Technically speaking it's less 'refinement' and more trying to use Dao of Awareness to play supernatural lookout.
Squirrel Sect [Stone age] [Riot Quest] [Squirrels Cultivating]
- Thread starter Zedalb
- Start date
Technically speaking it's less 'refinement' and more trying to use Dao of Awareness to play supernatural lookout.
Placeholder.
Waiting on @Zedalb to tell me specifically how my seduction went before deciding on what I wanna commit my rolls to.
Brainbow
Jamais vu
Most squirrels are learning to use the bows we're making, but we're all learning as the Owls are settling in the trees. And sure enough, those who were tapping into the acorns were the first ones the Owls picked. Whatever time we could have spent on that strange energy has passed, and now we need to use our noggins. We need wood, stone, leaf, and much of it. This one would have wanted to delve more with the bows, but that cannot be spared until the Owls leave, or the expedition returned. Soon, though, something must be done with all we're gathering.
[X] Gather from the fallen long (Double Wood gain for the first 2 action to use it)
EDIT: Eh?
[X] Gather from the fallen long (Double Wood gain for the first 2 action to use it)
EDIT: Eh?
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Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
You did not die, and the spider made it's offer.
- Location
- Eastern Seaboard
Personally, I'm not entirely certain as to which option to select (between the reroll and the discovered treasure (with the communal one being selected)). On one hand, I kinda want to risk it and select Discovered Treasure for the rest of the dray's benefit, but on the other hand, we probably won't get as lucky this turn as we will next turn when it comes to rolls.
You could always roll a d2.
Honestly? Take the 10X sure it's a bit boring but you're roll was 39 and a 390 should enough to get the expedition back to the sect this turn, both completing it and reaping the rewards and recovering all of the squirl power that is surly needed.
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
You could do a lot of good things including something as simple as making one of the expedition cultivators named.
Every option is pretty good right now.
There is no *10, the closest comparison makes the expedition shorter, and I personally consider it the worst option.
The 10x is nice, but if we'd wanted to go that route, it would have been better for me to take it the first turn.
The free rerolls would allows us to play a bit fast and loose on the way back, taking risks we might not have otherwise. (Going fast, cultivating, etc.)
MYSTERY BOX. 'nuff said.
Names are good in general. Might not be the best, and I'd personally prefer the mystery box, but as long as you choose someone who'll likely survive for a long while, it's pretty reliable.
Leader would be good if we had more people willing to write omakes >1k words.
Blessed Fortune is alright, could help some people this turn, and would help people survive between turns, during owl attacks. Unfortunately, it would also encourage cultivating.
I'd choose mystery box, but that's mostly because I really like gacha.
The free rerolls would allows us to play a bit fast and loose on the way back, taking risks we might not have otherwise. (Going fast, cultivating, etc.)
MYSTERY BOX. 'nuff said.
Names are good in general. Might not be the best, and I'd personally prefer the mystery box, but as long as you choose someone who'll likely survive for a long while, it's pretty reliable.
Leader would be good if we had more people willing to write omakes >1k words.
Blessed Fortune is alright, could help some people this turn, and would help people survive between turns, during owl attacks. Unfortunately, it would also encourage cultivating.
I'd choose mystery box, but that's mostly because I really like gacha.
ehhh, yes but not really a single squirrel isn't really gonna turn the tides here. not sure how strong a level 2 squirrel is.at most he may be able to handle 1 owl but then they can just gang up on him and such. I'd say leave him out still cause then he'll have another turn to double up on cultivation to try and reach level 3
I'd second the x10. It will shave at least a turn off and there's something like half a dozen cultivators on the journey that could be helping defend the sect.
Half of our best fighting force is on that expedition. It in fact, is enough to turn the tide of defending the sect.
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it's really not,
we've already determined that level 1 squirrels arent a match for the owls. the only one who may be is goable at level 2 and owls can just gang up on him.
It's why setting up weapons and fortifications has been the main thing that's being pushed for, cultivation will help, but unless it's overwhelming cultivation, it isn't the thing that's gonna save us here, getting our defenses in order is.
- Location
- Eastern Seaboard
[X] DISCOVERED TREASURE: Choose between a communal treasure that will help the tribe or a stronger treasure that will help only one squirrel.
Hmm.. I think I'm going to go with the mystery box; Picking communal treasure for this.
Hmm.. I think I'm going to go with the mystery box; Picking communal treasure for this.
I think both actions with the log have been taken, sorry
Lalm
Leviathan when Cygames
dice stay the same when you change actions, so should have just edited your action in your original comment
Dawn of the Fourth Day: Journey
AN: Here, the eldritch and horror parts of dreaming eldritch horror start to creep in.
For once, the sleepy squirrel awakens only after the rising of the sun, rays of light already cresting the horizon. There is a deep ache within his bones, and he feels his fur surrounded by a film of filth. He lets out a soft moan of despair as his muscles protest his movement, still sore from whatever had happened when he had broken through that first barrier.
Ah, that's right. He'd done it. A vague sense of pride fills his chest as the gunk slides entirely too easily off of his body, before falling and sticking onto the branch of the tree. That's going to be a pain, and he feels a bit of guilt at leaving before being able to clean up, but this is the way of things. Nuts don't always fall where you want them to.
Past the pain felt when he makes to move, the squirrel notices that he is more than he was before. His mind is sharper in the wake, approaching that which had been felt in the dream, and his body is capable of more than it had been. Were he not so constantly lethargic, he doubts he would have noticed much of a difference, so ingrained is the change. The prospect is as exciting as it is terrifying.
The void that had been screaming past the edge of his senses is content now, no longer emitting the subtle twinge of pain and hunger that had been guiding his actions the day prior. It currently sits empty, the energy within having been expended and infused into strengthening his body. A reservoir sits there, capable of filling itself with that ever-present energy that the Acorns had provided.
It is small, for now, barely capable of holding a single wisp of energy. He knows that he can make use of that energy, pushing himself beyond what he would normally be capable of with a burst of energy. Having it empty is a slightly hollow feeling, he notes.
That energy-that life force- is present everywhere, now that he knows how to look. Life suddenly seems so much more vibrant, everything around him becoming so much more filled with life and color. He can feel it entering and exiting his body as he breathes, and idly wonders if he can steal some of it from the air.
He finally makes to move off of the branch where he had sat thinking, before thinking to check on the black sludge that he had left behind. It is then that he realizes that rather than making his body better, the breakthrough had simply made it less imperfect, expelling the blockages, inefficiencies, and other issues within his body. The difference is negligible in practice, he'll admit, but any information about this new discovery could be useful.
In truth, he hadn't been the first to notice this, but collective data gathering to double-check information is always a good practice.
Today is the day they set out to collect the sky-fire. The members have yet to be decided, but the first-squirrel-to-be-more has guaranteed it's presence for the expedition. Today there is to be another moot, called to determine the hows, whys, and whats of the expedition. Preparations had already begun, the day before, and they had proceeded swimmingly.
The sleepy squirrel scrambled down the trunk that had begun to grow even taller. He can barely make out the reason, the vital energy suffusing the forest air unusually dense within it's sap, and serving to harden the bark beyond what it had been. Before, he had been able to carelessly scratch chunks off it's bark, but now he'd only been able to do so due to his enhanced body.
The acorns that he could sense, not with his eyes, but something new, weren't quite filled with the power, but it was denser than anything in the air, or even the wisp he had held back in the dream. If a normal squirrel ate this, and was able to use it effectively, there was little doubt that they would be able to take the first step.
The first step to what?
His train of thought experiences a minor disconnect, slipping off then back onto the stream of consciousness, the thought momentarily forgotten. The sun has not yet reached the point at which it would not be considered morning, a fading orange lingering on the horizon, bringing to mind hot metal slowly cooling.
As if the forge of the sun was just outside of sight. And with the idea of creation came fire, and the reminder of what was to come.
Again, a gear slips, ideas discovered in dreams refusing to manifest in the real. He continues slowly making his way towards the meeting-point, a hollowed dugout slightly indented into one of the great trees. His mind is sharp enough to catch his shifting thoughts, this time.
He attempts to wrangle his thoughts- he is distracted, while crossing the ground. He is moving entirely too slowly to be lost in thoughts, especially given the worries of predators about. It is both too early and too late in the day for any concerns of predators to be forgotten, canid beasts hunting the undergrowth through the day, while owls would soon populate the skies over the course of the night.
Dawn and dusk would be the most dangerous places to live as an awakened squirrel, knowledgeable enough to be terrified, but too weak to do much. Both types of predators would be about then, one by land and the other by air.
He scrambles his way up a trunk, the mundane tree protesting creakily against his haste. He exerts his energy(but not his energy), and jumps to one of the highest branches. He idly notes that this tree is old, older than even the great trees, despite being smaller. That vibrant force seems to be a force of growth, if not necessarily life.
I- c–ls.
He jumps from the top of the branch to one of the lower ones of a nearby, much taller tree. Again, he makes his way back above the undergrowth, if not high enough to reach the canopy quite yet.
Sight. White.
He has an urge, an impulse, to climb even higher.
And so he does, reaching above the cover provided by the canopy, looking out over the copses of treetops, into the sky. The moon, pale but full of life, exists as a contradiction to that lone, lifeless moon in the desert.
Remember.
Something slips, again. He catches it this time, a struggle between himself ensuing as he tries to retain his grasp on the thought. He's trying to remind himself of something, he is sure.
The moment he reminds himself, he loses his hold and the thought slips away as the moon's visage disappears into the sunlight.
L–e.
Again, he forgets, and again, he panics, suddenly rushing to make it to the moot, the sun rising dangerously high into the sky as the agreed upon time to discuss any developments approaches. He takes a risk, pushing on the branch beneath his paws to fling himself towards the greatest of the great trees.
He overshoots, just a bit, claws digging into the rough bark as he tries to brake himself on the side of the tree. Gently swirling around it, he manages to land, somewhat dizzily, on a lower branch. There's scored tears and gentle lines dug into the bark, spiraling around the trunk until it reaches him.
For the second time this week, he finds himself falling off of a branch and into a squirrel. For a second time, he finds himself missing. His head is spinning, a combination of trauma and dizziness turning his head into some sort of a salad.
His ears flicker about as he staggers in place, forces that would have left a normal squirrel injured leaving him slightly dazed until he manages to regain his bearings. There's a small crowd of squirrels still flowing towards the moot room, the congregation decidedly ignoring him as they flow past into the various entrances, the crowd generously parting around him.
He shakes his head, mussed up fur fluffing back into place as his eyes refocus. His ears twitch gently, now, picking up small noises and sounds from around him.
He joins the small groups of squirrels as they enter, the bare amphitheater revealing itself more fully.
Dug out from under one of the greater trees, some of the thicker roots are the only thing blocking it from the outside world. A bit of the tree had been hollowed out to make a ceiling tall enough to fit a pair of squirrels standing on each other's shoulders. Relatively open, there's a gently raised platform in the center, made of flattened, condensed dirt, that allows for a squirrel to make an announcement or hold attention.
Of course, as carpentry hasn't been discovered yet, there are no seats or podiums or tables to debate around. As a result, more often than not, there will begin a clamor following a sudden or surprising announcement, until someone manages to shout everyone down.
The more mundane matters seem to have been informally decided to go first, it would appear. Not that there's enough of a process or culture for any formalities to have yet developed. Squirrel culture as a whole is still gestating, and current high society seems to revolve around… hats?
In any case, getting back to the point, the scouts have been much more successful this morning, it would seem.
One scout, seemingly slightly unhinged(but only mildly), has found a great boon in stone, a giant mountain shattered into shards small enough for a squirrel's hands providing a great opportunity to gather much stone, and devote it to important ideas, such as those knives to help in gathering.
The idea behind them was four-fold. The flat side of the blade would allow the more stubborn rocks to be dug out of the ground with greater leverage. It's edge could be used to cleanly cut off hanging leaves and life-acorns, supplanting the previous need to tug them off with great force or await their falling. It could be used to hack into dead branches or fallen trees, gathering wood. The flatter part of the blade could also be used as a plate, to better carry food.
It was a marvel of modern squirrel engineering. Unfortunately, there hadn't been enough yet crafted for it to prove a significant difference. It was predicted that by the end of the day, there would be enough to outfit all of the gatherers.
Of course, stone wouldn't be all that was needed to construct this newfangled technology. Wood would also be needed to construct all sorts of things, but it was unlikely that the sect would ever want for it, given they lived in a forest, and all. The contributions of a surprisingly quiet squirrel had led to the discovery of an old, half-rotted log. This would allow for wood beyond any need to be gathered for days to come.
Finally, as would be necessary for the production of their culture and the evolution of their society, luxury goods and more advanced resources would be necessary. Textiles weren't necessarily needed, given the abundance of fluffy fur populating all of the squirrels bodies, but they could be used to make hats, and that was good. They had already known how to spin the fiber strands in leaves into a rough cloth, but the discovery of an abandoned web, filled with silk, by a shady squirrel would allow for it's production and use on a much wider scale.
A trio of squirrels made to follow the strange footprints that a scout had stumbled upon the day prior, but upon nightfall after a day spent traveling, decided it would be dangerous to explore too much farther. It was debated for a while, but ultimately decided that the topic would be tabled until the first expedition returned. Which was strange, as the squirrels hadn't yet made tables.
Time passed, and the sun was nearly directly overhead by the time the main event would begin, lighter shadows chased away by it's radiance, but the darker ones made all the blacker by the contrast. A few squirrels stepped forward, and he could tell that each of them had been able to break and reknit themselves as he had.
He made to step forward as well.
Including himself, a total of seven squirrels would step forwards to announce their transcendence. The squirrel-that-was-first had not arrived yet, causing much worry. Hushed squeaks and squeals broke out, until all the cultivator squirrels turned.
There was something approaching. He could sense it as it prowled closer to the tree, the feeling of hunger he felt before breaking through amplified a dozen times over. Whatever beast that was coming had the hunger to consume the world.
The cultivators stepped closer as the presence drew near, the awakened squirrels instinctively opening a path between the entrance the hunger would be coming through.
The tension would be cut when the squirrel-who-was-first, a small speckle of berry juice on the edge of their mouth staining their fur, casually strolled through. They would proclaim that they had understood an aspect of the universe, and taken it within themself.
They would derive a Name, something more than a name in much the same way that a cultivator was more than a squirrel, from the ebb and flow of the world, as it took within itself energy and matter and made it its own strength. Kirbo, the Great Devourer, would eat their way onto the history of the world.
In the end only seven squirrels had volunteered, a handful of which being cultivators. It would also be decided that the expedition would not leave for a while yet, cultivators getting their own affairs in order as other squirrels did their best to get their own work done.
One of them was himself, and naturally Kirbo would be attending as well.
One had faced nearly two dozen serpents in combat and was able to escape with his life.
The fourth was a squirrel that enjoyed copying what it saw. Or maybe it was something else that particularly enjoyed copying a squirrel?
Another was excited, filled with energy. It may have been leftover from when they had consumed an acorn, but channeled the force into their own energy rather than into breaking through.
The next was rather eclectic, their mind floating between one thought and the next, yet always remaining just as sharp as his own.
The last had found their own name, but not yet had the chance to carve it into a Name. They called themselves Twitch.
Naturally, upon learning this, the sleepy squirrel would park itself next to the gathered supplies for the expedition, letting out a half hearted squeak in thanks to those squirrels that helped, and curled up to take a nap.
The dream was clearer, for some reason. Details that should have been fuzzier were instead clear. He could count the number of leaves on the closest and farthest trees without any difficulty. His mind had been changed, sharpened. He understood now why it had been so hard to keep hold of it earlier, the sharpened edges digging into the tight grasp of his will.
He couldn't help but imagine his paw trying to squeeze a sharpened stone-He felt something tear, and blood poured in from a rip in the fabric of the sky. In his wonder and fear, he'd forgotten. Even idle thoughts had power here, within his mind. He pushed the mental image away, the tear closing as quickly as it had opened, and the blood slowly losing color and becoming raindrops as he forced them to fall as a cozy drizzle, rather than the threatening torrent that had gushed out.
G–w.
Something called out.
—e.
The dream shuddered. He wrenched it back into unreality.
It may have been an idle thought from earlier, or something relating to his breakthrough, but he had managed to just barely touch something while he had been awake. His subconscious mind reached out with a thought to attune it to whatever it was.
T– -r-e-.
It called, again, something different. It responded to his considerations in a similar way to how his mind would. It was familiar. It was dangerous. In the end, he couldn't help himself from wanting to explore. To advance. To learn more and seek out a new part of the absent realm he had been forever truly living in.
As such, he stepped.
For a moment, he had to double check that this was the edge of his dream. He was familiar with the ways the trees ended-but-did-not, the world twisting as he stepped out of the safehaven of his own mind. The trees did not end, this time. They grew and grew and grew, tangled vines and thickened leaves darkening the shade provided.
Yes. This was the edge of his dream, but not of the forest. This was something entirely new. He began to smile. This was not like the time before, where he knew. This was something different. He would be threatened, but not in the same way he had. He couldn't wait.
He took a step, not yet moving out of his dream. Then he began to hop, then skip, before taking a leap into the darkened undergrowth, thick with the denser shrubbery and foliage. The world behind him closed up, as usual, but the world in front of him remained the same.
It was dark, without the backdrop of the sunny forest. The light had a strange, heady tint to it, illuminating some things oddly and others barely. It was tinged with a sickeningly bright green. There were predators here, he knew. He was stronger here, he knew.
Corvidae, non-natives to this climate, called out with promises of death. Flowers opened and shut, a nightshade gleaming in the bare light with a sharpened blade coated in poison. Nothing here would help him.
G-ow.
It demanded. He understood it a bit better now. It did not call, or command. It enforced itself upon the world, and turned the bits and dreams of the forest lost by animals into this. It was a singular ideal, twisted into a not-life, and given the chance to twist the world to suit it. He grinned.
Something that he had not known, but knew now, was that this was a chance.
He darted forwards, claws digging into the bark of a tree as he ascended up it. The aim would be to dash through the trees towards the call.
Th- Gr–n.
Of course, it would never be that easy. In time with the call, the vines that grew up and around the trunk loosened, wrapping themselves around the squirrel and dragging him down. He stalled for a moment in the air, grasping desperately for a foothold, before tumbling down. He noticed that he was higher than he had climbed, and the vines were still restricting his movement.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a blade of grass, much longer than any of it's brethren, aimed to stab straight through him. It glinted in the light. The vines were dragging him towards it.
A cry. A thud.
Lifeblood escaped his chest with a sickening gurgle. The blade had pierced into his back, through his back, his lung, and out of his chest. The vines only tightened, the pressure forcing air out of his chest and forcing him to cough out blood with it. His bones protested, and began to creak as the vines started to crush him.
In his panic, he stepped.
He had taken the first step, again. Shakily raising a forepaw to his chest, he found fur and skin. He was inhaling desperately now, breathing deeply and harshly to make up for lost air. He started to laugh, madly. He had looked death in the eye, and it had blinked.
This was the first time he died. It would not be the last.
He tried it again, rushing up the tree with a fervor.
G–w.
It was softer now. He had pushed it out with his own influence. The vines still detached, but he moved out of the way, and hung in the air for a moment, unconstrained by vines. Lacking some of the influence of the other, they lacked the will to contest his own, and fell as mundane vines would. He reached out to the tree, and caught himself from falling, scratch marks trailing down the tree as he bled momentum.
He clambered his way back up it, forcibly pushing away the influence of the other as he ascended above the leaves. He could look out from much farther, now. There, far in the distance, shone an eerie green light, illuminating the whole forest, and causing the strange propagation of light throughout the forest.
The Green.
It pulsed in time with the call, leaves suddenly turning razor-sharp as the other influence momentarily overwrote his own. It faded as the light did, but he was left bleeding, deep cuts and irregular, jagged scrapes bleeding much more than they should. His fur began to turn a dark, dry red.
That was enough, however. He knew where he needed to be going. He knew what he needed to take.
He tried to travel farther, even as his body slowly shut down from blood loss. The forest killed him before it did, however, a flower that had gone unnoticed or blurred out snapping shut around his ankle and pulling him towards a grove of it's fellows.
He stepped.
He took the first step, for a third time.
He got farther. The light pulsed. He went on. He died.
A fourth time.
He needed to move faster, he believed. Before it could have a chance to gather energy for a pulse.
He dashed faster this time, ignoring the trees as he darted around the undergrowth. He reeled in his area of influence so as to be able to alter himself more. He made himself faster. He ran. He made it past the grove where he had died the second time, before the light had a chance to pulse.
Grow.
It pushed harder, this time. It was learning from him, as he was adapting to it. He pushed back as well, and the forest took the punishment for the difference. At the edges of his control, grass tore itself apart as it tried to grow bigger and sharper, while restraining itself to how it had been. He pushed harder, drawing from a memory of the real to enforce the reality upon the not.
The grass gave before he did, the glowing green light fading slightly as it ended the pulse. This would be a milestone.
He went farther, rushing past meadows of carnivorous flowers, enticing normally-carnivorous flowers, and scraped by tangles and tangles of vines whipping themselves at him, until the next pulse came.
This one was different. It began raising a dense, impassible tangle of brambles and thorns in the distance, not directly contesting him for control of his little pocket of the forest. Even as he rushed closer, the ground where he passed failed to turn back into a deathtrap, the other stressing itself building the obstacle over retaking territory.
It was beginning to feel threatened, he noted. The giant wall of bramble-berry bushes spoke to it's confidence. If it had continued as normal, he might have lost hope. Not anytime soon, but maybe eventually. Or he would have woken up. That was probably more likely.
But now he was invested. Now he knew he could hurt it.
There were gaps enough for a squirrel to fit through, here and there. The thorns had turned the inside of the wall into a giant, deadly, self-isolated maze. As it was a maze, as he had noticed it was a maze, the nature of a dream ensured that there would only ever be one way through it. Not good.
(A maze was a path to a goal.)
He was distracted, for a moment. The light pulsed, and he was skewered.
A fourth time.
He crawled, carefully, through a gap in the brambles, carefully ensuring that his skin never touched the sickly-looking spines that dripped with a vile liquid. The scent was terrible as he crawled, rot, decay, and growth mixing together to form a noxious smell. He heard a hiss as his fur brushed past some of it, slightly singing it as it passed.
He glanced behind him. The brambles shifted as he did, closing the path behind him. The only way out was forwards. He turned left, aimlessly wandering until he hit a dead end. Behind him was the wall of brambles. As was in front of him. And above, and behind.
He died screaming, then airlessly gasping.
The fifth time was much the same. He turned right and lasted a bit longer.
The sixth, seventh, eighth…
On the eleventh first step, he had managed to pass through the wall, coming out to a denser, more humid forest. It was more of a jungle, or a rainforest on this side, unreasonably large pests and irritants proving to be great trouble in avoiding or ending.
GROW.
The light pulsed. The bugs got bigger, and deadlier. A mosquito pierced through his arm, before retreating slowly to stick it's proboscis inside of it, rather than through. Blood dripped slowly onto the ground, as he brought up his other forepaw and pulled it out by it's head, before slamming it into the dirt and stomping on through the exoskeleton. The bleeding continued unabated, even growing slightly as what had been sucked up by the mosquito now flowed out of the wound.
He'd tried dressing his wounds, pressuring them, or even just wrapping them up once. The bleeding wouldn't stop, so he'd decided to just leave it. He grimaced. He probably wouldn't be able to climb much anymore. Even so, it was pulsing more harshly, for shorter periods. It was getting desperate.
He died from blood loss, that time.
The thirteenth first step saw him making his way largely unscathed through the forest, and the wall, and the jungle. He stopped when he came to a river, flowing slowly and lazily through his path. It was much too wide to jump over.
He tossed a stick in, and waited.
One. Two. Th-Mud was kicked up from where the stick had landed, obscuring his vision as something thrashed wildly, bubbles flowing up to the surface. It was deeper than it first appeared. He glanced about, thinking. The tree branches stretched over the river. He could probably make a jump from there to the branches on the other side, if not all the way to the other bank.
The light pulsed. The branch gave out before he could push against it. He died, drowning and torn apart.
The sixteenth saw him return. He tried swimming, not touching the bottom of the river.
The twentieth he was able to make it back, having deeply considered what to do. He had grabbed a nightshade, earlier, and now threw it into the water, careful not to cut himself.
One. Two. He jumped as far as he could, from his side of the bank. He made it roughly two-thirds of the way before landing again, whatever lurked beneath the mud having been incensed by the sharpened, poisonous plant.
The light was nearly blinding, by the time he'd made it to the other side. He walked, calmly, and faced the other. The light pulsed, from it's spot as a shard atop a round stone. It grew brighter, and brighter, until-
It wasn't until the twenty-fifth that he made it back. He moved faster this time, and grabbed the shard of the other, before reaching out and taking it for himself.
The green. Must grow. It calls.
He grabbed the shard, and carved his Name into the Will Be.
He was woken up by shaking. His memories were worse than they had ever been, but he could recall bits and pieces. There was… a forest. And something green. And stone-shaped.
He was told they were leaving.
Go.
"Squeak." Follow me.
AN: Here, the eldritch and horror parts of dreaming eldritch horror start to creep in.
For once, the sleepy squirrel awakens only after the rising of the sun, rays of light already cresting the horizon. There is a deep ache within his bones, and he feels his fur surrounded by a film of filth. He lets out a soft moan of despair as his muscles protest his movement, still sore from whatever had happened when he had broken through that first barrier.
Ah, that's right. He'd done it. A vague sense of pride fills his chest as the gunk slides entirely too easily off of his body, before falling and sticking onto the branch of the tree. That's going to be a pain, and he feels a bit of guilt at leaving before being able to clean up, but this is the way of things. Nuts don't always fall where you want them to.
Past the pain felt when he makes to move, the squirrel notices that he is more than he was before. His mind is sharper in the wake, approaching that which had been felt in the dream, and his body is capable of more than it had been. Were he not so constantly lethargic, he doubts he would have noticed much of a difference, so ingrained is the change. The prospect is as exciting as it is terrifying.
The void that had been screaming past the edge of his senses is content now, no longer emitting the subtle twinge of pain and hunger that had been guiding his actions the day prior. It currently sits empty, the energy within having been expended and infused into strengthening his body. A reservoir sits there, capable of filling itself with that ever-present energy that the Acorns had provided.
It is small, for now, barely capable of holding a single wisp of energy. He knows that he can make use of that energy, pushing himself beyond what he would normally be capable of with a burst of energy. Having it empty is a slightly hollow feeling, he notes.
That energy-that life force- is present everywhere, now that he knows how to look. Life suddenly seems so much more vibrant, everything around him becoming so much more filled with life and color. He can feel it entering and exiting his body as he breathes, and idly wonders if he can steal some of it from the air.
He finally makes to move off of the branch where he had sat thinking, before thinking to check on the black sludge that he had left behind. It is then that he realizes that rather than making his body better, the breakthrough had simply made it less imperfect, expelling the blockages, inefficiencies, and other issues within his body. The difference is negligible in practice, he'll admit, but any information about this new discovery could be useful.
In truth, he hadn't been the first to notice this, but collective data gathering to double-check information is always a good practice.
Today is the day they set out to collect the sky-fire. The members have yet to be decided, but the first-squirrel-to-be-more has guaranteed it's presence for the expedition. Today there is to be another moot, called to determine the hows, whys, and whats of the expedition. Preparations had already begun, the day before, and they had proceeded swimmingly.
The sleepy squirrel scrambled down the trunk that had begun to grow even taller. He can barely make out the reason, the vital energy suffusing the forest air unusually dense within it's sap, and serving to harden the bark beyond what it had been. Before, he had been able to carelessly scratch chunks off it's bark, but now he'd only been able to do so due to his enhanced body.
The acorns that he could sense, not with his eyes, but something new, weren't quite filled with the power, but it was denser than anything in the air, or even the wisp he had held back in the dream. If a normal squirrel ate this, and was able to use it effectively, there was little doubt that they would be able to take the first step.
The first step to what?
His train of thought experiences a minor disconnect, slipping off then back onto the stream of consciousness, the thought momentarily forgotten. The sun has not yet reached the point at which it would not be considered morning, a fading orange lingering on the horizon, bringing to mind hot metal slowly cooling.
As if the forge of the sun was just outside of sight. And with the idea of creation came fire, and the reminder of what was to come.
Again, a gear slips, ideas discovered in dreams refusing to manifest in the real. He continues slowly making his way towards the meeting-point, a hollowed dugout slightly indented into one of the great trees. His mind is sharp enough to catch his shifting thoughts, this time.
He attempts to wrangle his thoughts- he is distracted, while crossing the ground. He is moving entirely too slowly to be lost in thoughts, especially given the worries of predators about. It is both too early and too late in the day for any concerns of predators to be forgotten, canid beasts hunting the undergrowth through the day, while owls would soon populate the skies over the course of the night.
Dawn and dusk would be the most dangerous places to live as an awakened squirrel, knowledgeable enough to be terrified, but too weak to do much. Both types of predators would be about then, one by land and the other by air.
He scrambles his way up a trunk, the mundane tree protesting creakily against his haste. He exerts his energy(but not his energy), and jumps to one of the highest branches. He idly notes that this tree is old, older than even the great trees, despite being smaller. That vibrant force seems to be a force of growth, if not necessarily life.
I- c–ls.
He jumps from the top of the branch to one of the lower ones of a nearby, much taller tree. Again, he makes his way back above the undergrowth, if not high enough to reach the canopy quite yet.
Sight. White.
He has an urge, an impulse, to climb even higher.
And so he does, reaching above the cover provided by the canopy, looking out over the copses of treetops, into the sky. The moon, pale but full of life, exists as a contradiction to that lone, lifeless moon in the desert.
Remember.
Something slips, again. He catches it this time, a struggle between himself ensuing as he tries to retain his grasp on the thought. He's trying to remind himself of something, he is sure.
The moment he reminds himself, he loses his hold and the thought slips away as the moon's visage disappears into the sunlight.
L–e.
Again, he forgets, and again, he panics, suddenly rushing to make it to the moot, the sun rising dangerously high into the sky as the agreed upon time to discuss any developments approaches. He takes a risk, pushing on the branch beneath his paws to fling himself towards the greatest of the great trees.
He overshoots, just a bit, claws digging into the rough bark as he tries to brake himself on the side of the tree. Gently swirling around it, he manages to land, somewhat dizzily, on a lower branch. There's scored tears and gentle lines dug into the bark, spiraling around the trunk until it reaches him.
For the second time this week, he finds himself falling off of a branch and into a squirrel. For a second time, he finds himself missing. His head is spinning, a combination of trauma and dizziness turning his head into some sort of a salad.
His ears flicker about as he staggers in place, forces that would have left a normal squirrel injured leaving him slightly dazed until he manages to regain his bearings. There's a small crowd of squirrels still flowing towards the moot room, the congregation decidedly ignoring him as they flow past into the various entrances, the crowd generously parting around him.
He shakes his head, mussed up fur fluffing back into place as his eyes refocus. His ears twitch gently, now, picking up small noises and sounds from around him.
He joins the small groups of squirrels as they enter, the bare amphitheater revealing itself more fully.
Dug out from under one of the greater trees, some of the thicker roots are the only thing blocking it from the outside world. A bit of the tree had been hollowed out to make a ceiling tall enough to fit a pair of squirrels standing on each other's shoulders. Relatively open, there's a gently raised platform in the center, made of flattened, condensed dirt, that allows for a squirrel to make an announcement or hold attention.
Of course, as carpentry hasn't been discovered yet, there are no seats or podiums or tables to debate around. As a result, more often than not, there will begin a clamor following a sudden or surprising announcement, until someone manages to shout everyone down.
The more mundane matters seem to have been informally decided to go first, it would appear. Not that there's enough of a process or culture for any formalities to have yet developed. Squirrel culture as a whole is still gestating, and current high society seems to revolve around… hats?
In any case, getting back to the point, the scouts have been much more successful this morning, it would seem.
One scout, seemingly slightly unhinged(but only mildly), has found a great boon in stone, a giant mountain shattered into shards small enough for a squirrel's hands providing a great opportunity to gather much stone, and devote it to important ideas, such as those knives to help in gathering.
The idea behind them was four-fold. The flat side of the blade would allow the more stubborn rocks to be dug out of the ground with greater leverage. It's edge could be used to cleanly cut off hanging leaves and life-acorns, supplanting the previous need to tug them off with great force or await their falling. It could be used to hack into dead branches or fallen trees, gathering wood. The flatter part of the blade could also be used as a plate, to better carry food.
It was a marvel of modern squirrel engineering. Unfortunately, there hadn't been enough yet crafted for it to prove a significant difference. It was predicted that by the end of the day, there would be enough to outfit all of the gatherers.
Of course, stone wouldn't be all that was needed to construct this newfangled technology. Wood would also be needed to construct all sorts of things, but it was unlikely that the sect would ever want for it, given they lived in a forest, and all. The contributions of a surprisingly quiet squirrel had led to the discovery of an old, half-rotted log. This would allow for wood beyond any need to be gathered for days to come.
Finally, as would be necessary for the production of their culture and the evolution of their society, luxury goods and more advanced resources would be necessary. Textiles weren't necessarily needed, given the abundance of fluffy fur populating all of the squirrels bodies, but they could be used to make hats, and that was good. They had already known how to spin the fiber strands in leaves into a rough cloth, but the discovery of an abandoned web, filled with silk, by a shady squirrel would allow for it's production and use on a much wider scale.
A trio of squirrels made to follow the strange footprints that a scout had stumbled upon the day prior, but upon nightfall after a day spent traveling, decided it would be dangerous to explore too much farther. It was debated for a while, but ultimately decided that the topic would be tabled until the first expedition returned. Which was strange, as the squirrels hadn't yet made tables.
Time passed, and the sun was nearly directly overhead by the time the main event would begin, lighter shadows chased away by it's radiance, but the darker ones made all the blacker by the contrast. A few squirrels stepped forward, and he could tell that each of them had been able to break and reknit themselves as he had.
He made to step forward as well.
Including himself, a total of seven squirrels would step forwards to announce their transcendence. The squirrel-that-was-first had not arrived yet, causing much worry. Hushed squeaks and squeals broke out, until all the cultivator squirrels turned.
There was something approaching. He could sense it as it prowled closer to the tree, the feeling of hunger he felt before breaking through amplified a dozen times over. Whatever beast that was coming had the hunger to consume the world.
The cultivators stepped closer as the presence drew near, the awakened squirrels instinctively opening a path between the entrance the hunger would be coming through.
The tension would be cut when the squirrel-who-was-first, a small speckle of berry juice on the edge of their mouth staining their fur, casually strolled through. They would proclaim that they had understood an aspect of the universe, and taken it within themself.
They would derive a Name, something more than a name in much the same way that a cultivator was more than a squirrel, from the ebb and flow of the world, as it took within itself energy and matter and made it its own strength. Kirbo, the Great Devourer, would eat their way onto the history of the world.
In the end only seven squirrels had volunteered, a handful of which being cultivators. It would also be decided that the expedition would not leave for a while yet, cultivators getting their own affairs in order as other squirrels did their best to get their own work done.
One of them was himself, and naturally Kirbo would be attending as well.
One had faced nearly two dozen serpents in combat and was able to escape with his life.
The fourth was a squirrel that enjoyed copying what it saw. Or maybe it was something else that particularly enjoyed copying a squirrel?
Another was excited, filled with energy. It may have been leftover from when they had consumed an acorn, but channeled the force into their own energy rather than into breaking through.
The next was rather eclectic, their mind floating between one thought and the next, yet always remaining just as sharp as his own.
The last had found their own name, but not yet had the chance to carve it into a Name. They called themselves Twitch.
Naturally, upon learning this, the sleepy squirrel would park itself next to the gathered supplies for the expedition, letting out a half hearted squeak in thanks to those squirrels that helped, and curled up to take a nap.
The dream was clearer, for some reason. Details that should have been fuzzier were instead clear. He could count the number of leaves on the closest and farthest trees without any difficulty. His mind had been changed, sharpened. He understood now why it had been so hard to keep hold of it earlier, the sharpened edges digging into the tight grasp of his will.
He couldn't help but imagine his paw trying to squeeze a sharpened stone-He felt something tear, and blood poured in from a rip in the fabric of the sky. In his wonder and fear, he'd forgotten. Even idle thoughts had power here, within his mind. He pushed the mental image away, the tear closing as quickly as it had opened, and the blood slowly losing color and becoming raindrops as he forced them to fall as a cozy drizzle, rather than the threatening torrent that had gushed out.
G–w.
Something called out.
—e.
The dream shuddered. He wrenched it back into unreality.
It may have been an idle thought from earlier, or something relating to his breakthrough, but he had managed to just barely touch something while he had been awake. His subconscious mind reached out with a thought to attune it to whatever it was.
T– -r-e-.
It called, again, something different. It responded to his considerations in a similar way to how his mind would. It was familiar. It was dangerous. In the end, he couldn't help himself from wanting to explore. To advance. To learn more and seek out a new part of the absent realm he had been forever truly living in.
As such, he stepped.
For a moment, he had to double check that this was the edge of his dream. He was familiar with the ways the trees ended-but-did-not, the world twisting as he stepped out of the safehaven of his own mind. The trees did not end, this time. They grew and grew and grew, tangled vines and thickened leaves darkening the shade provided.
Yes. This was the edge of his dream, but not of the forest. This was something entirely new. He began to smile. This was not like the time before, where he knew. This was something different. He would be threatened, but not in the same way he had. He couldn't wait.
He took a step, not yet moving out of his dream. Then he began to hop, then skip, before taking a leap into the darkened undergrowth, thick with the denser shrubbery and foliage. The world behind him closed up, as usual, but the world in front of him remained the same.
It was dark, without the backdrop of the sunny forest. The light had a strange, heady tint to it, illuminating some things oddly and others barely. It was tinged with a sickeningly bright green. There were predators here, he knew. He was stronger here, he knew.
Corvidae, non-natives to this climate, called out with promises of death. Flowers opened and shut, a nightshade gleaming in the bare light with a sharpened blade coated in poison. Nothing here would help him.
G-ow.
It demanded. He understood it a bit better now. It did not call, or command. It enforced itself upon the world, and turned the bits and dreams of the forest lost by animals into this. It was a singular ideal, twisted into a not-life, and given the chance to twist the world to suit it. He grinned.
Something that he had not known, but knew now, was that this was a chance.
He darted forwards, claws digging into the bark of a tree as he ascended up it. The aim would be to dash through the trees towards the call.
Th- Gr–n.
Of course, it would never be that easy. In time with the call, the vines that grew up and around the trunk loosened, wrapping themselves around the squirrel and dragging him down. He stalled for a moment in the air, grasping desperately for a foothold, before tumbling down. He noticed that he was higher than he had climbed, and the vines were still restricting his movement.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a blade of grass, much longer than any of it's brethren, aimed to stab straight through him. It glinted in the light. The vines were dragging him towards it.
A cry. A thud.
Lifeblood escaped his chest with a sickening gurgle. The blade had pierced into his back, through his back, his lung, and out of his chest. The vines only tightened, the pressure forcing air out of his chest and forcing him to cough out blood with it. His bones protested, and began to creak as the vines started to crush him.
In his panic, he stepped.
He had taken the first step, again. Shakily raising a forepaw to his chest, he found fur and skin. He was inhaling desperately now, breathing deeply and harshly to make up for lost air. He started to laugh, madly. He had looked death in the eye, and it had blinked.
This was the first time he died. It would not be the last.
He tried it again, rushing up the tree with a fervor.
G–w.
It was softer now. He had pushed it out with his own influence. The vines still detached, but he moved out of the way, and hung in the air for a moment, unconstrained by vines. Lacking some of the influence of the other, they lacked the will to contest his own, and fell as mundane vines would. He reached out to the tree, and caught himself from falling, scratch marks trailing down the tree as he bled momentum.
He clambered his way back up it, forcibly pushing away the influence of the other as he ascended above the leaves. He could look out from much farther, now. There, far in the distance, shone an eerie green light, illuminating the whole forest, and causing the strange propagation of light throughout the forest.
The Green.
It pulsed in time with the call, leaves suddenly turning razor-sharp as the other influence momentarily overwrote his own. It faded as the light did, but he was left bleeding, deep cuts and irregular, jagged scrapes bleeding much more than they should. His fur began to turn a dark, dry red.
That was enough, however. He knew where he needed to be going. He knew what he needed to take.
He tried to travel farther, even as his body slowly shut down from blood loss. The forest killed him before it did, however, a flower that had gone unnoticed or blurred out snapping shut around his ankle and pulling him towards a grove of it's fellows.
He stepped.
He took the first step, for a third time.
He got farther. The light pulsed. He went on. He died.
A fourth time.
He needed to move faster, he believed. Before it could have a chance to gather energy for a pulse.
He dashed faster this time, ignoring the trees as he darted around the undergrowth. He reeled in his area of influence so as to be able to alter himself more. He made himself faster. He ran. He made it past the grove where he had died the second time, before the light had a chance to pulse.
Grow.
It pushed harder, this time. It was learning from him, as he was adapting to it. He pushed back as well, and the forest took the punishment for the difference. At the edges of his control, grass tore itself apart as it tried to grow bigger and sharper, while restraining itself to how it had been. He pushed harder, drawing from a memory of the real to enforce the reality upon the not.
The grass gave before he did, the glowing green light fading slightly as it ended the pulse. This would be a milestone.
He went farther, rushing past meadows of carnivorous flowers, enticing normally-carnivorous flowers, and scraped by tangles and tangles of vines whipping themselves at him, until the next pulse came.
This one was different. It began raising a dense, impassible tangle of brambles and thorns in the distance, not directly contesting him for control of his little pocket of the forest. Even as he rushed closer, the ground where he passed failed to turn back into a deathtrap, the other stressing itself building the obstacle over retaking territory.
It was beginning to feel threatened, he noted. The giant wall of bramble-berry bushes spoke to it's confidence. If it had continued as normal, he might have lost hope. Not anytime soon, but maybe eventually. Or he would have woken up. That was probably more likely.
But now he was invested. Now he knew he could hurt it.
There were gaps enough for a squirrel to fit through, here and there. The thorns had turned the inside of the wall into a giant, deadly, self-isolated maze. As it was a maze, as he had noticed it was a maze, the nature of a dream ensured that there would only ever be one way through it. Not good.
(A maze was a path to a goal.)
He was distracted, for a moment. The light pulsed, and he was skewered.
A fourth time.
He crawled, carefully, through a gap in the brambles, carefully ensuring that his skin never touched the sickly-looking spines that dripped with a vile liquid. The scent was terrible as he crawled, rot, decay, and growth mixing together to form a noxious smell. He heard a hiss as his fur brushed past some of it, slightly singing it as it passed.
He glanced behind him. The brambles shifted as he did, closing the path behind him. The only way out was forwards. He turned left, aimlessly wandering until he hit a dead end. Behind him was the wall of brambles. As was in front of him. And above, and behind.
He died screaming, then airlessly gasping.
The fifth time was much the same. He turned right and lasted a bit longer.
The sixth, seventh, eighth…
On the eleventh first step, he had managed to pass through the wall, coming out to a denser, more humid forest. It was more of a jungle, or a rainforest on this side, unreasonably large pests and irritants proving to be great trouble in avoiding or ending.
GROW.
The light pulsed. The bugs got bigger, and deadlier. A mosquito pierced through his arm, before retreating slowly to stick it's proboscis inside of it, rather than through. Blood dripped slowly onto the ground, as he brought up his other forepaw and pulled it out by it's head, before slamming it into the dirt and stomping on through the exoskeleton. The bleeding continued unabated, even growing slightly as what had been sucked up by the mosquito now flowed out of the wound.
He'd tried dressing his wounds, pressuring them, or even just wrapping them up once. The bleeding wouldn't stop, so he'd decided to just leave it. He grimaced. He probably wouldn't be able to climb much anymore. Even so, it was pulsing more harshly, for shorter periods. It was getting desperate.
He died from blood loss, that time.
The thirteenth first step saw him making his way largely unscathed through the forest, and the wall, and the jungle. He stopped when he came to a river, flowing slowly and lazily through his path. It was much too wide to jump over.
He tossed a stick in, and waited.
One. Two. Th-Mud was kicked up from where the stick had landed, obscuring his vision as something thrashed wildly, bubbles flowing up to the surface. It was deeper than it first appeared. He glanced about, thinking. The tree branches stretched over the river. He could probably make a jump from there to the branches on the other side, if not all the way to the other bank.
The light pulsed. The branch gave out before he could push against it. He died, drowning and torn apart.
The sixteenth saw him return. He tried swimming, not touching the bottom of the river.
The twentieth he was able to make it back, having deeply considered what to do. He had grabbed a nightshade, earlier, and now threw it into the water, careful not to cut himself.
One. Two. He jumped as far as he could, from his side of the bank. He made it roughly two-thirds of the way before landing again, whatever lurked beneath the mud having been incensed by the sharpened, poisonous plant.
The light was nearly blinding, by the time he'd made it to the other side. He walked, calmly, and faced the other. The light pulsed, from it's spot as a shard atop a round stone. It grew brighter, and brighter, until-
It wasn't until the twenty-fifth that he made it back. He moved faster this time, and grabbed the shard of the other, before reaching out and taking it for himself.
The green. Must grow. It calls.
He grabbed the shard, and carved his Name into the Will Be.
He was woken up by shaking. His memories were worse than they had ever been, but he could recall bits and pieces. There was… a forest. And something green. And stone-shaped.
He was told they were leaving.
Go.
"Squeak." Follow me.
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