Anyone played Civilization? This is going to (hopefully) work in a similar manner. Once certain technologies are acquired a civilization will unlock new avenues for advancement. Although, its not as straightforwards as Civ, there is no "Put points here and get this technology." The real world doesn't work like that... Its a "Discover it yourself or take it from someone else" system. Fun right?

Anyway, this chapter is the start of the nomadic arc. This arc shouldn't take long, but it will be a pace setter and a mood setter. People afraid of death and slavery, turn back now or forever whack off to slave chicks getting knocked up for slave babies. (Later thou, still have to find them...)

My comment still stands though, put your "builds" for a species down in the comments and I will probably use them later. Maybe not in this arc, maybe not in the next one... But EVENTUALLY!!!

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My eyes flickered open when a bright light hit them.

I groaned as I sat up, struggling to open my eyes as I searched my memories for where I was…

My hand stretched out, unconsciously rubbing my face as I started to yawn. Oddly, it kinda hurt when I scratched my face with my hand.

I opened my eyes with a wince at the sudden pain. Instantly I started to squint at the bright light that entered them. The world seemed so vivid, my eyes couldn’t take it. The world had never seemed so bright, it was like I was staring at a perfect world, filled with color and light. After a few seconds of squinting, my eyes adjusted to the newfound light and I was able to open them and examine my surroundings.

What I saw were layers upon layers of trees, with loads of dirt and foliage beneath them. I was beside a small river, with only a few feet of clearance on either side of me before more treeline.

Has the world always looked like this? This is insane, forget 20/20 vision, this is like 20/5 or something like that. I can see the patterns on the back of that butterfly thing over there... fifty feet away… Hi definition on top of hi definition… I don’t know what that means, but its like that… I guess…

As I adjusted to my new super vision I started to look around again. Scattered along the riverbank were the members of the species that I designed. It seems that surrounding me were about twenty Legionites, each one sleeping like I had been.. No, scratch that, nineteen exactly. Nine men, ten women…

They, and I for that matter, were completely naked.

I spent a few seconds appreciating the bodies that I designed. Their bright red skin gave off a soft glow amongst the sunlight. The women were rather beautiful, although some had a better appearance than others. One of them in particular, the closest one to me infact, was the best looking of the lot. The muscles on her nude body gave off a definite undertone, They were tall, although they looked shorter now… Around my size.

That is interesting, I was only around five foot ten, they should be at least six and a half feet tall…

“WHAT?!?!!?”

I looked down at my hands only to find that they were covered in red skin, with claws along the finger tips.

“NO FUCKING WAY!!!”

I spun my head around, my gaze falling on my backwards legs and cat tail that was sprouting from my naked ass. My hand instantly went to the top of my head, feeling around for the last defining marker. Yep… I had fucking cat ears…

What a joke… At least tell me if you are going to put me in the body of the species I designed… This is rediculous…

I put my legs beneath me, a strange feeling due to the double jointed leg, and attempted to stand up.

As I put the force into my leg, I naturally stood up, my body making no awkward or unnatural movements despite its changes. Perhaps they had the decency to adapt my mind to the new body…

*Urrggg*

I heard a groan from beside me, as the female Legion member started to move, waking up from her sleep. Her red hair fell from her face, revealing it in the bright light of the sun. Damn she was hot…

She opened her eyes and my gaze instantly fell on her bright golden irises that almost instantly started to look back at me. She sat upright, making no effort at all to hide her nude body as she studied her surroundings.

Apart from her, the others in the group also started to wake up, evidenced by the rustling noises and grunting sounds that my highly tuned ears could hear from behind me.

The female who was infront of me kept her gaze locked onto my face for a few seconds before standing up herself. She was the almost the same height as I was, except she was thinner, lighter and leaner. She started to walk around me, her gaze drinking in my entire body like it was candy.

After a few circling she stood infront of me, inspecting my face thoroughly. I kind of just stood there awkwardly as this naked pretty woman thoroughly examining my body.

After she finished she stood infront of my with her head cocked before she revealed a wide smile and then took my hands in her own.

I awkwardly smiled back for a moment before shaking her hands loose and then covering up my growing boner.

Not the time body, not the time…

I glanced around at the small group of legionites that was here. I guess I am the tenth male? 10 females 10 males of this new species… Good enough…

I gave a sigh as I inspected the gathering group. I appeared to be the tallest male, as the others are a few inches shorter and they seem to be less burly then I am. Good, I will need something to control them with before I can set up a society.

Speaking of whic---

*GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRR*

My thoughts were cut off by a low growling sound that came from the river. Instantly, the idle cat people in front of me grew into some kind of battle hardened unit, spreading out and lowering their bodies. They were alert, their eyes darting all around and checking every inch of the river for a sign of danger as they backed away from it carefully.

With a massive roar and a great splash of water a massive toothed maw shot out from the river, covering the distance between it and its target in a split second. Its head alone was five feet wide, the parts of its body that were outside of the river were massive, like a gigantic alligator. It had hefted well over twelve feet of its body out of the river in an instant, and its jaw was now firmly latched onto the right leg of the female Legionite closest to the river, and instantly the woman started to violently scream in agony as it teeth bore into her leg.

The rest of the group charged towards the overgrown crocodile, trying their best to injure it, but hardly scratching its skin with their claws. The woman started to scream even louder as she bashed her fist against the lizard’s head as powerfully as she could. The beast flinched from the sudden force applied to its face, twitching its head to the side and bringing the woman with it as it tried to slither back into the water. It’s head was still quite far from the river, and it had started to sink into the mud from the massive amount of weight that it had placed onto the shore.

My mind finally started to move again as I saw the beast retreating.

“QUICK!!! GRAB ITS LEGS, DRAG IT ONTO THE SHORE!!”

I shouted out orders as I glanced around for some form of weapon. A large branch hanging down from a tree near me caught my eye, my hand reaching out and tearing it off from the tree after a substantial amount of effort. The edge splintered when I twisted it off, creating a jagged point. I flipped it around, realizing that a jagged point would deal more damage to the beast then a simple stick if I could get it into a weak point in the beast’s hide.

Almost as if on cue, a flood of knowledge about spears and what they were streamed into my head.. I guess I just invented a spear.. Interesting…

The cat people by the riverbed had each grabbed a section of the flailing beast and had started to pull it back onto the shore with an extensive amount of effort. The soft mud gave way under the insane amount of force that they were using, causing their legs to sink into the mud quickly. The beast was sinking as well, with one of its feet already buried completely in the riverbank while the other one was not far behind.

With my new spear in hand I charged towards the almost immobilized beast, breaking into a full sprint before jumping and shoving the point into its eye with all of the strength I could muster.. The force of the thrust forced the beast back a foot or two as my spear shattered from the impact. It’s jaw loosened a tad bit as the sheer blunt force of the blow hit its skull.

Taking advantage of this, I positioned my feet, one on its shattered eye, and the other in the mud. I then proceeded to lift with all of my strength. I could feel the muscles in my back and arms straining as I put all of the force I could into lifting up its jaw.

To my right I saw another pair of hands follow my example and then another one on the other side. 16 members of our group held down the gargantuan monster, while 3 of us worked on freeing our comrade from its mouth.

We hadn’t made any progress after a few seconds of extremely stranious effort, and the riverbank was slowly sliding back into the river at this point, giving the beast more leeway with its movements.

Off to my right I saw its tail come up from the river in a massive torrent of water, on a collision course with the woman I was next to earlier. I tried to voice out a word of warning, but she jumped back at just the right time, the tail missing her by only a foot or two as she leapt away from the beast.

I refocused my attention on prying open the lizard’s mouth as it started to use its tail to give itself a bit of leeway, constantly swinging the massive scaled beam randomly, sometimes hitting nothing, sometimes narrowly missing one of our members.

After a few seconds of this, it finally got lucky, scoring a massive hit on one of the men in our group, throwing him far away, out of my vision range. I heard a massive crack as he hit a tree somewhere.

We had to finish this now before we lose more people…

As that thought went through my mind, I heard a shout from behind me.

“AHHH!!!!!”

I didn’t have the spare attention to look away from the beast that was trying even now to struggle from my grip, but almost a second later a narrow piece of wood flew past my face and planted itself in the other eye socket of the beast. A warm body hit me from behind, the force of the impact pressed me into the beast and the foot that I had placed in the eye of the beast gave a sickening crunch as it caved in.

The beast let out a roar, releasing its jaw as it attempted desperately to return to the water.

I grabbed hold of its mouth, shutting it with my arms when I saw it try and open.

The beast, blinded and stuck started to thrash around even more, throwing a few more people off of it. This only lasted a few seconds, as they would instantly get up and return to their job of pulling it onto the shore.

“QUICK, SHUT ITS MOUTH!!!

I screamed for help as the muscles in my arms strained to keep its jaw shut. The beast was putting more and more force into its jaw, and my arms could no longer handle it alone. Soon though, several other people came alone and thoroughly shut its mouth with their own arms.

After five people were firmly grasping its mouth I released my arms, horrified at the bloody streaks left behind by the rough scales on its snout. I took a quick breath, briefly ignoring the stinging pain in my arms as I searched for something that would be able to hold closed the reptile’s mouth.

Once more my eyes flitted around, falling briefly on the figure of the crumpled body next to the shattered remnants of a tree. I cringed at the bloody pulp that he had turned into, almost vomiting as I tore my eyes from the devastating sight. I swallowed my saliva as I scanned the area.

I grabbed a thick vine, almost the width of my fist, taking several dozen feet of it from the tree before running back to the group that was holding the monstrosity down.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

They had managed to mostly pull it onto the shore, with only its tail remaining partly submerged.

It was massive, almost forty feet long from its head to the tip of its tail. That tail was being held down by several members of the group while its head and body were completely suppressed by the rest of the cat people.

Almost everyone in our group was bloodied in some form, the scales from the beast tougher and rougher then our skin. Most had only light wounds, but a few of us, myself included, were actually injured. Towards its head I could see a woman with blood running down her leg and several large gaping holes where the teeth had left their marks. One of those teeth was still there, the bony spike was penetrating cleanly through her calf.

As I ran towards the group, I threw the other end of the rope to her, and she held it for a moment before understanding what needed to be done. She held it below the horizontal mouth of the creature, while I passed the entire bundle of vines over its mouth, tightening it as fast as possible.

After a few more passes around its mouth, one of the men holding it closed let go abruptly. I was startled, but kept going all the same. What was the point of the vines if they didn’t free up hands in the first place.

The man hopped onto the head of the beast, raised his fist, and then started to pound on its skull.

After another few layers of vine, another man deemed it safe to let go, as he went and assisted the man ontop of the mammoth lizard, wailing away on the back of its neck.

This process continued until the lizard stopped struggling completely, its head a bloody pulp from all of the abuse and trauma that was placed on it, and its entire body was wrapped up in vines, taken from the surrounding trees in order to assist with the subjugation of the beast.

It had taken us only a minute to subdue the beast and drag it from the water, but it had taken well over half an hour for us to kill it with blunt trauma. I had tried to use a spear to kill it, but its skull was too thick for the spear to penetrate, as it simply shattered on contact after a heavy thrust.

Eventually the woman who it had grabbed originally took its tooth from her leg and repeatedly jabbed it into the belly of the beast, probably puncturing a vital organ inside its body. After she did that, it started to die way faster.

When the entire event was over I vomited out whatever was in my stomach. The adrenaline emptied out from my system, and a dull throbbing pain overcame me. Honestly, I was expecting these wounds to be far worse than what they felt like.

I glanced over at the splintered tree, taking a moment to ponder what to with our dead comrade. A second later, I turned away in disgust, my eyes turning back towards the tired and exhausted group of cat people who were resting on the mud of the bank.

I spotted the injured woman, her leg still bleeding, although not nearly as much as one would expect considering what it was that attacked her.

I decided to take the initiative and approach her. She seemed to notice my approach, as she attempted to stand up. As she tried to put weight on her bad leg, her body lost its balance. I rushed forward and caught her before she could completely fall over.

“Hi there…”

She seemed surprised at my sudden actions, but she didn’t reject my arms that were coiled around her body.

She seemed to understand what it was that I was trying to say. Thinking back now, they all seemed to have understood what it was that I was saying or what it was that I wanted, but none of them have spoken yet. The closest thing to a word that I had heard was that grunt that the pretty one had yelled when she drove the spear into the lizard’s eye.

I turned my head away from the woman in my arms, searching the area for that woman. Fuck it, naming them woman this, woman that, is confusing… I will give them names from now on. The injured one, I guess I will name her… Fluffy? For real though I guess she will be named… Linda, ya that kinda fits I guess… Linda and Tessa.

After a few seconds I found the other woman, now named Tessa, over by the side of the alligator, using it’s dislodged tooth to cut into its belly. I slowly lowered the woman in my arms, now named Linda, about to head over to the alligator / crocodile/ komodo dragon thing.

As she touched the ground and my hands left her, she reached out with an arm and grabbed at my leg, a small voice escaping from her open mouth.

“Ah…”

It seems that she wants me to stay. I guess I can’t disappoint the ladies. I took a look at her nude body, but that was kind of a buzz kill, as she was covered in mud and blood. I gave a sigh for my inability to keep lewd thoughts out of a life or death scenario before swooping down and carefully picking Linda up, placing her on my back so that she wouldn’t have to put weight onto her leg right now.

I took the two of us over to Tessa as I glanced at the mushy and deformed body of the giant crocodile. Honestly we were brutal in our methods of killing this thing, gouging out it’s eyes and then beating it to death as it slowly died from internal bleeding. Honestly though, I don’t feel any remorse. It had started this conflict, trying to eat Linda and all… That and in this world it would be kill or be killed, a dog eat dog world…

Speaking of eating, we should find something to eat, I am sure all of us are hungry.

Apparently my words were said too late, as the group of Legionites closest to the dead beast had started to eat it raw. When I had been ranting in an inner monologue, Tessa had managed to open a hole in the side of the beast and the others had started to widen it with their bare hands, tearing large chunks of flesh and skin from it.

WAIT A MINUTE

“NO!!! BAD CAT PEOPLE!!! Don’t tear the leather, we need that…”

I yelled out angrilly at the group that had been destroying the leathery hide of the reptile, and instantly they backed away, laying on the ground with their belly’s up and their tails between their legs. Tessa looked at me with sad cat eyes, her golden irises no longer looking regal and dignified, instead they looked pitiful and on the verge of tears as her cat ears pressed against her head, tips pointed backwards.

She lowered her head after our gazes met, and she took the piece of meat that she had been eating and offered it to me with both hands.

What is this?

Am I the bad guy here? Taking away everyone else's food?

I gave a hefty sigh, pushing her meat back to her, prompting a rather confused look from Tessa.

I lightly pushed her away from the opening in the alligator, and she gave me a few feet. I placed Linda at her side as I walked towards the edge of the gaping hole in what was once a strong and durable hide.

My eyes fell upon the tool that was used to create this hole, the tooth from the alligator.

My hand reached down and grasped the tooth, and I was instantly surprised.

I expected it to be smooth, but it seems that the tooth had natural serrations on the inward side of the curve, like something a fish hook would have.

Tessa had forcefully opened the hole with it, but it looks like force wouldn’t be needed really, considering the curved part of the tooth was rather sharp already.

I reached out towards the skin, my hands coming in contact with a leathery scaled hide. The scales were thick and durable, no wonder we couldn’t cut through those with our claws, they were like armor plating, half an inch thick of some kind of chitinous substance.

I slid the sharp part of the tooth through a gap in the scales and it cut like a dream, slicing apart the skin like it were paper. I grinned, taking a rather large amount of time to get reasonably clean and clear cuts. I had this nagging feeling that this material would be incredibly useful, and with the discovery that these teeth were sharp on the sides and not just the tip, they would make for excellent spear points. What a way to start a civilization off. Tons of food, tons of material and tons of high quality weapons.

After I made the first cut, Tessa and another woman went to the front of the alligator, trying to pry the teeth from its mouth so that they could copy me. The women really were smarter then the men in this species, and I guess I am the only exception to this rule. Hopefully that will change with time, we need a higher IQ for our civilization to advance.

Infact, it stil worries me that I have not heard a complete word from any of them. They are completely silent, with the exception of Tessa and Linda. I guess I will name the rest of them as they distinguish themselves…

While I was musing to myself, Linda managed to crawl over to where Tessa was attempting to get the tooth out of the lizard’s jaw. Linda started at the problem for a moment before grabbing a fist sized rock and hitting the bottom section of the tooth, putting a rather firm crack in the base of the tooth.

It’s a good thing that we saved her, she seems to have the highest intelligence stat of our group. It would have been a massive blow to lose our most intelligent member on the first day.

After that, several more teeth were taken from the jaw and the women started to get to work cutting apart the skin into nice and clean portions of around 5 square feet each. This thing was a behemoth, at around 40 feet long and 5 feet wide, so there was a TON of skin to be harvested from it, and I was planning on taking all of it. I made sure to tell them to be careful not to injure the hide, and I think they understood me, but I am not sure if they ACTUALLY understood me. I think they just get the jist of what it is I am saying.

Anyway, with the women doing the job I had been doing, I decided to take a look around. And it’s a good thing I did because I discovered something akin to an apple tree a few dozen feet away from the bank of the river. To be safe I cut open the fruit and checked the insides, but as far as I could tell it wasn’t deadly. It looked almost exactly like an apple, except it was orange… Not an orange, but an orange apple. Interesting stuff…

I told the men that had come with me to start gathering the “ripe” ones, which again, were orange and not red. They seemed to only half understand what I wanted them to do, but I left them to their own devices as I went about making something to carry our haul in.

It took me a while, tying several thick sticks together with some vine and then layering the inside with lizard pelt to make it sturdy. After the first one was made, Linda and a few other women stopped what they were doing and started to automate making those as well, taking the large 5 by 5 sheets that were coming off of the lizard and putting them into the backpacks.

With my tasks done I sat down on the bank of the river… Before seeing the water, and then inching myself backwards another ten twenty feet. Once there I sat down, took another scoot backwards until I finally felt safe enough to contemplate what I should do now.

We have a water source right here, but I am not sure we want to stay here if there are other predators like this prehistoric dinosaur lurking around. We should find a cave somewhere, become true cavemen… Ya, let’s do that. No.. no wait… We shouldn’t create a settlement right now, it is too early in history. We need tools, we need a steady supply of food, we need to get out of this goddamn forest. Perhaps we should be nomads, roaming in the forest until we find a suitable location to set up shop and start a civilization. Or until we find someone else's civilization to take over… Ya, lets do that one. My civ probably has the most insane starting stats in the game, and I was told that there would be a starting bias and a starting inhibition. Let’s assume that the giant fucking deathtrap that was lying in wait next to our spawn was the inhibition. Where is the bias? It has to be one of those weaker civilizations that the system was talking about…

Sparta oh Sparta.. I shall found you eventually, but I need farms, builders, and slaves to farm the farms. Oh.. and a farmable crop. That is the most important one…