The coyote-like albuha seemed surprised for a moment. Maybe because Dominic was even asking the question instead of making demands or just killing him outright.
‘I…we serve you? You new alpha? You stronger than last alpha. You defeat alpha. We serve you well. Don’t kill?’
Well, that was intelligent. Dominic wanted to sit back on his haunches, but thought that that probably wasn’t the best idea considering that the enemy could be lying. He didn’t think the albuha was, but everything was possible.
‘I’m inclined to let them join us,’ he said to Leo thoughtfully.
‘What, in the Pride properly, or just let them tag along until we know whether they can be trusted?’ questioned the lion.
‘Yes, in the Pride. From what we’ve seen, we don’t lose Pride Points if members are killed. I don’t know if the story is any different if we kick them out, but I suspect that if we use the points in an enhancement, we won’t lose the enhancement. We can always test with an upgrade rather than a new enhancement just to be sure. Look at how many of them there are – that’s a good few Pride Points if they all join. And what do we lose?’
The lion thought about it for a long moment.
‘Aren’t the Prey Points gained from the Place of Power split more ways if the Pride grows larger?’
‘They are,’ Dominic confirmed, ‘but I noticed that we haven’t had any Prey Points since leaving the forest. Except for in this fight. So it seems like the effect only applies when we’re in the Place of Power’s territory. I don’t know if it’s ‘saving’ points for when we get back, or only giving those actually present in the territory the points – probably the latter, thinking about it. Either way, I suspect that adding the albuhas won’t make a huge amount of difference until we get back. And by the time we do that, we should know whether we’re keeping them or not.’
‘You make good points,’ Leo agreed. ‘Though I wonder what happens to those points if we don’t get them later.’
Dominic shrugged mentally.
‘We’ll have to find out later, I guess.”
About to move forward with the albuhas, Dominic was distracted by Sekhmet coming and rubbing herself sinuously along his length. Apparently she was rather unconcerned by the still-cowering coyote-like creatures.
‘We killing them or not?” she asked through the Pride chat, slightly impatiently.
‘Not,’ Dominic answered. ‘We’re thinking about adding them to the Pride. Unless you have a good reason why not?’
The lioness seemed to think about it carefully for a few moments.
‘Hunts split more ways,’ she pointed out. ‘But more mouths to take down prey.’ She sent across a feeling of ambivalence, but acceptance of whatever they chose to go with. ‘As long as they do not threaten our cubs,’ she added.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they don’t,’ Dominic assured her. Turning back towards the albuhas, he sent out a connection that touched all of them. It was difficult to hold so many different connections, but he was a lot more capable with Telepathy then he used to be – he wouldn’t have been able to communicate with all the kesh if he hadn’t improved. He suspected that having the Pride chat actually helped unconsciously, even if it wasn’t precisely meant to – it was a different kind of connection between many minds.
‘Join our Pride and live; don’t join and try to escape my hunters.’ Short and succinct; the ball was in their court now. He waited for a moment in case any of them showed a preference for trying to run. None of them even moved a muscle.
Sending out invitations one at a time, the albuha in front of him first, Dominic soon had the first acceptances come rolling in.
It wasn’t long before he was the proud leader of eleven albuhas. The one still at Dominic’s feet slowly started shifting, carefully pushing himself to his feet, probably ready to drop down to the ground if the lion looked like he had any murderous intent. When he just stayed still, the other albuhas followed the first one’s lead. When they were all standing and warily looking around at the pride still surrounding them, Dominic spoke.
‘Alright,’ he said to them firmly in the Pride chat. ‘Welcome to the Pride. Don’t hurt any of the other Pride members, pull your weight in hunts, follow my instructions, and we’ll get along fine. For now, Lionel, are you able to help heal their injuries?’
Dominic received a message of agreement from the young lion, although it included a certain amount of wary reluctance. The older lion reassured him that if the albuha tried anything, they’d deal with it quickly. Dominic did take a moment to watch the healer start his work.
Just as with the lions and amesheks, Lionel rubbed himself against the albuhas. It was done far more perfunctorily than when he’d done it against the other lions. He was visibly even less comfortable than when he was rubbing against the amesheks, but that wasn’t too surprising: Lionel had never fought the amesheks; the albuhas had all-too-recently been trying to tear his throat out.
Dominic was interested to see that ‘Healing Cloud’ wasn’t a complete misnomer: although Lionel apparently needed to be in close contact, there was a sort of golden cloud around him. In fact, it looked pretty similar to what happened when a carcass was Consumed.
His suspicion gained more evidence when Lionel paused between two albuhas and Consumed a carcass despite his health bar being full. He then returned to healing the other coyote-lookalikes, the faint golden cloud around him slightly more visible.
Interesting.
I wonder if the Ability is some sort of storage for the golden dust? If so, how much can Lionel hold at a time? And is the cloud going to get bigger around him as he levels up the Ability? Surely it must! Dominic made a mental note to get Lionel to test it out – knowing his healer’s limits would be a good idea.
In the meantime, the rest of the lions and amesheks used Consume to heal themselves up – when they didn’t first blur in level up. Jenkins was a bit torn on one flank – an albuha had obviously got its teeth in her. Sekhmet was barely bloodied. One of the amesheks’ slightly armoured body seemed to have generally fended off the attackers while the other still had a few small wounds.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Fang was the worst off: he’d obviously been in the thick of it and at level 7, he was lower level than most of the attackers. Well, he had been level 7 – from the blurring that overtook him, Dominic could only guess that he was now level 8.
Pulling up his status screen, he saw that, sure enough, there had been several changes among the Pride members who had fought on his side. Almost all of them had increased a level: Sekhmet had managed to reach level 14, and the lower level amesheks had both reached level 18. Jenkins, Fang, and Lionel had also each gone up a level. However, rather obvious once he looked for it, was the absence of Prince on the status screen. It confirmed Dominic’s thoughts: the laziest lion among them had fallen victim to one of the albuhas.
Briefly closing his screen and looking around, he spotted part of the golden body half-hidden behind a bush. Fang, who had finished his levelling up, had moved over to the lion and was licking at him. Walking over, Dominic hesitated for a moment before rubbing against Fang, sending feelings of commiseration with the young lion.
The former-human had to admit that he wouldn’t miss the young juvenile – he’d been annoying more than anything else. Still, he felt a little sad that Prince would never have the chance to mature past his lazy lion propensities. And it was clear that some would miss the young male. Though, the chances were that he’d have died even without the System’s intervention – the savannah had never been kind to young male lions.
Nonetheless, he nudged and licked at the body, following his instincts. Jenkins, Sekhmet, and finally Lionel, when he finished healing the albuhas, all did the same. Once the members of the pride who had known him had verified that their pridemate was dead, Dominic nudged Lionel and Fang to Consume the young lion’s body. He figured it made sense for Prince’s two brothers to do it.
Once the golden cloud was gone, he licked up the Core – even though it only contained Pounce, it was still progress to the next level in that. While he was at it, he collected the Cores of the albuhas, earning 70% towards Fearful Howl, 50% towards Tearing Bite, 34% towards Soaring Glide, 20% towards Sharp Tooth, and 18% towards Champion. Of all of those, Soaring Glide was the one he wanted most, but considering only two Cores had held that, he considered himself lucky to have got as far towards it as he had.
Champion was what the weaker albuha Leo had killed in the Challenge had had. It seemed to be similar to Rage except without the berserking elements. Instead, it seemed like it had to be used in the defence of something or someone else. He supposed it could come in useful if he could use defence of his Pride members as the motivation for the Ability. Though there were probably drawbacks which weren’t clear in the description.
Checking over his Pride's status screen once more he noticed that there were a couple of other changes among the lionesses he’d left behind, though none among the amesheks.
I need to find names for them, Dominic reminded himself. Maybe they have preferences?
He put the thought to one side as he checked the other changes to his status screen from the addition of the newcomers. Dominic noted that the highest levelled one, probably the one who had first surrendered to him, was level 12, which surprised him a little: he was smaller than the level 11 that Dominic had killed second. Then he saw that the albuha’s third Ability was Sharp Mind, and it made sense.
Fearful Howl was the initial Ability of all the albuhas, with Tearing Bite a common second Ability: four of the albuhas had that. That reflected what he’d seen in the Cores too. Three of them had Quick Snap, which Dominic had to guess was pretty similar to Quick Strike, though perhaps only limited to biting. Only one had Soaring Glide, which reflected its rarity despite the wings that they all had. Then there were three who had one of Sharp Tooth, Enhanced Endurance, and Keen Senses.
In total, of the surviving albuhas, there was one at level 12, two at level 9, the majority at level 8, and one each at level 7 and level 6. Overall, not all that surprising as a distribution, assuming that the leader and two seconds in command had usually made the biggest impact in hunts. Not to mention the fact that the rest of Dominic’s pride had killed more level 7s than anything else.
In fact, it was more surprising that the level 6 had survived than anything else. Maybe it was a bit of a coward or something and had managed to hide for most of the battle. Then again, its second Ability was Quick Snap implying that it did fight.
Well, he’d find that out in time. For now he had rewards to explore from the Challenge and then they needed to get moving again.
Opening the rewards panel, he already knew that he was going to choose one of the entries if it was there.
‘Yes!’ he cried at his companion.
[Eastern Albuha: Evolved, level 13, 27 EP]
[Enhancements available:
Keen Nose (2 EP)
Keen Hearing (2 EP)
Wide Diet (5 EP)
Hardened Pads (3 EP)
Feathered Wings (10 EP)
Sharp Teeth (2 EP)
Airborne (10 EP)
Fearful Howl (10 EP)
Tearing Bite (8 EP)]
‘Right, we are definitely getting those wings,’ Dominic said firmly.
‘I’m just surprised that there’s no Enhanced Fertility or something,’ Leo grumbled.
‘Why would you think there would be?’ asked the former-human, mystified. ‘I mean, any more likely than anything else we kill, that is.’
‘Because its balls were massive,’ Leo snapped. ‘Wretched canine – advertising prowess that it doesn’t actually have.’
Dominic shook his head mentally, more than a little exasperated.
‘Anyway, back to the topic. Wings. What else?’
‘If you’re set on having wings, then we ought to choose something that seems likely to help us use them.’
‘Airborne?’ checked Dominic.
‘What else?’ the lion questioned sardonically.
‘Probably a good idea,’ agreed the former-human, pointedly ignoring his companion’s tone. ‘So those two together will cost twenty points, leaving us with seven. That doesn’t leave us with enough to get another Ability, but we probably don’t really want either of those, so just as well. That means we could get three of the remaining options, unless we pick Wide Diet.’
‘We don’t need hardened pads – it’s hard enough to keep quiet with our size without having those.’
‘You’re the one who wanted to grow so much,’ Dominic pointed out. ‘But it’s a fair point. Plus, even if they do give extra endurance, which I suspect, we’re probably going to be travelling with those with less endurance anyway, which means it would be a bit wasteful. Honestly, I’m rather intrigued by Wide Diet,’ he admitted.
‘Why?’ questioned Leo, though it sounded more genuine than dismissive.
‘We can Consume carcasses – what if we could do something with plants? Plus, if we weren’t an obligate carnivore, we might survive even if we accidentally hunt all the creatures in our local area.’ The thought of the barren area through which they had travelled to get to the Place of Power still made Dominic feel uneasy.
The lion was quiet for a few moments.
‘You have a point,’ he admitted finally, sounding a little uneasy himself. ‘Let’s take it. Then perhaps we should also take Keen Nose,’ he suggested.
‘To find prey more easily?’ guessed Dominic.
‘Precisely.’
‘Alright,’ Dominic agreed. He wasn’t desperate to get enhanced hearing or even sharper teeth, even if the latter would definitely improve his combat power. All points assigned, he made his selection.