ALL NOVEL 17 - Evolution_1
A massacre had taken place, evidence strewn wetly across the ground beneath the large gnarled tree so thickly that it dripped down the roots themselves to soak into the dirt. The entire area around David was suspiciously devoid of orange, though his fur was damningly sticky and his guilt assured that he’d straight up murdered those fruits. He’d been hungry enough to try eating a Slitherwolf himself after his Health had regenerated and his leg had slowly healed with it, not even a scar for all his trouble. Now rested, full, and restored to capacity he had wrapped himself in his wings and gotten comfortable hanging from his favorite branch as Claire sunned herself in the meadow. They had both agreed not to do anything right away, but instead, wait until David had gotten at least a little bit of sleep.
Not that David was sleeping, though he did intend to read until he fell asleep. He poured over any information the System would give him, trying different wordings and strategies until he got what he wanted. He’d found, to his great lack of surprise, that it responded best to the most precise, literal phrasing possible and had begun to treat it like a clunky old computer program.
Define ‘Evolution’
|Evolution: How a User grows in power and progresses through Life Stages.
The User is first eligible for Evolution after 5 levels, and every 15 levels thereafter.
|Hatchling|
|Juvenile|
|Sub-Adult|
|Adult|
|Elder|
|???|
Evolutionary Paths are generated via the User's experiences during the Life Stage.
During this process, the User may spend Points to enhance their form after the Evolutionary Path is selected. Points may be spent on direct physical enhancements, or to purchase new Abilities or Mutagens.
David stared studiously at the wall of information and tried to understand it correctly before he moved on, selecting the first of the Life Stages and nudging the system with a precise thought.
Hatchling.
|Hatchling: The very first Life Stage, a weak and pitiful creature with great potential. All Hatchlings start life as subspecies, which are generated by the randomization of Traits. If a Hatchling can gain 5 levels, or survive for 7 days, they may Evolve into a Juvenile.|
Holy shit, this is big. I can finally fix some of the issues I’ve been having, I should have a ton of Points, right? I got some for Bonus Loot or whatever. I wonder what a direct physical enhancement is? I bet I could…
David descended deep into a food coma after about half an hour as Claire watched him idly, enjoying the warmth from the sun on her scaly hide as she lay in the grass. She was immensely enjoying the sensation of a full belly after a few days without eating, even though she felt herself growing hungry much more slowly in her new form. Claire kept her head angled towards the fruit tree, making sure to keep David’s leathery wing-bound body in the corner of her eye at all times. She took the opportunity to simply relax and process the day's events while she allowed her reptilian body to simply soak up the sunlight, a large nictating membrane sliding across her eyes as she sat motionless for a long time.
Birdsong drifted through the trees as bright sunlight cast shadows through the lush grass of the meadow, tiny fluttering insects darting between patches of wildflowers as Claire watched. She sniffed the air automatically, grateful to find nothing was amiss and nobody trying to sneak down the ridge at them. Ever since David had told her that he’d found those nasty Slitherwolves out hunting through the forest nearby she’d kept her nose to the wind, unwilling to let anything sneak up on them like that. She might not have the best vision, but she was pretty sure she could smell fear if that was a real thing. Claire glanced at the sun again only to find that she’d been basking for what was at least a couple of hours, and she snorted in irritation.
“Hey, Squeaky! You said to wake you up after a bit! It’s been a bit!”, Claire barked up into the tree after taking the time to stomp over below where David was sleeping.
David jerked where he hung on his branch, grumbling sleepily to himself as he adjusted his large leathery wings. He shuffled in place a bit before his furry batlike head poked out of the tent of his wings and peered down at her, nose wrinkled a bit in distaste at the sunlight as the evening started to tilt towards dusk.
“I’m up, I’m up.”, David yawned shrilly, “Be right down, hold up. Gotta stretch.”
He extended first one wing, stretched it, and then repeated the process before rolling his neck a few times. David released his grip on the branch, angled his wings to scoop a bit too much air, and slowly glided straight downwards to plop onto the ground in front of Claire’s clawed feet. She regarded the faint silvery haze that followed him down with suspicion and snorted a long blast of air towards the cloud that blew it away from her face. David shrugged in apology when she shot him an offended look.
“So, did you do any reading on the stuff while I was asleep?”, David asked as he flopped over into a dense pile of sun warmed grass, rolling around a bit.
“No, I was ‘chillin' honestly. A lot to think about.” Claire replied bluntly, “Plus you like explaining stuff so I figured I’d let you do it.”
“...do I at least explain the stuff well?”
She nodded, her long scaly jaws brushing the top of the grass as she moved to sit close by, “Yeah you do a pretty good job, I’m always confused by all the screens, but you take to it like a fish.”
“You know what, I’ll take it.”, David squeaked back at her before continuing, “Best I can understand is when we do it it's gonna be a little bit like when they stuffed us into the eggs, just not as bad. We’ve got Life Stages, and Hatchling lasts from 0 to 5, which is the short version. Our first evolution was random, but this one lets you control where it’s going and improve specific things for Points. Understand?”
“Kind of? It’s like deepening your Holy Oath in Bumblefuq’s–”
“Yeah, probably. Just like that, actually. You got it.”, David cut her off when he saw the mischievous glint to her usually flat reptilian stare and realized that this time she was fucking with him.
“Hah, got me. Yeah, I understand it well enough, I can’t get out of being…like this…but I’m in charge of it now.”
He nodded sagely before adding, “Oh, one more thing! It says you have to pick an evolutionary path before spending any Points to improve stuff or buy abilities and mutagens. I’m not sure what those are, but it mentioned something about the paths being generated based on our experiences during the Hatchling stage.”
“So you’re going to evolve into a punching bag with the attention span of a squirrel, is that what you’re saying?” Claire guffawed loudly at his expense as he flattened his ears down sheepishly.
David snickered despite himself, “God I hope not, and don’t you put that evil on me. Honestly, I wanna do it now, I’m hoping I can fix a few things so I’m not always about to be eaten.”
“Works for me.”, Claire agreed immediately with a skeptical look in her eye, “You go first, and then let me know how it was. I’ll be right here.”
David paused for a second before shrugging and climbing to his feet. He theatrically made a show of popping his neck and pretended to pop his knuckles, the gesture looking more sinister than he’d intended with the long ‘fingers’ that made up his wings. Claire gave him a sideways look that seemed to say ‘get on with it then’ as he hyped himself up a bit. Bouncing in place for a moment before he shook himself hard and sank onto his haunches. The option appeared with only a whisper of a thought, the unusual red coloration standing out against the usual blue the system seemed to favor.
–Evolution Available–
Evolve.
The grass froze in place, no longer waving in the wind as all sound cut off around him. He felt his body lock in place, and was no longer able to move as that familiar bubbling sensation began to fill the inside of his skull like cold water. A pale blue glow began to fill his vision, his body going oddly numb and desensitized as colors of every hue, impossible or not, dominated his vision and obscured the meadow from sight before everything settled down a few moments later.
An infinity of grey fog stretched off in every direction, broken only by a single blue window that hovered immediately in front of him once again.
Beginning Evolution.
You have 23 points available.
Okay, lets try this again.