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AR Chapter 322
🕑 Added 2025-02-12 04:00:02 +0000 UTCDays passed, and though I made sure to contribute where necessary, I spent most of it tending to those of my elites that were evolving to Keel. As we left the meeting, those who had qualified obviously exhibited their exhaustion, the strain that this was putting on them. Took, Sybil, Shemira, Vefir, Foire, Brutus, Ytte, Percral, and Joral were led to the most complete building we had that could house them all, where they summarily collapsed to the ground and fell unconscious.
While I watched, I could see the changes occurring in their bodies. Hips shifted forward, tails lengthened and thickened, shoulders broadened. Every facet of each individual shifted more and more to better suit their caste, and as I waited, I wondered if there would be a Keel equivalent to the Kha’Tal.
There is.
Nievtala spoke to me, her presence becoming more and more tolerable the more frequently she imposed on me. Though I grew more and more used to her constant presence and monitoring, I still found myself off-put by her incessant meddling.
What else am I to do?
With her rhetorical question asked, the goddess withdrew her mind from my own, and I was reminded that, regardless of what I would dream of doing or saying, she remained a goddess, and my goddess at that. Thus, her capriciousness was to be expected, appreciated, and tolerated at worst.
Refocusing on my current task, I tended to Took, making sure not to let her catch any of my fingers in her fangs. Sybil, thankfully, had been the first I’d fed, and when she’d made an honest effort to tear my fingers off my hand, I was forced to strengthen my scales and fasten them together to keep all four fingers. Her ravenous appetite was only slaked after eating well over 40 pounds of oxfiend flesh. Then, though it had been a struggle to bring it without any pails or other waterproof containers, I cupped handfuls of water to her mouth from the bladder of the same oxfiend she was currently eating. I’d thought of holding the whole thing to her mouth but decided not to in fear that she would tear it apart in her insensate condition.
A dozen Kha’Tal and twice as many keelish were assigned to bring food and water every step of the way from the nearby river, while I took the opportunity to feed and water each and every one of my elites. I wouldn’t be able to do this forever, I knew. After all, my people would grow in number more and more, and I couldn’t spend all my time nursing the Keel as they evolved. These, my first Keel subordinates, though. My friends and longtime companions, they would receive all the care I could offer, to be fed at my hand, cleaned by my magic, and bolstered by my [Skills].
It took nearly two hours for me to feed and water each of the Keel as they evolved, after which I ran my hands, vibrating gently while full of sand, over their bodies. The excessive skin and scales that were shed continuously fell away at my hand. When they defecated, I cleaned what they expelled, and throughout it all, I used [Nurturing Enunciation] to reinforce their growth as best as I could manage.
Though I spent so much time with these members of my race, my true race, they were nearly entirely unresponsive except for when it was time to feed them. Thus, after a day of keeping watch, I left to go on a brief excursion to discover what I could about the forests surrounding Nievtra. Immediately surrounding the city, all creatures had quickly learned there was a new, voracious predator in the area and left. About a mile outside of the bounds of the city’s walls, though, there were signs of goats, smaller rodents like the talking one we’d found once, and more ants. How the subterranean creatures ranged out this far, I couldn’t say, though I supposed that they continued to lose at least three hundred of their number to us every day. Even sustaining such constant losses, they didn’t slow their attack.
In fact, with Joral’s absence these days, they seemed to be growing more enraged, more bold, and more focused on escaping the bounds we’d enforced on them. Each day, they sent an additional wave of attacks to regain freedom, only to be driven back. Even so, their seemingly endless numbers served as a distraction and a danger, exhausting the significantly fewer keelish, and without Took’s presence on the front lines, the keelish were sustaining more and more injuries. Those injuries sustained went without the same care that they would have under Vefir’s ministrations, and more and more, the keelish on this front line were forced to step away from the battle. Once a day, I would go down and exercise my goddess-given capacity for slaughter.
The first time, I’d merely used the strength of my body, refusing to use any of my [Skills] or magic as I destroyed every ant that came near me. My claws pierced effortlessly through the chitin of their bodies, and ichor covered my body as I shredded through them like a blade through grass. More impressive to me, though, were the few times they managed to catch me. When one’s mandibles seized the tip of my tail, I was ready to sacrifice it. Instead, my scales turned the blow from a possible amputation to, instead, a mere bruise. Emboldened, I’d let a few more strikes fall on me, and though they were painful and unpleasant, none pierced my body’s natural defenses.
Compared to the last time, where the ants’ jaws had managed to leave quite a mark on me, I was allowed to wreak havoc, and I did so. Dozens died in single strokes, and I, for the first time in a while, truly thought about Wisterl, how she’d danced through attacks and around strikes from her foes. There was no doubt that I’d easily be able to dispatch the Wisterl that I’d known then, to defeat her and force her to submit to my personal strength. But if she were a Keel, would I have been able to?
I was a trained hunter, both as a human and keelish. The vast majority of my combat experience wasn’t against intelligent opponents, and though I had [Pack Tactics] to train me, I was far from a general or tactician. I wasn’t a soldier, but I now knew that I would need to be. If only I had her expertise, her training, it would serve me well in the coming months and years as we were forced to stave off anything from probing emissaries to all out warfare. I didn’t have that, and we’d need to train it. Just another thing on my to-do list, I supposed.
After that first day of self-reflection while slaying at least a hundred of the ants, I experimented with [Spear of the Many], [Murderous Melody], and the two [Skills] in conjunction. Though the waves of ants grew in size and power, with my assistance, they were driven back again and again, though after the seventh day, their threat required my near constant supervision.
On the ninth day, as I supervised yet another fight between the ants and my people, a keelish sprinted up to me, her eyes wide. Before she spoke, I knew what she was about to say.
“They’re waking up.”
