“What am I”? I thought to myself. All I felt was this pointy grass on my back. “I'm alive?” I thought to myself. Then I opened my eyes. I was laying down. I was this humanoid lizard with red smooth scales and a short stubby tail. I got up and remembered I was part of a hive and by becoming an individual, I NEEDED TO RUN! I was in a forest with grass and saw a river and so I went up stream. When I started to walk up the stream. I started to think, “What is going on with me? Did I become a rogue drone”? After a while of thinking I got an idea but first I was thirsty. So I got down and drank the water. After drinking some water, I thought of making a stick with a bone at the end like making a club, but there were no bones around. After some more walking I found this corpse of a humanoid with pointy ears and clothing. It seemed to die a few weeks ago so I thought to myself, “I can't eat it so that's not an option. It had a robe and it looks nice though”. Then I took the robe and then I found a hatchet on its back. I took that too and it was small and a bit heavy. Then I continued up stream.
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After some time I felt I was being followed by someone. I pulled out my hatchet in preparation. A reptilian humanoid jumped out and attacked me! As I swung my weapon, I saw that the reptilian humanoid had a growing pattern on it. When the hatchet hit the creature it split the head open killing it. Blood went everywhere. Then I removed it, blood dripped from the blade and I continued on my journey.
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After a while. I heard a female saying “San!” From the other side of the river. I decided to go and investigate. I was going to swim but the river was shallow. When I got to the other side I started to look around a bit and after I saw a humanoid with brown skin, black hair and pointy ears in a suit of armor. Then she shrieked, “San, how the hell did you get sucked in vines?” When I moved my head a little I saw a humanoid in a robe but round ears no here, baled and he said. “Well I was walking with you and I tripped and fell, you even saw me!”
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After a while of arguing the female pulled out a sword and it began to glow blue and cut the vines. Then I walked in to see better, but I tripped and fell. Both of them saw. Luckily the humanoid with pointy ears helped me up and said, “are you o- holy crap”! She had a face of shock. I began to walk back thinking they'd kill me and I began to run. She tried to grab my tail but she wasn't fast enough. After a while of running the sun began to go down. So I climbed a tree next to me, then I saw the mountains and the sun set , and so I laid down and began to sleep. Then I heard a voice “Wake up Fleshling time, time to tell us who you are!'' Then I woke up and it was in the middle of the night. I was tied to a log! I saw them, the two humanoids and a new humanoid that was short and had a red beard. The pointy ear one said. “ Hello sorry for well… scaring you. We never introduced each other. Im Peres, a paladin elf, the wizard is San a human, and the dwarf is Bob he's a mage. And we know you are a rogue fleshling, is that right?” So the human looks like an elf but no pointy ears and dwarfs are just short humans I thought. But I nodded my head. “Good you had clothing and held a hatchet so you're intelligent for a Fleshling.” The group began to talk to me, but sadly Im mute. San was this stoned person that normally uses magic, as for Bob he studys magic and he’s here to get herbs up at the mountains.
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After a while Peres cut the rope and helped me up. Then san said, “I'm going to take life and make a dog.” and he pulled out a bag. Then Peres said. “No you can't make a dog. You can make a gloom with plants.” Then San said. “Yes I can, watch me!” Then he kneeled down and put one of his hands on the ground and pulled out a glass tube, put some green powder in it then put fire underneath it. Then I smoked it. Then a flower grew. He fell down and passed out. Then peares said, “God dammit San!” Then she picked San up and dragged him. As she dragged him I walked to them and helped. Then Bob said, “Oh I was going to help Peres but ok” then Peres said, “Oh thank you Fleshling.” Once we sat San down. Bob left for a bit and came back with sticks and sat them down and grabbed a small stick and set a fire on the pile of sticks. As we sat next to the fire and relaxed everyone fell asleep except me. I looked at the moon and its red glow and wonder. After a while I got up and grabbed a stick and started to draw on the ground. I drew a square, a triangle and a line. And that's it.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
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So I started to draw a line of our surroundings and a circle then an arrow from the circle to signify I left. After I got done and walked away and started to go down hill. I found a river and started to go downstream not up. Because if i go uphill hit the peak of the mutant chain and go back down. So I'm going down. After a while the sun rises in the horizon. After some more time I found a lake and little to no trees. I thought to myself. “A good place to start my hive.” But when I got closer I saw ruined houses and buildings, and so I explored the place. I found liberty, skeletons and tools. I saw this strange tool with teeth. It’s awesome for cutting wood. So I grabbed a piece of a plank and swung the tool but it just put dents in it. So I tried putting the teeth of the tool on it and pulling and pushing the tool. It worked and I felt happy about it. “But I need food for my drones as well.” I thought to myself. “If I restore the village our survival will be high and it's next to a lake so that's good.”
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I walked into a library filled with books, and so I looked at them but there's a problem. I can't read… so I decided to look at the pictures of the books. After some looking I started to recognize what the pictures were telling me. In my head it told me that this hard rock can be made by crushed rock, sand, and water rock. It was from a hammer section. As I went through some more pictures in the book, there were skeletons made of wood for the buildings and small rocks shaped like boxes. After a while I started to be hungry so I got up and hunted for prey. I went in the water with my hatchet and my clothing. For a while nothing but then I found a fish but it decided to mock me while it swam between my legs. Then I aimed and swung, decapitating the fish. I walked out of the water with the headless fish. By the lake I grabbed an old plank and put the stick on it and I began to rotate it. Some time passed and smoke started, then boom! Fire! Then I put the fish on the fire and began to cook. The fish may not be good but it wasn't bad either.
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The day began to end so I looked for a place to sleep and I found a bed with a skeleton so I pushed the skeleton off and laid on the bed. It was comfy and I had a lot of work tomorrow to start a hive. So I drifted to sleep. The next day I got up and began to look for prey not fish but an animal. I went to make a bow as soon as possible. I can and when those get done then I'll be the over mind of the hive. No longer will I be limited to one drone. So I went to the forest and began to look. I found a deer and avoided stepping on sticks or leaves so it won't notice me. Then I jumped and tried to kill it and inside I chopped off one of its legs. But the deer lept away and it jumped off a cliff and died! I fell off and blood went everywhere at the bottom. So I walked down and I grabbed a corpse and put it over my shoulder.
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While I climbed up the mountain to the future nest. I saw a bright blue glow on the other mutant but I proceeded. After I got back I went to the library and put the corpse on a table in the library. Then my tongue went out. It's made like a tube for the embryo to go out. After like 5-6 embryos got in the deer, I decided to start to learn to read this language in the books. It may take days to months to learn but these may have fatal information for us. So we can get ahead of the other hives. I grabbed books and looked at the symbols I started at the beginner's guide thing. After some time the embryos were hatched and I thought to myself. “At last I'm no longer limited to one body.” As I tried to figure out the leaders, the board was eating the corpse. It will take a couple of weeks for them to mature but when they do mature, we can get there and make more brew and repeat till we can rebuild the town and turn it to a hive.
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A couple of days pass by
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For the past couple of days they are pretty much the same, learn to read, hunt fish/prey for the hive and figure out stuff. The brood grew from a couple of hundred centimeters to ½ meter and they’re white, but today I found some better equipment. I’ll be the Overmind and I'll no longer use myself. I'll be using drones instead. So I sent my drone back to the future hive and into a house it was sleeping in. So far we have 20 broods as well. Back to the equipment, so the drone decided to wear it but it didn't fit well so the drone took the armor off so we went to the weapon. It seems to be a tube with black powder at the back with a trigger as well. So the drone picked it up, aimed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. Then a loud boom sound. And I thought to myself, “Good a weapon, we can reverse engineer it!” Then the drone put the weapon down.
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After that we proposed as usual. And in a few weeks my broad will mature and the bleeding moon will rise.