Blink

Blink (also called Bling) is the companion of the young mage Jonathan River in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"): a flying being about the size of a hand, pink and cloud-like or jelly-like, with eyes and a mouth. It first crept out from between Jonathan's back and his bed, copied the shape of his fist, nestled against his cheek and fell asleep in his hand. For all his learning, Jonathan could not tell what kind of creature it was.¹

Origin

Blink appeared on the night of Jonathan and Dunk's failed ritual at the Archon, an attempt to bring back a child said to be trapped in the Ethereal Plane; Jonathan thought they had summoned something. No child was seen that night, and whether Blink has anything to do with that child is not known.²³⁴

For safety Jonathan showed it to the great master Yotun. The master did not know exactly what it was, but found it no harmful fiend, and let Jonathan keep it on condition that it never be used to bend the school's rules. Blink drew attention to Jonathan, and young teachers wanted to study it.⁵⁶⁷

Jonathan tells its story differently to different listeners. At the Archon he said it had come out while he was trying to summon another familiar; to his companion Olaf he boasted of having called it from another plane with great effort, a tale Olaf doubted, and he repeated that claim, untruthfully, in a scroll-seller's shop. To the witch hunters' master Otto he called it the side effect of a magical experiment in his student days, approved by his teachers; Otto, an experienced hunter, said he had never seen anything like it. Much later he told a travelling mercenary that it had come out of the smoke of an alchemical attempt at the Archon, a companion with no human soul and the mind of a child.^7891011

Nature

Blink does not grow, and unlike a familiar it does not vanish; it flies fast. It cannot speak, but copies short sounds and reactions it hears. Its fluid body can slip through narrow gaps and break apart and come together again, and it can take the shape of small tools and objects, matching their colour and texture closely enough that only careful inspection tells the difference. It feels strongly and grasps things directly, struggling with figures of speech, and its warmth or coolness towards people follows Jonathan's own.¹²¹³¹¹

In his student days it could not be used as a weapon. Later on the road it learned to fight, as a hammer or a shovel or by striking with its cloudy body, swelling to the size of a small creature in battle. By then the two could also understand each other in simple concepts, in its own broken speech, and could share basic thoughts at short range, though anything deep or indirect still escaped them.¹²¹⁴¹⁵

Jonathan says that, unlike his owl Bold, which can be summoned again, Blink would truly die if killed. Blink plays with Bold, burrowing under its wing, grieves when the owl is lost and hugs it when it returns. Jonathan and Teresa once discussed how its mind is not like an ordinary human mind, and Jonathan has wondered aloud whether it might have no time of birth or death and not age at all.^1617181920

At the Archon

Despite the master's condition, Jonathan used Blink to break the rules when a precious tool set went missing from the workshop. It flowed into ordinary room locks, took the shape of the key and opened them, letting Jonathan into the rooms of the students Duran and Curtis.²¹²²²³

On the road

In an orc camp Blink was left in a locked box in the shape of a pin. It came out through the keyhole and took the shape of the key, though it could not turn itself, so Bold turned it; the real rod in the box was taken away and a copy left in its place. Bold's invisibility did not extend to Blink, which had to make its own way back unseen.²⁴²⁵

Against wolves it took the shape of a ball and opened its eyes, then stood ready as a shovel; it was sent after Olaf when he gathered brushwood for the fire. In a forest harmed by acid rain it tried to cheer the others without quite understanding their mood. Searching for an underground entrance it probed the earth like a spade, and when it took a shape that fitted a double hook inside, a chain-like form appeared, which helped Jonathan guess at a link with the chain-bearers.^26272829

Beneath the mountain it helped from the back in a fight against a spirit, then fled outside; it probed a chasm with a pole, served as a hammer while a rope crossing was rigged, and struck a helmet in a duel with a suit of animated equipment, falling back when hurt. In a scroll-seller's shop it became a mop to show that Jonathan meant his offer to help clean.^3031329

The search for Lady Teresa

When Jonathan and Olaf woke in a cold cellar, it was Blink that nudged them awake; with signs and shapes it told them that they had tumbled down the stairs and that a spell had been cast on both of them. It could not open the cellar door in the shape of a lockpick, but passed through the lock, looked outside for a few minutes, and showed with shapes an overturned bookcase and a broken table, signs of a struggle, and no one about. At night it crept close to the fire, pretending to shiver.^33343536

In town it scouted Captain Markus's house while Jonathan, disguised as the captain, slipped in, and described with shapes the desk and the letter in a locked inner room beneath the carpet. On a later visit it pointed out the street, the passers-by and the house. Jonathan also asked it to show the house's V crest on its own body.^37383940

After a span of time that Jonathan and Olaf could not remember, Blink came out of the shape of a stone beside the campfire and rubbed against Jonathan in delight. With images and small changes of shape, rough and full of jokes, it acted out what it remembered: the search, a false Teresa, a chase, and the arrival of the real Teresa.⁴¹⁴²

Spoiler: In the cavesRevealSpoils: Zincirsiz #17; Zincirsiz #18; Zincirsiz #15 · Say what you have read

In the caves beneath the forest Blink seemed startled, as if it sensed a change in Jonathan. Sent ahead in the shape of a hammer, it cut the upper ties of a rope ladder with the shape of scissors and took the place of the missing link itself, so that the ladder would fall when an enemy climbed it. When a drow came down from the upper entrance, Blink let go, and the drow fell and was hurt; a mind flayer above escaped the trap. Blink fought on as a hammer, was wounded by the drow, and then struck the mind flayer on the head.^4344454647

It guarded the captive and attacked a drow trying to escape, and with Olaf carried bodies out of a water cave, bearing them up from below as a hammer. On the dawn journey that followed it rode with Jonathan in the back of the wagon.⁴⁸⁴⁹⁵⁰

In its earlier acted-out account, the false Teresa had turned into the head of an illithid.⁴²

The journey south

Introduced to the mercenary Max, Blink scattered into pink fragments when he pushed it away in alarm, gathered itself again and showed him the shapes of a key, a dagger, a hammer and a shovel. Turning into a key could not open a box whose lock was a spell woven into the box itself.¹¹⁵¹⁵²

When Jonathan went down into the water of a vanishing lake, Blink went with him without trouble, and later carried rusty pieces of armour up from the bottom of a pit. In a fight with a beast it struck as a shovel and helped Max's shot.^53545556