August turned towards the lake and started forward, listening as the two Efkini gave up on their struggle for the top spot in order to follow after him. Neptune must have spotted their approach because he cut a line towards them in the shallows.

“Hello, Neptune,” August said, wincing at how cold the water was on his feet. “Look, we’ve got a new friend now. Let’s call him—uh—Morningstar. Morningstar, meet Neptune.”

Morningstar stopped stomping in the shallows for a moment and trilled out a possible greeting. Neptune gave a ponderous shake of his head as if to say, ‘not another one,’ and then clacked his jaws shut.

“Sorry to be a bother, but do you think you could lure something out for us?” August asked, “You’ve been working hard all day, so I thought we’d let you play the role of bait instead of doing all the fighting.”

Neptune turned and ambled back into the water until it could submerge itself completely, then vanished beneath the waterline.

“Come up here,” August said, holding his hands out.

Both of the creatures used his hands as a springboard to get up to his shoulders, and then he flinched as the cold water soaking their legs ran down his back. Once they were settled in properly, he tried to wipe some of the water off the small of his back, but it had already started to warm up on contact with his skin.

“Make sure you don’t hit Neptune,” August said, repeating the instruction he’d given Ladybug the first time. “Ladybug, you take the first shot; if you miss, Morningstar will go next, got it?”

Another pair of trills that he’d come to associate with understanding. Neptune’s rippling trail angled sideways suddenly and then again back towards them, as it was joined by a second, larger trail. The water split as Neptune reached the shallows again, and then a Mitikos that must have been at least twice as large surged up after him.

“Scratch that; both of you hit it at once,” August said, frowning. “Get ready—now.”

One of the chain spikes hit the Mitikos directly in the face, and the other one smashed into its front leg with a crack that split the leg in half. Neptune, apparently not content to only serve as bait, swerved around in a circle before coming back again. Neptune crashed into the large monster’s flank with another massive crack—but by that point, it was already dead.

Ladybug has reached Level 6.

You have levelled up.

August hadn’t been expecting the level up, and when he did a quick check, he found that his current exp was already sitting at [240/1100]. Since he had already preselected what he was going to put the point into, he navigated through the menu until he found it.

1/5 – Prey I

Remaining still decreases the likelihood of being found; +5 bonus to stealth per level.

He backed out of the [Survival] tree and then did a quick check over [Leadership] to help plan where his next point was going to go—and found four new skills that hadn’t existed the last time he’d been in there.

0/10 – Ruler II

Others are more willing to follow you. +1 Population limit.

0/1 – Taskmaster

Allows members of your faction to choose or accept jobs. Jobs automatically grant five basic blueprints and many other unseen benefits. Current Jobs: Gatherer, Builder, Tailor, Cook, Courtesan, Guard.

0/1 – Specialist

If there are more than 5 faction members in a single job, increase experience gain by 15%.

0/5 – Group Project

When two or more faction members are working on a single task, increase experience gain by 10%.

“Where did you come from?” August said.

The two stand-out occurrences were that he’d just levelled up again and that he’d put a total of four skill points into the [Leadership] tree. He hadn’t seen them in the menu last night, but he’d back out of the menu without checking after he’d placed his points in, so if they had unlocked then, he might have simply missed it.

[Taskmaster] stood out as the most immediately useful of all the four skills and, depending on what kind of blueprints it actually unlocked, could make things significantly easier, or it could be things he’d already figured out already. The term [Current jobs] hinted that there might be other, more useful jobs unlocked, each with its own blueprints. [Specialist] was entirely reliant on its parent skill to be useful as well.

The existence of [Ruler II] meant that they wouldn’t be permanently capped at eleven members, which was good. Maxing out the first and second levels would give them a total of twenty-one slots. Confirmation of a new tier of skills being unlocked also meant that there might be more tiers available, should he spend enough skill points in either tree. The final skill [Group Project] would have been useful right now, considering that he and Rittan were currently working on a task together. August backed out of the menu; he could deal with his buyer’s regret later; for now, he had a dead Mitikos to drag up to the camp.

“Thank you, Neptune,” August said, patting the creature on the head. “Go on, get some rest.”

Neptune returned to the lake, sinking back beneath the water and out of sight. August ducked down and hesitantly approached the corpse, wrapping his hands around its front leg. He dug his heels into the shallows and began hauling it back out of the water. The creature was heavy, and the deadweight made the process even more annoying. He made it halfway back before Rittan joined him.

“May I?” Rittan said.

“Save me,” August said, straightening up. “I’m completely out of juice at this point—remind me never to get into a woodcutting contest with you next time.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” Rittan laughed before picking the Mitikos straight up off the ground.

Kalter and Boko were dragging the logs over to lay next to their respective holes, and Haiku was elbow deep in the [Kiln], fiddling with the water jugs that had been inside for the majority of the day. August broke off from Rittan, leaving him the task of butchering the Mitikos again.

He restocked the fire in the main hut, making sure it was ready for the night, before moving over to the second one and began building a new fire for himself. After a week of making, restocking and lighting them, he’d gotten well used to the task. By the time both fires were ready, and there was enough firewood stockpiled next to both to last the night, the sky was already dark.