Jump 1: Kumo (Plot)

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(Jump 1: Kumo Desu Ga)
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(Build)

--Origin--
-Location: Elro Great Labyrinth (Rolled) - “The Elro Great Labyrinth is the greatest and largest dungeon in the known world. Located between two of the continents on the surface, the dungeon itself is as wide as a real world continent and divided into four major layers, each holding far more dangerous creatures than the last. Even the early floors of the dungeon, near one of the many entrances around the world, can contain quite dangerous monsters to ordinary humans. This location allows you to choose to start at the beginning of any of the four layers.”
-Age: ---
-Gender: Male (Unchanged)
-Background: Monster - [Roughly equivalent to adult human in general strength. I rolled off my table and ended up becoming a “Giant Bee”.]

--Perks--

-System (Free) - [See purchase details. Contains all information about the system.]

-Personal Data Sheet (Free) - [Able to check a personal mental stat sheet showing all details and limits of body and powers. Shows improvement vectors and what they lead too.]

-The Cutest of Monsters (Free) - [People no longer mind appearance no matter what kind of being you might be, long as you're acting normal and abiding the law. Communication abilities always preserved.]

-Farming Commune (Free) - [Great experience with farming, carpentry, weaving, knitting, smithing and brewing basic medicine. Easy to work alone on these things even if teams would be required. Nigh immunity to boredom.]

-Very Bad Not Good Totally Unlucky Good Fortune (800) - [I have simultaneous awful and amazing luck. Things way out of my weight class might come to fight me only to be hard countered by my specific set of abilities, allowing me a giant boon in experience, and things like that. If I don't act on things correctly I'll get fucked up. Can be turned off.]

-Born to Grow (600) - [Extreme skill compatibility. Reduces skill point costs down to a thousandth no matter what form they may take, though none can go below 100SP. Some skills can cost hundreds of thousands or millions, so this does not make every skill super cheap. Also reduces time required to acquire or develop new powers or abilities.]
(Personally debuffing this skill a bit since it doesn't feel as fulfilling for most things to only be 100SP. So, the effects are acting more to drop things to a tenth of their normal price.)

-Homebrew System (300) - [My use of The System is backed by the Benefactor. No longer relies on the world's energy and thus able to grow beyond even the local gods in time. Soft cap perk that allows everything to be developed at the cost of greater time investment. Able to opt into staying in the system or lower skill level even after surpassing it.]

-But I Want More! (0) - [Skills can now progress past what would normally be their logical end point, usually impossible. Able to make the System and similar things produce skills in the theme I desire. Peculiar skills like this are invariably far more difficult to level up and achieve however. Works with titles, evolutions and other things too.]

--Items/Other--

-N/A

--Companion Stuff--

-N/A

--Drawbacks--

-N/A

--Final Skill Tally--

[Behemoth Fang LV2] [Hand of Fate LV4] [High Ground LV4] [Gale Feather LV6] [Earth Swim LV7] [Silence LV4] [Greater MP Recovery Speed LV1] [Greater SP Recovery Speed LV2] [Greater MP Consumption Down LV1] [Greater SP Consumption Down LV2] [Shield Mastery LV3] [Killer Focus LV5] [Sniper's Right LV9] [Super Rifling LV7] [Emperor LV2] [Invertebrate Domination LV2] [Fisher King LV6] [Cartographical Awareness LV1] [Visible Range Clarity LV7] [Presence Awareness LV5] [Greater Awareness LV7] [Spotless Armor LV1] [Fear Eater LV1] [Abnormal Condition Resistance LV7] [Fire Resistance LV8] [Magic Perception LV9] [Magic Manipulation LV9] [Support Magician LV2] [Mass Targeting LV1] [Support Magic LV10] [Form Army LV1] [Form Guild LV5] [Phantom Fang LV3] [Soft Downer LV3] [Wing Lancer LV7] [Pepper Shot LV3] [Trickshot LV2] [Dragon Power LV8] [Eulogy of Pangu LV6] [Rainbow Cannon LV1] [Demigod LV1]

--Final Form/Current Jump--

-Form 6: Beelzeboss
[Requirements: “LV37” / “High Level Insect Monster” / “Title: Vermin Lord” / “Lordship LV10”]
[Details: “A bizarre but powerful monster also known as the lord of flies. It stands on two long, lanky legs and waves four similarly stretched arms in a commanding fashion, all limbs covered in thorns. Its abdomen appears engorged and red like a content mosquito, its proboscis curled like a butterfly, its eyes strangely alien like a mantis and its wings covered by two armored plates like a beetle.
No other facet of its appearance is so iconic however as its crown of six mobile horns resembling the mandibles of a stag beetle. These grotesque creatures have the innate skill to command all invertebrate life on the planet, though the limits of their range often lead to establishing something resembling a kingdom of organized filth and viscera than a new world order. All work in the name of their tribute.”]

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(Full Purchase Details)

-Background: Monster - “You are a young adult member of your race. Which race? That’s up to you. You may choose any low level monster species to begin in this world as a member of. A simple goblin or a Small Lesser Taratect / spider monster. You’re only about as strong or a bit weaker than a human adult, though you may have some unique low level monster skills.
You’ll begin alone and in a somewhat hidden place in your starting location. If you pick this origin and choose to become a Small Lesser Taratect, you may optionally choose to take the place of Shiraori/Kumo-Chan in the canon story, though you will be without any advantage of hers that you do not buy.”

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-System (Free) - "The system is the foundation of power in this world. It is a function similar to that found in a video game, where the abilities and powers of beings on this planet are measured in statistics, data and gamified attributes. You will be part of this system as you enter the world. The system works through levels and experience points.
All things begin at level 1. As they gain experience points, taken by killing other living beings that are also within the system, they slowly build up a stock until they level up, gaining bonuses to their statistics and skills, until they reach a maximum of level 100. The three most important numbers in the system are your health points, your magic points and your stamina points.
Each measures a part of you. Your health points measures how much damage you have taken, your magic points measure how much magical energy you have left and your stamina points measure how much bodily energy you have remaining in you. All slowly regenerate naturally but are not visible without the use of a skill known as Appraisal.
The statistics of the system are five in number. They measure the Average Physical Offensive Power, Average Physical Defensive Power, Average Magical Offensive Power, Average Magical Defensive Power and the Speed of the user. These statistics can vary slightly in specific body parts but are overall accurate representations.

Skills are the many and varied individual abilities within the system. A skill can be almost anything. Magic Perception and Magic Manipulation are the very basic skills required to use magic. Fire Resistance is the skill that denotes being resistant to fire. Poison Fang describes that a being has a poisonous bite. Fire Magic is the skill that grants the use of varying spells linked to fire.
There is a skill for almost anything imaginable and the way they are improved is primarily through proficiency. Proficiency is gained by constantly using the skill you wish to improve and that skill will slowly level up, similar to your base character levels, becoming stronger, gaining more side abilities or spells and even becoming broader in scope.
It is even possible to gain new skills just through proficiency, such as repeatedly subjecting oneself to burns to eventually gain Fire Resistance 1. Once a Skill has reached Level 10, it is Mastered and it evolves to become a new and stronger version of the skill at level 1. Fire Resistance 10 can become Greater Fire Resistance 1.
It is even possible for Skills to unify into new skills that contain the old abilities of the component skills, upgraded versions and even entirely new abilities too! Skills will eventually reach a point where they cannot evolve or unify any further, though this may be subverted with certain purchases later. Skills can also be gained through the use of Skill Points, 1 or more of which are gained on leveling up.
Skills are bought through a invisible catalogue that exists within the minds of all beings, though they cannot see it without a highly ranked Appraisal skill. To buy Skills from this mental catalogue, you must call out the name of the skill you wish to gain, upon which it will tell you the skill point cost and ask you to confirm your purchase.

Perhaps seeing what others have found about skill names and descriptions may help with this mysterious mechanism, as all skills have the same names across all individuals in this world. Titles are another aspect of the system. When a user of the system accomplishes an achievement or feat, they may find themselves gaining a Title.
Titles offer confer boosts to statistics, abilities, skills or even grant entirely new skills. Killing an inordinate amount of goblins may give one the Goblin Slayer title, which grants increased damage against goblins and perhaps an awareness of any Goblin in close range to the user.
There are no limit to the number of Titles that may be held at once but there is not an infinite variation of titles to gain and some feats may be beyond the scope of the system itself. Finally, the evolution system is the last part to explain. While it is unknown if humans can do the same, the many monster races of this world are able to evolve to new species through the System.
Once the monster reaches a certain level, they will be asked if they wish to evolve and be provided with their choices for evolution. A goblin with a high enough level may be able to evolve into a bigger and stronger Orc for instance. Some evolutions may require certain skills or titles to be held to take as well.

Evolution paths also exist, as most monster can evolve multiple times, though not every evolution path has an equal number of steps or offers the same level of power in the evolutions that can be obtained on it. That said, it is possible to side-evolve or devolve, if you get trapped on a unlucky path. When one evolves, it resets ones’ level back to Level 1 again.
However, the statistics and skills of the evolved monster remain the same, allowing them to quickly level up again, though each evolution does add more required experience to the lower levels. There are limits to this grand system however. The system itself is drawing power from the world it is on and the beings that live on that world, meaning it will not be able to provide power past the general scale found within this world.
Those who ascend beyond the use of the system to become gods lose access to it as well, needing to rely on their own use of magical power rather than the automatic functions of the system. You are limited in the same way and while you may bring the functions of the system with you that you possess here (Provided you do not ascend to godhood), it will not grow or expand in future worlds without you buying a specific perk later on. Nor will you be able to gain further experience points by killing other beings in other worlds, as they are not part of the system."

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-Personal Data Sheet (100) - "But when it comes to your own stuff, maybe it might be good to have the really nitty-gritty specifics down pat. Beyond the use of Appraisal, you now have a constant, in depth and accurate read out of every one of your abilities in your head. It tells you exactly what your body and powers can and can’t do, what they can eventually do and what it will never be able to do.
It tells you exactly how to improve your abilities and all the different paths of improvement you can take with any one of your powers, along with what those paths can eventually lead to and how to walk upon them. Information is the best power of them all, since now you just need to put in the effort to reach the good stuff."

-The Cutest of Monsters (100) - "Such a wide open world but still one filled with such division. Perhaps you would be the one to bridge it. People do not seem to mind anything about your appearance or what kind of being you are, so long as you act like a reasonable, law abiding sort. Even if you’re a giant spider, so long as you’re not intending to be scary, others will treat you as a normal person as they would any other member of their species.
Even someone scared of spiders! Better still, you are always able to communicate despite whatever form you take on. If you were once human and are now a monster, you’ll always be able to speak and write somehow. If you were formerly some sort of telepathic being, you’ll always be able to talk to others mentally no matter what form you take on."

-Farming Commune (100) - "Some of your fellow world travels are ‘lucky’ enough to be safely whisked away to live with the elves small community. Here they are kept to a simple exist, providing for themselves except when absolutely needed of outside intervention. And perhaps kept here by a bit of force too. Still, like them, you have developed a great deal of skill at keeping yourself self sufficient.
You have a good deal of experience with farming, carpentry, weaving and knitting, smithing and even basic medicine. You find it easy to work alone even on things that normally require small teams to help with and can deal with extremely long stretches of boredom easily. You might not like it but you won’t go mad for sure."

-Very Bad Not Good Totally Unlucky Good Fortune (400) - "Ah! A monster has appeared! It’s big and scary and seems far too strong for you to fight…save for it having weaknesses just perfect for your abilities to take advantage of, thus letting you kill a much higher leveled creature than normal and take the experience points for yourself.
Luck like this, things that seem like bad luck at first but turn into amazing luck if you try to beat it still, are very common for you. You’ll regularly encounter these hidden advantages and as long as you try your very best, you’ll likely end up growing and benefiting enormously from these occasions, though they can still be dangerous if you’re not careful to take advantage of the weak spots for you.
You can turn this bad good luck off if you wish."

-Born to Grow (400) - "Skills are not the same for every person. Different races, different individuals, they all have a different level of compatibility with each skill, thus making them more or less expensive to gain. You appear to have superb compatability with every single skill in existence, reducing their skill point cost to as small as a thousandth the normal amount, though they cannot go below 1 point and some skills can rise into the hundreds of thousands or millions of points in cost, depending on the exact skill. This even applies to other things, greatly reducing the resources and time it takes for you to acquire or develop new abilities and powers."

-Homebrew System (600) - "The system was designed to work alongside the energy generated by the world and it’s populace. It’s why the system can only cover up to a certain level of capability before the user must ascend and stand on their own. But you’re the sort of person that has quite the backer, even beyond the gods of this world, and now they share a bit of power with your system.
Your use of the system no longer relies on the back up of the world’s energy and thus you are able to continue to grow within it even beyond the scale of Gods like Kuro or D. In fact, this has even removed other limits that you might normally find yourself pushing up against, allowing you to endlessly grow abilities and skills so long as you continue to work at them for longer and longer.
Finally, you can through this opt to stay within the system or at a lower level of ability even when you should automatically ascend to a new level if you so wish."

-But I Want More! (600) - "Just putting in the work isn’t always enough. Isn’t it a little arrogant to expect that the skill you wish to obtain will be present to gain, as long as you put in the work? Maybe you just have someone looking out for you, as you appear able to gain that which would not normally exist in the system.
You are essentially able to make the system, or similar things, generate new skills in the vein of the things you wish to obtain, like a new form of Appraisal beyond the normal maxed out limit of Appraisal where nothing previously existed to be gained. You do not gain these created abilities automatically but you do become aware of how to gain them, though it is invariably a difficult and costly task, more so than normal abilities of the same level would be. Still, accomplishing the impossible is nothing to sneeze at, even if you feel that maybe these are just being created to stop you whining for more cool skills."

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(Chapter 1)
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I'm surrounded by pitch black darkness, and something sticky and thick. I'm overcome with feelings of terror and disgust. I started to breath harder, but this alien feeling of my jaws moving sideways just made it worse. I tried calling for help but nothing came out. I tried to move through the muck and mire, which smelled cloyingly sweet and find some means of escape, but I was sealed in on all sides.
I began to calm down and internalize my panic, my disgust and fear pushed back until I could find some means of cleaning myself. I felt something mush against what I was only going to think of as a hand and tried to push and rake. Four hands working together awkwardly allowed me to eventually tear away at the waxy wall, letting whatever I was sitting in drain away from the pitch black chamber.
I peered out of the hole I'd made, watching things I couldn't identify, large things, moving around in the darkness with only the dim light of a hole farther ahead illuminating the area I was watching. I was paralyzed with fear, this was like a scene out of several horror movies that plagued me with nightmares growing up.

|Conditions met, [Fear Resistance LV1] acquired.|

. . .

. . .

. . .

I'm not sure how much time passed, but the amount of conflicting stimuli and overwhelming confusion over my situation became too much, causing my brain to shut down for a moment. I watched the shapes leave through the hole with buzzing wings, I saw something much larger come into the hole once before leaving, but I didn't think to leave the chamber I was sitting in.
Am I in a game, or was something playing a game with me? It was wishful thinking to believe I was just in a game, everything felt as real as anything I could remember, but I weak, I needed hope, I had a hunch. So I clawed the rest of the way out of the wall in front of me so I could crawl out. I had to crawl, because my legs wouldn't let me stand.
Walking as whatever I was came naturally, though I wasn't prepared for what came after. Peering down into the source of the light was a great, cavernous chamber filled with all manner of glowing plant life. It would have been beautiful had it not also been filled with swarming insects and other shifting shapes below the overgrowth that couldn't be identified.

Before I could really react, something flew up into the hole. It was like a giant, hairy bug or something. That wasn't important though, what was important was that it was right next to me and didn't pay any attention as I stood there watching it. Did that mean what I thought then? I looked back down at one of my ‘hands’ illuminated by flower light. Am I one of these bugs?
It seemed to be cleaning itself, so I tested my theory by poking it in the abdomen. It didn't move. I poked it again, just a bit harder, and it buzzed its wings before walking away. Not to say I didn't try to take some mock fighting pose in case it turned on me, but still. I was one of these bugs, or at least something they didn't mind. Experimental flexing proved that I had wings too, and they were loud.
I think I was one of these bugs. Could I fly? After petting the hopefully friendly fluff bug's fur, I did some testing within the dark hole as other bugs came and left.

I could definitely fly, but it was really awkward. I was like a bumble bee just bumping into walls. I'm glad I didn't hurt my wings with all this. I wonder when I started this internal monologue, was it when I realized I couldn't speak? I was hungry. While thinking to myself, something much larger flew into the hole.
I was prepared to run, but just like the other bug, this one didn't pay me any mind. In the dim light it actually looked like a much bigger version of the other bug. Was I a baby then? Was this thing a relative? I was really confused. So, I poked and prodded this one too, it was kinda soft. The big bug didn't pay me any mind though. Good bug.
I was still sticky and gross and terrified out of my mind, but I liked to imagine light hearted thoughts to push down such things. Maybe I can learn to tame the bugs like dogs and pet them until I go back home, that would be nice. I still feel hungry, I should figure out what giant, fuzzy bugs eat.

I looked back down the hole into the glowing meadow. I've watched the things that crawl in the grass back home, I don't want to go down there and get attacked by what's probably thousands of spiders. I don't know what to do. Hrmm. . .

. . .

If this is a game or something, or something is pretending it's a game, I should have objectives or something, right? Do I have have an menu? Can I pause? How do I pause. I raised my hand, foot, claw, thing and poked at the air. No pause button there. It was good to entertain myself, this way at least I didn't go insane within the first hour of whatever ordeal this was.
I guess it was too much to ask to just go ‘Pause!’ or ‘Menu!’ and expect. . .oh, I do have a menu. This is a game? This is a game. If I can find the options, I would like to save and quit.

This is just a stat page.

That was fine. No objectives or options, but it was something, right? Yeah. I could check my stats, pretty much all single digits, that was fine. I was level 1 after all, a ‘Level 1 Small Litharghest’ apparently. That was a bee, a big fuzzy bee. I'm dog sized. Very big bee. According to this I could fly, I could bite, I could dig, I felt less fear and I was good at keeping track of my surroundings. Neat.
I wish I wasn't a bee. I can't speak, and I can't cry, so I really don't have any way of letting any of this out. I want to scream fuck and shit and whatever more creative curses that could make me laugh came to mind like slut nugget. Thinking it doesn't really have the same effect, I wasn't feeling better. I'm going to die.

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I eventually collected myself since giving up wouldn't really help anything. I still felt sick, partially because I was becoming hungrier, but took to scanning my stat page for anything I could find of use. Turns out it was actually a pretty handy ability. It told me exactly how to improve any of these abilities I started with. If I flew more I'd level up my ‘Flight’ skill, if I bit more enemies I'd level up my ‘Bite’ skill.
When I got them to level 10 I could unlock new skills, like ‘Bite’ evolving into ‘Crunch’ or ‘Fear Resistance’ into ‘Fear Nullity.’ I just needed to practice or something to get there. Based on Fear Resistance and how I obtained it, I could probably get new skills the same way I level up what skills I do have. I want magic that lets me conjure food out of nothing so I don't have to go down the hole.

Beyond skills, I also had this nifty evolution tree. I think I would have loved this a lot more if the circumstances were different. It just kept branching with me as I was now at the bottom with hundreds of things at the top. I couldn't really afford to browse it too much because I had so much else to consider. Other things like these skill points my page says I have, ‘100 Skill Points’ it said.
That sounded like an awful lot. Maybe because I was a new player I was still allowed to spec my character? I can't find any mention on investing them in my skills though. Do I just ask to spend them on something like how I asked to open the window? It might be like those cheap ass games that give you tons of premium currency early on to tempt you into micropurchases though.
What if these were actually super valuable? Could I accidentally screw myself over? I was never the best with restraining myself from spending these in games. This could be a matter of life and death though considering I was laying down near a bunch of giant bees and was myself a bee. I had to experiment first so I knew how to spend these in the first place. ‘I want to upgrade Flight!’

. . .Oh, that just didn't work. ‘I want to invest Skill Points in Flight!’ . . .Nope. Okay, so I probably don't spend them on skills I have, which means I spend them on skills I don't have. What skills exist though? If Small Litharghest was my class in addition to race I'd only be able to use these skills that I started with and the ones they grew into or unlocked, but I got Fear Resistance after I woke up.
That meant other skills existed outside of these, definitely, and I could get them, probably, but I couldn't see them. Hrmm. I made triple sure by checking the evolution tree, some of these evolutions needed me to acquire skills I couldn't get through the skills I had. So, did I just ask to purchase one and I would be able to spend my points on it? I'll figure that out later, right now I needed to eat.

I really didn't want to go down there by myself, it was still a mystery and not everything could be friendly, right? And I was afraid of heights, every time I peered over the edge made my stomach do a 180 flip right onto its face. |[Fear Resistance LV1] -> [Fear Resistance LV2]|. I am a giant coward, but I wish the ghost voice would stop rubbing it in.
I had one idea though, and it was probably a bad idea, but it was the only one I had at the moment. One foot in front of the other, I crawled on the back of the huge Litharghest next to me, grabbing on to the dense fur covering its body to make sure I had a good grasp. I can look around safely and observe what food is from the back of big bee. If I fall off, I can just fly back here.
Just needed to psyche myself up. Just needed to get over several incredible fears for the hopes of survival. It was easier with this weird mind altering ability I'd picked up. I should probably be concerned about that but there's a long list of things to be concerned over right now and it was getting sidelined pretty heavily.

The bee wasn't moving, I was thankful, I was almost ready to climb off since this was a bad plan. Too late. Fuzz bee started moving, I just held on for dear life as I felt my stomach eat itself in fear, falling through the air until the big bee spread its wings and started buzzing through the air. I began looking around while hugging it tight, wind didn't both my eyes much it seems since they were weird and hard.
While being given my tour I was able to better peer upon this weird world. I was definitely underground or in a cave like I thought before, there was no sign of sky anywhere I looked. Scenery was mostly made up of an expansive giant flowers and grasses, and I could hear the sounds of running water further down. Maybe this was some form of underground river?
There were plenty of other Litharghests flying around from what I could tell. I hope they're all as friendly as the ones from my hole. Where was the safety hole from here actually? Oh, I'm panicking. Um, let me see what else there is. Hmm, there were giant fish things holding onto the flowers and jumping to grab bees out of the air, giant spiders jumping around from petal to petal, this wasn't helping.

Lizards, bugs, fish, spiders, frogs, there were so many beenemies here. Was I at the bottom of the food chain? Surely not, the big bee was much bigger than some of those things and it had a stinger. I didn't have a stinger. This was a lady bee and I wasn't. Bees aren't at the bottom, I'm at the bottom. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Thinking it still doesn't have the same effect. This place is awful.
I got shaken out of my thoughts when big lady bee landed on a flower. Alright, have to pay attention, what's she doing? Uh, pushing her head in the flower. . .can't see anything. She's too big. Look around, anything else I can see that can help? Another bee nearby, my size, it landed and is crawling inside a flower too. The flower grew teeth and crunched it up.

. . .

I looked in the other direction, finding another bee landing and drinking from some weird, curly petal inside the flower. Note to self, yellow tulip things bad, purple daisy things good. My body rocked a bit as big bee took off again. Maybe she got done eating? I hope she doesn't go back home yet. If she lands again I need to find a flower quickly, drink the stuff from the weird flower, and get back.

I want to go home.

She was slowing down again, she was definitely about to land. This was my chance. As big lady bee was coming to a stop, I buzzed over to a purple daisy looking plant. I was a bit slow and awkward, but I was able to get there. This was kind of exhilarating, I could fly. Oh, hello other bee. There was another bee about my size landing. I patted the fluffy bee before looking for the spiraling petal.
As I set my eyes on it, I saw there was a second one. There weren't two of these in the last one. Hmm. I approached carefully as the other bee crawled forward. As it began to approach I noticed the other spirally thing had eyes and a body. Oh no. I tried to move forward and pull the other bee away but it just buzzed its wings and shook me off.
The spirally thing with eyes shot forward when the bee got close and stabbed it with the spiral thing while holding it in place. No, bad bug! I flew and landed on top of it and tried to claw at its eye so I could make it drop the bee but it wasn't working. What do I do? What do I do? Er, bite! I have the bite skill. Biting is good. I crawled down its face and positioned myself before biting the spirally petal mouth.

The bug I was standing on started twitching around a bunch and let the other bee go. It couldn't reach me. I didn't want to let go or it might get me though. It tasted so gross, but I just kept biting until I took the thing's mouth off. It was bleeding purple stuff everywhere. This was disgusting, I'm sorry weird thing but I wanted to save the bee. The bee was dead, this was a mistake.
I flew off while looking down at it flailing around and trying to chase me, it fell off the flower petal. I just needed to eat and go back to the big lady bee. I flew back down and tried licking the weird liquid from the spiraling thing that wasn't a lie. It was sweet. I felt like I drank so much, so quickly, that I was gonna throw up. I had to hurry and get back to the lady bee.
When I crawled out to look for her though, I found her tangling with a fish thing. The fish thing had huge arms and looked like it was trying to crush her head, but she was stinging it back. I couldn't fight that thing, it would crush me in a second. What do I do? If I didn't have her I couldn't go back to the safety hole. I could bite, I could fly, I could dig, I could remember the area easier, hmm.

Digging? Could I dig through the flower's stem? I never tried digging though. The bee and fish split up, but she kept buzzing around the petal at it and it kept trying to swat at her. Do I try it? I flew down carefully outside the fish's view and landed on the stem. It was terrifying down here, I hope nothing ate me while I was doing this.
. . .What was I doing? Do I just claw at it? My claws weren't very good- I needed to bite this too, didn't I? I'm like a carpenter bee. Well, fine. I started chewing at the stem with reckless abandon. I thought I was gonna break my jaw at first. This thing is really sturdy isn't it? If I just, kept, grinding my jaws I should be able to get through this skin.
Yes! I was making headway, flower juices were starting to leak out. Eat shit, flower. If I keep going like this then maybe I can make the fish fall and go away. I was kinda surprised at how quickly I was progressing, it felt like I could already shove my whole body into the thick stem. Wait, wouldn't it be better to widen this than deepen it?

Maybe it would be better to get out, the entire flower was swaying with me inside of it. Yeah, I didn't want to be in here anymore. I crawled out looking to see how the fight was going but the fish thing was starting to climb down even with big bee buzzing at it. Oh god, nope, nope, back in the hole. I backed into the hole I'd made for myself waiting till it passed, watching its massive hand coming close.
It was dark. The jacked fish monster was sealing my burrow with its hand. Why wasn't it still climbing down? Fuck you fish monster, release me from this prison of my own creation! Please? I felt the stem shaking a bunch, looks like lady bee was still made and pestering the fish after it attacked. Were Litharghests really vengeful? I want out. Let me out you asshole, I'll bite!
I was thinking that, but I didn't really want to tell the fish monster where I was. Well, wait. It was trying to swat and punch lady bee while holding on with one hand before, right? Yeah. So that mean this hand was the only way it was staying on. Ergo, I bite the shit out of its hand and it'll drop, right? Well, or switch hands and then crush me. . .

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV1 -> LV2|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / Skill [Bite LV1] -> [Bite LV2]|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / Skill [Burrowing LV1] -> [Burrowing LV2]|
|Skill Points Received.|

I leveled up! Why did I level up? I checked my menu but it didn't mention anything there. My skills leveled up too, right? They had the same description as before but the levels were higher than I remember. They must be better now though, right? My Skill Points went up too by the looks of it. It said ‘110 Skill Points’. Only ten? Or maybe that was a lot. I'm realy confused.
The stem shook as I was busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This fish thing really isn't letting go. Bite leveled up, I'm biting the shit out of this thing's hand. Bug bites hurt no matter how big you are, it'll definitely let go. Just have to suppress the terror of a giant fish monster eating me if I make it mad. Just a one, and a two, and a bite the fucking hand!
I pinched into the flesh wall in front of me and instantly tasted blood. Oh, yeah, one of my greatest phobias. I can't vomit, but I feel like I would. I'm starting to feel faint. A strong coppery smell filled out the hole. Fuck it, keep biting even if my face was going numb. I keep biting and scratching and clawing. I'm glad it was bitch black or I'd probably have passed out from whatever it is I'm doing.

Finally, it lets go. I feel a sense of relief, and then immediate peril as I come face to face with a giant eyeball. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. |[Fear Resistance LV2] -> [Fear Resistance LV3.]| I'm gonna die. Jesus Christ the lady bee just skewered its skull. I'm going to be sick. It's falling away from the stem, releasing me finally.

I felt weak, almost too much to fly out and clasp onto one of huge lady bee's legs. She flew all the way back to the burrow, apparently having enough for now. As soon as she landed, I crawled over to my own little space to the side trying to ignore the smells clinging to my fur. This is the worst game I've ever had the displeasure of playing. I want to sleep. Do bees sleep? I hope so.

I'm still hungry, damnit.

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 2)
===============================================================================================================

I woke up to the dark cave I'd left behind. I've been here for one day, making several more trips with the giant bee to get nectar from flowers, no other fights. The longer I stayed here, the more knowledge on my surroundings I obtained. Had things been less dangerous I might have been able to make my own little garden instead of needing to go out into the world, but they weren't.
There were no pressing concerns at the moment. I could finally start to absorb events and go over what I wanted to do from here on. I've gone out, done a survey of the land, experienced first hand what it means to be a giant bee, what the local dangers look like to some extent. I'm stalling. I'm stalling super hard.

I have no idea what I'm doing, I dug a hole in some monster's hand, I bit something's mouth off. I'm going to try and repress all that. I'm pretty sure that bee killing flower bug is what gave me that level yesterday. I'm not sure what happened to it after it fell, but it must have died at some point. Since then, no other skills have leveled up, so it must take more the higher they go, makes sense.
The skill points though. I got ten points after leveling up, that means a hundred was actually pretty good? Now I just needed to figure out how to spend them. It should be the same way I opened my menu, right? I think it in the form of a request, it happens. Let me check that against one of the skills I saw off my evolution tree. ‘I would like to buy Stealth!’

|[Stealth LV1: “Skill with concealing one's presence.”]|
|Price: 100SP|
|Confirm Purchase?|

Oh, it worked! That is definitely how that works! Hold up though. That costs most of my points? ‘I do not wish to purchase Stealth LV1!’ Okay, cool, prompt gone. I needed to think about that. No, wait, first I need to check if that's common for skills to cost that much. ‘I would like to buy Magic Perception!’

|[Magic Perception LV1: “Allows for the perception and understanding of magic.”]|
|Price: 100SP|
|Confirm Purchase?|

This one also cost 100SP. Was that the minimum or just the flat cost for any skill? That can't be right.

-----

After ten or twenty minutes of checking different skills for reference, I've learned several things of note. First of all, ‘100SP’ appeared to be the minimum. Second, a bizarre number of of skills were just outright ‘100SP.’ Third, not all skills I inquired about were 100SP, many being hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands more in pricing.
How in the hell did anyone buy the expensive ones at this growth rate? What kind of monsters were lurking that actually had these? This place is fucked.

What do I buy?

Need to really concentrate. Damn my shitty memory. Basically though, I just relied on big lady bee that may or may not be my mother for most of it, both moving around and fighting things too tough for more. Well, I also was able to defeat the bee eater by biting the shit out of it. So, my strengths were bee mom and biting the shit out of things. Out of those, bee mom was way more reliable.
Even if I didn't get experience when she killed things, she was able to take care of all the big threats I was still way too small and weak to handle. So I needed to get something for working with her better so she could carry me to victory. I could get some kind of monster taming skill, or maybe something for buffing her or making her do things so I didn't have to hurry so quickly to eat.
Mmm, wait. To tame monsters in games you usually need to be on the same level though. I didn't know what level bee mom was, but she was way bigger than I was. Looking into my evolution tree, she was probably a Litharghest or Large Litharghest, so she had to be way higher level than me. If that was the case, then the skill wouldn't do anything.

I wanted to rely on bee mom, I don't think I can do this all by myself. She was like my high level friend power leveling me by running ahead and doing all the work. Well, except for the power leveling part. I'm pretty sure I would be double digit levels if I got credit for her visceral lobotomizing of that fish monster yesterday. I'm gonna go back to blocking that image out of my head.
Um, wait, parties in MMOs shared experience, right? Can I form a party with her? Could I do that? ‘I wish to form a party with this Litharghest!’ I waited for a moment for some kind of reply. Was this not a thing?Could she not accept due to being a bug? What if she just said no? Hmm. If I assume I just don't have that power, could I get that power? ‘I want to buy the ability to make parties!’

. . .Nothing, huh? I couldn't really say which of any number of reasons any of this didn't work. There were too many variables. Was I wasting time? Maybe. Maybe I would be better off with monster taming. Oh, or maybe I should start trying to think of this from the angle of standing on my own two feet. I wouldn't have bee mom forever probably even if she was crazy strong.
Eventually I'll have to do things on my own. Maybe I should start looking at it from that sort of angle. My jaws are my big weapons, but they weren't terribly effective against all monsters based on how long it took to just bite into the hand of that fish thing. So maybe some kind of strength enhancing skill, or a bite skill like poison or something. Super bug bites could be really good since I have no stinger.

|[Form Party LV1: “Allows one to form a party with willing allies. All party members may see the status of other party members. All party members receive experience from defeated monsters, evenly split among party members. Credit towards hunting titles is accumulated by all party members.
Maximum party size is equal to skill's level +1. The one with Form Party is designated Party Leader and may also remove members from the party.”]|
|Price: 150SP|
|You have insufficient skill points.|

Huh? Wait, what? That took a really long time to come up. Why did that take so long? Uh, this is what I was wanting to see though. If I had this then anything bee mom killed would benefit me too. That's what it's saying, right? Yeah, definitely. I couldn't buy it yet, I'd need to level up four more times, but I could continue mulling over my other options in that time.
It was sorta risky, but if it worked then I would be able push myself into a safer level faster in the long run. This was sort of dumb. I think I'm going to end up doing it. I'm doing it aren't I. I'm gonna die.

-----

One week, I think, I've been counting by drawing a line on the wall with a rock every time I woke up. I'm in a small pile of fuzzy bees, Small Litharghests like me, pooling warmth. I think they were supposed to be my siblings. There were only about six, and I'm positive there used to be many more. With the Night Vision skill I picked up yesterday I was able to observe the wall of open cavities.
I don't want to think about what probably happened to the others, so I thought about my progress. Things were slow, I didn't like hurting anything, but I'd killed two more spirally mouth bee eaters to save other Litharghests I'd found. That was the only real way I could justify it to myself even if those corkscrew fucks were just big bugs, in the defense of the fluffy bees.
I got a couple of levels in other things, that was neat. Bee mom continued to be a dominant creature within this environment, also sweet. I suppose there were upsides to my situations. Nectar tasted pretty great, and from budding botanical knowledge I wasn't sure of the origin of I knew as being really healthy. Shouldn't have to worry about that. These big bees were kinda cute, they were growing on me.

-----

Two weeks, probably. I haven't leveled again. There aren't as many bees my size as before wandering around to save and it's hard to muster up the guts to kill those big bugs. One of my siblings didn't return yesterday, I hope they're okay, but my expectations are low. Bee mom ditched me today, fortunately my Space Perception leveled up enough by now that I was able to fly back to the safety hole.
I've started to make entertainment for myself by reading my evolution tree and imagining different monsters fighting each other. There were a lot of bees here and there, not really sure I wanted to be a bee. Nectar was sweet but I kinda miss the taste of meat. I miss the taste of lots of things, and also the internet. I used to be an internet addict, not having that is fairly nerve wracking by itself.
I hope my family is okay. Monsters, monsters, think about monster fights that don't end in visceral gore splattering everywhere. Just need to keep fighting and entertaining myself, it'll all be fine.

-----

I'm not entirely sure how much time has passed, I stopped counting a while ago. All my siblings are gone. I like to imagine they've just left the nest to find their own homes and I'm just the bee equivalent of a shut in neet living with his parents still. Nights aren't as warm without them here. Bee mom didn't seem to mind my presence so I just continued staying in this safe place.
I'm now a 'Small Litharghest Level 6' with enough points to purchase that ‘Form Party’ skill. Leveling had been slow, but yesterday I crushed a sleeping spider surrounded by Litharghest corpses by dropping a giant flower on it. It shot me up two whole levels all at once, and burrowing made it all the way up to ‘Level 5’ from the task. I took some pride in the effort needed to beat the spider like that.
I'm going to buy the skill. I'm unsure how much I can rely on bee mom anymore, but she's been reliable for as long as I've been here as a predator deterrent. The real reason I want it now is to eventually start helping these other small bees. They're as weak as me and dumb as a bag of bricks on account of just being oversized bugs. I missed the ones I used to sleep with but others still flew around.

‘I wish to purchase Form Party!’

|[Form Party LV1: “Allows one to form a party with willing allies. All party members may see the status of other party members. All party members receive experience from defeated monsters, evenly split among party members. Credit towards hunting titles is accumulated by all party members.
Maximum party size is equal to skill's level +1. The one with Form Party is designated Party Leader and may also remove members from the party.”]|
|Price: 150SP|
|Confirm Purchase?|

‘Confirm Purchase!’

|[Form Party LV1] has been purchased.|

Well, that was that then, huh? The skill is right there in my stat page too. First order of business. ‘I wish to invite this Large Litharghest to my party!’ I pointed at bee mom, waiting for something to happen. Fairly quickly however, I notice that I'm now aware of her status. She was in my party! Jesus Christ her HP, MP and Stamina were hundreds of times better than mine. Bee mom kicks ass!
I couldn't really see anything else. Was this seeing? I felt like I could see her species and resource bars, but they also weren't actually in my vision or getting in the way. How bizarre. Or, wait, maybe her name was just Large Litharghest since she's a bee and bugs don't have names most of the time. That also makes sense. Anyways! Let's go out on the town bee mom! I look forward to beeing in your care! Puns!

I crawled onto bee mom's back and waited for her to get up and go, and waited, and waited. She did just get back I guess and who am I to really mush her like a sled dog- nevermind, here we go! I felt enthusiasm I hadn't felt in a while, if this plan worked out then I'd be able to just cruise my way to the top of this ecosystem no problemo amigo. I was ready for whatever today threw at us.
Bee mom landed on a purple daisy, good choice, good bee, smart bee. I flew off to another nearby, finding no bee killers waiting for me that I needed to chew the face off of. I was thankful, that was extremely unpleasant. I leisurely drank the nectar of the gods, or at least this flower, trying to keep a look out for anything that might be too dangerous. No spiders, no fish, no lizards, no problems.
That's when I saw something out of the corner of my eyes. A shadow moving through the upper darkness of the giant cavern. My night vision wasn't good enough to tell what exactly it was, but it just dropped something. My eyes were glued on the object which became more clear as it descended. It was the arm of a fish monster dropped perfectly to impact a Large Litharghest flying above.

That impact sent it tumbling, and threw the arm off course- fucking hell it was coming this way. I flew away as quickly as I could to stick clear, it'd crush me if it hit me, but I didn't need to be worried about myself. Instead, the arm smacked bee mom making her confused, and angry, buzzing up a storm as she looked around and began to take to the air. Oh no, no no no.
Whenever something attacked bee mom she seemed to attack it until it was dead, unrelenting, merciless. I'm not sure what that thing was, but it killed one of those fish monsters and was definitely aiming to hit the Large Litharghest. It was confident enough to antagonize something like bee mom even if it wasn't targeting her.
I flew over to grab on to bee mom before she took off, I wouldn't be able to keep up if she started flying full speed. While looking around though, I saw that vague shape from before descending from the darkness towards the disoriented big bee I saw before. It was a bird. Holy shit it was a really big bird. It was bigger than bee mom, things could be bigger than bee mom!?

It was big, blue and white, and tackling the disoriented bee out of the air onto a rocky outcropping before pecking the shit out of it. I could tell what was happening since bee mom was flying right at it. Fuck, damnit, shit, running would be really great right now party member! I jumped off before she tackled the bird's face, I'd just get in the way at that point.
The bird was still holding down that other Large Litharghest while flapping its wings and pecking at bee mom. What do I do here? There's no flower, my jaws aren't strong enough to do more than bother it, and it's moving around too much to climb on top of and bite in the first place. Uh, wait, no, no it isn't. Its legs are busy keeping balance and pinning that damaged Large Litharghest.
If I can make its leg hurt enough to let go, maybe I can get backup for bee mom. If all bees are as aggressive as she is, this one should go on the attack as soon as it's let go. Now I just needed to fight through this fucking wind the bird was kicking up from that flapping. This is insane, calm the shit down you overgrown blue jay.

I can't fly, just need to crawl, my, way over there to bite that fucker's ankle. Shit, shit, shit, where the fuck are these rocks coming from?! Agh, when it misses its pecks it shatters the floor!? That's way too strong for a bird. How in the hell do I deal with that? Rocks big enough to crush me were landing all around me or rolling past. FOOT!
I'm at the foot, just crawl up and bite the shit out of it. Bite! Ow! What the fuck? The moment I tried to close my jaws around this rough skin it felt like they were found to crack. How hard is this thing's skin? The bird drives its beak into the head of the captured bee. Oh. That's really not good. If it doesn't need to hold on anymore then- shit it's taking off!

Now that it only has one thing to worry about the bird was chasing bee mom! Shit! I can barely hang on, I can't bite through the rough leg skin, I'll be a sitting dick if it sees me in the open air. Think, think, feathers! If I can crawl beneath those I can get out of the wind and take more time to think. Having six legs was kinda useful in situations like this.
The bird was flying up, down, side to side, but I still had as much traction as always. Shit, bee mom was taking damage. I wish I could see what the fight outside looked like but I have to focus on my job. There! Beneath the feathers. Beneath the feathers? It's so fucking hard to move here, but the ground is so soft compared to outside. Soft! I can bite here! No worries bee mom! Backup starts now!

Bite, bite like there's no fucking tomorrow! Even if I'm getting covered in blood and feeling like I'm going to faint at any moment. I could feel myself digging into the flesh, it was surrounding my head. I couldn't afford to think right now. I'm sure this hurt like hell and I was providing a decent enough distraction. Motivation, no thinking, fucking weird bird is gonna get beat up and run away.
I hit something hard, too hard to bite through, needed to go around. If I'm not careful then the flesh will crush me. |[Bite LV6] -> [Bite LV7]| Thorough biting and crunching, keep digging. Keep digging! |[Burrowing LV5] -> [Burrowing LV6]]| Something's weird, nothing ahead? Nothing ahead!? I'm falling, shit! After a moment of getting my orientation I look around trying to catch site of where I was.
My floof was matted with blood, my vision is going dark, |[Fear Resistance LV5] -> [Fear Resistance LV6]| That helped! What was I doing? Flying, flying is what I was doing? Where was the bird and bee mom? Oh! There! The bird's leg was bleeding all over the place and it has its beak locked with bee mom's mandibles. Hey, wait, no, that wasn't good!

The bird was stronger, it was gonna crush her head! It didn't matter how much she was stinging its stomach, if she didn't get away from there- fuck. The bird crushed her head, her body was falling away with her stinging ripping away to stay in the bird. Her ‘HP’ hit '0', her status is gone, she's gone. No, no, fuck no. Damnit, fuck, shit! Everything was supposed to go smoothly from here on!
She was supposed to be big and strong and reliable!  I just, I need to lay down, I don't know how to handle this. Where was home? Ah, just above- why was the bird coming back? The bird was coming back. That fucking shitty bird is coming back! I flew back up to the safety hole as quickly as I could. It wasn't that far away, I fly slower but it was too far away to get me like this. I can hide until it leaves.
Just, rest for a moment, I'm covered in blood. Bee mom is dead. What the fuck was that sound? The bird was pecking into the opening!? How!? The hole is on the ceiling, could it hang upside down like a bat!? The tweeting is making my body reverberate. Why is it after me this badly!? It's because the blood, isn't it. It wasn't going to leave me alone. I'm going to die here to a stupid giant bird.

Cracks were starting to spread. I didn't know what to do. The only exit had a bird's head in it, stabbing around, ready to rip me limb from limb. I couldn't wait it out, it was going to get me. I can't give up though, if I give up though death is inevitable. What could I do though? I have no skill points to buy a new skill. I only knew how to bite, dig and rely on bee mom!
She was gone, she can't help me, I wouldn't even have this hole if she didn't dig it first. Wait, wait, my skills leveled up, maybe I can find another way out. Can I dig? Maybe not through stone normally, but the bird was making the rock weak with all these cracks. Right, that's it, that's my only way out. I positioned myself as far away from the old exit as I could and began biting the floor.

It was hard, too hard, I could barely make any headway without my jaws aching. I was making headway though, something that resembled progress. I could stick the first segment of my leg in the hole. The room was shaking but I just had to keep grinding- where did all this light come from? I'm falling, I'm falling!? How!? I'm still standing- the entire burrow collapsed from the bird's pecking!
The hole I was digging, half of it's gone! Looking around, almost the entirety of my old home was falling with me. I made a chink in the tunnel, the cracks spread there from the bird's brute force! The bird was underneath this massive chunk of rock, I can escape! Wait, shit, fly! Fly you fucking fool!

I spread my wings and started buzzing, falling past the flower tops before I finally caught myself instead of nearly falling to my death, watching the bird continue falling the the dark floor below. It made an awful scream before going dead silent, the rock shattering on top of its body to reveal bee mom's stinger sticking in its stomach, bird blood spurting up around it. I was still relying on her till her end.

Damnit. . .damnit bee mom, why'd you have to die. . .

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV6 -> LV7|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / [Space Perception LV4] -> [Space Perception LV5]|
|Skill Points Received.|

Er what? The aching in my jaw eased up. I leveled up?

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV7 -> LV8|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / [Night Vision LV4] -> [Night Vision LV5]|
|Skill Points Received.|

Hold on a bit, this is a lot to take in.

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV8 -> LV9|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Points Received.|

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV9 -> LV10|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / [Form Party LV1] -> [Form Party LV2]|
|Skill Points Received.|

When was this going to stop?

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 3)
===============================================================================================================

I think I'm ready to lay down and die now.

I'm not a strong person. Not physically, not mentally, no matter how many times I'm told otherwise. I needed people, and now I had no one, not even those giant fluffy bees. I'm gonna end up going insane, or let myself fall from the top of the cave so I don't have to deal with this anymore. I'd been in this downward spiral since watching the bird get disemboweled by bee mom's stinger.
I couldn't go back to the safety hole, it was gone, so I just burrowed my way into one of these giant flowers and carved out a room for myself. I'll be fine. I didn't know what to do from here on but I'd be fine. I wanted to just give up and go get a long sleep but I don't think I can at this point. I'd find something to live for, probably tomorrow, today I was feeling pretty depressed.
Killing that bird jumped me up all the way to ‘Level 15’, and most of my old skills are pretty close to ‘Level 10’ from those bonuses. ‘Form Party’ jumping to ‘Level 4’ felt like rubbing salt in the wound, what with having no allies. I guess there was one thing of note, this title I found after checking my menu, and the skills that came with it.

[David Over Goliath] was the title, “Bestowed upon slaying an enemy many times greater in size, level and statistical advantages.” was listed as the requirement. I guess that bird was nothing to fuck with, but its guts are smeared over the bottom of the ravine now so fuck it. I'd never had a title before, but it looked like they came from feats as opposed to continuous action like skills?
Then there were these skills, [Mercury Sandles] and [Miraculous Intervention]. No matter how many times I read the descriptions I couldn't quite get a clear idea of what they were supposed to do. The former was some kind of multiplier regarding speed, but it wasn't a direct buff since my speed stat wasn't looking abnormal compared to my other stats.
The latter talked about adapting and refining my offense. The description was too short to really gather what that meant, but with a name and description like that it certainly sounded impressive. I didn't deserve this stuff. I didn't earn any of this. Why was I gifted? Was it karma's way of making up for sending me to this cave hell to begin with? Ah, forgot that this evolution prompt came up.

I'm too tired to power game this, all these other forms had extra requirements or sounded weird. No reason to hold off, I was five levels over already. ‘I would like to evolve into a Litharghest please.’ The moment I spoke that I felt an overwhelming drowsiness hit me. Yeah, I thought I'd crash any moment, but this was sorta- I could yawn? Huh. . .

-----

I awoke both groggy and hungry, but also warm. Why was I warm? Something was resting against me, several somethings. I moved my somewhat aching body to look around, noticing several things. The room I carved for myself got smaller, and there were small Litharghests resting around me. Ah, I evolved, I grew. Why were these bees here?
I inspect them with my antennae, which I've long since learned are basically sensitive nose fingers, and come to a sudden discovery that gives me the feeling that I'll vomit from excitement. I recognized these bees! These were some of my bee siblings from the old ceiling home! What were these little shits doing down here? Why were they in my burrow? Hey little fuckers, how are you?
I pet the sleepy bees while awkwardly shifting in the now too small chamber. I wasn't alone. I needed to carve a bigger space, also a bigger entrance, couldn't even leave until I did that. Now that I was bigger the little shits reminded me of dogs or puppies, all small and fluffy I loved dogs. Dogs died too much, I miss bee mom. I've got little friends again!

I began reading my stat page while absently chewing at the surrounding floral walls. I was ‘Level 1’ again which was concerning, until I noticed my stats didn't seem to have changed. I think they even grew a little? Ah, this was like New Game+, or ascension in those idle games I used to waste time when I was bored. Start over with greater advantages, kinda, makes sense.
How many little bee siblings were here anyways? I counted five. That's one too many to invite all of them into a party. I'm gonna party up with these bees and help them level up. They were small and stupid and adorable and I was gonna make sure they lived. I was really scared, but giant birds shouldn't lurk down here at least, and I was a lot stronger. I would be to these bees as bee mom once was for me.
Yeah yeah yeah, bee crew. This is real dumb, I'm gonna die, but I'm gonna die saving these floofy little motherfuckers. I picked one of them up to hold in front of me. Who's a cute little bee? Yes you! Oh, you have a stinger, you are a little sister bee. What all were you guys anyways? Four girls and one boy? Good, girls get stingers which means they can protect themselves easier.

I picked up the little dude. You are going to be sticking with me until I get you big and strong. It buzzed and writhed out of my bug grasp. Note to self, litharghests don't like being held. Ah, party invites, I'm gonna invite little dude and three of the girls for now and hope the final one can take care of herself until I get this party skill up.
All of them are just ‘Small Litharghest’ huh? That's gonna get confusing. Oh, all of you were were leveled up quite a bit already, sixes and sevens. That's real good, you guys can already take care of yourself a bit. We're gonna make sure nothing unfortunate happens that makes it harder to keep going from here. This was a big brother's job. If anything touches any of you I will murder them.

Ah, they were all starting to get up and leave. Time to play bodyguard I think, interference, destructive interception. As the small litharghests began to take to the air, I properly started to survey this place. I kinda didn't last time, pretty bummed out, death was sad. Now that I actually allowed myself to take in the sights, this was was sorta heavenly.
Nice ambient light, way more litharghests my size or smaller, smaller flowers blooming from the trunks of the big ones. So this is where all those bees eventually went, I really was being the shut in neet of giant bees. Now, there was one thing worrying me as I hovered around, keeping track of the little bees as best I could. Where were the giant monsters I always saw topside?
Well you know what they say, speak of the devil and they shall appear. I watched all the bees fly away from a flower further ahead as a giant, bulky fish man climbed up. I kept watching as they struggled to climb, sometimes trying to swipe at a litharghest only to smack their arm against a flower trunk. They always seemed so much more agile up above, I guess that's why they climb up there.

Not to say I ever stopped paying attention to the little bees. It was kinda weird, I think it was some sideeffect of my Space Perception skill getting higher but it felt like I wasn't ever getting turned around or losing track of my bee siblings. That's when I caught something in the corner of my vision. There was a weird frog with a tail sitting on a flower trunk.
It was the same greenish blue as flower stems so it blended in, and was facing down, its pupils following one of my sister bees. I'd rather not hurt the cute frog, but flew above and slowly snuck around behind it to keep watch of its actions. Forward facing eyes, focus on its target, confidence in its disguise, it didn't notice me.
Minutes passed as my siblings fed from flower to flower. This frog wasn't moving. I began to think that it might be fine to leave until it tucked its head low, one of my bees beginning to fly close. I crept closer, keeping my eye on it, raising one of my weird bug limbs. It shot its tongue, and in that same moment I slapped it in the eye, making it flinch and miss its attack.

It quickly climbed down the stem and swerved to face me. Don't make me hurt you frog, I swear I will continue slapping the shit out of you. I kept my arm up and crawled towards it in anticipation of any funny business. What I didn't really expect was it to project its tongue, latch on to my upraised arm with some sticky mucus, and completely rip it off. That is some white, hot, torturous pain right there.
I flew down to face it after that, dodging its next tongue lashing faster than even I expected and clamped down on its mouth with my jaws. Pain had a way of dulling empathy, and since it seemed to lack any backup plans if its tongue stopped being threatening, I just mercilessly beat it against the flower stem until it went limp and tossed it it into the rocky rapids way down below.
I was breathing heavy, I think. My arm was gone. That really hurt. That really fucking hurt. Why was I not bleeding everywhere? Is it just like when a normal bug loses a limb? That was a weird quirk. How is everyone else? Full up on all meters, that's good. Jesus this really hurts. I checked my menu to see what my experience looked like but it had barely crawled.

Ah, right, party, split experience. That was probably it. I'm hungry, gonna go get something to eat. Note to self, just fucking kill the frogs in the future, or toss them. Mary mother of Jesus. Shit fuck.

-----

Its only been a few days, ish, and I've been a diligent big brother as best I can bee. It's really tiring though since they seemed oblivious to danger and quick to anger, the little bees that is. They're lucky that they're adorable and I'm using them as safety blankets. Good news, while I still wasn't Level 2 because of this experience splitting, despite killing several frogs, skills seemed to progress as normal.
'Form Party' progressed to ‘LV5’ and I could now party up with all my little siblings. I had no idea what triggered that but I guess it was maintaining a party or acting alongside them. Also evolved my ‘Bite’ skill into [Crunch LV1] which seemed to do the exact same thing, just a bit better. It also had some bonus attached for using it a bunch I think.
There were more threats than frogs down here though. The most common I had to deal with didn't even give experience. The smaller flowers that grew from the big carnivorous flowers topside were just as animate and just vicious. I had to save one of my sisters from the clutches of one by clipping it from its stem, and since then I've been busying myself with pruning them whenever I can.

It wasn't exactly an easy task. The slender leaves of those things lashed out at anything that hurt one of its flowers, and it took losing another one of my legs to earn that lesson. Since the core of the flower was still as healthy as always it didn't count as killing a monster I guess. I consider that to be some prime bullshit but what am I going to do?
In other, far less traumatically painful news, I had figured out how to play with the bees. Turns out if you scratch them just so on the back right before their weird little necks I could make their legs thump like a dog's. I'm pretty sure normal bees didn't work like that. I tested throwing sticks, flower shavings anyways, after that. Only seemed to work if booped on the mandibles but they'd go for it.
I suddenly went on the alert. It was the active time for bees to be feeding and cross pollinating and such and one of the unrelated litharghests that flew around here disappeared out of the corner of my eye. I watched that part of the flower forest, light pouring in from above enough that I can usually see any of the normal monsters.

I caught it again, a glimmer before something shadowy passed by. I landed on a nearby stem to narrow the ways something could attack me and had my eyes peeled. What the fuck was that? A minute passed, I checked where the others were and repositioned myself closer. While flying I noticed the shadow leaping through the flower stems. I almost caught what it was, it was getting closer.
As I was passing through the air I noticed it barreling towards me, or at least in my direction, watched it land on a flower stem behind me. Giant eyes, eight legs, a barely visible line of silk hanging in the air behind it, it was some kind of giant Jumping spider. It would be pretty cute if it wasn't bigger than me.

I didn't really know what to do in this situation, just slowly positioning myself between it and the little bees in my charge. What in the hell was I gonna do about this? Shit! It flew at me faster than I could react, I tried to bite on reaction and caught one of its fangs. I was doing my best to keep the other one at bay like that and felt some impacts on my back. Two of my siblings got hurt from that!
I was buzzing my wings as fast and hard as I could but it was too heavy to carry, I was really only fucking up its trajectory. Thinking fast I used that to my advantage, it wasn't much, but I tilted the two of us a bit. Probably wouldn't have understood left from right without that one space perception thing but I did have that and I was able to spin myself on top.
When we finally hit a flower, it met stem with its face and let me go long enough that I could get some space. Adrenaline or some weird bug equivalent was probably filling me with energy and focus. I was hoping it would crash against the rocks, or would be scattered enough that I could fly in and bite its leg. I wasn't prepare for it to stop mid-air and drag itself to the stem though.

The barest glint in the air told me everything, it was using silk to reorient itself. Thinking that almost got me caught when it lunged again. I was ready this time at least, dodged by my fuzz. The angled Jump launched it above the canopy though, and that was cause for concern. Getting an idea of my surroundings, I zoomed off to where my siblings were.
As I flew, I saw it skittering and jumping, taking momentary stops to peer down at me. I couldn't rightfully tell them apart, probably should mark them somehow, so I just need protect all of them. Simple as that. Fuck me. I saw it looking down from on high, mandibles just brushing over each other. Wait, two small litharghests were flying towards it now. No, bad, bad bees.
Wait, shit, those were the two I hit earlier after that jumping spider caught me, weren't they. Was my entire species vengeful? Had to be, fuck. I'll take the initiative then.

Flying above the flowertops like I used too, I find the jumping spider looking up at me. I was hesitant about my approach, it was clearly stronger and more resilient than me, faster too. It shouldn't be able to approach me easily since there was nothing to land on up h- holy shit it nearly got me, again! Fuck me, how!?
After its initial lunge it redirected itself through the air and impacted on a flower before I could rightfully do anything about it. Was its thread control that intricate? Nothing I could do to counter its leaping, then I needed to hit it while it was grounded. I flew lower to the flowers to get an even plane and approached carefully, finding it skittering towards me quickly.
In response I ducked beneath the canopy again, seeing my little siblings almost here. Right now I needed to act fast. The spider was just above me on a flower petal, I knew the moment it walked over. I was clinging to the bottom and carefully bit through the soft material to peek through, before ramming my head in to grasp its leg and pull it through, taking a chunk out of it when it pulled back.

Take that, fucker. Shit, that was one of my party members trying to head topside now. I crawled through the hole I'd made and continued biting at its legs, dragged away when it tried to skitter for space and then releasing it when it jumped. It was hurting now, not gonna lie, so was I, it really trampled the shit out of me there. My little siblings were now in sight too.
If I was gonna keep them out of this I needed to finish this now. Glad to see it, but it looked angry and was coiled to leap towards me. I felt a fuzzy feeling in the back of my head and made to divebomb towards it as it leapt. Faster than I've ever felt myself react before I began to spin, clasping one of its outstretched fangs with impeccable timing and ripping it off with a clean jerk as I fell past.

How in the fuck did I just do that? Wait, no time, it was landing again near one of my sisters. She stung it and it was rounding on her, still more than strong enough. Not today motherfucker! I held on to its one remaining fang while on top of its back. It had my sister pinned but couldn't attack as she continued stinging. The other party member to show up was my one brother who took to chewing its eye.
This was a bit too visceral for me but to hell if I was just going to leave this poor son of a bitch to kill one of the adorable little shits before hobbling off to die in a hole. When all resistance seemed to fade I accidentally crunched the other fang off and fell back, rolling up to look around for anything threatening.

When did I become bad ass? The fuck? |[Miraculous Intervention LV1] -> [Miraculous Intervention LV2]| Was that what happened there? What do you do mystery skill?!

|Conditions have been met. [Cooperation LV1] has been obtained.|

And now what the fuck was that?

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 4)
===============================================================================================================

I don't know how long I've been down here, but a lot of time has passed. Despite the sluggish acquisition of experience I've finally been able to get to ‘Level 3’ and my siblings have recently managed to become normal sized Litharghests like me. This was in no small part due to that ‘Cooperation’ skill I got that day after defeating the spider.
It did something weird, spreading the ‘teamwork’ status to my allies. Even starting out the effects were pretty apparent, my little party bees always seemed to hang near me now instead of spreading over an area. It wasn't a massive effect, but just having my party working together on some level was so useful.
Speaking evolutions and such, with how big all of us are I needed to build a new home in a larger flower. It kinda looked like a giant red rose, different from most of the flowers I was familiar with, but it seemed fine. Not that it lasted, after evolving my siblings all seemed to dig their own burrows. It was a bit colder at night now, but they all needed their space I suppose.
None of us were bee mom sized, but I'm pretty sure she was a Large Litharghest anyways.

Speaking of, I'd made some breakthroughs recently with that Form Party skill when it leveled up again. I recruited a Large Litharghest from above, since they handle much larger threats, and although she doesn't seem all that active she definitely gave us a few experience shots over the last who knows how long from slaying enemies out of our weight class.
She would even come down from time to time if something especially dangerous was in the area, I assume because of Cooperation. She was no bee mom but I liked her, big guard floof. My adorable not so little siblings weren't the only things evolving though. ‘Flight’ became ‘Soar’, ‘Burrowing’ became ‘Tunneling’, both solid upgrades over my old skills.
‘Space Perception’ becoming ‘Space Awareness’ was the stand out though. Even since I got that I've just been mentally mapping the area and staying aware of anything weird even when I couldn't see it. It was both incredibly useful, and more than a little frightening. Until I got this skill I had no idea how many things were living around here, constantly moving around and killing or dying to survive.

Above anything else, the sheer number of carnivorous flowers near our new home and how often they fed was deeply unnerving. It would probably be best to pick out a new home, or just clear these flowers out. What was I doing right now? Totally forgotten. I know I flew up to lay on this flower and think about something, then I got sidetracked somewhere. I guess I'm not doing much of anything.
Ah, right, skill points. I actually noticed something interesting about leveling up now. Beyond the fact that it gives you back lost limbs and probably fills up other parameters, I was getting ‘30SP’ per level. That's triple what it was before, and I was already good to go on buying another skill. I think I had a good idea of what to buy.
There was a lot on the table, but first and foremost I needed another attack. Biting everything gets me fucked up every time, even if I somehow became progressively more bad ass in every fight. I needed range, and as such I was gonna pick up this skill I saw in my evolution tree. Probably wasn't going to go with what needed it, but for now it seemed really useful. ‘Purchase Wing Beat!’

|[Wing Beats LV1: “The wind kicked up from flapping wings is condensed and directed as concussive projectiles at the designated target.”]|
|Price: 100SP|
|Confirm Purchase?|

‘Confirm.’

|[Wing Beats LV1] has been purchased.|

Now how did this work? I flapped my wings but didn't notice anything. Did I need a target? I looked at an upraised petal and flapped my wings again, focusing on it like I wanted to shoot it. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the petal began to shred apart. Come again? How many of these projectiles did I just fire?
I took aim at a nearby carnivorous flower's petal and buzzed my wings again, watching it get peppered with tiny holes before shredding. I didn't understand, why- oh! It's because of my wings! Bees flap their wings stupid fast, can barely see them when they're going. Maybe because I have a bunch of super fast wing flaps I shoot super fast too. I didn't have to get up close anymore.
Oh wow, I didn't have to get up close anymore. I was like a fighter pilot now! How much stamina did this eat up anyways? I watched my stamina bar while firing in the air but didn't notice anything abnormal. Was it really that cheap? Oh hell the fuck yeah, this is bad ass. Nothing is gonna rip my legs off anymore. I'm dominating this cave.

-----

After ‘Cooperation’ reached ‘Level 5’ it felt like I could almost get my little siblings to just go along with what I wanted in the day, like wandering with me away from home for no reason. Highly specific example, I know, but that's because that's what I wanted to do. So with my family, that big lady I partied up with, and a couple of other recruits, I began to explore this place in earnest.
Today we were down, down below the canopy as I checked out what this rushing water I've heard all this time is like. It was incredibly bizarre, intersecting rivers and rapids moving at insane speeds inside these deep grooves that cut around the tough roots of the giant flowers above and flows diagonally in some places. I'd never seen anything like it.
When I dipped a leaf in, it got pulled out of my hand. . .claw. . .thing. Trying a second time after bracing myself allowed me to pull it out, finding something viscous sticking over the leaf, at least the parts not shredded. Was this actually water? I wasn't so sure now, it didn't really make sense. All I knew was that I didn't want to fall in.

Following the rivers far enough and you'd get to these dark whirlpools that reminded me of blenders. The rivers always flowed fastest around here, no flowered grew inside and anything caught in their currents looked like it was shredded against the hagged walls and sucked down, truly gruesome. I guess it was like a centrifuge or something, had no idea why they'd act like this.
Another note about these whirlpools though, they seemed to be the homes or tunnels for the fish men, I'd seen at least three crawling in and out of them. They weren't the only things down here, nor the most dangerous to my group personally since they were too big to properly attack with all the flowers in the way as long as we kept our distance and stuck to the stem trunks.
Salamanders with propeller-like tails, colorful frogs with flailing tongues, flying fish with head and neck of plesiosaurs, things moved fast and recklessly down here. We kept our distance but watched from above as some of these creatures crashed into others fast enough to partially explode them.

I did have to fly down to drag some small litharghests away, not sure why there were down here but no bees died on my watch. I didn't even have relation with them, but the stupid, nectar drinking balls of fuzz and vengeance were too cute to let die for no good reason. Good to note though, the ground level is pretty awful.

-----

Another day of exploration, and I think I've found one of the exits to this cavern? It was more than a little intimidating. A giant round hole lined with stone spires of various sizes extending as far as I could see. Was this where the bird came from? Stalagmites were the ones that grew from the ceiling, stalactites were the ones from the floor, or was that the other way around?
It didn't matter, how come some of these were growing from the walls or at an angle? Didn't these form from mineral buildups and moisture collecting and dripping or something like that? Fuck if I know. These didn't sit well with me though. I moved closer to inspect and stopped cold. Why did I sense movement? Something was moving in these stalagthings.
I kept my distance while flying away and clear. Grabbing on to the ceiling and ducking my head low to get the closest look I could, I saw something shifting. This was a monster of some kind. I started to feel a pit growing in my stomach. There were thousands of spikes along the inside of this tunnel. Were they all monsters, or were just a few, blending in with camouflage?

I flew back out of range as a pincer stretched out from beneath the stalagmonster to snap at me, but it was pitifully slow. It had to be a danger through sheer numbers, or was a lot stronger and resilient than it was fast. Keeping my party back as I went to explore a bit further, I flew into the center of the vast tunnel and immediately drew back away, several of the monsters falling from above.
Is that their trick then? Great weight and toughness, dropping down from above to skewer prey? Were they protecting the tunnel, or was it just a heavily trafficked area for prey? How did they survive like this? I had way too many questions and no real answers to gain from sticking around here. I wonder if I'd ever be strong enough, adventurous enough, to fly through here.
As I stared into the abyss, something fortuitous happened. |[Night Vision LV9] -> [Night Vision LV10]| |Conditions have been met. [Visible Range Expansion LV1] has been acquired.| Oh, cool, now when I stared into the abyss I could see just a bit farther. How nice. Note to self, both exits found so far are pretty much death traps.

-----

Today while exploring my party was attacked by a large group of wasps. While they were weak enough for me to wittle down with my ‘Wing Beats’ skill, there were a lot of them so the party took a bit of damage on the whole. Not to say I was shooting them down easy, I was a really poor shot at first, and then a bizarrely good shot towards the end. No idea why.
While tracking some of the wasps by moving beneath the canopies, I caught sight of a giant hive clinging to the ceiling.  Couldn't just let them set up here though. I had a plan, and for that plan I'd be recruiting my allied Large Litharghest. Landing far away from the wasp nest I began to dig, and she followed suit to begin digging into the rocky ceiling.
After I got that ‘Tunneling’ skill it wasn't nearly as hard to dig into stone. Piece of cake really. My jaws could snap steel I bet. Bee was strong. Rargh! Digging is real boring. As we continued to dig, my ‘Space Awareness’ gave me a clear enough image of what was going on below me, above me? Tunneling upside down was weird. Basically though, we were digging right over the wasp nest and passed it.

With the big tunnel made by big lady, I invited my siblings inside to join me in digging out a larger and wider cavity. It was somewhat hard work to pull off what I was planning, and so I pulled big lady, my siblings and the others I've partied with out to go eat and camp for the night.
Was it night? I couldn't even tell. Being completely cut off from the sun is fucking with me even if I didn't go into the sun very much in my old life.

-----

Next day, I had to shoot down a few more wasps in an air fight on the way back to their nest and the tunnels I'd made with my team. Almost immediately had to go back for help since the wasps found the carved out space and had quite a few wandering around inside. This made pulling off the plan significantly harder
With so many killed, it sent the rest of the nest into a swarming phase. As such, I basically had to work with big lady to defend the others as they continued digging and weakening the foundation the nest sat on. It felt like fighting off a never ending hoard as they pushed in from the major entrances on either side of the cleared out room.
I was essentially just shredding any of them I saw with ‘Wing Beats’ while big lady chewed up any trying to push in from the other side.

|Conditions met. [Monster Killer] title acquired. [Powerful LV1] skill acquired. [Stealth LV1] skill acquired.|

I'd check what those did later, right now I'm starting to feel the burn as this was way more difficult than I had previously expected it to be. I felt a vaguely familiar shaking at my feet, as the ground dropped out from beneath us, wasp nest and all. Even then, all the wasps that weren't in the nest at the time were still attacking us in the air.
Between the lot of us attacking as a team now compared to before, it was a hard fought but simple victory to walk away with. Something was wrong though. I'm positive we didn't kill all those wasps by dropping the nest, and there didn't seem like enough that came and attacked us after we dropped it. Where did the others go?
My adorable fluffy bees and I descended to rest on the flowers below and feed to replenish our strength. While they were taking it easy however, I journeyed farther down past the damaged flora before locating the reason why the wasps didn't continue to come for us. A massive hole, huge, bright, deep as can be.

The sides of the hole appeared to be lined with vines and glowing flowers, such that I couldn't see beneath the dense overgrowth in most places.  The only exceptions were damaged areas from the dropped ceiling falling through from what I could tell. Nearby rivers were nourishing the plantlife by gushing into it, the momentum splashing the water over the edges like a constant shower.
That was one deep ass hole, couldn't quite tell if it was as dangerous as the other one. I noticed movement after twenty minutes or so, but to my mild surprise it was litharghests crawling out of burrows. There were tons of them, flying from flower to flower or crawling in and out of the apparently dense vine walls. This place was dangerous alright, for things other than me, hell the fuck yeah.
This was a good hole, look at all the cute little floofers flying around. Now I needed to just subtly push the others into burrowing into nearby flowers, or the ceiling I guess for the big lady. Is it weird how resentful I am that bee mom had to die for things to get so good? I feel bitter about this situation to some extent. Kinda hate that feeling. Today was a good day though, fuck wasps.

|Experience Points have reached the fixed amount|
|Small Lithaghest LV4 -> LV5|
|Skill Proficiency Level Up Bonus|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / [Mercury Sandles LV1] -> [Mercury Sandles LV2]|
|Skill Proficiency Reached / [Wing Beats LV3] -> [Wing Beats LV4]|
|Skill Points Received.|

Huh, why the heck did that just- did it fucking take that long for the nest to crash at the bottom?! Holy shit this was a deep hole! Didn't we drop that a while ago!? . . .Well, something to think on some other time, holy shit. Heights that would have put the fear of god in me once upon a time aren't so bad with mind altering skills and the power of flight, so I didn't mind being near here.

-----

It was the next day and my party was slowly settling into the area. I was grateful I guess that the combination of Cooperation and these bees being fairly docile when unprovoked allowed me to pretty much just lead them around. I think that's why they were all following my lead at least. Anyways, it was pretty nice around here. Surprisingly few predators, there was this flower hole with tons of food.
Only real problem was the prevalence of predatory flowers around here, I counted at least ten and that was just in the area around this hole. I propped my head up with one arm while tapping the floor of my burrow with the other. Carnivorous flowers were pretty tough with the flailing vines and multiples jaws. The safest place to attack them was down below, but that area was dangerous for other reasons.
Hmm, I was gonna get this operation off the ground and soon, just needed time to think of a plan. . . Mm? Wait, what the fuck? Litharghest 7 was getting really hurt?! What was happening, wasn't that one with a partner? I crawled out of my burrow and flew off to provide backup, but the sight waiting for me wasn't really what I was expecting.

Ah, that's, hm. I cannot provide backup for the bees and the bees doing that. Jeez, he just flops over dead after, huh? This was kinda disgusting and saddening, but nature is nature I guess. . . Wait, where's my brother? I needed to go cockblock him immediately. How in the shit do I cockblock a giant bee? Evolution, definitely evolution, need to get him into something that didn't do. . .this.
Urgh, need another party member now. I guess Litharghest 8 was gonna go build a nest or something. I'm gonna leave now. Where was little bro bee? Ah, burrow, looks like we're roommates now since I wasn't letting him out of my sight until we evolved into. . .something I've yet to determine. Until then, I am the anti-wingman!
I crawled down the stem of the flower I knew he'd dug into to peer into brother bee's burrow, finding him sleeping. He's inactive for now then, no need to worry, yet. . .

What was I doing? Ah, yeah, plant takedown plan. . .minus one of my party members. Jeez that's rough, I didn't want any of my little friends to go out like that. Was that even a cruel fate? I didn't know now, it was all animal instinct or something. Mmm, gonna just not think about that anymore. I need to recruit someone new before I organize the weed killer plan.
I started to fly around the area looking for a small litharghest. I only had one real requirement, that it had to be a girl. I couldn't afford to get invested, emotionally and time wise, in a litharghest that might fuck its own guts out or something. One bee on cockblock watch was about all I wanted to deal with. There were many to pick from, but ideally I wanted an injured one.
Why? Because if I'm gonna power level it after inviting it to the party, then I might as well help a bee in a bad spot, right? Mmm, that one eating looked healthy, and that one, and that one. I headed further down to look for burrows nearby. Most were empty since this was the active period for most creatures, I think. Did find some sleepy bees though. Left them alone if they weren't the right recruit.

Finally found one though, small, female litharghest with a missing leg or two sitting inside a burrow in the cave wall. I was actually interested to bring her on board since it looked like she carved this space herself, and in stone at that. That suggested to me that she had some decent skills and some life experience, just not the right level yet. Yeah, I choose you, little bee!
Party invite sent and accepted. Oh, ‘Small Litharghest LV8’! You're close. We'll get you leveled in no time. Now. . .about those giant, carnivorous flowers. I think I've got an idea, but it's gonna be kinda slow and tricky depending on how my party behaves. I landed on a non-carnivorous flowers leaf to survey one of the flowers I wanted to chop down.
It was about as I vaguely remembered, it had enough of those whip-like leaves to defend its long stem from any angle and level. The flowers were fairly weak beyond the one at the top, but those things were fairly resilient. That's how I used to prune them around my old home, quick snip of the small flowers and flying away before the whips had time to smash me.

Their biggest weakness though was something I could now take advantage of, a complete inability to move from where they were rooted. I checked to make sure none of the party was nearby and began to pepper the base of one of the carnivorous plant's whips. It didn't do much damage at this safe a range, but it was doing damage. Looking around again and none of the party was closing in.
That was good, I didn't want them diving head first into death when I just wanted to wittle this thing down, chop its limbs off and leave it defenseless for when we came in and burrowed its flower guts out from the inside out. That sounds really grim, but I didn't have as much empathy for a plant with no discernible sapience, or even sentience. It was kinda like dangerous lawn mowing.

It was kinda taking a while, but after a good half hour with regular breaks I'd chopped off a few whip leaves. This last one left me confident enough to bring in the boys, girls really, girls and one boy, brother and ladies nights, I should come up with a party name. Whatever, I flew around to get their attention and got them to follow me to one of the safe spots on the flower's stem.
With all but small recruit and big lady going in, the lot of us began to chomp through the planet's flesh and carve a burrow. To their confusion however, I began to tunnel straight up, and so followed my lead to aid in the continued digging. This phase went far faster, and when I dug into something with a bizarre texture compared to the stem, I backed off and began to fly down and out the entrance.
Flying around to confirm our work, I shot at one of the smaller flowers, watching it shred with the tendrils offering no reaction or resistance. With an hour's hard labor behind me, I do believe that was one of the giant, carnivorous flowers slain. Confirming my suspicions with the stat sheet, I found a nice experience bonus waiting for me. Success! Just nine more to go. . .

-----

Next day, my party and I had all earned another level from the relatively safe extermination of large, powerful, killer flowers. As I speak, think I guess, we were just finishing off the eighth that I'd mentally marked. Slowly, under my direction, we were really carving out a safe home amongst the flowery woods near this overgrowth hole.
Flying out to rest on a nearby flower as I gave my brothers, sisters and Litharghest 8 who killed Litharghest 7 by snu snu, I was met with a pleasant surprise.

|Conditions have been met. [Commander LV1] has been obtained.|

Oooh, new skill. Not very useful though? I could already kind of gesture at my party to go along with my plans with ‘Cooperation’, what was the point of this- |[Fear Resistance LV9] -> [Fear Resistance LV10]| |Conditions have been met. [Fear Nullity LV1] has been obtained. [Fear Alleviation LV1] has been obtained.| . . .

. . .

I slowly craned my head to the right to look into the face of something colossal. Covered in overgrowth, it neck sprouting from below the canopy around where the flower hole should be. Something with antler's resembling trees, and bulging eyes that seemed to twitch and wander before refocusing. Its head alone was the size of the big bees, it was staring right at me and I hadn't noticed until just now.
How did it sneak up on me? It was too big, too foreign. Why was it looking at me like that? Its eyes cut off to the right, and I followed its gaze to see a fish man that had made it top side, leaping to grab a bee for food, making a bit of noise as it stomped the flower tops, and nearly going deaf as a deep, rumbling explosion boomed from the monstrosity next to me.
Some sphere of pure energy pulped the fish man's body, its arms and legs flying away. One of the feet landed nearby enough for me to watch as flowers, vines and moss began to cover it until nothing beneath was visible. I slowly, calmly looked back to the monster, and it did the same with me.

Was I about to die?

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 5)
===============================================================================================================

The creature watched me for what was probably several minutes, before another sound disrupted the eerie silence. Bird chirping in the distance, the monster slowly looked over and began to crane its head, and I took this as my chance. As it began to charge another one of those explosive orbs, I began to slowly an quietly creep onto the underside of the flower, and then behind the stem.
Its booming shot sounds out behind me as I hold my breath, I didn't want to give myself away. I tried using whatever ‘Command’ did to order my party away, not sure if it worked at all. I think my life flashed before my eyes back there. What the fuck is that thing? Did we piss it off by dropping a wasp nest down its hole? Holy fucking shit.

After a few minutes of waiting with bated breath, I decided to check to see if it was still around. Walking around the flower stem I couldn't see it where it was. . . Where'd it go? I flew over to a taller flower and climbed up to look around for it from a better point of view, and it was deeper into the cavern.
Surely the fuck enough, that thing was walking around now, bigger than anything I'd seen before. Some kind of quadruped with a whip-like tail, absolutely silent as it walked around not hurting a single flower. How in Sam fucking hill did it do that? Stealth skill out the ass? Damn that's scary, hopefully it fucks off soon. I didn't continue the carnivorous plant kill operation for the rest of the day.

-----

|[Form Party LV9] -> [Form Party LV10]|
|Conditions have been met. [Form Raid LV1] has been obtained.|

Mmm. The natural progression then, as form party but even more positions for teammates. Is this the sign I needed that I just can't stay here anymore? The monster hasn't fucked off since it got here forever ago. Whoever knows how long its been here, it keeps violently destroying anything that makes too much noise from birds to bees to fish men.
The mixed sounds of nature I'd grown used to sleeping too have been replaced by this oppressive, terrible silence as the plant dragon wanders the giant garden. It's here to stay, or at least shows no sign of wanting to move on. I didn't know what it was exactly, I called it a dragon because it kind of looked like one if a dragon was made entirely out of plants.
Big lady died weeks ago after getting in a fight with a fish man, too fast for us to even really interfere with as both were blown apart into chunks of plant food. With this skill I could have a full party of thirteen litharghests, myself included. I think that was my sign that I finally just had to leave with my bees if I wanted to survive.

None of us could survive the water, and the rock crab spike tunnel would be too loud. Flower pit seemed risky what with the monster from before that crawled out of it, but I didn't see many other options. I'd recruit a few new party members, and we'd leave by morning. If all is as I hope, then we'll find a new home with something a bit less horrifying hanging around.

-----

I woke up to the sound of silence, untying my brother from the improvised leaf bindings I use to keep himself from running off and fucking to death. We still weren't at the right level to try and evolve him into a. . .Litharghest Beast, which would turn him into some other type of monster than a bee, so I had to keep watch on him. I still wasn't sure what form I'd like to take after this.
'Command' was a bit more useful than I gave it credit for, as I willed my swarm that wasn't a swarm 'because solitary bees don't swarm or something' party to my side. My family, the lady recruits, the male recruits that I didn't expect to last very long and was trying to not get attached too, everyone was present.
With that, I lead the way down the hole, throwing out a hope and a prayer. Honestly it wasn't so bad, I can see what litharghests and small litharghests would be doing here. I didn't intend to settle down in here though. We needed to make as much distance between the plant monster and us as possible.

First thing's first, it wasn't quite as deep as I thought before. There was a slope here hard to make out from above, the bottom appearing to have new growth in a trench which I suspect came from the wasp nest. We followed that slope for a while, into another drop that lead to a slop in a different direction that snaked a bit.
Rolling, rolling had to be why that fucking nest took so long to get crushed, where did this end? Well, probably at this next drop off considering it led to this wide chamber. Holes of overgrowth everywhere, some kind of crossroads in a tunnel network it looked like? I let everyone take a break and eat as I continued to scan the area.
Most of these tunnels looked like the one we just flew down. It would be difficult to choose some new direction based solely on that. One of them was different though. In the floor of this chamber under the hole we came from, a smaller hole. It was fractured uneven, leading into a much wider space by the looks of it. Wasp nest did this? It'd explain why I didn't see it.

Maybe the floor here was just really weak to sudden impacts due to the roots digging into everything? Hmmm. If the intense overgrowth, vines and flowers were signs of that plant monster's wandering around, this new path had to not have anything like it. It also meant that it might have less food though. Perhaps it's time to put some of this weird gardening knowledge to use.
It was dangerous, but not so dangerous that I thought grabbing some seeds would spell our end. I'd plant some seeds in whatever was down there now, we could base ourselves here, and slowly make the transition. Hmm, yeah, could work. First needed to see what was down there though and if that would even be viable.
Mmmm, statuses said one of my sisters and one of the new recruits were fully rested. I willed them and my brother to my side, wanting to explore before I planned further. Little brother bee was mostly rested, but mostly I just couldn't leave him by himself.

Peering into the hole I found darkness, which is to say I could perceive that it was dark but could see anyways. I'd long since been able to see in the pitch black, and tried to foster that in the others. Still, it was oddly distant and blank, far as I could see. The four of us descended upon winding wooden branches connected to no tree.
The wooden scaffolding was hanging over a great river being fed by twisting ponds sitting off to the sides of it. Drilling pillars of water descended from the ceiling, no doubt that those came from the whirlpools in the garden. Aside from the pillars, ponds and river there didn't seem to be much else by sandy dunes as far as I could see.
I was scanning the landscape, looking for something in particular. If those pillars led to the whirlpools I was familiar with, this should be the home of the fish men. I didn't see caves, houses or anything else they could be hiding in though. I also didn't see remains of the nest or the stone roof that broke in here. I needed to get a closer look to really form anymore plans.

Flying down with the others I began to look over the riverside to see if it was able to support the flowerbeds I wanted to plant, and to look for danger. On closer inspection, I found the remnants of the nest and the roof it was attached too under the surface of one of the ponds. Looks like they'd drowned? I felt a bit bad now, that's kind of torturous.
I didn't have time to feel bad though, I watched the mud bubble nearby and ordered everyone up as a fish man shot up like a rocket from its resting place. It thrust its hands out to grab me, but I could dodge it well enough and fired back with wind pullets into its side. I've become strangely fast, even among those in my group. Think it had something to do with that Mercury skill.
I had my group lead it further into the sands and away from the water. That burst of speed and it being a fish made me think that it's just better in it than land, I knew it was awkward for a reason despite its power. Wasn't very smart though. Constantly peppering away it kept it focused on me rather than any of my siblings.

As always it felt like I became eerily sharp as a fight went on, as I soon began zeroing in on its left eye with each machinegun fire until it was a bloody mess. I felt really sorry for it, but the uneasiness at the sight of blood was nonexistent, phobia removed. I moved my siblings and recruit to its blind spot and had them tunnel in through its burst eye after distracting it with a divebomb between its legs.
It clawed at its face, but it was too late as they began to dig into its brain. Fish monster collapsed dead, no casualties, no injuries, easy peasy. I think I was becoming a monster. My brother, my sister and Litharghest recruit three climbed out of the blood and viscera to rejoin me. I wanted to say this was a necessary battle to learn about my enemies here, but it was colder than that.
Had I just become too used to killing things like this? This quickly? Unafraid, too used to battles of life and death? While mulling over my issues with morality and survival, great jaws lurched out of he blood soaked sands to swallow the fish man's corpse whole. Ah, probably best to think about this farther away from the sands. That was mildly terrifying and I'd rather not be next.

-----

To recognize when you're wrong is a good skill. To swallow your pride and double back is a better one. Time had passed with my litharghest colony set up in the flower crossroads as we transported seeds from above and began to grow an oasis. The flowers had almost grown, but we hadn't actually explored very much or grown very much.
It wasn't much of a footnote in my time here, but the visceral killing of that fishman had me thinking. It didn't phase me, that was worrying, where did that crop up from? It wasn't the impact of killing as it was the lack of. Was I becoming a bug, a monster? Did I have these skills to blame, or myself? Lots of things like that just needling away at me.

Well, that wasn't the only thing on my mind as I watched small litharghests flying around. Some of the recruits had made babies, and there were a lot of them. I didn't really know how to feel about that, watching them spreading across the crossroads and back up into the gardens. I made sure to keep them from going down by the river desert.
Why did I value the lives of these thoughtless bugs while callously taking the lives of other things? I'd avoided meaningless killing since the fish but looking back I've been really merciless for a long time now. I think I'd began to sulk, I haven't even visited the desert for a bit. I should go visit the flowers and see how they're doing.

Making my way out of the whole with some support in tow, a few others left behind to care for the younger bees, I began my descent into the dark desert. It was still an unnerving place, some observation when I was still regularly swinging through allowed me to see the fish men actually swimming up the pillars, and those land sharks were nothing to sneeze at either.
I'd seen some other threats too here and there, flying fish that could swim in water or sand, some dust devil things that looked like living tornadoes. I don't think any ate plants though, I'm pretty glad about that. These freakish tree-like flowers were beginning to bloom all along pond and river edge where the sand was washed away most and the soil permitted.
It couldn't have been that long but they already towered overhead like mature trees or something. For my party alone we could probably move in soon. There was the matter of all those baby bees now though. Was that my responsibility? Technically, no, I think, but I'd feel guilty anyways if I let them meet a grisly fate.

Who? No, hoo. Hoo. Why did that feel me with apprehension? Was that an owl? Where? Where? Oh. It was quietly flying in from the side, a bit too fast too. Scatter, scatter, quick! Fuck it was fast, I only barely got its attention before dodging out of the way. It felt like it was on the edge of my vision before getting in my face in an instant.
It had a tail or something streaming behind it? What was that? It was starting to descend and round back on us. The sand was parting behind it like a wake, what kind of intensity was that? I commanded my party down into the flowers, they were too slow to avoid it if it seriously began to aim for them.
I continued to pepper its face but it didn't show any signs of damage, not even its massive eyes zeroed in on me from the start. I dodged again, it was too fast to change directions so simply flying above or below of its sweep was a fairly effective tactic as long as it didn't slow down. I went on the attack this time though.

I went in pursuit, though I wasn't nearly fast enough to actually catch up, but I could follow for a little while and keep building up some sort of damage, even if I didn't see any. That tail was weird though, a fox's tail? What the hell kind of fox owl was hunting us this time? Didn't matter, we couldn't go back to the safety spot until I took care of this thing.
I backed off as it began slowing down, trying to come up with a new plan of attack sine this one didn't seem to be working. As it began to take aim once more I flew over the surface of the pond, skimming my feet over all the same. Without looking, I already knew my provocation led to some bait being bought, just a matter if I caught the right prize.
Fish men shot out of the water as the owl flew in, accidentally getting in its way and knocking the bird out of the sky by the mass it collided into. Maybe this can urge out that weird feeling I was getting from that thing, or the fish men in their natural habitat can work together to kill the thing. Actually observing led to learning of a different result however.

That owl, feathers that are supposed to be wet, supposed to be writhing in a pond being attacked by a school of fish, was nowhere in sight. Instead a giant fox was chewing and fighting back with its feet barely touching the bottom. It looked like it was still having a hard time, and then it became a fucking octopus with fluffy tentacles. What the shit was I looking at here?
It took a bit of time until I realized this was the perfect time to move and began to command my party back to safety. Even if it was doing well, the thing was outnumbered by things with the home field advantage so it was fighting its way out of the pond. Based on how fast it was and how fast my bees were, I kept a couple of the slower bees back until I knew for sure safety was assured.
Maybe that was experience talking, but it became an owl again and was flapping its wings to dry off as it hopped away from water's edge. No, hm, this was ideal actually, I dove in with those bees I'd held back while it was still slow and focused on different enemies. I arrived first, biting at its chest and doing my best to dig past the feathers into the hide.

I'd angered it with the act, or maybe a couple of the others getting here had pissed it off. Either way, it became a fox again and I had to move or it was scratch me off with its back paws. Had to move my party mates away as it tried to jump and roll onto its back. This thing is way too aggressive, but I knew the biting hurt when it got down to the flesh so I can see why.
Needed to come from a different angle to- ah. That tail flick, the status of one of my sisters dropped down to critical as I heard as poof of sand nearby. I ordered two of my bees to go collect her and bring her back home. I took some distance and shot the fox in its face as it glared at me, flying up while two other party members clung to its back on my command.
I'm sorry, the endless rodeo as I led it around as a decoy was hurting. You weren't getting to do anything. I still needed you to keep crawling though. It was really angry now, taking sight and lunging at me. Felt like time was slowing down honestly. I've been getting a lot faster lately, but the fox was faster, and at this distance I had no ability to predict where it was gonna go. This was going to hurt.

Fuck shit fucky damnit fuck, he got my fucking wing. I bit the giant bitch in the ear so I wasn't just dead meat but now I had to fucking ride this bucking bronco until it was dead or I was screwed. Fucker kept scratching, I was running on fur, what the hell kind of fight was this? Damnit, you guys in position yet? Agh, you got there a while ago huh. Well, help me out then.
The party members Dug in to the base of the tail from both sides. I don't know how litharghests were supposed to be in the wild, but I'll show you the sharpest fangs we have you overgrown, sand licking cactus fucker. As predicted, that really got the fuzzy fucker's goat. It whirled around trying to dig its head at its ass, but they were already gone.
I needed this dog to dig for fleas so it would sit still for a bit. Now, if intuition and my body were correct, I just needed to bite down right here. Ah, I'm covered in blood and being swung around a lot, hurts, doesn't it? I'm sorry but I really am trying to make this quick. It kinda hurts to hear you yowl. Maybe the lack of death wails is what led me to getting cold. Silent deaths.

I dug into an artery, I'm positive, there was too much blood otherwise. You're supposed to be bleeding out so please just die already, god damnit. I crawled from the cavity as the flailing become less intense, grabbing on to one of my party mates to fly me up I turned my gaze from the corpse I could already ‘see’ so clearly. This space sense thing wasn't very helpful right about now.
Now, I have to wonder, what my mistake was. Was it moving, planting a new garden, this downward slope of violence, or the way I handled this fight? I had the bee carrying me stop so I could look down at what I'd done. I'm sorry owl fox octopus thing, I think I've made some mistakes. I'm not sure what they are yet but I'm going to try and correct them.

Your mistake was touching my family though.

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 6)
===============================================================================================================

A sandstorm raged outside. These happened from time to time for reasons I wasn't fully aware of given we were underground and there shouldn't be weather at all. I was taking refuge in the room I'd made for myself within a flower near the water. I was happy in way though. Well, not happy, but it was good to have these conditions going, it made evolving easier.
It was a long time since coming down here, the monsters were far greater than the ones above and could come up out of nowhere often. I didn't entirely mean to grind levels with my party, but these things just really didn't leave us alone if we just tried to leave. Fool me once and start ripping up flowers to get at my bees, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, and I felt that shame once, once.
I pat my brother on the head, I'm pretty sure he was sleeping against the wall, pretty happy I've kept him from boning anything and dying. Yeah, it was rough down here though, hard to keep everyone safe, which was why I lost some of the new recruits at times and other times had to rotate the party so the weaker ones had time to rest.

Still, I had apparently done a good enough job of protecting them since I earned the ‘Guardian’ title over it. It was nice, I think it gave me the upgraded version of a skill I needed for the thing I needed to turn into since it was giving me a pass on that. Mm, I really should just strike while the iron is hot. ‘I wish to evolve into a Heavy Litharghest.’ Ah, sleepy out of nowhere, maybe this does that?

-----

Lucidity returns! I don't feel too different though, and I don't think I got any bigger. Stats definitely got better, especially defense. Progress! Yeah. That's it, huh? The feeling of having done something was fantastic yet fleeting. It was a bright moment in what could have been months, or could have been weeks. What time was it? How many days have I been here? Was it day or night?
Ah, little bro was chewing at his restraints again. That's just like him. Sandstorm died down, I was wide awake, I can let him out I think. I'll watch him and keep him safe from himself. Where is everyone else? Feeding right now yeah- ah? Hm, one of my little sisters was really far away according to my mapping, down river but still in her home? How did the flower get over there?
We'll go pick her up, I don't think I explored out that direction before. Hope nothing hurts her or I'll have to kill again. Let's see, somewhere in that direction, down river huh? That's like an hour away actually, probably? Never was good with keeping track of time, was more of an instinctual timing type of guy. I was pretty good at that stuff.

-----

The sands of the desert shift at their lord's command. It is I who dominate the world as I perceive it, commanding all that I survey! I wish. I'm so fucking bored. How did I become a lord again? Stat page! Right, right, ‘Vermin Lord.’ I got that and the ‘Lordship’ skill by apparently leading my species to explosive population and territory growth. Sounded like a crock of shit to me.
I guess it was because of all those small litharghests spreading through the ceiling passages? I still have some party members kept back to collapse on most things trying to come down and eat them. There's not much that can stand up to five litharghests that would be coming down the flower hole so they can just keep spreading. That was my running theory, but I don't think I deserve credit for that.

Still, giant, fluffy bees are spreading throughout this cave world and that's pretty great. Bees are like natural gardeners, and so the more bees, the more flowers and plantlife spreading throughout the world. It'd be much nicer to look at compared to endless rock and darkness, especially if more of those were glowing plants like the ones from the garden.
Ah, life really wasn't that bad up there. That fucking dragon was just too scary with random shooting down of anything too loud. I guess it really enjoyed the silence? I wonder what it ate, never really watched it before after I noticed how watchful it was. Didn't want to end up in its sights ever again really. Kinda wish it had just fucked off, but it didn't and now here we are.

-----

I spy with my little eye something gray.

. . . .

It sure is a rock! You guys are great at this game. Now I spy with my little eye. . .something green.

. . .

Stumped you all, huh~? It was that cactus we passed in the distance. It was really far out there, but it was there. Promise.

-----

I have over three hundred skill points! Been saving them up, not really sure what to spend those on. I'm waiting until there's a situation where I really need something new. I've been really considering dabbling in magic. I never really use my MP so it's kind of an unexplored avenue and I see mention of it in some of the evolution requirements on some forms in my tree.
Wind magic would be really cool since it matches my themes and stuff, or plant magic! If I got good with that I could just spread the community out and stuff at a whim, growing flowers in an instant. Oooh, summoning magic could be really cool too if that's a thing. Right? Maybe I could have someone to talk too then.
I mean, not that the bees were poor conversation! They were great listeners but sometimes I felt like I shared too many of my problems, ya know? I wish they'd open up to me for once but trust takes time to build and I can get why non-sapient bees wouldn't want to talk to a strange bee with the soul of a human and stuff.

Ah, I wanted to garden more, but there wasn't exactly a lot of land to do that with. Sand wasn't good for tunnels either. I wonder if I got plant magic if I could just build myself furniture out of vines and flowers and stuff. That would be pretty neat, right? Yeah, though bees have a hard time sitting down so I'd probably have to get creative. Do any of you have a notepad I can borrow? Nah? Thought not.

-----

I've been getting better at becoming peaceful and kind. I think part of the issue is that whatever species this is that I am is pretty aggressive, but also because I'm pretty frustrated from the situation I'm in. Don't know how long I've been away from my family, my real one, my human one, the people I love. Everything blends together into shades of hopelessness.
But I'm gonna be okay. When I stand on top of this world I can have my army help me figure out what's going on in it. Until then, these bees were my family I think, it helped to think they relied on me since I really did rely on them. I just wish they'd get better at catching those rats. I hated rats, can't believe they followed me all the way here, it's like the only thing I can't seem to kill.
I'm really good at killing too. Too good. I hate it a lot. Ah, guess I can't kill dragons either or whatever the tree beast was. Where was I? Ah, right, peace. Getting better at it. Still sickened with myself, but I'm able to show mercy on occasion now without it coming back to bite me. I hope for a kinder world to find me one day than the kind of world I've found till now.

-----

And we're here. . .wherever here was. This place looked like hell itself was beginning to encroach on reality. Who knows, maybe it was? In the distance I witnessed the river feed into some active, volcanic area where steam billowed unrelentingly and made the area hot and humid even this far back. What's more, the sands were slowly being pulled in that direction by a force unseen.
Sand fed into molten pits constantly gurgling from deeper subterranean activity and exploding from sudden torrents of water. Clashing temperatures and sudden surges of steam forcing explosions of the stuff to cover the area in a spiderweb of glass filaments molten and semi-coiled alike. It was chaotic, it was frightening, but damn if it wasn't a beautiful sight as well.

I wanted to admire it a little bit longer before I painted the sand red again. My sister wasn't flying to join up with the group despite her stats showing signs of life and no lack of stamina. She was just buzzing ineffectually against the sand near a ‘stone' smooth and bizarre for the desert and not showing up anywhere else around here.
I buzzed past to confirm my suspicions and got a nice, clear picture. She was stuck to something connected to a larger form underneath the sand, same with the ‘rock.’ Now I just needed to figure out how to approach this without risking her in the process. What was this thing? Was it smart enough to use bait like this or was it just some natural tactic instinctively baked in?
Well, given the utter lack of complexity in anything else we've fought, it has to be baked in. The rock was positioned in front of my sister, and my vague picture of what's going on beneath the sand shows its towards the front of whatever is down there too. That was likely the direction it was facing, so I moved three of my bees behind where I thought it would shoot up from.

Well, now all there was left to do was drag it up. I flapped my wings, sand exploding upwards below me as if struck by continuous cannon fire until led to the false stone, blood splattering everywhere as I destroy part of some foreign creature. With an enraged surge, something that kinda looked like an angler fish with legs and a giant bloody nose shot out of the sand.
My bees were waiting exactly as desired and closed in, latching on and snipping off its lure while it was still angry at me and awkwardly carrying my sister away to safety. I'm happy I worked them so much, they're really reliable soldiers. The remaining retinue and I began to unleash hell upon it from the skies while it was still confused, a barrage of wind artillery.
I figured out a while ago that most of my litharghests would probably be sitting on unused skill points and had them pick this up to safely attack from a distance with me. Strangely not all of them could get it though, even though I was certain they should have a surplus to buy it with. Not terribly strong, but quantity was a quality of its own.

It was definitely resilient enough to unflinchingly lunge into the hail of bullets and artillery being leveled at it, but not enough to endure them forever. It was smart enough to lay a clever ambush for normal animals, but not smart enough to stop trying to attack targets its stubby legs wouldn't allow it to reach as its skin was flayed apart and bones splintered by focus fire.
And that was that, failure had its arms linked with death this day, like so many others. Wasn't even close to the toughest thing around, I'm grateful. It meant I didn't have to test my defensive abilities yet hoping it chips a tooth on me or something. Just want to get whatever sticky shit is bonding my sister to this fleshy limb off and go home now.

Even if I'd love to just leave most things be, I couldn't really accept any attempts on the lives of the five bees I'm closest too either.

-----

I'm proud in a way. Not really of myself, but of my people so to speak. Like, I think I only really started this after I got that title a long time ago now, but I started skill training my team and it shows. I've had them flying, digging, biting and whatever I could do but on a schedule until they got tired, swapping one group out for the next so we're never helpless.
I felt like a boot camp sergeant or a personal trainer. Well, either way, they were much greater than they had the right to be at this stage in their life, I think. Same goes for me really, I wonder if just not being an animal was a massive advantage in itself. I think I really just lucked into my survival to some extent with those first days working with bee mom.
You know, there's some really interesting forms ahead in the tree, maybe once I get everyone there in some way I'll try my hand at really building up a kingdom of some sort. Bit difficult with just this number of people so it'd be more of a village, but who knows, right?

Once I figure out some way of power leveling normal litharghests or bestowing intelligence upon them I could have my party become my personal vanguard or something, taking on the toughest missions as I protect the homeland. If I became king would that make my familial bees royalty? Bah, who cares, imagine if I could make a real deal kingdom!
It would actually be somewhere safe with great walls and nectar crops or whatever where I don't have to worry about invading monsters all the times. If I don't have to worry about them ruining our homes, I don't have to kill them. That'll be better for everyone involved! A country built on peace and flowers, would be really beautiful I bet.

It would be. . .this isn't right. I looked over my home, the flowers that I'd planted around this small lake with my people. This wasn't just some stray floral accompaniment by the waterside anymore though. There were trees, grasses, flowers out the ass just like I'd dreamed. We'd only been gone a couple hours though. I flew around, taking note of the plentiful signs of life heading out into the desert.
Oh no, no no no, not that fucking thing again. Why was it down here? Did it finally give up on the flower gardens? How did it get past the ones I'd left up int he flower tunnel without some kind of alert? They were still alive and everything, everyone I'd left here was still alive too. What the fuck? Silence, it was quiet and stealthy beyond imagination!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, where is it?! Shit, I can't just have it popping up out of nowhere when I least expect it and none of my bees apparently acknowledge it enough to do anything about it. What if something tried hunting us in the desert and tried tracking us down home again? Do I have to worry about being sniped by fucking life bombs from the eventual darkness?

Fuck that shit, we're hunting this thing so we're not the ones being hunted. We can't fight it, but at least we'll know where it is so we can safely nest where it isn't.

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 7)
===============================================================================================================

Status report, fuck this thing. It is unreasonably hard to keep track of for how aggressive and gigantic it is. The only reason I can follow it is because it leaves a wake of plants behind it, and the only reason I can find it is because it doesn't double back around and there's nothing but it in the open desert when I make it to the front of the wake.
Even then, it can just kind of slip out of my perception when I least expect it and I have to find it all over again. Not entirely sure how it was doing any of this, but I have to imagine it's some kind of stealth skill leveled out the ass. I'll fucking be able to keep my eyes on it for more than a couple minutes before it disappears, eventually.
Bah, that all said, the journey was fairly safe so far. No real battles, it wasn't coming back and attacking us. The trail it left meant it was mostly easy to follow. I wasn't really developing my group much, and I'd left some behind back in the tunnel opening to continue protecting random babies, but we were surviving just fine.

-----

Today I got a new skill called [Presence Perception LV1]. Did what it said on the tin, made it easier to notice people or monsters around me. I guess I earned it by trying to catch sight of this sneaky fucker so much. It didn't help very much right now but I imagine I'll be training it during this slow hunting period. Think the average time I can follow it before it just fades away has gone up at least a little though.
I'm kinda annoyed by how close so many members of my party are to evolving. I've got this thing lined up for my brother which should mean I won't have to heavily supervise him all the time, but we can't get in any big battles and these small ones don't give much when it's all spread out like this. Just wait a little longer, I'll think of something when we can figure this dragon out.

-----

I've been getting pretty good at watching it. Like I still can't study it for hours straight or anything like that, but I'm good enough and persistent enough now that I can catch it during its short fights. The thing usually doesn't eat much, but after impaling a giant sand shark up from below with this wooden spike it called up out of nowhere one time, it took a few bites and left it to rot.
Well, not rot, after the plant dragon was done eating the whole corpse disappeared under this bouquet of giant, glowing flowers that illuminated the dark desert for a mile around. That was pretty, well, pretty. More importantly though, the nature dragon needed to eat sometimes, but not nearly as often as us. Was that because it was really good at conserving energy or something?
How could that be when it was shooting those giant laser balls that sounded like cannon fire but twelve times louder? Maybe it was just some super magic beast and it got energy from somewhere else? What did all this mean? Ah, cactus, I wonder why it doesn't grow those when those are actually around. How do the cacti grow anyways down here?

-----

I don't think this this was just a random murder monster like I previously thought. Like, it seems to really enjoy its quiet and all, but if that was all wouldn't it continue to just patrol a territory? The desert was plenty quiet most of the time, especially away from the water's edge, but it just kept moving in a mostly straight line. Why does it do that?
I think this thing had a goal. Like, not an actual quest or something since it is a murder monster of massive and powerful scale, but maybe this was part of some kind of mating ritual or feature of its life cycle. Point is, it doesn't need to eat much, it doesn't murder absolutely anything, it looks like it focuses on things that make noise or are really big, and it has no real territory that it keeps hold of.
With all that in mind, it had to be doing this for some other reason, or maybe it was just mentally ill? Like, can't imagine something covered in overgrowth to the point that its actual skin is just not visible doesn't seem to be thinking straight to me but that's just me, maybe that's a feature for it.

Mm? Maybe that was it right there actually. Maybe it was just trying to spread plants everywhere? Why was that though? Hrmm, did it benefit from that somehow? Do these things grow from trees or something? Kind of a scary thought actually. Wait, is the reason I can't see its skin because it has none? What if the thing is just all plants in the shape of a dragon? I'd rather not think that actually.

-----

Getting better at keeping watch of it, kinda getting unnerved as I make progress. One of those cycles for the other litharghests passed a while ago and they started making babies, like all the way out here. I gave standing orders for the two mothers to be to return after their babies burst from their waxy growth walls since they wouldn't be able to watch them all anyways.
Well, those two, one of my sisters and some other recruit, finally rejoined the group after that had happened, and a small litharghest came with them. Didn't really know whose it was, but I liked to think of it as some kind of neice or nephew. Bee genders were hard. Anyways, it flew out while the dragon was resting and caught its attention with its bumbling flight.
I didn't really know what to do and didn't want to give it any set orders since acting outside the norm for a bee might pique the monster's attention even more. Instead of murdering the cute little floof ball though, the dragon tapped the ground to produce a single flower for it to land on and just watched it for a while until it flew back to us.

It looked like it took deliberate action to provide for and watch this random passing creature, with no apparent gain from the act. I'd never seen anything like that from any monster. Now, I'd never seen a lot of what this thing did from another monster, but this was just bizarre. It couldn't have some sort of genetic disposition towards recognizing bees as pollinators and stuff, right?
No, that can't be it, it blasted away that large lady bee I had in my group for a while. Why did it do that? Beasts don't just invite unrelated creatures to eat. I don't think so anyways. It was smart then? Wait, no Jumping to conclusions just because it acted weird, nothing else has been anything more than a beast or monster no matter how bizarre so far.
Um. . .what are the alternatives? Maybe it was just sorta smart and had some sense of leisure? Like a crow? That could make sense, crows are just animals even if they're pretty smart, and are known to play by themselves and stuff. Maybe it was just something like that, idle curiosity and stuff.

-----

Do I really hate what this thing is doing? Like, yes it did kill one of my allies with artillery of life or whatever. It didn't kill one of my siblings and I wasn't that attached to her though, not like bee mom. If it was motivated by spreading as much plant-life as possible like I thought, and it only targeted especially huge and noisy stuff, then most of us were in the clear providing we didn't evolve into Large Litharghests.
Mmm, no, yes, no! Yes? It's clearly extremely powerful, murderous, unpredictable and all around dangerous. On the other hand though that cute little dream I had about a kingdom of flowers where we'd never be bothered again might become a reality with it around, wouldn't it? Like if it just kept going forever and making this cave world lush and alive?

I mean sure, away from the water this stuff will eventually wilt, but we've already passed like five or six rivers since the original one we left, so a lot of it could still be preserved. Heck, it might terraform the underground just by this much as the dead plants become nourishment for new ones and make stable ground in the sand or whatever. I didn't know how that shit worked.
The more plants, the more territory my race can claim for their own. Was I really okay with genocide and extinction of what existed to do that though? I think the answer has to be a resounding no, right? Under any other circumstances I'd just want mutual peace and for us to be left alone as they all continued their day to day lives in the circle of life.
So I couldn't really approve of its actions. . . no, yes? Yes, couldn't approve. . .probably. Urgh, what's the right thing to do here, kingdom for my people, peace for all, especially when it would require some monumental feat for peace? How would I kill this thing if I wanted to stop it from its endless murder spree? I don't think I can, especially not anytime soon. . .

-----

My skill with stalking the plant monster is pretty good now, I can actually monitor it and stuff when before I'd lose it at the drop of a hat. It was weird too, when I actually got good I didn't notice any kind of sneaky movement or quick dash or anything, it was just walking as per normal. Its like it had the ability to utterly deflect attention away from itself.
That in itself was bizarre, and even after all this time I'm pretty sure most of my group couldn't actually keep track of it. It's only because I was actively looking for it and had the presence of mind to pick out when I saw something abnormal that I was catching it I guess. So, none of the others could really develop the skill yet like that, right?
That all said, not really sure I want to keep this up. It wasn't doubling back around, I had the coordination with ‘Space Awareness’ to tell it was going in a pretty straight line. That meant if I go back with my group to the oasis then we'd be free to continue living like we had been before. Now, there were pros and cons to that though that I still had to consider.

On one hand, we would no longer be benefiting from it killing anything threatening in a moment's notice and would have to subject ourselves to that danger and strife. On the other hand, I'd no longer have to work the tightrope act to avoid its attention so it doesn't turn on us. On one hand it meant I'd have to start killing again, on the other it meant we could go back to growing in power.
And, maybe violence in some twisted way would be the path to peace. See, with violence I can get myself and my party stronger. I can start evolving my allies, especially my brother who as is takes up quite a bit of attention by nature of having to keep him cockblocked. That meant less issue with surrounding monsters as we worked together.
Also, if we get stronger, we'd have a chance of coming back and putting a stop to the endless murder spree of this weird but maybe smart thing that kills strange reasons. That also meant we'd be putting a stop to the world of flowers ambitions I had. Kingdom of flowers, I meant kingdom, even if the world would look nice like that.

Mmm, wait a minute. We're going in a mostly straight line. If I triangulate this course the dragon is taking with the mental map I've made of the desert, we're taking a slow, indirect trip to the exploding glass magma zone, right? What the fuck is gonna happen when it reaches all that shit? Two things, first I think I used the word triangulate correctly, very cool. Second, I had to admit I was really curious.
For the sake of answers and safety reasons, I think I had to keep following just to make sure some massive fire wasn't started that would later come back down on us if we went back to the oasis. Like, if we saw it coming, I could make preparations and stuff. That seemed pretty logical. I'm kinda grateful to you, plant monster, you gave me something to do.

-----

We were steadily approaching the apocalypse, which is my pet name for the hellzone at the edge of the tranquil sands. We've been approaching for a few days, the weather was changing to suit such a thing and I could see it in the distance, but today I was guesstimating we'd arrive at the moment of collision where it either plunged ahead or turned away.
As the day stretched on though, I began to notice something strange. Far off in the distance, slowly approaching as the nature dragon took its steady steps, a river. Now, that wasn't strange in itself, we'd already passed a few on the way here. What was strange is how bright it was over there, and I couldn't quite tell what the source may be.

It was only as we got closer and I took to the sky to get a better view that I could tell what was going on. Pools of magma and molten glass were lined up on the other side of the river. It wasn't like the entire apocalyptic zone was curled around and stretching on ahead, for some reason there was just some stretch of it painting itself along side of the river.
Time passed, we were getting closer, I actually saw clouds on the ceiling, I began to notice several new pools beginning to grow n the other side. It was as if volcanic activity was steadily spreading somehow. Was it about to erupt? I'm not so sure this was a great idea now. We were a little too deep to back off now though, I couldn't turn away, I needed to see this through to whatever end might be waiting.

-----

The nature dragon came to a stop at the edge of the river. The volcanic pits spewing molten glass sat on the other side, roiling clouds of steam were hanging overhead. It's only now that we're this close do I realize the grand scale of what was flowing in front of us though. This river was three times the size of the others I'd seen in the desert, and ten times more furious.
When globules of magma shot into the air, the moment of light revealed a shimmering at the bottom, glass beads that been been broken, worn down and smoothed from the rapids. Hot, cold, activity, tranquility, order, chaos, water and fire, forest and desert, this was the nexus of contrasts we'd arrived in and I could feel a kind of subtle but oppressive pressure.

As I sat upon the limb of a tree grown only minutes ago, I watched leaves begin to burn and replace themselves within the presence of the heat and the nature dragon clashing for dominance. It was bizarre, it was magical, and I doubt I'd ever see a place like this again, for good or bad. It was only the advanced nature of some of my skills that I was able to keep cool.
It was those same skills that allowed me to maintain that cool, even as I began to realize with growing dread why the nature dragon hadn't moved. One of the larger pits on the other side of the river was growing and becoming more active. The surface became prickly, pillars spiked into the ceiling and left dripping holes.
That's when it appeared, looking like some kind of molten egg at first as it rose from the lava, then split revealing itself to be a creature had wrapped itself in great wings. Beads of lava shot liked bullets in every direction. One of my party members was obliterated in an instant before I'd even saw fit to react. I wouldn't be able to mourn right now, I'd need to focus if we were to survive.

In the middle of outstretched wings, a sight familiar and foreign. Appearing with scales as hot and red as fire, molten magma still clinging to its form, a reptilian head holding a terrible glare, I could only describe it as a fire dragon. It dropped its claws on the edge of the pool to keep itself steady, staring straight at the nature dragon.
All around it in the surrounding pools, small black creatures of different shapes and sizes began to manifest with the same target in their eyes. I don't like how many things that could survive in molten rock were sizing up the thing standing in front of us. And then it happened, like the calamitous opening to Armageddon, a single boom that started something that looked like the end of the world.

The nature dragon let rip a shot at the fire dragon's face, great wooden roots wrapped around its face like the tendrils of an octopus before it was incinerated in an instant. The fire dragon returned fire, intercepting a second shot from the nature dragon already heading towards as numerous smaller fireballs rip from the pools around it towards dragon.
The plant monster was already moving though, having jumped without me noticing and diving head first into the ceiling, disappearing into a spontaneously formed hole with overgrowth already forming around its edges. My people were forced from the burning tree line and were flying off to the side of the conflict that continued to hold my attention.
Wooden pillars drilled from the ceiling towards the fire dragon as it flew  through the air in a seemingly random pattern, broken apart into thousands of burning splinters. The entire time those followers of the fire dragon continued shooting at the ceiling or throwing shots into the hole that the plant monster disappeared into.

A magic circle appeared in front of the fire dragon's mouth as it did a barrel roll, before what could only be described as a laser shot from its mouth and began to carve up the ceiling. A flash of movement I only just barely caught showed off the plant monster flying past and into the ground. Something exploded near the spot they passed each other, couldn't see what.
The two continued this trade, I think, it was kinda hard to keep track of what was happening, until clashing in the air and spiraling on the opposite side of the river. Fireballs were coming like machine gun fire from the side, battering the two in an aimless mess of support for the one of the two that doesn't feel the heat.
It looked like the fire dragon was going to win out in the end, the advantage in his court, the numbers, the- fire dragon was just punched into the ceiling by a tree out of nowhere. That plant monster was horrifying. The fire dragon scared me more though as I thought about what I was seeing.

The fire dragon looked like it was beginning to encroach on the desert before this big fight went down and had some sort of pack or colony or group of its own supporting it. If it was anything like the nature dragon, that meant it was going to be going out and spreading fire everywhere, which would be an awful situation for me and my race no matter where we are.

I needed the plant monster to win, didn't I? Well fuck me running, how the hell did I help with that bullshit? It looked like the damn end of the world over there. Did I even want to help with that? I didn't want to help with that. Fuck that shit. I already lost one guy before the fight even started, there's no way we can interfere in this.
The nature dragon shot out of the ground, spinning like a drill as it contacted the fire dragon's chest, before the fire dragon grabbed and flipped it head over heels, skipping it across the river. How in the fuck was I supposed to compete with that? How the hell were my bees supposed to compete with that? The nature dragon and fire dragon were clawing at each other while holding each other's maws closed.
From off to the side, a flaming rock smacked into the nature dragon's head, charring the regrowing flowers on that side of its face black. I looked over and saw the different magma creatures from the pits watching the fight and sending in potshots. Mmm. Mmm. I won't help, there's no reason to stick my neck out for the dragon, even if we do seem like we'd stand a chance against those things. . .

. . .

Everyone's stamina was high from eating earlier. The member lost wasn't vital to battle strategies. Unlike the explosive dragon monsters over there, the projectiles they were firing weren't actually that stupidly fast. We could all probably fly faster thanks to my flight training before starting this trip. I still don't want to stick my neck out for something just as likely to turn on us.

. . .

I'll regret this. ‘Extend an invitation to that plant dragon monster thing.’ It might accept, but it probably won't. The invitation might not even make it through since I don't know what it is. If it doesn't accept in a few minutes, we're not allies, and I have no reason to extend the aid of myself and my group however small it might be. After that, I'll leave, and- goddamnit it accepted!? What the fuck!?

. . .

I wish I could scream. Alright, fuck it, we'll probably die if the fire dragon is allowed to do whatever anyways, so even if we lose we're just gonna die a mercifully quick death. I dunno. Alright, fighters in formation, everyone else scramble, we're on the high way to the danger zone. Let's top gun this shit.
Everyone who could shoot air bullets was helping me in targeting the little lava creatures, everyone else is gonna play safe and serve as a distraction. My team flew in first and led a strafing run on something that vaguely looked like a cat fish as we flew closer. It was hot as hell and my involvement in this fight was just starting so my aim was shit, but my aim didn't need to be great with how much I shot.
It didn't take long for all those little fire spitting fuckers to start zeroing in on us, but phase one of this plan had already been accomplished. My strike team and I had flown around all the molten pits, my perception is dialed in, I knew where everything was and what it was doing in this zone and my fly by runs were just refreshing that awareness.

A stream of fire was being spewed by something that vaguely looked like an eel and flicked towards us, I ducked around it with my bees following my movements exactly. They might not understand complex commands but they had good eyes, coordinated flight and could understand “follow me.” A second eel began spewing flames and we flew over it.
We were soon introduced to a gauntlet of fire and fireballs, the saving grace being that not all their attention was focused. This all being said, while we were mostly safe while all this was going on as long as I kept cool, our own attacks were doing little more than disrupting attention and annoying those things below. They were surprisingly resilient, perhaps because their hides were covered in stone?

Two streams of fire were converging on us and the only way between them was a fireball shot by one of the smaller monsters. I could technically dodge all three attacks, but in that moment I realized it would hit most of my team behind me. This would be terrible, but I needed to take one for the team here, and so I began to fire on the fireball with my allies while covering myself in a shell of wind.
The surface of the ball became heavily disrupted, but it was still fire, so when I smashed through it I still felt pain and smelled burnt hair. Now that was a wakeup call. I perceived one of those catfish doing some kind of sucking attack on one of my allies running distraction tactics, slowly pulling it to its open maw. I changed course and went straight for it.
It would take a miracle to stop this thing in some timely manner. Fortunately, I felt miracles coursing through my blood. Did bees have blood? Not the point, I fired dozens of wind blasts comparable to cannon fire exactly where I wanted them, right in that things eye even as it flailed, each shot hitting him and pounding into its skull. It wasn't dead but it was thrashing around and half blind.

I wasn't even looking anymore, focusing more on evasion. No, I was using my expanded perception of things to begin flying in coordinated but hard to follow paths through gouts of flame and explosive balls to shoot everything around here in the eyes off of of that. Was it dirty and cruel? Most certainly, especially since I was finding it difficult to actually kill anything, but it was working.
That's when I was beginning to sense activity beneath the surface and pulled my bees higher into the air. Distraction team was folded into strike team. Pillars of lava were beginning to move through the air pulling the smaller creatures with them, flowing into gravity defying rivers at high speeds towards the nature dragon on the other side of the river. They'd separated?
Rivers of lava were even beginning to stream in from the apocalypse zone off to the side, but before any of them could make it far I sensed activity in the river as it changed its flow, right into the air. Battling rivers of lava and rushing water began to fight each other in the air as the dragons watched each other from their respective sides of the battle lines.

Nowhere was safe to fly as the coiling elements fought everywhere, the ceiling began to look like an ocean, glimmering glass beads fell through the air and shattered amidst the clash like a lightshow. Those fire monsters were still firing upon us and the nature dragon, swimming through the lava even as some of the more incompetent ones among them fell into raging currents and had flesh stripped from bone.
I plunged into the chaos to see this fight to the end, even as up and down, left and right, hot and cold blended together into a confusing mess. Through glimpses betwen battling elements I could still see the dragons clashing in ever yet more impressive but confusing attacks and counters to such things. I couldn't process everything that was happening no matter how hard I concentrated.

Would there be a world left after this was all over? I genuinely began to think that for a few moments. Here and there I lost members of my party, I kept my family close and endured what I could for them, but I think I was going to break under the pressure. And then it all began to come to some kind of conclusion.
Water was spiraling back in to some point to the side of my position, rock was rapidly cooling into twisted pillars with corpses sticking out, I found that ‘Nature Dragon Shangreela’ was still clinging to life even if gravely hurt. I was tired, but I had to see what happened even as the waters began to fall and spread in every direction like the beginning of a great flood.

As my family and what remains of my group land upon a lower section of stone pillar, I slowly take in the sight before me, something that stirred various emotions within me. Some were relief, but most were nothing good. The fire dragon was dead, hoisted in some twisted marriage of crucifixion and impalement, with its body spread out and held aloft by wooden spikes.
They grew from the ground and the ceiling alike, as if fangs gnashing upon prey. Its wings were outstretched, its face pointing forward despite half of it being missing, a massive hole was blown in its torso. And the nature dragon did not stand with pride or triumph, but with its charred black body in front of its enemy, head resting against the corpse. Was it remorse? Respect?
Was any of this worth it? What drove this conflict? When did Shangreela get in front of me? I don't know if I'll ever know the answers to those questions.

With a mixture of frustration and fear building in my chest, I looked up to the dragon that seemed to have drove this conflict with my impossible to read face wondering what it had planned for the future.

===============================================================================================================
(Chapter 8)
===============================================================================================================

For the longest time I didn't know how to feel about this path I'd chose. For however long that this dragon was an avatar of peace and tranquility, resting and nurturing a forest into cropping up around it, it soon went back on the war path with us following. Like, on one hand it was doing what I'd wanted Bee Mom to do so long ago, it was power leveling the hell out of us all.
On the other hand, it was murderous with no clear goals. On one hand we followed it to all sorts of exotic locations I'd never thought I'd see. On the other hand it became pretty overgrown pretty quickly. On one hand the flowers were nice and a valuable source of food, on the other they were being grown to the detriment of other things.
The constant surges of experience allowed my family and remaining to evolve. This was important since my brother was no longer technically a bee but some creepy wolf in bee's clothing thing. No more babysitting, he was a mostly free man. I'm not sure we needed the protection and help, after getting credit for the dragon kill the lot of us got the [Dragon Killer] title and powerful skills with it.

All that was beside the point of confidence and trust though. Being so close to the dragon with its apparent permission allowed me to observe so much more than my previous stalking. It was definitely smart, nothing else explained some of its behavior, like when it made odd sculptures out of wood while it thought no one was paying attention before breaking them back down.
It also seemed to have this thing about killing things quickly, becoming much more aggressive or proactive against anything that could actually stand up to its normal attacks, however short. I really wanted to think it was some form of mercy as opposed to, I dunno, wrath, but I couldn't really tell with this thing.

-----

It was a bright and sunny day, I assume. Not much weather underground. We were currently on an island in an underground lake, probably, and Shangreela had just killed a water dragon, I think. I'm not entirely sure if it was a dragon, but it is now most certainly a mangrove a little off coast. Shakakah-ngreela was resting nearby and I was about to try something stupid.
‘Hey!’ I gestured up at it, not sure if she'd even respond since I wasn't sure if I was dealing with something like a crow, or something like a human. Either way, she was looking at me now. ‘We’ ‘talk?’ I waited, but it just kept staring. ‘Yes?’ ‘No?’ I nodded, shook my head, and shrugged as best as a bee could. ‘We’ ‘talk?’ It slowly nodded its head before cocking it to the side.
Holy shit, progress! Why did I never try this before? ‘Why’ ‘you’ ‘kill?’ I watched it for a moment before it sighed. Please let that not be a sign of frustration. It slowly began to reach forward and I felt like I was maybe about to get crushed, until it stuck out a single claw and began digging it into the ground.

Faster than I really ever expected, it began writing in the soil in front of it with surprisingly delicate movements for its size. After a minute or so passed, it returned its hand to its original position, folded with the other in front of its resting form. I stared long and hard at what it had written, paragraphs of information that would surely enlighten me on my present situation.
It was just as I thought, and so I looked up at the surprisingly well learned dragon with a singular emotion. Its eyes met mine before I acted upon that feeling. I shrugged, having no idea what language this could possibly be.

It began drumming its reptilian fingers upon the ground, a light grumble in its throat. Probably best to just ask some other time, that's what I was thinking, but I already felt a rumbling beneath my feet. Before I even turned around, I saw hundreds of wooden tendrils beginning to sprout from the ground and form around each other until taking the form of a great orb.
I looked back at the dragon, then looked back at the orb as it began to grow numerous blue and green flowers. It roughly looked like a globe now, think I was still following. The blue flowers were like the ocean, the green flowers were like the landmasses. Okay, something about the world. I looked back at the dragon and motioned for it to continue.
Branches began to poke out of the flower bed covering the planet model, but it took a while before they ended up looking like anything. I flew in closer to inspect things closely, finding that they'd eventually shaped themselves into the form of all sorts of monsters, including humans. There were humans here!? Holy shit, I thought this was just monster world.

I wasn't quite sure what was being said, but I understood it as some visual representation of the world. I looked back at the dragon and gestured for it to continue. It was beginning to look annoyed as branches begin to grow out again, shaping into much larger shapes. Humans, humans with horns, spiders, dragons, and as they grew and took shape over the smaller models, the flowers began to die.
Was the dragon just messing up, or was that supposed to be part of the presentation? Um, more activity, the whole model looked dead now as the models got bigger and bigger, before it all fell apart. That didn't seem good. I still had no idea what exactly this all meant though. I looked back at the dragon, but it just laid down to sleep.

-----

I wasn't fully sure of whatever grim knowledge was trying to be relayed, other than big things killing the planet maybe? But, this knowledge that we could actually speak, al-bee-it crudely through gestures, was soul shaking. I wasn't alone anymore. I mean, I wasn't alone before, but I kind of was in a void of intelligent life that kinda felt like being alone.
The dragon was pretty shady, but I didn't mind too much. It was actually entertaining me was the surprising thing. Like, one day I got bored when it stopped moving for the day, gestured for its attention and taught it how to play tic-tac-toe. It played with me for a while! We still play it every now and then, even if it wins most of the time. Still working out odds and evens when I don't have fingers.
I feel like we were bonding, was it too soon to say we were bonding? It was a giant plant dragon on a murder spree, I was a bee lord, I think that is a friendship in the making right there. Sure, I guess, I don't know my knew bestie too well but they weren't turning me into mulch and I continued to survive as they killed big huge things.

The dragons were always the scariest things anyways, and who knows, maybe they did this all the time? I was shunting away the knowledge that I might be aiding in the destruction of intelligent life for the most part since there was no way for me to tell whether Shangreela was a special case like me or not. I just knew that sometimes I could get the plant monster in a good game of catch.
Was I the dragon's pet in their view, or an actual friend? What did they think about me? Not sure I could gesture that kind of question. ‘Hey, little brother bee, what did you think?’ I turned to stare at something that looked like a bee gnawing on a bird. It looked at me with its abdomen shaking. ‘Good boy.’ I think happy tail wagging was supposed to be reassurance.

-----

I awake at the dawn of a new era. Fresh from battle the day before I had attained the requirements for evolution. What kind of evolution? I evolved into a noble ‘Chitinous Guardian’ which does things and has a role in this world I don't care about! Why is this form glorious and noble you may be wondering! Why yes me, I was wondering that, why is this form glorious and noble?
Well, self, let me tell you why. This form apparently crafted by fairies to look like a knight, I stand on two incredible legs! My left arm is covered by a great shield with mandibles, which is strange! Most important of all though, I have a hand capable of manipulating objects in my environment! “I can also talk I guess?” Yep! I have a mouth. “Aaaaaaaaahhh!” I could scream!
Everyone was staring at me, but that was a-okay. My words just then sounded funny, gonna need to practice talking again, sounded all raspy and deep. “Hey, testing, uh, stuff!” I think my voice just sounded like a garbled demon now. “My voice sounds like a garbled demon now! I can scream and talk and probably cry again! I missed you mouth!”

I could jump and click my heels, I could punch and kick, I could skip and dance. Being a bee sucked ass, this is so much better! “Suck my dick, world!” Did I even have a dick? Don't think so, looks like it's all armor down there. “Rain check on the dick sucking, I need to get one first!” Yeah yeah yeah. I turned to Shangreela who was looking at me with a hard to read expression.
“Alright you giant, overgrowth covered bizzatch, I'm teaching you how to play odds and evens next and this game I'm going to dominate!” It craned its head. Alright, need to break out the gestures again. ‘Odds’ ‘And’ ‘Evens?’ It narrowed its eyes. I started shaking my hand and throwing up different numbers of fingers. “Wait, shit, rock, paper, scissors is totally the superior game. Okay, listen!”
I don't know why I asked for it to listen, I'm just gesturing again. ‘Rock!’ ‘Smashes!’ ‘Scissors!’ It tilted its head. ‘Scissors!’ ‘Cuts!’ ‘Paper!’ It slowly nods, probably not getting it yet. ‘Paper!’ ‘Covers!’ ‘Rock!’ It gave me a blank stare. I went through the motions again as well as the start up. ‘Yes?’ “One, two, three, shoot!” I threw rock, it waited to see what I was doing and then tossed out paper. “Cheater!”

-----

“It's a lovely day today. The wind in my hair, the rustling of the leaves, soft grass to lay on, sun shining on- the moon nice and- the sun shining- hahaha.” This skill was a silly one. I sit upon a tiny planet of my own creation, its core hollowed out to serve as a mobile home for my family and party members. “I'm king of the world!” I said that every day, because it's true. “Hey Shalala, whatcha doin?”
I look over to the nature dragon, its head reaching high enough to be at eye level with the world. It looked back, then turned to look back at the road ahead. “Yeah that's what I thought you were going to say.” I began humming to myself, thinking over the current state of affairs. I and many of my bee friends had leveled up drastically and evolved since joining up with this dragon. “Thanks for that B T dubs.”
But, in all the time since we've been together and I've watched it slaughter maybe hundreds of monsters, many of which that I'd have no hopes of slaying, it only leveled up once. It's been sticking at that precarious forty nine for the longest time, and I'm pretty sure it was teetering on the edge of forty eight when we met.

“Hey, do you evolve?” It paid me no mind, but I like to think it was amused. “Like I know dragons are the hottest shit since sliced bread or the advent of opposable thumbs, but do they turn into anything?” Again, I am met with silence. “Ah well, I wasn't expecting any answers.” Hmm, what to do today. . . Shantei was never in the mood for games while we were on the move.
That might have stemmed from being a quadruped and all of our games requiring a free hand, but my dragon friend was probably just a focused grump. Wait, got an idea. I made the water flow from one of the tiny streams out into a sheet in front of the little world before I had the land deposit a stone in my hand. Nice, round, smooth, a little flat.
I would have whistled but my lips make that a bit difficult. “Kookoo, kookoo! Caw!” I settled for bird sounds, getting Shot Put's attention before skipping the stone off the water I'd made float for it. “Tres bounces me amiga! New world record!” It looked back to the path ahead. “I see you smiling! I can perceive the upturning of your mouth with my special senses! You cannot deny your amusement!”

Today was a great day full of wonder and potential yet, I have made a dragon smile. I may have done so before, but I have acknowledged it today. “Beast of nature so mature your branches shiver and shake in favor's sake a goal most unknown to I, doth they bone's quiver and wake upon the steps they often make? That is to say, yo Prison Shank, do you never get tired? The fuck?”
No answer. “Well that was me being poetic for the day, not gonna get that again for a while.” I snapped my fingers, a small tree growing to shade me from the miniature sun hanging over head. “You know, when I was a boy and not a horrible crime against nature, I was really socially awkward. Still am of course, but I had trouble just talking to people too as a part of that.”
“I grew out of my shell as time went on, I got a bit better at talking to people. That's great, that's progress, that's a character arc and stuff, right?” Silence. “Right, you understand me and my soul. Anyways, you know how this world works, right?” The dragon looks at me like child looking at a clown in a storm drain. “What kind of fucked up force puts me back into a shell with more confidence than ever?!”

The dragon breaths through its nose a bit more heavily than normal. For a moment I felt a warmth of success, office water cooler tier comedy status success. Then I gave it some thought and did a doubletake. “You can understand me!?” I jumped off my tiny planet and body slammed the dragon's face before crawling to look into its eye. “You actually got what I said!?”
“You are amusing.” My head was going to explode, I think my voice jumped up a few octaves. “You can speak!? English!?” “You talk, I learn. Slow learn.” “What the flippity fucking flapjack fucker down the street named Fred, how in the shit have you been learning from my aimless rambling!?” “Not understand flapjack.” “I love you Shaka Zulu, you're my best friend!”
I hugged the dragon. The dragon sounded even more maliciously horrific than I could ever potentially match, a nightmare song strung together by primordial vocal chords of a nature god made flesh, but I hugged the shit out of it. “I have much to learn as well m-m-m-my Sharona.” “Learn together?” “Yes, learn together.”

I sat upon Shangreela's snout as we continued to march through a cave to parts unkown. “Hey, are you a boy or a girl? I've kinda been mentally narrating a lot and just keep referring to you as it or they. That's not too nice, even if I'm pretty sure I'm some genderless magical freak of nature at the moment.” “Ah?” I pointed at the dragon. “Boy or girl?” “Ah, girl.”
Huh, Shangreela is a she, got it. . . I began to tap my chin. “You know, regardless of species barrier, if I knew I was traveling with a giant dragon lady I probably would have attempted flirting more.” “Flirt?” “Yeah you'll see, it's fun.” “Like game.” “Sorta.” “I learn.” “As I think on it, it's probably not good to flirt with someone who barely has a working knowledge of the same language.” “I learn.” “Well, okay.”

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(Chapter 9)
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“Hey, have you ever seen the sky?” “Yes.” Just another day in the underground. “So there is a way back up to the surface.” “Yes.” “Have you ever wanted to go back up?” Shangreela was getting better with English, but I think she was keeping conservative until she really had a good grasp. Now though she wasn't even giving me an answer. “Sha?”
“No.” “Is there something wrong up there?” “Nothing wrong.” “Personal reasons then?” “Yes.” “Wanna talk about it?” Silence. “That's fine, you know.” “Mm?” “I mean, you don't have to tell me anything.” “Weird bug.” “Hey, why am I weird?” “Weird.” “No, you're weird.” “Yes.” How do I go up against that? “Well, we'll be weird together then.”
S'gonna bug me either way though. What was up there, and why didn't she want to return? Lots of little things have been bugging me about her for a long time, but there was no real reason to pry either. As time went on I felt like there was a definite kinship there, but also this strange void. It was kinda like what I felt between my brother and sisters and I.

Maybe I just felt like that with everyone, unable to close the distance and truly bare my heart and vice versa. I guess with the bees that was because they weren't truly aware, kinda like pets I was related too no matter how intelligent. With Shangreela it burned a little bit more. She was my only company, the only one I could talk too no matter how broken the language barrier was.
No matter how terrifying she might be, I needed her. It's not like it was for protection or something as simple as that, I was doing fine on my own before joining her. It was more emotional, reassurance, the concept of not being alone in whatever isolated slice of hell this was. I sometimes wonder if I didn't die and get sent there or something. Hell was this dark place devoid of good, right?
Mm, the fault could just be with me like always. How could I expect her to open up to me if I didn't return the favor? Right? Or something? Sure, could just be a psychotic monster I was riding on the nose of, but she was all I had. We were on the same team. And even if she was gonna eventually turn on me, it's not like I had anything to live for here.

“Hey.” “Mm?” “I used to be a human.” “Human?” “Yeah, like one of the pink, soft things on the surface.” “I know human. How come bug?” “Well, I don't really know. I went to sleep one night, and then here I am being born as a bee. It's as if by magic, but I don't know any magic here that could do anything that weird.” “Okay?”
“I don't even think this is my world.” “Mu?” “My world doesn't have magic or monsters or dragons anything.” She remained silent after that. “So that's out there. I'm basically lost, and I don't have my family anymore. I don't know how to go back and I don't know if it's even possible to do so. I really miss them.” I felt her brow scrunch up beneath me.
“Hey, just as a reminder, I'm not trying to coax anything out of you by saying all this, okay?” “Okay.” “I'm just trying to like, open up and be honest, since you're like the only friend I've got. Extend trust and all that. You understand?” “Little bit.” “Well it's something at least.” “Yeah.” “You're my friend, and I thank you for that.”

Was that a mistake? I dunno, but I had to take baby steps. That was what I was set on. “Hey.” “What's up Sha?” “You are very cool.” I laughed a little bit, she was trying to make me feel better I think. “You're really cool too.” “Hmhm. Strong ass.” Hahaha what the fuck? “Are you trying to compliment my butt?” “Yes?” “It's all armor plating though.” She was grumbling in confusion now.
“How do I make nice?” “You already do, I think.” “Hm?” “As long as I get to keep talking to you, I'll figure out some way to get through the day to day.” “I like.” She seemed like she was trying to say more. “talking? To you.” “Yeah?” “Too!” “You like talking to me too?” “Yes. You make happy me.” I'd be blushing if that was a thing this form could do. “Well, then I'm doing my job right.”

-----

I'd evolved recently, kinda look more like Shangreela now as a ‘Dragonfly Knight’. Wasn't quite what it sounded like, but little did I suppose. It didn't mean an awful lot I guess, though I was a lot faster and stronger. I just wanted to be a little bit more like her and that was better than the alternative route anyways. Ah, though even as I grew stronger, I remained the over all loser in our games.
It was a sharp contrast to hear someone struggling to speak the same language, but lose in games of wit to them. Not that we were playing or talking at the moment. No, I was just laying amongst the dense overgrowth that spanned her body. I'd received the permission to do so, of course, and I'm glad. It was like laying in an actual field of flowers. Was this internal monologue creepy?
I mean, the flora was so dense that I could stick my hand down and not touch scale. I'm pretty sure I was laying in an actual field of flowers. How thick was this plant armor anyways? I'm pretty sure I could dig down to check, she was still sleeping. Couldn't be that deep, right? One hand in front of the other I roughly began to dig between the vines, pushing my armored body straight down.

I buried myself upside down, up to my knees, before feeling a a tugging at my ankle. I was being pulled out before I found the end of the upper layer, dangit. I probably should have sensesd that was about to happen but I'd become fairly lax as time has passed. With a flick I was sent to the ground, Shangreela having pulled me out by mouth. Was it by mouth? Could be by mouth armor or whatever.
I laid upon my back, looking up at the face of a dragon many times my size. “Hey.” I snapped my fingers and pointed. “You smell nice.” “Thank you.” She was still staring. I felt distinctly uncomfortable with this current position. I clapped my hands together. “What's up?” I'm slightly cratered into the ground by her face. Mildly stung, but I'm real tough now. “So that was creepy!?”
She drew back again to look at me with narrowed eyes. “You do not smell?” I was picking myself up and dusting off from the whole cratering thing. “Thank you?” Well, at least that was- gugh. With a single long swipe her tongue was dragged across the entirety of my body. Spit was everywhere. I needed to learn water magic. “Taste fine though.” She snorted.

I wasn't sure whether to be aroused, scared or disgusted. Disgoursed? Arustered? “Cool, cool, yeah.” Thumping approaches as some patchwork behemoth looking like the marriage of a gorilla, elephant and wasp sprints over. I make a few gestures to relay ‘I'm fine’ so he calms down. The most recent form of my brother, it gestures back to me, though crudely.
I'm not entirely sure what he said. “He asks why you are wet.” Ah, cool, translator. I guess she was good at that and stuff. I just pointed at the giant plant dragon, which he looked up towards, then back down at me. He held his hands up, walking away softly with an expression I couldn't read, perhaps because of the lack of facial muscles.
I got the gist of what he was thinking though and that ended here. “No, no, out of the gutter. I didn't swear you to a life of celibacy so you could go around thinking about that shit.” He ran away away. “Hey! You get back here you little shit.” He ran away faster as the noise we were making began to wake all others.

Eulogy of Pangu, this was the skill I had at my fingertips to make a miniature world, and it was through that skill that numerous bee people of different colors and sizes began to descend and go about the daily grind. Brobee dove into the ground with it spiraling up behind him, and I'm kicking down the door of the earth anus to strangle him.
We burrowed through the floors, up the walls, and ended up quite a ways above the rest stop set up before breaching the surface into a new cavern. We stopped there because I'd caught him by the ankle and had him in a toehold. “I got licked, licked!” He kept gesturing in a way that definitely seemed condescending to me, so I redoubled the hold.
I looked back at the tapping on my shoulder, finding a stark white bee creature levitating in the air behind me. This was my third sister, I think. My third and second sisters were identical in this form so I had a hard time telling them apart. She pointed up above us once she had my attention though. Something with gigantic bug eyes for its body was crawling along the ceiling.

Contrasting my sister, it was pitch black aside from the eyes, walking in a swaying motion like grass in the wind. Brobee slipped out of my grasp as I was observing the potential threat. Two tendrils stretched from the back of the thing towards us, before he caught them and pulled it closer. Sister Albee lunged into a hug, pinning it down until it obtained a dessicated look.
I didn't have to command them anymore, they were perfectly capable and dangerous all by themselves now. I was proud in my own way, liking to think them getting to this point was thanks in no small part to me. Their proficiency had me beginning to learn magic just to help them rather than doing everything myself now. Mmm, wonder what today was gonna be like with this kind of odd start.

-----

“Where are we going?” Unlike her normal random wandering, or what felt like random wandering, we'd been taking a series of paths the last few weeks that seemed deliberate. “Slow down sad clown, we're almost there.” There were strange verbal quirks she'd picked up based on some one off phrases I'd used when I was bored. “You've said that every day for the last however many.”
“As long as you're with me time will fly like the wind.” She'd also got a lot more aggressive with flirting recently. “That doesn't stop really answer anything lover girl.” “Hmhm.” I felt movements of those behind me whispering in a language I didn't know, something my followers had apparently made up with Shangreela's aid. Once I turned my head they were all back to normal though.
“I love yoooou.” “Love you toooo.” Ah well, I didn't mind, like at all. The bizarre amounts of affection from my. . .friend? My heavily affectionate friend? It was heart warming, and I tried to return the good will whenever I could. “Hey, have I mentioned lately that your voice doesn't sound nearly as malicious as before?” I thought I heard her purring. That one was true though, not sure how she changed that.

I zoomed up her spine right quick to sit upon her nose, presenting a bouquet. Right, maybe we were more romantically involved now that I put actions like this in hindsight. I wasn't about to assume anything with a mythical creature a hundred times larger than me however. “You got those from my back.” “What's your point?” She scoffs. “You must work on your romantic gestures, bitch.”
“You gotta clean your mouth out, bitch.” “Bitch.” “Bitch.” “Bitch.” “I will turn this dragon around young lady, I swear to big G your field trip is going to get ended before it begins.” “I am the dragon though.” “Don't you sass me!” “You're so cute though.” “That's it, you're gonna get suplexed, but like, when I'm strong enough. That's a promise.” “Your fingers are crossed.” “Nuh uh.” “Yes huh.”
I would have fired back, but I felt the topography begin to open up at the end of the sloped tunnel. We were about to exit into a gigantic cavern. “Is the big cave up ahead our destination? What kind of zone is it?” “Oh is that what you would call it? Well, if memory serves, there's many trees and small animals around the area we're about to come upon.”

Well didn't sound too different from what we were used too. Maybe the plants and such were different? Looking around and up ahead I saw some vaguely shimmering lights off in the distance. The ceiling was pretty distant here, reminded me of the desert zone. Maybe there were glow worms or luminescent flowers like back in our original home?
As Shangreela walked out of the tunnel, me sitting upon her head, I still couldn't figure out where the ceiling was despite it being covered with bright lights. There was some shifting steam clouds as well, maybe we were near another area where volcanic activity and a river were meeting? It was slowly shifting and covering up the lights. . .and. . .

I saw something familiar, from a distant memory, begin to peek out from behind the clouds. White, round, bright, it looked just like the moon. “Welcome to the surface.” I heard her, I definitely heard her, I just couldn't really respond. “I didn't think I've ever see the sky again.” I didn't even know this form could cry, but it was. “I wanted to make you happy.”
“Why?” “I was lonely, and you ended that.” “You did that for me too though.” “Maybe, but you'll never know just how important what you've done was. I owe you much and will do my best to repay you, my dearest friend.” My mouth opened and closed, gaping like a fish out of water. I wasn't thinking very clearly. “I'll fucking repay you too damnit.” “I'm sure you will.” Lame, but it was all I had.

I looked at the sky to keep from further breaking down while facing her. Just stared up into the stars. I didn't know what I was doing, but I'd keep carving out a space for people like always. I think. Fuck, make the tears stop, they were all flowing out for the first time in forever.

-----

I woke up amongst the buzzing of my carved out kingdom in the woods, amidst flowers, grasses and vines that cover Shangreela's body. We'd fought off some freakish monster I didn't recognize the day before and everyone was on edge. Wasn't really feeling well. There was this haze, this grogginess I couldn't shake off as if I was still dreaming. I was dreaming heavy just then, I think. Maybe I still am?
I felt something weird while laying there. Why couldn't I feel her beneath me? I was laying on top of her but she wasn't there. Hrm? I started digging down, even if she'd probably scoop me up like last time I tried this. She didn't though. Ugh, I was so slow- shit. I fell. How did I fall? There was a hole above me letting the sunlight in and falling leaves.
Why was it so dark? I haven't had to deal with not being able to see in the dark since forever, but everything was going black. I kinda wanted to sleep again, but I was really worried where Sha was when I was inside her body or something. Saw some shifting in the corner of my eye, some glowing eyes or something looking down at me.

Those were too small for a dragon. Who are you?

(Jump 1: End)

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