Chapter Fifty-Six: Sympathy (Patreon)

I wake up in the dark to something breathing heavily near me. I freeze while my mind races groggily to work out the cause. The fact that it doesn’t move closer while I wake up fully is enough to calm me a little, and I relax completely when I realise exactly what the origin is. I remember having had the bright idea yesterday to Bind a raptorcat and adopt the three cubs under her protection. Letting out a silent breath, I remember the chaos of the previous evening. It was impossible to keep the cubs out of everything, so eventually I just let them play with a couple of pieces of sinew to try to stop them from destroying everything else.

I’d managed to keep my pottery safe by the skin of my teeth, despite several close shaves. One of my shirts met a worse fate – while I was saving my pots from one of the cubs, the other two had grabbed the shirt and were playing a tug of war with it. Before either I or Bastet – who was guarding the fire – could intervene, it had ripped from their sharp teeth. Reminded once more that I need to develop some way of repairing my torn garments before I run out of clothes to wear, I decided to give that particular shirt to the cubs to use as bedding.

Fortunately, after playing for a bit, squabbling over the sinew, and filling their bellies once more with lizog meat, they settled down to sleep. They did explore Bastet’s underside, nosing through her fur and making unhappy squeaks, so I reckon they probably should still be having milk. Unfortunately, unless Bastet starts producing in sympathy, they’re going to have to go without it.

I suppose I should consider it good fortune that they’re capable of eating meat – if they could only digest milk like human babies at the start of their lives, they’d have been doomed by the death of their mother. I hardly think Kalanthia is going to volunteer to donate, after all. It’s actually interesting to realise that the raptorcats must be mammals despite having feathers. How that evolved, I don’t know, but it’s curious nonetheless.

Taking advantage of everyone else being asleep, I pull up my status. I haven’t checked it properly in a few days so I might as well do that now in the calm before the storm. I didn’t have time yesterday evening, after all. Given that my wood-collecting mission had been rather interrupted by finding Bastet and then the subsequent events, I’d been feeling a bit restless about how little I felt I’d accomplished. After the cubs had gone to sleep, cuddled with Bastet and the shirt, I’d headed outside and worked with Spike on my pit.

Spike shied away from me at first: I guess he could smell a predator on me that he would probably be vulnerable to. A pack of raptorcats, heck, only two or three of them would make short work of a lone porcupig, after all. He calmed down reasonably quickly when I sent reassuring feelings down my Bond with him, though.

The difference between him and Bastet had never been clearer. Where she had been constantly alert, questioning the world around her and proactively taking the actions which she felt would be best for herself and hers, Spike just reacts. He’s alert, sure – if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have survived to adulthood – but there’s no...spark behind it. No real governing Intelligence. It's one reason for why I haven't been taking him out into the woods with me except when I have a specific need for him: although he defended me that one time against the Black Blob, I really don't know how he'd do in a more normal combat situation. He might do fine, but I can't help but think that his species relies more on defence than offence, and that only if they don't come across a too-powerful foe. He still has to go out into the woods to find food, for sure, but I reckon he's more able to go unnoticed by himself than if we go together. Certainly, I seem to attract confrontations, and I don't know if he's capable of reacting appropriately - or proactively.

Unlike with Bastet, my Battle of Wills with Spike hadn’t been a negotiation, but a test of force. He accepted the bond because I was stronger than him and left him no choice but to accept. And now, he will not struggle against the Bond and its obligations, as seen when he defended me against the creature that poisoned me a few days back. But equally, I haven't seen any evidence that he will act proactively in the way Bastet did yesterday, helping me think of and prepare a trap for a foe that hunted both of us. Even when we’ve been working together on the pit and other projects, he’s moved as directed and then waited for further instructions.

Pushing my memories and musings to one side for later exploration, I focus on the screen in front of me.

I’m halfway to level two, which is nice, though I doubt I’ll get there anytime soon. Yesterday was a good day for Energy between Bonding Bastet and killing the lizogs. It's good to know that I'll get Energy from traps; once I've finished my immediate crafting tasks, I'll definitely start creating some traps in the local area. It’ll be easier to make them once I have a proper axe, for sure.

If I kill the creatures, great, I'll get the Energy. If I don't kill the creatures, I then have the possibility of initiating a Battle of Wills. I do wonder whether I'll get any Energy from my Bound's kills - Spike hasn't killed anything yet and neither has Bastet since our Bonding.

I would have more Energy in my store, but I’d got those two points in Wisdom which took me down a bit. Still, it’s good to know that I have the room to gain several points today, if I put in enough effort. My digging last night was clearly not enough to trigger anything more so those two points were my only gain yesterday. In terms of points, that is.

My Skill list is starting to grow, both in length and in quality. It’s good to see Dominate has increased since Bonding Bastet. Was that because Bonding Bastet was pretty hard or because I had to approach it in a different way from just forcing my Will on my opponent? Or maybe because it was the second Bond I’d created? I don’t know, and won’t until I get more data to work with. Still, if it’s anything like increasing Lay-on-hands to Novice level, I gained the point in Dominate because I won the Battle in a different sort of way. Or maybe that only applies when crossing the gap between Beginner and Novice… Another question to add to the list.

Everything’s coming on nicely in my actual stats except for Dexterity. The six sitting there among nines and tens – and more, in the case of my Willpower – is a bit embarrassing, but honestly, I can see why it hasn’t improved much. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of things that require strength over fine motor control. Then, I’ve also managed to improve my Intelligence through making links between things in my absorbed memories, and Wisdom by connecting with others and the world around. Plus, my Constitution has been put under strain, so that’s had to grow by default.

Still, I should be doing more fine-motor control tasks soon. There are more arrowheads to make, after all, then cutting feathers to make flights for the arrows, and then attaching flights and arrowheads to carefully prepared lengths of thin wood. Ugh,I groan at the thought of all that fiddly, finicky work to do. I hope my bow is worth it in the end, I moan to myself.

Actually, on that front, I’ll need to head back out to the forest sooner rather than later. I hadn’t thought about it beforehand, but really the wood for my arrows ought to be given some time to dry. I don’t have enough time to season the wood properly – which can take as much as a year, something that’s clearly out of the realms of possibility – but some drying is better than none. I’m just going to have to settle for choosing the straightest possible sticks and then live with it. I might set up some arrows for seasoning for later use when I have a bit of time, but that’s a future-me concern.

I also need to collect more firewood: what I managed to collect yesterday looks rather pitiful in the pile I stacked last night – I need a lot more than that. However, I know that Bastet won’t be keen on me taking the cubs with us back into the forest – and I agree it’s not a great idea – so that leaves either me going out to the forest on my own or staying home today. The main issue I have with leaving the raptorcats on their own today is that I’m a bit nervous about how they will react to Lathani – and how she will react to them.

Ultimately, I figure that staying home for a day is probably the best use of my time. That way, I can head off any potential problems with settling in before they start. I still need to dig my pit anyway – I can get on with that with Spike while the cubs play outside or sleep.

Decision made, I feel suddenly restless in the way I always used to when I knew I had a lot of work waiting for me at the office and just wanted to get on. It used to drive my ex mad. Lucy used to complain that I never wanted to stay in bed with her. That wasn’t the case – I just couldn’t relax when I thought about what needed to be done. Just one more nail in the coffin of our relationship, I suppose.

Pulling cooked meat out of my Inventory, I also munch on a little of the cooked tuber. Almost makes it steak and potatoes, without it actually being steak...or potatoes. Oh man, what I’d do to have a medium cooked steak with crispy fries… Well, I suppose I could make some sort of fries someday if these tubers don’t fall apart too much when fried – all I’d need to collect would be enough animal fat to deep fry them. Something to consider later down the line. I’d also need more salt for seasoning since I really don’t have much left of what I’d created from boiling the malachy leaves.

By the time I finish my ‘breakfast’, light is starting to permeate the gloom. At this time of the morning, the sun doesn’t actually penetrate the cave in any way as the angle is wrong, but when it’s getting lighter outside, a little of that always filters inside. A glint near the glowing embers lets me know that Bastet is awake and watching me.

“Are you hungry?” I ask quietly, not keen on waking up the balls of fluff and energy when not necessary. She sends a feeling of negation and satiation down the Bond. I guess that makes sense – she did rather gorge herself yesterday. “OK, well I need to get to the fire behind you or it’s going to die soon.”

I get the impression that she doesn’t really understand what I’m saying there, so I try to send her an image of the fire getting lower and lower until I give it some fuel and it leaps higher again. She still gives off a sense of confusion, but shifts sideways until there’s enough space for me to access the fire. I hear a few squeaks and plaintive complaints from the cubs burrowed into her side, but they seem to die down quickly.

I focus on the fire, gently encouraging the embers to take on more life by feeding it easily burned material while blowing lightly. Once the fine bark, and dried moss-like material has caught light, I feed in thin branches and then wait a bit. Eventually, I add on a bigger log and wait to make sure it’s starting to char even as the medium branches I also added are starting to catch light.

Honestly, taking care of the fire takes a good portion of each morning – between dealing with the fire itself and then replenishing my stocks piled carefully next to the fireplace, I must take between an hour and two hours. However, it’s worth it – afterwards, as long as I keep it fed with larger logs every so often, I end up with a fire that’ll last all day with relatively little attention, and then be easy to stoke again for the evening.

Finished and just assessing whether I need to bring in more firewood from outside, my attention is grabbed by Bastet’s grunt and a sense of urgency she sends down the Bond. I whip around to see one of the cubs – I’m pretty sure this one is the adventurous blighter which tried to break my pottery twice yesterday – standing in the entrance between my alcove and Kalanthia’s cave. That by itself would be worth paying attention, but even worse, the cub has come face to face with a surprised Lathani, who’s not looking entirely happy at the sudden encounter.