In the end, I could only allow two of the humans to join the hunt. While I had the child and was sure they would not abandon him, I still wanted to maintain a sense of control over the humans in my territory. If they were allowed to roam free I could neither ensure their safety nor be sure what they were doing.
“We did not bring weapons.” Maleko said. This was the heavy, powerfully built man always seemed to linger at Koa’s right shoulder.
“That is no issue.” I replied.
Bamboo shoots shot from the ground. They were reinforced with scales, armored deposits of waxy plant-matter building up into numerous shallow pyramid shapes that gave the shoot tremendous strength and durability. At their tip they grew sharp points– I had been working on these. The next time a roaming monster came to my domain, it would find the ground lifted a thousand spears to pierce its hide.
Maleko pressed his heel to the base of one and snapped it free from its roots, twisting and pulling until the haft came free. He examined the weight and balance with a stab, then rolled the spear over the back of his hand, spinning it around his fingers. “So you can bring forth weapons from the earth? What manner of god or spirit are you, voice in the trees?”
I did not answer that. Instead I said, “The gifts you brought were useful and welcome. But if I am to help your village recover from sickness, I need blood. Bring me boars, deer, anything sizeable. The more you bring the quicker my work will be done…”
He nodded. “This I can do.” I could tell he was itching to be free of his cage– he was restraining himself, but his shoulders were tense.
But I also knew their boats had been destroyed. There was no escape from the island, even if he decided to abandon his companions and flee. I would be able to find him before he could lash together a raft. I had considered it carefully and saw only benefits to letting them hunt for me.
“One more thing.” A lemur dropped from the branches, landing on his shoulder. He almost reached to grasp its neck before I said, “You will take my servant with you.”
– Schema –
Precursors
Lionsmane Lemur x Great Wood-Boring Owl
Level 1.
Sagemask Lemur
A strange hybrid creature, the sagemask lemur has an owl’s white-faced patterns and wings, allowing to navigate the treetops with unparalleled ease. It has a pouch in which it raises its young.
Relevant Traits:
Advanced Intelligence (General): Level 3
Dexterous Claws: Level 3
Keen Hearing: Level 3
Prehensile Tail: Level 1
Nursing Pouch: Level 1
Echolocation: Level 3
—
Cost: 23 iota
It was a beautiful creature. The coloration of its almost canine muzzle was sleek white, resembling a mask of ash around its massive, honey-brown eyes. It had no ears, unlike a normal lemur. Instead there were clusters of speckled feathers stretching out from small aural canals that were akin to an owl’s. White-gray feathers extended from under its arms. I had been unable to transfer an owl’s immense flying capacity to a creature whose body was wholly different in design, but…
It could glide. And inspired by the resemblance to a bat in the structures of its winged arms, I had transplanted a bat’s echolocation. It gave the keen-eyed mixture of owl and lemur an additional sense and another use for its incredible hearing.
But the most important aspect of my new creation were the spikes and curling tendrils of fungal tissue sprouting from the back of its skull. They were banded with bright colors like candy, and waxy-wet to the touch.
– Schema –
Precursors
Scintillating Cordyceps x Honey-Drinker Armillaire
Level 0.
Whispering Angel
A breed of fungus that grows in the brainstem of the victim, extending their senses with its own strange receptors.
Relevant Traits:
Parasitism: Level 3
Electrocommunication: Level 1
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Hardened Keratin: Level 1
Magnetoreceptors: Level 5
—
Cost: 4 iota
I had welded together species of mushroom to achieve my desired effect. Electrocommunication was used by colonies of sap-sucking fungi to communicate, using the same root networks that leeched life from the trees. The ones I discovered had a crude vocabulary of about 12 ‘words’ they could send. The great limitation was the need for physical connection…
Magnetoreceptors, which my bees had developed as a wildcard trait, solved that. The antenna that bristled from the lemur’s skull were delicate sensors and broadcasters. They could pass messages across long distances, culling information directly from the host’s brain.
As for Parasitism, it was by far the most useful single trait I’d uncovered. This time I’d developed it in the exact opposite direction than my killer wasps– doing my best to blunt its consequences to the host and fight its detrimental effects.
The result was a near-symbiosis. The fungi would burrow into the brain and expand it, allowing the host body to access its delicate sense for the magnetic field. Even once the lemur left my territory it would be able to communicate back to other hosts.
So I had made two. One to venture out with the humans, keeping an eye on them, and one to remain here, giving me access to the signal.
Maleko scratched it under the chin, examining the lemur with suspicious eyes. “I’ve never seen one like this…”
It was only a matter of time until they guessed my nature. But I wouldn’t hurry that along.
“They only dwell on this island.” I said, which was true. “He will warn you if danger approaches.”
Koa, I noticed, had not taken a weapon for himself. He carried a flint knife on his hip but little else. “Many things dwell on this island that dwell nowhere else.” He said.
Yes, he was beginning to suspect. He knew at least that I could shape life; it would be a short jump for him to realize my nature.
“Hunt what you will– but don’t be unwary. This island is still a wild place.” I said, and Iokua fluttered up into the air, signaling my departure.
— — —
An hour later and I was watching the humans forge their way through the jungle. They hacked away ferns and vines to make a path through the close-set trunks of the trees, their footsteps driving them deeper into the mud as they approached the marsh. One of my ground sloths moved with them, lumbering alongside to protect the two.
I was sensing all this on a small delay; it took a moment for the cordyceps to process what the lemur saw into blurry, rough-grained images and send them to me. I saw a shifting blur of jungle color. Mostly green, with blue above, and hints of bright-hued fruit in the trees. It wasn’t perfect but it was a working prototype. Better yet, the fungi’s own magnetoreceptors were much clearer. As a being that normally ‘saw’ through the presence of mana, I could easily make sense of the rough mapping of every surface and weight, a kind of omnipresent touch that blanketed the world around them.
The lemur was hopping and gliding through the branches, as swift as an arrow.
So far only small game had presented itself. Red-feathered birds whose fluffy headcrests toppled forward over their faces like pompadours. Large, cat-sized beetles that rolled boulders through the mud to assemble fortress homes.
But with a sudden grunt and snort, a pig bolted through the fen, kicking up mud as it went. Squealing piglets raced behind her, pink blurs in my distorted vision.
Maleko’s head snapped around and he lifted his spear to throw, but Koa called, “Wait!”
Something was coming. I felt the vibrations of its footsteps in the leaves, rattling the canopy. With a huge bellow roar the thing that had frightened the pig burst into sight. It was massive and rust-red, with a blunt muzzle that bristled with jagged tooth-shapes. My lemur shot from Maleko’s shoulder up a tree and screamed in fright– I had no way to soothe its natural instincts, except to send commands through the wavering signal.
The gray-thing was coming forward, slamming its head against the trees to make them shake. It stood upright but moved on all fours– some kind of ape.
Koa and Maleko were fading back, trying to avoid its attention. Something was wrong with it. It stumbled drunkenly and seemed only barely aware of its surroundings.
I could hear distant hooting and calling out from the jungle, as if something was chasing it.
“Spirit!” Koa still had no weapon. “Something is wrong here!”
The beast finally shook itself into a moment of calm, and saw them standing before it. It reared up and pounded its chest with lanky arms.
I was already trying to intervene. I had sent a signal through the connection, urging the lemur to move forward and command the ground sloth on my behalf– and after that infuriating delay, it still did not move, instead shrinking back and curling in on itself.
Unlike within my domain, where it took immense force of will to defy me, this signal was nothing more than a suggestion.
But I was not to be denied. I threw my will into a booming command and this time, the lemur snapped free of its stupor. It dove down and landed on the ground sloth’s back, urging it to step forward.
The lanky megafauna lurched up onto its hind feet, straightening to stand some eight feet tall and bring its enormous, razor-sharp claws to bear.
The ape lunged forward and a lightning-fast fist slammed straight into the sloth’s skull. It was sent bowling back as the lemur shot into the air, my view distorting into wild confusion as it vaulted up through the branches. When it finally turned back to look– my commands once again being delayed– I saw brutality below.
The ape was hammering one fist down against the sloth’s head, over and over, clutching at the scruff of its neck with the other massive hand. The sloth could only weakly try to pull away– until it managed to shake out of that first dazing concussion and swipe a single claw up, ripping a red line across the ape’s chest.
The ape bellowed out and flexed its jaws, suddenly lunging down for what started as a headbutt and concluded in a vicious bite, ripping back to pull threads of stringy red meat out of the sloth’s throat. Blood cascaded down its fur…
Maleko flung his spear straight and true. It pierced into the ape’s belly– but I knew already the fat and fur and muscle would stop it before it struck anything deep.
A scream of fury shook the canopy and sent the lemur shrinking back into deeper shadow as the ape gripped the limp, seemingly-dead sloth by one arm and swung it about, a dead weight sent in a pendulum arc through its lanky paw. It only had to let go– and all that brute furred mass of the sloth was slung crudely at Maleko.
He was struck, knocked over, and half-buried. I winced.
Koa lunged. All this time he had been circling, staying low, and now fiery golden light blazed from his fingertips and wreathed between his knuckles, forming a burst of flame that solidified into a heavy redwood club studded with black obsidian blades. He brought it swinging down into the ape’s knee, cracking the bone. Something about that swing–
It was faster and stronger than I would have thought possible.
The ape turned and swung backhand, but the motion was doomed from the start. It required the ape to pivot on the very limb Koa had just broken. Instead it flopped backwards with terrible fury, spilling mud in all directions as it thrashed.
His hair flashing behind him, Koa lunged forward and dodged between the swinging limbs to plant another downwards strike into the remaining leg. In the next instant he was fading back, blurring through my weak vision to escape as the ape rolled forward and began to scratch and clutch the dirt, grasping for him.
But my sloth was rolling onto its own feet. And unlike the ape, it was whole and unharmed, its conscious and torn throat both healing at massive speed. It rushed forward at a gallop and shoulder-checked the ape, and went tumbling across the ground with it.
Blows rained into the sloth’s belly and shoulders, but the close angle made those lanky arms less powerful. The sloth clawed, scraped, and ripped, digging blood and gore out of the ape’s body, painting their fur with red…
The fight ended with a bite to the forearm, crushing the limb and dragging the ape across the ground at full arm’s length. The beast was flopping about now, both legs ruined, not able to coordinate swinging its remaining arm up and overhead at the sloth. Its chest heaved up and down, each breath pushing out more blood from its many wounds.
Koa was lifting Maleko from the ground, helping the warrior stand.
“Spirit!” He called out. “That beast is not right-minded! Kill it quickly, and let there be mercy!”
But I couldn’t respond.
My owl-lemur had been tackled out of the branches by another, larger lemur. The blurring image showed nothing but howling teeth and furious eyes.