“Interesting. Although, now I wonder why there wasn’t a ‘Baby’s First Words’ achievement,” I said to myself as I picked up the lizard. Without really thinking about it, I popped the lizard into my mouth like it was a snack, not even bothering to chew before swallowing. I immediately stopped and looked at my belly in horror. That was gross.

Looking at the other spiders and beetles that had been hit by the bolt of magic along with the lizard, I absently picked them up and plopped them into my mouth as well, swallowing them without chewing. “Dang, I could be on one of those shows where they have to eat disgusting things,” I thought, barely believing that I had eaten the bugs. That didn’t stop me though. I probably needed to eat a lot since I was a newborn.

As a human, I didn’t even want to be in the same room as a bug. Touching a bug, much less eating one, was like kryptonite for me back then, similar to the ways an honest day’s work was anathema to gnomes.

I decided to try another one of my new abilities. Most of the spells seemed quite obvious, so I decided to hold off on those spells. The cantrips Guidance and Vicious Mockery I wasn’t as sure about. After concentrating for a moment, I realized the Guidance cantrip increased my chances of being successful on actions I made. As for the other cantrip, it basically caused mental damage to an enemy.

As for the features, I also had to concentrate on them as well. Deathbringer apparently healed me when I killed an enemy, although apparently the bugs didn’t count. Soul Collector allowed me to use their death to gain spell points. As for Sorcery, it made it so that I didn’t “have” to use spell components, chant the spell, or use physical gestures when using magic.

My thoughts were interrupted when my belly rumbled. It was displeased that I had not eaten anything for at least a few seconds. Frowning, I wondered how fast of a metabolism did kobolds possess. I ate my egg shell, some mushrooms, bugs, and other unnamed stuff, and I was still hungry. How in the world do kobolds feed their babies enough food? After all, they were miners, not farmers. Was I different than other kobold wyrmlings?

Not really caring about the answer, I listened to my rumbly tummy and looked for a likely snack. “Hmm, I wonder how you taste,” I muttered as I saw a crayfish. I wasn’t sure since I had never eaten one, but I figured they were a lot like a lobster. “So, I just need to avoid the claws and grab one, and then crack open the shell before sucking out the insides. Yeah, that sounds tasty. Raw insides…wait, I don’t have to avoid the claws. I can kill it a distance with my eldritch bolt. I probably need to practice the cantrip anyway.”

Taking a pitcher’s stance once again, I reared back and made a throwing motion while yelling the words that appeared in my mind, “Fjölkyngi knǫttr!” A ball of magical energy went streaking through the air to hit the crayfish, immediately sending it flying several feet.

I blinked. Before, I hadn’t noticed that the cantrip had a knockback effect. That could be useful. Of course, what might have also been useful was having it cook the crayfish like a fireball would instead of throwing it around. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers, I decided.

With that, I went over and picked up the crayfish. I had planned on cracking it open but ended up just popping it into my mouth instead. After swallowing the shell and all, I looked for another crayfish, spider, bug, snake, or salamander. After a while, I had eaten just about everything in the cave. As I popped the last one into my mouth, another ding brought me out of my food frenzy. I hadn’t even stopped when I was full. Instead, I was feeling quite stuffed.

ACHIEVEMENT - TITLE UNLOCKED: HARBINGER OF DEATH. You are less than a day old and have already hunted down and killed numerous creatures to satisfy your hunger. You have gained additional Evil Favor.

“Oh, come on,” I shouted, annoyed once again. “I ate everything I killed. Isn’t that what hunters do? That isn’t evil. How in the world is that bad?” I trailed off and decided I might as well be happy I didn’t get stuck with a worse title. At least the “Harbinger of Death” title sounded intimidating. In fact, it added a little flair to his information screen.

Speaking of the information screen, I still hadn’t tried out the mind alteration talent. I almost put that off until later as well until I had a brilliant idea, “Actually, now that I think of it, I might not be able to use mind alteration on bugs and lizards.”

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I decided to look for a likely candidate to use mind alteration on. I doubted I could do much with the minds of spiders, insects, and lizards. However, my eating spree had cleared out most of the creatures in the cave. Finally, I saw a few more appear from cracks and from dark recesses.

Maybe I could use the mind alteration to make them think I am a friend, or better yet, their leader. Charming something to follow me like a pet might be cool. However, what would be the best choice? I took my time and started looking around for what I would charm. I was quite curious to see how long I could keep something charmed and what I could convince it to do.

Soon, I noticed a large bat hanging by itself in a dark corner. Actually, it wasn’t that large. It was just large when compared to my newly hatched wrymling size.

“And here I thought bats always hung around in groups,” smiling at the pun. “Hanging around in groups, and that was a joke that I ‘winged,’” I thought, amused once more. “I wonder what species of bat this could be. Could it be the mysterious acro-bat?” I started chuckling at my own jokes. It was too bad one of my choices hadn’t been bard.

I decided to quiet down since I didn’t want to scare the bat away. Slowly, I calmed my mind and started to concentrate on the bat. Soon, I sensed some basic emotions from the bat, mostly satisfaction after a very filling meal. Although I didn’t know exactly what to do, I suspected that I needed to form a connection between myself and the bat. Because of this, I placed an image of myself as a good friend into the mind of the bat. I sensed a slight resistance at first, but then it was as if a lock had clicked in place, and I could feel a connection to the bat.

YOU HAVE FORMED A MENTAL CONNECTION TO A TENEBROUS BAT. Do you wish to use this connection to form a companion contract with the bat?

“Uhh, that was not what I was trying to do. Did I mess up when I tried to charm the bat? Either way, I was pretty sure a familiar was like a helper, and I could definitely use a helper. However, the system says a companion, not a familiar.” After thinking about the choice I had been given for a few seconds, I finally decided to create the companion contract.

YOU HAVE FORMED A COMPANION CONTRACT WITH THE TENEBROUS BAT. Do you wish to allow the bat to feed on your blood to grant the Nóttormr bloodline to your companion?

A plethora of information consolidated in my mind. Remembering my own information screen, I had Nox ancestry. When combined with the twilight dragon bloodline, that had to mean that at some point a twilight dragon named Nox had given her blood to a kobold.

Since there were no other kobolds like me in the tribe, that meant that either my bloodline was recessive or it came from a visiting dignitary. I had kind of already figured that out, but I hadn’t made the connection that I might be able to use my bloodline to do the same thing. Would the bat get an awakened bloodline as well?

Maybe this also might mean that I could impart some of my abilities or traits to the tenebrous bat. Maybe it would get ether breath or maybe it would increase its intelligence. From the ancestral memories, I knew that there were rituals where kobolds could be blessed by the dragons. These kobolds would gain different powers, making them more like the dragons they worshiped. However, since the dragons had to use their own blood, they generally didn’t do it that often.

In fact, there was probably a limit to the number of times dragons could give those blessings. If I created a companion bond with this bat, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it too many times, if I could do it again at all. However, considering the creatures available in the caverns, it wasn’t as if I had too many choices.

I was also confused about the difference between a companion and a familiar bond. From what I remembered, companions were living animals that had a will of their own, but could act like familiars in some ways. Familiars, on the other hand, were shaped by a magic spell, and even if they were killed, could be resummoned.

It was entirely possible that forming this bond might be a once in a lifetime chance, and if it was passed up, would not repeat. I doubted that, but decided the bat would probably be a good choice anyway. After all, bats could navigate in the darkness. They could fly, which since I could fly, although not at the present time, would mean that I would need a flying companion if I didn’t want to carry it around.

Thinking about flying, I made a mental note to remember to test out my wings since I was in a large cave. I just had to remember not to do it anywhere near the Chuck Norris bridge. All I had to do was find a big rock to jump off of and see if my wings slowed down my descent so that I didn’t hurt myself on the rocks below.

“On second thought, let’s hold off on that until later,” suddenly remembering a similar incident in elementary school with an umbrella. That broken tailbone had not been fun. “Now I think about things before I do something that I will regret later. I’m sure that giving the bat my bloodline will turn into something I will regret later on.”