Little Algae — Diary of a Dead Wizard

Little Algae is a sentient magical organism that chooses Saul as its companion. Beginning as a small tendril mass separated from the Soul-Devouring Mire, it becomes an unusually versatile extension of Saul's household: part pet, part field partner, and eventually the living foundation of the Purity Wizard Tower's underground defenses.

Biography

The mire beneath the Wizard Tower

Little Algae first encounters Saul after the Soul-Devouring Mire drags him into an abandoned laboratory beneath Gorsa's tower garden. The Dead Wizard's Diary identifies the dancing tendril mass on Saul's shoulder as the mire's core consciousness. It reacts strongly to the spiritual properties around Saul and tries to cling to him, but the larger mire violently resists the idea of its core leaving. A small portion nevertheless follows him from the underground chamber and hides at the back of his neck, turning the frightening encounter into the beginning of a voluntary attachment. (Chapters 84–86)

When the detached tendril reappears in Saul's laboratory, it does not attack him. Instead, it holds out a reagent and helps him improve his soul-resin work, earning the provisional nickname “Seaweed Dumpling” and soon the name Little Algae. Saul initially worries that it may be a parasite, yet repeated observation shows an intelligent, cooperative creature able to understand simple directions and manipulate tools. Its sensitivity to soul-aligned materials becomes practically useful, while Saul's willingness to feed, study, and speak to it gives the offshoot an existence separate from the vast mire that produced it. (Chapters 90–93)

Field partner and divided watcher

As Saul begins leaving the safety of the tower's rooms, Little Algae becomes his most adaptable physical partner. It splits one tendril into several anchors, drives them into rock or earth, lowers Saul through shafts, pulls companions to safety, scouts forks ahead, and forms nets against ambushes. It also handles potions and tools when Saul cannot approach a target directly. These actions are not automatic spell effects: Little Algae responds to instructions, improvises, and even comforts Saul after he cuts off one of its branches to escape pursuit, showing that its loyalty is personal rather than merely a property of grafting. (Chapters 121–126, 192–200)

Its capacity to divide gives Saul a surveillance system that can remain behind when he travels. Little Algae plants offshoots at the lakeside cottage, searches underground waterways, retrieves corpses, traces concealed rooms, and reports danger through the mental impressions shared with Saul. The arrangement also lets it build a broader relationship with Saul's other companions. It repeatedly tries to catch Penny's intangible butterfly form, turning an impossible hunt into play, while still recognizing her when ordinary senses cannot. Exposure to Veiled Crystal Essence further changes it, allowing its body to interact not only with ordinary matter but with souls and mental entities. (Chapters 227–228, 299–303, 326–331, 363–371)

Choosing Saul over its old roots

Little Algae's independence becomes explicit after the collapse of Gorsa's Wizard Tower. Its substantial root body remains in the old underground laboratory, and Saul has never imposed a master-servant contract on it. When Saul decides to leave, he therefore asks whether it wishes to remain with that established body or travel with him. Little Algae answers by wrapping around him and relinquishing the massive growth it cannot move. The choice reduces it to a tiny body sheltered at Saul's nape, but it preserves the relationship it values, establishing that its continuing service is freely chosen rather than ownership disguised as companionship. (Chapters 429, 439)

On the road, Little Algae continues to act as transporter, defender, and practical helper despite the loss of its old foundation. Its fragments guard Saul's cottage and recover messages; its mobile body carries him through pipes, water, and difficult terrain; and its tendrils restrain enemies while keeping vulnerable companions out of danger. Because its mouth is poorly suited to human speech, Agu recommends teaching it to read and write. Saul embraces the idea and plans to use its distributed awareness as the monitoring system of his future tower, turning a creature once treated as an underground experiment into a trusted participant whose understanding is expected to grow. (Chapters 440–469, 481, 496)

Rooted guardian of the Purity Tower

Saul eventually reserves the entire second basement of the Purity Wizard Tower for Little Algae. The damp underground chamber provides the earth and humidity its body needs, while rooting promises stable growth without forcing it to rely on uncontrolled mutation. The first planting attempt exposes Camus's buried soul and postpones the process, but Little Algae helps investigate the resulting danger by sending a disposable branch below and returning with anomalous soil. Once the threat subsides, it takes root successfully, spreads black tendrils across the basement walls, and gains a permanent home within Saul's tower. (Chapters 542–548)

Rooting transforms Little Algae into part of the tower's daily infrastructure. It stations clones at the lakeshore to identify visitors, deliver simple messages, hide beneath the soil, and counter ambushes; elsewhere its offshoots transport people, guard approaches, and search terrain that ordinary wizards cannot safely enter. The arrangement also makes its welfare inseparable from the Purity Tower. Saul refuses to abandon the Borderland partly because moving its developed root body would destroy years of growth, while Little Algae continues obeying the tower household even when Saul is absent. It is therefore neither furniture nor a conventional summoned beast, but a resident organism whose body has become the tower's living perimeter. (Chapters 548, 575–606)

Black-tide crisis and hybrid rebirth

The danger of that rooted scale emerges when polluted dead spirits surge from beneath the tower and pour into Little Algae's root system. Feeding on them makes it enormous but violently irrational: its tentacles wreck the basement, nearly crush Hope, and attack Saul before recognizing him. Saul uses his newly attained third-rank power, Nightmare Butterflies, and his consciousness space to suppress the riot, then seals the deeper source with Byron. He refuses to accept mindless strength as an improvement and promises to cure Little Algae, defining survival and retained personhood—not sheer size—as the goal of the treatment. (Chapters 681, 704–706)

Saul first tests an Inverted Tree seed as a means of drawing out the pollution, but Bethstana warns that its stronger autonomous consciousness will eventually consume Little Algae. He therefore replaces that dangerous solution with Black Sea Tree material able to absorb and process pollution without the same certainty of takeover. After a long sleep, Little Algae awakens dramatically reduced, its once-thick trunk replaced by fine branches tangled into a compact ball. The treatment also leaves it fused with both tree lineages, making it a unique new organism rather than a restored example of the original Soul-Devouring Mire. It immediately chooses mobile life with Saul again and folds the hybrid body into his nape. (Chapters 748–749, 805–809)

Companion beyond the wizard world

The transformed Little Algae remains closely integrated with Saul's senses and experiments. It notices an anomaly at Corey's residence before Saul can identify its cause, reacts to dangerous fragments during later conflicts, and contributes part of its hybrid body to pollution-resistant biological research. Its appetite and habit of lunging at unfamiliar material persist, but it also follows prohibitions immediately when its presence could expose the Black Sea Tree traits to hostile researchers. The combination of curiosity and obedience makes it useful without erasing its temperament: it still wants to taste the world, yet trusts Saul to decide when that impulse is unsafe. (Chapters 820, 829–871, 950)

When the Death Demon sends Saul away from the wizard world, Little Algae is one of only two companions hidden within him who make the journey. Ninety-nine years of travel through the stars do not dissolve their bond. At the Starlight Bazaar, it still emerges as a slender black tentacle, vocalizes its familiar “ying” sounds, and accepts Saul's touch while Penny perches on it. Its final role is therefore not as the stationary guardian it once became, but as the enduring nonhuman friend whose repeated choice to leave established roots keeps Saul from travelling alone. (Chapters 1025, 1037)

Appearance and personality

Little Algae has no human body or fixed face. Its earliest independent form is a small, wet-looking mass of smooth black tendrils, capable of clinging like a glove or hiding at the back of Saul's neck. As it grows, a tendril tip can split into a broad mouth lined with jagged shark-like teeth and extend a black tongue. Its body can resemble vines, a snake, a many-legged spider, or a dense seaweed ball depending on how its branches are arranged. Rooted at the Purity Tower, its largest appendages become nearly a meter thick; after hybridization, the body contracts into fine, hooked strands knotted tightly enough for Saul to carry in both hands. (Chapters 84–85, 90–93, 121, 542, 704, 806–809)

Its behavior is playful, food-motivated, affectionate, and strongly loyal. It enjoys startling Saul, biting objects, stealing unripe fruit, and staging futile ambushes against Penny, but it also strokes Saul's face when he apologizes, comforts him when he is worried, and submits when he sets a boundary. Little Algae is not mindless: it understands choices, recognizes people, displays frustration and embarrassment, and willingly sacrifices developed bodies to stay with Saul. Pollution can overwhelm this personality and turn hunger into violence, yet once stabilized it returns to the same curious companion rather than becoming a different character. (Chapters 126, 331, 439, 704, 748–749, 806–809)

Abilities

Soul-Devouring Mire physiology

Little Algae feeds on corpses, soul fragments, death energy, and certain magical materials. Its mire-derived body digests spiritual matter rapidly and can absorb energy that would contaminate an ordinary wizard, although unprocessed black-tide souls can still overwhelm its reason. After consuming Veiled Crystal Essence, it can touch physical objects, soul bodies, and mental entities such as Nightmare Butterflies. This breadth makes it a valuable scavenger and rescuer, but appetite is also a recurring weakness: unfamiliar energy can cause sleep, mutation, uncontrolled growth, or indiscriminate biting. (Chapters 90–93, 363–371, 544, 615, 704)

Splitting, rooting, and regeneration

Any substantial branch can divide into smaller tendrils, remain as a semi-aware offshoot, or take root in suitable earth. The network lets Little Algae guard distant sites, search underground, pass simple impressions to Saul, and replace expendable scouting branches. A rooted body can grow across an entire basement and sustain numerous clones, but that scale sacrifices mobility; abandoning an established foundation leaves only the portion carried with Saul. Severe damage to offshoots is survivable, while mental pollution affecting the root can propagate dangerous behavior through the larger body. (Chapters 121–126, 227–228, 327–328, 439–440, 542–548, 575–606)

Restraint, transport, and sensory work

Little Algae's tendrils anchor into rock, pull Saul through tunnels, propel him underwater, carry other people, wrap targets into cocoons, and form nets or barriers. Mouths at their tips can hold tools, deliver potions, chew through ice, or swallow threats before they strike Saul. The organism senses death and spiritual anomalies without conventional eyes, allowing it to detect concealed souls, distinguish unsafe areas, and warn Saul of disturbances that evade ordinary magical readings. Complex identification still benefits from Saul's guidance, and clones with limited awareness can retrieve the wrong target when a task requires fine distinctions. (Chapters 93, 121–126, 192–200, 326, 363–371, 440–469, 544)

Hybrid pollution resistance

Fusion with Black Sea Tree material and traces of the Inverted Tree remakes Little Algae's body after its black-tide riot. The new form becomes smaller, develops dense hooks, and is treated as able to withstand polluted biological fragments that previously posed greater danger. Saul believes it may have inherited some interaction with Red Sea Trees, but does not test that possibility openly because it could draw the Tribunal's hostility. The transformation stabilizes the companion enough to travel again, yet it creates a unique species whose full range of powers remains unclassified. (Chapters 748–749, 805–820, 839–864)

Relationships

Saul: Little Algae repeatedly chooses Saul over established roots, first following him from Gorsa's underground laboratory, then abandoning a large body when he leaves the ruined tower, and later leaving its Purity Tower basement after hybridization. Saul feeds, teaches, houses, treats, and protects its personhood; Little Algae scouts, transports, defends, and accompanies him across the stars. Their bond remains voluntary because Saul never imposes a master-servant contract. (Chapters 84–93, 121–126, 439–440, 542–548, 704–706, 806–809, 1037)
Penny: Little Algae treats Penny's intangible butterfly form as both puzzle and playmate, repeatedly trying to lick or swallow her despite being unable to hold her. Their noisy rivalry becomes companionship, and both remain hidden within Saul when he is sent into the starry sky. (Chapters 331–344, 1037)
Agu: Agu recognizes Little Algae's value as a distributed observer and recommends teaching it written language so its clones can report more precisely. He also advises Saul about Soul-Devouring Mire phenomena and participates in the household that turns the organism from a pet into the Purity Tower's monitoring network. (Chapters 363–371, 440, 543)
Hope: Hope shares the Purity Tower with Little Algae and relies on its rooted network, but nearly dies when polluted souls drive it into a riot. Saul's rescue and treatment restore a workable relationship between the steward and the tower's living underground guardian. (Chapters 542–548, 704)
Camus: Little Algae's first attempt to take root exposes Camus's buried soul and begins her return to the tower. It later assists Saul's efforts to draw her into conversation, while Camus's actions around the underground dead precede the violent feeding crisis that changes Little Algae's body. (Chapters 542–548, 704)