On a particular mountain in a particular cliff side, under a particular tree was a small hole, hidden under the thick and winding roots. On this particular day, a particular Root Gopher popped its head out of the hole and nervously looked around. It sniffed the air, making sure there was no one laying in wait, before pulling itself up and over, winding itself through the exposed roots of its new home.
The mountain that it had claimed for itself was a strange place, it had to admit. The soil was rocky and hard, making it hard to burrow. Still, the spiritual energy was much higher than in its previous home. It could feel itself becoming stronger by the day. It made the Gopher question why there were so few other creatures on this mountain. At least underground, that was. True, the sweet grass roots that were its favorites were few and far between here, but it wasn't like there weren't alternatives.
It's new woody home, for example. While its roots were more spicy than sweet when compared to the plains' golden grass, it was sometimes nice to mix things up a bit. Not only that, but the roots of this tree grew very quickly, burrowing deep into the mountainside and nearly covering the entire thing.
Who didn't dream of Infinite food? Maybe it could even convince some of its Gopher friends to follow it here. It was the closes thing they might find to a paradise in a world where they were at the bottom of the food chain. For now, though, it was its own little private oasis.
On this particular day, the Root Gopher was particularly excited, though. Poking its Gopher head out of the winding roots, it stared up into the windswept tree branches, where a single red fruit, half the size of its body grew. Today was the day it finally matured, and the little creature shook with anticipation. It didn't know what the fruit exactly was, or what it was called, but it knew that its body craved it more than anything it had ever come across.
The gentle, fruity scent that wafted from the branches nearly caused the Gopher to launch itself at the fruit then and there, but something in its soul told it that the time wasn't right. And so it sat there, hidden by the roots, waiting and watching. After a few hours, something happened. There was a burst of spiritual energy from the fruit, and it swayed in an invisible wind before a small snap sounded, and the fruit tumbled off the branch. The Gopher panicked, darting from its hiding spot and snatching the fruit from the air the moment before it crashed into it.
Cheering in its heart, the Gopher raised its price high in triumph and quickly scurried back to the roots with it.
Only to find... it wouldn't fit. While only half the Gopher's size, the large red fruit was very firm and round, unlike the creature's flexible and squishy body. It grunted in little frustrated Gopher noises as tried to force its prize into the safety of the roots when a sound from above made it freeze.
Turning its eyes upward, it saw the form of a massive hawk, sitting on one of the tree's branches. The Hawk looked down at the Gopher, hunger, and anger flashing through its eyes in equal measure. With an echoing cry, it leaped from the branch and flew away from the mountain. The Gopher let out a sigh of relief but quickly realized the Hawk wasn't flying away. Instead, it had turned around and was quickly picking up speed, its vicious claws outstretched.
The Gopher panicked, desperately trying to push its treasure into the roots. But with a bleeding heart, it saw that it wouldn't make it in time. Thus it left the fruit and dove back into the safety of the roots. However, the next moment, its eyes went wide in horror as it realized that itself was never the Hawk's target to start with.
With a screech of triumph, the Hawk's claws wrapped around the fruit and pulled it free from the roots it was half stuck in. The Gopher panicked and grabbed onto the other end of the fruit, squeaking in defiance as it tried to pull its treasure back. The Hawk flapped as it pulled against the Gopher, until finally, the larger, stronger creature won out, pulling both the fruit and the still attached Gopher free from the roots.
The Hawk hovered in the air, sneering down at the Gopher in the way only a bird could, and began to shake the fruit, trying to dislodge its hitchhiker. The Gopher clung on for dear life, half torn between fear of falling and fear of losing the fruit.
It was at that moment, a miracle happened.
Just as the Hawk tried to rise up and gain altitude, a large shadow traveling through the air at mind-boggling speeds slammed into the bird. The Hawk gave a squawk of surprise before disintegrating into a cloud of blood and feathers. The fruit (with Gopher attached) fell from the sky, falling through an unusually large gap in the roots near the top, and rolled into the shadows. The Gopher, still in shock, took a moment to process what had just happened, but seeing the bright red fruit peeking out of the roots, gave out a squeak of happiness and dived in, pulling its treasure further into its new home.
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[Alpha] - "What the frack was that?!"
Alpha tumbled through the sky as he tried to right his course,
[Alpha] - "Ewww, eww, eww, it's in my intake fan, get it out! get it out!"
Alpha wiggled the small jet engine on his wing as the nanobots quickly pushed out the clumps of flesh, bone, and feathers that had clogged up the fan. This was the third bird he'd hit this week. Well, ok, so he'd not so much "hit" the second as crashed into it (why the hell was something that big able to fly in the first place?!), but it was still annoying.
The past week had NOT been fun. While the basic, sedan sized jet form he now took was great for scouting and travel, it didn't offer much versatility. He'd been soaring around the area for several days, using the primitive and rudimentary sensors he could form with nanobots alone to try and find SOME kind of resources he could use. Luck had not been on his side, however.
Specifically, he needed large amounts of iron, cobalt, copper, and silicon. From those, he could start to build more sophisticated scanning arrays and some necessary armaments. He HAD managed to find a decent-sized surface iron deposit near a large cliff. As soon as he had approached, though, he'd been swarmed by tens of thousands of large beetle like insects that had apparently nested in the cliff itself. While each beetle was "only" the size of an adult human male's head, their sheer number and quick speed made collecting any samples a tedious process. Alpha eventually just marked the area on his ever-growing map and abandoned the area. He could come back when he was in better shape. Let's see how those beetles like a little Napalm bath.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The various other locations he'd found had similar results. It seemed that wherever there was a large concentration of resources in one area, it inevitably attracted some form of lifeform or another. Alpha suspected that this had something to do with the "spiritual energy" that Jīshí had mentioned. But without any way to detect, let alone measure this strange energy, Alpha had no way of confirming his theory.
If Alpha still had his old kit of "toys," he would have just evicted the squatters and claimed the resources for himself. But as he was now, that simply wasn't an option. Still, he marked down each location and made his way to the next area. It was two days ago that he first stumbled on this particular mountain. His sensors had detected a large quaintly of copper in the area and a lesser, but still decently size amount of iron.
There was something off about the readings, however. They didn't come back as one might expect a usual ore vein too, and it wasn't until Alpha had scouted the other side of the mountain that he found out the truth. In a deep valley, seemingly carved into the mountainside itself, lay what remained of millions upon millions of rusted, time-worn blades, armor, and equipment. It seemed that in some distant past, a massive battle had been fought on this mountainside. Even the soil and stones of the area seemed to be colored an eerie rusty brown color as if such a vast sea of blood had been split that it dyed the very land itself.
If a mortal were to look at the valley, they would feel an unexplainable sorrow swell up in their heart, as if they could hear the death cries of countless souls echoing on the wind.
To Alpha, however, it was a treasure trove, unlike any other. Why waste time trying to process raw ore when he could just melt down the already processed (though primitively done so) metals here? It would save him a lot of time in the long run. Still, he was wary; such an extensive collection of equipment spoke of an even larger force who used them. Why were all of these resources seemingly abandoned? More importantly, what kind of creatures would be attracted to such a place?
Alpha may have been reckless at times, but reckless he was not! (Even the Author is confused at Alpha's rationale on this one, folks).
Alpha spent the first day scouting out the location and making notes of both large concentrations of equipment (possibly signifying either individual battlefields or old supply depots) and possible locations where wildlife might frequent. The next day, he finally chose a landing site near the outer edge. When he landed, his "wings" folded inward. The tail fins shifting to form rudimentary legs, making him appear as some strange amalgamation of a jet fighter and a Pterosaur. The form was awkward as all hell to move around in and had next to zero offensive capability. Still, if he was surprised or attacked, it would allow him to instantly shift back into his flight mode and leave the area.
After sending a few nanobot drones to collect samples while Alpha himself mapped the area, the AI had come across something... strange.
Huddled around a massive ( as in "over 20 feet long, and 5 feet wide", massive) copper hammer looking object were a pair of mastiff sized... armadillos? Or at the very least, similar creatures. The strange, copper-colored beasts were huddled around the head of the hammer and happily munching away at the metal. Seemingly startled by Alpha's sudden appearance, the creatures instantly curled up into a large, shiny ball.
Curiosity overpowering his caution (as it often does), Alpha wobbled over and inspected the strange creatures. A quick scan showed that they were covered in reflective, organometallic scales comprised of keratin layered by a strange copper ion his sensors couldn't identify. When struck, Alpha found these scales extremely durable, more so than one would expect copper to be. He doubted that even a small-caliber handgun could leave more than a dent in one of them. It was impressive, coinciding it was biologically derived. Alpha often found organic compounds to be... lacking when it came to their more physical aspects. Sure, chemically speaking, they could be diverse and complex, but most Bios died all the same if you hit them in just the right way.
He had to admit, though, these things impressed him. It was then that an idea struck him. If what Jīshí told him was true, he would have to look for sources of "spiritual" materials to upgrade himself if he wanted to stay competitive in this world. He still wasn't quite sure WHAT that meant, exactly. Still, if he was going to find anything that qualified as "spiritual," it would have to be these walking lumps of Biometals, right?
And lucky for Alpha, it seemed that these creatures would rather trust in their defenses rather than fight back. If he was to, say, harvest them for his own (possibly slight diabolical) ends, then they couldn't complain, right? Nooooo, not at all.
[Alpha] - "Hehehe..."
However, the next moment seeming to sense Alpha's intentions, dozens of sharp scales on the creatures stood up. Expecting an attack, Alpha quickly backpedaled. Instead of launching the scales, or exploding, or spitting acid (Alpha wasn't dismissing any possibility at this point), as expected, the creatures began to roll, using the scales more akin to treads or tire chains. They quickly gained traction and shot off at surprising speeds, quickly rolling over the rough and steep terrain and out of view. Well, that was surprising...
Maybe this wouldn't be as simple as he's imagined it to be.
Still, he needed a plan if he was going to pull this off...
Thus, he collected his drones and set off towards a previous location a few hours away. Nestled in between two mountains not too far away from the battlefield was a small Plain area. The Mountains acted like barriers, locking in and trapping the clouds and moisture blown in from the north. The result was a humid mix of grassland and marsh, that while not small, wasn't as impressive as the Grassy Sea he had landed in.
As for what attracted him to this place? Well...
As he soared above the marsh, he scanned the area for his target. It didn't take long as he quickly spotted a large toad sitting on a rock in the middle of a small pond. The frog didn't look too big from this high up, but personal experience had told him that they were a lot bigger than you would think. Also, they could jump really high.
Like SUUUUPER high.
As in, Alpha was, for a moment, contemplating what excuse he was going to give to the General when they cut him out of a frog's belly, high.
His lesson learned the first time, Alpha made sure to stay at a decent altitude while we watched the pond below. After a long moment, Alpha saw what he was waiting for. On the edge of the pond, a "small," cat-sized Ant-like insect with a bulbous abdomen burrowed its way out of the muck. It hesitated for a moment before making its way to the water's edge and began to drink its fill. In the next instance, a sickly pink tongue shot forward from the middle of the pond and struck the insect, quickly pulling it into the frog's waiting mouth.
The frog snapped its mouth and swallowed the ant whole. A moment passed, as the frog croaked in satisfaction as its meal.
Then suddenly, its head burst open in a gory explosion. The large frog flopped over, deader than dead could be, while from the mangled mess of its head, a single, cat-sized Ant quickly wiggled out, its once bulbous abdomen now deflated and sad. Still, it clicked its mandibles happily as it swam across the pond and entered into the small hole it had dug itself out off.
A few moments passed before more holes appeared, and dozens of similar insects burrowed their way out of the ground, making their way across the water to the frog's waiting body.
Alpha, who had been watching the entire scene play out from high above, stared at his little explodey friends with child-like glee.
This was going to be fun.