Born a Monster

413 313 – The Long Path, Part Gondon had us sprint along the winding path between the Fractured and the Galeb, or Gemstone folk. I think he originally meant it as a joke, or perhaps a punishment. But then it became an hour, and then two.

In the third hour, he took a break. He was also sweating, smelling like stale paint thinner. “Well, good, larva. At least you can run.”

“Potassium salts.” I huffed.

“What, now?” he asked

“Potassium salts. The mineral shipment they were guarding about half a mile back. Your next question was to make certain I was paying attention.”

“How many guards?”

“Four visible, but the drover was also armed and armored.” I said.

“Of what caste?”

That one threw me for a pause.

.....

“I didn’t know the Artisans had their own guards.” I said.

“In our society, they don’t. So what does that tell you about them?”

“They have better equipment than the city guards will.” I said.

“Not where most larva would go with that.” He stroked his invisible beard. “Why?”

“City guards have standard gear, customized only at their own expense. The city won’t pay for fancy features or enchantments, and the guards themselves aren’t paid well for their efforts. Artisans live for making custom products, often with unexpected bonus effects. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t regard a guardsman subclass as anything other than a place to display their finest works.”

“I see your point. But most people think they won’t fight as good as warriors.”

I snorted. “If a cave lurker can fight as well as a trained warrior, I don’t see why an Artisan can’t.”

Gondon was silent for a while. “You. Take. That. Back.” he said.

“It’s a simple matter of ...” I began.

“You. Take. That. Back.” he said.

“I literally cannot lie to you.” I reminded him. “If you think those larvae back at the training grounds are the equal of any of those guards, I am willing to listen.”

He ground his teeth, but only briefly. “Those aren’t Warriors. And neither, now that we mention it, are you.”

“We have different definitions of what makes one a warrior, then.”

“Yes. Yours is wrong. Do you think that level in Pankratios makes you a warrior born?”

A what now? “There is a difference between warriors, with a lower case w, and Warriors, with a capital letter, and warrior born, with or without capitals.”

“Stop speaking nonsense.” he said. “Only the latter two are worth the time to talk about.”

“I have little enough experience with...”

“That much is obvious. Just shut your mouth until I calm down.”

And so, I kept my mouth shut and puttered about with my system until we got to the Crystal Gate.

For those unfamiliar with the crystalline Galeb (not to be mistaken for the elemental Galeb, who are more like stones stitched together by sheer will into bizarre forms), their gates are things of beauty. Multiple layers of translucent color, lit from the runes etched deep within. To say that the central oval opens like an eye isn’t wholly inaccurate. It just ignores the way the colors flow and bend, how there is no way to avoid that the very material of the gate has become liquid and moved in ways defiant of gravity.

And to witness it close, the colors clearly separating, as though each component remembered where it was in the structure before, and took up new shapes and facets, negotiating each with the neighbors that were themselves still becoming solid.

I could almost ignore that I was gaining experience in the Earthsong. Almost.

“Don’t talk to these people.” Gondon said. “We aren’t here to talk; we’re literally just passing through. Don’t even stare. At anything.”

I would not be surprised to learn that I had stared at everything, as physically impossible as that sounds. It was like touring a glassworks, or a gemcutter’s workshop. Everywhere, there was color, everywhere it shined; Even when the crystals themselves were immobile, our movement past them made for dancing columns of color.

Twice, I had to remind myself to breathe.

We progressed along roads and bridges decorated to look like snowflakes, almost directly toward the town’s center, and then less than half a turn left.

Structurally, it wasn’t that much different than if a dwarven city had been laid out as a hexagon and made of crystal rather than stone. The walls were vertical, the corners sharp and precise, the roads laid out straight and wide. And NONE of that covers what the city was.

The inhabitants, the Galeb, were much like that, also. Each wore the ultraviolet patterns that identified their chosen task in society. The Khanate bard Rasheb ibn Haseem says they are like a mob of crystalline spiders, who walk over each other in their hurry to get things done. And it is true, but forgive me if I draw other conclusions than he does.

Some colors would walk on others, but they would avoid those of their own color, or sometimes those who could walk upon them. When being walked on, the trampled was completely still, providing stable footing for the other. It wasn’t the lack of society, but part of it.

“You don’t need to stop every time one of them uses you as a stepping stone.” Gondon said.

“It seems to be what they do. Is it not polite?”

“Teaches them they can walk all over us. Stop it.”

But even with delays, we made it to our exit. I did not see the Forming, the ritual by which the Galeb transform normal stone into the crystal they use so much.

“Be ready.” Gondon said. “The quicker we exit, the fewer lurkers get in.”

The fewer? No, I had heard that right. They were resting on the portal wall we needed to exit out of. An endless wall of crickets, from the size of my little toe to the size of two fists.

No, crickets are not the only manner of cave lurker. Cave lurkers are any manner of living creature that would prefer to run or hide to fighting.

For all their preferences, when agitated, cave crickets will attack. In swarms. They’ll come right into you mouth and bite you. I bit back, until all my stomachs were full. After that, I chewed on them a bit before spitting them back out.

Their bites didn’t seem to bother Gondon any, but he made a fuss, slapping and stabbing at them nonetheless. We killed them in droves, we crushed them underfoot. We closed our eyes to keep the lurkers out of them. We did this for a quarter mile before their numbers began to thin. Even then, we set up a tent to sleep in.

“Don’t wake me if the tent poles snap under the weight of lurkers.” Gondon said. “That’s normal, and we’ll need our sleep for what’s to come. Do you remember what’s next?”

“Rock worms.” I said.

“Yes, rock worms, creatures that will eat either of us, but actually think I taste better than you. How is your acid resistance?”

“Almost none.” I admitted. “Three points per attack, currently two uses per day.”

“Good gods, larva! You paid for that? With development points?”

“I was tired of getting accidentally exposed to drops of acid. Although, thinking back on it, it may not have been so accidental.”

“You were a butthole boss?” he asked.

“I kept track of who my good workers were, and which were just there to clock hours. I had abilities that granted bonus fatigue, so they could work longer or harder.”

“Butthole boss.” Gondon confirmed. “Whatever I say about your lack of fitness to be a warrior, you’d have made a worse Artisan.”

“Uh, thanks, I think?”

He smacked me with a leather pouch that felt like it was full of rocks. “Less thanks and more sleeping. Moron.”

The poles didn’t crack, but they did shift enough that the tent collapsed. The waterproofing compound the tent was soaked in must have tasted horrible to the crickets; they made no effort to gnaw through to get to us.

With all the reluctance I myself often displayed, Gondon woke, stretched, cursed, and explained that we were wriggling out of the tent, opening it just enough to wriggle out. I was nominated to go first.

Worked for me; a serving of cave cricket counted as Protein, Ossuary, and Fat. Nine points of nutrition per serving, with no shortage of servings.

Oh, and almost no new evolutions that normal crickets didn’t have. So pretty much pure biomass, enough that I could actually get my evolution list going again. Not at the full limit of what I could do, but even as fast as I consumed it, nine hundred biomass was nearly half my maximum storage.

“Larva, doesn’t eating so much of the same thing get boring?”

“Of course it does.” I said. “But food’s food. Besides, everything I’ve heard about stone worms makes them sound like they taste terrible.”

“Larva. Don’t worry about how they taste to you. Worry about how you taste to them.”