Chapter 392

392 292 – Yuck

sent Fearful. Actually, he sent the entire bitter taste of the river eel.

agreed Glutton, taking large bites of the same.

Biter nibbled reluctantly, glancing at me as though I might be her next meal.

I had wondered, if only briefly, if my policy on Awakened animals should be lifted for river eels. It wasn’t as though they were anything but hostile. They regarded me as a delicacy, and I was nursing a brand new 74/80 Health.

Sheesh, criticals were mean. The children, with lighter armor and less health, might have been rendered unconscious with a single such bite.

I sent them images of the eel’s brain, encased in its skull. How else could I ask them to grow a brain? They had taken it as a sign to crack open the skull, except for Fearful, who sucked out an eyeball, and then the brain through the vacant socket.

A quick once-over with the reticule, however, confirmed that none of them were developing new mutations.

sent Fearful.

I sent back, placing down another eel for them.

.....

sent Biter and Glutton, as all three of them dug in.

I foraged as we made our way north, upstream. A bundle of cauliflower, a few sprigs of broccoli, a patch of river algae.

I stopped at the tree, tall and majestic.

sent fearful.

sent Glutton, spitting out a mouthful of bark.

I sent a group invite, with exactly the same results as every time so far.

And so, alone, I sent forth tendrils of my aura into the tree. It was just a single tree, and I found myself unable to tap it for Nature mana. What? Hadn’t I been able to tap it before?

I fed them without mercy, hoping they would grow once they reached the maximum of their omnivore method.

It was risky, crossing the river that far downstream of the wood, but preferable to being seen as an intruder on the centaur side of that river. Clan Cloverhoof, if Zinzelle was to be trusted, was looking for a chance to kill me.

Not willing to light a fire, I used goblin cold cooking methods to produce a paste of vegetables, fish, nuts, and herbs.

Glutton sent, and the three of them devoured the mess.

As they slept, I concealed them among some rocks and went hunting for myself. A single point of nutrition might last them for a day, but I needed a hundred fifty. That was roughly eight to ten servings of the exact same mashed mixture, roughly twice what I had been feeding the children combined.

One, two, three live blobs with coral backs. Nobody had died while I was out foraging.

Why hadn’t they grown back legs?

I mean, they had crab and lobster like pincers. Those both had multiple sets of legs. They had the templates.

Fearful grew a thicker skin, covered with stiff plates, like a turtle’s belly. Glutton, unsurprisingly, grew his Omnivore method to level two. It was Biter who surprised me, growing sinuous muscles to increase her Might to two.

Not that it was a bad move; it was just – she couldn’t have possibly had enough biomass or development points for that...

[You have no such ability, Maternal Biomass Loan.] my System told me, when I asked it. But clearly, my siblings still did.

A curious rodent (a large shrew, if it matters) provided me with material for an experiment.

I sent, hurling it among them. I wasn’t surprised when it eluded their many pincers and escaped. Fearful had an Agility rating of one, the others zero. Not a one among them had any Valor, the ability governing close combat.

I rubbed my eyes. They weren’t just newborns, they were literally helpless. Slow, stumbling, clumsy. Any bird worth its salt would kill all of them, and have energy to feast well.

That, I decided, was not something that was happening.

Until they could defend themselves, I would need to do that for them. But... Eihtfuhr hadn’t caused my breakthrough by doing everything for me. He had forced it by pushing me beyond what my limits were, and making me think my life depended upon it.

That sort of treatment would kill these three. But I knew, reflexively, that they weren’t feeling the same pressure to choose evolutions as I had felt. They needed...

Laughing gods, they needed challenges. Live food. Contests of survival. They needed me to do LESS for them, or I’d just have three rotund balls of lard, with just enough muscle to use me as a mount, carrying them from food source to food source.

As it so happened, a challenge like that happened that night. One for me, not the children. I knew the sounds when I heard them, like a line of feral beasts, pushing into and around every bit of foliage.

I had time to pull my backpack out of inventory, and scoop three very surprised bundles of protein and fat into it.

I sent an image of them hiding in the coral.

I didn’t have time for my armor or shield, but Heart’s Protector shone brightly, reflecting moonlight. “I only need so much of your land as to pass.” I said in their language. “And only for the duration that it takes me to pass.”

“Not a goblin!” hissed one of the children.

“Hrm. Large knife of steel.” Another noted. “Adult?”

“Adult enough to defend myself from you.” I said.

“Heh, weakling runts think of defense. Let’s attack it!” screeched... was that a girl goblin? What was she doing here among the male children?

She leapt for my chest, tiny knife raised to take me in the throat. I slapped her arm hard enough to spin her around, but she clung to her weapon with an admirable ferocity. Her back bounced off my chest, and she had rolled to safety before I could step on her.

I chose not to pursue, standing above and straddling my pack. It didn’t take long before the children were calling for an adult.

“What’s this ruckus, then?” a warrior said. He had to be a warrior; he was almost three quarters as tall as I myself was. “You are not a kobold.” he said.

“I am not. My name is...”

This is when the other adult clubbed me in the head from behind.

[You have taken a YELLOW critical for double damage. Base damage is eight points of Bludgeoning damage, for a total of sixteen. After armor, you have received ten points of damage. 64/80 health remain.]

As I spun to face his partner, the first charged me with a hand-spear. By this I mean a thirty inch length of branch with a spear point on the end of it. Putting the strength of the spin back to him into a slash, I stopped his charge, left him with cuts on his forearms that nicked the bones beneath.

The one with the club raised it again, but now I knew he was there, and was able to take the blow on my back for a mere two points of damage.

It was short, it was bloody, and the best among them had a combat skill of four, equal to my Valor before being increased by skills.

“Only one of you has died.” I shouted. “I only need so much of your land as to cross, and only for the time that it takes to cross it.”

I ducked below an arrow. No, not a curved twig fashioned into an arrow. I mean a straight shaft, with feathers on the back end and a flint arrowhead on the front. “All right, then. Let’s finish this!”

In the commotion, the other adults herded the goblin children north, back toward where their warden was. They left me with three adults who tried to engage me from three sides with arrow fire. Tried. I burned a single charge of Fleet of Foot, which lasted longer than they did.

He made a slurping sound.

It required use of the Agility/Crafts/Butchery/Slice Meat skill, and even between the both of us, we couldn’t save the whole thing. Or rather, couldn’t save it to the degree that it was safe for the newborn to eat.

complained Fearful.

complained Glutton.

exuded Biter.

I wasn’t about to leave them where a goblin could wake up and use them as snacks while I foraged.

I sent, after slicing the meat into even thinner pieces, mixing it with some vegetables, and squeezing out some of the filthy juices.

Glutton complained. the other two echoed.

I sent them pictures of the evolutions they could gain, and kept placing them in contact with the food until they’d each eaten at least a serving. Enough, at least, to have access to goblin evolutions. The rest, I ate; I wasn’t about to waste food.

And then, children exuding [Nausea] from my backpack, I made my way north toward the goblin lair.

Stupid Sobek Quest.

I hadn’t. I might have been able to tap my own feeling of amazement at nature, but a single mundane tree is not a suitable nexus for mana generation. (Unless it is an exceptional tree. That said, natural nexuses of Nature Mana can have trees growing on or near them.)