Unfortunately, I can’t only spend time with Happy. I also have to do rounds of the brood-mothers and find out how they’re doing with the various tasks assigned to them. I don’t need to know about the everyday tasks just to keep the village running, but I’ve set a few more specific tasks of my own and I need to know whether they’ve been accomplished.
In the course of this, I find out that two of my more important tasks have been fulfilled: an Unevolved has found a new area with iron ore if the rock he’s brought back is anything to go by, and another has found an area where killer chickens are nesting. Apparently they make nests on the ground in a clump, setting guards to watch out for threats.
I immediately act on the first one, rewarding the samuran in question with a bigger chunk of Energy Heart than normal, and then setting him a new task. After all, just knowing where the iron ore isn’t much use – I need him and his friends to bring it back here.
“I’ll pay in Energy Heart fragments according to the amount you bring per day,” I promise him. Hisses-in-anger seems happy enough with that, his demeanour rather contrary to his name. I have to admit that I’m rather dubious about the samurans’ strategy of assigning hatchlings names according to an action they take within the first hour of their naming day, a day which is apparently about halfway through their first year of life. By that point, usually two thirds of those who are going to die have already done so. While sad, I kind of see why it’s set then. But still, they could come up with a better way of giving names, I’m sure. Not that my own name-giving is much better, though.
As soon as Hisses-in-anger moves away, I see him going straight towards another small clump of Tier one samurans – I guess he’ll be organising a group to go and collect the iron ore sooner rather than later in order to earn those promised Energy Hearts.
We’re not ready to try to keep killer chickens yet, though I imagine that their nutritional needs shouldn’t be too hard to fulfil if they’re as carnivorous as they’ve appeared so far. Still, I’m glad we’ve found one of their nests for later. Even better, the samuran managed to sneak one of their eggs from an unwatched nest off to the side and I’m able to confirm that they strongly resemble chicken eggs apart from being about three times the size. I’ll do a taste-test later, but so far the eggs I’ve tried have tasted fairly similar both to each other and according to my expectations – a stronger flavour, but not that different.
I reward the samuran who brought me the news and then ask him to go by every so often just to make sure they’re still there. I promise that he’ll be rewarded again with a small Energy fragment when we actually make the capture if he does it. He agrees eagerly and then hurries off to start absorbing the fragment. He’s a scrawny thing, his skin drawn close to his skull, his tail thin. I have to wonder how much he got to eat before I instituted the change. Or maybe there’s another reason behind it. Could he be sick?
Taking advantage of the fact that it’s not quite dinner time, I walk over to him. He looks up, his gaze wary. Does he think I’m about to take it back or something?
“Hey, I didn’t get your name,” I start, trying to emanate calming and reassuring vibes. I’ve definitely got unpractised at doing this without a Bond between us, I realise.
“Breaks-his-toe, Honoured Pathwalker Tamer,” the samuran answers carefully, his chin tilted upwards.
“I don’t know if you know Catches-Leaves? He’s one of my Bound.”
“I know him,” Breaks-his-toe answers, the colours of emerald envy and turquoise longing rippling through his spikes. Why is he envious?
“Well, he had a serious problem with his eyes which I was able to heal, allowing him to see in a way that he’d never been able to. I’d like to check all of the samurans of this village, little by little, just to make sure there aren’t any of those problems hiding. Would you be open to it?”
“You…I do not understand, Honoured Pathwalker,” Breaks-his-toe answers carefully. I have a feeling that he does understand it but is playing dumb for some reason.
“Will you allow me to check your body for any problems caused by injuries or present since birth?” I ask him patiently. If he says ‘no’ then I won’t argue – it’s his choice. But I want to be sure he’s saying ‘no’ because he doesn’t want it, not because he doesn’t know what I’m offering.
“I…if you wish to waste your time on one such as me, then I would be honoured.”
Is that his issue? That he thought a Pathwalker shouldn’t ‘stoop’ to something like that? Or that he was unimportant? Fuck. That. If it’s the only thing I achieve in my time leading this village, it will be to teach them that everyone in the village is worth respect, worth concern.
“I will need to offer you a Bond, though.” It will take too much unnecessary Energy, if not.
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“Will…” he hesitates, then backpedals. “I’m sorry, Honoured Pathwalker. Please offer me a Bond.”
“What were you about to say?” I encourage. He hesitates then clicks his teeth together in a decisive way as if to encourage himself to speak.
“I haven’t yet Evolved,” he starts, shame flooding into his spikes. “Would you…you were able to help your lizog to Evolve when we could all see he would have failed without your intervention. Would you…see if there is a reason for why I have not been able to?”
I hesitate, surprised by the question. I should have expected it, really. The samurans are less concerned with their current physical state than their ability to become more. I understand it to a certain extent, especially when the lives of the Unevolved and Evolved are so different. But I don’t know whether I can help him. I saw some curious similarities between Happy’s Energy channels and Lathani’s – I want to compare them to Find-a-bug’s channels later. He has Evolved, but I wonder if the hallmarks are still present.
But my work with Fenrir was mostly to heal the damage Raven’s acidic mana did to his Energy channels and then to add more fuel to the actual Evolution. I’m not sure that qualifies me to fix just anyone’s channels or work out why they’re unable to advance.
It’s what I was fearing might happen after managing to help Fenrir – that all the Unevolved samurans who had failed to Evolve, or hadn’t even got that far would see me as the saviour of their prayers – or whatever samurans do. I’m not an expert in this sort of thing; far from it.
Then again…if I can help some samurans find a way to Evolve when they would otherwise be unable to do so…. Even if it was only ten percent of the current Unevolved who I could help, that would still mean twenty or so new Pathwalkers or Warriors. Add in the samurans who are approaching the age of being able to Evolve normally and we could be in a much better place to face the other villages in two and a half months’ time.
“If you want me to look at your Energy channels, I can,” I answer slowly, “but the Bond required for that is far more intrusive than the one I’ll offer if I’m just checking your physical body for injuries or problems. To gain access to your Energy channels, I will need to use a Bond which allows me to control everything about you,” I warn.
He doesn’t look put off. If anything, he looks more resolute.
“If you can help me Evolve, I will do anything you wish me to regardless,”
I consider pointing out that I could use the Dominate Bond to force him to walk into the nest of killer chickens he found and be a meal for them – something I doubt he’d be willing to do without it, but I don’t. Ultimately, I’m not planning on using the Bond to force him to go counter to his desires; quite the reverse, really.
“Alright,” I say, immediately bringing us into the Battle of Wills. He doesn’t fight against me so it’s over very quickly. I see him startle slightly as he is immediately brought into the network of Bonds and becomes aware of multiple Evolved samurans paying attention to him, if only briefly.
I don’t know what he does after that as I dive into his body first, scanning it for issues and fixing the ones I find. He is definitely way underweight for a samuran. I’d suspected it, but it was possible that he was just naturally scrawny. The signs in his body of extended periods of starvation prove to me that I wasn’t mistaken, however.
Otherwise, he seems pretty healthy in his body – his thinness is due to not eating enough, not some other illness or parasite, fortunately. I quickly move on to checking his Energy channels.
After a bit of exploration, I pull out, a thoughtful expression probably on my face.
“Did you…did you find anything, Honoured Pathwalker?” Breaks-his-toe asks nervously. I sense that he’s fearful that I will tell him that there’s nothing to be done, that he will have to remain an Unevolved for the rest of his life.
“I found evidence of starvation which has made your bones more fragile than they should be and put your organs under strain. I’ve healed what I can, and time and better food will have to do the rest.” Of course, that’s not what he wants to know about. “As for your Energy channels, I need to look at a few more samurans’ – Evolved and Unevolved – to get more of a sense of what is normal before I can see what might be abnormal.”
He slumps a little, disappointment flowing over the Bond from his sides of things.
“I’m not saying that I can’t do anything,” I say more gently. “I’m saying that at this moment in time, I don’t know what the problem might be or how to fix it. But we’ll leave the Bond in place, if you are willing, and when I do know, I’ll have another look. Is that fine?”
“As you wish, Honoured Pathwalker,” he answers politely but I sense the slight hope he’s feeling. It means that I don’t feel like he’s only agreeing to what I’m suggesting because I want it.
“Alright, then. I’ll contact you again when I feel more confident about knowing what to try.”
With that, I take my leave and he returns to absorbing his Energy Heart fragment. Whether that will help him or not, I don’t know – looking at his information in my status screen, I see that he’s also at ninety-nine percent so the issue isn’t as simple as not having made enough progress.
Looking at the other Unevolved in my status screen, I see that about a third of them are also sitting at the ninety-nine percent mark so it’s obviously a common problem. The other two thirds clearly have more Energy to collect before they can think of Evolving.
Spotting two of the Evolved Warriors guarding the entrance to the village, I decide that there’s no time like the present to get started in expanding my knowledge base. Starting by looking at those who have succeeded might help me identify what those who haven’t succeeded yet need to do to move forward.