Born a Monster

It was much like any day at the lake. I brought snacks and coal and sunburn ointment. Enjoyed cooking fish in sugar batter, got in a quick dip in the lake myself, and otherwise watched as my siblings got into a dirt hurling contest versus some minotaur children.

I sent, rushing in.

he replied, sending the entire sensation of getting stomped into the ground.

I asked.

he admitted.

I told him. After all, I didn’t want him getting the wrong message; if someone tried to bully him, I absolutely wanted him to think of [Acid Spit] as a tool to defend himself with.>

I had to repeat that twice before he sent back the same message to me.

I was trying to consider whether or not he truly understood when he asked:

.....

I said.

Okay, it wasn’t the kind of prose that ended up immortalized in theater, but I was able to confirm transmission of ideas. My siblings were beginning to communicate.

Blue asked.

Where had they been exposed to THAT? Even on a mountain, there is limited Ice mana, and thus limited frozen treats. But... it was a highly compact source of energy. In the end, I decided I wanted a creamed sugar, also.

“Your children,” a minotaur father said to me, “seem to be highly aggressive for their size.”

I shrugged, “There isn’t a lot around here that is their size.” Hey, wait, he didn’t think I was a parent, did he?

“They will end up getting hurt, if they keep acting that way.”

“It is not possible to live a life without pain.” I said. “I do what I can to keep them from learning life’s harsh truths the way that I have, but in the end, free will means the decisions will be theirs. Sooner than I prefer, according to the parents I’ve spoken to.”

“And you’ve made arrangements for them to be cared for if you die, perhaps suddenly?” he asked.

“I’m not certain how the one thing relates to the other, but yes, I have a written and recorded will, in the custody of my coin-keepers.”

“Good, good.” he said. “Do you know when you’ll be returning to the arena?”

I shrugged. “I suppose whenever my training as a Tunnel Warden is completed.”

“Oho. I should have guessed.”

“Guessed at what?” I asked, “Why?”

“One of the most dangerous in the arena selects one of the most dangerous assignments?”

“I’m not a death-seeker.” I said. “But that is where the most volume and consistency of coin is.”

“And coins matter more to you than your life?”

I shrugged. “What the coins buy is worth risk to my life. Some would call that an academic distinction.”

He shook his head violently. “I did not come here for philosophy. Just a friendly nudge, one parent to another.”

But otherwise, the day was much like any other vacation day with the siblings; I cooked, I kept them from endangering other children (as other parents intervened when their own kids tried playing a game of ‘stomp the turtle head’, which I suspect was improvised on the spot), and when the sun was setting, I called the children from the water and toweled off their fur.

Blue asked.

I sent.

Violet asked, sending a clear picture of the woods.

I sent, with an image of their cubicle.

Their response was immediate; Violet removed me from our family grouping, and all three of my siblings raced toward the water.

I made no move to stop them, this was time for a different tactic normally reserved for parents. I waited to see how bad their plan was.

It was, for what they knew of the world, not a bad plan. They followed the water downstream.

Parallel to the river, I followed them, pulling ahead only when we neared the first waterfall. It was the disaster one would expect, with the children racing toward the edge, blissfully unaware of the danger. A quick [Move Water: Water Wall] to divert the current, and I was able to demonstrate for them with a rock how their escape would have ended.

I sent, only slightly offended when my request to rejoin the group was ignored.

The kids were asleep when I got them back to their cage-maze. Noticing they had no bedding or nest area, I supplied them with the towels in a corner, leaving them asleep. Rumorg told me later that they tore these apart, using them to jam or gunk up the various devices and obstacles of the maze.

I instructed him to have an artisan come in, and take apart a towel, and weave it into rope. Like children, they didn’t take the hint, and so didn’t get more towels.

Ugh! Was I this annoying as a child, before my brain grew? Early experiences with Kismet suggesting that yes, I had been, I decided not to worry about it. So why hadn’t the centaurs ever complained about it?

The truth of life is that you never really learn the motivations of another. Well, maybe high level Telepaths get there, but a quick look through my System suggested that maybe they were just as baffled as the rest of us.

Two days later, the group of trainees was smaller.

“What happened?” I asked Morrg, a trainee who was usually willing to answer questions (and only answer questions, or ask them).

“Internal transfers.” he said. “Still warriors, just not – not us. Except Romulus. He’s gone Temple caste, after his mother. Said we need more healers.”

“Good for them, I guess.”

Morrg shrugged.

Bitaxes only said “When more of the survivors return.” and ran us through our usual routine. After hours, I would stop by the infirmary cubicle, and help how I could. There was little time to tap anything save Shadow and Dream mana, so my magical help was limited, which didn’t seem to upset Kasithma.

But there were impacts. The survivors tended to be terse, almost dour. Lessons on cavern ecology were mingled with questions of tactics. Perhaps, above all, there was a clearer desire toward stealth than collection of bounties.

And – there was a knowledge that most patrols were three or fewer Tunnel Wardens, and the veteran ones went out alone. I hesitate to call it fear; being of different biology, the dwarves experienced emotions differently than we meat-biologicals do.

For two days, I lived in fear, and then I finally pinned it down and it was just mana. And yes, from a certain point of view, that is cheating. In another sense, I chose not to live in fear. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have vast defenses against emotions that might get me killed. Besides, as those who use emotional mana know, emotions more readily transmute into other emotions. It was too useful a resource to leave there just hindering me.

In the end, we all received promotions; I ended up being larval cave pig. This isn’t quite the honor one might imagine it. Cave pigs, while useful to minotaurs, were just tools for converting biological things into sewage to the dwarves.

And, incidentally, all of us were supposed to help the new slugs and beetles find their way to the “true path”. This was less of a cult thing than it sounds, and also far less unified.

Oh. And two people graduated, being led off into the dark by a veteran Cave Warden. I would meet one of them later, but let me not get ahead of myself.

Over the next few days, the infirmary emptied, and the training grounds slowly... well, became less empty.

And then, there were cartloads of salt.

“New slugs coming in tomorrow.” Bitaxes explained. “Lay down the track.”

And we did; with all the cunning and bizarre twists and loops and spirals that we’d hated as slugs, we laid in our path.

“Idiots!” Bitaxes said, before we were more than half finished. “Save some tricks for the later weeks. Straight and broad for now. You know the order.”

I don’t know where the push-brooms came from, but we made use of them. Lucky slugs.

You may know this frozen candy by other names, like Frozen Cream Sugar, or Ice Cream. In spite of the behavior of children, it doesn’t actually seem to be more addictive than any other sugary treat. And yes, I now know there are non-magical ways to create it.

Because tapping raw stone weakens its structure, it is against the law to just tap for Earth mana in most dwarven cities. The actual Node being property of the Arcane caste... yeah, I wasn’t getting access to that.

Although dwarven artisans understand and work with leather, it is regarded as an inferior material, if one that is flexible. It is more like cloth to them than anything else, except that was rarer and more expensive. It was a material to use only when other materials just wouldn’t suffice.