Introducing Ha’koff to the big one scene and showing him the ropes does possess some merit. Maybe the challenge and danger there would cause him to open up a bit and soften to the songs as I did? No, no, no. On second thought, let's not go to Kyklos. It’s such a silly place. The big ones are all so backwards, belligerent, and inane. They do keep a lot of nice treasures though. Hm.

  Vigorously shaking my head, I stand back up to my feet. My lovely new cloak eagerly floats down to gracefully reflect my movements, somehow remaining completely unstained by the mud. How does it do that? Some extra enchantment unmentioned by the appraisal’s description? Or is it somehow a part of its core functionality?

  Taking the cloak off and holding it up to my face, I take a closer look. Energy flowing from core to eyes, I enthusiastically amplify my senses to hone in on the advertised spacial energies. My specialty! Maybe it’ll even teach me something?

  A miniature universe of light and convoluted, energetic connections explodes directly into my eyes. Complex swirls of spacial energy continuously churn inwards like munching jaws, as if always ready to swallow anything offered. How curious!

  Scooping up a fistful of mud, I slap it against the inner lining of the cloak. However, it simply glops off, entirely falling back to the ground. Not even a slight stain remains after its passage. Well, that wasn’t impressive in the slightest.

  Thinking back to the description, it implied that action must be taken on my part. Does that mean that this is only some glorified trash bin? If so, then I need to somehow toss something into it. Something that’s apparently significantly smaller than that handful of mud.

  This is all starting to sound similar to the deception hierarchy’s disciplined control of trace elements due to my presence. At least, how the books describe it on an abstract level. Ordinarily, the goal is working your songs up to the level where you can cancel or destroy all emitted and reflected energy. Also any small material expulsions, like odors. Eventually even generating your own is possible. In this manner, others won’t realize that you’re present since all the evidence has been conveniently hidden.

  For example, this is why I’ve trained in the songs of arcane transformation for annihilation, illumination, and vibration. Annihilation for shifting and shaking tiny physical traces, illumination for manipulating light similarly to space, and vibration for modulating things like sound. However, even after maxing them all out, their performance is incredibly disappointing. Practically at the level of worthless cantrips, if that. All the serious illusory control occurs much further up the ladder, deeper into their synthesis. Although, with this wonderful, flowing cloak, are they perhaps now more than enough?

  Treating the cloak the same as any other enchanted machinery, I extend a probe of my stable energy inside. It easily absorbs it, and then rapidly disperses my energy all throughout. Soon my consciousness effortlessly spreads across the entire surface of the cloak, stretched significantly farther than I would have ever been able to do on my own.

  Somehow it occurs to me to push a little harder, causing my stable energy to exude out of the cloak’s surface as if pushed through a fine cheese grater. Practically microscopic, fringe-like fingers dangle all across the surface, swaying every which way in some unseen, arcane wind.

  Wow, that’s really weird. A neat trick, I guess. However, what’s the point? This vastly spreads out my awareness, almost like having eyes in the back of my head. Although, my mind can barely keep up with all the new sensory input. That can’t be what’s intended. It’s nothing like the description.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Focusing hard, I forcefully reduce the level of stimulus flooding into my mind.

  Oh wow, that’s so much better. I should always do this with devices like these to prevent the inevitable flood of complexity from their incomprehensible internals. Even limiting the sensory data from my amplified eyes would be incredibly enlightening. After all, only certain areas of attention need focus at any given time. Not the entirety of what my eyes mindlessly stream towards my consciousness.

  Ok. No longer overwhelmed, the next step is figuring out what to do with all this. Let's go with my initial instinct. Moving a trickle of passive energy along the already open channel of my probe, it floods out into all of my new little finger tips.

  Excellent, it stabilized like I hoped. All that’s left is to perform a very careful transformation. Let's do illumination first.

  The passive energy spilling into the fingers leaks out, voraciously grabbing all nearby light and tugging it towards the churning swirls of the cloak. It doesn’t take much, since it’s only affecting nearby light that would’ve otherwise contacted me. The light that would have reflected, giving away my presence to the eyes of another.

  My precariously balanced control somehow holding, I slide back into my usual awareness and inspect the cloak. Or, perhaps it’s better to say the entirely void black blotch where the cloak used to be. It’s working! However, the brief excitement shatters my discipline, forcing the cloak to pop back into visual existence. It’s sort of working!

  This is so fascinating. There’s so much more to learn, but this truly isn’t the simple device that I first thought. It’ll take practice and creativity to stretch it to its limits, but its limits are clearly sky high. Not that there’s any sort of sky here.

  Repeating the exercise, I switch over to annihilation transformations. At first, nothing appears to change. However, as I bring the cloak closer for inspection, I realize that my healthy, everpresent musk instantly disappears. The cloak is perfectly consuming my scent? I guess that’s good for hiding. Oh, and shutting up all the annoying, complaining big ones. I suppose that would help me fit in better. Not that I’m going back. I’m never going back.

  Lastly, I change to vibration transformations. Shaking the cloak around in my hands, it’s deadly silent. All the sound energy that would have otherwise been transferred into the environment around it is wholly consumed by the inner lining. Lovely.

  Sweeping the cloak back over my shoulders, I try all three at once. However, a nasty headache is my only reward. Too much, too fast. Must be missing the full suite of songs necessary to coordinate all this complexity. No worries, it’ll only be a matter of time and practice. Soon enough, I’ll be sneaking into the most dangerous places entirely unseen. There’ll be nothing that they can keep from me! Nothing that anyone can do to stop me.

  On a whim, I shift to flame transformations. After all, it said nothing about limiting the sorts of transforms that can be channeled through the cheese grater. Incredibly tiny, little flames fill the surface of the cloak, immediately looping back into the churn to be munched and swallowed. Neat! Does that mean that it can also protect me from fire?

  Vastly turning up the degree of transformational energy, the flames grow significantly larger. At first, the cloak continues to swallow the swelling fires. However, it quickly proves too much for the tiny mouths. Instead, the overwhelming flames begin eating at both cloak and goblin, and I urgently douse the transformations to prevent any further damage. Limited. Must keep it very limited. Let’s leave it to only swallowing traces.

  Wow, that was really dangerous! However, there are still a few other unorthodox transformations that I can try…