《Eusocial》 Go with the Flow When people imagine dying, most assume disease wearing down their faculties or a violent end of some kind. I am one of the lucky individuals who died in their sleep, I know this because I remember going to bed and nothing else. I woke up here, in what appears to be the afterlife, exteremly confused yet still calm despite my circumstances. I saw two rivers intersecting; one was as literal of a river as possible in this ephemereal place, while the other was figurative, being made up of souls, passing through the ''waters'' of the other flowing stream. I saw a huge ball submerge itself in the flow and everything rushed back to me at once. I remember this place, I remember souls, and most importantly: I remember coming here after my past lives. That ''ball'' was the soul of a diety, which I could tell because of the size. Even gods die. I begin to be pulled by an unknown force towards the river, just as it happened the other hundred or so times. This time however, I felt less than amicable towards the thought. My last life had changed me more than most before it, I experienced so much suffering and I was not keen on repeating that anytime soon. "Come on, Let me go! No, I won''t go back. Not yet!" My efforts had little to no effect, and I was right next to the flowing stream of memory erasure. I decided to try something that was most likely counter-productive to my desires, hoping it might work. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "Fine, you want me to go through the river? I''ll go through it!" This sounds stupid, but sorting through my memories I noticed that certain souls that are bigger tend to spend more time crossing to the other side. If I''m right, then it might be that it takes time to remove our memories. Even if it''s unlikely to work, I don''t have any other options. I ready myself, knowing this would probably be an unpleasant experience. I stop resisting the pull, and instead put all of my will in to my forward momentum. I plunge myself forward, immediately feeling my ''mind'' slowly being stripped away. The sensation was unlike anything I experienced in any of my lives, but I was still aware enough to know why I was there and that I needed to hurry. I don''t take any time appreciating that I was right in my assumption, simply moving forward with single minded determination before what remains of myself is gone. Almost.... there..... "made it" I was tired, as if my very existence was struggling to maintain itself and was draining my energy to do so. But I made it across intact. "wait, why am I still moving?" I was, in fact, moving. Being dragged against the nonexistent ground towards the final light that would lead to my reincarnation. All of that work, for nothing. I hate it... I HATE IT. I HATE IT SO MUCH. I could feel my will trembling, before I steadied my emotions. No, I refuse. As I passed through the chasm of existence, one thought was on my mind. " I''ll be back, and sooner than you think." Then it all went white. Authority Figure All was white, but I refused to lose myself. I was tired, there was nothing but an infinite expanse for what felt like an eternity. I got this far, I wasn''t going to quit after putting in so much effort. I expanded my awareness, I was surrounded by gray. Is this what I think it is? I reached my mind further out, finding a barrier as I contacted a white surface surrounded by a fleshy exterior. I was wrong about being inside my parent or an egg, I was inside my next body, still in my soul form as the small brain hadn''t developed enough to contain me. I knew I had to escape before the brain could contain me, or I would be stuck in this body. Despite how many stories like to depict reincarnating with all of your memories, a young mind simply can''t handle all of the pure, raw information like a soul can. Just as I was getting worried I would be unable to escape; I sensed something familiar, the light that brought me here. I could only guess that the light was there in case there were complications during my development or birth. That was good, because now I intend to cause as much complication as I can. Mustering the nearly everlasting will that saved me from the river, I pushed my sense of self away from the grey; at the same time I pulled the same essence of myself towards the white. While it wasn''t as difficult when compared to the river, it was much slower. I didn''t have much sense of time, but it felt like hours before I reached the swirling mass of non-existant light. Then I found another problem to my ''get out of jail free'' plan. How do I get to the other side? It couldn''t be two way could it? Then what would stop souls from coming in and out of here? Considering all of the earlier steps, I don''t see why whatever the heck I came from would allow me a chance to choose now. I guess it''s time to tap into my past lives as scientists and madmen, and do things repeatedly until something happens! It wasn''t the most brilliant of plans, but it was better than waiting to be forced into a body. It wasn''t like my previous plan was on the level of Einstein''s intellect. Brute force had served me well enough so far in this journey of souls, so I tried pushing through with all of my will dependant might. HRNNNNNGGGG, BEND TO ME REALITY! ACCEPT YOUR SUPERIOR! ..... is it workin- "AH!" I sensed another soul in front of me just as my confidence in my plan was waning, startling me back towards my side of the light barrier of the afterlife. It also had the effect of putting me right back where I started. AHA! Eureka! Bravo! Other exclamation! It almost worked, meaning I just have to do it again! .... This might take a while. After another long drift towards the light, I made it to the point I was at before. This time however, I did something some would consider rude. I pulled on the soul using it as leverage to escape through the light. Sorry pal, It''s nothing personal! Ha, take that mysterious afterlife forces! No one can stop me now- oooooh noooooo. Since dieties are themselves not above death, what could possibly manage and control such an obviously organized afterlife? Essences. Essences were like souls, but at the same time so much more. They were not restricted to spherical shapes like mortals and dieties, rather than that, they take on unique forms that suit them. I have no clue who or what decides their appearance, nor do I know exactly what they even are, but it makes them easy to pick out. The one floating in front of me being one such example, as I return from the light into the afterlife. I was struck with awe and fear, seeing a flowing stream that somehow expanded in every direction infinitely in one space, lightning striking in it''s flow crystalizing spots before they submerge into unseen parts of the entity. Unlike the stream that took my memories this did not pull at my soul, instead it made me feel enriched as if blooming with potential. I was numb to all other things as I stared unable to say anything. Stolen novel; please report. "Uhhhh, hi." At least, nothing intelligent. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ "So, you''re not angry?" "No, but I do have some questions" "May I, erm, also ask my own?" "That would only be fair, in my view" It turns out that the striking lightning had not been an indication on the Essence''s mood, but a representation of an aspect of itself. This was an Essence that referred to itself as Crecur. Crecur was, in fact, very much the opposite of my first impression. Calm and fairly amicable, which was another blessing I could count. Since I had been lucky so far, I saw no need to stop now when I could easily get an explanation. Apprehensively I asked my question. "so.... What exactly are you? If that isn''t rude, I mean. It''s just, despite knowing about what you are, I don''t know what it means to be one of you." Mirthfully Crecur responded to my shaky, disjointed query. "It is fine, although the answer is a bit complex." My response came quickly, like a whip to force the submission of the comment. "That''s fine, I have time." "Well then, I can see you''re curious" I''m also trying to prolong my time so I can think of a way out of this mess, one that doesn''t involve me immediately going back to the light. I think I''ll keep that to myself though, for obvious reasons. "To start, its not what we Essences are, the real question is what we represent. For example, I represent curiosity and creativity; which is also where I got my name, cre from creativity and cur from curiosity. We also are not created, we are selected based on certain criteria. What defines the criteria is based on what is being represented. Using me as an example again, Creativity requires open mindedness, and curiosity requires inquisitiveness. When we are selected, we begin to preside over all aspects of the thing we represent. This allows us to influence and manipulate things involved with our domain, as well as dieties of a similar domain." She paused obviously waiting for a shocked response, though to be honest it made sense. Essences were already unique compared to dieties, if anything would control something as powerful as a god it would be them. Despite its obvious dissapointment at my lack of a response, Crecur continued to explain. "We do this across various realities, spreading our influence to keep realities from getting stagnant." "Ok, I get the various realities thing, Souls already do that even if it isn''t by choice, but what do you mean by realities being stagnant? Also, why do you do it?" "Unfortunately you are not an essence of enough prestige to know the answer to those questions." she smugly gave me a simple shutdown. I struggled for a question, something to slow what was starting to feel inevitable. I was too engrossed in the answers to think of a plan, and I was running out of time to escape based on how much trouble I am having to find a question. Until I realized something. "What do you mean selected? How does that work?" Crecur paused, I waited as I scrambled to come up with some sort of plan, anything I could use to get out of this. It was not long, but the time was agonizing in between my questions and her answer. "It works just as how you have been seeing it." .... What. What does that mean? That.... makes no sense. Are they... Are they messing with me? What if they are!? Poker face Crecur knows I''m trying to stall, it''s going to distract and confuse me until I have nothing left to ask! All that pleasantness is just an act! It wants something, and doesn''t want to give up anything substantial to get it. It''s just speaking nonsense to throw me off and waste my time! At this point my questions are probably futile; I haven''t even been able to come up with a way out using the time I already had, more time probably won''t fix that. But I won''t give up, I have to try something. Stay calm, don''t let the Essence know you see through the deception. "What do you mean ''how you have been seeing it.'' what is selection, how does it work?" "What I mean, is that when a soul does a thing or multiple things we Essences consider improbable, we seek it out and try to understand that soul on a deeper level. We find if it can fit our needs, and if it does, what the soul is best fitted to represent. Just like right now." Crecur is messing with me, toying around with someone who could do nothing to defend against it. I understand that now, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. My only confusion is why Crecur kept up the charade for as long as it has. "By right now, you mean me?" There''s a funny thing about the afterlife, no one talks, no one can produce words or any sound. It''s more like concepts and ideas are intentionally shared with one or more other souls, although it''s rare to find it happening often when we are reincarnated as quickly in the way we experience it. This has the effect of making it somewhat hard to lie. You could omit, but outright lying would leave an imprint of deceit. Something similar must have happened to me, as Crecur seemed to respond to my melancholy. "Well, yes. Why not you? Is there really something so bad that you would think I should just disregard you?" "I refused to give up my memories for one, then I dragged a soul into what was meant to be my body just so I wouldn''t have to go back to living a little longer." "I will admit, those two instances were surprising, but not truly malicious or harmful. Speaking of those events, how did you accomplish them?" Aha, there''s the motive. They want to know how I did the deeds, and prevent others from repeating my attempts. Sound logic, all things considered. I can''t refuse, they won''t accept that. Lying will get me caught and put in a potentially worse situation. Honesty may not always be the best policy, but it is the most reliable one with an authority such as this. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. "With the.... river, I simply forced my way through instead of waiting or resisting. It was hard, but I wouldn''t consider it impossible. As for the body escape act, I don''t know, I just refused to give in to the feelings of nothingness or exhaustion." "Hmm. I see, and would you say this capability was more mentally or emotionally driven?" Why would that even matter? Aren''t they basically the same thing here? "U-umm, I would say both. I thought about how much I didn''t want to go back, and the thought of being forced to made me angry; I suppose that they both fed into each other." There was a long silence. I had given all the information I reasonably could; I had no clue what else Crecur could want from me that I could realistically provide. After a while Crecure simply stated. "While a little unusual, it does fit the profile." "Huh?" "Your behavior and motives, they match the lives you lived and to an extent give a better understanding of your overall temperment." "That means... what exactly?" "It means, I think I have found the perfect role for you as an Essence." "Wait... WAIT. OH SHOOT THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING, IT ISN''T A RUSE!" Shoot I could have handled that better. Well, guess I just have to roll with the punches now. I can''t believe this is all actually happening. I thought for sure there was an ulterior motive. The realization hit like a brick, throwing out any semblance of the illusion I knew for sure what was happening. In all of this, I had only one question. Why me? "What could there possibly be that I would do well at that others couldn''t do better?" I''ve never actually been a huge influence in my lives, a minor breakthrough here or a life saved there were the exception not the rule, compared to the large amount of souls that exist the probability of no other entity being better suited to my role is... "I know what you''re thinking, me being the best for this is impossible." I was shaken from my thoughts at this, now listening to what the Essence was telling me. "But it isn''t, It''s only improbable. Just because it wasn''t likely didn''t mean it couldn''t happen to you. So, I suppose that makes three improbable things that you are responsible for." Crecur said this with the mirth and affection of a proud parent, despite the fact it should have barely known me. Then again, Crecur implied alot more knowledge about me than it should reasonably have. They must posses some way of accessing information on me, however impossible, or improbable as Crecur would insist, it sounded. Crecur continued its spiel about how ''no odds were truly impossible'' and other such things I wasn''t sure I fully agreed with. Before finally going quiet, Crecur had one last thing to ask me. "Soul of the afterlife! Due to your will, your selflessness shown in life, a willingness to take necessary actions despite reservations on them in recent events, and a capability for the improbable: You alone have been selected to become the Essence of Eusociality. Should you pass the trials, you shall never again know death or life as a mortal or mere diety. You shall become responsible for all in your domain, and they shall serve unquestioningly in their loyalty. Do you accept?" "...Yes!" For an unknown amount of time after that, I knew no more. Back in Business Derlton was a simple man despite everything that tested him. He farmed, hated monsters or pests that invaded his land, and loved his small family more than anything. The last two fed into one another and produced his sour mood, which made his strikes against the logs for firewood much more forceful than necessary. Anklebiters had invaded, and had already left him with only a fourth of his monthly income from the repairs to his farm shed alone. There were many pests in the frontier, and as far as Derlton was concerned, Anklebiters were by far the worst of the lot. Their skin was a yellow that bordered on a golden hue, barely tall enough to nip at the top of your ankle in such a way to earn their name, and poisonous to all but the most hardy of individuals. Hard to catch, impossible to eat, and a pain to deal with were a combination of traits that made these the second worst pest on the frontier. He hoped they would one day be classified as beasts or monsters so some adventurers would come and slay them by the dozen. They loved to wreck anything they came across, a fate that befell the shed, no matter how big or small. Even other wildlife had not been spared, as they had started ruining the bee hives that were near his crops which helped pollinate them. He tried to help all he could, but there were so many of them and he couldn''t be everywhere at once. There was a single hive remaining, and even with all of the traps he set the cunning twerps would most likely find a way past them to wreck the final hive as well. He spoke to himself quietly, somberly with a fact he found hard to face. "At this rate we might need to move." He knew it was inevitable, of course, the frontier had been getting more dangerous by the month with no signs of abating. If it wasn''t Anklebiters an actual monster, as classified by the guild coalition, would come along and destroy all he had worked to build if it didn''t kill him first. He knew this well enough, but it was a nasty meal to taste. It would be hard for anyone to accept they couldn''t live in a place they had been calling home for over two decades. Even if it was only for a few months more, he would stand his ground against these creatures. He wasn''t a fool though, as soon as his family was at risk, he would pack up his things and head westward. While the land may not be as cheap when compared to the frontier, the outer territories were much safer to live in. He would even be able to hire low level adventurers or mecernaries to handle pests like Anklebiters. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. "Skritskritskrit chicka" Now there were 4 more Anklebiters, nipping and shredding a piece of his fence. It wasn''t even to get through, there was plenty of space for them to do so; it was just plain malice. Malice that made his blood boil, and whispered sweet words of harm against the pests to him. Believing now to be a good time to listen to these words, pulling out what one could describe as a flintlock. It had glass encassing a light blue crystal placed much like a magazine and a copper rod for the barrel. He started to hold his finger down against a rune on the small wooden piece connecting the two objects. Fwoosh A mass of near liquid gas that was cold like ice and white like snow, coiled around the copper before settling, the energy having obstructed the entire copper rod. The Anklebiters looked at the man, still as if they had been paused in time. Derlton simply smiled, and removed his finger from the rune. Fast as rain in a thunderstorm, the now stagnant gas rushed forward, solidifying into an icicle the moment it left the copper, and pierced the chest of the largest Anklebiter. Small crystals from the ice and green ichor pushed out of the creature''s back as the object impaled it; this caused the once chittering nuisance to crumple limply where it stood. The others ran, fleeing for their lives. They headed straight towards the edge of the farm, where the last beehive had been. "Well, I''m not running after them. Just gotta hope the traps work I guess." His energy nearly gone, the man strode back into the house. Into the loving embraces of his family that he would do anything for. First day on the job When I became aware of myself again I was in a field, beside me; Crecur was simply waiting. When it realized I had awoken the Essence spoke. "Ah, you''re finally awake. I was wondering how long it would take, much longer than I had guessed. No matter, if you had been too late there would be other opportunities." "Opportunities? For what?" "For your test. Over there is a beehive, Apis florea to be exact, which you will now take control of as is fitting of your role." "Wait, I thought my Essence was going to represent Eusociality. Why am I dealing with bees?" Had I been mistaken? What did bees have to do with being social? Sure they lived in large colonies, but they weren''t exactly talkative. I really needed clarification, I knew I should have understood why this was happening but I couldn''t pinpoint how I was aware of the missing information in the first place. That is, I didn''t know why I couldn''t remember until Crecur explained it to me. "Some of your memories have been suppressed, for your wellbeing and for the sake of not inhibiting your growth. As you gain influence and come into your own, you will gain more of the memories of the lives you led. Until then just know this: Esociality is not about ''being social'' it''s about non-fertile workers taking care of a fertile ''queen'' both of which are now capable of being under your control." "Ok so, I get that now. But what am I supposed to do?" "For now? Simply take care of the hive after you take control of it." "Ok, but how do I do either of those things?" Crecur responded in a tone that was infused with exhaustion and impatience. "I will give you access to the lives necessary to take care of creatures under your control. As for gaining that control, we have a system in place to help you while you get used to your new abilities. And before you ask, the abilities you possess are not currently known due to the uniqueness of the aspect your Essence is presiding over." Ok party pooper, you were the one so excited for me to get this gig. It continued on despite my sarcastic thoughts on the moodinesss of the veteran Essence. "Controlling things also gives a direct benefit in the form of what we call "Influence" which you can use to further expand your control, affect the world around you, or change aspects of things that fall within your domain including dieties or yourself." "So, this is essentially a test of my ability to control my aspect. With bees." There was much incredulity in my statement. Crecur, however, did not seem to notice or care about my doubt at all as it responded. "Yes, essentially that is what''s happening here." "Ok, so then, when do I start... beekeeping. After you unpause time or something? Because there are some nasty looking yellow things under that hive." I was a bit worried about them, they were obviously going to be a test of some kind. I would have to find a way to get rid of them before they caused trouble or some other objective that involved the destruction of the only thing I had. I suppose I at least have time to consider my options and carefully think over how to handle the situation. It would be ridiculous to expect me to just hop in and take over a hive and start running it immediately with no prep time or instruction. Crecur spoke before I could continue that line of thought, simply explaining to my horror. "Oh, time isn''t stopped, I can''t affect time. They are just waiting to attack your hive. As for the test and how to control- HEY WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING!?" "TO STOP THOSE MONGRELS FROM RUINING MY CHANCES TO SUCCEED!" Once the unfortunate truth that I wasn''t granted any time to ready myself was brought to my attention, I knew I would have to play it by ear. Those tiny little creatures were going to destroy my only chance to get out of the miserable life and death cycle. I wasn''t concerned about going easy on them. Their pointy teeth, long ears, and green beady eyes did not endear them to my favor. They looked like pests or monsters if I''d ever seen any. Ok, so, the slow and steady approach is right out. Gotta find out how to control these bees, and fast, if I want to have any hope of success. Those claws they have may be small, but I don''t want to assume they are any less formidible because of it. For the moment I ignored the three things that were now jumping straight up to try and get at my new hive. Luckily they were small and really poor jumpers, it would buy me some time until they realized they could climb the tree or whatever they did to get at these bees. Speaking of the bees, they were suprisingly pretty up close. Their backsides had a black and white stripped pattern while the rest of their body was a brownish red when it wasn''t grey or black. They looked like they were the back half of a bee sized zebra suit. Now I really don''t want these little ones to die, they''re too cute to deserve that! As I entered the hive, I saw the bees were few in number. From the information that was now flowing into my brain, I could tell that something was wrong. The bees looked too old to be doing this kind of work. Red Dwarf Bees, known as Apis Florea, have the young take care of the hive while the older drones forage and protect the hive. I saw hardly any young bees, and the bees I did see looked as if they had just gotten out of a fight. It was obvious they were not prepared for such a conflict that those yellow demons outside intended to bring to them. My only hope was to organize the bees and use my superior mind to remove the threat with minimal casualties. Here little bee, listen to me little bee. Nope, nothing is working. Let me try the queen, I know normally they''re just baby making machines, but those things outside make me think this place doesn''t work quite how I am accustomed to. I travelled as fast as my incoporeal form allowed, straight to the heart of the hive. There I found the queen, and a lot of bad news. The queen was obviously weak, with her thorax small considering she was supposed to be birthing a huge amount of eggs. Around her I saw maggot looking larvae chewing on the eggs she had managed to hatch despite the condition she was in. The queen moved her head towards me, and I sensed despair. Then, I heard a voice in my head. "Please, help us. my hive is in danger and I can''t seem to get my children to listen any longer. They just wonder aimlessly as if unaware of the threat. Take my hive, but please save my children." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Apis Florea Queen Has offered her hive, do you accept? Cost: 0 influence
Yes
No
No time for questions, I just need to accept things as they come. I''ll let myself be confused when my chance to succeed isn''t in the red. "Yes! Of course!" Suddenly I felt information rushing like a river into my conciousness. I was every bee, I was in every comb, and I was one with the queen as I felt her fear for the future of her children. I was the hive itself, yet so much more. I was a unique type of hive. The kind of hive corrdinated under one mind, and the kind of hive that refuses to go down without a fight! _____________________________________________________________________________________________ I had a small amount of time, and my options were even smaller in number. All I knew was that I had to get rid of whatever those larvae were, saving the colony from the outside threat meant nothing if it still died to an issue I ignored happening on the inside. Crecur said I could control anything in my domain, or something like that, it''s time to see if the Essence was leaving anything out. "Bees of the colony, there is a threat in the Queen''s chamber! Remove these invaders at once!" The entire colony heeded my words, quickly moving towards the threat. When they got there I encountered a problem, the same one I assume allowed these parasites to be undisturbed for as long as they had. The bees seemed unable to identify the larvae as anything other than another bee of the colony, every action they took was as if they were tending to a young bee before moving on to find the culprit they couldn''t identify. Ok then, we''ll just try the direct approach. Hopefully they will be willing to sacrifice ''one of their own'' for the sake of their hive. "Bees, these individuals are not of the hive! Remove them immediately!" As I commanded the deed to be done, the system I was given appeared before me in the same way as before, but with a new query.
Would you like to exterminate or remove the parasites?
Exterminate: +5 nutrition
Remove: +1 influence
Assimilate: gain a random aspect from the undeveloped creature to use on organisms in your domain
I ignored assimilate, I wasn''t exactly sure I even wanted my bees to be anything like these parasites. I knew that even if it proved useful I wouldn''t know how to use it. I needed tangible benefits as fast as possible. Ok, Crecur already explained influence but what is nutrition? I mean, logically it''s probably a measure of how much material there is to sustain the hive. But what defines how much a single ''nutrition'' is? Is the value different at different levels? Either way, my colony definitely needs food if the queen is anything to go by. Before I made my decision, I remembered the pleas of the queen to save her children. Wait, if the bees attack they might use their stingers and die. I should try to avoid that until we have a safer amount of drones. If I remember correctly some bees can do a weird attack where they swarm another creature and vibrate until the heat kills it. "Do not use your stingers, surround and heat up these creatures with your moving bodies." I chose to exterminate, I felt apathatic as my newly claimed drones covered the five developing creatures and began to shake with much fervor. It would have been cute if not for the situation and the violent reality of their actions. It took much less time than I had assumed it would, leaving corpses of the larvae for my drones to use as nutrition. I still have to deal with those tiny yellow things outside, but I don''t have many bees to spare. I doubt they would just sit politely as I tried to give them heatstroke. I''ll have to strike decisively. They have eyes, so taking those out will be a great benefit to what I''m trying to do. Beyond that, the head is usually where the brain is, I can only hope the bees have enough length in their stingers to actually finish off these things. What even are these, anyway? They certainly aren''t anything I''ve seen in my previous lives. Must be a different reality from the ones I usually reincarnated in. "Drones, attack the eyes and head, those who have used their stingers grasp their legs and arms to restrict movement." Just as before, the bees didn''t hesitate despite their new opposition being twice their height. The tiny yellow pests swiped at the bees with their claws, missing as the drones out-maneuvered the haphazard attacks. The bees didn''t swiftly stab out the eyes or into the head before latching onto the legs one by one as I had hoped they would, rather they did it as a group to the extent of getting in the way of one another. While still effective, it was not as quick or efficient when compared to the method I had hoped for them to embrace. I''ll have to look into a more direct way of controlling the bees, but for now this is more than enough to get me started. I just hope I won''t need to do any percision strikes with the little drones until I get to that point. I was brought back from musings on the logistics of bee aerial combat when I noticed my drones had finished off the first of whatever the heck these things attacking them were. The bees left over from the battle either began to sting on the cranium of each remaining creature, or to vibrate and restrain where they could if they had already lost their stingers. Soon the skirmish was over and the three yellow annoyances had been removed at the cost of about forty or so bees. It was hard to keep track of the numbers, but considering my hive had a remaining amount of bees numbering in the hundreds, the losses hurt more than it would have if the hive had been in better shape. Ok, now that the hive issues are taken care of I can focus on other matters. Such as... my confusion and existential dread.
Consume +30 nutrition, carnivore trait aquired
Remove +6 influence
Assimilate Choose an aspect to take from the Anklebiters
Ok, more stuff to use is good. Could I please get something to help me understand what this all means, though?
System Assistance Progress
Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain
"What!? What''s with all these menues!?" The existential dread would mostl likely have to wait until I was through with my confusion, which would probably take a while. Tutorial Time Even knowing that these floating boxes were for my benefit, it was all still weird. I wanted to question every part of this that didn''t make sense to me, but I didn''t know where to start. Besides, this involved Essences meaning It didn''t necessarily have to make sense to me yet. I would figure this stuff out as I moved forward.
System Assistance progress
Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain
Ok, just take this one step at a time. Assistance should give me advice on basic stuff, and system should allow me to do... something helpful hopefully, probably something specific to me rather than general advice. I have no clue what the progress option means when it says I can ''manipulate'' information, but I''ll find out when I reach that point. For now, I need to know what the heck I''m doing. I focus on the assistance ''tab'' knowing almost by instinct how to interact with this system. Focusing on the tab feeling like I was downloading an abridged rundown of what I would find inside directly to my mind. Satisfied with what I found, my focus honed in on the tab with a subtle feeling of acceptance and desire to move forward.
Communication Basic Information
Contact fellow Essences for advice or other matters of import Gain a better understanding of the apparatus used to assist you
Relatively simple, thankfully. I should probably contact Crecur in case there is more information they were going to tell me that I can''t find in basic information. It would probably also be good to apologize for skipping on their introduction in a panic.
To: Subject:
Misc: Message:
I could tell the setup of the communication page was familiar to some of my past lives, but the most I could make out of those memories was a stirring in my supressed conciousness. Luckily I retained enough information to understand what each section was meant for, excluding miscellaneous which I ignored as I cared only for getting help.
To: Crecur Further Information and Apology
Misc: Sorry for interrupting your walkthrough, I was worried the little yellow things were going to ruin my hive by the time you finished. I would still like to hear the rest of what you were going to tell me if possible.
While I''m waiting on that, I should probably find some more nutrition for my bees. I could select consume on the Anklebiters, but It says it will turn them into carnivores. How would that even work? They already got nutrition from killing things, doesn''t that count? Normal Apis Florea, and most bees for that matter, don''t eat meat. Those that do have to turn the meat into a type of honey like substance before they can eat it. If I feed the bees the Anklebiters will they still be able to get normal honey or would they be stuck killing for their food? I need Crecur if I want to get anywhere with this. I decided that instead of doing nothing while I waited for a response I would secure some more normal food for the bees I was now in charge of. Luckily, I could tell from my small amount of time outside of the hive there were plenty of plants my new hive would no doubt appreciate. "Find any flowers or crops that look like they may have pollen, Harvest and spread the pollen as much as possible before bringing back as much as you can." While there was still a shortage of food, we no longer had dead weight siphoning what little we had. Hopefully the nutrition from the larvae would last until we had enough honey to feed the hive, or I decided to consume the Anklebiters for nutrients. I still wasn''t sure how much was in a single ''nutrition'' but I figured assuming the bees didn''t have enough was a safe bet currently. I could look at ''basic information'' it might help a bit, although there might be holes in what it tells me that I need crecur to fill. Which puts me right back to square one. At this rate I might as well check on the queen, I''d be accomplishing just as much. ...Actually, that might not be such a bad idea.
"Hello there, uhm, your highness. Are you feeling better?" "...Do you mean me? I am a simple breeder, the workers are the ones who risked their lives. They are much more deserving of your concern." This caught me off guard, though in retrospect it shouldn''t have. On earth queen bees were nothing like queens in human society. Their job was merely breed to keep their hive going with a successive group of workers and those who could one day take their role should they die. Ok, not like the historically important queens at least. When I think about it that way, however, it makes sense that the queen bee wouldn''t have a bloated sense of importance. They view themselves as just another part of the hive, if a very critically important one. Though this queen seems not to realize the importance of being the lone breeder. "While you may be a breeder, you are the only breeder. This alone makes you vastly more important than you give yourself credit for. Without you the hive cannot function." "I wouldn''t agree on being that important, there are others who could take my place. I do appreciate the compliment though, and the concern. To answer the question, I am well but very tired, I will need to rest soon but until then I intend to be as productive as possible." Before I could continue arguing a realization struck me. Why am I even trying to convince a bee of her importance? it''s not like any of us matter all that much in the grand scheme. I''m not even an exception to that rule, just another of many Essences. All working towards the same goal, like a bee. Huh, kind of poetic when I think about it. Maybe the queen has the right idea, just do what I can while I can. Though it''s going to be a lot longer for me since I no longer live or die. I wonder how that will affect my ability to form meaningful connections- Wait, I''m getting philisophical over a bee. I didn''t even do anything while I was asking myself these questions. I should be... doing something. Maybe talking to a bee was a bad-
Message from: Crecur
Oh thank whatever-Essences-believe-in, finally I can get some answers. Now get me out of here. "Well, I am glad to hear you are healthy. I have to talk to someone real quick so don''t mind if I leave for a second!" "That is fine, a good day to you." If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I quickly left the area where the queen was and found myself outside of the hive. I opened the message hoping not to find Crecur too upset at my rude early departure.
From: Crecur Further Information and Formal Apology
Misc: Hello Essence (we should probably find a name for you soon). I would like to say I understand why you behaved in the manner you did. However, I believe some of the blame should go to me as well. There was information that, had I been more forthcoming with it, would most likely have allowed us to avoid such circumstances. Simply put: This is not a pass or fail test. The purpose of this test was to give you some time to acclimate to your abilities and show me what you needed assistance with. However, you have shown to be unusually capable. Considering I hadn''t even considered you would be able to adapt fast enough to stop both threats to the hive. Although you have exceeded expectations, your test is not over. I shall return to give you further information on this subject at a later date. Just know that most of what you need should be revealed by the system. The system is an adaptive intellect allowing it to be more aware of how you should handle your unique abilities than I ever could be. Until I see you again, Crecur
Wow, ok that is a Long message. Guess when you deal with creativity brevity isn''t a high priority. I suppose having a name would make my conversations with Crecur just that little bit shorter. Maybe I could combine my roles into one word and make that my name as it did? Wait that wouldn''t work unless I used ''Essence'' since I only have one domain. Eussess? no. Esseus? nah, not my cup of tea. maybe If I shorten it. Eus, still not feeling it. Esseu? ... That could work, not like I''ll be using it alot or anything. From what I''ve seen so far Being an essence is very hands off in terms of interacting with others outside of emergencies. Now, onto more important matters. Crecur said the system had all I would need, time to finally check it out. Rather than evading the inevitable, like I''ve been doing.
System Assistance Progress
Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain
Communication Basic Information
Contact fellow Essences for advice or other matters of import Gain a better understanding of the apperatus used to assist you
After Selected the Assistance tab, I chose basic information. I immediately regretted the decision as easily over a million things were shoved into my awareness at once. My entire mental capacity had been almost totally overwhelmed from the sheer volume and diversity of what was happening in my mind. Worst of all, it seemed like none of it was what I needed. Why do I even need to know about basic etiquette for ''civilized races'', I''m not a person anymore! There has to be something useful in all this junk knowledge.
"This is getting me nowhere! It''s been an hour and I haven''t found anything useful, isn''t there some way I can condense or at least reduce all of this stuff?" Lo and behold, as I made my request there were a multitude of things ranging from each menu and it''s specific use to instructions on how the system can be modified to an Essence''s preference. The latter of which I was keen to delve into. Ok, I can''t even be mad. That was on me. Considering the entire system is based around adapting to fit my needs and already behaves to follow my intent, this should have been the first thing I tried. I mentally huffed at myself and the now less confusing menu I had been given. I was still frustrated at having wasted.... well not a lot of time, but certainly more than neccessary. The bees were still collecting honey, due to the already small colony being in even shorter supply of workers to carry ''nutrition'' back home. I know there''s not much I can do just yet to affect the outcome.... but that doesn''t make me any less upset at how unsure I am of their ability to bounce back from this. I took a few moments to center myself, re-entering the calm state I preferred when not dealing with souls, alternate realities, and changes to my status quo like I had never known. After a few moments I was mostly calm, and ready to understand.... all of this "Menu, remove all prompts that are not related to understanding basic Domain manipulation." Speaking was much the same as ''thinking'' in this state, but it helped to further impress my desires and intentions. I wasn''t sure if it was going to be super helpful when dealing with the system, but I was sure it wouldn''t hurt to differentiate between passive observation and active manipulation. The system complied with my request suprisingly fast, leaving me with little over a few hundred bits and pieces of fragmented information surrounding the subject of Maintaining the ''Domain of One''s Influence'' which was apparantly just long winded way of saying the area of expertise I would have as an essence. I read on the various pieces I saw in no particular order, merely absorbing what information I could. The bees can spend a little more time without supervision, surely. I began to understand the basics of what I needed to know for expansion. Find a subject, modify the non-eusocial individual to fit inside my domain or subjugate an actually eusocial organism, and then further modify them to meet whatever needs I wanted them to fulfill. I also learned found to my immense pleasure that creatures more inclined to social behaviors were much easier to gain control of, not to mention the apparant reduction in ''cost'' of Influence. I was going to need a more in depth explanation on what exactly ''influence'' was. But for now I knew as much as stricly necessary. I even found some tailor made information that explained how nutrition worked.
Nutrition gain is based on the relative edible mass of a slain creature or harvested product compared to the amount of the resource is consumed per day by the entity under your control (Note: due to your influence being focused on collectives of individuals, your Nutrition treats each ''collective'' as a singular entity). Each Nutrition is equivalant to a single day of sustenance. Some extraneous systems alter the nutrition gained by your Creatures, such as the tutorial granting 5 nutrition for each slain creature or the System of the current reality under the jurisdiction of Essence "Crecur" granting nutrition double the experience gained through the System.
It''s a lot to take in at once, but at least now I know my bees aren''t going to start immediately. So far the apis florea have yet to earn any nutrition from foraging as most are travelling fairly far away to get their nectar. The nutrition they have was all from killing the anklebiters and parasites which amounted to 20 nutrition most of which came from the four anklebiters. This amounted to 20 days worth of food. I was set until I managed to get a consistent source of nutrition. With not much to do and no sure direction to expand my knowledge, I began searching for more creatures to lay claim to. I reached out through my awareness, much like when I had after I found myself in the form of a developing infant, to find 2 main groups of creatures. Oh, what do we have here? Heterocephalus glaber and anelosimus eximius, or I guess mole rats and social spiders in laymans terms. These two species are already acclimated to social behavior. Now that is suspiciously lucky to have both, but I won''t look a gift horse in the mouth. Although the sand puppy is more durable, I think I want to start small with what I control. I don''t exactly have a large amount of experience to draw on in dealing with either of these creatures. Better to have something that doesn''t need as much to eat but doesn''t compete for the same resources as my other creatures. "Now then: Let''s put you little guys to work, shall we?" Digging in, and getting the basics to stick I had quickly located the den of the spiders I had searched for longer than I would have likes since I became aware of their existence. Huh, how odd. This is a temperate forest, this species is supposed to live in more tropical areas. Did something move them? Or... Crecur perhaps? I know I said I wouldn''t look a gift horse in the mouth but this is a bit weird all things considered. "Menu, can you tell me anything about these creatures?"
[Pest] Anelosimus Eximius
A social Spider turned into a monster by ambient mana, live in groups of ''warriors'' and ''nest caretakers'' that coexist in a shared web and take care of each other''s young. Hardier and more intelligent than the natural counterpart, they are found in a wider range of environments.
Ah perfect, this gives me two important bits of information, albeit indirectly. First: I am in a world with mana and by extension, probably magic as well. While the tiny ''Anklebiters'' I saw implied magic was involved, that wasn''t guaranteed to be the case. This confirmed I had alot more rules to learn. If my memory of magic in other realities serves me well, it would also mean I have a few shortcuts I can take, as worlds with magic were the most filled with strange quirks that I could possibly take advantage of. Second: The spiders I have are merely similar to mundane Anelosimus but can subsist in more ecosystems due to previously mentioned magic. That explains why they are here, and why they seem to have almost double the thousand members the normal variety would keep.That would go a long way into keeping them alive, and useful to me. However, they are called social instead of eusocial. This isn''t much of a setback according to what I know from the system, but still a slight disappointment as I imagine being eusocial would make this next part easier. "Subjugate Anelosimus Eximius!"
Would you like to Subjugate [Pest] Anelosimus Eximius?
Will cost 1 Influence to modify into Eusociality and 3 to subjugate (current amount: 5)
Well, I at least have enough to do it. But how detrimental is losing this Influence? I know I get Influence from things I control but.... how exactly does that work, and how often does it happen? "Menu, how much influence do I gain?"
The progress menu in your system will tell you how much influence you gain per star cycle. (known to you as ''days'')
I mean, you could just tell me. But fine, if you want to be a tease, I''ll go look for myself. On the bright side, it also addressed my ''frequency'' concern of gaining influence. "Show me the progress menu."
Domain Essence
Everything that is under your control The progress of unlocking your memories and skills
Memories and skills. I think Crecur said something about taking my memories. How much does that affect me? Could I become a whole different individual? Yeah, no thanks if that''s the case. Although unlocking skills does sound rather nice. Well, I am supposed to be learning. I might as well find out what ''skills'' even do. Might give me an answer on the whole ''how dangerous are memories'' question. "Menu, what does the Essence Tab have to do with my memories and skills?"
The Essence tab is about regaining that which was taken from you in your transformation from a soul to an Essence. The transformation is destructive, and to counteract that aspect of its nature parts of yourself are saved in pieces so you may regain who you once were in a manner that will not overwhelm your sense of self. You can not gain new aspects through this manner however, as those must be gained naturally through traditional means such as creating new memories and practicing skills as you would if you were still a soul. Memories are recollections of an emotional and personal nature, while Skills are recollections involving your capabilities and knowledge.
That was reassuring, I would much rather have parts taken away so that they could be given back to me than to have my mind and self changed into an unrecognizable state. Though the whole ''destroying all that I was'' is still a bit much. Perhaps there is a legitimate reason behind it, but as long as I can get it back I don''t really mind. I don''t really want to get philosophical about boats and Greek guys with funny names, not so soon after talking to the queen at least. With my curiosity sated I selected the domain option, hoping that despite its importance Influence wouldn''t be as scarce of a resource that I had feared it would be. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Sources Summary of Source types
Deities (0 per cycle) Deities under your domain that grant Influence based on faith they receive
Creatures (1 per cycle) Organisms you control that grant Influence based on their success or survival
Territory ( 0 per cycle) Realities and land that passively generate Influence
Miscellaneous (0 per cycle) Non-specified sources of Influence
Yeah, I''m going to need all the Influence I can scrounge up. Five doesn''t sound like a lot, especially if all it takes is spiders to use up all of it. Well, not exactly all. Though being precise with my math doesn''t sound like too big of an issue at this point. Wait, why do I even remember math? I guess it could be useful, but still it seems unnecessary compared to other information I could potentially use. Of all the things I remember, math was higher on this system''s list than the definition of the very thing I am meant to represent. I mean, I don''t exactly remember what sentient life was like when I was alive for the most part, but controlling aspects of realities should probably require you know what those aspects are at least. What was I doing again? OH! Influence..... Yeah I need to bump up these numbers fast. All things considered, the best way to do that is get more creatures. I have enough to get the spiders but not much else. Hopefully these little guys can last long enough I can make use of them and their influence. Considering I already get one influence from the bees that are less than one thousand in number right now, this should be a big boost to my gains. I chose to claim and modify the creature. I hadn''t expected much fanfare beyond another box in the front of my awareness, but suddenly my mind was flooded with new information. I understood these spiders on a much deeper level than I had before, from their parts to their behaviors. Even more notable was what came next. This is a double helix structure... its DNA... is this.... the spiders'' DNA? Wait, if it''s showing me this does that mean I can change these things on a genetic level? .... "Nature meet your superior, evolution is now obsolete. Eat your heart out natural selection!" I wasn''t sure the limits of this system, but if I was right, then I had basically become a thinking Crispr machine. My thoughts began to quicken and become erratic once more, at the thought of my new found power. Who cares about an extinction event when you can become perfectly adapted to whatever environment comes from it instantly? Why bother with the natural order when you can mold life to your whim! Can other Essences do similar stuff? Is there even a limit? This was it. I was greater than a deity, more influential than even the laws of reality. This was the start of something unprecedented. "Menu, catalogue the potential changes I can make to the genetic structure of any organisms in my domain and create a list of all the changes I can make and what they will do to the creatures."
You must access relevant memories to do this action. This behavior will result in no benefit until you regain a greater understanding of your past lives. You may use extraneous rules of this reality to supplement your current deficiency until you gain access to your full capabilities.
....OH, yeah. Of course. Of course I can''t do that, why would a being meant to be greater than a god be allowed to actually do what they want. Just as I thought I got to the good part. For a while I scattered, erratically zigzagging mumbling angry thoughts to myself. However, the longer I went on the more I thought about it. It''s not saying I can''t modify my creatures, just that I won''t be able to right now. It sucks that I have another thing I need to wait for, but it''s still going to open up to me one day. I just need to make it on my own in the mean time. This was still good, just not immediately useful. The system even decided to be helpful enough to point me in the right direction in the mean time. "Menu, what are these "extraneous rules" that I may make use of? How may I make use of them."
Extraneous rules are aspects of a reality that do not belong to the traditional level of physics. Examples include magic, quantum physics, soul cultivation, and other non-uniform parts of the ruleset each reality may have. Your current reality has a spontaneous metamorphosis system and magic that are interconnected. The metamorphosis system allows creatures to instantly transform into a new being under certain circumstances. The magic in this reality is in the form of a sparse but powerful and versatile form of matter known as mana. Each system is out of your reach, with your only way of interaction being through your domain''s creatures.
Long story short, there is magic and some kind of transformation process in this world, but I don''t have direct access to it. Unpleasant, but workable. I simply need to find out what situations allow for my bees or spiders to access those ''systems''. I''ll be at a severe disadvantage with most creatures on this planet until I figure this out, so this is the highest priority. In the mean time, however, I need to claim my new ''thralls''. "Menu, modify the spiders to be eusocial and tell me when I make progress on manipulating these creatures on a genetic or physiological level."
Species: Anelosimus Eximius successfully claimed. You may modify new and old species by using relevant resources.
Oh, well that is wonderful news. Time to see what it is that I can do. Caveats
Creature Modification
Essence based manipulation
Extraneous transformation
It had taken an embarrassingly long time to find the tab I was looking for. Adding insult to the injury of my pride was that one of the options was unavailable, most likely related to the previously mentioned missing memories and inability to do all my weird Essence stuff. The worst part was the difficulty finding this was my own doing. After getting help from the assistance tab to figure out where I could find what I was looking for, I came across a bloated System menu filled with things I couldn''t do yet. I took it upon myself to gussy up everything and inadvertently lost track of my initial objective. I finally managed to wrap back around and find what I was looking for, the menu was not wrong when it said I couldn''t access direct manipulation of my domain''s creatures. Luckily reality was willing to give me a break. While in depth and direct manipulation of my creatures was out of the question, I still had the ''assimilation'' option along with other yet to be seen methods of growth native to this world.
You have assimilated ''Anklebiters'' and gained access to their ''poisonous'' trait
I decided to assimilate the corpses of the ''Anklebiters'' which allowed me to modify my creatures with their ''poisonous'' attribute that they apparently had. Which thinking back explained the bright yellow skin. Now to reap the rewards of my hard work! Time to make all of my creatures into unstoppable Bioweapons!
Creatures Modifications
Apis Florea (Pest) Lesser Anklebiter Venom (3 influence) Lesser Anklebiter Poison (2 influence)
Anelosimus Eximius (Pest) Lesser Anklebiter Venom (2 influence) Lesser Anklebiter Poison (3 influence)
Or not, I guess. Wait a second. The only difference between venom and poison is how it gets inside the body, these are basically just a single modification for two creatures packaged in a different way! What a rip-off! .. Actually yeah, this checks out. The execution will always be as important as the thing itself, so getting both is still pretty good. That said I only have one influence left, so I have to wait before I can even get this... lesser stuff. Why is it lesser anyway? If these guys are Anklebiters, and this is their poison, shouldn''t it just be their poison? No caveats, no buts ands or ifs? "System, why do I only have ''Lesser'' options?"
Assimilation grants the abilities from a defeated creature, but can only be used once per enemy type. The abilities gained from assimilation start of as weaker variants [¡ÌX; X representing the original ability] but can be improved by half the amount of the reduced ability through each additional killing before assimilating.
Nope, I guess caveats come with the territory. At least I have a way around it, but that requires a consistent flow of the same creature. Not to mention I can''t do it after assimilating, such as I''ve done with the Anklebiters. So I guess in the mean time I just have to improve things in other ways.
While being large in number is half of the reason why eusocial behavior is effective in nature, that doesn''t mean there aren''t areas that could be improved. Bees don''t have a need to hunt, and only defend from certain creatures that they have mostly evolved to combat even if it''s through sheer numbers rather than actual individual capability. Overall: bees are well enough equipped for what they do, excluding their current lack of numerical superiority, but spiders have areas they lack and the potential to be more useful should I focus on them. The question is how. If the spiders could effectively hunt outside of their web, there would be more prey to sustain the hive. The problem: their ability to defend would probably be reduced. The Queen is vital to the species survival and anything that gets past the others likely wouldn''t have a hard time making her lunch either. I looked over the spiders, now vastly different and fewer than before. One spider, the queen, had grown huge relative to her now subservient brood. Having been just shy of 6 millimeters before, she developed to a monumental 1 inch- almost quintupling from her previous size. Despite the size increase she was no safer than before, her already lackluster combat ability from relying on quantity based survival tactics was now reduced further in favor of a greater size. No doubt to better produce large amounts of drones. That wasn''t my main concern, however, as the number of spiders had been reduced drastically more than reasonable. That doesn''t seem good. Investigation time. It didn''t take long to see why the spiders numbers had dwindled. Some of the spiders were eating each other. I was worried that it was some kind of inverse of the parasitic larvae situation, creatures of the same nest unable to recognize each other, but those consuming the others were too discriminate- outright avoiding some of their kin. There was a reason behind the behavior, something the spiders saw and I didn''t..... but maybe my system would be able to? "System, are there any notable differences between those being eaten and those that aren''t?" The reply took less than 5 seconds, but felt far longer than it had any right to as I worried about what I would find. Then it came.
Spiders being consumed have a 100% tendency towards being male. This is most likely due to the nature of your Domain. Due to there only being one breeding female, the bodies of the females have been modified to no longer breed and the males are most likely being consumed to conserve resources for the colony as a whole. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
That was good, at least. It wasn''t my spiders turning on eachother- just them making use of the excess and making sure there was no waste. So long as it wouldn''t hurt the nest''s chances I didn''t mind too much. There were still quite a few I could count. I quickly realized that I wasn''t just eyeballing how many there were anymore either, but had an innate sense of their amount just by focusing on them. 1,340 in total, not as much as before but still way more than what the bees were at. I attempted to use the same ''sense'' on my bees and found they had already increased their numbers somewhat bringing their amount to a little over five hundred sixty. You know, I could probably use this to keep track of how much Essence I get from these little fellas at some point. Thoughts for later. Anelosimus Eximius had been changed far more than I had initially realized when I looked over the hard working spiders. Where there had once been an uneven distribution of fertile females outnumbering fertile males, now they were left with a single mating female. The rest remained infertile with the purpose of either hunting or tending to the web that was their home seemingly based on size. While all of this was not necessarily detrimental, I could still do better. The queen and young are too exposed in the web, I need to get them out of sight. But I also want the protection and environmental awareness the web grants them. I''ll have to see what other spiders do for this conundrum in the future, but for now putting them underground should solve half of the issue. I ordered the eight legged workers to do my dark, unnatural bidding: That is, digging a cave-like hole with their unsuitably spindly legs. Individually they pitifully struggled, the ground soft enough for any reasonably sized creature to easily carve into as it was soft enough to almost be considered mud if it weren''t for it not quite being wet enough. As more joined and assisted, their task became less monumental- with a shared burden their superhuman task became a construction project no different from their web. Soon the small divot in the ground barely large enough to fit a tiny spider became a hole, large enough to fit.... a much bigger spider that probably existed. There was a tiny incline and a curved ''roof'' that both let the queen that would soon rest there be able to escape over theoretically flooding water below, while also giving a seperate space for the new eggs that would no doubt come soon enough. It was a good start, but I knew I would need to improve it all eventually. What other species are there, I can''t seem to remember. Going to have to spend some influence to learn more about the different variations of creatures under my care if I want to make the best choices. Smart as I like to think of myself, evolution does tend to get results. Easier to succeed with what already works than to find something new. Besides, even if what I find is unsatisfactory I will still have a jumping point to go off of. Finished with those thoughts just as my spiders finished their work, I commanded my spider minions to begin laying a thin layer of web on the dirt floor of the underground hole for my queen. My intent being to slow down the interlopers with sticky web while also warning the queen of any who entered her domain. It took suprisingly little time as my spiders worked together each using their own webbing to speed up the process. I had imagined it would take at least a day for the arachnids, yet in less than an hour the smallest of the spiders came together and formed the final piece of the foundations for the underground ''lair'' I had envisioned. Now it was just a matter of the spiders hunting for more nutrients, they had gained only 2 in total from eating the males. I suppose the eating of males shouldn''t have surprised me all that much. Why have males taking up resources if they aren''t going to be used to mate? Some spider species already eat the males after breeding, and if this version of Anelosimus is like the social spiders from the realities I remember, there isn''t enough food to go around for all members anyway. Spreading food equally can lead to starvation, and having too big of a spider colony leads to fewer creatures being caught. Eusociality certainly isn''t a one size fits all solution. Granted, that only accounts for normal worlds. Here we have magic, and that changes things. At least, it will down the line. I intended to abuse that fact over time, but for the moment simply setting myself and my multi-species crew up for success was the main priority. While removing the male population would temporarily reduce the strain on the spider nest resources, the truth was there would always be a need for food. I couldn''t have them harass the bees in a vulnerable state, and even if I could I wasn''t sure I wanted to. While I didn''t have any ideas yet, I knew I would have to find a sustainable form of food for these carnivores if I wanted them to be anything more than a fragile Influence farm. Speaking of, I checked the influence I was gaining compared to when I just had the bees, what I found was fairly underwhelming.
Sources Summary of Source Type
Deities (0 per cycle) Deities under your domain that grant Influence based on faith they receive
Creatures (3 per cycle) Organisms you control that grant Influence based on their success or survival
Territory ( 0 per cycle) Realities, planets, and continents that passively generate Influence
Miscellaneous (0 per cycle) Non-specified sources of Influence
Oh my influence increased, I guess that confirms the whole ''more creatures gives more influence'' stuff I was told. But this feels odd. I know Essences are essentially the big shots of the multiverse, so why do I start with so little Influence? The system responded, despite the lack of intent to communicate my question.
During the Essence''s testing period, Influence gain is kept at a maximum of 5 to quell potentially disruptive growth until the individual Essence has proven to be capable of restraining themselves from ruining the balance against stagnation of any reality they may come into contact with.
Ok, So I had a maximum of 5, but I''m only earning three. that didn''t really answer the real qestion. Why is it so low?
Creatures under Essence''s control are designated as ''insignifant'' granting a single influence per star cycle every 500 individuals.
Ah, now that makes sense; while I would like a bit more to use, I don''t even have much I can spend my influence on. I just need to prioritize my influence spending. The best short term option to help the survival of my creatures is probably assimilation, but long term I would like to get my memories to gain access to my full capabilities. Either way, I should save some influence for an emergency purchase. Overall, everything seems to be in order. I just need to wait for my creatures to get me to the maximum Influence gain per day and then I can worry about finishing the tutorial. I refocused on my pet project, the spiders. The lair wasn''t perfect, and the spiders were still far from the dangerous force I wanted them to be. However, that would all come with time. For now, my main priority was to prepare. I had a good start so far, but there was more I could do and too much I didn''t know. It''s time I do some in depth research. Interlude: Corruption in Eden Dearlton sighed as he finished setting out the meat for the lazarynths. They were giant lizards with the size and temperament of a medium sized dog, notable for their quick breeding and prolific egglaying. They were hardy creatures, able to come back from near death, hence why they were named after an ancient alchemist who had managed to ressurect himself and others. Best investment I ever made buying these big lugs. No wonder everyone has at least a few on their farm, before the anklebiters these lovable dopes probably accounted for around a fourth of what I made. His happy thoughts were cut short, remembering the anklebiters. They had all but disappeared, which would have normally been a blessing. Unfortunately he had a feeling in his gut, much like when he heard that monster sightings on the frontier were on the rise. The feeling hadn''t steered him wrong before, which made it worse when he had no clue what was causing it. He had only one clue, the bees. Stolen novel; please report. Bugs aren''t supposed to be that organized. They went from bumbling around looking for the nearest flower to practically flying in formation to my farm for pollen. It''s just not right. But I got no clue what could be causing it. Dungeons don''t go for bees, too much reward for not enough conflict or death. A hive lord wouldn''t be subtle enough to not attack my livestock. I''ve never heard of bees getting organized on their own before, especially when they were on the brink of collapsing just the other day. Worse still, I found some mana-spiders nearby. Social ones from the look of it. Whatever got the bees acting funny, hit those spiders too. He wasn''t going to take his family''s safety at risk. but he also couldn''t afford to move just yet. He''d have to wait until the season ended. That left one option avaliable to keep whatever was causing this from hurting his wife and kids. Gods above, I hate adventurers. Why do they always have to be the only solution? Doing your Research
System Assistance Progress
Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain
System
Aspect Manipulation Reality Adjacent Systems
Create and control realities, dieties, or anything else that falls under your purview Make use of a reality''s extraneous physics and rules to affect how it interacts with your related aspect
My small amount of looking into the system quickly led me from the menu I first saw when intereacting with the system to a couple of ''submenus'' that, according to the descriptions, helped me understand what I could do as an essence without outside help or what I could do with the systems other essences added to this reality. Heck yeah, now this is some progress! No. No. I shouldn''t get excited, there''s still plenty to work on before I even think about celebrating. For now, I have to just rely on the ''adjacent systems'' avaliable. Looking in, I found a list of the various ''systems'' that influenced this reality and those who lived in it. This seems to be one of the realities where creatures can go through some kind of magic metamorphasis. People aren''t left out either I see. They have their own independant ''class'' system that seems to pack a punch. So far it makes a good amount of sense, but I don''t know why Crecur feels the need to disturb the normal cycle of reincarnation. They have some kind of ''hero summoning'' stuff they put in. Normally souls go through life, go through the river of souls to lose their memories, and then are born in a random reality to get on with their new lives. Messing with that just to give slightly less random people power seems a bit unnecessary outside of emergencies. Granted I don''t know what kind problems would warrant an essence to build an entire system just to deal with it, so I''ll hold my tongue for now. I also don''t want to deal with these ''summoned heroes'' either. From what I can tell they both start stronger and, unlike natives of this reality, never stop leveling. Terrifying and unfair, an unpleasant combo to deal with. At least I know what I''m up against if push comes to shove. I would rather avoid it altogether, but I understand that probably isn''t in the cards for me. Realities with rules involving monster evolution tend to lean heavily into conflict and violence. Heck realities in general have their fair share of fighting. No matter where I started, my creatures would have always needed to protect themselves. I mean, I know they are going to die eventually but I''d rather not find out how bad that is for me outside of a tutorial. Just because I escaped the rebirth cycle doesn''t mean there isn''t other stuff to look out for. I''d deal with the need to fight when it became an immediate problem, for now I had more pressing concerns. Most important was taking stock of what I had at my disposal and how I could use it to my advantage. It wasn''t looking good so far. You know, this enchantment stuff would have been really cool.
Enchantment and Rune system unavaliable, cannot interact with a reality outside of your aspect and influence.
Yeah, you told me that already. Magic items are off the table. I hope it''s not ALL inorganic things that are unavaliable to me. I''d really like a robot army, I can already imagine how efficient they would be. Not sure how I would make them eusocial, but I''d like to at least have the chance to try. Either way, that leaves one thing I have avaliable. Thanks to my research, along with the basic memories I had from certain previous lives, I knew that creatures could vary in how they ''evolved''. Everything so far has led me to believe I could use systems that other essences put in place, such as the evolution system for the various creatures here. Theoretically, I could choose the evolutions for my creatures to give them the best start possible. I wasn''t sure how close or far any of them were to evolution, but I was fairly sure of my ability to affect the outcome at least. "System, show me the evolution menu for anelosimius- In a split second, I decided to do an additional bit of research. I wasn''t really sure how aware of my desires the system was. At times it responded before I even tried to contact it, but it also seemed to misunderstand me like with the reminder of enchanting being off limits. It was time to make a cursory attempt to understand its limits. If my system could understand what I wanted without exact commands, which seemed likely considering the few times it answered me unprompted, it would be likely it could understand my intent on some level. That, combined with the ability to adapt according to crecur, could open a lot more possibilities when I actually got to control more exact details like my creatures DNA. "System, show me the evolution menu for my creatures."
Due to the [Eusocial] ability, the evolutions of all in the brood except the queen''s are predetermined.
Abilities, I had learned about these during my research. They turned out to be a fundamental aspect of the class and evolution system in this reality, supplementing and enhancing the capabilities of any creature or person using them. While stats improved baseline capablities to beyond normal limits, this was on a different level. Abilities could take something as simple as throwing a rock, and turn it into a powerful form of attack that surpasses actual weaponry in a non-system using individual, and that wasn''t including how abilities also often benefitted from the ''stats'' of the individual. The only issue is, abilities usually aren''t gained from effort or practice. You need either a class as a human or to be a creature capable of evolution, the latter of which requiring mana on some level. Gaining an ability is difficult, but it''s even harder to get rid of one. Humans would have to change classes, going back to the very base level with minimal compensation for their previous progress. In the case of a creature like my spiders, unless they got an evolution that explicitly removed an ability, they were stuck with it. Well, that''s not targeting at all. Even if they did get an evolution that could remove the ability, I still wouldn''t be able to take advantage of it because they have to be eusocial for me to control them and benefit from them. I mean, an Essence of eusociality using non-eusocial creatures? I find it unlikely that would be allowed. Although, the fact I can still evolve the queen does give me a minor work around. But, it''s still less than ideal. I was really leaning on the idea of using evolution to give my little creatures a better chance. Without access to the evolution system in the same way as other creatures, they''re no doubt at a severe disadvantage. Which, while making sense due to the sheer number of creatures that can live in a eusocial group, negates the last thing I have left to use. My bees and spiders would be no better of with me than without me, would they be sitting ducks? It said there were predetermined evolutions, maybe those could be good enough? They should be able to survive without me after all, and abilities are supposed to be helpful in the first place. It''s possible that whatever they evolve into is still useful, or even that there are more than just a single evolution- like ant colonies having different ant types. .... No, that''s just hoping for the best. Even if it''s supposed to give an advantage, which isn''t garunteed as I wasn''t fully sure what advantage Eusocial even gave so far, that advantage might not be useful in the way they need. Relying on chance is a fools plan. I can''t remember giving up on an obstacle before, and I won''t give up at something as simple as this. I need to find an actual workaround. But how do I work around something that absolute? You can''t say no to gravity, and I imagine the systems an Essence puts in place are in the same vein of untouchable. If the system says eusocial creatures have to evolve a certain way I can''t just say no. ...However..... It never said there that the restrictions themselves were absolute. Sure I may be limited to what the evolution system allows me to do, but If there''s an ability to restrict evolutions- there could be one that does the opposite? It''s not exactly a sure thing, but it''s possible. If that''s the case I should be able to use the.... tutorial box? I can''t keep calling it a system that would be confusing. Whatever, the orange screen thing: I can probably use it to find what I''m looking for if it exists. On the bright side, this means another chance to experiment with the boxes. "System, how do I deal with this downside?" I never explicitly stated what the downside was, or ask for a certain way to solve the problem. If it manages to identify how I want to solve the problem, that would mean the boxes most likely can understand my intent. Even better if there actually is a solution.
The [Individualistic] ability allows for eusocial creatures to undergo various different evolutions. Although these evolutions are more limited in scope to non-eusocial creatures.
Now we''re in business! Intent? Understood. Solution? Found! Ok, so I just have to make sure the evolution my queens go through have the individualistic ability. That shouldn''t be too hard.... hopefully. I''m still pretty sure they can''t evolve just yet, it hasn''t even been a full day since I got them. I''ll have to double check to see if I''m right about the evolution, regardless of the answer I might as well get ahead of the curve and see what options I have. After all, the entire point of this was to take advantage of any information I can get a hold of. "What are the evolutions avaliable to my spider Queen with that ability?"
Conquering Yellow Arachnid These queens are less mothers and more generals, producing smaller but more powerful ''militia'' of offspring to fight battles alongside them, and reap the rewards of hard-fought frontline combat at the cost of their nest building abilities. This species is all about high risk high reward, and putting all your eggs in one basket.
Spider Queen These queens are slow to build up their nests full strength, but are the hardest to get rid of when established. If you find a nest in your home- that''s no longer your home, it''s theirs. This queen bolsters her children making them better at what they''re already good at, Quality and Quantity- A force to be reckoned with.
Caring Crawler These queens hold a small amount of magic power, and a strong desire to keep their swarm alive. This species is adept at attritional combat, and have a nasty tendency to come back from whatever''s thrown at them. With the intelligence to hold a grudge, these are very protective and very vindictive mothers.
Ok, new problem. Those seem like good choices, but I don''t know for sure what the quantifiable difference between them is. What is the difference between ''quality and quantity'' when compared to ''putting all your eggs into one basket''. As a matter of fact the ''system'' in place is supposed to be quanitifed from what was said. So.... where are the numbers? Show me my creature''s stats! And so the orange boxes answerd
Progress
Domain Essence
Everything that is under your control The progress of unlocking your memories and skills
Creatures Creatures that represent your domain and will, including dieties and their worshipers.
Territories Areas that are under your uncontested control grant influence based on how well off the land is. Realities under your dominion also fall under this category. [You currently have no uncontested territory]
Resources You may take and move certain items relevant to your domain to other realities. [You currently have no resources]
Oh..... Well ok then. I selected the creatures option, the dieties and followers option unsuprisingly greyed out. I doubted there would ever be a time where I got to that point, but I''d just have to see for myself. Instead of finding a list of individual creatures under my control, I found an option called ''collectives'' which I took to mean groups of eusocial creatures. I guess that makes sense. Better to be able to differentiate between individual groups rather than sorting through my entire collection of bugs. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Selecting collectives finally got me what I was looking for.
Bee Colonies Spider Broods
I don''t get why it needs to call them by different names, but more differentiation can''t hurt I guess. Anyway, Spiders first because that''s why I came here.
Queens Drones
Oh, It let''s me choose between queens and drones. That''s really useful. If I start getting multiple colonies then I can just select the specific colony I want through this by picking a queen. Unless multiple queens are in a hive, but I''m not even sure if that''s a thing. Let''s try drones first, I imagine that will take the most time out of the two. I''m probably going to have to sort through a good bit of information-
PAIN
For an unknown amount of time agony was all I knew. Information overwhelmed my sense of everything, including myself. It felt like everything was nearly bursting at the seams as infinity flowed through me. I had no mouth to scream with and yet I could hear a chorus of screeching and shattering glass filled the entirety of my conciousness. It felt like I had gone back through the river of souls, but now it was made of burning light and sharp fragments. Opening the drone page turned out to have been the wrong choice. If I had been a living thing still I most likely would have died outright from the sensory overload. Thankfully I was an Essence, and only in agonizing, disorienting pain for.... Ouch, that was a whole 4 hours. Note to self, look before you leap on the menu. I just wasted around a fourth of my time left in the day. Granted time moving forward just gives me more essence, but my creatures don''t have the luxury of being able to just wait like I do. Speaking of which, I should check on them. The bees had become disorganized, which while normal was.... wrong. There was no way to put it, I just felt they could be doing things better. I may not have been an essence of efficiency, but life is survival of the fittest- and sometimes doing things fast was the determing factor. I organized my bees, having them fly in tandem to observe flowers and collect pollen from those untouched. They took a while to get into a pattern, and often failing to follow it until they observed the correct behavior. I would have to occasionally remind them in order to make sure they didn''t revert back to their base instincts. I noticed what seemed to be a very tan, stocky man looking at my bees in either awe or terror. I wasn''t sure exactly, I just vaguely remembered a mouth hanging open being one of those. My spiders got the same treatment as the bees, only instead of better pollination they webbed out a nice defensive alarm system for prey and predator alike. This would ensure more of them got fed, and would be better prepared if something out of their league came close. That was... a weird feeling. Starting to think the menu might have been holding back information when it said I was unchanged. Either that or I''ve always been obsessed with making things work better. Speaking of wierd feelings though, why the heck did I get knowledge-flashbanged by my own system I looked into my memory to understand what happened to me and how. Apparantly, I had recieved so much information because I was getting information on every single creature down to their fundamental basics. Mainly DNA which, being massively complicated and able to store massive amounts of information, made what my senses took in far larger than one would expect by looking at a group of spiders. It didn''t help that I was taking in each individual''s DNA structure, which all had small differences further increasing the flow of data. I imagine my ''mind'' still isn''t used to or capable of taking advantage of not relying on a brain to store and process information. That could explain why I have to spend essence as part of a ''tutorial''. It did something to my conciousness to make it better at dealing with that stuff. Too much information before I''m ready, and my mind goes blank with overstimulation. Heck if my theory about it being a sign of danger, like pain normally is, it could be I actually can''t handle that much information at once yet. I imagine being an essence dealing with eusocial stuff would require at least some DNA tweaking every so often, otherwise why would I have the ability? Probably best to ease someone into that, to avoid potential death. Granted, a better warning for when I was overstepping my bounds would be nice. I looked at the numerous pages in front of me. All of it showing information for different, individual spiders. Every page showing different stats and levels as well as a catalogue of various genes that I knew nothing about. Yeah, I''m not going to keep track of the status of every individual creature. Heck, I don''t even need the DNA stuff just yet. I''m fine with keeping track of them on a macro scale, unless there''s some kind of fight they''re better off dealing with most of the minutia.I''ll get a better handle on things before I try to take over completely. Maybe when they evolve I''ll try a more detailed look into them, but that much information is beyond me right now. I''d rather not push my luck a second time. In fact, I think it''s time the system started pulling some more weight.... The menu was obviously fairly intelligent, and good at adapting to my needs, but I hadn''t really attempted anything quite on this level. Sure, I had manually changed the layout of it. Yeah, It had the ability to understand me and do certain things independantly. That didn''t necessarily mean those facts would work in tandem. Simply put, I wasn''t sure if this would actually work. If it did, it would be an immense time saver. If not, I''d be dealing with alot of things I just wasn''t yet handled to equip. So obviously I was really banking on things turning out in my favor. "System, aggregate my drones of identical types into an average specimen in the drone menu, and create new aggregates when I recieve new Drone types." If this works, I could probably do that for queens as well at some point. Although, considering how small their numbers are going to be in comparison, it won''t be a high priority. After waiting for a tense few moments, fearing my escape from life became it''s own kind of torment, I finally recieved my spiders averaged statistics. It was a nice change of pace to have something go my way.
Anelosimus Eximius (Pest) Average Level: 13 A mana enhanced nest building species of spider with cooperation based survival patterns.
Note: 20 in a stat is peak non-system enhanced human capabilities.
Base Statistic Amount Description
Power 1 Raw strength, helps do damage and overcome resistance
Resilience 1 The toughness of a person to physical damage/effects
Agility 4 The flexibility of the body, person''s overall speed, and muscle memory. Assists in accuracy of melee
Vitality 1 The total health and stamina of the body, resistance to ailments, and speed of recovery
Soul 1 The capacity for mana and magic
Will 0 The resilience against mental effects, focus, emotional stability, ability to ''push beyond limits'' temporarily
Mind 1 Intelligence, wisdom, ability to manipulate mana and similar effects, memory
Senses 6 Reaction time, situational awareness, assists in accuracy of ranged
Level Stats Main Stats every 4th level
[Main Stats] Amount
Agility 1
Senses 2
Vibration Sensitivity Senses stat is doubled when on a web or the same surface as the sensing target
Eusocial This Creature''s experience also benefits the ''queen''. This creature is considered under the control of said ''queen''
Wall Crawl Removes penalties for vertical and upside down movement
Web Create sticky webs to trap others
Ok, that''s good. I mean, it''s terrible, they''re nowhere near the strength to defend themselves if a person tries to wipe them out. 20 is peak human without the system, these creatures don''t even get passed 10. Even with their numbers it wouldn''t be much of a fight if they faced someone with a class. However, now I know that they''re terrible. Which means I can make my choice on what path for them to take in a more educated fashion, rather than flowery descriptions. I went back to the previous menu, and picked queens. Instantly the system shifted my attention to the single breeding spider I had avaliable, while also conveniently showing me their ''Status'' which I quickly trimmed to make more convenient to look at.
Anelosimus Eximius Queen Tier: Pest Level: 13
Power: 2 Resilience: 6 Agility: 5 Vitality: 8
Soul: 1 Will: 0 Mind: 1 Senses: 9
[Level Stats] Main Stats every 4th level
[Main Stats] Amount
Resilience 1
Vitality 2
Senses 1
Ability Description
Vibration Sensitivity Senses stat is doubled when on a web or the same surface as the sensing target
Eusocial(Queen) Gains Experience from those under your control, reproduce a steady amount of drones over the course of a day.
Wall Crawl Removes penalties for vertical and upside down movement
Web Create sticky webs to trap others
This, is marginally better. I think? It still isn''t the most detailed, but it''s still better than what I had previously. I see what they can do, but it really doesn''t get in detail or have numerical values. I could understand on Vibration Sensitivity, that''s a simple and straightforward explanation, but others are more vague. Like, what determines the amount of experience gained and how many drones are produced- I didn''t even get to finish the thought. The orange boxes were getting faster at responding. Whether this was because of the previous attempts to use intent to better communicate, or just a natural change from the menu''s adaptability, I had no clue.
[Eusocial(Queen)]:Drones produced is equal to (vitality*10) but is spread out over the course of a day. Experience gained from drone kills is halved before being further reduced based on normal experience reductions or increases.
Well there we go, then. I guees no more fumbling in the dark, I just need to ask the system to find the answers for me. I''m starting to see why other essences keep this thing around. It was time to take another look at what my spider''s potential evolutions had to offer. My apologies The unfortunate truth is that I underprepared for creating a story. I had a general outline of where it was going to go, but not a plan of how to get there. As it is, I feel stuck and unsure how to move the story forward. It''s just too open and I need to fix that. However I have things the continuously creep up on me. This is not a goodbye, this is me giving myself room to grow before I come back. I need to cut my teeth on some simpler story telling before I try something this open. It will be a while before I post a new story to take this one''s place, as I want to make sure I have a REAL backlog rather than a few buffer chapters. I regret that I was underprepared, but this was a learning experience for me. When I return to this story I will have a better idea of where to go and what I want out of it. Trust me, I WILL be returning to this story. I enjoyed writing it even if I couldn''t find a firm direction for it, and refuse to leave the story unfinished when I have so many ideas left in my head. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. In the mean time? I''m going to be making up for lost time. See you when I return!