We pause at the river’s edge – after doing our best to make sure that there are no creatures hiding in or near it in ambush. My herbivorous Bound start rooting and nosing through the bushes, seeking sustenance.

Catch, Louie, my orangutan-like Bound, the okapi-like icehal, and the serara have all been carrying the left-over carcasses which the hunting groups brought while the rest of us were building the trap yesterday. They put the carcasses down on the ground; the rest of the leftovers are in my Inventory.

I notice a few bite marks in one of the carcasses which look like they might match the mouth of the serara. I look at the Bound in question and she ducks her head to avoid my eyes.

She’s an odd-looking creature. A bit like a kentrosaurus, but she’s clearly not a herbivore. Her spikes each have one of those venom glands which I recognised in River’s and Fenrir’s bodies, enabling her to make the spikes venomous at will.

Out of curiosity, I wander over to her and sit down. Getting to know my Bound a bit more is a good idea anyway and as tired as I am, I’m not going to be doing anything else particularly productive.

“You hunt, right?” I ask her. She seems to consider it for a moment, then gives a sense of uncertainty. No, it’s more of a ‘sort of’. She sends me an image of burying herself under leaves or among branches, then waiting for something to step on her. Ah. That makes sense. Though she’s not too slow, she’s also not fast enough to catch prey. But if she waits for the prey to come to her…. Her venom must be fairly fast acting, then. I’ll have to test it.

“And are you doing OK?” I ask, then settle in for some time as she starts giving impressions of her experiences so far with the group. It seems like there have been a few teething problems which I haven’t even been aware of – my Managers have done a good job in dealing with their teams. In fact, they’ve even collaborated with each other to head off inter-team problems, especially ones where a predator has started trying to throw around its weight among the herbivores – the scalla and reer have apparently needed to be told off about that a couple of times. I make a mental note to go and see them next.

In the end, we settle on Spine for a name. Not particularly imaginative, but she seems to be a rather practical sort, and it certainly is descriptive with the number of venomous spines sticking out of her. Spiky probably would actually do better as a description, but it’s too similar to Spike for my comfort so that one wasn’t even suggested.

One by one, I make the rounds of my Bound. The scalla, a large creature which looks almost like a spinosaurus except with a smaller sail on his back, gets called Pride. That one was a bit of an accident – after debating back and forth for far too long over possible names, I’d exclaimed that I’d call him ‘Pride’ if he was going to be so picky about his names.

Funnily enough, that was the first one he’d liked, so Pride it was. I spoke firmly to him about the fact that all Bound should be considered equal unless otherwise stated and warned that there would be consequences if he continued trying to bully the smaller and weaker members. He seemed to take the rebuke well enough, but we’ll have to see if he’s actually taken it to heart.

The reer is another question. He’s turned out to be a most obstinate creature. Difficult to talk to, and even more difficult to convince of a course of action he doesn’t agree with. He seems to be set in the idea that the strong take, the weak give – he’d fit right in with the samuran village with an attitude like that. He only has a temporary Bond, but it’s still for three months. That could be a long three months if he doesn’t change his ideas.

Well, we’ll have to see. I spoke to him about the benefits that each member brought to the group, that even those physically weaker could be stronger in other areas. Time will tell if that discussion bears fruit. I end up calling him Thorn because he was so thorny to deal with – and he has several bone spikes sticking out of his tail and the plates covering his body, though not nearly as many as Spine.

The icehal gets the name Shakira because her hips don’t lie! Actually, I noticed how she sways from side to side as she walks to and from bushes and the name jumped into my mind. She didn’t object, so Shakira it was.

The oloc receives the name Woozle because when I came over to see her, she was high up in a tree and had actually found something very interesting: a beehive! Well, not exactly bees, but a type of insect which seems to do the same sort of thing. Interestingly, they don’t create hexagonal hives, but square ones. I’m not sure if it’s that they haven’t yet discovered that hexagons are a better choice, or if there are reasons to make squares preferable.

They also have nasty bites rather than stings, but my armour proves its worth once more: by sealing the hide as close to my skin as possible, and then using some of the web to cover my face and hands, I’m able to harvest a good portion of the…well, I suppose I could still call it honey-comb. Hardening my skin would probably have worked too, but I’m still mentally-fatigued – not the state I want to be in when making changes to my own body.

“Good find!” I tell Woozle happily, handing her a small chunk while tasting a little of the sweet gold myself. Of course, I only do that once I’m again standing on firm ground. It doesn’t taste exactly like honey, but it’s sweet and delicious, so that’s good enough. I have a moment of fear that it might be poisonous: just because it kind of looks like honey and kind of tastes like honey, doesn’t mean it is definitely as safe to eat as honey.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Scanning my body with Flesh-Shaping doesn’t reveal any indication of parasite, disease, or poison, though. I’ll have to keep an eye, but so far so good.

A thought occurs to me as I gaze at the now-disturbed not-bees’ hive. Now that I’ve found it, I don’t want to risk the not-bees abandoning their home, or being attacked by something else. Another oloc, perhaps, or something else. I’m sure these not-bees have the same number of raiding enemies which wild bees do on Earth.

What if I made a bee-hive? It should be fairly simple. My survival memories don’t have that kind of information, but I remember seeing something about it on a documentary once. It’s basically just a box with removable frames, right? And holes for the bees to go in and out. If I could form a Bond with the queen – presuming there is a queen for this type of creature – then it might work even better than the traditional way of managing bees….

I make a note on my Map about where the beehive is and hope that it will still be here when I come back.

Then I remember that I need to get going on my quest and dealing with the lizard-folk and my heart sinks. I don’t have time to build a hive. And then I remember that I’m not alone in this anymore.

“Looks like I have something for the samuran group to do tomorrow,” I say to myself, rubbing my hands together.

The thought of the samurans brings me back to my feelings of concern about whether I’m using Dominate too much. I don’t want to just steamroll over everyone I encounter: otherwise, I’ll just end up becoming the lizard-folk, justifying my actions by the fact that I’m stronger. Might means right is a tempting philosophy, but I’m aware from the history of Earth where that ends up.

But then, am I actually steamrolling over everyone? I would have only used Dominate on the Pathwalker, but it had been clear afterwards that that wouldn’t be enough to make the rest back down. The Warriors had needed a demonstration of my might to respect me, and even the demonstration with their strongest member hadn’t been enough.

I don’t like to say that they ‘forced’ me to use Dominate as that smacks to me of not taking responsibility for my own actions, but at the same time, I don’t see that I had a better option. Sure, I could have offered Tame Bonds rather than Dominate, but I’m not keen on presenting my own back for the knife.

Knowing how cut-throat and strength-focussed the society is, using Tame Bonds would just be asking for another challenge to happen at probably the worst possible time. With a Dominate, I protect myself, and consequently all my Bound who depend on me.

At the same time, I feel like the lizard-folk have to take some responsibility for where this has all ended too. After all, I wouldn’t have gone searching for the samurans of my own accord. They chose to make themselves my concern by starting off the whole chain of events with Lathani and then hunting for River and me.

No, it wasn’t this group of lizard-folk who took the actions against the nunda cub, but their philosophy of the strongest leads is now coming back to bite them. They are guilty by association, particularly the Pathwalker and potentially the Warriors as they arguably had the power to stand against Shaman, or at least demand an explanation for exactly what she was doing.

They didn’t, and then they came searching for us so…. In the end, I shrug a little. I think it’s right not to Dominate the Unevolved, though I will offer a Tame Bond to each of them, just for the benefits it offers. As for the other Pathwalkers and Warriors we come across…if they require me to show my strength, I won’t hold back and will bind them with Dominate. If they are willing to follow the lead of those I have already Dominated, then I’ll offer them a Tame Bond.

And if they refuse to follow my lead…well, I suppose I’ll have to cross that bridge when and if I get to it.

Satisfied with my conclusions and noticing that my Bound here seem to be content, I figure it’s time to head back. The sun is almost touching the horizon by this time. I’m looking forward to being home anyway – we slept near the trap last night. It was warm enough with as many bodies as there were, and I made a fire besides. But I found myself missing home, funnily enough.

Walking up the hill, the majority of my Bound head willingly for the cave which was meant to be my tanning cave, but has now become an overflow sleeping area for all my new companions. Bastet rubs against me then nudges the cubs along to our alcove. Catch pauses for a moment, eyeing me in question, but I just wave him towards the main cave entrance. Lathani copies Bastet, rubbing against me, then bounding over to greet her mother who is enjoying the last of the sun.

I follow her – something tells me that Kalanthia would like to speak to me. I pause in front of her, about a body-length away: that’s the best way for me to actually see her whole face at once, she’s so big. She’s not having any of that, though, reaching out to gently pull me closer, nudging me insistently with her head.

I can’t help but smile and bury my fingers in her soft fur, something tight within me loosening – although she’s been fine with me since we ironed out the whole Bond with Lathani thing, we haven’t been quite as relaxed with each other as before. This demand for scratches indicates that she’s willing to look past that.

I smell the lizard-folk on you. Have you dealt with the vermin in my territory? she asks after a few moments of us mutually just enjoying the stroking.

“I’ve dealt with that group, yes,” I confirm. “There weren’t any others that you know of?”

Not at present. But more will come. When will you fulfil your promise to deal with the root of the problem? she asks, a hint of impatience in her voice. I take a few moments to run through what I need to do before leaving.

“Five days,” I say finally, resuming scratching behind her ears and down the side of her face, as she purrs. “We will go in five days.”