A Broken World [Rewrite] - Chapter Twelve - A Complicated World (Patreon)

The last specimen was identified as a Gray Starver by the soldiers, and it was quite an interesting creature.  Its name was clearly derived from the somewhat humanoid creature’s torso; the entire creature reminded Lucas of a human with extreme anorexia, if that person had been stretched on a rack for a while.  Lucas hardly had tools to measure, but an eyeball estimate had him guessing that the creature would be over three meters tall when it stood.  Its height and proportions contributed greatly to the emaciated effect; when viewed up close, the creature actually had roughly the same thickness as a normal human.

“Interesting, this was an intelligent creature, yes?”  Lucas asked as he examined it, and Carsin confirmed that it was.  Which brought Lucas to his next question, “Why isn’t wearing anything or using anything?  Is that normal for them?”

“Demons rarely arm or armor themselves; they don’t need to.”  Carsin replied grimly, “Their claws are as sharp as swords and their hides are as tough as armor.”

“Neither of those are reasons that an intelligent creature would not wear something,” not that Lucas was anthropologist.  Wait, would it be xenopologist?  Either way, Lucas thought that he was in no way equipped to study not just a foreign culture, but a non-human one.  “I simply find it odd that a creature capable of understanding tools would not use them.”

Perhaps it simply couldn’t?  The forelimbs were actually held in a similar fashion to how a mantis shrimp might, and considering the lack of a subunguis had resulted in claws that were more like the point of spears than a curved blade, it probably struck like a mantis shrimp as well.  Either way, with only three digits of which none were opposable, it simply lacked the ability to grasp or manipulate objects.  Unfortunately, Lucas had not been thinking about his audience as he relayed his thoughts and found himself having to explain have the words he was using.

“Subunguis?  It is the softer underlayer of a claw that grows slower and is why they generally curve.  Why is that important?  Look- just forget I said anything…”

The fact that the knight questioned everything Lucas said, and that once Carsin got an answer he then often asked why it mattered, was annoying.  He could certainly understand skepticism, but despite Lucas raising the point perhaps more than was necessary, he could not help but point out that after taking part in dragging Lucas here it was absurd to then dismiss him entirely.  Regardless, the man did have a point this time.  Lucas had essentially forced them to allow this farcical version of autopsies to occur, and when they were so close to safety too.

However, Lucas had been unable to convince them to take the corpses with them and they had been unable to say whether or not there were documents regarding former dissections in the city.  It was not that such things had not occured, just that they had never had any real benefit apparently.  This was to be expected.  Humanity in Lucas’s world had been doing dissections for millennia before they were able to make decent sense of what they saw.  Dissection and surgery, in one form or another, had evidence stretching back one hundred thirty thousand years, and Lucas was only aware that anything practical had come of it around the fourth century bc.

“Not everything I note will always be important by itself,” Lucas finally replied after organising his thoughts from what he had seen so far.  “However, I have an education and perspective that you do not; can not, in fact.”

His first instinct was to tell Carsin Forus to fuck off, but Lucas was not an idiot, there was no benefit to angering the man.  Lucas had not been able to win the man over, or even convince the knight of his value so far, but this was a chance to win over the martial bodyguard.  Lucas just needed to take his observations and prove that he could turn them into something useful.  So what did he know so far?

Lucas looked off at the mass that was Upper Goldengrass in the distance, though it was not nearly so distant anymore.  A breeze rolled across the land and turned the grasses into golden waves; the blue sky, nearly cloudless, was bright and warm above him.  Thankfully, the former helped disperse the smells of death and butanol that the latter accelerated.

The first specimens, the “Twistlings,” were small but numerous.  Roughly humanoid, but apparently lacking much intelligence- although he had seen them form ranks himself before he had fled Northgate.  He could not say much without a proper dissection, preferably of multiple specimens, but superficial observations made it seem like they all had some form of cancer that grew to protect them from damage.  Yet, Twistlings also maintained physical strength not too far beneath a human’s and the endurance to travel and fight.

The “Firgue Demon” was a tetrapod- a four legged animal- with its forelegs about half again as long as the hind legs and a pot belly that would very nearly drag along the ground if it was to walk.  It had a long, thick, neck and well developed jaws, much like might be seen on a lizard from the genus Varanus.  Actually, on the whole, it looked like someone had doubled the size of a Komodo Dragon and gave it longer forelegs, a longer neck, and a beer belly.  However, the jaws were dangerous in a much different way than the Komodo’s; it would expel butanol from its mouth and then snap its jaws together to create a spark, igniting the liquid and torching its target.  Supposedly, it was smarter than the Twistlings but less intelligent than the Gray Starver.

Speaking of which- aside from the fact the thing could use magic, the Gray Starver was less interesting from a biological point of view than the other two.  Well, aside from the fact it was a truly intelligent creature, the first one Lucas had ever examined aside from humans themselves.  He had not had time to examine the High Spider, after all.  The only point worth noting was that the Gray Starver was huge.  Something it apparently shared with adult High Spiders, which were supposed to be massive according to the soldiers.

Now what could Lucas draw from these observations?

“A question, if I may,” Lucas stirred from his thoughts.  “What do you know about the Demon’s society and culture?”

“They don’t have one.”  Carsin’s reply was less than useful, and Terrasin had a slightly pained look on her face as she explained further.

“Not many of the Demon’s are much smarter than a dog,” she sighed and started to guide the group back to the carriage.  Lucas found it mildly interesting that he found himself following her without always thinking about it; perhaps she had education in using nonverbal cues to help herd others towards what she wanted?  “The vast majority of the creatures we fight are Twistlings or The Bent- which are corrupted animals- and it is only occasionally that we face large numbers of proper Demons in battle.”

“Not that they don’t exist, mind you.”  Moru chimed in, “Every time we try to push into their lands they gather the higher ranked Demon’s in equal to our numbers.  Why they do not just push together is a mystery, to say the least.”

“If I had to guess,” Lucas smiled as he realised one thing that connected all of the Demons he had seen so far.  “They probably can’t, not without risking starvation themselves.”

Cancer cells are, from a biologist’s point of view, fascinating things.  Almost all living organisms have myriads of ways to prevent cancer from occuring; it could be said there were innumerable ways, in the sense that scientists keep finding more ways that the body self-regulates.  To a patient, the most pertinent issue is the unchecked division that defines a cancerous cell.  Just to do this, a cell must avoid multiple different “stop” commands and various points of “programmed” cell death.  The only reason that cancer is relatively common, besides humans seeming predisposition to finding the worst possible things to put in their bodies, is that the human body has trillions of cells.

For Lucas, in this situation- and presuming his hypothesis that the Twistling’s growths are cancerous- the key trait that cancer cells display is their tendency towards aerobic glycolysis and that much of their growth is fueled by consuming amino acids.  There was no reason to give his audience the full explanation, they would not understand it anyway, but the short version was that a cancer cell required more food to function than a healthy one.  Furthermore, if it failed to get that food, it would take it from the bodies proteins.  Moreover, many animals do not naturally produce all the amino acids they need and have to consume some of them instead.

So for their size, Twistlings would need a lot of food and they would need it constantly.  Hunger would hit them harder and hit them faster than it would a human.

Firgue Demons would also need a lot of food, though for different reasons.  Sugar, fat, butanol, and gasoline were all essentially the same things just arranged in different ways.  The first three were all carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; gasoline is, for the most part, various chemicals composed of carbon and hydrogen.  Butanol, and ethanol for that matter, are produced by fermentation, which happens after glycolysis in many microorganisms.  Similar to the issues that Twistlings would have, the Firgue Demon would have less of its cells utilizing the Krebs cycle and would need more food to make up the difference.

Finally, the Gray Starver was the most simple, but perhaps the worst in terms of its energy needs, of the three.  It was simple because its requirements did not stem from any complex biochemical reason as it did from two points.  First, intelligence is an energy intensive adaptation in organisms and second, that size is also an energy intensive adaptation.

The relationship is complex, but as a general rule of thumb as intelligence, senses, size, and agility increase, so does brain size.  The brain is perhaps the single most energy hungry organ in the animal kingdom, with its only competition, funnily enough, being testicles.  Jokes aside, Lucas could definitively say that the Gray Starver would need a lot of food and a single look at the creatures teeth made it obvious that it was a carnivore and that meant the Demons had to raise meat.

“You may not have observed their culture, their society.”  Lucas noted, “but it is very clear that they have one.  I may not be a military man, but I know very well how difficult feeding a group of people can be and I can imagine how much more difficult an army might be.  Your enemies have the exact same problems you do; problems that, as far as I know, can only be solved by agriculture and husbandry.  That in itself implies, perhaps even necessitates, some form of organisation and the presence of multiple species within a single group appears to indicate symbiosis is possible.”

“An interesting observation,” Carsin admitted as they reached the carriage again.  “But I do not see how that is useful to us here and now.”

“You might call them Demon’s and monsters, but- unless there is something more that we don’t know- negotiation is likely possible to one degree or another.”  Lucas said as he stepped up to the carriage, the others having already gotten inside.  He did not bother to look back at what he was sure would be a look of disgust on the knight’s face before he said something that would be taken with more approval.  “On a military level, they have farms and fields; flocks of animals and workers who tend to all of them.  If you can hit these, you can significantly impair their ability to fight.  In fact, depending on how the different species get along, if you could eliminate the sources of meat the carnivores might start eating each other.”

Or, more reasonably, force them to some form of truce agreement.  Carsin was satisfied with Lucas’s point about their supplies and Lucas did not bother to voice his latter thought until the knight had resumed guard and the carriage had resumed motion.  He posed the question, which he had hinted at earlier, to the nobles inside with him.

“So has anyone ever tried to negotiate with those things?”  Lucas could very well see that if anyone had, it had not gone well.  Still, it would be nice to have some explanation for why this millenia long war was even occurring.  “What do they even want, aside from my body on a plate?”

“There have been hundreds of attempts to communicate,” Terrasin grimaced at the thought.  Lucas supposed that her family, being the one that performed the summoning ritual, probably had a dim view of such things.  “None of which have met with any real success.”

“That is not quite true, though essentially accurate.”  Archi added, “At least if we define success as confirming that at least some of them can understand us and will deign to reply.  It is just that the replies are either unhelpful or unpleasant.”

“It is that sort of definition for success that keeps people trying, and dieing in the attempt, to open a discourse with our enemy.”  Terrasin’s words were sharp; she shut down Archi quickly and with only lip service to her usual civility.  “Lady Versi, being told that they would kill us all and that every human would die suffering is not a successful communication in any way.”

“Lady Versi, I believe Her Highness is mostly correct; it is a very dangerous way of thinking to even hint that success might be possible.”  Moru agreed, and Lucas gave his words weight.  After all, he was agreeing with Terrasin, after the princess had been somewhat rude, against a superior ranked noble to himself from his own kingdom.  “I, as I am sure both of you as educated ladies have, studied those cases and they seem to indicate that we have never even met the Demon species actually in charge of our enemies.  Even the High Spiders, dreaded as they are, appear to be little more than subordinates.  High ranking ones, but subordinates nonetheless!”

“It does not really matter, I suppose.” Lucas spoke quickly, not interested in the conversation turning heated.  “I know nothing about diplomacy, to say nothing of cross-species diplomacy.  Everyone else in this carriage is likely better educated in the subject than I am.  Perhaps it would simply be better if I focused on preparing for our arrival in Lyus tonight, I have to admit to being nervous about the whole affair.”

Terrified would be more accurate than nervous, but he honestly had trouble understanding why.  Likely, it had to do with his extreme emotional swings that plagued him, but he very sincerely wanted nothing to do with his introduction to the Lyus “court.”  Lucas was not scared of the nobility, not directly anyway, but every time he felt he had a handle on this world he would comprehend a little bit more about what these people wanted from him.  It was hard to comprehend, almost impossible to make sense of, the idea that he was supposed to be a Hero.

Even today, the evidence had just hammered home a point that he should have fully understood eleven days ago.  Demons were, at least to some degree, an intelligent civilisation.  What he had, subconsciously, been treating like a natural disaster- perhaps something like a stampede or a swarm of locusts- was a directed force more akin to a slowly expanding empire.

And even a cursory look at the history of this world he had been provided left the aims of that empire inscrutable.  Lucas did not believe that humans had survived this long because they were holding the Demon’s with their own power.  No, everything he had seen and heard so far made it sound like humans endured because the Demons were taking their time.

And in a few hours, he would meet dozens of people who would expect him to push those Demons back.

“You do not need to worry Lucas,” Terrasin managed not to stutter while omitting his title.  “Tonight will hardly be more than a banquet to greet you; more formality than politics.”

“Tonight we get to have actual beds and decent food!” Archi laughed, obviously quite pleased and looking forward to both.  “Just think of those two things and you should get through it fine!”

I am fairly sure you are projecting, Lucas thought to himself.  He would be happy with being able to eat good food, or he would if he thought their kitchens knew what hygiene was.  Sure, they washed plates and utensils, but it basically amounted to rinsing them and he could not hope that the cooks would wash their hands to any real degree.  Lucas had never realised how much he had taken hygiene and safe food practices for granted until he had come to this world; hell, he could not even be sure the bed he should be looking forward to was free of bedbugs!

Worse still, this train of thought was making Lucas angry again.  The greatest welcome they could possibly prepare would hardly reach the level of a third rate motel from his home; compared to the comforts of Lucas’s house, their best probably would not even reach the level of acceptable.  Deep breaths, he told himself, deep breaths.  He did not want to lose his shit here and now, and he definitely did not want to lose it tonight.  Tomorrow, after this meet and greet, Lucas would reveal his plan to the Duke and reveal his anger at the same time.

Sure, he was basically saying, “appease me or I will watch your people starve,” but they had fucking kidnapped him and no he was never going to let that go!