“Such graceless tails,” Sage sighed, for what felt like the thousandth time as she watched me work. I used my Stained Fang to scrape away extra tendons from the base of the limb. She prodded Nightshade. “Why must we tussle with so many wormers and burrowers?”
“Do not the creature’s of the sky prostrate themselves before you?” Nightshade seemed almost puzzled. “If they lacked such wisdom, they too would be put to the sword and have their flesh benefit us.”
“Yes, yes, obviously,” Sage waved her new, glittering dragonfly ‘tails’. “Perhaps my question was poorly phrased. Why tarry here? None of the denizens of the wetlands are worthy of our time, not truly.”
“Brother Tallum’s mission to civilize would have been too simple if we had relocated to a local of substance.”
Both my siblings looked at me, pity mixed with admiration in their gazes. I looked up from my work, irritated, from the hip joint I had finally managed to pop out of its socket without damaging the bone. “Let me remind you both, we literally washed ashore here after escaping a Necromancer’s Tower that was being put to the torch. Compared to what we escaped, a little mud isn’t such a big deal.”
“Our journey could have continued downstream.” Sage sniffed. “Surely, no other choice would be worse than this.”
I could only sigh at my sibling. “Sage, I mean this is the most complimentary way, if we had stayed in the river until we reached a place sophisticated enough for you, we would have floated off the edge of the world.”
A new spark came into Sage’s eye. “Do you truly suppose this world has an edge? To witness a waterfall roaring above the void…”
“To gaze into that darkness, to brave the precipice…” Suddenly Nightshade breathed more heavily. “How thick is the flow of water? Could I allow myself to be carried away… and then endeavor to climb back, as a carp seeks to become a dragon?!”
I decided to focus on the flesh in front of me. Besides, I had finally finished indulging my perfectionist tendencies in removing superfluous gore. Now I just wanted to incorporate a little bit of extra Mana flair into the powerful legs. My squirrel fingers formed hand seals.
Your Skill (Species) Monstrous Array Knowledge has grown to Level 5.
Your Skill (Earned) Innate Mana Attunement has grown to Level 16.
Your Skill (Species) Monstrous Array Knowledge has grown to Level 6.
Your Skill (Species) Monstrous Array Knowledge has grown to Level 7.
My figurative eyebrows rose as Monstrous Array Knowledge jumped up by three Levels, as I placed concentration array nodes in the hips, knees, and ankle joints of the powerful beaver legs. Is it because its a Species Skill related to my body part construction? Or is it just the best way to improve my array knowledge, having it involve myself…?
Either way, it was a boon. I used my squirrel hands to pat all across my tortoise legs. The four stubby limbs had served me well thus far, but I wanted a change. And, if I was being honest, I coveted the powerful little hops that the beaver had managed.
Would you like to integrate array-enhanced leg set of Hefty Dam Builder Lvl 19?
Integration requires 304 Anima. Continue?
Warning: All body part slots filled. If you integrate, you will need to lose one of your other body parts. Please select a body part to lose.
For a split second, I goggled at the Anima cost. Suddenly, I was glad I had held onto my excess Mana instead of consuming it for Health. I considered the legs again. Either they were profoundly more valuable than I expected, or the incorporation of the Mana Arrays carried with it a pretty steep cost.
Only one way to find out, I thought as I selected yes.
You have released Four Legs of the Sleepy Swirlback Tortoise. Strength -4, Defense -2, and Agility -1.
Your Skill (Species) Integrate Body Part has grown to Level 34.
Your Skill (Species) Skill Contemplate Flesh has grown to Level 15.
Your Skill (Species) Integrate Body Part has grown to Level 35.
You have integrated Array-Enhanced Leg Set of the Hefty Dam Builder Lvl 19! Array-Enhanced Leg Set of the Hefty Dam Builder provides +10 Strength, +5 Poise, and +5 Agility. In addition, due to your unique actions, activations of Minor Realm Step have become more effective with these body parts.
Looking at the Stats, I felt a surge of pleasure. It was a loss of 2 Defense, but +6 Strength, +4 Agility, and +5 Poise more than made up for it. Besides, my other Stats, abilities, and body parts made me almost pointlessly tanky anyway.
My flesh roiled and I plopped onto the ground as the tortoise legs vanished. The next instant, I staggered back upward, acclimating myself to the trembling sensation of power within my new legs. I straightened with a bit too much vigor, turning the action into a short hop. I landed, overcompensated, and face-planted.
Wincing, I propped myself back up. Okay, +5 Poise is not enough to balance out a sudden surge of +10 Strength. Also… I’ll need to adjust my body shape a bit.
Your Skill (Species) Interstitial Body Structure has grown to Level 29.
I mobilized my will; when I had four legs from the tortoise, I stretched out my lower torso and created a wider base. But with now only two legs, that base and body needed to be resized. After compressing and tightening flesh, I remembered why this had become an issue in the first place; the armored spine was too long to accommodate, otherwise. Yet I had a solution for this as well.
Growling, I slithered over the ground toward the second body part I had carved out for myself.
Would you like to integrate armored tail of the Hefty Dam Builder Lvl 19?
Integration requires 92 Anima. Continue?
Warning: All body part slots filled. If you integrate, you will need to lose one of your other body parts. Please select a body part to lose.
“Now this is an Anima cost I can get behind,” I sighed as I clicked yes.
You have released Reliable Tail of the Unlucky Albino Python Baron. Constitution -3, Poise -4, and Agility -4.
Your Skill (Species) Integrate Body Part has grown to Level 36.
You have integrated Armored Tail of the Hefty Dam Builder Lvl 19! Armored Tail of the Hefty Dam Builder provides +5 Strength, +5 Poise, +5 Insight, and +5 Constitution. You have gained the (Temp) Skill Deflection Lvl 1.
“Shouldn’t have indulged in that thought about already being too tanky…” I shook my head. But a new Temp Skill, combined with the raw boost in 20 Stats was definitely valuable.
…even if I would have chosen a different distribution, if given the option…!
Your Skill (Species) Interstitial Body Structure has grown to Level 30.
Your Skill (Species) Interstitial Body Structure has grown to Level 31.
My flesh wriggled again as I set to work, remaking this new combination of body parts. Using the muscles of my interstitial flesh, I squeezed the spine and the tail closer and closer together. Body parts Chimera Cores absorbed were discrete presences, both physically and in their connections to my Mana array, but I pushed to situate them almost directly against one another.
I squeezed and squeezed, bringing the two pieces of armored body tightly together.
To my surprise, the primary resistance wasn’t physical; I felt a weird Mana discharge the flesh flowed together rather well. Even as the Mana static in my animating array built, I happily slid some of the spine’s armor plates onto the tail, making use of its impressive girth.
All at once, the reaction shifted from static to a rumbling pulse.
Your Skill (Species) Contemplate Flesh has grown to Level 16.
Your body part Armored Tail of the Dam Builder is reacting to [Redacted] of Armored Spine of the Insomniac Wetlands Armadillo Bruiser. Calculating… incorporating the [Redacted] benefits of Wisdom-
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Incorporation failed. Please increase your Wisdom to gain early access to [Redacted].
A Mundane Achievement: Another brush with [Redacted], +1 Max Mana.
Due to Exalted’s Due, +9 Max Mana.
Your Skill (Earned) Exalted’s Due has grown to Level 16.
Your body part Armored Tail of the Dam Builder has gained a [Redacted]! [Redacted II] created.
An Epic Achievement: For possessing two [Redacted] before the Second Growth Threshold, +10 Free Stats, +50 Max Health.
Due to Exalted’s Due, +5 Free Stats, +25 Max Health.
Your Skill (Temp) Deflection Lvl 1 is reacting with [Redacted II]. Your Skill (Temp) Deflection has evolved into Skill (Temp) Armored Deflection Lvl 1.
I froze, even as my body began to settle into the new form and the two body parts settled partially on top of one another. Forcing the two together had tiny Mana distortions in my animating array. But suddenly, those two parts had settled into a kind of balance, the connections between body part and array sharing some of the same threads.
Belatedly, I started; obviously, the Stained Fang, Bitter Heart, and Mysterious Sac had the same sort of arrangement, on the opposite side of my animating array. I simply hadn’t noticed it because I hadn’t possessed Innate Mana Attunement when that section had emerged. Now looking, I could feel the minor reverberations in the way they functioned; an inner sort of resonance had emerged, which hummed out from the associated body parts. They weren’t as physically superimposed, but another portion of their functioning was shared.
Weirdly, a new distrustful discharge emerged: the two groups might be aligned with each other, but bristled at the presence of the other. The shared threads resonated between the group, seeking to drown out the resonance of the other.
One organization had three body parts, while the other had two. The waves of force release pushed toward each other; it almost seemed like each separate redacted decided to initiate a blood feud to unseat the other from my body. The radiation from each side intensified. Yet none of that mattered.
Your Animosity tickles, I mused, watching the redacted groupings try and get at each other, but their umbrage simply washed up against the Mana spikes holding together my array. I twitched. The bits of antagonistic Mana really did feel like ants crawling directly on my spine, but the buffer at least kept them from affecting each other.
Your Skill (Earned) Innate Mana Attunement has grown to Level 17.
“Brother, I sense the seeds of revolution in you,” Nightshade spoke so close to my shoulder that I jumped. He looked at me with all of the eyes on all of his headlimbs. “Heh, so finally your suppressed impulses rise to tear away the reins of control of your body…! If one must slay your doppelganger, I would gladly volunteer.”
“A wicked Tallum must be slain!?” Sage sounded almost offensively eager as she bounded over. Her eyes glittered. She flared out all her tails that I had helped sculpt for her, the dragonfly wings taking center stage. “Can you not appreciate the beauty of the narrative, should this twisted Tallum be slain by the very tails the humble Tallum procured for me? Justice will be done!”
“Justice…?” I shook my head at my siblings very disturbing enthusiasm.
“Tallum, it is no shame to have your personality splinter,” Nightshade patted my shoulder. “All of us experienced it.”
“Indeed,” Sage nodded. “Did you know, it is rumored that the traitorous frost dragons are in fact just twisted reflections of the Progenitor of the Skyfire foxes-”
“And all demon kings must master their darkness in order to rule.”
I shook my head at my adopted siblings; somehow, it felt like the more they acted like evil doppelgangers were a real thing, the more inevitable it became that I would soon have one. At any rate, their strange ramblings gave me time to watch the battlelines being drawn between Redacted I and Redacted II. Definitely, Redacted I probably would have overwhelmed Redacted II if not for the two Mana Spikes wedged between them, anchoring the array. The energy the Redacteds released, wherever it came from, washed against the spikes but didn’t damage them.
Which was great, because I genuinely had no idea what I would have done if they would have begun slowly eroding my foundation. And with the spikes, the two Redacteds achieved a strange sort of balance-- almost unwittingly, I had stepped around another land mine.
My attention turned toward the sky; closer, the positioning of the Mantle became more obvious. “No more dallying; the Mantle is very close. Along the river it looks like, just past that bend.”
As I processed the slew of notifications, I moved on to another order of business; all those extra Free Stats I had earned for doing… whatever it was that I did. Between my three free Stats, I felt a bit of a draw toward each… so I simply added 5 to all of them: Malignance, Wisdom, and Insight all grew.
“If you have any dark impulses, suppressing them will only worsen the later eruption,” Sage advised. I rolled my eyes and slapped my new tail against the mud, experimenting with the new limb. Because of the armor, the tail felt incredibly solid-
I didn’t understand my own newfound force; the biggest winner of the new body parts was Strength. So when my flat tail hit the ground, it sent a wave of mud that drenched Sage.
“See,” She hissed. “Dark pettiness has usurped control of our brave brother’s body. Nightshade, hold him down. We must beat such sinister behaviors out of him before they take root.”
Nightshade chuckled, both at my own embarrassed horror and Sage’s indignation. Just as we were about to move in the short distance to the direction of the Mantle, I felt a ping from my Skills.
Your Skill (Earned) Detection has grown to Level 25(+28).
I glanced around at the surrounding reeds and the bloody remnants of the dam builders. I sighed. Yes, yes, I get it Detection. It’s windy. Very nice…
The three of us moved forward. Every few seconds I checked the position of the target Mantle. It hadn’t moved. We crept up a low hill and peered forward to the bend in the river, where it curled up and began heading Northeast in the direction of our portion of the wetland.
Immediately, we spotted our foes. Several gecko guards, wearing some sort of glassy armor, used stubby little tridents to prod a group of crayfish off of their beach into the water. The crayfish angrily clicked their claws, but couldn’t do anything about the superior reach of the tridents.
I watched, fascinated. They have tools? Perhaps this will be more difficult than I imagined.
I consulted Innate Mana Attunement; it directed me toward the far end of the beach, where two more guards stood in their shiny armor, loitering in front of a tunnel. My focus narrowed, extricating itself from the energies of the Mantle and trying to read the life energy in the surrounding area.
After a few seconds, I huffed out in frustration. My senses were not fine enough to get a read of their numbers. “We’ve located their base. We know, both from interactions with the gecko princess and hearing Mookt’s story, they are a canny people. Do we have a plan?”
“Crush the guards with brutality, to make an example for the rest.” Nightshade hummed.
Sage shrugged. “Or just crush them all and take what we want.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I tried to remind myself that both could make a plan. The fact that they didn’t just mean they didn’t believe it was worth the time. I rolled my shoulders; luckily, the walk over gave me some time to get used to the new balance and Strength of this body formation. “Alright then, we go in hard and fast. And we don’t stop until we get what we came for.”
Our jelly wiggled. We didn’t need a signal; all three of us exploded into motion at the same time.
Sage leapt high, her frog legs launching her at a high trajectory that crashed right behind the patrolling pair of guards. Nightshade rumbled forward on the ground, the teeth on all his monstrous heads gnashing. Like a speed boat cutting through water, he sprayed mud out in his wake.
I took the middle arc, delighting in my powerful thighs as I kicked off the ground and landed, almost lightly, in front of of the tunnel to their deeper base.
Your Skill (Earned) Minor Realm Step has grown to Level 17.
My leap was immaculate. I practically appeared before the two guards, thighs trembling with the exertion. I brought my armored tail around, prepared to try out my new armored deflection against these tridents-
“We surrender!” The geckos in front of me dropped their weapons like they were molten. I paused.
Sage, who was greeted by a similar immediate discarding of weapons when she reached the two patrolling guards, allowed her momentum to carry her slightly further. Two serpent tails had swept the poor geckos up and she was in the midst of slamming them toward the ground when their words reached her. She perked up. “Ah, were you overtaken by my charisma?”
The geckos, held upside down, nodded seriously. Sage preened.
I sighed and was about to remind Sage they had done this same thing with Mookt, but the shouts of the guards alerted the other geckos, who swarmed out of their tunnel. Yet instead of bristling with violence, they too deposited all their burdens in front of us.
“We surrender!”
“Great ones, do not harm us. Take these, for your trouble.”
“Our bounty is yours.”
“Please, we surrender.”
My eyebrows rose, increasingly confused, as more tridents and armor, pottery bowls of the same material, and a slew of minor river opals were hauled out of the geckos' base and placed before us. The geckos in front of us wrung their scaley, five-fingered hands and called for more valuables to be brought to the surface. Geckos scurried out, their arms carrying three or four minor river opals. Finally, two portly geckos wearing small circulets studded with tiny river opals (the king and queen?) hauled up two additional items.
One was a fat Minor River Opal, but from the energy that flowed in and out of the object, I recognized it as the Life Seed of the Kami. As for the other, from the preternatural stillness and the glassy translucence of the singular reed stem, they had brought me the Mantle.
I opened my mouth and closed it, still slightly shocked by how things had developed. My thighs trembled, whispering maybe I should give one of the geckos a good kick, just for fun. Sage set down the two guards and shrugged. “Brothers, if they are overwhelmed by our presence, there is nothing to be done.”
I winced, feeling the expectant eyes of all the geckos in front of me. All told, there were probably thirty of them, including several obviously juvenile specimens. Even the largest gecko wasn’t even a fourth of the size of us Chimera Cores, but with their numbers and tridents, I couldn’t let my guard down. “We, appreciate your compliance. However… Your sudden capitulation is hard to believe-”
The gecko king sighed. “You’ve met our daughter, haven’t you?”
The gecko queen tutted and shook her head. “That fool girl. I always tell her, she needs to spend some time squatting and laying eggs. No woman has any sense until her biological clock is addressed. Yet my stupid husband, every time she talks sweetly to him-”
The king shifted uncomfortably. “Mudpuppy, we talked about this. She’s doing research to practice camay. Besides, who is good enough for my little princess?”
“You spoil her,” The queen sniffed. “She’s too old to count as a daughter any longer. She needs to become a wife and mother. That will straighten her out quick enough.”
I felt a surge of empathy for the gecko princess. With an old-fashioned mom and a helpless, sitcom dad, I'd act out too.