Chapter 177: Camping Trip (Patreon)

Learner’s Notes, day 318: Human bonding rituals.

Humans have many ways of social bonding, and my new and improved human brain is picking up on them splendidly. I must thank that evil body swapper If I see him again before the Manifold Predator kills him.

Through careful growing and rearranging with a facsimile of the man’s mutation, I’ve been able to grow a human brain with denser tissue that outperforms a normal one by an estimated sixty-seven percent. A sizeable fraction.

The key is balancing for maximum average performance, rather than devoting too many resources to any one aspect.

Its advanced social que processing has allowed me to identify and conform to the expectations of others far better than before.

Of particular interest are human bonding rituals, something I was incapable of understanding up until recently.

Human bonding rituals involve a shared experience that creates a commonality between the humans in question. These shared experiences are usually segregated by gender, with male bonding rituals involving intense, life-threatening situations of shared misery –because they’re dumb – while women will often simply get together in large groups and discuss their lives, creating shared experiences through storytelling.

Kala showed me a locket with a painting of her when she was young and she was so cuuuute!

…The new human brain has trouble being objective, sometimes.

But yes, Kala was cute, objectively.

***Calvin***

Genosian Language has reached level 8! 40% correction.

Genosian Language has reached level 9! 45% correction.

12/35 Warp Remaining.

“I feel like my tongue is gonna fall off,” Calvin complained, stretching his mouth. He was standing at the edge of the jungle, about to embark on his pity outing with Ella.

“Keep it up, you need the practice.” Ella said.

Calvin got back to his genosian tongue twisters.

“Amenahe he huahe heban behan behayhe” Calvin chanted, trying to get all the syllables in the correct order as quickly as possible. The phrase roughly translated to: ‘my son slunk sneakily into the woods and got eaten by a large blue tree.’

To his left was Baroke, and to his right was Goob. Each person present was clad in a loincloth and bearing a single obsidian knife. The mosquitos were having a field day.

“Now,” Ella said, stepping in front of them, pacing back and forth like a drillmaster, seemingly immune to the effect of the biting insects.

“It came to my attention that none of you have ever heard of the Menahua be huame, or ‘one knife challenge’,” She said, scanning them critically.

“It is a challenge where young hunters enter the woods with nothing but a knife to make the tools they will need to catch as much food as possible. The history of this challenge is that a pair of young hunters, a brother and a sister, decided to challenge each other to a test of skill, and so they devised the rules that we use to this day, then went out into the forest with only a knife to see who could bring down more prey.”

She met Goob’s gaze. “They both died.”

Goob swallowed loudly.

“Why do all your Genosian legends end with the subject of the legend dying?” Baroke demanded. “Every one! The huntmaster’s wife, the kugeya rider one, the guy who figured out how to fly…on and on.”

“Did you expect anything less from the people who had to devise a way to bring the dead back to life to offset the staggering mortality rate?” Calvin asked.

“Fair enough,” Baroke motioned to the Genosian girl. “Carry on.”

“The rules are this: Time limit is one week. You each get one knife,” She said, holding it up. “You may not use any Abilities that cost Bent, you may not catch things with your bare hands, and you may not use the knife by itself as a weapon. Using it as a spear head is an acceptable example.”

“Can we use the loincloth?” Goob asked, drawing Calvin and Baroke’s attention.

“What?”

“The object of the game is to use everything at your disposal,” Ella said. “Not protect your modesty. I’ll let you figure out the rest.”

Calvin glanced over and spotted Baroke eyeing his leather covering thoughtfully.

Damnit, he’s going to make a bow with the leather string. The giant archer only had one way of solving problems, but he was so damn good at it, it hardly mattered that he was a one-trick guar.

Calvin immediately ran through a list of his skills and came up lacking. The closest things he had to hunting skills were Harvester and Stealth, but neither of those helped him seal the deal, so to speak.

But, master baiter, combined with Drafting means…traps.

Calvin would be vastly better at making lures and traps than he would stabbing things with spears or shooting them with bows, due to the confluence of his fishing and construction based skills.

Alright. Let’s do this, Calvin thought, stretching as they prepared.

“Are you ready?” Ella asked.

“Ready,” Baroke said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“I guess?” Goob muttered.

“My son slunk sneakily into the woods and got eaten by a large blue tree,” Calvin said, nodding as he triggered his Ability.

M*necraft Debug menu The forest exploded into numbers. At a glance, he could tell which trees were rotted on the inside and which were healthy, what breed they were, his exact position on the globe, the time of day, the direction he was facing, and a dozen other bits of information.

At the very least it’ll keep me from getting lost, Calvin thought as he noted his global position. Doesn’t cost Bent, either.

“Go!”

There was a crack of thunder above their heads, and the sky opened up above them, marking the beginning of the competition.

Unphased, Baroke exploded into motion, turning into a dark streak as he bulled through the forest, disappearing in a second to the sound of snapping branches.

Friggin Body Junkie, Calvin thougth as he sprinted through the forest, keeping his eyes open for useful plants.

***

Goob watched Calvin and Baroke disappear into the forest faster than a human should have any right to move, while he and Ella stood there and watched.

“Hah, amateurs,” She said, hand on her hips. “We’ve got all week.”

“You know what?” Goob said, glancing up at the rain pouring down from above them. “I think I’m going to head back to camp. Coming along on this was a bad idea, and spending a week in the jungle wearing little to nothing is not my idea of a good time. And I know I’m not gonna win.”

“Wise decision,” Ella said, nodding. “But before you go, I’ll be having that knife and loincloth.”

“Huh?”

“Stealing from competitors was never expressly forbidden.” The genosian girl said, giving a predatory smile. “Why do you think I brought you along?”

“That’s cold,” Goob said, with a sigh. Might as well get this over with. He wasn’t looking forward to the naked trudge back to camp, but it wasn’t as bad as whatever Ella would do to him if he didn’t give her his stuff.

***Day 1***

“You get your own bait!” Calvin shouted, shoving the feral archer off him.

“My knife broke, I’m hungry, and bowmaking is hard!” Baroke shouted back, reaching for Calvin’s Krupe nut shell bowl full of wriggling crawlers, his face smushed up against Calvin’s foot.

“You made a bow out of a bunk bed! You expect me to believe you can’t make one now!?”

“That was a clean piece of flexible glass and high quality silk thread! Green wood has no spring to it, it’s misshapen, and did I forget to mention my knife broke!”

“You’re just gonna have to try harder, aren’t you!?” Calvin said, feeling a malicious grin welling up inside him at his friend’s suffering.

“Yeah, I’m gonna make some traps, so give me some bait.”

“Like I said, get your own damn bait. They’re coming out of the ground in droves because of the rain!”

Baroke glanced downward and spotted the forest floor that was covered in burrowing insects escaping the flood of water.

“Oh.”

There was a flash of purple-grey skin in the distance, and Ella’s form resolved out of the downpour. She was wielding a spear with an obsidian knife at the tip, securely fastened by a thin strand of tough leather, along with another obsidian knife at her waist.

On her head was the hollowed out skull of a massive insect, its razor sharp mandibles twisted outward in their sockets to protect her jaw. Behind her, a massive chitinous body trailed along where it was connected to a tendon cord in her fist.

“You guys are still fooling around?” She asked with seeming disbelief laced with amusement before she disappeared back into the rain.

The two stared after the huntress…transfixed in the center of their wrestling match over the bowl of grubs.

“Truce?” Baroke asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Calvin said.

***Day 2***

“Agh, my back.”

“Keep it there.” Calvin said, baiting the snare, using Master Baiter to make it as appetizing as possible. When a small predator went after the bait, they would use it’s corpse to bait even bigger creatures. Tiny bait to get small bait, to get large bait to catch the biggest bastards in the jungle.

“It friggin’ hurts,” Baroke said, his face turning red as he held the tree in place, bent over at an unnatural angle while Calvin hooked the snare into its stirrup.

“I thought this was a warm up for you!” Calvin hissed.

“Not after sleeping in a godsdamned tree while soaking wet all night.” Baroke whispered back.

“You didn’t make a shelter first?” Ella’s voice caused Calvin’s hand to slip, tugging the snare out of the stirrup. The sudden extra pressure snapped the leather twine out of Calvin’s hand.

Baroke lost his grip, and the leather loop whipped upward, catching calvin across the face before snagging a nearby branch and tugging it right off the unfortunate tree.

Calvin glanced over and spotted Ella watching them from the branches of a massive Guveya tree, wearing some kind of armor made of freshly scraped out bone plated with chiton.

Where does she even find the time to do that?? Calvin thought dourly.

“I don’t know what I was expecting from a couple village boys. I guess they just raise them soft in Gadvera.”

She leapt off, fluttering through the canopy like a Tarak before either of them had a chance to respond.

“Sooo…” Baroke said as Calvin rubbed the stinging side of his face. “More traps?”

“Yes, but first we’re making you a bow.”

***Day 4***

Stealth has reached level 9! 45% correction.

Calvin, smeared with mud and wearing dozens of leafy branches and clumps of grass, stalked his prey, hunger burning a hole in his guts, and demanding that he jump on the prey, Right NOW.

No. Calvin thought, holding perfectly still, breathing as slowly as his body could tolerate. He’d jumped out at these skittering little bastards enough to exhaust himself and succeeded in nothing but destroying the surrounding shrubbery.

No. This time he was going to wait for the damn thing to practically bludgeon itself on his cudgel before he moved.

Calvin’s flimsy obsidian knife had long since shattered, and he had made due by lining a club with the sharpest pieces of the volcanic glass. Who knew they took skill not to break?

Aim for where they’ll go, he thought to himself as the glubber skittered closer, a strange creature with six legs, a thick carapace on its back, a soft, fleshy questing nose that picked smaller insects off the ground, and an air sac bellow that that seemed to inflate and deflate according to it’s whims.

Just a little closer, come here so I can eat you, you little bastard. Calvin thought, trying carefully not to twitch and scare it away like he had the time before, when his arm twitched a moment before he decided to strike, sending the skittish beetle scurrying away.

A little closer….NOW!

Calvin whipped down with his cudgel, aiming to split the hapless insect open in a single strike, preventing it from escaping and taking its delicious meat out of reach of his stomach.

I’m gonna cook and eat you!

Calvin hadn’t considered that he’d have to make a fire too. That was second to the gaping hole in his stomach.

There was the sound of breaking air, and an arrow with a bit of obsidian at the tip punctured the hapless insect, bowling it out of the way of Calvin’s strike.

While Calvin was processing this, a leather rope attached to the arrow drew it and the squirming glubber through the air into the waiting hands of Baroke.

Baroke stood there, grinning with his stupid perfect teeth, while he held Calvin’s squirming meal. He was wearing a loincloth made of oversized leaves woven together, having long since cannibalized the leather in his loincloth.

“Thanks for helping me with the bow,” He said, shrugging to emphasize the bow over his shoulder. “I can take it from here.”

“So,” Calvin said, turning to face him, rage tunneling his vision. “It’s finally come to this. The truce was meaningless to you, huh?”

“What are you talking about?” Baroke said with a grin. “You were so blended in I didn’t even see you there.”

Calvin’s eyes narrowed.

“Give me the glubber.”

“Why don’t you come and get it?” Baroke said, bouncing the dying insect in his palm.

Oh, it’s on!

Before Calvin could take a step forward, a massive pink rod of muscle slammed into the animal on Baroke’s hand, tearing it out of his grip and into the mouth of a towering monster with an elongated head and dozens of clear sacs filled with air on its back.

The creature’s legs were disgustingly long and thin, eight feet at least, and the clear air sacs on its back were big enough for a man to climb into, were he inclined. The tongue must have crossed a good thirty feet to reach them as well.

Needless to say, it was a pretty big creature, and it was overlooking Calvin and Baroke curiously, trying to determine if they were food or threats. It was probably pretty dangerous.

Not that Calvin was thinking about that at the time.

My FOOD!

A gut wrenching howl of despair rose from somewhere, and Calvin was surprised to discover that it was him, screaming at the top of his lungs as he launched himself toward the food-thief, brandishing his cudgel.

“I’m just gonna…go…” Calvin heard Baroke’s words, but they blended into the seething background of rage as he thwacked the creature over and over, chopping at its legs like a lumberjack while the creature danced out of the way, trying to defend itself with it’s tongue.

***Day 7***

Genosian Language has reached level 10! 50% correction.

+1 Stability

- Language barrier: User may coach their thoughts in Genosian or any other language they are fluent in, typically whichever is more poorly understood by the enemy, making Mind reading/controlling magic significantly less effective unless they are fluent in all languages the user is.

Calvin didn’t hesitate to take Language Barrier, as it provided the single best reinforcement to the sanctity of his mind out of any of the Abilities he’d ever been offered.

Stealth has reached level 10! 50% Correction

+1 Kinesthetics

Please Choose an Ability or Mutation.

Abilities:

Active Stealth: Become invisible for 1 hour/Bent. Effect fades if you attack.

Unseen affinity: Active abilities used from a hidden vantage are treated as 2 levels higher. (Trans: Spell Sneak attacks)

Sneak Critical: Attacks from a hidden Vantage are significantly more lethal, automatically seeking vital spots.

Mutations:

Vein-Sight: When using Stealth, the Veins of living creatures glow brightly from beneath their skin. (May Cause Slight Vampirism)

Camouflage: When using Stealth, the skin actively redirects light around the body, nearly disappearing. (Much less effective when wearing clothes.)

Touch-Grip: At will, finger tips and toes become able stick to objects, with a force equal to your endurance squared. (May cause super-heroism.)

Calvin considered all of the options for Stealth seriously. He hadn’t had very much Bent when he’d first had the option, but now that he did, the simple invisibility from Active Stealth seemed very attractive.

On the other hand, unseen Affinity would always make his opening spells much more powerful.

Touch-grip was attractive, but Calvin wanted to keep his mutations manageable.

I choose Unseen Affinity.

Trait Doctoring could cover invisibility with the right choice of traits, so Calvin didn’t feel like he was missing out on too much, and with Shifting, he could hang onto ceilings improbably anyway, so he chose Unseen Affinity.

Abyssal Alchemy has reached level 14! 70% correction.

Calvin walked out of the jungle on the last day, bearing the severed head of the unnamed leggy-tongue-monster on his arm. When he’d crafted a tongue-launcher out of it, his Abyssal alchemy had come in handy, nudging him in the right direction, and Harvester and his M*necraft Debug Menu had allowed him to identify not only every part of it, but the exact materials he needed to made it reflexively shoot out it’s deadly tongue, which was mildly poisonous.

He’d used the creature’s tongue to hunt a modest amount of creatures, keeping himself fed and clothed until the end of the seven days, when they came together and decided the winner.

Calvin’s entire body was covered in aches and mud from head to toe, with a rotting skull strapped to his arm and few clothes to speak of, aside from the withering plants strapped to his body. His hair was caked with dirt, standing straight up, and he felt like he’d lost weight, his stomach seeming to touch his spine. People shied away from his gaze as he walked back toward camp, crossing to the other side of the street as he passed.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he almost tongue’d the offending party, whirling in place and brandishing his skull.

“You did good,” Ella said, patting him on the shoulder, looking exceptionally proud.

“Who won?”

“It wasn’t about winning or losing,” Ella said, wearing her homemade armor. “It was, what was the Gadveran word…Hazing?”

Baroke was off to the side, grinning from ear to ear.

“That was fun. Wanna do this next year?”

“NO!”