 2p) = Shadow Kissed (value 3p)
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Shadow Kissed:
The darkness embraces you, cloaking your movements in silence. The deeper the shadows, the more they conceal your presence. With each step, the line between you and the darkness blurs, until only silence remains.
(Effect: If the Host is in a shadow, it becomes harder to be seen, and the noises they make are muffled. This effect scales directly with the degree of darkness. In complete darkness, the Host becomes absolutely silent (applies to equipment) and almost invisible, even to those with night vision. Passive)
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The last breath of night ebbed away, and Shadow Kissed had faded with it. Dawn broke over the dunes, and you couldn't help but wish the darkness had lingered a little longer. It was a useful trait—too bad it was tied to the night.
But there were benefits to having a vessel rather than a proper host, and one of them was that the crow didn't need sleep anymore. It could rest, sure, but sleep was now a thing of the past. Other physical needs remained—hunger, thirst—but sleep was a luxury you no longer had to indulge.
Small mercies, right?
Either way, you didn't waste your first night. No, you'd spent those moonlit hours plotting, formulating a plan to find the perfect host. It had to be someone worthwhile, a bender if possible. Skill level didn't matter; you'd learned that from the crow. Hours of focused effort could overcome months of practice when you were aiding the one training. No, what mattered most was temperament—someone with a mind open enough to listen, or at least compromise, when you gave an order.
Decisions, decisions... but decisions needed information.
So you flew, the crow's form blending seamlessly into the awakening oasis. You slipped through the narrow alleyways and skimmed above the clustered tents, careful to stay unnoticed. You listened to the hum of voices that filled the air—loud and careless chatter, complaints about the heat, grumbles about trade deals gone sour. Desert folk liked to talk. There wasn't much else to do under that unrelenting sun.
That's how you learned about last night's skirmish—a bloody clash between some sandbenders and a group of merchants. The sandbenders, a scavenger tribe, had ambushed the merchant's caravan, hoping to plunder whatever they could. But the merchants weren't defenseless. They had hired mercenaries, ex-soldiers mostly. A few witnesses claimed one of them even bent water, though that rumor was quickly dismissed with a laugh. 13 men died last night, most of them amongst the thieves.
It didn't matter much to you, anyway. By the time the sun had risen, the merchants and their mercenaries were already gone, slipping into the desert to avoid more ambushes.
The rest of the day was spent circling, observing, gathering whispers. You watched as the oasis moved from the busy hum of the morning into the stillness of the midday heat, and then back into a quiet bustle as the shadows grew long and the heat softened. By dusk, you'd learned more than you expected—small secrets and snippets of conversations, mundane details that could prove useful later.
The war with the Fire Nation had dragged on for a hundred years, and there was no news of the Avatar returning. That rumor was everywhere, repeated like a prayer by those who still held hope. But there were other things you found more interesting. Traders, mercenaries, tribespeople—they all moved about, oblivious to the crow's prying eyes. You flitted from one corner of the oasis to another, perching on awnings, rooftops, and old stone walls. Each time, you moved unseen, and each time, you learned something new.
As for potential hosts... the day yielded more than you'd hoped for. You watched, unseen, as the oasis exposed its broken souls and desperate survivors.
The first was a young sandbender—a boy barely into his teens, thrown like garbage into a sandy ditch at the edge of town. He was missing an arm, the stump crudely bandaged, and the word "thief" was written in dark, dried blood across his back. His eyes, half-closed and glazed with pain, were dull as he lay there, too weak to move. He had once been strong, you could tell by the set of his jaw and the muscles that still clung to his frame, but now he was barely clinging to life. His breath was shallow, his chest rising and falling like a broken bellows, and his one good hand clawed at the sand as if searching for some way out of his misery.
You moved on.
The second was a middle-aged man, draped in the green armor of the Earth Kingdom—though it was hard to tell under the layers of grime. His breastplate and pauldrons were caked in desert dust, almost indistinguishable from the earth he slouched on. Three times you circled him throughout the day, and each time you found him in the same dark corner, hunched over a jug of cheap wine. His eyes, sunken and bloodshot, stared blankly into nothing, and the lines of his face told you he had seen too many battles and lost too many friends. The last time you saw him, his hand trembled as he raised the jug to his lips, and his shoulders sagged under the weight of invisible burdens.
You left him to his drink.
The third was a merchant, standing at the crossroads of the bazaar. His robes were rich and colorful, but up close you could see the frayed edges, the dirt-streaked hems, and the patches where the fabric had worn thin. His face was lean, almost gaunt, and his eyes were bright with the hunger of someone who had known wealth once and was desperate to reclaim it. He smiled too wide as he peddled his trinkets, his voice rising in a melodic pitch to catch the attention of any passersby. There was a cunning edge to him, a sharpness that came from surviving in a place that swallowed the weak. Yet there was a hollowness too—a weariness that lay behind his eager gaze, like someone who'd been running for too long and couldn't stop.
Three choices, each with their own strengths and flaws. You watched them all from the safety of your puppet's wings, calculating the risks and rewards. Your thoughts churned like the shifting sands, weighing one against the other.
The sun was low on the horizon now, casting long shadows across the dunes. The crow sat perched on an old, weather-beaten awning, its black eyes glinting as it observed the scene below. None of them had noticed you. None of them even glanced your way.
The crow's gaze fell back to the sandbender, still lying in the ditch as the first cool breeze of the evening rolled over him. He shivered, curling into himself as the temperature dropped, and for a moment, you considered him. He was young—malleable. But he was also weak, a cast-off. Could he be molded, or would he break before you even began?
You glanced back at the drunken soldier, slumped in the alleyway with his armor hanging loosely on his frame. He had experience, skills that might be useful. But would he listen? Could you drag him from his stupor long enough to make him a proper vessel, or would he drown himself in drink before you even had a chance?
And then, the merchant—a man on the edge, desperate to regain what he'd lost. He had resources, connections... but could he be trusted? Or would his cunning turn against you at the first sign of trouble?
All 3 were earthbenders. In your vision, their chi was as brown as the earth itself, compared to the lack of color which defined the non-benders.
Choices. Always choices. And the night was just beginning to fall.
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Choose the young sandbender?
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Choose the drunk, homeless soldier?
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Choose the poor merchant?
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Or keep waiting for more options to present themselves?
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(You rolled a Nat 100 in luck this time, so I gave you all the information you need and 3 top-tier hosts to choose from. You don't need to think about convincing them, I will handle that part.
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Also, you get +5 trait points FOR FREE because of that 100 roll. I will put the traits you can buy in the comments.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
FangYuan1234
FangYuan1234 Remember that you can merge any traits in a Normal Merge or a Dice Merge
Hypothetical Dice merge examples -
Iron Stomach (value 1) + FP Air Bending (value 11) =-very good dice roll- Hungering Typhoons (value 24) (when hungry gain the Air Bending skill, level increases proportionally with hunger, max = lvl 10)
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Iron Stomach (value 1) + FP Air Bending (value 11) = -Very bad dice roll- Empty stomach (value 2) (become less hungry when breathing air)
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(Do yall get it? It's gambling with traits. You can double your trait points or lose it all.
A Normal Merge simply gives you a trait equal in value to the sum of what you invested)
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone