Trophic level 3 (4) level reduced due to second life penalty cost Diet detritivore, herbivore, omnivore, carnivore Strength 2.0/4.0 level reduced due to second life penalty cost Stamina 1.0/ 5.0 level reduced due to second life penalty cost Agility 5.0 Vitality 1.0/10 level reduced due to second life penalty cost Intelligence 2.5 Charisma 1.0 Spiritual Energy 5/25 level reduced due to second life penalty cost Skills

Piercing Barrage Level 3 (4) level reduced due to second life penalty cost

Speed Boost Level 4 (5) level reduced due to second life penalty cost

Iron Chitin Level 3

Water Control Level 2 (3) level reduced due to second life penalty cost

Energy filled Daphne, surrounding her with power as she underwent another change. Her carapace grew rather than shedding and being replaced, she felt her new, tiny spiritual core expand with the additional energy. She was still smaller and weaker than she had been at her peak. She longed to regain the power she had once wielded.

Around her the salmon continued to jostle and fight as the females sought out ideal nest sites in gravel and the males fought to fertilize the eggs they laid. The water continued to be filled with eggs floating up from the disturbances and many tiny fish darted about the water snatching the nutritious morsels. Daphne idly began snagging the passing eggs again as she watched the frenzied spawning grounds.

She had enjoyed her meal of the dying female salmon, but it had not given her much spiritual energy. She wondered if spawning drained it of its life and spiritual energy. She saw several other listless fish and even some dead salmon drifting on the shore, though they were swiftly pulled from the water by the bears lurking there.

No doubt a healthy, lively and aggressive fish held more spiritual power, she should not try and become a scavenger, her role was to hunt. She turned downstream, she should try for the salmon that were fresh, fish approaching the spawning grounds with a full store of their energy, they were the prize.

She drifted gently downstream, allowing the current to carry her as she scanned the river with her Water Control, watching the terrain of the riverbed to find an appropriate ambush point. A quarter of a mile downstream from the spawning ground she found one. A deep pool below a small falls where the current narrowed. The salmon were forced to pool there, collecting themselves and then making a short leap to clear the low falls and continue upriver. The salmon below the falls milled in circles around the pool, waiting for their own chance to make the leap. She would have ample time to select her prey.

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She noticed that there were distinct differences between the male and female salmon, the males had rippling vertical stripes of purple and green on their sides and their mouths were hooked with large dog-like teeth projecting from the ends of their jaws. The females had a dark stripe running down their sides and were smaller on average, without the modified jaws and teeth for fighting.

She decided on a female as her first prey.

Daphne found an ideal nook, two large boulders leaned against each other in the bottom of the pool, a narrow alley between them created the ideal place for her to disassemble her food and eat it in peace.

She drifted upwards, waiting at the top of the opening of her chosen cave for a salmon to approach. Their constant milling around the pool sent them in all directions as they waited.

A female swam past, swiftly driving towards the upstream side of the pool with powerful thrusts of her tail, Daphne activated Speed Boost and Water Control simultaneously. She shot forward, instantly catching up to the swimming fish. She grabbed hold of the salmon’s head with a net made of water tendrils and turned the fish inward just as her necktooth arrived to plunge through the skull into its brain. The fish shuddered spasmodically and grew still. Daphne felt quiet satisfaction at the clean kill, she hadn’t needed to use Piercing Intent at all!

Wrapping herself and the salmon in water power, she drew back into her chosen feeding area. There were a few small fish lurking in the bottom of her hiding spot, sculpins and some tiny catfish. She grabbed a mass of swirling water and vacuumed these interlopers up and hurled them out into the pool. She did not want any distractions while she ate. Some of the salmon snapped and ate the disoriented fish, more in irritation rather than a true desire to feed. The salmon’s thoughts were all on spawning, food had little interest.

Daphne began to carefully disassemble her salmon. She first peeled the skin and scales from the fish, along with the fins. There was very little usable food in the scales, and she shuttled them off through the water into the water of the pool. She did not want to create waste that might attract scavengers here in her newfound temporary den. All the waste she didn’t eat she had decided to dispose of elsewhere.

Then Daphne began sampling the fish slowly, from head to tail. She first removed the flesh from the head, the eyes and the brain. She noted that it was incredibly delicious but didn’t seem to contain any special quantity of spiritual energy. She remembered the tiny shards of condensed energy that the carp from her old pond had held. She hoped to find something similar in the salmon.

The muscle tissue was next, Daphne gloried in the exquisite flavor of the sea the deep orange flesh possessed. Fresh salmon was fantastic! Far better than any fish she had eaten before. It was now her favorite food!

Then, she began tearing apart the egg sacks and fed on a cloud of pureed salmon roe.

Here!

This was what she was looking for!

The fat eggs were tiny packets of spiritual energy! The mother fish must be investing all of their stores of spirit energy into their eggs just before laying. Since they died after spawning, it made sense to transfer this energy to their potential offspring. She needed to focus on the eggs!

After this important discovery Daphne changed her hunting strategy. She began targeting the females, easily identifiable by their different color and conformation. Her precise targeting of their brains combined with her Water Control skill made the kills relatively simple for her. She no longer fed on the complete corpse, slashing the fish’s abdomens open and neatly excising the egg sacks, she would send the rest of the salmon’s corpse to drift downstream, food for the eagles, bears, or the hungry maws of the myriad other fish in the water of the river. It would not go to waste.

Host Daphne has defeated twenty five Oncorhynсhus keta Level 2 - Spiritual Energy reserves now sufficient for partial Level Restoration

Begin Restoration? Yes/ NO