Alright, sorry for the delay. Have been coming down with something, among other things...
I rewrote this chapter several times from scratch several times because I didn't know where I wanted it to go or what I wanted to do with it... Too much choice lmfao...
Don't know if I credited everyone with their species yet, but so far we have
:The Legion (Me)
The Hive (Lift-off)
The Frame ( BlueRiddler)
The Vengeful Ones (Lift-off)
Aegyptus (Balthazar)
Actulus (Icecranium)
The Pack Race (Pmag25)
I didn't see anything else (That I can remember), but if I missed yours, put it in the comments and I will add it in...
So, a few question/ answer portions...
1) Humanoid is just the base, there are other forms which I didn't mention. You can create anything, so long as it qualifies as "Sentient"
Reminder, Sentient means anything with a total of 50 points spread across utility and intelligence. Could be 50-0 could be 0-50 or anywhere in between, or anywhere above.
2) The difference between a level 4 skill and a level 3 skill is massive, because the amount of points to get it to level 4 is almost equivalent to get it to level 3, IE it rewards you for making a specialized species.
3) In regards to which species comes first, which comes last, it will be decided as we progress. Some species will be met early, other will be met late. But I can assure you that anything you put in will at least be MENTIONED, as in part of an enemy civ, or something that exists in another area, or even as something which is about to be conquered.
4) About the release schedule... It revolves around two things. My motivation to write and my free time. Free time is (sort of) at a premium for me, and I am overflowing with motivation to write right now. So we should be set for a chapter every two-three days (possible less) for the foreseeable future. The fact that the story is open ended, with a "build it yourself" type of world really helps with the ability to create a world and the "fun" or writing a novel..
5) God damn, this is taking a while... Anyway, About immortality and reproduction. This hasn't been touched on yet, but it will be mentioned at a later date. It is being stated here so that you guys can't say I am putting it in as plot armor or convenience.
A) The mc is immortal (Age wise)
B) The mc's mates are immortal (Age wise) (Up to ten...) < more on this one when it is mentioned in the relevant chapter
C) The Mc's children are not immortal (At all...)
D) Everything can be killed through combat... (including Mc, Mc's mates, Mc's children, the human members of different species, ETC... EVERYTHING MEANS EVERYTHING)
Is that all? Anything else, just ask. I read every comment...
Red window this time?
Leave a species, and I will use it
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“LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL”
“ELLLELLLLELELLELELELLLLL”
“No, no… LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL It’s one constant sound, try it again…”
“LLLELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLELLLLLL”
“Close, but, again, just keep it constant. Keep your tongue at the top of your mouth, then say the letter”
“ELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL”
“Ya, there you go!”
I gave a sigh of relief at her progress. Tessa has been trying to learn how to speak for three days now, but she has only gotten to the letter L.
Linda on the other hand, had mastered most of the alphabet and could already speak a few words in broken English. I honestly expected it to take far longer to teach them language, but it seems that they already could understand it, and only needed to learn how to speak. It was a simple matter of explaining how to sound out letters, and then combine those into words. It’s different from a child in the sense that you have to teach the child the meaning of each word after they learn in. The cat people, the females anyway, already know the words and their meanings, but they only have to learn how to speak them. As far as the men go, I think they only get the jist of what I am saying. They can understand commands, but only because of some form of translation that goes on by a female that is repeating my words to them.
I reached my hand out and started rubbing Tessa’s head a bit as congratulations on her progress. She giggled and started to softly purr as she nestled her head into my palm. I gave a smile at the cute appearance of the brutal warrior. It’s so different from how she normally appears that it is almost frightening.
I gave a grunt as I put some strength into my legs and stretched them out, cracking my arms and back in the process. Instantly, Tessa was behind me, her hands tracing my back muscles as she nestled her head on my shoulder, her purring loud and proud as it resounded directly into my ears. I could actually feel the vibrations of her throat where she had pressed it into my shoulder blade.
“Alffa. Smell. There.”
Linda came from the sides of our small clearing, speaking three words with quite a bit of effort. I grinned as I tried to walk towards her. Tessa clung to my back rather firmly, preventing my motion however, as her grip grew tighter and her purring stopped as her tail whipped back and forth. Her sharp gaze fell onto Linda as her claws dug into my chest.
I used the arm that she was hanging on to to swat her ass, and instantly she changed her attitude, retracting her claws and putting her ears back.
Linda walked forwards only after this happened, probably weary of getting to close to Tessa after what happened yesterday, the claw marks and bite marks still visible on her arms.
I peeled Tessa off of me as she gave me the sad cat eyes and her tail coiled around my leg.
“Not now Tessa…”
She released me after I spoke those words, her mind taking them as a confirmation that later she can cuddle with me. Reluctantly she slid her arms from around my chest and backed away a few feet so I could move without her hindering my movements.
“Linda, how are your wounds?”
“Alffa. Worry?”
She spoke two words, turning her body so that the long and dark claw marks were semi hidden from my sight. She looked towards me, her eyes tearing up, but once she saw Tessa hovering behind me, her gaze shot downwards and she didn’t look up anymore.
Tessa seemed slightly smug at this as a smirk crossed her face. It quickly disappeared after I gave her a harsh glare. I gave a sigh at the problems that Tessa’s possessiveness had caused, and then I walked towards Linda, my arms encircling her body as she shivered.
“Of course I worry about you Linda…”
She glanced up after a few seconds, her teary golden eyes landing on my face as she pressed her body into my body. After we locked gazes for a moment or two, she turned her head away and buried her head into my chest, the soft fur of her cat ears tickling the sensitive skin of my abdomen. She then let out a small sniffle that made me want to just cuddle her here and now, but I resisted because if I did do that, not only would I have to force myself to stop cuddling the adorable cat woman, but Tessa might just straight up kill her like she tried to yesterday.
I gave a sigh, unwrapping myself from the slightly shorter cat woman as her tail coiled around my leg and she hugged my tightly.
“You were saying something Linda?”
She sniffled again and then wiped her tears from her eyes as she separated her body from mine. She reached out to a tree, using her wounded legs to push herself off of the ground with great effort.
She sailed through the air, rocketing a third of the way up the tree in a single jump. As her feet touched a branch, her body shot off again, rocketing towards the top of the tree only a moment later, scaling the hundred foot piece of wood in only four seconds. She appeared as light as a feather, her enhanced agility making it so that her body hardly swayed the branch that she landed on. Tessa did the same thing, jumping straight up to the halfway mark from the ground, and then jumped again to the same branch as Linda. When she arrived, she seemed agitated by Tessa’s presence, but she didn’t do anything except observe her surroundings.
Cats and trees man…
I gave a sigh, and prepared myself. I took a deep breath, bending my knees and crouching down, far enough that my knees almost touched the ground.
I always hated doing this, it feels so wrong to just force my way up, its like using a fist to kill something instead of a knife. It lacks precision, it lacks finesse, it lacks grace… Its just the brute force way of making up for a lower agility…
I then put my strength into my legs, and instantly my body was airborne, on a direct course with the tree’s trunk. I braced myself for impact, and a second later the entire tree swayed as my body hit it. I sunk my claws into the tree to stop my descent and then gauged where I was.
Judging how Tessa and Linda were a few branches above me, hanging on tightly to the branch that was swaying vigorously along with the tree, it appeared that I was about twenty feet below them. I decided to just climb up the last part using my claws, planting one hand as far up in the trunk as I could reach, I sunk my claws into the trunk and then used my arm strength to shoot my body up a dozen feet, pulling out my claw as I went. Its like rock climbing, but with excessive amounts of strength added when you scale it…
Another jump, and I was on the same branch as Tessa and Linda. The two seemed unphased by my atrocious climbing skills, as they waited patiently for me to regain my balance on the still swaying tree.
It took me a few seconds of wildly flailing my arms to regain my balance, all while they just sat at the edge of the small branch, hardly having any trouble remaining like that. They made what I did seem like child’s play… I feel like a fool…
I gave a sigh as I finally regained my balance. I know a fall from this height probably wouldn’t kill me, with my ludicrously sturdy body and all, but it would sure as fuck hurt. It might even break something if I landed poorly.
I made super sure that I was balanced enough that I wouldn’t fall off of the tree like an idiot, and then cautiously walked towards the edge of the branch where they were just standing nonchalantly, perfectly balanced despite their feet only having a few inches of clearance on each side.
“Alfha. There.”
Tessa then lifted one of her arm’s weakly, careful not to reagitate her wounds from yesterday. Her arm pointed to what appeared to be a small hill in the otherwise universally similar forest. It wasn’t visible from the ground, hence the need to scale the tree to show me, despite her previously deep wounds.
A look of confusion must have crossed my face, none of my hunting teams had gone off in that direction, most of them just hunted in a smallish perimeter around our “base camp” which was nothing more then leaves propped up by sticks to give us a bit of shelter from the pouring rains that we encountered on the second day here.
Linda saw my confusion and her ears wilted from their originally happy appearance, pressing flat against her head as she lowered her voice and spoke sullenly.
“Alfha. Doesn’t trust?”
She turned around and started to limp towards me. Her leg wounds had been reopened by Tessa’s attack yesterday, forcing her to limp. I am sure jumping fifty feet twice didn’t help it, and infact it had probably made it worse. I gave a sigh, placing my hand on her shoulder and then swinging her body around so that it landed on my back.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Show me where Linda.”
She pressed her face into my cheek from behind, and then nodded.
“Alfha. Smell…”
I took a deep breath, according to her instructions. The smells of the forest, so vibrant and vivid, started to flow through my body as my enhanced nose started to analyze it. Trees, markings from predators, more trees, plants, and more plants…
“I don’t smell anything Linda…”
From behind me, Tessa started to approach, causing Linda to cower in fear on my back. Tessa only shot her a glance, before taking my arm and leading me to the edge of the branch. She then nestled my hand into her face, a small purr breaking out at the contact.
“Tessa, do you smell something?”
She nodded, as her mouth opened and she tried to form the wording and letters needed to enunciate what it was that she smelled.
“Bllll... BBBBBLLLLL…”
She tried a few times, only getting off two letters before her tongue stopped making sound as she searched for the next letter in the word.
BL? What the fuck is BbbbbLLLL
Linda started to nod, seemingly agreeing with Tessa from behind my back. An odd sight really. Where the two were mortal enemies just moments ago, now they were agreeing on something that I had no idea about. Whatever it was they must think that it is important…
“Alfha… Blood…”
Those two words made me understand what it was that Tessa was trying to say.
Tessa nodded, and proceeded to jump off of the tree, doing a backflip as she descended into the dense forest, away from our small camp. I stared at her in awe, as she started to speed up in the direction which she had smelled the blood from, jumping from tree to tree with insane acrobatic ability. I sat there in bewilderment for a moment, and Tessa seemed to notice that I hadn’t followed her, as she had stopped at the top of a tree a few hundred feet away. She is insane… I knew it…
I yelled out, trying to get my words across to her despite the large gap between us.
“TESSA GO DOWN TO THE GROUND, I WILL MEET YOU THERE.”
With my enhanced vision I saw her nod, despite the large distance, and then she followed my instructions, getting to the ground with no problem in only a few seconds, disappearing from my sight under the dense tree canopy.
I paused for a moment, figuring out how to get down from the tree with the least amount of injuries and in the fastest way possible. I gave a sigh, at my predicament.
I was the worst at this among our entire group. I should, by definition, have the same ability to scale trees as the rest of my species, but for whatever reason I don’t possess the ability to just let myself go and let my catlike instincts to take over. Even the other men are better at this than I am, perhaps it’s the rational part of my human brain that doesn’t know how to control my strength. Perhaps it’s because I think that this is all just an impossible pipe dream, and I am in a medically induced coma… Whatever the reason, I hope that I can get over it and learn how to be spider man meets Tarzan of the jungle, jumping from tree to tree with little to no effort… In time perhaps…
I took a deep breath, preparing myself as I spotted a rather large branch beneath me that could probably hold my weight. I jumped down to it, the entire tree swaying again as I hit the branch with a stupid amount of force. The branch snapped, and faster than I could react, my body had wrapped itself around Linda, protecting her from damage as I barreled into the ground hard enough for me to feel quite a bit of pain. Luckily I have a stupidly resilient body, and it wasn’t Linda that took the full force of the fall. My weight and her already injured state would have probably killed her, or at least caused her great pain.
I uncurled my body as I lay in my crater, my mind still swimming and my body screaming in pain. I opened my closed eyes, and set my gaze on the bundle of human shaped furish stuff snuggled against my chest. Her hair all stood on end, as she was crying into my chest.
“Are you alright Linda?”
She lifted up her head, her golden gaze piercing into my eyes as if she was looking for something specific. She nodded, wiping away her tears as she weakly stood up.
“Alffa.. Hurt…”
I tried to sit up, my back gave me dull warnings of pain as I shrugged off the dirt that had gathered on my body. Luckily I had landed in a soft spot in the ground, and not a root… or a rock… or a plant… or something that wasn’t mushy mud.
I smiled at her, rubbing her head with my dirty hand, regretting my action as I put some mud in her hair unknowingly.
“Not really.. I am glad that you are ok…”
From behind her I could see Tessa running up in full sprint, her top speed was way faster than I had originally pegged it at, she must have been running at over 70 miles per hour as she crossed the few hundred feet in only three or four seconds.
She sprinted up, pausing at the edge of the crater, before her pretty face filled with worry contorted into fury, her body disappearing from my sight as she grabbed Linda by the throat and threw her off of m. Linda’s body landed outside of my vision range as Tessa instantly knelt down on top of my body which was still stunned for the large part. Her fury disappeared, and was replaced with tears and worry.
Her worried eyes scanned every part, searching for some form of damage or some injury. Finding none she seemed to give a breath of relief, and her head turned towards Linda, her gaze turning hateful and her face contorting again, as she pressed her ears backwards and bared her fangs.
Tessa stood up, her entire attention turned towards Linda. Her body crouched down, and her hair stood on end as she pounced viciously towards the wounded catwoman.
They fought for a few seconds outside of my sight range as I fought with my body to get up. I was shouting at Tessa the entire time, trying to get her attention enough to stop the fight, but she wasn’t paying attention to me. She was so focused on fighting Linda that she hardly heard my words.
After another moment or two, frustration gave rise to anger, anger gave rise to rage and rage drove my strength forwards, my numb arms once more gaining feeling and my unresponsive legs once more started to work. I shot up from the crater where I had been lying, and what I saw made my rage soar.
Tessa’s body was covered in Linda’s blood as Linda was held under Tessa’s arms in a choke hold.
I rushed forwards, shoving Tessa off of Linda rather forcefully, as I took her place and inspected Linda’s wounds.
I gave a sigh of relief, luckily Tessa had only had a few seconds to wail on Linda, and had only done damage on her surface. Big cuts that bled a lot, but nothing permanent I think. Just scary looking wounds, not exactly damaging. In fact, the bleeding had already stopped on a few of the lighter wounds, evidence of the higher vitality stat than humans.
Linda’s breathing was rough, weak from the numerous amounts of things that had happened in the eight that we have been here… I gave a sigh, picking up her frail body with my two arms as I walked over to where I had thrown Tessa. She was kneeling on the ground crying, in a fetal position, roughly thirty feet away. Damn I had pushed her hard.
I gave a sigh, wondering how the situation had turned out like this.
Tessa seemed to notice my approach, inching her body away from me as she sniffled pitifully and curled her body up into a fetal position.
I came to a stop a few feet from her, as she tried to make her body smaller and smaller, her tail coiled around her leg and her ears pressed into her head. I saw a large bruise forming on her leg, evidence of my unrestricted use of force just now as I tried to get her off of Linda.
There was no trace of her normally happy go lucky attitude, there was no sign of the normally strong alpha female. What was left was a sad and pitiful woman, injured by someone she had been worried about, thrown off of someone who she blamed for my injury, however nonexistent it was. I needed to end this between the two, before one of them killed the other one. Who am I kidding, Tessa is the one who would kill Linda… Not the other way around, at least, not for now.
I walked the last few feet towards Tessa’s body, each step causing a shiver to run through it as I stepped closer and closer. Eventually we were only sperated by a single foot. I placed Linda’s still bleeding body infront of Tessa, taking one of my hands and lifting up Tessa’s chin so that she was forced to look at Linda’s body.
“Look at what you have done Tessa… This is not ok.. You can’t do this, it has to stop…”
She shivered again, her neck moving as she forcefully ripped her head away from my grip. She didn’t speak… She couldn’t speak… But I knew she was able to understand. Which made this a one sided conversation, no, this was a lecture…
“Tessa… You have injured Linda, you have betrayed a member of our species. This is not ok… I will have to punish you for this. If I had been slower in stopping you, you would have killed her…”
I was preparing my next words carefully. This is not acceptable behavior, even if she is the most powerful female, even if Linda is the weakest female, they are both important, we can’t have a civilization that starts killing itself off only a week in due to jealousy, as much as I like Tessa, this can’t go on. Monkey see, monkey do. A single bad example might kill us all by setting a bad example. If all of our females kill each other out of jealousy, there won’t be any left to breed, and our species will go extinct.
“Alffa… Don’t blame Tessa…”
A weak voice broke me away from my thoughts, bringing me back to the crumpled blood stained body that was lying before me.
Her words echoed through my mind, and Tessa looked up on her own initiative, her golden eyes locking on to the weak woman before her.
“Linda... blame… Alffa blame Linda… Tessa. Not problem…”
I stared at Linda, unsure how to react to her words.
Linda moved one of her weak arms, pressing it weakly into the ground as she weakly pulled her body towards Tessa. Tessa hid her face, unwilling to look at Linda as she slowly crawled towards Tessa.
Linda finally reached Tessa’s feet, and nestled her head onto Tessa’s leg, her eyes falling onto the bruise that I had given Tessa when I threw her off of Linda.
Linda leaned forwards, and started to lick the bruised spot on Tessa’s legs. Tessa looked up in astonishment, as I looked on bewildered…
What the fuck is she doing???
Tessa looked at Linda with a similar expression, but soon enough Tessa leaned forwards, her face descending towards Linda’s wounds that were still bleeding and she followed Linda’s example…
Soon enough the two women were licking eachother’s wounds from their catfight. A form of cat fight make up? I guess?
I stared on, once more bewildered at the strange spectacle of two scantily clad catwoman, covered in blood and wounds and ripped clothing, licking each other.
I gave a sigh, and started to rub my back in an attempt to alleviate the pain as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing…
Nature is weird sometimes...
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So that problem is solved? Lesbo Cat people? Will be fun when we get into the reproduction section of the nomadic age...
So far, the species has existed for 8 days now, and has lost 1 member due to combat.