With my nest populated by Swarmlings and my ambush units in hiding amongst the shade phlox I returned to the vipers, they where each slightly over a meter long and their scales allowed them to curl up in the ferns completely unnoticed, they used a delayed haemotoxin that is mostly painless but causes extreme fatigue or even unconsciousness after half an hour and kills after slightly more than an hour total. Their ability to sense their surroundings with their forked tongues is extremely undeveloped only able to allow them to sense whether there is life in their vicinity, not giving them a direction or any sense of size, however they have impressive eyesight for a serpent: extreme dynamic vision that allows them to make snap second adjustments in their lighting fast lunges and precise clarity though they are extremely shortsighted so have a tendency not to notice prey that is more than a meter away because, while they can sense its presence, it blends into the background completely.

This leads to them being almost exclusively ambush predators only ever pursuing prey after having bitten it since they can follow the trail of blood left after a successful strike as their prey loses an average of 1mL of blood every other second. These vipers, while physically capable of constricting prey, rarely do so outside of when finishing off prey that’s already stopped resisting in order to avoid risk. These snakes are rarely territorial as they’re largely nomadic in their life style however they will biannually lay eggs and maintain a more permanent nest for half a year, 4 months being spent on hatching the eggs and 2 spent on raising the young: a figure near fourfold that of earth snakes if I recall. This incredibly long developmental phase and increased familial bonds in the species has been cited as either a cause or a symptom of the increased intelligence members of this viper species exhibit.

When placing the vipers I tried to make sure each viper would have access to at least 3 others with at most half a days slither while still spacing them out as much as possible, I started by placing a single viper in each of the 5 alcoves I wanted them to nest in and then expanded out from there which led to small groups of 8 snakes taking up large swathes of the tunnels and only a small strip of space between each of these viper ‘packs’ in order to let them intermingle if one of the snakes truly went out of its way while still being out of each other’s faces. Snakes tend not to travel much if they can help it but the information on this breed specifically states that they are nomadic so I assume that means I can expect them to cover a lot more distance especially if they are looking for a mate. I saved 10 of these snakes however because I wanted to see if they would be able to make use of the webbing in the nest as it very closely resembles their overall body shape. I intend to place 5 in the same clearing as Spencer in order to assist them in hunting as well as to observe the interactions between a Tyx and non-Tyx predator and I would scatter another 5 pretty close to the entrances of the crystal caves so they wouldn’t be interfered with by adventurers for the most part.

For the ones in the caverns I first picked the smallest of the alcoves that I would be making use of, it only had about 1m^2 floor space and was more like a slight widening of the tunnel rather than a cave of its own right; as with all the alcoves it wouldn’t have any ferns or grass for the vipers to use as camouflage, only a surplus of oversized panstips and some baby sized variants lining the walls however the lack of places to hide was a deception in and of itself. As large panstips are relatively broad, flat and lowdown they cover a large portion of the floor however there is still a small 0.1 meter gap that my vipers can nest under and the underside frills of a panstip are shaped in a slight cone meaning there was even more space closer to the stem which is where the eggs would be kept. Safe, secure, hidden, warm, stable. It’s just a coincidence that this also makes a wonderful place for the snakes to go undetected and potentially ambush any and all threats to the eggs in question, just a coincidence.

As the essence collected and wound round itself into a long rope like structure before bulking up I felt anticipation build in my figurative chest and waited for the signature flash, it was my first time trying to influence a creatures behaviours during the creation phase and it was making my nerves go haywire, sure it was just a slight nudge towards nest choices but I’m pretty sure the original template these vipers come from hasn’t even seen a panstip let alone hid their eggs in one! With a burst of light the serpent sprung to life, surprisingly elegant with their pristine scales and enchanting patterns that the purple only aided in making seem all the more regal.

It coiled round itself and raised its head slightly, inspecting its surroundings before slithering towards a panstip, the moment of truth, the snake liked the panstip slightly with its tongue and with what seemed to be a nod of approval slid comfortably underneath. Success! Edits to a creatures instincts will be ridiculously important degree when it comes to the wolves as I'll need to completely erase their use of long chases in order to fatigue prey due to how ineffective it would be with their new body types and in these winding tunnels. Ramping up pincer attacks in exchange as well as helping their ability to map out their territory could help as well but I feel that would be a little overambitious so I probably won’t bother.

Well with those edits successful it’s time to move onto the next project, the five snakes that I want to cooperate with my Tyx Swarmlings. I have 3 major changes I want to make to these snakes for this to be considered a success: 1, I want to remove the nomadic behaviours and have them be borderline static in the patch of grass that I inhabit; 2, I want them to accept food from the Tyx Swarmlings, I’ll order Spencer to hunt some rabbits and bring them to the snakes every other day so that the snakes don’t need to worry about the fact that very few rabbits enter the patch; 3, I want to make their venom more fast acting, they won’t matter much in a high stakes close quarters combat encounter if it takes 30 minutes before they have an impact, I could try make it a cytotoxin or neurotoxin instead of a haemotoxin but I think just increasing the potency and removing the slight delay it has before it starts wrecking havoc would be simpler and more effective, especially since the tyx already have a venom that is both neurotoxic and cytotoxic.

So for change 1 I don’t think it’ll take much effort as that is basically the standard for snakes naturally so I’d just have to strip away the changes rather than implementing any of my own; change 2 is bit more difficult, instilling the idea that the Tyx are allies feels unrealistic so maybe instead I could make them think of it like something symbiotic? Like the Tyx are powerful herbivores so staying in their vicinity scares some smaller predators away and in exchange for the vipers killing of predators that pose a threat to the Tyx they get given food? Maybe make them slightly more sociable and familial to make them find being assimilated into a collective easier, I remember reading that’s why domesticating wolves was such a common thing, they already have those traits anyway so it shouldn’t be hard. The venom though… I suppose I can just go about it like I did with the wolves legs, emphasise one trait by minimising another. Maybe making them smaller? Or making their venom be produced slower? A bit of both is probably a good idea.

I continued placing all the remaining snakes, even the ones in the nest which immediately started slipping between the webbing and became effectively undetectable in seconds, while mapping out my symbiotic variant. I had Spencer go hunt a half dozen rabbits to get a small stockpile started as I was making the final touches and took a moment to go over my work, turns out my idea of strengthening one trait by weakening another was on the money as will I edited I felt myself be forced to maintain a sense of ‘balance’ in the creature which caused slight edits to the entire overall design.

The final model was about 0.6 meters long and couldn’t ‘lunge’ in the way it could before, its eyesight was improved a little to try and remedy the problem of completely ignoring a target because it wasn’t immediately within range leading them to having eyes that where slightly bulbous, almost like a frogs, with a purple tint to their eyes which matched then patterns which where far finer and more intricate. These snakes had a far more potent venom, causing debilitating pain almost immediately upon being bitten and being potentially fatal in a mere 15 minutes and their fangs where sharper and longer, able to pierce through thick hides and, hopefully, leather armour.

These new snakes where very opportunistic hunters that target prey that is weakened and are often scavengers when the option is available to them, they have a propensity for using larger animals as deterrence and protection and are extremely intelligent: actively aiding whatever creature they are using for cover in order to seem useful; making sure to show themselves and be friendly with the young of whatever herd they’ve assimilated themselves into so they are imprinted as part of the group to the next generation and even showing some potential for tool use at times but the lack of proper appendages makes this unverifiable.

They spend their entire lives in family units, fusing with other clans in order to mate and splitting once too large in size, anywhere between one and two dozen signifying the splitting point, they lay clutches of only 1 or 2 eggs at a time however and only lay biannually so it can take quite some time to reach such a point, often instead fusing with a clan to mate but breaking off afterwards since combined the group would be bloated, when a clan loses large amounts of their number for whatever reason the remaining members will return to whatever clan they had been in previously as long as their new number wasn’t enough to reach a ‘tipping point’ and have them break off again in which case they will mate out of cycle and lay more young to restore their numbers.

Some clans spend a long enough time period, usually over multiple generations, with a certain herd that in the event of the herds demise the ‘orphaned’ clan will only select herds of the same species to assimilate with after the fact, after choosing a herd to assimilate with the clan does not approach as a unit but instead makes a temporary nest near the herd and sends of ‘envoys’ periodically to test the waters and expose the herd to their presence before, one by one, they trickle into the herds territory: this process can take a full generation to complete however it is always adhered to almost ritualistically even when the clan is severely dire straits, often leading to utter annihilation.

Hopefully that’d be enough for them to fit right in with the Swarmlings as long as I made sure Spencer kept them fed and happy, there could be some issues with inbreeding since they’ll be starting with such a small population but if that really becomes an issue long term I’m sure it could be solved with culling some and then replacing them by creating new ones for genetic diversity though for some reason I just don’t see it coming to that. Hell I feel like I could make a single breeding pair who give birth to male/female twins and have those two do the same ad nauseam without it ever becoming an issue, I guess it’s just a magic thing, maybe the essence tether solves issues like that as part of the maintenance?

If so then I wonder what else I could ignore and let the essence handle, do I even need to feed them? Could essence handle that? Would it increase the costs or is it already covered? On that note, what about new monsters? Dungeon life can definitely give birth since I noticed one of the rabbits are pregnant, does that mean monsters can too? Do they have a passive essence cost? What if a creature gives birth and it brings my passive essence negative? There is just too much I don’t know still and I’m only halfway through the help functions cool down as well. Hopefully after I get everything set up some of this stuff just solves itself otherwise I’ll never be able to get through all this stuff with the help questions alone especially if the time between between answers keeps doubling and I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Hahhh I guess I just have to deal with the present for now cause there isn’t much to do about it.

As I summon the snakes I send a quick order to the Tyx just to make sure that things don’t have a rocky start of ‘don’t attack the snakes’ I’ll return it to the base order of protecting me and my hammock after a while but I’ll keep the active order as this while the two get used to each other so the Swarmlings can realise that my ‘Pack Vipers’, as I’m going to call them, aren’t a threat. I also intend to name one of them in hopes it turns into some kind of ‘Snake Chieftain’ since the point of naming monsters is to let them grow unconventionally: I’ll probably make it one of the females since I can imagine their society being matriarchal, actually I think I might modify the, slightly just to guarantee that so my named is actually able to become a leader. I’ll name the one I summon first so that they have a slight advantage due to their ‘seniority’ and I’ll give them a second to acclimate as well, I need to rig this race as thoroughly as possible after all.

Preparations complete I prepare to summon ‘Samantha’, the prospective leader of my snake clan, instated by an outside power against the will of the greater populace as in any civilised society and while she slowly begins to take shape at about a 10th of normal speed as seems to be the norm for the first summon of any monster I went back to optimising the new wolves, I figured from what I’ve learned making the pack snakes that the issue might be I need to alter them so they’re slightly leaner and reduce their muscle mass so that it works with the modified limbs, while I was implementing those changes I got stunned out of focus by a sudden notification.

Award achieved: Hand craft new variant; ‘Pack Viper’, 20 EXP rewarded

EXP Gained: 20/10; Level up! Level 1 achieved!