Log report 5 - Entry 11

If your co-wobub won’t take proper conditioning, then the obvious solution is to adopt his natural tendencies to manipulate him. If he wants to save little bi-peds and there is an entire floor full of them out there, then you might as well use them.

If he does the right things for the wrong reasons, that’s okay, the right thing is still getting done.

Simple concepts that I’m applying religiously.

For a moment, I think it is worthwhile to summarise what I’ve achieved during the early stages of the event.

First, there was a massive mana storm that was resulting in Daniel (the biped next to Ivey my host) to beginning to suffer sapient deconstruction. Against the standard advice, I got my host to turn him into a co-wobub. With the benefit of hindsight, that was a brilliant decision like every other one I make.

For the pet, (Daniel) not much changed.

He remained a biped. (I know I feel for him too.)

Kept his internal computational engine.

Did not regress through sapient deconstruction, so is not a feral.

I guess for him that was important, even if he’s never said thanks.

He manifested some extra powers. In my foresight, I gifted him with the beast whisper class. It was a masterful choice which should have propelled his powers to new heights. From the mana storm, there were going to be lots of giant monsters around with big teeth just waiting there for him to bond with. The sort of creature that could kill the strongest of the sapient deconstructed with a single bite. All he had to do was to beat one of them senseless force the bond and then he would have had a faithful deadly sidekick that with a few levels might have grown to be a battle mount which would have counted the pet’s primary disability, namely being a biped.

It was a spectacular class with so much potential I could taste it. Then the idiotic co-wobub forgot the giant bit, and the lots of teeth, and somehow the terrifying qualifier, basically all the good stuff.

It’s so shameful I don’t want to write it down, but the pet bonded with the smallest thing he could find with the only bit of wisdom shown was that it was a quadruped.

Called it Prissy or something like that, which from the culture pack means fussily and excessively respectable.

Ridiculous.

Anyway, that’s what the co-wobub got from the arrangement. Heaps and heaps even if it wasted the bonus.

I was supposed to get the ability to influence his behaviour. Yes, the review board will probably claim that it’s not in the spirit of the rules and only allowed on a technicality… but guess what! Permissible on a technicality means that it is Allowed! Tribunal board you won’t get me on that. You have no teeth like Prissy.

Yes, I’m a little bitter about that.

My primary focus was encouraging him to protect Ivey, but the only mechanism I have available unfortunately does not work very well. I’m very disappointed with that. Within half a day, the co-wobub forgets its conditioning and starts acting with its own agency.

I am sure the meddling overseers are happy with that, but I have to admit it’s damn annoying.

That was not at all what I wanted.

Biologicals right.

As they say too primitive to stay brainwashed.

Anyway, after establishing contact with my colleagues there were clearly larger problems to deal with. Primarily a class two lizard that will eventually treat all of our hosts as a convenient farmed animals. Being kept in a larder as a handy snack is probably no one’s idea of a satisfactory outcome of the apocalypse. There was some background trickery to open communication channels, by promoting morse code, that will probably yield benefits in the long run, but at least for now it is each biped for themselves.

Ivey and pet swept through all the nearby floors, slaying the sapient deconstructed (The co-wobub amusingly calls them zombies, some made up concept I’ve never seen before. Undead living it’s an idea completely divorced from reality.) Most of the battles were won with the pet’s plant traps, but before the end the extra skills I got into the co-wobub made a difference, at least from an entertainment perspective. Everyone loves watching a big lightning bolt smash into a monster’s face.

Anyway, they killed lots of ferals, saved lots of other humans and have killed off all the major threats in the top half of the tower. My host has got a nice team around her. There’s Tamara, a general spell caster, Dave, an actual wobub *Or in the pet’s terminology a Zombie ha ha*, Luke’s an emerging tank, Ingrid an archer and various others including several waste of space little bipeds.

Having killed the magic octopod at the top of the tower my host will get her pet biped to go down and kill the sapient deconstructed below and hopefully save the surrounding bipeds and eventually escape being monster food.

Unless, of course, that illusionist does something.

*ha ha*

Through if she does mange something that would be some *slimy material with a shell around it on my face.* Imagine an illusionist being your big hero. So funny. My colleagues should be moonlighting as comedians. Of course I haven’t met her, but do I need to? They think she might make a difference, but we all know it’s going to come down to my host’s pet.

Now for my final topic of conversation.

Falls.

I’m no longer officially counting them, but for the record in that last fight the bipeds were like bowling pins. My host still has not an opportunity to use the skill that is officially called ‘Something accidentally attacked me and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’

My host insists on naming the skill ‘Emergency Blast’ instead, which is frankly boring and not very descriptive. Anyway, the fact she had not used it yet, as disappointing as that is, represents a big tick mark against my performance as it means she’s been safe.

The bipeds are super dooper lucky that I’m here to save them.

Chapter 1

Daniel sat with the empty plate next to him, wondering what to do about Jayden. There was no way he could ignore it, but the question was whether he was evil in which case a violent solution was best, or if he was doing it accidentally.

Could he be doing it accidentally? Was it possible to use mind control on someone by mistake? Daniel shut his eyes in anger. He could not separate his feelings from the problem. Why couldn’t life just be smashing skulls.

Ivey came over to him and nuzzled up against him.

Maybe smashing skulls and some other activities, he corrected in his internal monologue. “How are you?” he asked.

“Excited.”

He looked at her in surprise.

One look told him she was not talking about having successfully killed the octopod.

She stood and pulled him up, or at least helped him slightly. Then she hesitated. “Where should we go?”

“Down,” he told her. There was the ghost of Beau down there, but floor twenty-one was clear and if there was a threat from below he wanted to be there to deal with it. Not that he was going to admit that reason to Ivey.

She linked arms with him and lent into him. A ball of light floated out, illuminating their passage. The sun had set over an hour ago and without electricity there was almost no light in the hotel corridors.

It was nice, but he was still disturbed by the Jayden problem. The ex-actor could clearly influence other people’s minds, and Daniel knew he had to act. Mind control was unacceptable.

Later, he thought to himself finally. For now he was here with Ivey and that was wonderful. They reached the stairwell. Floors Twenty-four and five were linked, but all the others were still closed off by his internal barriers. In the future Daniel planned on leaving these open but for now they provided a sense of security for all the survivors he has managed to gather up.

“Before we get to our room, I have a present for you.” She passed him a large stone. It was too big to swallow.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the octopod core. You can use it safely. I checked.”

Daniel hefted it doubtfully. “There’s no way I can swallow.”

“Put it in your mouth and grind it. It will be unpleasant but it will let you absorb it and develop the telekinesis skill that you’re after.”

He tossed it up in the air. It was heavy.

“Don’t,” Ivey warned. “You don’t want to break it.”

“What do you think eating it is going to do?”

“Point.”

“I’m not sure about non-feral cores. My body reacts poorly to them.”

“It’ll probably be better than electricity bugs.”

“Probably?”

A hesitation. “That was a slip of the tongue. It will be easier no probability about it.”

Daniel was not convinced that she was being fully honest. Ivey was not adverse to twisting the truth in order to get things done.

“And I grabbed it because it looked like you wanted it.”

“I do. Telekinesis will take me to the next level.” In his mind, he could imagine moving traps or pushing enemies into them. If he stopped relying on static traps…

“You want to throw people around with your mind,” she teased.

“I can think of other uses.” He ran a hand over her bum, squeezed. She jumped.

“Hey?” she playfully tried to slap his hand. “I can’t see how telekinesis will help with that. But I guess you’ve proved yourself to be creative.”

“We’ll find out if I get the ability, but I was more imagining moving traps.”

He felt her half step in response. “Yes, that would be a huge upgrade.” She stopped walking, hugged him fiercely. “Thank you. I’m happy I’m here with you.”

Standing between the two community floors they kissed. There was no threat from above they had killed them all apart from level twenty six and seven and the zombies trapped there were too weak to break out and threaten them.

As for below. There was no way for any of the monsters to reach them thanks to the moths blocking the stairwells.

They were winning. They were beating this nightmare and for the first time in days they could afford to relax.

She broke away. Smiling and holding his hands, they kept walking down to level twenty one. They then poked their heads into three rooms before finding one that was freshly made up from five days ago.

Animal sense flared out.

“A perfect getaway.” he told her. “No one followed us. We have privacy.”

“Apart from the mouse.” She said the glowing ball of light highlighting Priscilla on his shoulder.

He plucked Priscilla off. “Shoo,” he ordered, and she ran to the door without protest. There was a brief green glow as she changed the wood to squeeze under it.

“What a day,” Daniel said sadly, sitting down. “You almost died, then we all almost died, and now we have to worry about the penthouse guys.” He deliberately did not mention Jayden or the kids that Tamara had talked about.

“Don’t be down,” she said, bonking him gently on the nose. “We eliminated a threat to our existence and then there was that chest.”

“What was that?” He asked curiously.

“Loot chest.” Ivey clapped her hands in excitement.

“What does that mean?”

“Weapons, armour, spells,” Ivey said. “I don’t know. The message I received was that it was a minor loot chest that had been partially customised to the group that had killed the Octopod. I figured we should control its distribution.”

“Yeah, but what does that actually mean?”

She kissed him. “Exactly what I said. It gives us loot. Equipment we need. Tomorrow we’ll distribute it to those who need it most.” She grinned. “And if there’s any really good stuff we’ll get first choice.”

“Who are you thinking?”

“Depends on the gear but we can hopefully have enough to upgrade everyone on the front lines and if there is any good stuff, make sure Jayden gets a piece or two.”

“Jayden? Why?” Daniel suddenly shivered, remembering what the man had said early, what he had been suggesting and how till Priscilla had interfered he had just been accepting the man’s word. He had advocated that they abandon everyone else.

“Well, first, so Tamara does not have to worry about him and second, because he is important to the community.”

“What does he actually do?”

“He’s the glue,” Ivey said simply.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“He keeps us together.” Her eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about Jayden. It’s Tamara isn’t it?”

“No. It’s Jayden. How does he contribute more than Chua, Alisha or the cook?”

“Moral,” Ivey responded instantly. “Leadership matters.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can’t believe this,” Ivey blew up suddenly. “You want Tamara. I bring you down here and you are pining over another woman.”

“What?”

“She’s not even that pretty. Good tits I guess, but.”

“What?”

“We’re not doing anything.” Ivey said definitely. “Unbelievable.”

“This was not about Tamara.”

“Stop talking about her, then.”

Daniel bit his disbelief off before it expressed himself.

“Don’t you like me.” Ivey asked. Waving at herself.

“I find you very attractive.”

“It’s because of that bloody connection isn’t it.”

“No.”

“I don’t get it. We click on so many levels, but whenever we go alone, this happens.” She threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

“Umm, we could still try.”

“The mood’s gone.”

“We can try to recapture it.” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss. She avoided it easily.

“No, that discussion pissed me off. What’s your problem with Jayden?”

Daniel hesitated, knowing he was treading on eggshells and pre-alpha ones at that. “I don’t trust anyone not visibly contributing to the community.”

“There is more to life than growing food.”

He knew what she thought about farmers or tradespeople, but he did not expect her to express it like that. How was he supposed to answer that?

She saw his expression. “What I mean is some contributions can’t be quantified. Like a scientist might spend ten years creating a cure for cancer. Was he useless for the first nine when he had no visible results?”

“And Jayden is like that?”

“Yes.” Her voice was frosty.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No,” she grabbed his hand. “Stay, I want to be held. I don’t want to be alone. Please.”

“Fine.”

The light vanished and there was the noise of Ivey getting into bed. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness and from the tiny bit of moonlight coming in he could see a lot.

What just happened? He asked himself. They had not snuck down here to chat and then everything had spiralled out of control. Priscilla had even left, and it had been him and Ivey and yet somehow it had all fallen apart, anyway.

“I think I’ll go?”

“Please don’t.”

“I don’t,”

“Do you want me to beg?” He stopped his brain almost freezing because of the contradictory signals he was receiving. He understood absolutely nothing about what she was saying. “I don’t want to be alone.” She told him.

With a carefully hidden sigh, he kicked off his shoes and crawled into the bed next to her.

“Hold me.”

He did. Just like he would hold his sister as currently that was all she wanted. He was kicking himself. All he had to do was to bite off his distrust of Jayden for a couple of hours. This was probably more on him than on her.

While Ivey sounded like she had fallen asleep or was at least close, Daniel knew he was not ready to join her. Like he always did he had a plant tendril stretching away and giving him access to his expanding network. While she slept holding him, he converted some of the nearby doors into a series of weapons. A conduit growing across to where the door lay broken and then he was able to seize control of it and get to work.

He would hold Ivey and then, when the weapons were ready. He would sneak out with his backpack that was filled with cores. With the plan settled he was soon lost in his crafting. There was freedom in the magic. The process of integrating his consciousness into the wood and then shaping it into the exact forms they needed distracted him perfectly. The weapons he wanted formed and then the wood hardened, flaws were worked out and then he moved to the next.

He had a simple plan for the night. Create some sapient weapons, check out the loot chest, and scout the killer zombies below.

Ivey’s breathing evened out and before getting up he wondered if he stayed the night whether it would result in morning sex. He did not know enough about Ivey to say either way, but from the signals he got the chances would be good. It was extremely tempting to not move. It was not like he couldn’t get almost as much done lying here as elsewhere. Almost was not sufficient and despite their victories all of his instincts told him he was not running fast enough. Somehow, they were falling more and more behind where they needed to be and if that expanding gap became too large, the outcomes would be fatal.

Compromise, he decided, he would aim to get back before she awoke. It was a strange relationship that they had. They were attracted to each other but weighed against their apparent incompatibility. That damn mental connection confused everything. For goodness’ sakes, he enjoyed spending time with her; she was gorgeous and strong and had so many positive qualities. He did not know why he even had mixed feelings.

Because experiencing what the other person really thinks would break any relationship. Do I look fat in this?… Oops, when true thoughts were shared that question morphed from a minefield to a nuclear bomb going off in your face.

On top of him, Ivey was asleep. Carefully, he extracted himself and scooped the backpack up and shut the door silently behind him.

“Free,” he whispered to himself. His first act was to pop the larger than a golf ball sized core from the octopod into his mouth. It barely fit and all he could do was to grind his teeth against it. The taste was horrific, burnt cabbage and from a texture perspective it was akin to biting a rock and then eating sand. Actually, that was probably what he was doing. As he tried to grate it down, it felt like his molars were chipping and when he dutifully swallowed the generated grit he did not know if it was his teeth or the bits of the octopod core he was trying to absorb.

Animal sense flashed out.

He focused exclusively downwards and was happy that there were no threats. One thing he needed to do was to get Priscilla to scout the lower floors. It was vital they learned what they were facing before committing to a fight. Hopefully, it would be more of the dumb zombies and they could power through them but his impression was that they were anything but that.

While getting a human down through the floors was difficult, a mouse was another matter. His plants had long ago followed a bunch of electricity cables down and created a large space for a conduit. That thick root was hollowed out to create a space that a small princess mouse could run down.

Priscilla was close and had clearly been monitoring his actions because she appeared straight after he finished making the magical pathway.

Find out what we’re facing, he thought to her.

There was a feeling of her tapping her feet impatiently. Daniel internally smiled. He had been expecting this, and he needed to be careful to keep his surface thoughts clear of duplicity. One slip up and she would be too suspicious to accept anything but a generous chip deal.

Absently, he opened a packet of chicken chips and put it down so she could have them. There was a flash of excitement followed by suspicion.

“It’s not like that.” he protested. “If you want, we can take it off future payments.”

No.

Daniel chuckled despite himself and Priscilla flashed forward into the packet a sense of contentment radiating outwards.

“We need to fight past the zombies below us.” The only feelings that he got back was focused on the chips she was eating. She was pretending. The images and emotions he was getting through their link were suspiciously clean.

She was suspicious and faking distraction.

He had overplayed his hand with the chips. “I reckon once we get down to the bottom there might be some new flavours.”

Carefully, he imagined a vending machine with multiple different varieties. Excitement flashed through Priscilla.

Mine, Mine.

“Of course. Once we get there.” Daniel visualised him progressing slowly from floor to floor continually concerned that he did not know what he was facing. Corridor lengths of traps to make sure that he would be safe. If only he knew what was down there, he could go faster.

Me help.

Maybe dangerous, he sent back with a firm no. We’ll go carefully and no one gets hurt. He envisioned painstakingly gradual progress.

Me do. Me be safe.

She dashed away toward where he had put in the pathway down to the lower level. Then she reached it and abruptly turned and sped back. Had she figured it out?

Eat First.

She plunged into the chip packet and he could feel her furiously devouring the chips.

“Good idea.” he told her, reaching two fingers into the packet and stroking her while she ate. Pleasure radiated out of her. “And while you do that, I’ll create the next batch of seed weapons.”

Affirmation came back to him. His thoughts turned to the weapons he wanted to make. Something special for both Tamara and Ivey amongst others.