As it turns out, Hades isn’t too bothered by the idea of carrying me. Perhaps I have more hangups about it because of associating that sort of thing with horses and vehicles. He seems to be approaching it from the logical perspective of questioning whether it’s important in some way and will improve the security of the group in general. Since my choosing to prioritise finding food and water over staying here to look at my notifications is arguably to help the group, he is willing to carry me.
Before hopping on his back, I go around the cave and grab all the sections of web that were previously covering the mini-caves. Tucking half of them into my Inventory, I hook the other half into my belt: I want to see if there’s a difference between them having been in my Inventory or not.
I also take a moment to look at the collection of ugly larvae that I’ve amassed through the night. With two or three in each creature, I’ve managed to collect a total of thirty-three squirming creatures.
My original ‘cage’ was nowhere near big enough; at some point during the night, one of my Bound – probably River – expanded it so that it’s now an extended almost-ovoid, using the stone of the cave as one of its walls. The others are blocked off with sticks and chunks of wood. Did he ask me to give them to him? Perhaps – the latter half of last night is enough of a blur that he could have danced naked in front of me and I probably wouldn’t remember.
Well, he’s always technically naked…. Skinless, then, perhaps.
Anyway, it’s probably just as well that he changed the shape anyway: apparently the larvae are more than a little voracious and definitely cannibalistic. The carcass I put in originally is almost untouched, the larvae seeming to prefer killing and consuming their brethren over eating other meat. Or maybe it’s because the carcass is lacking in Energy. Just in case that’s the reason, I carefully direct a bit of my mana into the meat. Then I hesitate.
I’m about to leave to allow my Bound to eat and drink – what should I do with all these larvae right now?
“River,” I say quietly and my Bound quickly appears beside me. “How secure would you say this enclosure is?” He eyes it, then looks back at me.
None of them succeeded in escaping during the night, the lizard-man informs me. They do not appear able to climb, falling back every time they tried. The only time any of them even came close to escaping was when I was reforming the cage – I left a small gap which one managed to squeeze through.
So I was right – it was River who had expanded the cage. But good to know.
“So you think they will be safe enough if we leave them here for now?”
As long as nothing investigates the cave while we are gone, he agrees. Then he eyes me again. Though I am unsure how many will remain if we leave them until dusk: they seem particularly keen on eating each other’s flesh, he comments with a little distaste. I suppose that as cold as the lizard-folk’s society seems, they don’t actually actively encourage deadly competition within the society. Competition appears to be more about finding the best resources to give them access to better food, and killing each other doesn’t appear to give them any sort of benefits. Not that River has said, anyway.
“True,” I agree, “But that might be a good thing,” I say, putting words to the practical voice of reason inside me. River frowns.
How, master? Do you not wish to Bond many of them?
“I’d rather have quality over quantity,” I tell him. “If only one remains when we return, that means that it is the best of them all at surviving. And so that means it might be more powerful later than a group of mediocre danaris would be.”
But what if it dies later? I understand where River’s coming from – given his own species’ rather lax approach when it comes to rearing his young, he’s used to a very high mortality rate. There, quantity is definitely the most important factor.
“I hope it won’t, and will do everything necessary to make sure it doesn’t.” I shrug. “Between being able to get meat for it and heal it if it’s injured or sick, there should be a good chance of it surviving.” At least, I hope I can deal with sickness, but I figure that Flesh-Shaping should be able to, as long as I know enough about what I’m doing.
In the end River sends over the sense of a shrug.
As you wish, master.
Covering the cage with a couple of shirts, I take a moment just to check there are no holes the larvae could squeeze through, reinforcing a couple of places which look like they might shift if a larva tries to climb. Then, casting another glance around the cave, I head towards the entrance and hop on Hades’ back.
“Alright everyone, let’s go,” I say, and our large cavalcade starts moving towards the forest line.
Opening my message panel, I review the upgrade to Tame again: I had very quickly skimmed it before, but hadn’t looked at it in detail. From the number of other new messages waiting for me, I’ve got some other rank-ups to look forward to as well.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Class Skill past Beginner. Tame is now Novice 1. Due to your uses of this Skill, two new effects have been discovered.
Effect 1: You have offered this Skill as a connection between equals, allowing its potential to become something closer than the original contract allowed for. Hereafter, the original terms of the contact can be modified without explicit agreement from both parties as long as both parties subconsciously agree to the change.
Effect 2: You have taken inspiration from Dominate for the terms of a contract. Henceforth, as a modification of Effect 1, a Tame Bond can become a Companion Bond, following the same procedure as with a Dominate Bond.
Next message? Y/N
As I’d thought at the time, neither of the new effects are particularly ground-breaking. They certainly aren’t as impressive as the most recent update to Dominate which allowed my Bound to communicate with each other. But then I suppose that it’s not too surprising: I’d only created two Tame Bonds before this rank-up.
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Still, it’s good to know that I won’t need to necessarily sit down and talk with my Bound to amend the terms of our contract. A bit worrying too – I’m much more comfortable with that approach. I guess that I’ll need to check in regularly with my Bound just to see how things are going. Not that that’s a bad thing to do anyway.
It’s also interesting for me to note that apparently it wasn’t possible to convert a Tame Bond to a Companion Bond before. Though I suspect that if I’d offered it to a Tamed Companion and they accepted it, it would have worked and this new effect would have immediately fallen into place – the system seems quite demonstrative in nature.
First I have to demonstrate that I can do something, or can at least start to do something, and then it acknowledges it. Except on these rank-ups where it sometimes offers me interesting changes to Skills which were not previously demonstrated.
Opening the next message, it takes me a moment to realise exactly what it’s saying. Then, as I register it fully, elation shoots through me with the pulse of my heart.
Congratulations!
You have earned a new Skill: Fire-Shaping
Read Skill description? Y/N
Fire-Shaping
By studying fire, you have become capable of transforming mana into fire magic, and have proved yourself capable of controlling and shaping this magic according to your Will. Henceforth, you will now be more easily able to summon fire at a thought and shape it. However, as you have also learned, fire has its own will and further practice will be required to fully master it.
Next message? Y/N
I finally got it! I cry mentally, only the fact that I’m sitting on Hades’ back stopping me from leaping and punching the air. After all that time trying to get it, I’ve finally earned Fire-Shaping.
Wondering why it suddenly happened now of all times, I read over the description again. This time around, I notice that it mentions both that I can ‘summon fire at a thought’ and ‘shape it’. Perhaps that’s my explanation.
After all, it was only just before we set off to rescue Fenrir that I worked out how to transform my mana into fire magic, burning my finger the first time I did it. While I was planning on practising with the fire after succeeding, I didn’t have time before we left. Or at least, I chose to do other things with my time. It’s only in this most recent battle when I started manipulating fire with my new understanding of fire-magic.
So I guess it makes sense that Fire-Shaping would only have happened now. But now that I have earned it, I have much more hope that I will be able to gain more Shaping Skills. After all, this particular notification has given me something that is hopefully a good clue into what I need to do to demonstrate sufficient knowledge to the System for it to ease the rest of my efforts.
First, I need to transform my magic into a different form. That’s clearly stated in the description of Fire-Shaping, and I know it’s true of Flesh-Shaping too. Lay-on-hands mentioned healing magic, and I’ve noticed the difference between my normal mana and what I use when healing my Bound. I didn’t have to work out how to ‘transform’ mana into flesh-shaping magic in the same way, but Lay-on-hands must have been a bit of a shortcut – healing magic must be similar enough to make the jump easily. Perhaps if I’d been given Fireball as a Skill I might have more quickly been able to leap to Fire-Shaping by observing and exploring the Skill.
Second, I need to actually shape something with my new form of magic. Once again, for Fire-Shaping, it says that in the description. And for Flesh-Shaping, that’s exactly what I did when I caused an aneurysm in the salamander’s brain, triggering the choice between Flesh-Shaping and keeping Lay-on-hands.
So for Earth-Shaping, I reckon that I’ll need to first discover how earth magic is different from my mana, and then work out how to shape it. Simple, right?
Probably not, but at least now I have somewhere to start.
Resolving to test out this new Skill at a better time than just sitting on my Bound’s back, I open the next message. This one is more expected, informing me that Animal Empathy has significantly increased in level. Frankly, considering the amount of ‘communication’ I had with so many different animals last night, I’d have been more surprised if it hadn’t ranked up.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Skill past Initiate. Animal Empathy is now Journeyman 1. As well as becoming more able to interpret the communicative cues of animals you observe, you have become able to mimic some of the cues yourself to convey a message. Note that not all physical communications will be possible to mimic; addition of mana into this Skill can help to compensate for some of your body’s limitations. Non-physical communications can be attempted to be mimicked with mana. Success in mimicking communication cues is directly related to your familiarity with the object of your attempts.
Next message? Y/N
Yep, that Skill definitely got a real workout last night. Potentially useful, though, especially with trying to convince non-telepathic beings to consider a Tame Bond. Or not eat us.
Hopefully familiarity with similar creatures will carry over to helping my attempts to communicate with a new being. And not mean that I accidentally insult it in the way it’s so easy to do with foreign languages.
Moving on, I see another rank-up message.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Class Skill past Beginner. Inspect Fauna is now Novice 1. Due to your uses of this Skill, two new effects have been discovered.
Effect 1: Gain more information about how much Willpower is required to Dominate a being in its current state. More information may be offered which gives insight into what might convince the being to take the Bond. Chances of extra information being offered increase with the level of this Skill past Novice.
Effect 2: You now have the option to send out a more subtle probe for information about a subject within your eyesight. This probe will stop pressing as soon as it detects that the creature is likely to become aware of its presence. This will therefore potentially return less information than the usual use, but has a much lower chance of alerting the target.
Next message? Y/N
Now this one is interesting – more information about the Willpower required for its ‘current’ state? Is that linked to whether the creature is scared or trapped or something? And if so, is that because of the number of Bonds I made last night with creatures in poor conditions, probably with pretty low Willpower? Thinking about that makes me glad I didn’t choose to use Dominate – I’d be feeling a bit guilty now if I had. As it is, though, I’m just interested to see what it actually tells me in the moment.
Knowing what the creature might want to be offered is useful too – it could have increased my success rate with Bonds last night even further, or meant that I knew not to even try with the ones which had torn up Hades and River. I can imagine this being useful with the lizard-folk and, frankly, any time I consider Bonding a creature. I wonder whether it will say whether Tame or Dominate is the best choice, or if that decision is still left up to me.
The second effect is also pretty interesting. The chance to send out a subtle probe which has a low probability of alerting the target? Useful! Especially once we descend into the valley and potentially encounter creatures which would be potentially dangerous to draw the attention of.
Of course, I do note the fact that it says ‘lower chance’, not ‘no chance’. It doesn’t say which stats affect the probability of the probe being detected, but I suspect that it’s probably more to do with a comparison between my stats and those of my target. If my target outclasses me too much in stats, probably either Wisdom or Willpower – or both – then the chance of being detected is likely to be much higher. But either way, it’s a good new effect.
Incidentally, having now had three Class Skills rank up, I’m starting to wonder whether having two new effects is standard, or more reflective of the diverse uses I’ve been putting my Skills to.
The final message is a bit of a surprise: Tame has ranked up again!