Chapter 155: 155: The Bigger they Are…

***Ykuingi, Daughter of the Chief***

The creatures were hideous: Skin dry as a desert, strange mosslike clumps growing on their crests. They had thick stumpy limbs, and they only used two of them, so they tottered around in an extremely ungainly manner as they stepped off their raft.

They looked somewhat like a Guar, in number of limbs and ungainliness.

“Look at this guy,” Nynguik said, nudging Ykuingi “Every step he takes, he looks like he’s gonna fall over.” The farmer gave a burbling chuckle when one of the creatures actually did trip stepping off the barge.

The brown-shelled creature climbed back to it’s feet and studied the rocking surface of the raft as it brushed itself off, either studying the surface or planning to attack it. Nobody could say as their body language was unreadable.

The leader of the humans finally stepped off the raft, bigger than the others in every way.

Finally, Ykuingi thought rubbing her feet together anxiously. She’d thought it would take forever.

Who knew why her mother felt that warning them of the demon in the lake ahead was necessary, but she was getting tired of waiting for the procession of minions that served their chief to get off the raft and prepare everything for her arrival.

Which is why when the small, weakly one took the lead, Ykuingi was taken aback. It toddled up to her mother and stopped a cautious distance from them before speaking aloud in their strange, guttural language, raising one of his chunky hands.

It was obviously unimportant, being so small, especially compared to their chief.

Why isn’t their chief speaking for them? She thought, looking at the oversized human standing placidly off to the side, playing with a soaked piece of the People’s binding between her…arm-legs.

This is weird.

Her sire didn’t bother to respond to the small one’s grunting, keeping her eyes on their distracted leader.

Finally, after over half a minute of silence, the important human spoke.

****

“This is weird,” Baroke said, squishing the ball of slowly drying slime between thumb and forefinger. “Squish, squish. Gods, I wish I had something like this back in Deinos. I could probably make a mint selling this to kids, because this is way too fun.”

“Something’s off.” Calvin muttered, scanning the crowd of Ooze-weavers that seemed to hang on Baroke’s every action.

He glanced over at the archer goofing around with the slime, and once again had to remind himself that the man wasn’t dumb. It was hard to tell the difference between stupidity and extreme confidence.

Calvin had walked up to the delegation of creatures and felt…vague disinterest in their gazes… a cold kind of dismissal.

“Eh?” Baroke asked, glancing up. The creatures seemed to get excited at this, their burbling language that felt like someone was pressing gently on his eardrums gained volume.

Calvin glanced over at the delegation that met them at the edge of the forest, scanning them carefully. The biggest, meanest looking one was in front, followed by slightly smaller ones, diminishing in size following a chevron pattern until the ones in the back which were significantly smaller.

Well, shit. Size equals authority to them. Calvin realized with a sigh.

Extensive training has increased your attributes!

+1 Intuition

Calvin squared his shoulders, and did what he had to do.

“Baroke, stand up front.”

“What?” The archer asked, frowning. “I don’t wanna. What if they spit goop on me, man?”

“You were just playing with it.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna wash it off my clothes.”

“Now.”

Baroke jumped and moved to the front of the pack when Calvin barked at him.

“Karen, you’re there, Grant, there…” Calvin began organizing the group by size, and people started to understand what he was aiming at, forming a general chevron shape from biggest to smallest, leading to him and Kala being side by side.

“You think this will work?” Kala asked quietly, glancing over at him with a hint of a smile as they stood shoulder to shoulder.

“If not, we’ll try something else,” Calvin said with a shrug. As long as they didn’t accidently start a war, they should have as many opportunities as they needed.

She gave him a smile and tucked her petite hand into his left hand. the skin contact sent a warm, comforting feeling up his arm, straight to his heart.

Someone grabbed his other hand.

“Why are we holding hands?” Learner asked, holding his other hand up and studying it closely.

“We’re not – “ Calvin was interrupted by Kala pinching him in the side. Further up in the height-based chevron, Ella was giving him a dark look and shaking her head.

“Because it feels nice when people who like each other hold hands.” Calvin said, hoping that Learner would catch his meaning: They did not like each other.

“Huh.” Learner grunted, muttering to herself. “Is there some kind of sympathetic nervous response? It does feel good, to an almost imperceptible degree.”

Her hand tightened down around his, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and all Calvin could think of was his wasps being eaten from the inside by this creature’s tiny bodies. His flesh would be way easier to break down, and it was holding his HAND.

“This requires more study.” Learner said, leaning forward to look past him, studying Kala’s posture for clues. Kala grinned mischievously and leaned up against Calvin, so Learner did the same. Being that close to what he knew was lurking inside the creature was disconcerting to say the least, his vision wobbling in a near-panic.

“This does feel nice.” Learner said, voice as emotionless as ever, inches away from his ear. “More surface contact seems to enhance the effect. Is this to encourage pair bonding and breeding?”

Calvin’s goosebumps got even stronger at the mention of ‘breeding’.

“I’ll get you back for this.” Calvin whispered to Kala.

“She’s taking the path of dotting her I’s with hearts, because of me.” Kala said. “If anything, you should be thanking me for being such a good Seer.”

“Thanking you, huh? You’re my wife now, so I’m totally within my rights to be s–“

Calvin’s jab was interrupted when the leader of the Ooze weavers burbled something, taking a smooth three stepped forward, squatting down and raising its forelegs in what appeared to be a greeting.

“What do I do?” Baroke asked through his teeth.

“Copy it as best you can, obviously.”

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Calvin then got to watch Baroke shuffle forward in a crouched stance, raising his muscly arms in a long, graceful motion before setting them down again.

***Ykuingi***

Something was off, although it seemed like no one else could sense it. Tensions dropped drastically when the humans formed a normal Dignitary Formation with their leader in front.

The strangest thing was the little sickly human seemed to be…telling the other ones what to do, even the big one. Ykuingi had noticed that the sickly one had spoken first, and it seemed to be very active in the process of setting them in proper diplomatic formation.

Why does my gaze keep returning to that one, sickly, unimportant creature? It obviously couldn’t build a nest as big as the large one, nor catch as many fish, nor even carry as much brain in its small chest. And yet, there was something nagging at the back of her mind, something that told her to pay more attention to that particular human.

As the daughter of the chief, she had a duty to be particularly insightful, and there was something beyond their ken going on, there. Something involving the handicapped human.

Her mother preformed the customary greeting of strangers, and the human leader attempted to follow suit. It was an admirable effort, but it looked something like a NiyuQui bird in heat fluffing out its feather while trying to attract a mate. No matter, no one expected the human leader to be able to perform it perfectly. That she tried was good enough.

“Greetings,” Her mother said, raising a single foreled. The leader said something, raising one of it’s gross legs with many legs attached to the end, waving it in a belated attempt to copy her mother.

“We wish to warn you of the demon down river.” Her mother said, her thorax dipping forward and squirting out a bit of Binding into her paddles.

Her mother knew words were unlikely to work, so she painted a picture, the master-weaver’s legs working industriously to create a work of art even as she spoke.

“You are here,” her mother said, speaking slowly, so the savages could understand her better, tapping the map of the river she’d created in a matter of seconds.

“Up the river you are on, is the demon Yninquiak.” She tapped the picture of the people-eating monster. “It pushed our people off our ancestral lake many many moons ago.”

She lifted up the next picture as her back legs finished, seamlessly moving on with her explanation in a demonstration of weaving talent that put the other People in awe of the chief’s skill with Binding.

“This is Yninquiak. It demands a bride sacrifice from us every moon, or it will come down the river and attack us indiscriminately. We spent many moons trying to fight it, offering the greatest rewards to warriors who would brave combat with the creature, but to no avail, to a woman, they died ignoble deaths. In the end we were forced to accept its demands or leave the river. For our people, to leave the river is death.”

She tapped the picture of the demon, then the picture of dead People, killed and eaten by the demon.

“This month my daughter Ykuingi was chosen as the sacrifice. Your presence here is a sign from the divine hagfish that it is not Ykuingi’s time to die. She sent you here to that you may offer yourselves in Ykuingi’s stead.”

The chief tapped the picture of the humans offering themselves to the demon.

***Calvin***

“Is it just me, or does that look like a giant Norlock?” Baroke asked with a frown.

“That looks like a giant norlock.” Calvin affirmed. “What do you think they’re telling us for?”

“It’s fairly obvious,” Baroke said, rolling his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder at Calvin. “They want us to kill it.”

We could be heroes. Just for one day.

Wrong. If anything, between the pictures and the intent he could feel in their gazes, Calvin was fairly sure they were asking them to feed themselves to the thing… politely.

Still. “You’re right. I can’t be sure without eating one of their tongues, but that’s what it looks like.” Calvin said, nodding.

It would probably smooth relations between Ooze Weavers and Humans if this little misunderstanding were swept under the rug and casually ignored. He’d be able to kill a giant animal easily enough, so the humans didn’t need to know they’d been asked to die.

Calvin glanced over at the Ooze weaver that kept staring at him. The lumpy creature was dripping with slime, perched in the branches of a tree far above him,  gazing at him with intrigue and suspicion, while the other ones seemed to favor Baroke.

Interesting. I wonder what’s different about that one? Just capable of imagining a power structure that doesn’t involve size?

Once the weaver in front of them stopped making slime-pictures, it then ate the pictures, watching them silently.

“Bring this to a close,” Calvin said, feeling that the weavers were expecting something.

“We,” Baroke said, thumbing his chest, “Are going,” he motioned upriver, “To destroy,” He smacked a fist into his palm. “Your norlock problem.” He cupped his hand, fingers pointed up, then wiggled them like norlock tentacles.

Now tell him to say ‘capiche?’ with his fingers together.

The ooze weavers bobbed their bodies, awkwardly returning Baroke’s grandiose bow before the humans filed back onto the barge and got back on the river, waving goodbye as they did. Who knew what waving meant in ooze weaver culture, but they didn’t seem to be offended, at least.

“Baroke, first ambassador to the slimies.” The hulking archer said upon boarding the ship. “Smile and wave.” He broke into a grin and waved at the gawking slime monsters as Calvin’s summons tugged Calvin’s barges, carrying Calvin’s army.

“That can be arranged,” Calvin said, putting his forearms up on the railing beside Baroke, glancing up at his friend. “Perhaps a diplomatic marriage between my ambassador and their nobility will stabilize the relationship between our two lands.” Calvin said.

Baroke put his hand down, the grin fleeting like smoke in the wind.

“Don’t worry,” Calvin said, patting his back. “I don’t think there’ll be a marriage on the table when we kill their norlock.”

“Unless one of them was technically a princess,” Kala said, joining them on the railing, glancing at Calvin with a raised brow. “We all know someone’s got a Skill for it.”

“True,” Ella said, stepping up behind Calvin and ruffling his hair. “He does have a tendency to seduce the chief’s daughter.”

“Fuck,” Calvin said, thinking back to the snot-monster that kept staring at him. He distinctly remembered the excessive clear mucus dripping from its body and prawn-like mouth.

“Maybe we should go around the lake.” Calvin said. “non-interference with native species and all that.”

“Nonsense,” Baroke said, laying a meaty hand on Calvin’s neck, pinning him in place. “We’ve got to do the right thing, which is to liberate them from this monster’s oppression. If you’ve gotta score with a prawn-faced spider mucus monster to do it, then so be it.”

“Ooh, ooh, is this the human bonding ritual where we tease Calvin?” Learner said, shoving herself between him and Baroke.

“You could have saved those thirty-eight people, but you didn’t!” she said, staring at him with a stiff, unnatural smile.

Calvin’s fingernails bit into his palm.

“Good try,” Baroke said, grabbing the eldritch horror by the shoulder and guiding her away from Calvin. “Let me take you over there and explain to you how teasing works.”

After a few minutes of quite conversation with Baroke, Learner shouted from across the barge.

“You’re going to be forced by social pressure to breed with something gross and that’s funny!” She glanced back to Baroke. “Like that?”

Macronomicon

For some reason I really enjoy writing characters ribbing/hazing the MC. There's so little of it in these power fantasies, ya know? For some maybe it lowers his perceived authority, but goddamn it makes it feel like he actually has friends instead of worshippers.

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