Let There Be Life

by Simon Archer

  “What’s up, pussycat?” I asked as I approached the pair of them. “I’m surprised you decided to come here from the Hall.”

  “I had no choice.” Jodie sighed as she fidgeted with the nearly uncontainable energy all catgirls seemed to have. Like usual, she was dressed in a pair of grease-stained overalls that barely covered her rather substantial assets, and her long red hair was tied back with a blue bandana.

  “I’m sorry for being so dumb,” Elephelie crowed, her entire face flushing as she looked at her feet. “I just couldn’t figure out how to set up the things you sent me.” She gave me a pleading gesture. “And this stuff is so expensive. I worried I’d break it.”

  “Thank you for helping out, Jodie,” I said as the catgirl crossed her arms, practically forcing the top of her breasts to spill out of her overalls. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Whatever,” she said as she wiped her forehead with one arm. “The setup fee is coming out of your pocket, so what do I care?” Her tail shot back and forth angrily as she spoke. “And I’m charging you for twice as many hours.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I laughed. “So, how is the smoker coming? Because we’re going to have a lot of fish to process soon.”

  “How?” Elephelie said, her mouth practically dropping open. “The water is so dangerous.”

  “He probably got a bunch of those plastic rings they used for soda cans and threw them into the water.” Jodie shrugged. “You know, one catches one fish. Well, a million will catch a million fish.” She smacked the smoker with the flat of one hand. “Should I start building a slurry machine?”

  “It’s not quite that complicated,” I said with a laugh. “We killed a King Fisher and used it to hunt the depths. It will work for now, but once I leave, it won’t be sustainable.” I waved it off. “Actually, that’s something I want to talk to you about, Jodie. Assuming, of course, the smoker is actually ready to go.”

  “It is,” Jodie said with a shrug. “What else do you want me to do?”

  “Their elevators are trash. We need a better system to haul up the catches from the deep. It doesn’t have to be terribly complicated or anything, but it needs to deal with a lot of weight. The fishes here are huge.”

  “I’ll be the judge of how complicated it needs to be,” Jodie said with a wicked glint in her eye. “And yes, I can handle that.” She shot a glance at Elephelie. “The smoker is easy. You just put things inside it and hit the button here.” She pointed to a red button before pointing to a touch screen. “Then this screen will count down. When it reaches zero, and the alarm goes off, whatever was inside will be done.” She stepped around to the back of the contraption, and as I followed her, I saw a huge pile of wood pellets. “When the red light on top flashes, add a scoop of pellets here.” She tapped on a small door in the back. “That’s it.”

  “Got it!” Elephelie did a little salute. “You can count on me.”

  “Swell.” Jodie didn’t seem to believe the princess, or if she did, she definitely needed to work on things like body language and tone. “I guess we can go. I’ll look at what’s there and then come back to check on her.” She thumbed at the princess. “Then I’ll head to the Bazaar for supplies.” She met my eyes. “Try to find something we can sell by then.”

  31

  It didn’t take long for things to feel like they were coming together. Thanks to her skill with all things mechanical and a fair bit of gold from my pocketbook, Jodie had quickly rigged up an elevator system that was both easy for the Amorphie to operate manually and efficiently. Then, after upgrading the existing elevators above the mats, she set about reproducing them all around the town.

  The whole ‘leeching the acid from the seeds’ process had also turned out to be rather successful, and now, the Amorphie had another source of nutrients. Even Ishmael was having some success in teaching the Amorphie basic fishing stuff, and those guys were regularly bringing in hauls of small fish that had the advantage of not needing the waters patrolled by King Fishers.

  And therein was the problem.

  Despite Queenie maintaining a dozen or so King Fishers to patrol the waters below the town and Gobta laying siege to all the monsters living in the sea trees, the damn things kept coming.

  In fact, thanks to all the kills, I’d actually reached level forty-six even though the vast majority of the creatures being killed where now white monsters and provided a miniscule amount of experience. Hell, most of my King Fishers had actually been upgraded, and that said nothing of my Elite Spiguars.

  And still, it was like we hadn’t put a dent in the monsters around the village. The moment, and I do mean the moment, we stopped patrolling, the planet’s creatures rushed back in to take what we’d built.

  “Here’s my worry,” I said after Zemia had finished letting me know about the latest haul from the King Fishers. “While it is great that we have enough meat to satisfy the dietary needs of your three villages,” I nodded to the princesses and Hudson, “this is not sustainable.”

  “I agree,” Hudson said as he shifted his weight. “Transferring food and supplies from here to the villages of Night and Day is putting a strain on my king’s resources. He has to send multiple Spiguars every time, and they must make multiple trips every day because they cannot carry much throughout the day.” He glanced at Jodie. “Isn’t there anything you can do about that?”

  “I’m trying,” Jodie growled. “It’s your stupid level of technology. It’s difficult to clear the path through the sea trees and build bridges that can withstand the weight of the carts we would need to carry everything. And that ignores the problem that you can’t actually build carts with your current resources. Then, even if you could build the roads and the carts, you wouldn’t have the manpower to actually move carts big enough for it to be worthwhile.” She swept her hands outward. “Unless you have pack animals I haven’t seen because everything here seems to be some variation of insect, fish, or carnivorous plant.”

  “That is why I propose we bring the people from Night and Day here.” Hudson let his gaze move around the room. “With the Princesses’ magic and Jodie’s ingenuity, we can easily expand this village to accommodate everyone. Then we will be able to feed everyone easier.”

  “Will you though?” I asked, and when I spoke, everyone looked at me. “Really?”

  “We are doing it now, my liege,” Hudson gave me a confused look. “Only with a lot more effort than is necessary because of the wasted effort of transport.”

  “This is true,” Zemia agreed. “As much as I would hate to abandon the village of Night, I do agree that moving my people here would make things easier, especially because I am here. It would also allow us to put more people with Ishmael and Gobta to be trained as hunters and fishers.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said as I turned toward Elephelie who had busily working away in the far corner. “What do you think?”

  “I agree with my sister and the High Priest. Moving everyone here eases the burden on everyone.” She didn’t even bother to look up from her work when she spoke, but I supposed she didn’t need to.

  “And what happens when I leave?” I asked as I looked around. “Because, as you all have said, you simply cannot harvest the seeds without Queenie patrolling the waters, and you cannot hunt without Gobta.” I glanced at Melanie, who had joined us via hologram. “Go ahead and tell them, Mel.”

  “Well,” the blonde catgirl said, “while everyone is leveling up, it will take the better part of two months just for your people to be proficient in hunting and fishing. And that’s really, really great.” She smiled. “That’s plenty of time to meet our estimates, but we also need ten times the amount of people we currently have. Bringing Night and Day here will not be enough Amorphie to accomplish that.”

  “I am confused, my liege,” Hudson said after silence had stretched between us. “It seems your scientist agrees that we must combine the villages, but that is somehow not the correct suggestion?”

  “Yes and no.” I
rubbed my face. “I agree with everyone that we should bring the villagers here, so let’s get on that. I also think we need to reach out to the other tribes and bring them here.”

  “We can do that,” Zemia said with a nod. “I will begin after this meeting.”

  “Good,” I said with a sigh. “That doesn’t solve the other two problems, though.”

  “Namely,” Jodie piped up before anyone could say anything, “that once Garrett leaves, you will lose the ability to harvest the seeds since they attract predators, so we need a way to do it that doesn’t involve putting them in the ocean or find a way for you to effectively guard your own waters.” She glanced at me, and when I nodded to show she was on the right track, she continued. “To do that, we need to be able to trade with the Bazaar, but, so far, we haven’t found anything we can actually trade to them that they want. Even if we had extra fish or seeds or whatever to sell, it wouldn’t be worth much because they have no special qualities.”

  “Exactly.” I looked at the people in the room. “We are burning money with every improvement Jodie makes, and while I can fund this for a little longer, it isn’t sustainable. Not when we consider how quickly we go through basic things like spears, fishing supplies, and canteens.” I gestured at Elephelie. “Hell, even the firewood she’s using in that small oven is imported.”

  “I thought your scientist was working on creating a woodier plant that we could grow ourselves?” Hudson asked as he looked at Melanie. “And better animals we could domesticate?”

  “I am trying my best, but for what you need we really require a genetic recombiner, and we simply do not have the funds for one at this time.” Melanie scratched at her ear for a moment. “Even just paying Jane’s Guild to use theirs is so expensive it would be prohibitive, especially when we consider it's just to make the Amorphie equivalent of firewood and pack mules.”

  “There is one other thing we could try,” Elephelie said as she finished up whatever she was doing and pulled it out of the oven. “I recall Veronica mentioning that our planet was rich in mineral resources.” She came over to us. “Could we not utilize your King Fishers to excavate some of those? I know that originally you had wanted Queenie to do it, and since she’s been tied up with patrols she has been unable to do it, but since we have enough food for the next little while, perhaps we cease the patrols and see if she can recover some?”

  “That isn’t a bad idea.” I glanced at Melanie. “How many days of food do we have, assuming we provide for Zorak, Night, and Day?”

  “About four days of food, but that will take everything,” the blonde girl said as she looked at her notes. “It would be less if we could eat Spiguar, but we also aren’t close to synthesizing an antidote for their poison on a scale that makes it worth using their flesh for food.”

  “Okay, and what is our rate of food capture?” I asked as I mulled over Elephelie’s suggestion. It wasn’t something the Amorphie could do on their own, of course, but if we could mine some of the riches out of the planet, perhaps we could get an infusion of cash that would allow us to make it sustainable.

  “Every day, we are capturing about one and a half days of food.” Melanie hit a button, and the data appeared in my vision.

  “Great,” I said with a nod. “Let’s do this then. Bring Night and Day here and talk to the surrounding tribes to get them to come over here. Then, once everyone is here, and we hit seven days of reserve supplies, we can have Queenie try her hand at mining.” I smiled at Elephelie. “Great idea. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome.” Elephelie beamed as she came over to me and placed a small item in front of me that oddly smelled really good, especially since I’d been eating nothing but fruit and fish for days.

  “What is this?” Hudson asked as Elephelie served the rest of them.

  “It’s something I heard about from Queenie,” Elephelie said as she sat down at the table next to me. “I made them by grinding the sea tree seeds into flour. I mixed that with water and added a dash of red reed for sweetness. Then I made tiny circles and cooked them on the stove.” She smiled brightly. “They’re called pancakes, and Queenie says they’re supposed to make everything better.”

  32

  “I’m surprised you made it out here, Garrett,” Ishmael said as he looked up from his fishing pole. “What with building houses for all the new Amorphie, lamenting your quickly diminishing supply of funds, and watching your experience bar move up so incrementally slow that you might actually be losing experience instead of gaining it.” He grinned. “Your words, not mine.”

  “Hey, man,” I said a bit more indignantly than I’d like. “It’s been over a week, and despite Gobta and Queenie grinding through monsters like it’s going out of style, I’m barely halfway through level forty-seven.”

  “Oh, boo hoo.” He made tear motions at his eyes with his fists. “All the monsters are too low level for me to level up anymore.” He snorted. “So, have you come here to learn or to complain about how you’ve made no progress on finding the cause of what made this planet into a predator’s playground?”

  “To be fair,” I said as I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly, “I also managed to get everyone from Night and Day settled into Zorak while making sure we were on track to have enough surplus food to last a week.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he came over to me and offered me the fishing pole he’d been preparing. “But the time for jibber-jabber is later.” He shook the pole. “Either fish or get off my mat.”

  “Understood,” I said and took the pole. It was a normal fishing pole that had cost me only two copper, but as I held it in my hands, I got two buffs that I hadn’t been expecting. The first increased my chance to catch a fish successfully by twelve percent per level of fishing skill, which was less useful since I didn’t even have the fishing skill yet. The second one was more interesting, though.

  You have received the enhancement: I’m Not Worthy. While fishing, creatures too difficult to catch will ignore your hook.

  “So, that’s how you’ve been doing this and not getting eaten.” I smirked as I put the pole against my shoulder.

  “Indeed.” He gestured to the Amorphie fishermen around the mats. “Otherwise, we’d all be dead.” His face soured. “You know firsthand what’s down there. Now come over here so I can learn you properly.”

  “That I do,” I said as I moved over to him. “So, what do I do?”

  “Just cast it in like this,” he said, eyeing me carefully before casting into the water.

  “Like this?” I said as I let loose a nearly perfect imitation of his cast. Yeah, I’d been trained at fishing. It was a useful skill in Terra Forma, after all.

  You have learned the skill Fishing. Increasing your skill will increase your ability to catch fish and other aquatic creatures.

  “Show off,” he mused a moment before his pole bent under the strain of a bite, and he expertly set the hook and then began to reel it in with practiced ease. A moment later, he reeled the struggling fish in and held it up for me to see.

  “Not bad,” I said as I beheld the two-foot-long fish with purple scales and a shitload of spines on it. “Is that good to eat?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Too much work. I’ll chop it up, and we can use it for bait though.”

  “Is it good bait…?”

  My words were cut off as something jerked so hard on my line, I nearly lost my balance. I grabbed onto my pole, and as I did, I tried to remember everything I’d ever learned about fishing because one thing was instantly clear, whatever was on this line was pulling hard.

  “Take a deep breath,” Ishmael said as he came over to me. “Don’t freak out.”

  “Easier said than done,” I growled as the pole practically bent in half.

  “Just let it have some line, then reel a bit. You want the fish to get tired,” he tapped the pole with a finger, “and also not snap your line or pole.”

  I did as he suggested, letting some line out, and as I did, the strain
on the pole eased. Then, when it seemed like there was a lull, I began to reel. Immediately, something pulled hard, but this time, I just repeated what Ishmael had told me, and after a while, we settled into a pattern where I’d reel it in a bit, then it would pull the line again.

  “Okay, now just keep reeling,” Ishmael said after a couple of minutes. “Whatever is on there is not fighting nearly as hard now.”

  I did as he commanded and reeled like the Devil himself. Not long after, I saw something large and black swirling in the water beneath me, and as I stared at it, the pole gave a jerk so hard that I nearly fell in the water. The pole started to slip from my grasp as I tottered forward, arms flailing to keep my balance, so I did the only thing I could possibly do.

  I used magic.

  I pumped Aura into my muscles and jerked myself back into position before grabbing hold of my rod with both hands. Then I used more Aura, sending it surging into the pole as I focused on reeling that blasted fish in. The black swirling shape I’d seen had disappeared back into the depths below, but I didn’t let that get me down as I began to reel in earnest.

  That’s when I felt the pole start to give, felt the line get a bit too tense, but I compensated for that with Aura. It was hard to explain exactly, but I wound up picturing the pole and line like a brick wall. Every time a crack would appear, I’d throw some spackle over it, and when a brick came loose, I’d mortar it back into place. Behind me, I could vaguely hear Ishmael offering advice, and I tried my best to follow it.

  My hands began to ache, and my muscles started to burn, and even though I’d been compensating by flushing my system and items with Aura, a quick glance at my bar let me know I’d dropped almost sixty percent of my Aura in a matter of moments.

  And still, this fucker wasn’t coming out of the water. Worse, I knew it was going to keep fighting long after I was spent.

  “Just let the line out. It will tire itself out while you rest, and then you can try again,” Ishmael said, and as he put his hand on my shoulder, something inside me snapped.