《The Eternity Games》 The Eternity Games: Prolouge Light. Bright Light. Bright White Light. ¡°Where am I?¡± I close my eyes and re-open them to check if I''m not imagining things. It¡¯s still bright. ¡°No, really, where am I?¡± I mutter to myself. I slowly pick myself off the ground and observe my surroundings. The bright white light is still prevalent all around me and seems to be the only visible thing to me. My feet seem to be standing on nothing but my hopes and dreams but the surface seems sturdy enough. I do a double take on the environment. Nothing but bright white light. A certain anxiety creeps into my brain. There is absolute silence with the exception of myself making noise. My heartbeat increases. With nothing to go on, I pick a direction and walk. I travel across this place but it doesn¡¯t change at all. The sound of my steps and heartbeat make me go on edge from the lack of anythingin this place. It all seems like a bad dream. A really bad dream. ¡°This is no way a dream.¡± I mutter again. An unhealthy habit of mine but any solace of sounds makes me less anxious from this situation. ¡°Indeed, it is not.¡± Bellows a voice all around me. My alarm bells ring, this isn¡¯t normal. Granted me waking up in this white plane is already out of the ordinary. Calmly I inquire, ¡°Who are you?¡± The voice bellows again ¡°I am what your kind refers to me as a god.¡± ¡°So, your kind does exist huh. Never thought I would actually meet a deity. What do you want from me...¡± ¡°Moruna¡± ¡°Moruna... yes why am I here and what do you want from me?¡± ¡°Let me open the door for you and we can discuss this at a table.¡± I notice in my peripheral vision a large dark wood door emerges from nothing. The craftsmanship is rather exquisite and looks nothing like what I have seen at home. Unfamiliar runes and carvings on the edges that seemingly tell a story. The door stands ajar and I hear the voice again ¡°Come, come Gherman, we have much to discuss.¡± This time the voice sounds less like bass speakers and more feminine and archaic. Seems like the goddess refers to herself as a god, I wonder why. I speed up from my slow walk to finally get some answers to my situation. Putting my hand on the door I feel an almost steel like feeling in my hand, the wood is definitely not from earth, pushing the door slightly to let myself in I see a rather small room. The first thing I see is a large brown table with its legs intertwining in the middle, two chairs with a similar design on opposite ends. The chair on the left is occupied by this god (goddess?) Moruna. Our eyes meet. She has pure golden eyes, no pupils, just gold, enchanting. Shifting my eyesight, I see that she is puffy so to say. Not fat, just puffy like an omelet. This makes her entire figure curvy with a soft feeling. A spark of curiosity makes me instinctively shift my vision on her assets and I get a rough shape before my mind screams that this is a deity and ogling her would probably get me killed. However, she is quite moderate in the chest department, maybe due to her figure they are partially hidden and the same goes for the behind. Her attire is also simple, a white robe of sorts that covers most of her down to her knees.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. She coughs softly to take me back to reality and says ¡°Come, sit down.¡± I briskly walk to the chair and sit down. My head wanders around the room again and it seemed rather barren. Only a circular bed with an abundance of pillows made from the same wood as the door and what I assumed was a closet of sorts. I begin the conversation properly and hold my hand out ¡°So... Greetings Moruna, I am Gherman Jalek although you seem to know that already, given you are a goddess and all.¡± She playfully smiles and shakes my hand ¡°Likewise Gherman, I am a god or goddess, however you deem fit to call me as they are essentially the same. What do you want to drink?¡± ¡°Black Coffee please.¡± With a wave of her hand, the black coffee rests in front of me. Neat. I take a small sip to get my brain to run again at full speed. ¡°I have come with a task for you Gherman. You are going to become my champion and lead a certain group of people into conquering a newly formed galaxy.¡± ¡°Now that¡¯s a task and a half,¡± I mutter. Conquer the galaxy? What? I¡¯m just a regular guy who created and led a news station into becoming the number one channel in the world and she wants me to conquer the galaxy? I hear a slight chuckle from the goddess, ¡°Oh my! Your expression is gold!¡± Her chuckle turns into laughter. Indeed, my frowns are famous in my company. She stops laughing and shifts into a serious scowl. ¡°Let me fully explain so listen carefully, us deitys all compete in an event called The Eternity Games in which many individuals of different species of sentient origin are sent to meet their patron deity. From there they choose a species to lead as their immortal King or Queen or however you deem fit to rule your people until they hold full authority over their home planet and from there the galaxy.¡± She pauses for me to digest the information. So, I''m just plucked out from earth to compete in god games? Wonderful. What about my family and my business? What about everything I wanted to do before retiring? Noticing my grim expression, she adds ¡°Naturally everything you have left behind is safe and sound, you are a simple clone of your earth counterpart, your body is still inhabited by you, I just took a copy of you and planted you here. Everything about the Gherman Jalek on earth is the same as you here.¡± ¡°So why me then? Why abduct me over the 7 billion other humans on earth and why do you do these Eternity Games? ¡°Well, first of all, you are perfect for what I need.¡± She summons a pair of glasses and a piece of paper and starts reading ¡°Gherman Jalek, 39 years of age according to earth¡¯s standard, accomplished businessman, and leader who propelled his race after creating a company that handles information in a proper factual manner. That business leads to the downfall of the corrupt people in power all over the world as the civilians are given hard proof of their misdeeds. Many revolutions and coups later and the majority of the human race are back to working together in order to conquer space.¡± She stops reading and puts down the glasses. ¡°You, Gherman, made my previous champion ecstatic in your actions so he is now trying to complete his Eternity Game in the next phase. You were protected by my champion when I told him of your company.¡± Are the humans already led by a champion? My business did that? That is a bombshell. ¡°Yes, Gherman that is what happened." ¡°But still, why me? Although you claim that¡¯s what happens next...¡± ¡°Happened, in here time goes slightly faster than on Earth.¡± She interrupts me. ¡°I chose you because you are a natural leader, a man of justice and ambitious. My previous champion of your race was quite the ambitious man but he lacked a just nature in his early days so humanity came out to be imperfect, although now he is on the right track.¡± ¡°Then what¡¯s in it for me?¡± Another chuckle escapes her lips ¡°Gherman we both know you¡¯re not going to let this pass but I can tell you that if you do achieve victory over everyone else, you get to join me into godhood but I cannot reveal anything else until you accept this proposal.¡± It¡¯s true. Since I heard that my life on Earth is still technically in my hands I considered this. Would be an interesting experience, who can say they played champion for a deity? I notice my leg tapping the ground in an excited fashion. My thoughts are direct about the specifics about The Eternity Games and my gut is propelling me forward. ¡°I accept your proposal!¡± ¡°My, my, resolute and without hesitation. We will get along just nicely.¡± She chuckles again. ¡°Shall we get into the specifics?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s Begin!¡± Chapter 1: The Choice ¡°First of all, Gherman you need to be aware that the champions get a boon from their patron deity to manage your chosen race. They may vary but to give you some examples; I gave my previous champions a custom User Interface, different kinds of auras and brain comprehension abilities. Naturally, if none of these choices are, we can always figure out something new.¡± ¡°How powerful can these boons be?¡± ¡°Generally, they are limited to be used within your territory or your capabilities so there would be no foul play that has no opposition due to choosing a different boon.¡± ¡°Then tell me more about the different User Interfaces they sound the most useful.¡± ¡°Firstly, there is the basic but reliable game like User Interface which you would expect from strategy games found on any planet who can create them. There are also specialized versions of certain aspects of it. For instance, you can have absolute control over your resources or have absolute control over the direction of your culture, science projects and many more aspects that makes civilization. Secondly, there are User Interfaces that give you detailed information about the majority of your subjects and helps with the management of your empire. Thirdly, there is a rather specialized version of maps that can do many different things.¡± I begin to mutter again ¡°All of these are incredibly useful but I feel like they are missing something...¡± My brain goes into overdrive. Although knowing about your resources or subjects is good I don¡¯t think it fits my style. Damn I wish I had George here, he knew everything about the company like the back of his hand and we never ran out of anything that we needed. What if I make George into my boon? Yes! Yes!! Perfect!!! But what should he be made into, a UI? Or like a partner in my brain? The goddess brings me back saying ¡°You seem to have figured something out but remember we can always create a new boon if the previous choices seem too unfitting.¡± ¡°Right¡± Forgot about that but then what should I make him into? Think Gherman, think. If it only works in my territory or on me and I need to be almost omnipotent over my empire then wouldn¡¯t a sort of eagle eye view of my territory be what I need? ¡°I think I have some idea, what if I can see my entire empire from a bird''s eye view?¡± ¡°Well that seems new but it''s too weak, add something too it.¡± ¡°Then what if in addition to overseeing my empire and everything in it from above, what if I have all the details of not only people but resources as well?¡± ¡°Scratch the details about people since that would be like having two boons but I can give you a basic version of it that shows a tiny bit of information and I can make it so that the resources aspect gives you small details about the effect on your empire if you choose to exploit it! However it would give basic information since that would also be like a second boon.¡± She leans in while continuing. ¡°Also, make it a map so it would fit within the category of UI and trust me you would feel much better without vertigo from having a bird''s eye view.¡± ¡°Then what¡¯s next?¡± ¡°Now you can choose your race you shall lead!¡± She gets way too excited about this, maybe joining her in godhood would probably help her in whatever the gods are up to. She waves her hand and a TV appears to our right, floating above the ground. It had 3 different names and a picture of the races.
  1. The Mrentoni
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  1. The Harnashaa
  1. The Fel
Having slowly read through everything, I turn to look at Moruna to get a tell off her but she seems glued onto me instead of my choices, she probably has seen them before. Then what should I choose? The Warrior Sharks, massive centipedes or small fairies? The Goddess adds ¡°Remember that their traits do not mean that you are stuck with them forever, your choices in leadership may add or take away certain traits which may lead to a completely different type of race compared to its humble origins. These traits are what they have right now.¡± I see, so it''s realistic to an extent and not like an actual game, well maybe a game to them but for us the champions it¡¯s living among them and influencing them. Then the most malleable to my goals would defiantly not be the Fel, although they wield magic, they won''t easily change according to my will. The Harnashaa are religious fanatics and that already makes them a no go. I guess the Mrentoni is my best bet, Muscle heads are always the best to lead. ¡°Then I choose the Mrentoni!¡± ¡°I knew it. I hoped you would pick the Fel but somehow, I knew you would pick the Mrentoni. No matter, it¡¯s your choice and granted they are probably better for you given your previous antics back on Earth.¡± A hint of disappointment escapes her tone but she is back to her cheerful self in seconds. ¡°Now I will give you a quick recap of what tribe you''re going to and your planet. First of all, your tribe is called the Gornag tribe and it¡¯s currently fleeing its previous home, their last chief died in battle and they will be needing a new leader. They used to live near the bottom of the ocean but now they escaped close to the coasts of a continent. The planets name is Orinah.¡± ¡°What are they fleeing from?¡± She smiles ¡°I can¡¯t say since that would be giving you an advantage and more information than others will be getting, you would need to figure that out yourself.¡± ¡°Figures, I guess you won''t be able to tell me now what would happen when I achieve godhood then?¡± Her grin grows wider ¡°Well I can¡¯t say much now but since you accepted I will tell you that our faction in the gods realm is on the decline and we need you to win The Eternity Games in order to boost our standing there but since you already say you would achieve it, I don¡¯t doubt you will be the salvation of our faction, we need capable people like you.¡± ¡°Power struggles huh...¡± I mutter. A new god is sure to create a power struggle in the realm of the gods. ¡°Alright, I will now prepare to send you off, how would you like to appear before your new subjects?¡± Remembering my childhood, I smirk. ¡°Dropping down from the sky in bright white light while landing in a superhero landing.¡± I say resolutely. ¡°You men are always the same.¡± She finishes with a sigh. ¡°Done. Now before I send you off remember you can always come to talk with me about anything, I will be observing you and your progress just think about it really hard and I''ll send you back here. Also, let¡¯s treat each other like equals, you are way too formal and I don¡¯t like it.¡± She pouts a little bit. What is she, like five years old? Who asks to be equals whem I''m a regular Bob and she is a diety that controls who knows what? But still she''s kind of cute when she pouts. Well I wont lose anything from this. ¡°Sure Moruna, I will see you next time then, I''m ready to be sent.¡± ¡°Till next time then my Champion Gherman, come by soon.¡± White light envelops me and I see my hand slowly dissipate into nothingness. My body follows until my vision goes dark. Chapter 2: First Impressions I regain consciousness and I¡¯m freefalling down to Orinah. She made it happen! I guess I should be thankful but damn her aura had me in chains. I swear if I let my actual personality slip she would¡¯ve eradicated me there and then. Never be rude to deities, rule 101 of some book that I need to write. She was nice though, and being interviewed with my mini-portfolio reminds me of my past na?ve self, if she had ill intentions I would¡¯ve noticed it but seems like even my younger self would¡¯ve been safe. It was obvious that she needed support for some power struggle in the god''s domain and I need to tread carefully and scope things out before I commit to her faction''s cause. I seem to be gaining speed, now I should be in the atmosphere. Should I make a persona for the remnants of Gornag tribe? Yea, let¡¯s do it. Who should I be though? I know. My drill instructor back in the army. You know what, fuck that guy. I flip off the air while remembering his ugly mug. However, these muscle-heads are going to need some drilling if I want them to be loyal subordinates but I will pull out a softer version of him, no need to be rude like him. A show of power and force so to say. I should be landing any moment now, Moruna has my landing down pat, I pull my hand forward fist first to smash the water and land in a superhero pose but as I did, I noticed my hand isn¡¯t human anymore. I guess I do become one of them. Webbed hands greet my sight and the fingers seem to be bulging just like a man would flex his biceps. Before I get too into my hand I angle my fist properly and push through the water. My descent slows but the bright white light still follows me, I seem to have landed rather close to the coast but I couldn¡¯t get a better picture due to this light, might¡¯ve been a bad idea to choose that. With a resounding crunch, the land forms a small crater in my landing zone. Seeing my feet, I notice that they too are webbed and with an extra finger on each foot. Gasps and panicked voices come from in front of me. I slowly pick myself from this crater, my hand pulling out from the hole I made with bits of stone crumbling and descending back to the ground. Looking ahead I see a group of Mrentoni of the Gornag tribe. I stare into their group and do a quick headcount. Five Children 13 Women 10 Men A total of 28 Mrentoni. The men with obvious and pronounced chest muscle wade forward and display their spears at me. They don¡¯t attack but keep their distance. I cough slightly to clear my throat and ¡°ALRIGHT LISTEN UP, ALL OF YOU ARE NOW UNDER MY JURISDICTION, I HAVE COME AS A CHAMPION TO LEAD YOU INTO GREATNESS. ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO IS WILLING TO CONTEST AND CHALLENGE ME ARE WELCOME.¡± shout loudly and clearly. Three of the spear-wielding men instantly cower away and swim back to what I assume are their mothers. Young men who still miss their family. Good, family values are established here. However, they could show more bravery, still need to drill these people. The other seven men which I see showed signs of hesitation but stand resolute after my rather rude speech. What I assumed is their current leader glides closer, about 5 meters away from me and says ¡°Who are you kin? What would be your name?¡± Respectful but no signs of weakness. This guy seems good. ¡°I will not disclose my name but for now you can call me Sergeant Pain. I am here to be your champion sent by a goddess to bring you all into greatness!¡± I keep my volume high for the rest to hear me. ¡°What goddess sends you to us and doesn¡¯t tell you that we value names as they can be given honor. Hiding your name makes me think you are one of the people of the Burna tribe. You seem fake so to say.¡± Damn this guy isn¡¯t a muscle-head, he has a natural disposition of a leader. Then what about this shark man. ¡°Actions speak louder than words, duel me and you can find out.¡± ¡°Then I challenge you to a duel imposter! Forboga, toss him your spear. It won''t be honorable if you''re unarmed.¡± I catch the spear and look back at Forboga, he didn¡¯t even hesitate and listened to this guy. ¡°I won''t need it to beat you but to not stain your honor I will fight with it.¡± Looking back at him his stance is defensive, keeping his body close to him speak but further away from me. I can see that the Mrentoni are very much humanlike but have many features of shark put in all the necessary places for them to live here. Large gills, razor-sharp teeth and webbed arms and feet. Their elbows also have fins and at the back too.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He scoffs ¡°An imposter with spunk eh. Then Forboga start a countdown!¡± I don¡¯t get into a stance, given I don¡¯t know any with the spear and I''m still standing on the rock I landed on, not much space to move around but that¡¯s all I need. Forboga swims between us but slightly away from the epicenter and starts. ¡°ONE¡± The shark-man in front of me notices my lack of stance and switches to a more aggressive stance and smirks. Hey, I don¡¯t even know how to swim in this skin yet man. ¡°TWO¡± He compresses himself for some reason, getting slightly smaller. Why? ¡°THREE¡± His eyes flash red. I get it. He is going to speed into me by using the force of decompression of himself. Damn, that¡¯s cool, using the water as a springboard and giving more oomf to your attack by compressing their muscles. I don¡¯t think Aikido is going to be helpful in the long run. ¡°START!¡± As I predicted he springs forward at a high speed. I start moving and position my spear in front of me facing him as if I''m in a phalanx used by the ancient Greeks. This is a small trap for him. He is close to 2 meters away now and thrusts forward with his spear. I quickly shift my spear in order to redirect his attack. *THWACK* My spear bats away his spear and I grab it. Giving a quick but controlled pull he is now sent flying into me. He initially was confused after the redirection but he quickly tries to spring away over me. Bad mistake brother. I have your spear, no matter how much you dodge I can still predict where you would go. He springs over me but I already predicted that he is trying to twist my elbows in order to get his spear under his control. I drop my spear on the ground. Knowing his trajectory, I do another pull when he is right above me and use my other arm to uppercut him straight into the face. He doesn¡¯t expect that I will be using my fists and the hit connects dead center. Out of reflex, he lets go of his spear due to the pain and is sent flying a few meters away. Blood flowing from his nose he looks at me and grins. Nope, he is a muscle-head. Dropping his spear on the ground I wait for him to attack again. He springs forward again aiming his right arm to jab at me. I redirect it outwards with my left elbow and twist myself to get into the position for a kick into his abdomen. The kick goes in and he is sent back flying. That should¡¯ve put him out of commission but he is still conscious. Breathing heavily but conscious. He doesn¡¯t come back for more so I lower my stance and wait. Forboga noticing his leader isn¡¯t willing to continue says ¡°The winner is Saardgent Pain!¡± The whole group that was quietly watching the exchange start murmuring between each other. Forboga swims over to his leader and checks on him to see if he is alright. I¡¯m still standing on the rock. The shark-man who I just defeated got his bearings back and looks at me. Shoos Forboga away and glides over to me. His smirk is now a full-blown grin. ¡°Apologies kin, you are what you claim to be, I was the toughest warrior of our tribe but you defeated me in two strikes.¡± He kneels. ¡°Hereby I grant you the honor of chief as I am unworthy.¡± These guys were the right choice, muscle-heads always respect the strongest even if they don¡¯t like it. The Mrentoni seem to be all about it though, he is sincere in his speech. ¡°Get up and tell me your name,¡± I command. ¡°Zarhan my chieftain!¡± He gets up, still bleeding through his nose but his grin still doesn¡¯t fade away. ¡°I have never lost a duel before but I should¡¯ve guessed my loss after you declared yourself as Pain and stood there unmoving.¡± He starts laughing. I grimace, maybe that was a bad name. Nah, still worth it. I hold my hand out and say ¡°Zarhan, strong name. I see you were a capable leader before me and you have my respect for that. I will grant you my real name but only for you, the rest will know when they fully accept me as their chieftain. My name is Gherman Jalek.¡± He hesitates to know that I just made him choose over shaking my hand in order to please me and name himself equal to me or to continue being respectful and follow the hierarchy. I get him out of his stupor. ¡°You are strong Zarhan, don¡¯t keep me hanging.¡± I grin while looking at him. A small hesitation later he shakes my hand grinning back. ¡°This makes us now brothers in arms kin Gherman.¡± ¡°Indeed, it does, go tell your people that we are moving to find a new place to settle on, I have a good idea where but I need you to communicate that to them, they won''t fully trust me but they seem devoted to you.¡± ¡°Off course kin Gherman but if you continue to astound them like you did with me, they will accept you quickly, we value strength and honor above all else here.¡± He turns around and swims towards our people. ¡°Fellow kin!¡± He begins but pauses straight after until they stop chatting between themselves. ¡°Saardgent Pain here wishes for you all to know that he and I are now leading this tribe together, although he has defeated me in a duel, he gave me the honor to keep my position but with him leading with us. He will grant his true name when you fully accept him but right now he chooses to keep it hidden. I ask of you to accept this and listen closely. Saardgent Pain says he has an idea where we can rebuild and I fully trust him. Can you all trust me when I say this to you?¡± This guy is great. Why did I get this tribe when Zarhan here is leading this tribe like a champ? The murmurs return and get louder but quickly subsides when a spokeswoman swims forward slightly and calls out. ¡°Yes, Cheiftan Zarhan we will continue trusting you as we did so before disaster struck our home!¡± Zarhan turns back to me. ¡°My kin Gherman, we are ready to continue, lead the way!¡± This leads me to be slightly embarrassed but I still ask him. ¡°Uuumm Zarhan, teach me how to swim. I won''t tell you why I don¡¯t know how to though, maybe later.¡± Zarhan looks at me with a pitiful smile. ¡°Uuuh, yes kin but uhh.¡± He is losing himself in thought on what to say. I guess it would be impossible to explain what comes naturally for him. This is going to be a long day. Chapter 3: All About Home The Eternity Games: Chapter 3: Gornag Tribe¡¯s New Home Learning how to swim was a pain but I got a small part of it for the time being. It felt like being in full on scuba gear, without the discomfort of wearing it and I could control my momentum using my muscles. Essentially, I haven''t learned how to actually swim, just glide around the water at a reasonable pace. Zarhan was pleased that it didn¡¯t take long to get me moving and inquires me about my plan. ¡°Kin Gherman, what is your plan for our people.¡± Slowly turning around in order to not shift my momentum too much I reply. ¡°Do you see the floor below us? Notice how its rising. We are moving closer to the coasts in order to find a place for us.¡± ¡°But why the coasts kin? Wouldn¡¯t it be better to find an area around here?¡± ¡°Zarhan, the area around here is barren and unusable. The coast may have caves, reefs and other points of interest. Also, I''m looking for a river. It would be important to be close to a river so we can exploit the continent to an extent and its surroundings.¡± Surprise spills all over his face. ¡°You are wise kin Gherman. I would never think of that.¡± ¡°Thank you Zarhan but it would be best if I teach you about this so listen up. There is another reason we need the river. You see I''m very sure we would meet a new kind of people on the mainland, we can establish a connection with them and trade our precious sea treasures with what they have on the mainland.¡± Zarhan nods in understanding. ¡°Then wouldn¡¯t it be better to rebuild on the entrance of the river?¡± He is sharp but didn¡¯t see the issue from doing that. ¡°No Zarhan, we would be too close to the mainland, if we do find different people and they covet our things, we would be in danger from an attack.¡± Zarhan understands quickly and nods again. ¡°I can see the coast rising up much faster kin Gherman, should I send out some people to scout out things you told us about?¡± I nod. Zarhan turns back to our people and calls out. ¡°I need Forboga, Meena, and Stalra to come forward!¡± Forboga seems to be Zarhans trusted aid but who are the other two? Looking at Meena I recall she was the spokeswoman from before when Zarhan introduced me as a co-chieftain. This lets me compare the males and the females and frankly, they are not too different from Earth men and women. Breasts and hips are a very noticeable difference to males but what is also different is that although the men have fins on their arms and back, females have extra fins on their legs and are generally taller than the men. Although they seem to be superior, they still are protected by the males. Why? Looking at Meena glide over makes me realize that she is slower than Forboga and Stalra. Nothing comes to mind to explain that, I''ll ask Zarhan later. Finally, Stalra is much smaller than Forboga in size, however his legs are much beefier than anyone else in this tribe, including me. Must be the scout division leader as those legs probably give him the speed and agility to travel quickly. Zarhan turns around to look at me, I give him a nod of approval and he relays my instructions. ¡°Saardgent Pain says we need to scout out the area, Forboga look for any natural landmarks like caves and reefs around the coast area, I want Stalra to do the same but deeper in the ocean but don¡¯t go too far. Meena I want you to look for a river entrance near the coast, make sure to remember it and if there is no danger, explore it and see how far it goes.¡± ¡°Yes, my Chieftains!¡± They announce in unison. Maybe I didn¡¯t need to announce my temporary name as Sergeant Pain as now they¡¯re butchering the word Sergeant and it¡¯s killing me. I would rather they stop. ¡°Hold on, my true name is Gherman Jalek.¡± Meena is pleasantly surprised and smiles while Forboga and Stalra nod. ¡°We shall go on then my chieftains, it¡¯s good that you won''t hide your name from us for too long.¡± Says Meena. ¡°I need to get on that don¡¯t I...¡± I mutter. Names are a pretty big deal here, she hinted that if I keep it hidden, this moment of glory in defeating Zarhan is going to fade away. I glide over to our people and announce. ¡°Greetings again my people, given circumstance I didn¡¯t disclose my real name but now that I have observed you and your interactions, I will tell you it now. My true name is Gherman Jalek. Your co-chieftain and champion of the goddess Moruna. I was sent here to rebuild the Gornag tribe and bring us as a race into glory over Orinah!¡± The people listed with caution but mentioning my true name, goals, and origins seemed to have calmed their suspicions for now. They begin to cheer. ¡°Thank you Chieftan Gherman!¡± ¡°We properly welcome you!¡± ¡°He¡¯s so dreamy.¡± One of the cheers was not like the other. Feeling adoration never gets old, makes me kindoff miss my company. I smile and continue. ¡°Right now, three of us are scouting out the area for our new home. When we get there, I need everyone to form a line and give me your name and skills!¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The group begins to murmur between themselves in anticipation of their new home and what I have planned. I forgot that I need to ask what they were fleeing from. I turn to Zarhan. ¡°What happened before I appeared? what were you fleeing from?¡± Zarhan¡¯s expression turns grim. ¡°Kin Gherman, we were defeated and scattered by the Zekriken, a behemoth of a beast that roams the oceans and eats indiscriminately, it found our home by chance and attacked, killing many of our warriors and... my father.¡± ¡°Apologies Zarhan didn¡¯t mean to make you recall that.¡± ¡°No matter kin Gherman, my father passed his position to me and was given the highest honor by us, he stayed back and fought the Zekriken with a handful of his friends to let us escape. If possible kin Gherman, may I and the rest of the tribe build memorials for these honorable warriors that sacrificed themselves?¡± The sadness of losing his father shocked him after I mentioned it again. He is mournful and tries not to cry. I pat him on the back. ¡°Zarhan, I promise that everyone will have the chance to mourn and honor the dead, they will be remembered as heroes with the highest honor!¡± Zarhan softens from his mournful state slightly and says ¡°Many thanks kin Gherman.¡± After disarming that landmine of emotions makes me re-evaluate this tribe. Although they were chased out of their home, had family killed by a beast in order to save them they all have that look. The look where they are sad and mournful but hold the deceased with the highest of honor. Similar to not wanting to disappoint your now passed on grandpa who taught you and protected you. It gives them the motivation to stride onwards to achieve the greatest honor. This honorable trait is perfect to build an empire from. It would be difficult to corrupt them from outer sources when they hold people¡¯s honor over anything else. Truly great people. I need to make a to-do-list. Many things are piling up right now. A nice list if I say so myself. I hear Zarhan call for me. ¡°Kin Gherman. Forboga and Meena have returned.¡± That was quick. Way too quick, did they find the best spot in the world? I turn around a wait for them to report. Meena goes first. ¡°My chieftains, I have found two rivers not too far away, in the direction we were traveling before we stopped. One of the rivers is large and deep with a plentiful amount of small fish. I didn¡¯t go too far, however. The second river is much smaller and ends fairly quickly but there is something there that I cannot explain.¡± This peaks my interest. ¡°As I swam closer to the end of the river, I noticed the floor was shining in a myriad of colors and on closer inspection they were stones of sorts.¡± So, gems? ¡°However, when I tried to take one back to show my founding''s it swam away at an incredible speed, I¡¯m afraid I will not be able to catch one without some help so I returned to report.¡± Hmm. Maybe they are shells of crabs or mollusks? Floating gems that can move? ¡°Good work Meena. Now Forboga what do you have?¡± says Zarhan. ¡°My chieftains, I have found a nice clearing to the right of the bigger river and away from the coast. The area is flat with a large area to settle on, the land then dips into multiple smaller cleanings with caves in the sides of the rock, I would say we should settle there as other than that the rest of the area is jagged rocks, mud, and sand. In addition to that, I have similarly found something weird. When I was swimming near the coast to find Meena, I and her stumbled upon a blazing heat of white just to the left of the bigger river, I tried getting close and I managed to but I couldn¡¯t stay for long as the heat seeped into me. I too couldn¡¯t bring anything back.¡± Do they mean fire? Underwater? Well, this isn¡¯t Earth and I''m now a shark-man so anything is possible I guess. ¡°Meena and Zarhan stay here to meet Stalra and come over when he arrives, Forboga lead the way!¡± I announce to our tribe. ¡°Attention tribesmen, Forboga has found where we shall settle, follow us and keep a lookout for anything strange!¡± Forboga leads us to the clearings as he called them and his explanation doesn¡¯t disappoint. The main clearing where we will settle for now is massive, roughly 500 by 500 meters if I look with the naked eye. The land dips slightly from the center of the clearing into smaller clearings. Looks like mountains with circular tops that have been sliced off by something. The main mountain itself has many caves dotted about its sides. We land on the clearing and begin settling down the people and the things they escaped with. Looking around we don¡¯t have much in flora, even down below near the smaller clearings. Next, I need to figure out how to build them homes, the caves seem to be good for living at the moment. I drop down to one of them, looking inside its spacious enough to hold a small family in this one. It¡¯s also empty, so no fish use this as a home. Jumping back up I tell the tribespeople. ¡°Right now, we have no homes and I just checked one of the caves and it¡¯s big enough for a small family to live in, check the rest carefully before moving in and rest, Zarhan, Meena, Forboga, Stalra and I would investigate the area one more time before returning.¡± The tribespeople split up and look around for the caves to move in. I keep an eye out for anything dangerous while they search for hostiles in the caves. My watch was unhindered and all of the caves were empty aside from a few small fish. ¡°HEEEY! CHIEFTAN GHERMAN!¡± I hear a feminine voice call out. Turning around I see Zarhan, Meena, and Stalra carrying a massive fuck-off fish about 50 m in length and 20 m in height. Granted we ourselves are 3 meters tall on average and a meter in length but still what the fuck. I notice that Stalra is slightly bleeding from his right arm, multiple bite marks all over his arm and one on his shoulder. I don¡¯t want to lose anyone before I even started. ¡°What happened and why are you bleeding?!¡± Stalra says with a hoarse voice but with an undeniable grin. ¡°Chieftain I have found a forest of Steery Wood not too far away and as I was going to return this little prey ambushed me.¡± Little prey? What are you a moron? From the looks of the bite marks, you almost got minced by it. ¡°I took it down and brought it over to feast!¡± I sigh, and massage the bridge of my nose, at least he is capable. ¡°Alright then, let me help you, Meena go tell the tribespeople that we are going to feast!¡± Meena announces the catch and they all huddle around the fish that we threw onto the clearing. They don¡¯t start eating it though. Some of them eye me and I quickly catch on. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me, I still need to keep watch while you eat, just keep some for me.¡± I give them a toothy grin. They understood me and instantly started tearing up the fish. Feels like I''m in a horror movie and they are all zombies. A good, long start for today. Chapter 4: Burning Beginnings Eating raw fish was a thing I never thought I would enjoy, but here I am eating this bastard of a fish like it¡¯s a delicacy. For about an hour we wasted this fish into bones and the pile is just sat in between all of us. The tribespeople are all chatting amongst themselves and having a good time. It¡¯s time now that I think about it. I motion over Zarhan and whisper into his ear. ¡°Should we hold the memorial now or should I find out what everyone does?¡± Zahran ponders for a bit and says ¡°Do the memorial when we can build a shrine for the heroes, should I call them together?¡± ¡°Please do so.¡± Zarhan gets up and calls out to everyone. ¡°Everyone I need you to get into your working groups and present yourselves to me and Gherman, form a line in order of honor.¡± Interestingly everyone gets into a queue in record time but the queue is not a straight line, more like groups of horizontal lines in one short vertical line. The children are last, duh, they have gained no honor. Next goes the younger men who fled on my arrival, then it¡¯s a mixed bag, men and women intertwined. Many greetings and pleasantries after and I have a good idea of everyone¡¯s capabilities. The children can be ignored, not useful right now. The 10 men are divided into 5 Warriors/Hunters and the other five into laborers. They called themselves that but when I asked for the specifics they answered with ¡°We can do anything Chief!¡± If they can¡¯t build any houses they are going to get some Sergeant Pain. The 13 women have different roles. Since we are carnivorous and don¡¯t need to farm at all, three of the women are laborer''s like the previous five muscle-heads and the rest are housewives/scientists with the exception of one woman who is a warrior. Out of them, all only two people are relatively old and its two of the women. They said that their husbands went on to sacrifice themselves during their escape. Now I have to distribute them to tasks around the place. ¡°Zarhan, I¡¯m thinking we can split up into groups to investigate these oddities found around us, they may be useful in helping us build our home. I suggest I go and investigate the blazing heat, Stalra takes some warriors with him to the Steery Woods and creates a more detailed report about the wood and its creatures and finally, Meena should take some people to catch some of these glowing rocks.¡± Zarhan ponders for a moment. ¡°Then let''s send 2 warriors with Stalra, Meena can take some people with her as well. Meena won''t be needing protection but I shall be on the safe side and send a warrior with her group. As for you, you can pick a few people yourself but I suggest you take Panara with you.¡± Panara is the female warrior, an ugly duckling compared to the rest of her compatriots. When she was introducing herself, she had a tough time controlling her power when we shook hands on her initiative and we got into a hand squeezing competition. Naturally, since I''m a champion of a goddess she was put in her place but that seemed to not deter her at all. Rather she enjoyed it. Also, her voice sounded familiar. Bloody masochist muscle-head. ¡°Fine, I''ll let her know.¡± ¡°What about me kin Gherman? What should I do?¡± ¡°You Zarhan protect the rest of the tribespeople, also try to form the foundations of our home and tell me what you came up with when I come back.¡± ¡°Yes, my kin! I will be waiting for your arrival.¡± ¡°See ya.¡± I look around the clearing and notice Panara around her parents well it¡¯s pretty easy to notice her when she is almost my height. Only Zarhan is my height and that¡¯s saying something. Nice people by the way, although they were way too nice to me. They almost revered me when they were introduced themselves. ¡°Panara, I got a mission for you!¡± I call out. She quickly turns to face me and smiles. ¡°YesChieftanwhatisit?¡± She rapidly fires out. Her mom facepalms here and says. ¡°Calm down Panara, nobody will understand you if you do that. Silly girl.¡± Scratching her head, she replies. ¡°Sorry Chieftain, I got carried away. Hehe,¡± ¡°No biggie, alright listen up, first of all, you are going to follow me...¡± She lightly gasps. ¡°to the blazing heat that Zarhan found.¡± She acts like a dunce around me but Zarhan says she is pretty strong and intelligent because of her parents. I do recall they lined up far up in the line. Panara grabs her spear and skips over to my side. ¡°Lead the way Chieftain!¡± Such a cute little dunce. I turn around and start gliding towards the bigger river Meena found. Panara quickly follows. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Say Chieftain.¡± She says while grabbing my shoulder. ¡°Where are you actually from?¡± As she asks me she puts some strength onto me. I don¡¯t falter and calmly answer. ¡°That is something I cannot say right now for simply I don¡¯t know if I can trust you. I similarly won''t tell that to anyone else.¡± She pouts. ¡°Chieftain that¡¯s mean, you are now one of our leaders and you are backed by a goddess, we are all naturally loyal to you!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t mean that it¡¯s a secret I don¡¯t know if I should even divulge.¡± ¡°Eeeeh, then how about this Chieftain. I beat you in a duel and you tell me!¡± Why is she so interested? ¡°What if I win then?¡± She blushes slightly thinking about something. What with her teenager syndrome? Wait, she¡¯s into me, isn¡¯t she? ¡°Then... umm... youcanmarryme!¡± She says quickly and quietly. What? I need to confirm this. ¡°Why would I want to do that?¡± She stops dead in her tracks looking down. Yep, she has a crush on me or maybe even more. Women are volatile things, I need to diffuse this bomb. ¡°Fine, but not now we have a job to do and try to think of a way to sample the blazing heat.¡± She visibly brightens up and my acceptance of the duel. Wait, I just got duped. I either reveal my secret of being an alien or get caught in her clutches. Clever girl. At least it¡¯s not all lost, she is pretty cute just like Helga. I miss you, Helga. As I''m deep in thought about my wife I didn¡¯t notice how Panara swims in front of me to try and stop me. I crash into her and we both tumble a bit. We stopped tumbling and I seemed to have got a strong grip on her shoulders, she is beaming with happiness. I retract my hands and cough. ¡°Sorry Panara, I was deep in thought. Why did you try to stop me?¡± ¡°We have arrived!¡± She points down to the blazing inferno of white fire. Majestic. Enchanting, tranquil and free-flowing fire. I slowly descend to it, 30m, 20m, at 10m I start feeling the heat. It¡¯s warm from here. Looking closer at the fire I can see that it seems to be less f a unified inferno and more like small groups or chunks are ablaze. What is feeding the fire though? Panara drifts down and tries to understand this conundrum with me, her face frowns in confusion. Drifting lower, 5m I start feeling much hotter like it¡¯s a hot summers day, bearable but there is an oddity. The heat is constant, I don¡¯t feel getting any warmer. Panara slowly drifts by as well. ¡°Panara do you feel getting any hotter by the heat?¡± I inquire. ¡°No Chieftan, it feels like it is coming in waves, pulsating like a heart.¡± ¡°Panara grabs a sheet of rock for me, I want to test something.¡± She swims over to some jagged rock out of the way and pulls a thin sheet out with her spear. She tosses it over to me. Putting the sheet of rock in front of me I lose all feeling of the hot summers day. Rather it goes back to being just warm. If the heat is acting like a wave then I should be feeling more heat near the edges but I don¡¯t. Meanwhile, Panara gets her own sheet which is slightly thicker and swims closer to the inferno. She calls out. ¡°Chieftan, swim over, the heat is almost fully gone here!¡± Gliding over and going behind the sheet she is holding I do feel a lack of any heat. ¡°You know Chieftan, it feels like it¡¯s an aura of sorts.¡± She is right however it is probably not fire then if the heat acts like an aura. Some sort of unique chemical reaction? Radiation then? Radiation is highly possible as the sheet of rock protected us from the heat and small particles of it got through. However, that is not a fire but it looks like one. ¡°Panara I have an idea, let¡¯s try to capture some of it. I suggest we make a bowl of sorts and stuff some of it in.¡± She nods. We swim over to some rock and start carving out some of the rock. Come to think of it these spearheads are incredibly sharp if they pierce rock like it¡¯s no problem. ¡°Panara, what are these spearheads made of?¡± ¡°Chieftan remember what Stalra mentioned before, Steery wood is abundant all over the ocean and its wood is incredibly durable, we sharpen it and tie it to its left-over bark to form our spears!¡± She happily lectures me about creating spears. Eventually, we get a deep enough bowl that is thick enough to hold the thing without radiating the heat. Panara picks up the sheet of rock and leads the way and I follow with the long and thick container. The oddity piece we are going for is on the outskirts. A smaller of its kind, no taller than 30 cm. We slowly get closer and closer. ¡°Ready Chieftan?¡± ¡°Ready!¡± She pushes the sheet forward, isolating the small piece from the rest of the fire thing. The small piece of thing being isolated from its brethren glows dimmer and colder but doesn¡¯t change its shape. Not wasting any time, I position the bowl over the thing and cover it fully, the heat dissipates. ¡°I have it.¡± I say ¡°Mission accomplished!¡± She looks at me and smiles. Ignoring her smile, I try to figure out if it¡¯s properly in the bowl. Lifting the container up shows that the thing is still attached to the surface. I take a risk and grab the bottom of the thing and pull. This thing is a plant. Roots, shoots and a stem all present. My hand starts sizzling. Quickly shoving it into the bowl and covering it with a rudimentary lid we swim away from the heat. Damn, this hurts! However, we have this plant now. I put my hand over my other hand instinctively to try and quell the pain. Panara notices me do this and says. ¡°Chieftan let the water flow onto your hand, it will heal quicker!¡± Her concerning tone teaches me a valuable thing about us. Water is our life. When I read that we can¡¯t really go on land and be effective made me think that it¡¯s just a necessary limitation of the Mrentoni but now it makes more sense. We live, breath and consume this water. Our cells need water in order to function. My hand quickly heals and the pain dissipates, only an uncomfortable, numb feeling is left. Turning around to Panara I say. ¡°Let¡¯s bring back the Inferno Stalk to our people, I have an idea for what we can do with it.¡± Visible confusion appears on her face. ¡°Ingfhernow?¡± ¡°In-fer-no,¡± I repeat. ¡°Inferno,¡± she repeats. ¡°Good, you said it right.¡± She beams at my praise and asks. ¡°What does that mean my Chieftain?¡± ¡°It means never-ending heat, a spark of infinite energy that burns like life itself.¡± She looks amazed at my explanation of what is essentially fire. We begin swimming back to our new home. I notice Panara stare at me from my peripheral vision, seemingly wanting to say something. She finds the courage shortly after and says. ¡°Can I be the spark that burns for you, producing never-ending heat?¡± Never took her for a romantic but she makes me smile like a teenager receiving a confession. Acting this cute makes me want to take this budding relationship further. I reply. ¡°Only if you beat me in a duel!¡± Chapter 5: Cooking Up Schemes ¡°B-b-b-but we agreed that you can marry me if you win! I won¡¯t marry you if I beat you!¡± Hook, line, and sinker. Two can play this game, setting traps for each other girl, I¡¯m way more experienced than you and this is a battle is your doing! She tries to come up with something but I go in for the kill. ¡°It won''t be fair if I beat you up and then marry you straight after now, would it? I¡¯m just being courteous, little girl.¡± Suddenly I feel get the foreboding feeling that I just said something I shouldn¡¯t have. Turning my head to look at Panara I witness something I will never forget. The devil incarnate just spawned behind me, eyes glowing white and her figure dancing in the water as if she is made from black flames. A cold sweat goes down my back. Pushing myself down to the ground as quickly as possible to set the bowl down I hear Panara scream out. ¡°OI, OI, OI YOU BASTARD YOU THINK YOU CAN LOOK DOWN ON ME BECAUSE I''M A GIRL? SO, WHAT IF YOU ARE MY CHIEFTAIN, COME HERE SO I CAN BEAT YOU UP!¡± Her love-struck teenager personality just flipped into a raging older sister. ¡°I didn¡¯t look down on you girl, I''m stating facts!¡± I plea by using logic. ¡°THAT''S IT! IF I WIN YOU TELL ME YOUR SECRET AND I GET TO USE YOU AS A PUNCHING BAG FOR A BIT. IF YOU WIN YOU CAN DO WHATEVER!¡± She hands me an ultimatum. Damn it. ¡°Fine then! Come hither.¡± I motion her over while getting into a defensive stance. A rage induced scream escapes her as she dashes at me. Oh, shit she is fast. She closes the distance in a few seconds, leg first. I jump backward. Her kick breaks the ground slightly and raises dust. Anticipating her next move, I jump back again. A fist flies through the dust and hits my previous position. A momentary pause as we gaze upon each other. She dashes back in, left arm jabbing forward and aiming for my chest. Redirecting her arm outwards with my right elbow, I prepare to kick her in the stomach. *BAM* I¡¯m sent flying from a kick of her own. She used the sideward momentum of my redirection to twist her body for a kick. This is bad. Her powerful kick hit my chest and I think some ribs cracked. Looking back at her she is smiling, probably happy about exploiting my defensive fighting style. I open my mouth and make my gills inactive and drink some water to circulate in my body. If this works like I think it would, I will still have a chance at beating her. She is way too powerful at the moment and she already came up with countermeasures to my fighting style during my two-strike duel with Zarhan. Guess I''ll have to get serious for this. I pretend to fool her that the kick was weak and say again. ¡°Come hither Panara!¡± Momentary surprise appears on her face which is replaced with a grin. She¡¯s enjoying this. I shift my stance slowly to prepare for a kick of my own. I do it ever so slightly so she wouldn¡¯t notice the shift. She charges again this time going for a right jab. I pretend to go for another redirection but as she is about to hit me, I shift my torso to dodge the attack and compress my muscles to twist myself for the kick straight into her side. The kick lands and sends her sprawling. I follow up with a jab towards her head in the attempt to knock her out. She kicks my hand away and I use my muscles to jump backward. Standoff. She is in the water and I''m standing back on the rock. We both charge at each other again. I go for a right-handed jab, she responds with a left-handed one. Knowing I can¡¯t take the hit she expects me to dodge so she prepares herself to follow up with her right arm. However, my jab was a feint and instead of moving away from her jab I duck down and uppercut her straight into the jaw. My fist connects and sends her upwards but not before her leg smacks me across the face. Another standoff. ¡°You sure are tough Chieftan, I haven¡¯t gotten this fired up before.¡± ¡°Why thank you Panara but this fight Is going nowhere, what do you say if I propose a draw?¡± This downtime is important to me. My plan to drinking water has paid off and I feel my insides heal slightly from the damage her first kick made. The previous exchanges were tough on me since I still had to pretend that her train-ton of damage is doing nothing to me while still recovering. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Trying to escape the duel Chieftan?¡± She doesn¡¯t agree nor does she deny my proposal. ¡°No, just our hits are doing nothing to each other and we still need to get our people settled in.¡± I hope my bluff works because this war of attrition leads to me losing. ¡°Heeh, you are so dreamy sometimes you know that Chieftan, acting all responsible and mighty. Fine, I agree to a draw but what about our conditions?¡± Her raging older sister vibe drops off and back to the Panara, I knew before. Hold up. She was the one who cheered that I was dreamy. Wait, I just got caught by her ploy again. She wants me to marry her if I win but gets to make force me into it if she wins. Women are scary beings. She continues smiling. ¡°Do we both win or we both lose Chieftan? Although it seems you already figured out what I had in store for you so you better make us both win if you don¡¯t want this to continue!¡± ¡°Fine you cheeky girl, we both win but since you won''t leave me alone I promise I will marry you.¡± I pause for a moment and she starts to jitter from knowing I will be accepting her as a wife. Not so fast girl. ¡°On one condition. We get to know each other first and only then do we marry.¡± ¡°I can accept that future husband, or should I start calling you honey?¡± ¡°Nope, none of that, Chieftain or Gherman is fine for now. Also, why are you so hellbent on marrying me?¡± ¡°My parents always taught me to snatch up the first man I fall in love with. When you crashed from the sky I may have fallen in love with you at first sight.¡± She hugs her face with her hands and starts dreaming. ¡°I imagined us marrying, our intense first night of never ending sex and then when I spawn children, oooooh you made me dream of a life I always wanted honey!¡± She is very blunt that¡¯s for sure, I don¡¯t think I ever met a woman that serious about love. She swims over and hugs me. ¡°Now spill your secret, I finally got you so you won¡¯t be escaping your duty as the new tribe Chieftain.¡± She is so pushy, but that makes her pretty charming, can¡¯t believe I fell for that ploy though. ¡°Fine, let''s get the Inferno Stalk we got and I''ll tell you.¡± I swim down to the bowl and notice the lid was knocked off. I peer inside and notice that the plant was pretty dim and didn¡¯t generate much heat. I move my hand close and pick it up. Just warm, like a hand warmer. When I brought it close to my face to examine it I notice it got some color back and grew hotter. Maybe contained areas make it generate less heat? Putting it back quickly I look at Panara. She happily skipping about with her eyes closed. Bloody loon. ¡°Alright, Panara let¡¯s go.¡± We start drifting back to our new home. ¡°So where to begin? Alright listen Panara, I want you to never reveal this to anyone, is that clear?¡± ¡°Yes, I get it, get on with it honey.¡± She quips back with excitement. ¡°No promise me properly that you under no circumstance will reveal what I¡¯m about to tell you.¡± ¡°Fine, I promise that I will never reveal under no circumstance what you are about to tell me. Good enough.¡± ¡°Splendid. Now listen, I am not from here and I mean that I''m not from Orinah but a different planet called Earth.¡± She visibly recoils from that statement, completely not expecting that. I continue. ¡°My being was copied and I was sent to be a champion for a goddess called Moruna. The cause itself was to participate in what they called is The Eternity Games and be the dominant authority in the whole world.¡± She goes quiet for a moment then asks. ¡°So, there are other Mrentoni on other planets?¡± ¡°No Panara, I was a Human. Basically, a Mrentoni without the teeth, gills or fins. We are also generally much smaller in size and are pretty weak.¡± ¡°But why would a goddess need a champion? Why bother with the games?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know myself Panara.¡± She doesn¡¯t ask anything else and we quietly finish swimming over to the clearing. On the clearing itself, I see 3 of the same fuck-off fish that we had eaten before. Stalra and his group must¡¯ve hunted some more of these bastards. One of the fishes is already half eaten with its boney tail sticking out. I look around to find Zarhan but instead see a half build hut near the center of the clearing. Bones sticking out with rough mud patchwork to fill in the gaps. A very basic bone hut. Panara and I land near the entrance of the hut and I see Zarhan inside with Meena discussing something. We walk in and Zarhan greets us. ¡°Welcome back kin Gherman, what did you find out about that oddity?¡± ¡°Greetings Zarhan, we found out that the blazing heat is being created by a plant and I named it the Inferno Stalk. I also have a use for it and have brought a sample.¡± I hand over the bowl to Zarhan. ¡°We only managed to find out that any form of confinement makes the plant grow dimmer and the heat is dependent on how bright it glows. What do you have on your end?¡± Zarhan puts the bowl down over to a stone looking bench and picks up another bowl beside it. ¡°Take a look kin Gherman, Meena and her group said that the glowing stones are shells of little Suzzys. The ones we use to capture never had these shells before so we kept them, usually we eat them and throw them away.¡± He hands me the bowl and I see about 10 palm-sized shells shimmering inside. This can be used for trading. ¡°Keep them Zarhan, we can use them later. What about Stalra and his group?¡± ¡°Stalra was sent with the younger kin to teach them about hunting and they brought back one tree of Steery Wood and three of the fish found in the forest. I have also gone and managed the food supply and what we had left to be put into this storage hut.¡± ¡°Good job Zarhan, I shall continue to burden you with this for the time being. Follow me, I''m going to teach you cooking!¡± I jump towards the Inferno Stalk bowl and take it with me. Confused but interested Panara, Zarhan, and Meena follow me out as I lead them to the half-eaten fish. ¡°Cut up some pieces of meat Zarhan,¡± I order him like he is my assistant. He grabs his spear and with a few swipes, we have ourselves some chunks. ¡°Watch and learn, this will blow your minds. Also, give me a stick.¡± Skewering the meat after Panara tossed me a small Steery branch I take of the lid from the bowl and put the fish meat over it. The temperature grows slightly around the top. Now we wait. For about 3 minutes they were patient but since nothing was happening they questioned me. ¡°Sorry Chieftain but what are we looking out for exactly?¡± Meena was the first to inquire. I answer. ¡°Slowly the heat with cook the fish-meat and the meat will become tastier, you should be expecting the fish to start taking a light brown color like here.¡± I point to its underside after flipping the fish-meat over. ¡°When the outsides and partially the insides are cooked then we can start eating.¡± While teaching her about cooking, her eyes gleam with a flash as she nods her head in understanding. Roughly 10 minutes later and I present the cooked fish to them. ¡°So, who wants to have the first bite of cooked fish?¡± Before anyone could answer, Meena already snatched the stick from me and calls out. ¡°ME!¡± She bites down, rips a part off and starts chewing. ¡°Deeeeeeee-liiiiii-cous!!!¡± She moans excitedly. I smile, cooking is now going to spread like wildfire and they will all love me now. I can now convince the other tribes to join me with this! Chapter 6: The Ability to Lead I set myself loose in delusions of the grandeur, imagining myself in a chef¡¯s hat, an apron and a black belt going Gordan Ramsey on foolish aspiring cooks. More moans of ecstasy run around the clearing. Meena seems to have introduced this to everyone and is calling me a new god in her fervor. All coming from a grilled fish made by a plant which emits heat. I smile and stop thinking about the weird images of the Gourmet Empire in my head. What should I do now? We have a forest with steel like wood to exploit, underwater fire plants and gleaming shells. Other than that, nothing much. Remembering the list I made earlier, I scratch off the things I already did. Move into a new home. Find out about the tribe¡¯s people. Have something to eat. Try out my new ability when I get settle down Build monuments for the heroes ???? Profit. Now I''m left with my ability to test out and the memorial to hold out when the shrine is built. Updating my to-do list carefully, I start thinking about my next steps. Test Ability. Build a shrine and hold a memorial Finish construction of basic buildings like houses and sorts Amass Inferno Stalk, the gleaming shells which we have yet to name and the Steery Wood for future use. Introduce new concepts to the tribespeople. Contact other tribes Contact other empires I sit down crossed legged and think about using my ability. It takes a few seconds but what I feel and see next blew my mind. I felt some kind of omniscience when I entered this state. It was dark. Pitch black even. A swoop sent my new vision and I start seeing a brown/yellowish paper unfold in front of my eyes. There it was. What was left of the tribe. I saw everything. Their miniature figures moving about the clearing. The central storage hut standing strong in the center. I saw how some of the laborers are packing the fish bones under Zarhans management. I saw Meena enthusiastically explaining cooking to some women to the side using the Inferno Stalk. Oi, be careful with that thing, we don¡¯t know how it works yet. I saw Panara talk to her parents, giddily jumping up and down. I zoom in closer and see a wooden board beside her. Relationship: Subject Happiness: 100/100 Occupation: Warrior Status: In Love Wants: None A small profile of her. Well, she didn¡¯t lie about being in love. I sigh. Moving back to Zarhan I zoom in and check his profile. Relationship: Brother Happiness: 73/100 Occupation: Co-Chieftain Status: Stressed Wants: A wife How does a Chieftain not get a wife? You''re adored by your people yet you¡¯re single. Tut tut tut Zarhan, I need to wingman him someone nice if I want his happiness to go up. I stop spying on my people and zoomed out this time. The clearing we have occupied now has a green hue symbolizing that it¡¯s our territory. I can see that it expands towards the rivers and occupies the smaller one entirely. The Inferno Stalks are also within our territory. Other than those two landmarks some basic ocean around us is also within our sphere of influence. The Steery Woods are however not in our territory but we border it, I assume when we expand it will be under our full control. Zooming out, even more, was pointless, however. I could only see our territory and to an extent some areas around our border, the rest is fog of war and unexplored. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I remember that Moruna mentioned benefits to my empire depending on the resources found there. Thinking about it like flicking a switch makes some color-coded icons appear over certain areas. The Inferno Stalks, the smaller river, and the Steery Woods also have a unique icon on top of the color-coded ones. The color-coded icons are presented with the standard list of food, production, science and a yellow icon that I was unfamiliar with but I assumed was gold due to the color. Not all of them appeared on the areas but the ones that did came with a + sign. The Inferno Stalks had a ++ in production and a ++ in science. The smaller river had a ++ in food, a + in science and a +++ in gold. That river needs to be strengthened when I get the manpower. I couldn¡¯t find out about the Steery woods, however. Probably because it wasn¡¯t in our blobbing green hue. The ocean area around us all gave a + in food and a + in production. Going by my experience in Civ games this is not a great start but not a bad one. I focus back on our center and it gave a +++ in science and a ++ in gold. I wonder why it gave gold though? I didn¡¯t have any trade routes set up with anyone at the moment. My ability doesn¡¯t go in any more detail so that is now a mystery I need to uncover later. I think I got the gist of the ability and decided to go back to my body. The transition to my body was quick. I opened my eyes and saw Stalra and Zarhan come inside the storage hut. Now that I know what I should be doing I call out to them. ¡°Zarhan, Stalra we got work to do, gather everyone in front of the hut, I have an announcement to make!¡± They quickly turn around and go back out to collect the tribespeople outside. Cracking my knuckles and stretching a bit, I walk out of the hut. All of the people go quiet at me coming out. I begin. ¡°I hope everyone is settled in for now. We have many things to do right now but first and foremost I need to say that this clearing will be our new home and I propose we give it a proper name.¡± Agreement comes all around in front of me. I continue. ¡°I won''t be naming it on my own for I propose we name it after Zarhan¡¯s father, the previous Chieftan. The honor gained in his sacrifice to save all of you from the Zekriken is unmatched. If not for him and his group that stayed back to delay the Zekriken we all wouldn¡¯t be here today. That is my proposal.¡± The group starts murmuring and discussing my proposal. I turn around and look at Zarhan, he is trying not to cry again. Taking my arm and placing it around his shoulder I say. ¡°Apologies Zarhan but I felt that this would be the highest honor for your father, a shrine won''t do him and his friends justice.¡± Zarhan nods in understanding. I look back at the small crowd and see the two older ladies step forward. The left one asks. ¡°What about our husbands?¡± ¡°Yes, they too stayed to protect us!¡± continues the right one. ¡°Naturally they will be etched in history similarly to the previous Chieftan. Do you see the other clearings around this main one? Since Zarhans father, the previous Chieftan was the pillar of the tribe and so the main city will be named after him. The clearings around the main one will be named after your husbands that went with him into battle.¡± My answer pleases them and they step back into the crowd. I motion over Zarhan to finalize the speech. He walks up and says. ¡°My kin, my father was great Chieftan, everyone knew that Halamar was a great leader, in his early years he drove away an invasion from the Burna and saved our tribe from destruction. He continued to bring honor to his name when he helped our allied tribe, the Yoran from destruction. He built our great town and protected it till his last breath. My kin, please speak the Ritual of Passing Honor with me and I shall formally etch his name into our new home!¡± They all pause and close their eyes. In chorus they all say. ¡°We grant as one, the highest degree of honor for protecting our lives to Halamar, our greatest Chieftan and his trusted aids Dorma and Jassin, may you continue to find great honor in the afterlife.¡± Looking from the side gave me a good view of the entire ritual. These people were all sincere in their speech. Truly great people. I think I made the right choice if I want to win the Eternity Games. After a short minute of silence, Zarhan continues. ¡°I now name this land the great city of Halamar!¡± ¡°HALAMAR!¡± They all cheer. Zarhan steps away and motions me back up. I jump over. ¡°It isn¡¯t great yet everyone, we still have to build it! I want everyone to split up into groups of six, try to be balanced in your grouping!¡± Almost like disciplined soldiers they quickly line up in groups of six in a horizontal line. I point at Panara. ¡°Panara I need you to take a group and lead them to the Inferno Stalks and harvest as much as you can. The night is coming soon and we need as many as you can get.¡± ¡°Yes, Chieftan!¡± They swim away. ¡°Next, Meena take a group and try to capture as much of the Shimmering Suzzy Shells as you can!¡± ¡°Yes, Chieftan!¡± They too swim away. ¡°Stalra, take two groups, preferably with warriors to the Steery woods and collect as much wood as you can, bring it all here!¡± ¡°Off course Chieftan!¡± Now he swims off. 4 groups went away and I¡¯m left with one last group, a group full of muscle-headed so-called laborers, Zarhan and myself. ¡°Now we will be building a great hall using the bones left from the fish we caught, I want everyone to start digging a small hole this deep!¡± I point towards the bowl with the Shimmering Suzzy Shells, from the naked eye it''s about 50 cm in height. ¡°Naturally Chief! Where do you want it and how big?¡± Good question. I want to make it grandeur so I think I¡¯ll make a hall with a massive center and 4 entrances. ¡°Zarhan bring me some spears I will show the shape of it!¡± He is co-chieftain but I swear I use him like a courier. Oh, how the mighty have fallen but it¡¯s fine, he is a better figurehead than me since I''m basically a foreigner with a simple understanding of these people. Zarhan passes me 5 spears that we had on hand. I swim over to the center of the clearing and start impaling 4 spears in the shape of a square, roughly 25m is each side but I can only guess with no proper tools. Next, I use the last spear to poke holes showing 4 smaller squares that will act as the four entrances, all 10m in length. The laborer''s and Zarhan quickly get on with the digging of the center using the spears. They had no other tools other than these ultra sharp spears, I wonder what the pickaxes and axe''s will be like. I naturally pull my weight as well, occasionally throwing out a few motivational phrases to speed things up. We keep digging until it starts getting darker. The whole clearing starts being painted in a reddish hue. The middle of the hall is already dug out and only one more entrance square to go. A pile of rocks near the storehouse is what is left from the digging. Slowly many of the groups start coming back. Meena came back with 3 bowls of snail shells and in another, their corpses. I should tell her to not overhunt them otherwise they will go extinct. Panara comes back next. She and her group brought back 2 bowls of Inferno Stalk. They claim it¡¯s very difficult to get them out so they tried to root out groups of the Inferno Stalk. I don¡¯t blame them. We need to invent some sort of suit in order to get them efficiently. I order them to plant it in the center of the hall. That way we have some heat. ¡°Huddle together everyone, you won''t go cold from the Inferno Stalks!¡± They huddle around the Stalks in the center and start falling asleep, cuddling with their families. Stalra and his groups come trucking along soon after with much Steery Wood tree¡¯s, 13 in total. They are about 9 m in height but are rather thin. Good enough though. I tell them to relax near the Stalks and start drifting down to the ground to sleep myself. Panara also drifts over to me as I land. ¡°Do you wanna sleep together Chieftan?¡± she asks. ¡°Ask me out for dinner first, geez.¡± ¡°What Chieftan?¡± ¡°Just come here!¡± I hug her and she closes her eyes while smiling. Bloody loon she is! If only the women on Earth were this direct with their feelings. Oh well. I close my eyes and think about visiting Moruna. I need to pay her a visit. Chapter 7: A Fateful Meeting A feeling of transition envelops my body. I open my eyes and see the same bright, white light as before. This time the door is in front of me. I step forward, noting that I''m back in my human form. Knocking on the door three times I hear. "Come in Gherman! I have been waiting for when you would show up! Come to take a seat!" She is way too excited, this has been my first day as a Champion and she is acting like I was away for years. Whatever, I step towards the vacant chair and sit down. The room hasn''t changed at all. "So Gherman, how was it?" "It was fun I guess but now that I have things settled down I will have a lot more work to do." I scratch my head. "How much did you see by the way, surely you wouldn''t just be waiting?" "Well I waited for centuries at times, we gods don''t have much to do since we get bored of things pretty quickly. I did see what you were generally doing so no need to tell me everything. Rather I want you to tell me your thoughts so far!" That¡¯s unsettling, she can see everything I do. Do I get any privacy dammit?! Calm down Gherman. I begin. "Well, what can I say, being a different species sure is interesting. Also, this style of swimming, using muscles is confusing, however. Doesn''t feel right, you know? Also, why do you want to know my thoughts on this?" "Pfft, meanie, I''m just trying to get to know my champion better so we can have a jolly good time!" "But you already know everything about me." I strike back. She sighs. "Alright fine, I do but still, it''s boring just sitting here and watching, the early parts of the game are always boring. Meet some new empires will ya? I wanna see how you fare against them!" If she knew so much about me why did she bother with trying to get to know me? Bah, whatever. "I want to ask Moruna, what do the pluses actually mean when I''m using my ability? It''s no numerical value so I just want clarification for that." She perks up at my question. "Oh, you already used the boon? Great! Well, the pluses mean a degree of bounty. Say it has one plus, it means it gives some of that resource. Two means many and three means abundance. Three is the maximum by the way!" "So that means the Shimmering Suzzy Shells can be sold for an abundance of gold and produce good food with some science?" I ask to clarify. "Oh! Quite lucky! Yes, this is exactly as you said! Make sure to allocate some people there so it would increase the pluses!" What? "You said three was the maximum." "There is the natural maximum, as you progress throughout the ages, many new technologies or opportunities can increase or decrease the pluses. Say you figure out how to make the Suzzy''s grow bigger and form bigger shells, that would increase the gold plus by one more and so on. That''s why I told you to get more people there so you can train people in that field, increasing the yields even more!" She excitingly answers. So, it''s like the traits, fluid in my decision making and such. I need to get construction going fast so I can get some basic rules down. "Also, is it alright that I told Panara about you and where I came from? She beat it out of me so I had to comply if I didn''t want to be a punching bag." "Oh, no problem, she is fine but don''t tell anyone else since they won''t live long." "Then why is she ok when she will also not live long?" "She will live forever just like you if you were to marry. She basically secured you as her hubby so she will eventually find out that she will never age." She says. Wow, I can spread the immortality to my wife? Then what about my kids? She continues "The reason the immortality spreads to your wife is so that the champion will not go insane from lacking any affection. However, your kids will never get it but they do live slightly longer than usual. I would say try to pick someone nice but you were already snatched up by Panara on your first day and she definitely fits the bill!" Make sense. What else should I ask though, I have asked everything I wanted. Oh, right the Eternity Games. "Say Moruna, what can you tell me about the Eternity Games other than what you told me in our first meeting?" If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She switches into a thinking pose while tapping her chin with her finger. "I can''t tell you anything more as I already did so but let''s say when you unite the Mrentoni under your rule then I can tell you much more about our faction and what we do." Figueres. "Alright then guess I need to get cracking on with Halamar." "Good luck Gherman!" She sends me away with a flick of her hand. Opening my eyes, I can see that it isn''t dark anymore. I feel tickling air near my left ear. Panara coiled around me and is breathing into my neck. Slowly as to not wake her I try to uncoil myself. Left arm, legs, putting her down carefully. I''m free from her grasp but as I stood up she stirs awake. Why did I even bother? "Where are you going Chieftan? It''s still early morning." She inquires. "Just call me Gherman, we already slept together but you keep calling me Chieftan. I''m going to look at the sky." "Yes, Gherman!" She jumps up and starts swimming up to the surface with me. Breaking the water, I can see my new sun. It''s red a bright giant red star, much bigger in size from the planet than our yellow star. Panara surfaces beside me and looks at the star for a moment. "What is it called?" "Urm." She answers and takes a hold of my hand. She ponders for a moment and asks. "What was yours called?" "The Sun. Scientifically we all referred to it as Sol but many languages have their own name, for me it was Sun." "Ehh, I still can''t seem to fully accept that you are from a different world. What was it like back there?" "Mostly bad, in recorded history, we were the only surviving sentient species and we were horrible throughout history. Ignoring the many wars that killed so many of us we had people abuse authority to further their own gain, many failed world dominations through force, basic rights not upheld." I pause. "Granted not everyone was horrible, we had many people fight this system to better ourselves. Before I appeared here, I was doing the same." She half-closed her eyes as I was speaking and says. "No wonder you are so dreamy, I could feel it on the inside that you are a good man." I slightly blush, it''s nice when a woman calls me dreamy especially when it''s right in your face. We both go quiet while watching the sky brighten up. I break the romantic silence. "Say do you want to visit the coast? Take a look around while everyone is still sleeping?" "Sure!" We start swimming over to the coast. I found that I have improved my control over myself in the water and we got there pretty quickly. We swim over to the smaller river and I dive down quickly. As Meena described it the entire floor is plastered with the Suzzys. I surface again. Looking at the coast I can see that it¡¯s rocky on both sides. The end of the river was in sight and it started on a small mountain. There is a significant lack of any flora other than short grass. All around with an odd tree here and there. I step towards land, Panara closely following behind me. Other than the rocky coast, short grass and the odd tree I see nothing else. I keep looking around to get a better idea and to see anything of interest. Panara crouches down and grabs some of the grass. She murmurs. "It''s like seaweed but... not wet?" She takes a bite of the grass but quickly spits it out. I look at her with a disappointed look, trying to convey that "We eat meat Panara, what were you thinking." She looks up at me and smiles wryly. "Just checking if it''s poisonous. Hehe." What a laughable excuse. I sigh again and look towards the small mountain. The grass goes all the way until the midway point. Then it turns into some kind of rock near the top that is giving off a shine in the red sun. It''s not like the Shimmering Suzzy Shells, more metallic in its shine. Probably some kind of ore. I also see dust rising. Half closing my eyes to get a better look I try to focus harder on the dust. I don''t really see much, only that the dust is moving to our right, away from the mountain. "You see that Panara?" I try to get her to look at the rising dust. She stops inspecting the ground and looks over. She gasps and looks excited. She says. "Gherman, those are if I''m not mistaken the Boirans." "Who?" What, do they already know another species? "Oh yeah, you don''t know." She points her finger up while explaining. "Boirans are a sentient species that we met way before you came around. They are about this big and are all furry, usually brown." She puts her hand around 1.5m away from the ground. "But how did you meet, we mostly live underwater." "They also like swimming and are nomadic in nature, at some point they were swimming over our old home and we met. The reason I think that they are Boiran''s is that they usually kick up quite the noise when traveling." I see. "What do they do when they find a new area to live in?" I inquire, maybe I can assimilate them to help us. "They like to live near water so I assume they found some lake or such over there but they are pretty hard workers, my grandpa once told me that they built their home in one day, a house for each of them and a big tower of sorts!" She gets excited as she is reminiscing about her grandpa''s story. These guys are pretty industrious, they would be great for building an outpost near the river. I look back at the dust but notice something. The dust stopped moving to the right and are now shifting towards us. "Panara, are they dangerous?" I ask. "Only in big groups they are, they have sharp teeth and nails but don''t attack first. Why do you ask?" I don''t answer and just point at the dust storm that is barreling towards us at high speeds. Panara looks to where I point at and gasps. "Panara, let''s move closer to the water, I''m starting to feel fatigued from being outside it." She nods and we both steps back, both feet back in the water. The dust storm is now pretty close. The dust storm slows when it''s almost upon us. A lone Boiran on a weird looking horse trots up to us, probably the leader. The face of the horse is dull and looks at us menacingly. I hear someone say from the dust could. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeey wazzup shark-peoples, how do you do my maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan?" I completely ignore the fact that I understood him and that he spoke in the most stereotypical hippie/reggae voice and try to contain my laughter. These guys are just overgrown beavers! Chapter 8: A Budding Friendship Trying to not to laugh at the silliness of this meeting was tough. So tough that I needed a good kick from Panara to even consider that I should be presentable. Another kick was enough though, she hits like a truck. Coughing out loud to clear my thoughts I reply. "Greetings Boiran''s, what brings you to these parts?" The head Boiran chuckles. "No neeeeed for formalities maaaaaaaan, my name is Korren." As he finished his introduction he jumps around and presents his tail. "Slap it maaaaan." Confused but not wanting to disappoint I slap his beaver tail. He uses the momentum of my slap to twist back around again and sits properly on the dull looking horse. "Gherman, nice to meet you Korren. So, what brings you over here?" "Oooooh, that? We just looking where to settle down maaaaaaaaaan, we goooot tired of moving around maaaaaaaaan." "Say Korren, there is a big river just to the right of here, it is massive by the way." I try to bait him closer to us. "Saaaay maaaaaan, that''s interesting, lead the waaaaaaay maaaaaaaan." He didn''t even consider the fact that I casually just helped him. "We would go by water near the coast and you can follow us near it, that way we would get there faster." "Whatever you saaaaaaay maaaaaaaan." Panara and I jump into the river and stay above the surface to lead the Boiran''s over to the big river. "Gherman, why did you help them? They probably won''t listen to you if you''re thinking about making them work for you." "Elementary my dear Panara, we make them an offer they can''t refuse!" Remember the Steery wood? If we supply them Steery wood they would be ecstatic. We can ask them to mold it for us and they get a cut of the trees we harvest." We bring them over to the big river. It''s truly massive. About 100 m across and you can''t even see where it came from. Now I need to carefully convince them to work together. "Wooooooow maaaaaan, this place is perfect maaaaaan. Saaaay, what do you want, we caaaan offer you some things for your help maaaaaan!" He says excitingly. "Korren, I want us to work together. I have heard that you Boiran''s love to work, almost to a passionate level. What if I told you we have some Steery Wood near our home Halamar and we are willing to trade some of it for your assistance?" His eyes squint and he glares at me. I glare back, showing weakness now will make me lose some ground in negotiations. It doesn''t last long, he breaks away by saying. "How much maaaan?" I smirk. "For now, we have 13 logs back at our home and can bring back much more the next few days. What we want from you is your labor. We need help in constructing our new home. If you settle here we can create a union between our people and have healthy trade pass through from us to the mainland." He closes his eyes for a moment, smirks then declares. "ALRIGHT MY DUDES, WE ARE SETTLING HERE! START BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS, I WILL HANDLE THE MATERIALS!" His entourage of people starts settling down. He turns to me. "Bring us a few for the time being and we caaaan work together maaaan." Trying to make me pay in advance, fat chance. "Only if you can give us something as well. We need to make a contract as well." "Hmm, maaaan, do you want some Emmeraude?" Emmeraude? Emeralds? Interesting. "I have no idea what that is, enlighten me Korren." He jumps down off his horse. Looking at him in full height he is about half my size. About 1.5m high, and 1m wide. They are like what dwarves are to humans. Unlike dwarves, though they are beavers, sharp front teeth and wide claws on their arms with a beefy black tail good as a blunt weapon. "Oooi, guys, bring me a pouch of Emmeraude!" A smaller looking Boiran trotts over with a small pouch and hands it over to Korren. He opens the pouch and lifts it up to me. "Take a look maaaaaan, we found some of this in the mountains not too far away maaaan. Our teeth couldn''t crush it maaaaan so we brought some with us." It''s a shining green metal. What is with these uninspired names, it''s obviously named after emeralds from our earth. Although the resemblance is uncanny it sure is weird. I might need to ask Moruna this. I pick up a few and feel them out. Cold, like iron or silver. I try to squish it with my fingers. Doesn''t even bend slightly. Amazing. We will need this later on. "Korren, what do you say we trade Steery Wood for this Emmeraude? We can figure out the price later." Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. "Sure, my maaaaan, we know where we can mine some of it, just bring over some logs ya hear me maaaaaan?" "Alright, Panara, swim back and bring some people over with the logs, I''ll stay here for a while." Panara pouts that she has to leave me but swims away to bring the goods. We didn''t have to wait long as Panara brought Zarhan and a group of 6 Mrentoni with us with all of the Steery Wood logs. Korren''s eyes start shinning as the logs are brought out of the water one by one. He throws the pouch to me and orders some of his people to start picking up the logs. "HAHAHAHA, my maaaaaaaan, I accept your proposal, if you ever need us we will all be here maaaan!" He starts rubbing the Steery Wood tree with enthusiasm. Truly simple beavers. I wonder if we can replant the Steery Wood closer to our village? "Well then, I''ll swim over if we ever need anything, goodbye Korren!" I was about to jump into the water when. "Wait my maaaan, take my soooon with you! I just want him to see where Halamar is so we caaaaan continue this deal, we might need more Steery Wood later on maaaan!" A smaller in stature Boiran trots over. "Greetings mighty Mrentoni! I am Morren, son of Korren, I will be accompanying you today." "I am Gherman, follow us then." I dive down with everyone into the water, Morren follows along quite quickly. "So why are Mrentoni visiting the land, don''t you hate it when you are not in water?" He asks. "I am the Chieftain of Halamar and I was exploring our territory. I just wanted to take a look at the land beside the smaller river we met at, we claim it as part of our land." I reply, not revealing too much. "Hmm, quite a conundrum, we were considering settling there as soon as we saw it, good thing you found the bigger river not too far away. Do you claim that too?" He probes. Morren Is not like his father which sounds like he is 24/7 stoned, analytical and daring to question. No need to make enemies. "Would I lead you to there if we were going to claim it?" I answer with a question of my own. He ponders again. "Hmm, no you wouldn''t, I can now see that you truly want a good relationship with us. Fine then let me see Halamar!" "You will be thoroughly disappointed, Morren," I reply. "Hmm, why?" "We only just found the area, our tribe was chased away by a Zekriken, we just relocated and named our new village, only has a storehouse." "Hmm, I guess you are not so far ahead as we thought. Then I guess I will only know where you will be staying." He seems disappointed that we don''t really have anything. "I do have some things that may interest you, Morren. I don''t have anything against your father but he seems, how can I say, aloof?" I carefully explain to him. "Hmm, he pretty much is Gherman, however, he is just a warrior, his leadership is only based on strength which is as good as we could get really." He answers while sighing. "What do you have that may interest me?" "When we get there, I will show you." We continue traveling across the surface of the water. Boiran''s don''t have gills so while my people dove back home, I stayed with him as an escort. I feel a tug at my feet, looking down Panara is signaling that we have arrived. "Alright, hold your breath, we are here." I dive down. Morren dives as well, I point towards our clearing and his eyes widen. I say. "Quite a big clearing isn''t it? We choose this area, eventually, it will be a great city!" He nods. Swimming down I showed him our Inferno Stalks in the small pit that we have made. That really got his attention simply because it was just as alien to him as it was to us. Lastly, I brought a bowl of Shimmering Suzzy Shells to him and presented them. I swear as Morren saw the shells his eyes turned into dollar signs and he started rubbing his hands. Since he was unable to speak underwater without killing himself in the process he motions me back towards the surface. I swim up with him. "Say, Gherman, are you selling some of that burning thing and the shells?" "They are called Inferno Stalks and Shimmering Suzzy Shells and yes, we can form a trade route with these items if you have some things to offer back to us." "Hmm, let me return and tell my people about these, we can probably only sell you labor but I''ll try to think of something." "To commemorate this wondrous occasion of our people working together, let''s shake our hands to form a friendship," I say and offer my hand. He looks confused at this gesture but shakes anyway. He turns around and shows his tail. I slap his tail like I did with his father. We both chuckles. "Well then Gherman, I shall be going, it was nice meeting you and some of your people, last time it happened was way too long ago. Goodbye and may we meet again!" "See ya, Morren!" We part, he begins a quick swim back to shore and I swim back down to Halamar. I meet Zarhan and Panara near the storehouse. Zarhan asks me. "Kin Gherman, what did the Boiran''s want?" "Just to form a lasting connection with us Zarhan, we both decided to form a friendship deal. We need to improve our production of all Inferno Stalks, Shimmering Suzzy Shells, and Steery Wood so we can keep that relationship harmonious." Zarhan interjects. "But why bother making a deal with them kin Gherman, they won''t be able to do anything to us when we control the sea!" "Zarhan, remember what I said about the river, they now control it, we won''t have any enemies from the mainland if we have allies on the mainland, also we can trade along with them and our products get to other people, enriching us and them. It''s a relationship we have to build if we want to continue to build up our village Zarhan!" I lecture him, why didn''t he realize my goal there? He has been spot on before. He kneels. "Apologies kin Gherman, I was not wise!" I sigh. "Don''t worry, you''ll learn, and stop kneeling." Since it is morning we need to get to work and finish up some key buildings. "Listen up everyone, I need the same groups to go to your previous work areas! Before you go I need your group leader to come here, I need to have a few words with them!" Meena, Stalra, and Panara step up. "Stalra, I need you to secure an area around the Steery wood in order to claim it as ours, as you are collecting Steery Wood trees and the occasional fish I need you to build a small outpost before you start bringing the logs. Meena, I need you to investigate the Suzzys in the small river, try not to overhunt them and learn about their breeding habits, we need them to reproduce to keep our production of their shells consistent. Finally, Panara, try to learn of a new way to harvest the Inferno Stalks and similarly try to figure out if we can grow them." "Yes, Chieftan!" They say in unison and swim away. I turn to my own group with Zarhan. "Alright, you beasts, who''s ready to get some work done?" "We are!" They cheer. "Then let''s get started!" Chapter 9: A Few Dull Weeks Later In hindsight, maybe trying to get everything sorted in one day was a bad idea but who knew that nothing would happen for weeks? No calamity, no new news, no contact from any other tribe. Simply nothing. I look over at the newly constructed Market Square, filled flooring with a mosaic picture of a spear in the center pointing towards the Grand Hall. The first actual building we made. Bone protruding from the corners, Steery Wood combining as its main material to create this building. I look over to my side and see Panara tossing some Emmeraude up and down. We are currently on a balcony in the Chieftan''s house. I and Zarhan share this house to rule from here and to discuss our next plans. He still has no wife and I hope to remedy that soon. Meena is such a good fit for him but he doesn''t have the courage to talk to her about it. I can see how he occasionally glances at her but his insecurities get to him. Panara finally got to me, she pestered and begged that we make our relationship formal but I snaked away by calling it courting. Now, something that I considered a normal response to not fully commit to Panara as I feel that we are going too quickly in our relationship actually blew out of proportion. The term courting actually exploded within our village and people actually felt good about it. They stopped being so direct with relationships. Just last week one of the younger adults that heard about it and tried to court one of the younger women. Although in my eyes the courting was terrible and beyond cheesy like in an American sitcom but she loved it and they are now in a relationship. I need to hold myself back otherwise too great of a change may hamper the previous values that the Mrentoni had before. I lucked out this time that courting was just an outlier and had nothing to do with honor or what not. Well, it kind of did, honor was one of the things the Mrentoni brought up when courting one another. This can lead to an unhealthy relationship if left unchecked as people may pick and choose through honor and not what the other party truly wants. I naturally stressed this soon after realizing it. This isn''t like my company, sure it was hectic at times but not on this scale, I had people that handled the tedious bits but here, just me and Zarhan. Zarhan himself is not much of an administrator. He can be a good diplomat and a strong warrior but specifics in administration just baffles him sometimes. That''s why I let him handle the affairs with the Boirans. Speaking about the Boiran''s, they have fully settled down on the river which they named "The Iron Way". A name that makes sense considering they made a bloody fortress at the river made from our Steery Wood. The way part seemed a bit weird but later I learned that the river has a split path that leads somewhere, neither of our people knows where. The other side leads up to a mountain which had a deposit of Emmeraude. They happily traded the Emmeraude for our goods. Rather, I feel like we got the better end of the deal since Emmeraude is much stronger than any Steery Wood we have. The Inferno Stalks also were traded off at a cheap price. I sigh. I honestly need more people to be here. Although growth has been rising, five children are not enough, we need more people from other tribes to join us otherwise we will be here forever. Thank Moruna that children don''t stay children for long. The Mrentoni grow naturally faster than most simply because of our environment and teaching. By instilling them with the quest to gain honor early in their lives, they mature mentally and begin doing work when they matured physically. Three of the children that I have met when I first came here was about five months old and became full adults at six months. I jump off the balcony and land in the Market Square. So far, it is void of stalls or shops but that will eventually change. I built this early to push for privatization. Eventually, I need to install a currency system so that I can fully comprehend our growth economically. So far, every family holds a house of their own and will stay their own after me and Zarhan fully privatize our village. After implementing the currency, we can grant incentives to people who want to start a business. The square itself is no longer than 100 m in diameter, rather big for our clearing but I considered it necessary as this will be the heart of the empire soon enough, the housing will eventually move to the lower clearings that we have yet to build on. From the six paths, I could take I took the one right of the Grand Hall. It leads to the makeshift laboratory that we constructed made partially from Emmeraude and Bones. At some point, we discovered that the heat created from Inferno Stalks doesn''t get blocked by everything. We found that anything with a metallic structure can easily be heated up by it but complex molecular structures that wood or stone have blocked it. My rudimentary knowledge of molecular chemistry led me to believe that a metallic structure gives a direct path through the structure but anything complex will knock it back. So now the Emmeraude has risen in value for us. I considered to reveal this knowledge to the Boirans but they actually found that too and brought the news to us. That didn''t make them lower the price of the Emmeraude though. Knocking on the door I wait for an answer. "Come inside Chieftan." Calls out Meena. I walk in and see Meena loom over some Shimmering Suzzy Shells. She picks up a piece of Steery Wood and files it, creating small glittering dust that flows around her. The underwater environment doesn''t make a stable area to conduct experiments. She files some more before she stops and tries to collect some of it using her hands. The rest of it drops to the ground.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. "What brings you here my Chieftan?" She asks. "How is the progress with anything really?" "Well, the Inferno Stalks are still growing so I have no conclusive evidence that tearing a piece off would create a new one and any attempts to capture the process of its growth in its natural habitat came up empty. However, I still can''t seem to find the right size of the dust from Shimmering Suzzy Shells to be used as currency. I can''t melt it as it''s not metallic in nature so that failed and grinding it into dust just doesn''t work underwater." She sighs at the end. It''s been tough for her also, although she enjoys to science the shit out of everything we bring her, she is the only willing participant. The rest of the people either enjoy hunting, working or harvesting the resources. "Get some rest Meena, it''s not crucial at the moment, I and Zarhan still need to finish with privatization. Why don''t you move up to the Boirans and try to find some clue on the land after you had some time off?" I try to spend more time with Meena to get a feel for her as her profile came up with no wants after I brought her to the position of scientist when she got fed up with harvesting the Shimmering Suzzy''s. Zarhan is still the unhappiest person in the village because of his anxiety with women so I tried to get Meena and Zarhan together. She is a workaholic. Work first, family later is the kind of women she is. I think that I spent enough time with her over the weeks so I think Operation Cupid is a go. I begin. "Say Meena, what do you think of Zarhan?" Without missing a beat, she answers. "Zarhan is a wonderful Chieftan and warrior that I hold in deep admiration. Why would you ask that?" "I don''t mean what do you think of his achievements, I''m asking what do you think about him specifically?" "Hmmmmm." She ponders for a bit. "I would have to say he is strong in character and decisive in everything he does!" She is also an airhead when it comes to people. She is preceptive and intelligent but when it comes to people she can be completely off. Zarhan has feelings for her and is completely indecisive about what to do to express himself. Using her lack of experience with people I will try to bring them together. "Then why don''t you talk to him much? Surely if he is that strong you would consider to court him?" This was a risky question but knowing her weakness is this I gave it a go. "Why would he even consider me? Surely you are joking Cheiftan, he likes someone else and besides, I want a man to court me instead." She happily dreams. "Don''t tell anybody though!" She switches to a defensive tone. "Fine, whatever, just get some sleep you work-horse." "Fine Chieftan, I''ll see you next time then. Bye!" She waves me off. Closing the door, I head back to the balcony, Panara still throwing that piece of Emmeraude, bored out of her mind. "Why don''t you just get a hobby or something Panara?" "Gherman you know damn well I tried everything there is to do, it''s all soo dull, no spirit no fighting, the fish in the Steery Wood forest is not that tough and taking 5 of them at once only brushes me with excitement, why don''t you fight me?" She also is way too comfortable with me around but then again, we are basically married without it being official. "I can alleviate that boredom, want to join me in a secret quest?" She perks up. "What is it Gherman?" "I''m trying to get Zarhan wed, he has been eyeing Meena for a while now but doesn¡¯t have the guts to confess his feelings. Wanna help me get them together?" She smirks. "Sure, but what should I do then?" "I want you to go to Zarhan and force any information out of him, he will surely listen to you." "Are you sure you are a benevolent ruler Gherman? Are you using your soon to be wife as muscle to get your subordinate to scoff up information? Hahahaha!" She laughs and swims to find Zarhan. A bloody loon is always useful. Now that I have my muscle off getting the information I go back inside the Chieftan''s house and look for some Shimmering Suzzy Shells and some rope. A gift will be easier for Zarhan to convey what his feelings are. While making a small necklace I wait for Panara to come back with the information. She leaps through the balcony opening and jiggles excitingly as she conveys what she found. "Wow! Gherman, Zarhan was so pitiful back there, he told me that he can''t court her because she already has someone in mind! What a joke!" She is now literally roffling. Also, seriously they are meant for each other, both think that the other has someone already! Fine, this is good, Operation Cupid going swimmingly. Time to get them to meet. "Panara, try to get Meena to the Market Square at Urm-Down, we will make a romantic setting where they will convey their feelings and be happy forever knowing that they truly are meant for each other! I will bring Zarhan over!" "What if they both try to run away?" "We beat it into them of course, but be gentle with Meena." She calms down after we set in motion the last part of the Operation. Swimming over to our targets, we bring them to the Market Square to create that meeting. Finding Zarhan near the makeshift forge I abduct him and bring him closer to the Square. "Zarhan take this, we have to hurry back to the Chieftan house. This is very important!" I put on my best act. "Of course, kin Gherman!" We speed across the road and arrive at the Square. I see Panara and Meena on the other side. We give each other a signal that we are ready. "Zarhan, take this necklace and give it to Meena and court her! This is very important!" "Yes, kin Gherma... Wait what! I c-c-can''t do that, Meena has someone already!" He stampers out. "Zarhan." I crack my knuckles. "Didn''t I tell you that it is very important you do this. You don''t want to get beat up do ya?" I start acting like I''m a mafioso. "Alright, alright, I''ll go!" He runs away pitifully. Panara herself had Meena covered with fewer threats and she was also swimming over to Zarhan. We both watch from opposite ends as they converge at the center and start saying something. Zarhan shoves the necklace into Meena''s hands and swims away into the Chieftan''s house in a panic after declaring. "CAN I COURT YOU KIN MEENA?!" I laugh, he is just like a teenager! Meena seems utterly confused and just stands there holding the necklace. She then puts on the necklace, smiles and walks away god knows where. I and Panara meet in the center. "Operation Cupid was a success!" Chapter 10: Diplomatic Expidition With all of the excitement in Operation Cupid being a magnificent success overflowing in Panara and me, we got back to work. Considering our population issue we won''t be able to get things done and waiting for people to grow when we only have about 30 tribespeople is tedious. Thankfully the Gornag tribe has settled down and people have started working for us, bringing in the resources that would build our empire from the ground and begin a long-term trade relationship with the Boirans. We needed information on other tribes. I do recall that Zarhan, when we met, called out one name. Burma? Burna? Burna. Yes. I have called upon all of my closest people in the upper echelons of the Honor hierarchy. Zarhan, Panara, Stalra, and Meena. Granted that Panara''s parents were also eligible to come but Panara was representing them. In addition, the two older ladies came along, they were quite prominent in our tribe and they are also old. They would probably have information on other tribes around their old home. Delka and Shetlka are their names. They are also sisters. I had a thought that they had similar features but with their names having a common ending probably meant they are twins, so naturally sisters. "So now begins the fourth annual meeting of the Gornag tribe, I would like you all to keep what is said here under wraps and yadda yadda yadda. You all know the drill." This would be our fourth meeting which we like to continue to do often. This entrusts that the Chieftan''s don''t have overwhelming power and that the honorable people can influence the direction of the tribe. "What is it now kin Gherman? You called us so suddenly, is there a problem from the outside?" Zarhan begins. I pull up and place a stone sheet on the Steery Wood table and bring out small makeshift figurines. "We have established ourselves in this area and everything is fine regarding any dangers from the outside. What I brought you all here today was to pool your ideas and get information on other tribes." I carve out using a small Emmeraude knife the general geography that our village had then placed the biggest figurine roughly where we were. "Everything is going good, great even, however, we have one issue. Our kind is scattered, we need to unite some tribes under our rule in order to make Halamar grow." I get straight to the point. I toss some figurines to each one of the attendees of the meeting. I continue. " I need all of you to show me on this map, where roughly was your previous home and any locations of other tribes relative to it." Delka, the older twin asks. "Are we going to war for more territory? If so I won''t say!" "Naturally I will be diplomatic with negotiations, I don''t need corpses but living Mrentoni to bolster our people at Halamar, I need manpower, something that time gives but it''s too slow." I shut down the idea of war. Naturally, if they come armed we shall strike back but mutual genocide is pointless. This eases the tension in the room. They start discussing roughly where their previous home was. After a short while, they put down another figurine. That figurine is honestly incredibly far away from our home. Probably take a few days of swimming to reach its ruins if there are any. The discussion escalates as they put down three more figurines. One further than their home, too much out of the way. Another of to the right of their home, closer to us but still a trek away. Finally, Panara sets down the final figurine. One that was closer to us but still most likely a day away. But why, if they knew where it was they surely went past it before I arrived on the scene? "Why didn''t you all go to this tribe for safety?" I point towards the final figurine. Zarhan steps up and explains. "Kin Gherman, we did try to gain their sympathy and wanted to join them initially, however they didn''t trust us when we told them of the attack on us by the Zekriken. They told us that we are not welcome and sent us away unharmed." Healthy skepticism? Doubtful. Must be some kind of conflict that caused some lacking amount of trust between these tribes. "What was your relationship with this tribe before the calamity?" I inquire. Meena steps up this time. "As far as I remember, we had a trusting relationship and didn''t bother one another, them sending us away was unfortunate but understandable since they were a smaller tribe, under threat by others." "What do you think their reaction would be to us coming to them and asking them to relocate?"If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "Kin Gherman, many of the tribes hate to relocate, we had to go by circumstance but generally they almost never leave home. Unless they are forced it''s very unlikely they will be willing to come." Zarhan adds. I mutter to myself. "Then we need to convince them that it is no longer safe there..." Panara picked up on my muttering and proposed. "What if we explain to them that the Zekriken could come and destroy their home. It''s also possible to convince them that they would be under threat from their neighbors." "Then it is decided, we shall form a small expedition to the..." Shetlka chimes in. "Opperen." "The Opperen tribe, I shall lead this expedition since this needs to be done effectively. Who is willing to f follow me? Except for Zarhan and Meena, I need you both here to govern why I am away." We need to keep these lovebirds together, besides the people will listen to them. "I''ll come, nothing to do here anyway!" Says Panara. The two sisters also agree. "We will come as well! Our bones may be creaking but a good exercise will be good for us." Stalra shakes his head. "Not me, I still need to teach the younger kids." Simple and short. "Fine, it will be us four journeying to the Opperen tribe come next sunrise. I declare this meeting finished, please keep in mind to not spread the information." "Yes, Chieftan!" We part ways after this. Panara bounces over and hugs my arm. "Should I go prepare some food for our journey?" "Please do, don¡¯t forget to cook some, raw fish just doesn''t do it for me anymore." She skips away to get some food prepared for the journey. Now, this would be a turning point for Halamar. If I am able to convince them to join us, good for us, we could make the population boom and manpower would be available for boosting our technology and economy. I sit in the Chieftan''s house in contemplation. Then an idea comes to mind. I could visit the Boirans and get their view on this issue. I jump out and speed towards the Boirans wooden fortress. It''s not long till sundown and I would rather catch them to improve my chances. Swimming towards the rivers surface, I jump out and land on the ground. Morren on the walls of the wooden fortress notices me and dives down to meet me. "Hmm, what brings you here Gherman, have our trade not been to your liking?" "No, that is fine, what I need is to have a chat with you. I am planning to convince another tribe to join me in Halamar but they do not trust others very well. What would be the most optimal move?" "Hmm, wouldn''t a show of strength be enough? Or maybe a gift of something precious would make them more trusting of you." "Strength is out of the question, they are already spooked by invasions from other tribes and a gift would be weird considering I''m trying to recruit them, I would just get the things back." "Hmm." Morren ponders. I can¡¯t think of anything else that can possibly convince them other than the danger from everything possible. "Say, some of our people noticed you are using some interesting techniques to woo the females into love, use that!" "What? Morren, you know I''m occupied already, that would get me killed!" This guy, I''m not forming a harem like an Arabian Sultan. One marriage is enough for me. This, however, gives me an idea. What if I bring technological and cultural improvements to them, ease them into our way of thinking and bring common topics together thus gaining trust and cooperation. "You know what Morren, I just had an idea from that, thanks a lot!" I turn around and wade back into deeper waters. "Hmm, no problem, take care on your journey!" He waves me off. I swim back towards Halamar, into the Chieftan''s house where I found Panara in a seat and tossing Emmeraude again. "Panara, what if we bring the concepts of courting and cooking along with this Emmeraude, do you think that we can convince them to join us?" "It''s entirely possible Gherman but that doesn''t matter, when will you accept me as a wife!" She protests. "This isn''t the time for marriage Panara!" "Then when is it? When should I expect you to come over and take me? I waited for two weeks and you didn''t even bother courting me like you said!" "We basically act like a couple already, what''s the point of that!" "I want to feel wanted by you too! I share my thoughts with Meena, although I hooked you in, you are way too passive in this relationship! Court me!" She declares. Bollocks. Women are a ticking time bomb. Honestly, maybe I wasn''t as proactive as I should''ve been, leading a tribe is tough and needs my full attention. You know what, let''s just get this out of the way. "Panara, you, me and a bed after we get back from this mission, you will regret ever angering me!" She beams at me finally growing a pair. "Watch yourself, I won''t give you any leeway anywhere and you angered me! Facing my wrath would not be justice!" She has time for jokes! Bomb has been diffused! "Oh, yea! I brought the food, by the way, we are all set to go for tomorrow." "Fine, let''s go to bed, we will be waking up early in the morning. Bloody loon you are." She ignores my casual insult and tackles me onto the bed, we fall asleep soon after. The next morning Panara, the two sisters Delka and Shetlka and I converge at the entrance of the Grand Hall holding our things in wooden bags. "Alright listen up, I have figured out something that we can use other than the looming threat of the ocean. We can bring the concepts we have developed to them, I have packed a small Inferno Stalk, some Emmeraude and Panara will help me as well. If we show how much more advanced we are, they may seek protection from us." Delka asks. "Other than cooking and our resources, what else would we bring?" "I can show off courting, Panara and I would act and show everyone courting and make them consider us more advanced with our less tribal ways of building relationships," I reply. "You two can also try to court some of the men there if you want, they probably would be enthralled," I add on subconsciously. "Fine then! Let''s head out!" Says Shetlka. We take some time to move over to the edge of the clearing. "Remember everyone, this is a diplomatic mission to convince them to move in with us. No violence unless necessary and try to not spook anyone Panara. You need to keep yourself controlled." I give a reminder to everyone. "Oi Gherman, I''m well behaved! I will never be violent!" She declares. "Panara, we all know that you can potentially kill someone by accident with a handshake, just try to control it alright?" "Fine!" She pouts and jumps to begin swimming to our destination. We all chuckle and jump off as well. Our first diplomatic mission to another tribe now begins. Chapter 11: The Talk The journey was not quiet. The journey itself took two days but the first day was the most turbulent. After we left our territory things were eerily quiet. At some point, I realized that we were being stalked. The fish was good at hiding itself but the lack of any other living creatures lead to this conclusion. We Mrentoni lack a way of identifying the position of other fish other than the regular five senses. Usually, fish use sonar and communicate through this but we lacked that ability. Back then I mentioned that we were being stalked and that was my first mistake. That fish that stalked us noticed that we became aware and promptly left the area. Now that we knew that the fish was stalking us ever since we passed the Steery Woods we were warier but it never came. Being on edge constantly from the danger of an ambush broke down our mental fortitude. Ironically the fish itself got impatient at some point and made its presence known once again about almost at night. Now on edge, exhausted both physically and mentally, we knew that it was stalking us lead to the most stupid fight I have ever participated in. Both the staked and the stalker were exhausted from traveling had to fight in the dark waters. The fish had a significant advantage as it demonstrated its ability to see in the dark. We countered that by exposing our Inferno Stalk to give us some light. The battle of attrition lasted hours. The fish itself was another one of those fuck-off massive fish. However, this one trumped the previously hunted fish, it was bigger by a small amount but it still gave off an eerie impression. Given the vendetta that this fish had on us by chasing us throughout the ocean, I assumed it was a parent of the other fuck-off massive fish we hunted before. I really should name them. We won the battle, I got bitten by its jaws in the leg and was out of commission for a good portion of the fight, it penetrated quite a few bones and my flesh wasn''t looking too good. I was the only one hurt in that fight so after finding a small area to relax in we fell asleep, taking shifts to ensure we won''t be attacked again. I happen to not be on a shift due to my injuries, they said I needed rest in order to be in peak performance during the visit. I got forced into sleeping on Panara''s lap as she took the first shift with the Inferno Stalk giving off light for protection. I woke up mostly mended. The bones on my leg were aching in phantom pain and the flesh wasn''t fully closed but generally, I could move. Thankfully we had no other attacks from anything else during the night. Having some of the Big Bertha as I named it for breakfast we set out again. No more attacks took place and we arrived at their village soon after. Looking at their village I could see that they were much more established than us. Buildings were built out of Steery Wood as it would seem and they were cramped together with entrances on the roofs. Smart, might steal that idea. No, I already stole it, my experience with Earthen houses made me realize that I''m still thinking in human. But still, it looks nice, not changing it. They also build a few watchtowers around the perimeter. We were looking over the village on a small hill so they didn''t notice us right away. "Is this the village?" I ask. They did say that it''s a small village, but it seems much larger than they explained previously. Delka answers. "Should be, but it still does seem way too big and the people are lacking to fill all of those houses." Intriguing. We should probably present ourselves to not arouse suspicion. "Let''s go, we need to make ourselves known to them, you did say they are overly defensive about other people. We will walk slowly to a watchtower and ask for a meeting." I state. We slowly walked towards one of the towers, it was near and stationed on another hill. Looking at the watchtower itself it was shabby and hastily put together. We were noticed pretty fast, granted we had about half a fish sticking out from us carrying the bastard that we killed yesterday. The Mrentoni on watch sounded a horn looking thing and that stirred the nest. He waited for reinforcements and 4 more Mrentoni showed up with spears. They went to meet us but stood their ground a small distance with their spears held high. "What brings you here fellow Mrentoni? We don¡¯t take kindly to strangers around here!" He calls out. "I am one of the Chieftan''s of the Gornag tribe and I am here to meet with your Chieftan to discuss important matters!" I state. He looks back at his village, unsure of what to do, he might need more convincing. "You people sent us away when we asked for shelter after calamity struck our home, at least give us a meeting with your Chieftan!" He caves in and sends a subordinate to convey the information.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Silence. No words are exchanged as we both stand our ground and wait for confirmation to return. The Mexican stand-off lasted for about five minutes until the same subordinate returned with news. The first Mrentoni calls us. "You have been granted a meeting with Chieftan Garran, please follow us to the throne room, drop all of your weapons near the room to ensure the safety of our Chieftan!" Well, basic requirements that seem fair. "We agree, lead the way." They swim off and we follow. I whisper to my compatriots. "Ok, here is the plan, me and Panara head into the throne room, while you two cook the fish and present it to the village people. We can get them on our side if we can convince some of the people of the hierarchy with this bribe." They nod. Well then, let''s begin. We land in a small area in front of a grand building, most likely the Cheiftans house and are led by in-doors. Delka and Shetlka stay outside and guard our stuff as they begin cooking themselves some fish. We step inside and see a basic wooden throne with the Cheiftan sitting on it. His scowl pointing at us, trying to intimidate. Beside him are two more Mrentoni that have spears, acting like guards but not treated as such. The Chieftan holds them as friends given how he whispers something to them. We don''t kneel since I am the same standing as him and hell naw, I''m not kneeling to anyone. He waits for me to kneel but realizes that we won''t and starts. "Greetings, my name is Chieftan Garran, what would be your name and purpose of your visit!" He certainly holds himself in high regard. "My name is Gherman, Co-Chieftan of the Gornag tribe here to propose a deal for the betterment of our people." I give a strong front to not expose any weakness. I purposefully called myself Chieftan after my name, hopefully, he understands what I meant. He frowns yet again. "You say you have a deal but I don''t see why you would give us one, we, we don''t even know where the Gornag tribe have settled and even then, I don''t remember seeing you there." He strikes. "You wouldn''t believe me even if I told you but I have now become Co-Chieftan of the Gornag tribe and I have ambition." "Hit me Gherman, what could possibly be that unbelievable that you wish to hide it?" "If I say that I am a chosen champion of our people, backed by a goddess and given the ability to lead our people to greatness, would you believe me?" Our showdown pauses. He goes silent. Not expecting that bombshell, he frowns and says. "No, I wouldn''t believe you that seems like something someone would make up to get an edge on someone. Granted you didn¡¯t hide it I think you have an ulterior motive for coming here. If It''s hostile, we won''t be kind!" "Garran I only come with a deal for us to unite and join together. Two tribes to unite and relocate to Halamar, our village." "Why would I undermine my authority to serve under you in an unknown location, you could be planning our downfall as far as I know it." "Why would I come here with three other people to trick you. Not everyone wants you dead and your tribe under another one''s rule. Besides I don''t propose you to serves me, I propose you to serve our people as Co-Chieftan''s with Zarhan and myself in Halamar." I continue. "Besides it is obvious you are concerned for your people''s safety. Our warning of the Zekriken some time ago has made you take action in defending yourself. Don''t think I didn''t notice the shabby watchtowers or the packed village. You are afraid of the Zekriken and I want to extend a hand of friendship and to relocate to Halamar even if you said no to us before." His face scowls, hinting he is guilty of not accepting us. "This seems like a trap to me. No great deal comes with no strings, tell me the truth and I might consider it." You want the truth, fine take it. "I need manpower Garran, I need manpower to build and thrive in Halamar, the Gornag tribe only had 30 people and I require more if I want to bring our people into greatness. Waiting for natural growth is too slow with our numbers and your tribe was the closest known one to us. I need all of you as much as you need protection from the Zekriken." He stops to think. For a good while as well. I add in. "If you can''t decide yet, we brought a little something to convince you of my people''s sincerity. Dalka! Shatlka! Bring some cooked fish for the Chieftan!" The door is flung open as they both waltz in with a skewer of cooked fish, a crowd had gathered during our negotiations. They step closer to the Chieftan and kneel whilst presenting the skewer. I''m feeling slightly peckish as well, I need a slice. He picks up an examines it, some waft of steam escapes the fish and goes into his nose. That triggers something inside of him. Something primal but sensible. He opens his mouth wide open like a hippopotamus and takes a bite. Nothing was left of the fish. He starts chewing, his face losing all previous scowls that have wrinkled his forehead and looks up into the sky with bliss. That fish isn''t even marinated yet and this is their reaction to cooked food? The crowd at the doorstep in slightly as well. Saliva dripping down from their mouths. What the fuck? My tribe didn''t have this unreasonable reaction. Taking another glance tells me what happened. They are thin. Thin enough that I would notice, they don''t have food. Another good playing card dropped into my hand. Garran sure is stubborn but you can''t hide something like this. "It would seem Garran that you are lacking food and are obviously preparing for some attack. Why not avoid all that hassle and join us in Halamar where we can teach you how to cook fish and you can all live as free people." I turn towards the crowd and continue. "What do you say, people, I propose you to join my tribe in a union. Your Chieftan here would become Co-Chieftan and all of you will get all the food and other commodities you need if you help us back in Halamar." A stake through the heart. My short speech made them seriously consider it. In the end one of Garrans close aids caves in and whispers something into his ear. "Gherman. Although I still don''t trust you, I still trust my people, we will follow you back to Halamar as here is unsafe. Fellow tribespeople, begin packing your things, we are leaving this place. If Halamar is a sham, we will leave right away and never consider an offer from you again." A new tribe acquired! This will speed things up. "Then we will wait outside. Holler when you are ready and we will lead the way." The crowd disperses and I''m left with my group standing outside. "Want some fish Chieftan Gherman?" Asks Shetlka. "Give me a big slice, please." Chapter 12: Two Parties United Garran is a Chieftan that puts his people first so it was no wonder how quickly he caved after his people got fed of some cooked fish and managed to convince him. We didn¡¯t even have to pull the courting card which made Panara quite unhappy. The journey home was uneventful, to say the least but when we set up camp for the 40 odd people I decided to see what my ability would look like if I use it outside of my territory. A swoosh later, the map unfolds like a start to a Disney film, only lacks the harmonic narration. This time instead of focusing on my capital Halamar, it zoomed into me. So, it is always based on myself, won''t be getting any complications if I''m far away. My territory was glowing green like it did last time, looking at our distance we are a little less than halfway home, the extra luggage slowed us down and we left during the day. All in all, we are actually traveling quite fast. I look at all of the revealed areas that we passed through. Pretty bland and mostly ocean but I do see some icons with question marks along the way. Unidentified oddities huh. Eventually, we will expand but right now they are far from each other and are too far away from Halamar. Two are in close proximity and are maybe a half a day of travel from Halamar. I quit looking at the map. It rolls up and I''m back. It¡¯s still night. I get up slowly to not disturb Panara sleeping beside me. She is acting like a kitten, cuddling up beside me trying to find my body. I did promise her a night of everlasting passion and I can see how she is smirking in her sleep. Bloody loon I tell ya, dreaming about us! Whatever. I walk towards the Inferno Stalk and usher away some Mrentoni to sleep as I take my nights to watch. Although I have succeeded in convincing the Opperen tribe into joining us, where do I go next? The other tribes are honestly too far away and one of them is the Burna tribe which hold honor less Mrentoni. I sit still in contemplation. Honestly, I have nothing left to do other than let time moves on and keep leading my people. I should also tell Panara what happens if she marries me. Would she want eternal life? Do I want eternal life? Well yes, I did agree to be Moruna¡¯s Champion and she already told me about The Eternity Games. Say, it¡¯s a game that they play, but aren''t I the one playing? She needs to spill some beans soon; this whole thing is way too shrouded in mist. Then again, how would I tell my people that I am immortal and that Panara would be too? This is a mess that is unhealthy for me. I slap my face a few times. That is something I will worry about later. Maybe I should get a hobby? Go become an uber-scientist and power through the technological ages, improving everything about us! Someday, I am immortal now. Although thinking about it too deeply makes me shudder. Immortality seems like it would be fun but at which point do I start to think about ending it all? Well, Moruna did say Panara would be with me but thinking about it, wouldn¡¯t she also go insane at some point? I slap myself a few times more. Once more for good measure. ¡°Why are you slapping yourself like that Gherman?¡± I hear a voice beside me. Turning around I see Garran. ¡°Well Garran, I''m thinking, there is always things to foresee and things to find solutions to, sometimes my mind wanders to somewhere dark and deep. A few good slaps help me calm my mind and get back on track.¡± He sits down beside me. ¡°Go on get some rest, I''ll take over for now.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t feel like it yet and I still need to figure some things out,¡± I say. We sit in silence for a while. Occasionally glancing at each other. Garran wants to say something but doesn¡¯t commit. ¡°Come on Garran, say it if you have too.¡± He clears his throat. ¡°Gherman, you claimed to need manpower but why so? You are clearly a new addition to the Gornag Tribe but where are you rushing too?¡± ¡°Well Garran, it¡¯s complicated, I won''t say now why I''m rushing, next time when we will hold a meeting between some of my people which will naturally include you, I will reveal it. However, I need manpower for Halamar to grow. We have many things around Halamar that need exploiting. We were naturally spread quite thin around the territory with groups of us having different roles. Having more people will bring protection and extra productivity.¡± ¡°Won''t that grow in time though? I guess that¡¯s why you are rushing it, fine I will be patient.¡± He drops the issue. I stand up say goodnight and move back to Panara, getting some rest. The next morning also went without a hitch, the Big Bertha was almost fully eaten but we were close to Halamar at that point. The relatively slow swim was refreshing, to say the least. A calm before the storm so to say.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Arriving in Halamar went smoothly and the Gornag tribe after I told them about the mission, openly accepted the Opperen tribe and got them sorted. ¡°Meeting in the Chieftan''s house right now!¡± I call out. Meena, Zarhan, Panara, Stalra, and Garran all perk up and follow me into the Chieftan''s house. Standing at the meeting table I begin. ¡°Alright everyone there is something important I need to tell you in this meeting, also we will discuss how we should introduce the Opperen tribe to our ways. Everything said here is confidential and yadda yadda yadda.¡± They all nod. ¡°So then, I''ll start with the most important part. Please, when I say this don¡¯t freak out and please stay calm about this.¡± I gather my courage, me telling them that I am immortal might backfire but I have to do it now. ¡°I am Immortal.¡± Silence. Only the sounds of gulping are spread throughout the meeting place. Panara herself is tearing up, she stomps her feet on the wooden planks and jumps off from the balcony and swims away. She truly cares for me, I need to find her after the meeting. Zarhan Garran and Stalra have their mouths wide open, their jaws almost hitting the ground. Garran is the first to come back to his senses and murmurs. ¡°So that¡¯s why you are rushing, he is immortal but needs cover to hide his immortality. No. Why did he tell us then?¡± Zarhan and Stalra sit down on some chairs and just stare at me without saying anything. Meena has the best reaction yet. She didn¡¯t seem too shocked and is rather smugly grinning at me. ¡°Why are you grinning like that kin Meena?¡± ¡°I guessed right of course! If he is sent by a goddess to lead our people to greatness, a few generations of leading won''t get him too far, I guessed he would be long living or even immortal and it seemed I was right.¡± No wonder she is my science division leader, she has a good head on her shoulders. I say. ¡°You people continue with the meeting, Zarhan tells me later what you have decided, I need to find Panara.¡± He nods while maintaining his shocked look. I jump out and look around for any witnesses. I see Delka walking somewhere alone. Swimming up to her I ask. ¡°Have you seen Panara swim by?¡± She nods and points towards the direction of the Inferno Stalks. ¡°What did you do to her? She was crying the whole way!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, she will be fine when I find her, nothing serious.¡± I swim towards the Inferno Stalks plantation. There I see the small house built for the people working there but Panara isn¡¯t in sight. Swimming up to one of the workers and asking him if he saw her lead me to a small hill behind the plantation where I saw her sitting, curling her legs up and sniffling. She is polar or something, muscle-head one moment and a teenage girl crying herself out the next. I swim behind her and hug her. ¡°Don¡¯t cry Panara.¡± I try to comfort her. ¡°What do you mean don¡¯t cry! *sniff* You said you are *sniff* immortal, how would I live knowing you would live longer without me?¡± *sniff* ¡°Silly girl, I was going to tell you something else but you swam away like a heartbroken little girl. Listen up Panara, my wife would also become Immortal. She perks up and hits my nose with her head by accident. ¡°Ow.¡± She tackles me with a hug and we roll down the hill, further away from the Inferno Stalks. ¡°REALLY? OH YES OH YES OH YES OH YES OH YES OH YES!!!!¡± She squeezes me as if to not let me go. I knock her on the head. ¡°Calm down you bloody loon!¡± That knock made her loosen her grip on me and we just lay there on the solid rock hugging each other. ¡°So, do you wanna do my promise here or back at home?¡± She has a moment of realization. She totally forgot about it, didn¡¯t she? She stands up, pulling me up with her, takes her hands and places them on my cheeks. With a weird sudden seductive tone, she says. ¡°Take me here my Champion.¡± ¡°With pleasure,¡± I answer we kiss passionately. Coiling our tongues and rubbing them. I take the initiative and take my hand up to her breasts, pinching the nipple with the ends of my fingers. She lets a moan escape. I take it a step further and start massaging, up and down, left and right, switching to the other breast. The kiss is now getting intense, we can breathe because we have gills so this kiss cannot be stopped unless we let it. I push her down towards the ground and stop the kiss. Undressing her top, I begin to suck on her nipples while caressing her abs. Her moaning becomes louder, my skills in foreplay are blowing her mind. But wait, there¡¯s more. I undress her bottom, revealing her vagina, without any hair obstructing the view I can¡¯t help but give a mental thumbs up to her pussy. I move closer and start licking it, nice and slow, trying to elongate the contact between my tongue and her clit to give her more pleasure. She continues moaning and manages to ask. ¡°Did you learn this back on Earth? I never knew sex can be this amazing!¡± I stop licking and chuckle. ¡°You haven''t seen everything yet.¡± Since I''m taking liberties with the foreplay and have the initiative, I will forgo her giving me and jobs for now. I¡¯m raging hard already and I think she is getting impatient too. I strip and present her with my cock. Her eyes widen at the size of it. Now I don¡¯t know what the normal size is for Mrentoni, but it seems Moruna gave me quite the package. ¡°Stand up and face the wall,¡± I command, she jumps up and faces the wall. ¡°Now show me your ass,¡± I command once again. She complies and turns to face me while shoving her butt towards me. ¡°Like this honey?¡± She says seductively again. She is a keeper, how does she do it, switching personalities with a snap of a finger? Whatever. I position my cock on her entrance and ask. ¡°You ready Panara?¡± She almost screams out with pleasure. ¡°TAKE ME GHERMAN, PLEASE!¡± I push in slowly. Virgins first time should be always done slowly. Breaking the membrane, I take her virginity as I shove my cock up her pussy. She squeals a loud moan when I''m almost fully in. I commit and shove the rest of my penis inside, now I''m balls deep and I feel her womb on the tip of my cock. I pause. ¡°Are you ready Pumpkin?¡± She is breathing heavily, a smile plastered on her face. ¡°Go on!¡± I start pistoning. With my experience on Earth, I try to find her G-spot. Found it. Positioning myself slightly lower to reach the upper parts of her insides I start rubbing it with full force. She cums right there and then. I don¡¯t stop, however. I speed up after she came, ultimate pleasure comes after cumming. Her face is in pure ecstasy, her eyes are fully white as her pupils are rolled up. I go into overdrive and sex her faster. She moans even louder, which makes me start to feel like cumming. I now employ something I just figured out. Using my muscles like I did with swimming I give myself short bursts of speed, pounding her and getting myself closer to an orgasm. With the feeling already at its peak, I shout out, ¡°I¡¯M CUMMING PANARA, TAKE IT.¡± With a final massive burst of speed, I penetrate her womb and spray her insides with my seed. I pump so much into her; my sperm flows out of her vagina and floats away in the current. Pulling out slowly and laying ourselves down on the ground, we pant together, both post-orgasms. She curls closer and kisses me again. Then drops like a corpse and starts snoring. With a smile on my face, I murmur. ¡°You bloody loon, pumpkin.¡± Chapter 13: Elastic Progress! Since then I and Panara were official. Although she was heavy-handed in trying to get me but in the end, she won. What can men do against women? Nothing. She got less clingy now. Content with the fact that I made her my wife. After the ceremony, a weird but understandable thing happened. I felt like part of my soul went to her, she received the immortality like I did. Halamar itself finally got on track, granted it was already but we skipped a big portion of it. The village grew and is now much bigger than before. Four months have passed since the wedding and we recently broke the 100 people mark. The influx of people has led to more births across the village. The Opperen tribe quickly assimilated to the norms that have been made before they came. The clearing that was once flat land is now sprawling with small wooden houses and significant buildings. Before I made the journey to include the Opperen tribe in our village of Halamar we had a rudimentary science lab, a small forge powered by Inferno Stalks and multiple resource buildings on each of the oddities. Suzzys and Big Berthas are what we usually ate since we are carnivorous and the Steery Wood forest is grand so any lack of fish is impossible. Now, the small houses are still there but few have grown to accommodate bigger families. The forge got itself an upgrade, boasting the ability to regulate the heat coming from the Inferno Stalk by using a system of levers that cover the Stalk in a specific thickness of rock. Emmeraude is mostly forged into many things there. Some forms of clay are also processed there. New discoveries are piling in from the Science division. What was Meena by herself is now surrounded by 5 more Mrentoni scientists. The Opperen tribe were deeply concerned about the Zekriken and have taken measures of their own. Naturally, they were happy to be of use and the resources we had given them things to work on. We expanded it to accommodate more people. The Market square actually now has people selling services and wares. This was not a product of our own strength, however. The Boiran¡¯s on their Fortress of ¡°Jesus how do they managed to build it this high and sturdy?¡± as I called it once I visited back about two months ago managed to meet a new species. They explored where the river leads and found on its end massive centipedes that talked. The Harnashaa if I recall. They made contact, which Morren said was the most unnerving thing he ever did. The Harnashaa actually developed a currency already, something with what we struggled with. What they came up with was genius. They are a sand people, so they took the sand and created small finger length products from it and made it currency. Now when I heard that from the Boiran¡¯s I was really close to flipping out and cursing them for the most ridiculous idea I ever have seen before. Sand is everywhere, we have it, it wouldn¡¯t work as currency I thought. That all changed when I saw runes on it flash after a transaction was made in their Fortress. The Harnashaa have engraved runes on the sand figures that flash after they exchange hands. Not only that made no sense physically, it made a lot of sense why they developed it like currency. I have no idea how these runes work but only they can make them. I assume it¡¯s from their inner connection to the spiritual realm that they managed to learn this. Sand is plentiful so making more of it is easy, but having a full-blown monopoly on rune engraving onto these figures gives them an edge in trading. That didn¡¯t convince me, however. Yes, they had made it valuable and it is easily identifiable but I got concerned on the safety of this currency. We will find a medium more valuable than sand with glowy properties eventually. This is where I was wrong. Although it looked all glowy, the runes have energy engraved into it which first of all recognizes its actual owner and can recognize a transaction. This was a scary thing to learn. The Harnashaa managed to create basic AI before any of us left the tribal era. I was sold then, although unnerved at the ability of the Harnashaa. Now, Mrentoni traders are traveling across the river to trade our Shimmering Suzzy Shells, Inferno Stalks and Steery Wood with the Boirans and the Harnashaa. Different kinds of meat are now sold in some of the stalls, the Harnashaa are omnivorous so they hunt their fair share of animals. No other commodities have reached us yet, mostly because they won''t work underwater. ¡°Phew.¡± I close my wooden book. Although ink doesn¡¯t work underwater, the Steery Wood was processed in a book form and small engravement to form words was developed. We also had to develop a written form of our language but thankfully my knowledge of English was enough. I took on the responsibility in writing a dictionary which eased my boredom on the slower days. Thank Moruna and all of the other deities that they made the language universal, otherwise, this would''ve been an issue for generations.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. This wooden book is used for keeping tabs on our population, giving a basic description of each of our citizens. The library should soon be finished, shouldn¡¯t it? Currently, I''m in charge of book-keeping. A job I hate but is necessary. Panara opens the door to my room and throws a chunk of Boxen meat at me, a cow-like animal. I catch it and take a bite. ¡°Thanks, Pumpkin, I needed that.¡± I take my eyes off my desk and look at Panara sauntering over to me. She has a belly with our children kicking inside. We had sex multiple times, a good refresher after a boring day of book-keeping and she eventually got pregnant. Her second month of pregnancy already shows a small belly and about four more months and she will be ready to give birth. I happily smile and bury my head into her side. ¡°You know, I''m glad that nothing dangerous happened to us so far but sometimes it¡¯s horribly boring, no political games to be played either the Boirans and Harnashaa only care about trading,¡± I complain to her. ¡°Oh yeah, I get that feeling too! It¡¯s really dull here, no fighting, no nothing!¡± She quips to me. Hold on. ¡°Panara you are a genius! I just remembered something my people had a long time ago!¡± She asks excitingly. ¡°What is it, Honey?!¡± ¡°Oi, oi wait for you muscle head, I''m not letting you in there yet, besides we need to build the place first. I need to contact Gerry and tell him about the Coliseum.¡± ¡°At least tell me what it is like!¡± She clings harder. ¡°Image one of the lower clearings, the center is a fighting pit where a duel between Mrentoni happen or a fight with a fish, the outer edges are seats for the audience and they make bets and whatnot there.¡± Come to think of it, this is helpful for building warriors and gambling can propagate the economy. We have plenty of Carnash left that we bought from the Harnashaa and the people can still be paid. ¡°I¡¯ll go look for Gerry,¡± I say and leave through the balcony. Gerry should be at the library finishing business, so I swim towards the Science district and see the mostly built library beside the Science lab. Gerry and Meena coordinating some Mrentoni in finishing the roof. ¡°Hey Gerry, how''s the library looking?¡± I swoop in and ask. ¡°It¡¯s going, fine boss! We need to finish the roof and then make the holes for the water to filter and it should be done!¡± Gerry works fast, send him to the Boirans and I''m afraid they will make a The Flash mixed with an enthusiast Architect. ¡°Gerry, I got a new job for you after you¡¯re done with this.¡± I hug his shoulder with one arm and tell him the details of the Coliseum. ¡°Sure, thing boss! Will get working on that right away, just get me some Carnash to buy sandstone from the Harnashaa, they have such beautiful sandstone there twmmmmma!¡± He kisses his fingers and flashes them out like an Italian chef. ¡°No problem, the Council will get you the Carnash.¡± He saunters of inside chuckling to himself and rubbing his hands together. Well, that¡¯s done with. Meena walks towards me and says. ¡°Chieftan Gherman, I have some news for you, I was going to tell you but Gerry caught me and told me about the library.¡± ¡°What is it Meena?¡± Any news from her can only be good. She doesn¡¯t say anything but moves her head, pointing towards the Science building, hinting that she would rather talk inside. I nod and we walk inside. None of her aids are inside, probably having the day off since the construction noise is in the way in their research. ¡°Alright, Chieftan Gherman, I have a report to make about the projects you gave us. The domestication of Big Berthas has been difficult, to say the least. We have made progress in the form of making the eggs witness one of our Mrentoni brethren makes them consider them their mother but they still get aggressive when they slightly mature so we are at a bottleneck there.¡± ¡°We have checked the areas you have designated and we found something when we dug into the rock slightly.¡± I perk up at this, a new discovery in the territory is going to help us grow. ¡°It¡¯s a weird substance that we collected, here.¡± She hands me a small pot full of white material. I look at her and ask. ¡°Is it safe?¡± She nods. I stick my hand into the pot and feel the material and feel it out. Firm and bouncy. I prod harder. It gives off some resistance and doesn¡¯t cave in anymore. My finger rebounds and I look at it once again. This is rubber! Good, good! I look at Meena and say. ¡°Meena you have found something amazing. Experiment with this material, try to include it in weapons design and anything else that might need strengthening, tell Zarhan to get some people to set a workstation there and have some up for trade!¡± My excitement rubbed off her and she takes back the pot and runs out to find her husband. I wonder, would my ability now pick up the Rubber deposit? Also, how the hell did rubber get underwater and under a layer of rock? Odd. I jump back into the Chieftan''s house which is a glorified meeting place with a few rooms. We should relocate to The Great Hall. I sit in the chair and close my eyes. Swoosh and the map unfolds. Looking around I can see the small icon for the Rubber. The previous + in food and production is now replaced with +++ production and ++ science. A good upgrade if I say so myself. This discovery can lead to great improvements! Just by strengthening all of our tools and scale like clothing can lead us to live better lives! I return back to reality and see Panara looking at me while bending down slightly in front of me. ¡°What?¡± I ask. ¡°Why do you do that sometimes Honey? You close your eyes and just sit there unmoving.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s my ability to have a map like a view of the territory, see the bonuses of the resources we exploit and look at people¡¯s wants and status. I need to close my eyes and think about it for it to work¡± ¡°Aha. Then what do I want?¡± She asks grinning. ¡°Nothing, you¡¯re 100 % happy already.¡± ¡°Damn right I am!¡± Chapter 14: Crushing Your Mistake The Rubber fields were now a thing. It turned out that it spanned quite a way out and away from my territory. This brought great progress. No seriously, we put rubber everywhere. In buildings, in tools, in furniture, everywhere. The reason we did that, however, was interesting. Rubber itself on Earth was produced through sap of a tree and could be diluted in order to give different effects. More strength but less bounciness or vice-versa. However, we didn¡¯t have that luxury and our rubber fields produced exclusively hard rubber. Its bounciness was negligible, my finger didn¡¯t get very far before it resisted. So now we slapped Rubber everywhere. Made things much sturdier. Our spears now have better grips and hold the sharp Emmeraude and wood together better. Buildings were being renovated to add rubber in its supporting areas. Rubber was so abundant that we sold it off to any buyer. The Boirans really liked it and always took a big chunk of it to their Fortress. The Harnashaa were intrigued by the product and gave us Carnash for it. With me leading the general populace to progress technologically with the help of Meena and her crew I found an interesting issue. Halamar is just boring. Building an empire is certainly tough and I thought I was doing things correctly but I missed a crucial part of an empire. It¡¯s identity. Great Britain before the industrial revolution had a rich cultural history. We don¡¯t have that. Since I¡¯m rushing science with no rest the environment keeps changing. Halamar is always restless, the 100 so people all crave newer discoveries, some people even just regularly do research on their own. I acted stupidly and didn¡¯t think about the big picture. The science curve should be natural but now, it¡¯s all over the place. Many things that should come with time was forced by me and the Mrentoni are slowly changing because of it. Sure, we are still hardy warriors with a code of honor but now, honor is becoming less of a thing. Research is valuable now to these people. Any form of new discovery is discussed and dissected in the Great Hall. The culture of Honor is slowly dying in front of my eyes and it was all my fault. It¡¯s too late now, the people are now happy to be working not only their fair share of labor in harvesting areas but also do their own research. A cultural shift. Rubber influenced all of us way too much but now it¡¯s a part of life. We live on top of an abundant deposit of it. It¡¯s been only a week since it¡¯s discovery. I¡¯m mulling in the Chieftan''s house which itself got renamed to the Councils Home. The technological upbringing and my policy of keeping everyone informed and educated in the basics have led to a greater understanding of politics and such. The Mrentoni are still treating me like a leader but the general view of me and the other Chieftan''s is less subordinary and more equal. Who knew that aiming for equality would lead to such destruction of the honor system that identified the Mrentoni. An issue that plagued me thoroughly. Everyone around me was heavily influenced by my human thinking in aiming for justice and equality when the Meritocratic system before was what I initially wanted. A mistake for thinking that the Mrentoni need equality in treatment when they already treated success like the greatest thing ever. They are now not so incorruptible. What drove them was honor and respect is now just technology. This isn¡¯t like a Civ game where everything is constant. I now understand why the Human Champion was having difficulties. He probably was too some bloke from an advanced nation who prioritized something too much which lead to many problems. I need to nip the root of this problem but if I am too aggressive I might cause a divide between us. The young who want to delve deeper into the knowledge wormhole and the old who had honor ingrained in their being. I stand up. ¡°Zarhan, Garran I need you to bring everyone to the Market Square, I need to make a speech.¡± They still follow the honor code but I can¡¯t say the same for quite a few other people, my authority would be undermined if I let them continue. The people slowly gather at the square, many confused at why some eager to hear the Chieftan''s speak and some with obvious dislike to the whole situation. I clear my throat and motion for silence. ¡°I have gathered you all today to explain to you something you are all forgetting.¡± I begin with a heavy tone. ¡°Progress has been made when we discovered the Rubber fields, we now employ It in most of your equipment and buildings. That is good. However, Rubber has influenced not only me but each and every one of you standing in front of me and not in a good way.¡± They start murmuring after I pause slightly. ¡°Many of you received some form of education after I joined as Co-Chieftan and that is also very good. An educated population is a hardworking and intelligent population. However, my push to treat all of you the same and bring the luxuries that we Chieftan''s used to possess to everyone else led to many Mrentoni in tarnishing your heritage. We all functioned by honor a short while ago, the more honor someone has, the more respect you give them since honor comes from the people.¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I pause once again for them to chew through the information. ¡°Now, people are forgetting what we as Mrentoni always stood by. Many among you start acting on your own, forgetting that before you can decide, there is the entire Mrentoni populace that you ignore. Instead of honoring your fellow neighbor and wishing them everything well I saw many of you spit on what was your proud heritage and began taking actions on your own. Many of these actions harmful to what I tried to establish.¡± This riles up a few of the insubordinate Mrentoni. Some guy barks out. ¡°So, you get to control us no problem eh, Gherman? Think you can keep us under control to do what you wish? Well no more from me, I refuse to listen to your commands when all you do is lie and cheat us from a good life. Forcing us to work by introducing Carnash from oversized bugs!¡± Some of his standing neighbors try to force him to apologize but I ignore that. ¡°You heard him here folks, I who lied and cheated my way to Chieftan has all forced you to work for currency so that any one of you can buy what you want when you want it. It is my fault that I brought to you many technological discoveries with the help from our Science division leader Meena. It is my fault that Zarhan and Stalra all desperately worked in order to build the houses you live in. It is my fault that Garran joined my council so that he could save his tribe from starvation and destruction. It is my fault that you want to do nothing and see things brought to you on a plate. It is my fault that I treated every single one of you with the respect that at times your honor didn¡¯t give you. It is my fault that I wished for my people to never forget and remember our way of life by giving this speech about the few people that wish tarnish what the Mrentoni always lived for.¡± Silence. The Mrentoni that spoke to me is now regretting his speech. These people are educated although na?ve so they will understand that they were wrong in trying to find justice when they already had it. Just like children that feel like they were wronged when they couldn¡¯t do something one time. ¡°Any Mrentoni that decided to be autonomous and spit on our code of honor step forward and ask for forgiveness not only from me but from everyone around you. If you still feel you are wronged please leave and never come back.¡± The rebellious Mrentoni that spat on the hierarchy stepped forward and kneeled, asking for forgiveness. No one decided to leave. I sigh internally. At least they are not complete muscle-heads when they are taught. Panara, Zarhan, and Garran all look at me with reverence. They were team Honor so my speech riled them up as much as it did the perpetrators. Although I blamed the naive for thinking that way, it was still my fault it came to that. My speech is ironically hypocritical. However, showing weakness as a leader is the first step to failure. If I blamed myself truly they might¡¯ve forced me to leave. I retire to my bedroom with a few goodbyes and visit Moruna. I¡¯m back in the bright white light. ¡°Come in Gherman.¡± She beckons me like before. I step inside and sit down on the same chair like before. ¡°Did you enjoy the show so far?¡± I ask in a stressed tone. ¡°Come on Gherman, don¡¯t be such a puss. What you did is not your fault, many champions fall into this trap however not many remedy the situation like you did. You are resourceful and righteous, don¡¯t let their grievances weigh you down and certainly don¡¯t listen to anyone that forces you to change the way you try to help people.¡± She lectures me. Certainly, a goddess with wisdom in the bank. ¡°Ok, mom, I''ll be good!¡± I jest. She smiles at me cheering up. ¡°So, what brings you here other than you acting like a child when you got a boo-boo?¡± She knows me too well. ¡°Moruna, you said that The Eternity Games are played by the gods to bring up a new god among you. However, I''m the one playing, you have almost no input.¡± ¡°Clever and to an extent you are correct. Our champions get autonomy at the start of their game but you forget. We get to pick our starting hand. You Gherman, are a royal flush, something that not many gods can exploit.¡± ¡°Exploit? So, you do have an input beyond picking a hand. Figures.¡± ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry Gherman, until you reach a certain level in your growth do we start playing an acting role within your territory.¡± ¡°Then what is it? Why all the secrecy behind your involvement?¡± ¡°Well, it is simply because it will affect your style if we tell our champions. I can reveal what it is since you are doing exceptionally well and have been zipping through the technological ages. After a champion unites his people do we start playing an acting role and we give many things in order to boost our champions power. I cannot say what it is specifically because it may alter what you do now in preparation for it, giving an unfair advantage.¡± They do participate, at least it¡¯s not for their entertainment. My next goal if I want to win the Eternity Games is to unite my people and speed towards the space age straight after. The other champions probably are not horrible since the gods are picking them. I slap myself a few times and start murmuring. ¡°I need to develop the engine, or get Meena to do it.¡± Moruna brings me back from my world. ¡°Don¡¯t worry Gherman, among the champions you are quite far ahead with technology, rushing is not such a big issue. However, I must say that you really got lucky with your placement of Halamar but you exploiting the resources around the area is all on you. Good job!¡± She gives me a thumbs up. ¡°Just don¡¯t only focus on tech. You have to be the leading authority on Orinah to be eligible for space exploration and the next phase of the game. Either it is through conquest or diplomacy will be fine but I¡¯ll give you some advice. You have already confirmed the Harnashaa are on the continent. Remember, diversity if properly lead can achieve mind-boggling results. Imagine if you had these spiritualists on your side as war potential or something along those lines. The Humans back on Earth are way too behind since they are the only species on their planet and so they have only rare occasions of a scientist thinking in a different way.¡± ¡°The Boirans already trust you and they will be powerful if you let them be part of your empire since they are such great builders.¡± ¡°I understand,¡± I say. ¡°Well then, get on with it, I wanna see how you tackle the unification of the Mrentoni.¡± ¡°Ok, mom!¡± I close my eyes and wish myself back. Before I lose connection to this place I hear, ¡°Stop calling me mom!¡± Heh. Chapter 15: Recollection and Progress After guilt tripping some of my people and then have a goddess cheer me up after I fucked up horribly was what lead to the boom of industrialization. Even with about 100 people on hand, I began a really important project that led me to take control over the ocean and naturally all of the Mrentoni here. After I stopped moping after I almost caused cultural genocide I got back into action really quickly. First and foremost, before I cause another confliction between the cultural heritage of the Mrentoni and my human upbringing I set in motion many laws for the young Mrentoni. This ranged from laws about schooling and what should be taught. I stressed that our cultural pride should be driven in first, then behavior should be molded by the parents. Respect from the Honor hierarchy first, then equality second. Equality doesn¡¯t work when there is a ruling elite, even if they are benevolent and think about their people. The upbringing laws were now set in motion. Although I feel like dictating how people are taught is wrong but it¡¯s necessary if I want my people to be educated, not prone to violence and that they care about necessary traditions. That way, although I limit the freedom of choice from the people, they grow up to be a loyal and meritocratic ideologically. Great for leading an empire to my whims since they trust the leaders because they set that honor to them and they trust each other since they treat people like they would treat themselves. Bad apples are naturally going to appear. No, they are almost certainly going to be there, not everything can be utopian but this is close enough. Essentially, I placed the building blocks for an Egalitarian Meritocracy where everyone has a chance to be a leader, given that they produce enough results to their own people. I thought that I would need to take it slowly and build myself through the different technological ages but even I didn¡¯t foresee a technological boom that came simply because I had the knowledge from Earth and that many easy to harvest materials are all beside Halamar. Really bloody lucky. After setting the groundwork for what would become an unshakable government that would never have a revolution nor is under any civil conflict I began working with the science division to make the first engine. Moruna told me to not rush since I am already ahead of everyone else. Come to think of it, she didn¡¯t tell me where they are. Is there another Champion on Orinah? Whatever, I''m ahead, that should be enough. Since my next goal was to unite the Mrentoni I needed a way to get around. An Engine is necessary to create a vehicle that will move underwater quickly. Meena and her crew got my details on what I need and I told them to find a solution. Now I wait. I have done what I could. I¡¯m no scientist so I cannot help, only give them the basics. So, I ruled where I had to and taught Zarhan and Garran many things about politics. I told the most trusted people about me being immortal and Panara getting that gift as well. Now I told them that I will pretend to become old and die eventually but still actually be around in secret. They are tasked to find trustworthy Mrentoni under our rule to be their successors. Zarhan and Garran who became the best of friends understood my reasoning. Meena already knew so she complied as well. Stalra was a weird bloke. He agreed to find a successor like everyone else but he seemed awfully envious of something. We never clicked together but I left him alone and he left me alone. However, I always seem to catch him sorrowfully glancing in my direction occasionally and I don¡¯t know why. Panara eventually agreed to become a ghost like me when it would be time for us to pass away. I promised her that when we eventually find a way to disguise her she can roam freely as she used to. Time passes. With nothing to do but give vague descriptions of what I want to Meena and her crew and make diplomatic moves on the Boiran¡¯s time has slowly passed. Not many things happened for an entire year. My baby girl was born. Panara gave birth to Erika, as I named her. The sweet bundle of bliss has livened up our boring lives to unprecedented heights. With her pregnancy out of the way, Panara made herself known in the Coliseum that was built a month prior to Erika¡¯s birth. With her mother was smashing fish like there was no tomorrow and destroying all challengers single-handedly I had Erika all to myself. She had her mother''s look. Rather she was almost identical to her mother save for her personality. She was a copy of me. Daring and curious as I was, she challenged me to many things when she first started to talk. She even challenged me to a fight. I showed her no mercy and destroyed her with tickles. What a cute little ball of bliss. She grew fast, like all Mrentoni in six months she was walking among us and building up her own honor.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Time sure goes by fast when you spend it on what you like. She doesn¡¯t start square one as most Mrentoni do when it comes to honor. She, being my daughter got some leeway in that regard. I personally taught her since her mother liked to be away at times and I basically stayed indoors like a NEET. Panara wasn¡¯t that heartless to make me teach Erika. Rather the twin-like pair loved to have fought together, something that Panara passed onto her personality. With me giving her tips from the army I had, and her natural disposition to fighting, she was rather unmatched. Only me, Panara and a few others were able to best her in combat. What a cute little ball of violence. The other notable thing was that the Boiran¡¯s discovered more deposits of Emmeraude around another river they found, so we had no lack of that any time soon. Speaking of the Boiran¡¯s, Morren was quite happy with the rubber we provided. They similarly used it everywhere and generally grew their fuck-off massive fort into something bigger. I still don¡¯t understand how they are doing it. Do they die if they don¡¯t build or something? We introduced them to some more technical concepts we have developed and they grew alongside us. Even though giving an ally this much would be deemed stupid by many, I had to keep our flank friendly with us as they hold the key for trading with the mainland races and give us protection from the same mainland. They themselves wouldn¡¯t want to betray us. We hold power underwater and the resources we exploit cannot be harvested by them in this day and age. The Mrentoni and Harnashaa relationship were also growing. Some of our fellow Mrentoni are actively praising myself and the other councilors so the Harnashaa seemed to have grown interested in us. Some traders bring word that they wish to meet in person. But that wouldn¡¯t happen for quite a while since they promised to come after winter subsides which is itself about halfway done wintering. Similarly, to the research and production of the engine, I happened to drop the idea of suits to the science division. Rubber can hold itself together under pressure so using it underwater and on land could prove beneficial as it could alleviate some of our weaknesses. The engine itself was hard to produce given we are underwater. This whole underwater business really slowed down some of our discoveries. Water can really mess things up sometimes. The engine itself is trying to use Emmeraude as a conductor of heat to transfer it into kinetic energy. Meena explained that my idea of basing the engine on Inferno Stalks really helped and this prototype is what her team and herself made. It looked clunky, crude and even sickly in some areas but to me, it proved that it can be done. The way it worked was that the Inferno Stalks are fed water through a regulator pipe that gives it the food it needs to emit its lustering heat. The heat is controlled by switches that control the amount of heat that escapes into the Emmeraude piping. That heat is then burning a form of fuel to create pressurized steam which powers turbines. Confusing, yes. Working, maybe. The system works, however, the conversion is garbage, to say the least. The turbines move but slowly and don¡¯t generate much power and thus the engine only creates a small amount of force that makes something move. The engine itself when left in the vacuum that is water moved slowly. A working prototype is better than nothing so I told them they did a good job and need to find a way to increase the efficiency of the engine. Electricity is impossible underwater so Kinetic energy is what we could do realistically. With the prototype tested and sent back to the drawing board, I had to get the forging team to finish something for me. We all used pickaxes to mine the rock, clay and the rubber but I proposed the concept of a drill to them. A hand-held drill that would be much more effective in mining. Naturally, these sweat torn muscle masses loved the idea and got to work on it and called me in to see if they did a good job. Walking into the foundry that like everything in Halamar grew to accommodate new innovations and people. The Mrentoni inside all greeted me and presented their drill to me. Never doubt a master''s hand. It¡¯s almost identical to what I drew it like. A drill that will pierce the heavens! Something like that. The drill itself is attached to a small handle and is powered by hand moving the other handle in circles made the drill twist and drive through anything. Testing it out on some rock showed great results. The rubber grip made the drill easy to handle and not accidentally let go off. Really a perfect drill. I instructed them to produce more and send them to the mining teams around Halamar. More progress made for the future. Skipping entire levels of progress to the most optimal one sure speeds things up accordingly. With the lack of farming since we don¡¯t eat plants, we could focus less on hunting since the big berthas are massive already and a few could keep us going for some time. The domestication of Big Berthas still had no progress so I shelved that project to get the engine up and running. We need one key step to domesticate them but we can¡¯t find it. All that was now left was to count the treasury. Recently, with trading our goods we made quite a profit of Carnash that was circulated between the Boirans and us from the Harnashaa. I considered to use the Carnash soon to buy some land of the Boirans and set up a small village for ourselves but I still need much more and Morren isn¡¯t too keen on that idea. The Boirans still have some healthy speculation from us being too close since all we do is eat meat and we generally overpower them. He is just paranoid since we have had a healthy trading relationship for quite a while now. The final thing that I need to do before I can stop being active in our projects around Halamar is to set up a new name for what we shall call ourselves. A national spirit and set up our own flag. The final part to set up this kingdom would be necessary in order to bring the numerous Chieftan''s under the rule of the council. I have a name in mind in fact. Something that encompasses our identity and speaks volumes of our temperament. Holaria.