NOVEL SIMPLE Book Four: Expansion - Chapter Fourteen: What I’m Dealing With
Since the other samurans are not Bound to me, it’s harder work to heal them than it was to heal Joy, but still not too difficult. The Unevolved ones, anyway. It’s actually much easier to deal with them than it was to heal Lathani while she wasn’t Bound to me, interestingly enough. Since they were both Tier one, I would have expected them to be similar.
But then, Lathani’s a nunda, so perhaps that makes a difference. Plus, I’ve added six more points in Willpower since then, and the venom is already half-imbued with my mana. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.
It’s more mana consumptive than difficult, actually, but by keeping at least the Light level of Meditation going, and the Medium one where possible, I manage to pace myself enough that I only have to stop to regenerate my mana properly a few times. Which, considering that I’m cleansing and healing fifteen lizard-kin, is quite a good improvement.
Joy follows behind me, weaving plant roots from the ground to bind the samurans firmly to it, preventing them from moving more than a few inches. I think she’s a bit bored of the task: after the first two, I start noticing her creating patterns and shapes in the bindings. Oh well, as long as they do the job, she can use the fibres to tell an epic ballad, if she likes.
I pause my healing of the unconscious samurans to clear my two helpers of venom when they finish hauling all of their previous village-mates out of the pit. Although the hides wrapped around their feet had done a good job in protecting them from the venom-laced web beneath their feet, they couldn’t help but absorb some of it from the bodies they were touching.
Fortunately, it’s only a matter of moments to force the last bits out of them, the venom being squeezed through a small area of skin at their wrists – that being an area with very thin scales. Of course, I’m collecting all the venom in one of my pots: I never know when having sleeping poison which is absorbed through the skin will come in handy.
Though I will have to work on dosage more: by the time I get to the last of the Unevolved, I’m concerned that they might not actually wake up again, even once the venom is out of their system. Finishing the healing, I eye them as they remain unconscious. I guess I’ll have to see how it goes.
Moving onto the Warriors, I immediately feel how much harder it is to heal them than any of the previous. I have to fight to remain in their bodies, much as I did with the danaris. It’s not quite as hard as that – I am making progress, and am able to affect their body. It’s still hard work.
While taking a breather, and allowing my mana to refill, I Inspect the Warrior I’m working on.
Samuran: Murmurs-quietly
Tier 2 Beast (Evolved)
Special abilities: Increased Strength
Health: 1590u
Mana: 50u
Minimum Willpower recommended to Dominate without other impacting factors: 60 (45)
Open to a Bond: No
Impacting factor: Protection of the Village
Member of a samuran community; one of its protectors. Fights mainly with spears and clubs, overwhelming opponents with his raw strength. Social Beast with strong capacity to form bonds.
Close message? Y/N
Interesting…well, his Willpower stat checks out, I suppose, I think to myself. I still don’t know exactly what impacts how easily or not I’m able to affect a target’s body, but Willpower must be a big part of it.
Flesh-Shaping must not be affected by the same debuffs to Willpower that Dominate is, though, because I would expect interfering in the body of a creature with only forty-five points in Willpower to be significantly easier than this is: there is a difference between the resistance I’ve been feeling here and what I felt with the danaris, but not almost twenty points’ worth of it. So it must be based on sixty, not forty-five.
It’s interesting to see that the Willpower is seven points lower than Joy’s is – is that because Joy is closer to Tier three? Or is it the reason for why Joy is a magic-user and the other one isn’t? Or is it simply that different beings have different Willpowers, as is no doubt the case among humans? Perhaps one day I’ll be able to answer that question, but today is not that day. I put it out of my mind and concentrate on refilling my mana.
Wanting to minimise the amount of work I have to do, I simply direct the venom out through a hole I make with my knife, then only repair the worst of the damage. Even just that takes as much time and mana as two of the Unevolved. It seems to be enough, though, as the bulky Warrior wakes up with a vengeance, tugging and straining against the fibres holding him to the ground.
Using the understanding of the lizard-kin’s language gleaned from all three of my samuran Bound, I can tell that he’s not saying anything constructive, more spewing invective against Joy for turning against them.
In response to his insults, the Unevolved, who up until now have been pretty docile since a Pathwalker is by my side, start struggling too.
“If you shut his mouth, I’ll cover his spikes,” I suggest with a glance at Joy. An expression of distaste tugging at the corner of her crocodilian mouth and discomfort coming through the Bond, Joy complies without a word. Roots snake up towards his mouth and, despite his thrashing attempts to keep away from them they crawl inexorably around his jaws and bind them shut.
Not wanting the lizard-man to suffocate, I simply cover his head with one of my jackets. With both audio and visual cues hidden, we have effectively silenced the Warrior.
“Settle down,” I say to the shifting Unevolved samurans with Joy as my mouthpiece. “All will become clear soon.”
Hoping that that will be enough for them – they do stop wriggling a bit, though whether that’s more to do with the fact that we so easily silence the one who had been encouraging them to move than my instructions, I don’t know – I go back to healing.
Moving over to the next one – one of the slim, lithe samurans – I first Inspect him so I know what I’m dealing with.
Samuran: Eats-dirt
Tier 2 Beast (Evolved)
Special abilities: Increased Speed
Health: 1480u
Mana: 70u
Minimum Willpower recommended to Dominate without other impacting factors: 61 (46)
Open to a Bond: No
Impacting factor: Protection of the Village
Member of a samuran community; one of its protectors. Fights mainly at range with javelins and rocks, conquering opponents with his speed. Social Beast with strong capacity to form bonds.
Close message? Y/N
“Not all that dissimilar to the first Warrior, but more speed focussed. Makes sense,” I murmur to myself. It’s interesting to see that the Willpower of this one is a little higher than the previous, as is his mana, but only by a little. Hopefully that won’t make healing him much harder, though….
One by one, I work through the four Warriors. The last two are practically the same as the first two when it comes to Willpower; the only real difference is in the weapons they use and their abilities. The other bulky Warrior apparently uses a shield and spear, where the other lithe one uses darts. Although the bulky Warrior had the Increased Strength ability of the other Warrior, the second lithe one had Stealthy Step instead of Increase Speed. I wonder with interest if it’s similar to the Stealth Skill that I have.
Their health and mana pools are a little different, but only by ten units for mana and twenty for health. As for their names, the bulky Warrior is apparently called – rather incongruously – Leaps-from-fright, and the lithe one is called Sleeps-peacefully.
I have to admit that it amuses and horrifies me in equal measures to think that the samuran hatchlings end up burdened with a name that reflects the first action they did on their name day, regardless of whether it suits them in terms of general behaviour or not.
Then again, parents on Earth could be known to give rather burdensome names that they felt sounded ‘cool’. I remember a boy at my secondary school called Andrew Niss. Whenever his first name was shortened to an initial, it was the cue for everyone in the class to snigger. Apparently he had an elder brother called Peter, which was probably just as bad. What their parents were thinking, I don’t know.
I redirect my wandering mind – I’m tired, and we’re not even finished yet. We’ve had to silence three out of the four Warriors because they started spewing invective as soon as they realised their situation. The third, however, has just watched us with calculating eyes ever since he woke up. I’ve been tempted to cover his head just for that, but so far have managed to convince myself that just looking doesn’t deserve being shoved into darkness.
I’m going to have to get these Warriors on board, somehow. Not only to keep the other eleven Unevolved in line, but also because having four Warriors on my side would definitely help when it comes to taking over the village. But I doubt I’m going to be able to Dominate all of them right now: I can already feel a hint of mental strain from all the battling I’ve had to do to heal them.
One round of Dominate is probably fine, maybe two. But four? Not unless they’re very short and easy. And no way I could do fifteen. So no, the Unevolved are going to have to stay Bond-less – unless they agree to a Tame Bond. But they probably will only agree to that if all four Warriors as well as Pathwalker are on my side – otherwise they’ll have the same issue Catch had when he was Bound to me with a Tame Bond. At least since increasing my Willpower by six points I don’t have the same sense of getting close to reaching some sort of limit. Apparently my theory was right there.
Could I offer the Warriors a Tame Bond instead of Dominate? Perhaps. We’ll see how they take my explanation.
But first, I need to eat and rest a little.
Trinity is lying down on the ground, evidently deciding to have a little snooze after all her hard work earlier. The rope around her tail has been untied and coiled up neatly next to her.
With a sigh, I sit down and lean against her warm scaly side. She grunts a little, but doesn’t actually wake – I guess she feels safe enough with us to sleep despite the disruption. I find I appreciate that more than I might have thought I would.
Pulling out some chunks of roast meat, I devour them hungrily, all the work I’ve been doing with mana really taking it out of me. When I stop feeling the need to stuff my face quite so quickly, I look back up and call River and Catch over.
“Update me on the situation, please,” I ask, still eating. I’ve been aware of them moving around and doing things, but with my focus on the healing, I don’t know exactly what they’ve been up to. Hopefully organising the rest of my Bound.
We’ve split your Bound into groups. One group is hunting with Bastet – the scalla, the woshel, the reer, and the mea, River starts his report. I take a moment to picture them – reminding myself that I need to find names for all these newcomers.
The scalla is bipedal, a bit like a spinosaurus, but its spine ridge isn’t nearly as impressive as those dinosaurs had been. A lot smaller too – even when it stands fully upright, its head is lower than mine. Not that I’d want its toothed maw anywhere near my face if it wasn’t Bound to me.
The woshel is one of the Bound I took with me to the river when I levelled up – a relatively small carnivore that looks a little like a big otter, but with absolutely vicious claws and teeth. She’s also got particularly powerful senses of hearing and sight.
The reer is the one that kind of looks like a more dangerous ankylosaurus – the bone protrusions all over its body are spiky, as are its tail spikes. It’s not all that fast, but is probably the tank of the group.
Finally, the mea is the one that reminds me almost uncomfortably of a wolvezard. That’s the creature which almost killed me when I stepped in to interfere with it hurting Lathani way back in my first few days on this world.
As I think through them, I realise it’s not a bad hunting group, actually. If Bastet is OK with it, I might assign them to her on a more permanent basis. She’s got all the bases covered with it – strong senses, speed from some of the members, defence from other members, and plenty of damage power. Heck, the reer probably is good at carrying the bodies too.
“When did they go out?” I ask.
A while ago, master. They’ve already come back twice with a carcass for the rest of us to eat.
“You’ve had something, right?” I check, looking at each of them.
We have, thank you, Honoured Markus, Catch replies. There are some who haven’t eaten yet, but they should be given the opportunity when the group comes back the next time.
“What about those who don’t eat meat?” I ask next, the thought suddenly occurring.
Hades and Persephone have been taking out a few prey beasts at a time to graze the surrounding areas. We assigned a group of sentries – mixed prey and predator beasts – and we’ve been rotating them at regular intervals so each has the opportunity to eat. They also regularly bring some back for those here.
I can’t help but chuckle in amazement.
“Maybe you guys should be running the show here. You seem like you’ve got everything sorted.”
River makes his version of a shrug.
We could not have healed all these creatures, or Bound them together, he says matter-of-factly. But cooperating with others to gather needed resources is what we are used to; though not as the organisers, granted.
“That’s true,” I muse. Thinking about it, River and Catch might have more idea about what needs to be done than I do – I’m far more used to a corporate work context than a forest one. The lizard-folk, however, are far more used to surviving in the forest. I’ll need to sit down with them and have a good chat about how to delegate the large number of my Bound with them. But first, I have this other challenge.