Calvin was resting in the palanquin, doing math problems from Elliot as they hurtled through the dark of night. Everyone else was sleeping while Calvin pondering how screwed he was, on a scale from one to ten.

I’m thinking an eight, probably? Maybe more. Even if Kala lets this slide, I’m still looking at a near-guarantee that Ella got knocked up. I have a freaking mutation for it. Should be less of a chance with Learner, given her total control over her own body and my awesome pull-out game.

Calvin leaned his hand on his palm, picturing a bouncing genosian-maculat hybrid with razor sharp teeth.

Or worse, whatever Learner’s baby would look like. An undead fractal baby…thing?

Well, Undead are really just creatures that lean heavily on Warp to simulate their body functions, which explains why undead are so eager to kill. Honestly, I think the physiology of a creature from the Warp would probably override something that merely relies on it.

Interesting thought. I wonder what would happen? Enough to actually try to knock Learner up? Abyss no.

Calvin glanced down at Learner using Ella as a mattress.

Then again, it’s my understanding that Learner basically wrapped herself in a 100% human meat-suit. So any babies it had would be human, wouldn’t they?

Depends on whether she made the right organs, but yeah, I’d say the chances are good.

I haven’t heard from you in a while, Calvin thought, scratching an answer down on the Visualized paper.

I checked in earlier, but you were busy, Elliot said wryly.

Calvin rolled his eyes.

More important, but less entertaining than thinking about sex, was thinking about One, and how to deal with the flood of enemies knocking at Boles’ gate.

Calvin was just one guy. No matter how tricky he got with it, he couldn’t hold off that particular assault by himself. There was just too much of it.

The black, light-eating trees went for thousands of miles in either direction. Calvin couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see, simply because the curvature of the earth wouldn’t allow it.

Sure, he could delegate magically, but that had its own problems, the principle one being that the creatures he was delegating with were Bent constructs and subject to being counterspelled if they got caught flat-footed.

I haven’t taken my spare skills from Calvinian summoning yet, have I? Calvin wondered, a thought occurring to him. He hadn’t stretched the limits of Calvinian Summoning as far as they could go. Now that One thought he knew what Calvin was capable of, now was the time to surprise the fuck out of him.

Do you think we could ‘breed’ a form of creature that’s immune to that magenta counterspelling?

Immune? No. highly resistant? Probably. There’s really no such thing as total immunity. Even in the animal kingdom, it was always an arms race to find the –

“That’s plenty,” Calvin muttered, bringing his attention back to Calvinian Summoning specifically. The Skill points he’d been hoarding for it were Calvin’s most valuable, and he’d wanted to wait until he was sure he needed to use them.

With the extinction level event looming on the horizon, Calvin was fairly sure he needed to spend them now.

Calvinian Summoning has reached level 45! 4 slots available!

Calvinian Summoning level 45: 91125 pounds, 2025 minutes (1.4 days).

Please choose three Abilities and/or Mutations

Avatar: 1 Bent. Alternate casting which summons one (1) creature slotted in Calvinian Summoning. Avatar is limited in mass to that of the original slotted creature. User may perceive through the Avatar’s senses at will and control perfectly it from any distance. User may cast Bent-based Abilities through the Avatar.

^Atom Ant and Chimera may still be applied to an Avatar.

Bulk Summoning: Mass Limit increased by (Int) %

Extended Summoning: Time limit is increased by (Sta)%

Diversified Portfolio of Death: User may now divide summon’s mass between any different combination of *options they have access to*.

^Not only size and slotted creature variations, but extras like Chimera and Atom Ant may be added to a fraction of the total summon. The summon will no longer be strictly homogenous.

Resistant Summoning: Bent constructs created by Calvinian summoning will be more resistant to dispelling effects.

^From Polyglot, Counterspell, Interference

Mutations:

Continuity: The Summon remembers time spent during each summon, is aware of what the user is aware of while it was unsummoned, and can learn or improve System and non-System Skills to the limit of Calvinian Summoning.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

Bent: Summoned creatures gain a limited pool to draw from to fuel Abilities, provided they have Bent-drawing abilities. The effects of the Abilities are extentions of Calvinian Summoning and not actual Bent. Pool is 1/5th the level of Calvinian Summoning.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

Voodoo U: Damage taken by caster is absorbed by Calvinian Summon instead.

^Moved from Chained Spirit

I’ll just Borrow That: For 1 bent, User may choose to incorporate parts from summoned creatures into their own physiology. Lasts for the duration of the spell or until dismissed, then the User’s physiology is returned to the state it was in before the Ability was activated.

Hmm… Damn. Voodoo U is starting to look necessary, as well as Avatar and Resistant Summoning, which is a pleasant surprise. Calvin also wanted Diversified Portfolio of Death and Bulk summoning.

Diversified portfolio of Death was an important time/Bent saver. Why cast the spell three times to get a group of Knick-knacks, a group of bombers, and a group of snipers, when he could summon all three with a single Bent?

Sure the mass would be split among the three of them, but Calvin was looking at forty-five tons. That was an amount people could share.

Bulk summoning was obvious. Back in the beginning, it would have only added a couple hundred pounds to his summons, which would have helped, but not a lot.

Now? Now it would add…

Calvin did some quick math.

Forty-one thousand, six and a quarter pounds.

The Ability added just an inordinate amount of extra mass to use to pound One to a pulp. Every little bit counted.

So I’ve got to choose between these five, huh?

Calvin spent several minute flipping between them, weighing his options, before he finally decided to go with his original selection.

Diversified Portfolio and Bulk summoning were both very nice, but they didn’t quite match the life-saving or sheer utility of the other three.

Voodoo U added an extra little security blanket that he would need if he went up against One again. Avatar was absolutely necessary for effective delegation against One. Calvin could see himself summoning massive armies from a single Avatar Wasp directly in the heart of One’s territory, his real body safely a thousand miles away.

Or from a Kurawe Chimera.

And resistant summoning kind of spoke for itself.

We can do better than that, though.

Calvin set the choices aside until he was no longer in his Forming day. He didn’t want to fall unconscious until the last of the Warp had been spent.

Calvin went back to solving math problems.

Here’s a tough one, one of the basic theorems by the guy who first deciphered Harbinger FTL.

A string of dense math flickered up on the screen.

I need you to prove it.

Calvin leaned back on the bench, studying the string of gibberish.

Okay, but you’re gonna have to define like, half the symbols.

Fair enough.

…

Time went by as Calvin studied, his brain aching.

Your Mind has reached 58!

1/60 Warp remaining.

“And I’m spent,” Calvin muttered, tossing aside the imaginary pencil.

Aw, come on, you were so close!

I’d rather save it for next Break. Calvin thought, eyeballing the one remaining Warp.

Damned Maculat mutation taking a huge portion of my Warp. I could have gained a nice even twenty points of Mind.

And I suppose you’d rather have the shard of crystal in your eye still? Elliot asked.

I would’ve figured something out.

Hah! Sure you would.

Calvin grunted and ignored the remaining Warp.

He could only raise Skills with one point, and there was the chance he would go feral again if he emptied himself out a second time.

So the Warp got to stay. Calvin brought the options from Calvinian summoning up again and made his choice.

I choose Voodoo U, Avatar, and Resistant Summoning.

User will be rendered unconscious while mutation is taking place.

Calvin felt some minor swelling before he passed out.

When he opened his eyes again, Calvin was standing in the middle of a jungle, beside a little river, where three Kala were sitting and talking to each other, giggling uproariously.

Calvin would have assumed it was a fever dream, but the tessellated kala made him do a double take. That was obviously Learner.

Kala, Learner, and…Learner. Weird. Probably not a dream. Calvin had long since learned to go with the flow.

“Wha’cha talking ‘bout?” Calvin asked, putting his hands on his hips as he approached.

The three girls stiffened.

“Nothing.” the more human Learner said, her body language screaming ‘guilty’

“Get outta here!” Kala jeered, throwing a handful of dirt at him. “This is girl time!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Calvin said, raising his hands. “I don’t know how I got here any-“

Calvin’s eyes blinked open again, staring at the roof of his palanquin.

“-way.” Calvin stared for a moment before sitting up. The mutation must have only taken a few minutes this time. And thankfully he wasn’t dead.

I told you, that was a one-time thing. It’s what happens when you have stacking mutations that can adopt untested changes to overlapping areas with no oversight.

Let’s make sure it stays a one-time thing.

Ravager, Kurawe’s voice interrupted Calvin’s conversation with Elliot. I’ve finalized the purchase of the map.

“Oh?” Calvin asked. “What was so important that we had to pay the Knick-Knacks through the nose to get it?”

I think you’d rather see it for yourself, Kurawe said shortly before a soft knock echoed on the palanquin door.

Calvin slid it open and allowed one of the Kurawe porters to jump into the narrow space.

Multi-shaping.

8/54 Bent remaining

Calvin created several pieces of paper, ink and a pen for Kurawe.

The chimera took the pen and started drawing at a speed that beggared belief.

Dude’s like a printer. Or that scene from I Robot.

Calvin ignored Elliot, watching the progress until it was done, and handed over to Calvin.

“Traffic of Knick-knacks across the Malkenrovian continent,” Kurawe said. “That’s what we paid them for, as it turns out.

Calvin scanned the map of the enemy continent, noting the circular welts on the land, where Knick knack traffic seemed to flow to and from in highly concentrated amounts.

“They’re building something, in these forty-six sites, they’re building something big. They’re not building anything for us, so they must be building it for..”

“One, yes.” Kurawe said, nodding.

“Well, this is delicious,” Calvin said, a smile starting to work its way onto his face. “Between the looming assault on Boles, and this map, the Royals will have to get involved.”

If One was only coming after Calvin, they probably wouldn’t care, but the creature fit their definition of ‘Aberration’ to a T, and he posed an immediate danger, so they would definitely want to deal with him.

I just wish I know what he was building.

Didn’t you just get Avatar? Spy on him with a drone. Then summon an army right on top of it.

Ah, right, that’s an option now. Let’s see how he deals with that.

“Kurawe, I’m going to need to make some more Chained Spirit variations of you and seed them around the continent to create a Bent absorption network. This is going to be resource intensive.”

“As you wish Ravager.” Kurawe said with a nod.

It’s hard to admit, but Nadia procured Bent better than Kurawe…with the small downside of being totally conspicuous, unpredictable, and a little evil.

Still, Calvin didn’t need thousands upon thousands of Bent for this job, just a couple hundred at the right time and place, and Calvin presumably had days to manage this, instead of hours.

Calvin sat back in his chair and held his hand out.

Calivinian Summoning

Avatar

Atom Ant

Resistant Summoning

7/54 Bent remaining

The air was filled with a massive amount of green smoke that imploded into a single wasp that rested on Calvin’s palm.

Calvin switched into the wasp’s field of view, as easily as breathing, staring up at his own gigantic body as he looked down at the hate-filled murder machine.

With a simple mental instruction, Calvin nudged the was into taking off, sliding the door open a fraction of an inch to let the animal out before closing it again.

Calvin oriented himself, then set the wasp to flying toward the east, high and fast.

I dare One to find a single wasp traveling in the upper atmosphere.

If he could, I would be impressed.

Learner groaned and shifted where she was leaned up against Ella, sleeeping through the ride back to the nearest Bolesian city.

The dusky skinned creature turned toward Calvin, eyes still closed.

“Visit me soon, Calvin.” Learner mumbled before returning to her previous position, snuggling up against Ella’s sleeping form.

You know what? I’m kind of scared of your wife. There, I said it.

Calvin Gadsint

Body: 36

Strength: 35

Kinesthetics: 35

Endurance: 35

Mind: 58

Intuition: 45

Stability: 45

Will: 45

Bent: 45/45+9 (54)

Warp: 1/36

Calvin’s notes on Maculat Mulieres

The Undead mutation, Maculat Mulieres, seems to draw metabolized Warp from a Break to further fuel its own physical mutations, which is irritating.

When Warp is very low and the body is damaged, it seems as though I lose a large portion of my decision making capability and become little more than a Maculat in its natural state. A maculat in its natural state is a thing to be avoided.

This may have also been exacerbated by the changes I experienced during the Break.

The most noticeable change was the addition of an extra sense that allows me to sense a person’s mental state and interpret a few of their surface thoughts. It seems like these traits would be invaluable if I were to need to actually hunt like a maculat.

There may be other changes brought on by the advancement of the Maculat mutation, but they haven’t made themselves known yet. I will continue keeping a close eye on myself.

Should I become a mindless hunting machine, have Kala kill me.