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Initiate Daphne - Level UP!
Diet
Detritivore, Herbivore, Omnivore
Trophic Level
2
Strength
0.4 Stamina 0.3 Agility 1.0 Vitality 1.15 Intelligence 0.009
Charisma
0.01
Spiritual Energy
1.2
Skills
Pierce Level 1 has modified to Piercing Intent Level 1
Piercing Intent- This skill allows initiate Daphne to create piercing needles of spiritual energy aimed and fired through her primary neck tooth or tail spine. No cool-down. Upgradeable
The level up wrapped Daphne in a veil of light that was becoming familiar to her. Her body swelled again as her old carapace split and sloughed away. Her antennae stretched out wider, her neck teeth and tail spine both longer and even more wickedly sharp. She had grown again. Now her body was a bit larger than mother-sister’s had been when she last saw her. Which did not even take into account the length of her armaments. The neck tooth had become a mighty lance, imposing for any would-be predator to face.
Even more important of a change was the feeling she now had. Energy hummed within her, waiting for her to call upon. She now had a skill! With it, she could attack at range, fighting opponents too dangerous to come in close contact.
Piercing intent.
She reached for the power with her will, shaped it according to the skill. A bright flash from her necktooth, and a sharp fragment of energy flung outwards from the necktooth like a needle. It shuttled through the water and disappeared in a flash. Amazing! She needed a target to practice on.
She was not so foolish as to go searching for a predator to shoot.
Sooner or later, one would find her. She had already decided on a policy of standing and fighting whenever she could. It had worked for her all her life, after all.
She continued swimming, sculling a meandering path through the water. Straight lines were not Daphne’s way, she preferred to jig from side to side periodically, it allowed her to taste more of the water, sniffing for richer patches of greenfood, and also let her check the water behind herself, confirming that an ambush predator was not sneaking from the rear.
She found a particularly rich patch of greenfood and slowed down to graze on the thick soup of delicious greenery. The tiny plants were mere motes in the water, but this place was so thick with them that it was like swimming through a rich green fogbank. Visibility was reduced to almost nothing at all. A predator could swim right up to her before she could see them.
Which is exactly what happened.
Daphne was gliding forward slowly when she saw a bright silver flash through the green haze, the flash disappeared for a moment and then just as quickly emerged as a fish! It was a tiny fish compared to the carp Daphne had seen before, but it was twenty times her size.
The fish did not seem to notice Daphne for a moment, and she hoped it would continue swimming by, but in a moment the fish oriented on her and with a flick of its tail it propelled itself towards Daphne with predatory intent. When its mouth was very close to Daphne, she saw it begin to open them to suck her in.
She used her hardfought dodging skills she had honed against the backswimmer to cleverly avoid the fish’s attack. The tiny minnow flitted past her, the wake of its passing sent Daphne spinning. She flailed her antennae to slow and stabilize herself and look for the minnow.
Despite being much larger sized than the backswimmer, the minnow was much more agile in the water. It had quickly stopped itself and was already turned and orienting back towards Daphne aggressively. Daphne would have a difficult, even futile time using the dodge and turn tactics against this opponent. She needed to maintain separation.
The minnow charged forward, and Daphne reached for her new skill.
A bright needle of Piercing Intent flung out from her neck tooth and shot at the minnows rushing face. The minnow jinked downwards to avoid it! Daphne was shocked. She had missed.
The minnows' maneuver had taken it much further away than before, its form became hazy in the swirling fog of greenfood. Daphne attempted to scull further away, trying to lose herself in the cloud of algae and disappear from the fish’s vision.
Before she could disappear, the tiny fish curved and reoriented on her retreating form. It flashed towards her, closing the distance rapidly.
Daphne decided to change her attack, instead of dodging, she would force it to dodge. She sculled forcefully directly at the minnow and activated her Piercing Intent at the same time. A bright needle of force lashed out in front of her, straight for the minnow's eye. It was forced to dodge downwards at the last moment and the piercing force sliced through the very edge of the fish’s dorsal fin.
Daphne swam hard above the fish, pushing past it and struggling to maintain stability in the turbulent wake of the fish’s path. She pushed forwards a few more times with her swimming antennae and then allowed the swirling water to spin her around to face the minnow again.
The fish had already began turning to drive at Daphne for a third pass. Daphne fired another shard of Piercing Intent with the minnow broadside to her. The sharp needle of force made a hit! It penetrated through the fish’s back just behind the head, but only at the surface, a mere flesh wound.
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Still, Daphne was elated to see that the fish could be hurt by her Piercing Intent. The fish jerked upwards in startled pain, before turning and swimming forcefully at her once again. Daphne fired needles at the onrushing minnow, aiming just below the fish’s nose. The first needle missed, and the second, but the third struck the minnow through the eye!
The fish flung itself upwards spasmodically as it reacted to the pain of its crippled eye. The force of its convulsions carried it straight into Daphne, she aggressively faced the oncoming blow with her neck tooth ready, stabbing forwards with all her force.
Between Daphne’s aggressive thrust and the minnow’s agonized flailing, Daphne pierced the minnow through the lower jaw and into its left side gill rakers. This was a devastatingly mortal blow. Blood poured from the savaged gills and out into the water through the minnow's gill covert.
The minnow began flailing chaotically, swimming with adrenaline-fueled panic for the surface. The fish broke through and sailed briefly into the air. Daphne was flung away in the fish’s desperate leap. She fell to the water with a crash.
The minnow was nowhere to be seen.
She had fought her attacker to a standstill. Although frustrated that she was unable to kill her enemy, she was proud to be alive and uninjured. She began swimming forwards, feeding on greenfood and recovering her lost stamina and energy.
She sculled quietly across the pond in her usual meandering path, seeking the richest areas of greenfood pasture.
Initiate Daphne has defeated Larval Tanichthys minnow Level 1.0 Level UP
The minnow must have bled to death from its injuries!
Diet
Detritivore, Herbivore, Omnivore
Trophic Level
2
Strength
0.6 Stamina 0.5 Agility 1.3 Vitality 1.5 Intelligence 0.01
Charisma
0.03
Spiritual Energy
1.8
Skills
Piercing Intent LEVEL 2
Speed Boost LEVEL 1 NEW!
Speed Boost- This skill allows initiate Daphne to utilize spiritual power to increase swimming speed 10X for short bursts. Hydrodynamic drag is dramatically reduced while power transfer from swimming antennae is increased.
Daphne exalted in her victory as she was enveloped in the power of the level up. Her carapace fell away and she grew larger once again. Now she was much larger than mother sister, she rivaled the backswimmer in size. She would happily take the attack from the backswimmer now, she could obliterate its oars from range, then go in for the final coup de grace with her might necktooth lance. The thought filled her with eager anticipation.
She wished to go find the weed-filled edge again, and seek duels with the backswimmers, but the light began brightening, and it was time to seek the darkness of the depths. She began swimming to the bottom, leisurely drifting at times, staying pace with the edge of the darkest water as the light pushed deeper and deeper as the sun rose.
Soon she was once again drifting along the bottom above the oozing silt. The flavor of the food filtered from the water here was different, the broken bodies of dead greenfood, partially decayed and coated with bacteria. It was a different flavor, not as rich and full of energy as the greenfood, but also had some flavors and nutrients that fresh, live greenfood didn’t.
Her antennae brushed against something in the dark, and once again she was wrapped in the curling embrace of a Chaoborus worm. The bristle-like tendrils of its antennae attempted to pull her into a tight ball to be swallowed whole.
This time however, Daphne was far too large for the Chaoborus to swallow. Her body would not fit, Daphne struggled against the cage of antennae bristles in anger and irritation. She flung herself against the clutching bristles, raging against this interruption of her travel.
The transparent worm realized that Daphne could not fit in its mouth, no matter how she was positioned. The constant wrestling finally allowed Daphne’s body to turn towards the worm. She angrily forced one of the shorter curved neck teeth bordering her mighty spear into the flesh surrounding the worm’s mouth.
The worm flinched and uncurled, throwing Daphne back out into the water.
Daphne was not willing to let bygones be bygones. She circled around searching for the worm in the dark. Its transparent flesh made finding the worm difficult in the extremely dim ligh. Finally, she saw the hazy outline of its long body against the background.
She aimed her necktooth and fired off a shot of Piercing Intent at the Chaoborus. It flashed forwards and passed directly through the worm's body. The worm thrashed in shock as it was perforated by an unexpected assault.
She began firing needles of intent into the worm from a safe distance. The Chaoborus was a slow, ambush predator. It depended on its perfect camouflage and patience for hunting. It had very little ability to fight back against an enemy who could see it and was willing to kite it from range.
Daphne continued firing piercing needles into the Chaoborus, drifting slowly in a circle around it as she perforated the worm with piercing needles of Intent. She was using the worm as a perfect practice target. She especially focused on hitting the center area of its body from different eagles, attempting to learn how to bracket her target, and aim for specific points as it moved.
Initiate Daphne has defeated Chaoborus larvae Level 0.1
She did not level up from defeating this one. It was too low-level. She would need to destroy something stronger.
As she drifted in the still water in the aftermath of the battle, she tasted a delicious flavor in the water. It was the hemolymph leaking from the perforated corpse of the Chaoborus. She pulled herself closer to drift just above the worm’s corpse. The hemolymph leaking from the body was strongest here. It was delicious! She could taste the complex nutrition it offered, lipids and readily digestible amino acids in abundance.
After a while the flow of hemolymph slowed. She floated upwards and then began directing needle after needle of Piercing Intent into the still body of the worm. It became a bag of oozing fluids hardly holding itself together, but the flow of body fluids increased again for a time, and Daphne ate her fill.
Initiate Daphne upgraded diet profile to include - Carnivore
She found a new way to eat! And a new kind of pasture! Above at the surface, the greenfood grows abundantly, the drifting clouds of greenfood were previously her preferred eating spot, as it had been for mother-sister. Now she had found a new resource, more delicious and nutritious than her former herbivorous diet. The Chaoborus hunting grounds.
She began stalking the murk, searching for the silent worms as they waited in ambush for tiny defenseless prey. Now they became the prey. She sculled slowly, skirting the very bottom with her antennae arms spread out wide, attempting to touch a waiting Chaoborus with its bristly antennae stretched out.
She began finding them, perforating them into leaking slow-release food bags, and moving on to the next worm. It was a delicious and productive way to spend the brightly lit hours waiting.
Initiate Daphne has defeated 10 Chaoborus larvae Level 0.1 Level UP!