Turi lazily floated a core into his beak, shattering it and absorbing the essence. He’d learned a little trick to make it so that there was little inefficiency in the process- he simply had to reach out and pull the essence into himself, rather than letting most of it just explode into the area, only some of it going into his core. It was so simple, but he’d somehow never thought to do it- not when it wasn’t much harder to just eat the cores.
That had changed, though- small animals were extremely rare, now, and as they became bigger, so did their cores. It was not uncommon for raccoons to be as large as a human, or for wild dogs to be too large to even fit inside the few remaining buildings in the city.
He called his tome over, floating it in front of his face and glancing over the first page’s text, only really focusing on the important bits.
Strength: Potent
Senses: Prodigious
Durability: Potent
Intelligence: Abnormal
Essence: Ascendant
Turi only really cared about the last line- Essence. His Aspects were determined based on what he valued, and about a week ago, his essence had been added to the Aspects on the page. Since then, he’d constantly pushed the Aspect further and further, making his magic stronger and stronger.
The Aspect was his strongest by far, but it was actually costing more essence to Ascend it than the other Aspects. He was still disappointed in the less-exemplary rankings, but it was because, recently, he’d stopped being compared to only crows- instead, he was compared to every bird on Earth.
The tome snapped shut and Turi sighed. If he could just find a way to reach the third Realm, he’d be so much stronger… he felt that he was nearing the threshold, but that something was missing.
‘Am I strong enough now?’ Turi wondered. He was strong- very strong, but he still wasn’t confident. Even as he grew, the humans did too- and they had the advantage of having been the planet’s apex predators. From what he’d learned from Anoptera, the humans seemed favored by the planet. They were being gifted weapons and such- but where were his gifts? Nowhere.
Turi shook his head, removing these useless, jealous thoughts from his mind and refocusing on reaching the third Realm.
‘I’m not strong enough to do it on my own, but I can get others. In… one week, I’ll gather enough supplies to tempt an army of animals to help me.’ Turi thought.
To begin with that plan, he’d need to revisit Sanctuary and Anoptera.
***
Three days had passed, and now, around a large, square stone table that Turi had made were several creatures of great importance. Regardless of what they thought, he’d insisted heavily enough that they showed up.
On Turi’s side of the table was Deri, Fox and Tor, who were all very strong due to Turi’s assistance and their own efforts. In exchange for his continued assistance, they’d pledged semi-permanent loyalty to him.
On the other side was another group of animals. They lived in Sanctuary and acknowledged that Turi had been the one to build it, but were by no means loyal to him, like Deri and the others were. The important thing was that they were strong, entirely of their own labors and talent. There was a large, sleek black cat- Turi had been reluctant to invite her-, an owl- Turi had been even more reluctant to invite it-, another one of those hairy raccoons, a weird humanoid canine thing and, most importantly, a jet-black rat that could speak for them all, since the humanoid canine thing somehow couldn’t.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Porgul was the one that mostly spoke for the others, since they couldn’t speak for themselves beyond simple ‘no’s and ‘yes’s.
“Making demands of humans is dangerous- you don’t appear to have ever have experienced it yourself, but the humans are cruel. They’re dangerous, too- very dangerous, especially now that the world favors them.” Porgul said authoritatively, but Turi shook his head.
“Most of them are good. The bad ones are rare. I’ve spoken with them, and I’m friends with a couple. Besides, it is not just a demand- it’s also a deal. We’ll offer to help the humans with things, or to give them essence cores and crystals. Most of which I’ll be funding, mind you.” Ascenturi responded.
“But why should we help you with that? None of us are close to hitting the third Realm, and it’s doubtful they’d tell us regardless.” Porgul pointed out.
“You’ll eventually need the knowledge, and a relationship with the largest group of creatures in the region- significantly larger than Sanctuary- is valuable in of itself. Humans would be more reluctant to attack animals that leave them alone, and bartering with at least some of them might become feasible. All of this hinges, though, on a good first impression- which, to do, we’d need a large group of powerful but intelligent and tame animals.” Ascenturi said.
Porgul rubbed at his face, tired. The rat was clearly reluctant, but Turi was making pretty good points. It was pretty likely from his prior talks with the others at the table that they’d follow him if Porgul did, so this all hinged on the rat getting over his fear of humans.
Ten seconds passed before the rat finally answered.
“I expect more than just what you’re offering now. Knowledge of the third Realm and the potential for bartering… sure, those are nice, but I want hard benefits- and I imagine the others do, too.” Porgul said, and Turi did his best impression of a frown.
‘He’s moved on from resistance to the plan itself. If I can give them more tangible benefits, Porgul will agree.’ Turi thought. In a vault pretty deep within the Earth was his stash of essence crystals and cores. There were ninety-three second-realm cores, a hundred first realm cores, and about fifty second-realm crystals. The crystals were useless to everyone at the table, since they were already of the second Realm, but the cores were still valuable… the problem was that he needed those to negotiate with the humans.
“I’ll give you each twenty second-realm essence cores at minimum, with more granted based on your value.” Turi eventually said. Porgul looked very torn on the matter. Twenty essence cores was a lot- likely a couple weeks or so of work for a particularly powerful individual- but was verging on not being worth it.
‘I really don’t want to have to squeeze Leo for more cores,’ Turi thought, rapidly figuring out a few ways to increase the value of his proposition..
“I’ll pay you ten ahead of time, and if anything goes wrong, we can discuss… I think the term is hazard pay.” Turi said. Apparently, that was enough to tip the scale to his side, as Porgul stood up suddenly and spoke.
“I accept your proposition, Ascenturi. To confirm, this will happen in four days?” The rat asked, and Turi nodded. Before he could elaborate, though, the other four stood up and tapped their appendages on the table twice, which meant yes- presumably, that meant that they also agreed.
“Correct. In four days, I expect you to meet me here, at morning, where you’ll be given your ten essence cores. We’ll leave at midday, so be sure to get there on time.” Turi said. The group of independent Sanctuary-dwellers left the large stone building he’d made, and Turi addressed his followers.
“We’ll need to work hard to replace our losses today. They were harder to get on board than I expected, since Porgul doesn’t seem to like humans, and the others trusted his judgment.” Turi said to them. “With this, though, we’ve successfully gathered eleven powerful and, more importantly, intelligent animals, as well as the support of Anoptera.”
They already knew all of that, of course, but he didn’t want the conversation to end on a bad note… at least, he thought.
“The little human flock promised help?” Deri asked, and Turi looked at the fat pigeon weirdly.
“…You were there for the meeting, Deri.” Turi reminded the bird, and Deri simply nodded reluctantly. “Did you sleep through it?” Turi asked, suspicious. He’d learned a long time ago that Deri had learned to sleep with his eyes open somehow, but had never considered the possibility that the ‘big water bird’ would use that to sleep through such an important meeting.
“Yes.” Deri admitted simply. Turi took a deep breath, but relaxed. Everything was going according to plan, and better, with the message he'd received a few days ago.