fetch

a fetch is folklore's word for a person's exact double. here it begins with a syringe, a living creature and a vat of green mash. the draw makes the creature hop; nobody bleeds. pour in two buckets of nutrient mash, seat the sample, and a double takes shape in the glass over a minute. if the original was grown and its kind has a childhood, two more buckets and two more minutes grow it up. a child's sample stays a child. an empty hand on the finished vat brings the double out beside it, carrying the original's name, looks and tameness, with a new identity of its own.

turn the syringe on yourself and the vat grows your own fetch: a mannequin wearing your skin and name, ready to pose, dress and leave holding your place. with folk on the shelf, a villager's double keeps the face, hair and clothes that make that villager a person.

then the experiments begin. growth serum doubles the size; dwarfing serum halves it, bottle by bottle while the vat works, from a quarter to four times the usual size by default. a second sample of the same kind makes a graft: the first creature supplies the body, the second offers its strain, and the double takes the better of the attributes both carry. a horse with a good jump and a horse with a good turn of speed have something to offer each other.

the cryopod keeps the original. step inside and your health and hunger hold still until you sneak out. open an empty pod with a crouching, empty-handed touch, then touch a creature nearby to hold it whole in the frost. a crouching touch lets it out again. for a longer journey, draw the held creature into a capsule and carry it in your pocket; use the full capsule on a block to let that same creature step out at the other end. the capsule takes its passenger from the pod.

a sample has a life beyond the vat. over an awkward potion on the brewing stand, it lends the creature's trait to the bottle: a horse's swiftness, a rabbit's leap, a strider's ease in fire. the animal is still in the field when the potion comes off. hold its sample in your main hand and it gives a direction and distance to the original while that creature is loaded in your dimension; a person's sample keeps no such trail.

and there are other ways to tend the glass. chicken, turtle and sniffer eggs hatch in the vat with two buckets of mash and a minute's patience. a lightning rod on the dome lets a strike finish a waiting double in an instant. with works beside it, the kettle renders feedstock into mash lumps for the next bucket. the laboratory can be a quiet room off the farm, right up until the thunder.