Three days of travel went by without much incident. The plains opened wider and even more featurelessly before us, the grasses swaying in the wind. Behind us, the barest hint of the Sheer Pass shadowed the horizon, the only visible mark of our passage beyond the impermanent path we’d worn down in the grass. The prey was present even if not abundant, small rodents fleeing before our passage as well as large flightless birds faster than any of the keelish or khatif, deer-like animals with feathered wings and snakes with two heads. I made sure not to hunt any of them myself, so as to reserve the final addition to my quest for a particularly powerful creature.

Thinking on it, it had been quite a while since last I had checked my [Status], so I opened it as the swarm continued forward.

[Status:

Name: Ashlani

Race: Sonic Khatif Swarm Alpha

Titles: Killer of Redael

Fahvalo of the Moonchildren

NEW: Chosen of Nievtala

Current quests:

–Destroy or subjugate a non-keelish people. Must have a population of at least 1000 individuals and person-level intelligence. Rewards: Constitution, Strength +10, Agility +15, Intelligence, Magic +8.

--Speak the Keel Words of Power. Rewards: Constitution, Strength, Agility +10, Intelligence, Magic +7. Hidden Rewards also available.

—Hunt, kill, and devour 5 new species. Rewards: Varies by evolutionary level of prey. Progress: 4/5

Stats:

-Constitution: 118

-Strength: 131

-Agility: 137

-Intelligence: 145

-Magic: 127

Skills:

Innate Leadership—cannot evolve

Innervating Address–cannot evolve

Debilitating Diatribe–cannot evolve

Crippling Cry–cannot evolve

Pack Tactics—current evolutionary progress: 7/10

Combatant's Bloodlust—current evolutionary progress: Hidden

True Dominance—current evolutionary progress: 2/10

Raptor’s Eyes--cannot evolve

Exceptional Sonilphon—current evolutionary progress: Hidden

Evolutionary foresight

-Sonic Keel Alpha—Requirements: Acquire the Keel Words of Power (incomplete), Receive the Blessing of Nievtala (Acquired)

-Khatif Heretic–Requirements: learn how to bend the governing laws to your will.

Other evolutions possible, but not currently foreseen.]

For the first time, I thought about what the numbers of my status meant. I’d started with a range of 2-6, and now I was well into the 100’s with each, but I still didn’t know what exactly each of those meant. What was a normal keelish’s numbers like? Or a khatif? Or a human?

[The standard for Constitution, Strength, and Agility for an adult keelish is 10. Intelligence, 4. Magic, 0. The standard for Constitution, Strength, and Agility for an adult khatif is 45, Intelligence, 30, Magic, 10. The standard of a human is hidden… The Administrator has deemed the user worthy of that information, given the user’s past life. The standard for Constitution, Strength, Agility, and Intelligence for an adult human is 50. Magic, 60.]

If that was the case… then humanity had a large leg up on even khatif at birth, especially with regards to Intelligence and Magic. That did begin to explain the difficulty keelish experienced in learning magic, and how it requires a literal evolution to become able to use magic. But with the evolution to khatif… it seemed that learning how to use magic, even if it wasn’t particularly powerful, should be much easier. But how does one learn how to use magic without the [System] to guide them?

But wait… if humans were so much higher in stats than keelish, how had we been able to kill the expeditionary force? Or wipe out the town for that matter?

[The cruel and cutthroat nature of keelish’s upbringing tends to lead them, as a race, to develop skills and tenacity beyond their physical limitations. Additionally, your swarm is, as a whole, more developed and aggressive than others. Humans, and the Veushten people specifically, live more privileged lives, and typically they are not forced or taught to exert themselves to their pinnacle.]

So if they had worked as hard as us, then they would have been much stronger? Obviously so. I should have thought of that, I hadn’t realized that my perception had been so twisted by my new body. I knew that keelish were small and weak, but because I had become one, I’d begun to forget just how wide that gulf was. Considering how much stronger I was than a standard Khatif, an outstanding High Speaker must be at least twice as powerful as I was. Not a comforting thought…

Around me the swarm continued our march east, happy and excited noises echoing over the plains, dwarfed by our surroundings, while I felt dwarfed by the realization of my own inability, the fallibility of my mind, and the weakness of the swarm. The hope of killing Viilor, getting revenge on the High Speakers that had destroyed the swarm, neither came close to the sudden, burning need to find Nievtra and, by extension, the Keel Words of Power. Nothing would be sure until I got my swarm onto at least the same level as the rest of the peoples that we’d made enemies of, but if the increase in standard status from keelish to khatif was to be believed, then we would take the place of a higher people even than humanity with our evolution.

Finally rousing myself from my inwardly focused stupor, I looked out from myself and truly saw what was before us. There was a slight downward slope, allowing me to really notice the slight difference of life in the land before us. The previous numbers of the wildlife swelled to more than three times that of just a few miles behind us. In the distance I could see a herd of huge grazing beasts I didn’t recognize, their horns curling over themselves and spreading dangerously forward. Other birds of prey large enough to carry away an adult keelish or a smaller Sik’Tal khatif flew and swooped down near the creatures before us. To the north was a river that flowed towards where we came from, to the sea in the west.

The air smelled different, almost reminiscent of the jungle where we were born. It wasn’t the moisture, the plains were arid, but instead there was an indescribable vivaciousness to the air that only a few minutes of travel had brought. Somehow, I knew we had entered a new land, even without a sign, [System]ic or otherwise.

One step closer to Nievtra, one step closer to evolution, the next step towards answers.