NOVEL NEXT 25. The Year of the Rat VIII
Once again I checked Medea's status to confirm that yes, it was still considered a tier 4 monster.
All those mutations, be it the Aetherite slime, the wings or the thicker coat of hair, the monsters and even people it had eaten, all of that stuff had only let Medea go up one rank from the creature I had tamed a month and a half ago. So I could have 4 tier 1s in my swarm without losing control. Only hatchlings were considered tier 1, even whelps were tier 2, beyond my capabilities to control.
That was uhh, not terrible but that was the nicest I could say about it.
I glanced around, the man with the injured arm had nodded off at some point and I didn't feel like disturbing him and potentially worsening his injuries. Just had to let him recover, the powerful healer was still passively healing us so I wasn't too worried. And so only one thing was left for me to do; take my other reward. A new skill.
Planning Phase replaced Improvised Tool Use. The new skill was surprisingly simple even if it started at level 30. For 10 mana per second, I could freeze time to think. I could not use any other skills or move or speak but I could think, I could plan, and I could strategize. It was not the kind of skill that could let me win on its own, but it sounded exactly like the kind of thing that I would regret not slotting in when I needed it. The quest had mentioned that it was picked based on my existing skillset though…
No wait. I pulled up the description for Hivemother's Crippled Dominion once again.
"With each level, your swarm shares beneficial mental effects and skills at 1% efficiency."
Could I use it with the mindweb possession and telepathy effects? I had to test it once I had the mana for it and Medea was awake but I should be able to, if the skill was shared. Awesome. Did that mean that Medea also now understood the optimal ways for it to grow itself because of my improved Fauna Archive? That was a mental skill, it had to be.
Speaking of growth. I wondered what changes Medea had gone through. I opened its status page and let out an impressed whistle. Or rather, an attempt at one that sounded more like me letting out a long held breath. I could literally never figure out how to whistle, and it was not because of a lack of trying.
NAME: [MEDEA]
CURRENT RACE: [AWAKENED SPIDER-SCORPION WORKER]
TIER: 4
AGE: 2
MANA: 40/40 (REGEN 8 PER HOUR)
BIOMANA TANK 1: 585/585 (REGEN 292.5 PER HOUR)
BIOMANA TANK 2: 585/585 (REGEN 292.5 PER HOUR)
STATS:
STRENGTH: 57
CELERITY: 51
VITALITY: 60
ACUITY: 24
WILLPOWER: 29
PERCEPTION: 54
ATTUNEMENT: 8
SKILLS:
PASSIVES:
Relentless Hunger: 55
Superior Ambush Predator: 46
Apex Predator: 53
Wild Terror: 40
Perfect Regenerator: 48
Double Biomana Reactor: 57
Controlled Hyperkinesia: 56
Biomass Storage: 4
Aviation: 3
ACTIVES:
Corrosive Mana Venom: 49
Perpetual Adaptation: 33
Genetic Assimilation: 26
Paralyzing Visage: 31
Shrink Down: 8
Birth Drones: 1
Fragile Golden Barrier: 9
TRAITS:
The Herald of Ruin:
Blood of the Third Calamity:
Swarm General of Hivemother Anya:
Mana Tainted:
Awakened:
Still only a tier 4. I just had no idea whatsoever on how to raise that, now that the Third Calamity had forcibly aborted Medea's metamorphosis. I swear if the Third Calamity had locked Medea's growth then... then... fine, I don't think I can do anything to that thing. Even in my mind, I couldn't call her a mere monster after seeing and speaking with her. She was more. Much more than a mere monster. And if she had deemed that Medea should not grow, I couldn't do anything about it at all.
Instead of worrying about that, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off
When I woke up, the platform was much larger. And it was very crowded. Way too crowded.
"Morning sleepyhead. You hungry?" Fahria asked with a crooked grin but something was wrong. Not with Fahria, no. It was me that was broken. The first thing I noticed was the stillness. Not of the world, but of myself. The usual chatter of my body —the breaths, the heartbeats, the fidgeting— had faded into a sharp, primal, almost eerie, clean silence only punctured by nothing. And it was not just my mind that had stilled. I breathed slowly, silently in a way that no human did. But a spider-scorpion stalking its prey certainly did. I was wrong!
I blinked in silence. Nothing had changed, yet everything had. My gaze lingered on something to the side, where a faint scuttling caught my attention. A fly, darting aimlessly in erratic loops. Somehow life had returned once we left the ossified region of the forest. Life, like always, returned.
My breathing slowed. I wasn't thinking about it, not really. I just knew. The fly would land there, on that jacket, in five... four... three—yes. And with that, I became aware of myself. Of my body, a body that was all wrong. Soft flesh, no shell, no venom. Wrong.
The feelings intensified. The world was alive in ways I had never realized before. My perception, both the stat and the general notion of sensory awareness, was the same but I could mentally isolate them better. The air carried scents and movements I hadn't noticed, faint vibrations in the air telling stories I just hadn't been attuned to earlier.
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"Are you alright, Anya?" Fahria asked, her bemused expression giving way to worry. It was wrong! It was all wrong! Fahria shouldn't be so close, she was leaving herself open.
'Open to what?' A part of me asked. 'You wouldn't attack her.' Would I attack her? No, of course not. Fahria was my friend. But what about the others? From what I could tell, the entire expedition was on the platform now, just flying through now that there was no secret font of power to preserve. The bony region had been small but the forest was never not dangerous. The classers just rained death from above in everything that moved. Would they attack me? No, I was overreacting.
"I'm okay, just give me a moment. I think a skill of mine is going a bit haywire." I mumbled, mouth dry.
I activated Planning Phase. And the forest flying below me froze as I tried to figure out what was wrong. I tried to look up but even my gaze was frozen. I wanted to take a deep upsteadying breath but nope, that was out of the question too. First things first, I had to figure out what was wrong before my mana bottomed out. I looked at my skills, nothing was different about them other than Hivemother's Dominion. Could that be the culprit?
Could I turn off the mental effects sharing? Nope, I couldn't. Not without figuring out a way to turn off my mind itself. But that reminded me that I hadn't actually looked at Medea's skills in a lot of detail recently. Medea picked its own skills and it probably understood the choices better than I did as an outsider, so I was content to let it develop as it wished. Now that we shared some skills, I regretted my hands off approach but it was not the end of the world.
After going through every skill, I was reasonably sure it was Medea's Apex Predator that was affecting me, even filtered through my newly evolved skill.
The skill was simple, it was basically a combination of my Assassin's Eye and Cold Blooded but worse than either individually. It nudged me towards weaknesses and openings and gave me ideas about how to use them.
How did Medea even function if only 40% of it made me like this? No, stupid question, Medea was a spider-scorpion. It behaved exactly like what I would expect something with that skill would. No, that was wrong and I was projecting my own issues here. Think of skill synergies, synergies.
One skill that showed me weaknesses and one that made me hyper decisive, and a new skill that gave me mental nudges about what to do and how. They just kept feeding off each other.
When I had evolved Assassin's Eye, I had gone through something similar but far less intense. This was just that but a bit harder, I could get through this! But goddamnit, this was going to be a an annoyance. With my grumblings done, I dropped Planning Phase before it could start eating through my actual life force again. Even after doubling my mana and mana regen, it was still not enough for me to use skills and spells freely.
In an instant, the world came rushing back and I stumbled.
"Why does this keep happening to you? You know, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else running into multiple skill compatibility issues within just weeks."
"Well it is not my fault!" I may have snapped.
"I'm not claiming that it is." Fahria's voice sounded a lot more frigid than I was used to and for a single fraction of a moment, I was aware that I was in a lot of danger. Then that feeling subsided and Fahria wandered off.
For the next few hours, I avoided everyone. Conversation grated against my nerves, and I found myself retreating to quiet corners, not that the overcrowded platform had any of that, my skin crawling with the sense that I was exposed until the noise and movement were gone. I sequestered myself away from the others when my new instincts grew too much for me.
Fahria did not speak with me for the rest of the day.
I chewed my rations glumly, the taste of bile still threatening to emerge in my mouth. The skill was not as socially debilitating as it had been earlier but I still felt wrong. Touching bones after extracting them from corpses for a day job? Sure. Share the instincts of my familiar? Now that was the end of the world.
The cocoon shook and a long black spindly leg tore it open from within. Medea emerged in moments, seemingly almost identical to how it had been before if not for the fact that now it was almost large enough for me to ride. And the glowing purple lichtenberg-figure-like patterns of energy that marked its otherwise black body. The mouth turned toward me and stilled.
'Mother.' It rasped in my mind. Not in Dellish but in English.
I blinked once stupidly. "Wai— Wait, you can speak now?" I blurted out a bit too loudly, a hint of Cold Blooded switching my speech back to Dellish just a moment too late. Is that what the awakened trait had meant?
"WHAT THE FUCK?" It was Gres who screamed but I was far too occupied to pay him any attention. Too much going on. I was however inwardly cringing as the attention of others turned to me. Focus. I can get through it. I had to. Murmurs that I tried to ignore. So many things to try to ignore.
'This one communicates. Speech is for others, not for Mother.' The red and purple eyes glared at me silently as it stood up to its full height.
'Oookay.' I sent back cautiously, pinching the bridge of my nose and not really expecting it to work, or worse just end up with me speaking normally. 'Can you call me anything other than… that? You can call me Anya.' I spoke without speaking, almost instinctively communicating through my mind now that the initial surprise was over. I was not a mom! My actual parents would strangle me if I told them that they were grandparents now. If they weren't long dead, that was. Actually, they might be more upset about the fact that their grandchild was a man eating spider monster, now that I thought about it. For some reason, Medea didn't exactly make for the nicest family photos.
'Mother is designated as such by the First of all Mothers. Mother may not become something else for this one.' Great. Fantastic even. I was a mom now.
"Alright. Hey, uh Fahria? Medea is sapient now. Do you want to say hello?" I called out with fake enthusiasm while dying internally. No way was I revealing what it called me.
Fahria stepped forward with the eternal confidence that I so envied and looked Medea straight in its cyclopean eye. "Hello, Hiveborn Medea. I'm Fahria Shakirn. It's a pleasure to meet a descendant of the Third Calamity herself." My jaw dropped. I didn't expect her to speak to Medea like it was nobility or something.
'Mother, this one acknowledges this Fahria. This one doesn't think she is a danger to us now. But beware because she is strong, stronger than she lets on.'
"It says it acknowledges you." I omitted the rest.
"I'll take that." Fahria smiled as if being acknowledged by it was the greatest compliment she'd ever received. "It's not often that one encounters a spider-scorpion with its mind aware like those of old." And then her smile froze and she stepped aside. Still mad at me and I couldn't exactly blame her. She was just worried about me and well nothing was actually making her feel that, she did that by herself. I had to make it up to her.
The world froze around me. At least now I knew that Planning Phase worked like I expected it to.
'Mother, this one thinks that Fahria is dangerous. Not by her own but her blood is that of a predator who hunts our kind.'
'Are you just saying that because she is a bird and you are an arachnid?'
Medea did not answer.
And finally, after 3 days of flying, we were back home. I wanted to go to my apartment and sleep in a real bed, and check if Bonnie and Clyde hadn't destroyed my stuff or had me kicked out but first, we had to go the guild to get our rewards.
On the way between the city gates and the guild, our procession met with a much larger one. Hundreds of angry people marched in step and a classer with a voice skill was yelling above the din.
"DOWN WITH THE MERCHANTS! DOWN WITH THE ILLUSTRIS COUNCIL! OUR LIVES ARE WORTH MORE THAN SMALL CRYSTALS!"
And then another classer in a suit and a mask flew in. She didn't shout but her voice carried far.
"Scram. Leave now peacefully or you will be forced to. By the kindness of the council, this is your first and only warning. In Khagra, you would not even be able to think about raising treasonous demands like this. The Council's grace is incomparable to that."
"We have to go, now!" Ulgina hissed and Neevom basically made the ground whisk us away. Dellish people gave birth to many, triplets and even quadruplets weren't uncommon. Something about mana and classes passively strengthening everything. And that meant that people were very disposable. We moved quickly but even then, the sounds carried loud behind us
"Is the Khagran bogeymen the only thing the Illustris Council has to defend itself now? Even my own father had heard the same excuses." The protesting classer retorted and soon enough, other angry voices joined him.
"I warned you." And then the screams came.