Let There Be Life

by Simon Archer

  “Master!” Queenie cried out in my mind, and Gobta was already pulling his forces back to assist me, but I cut all that off as I course-corrected and twisted past another skyscraper-sized tentacle.

  “I’m fine!” I sent back. I had the thing’s full, undivided attention, and even though just one full-on hit would turn me into divine paste, I was actually excited because this just made my plan easier to execute. “I’ve got a plan, and I need you guys to carry it out while I keep Mr. Squid here busy!”

  “Very well, my liege.” The Hobgoblin King pulled back his forces, while Queenie rallied her ants together. “But should we not protect you…?”

  Her voice cut him off indignantly. I’m sure she had a full-on pout too, but I was both too busy dodging to see, not to mention there was a comet-sized monster in the way. “Don’t question master! I know you haven’t been around long, but let me make it clear that master knows best! What is it we must do?”

  “You guys are going mining. Now that the ice is covered in fissures, it will be easy for you guys to get below the surface level of hard ice and take down its shell,” I sent as I barely swerved past another mighty slash of tentacles as I kept up a steady retreat away from the initial debris field. We needed that ice, after all, and who knew if this thing could rebuild its protective shell with the right materials? Instead, I was leading it toward another nearby cluster of asteroids hurtling through my system. “It doesn’t seem to even register you guys as threats, let alone our army, so I’ll keep it busy while you uncover that weak point! Shift whatever units you need to, anything to get it done as soon as possible.”

  The moment I noticed how little the Tartaran cared for my army, the answer to our dilemma was obvious, but it wasn’t until now that all the elements came together to put my plan into motion. All I had to do was survive a monolithic beast’s constant assault for however long it would take for my minions to do what they did best: harvest resources from planets.

  No problem. Or at least that’s what I told myself even as I realized that there was a problem, one I had foreseen, sure, but it was a problem all the same.

  And that problem hit me a split-second later as Queenie and Gobta diligently put my plan into motion, and to do that, they had to change a good half of the monsters I’d summoned out for ones better suited to the new plan. And that? That suddenly burned through a ton of Aura as not only were a host of Ant Scouts, Workers, and Hobgoblins brought out of Auric Limbo, but I had to infuse them with the godly essence they needed to survive in space. It was like someone slammed a keg tap into my soul and poured out fifty cold frosty mugs of my inner essence to pass around, but I gritted my teeth and kept my focus.

  Good thing that I did, because the cosmic kraken was clearly getting pissed off at the fact that it hadn’t eaten the little godly morsel that was me. As I dove downward, two giant tentacles swept through the space where I had just been. The strike was so close that I got a really good look at the crater-sized suckers that lined the limbs. They were each lined with spiky teeth with a glinting evil eye at the center. Classic cosmic horror that sent a chill up my spine.

  But that had been this thing’s chance to turn me into blood and gibs. While there wasn’t anything to suck more Aura from, I also wasn’t having to use any to defend myself, and since this kraken had a full-on hate boner for me after I broke that asteroid over it, I led the Tartaran on a merry chase toward the nearest cloud of asteroids in the system. I got a good glimpse of Queenie and Gobta leading my mighty army of miners to work on the rest of the icy shell. They were an armada of normal-sized ants and miniature hobgoblins going at the Tartaran’s protective crust. Chunks of ice the size of Buicks flew into space, creating a flashing trail of frozen water glistening in reflected sunlight.

  Fortunately, while this thing was stupidly strong and huge, it seemed to be pretty dense. The kraken continued to ignore my mining squad as it focused on me. Every swing and rush brought the Tartaran that much closer to me. While I was a hell of a lot more agile, this monster rocketed through space a lot faster, something scary impressive considering, you know, I was a god, and it was huge. At this rate, even if the tentacles didn’t smack me down, they would eventually trap me near its terrible beak.

  In fact, just as we reached the outer edge of the asteroids, that’s exactly what happened. Guess the thing just got frustrated because it slammed all its tentacles inward simultaneously to form an impenetrable curtain of doom around me. Everything went pitch black, which would have made the situation even scarier than it already was if I didn’t have God vision, as the tentacles cut off all view of the stars and planets around me. All that I had in that chunk of space was some floating hunks of rock, a razor-sharp beak that could chew up planets for breakfast, and scores of molten gold eyes glaring at yours truly.

  “Sooo,” I drew out, even though I couldn’t really speak in space, “how about we just call it a draw? I mean, I got a good lick in, and you obviously did real good right here.” Even though I knew it couldn’t hear me physically, it seemed to get the picture all the same. Not that I was serious, but if I could keep the kraken going for just a minute more… at least I hoped it would only take a minute more.

  All those eyes narrowed at me, pure, unadulterated alien hate behind them, but it seemed to want to listen. Good. I was about to go into the next part of my spiel when Queenie’s voice shot into my mind.

  “Master!” she cried with glee. “We found it! On the underside, a beating red heart thingie!”

  A grin split my lips as I reached out subtly with my Aura to the nearest asteroid pieces. “Stab the shit out of it, guys,” I sent back as I spoke out of the other side of my mouth to the kraken. “I mean, you don’t want to die, do you, big guy? Because that’s how this is going to end, you know.”

  A flash of dim realization at my change of attitude crossed all those eyes, and a collective wave of blinking eyes cascaded across the kraken’s tentacles and around the beak. Then its entire body spasmed, tendrils shaking and shuddering as its beak yawned wide in a silent scream of pain, a sensation this god-killing beast had probably never known before. I didn’t stick around for the inevitable encore of it going full ham on me, because I knew that no matter how strong Queenie and Gobta were, there was no way they would kill the Tartaran even at its weak point.

  I could, though. I clutched the large asteroid pieces in my hands, each a shard of stone the size of a telephone pole, and launched myself out through the gap between the flailing tentacles. As I followed the godly tethers to my friends, I infused what last bits of Aura I could spare into my two plus-sized stone daggers. The moment I was clear, I got a glimpse of just how much work my army had pulled off in mere minutes.

  A good half of the remaining shell had been peeled away in our mad rush across the solar system, revealing an even harder chitinous shell in the rough shape of a squid’s main body. The orange color would have made it hard to pick out the throbbing red organ Queenie had mentioned if I didn’t already have a direct line to follow toward it… but I did. True to the Ant Queen’s words, the weak point did resemble an exposed, beating human heart, well, if that heart was as big as a McMansion that was being beaten on by sixty mosquitoes.

  I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t talk. I just charged with every bit of speed I could muster, a trail of sapphire Aura blazing in my wake as I prepared to thrust both of the charged splinters of rock into the Tartaran’s weak point. My army blurred past me, scattering to make a clear path for me, and a blink of an eye later, I rocketed right into the glowing, pulsing, entirely unprotected mountain of flesh. There was a burst of exploding Aura as I drove my impromptu asteroid weapons with the same skill I’d strike with dual daggers, and that was immediately followed by a geyser of blood and gore as the entire thing just sort of popped like an overfull balloon.

  While most of my minions were able to get clear, I got a face full of the red, coppery goo as the torrent carried back into space. Then it immediately started to freeze and boil alte
rnately, depending on how much of it was exposed to direct sunlight in the unfiltered vacuum. I’m sure it would have smelled absolutely nasty if I could have smelled it, a small blessing indeed, and I wiped the gore from my face as I tried to refocus on the Tartaran itself. While that should have killed it, some of these beasts had multiple weak points that all needed to be destroyed or had so much health that a single all-out attack wasn’t enough.

  I got the confirmation in my head before I could see it with my actual eyes.

  You have killed creature: Nascent Comet Tartaran.

  You have leveled up. You gain three stat points and one skill point to distribute.

  As exciting as that was, not to mention the bit of endorphin rush that the new level brought with it, I still kind of wanted to just lay back and take a breather… but there was work to do, and there was no rest for the wicked or, in this case, the godly. Mental cheers from my army echoed over the godly link as I righted myself in space, took a deep non-breath, and pushed myself back toward the dying carcass of the Tartaran.

  “Great job, everyone,” I sent out over the link, “but the job’s only just started! We’ve got a Tartaran and a comet to harvest!”

  5

  As my faithful minions began the long, arduous task of mining the remains of the ice asteroid that had once encased the Tartaran so we could bring the valuable ice to Ares, I approached the creature’s corpse.

  “Might as well give it a go,” I said as I raised my hand and used Auric Extraction on the corpse.

  Pattern: Nascent Comet Tartaran has been learned. Would you like to create a Nascent Comet Tartaran? Please note, this is a special monster, and only one can be summoned at any given time. If you would like to summon more, you must defeat more.

  I was right about to jump for fucking joy when I realized a tiny problem. Even in my god form, it would take, quite literally, a hundred times my current Aura to summon the creature. Still, that meant that one day soon I’d be able to bring the creature to life, and when I did shit was going to get ten kinds of awesome.

  That done, I directed the rest of the miners to process the Tartaran’s massive corpse while I turned my attention to the level I’d gained. I was now level thirty-one, so that let me summon another two additional monsters, which I quickly did to aid in the mining. Then I added my skill point to Sense because, well, I hated when things snuck up on me, and despite being planet-sized, the Tartaran had done just that.

  Then I added two of my points to Strength and one to Intelligence. Admittedly, part of me wanted to add them all to Intelligence to increase my Aura so that I could summon the Tartaran sooner, but to even make a dent in the Aura cost for that thing, I’d have to devote myself solely to Intelligence for a truly ridiculous amount of levels. That would leave me way unbalanced, so I resisted the urge.

  Satisfied, I was about to teleport to Ares so that I could check on the planet’s oceans now that we were adding copious amounts of ice, but before I could, Gobta and Queenie both appeared in front of me. Only, they were behaving a bit oddly. Queenie wasn’t quite looking at me as she chewed on her fingernails nervously, while Gobta just seemed confused. It was an odd look on the Hobgoblin King since I’d never known anyone who was more sure of himself than Gobta.

  “What’s up?” I asked arching an eyebrow at the two of them.

  “Something strange has occurred, my liege,” Gobta said while casting a sidelong glance at Queenie before shifting his gaze back to me. “To both of us.”

  “Oh?” I asked, trying to hide my sudden concern because the last thing needed from me was to freak out. No, if anything, it seemed like they needed answers, so I did the obvious. I opened their status pages. “Ah.”

  Both Gobta’s and Queenie’s level bars were flashing like it did when the creature’s reached maximum level and needed to be upgraded.

  Sure enough, when I mentally nudged Queenie’s bar, I got a prompt.

  Special Creature, Queenie, Giant Ant Queen has reached maximum level and can no longer gain experience. She can now be upgraded to Elite Giant Ant Queen. Please note, doing so will reset her to level one. Would you like to upgrade Queenie, Giant Ant Queen?

  “I would,” I said, and my words caused a golden light to envelope Queenie. Like the upgrade had done with the non-special creatures, her level was reset to level one, but she retained all the stats she had gained from leveling.

  Satisfied, I turned to Gobta and repeated the process.

  “There we go,” I said with a smile. “Congratulations.”

  “Master,” Queenie said, and I realized she didn’t look as pleased as I thought she would be by her new status as Elite Giant Ant Queen. “What am I to do with skill points?”

  “What?” I asked, suddenly confused, and when I flicked my gaze to Gobta, he gave me a simple nod which let me know he had the same question. “I, uh, don’t know. Give me a second.”

  Once again, I opened their status screens, and this time I noticed a new icon that hadn’t been present before and when I toggled it, I got a new menu.

  When I opened it up, I got exactly what I was growing to suspect I’d see, a skills menu listing for both Queenie and Gobta, as well as plenty of menu space for more elite monsters. Now, I didn’t usually play a summons-based character in Terra Forma, but one of the reasons I’d become the champion of the game was because I did my research. I might not know every last nuance of the pet systems, but I knew enough to have a reasonably good understanding of what I was looking at.

  I mentally nudged open both Queenie and Gobta’s skill lists and organized the view before my eyes. Each of their skill trees started as I expected, with passive powers. For Queenie, it was Majestic Aura, a skill that increased the combat and gathering abilities of every Giant Ant creature, herself included, within an ever-growing range, while also providing lesser bonuses to other monster types.

  Gobta’s passive was Master of Life and Death. For every creature that Gobta killed or helped to kill, he regained a percentage of Aura from the kill, much like my own Auric Extraction, and every rank he had in the skill increased his stats by five percent.

  Both were solid utility skills, proper core abilities, but it was the ranking process that made things interesting.

  Similar to my own skills, the more points that were invested in their core passive skills, the more subskills were unlocked, as well as additional branches on the skill trees. Much like Terra Forma, I expected many of these skills to be generated procedurally, but with this being real life, I wondered if it was really so random as that. Maybe there was some grand divine entity rolling the dice and playing an elaborate game of God-tier Terra Forma or something.

  I brushed that aside. It was pointless philosophy, not when Earth, my mom, and all other life in the universe was at stake. Refocusing on the task at hand, I saw that Queenie and Gobta both had five skill points to spend.

  “Okay, so, these skill points?” I began to explain. “You can spend them on special skills that give you more power than you had before. Your first skills are uncovered so--”

  “We should spend these points all now, then,” Gobta roared triumphantly. “Mine seems to make my necromantic power grow to even more staggering heights!” I thought he was about to break into maniacal laughter, but I cut him off real quick.

  “Hold on, Gobta,” I warned. “See those blackened-out arrows leading off that core skill? Those could unlock at any point as you raise your core skill, and if you blow everything at once, you might miss a crucial unlock. You won’t be able to purchase that new skill until you get more levels, and if you just so happen to have needed it…” I let my voice trail off to imply the disaster that would be.

  “So, I should invest enough points to unlock other skills and then see how I feel about them?” Gobta asked, and when I nodded, he seemed more than satisfied.

  Queenie smiled brightly, her confusion melting away. “So, master, do you wish us to use your infinite wisdom to decide on our skills? Or… would you wish us
to spend these ourselves?”

  I hadn’t even considered the fact that they might want me to spend their points for them because Queenie and Gobta were more than mere minions. I’d just assumed they could and would actually want to spend their own points. It made sense when I thought about it for a second. These were actual living, breathing creatures, but they technically only existed because of the Aura I pumped into them.

  “Well, Queenie,” I began thoughtfully, “that is up to you and Gobta. I can micromanage your skill expenditures if you want, but at the same time, I trust both of you. You’re smart, you understand what your role is on our adventures, and I know you’d both ask me if there was a hard choice you needed my advice on.”

  Queenie’s multifaceted eyes sparkled as she clasped her hands together and shimmied a little. “You would trust us that much? But… we are simply extensions of your will and--”

  “Stop.” I cut her off with a finger on her lips and flashed her a smile. “You’re a lot more than just a minion or a monster or even an Ant Queen, especially to me.” A tinge of red played across the shining green of her cheeks as I glanced over at Gobta. “And while you haven’t been part of the team as long, you were literally on the cusp of taking over most of Bazaar. If we hadn’t stopped you, you probably would have. You know what it takes to win at the end of the day.”

  The Hobgoblin King actually let a small smile crack his craggy visage before clapping his fist to his chest in a salute. “You honor me, my liege. I will not let your trust in me be for naught.”

  Likewise, Queenie smiled and took my hand, using that grip to pull herself in for a quick kiss. “I won’t let you down either, master, and if I have any questions, I will ask.”