Many have speculated about the charisma Number, why it has both a physical and mental aspect and seems to be fundamentally different from the other Numbers. I would argue that charisma can be explained from an evolutionary perspective. For the earliest homo sapiens, each Number would be desirable in a mate for different reasons. But the most desirable trait, one that would ensure the longest life for progeny, is healthiness. The greatest cause of death of early homo sapiens were diseases, infections, childbirth, etc. Humans evolved to find the ability to recover from sickness intensely attractive. This has resulted in the charisma attribute, which I posit originally only affected healing, now also making the host appear attractive to those around them.

- Excerpt from “Charisma”, by Stilkens

By the time I can no longer hear the buzzing of the swarm, over an hour has passed. I am exhausted, but there’s no chance of falling asleep -- even if my heart weren’t still pumping from the adrenaline, I can’t take the risk of my skill reverting and losing our defense.

I’m curled in the blanket, afraid to trust the swarm is truly gone, when I hear a voice.

“Guys? You all right? Atlas? Pallas? Melete?” I assume it’s Styx, but her voice sounds strange.

I roll on the ground, unwrapping us from the blanket. I try to be gentle with Melete’s still unconscious body, but it’s difficult with how tightly we’re twisted together.

Finally we’re free and I look up to see a flashlight pointing at us. The sky is completely dark, and I raise my hand to keep myself from being blinded. Out of the corner of my eye I see the blanket that I had tossed Pallas wrapped into a familiarly shaped burrito, slowly moving.

“Melete!” Styx yells out and the light bobs over where we’re still laying on the ground. “What happened, is she okay?” She asks me. Her voice still sounds strange, as if she has a slight lisp. She gets closer and points the light away from my face, allowing me to get a good look at her. She’s covered in dirt and her cheek is puffy and swollen, I assume from where she was stung. I can’t see any other notable injuries.

I shake my head, and respond. “I’m not sure, she hasn’t responded since we hid.”

We frantically check over Melete. She’s still clearly breathing -- each breath is loud and gasping. Although I’m reassured that she’s at least still alive, I hope the noisy breaths aren’t a sign of anything life-threatening. It only takes a minute for us to see her throat. Similar to Styx’s cheek, it’s bright red and swollen.

Styx unbuttons the top buttons of her shirt, checking to see how far down the swelling extends, running her hands carefully over the affected area. I feel a momentary pang of embarrassment, but quickly push it away. As Styx works, she talks to me, her voice still lisping.

“Were you stung at all? Check to see if any of the stingers are still in your skin. I pulled one out of my cheek ten minutes after I was stung.”

I nod and run my left hand along the back of my right. I still have no feeling in my right hand and the lack of tactile feedback from it is disorienting. When I don’t find anything after a minute, I give up and reach up to my scalp.

I’m startled when instead of my normal hair I feel a layer of coarse fur. I completely forgot about my skill. With a thought, I dismiss the changes to my hair and my feet and run a hand through my much thinner hair. The skin on my scalp feels noticeably warm to the touch and I eventually feel a tiny pin-prick.

I work my fingers around the stinger, pulling it out of my scalp in the same way I might remove a thorn. It is short, less than a centimeter long, and extremely thin.

“I don’t think I see any stingers.” Styx finally pronounces, standing up from Melete’s prone form. “I got a tube of anti-inflammatory cream from the gas station, can you help me look for it? Our supplies were scattered.”

I carefully pull myself to my feet, my leg in pain. But I can handle waiting with a little pain if it means getting the medicine to help Melete.

As Styx shines the flashlight around our supplies, I marvel. The ground is littered with the corpses of the bugs, hundreds of them, and I navigate around their bodies as I limp to the wheelbarrow. I’m unable to dodge them all and some crunch beneath my feet.

The blanket that contains Pallas is still in the process of slowly unrolling. It’s taking longer than I expected for him to extricate himself, so as I find my own flashlight and shine it around I call out. “You okay over there Pallas?”

I hear him grunt. “Um...maybe? I might need some help.”

Forgetting the medicine for now, I walk over as fast as I am able. Out of all of us, Pallas almost never complains. For him to be asking for help...I hope it isn’t serious.

As I come to where Pallas is laying on the ground, the last of the blanket flips off of him and I gasp. His forearms are stained a dark red, the long sleeves torn to shreds. I can see small gashes torn into his skin in several places, but the dried blood could be hiding other even more severe injuries.

Pallas is examining his own arms as if they belong to someone else, his face pale but remarkably stoic for having lost so much blood.

“What happened? Does it hurt?” I ask, grabbing a water bottle from a nearby dropped backpack and quickly unscrewing the top.

“Actually, no.” Pallas replied. “I can’t feel a thing from my arms. A bit dizzy though.”

I start to pour the water over his skin, dabbing away the blood with the corner of a shirt from the same backpack. “What happened?” I ask again.

He simply holds his arms out in front of him as I work, and responds. “I was having trouble closing off the top of the blanket, and just used my arms to cover my head. I got stung a few times, and couldn’t feel anything else after that. I eventually pulled the blanket shut above me, but I didn’t even know I was hurt until I felt the blood dripping down.” He shudders. That must have been terrifying, trapped alone in the blanket with his own blood pooling around him.

There’s still a large amount of blood washing off, but it looks like he’ll be okay. I’m finally able to see more of the skin underneath. There are dozens of small cuts and gouges in the skin on his arms, mostly on the back of his arms, but none of them seem deep.

After cleaning his arms as well as I can in the dark and pulling out any stingers I can find, I awkwardly start to wrap them in some makeshift bandages to prevent any more loss of blood. But after a minute of struggling, we walk over to Styx for help -- I only have the one working hand, and Pallas is unable to even flex his fingers with how many times he was stung.

“How does Melete look?” I ask as Styx unwraps my clumsy attempts at first aid and starts from scratch.

“I’m not sure, but I think she’s okay. I rubbed some of that cream on her neck, which hopefully will help. I couldn’t find any other places she was stung.”

“Do you think the medicine will work on the stings? I mean, I’m no entomologist, but I’m pretty sure those bugs weren’t normal.” I say.

“Hopefully? I don’t know. It should at least help with some of the swelling. If you want, we can try some on our stings too.” Styx replies.

I look at the small bottle of anti-inflammatory cream before replying. “I’m good for now, I think. It doesn’t hurt or itch, it’s just kind of numb for me. Might as well save it for when it’s more serious. Although if either of you want to try it, go ahead.”

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Pallas shakes his head and says, “Not for me. I don’t know how I’d even apply it with how cut up I am.”

“I’ll give it a shot, at least a little bit. See if it makes any difference, so we can know if we should keep putting it on Melete.” Styx grabs the bottle and squeezes out a small dollop of cream into her hand, before rubbing it on her cheek.

Suddenly Melete’s eyes pop open and her breathing rate increases even further, her mouth rapidly opening and closing as if she’s trying to speak.

Styx immediately drops the bottle and puts a hand on Melete’s shoulder, gently pushing her back to the ground. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, you’re fine. Don’t try to talk.” I worry Melete is going to hyperventilate with how fast the wheezing has become, but as Styx continues to mumble words of encouragement Melete’s wide eyes calm and her breathing slows.

When it finally looks like she’s relaxed, Styx allows her to sit up, and Melete looks in wonder at the bodies of the bug monsters scattered all around.

“What…” She manages to get out, wheezing, before she breaks into a fit of coughing.

“What happened?” Styx asks, and Melete nods. “You remember the swarm attacking us?” As Melete nods again, Styx continues. “There were just too many for us. Your skill was killing them like crazy, but it seemed to make them focus on us even more. They were swarming around, and then one must have stung you on the throat. When your singing stopped we couldn’t keep up any more, so we hid. Atlas wrapped you up with him in a blanket, Pallas was in the other blanket. I hid under the wheelbarrow.”

“Under the wheelbarrow?” Pallas asks. It seems he didn’t realize where Styx had been the entire time. “You’re able to fit under there?”

Styx winces. “Barely. I curled up in a ball, and was mostly covered. I couldn’t get the edges completely flush with the ground though. I had to keep smashing bugs that crawled under the rim until I dug underneath me and piled dirt into the cracks.”

I’m staring at Styx in amazement. And I thought I had it bad being wrapped with Melete in the blanket -- compared to Pallas getting his arms torn up, Styx having to keep fighting even in the cramped shelter, and Melete getting stung on the throat, I had it easy.

“How long were you killing the bugs after getting under?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. Wasn’t exactly paying attention to the time.” Styx smirks as she says this. “I know I killed at least twenty of the bugs under there -- I lost count after that. At least I got plenty of Numbers to spend.” She says wryly.

I start. I completely forgot to check my Numbers. I shine the light down at my palm. Twenty-two.

“How much did you all get?” I ask.

“Forty-one.” Styx says.

“Twenty-nine.” Pallas says.

Melete looks at her palm, and a grin appears on her face. She fist pumps dramatically, a strange groaning cheer coming from her mouth, before she bends over coughing. Despite this, a wide smile is plastered to her face and she holds up her left hand for us to see. On her palm is one hundred thirty-five.

“Oh wow,” I say, “Congratulations. Makes sense though, you killed way more than any of us with your skill. I just got twenty-two.”

Melete grimaces as she realizes her skill is, at the moment, useless.

“I’d recommend you all putting some points in charisma.” I say. “Especially you, Pallas, if the numbness doesn’t go away by tomorrow. We need you to be able to use your hands.”

“How about you?” Styx asks.

“I...think I might be able to use my skill to get around it.” As I talk, I picture the swelling on my right hand going down, at regaining full functionality, and activate my skill. It takes a few seconds, but eventually my hand appears normal again. I flex it, opening and closing my hand into a fist.

There’s still a slight tingling every time I move it, but it appears I’ve regained most of the feeling. I turn my focus to my right leg and start the process to return it to usability.

As I activate my skill, I keep talking. “It looks like we’re going to be camping here tonight. I can take the first watch, I don’t think I’m up for sleeping any time soon. Styx, you willing to take the next watch?” I marvel at my new ability to multitask, to use the skill to such a high degree without having to block out all distractions. I pull up the sleeve on my right arm, and sure enough the tattoo has changed color again. It now looks a dark yellow with a hint of orange at the edges.

“Yeah, I can go next.” Styx replies. She looks to Melete and Pallas. “You two need lots of rest, we’ll try and give you a long night before we wake you up.”

Pallas starts to protest. “But you’ve…”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, Pallas. And you can barely breathe, Melete.” I cut him off. “And we don’t have to start early tomorrow, Styx and I can catch up on rest before we hit the road. Especially if the numbness from the stingers hasn’t faded by then, we may have to spend tomorrow resting -- I don’t want to risk travelling without Melete’s skill or your hands.”

Pallas finally looks convinced and gives me a nod. The next ten minutes are spent gathering supplies and setting up sleeping areas a small distance from all of the bug corpses. Within a few minutes after that, my friends are breathing deeply in sleep and I gaze into the darkness, pondering plans for the morning.

----------------------------------------

After waking the next day, we almost immediately set to packing up our supplies. Luckily, the bugs didn’t seem to have any interest in our food aside from the open package of beef jerky. That had been completely devoured.

At first, I am slightly suspicious after hearing half of our remaining jerky “disappeared,” knowing how much Melete enjoys the salty snack and that she was alone on the early morning watch. But after seeing the remains of the destroyed bag, I am convinced.

“Sorry for accusing you…” I awkwardly apologize to Melete.

She doesn’t seem bothered by my suspicion, simply shrugging her shoulders. The swelling in her throat went down during the night and she’s able to speak again, but not above a whisper and it seems to cause some pain. It’s been interesting passing the morning without Melete constantly throwing jabs and irrelevant comments. I’m surprised to find I miss it.

“What type of bug eats meat?” I ask, holding up the torn up empty package of jerky.

“Don’t flies eat meat?” Styx asks.

“I don’t think so,” Pallas says. “I know they decompose rotten meat and other foods. But I don’t think it’s the same thing as eating it.”

“What’s the difference?” Styx asks.

“Not really sure. But have you looked closely at any of the bodies of the bugs?” Pallas asks. As we both shake our heads, he points to a mostly intact corpse on the ground. “I don’t think bugs normally have teeth.”

I come closer and bend my head around, attempting to look into the open mouth. “Oh man, that’s terrifying.” I say. There only look to be four teeth in its mouth, two on top and two on bottom, but they’re each a centimeter long and razor sharp.

As Styx gets a good look, she says, “Yeah, that’s definitely not native to this area. Or Earth.” I shudder. Somehow, these bug monsters are more horrifying than any of the other monsters we’ve seen. Everything else we’ve faced has been frightening, but has seemed capable of being outfought, outrun, or outthought. The swarm though -- it just felt inescapable.

Plus, it’s a bug with teeth.

We pack up the rest of our supplies, Styx and I doing most of the work. Pallas is able to move his fingers again but they still have almost no strength and we’re trying to have Melete rest as much as possible. Early this morning while Styx and I were catching up on sleep, she had ignored Pallas’ advice and searched out the area around us. Turns out there’s a ravine about ten feet deep less than a hundred yards ahead of us, and we plan on using it for shelter.

As useful as her exploring was, Styx was extremely angry with Melete for wandering off alone, especially without being able to use her skill. Melete claimed she had to use the bathroom, but a hundred yards is a bit extreme just for privacy.

In punishment, Styx is refusing to let Melete help us pack up the supplies. It seems like a strange punishment to me, but Melete seems repentant as she is forced to sit in silence as we move around, her leg tapping out a rhythm on the ground. What amazes me even more is that Melete accepted her “punishment” with hardly any complaints.

We’re finally packed, and Melete jumps to her feet, ready to move. The trip to the ravine doesn’t take more than five minutes, but it takes another few minutes to find an area to descend with the wheelbarrow.

As we get our supplies situated, I bring everyone together.

“I think we should spend the rest of the day recovering here.” I say.

“Yeah, I agree. We’re just too weak now to explore someplace new.” Styx says.

I nod. “Hopefully we’ll be better by tomorrow morning. For the rest of today -- let’s rest, train, and spend our Numbers. But someone needs to always be on watch, and everyone always be ready to take cover.”

As they each nod along, I take my own advice and decide to put all of my gained Numbers into intelligence. I have yet to ‘get used to’ the headache that started yesterday morning after increasing my wisdom. I’m worried that with my low intelligence, my brain can’t process all of the information my increased awareness is feeding it.

I had hoped to use some of the time today working on math problems in the dirt to increase intelligence, and part of me is tempted to wait until after I increase it naturally before adding my free twenty-two Numbers, but I push that thought away. I need to play it safe.

With a resigned sigh, I tap on the arrow on my left forearm.

S: 100

D:100

W: 308

I: 96 (+22)

C: 56

0 (-22)

Skills: Adjust:Self