Chapter Thirty-Two: Biological Digger (Patreon)

For a moment, I feel disorientated and blink quickly at the suddenly bright light piercing my eyes. Fortunately, neither effect lasts long and I’m soon fighting-fit again. Though, if that’s the result of a successful Dominate – at least, I’m pretty sure it was successful – what would it have been like if I’d failed?

The porcupig is still. Alive – I can feel it breathing steadily – but all that frantic fight has left it. Has it worked? Only one way to test. I withdraw slowly, ready to shift my weight back onto it at any sign of it deciding to restart the wrestling match.

By the time I’m sitting back on my heels, there still hasn’t been any movement beyond breathing. I look up towards its face, wondering if it’s unconscious. Not so – those eyes are looking at me calmly. The sad acceptance I’d seen there in our battle has gone, and I’m not exactly an expert in porcupig body language, but what I do read there makes me wonder.

It’s relaxed, waiting. Watchful, and there’s a wariness there, but mostly just waiting. For what? For me to kill it? For me to leave? Or...for me to give an order? If my Skill has worked the way I’m expecting it to, this creature should now be under my control.

“Stand up,” I say eventually, unable to help the slightly questioning lilt to my voice. When the porcupig shifts, I can’t help myself from quickly regaining my feet, my hand on my knife hilt. Fortunately – for both of us – it just stands up and then waits quietly, mostly unmoving. OK, that’s pretty cool, I admit to myself, a sense of glee building in my stomach. Let’s try something else.

“Walk over to that tree and then back again,” I order it, pointing at a tree a few metres away. Without complaint, the porcupig obeys the letter of my command. “OK, now dig in that spot,” I tell it, once more pointing at a spot on the ground near where it had been rooting before. Once more, it obeys my command to the letter. What I do notice is that it digs in the spot to which I pointed it, and nowhere else. “Stop.”

I was wrong before. This isn’t pretty cool. This is damn awesome. I’ve now got a biological digger under my command, and I’ve tested out one of my Class Skills and it’s just as good as I was hoping.

After detaching my jacket carefully from the porcupig’s quills – grimacing at the number of rips and holes in the inner layers – I set off towards the river clay area, casually ordering my new follower to, well, follow.

Reaching the area I’d spotted yesterday, I’m able to confirm that, indeed, it’s a spot that contains river clay. It’s something of a flood plain, I think. The inner part of a river bend which is low enough to be flooded when the river is swollen with recent rainfall, but high enough not to be underwater all the time. Either that, or the river’s moved over time, cutting more deeply into the other bank and eventually leaving its old course mostly dry. Either is possible, really, or both.

The point is, it’s been underwater long enough to have accumulated the fine silt which makes up river clay, but it’s dry enough for me to access it. With my new biological digger, it probably takes a third of the time to accumulate a good amount of clay than it would have taken me by myself. I pack the clay into my Inventory, filling one slot until it refuses to accept any more, and then fill a second.

I’m no great judge of clay, the memories I received being more about uses of clay than assessing its quality, but it seems decent enough. A good number of rocks and stones as well as the finer silt which is really what I want, but that’s always going to be the case. It’s not like popping down to my nearest art shop to order a bag of pottery clay, is it? The large quantity of impurities just mean more processing will be required to make usable clay out of, essentially, river mud. As for the quality of the clay itself, the proof is in the pudding – or in this case, the firing.

When I reckon I’ve got enough to be getting on with for now, and knowing I can always come back here later, I tell my new pet to stop and follow me again. It does so docilely, trotting at my heels, its head reaching about the height of my knee and its quills just about mid-thigh.

As I walk home, I feel like I’m riding high on glee and excitement. Visions flash through my mind of a legion of beasts, protecting me, hunting for me, working for me, making life so much easier and more comfortable than it has been ever since I arrived here. And best of all, they probably won’t complain, and they certainly can’t decide to quit my employ because I haven’t raised their salary recently.

I look back at the porcupig and accidentally meet its gaze again. A sense of unease niggles at my belly and I look away again. I don’t know what that was about.

The sense of unease continues to be present throughout my walk back home, becoming more urgent whenever I happen to notice the porcupig’s presence. Eventually, I do my best to ignore it following me, not wanting to deal with the sensation more than necessary.

To distract myself, I decide to test my new Stealth Skill now I’m not in the middle of a hunt. As I move carefully through the forest, I notice that my newest Skill is both more and less than I thought it would be. Less, in that I admit I harboured some secret hope that despite what it said in the description, it would still be some epic tool which would make me the stealthiest stealther who ever stealthed. Or something like that. More, in that I’d also feared that it was basically just describing the skill I had learnt with the promise of future awesome improvements.

In reality, I don’t even notice it working until the moment when I suddenly realise I’m about to put my weight on a stick that’s bound to crack loudly. I’ve already shifted my weight forwards, so it’s either step on the stick or fall over, which will create as much if not more noise than just stepping. Then, the fraction of a second before my food lands, something happens. Some minute adjustment is made and although I do step on the stick, I don’t put any weight on it and it remains unbroken. Knowing this is an example of my skill activating, I quickly check my stamina pool by pulling up my screen – the little bar in my peripheral vision really isn’t accurate enough for this sort of thing.

It’s at twenty-six out of thirty. That means this little manouvre probably consumed three or four units of stamina. Probably more on the three side as I’m also walking which does consume stamina over time, even if it’s only small amounts. Well, that’s not too bad as long as it doesn’t activate when I’m really low, even though if I combine it with Fade I’ll be bottoming out quite quickly. Unless I aim to put more points into Strength (Endurance) or Dexterity as a priority.

Then a thought strikes me: it didn’t specify the amount of stamina that would be used - what if there isno standard amount? What if it changes each time? I have reason to believe that could be the case: Lay-on-hands changes its mana consumption depending on the severity of the wound and how much focus I put into it.

I decide to test it, which ends up being a bit of a frustrating exercise. The main problem is, I don’t know when the Skill’s more active part will suddenly activate, so I end up stomping on a lot of twigs and noisy leaves before my test gives me enough data to work with. In the end, I conclude that I’m right – Stealth doeschange its consumption. It seems like how much it takes ranges from a single unit to, maybe, six units.

It’s, as always, hard to get absolutes here, but I have to guess that one unit is the lowest as that’s my result once and the system doesn’t seem to like fractional numbers. As for six, it’s the highest that I get during my test, but since one of the main factors seems to be how much concentration I’m paying, I can’t really test fairly since I have to be aware that the test is happening in order to notice how much stamina has been used.

Anyway, the cost seems based essentially on how much effort it will take to redirect my body to avoid making the noise. That means that if I notice before I’ve shifted my weight, and consciously decide how and where I should move to avoid the issue, the stamina cost is minimal. If, however, I only notice the issue once Stealth has intervened, it costs me more. Makes sense, I suppose.

By the time I’ve finished testing to my satisfaction, the hill’s in sight and I’m quickly climbing it, my spiky follower still at my heels. Glancing at him briefly brings back that uneasy feeling which I had managed to put to the back of my mind while testing out my new skill.

Cresting the hill, I walk towards the cave mouth, still musing over why exactly I’d be feeling uneasy at finally putting into use one of my Class Skills. It’s getting dark, and it’s darker besides in the cave. Still, there’s enough light for me to make out Kalanthia’s shape and I murmur a quiet greeting. Used to my words usually attracting a huff or nothing at all, I am surprised when she actually responds verbally.

Greetings, Binder, she purrs. Have you brought me a snack? Grenslar are small but tasty. For a moment, her meaning is as clear as mud. Then, as I glance around me and my eyes alight on my follower, I understand. Oh. Oh. In hindsight, maybe I should have considered the giant predator that I live with before bringing my tasty-looking new pet home with me… Then again, this was always going to happen because I reckon any creature I’ll be able to claim in the next year will probably count as prey for the nunda.

“Um, no,” I say, searching for words. “Can you not eat this, uh,” what did she call it? Grendal? No...Grenslar, that’s what it was. “This Grenslar, please. I’ve, um, boundit. I want it to work for me, not be eaten.”

Very well, she sighs. Make sure that your Bound does not pose a threat to Lathani.

“Sure. Actually, on that point, are you planning on going hunting any time soon?”

I shall need to hunt again in two sunrises.

“OK, thanks for letting me know.” I pause for a moment, trying to think whether there’s anything else I needed to say, and then, deciding not, I bid Kalanthia goodnight and head into my cave alcove.