With no sign of the swarm, Liv resigned herself to days of doing nothing but making more gods damned mosquitoes… She hated the things, but they were one of her more consistent sources of SP. Though she had a hunch that Bushwhacker was also getting her some tiny amount as well. She couldn’t prove that though. It wasn’t doing anything visibly to explain it, but since she made it she seemed to recover just a tiny bit faster.
She looked towards the log with a sigh. It was going to take WEEKS to expand in any meaningful way. How was she supposed to do this? Walking over to sit on the log and have a think, she paused as she looked at the thing. The sodden old log had a big patch of fluffy green moss on the end. In the past couple days, that moss had grown a ways. Her eyes narrowed as she took it in. Running her fingers along the green moss, her eyebrows shot upward as they passed several inches beyond where the border HAD been, to the edge of the fluffy green patch.
“No way…” She whispered. No, these few feet had cost her a fortune. Could expanding really be that simple?! Just let natural plant growth slowly expand her borders for free?
Then another thought occurred to her. She had summoned Bushwhacker. Could she use her SP to make more plants? Normal plants? Would those work the same way?
There was only one way to find out. Running her fingers into the moss, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the fuzzy growth.
“Come on… come ooon!” The energy flowed out of her fingertips at her command. Opening her eyes she grinned like a mad scientist. The green fuzz had gone from a hand sized patch to covering the entire log!
Taking stock of herself, she was pretty sure she could do that at least one more time before she hit a wall.
“Moment of truth.” She muttered, pushing forward. Her fingertips reached the old boundary… and passed it.
“Yaaaaaasss!!” She cheered, scampering down the log. She could hardly believe it! She’d gotten a further five square feet or so for HALF the cost!! What’s more, she could feel a tiny trickle of that distinct, thirst quenching warmth flowing off of it. She got SP from plants?! Wait… was moss a plant? Some half forgotten memory told her it might be a fungus. Oh WHO CARES, IT WORKED!!
After some amount of celebrating, during which Liv desperately hoped that her various critters didn’t judge her for her dancing skills (or lack thereof), she prepared to push foreword yet again. Only there was a problem. She was out of log.
She pushed the moss again, but it didn’t seem to want to grow beyond the log. How was she going to do this? Looking around, her eyes fell upon the yellow-green skum that lived atop the water of her puddle. Algae. That was similar, right? But how would she get it where she wanted?
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The punk-turned-dungeon took stock of her resources, thinking. She suddenly remembered watching some nature documentary on frogs. Specifically a scene in which one dug a channel from one pool to another to let its tadpoles swim to safety. Bingo.
—
Most of an afternoon had gone by, and the puddle was abuzz with activity. She had about given up on the whole thing when she realized the salamanders were far superior to the frogs for her goals. All seven of the slimy critters were happily wallowing in the muck. Each one would shove mud piles out to either side, and Bushwhacker would dash between them, his leaves rustling softly as he loped back and forth, shoveling the piles further afield to keep it from going back down into the shallow little ditch. She hoped this worked. If she could get pond scum to expand her borders, maybe she could quickly claim the next pool when she got there.
Part of her wanted to summon up another Shrub-man, but she knew she should conserve her SP for growth and just try to be patient.
Waiting around had never been her strong suit, though. Liv could see that she was making progress, but in between her experiments and directing her minions she was horribly bored. She couldn’t even do any real testing right now. She wanted to save her SP for expansion, and most experiments worth her attention would require her to tap herself out to get more precise measurements. It was during this dull eternity that her earlier question of mosquito breeding came to mind.
She had far fewer of the little blood suckers now. If she could get an accurate count, maybe she could track their population? Laying flat on her back, she began trying to count the invaluable little demons.
“One… two… th- Wait. Did I count that one already?” Huffing, she started over. On her third attempt she began to realize how hopeless it was. All the mosquitos looked the same, and they tended to move constantly in a loose swarm. She even tried singling one out and ordering it to a specific spot, but focusing on one long enough to make that happen proved equally problematic.
“Dang it!!” She kicked the water in frustration, then gave a wordless shout of impotent rage when her foot caused no visible effect whatsoever. Flopping onto her butt to glare at the bugs, she focused on one that had landed on the surface of the water by her foot. “What I would give for some way to tag you or something.” She complained. She then smirked at the mental image of a mosquito with a dog collar and a little heart shaped name tag. So stupid. What would she name a damned bug anyway? Skeeter 1 of 357? She idly imagined trying to fit that on a tag.
A dull glow distracted her from her musings. Her focus returned to the bug that was now taking off again. Above it, written in her own familiar scrawl, were dimly illuminated letters.
*Skeeter 1 of 357*
Liv’s eyes went wide. Swiping her hand over the letters in her vision, she watched them smear and fade. Screwing up her face and squinting, she lifted her hand as if holding an invisible pencil and just wrote “1” over the mosquito’s head. Like before, the dimly glowing white numeral appeared.
“NO WAY!” She cackled. She supposed nothing should surprise her anymore. She wondered if it was visible to others, but a quick glance at her puddle showed no reflection of the little name tag. Liv jumped to her feet, grinning.
“This changes everything.”