Calvin’s first instinct, naturally, was enemy mind control.

When he saw the procession of Ooze-Weavers drowning themselves in the lake, he honestly thought for a just second that Jonathan Ilestar was doing what they said he could do: making an entire city kill themselves.

Calvin was right in the middle of swearing eternal vengeance when he noticed the bubble of mucus they were wrapping around their breathy-parts, and the relaxed way they were swimming under the water, heading for the dark spot in the center of the lake.

The one with the blinky blue lights he’d seen passing over a while back.

“You seem distressed.” Ykuingi said, standing beside him.

“How did you know?”

“I studied human body language very closely while I was in your village, my lord.”

“I thought they were drowning themselves”

Y’kuingi gave a bubbling laugh. “It would be very difficult for the People to drown.”

“There are people who can do it.” Calvin said, keeping his voice, face and body language, completely serious.

“…I see.” Y’kuingi nervously interpreted that for a moment before responding. “But why would you even think of that?”

Calvin glanced at the shrimp-spider.

“Do you know what ‘war’ is?”

“No, what is that?”

Calvin frowned.

“Has anyone in your village ever gotten a third Break?”

“There’s a tale of a male who got a third break during a particularly harsh famine and became a chieftan, but it was many generations ago.”

Calvin screwed up his face. How do I put this…

“There are…incentives, for those in charge of millions of civilians, to encourage their citizens to kill another nation’s citizens en masse in order to reap material benefits as well as provide themselves and their citizens Breaks beyond the third, fourth, sometimes even the seventh Break.”

All the humor drained out of Y’guingi’s posture. “…what?”

“What did you think you were asking me to protect you from as your lord?” Calvin asked.

“Monsters like the demon in the lake.” Y’kuingi said, pointing at the lake.

“Y’kuingi. I think it’s best you hear this now: Humans can be just as cruel and infinitely more dangerous than the demon of the lake. On average, they’re not very smart, tend to make decisions based on physical attractiveness, and take what doesn’t belong to them.”

“You are not very attractive to humans.”

“That’s fair. You’re not very attractive to us.”

“What I’m getting at, is when I asked you to prepare to defend yourselves, I meant defend yourselves from the next lord. I might not be around forever, and if your people don’t hold enough money, power and military might, the next lord might treat you like animals who make plastic as a by-product. Keep you in cages. Your task is to spread your roots as deep and broadly as you can so that you can weather a future without me.”

“Yes, my lord.” Y’kuingi said, saluting.

“I’m glad we cleared that up,” Calvin said.

Remind me to take Y’kuingi to watch a battle.

Noted, Ravager. Excellent decision.

“In the meantime…” Calvin said, glancing back at the lake. “What is going on here?”

“The people are performing their daily worship of Mother Hagfish.” Y’kuingi said, motioning to the lake. “One of the reasons we hated the demons so badly was that it denied us our worship.”

Mother…hagfish?

Calvin’s knowledge of their language told him it was a common expression for surprise or thanks, possibly derived from religion. Definitely derived from religion.

…

“Can I watch?”

“If my lord can breathe under water.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure something out.” Calvin said.

His summons didn’t need to breath, So Calvin simply used Heart of the Swarm and Chimera to swim into the lake in his Combat Form.

The water was surprisingly clear, and he was able to keep his eyes open and admire the deep lake teeming with insect and fish life thriving off the carefully managed waste piles that…

Am I swimming in shit-water!? Calvin demanded.

It’s a good thing you chose to go in your Combat Form, then, isn’t it?

Calvin followed the train of Ooze-weavers until the temple of Mother Hagfish became clear in front of him. It was a massive mound covered in mud and weeds, but here and there, he saw a piece of shining metal underneath the scum.

There were nubs that rose above the muck, carrying blinking blue lights. What their purpose was, Calvin couldn’t say, but they definitely weren’t natural.

Calvin followed the procession to a carefully maintained doorway. The muck and lake debris had been peeled away from the entrance, revealing an arching double doorway of shining metal that any great mansion would be proud of. It wasn’t quite grandiose enough to qualify for a palace, but it was still far more extravagant than a group of stone-age primitives who worked with spit should have access to.

It pre-dated them.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Calvin couldn’t help but think of the blinking lights in the freezer of the Genosians. Did the building reach from the top of the mountain to the bottom where they had found Ritchie’s Bitchin’ Recharging Station?

Oh that? Yeah, that was a carrier class recharger. It looked like an enormous ‘U’ that shot up thousands of feet into the sky. Some of the biggest atmosphere capable ships in the world could park in the cradle of that ‘U’ and get refueled with liquid magic. The ‘Freezer’ you’re talking about is next to the coolant.

You know about that?

I wasn’t one hundred percent conscious when we first came across it, but yeah, I recognize that place. I’m actually the one who made the mountain there. If it wasn’t for me, that place would have been bombed into oblivion just like this place.

Is that what the lake is? Calvin had thought the lake was particularly round.

I don’t know if I’m qualified, since I was in prison at the time and didn’t see it, but I’m pretty sure the best way for the Diocese to make sure another uprising didn’t happen on Marconen was to bomb them back to the bronze age.

Not the Harbingers?

Not directly. The Diocese were the de facto rulers of the federation, and they were stoking the war against them with propaganda for decades, until they realized there was no way to win.

After that, the Diocese changed their tunes faster than you can spit, and the rest is history. I and the other settlers of Marconen weren’t interested in bending the knee to the Harbingers, so the Diocese and the Federation attacked on the Harbinger’s behalf. I’m fairly sure Marconen was made an example of to prove the Diocese were totally down with Harbinger rule.

Other planets are probably doing a lot better, albeit taxed out the ass.

…but the Federation recordings from the recharging station…

Oh, we kept the propaganda that encouraged people to fight the harbingers. Why wouldn’t we?

I see. You keep mentioning the Diocese. Are they like the Diocese of Juntai?

Pfft. Those lightning bugs are like fucking…poop-flinging monkeys compared to Earth Diocese. They were practically immortal and cyborged out the ass nine hundred years ago. A single diocese back then might have rivalled Marconen’s Royals through sheer technology and resources.

Now that they have System access, Bent Engine tech, Skills, Mutations? Forget about it.

I’m interested in learning more about your history. Calvin thought as he swam through the entrance. I feel like it could come in handy.

You got it, dude.

The interior of the mound was a cavernous opening that was strangely dry. Calvin climbed out of the water to see a tremendous steel dome rising above him, faintly lit by a handful of flickering lights.

The most powerful light was in the center of the massive chamber, It was a cylinder with some kind of huge…eel frozen in time in the center, lit from beneath by a powerful beam of light. The creature must have been over ten feet long, but it was coiled all over itself in a slightly gross snarl of flesh.

Hmm. I wonder what kind of eel it is.

Calvin rolled his eyes. He noticed dozens of other creatures embedded in clear plastic, some of them lit by flickering lights, while others were dark.

This has gotta be Todd’s lab. Elliot said.

Why would it need cast figures of the creatures he was experimenting with? Clavin thought, scanning the room. The cast figures had to be for dramatic effect. As far as Calvin had learned from Elliot and his own experiences, a man didn’t need a model of a creature with a damn light under it to do science, he just needed carefully labeled materials and an orderly lab.

I’m guessing it was to impress investors with how cool his discovery was. Todd knew how to play the game. Second only to money, investors want a good show. They don’t respond well to sample p-38 batch 14 showing an anomylous viscocity to heat generation coefficient.

What, like a liquid that can generate heat by swishing it around? That’s awesome. You could probably use it for cold weather gear or maybe heat generating windmills in snow climates.

You see, that’s the problem right there. Investors can’t make those leaps of logic. They’re not imaginative people like you and me. They’re idiots with money, so you gotta guide their imaginations.

Calvin nodded, seeing the oversized chamber with new eyes. It was the face of this Todd fellow’s work. Meant to be impressive and engaging.

It was no wonder the Ooze-weavers had made a religion out of it.

All around Mother Hagfish, Ooze weavers spent a few moments dipping their carapaces and muttering prayers to their all-loving mother before turning around and heading back out, making more space for the next Ooze-weaver to take their turn praying to the giant hagfish in the center of the room.

The dome wasn’t craped by any means, but there were a lot of ooze-weavers coming and going every second. Calvin had to stand to the side so he didn’t get in the way of the procession.

Hey Calvin.

Eh?

Bring me over to that computer there. It looks like it’s still working.

What do you need with it? Calvin thought, glancing at the flat flickering screen on the other side of the room. It was nearly identical to the ‘computer’ in Elliot’s room.

If Todd was making these things, he had to have taken notes. If I can access them, there’s no way I can’t diagnose what the problem is with the plastic conversion rate.

Calvin glanced at the computer, then back to the spider-shrimp reverently bowing and sometimes reverently touching the glass-encased eel.

Let’s ask Y’kuingi.

Come on, don’t you have any balls? Elliot goaded him. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission after all.

Not if the minute we sit down in front of that computer, the ‘divine light’ underneath Mother Hagfish goes out, Calvin thought sourly.

He’d rather avoid alienating the ooze weavers this early in the game, after all.

Oh yeah…religion. Damn.

Calvin swam back out and switched back to his normal body once he was on shore, pleased to note his clothes didn’t have any poop-water on them.

He approached Y’kuingi when she got back from her visit to Mother Hagfish.

“How much do you know about your people’s history?” Calvin asked, sidling up to the point.

The ooze weaver gave him a brief, fantastical tale of how divine mother hagfish came from the sky and spawned all of them after being impregnated by the sun.

Calvin sucked in air through his teeth.

This might take a while.

***Later***

“And so, the traitor god, Elliot, stole our inheritance from mother hagfish!” Y’kuingi shouted, selling the story they’d decided on.

Y’kuingi was resistant to disbanding their worship of mother hagfish the-vanity-prop entirely, but she was willing to…coach the truth inside the parable of their people.

Why did you have to call the bad guy Elliot? Elliot fumed.

First name that came to mind, Calvin said, suppressing a smile. Honest.

“This miraculous ‘Pilyiastyku’ that we have been making was always meant to be ours! It was gifted to us by mother hagfish when we were too small to remember anything. But the traitor Elliot stole it away. He broke it into two halves and hid them where we’d never find them!”

The surrounding Ooze-weavers watched with rapt attention as Y’kuingi spoonfed them what they needed to hear.

“The despicable creature of spite hid one half of our heritage in a distant land, and the other in a place we would never dare to defile.”

“This,” Y’kuingi lifted the Emitter over her head with a single foreleg, showing it to the awestruck crowd. “This is one half of that heritage, and with it we can make the ‘Pilyiastyku’ in small amounts. But it isn’t enough. We must locate the other half of our heritage from Mother hagfish.

“Without the other half of Our Mother’s gift, we are doomed to live in poverty and starvation. With it, we will live lives of fulfillment and plenty, as our Mother wished for us.”

“But where is it? Where’s the other half!?” A convenient spectator shouted, posture agitated.

“The trickster hid it in a place so dear to our hearts, we would never think to look for it. He hid it somewhere in the soul of the Temple to Mother Hagfish.”

A hush settled over the crowd.

“Lord Kya’lvin is capable of searching through souls, and has offered to help us. Lord?”

Y’kuingi motioned for him to take the stage.

“People,” Calvin said, giving the closest approximation to the sign of respect that he could manage. “The second half of the divine gift that was stolen from you was not a thing. It was knowledge. Knowledge that is even now hidden in your very temple. I can retrieve it, and give it back to you, it’s rightful inheritors, but first I beg your permission to search for it.”

Calvin bowed low.

“Please allow your humble servant this opportunity.”

God….DAMN, dude, you’ve gotten better at this.