I woke up on day 16 and it was a bit cooler than the days before. I remember thinking to myself that it was quite strange how the clouds didn't attack us yet. 'They had been preparing for days... Are they waiting for me to make my first move?' I thought to myself as I started my daily routine of eating and checking up on my fellow snails. On a side-note, I noticed that I was getting hungrier every day. 'Apparently, that leaf from a few days ago wasn't enough...' I thought to myself. I ignored my hunger and tried to eat a normal amount as I counted my siblings.
One... two... three... 4... I counted them as I passed by and some would wake up because of me. "Good morning," I told them as they woke. For of the snails, I showed them a special gesture of affection that only a big brother can give to their siblings. I first distracted them with some speech, like talking about my plans for the day. With their focus on my head, I would use my giant foot and...
I would poke them with my foot and scare them! What did you expect I was going to do? Hilariously they would twitch and hide into their shells instantly. It was quite a funny sight. Oh how I loved to joke around...
As time passed and I continued my rounds around, the leaf I looked back into the sky. 'I don't know what they are thinking.' I turned my head to the sky and scoffed. "Come on and attack, already! I'm getting tired of waiting." I yelled out. Yup, it was the best decisions that I had made that day. I was trying to be sarcastic.
Why you ask?
You know that feeling when you forget you're not supposed to mention something around those involved? Like you know a surprise that you had planned for a person and you mention the word surprise in front of them...? Yup. This was exactly it. At that moment, I forgot that my siblings could understand me now and those around me started approaching me in confusion.
"What you mean... are we going to attacked?" one of them who approached. Awkwardly, I slid backwards only to be met by the body of another one of my siblings who had crawled up behind me to listen in. 'It's going to hard getting out of this one.' I thought.
"Nothing much... you all don't need to worry about it... big brother has a plan to defend you so...," I replied as I kept on back up as I felt myself sliding over one of my siblings crushing them back into their shells.
Then I was met by a cacophony of replies that went along the lines of:
"Tell us!"
"Tell me..."
"I want to know... something... something... blah...."
"Who were you talking to... when are they going to attack?"
"What's your plan...?"
"Why are you running away?"
Questions kept coming while their cute and concerned faces stared up at me.
They didn't make it easy for me to hide the truth. 'If I don't tell them, they'll keep bothering about it... I have to think of a reason and a solution to the problem at the same time. My 100+ step plan was going to take too long to explain. Well, it's not that I had thought about all the other steps, but they didn't know about it...' I thought.
So what did I do?
"Remember yesterday when I was talking about teams?" I asked. "We are going to make a defence team. Yup... one that will protect us from those devils in the sky. Those devils who attack us with random bolts of light... What? How can light be sent by something demonic? Look at what happened to those trees in the distance. Don't you see how its black? Why would a demonic beast's blast cause something to darken? What? Why would they attack us snails out of all other things? Look. Maybe they just hate snails okay? It totally wasn't my fault okay? Anyways, we need to find a way to defend ourselves from their rain of nasty fluid as well. So a defence team that works on protecting our fellow snails is required. So... are any of you interested?"
Surprisingly all of most of them wanted to join. I didn't need to make up a grand speech or anything. 'All of my cute little siblings want to be responsible and protect the colony...' I thought. I gathered the eager snails and we moved to an empty part of the leaf to get organized. As we moved, I remembered that I had a bunch of things to do that day. That included visiting the Spike-shelled snails, finishing my colony count, finding more food, etc. I knew I had to push back the training until later... But I knew that I needed to organize them. I was conflicted.
"Hey everyone, please line up so I can see who you all are." I said after we reached a secluded edge of the leaf.
Excitedly, the sixty or so snails lined up in front of me and I began to take down their names. Well mentally of course, I'm a snail, I couldn't write.
...
"Good, now I'm going to separate you into six or so teams," I said to them. "You will be in team white. And you're part of team yellow. Team blue is for you. Red team for you. And you will be in team pink. And finally, you will be in team black."
I put them all into different teams for a specific reason.
What? No, I didn't group them by the colours of their shells. That would be a sin against all snails. Nor did I want to live out a fantasy and group them by the colours of the power rangers so I could sing out "Go! Go! Power Rangers!!" when they were defending the colony or anything.... >.>
No. I did it so I could direct them all better. I'm sure that you know by now that I was a smart snail. I don't need to convince you more. But please do compliment me on my natural talent and intelligence and smartness and leadership and gracefulness and my shiny shell.
...
After assigning my siblings a snail-team, I decided to call it a day. I really needed to put off the actual training until the day after. I mean I had a lot of things to do. I was a busy snail.
"Okay, now that we have teams, I want you all to get to know each other better. I mean we are all siblings already, but you all need to work hard together like a well-oiled machine."
"What's a machine?" one of my cute little sisters asked.
"Huh? What's a machine... Uh... it's like something that's made to do a specific task. Yes, and yours will be to defend your family... So get to know each other and our real training will start tomorrow."
Just as I turned around to leave, I was confronted by a few of my siblings. 'Why won't you leave me alone?' I thought. 'I have other things to do.'
"...Why not start today?" my sibling asked. "Yeah, why not today?" Another snail added. And soon everyone from the group joined in with similar statements and questioned my decision.
"I thought they were going to attack soon."
"We should start training today!"
"We don't have much time."
"Yeah, I agree with all of them."
Soon they began to argue and it looked like they wanted to riot. Man, I guess I wasn't the only crazy one in the family... I was beginning to get a headache from all the ruckus. Wait... can a snail even get a headache? Or am I THAT special?
...
Soon the voices became overbearing and every time I started to make an excuse, I was cut off just like all my attempts to escape. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. "STOP!" I yelled. "Okay, we will start today." I said as I gave in. My statement was met by a bunch of cheers and slow snail-on-snail foot taps. I guess the snail equivalents of something called a high-five? I guess they were happy to get their way for once.
'I need to teach these children some discipline. How will I be able to control all these snails in a moments notice?' I asked myself. "Everyone, listen! I want the Reds over there, the Blues over here, the Blacks and the Pinks Next and finally the Whites." I yelled while directing them. "Line up in your groups again so we can start."
I watched as they slowly climbed over each other to get to back into their groups. I sighed to myself and thought that day 16 was going to be a very, very long day. Finally, after a few minutes, my siblings were finally in their groups. Albeit, covered in mucus, but it was a start.
"Let's begin with some stretching shall we?" I said while demonstrating how. I pulled my foot upwards and stretched my body to become as tall as possible. "Hmmph," I said while doing so.
It was not even a few seconds into the exercise and I was interrupted. "How will this help us?" one of my snail-blings asked. "We need our bodies to be very flexible in case we need to maneuver around," I replied. We spent a few moments doing snail stretching exercises. I mean, honestly I never did any stretches 'till that day, but I was a leader, I needed to teach the best so my siblings could become the best.
What? How would a snail know how to stretch? I don't know okay, I felt like it would help. Don't question my leadership.
...
Next, we moved onto exercises. "Now that we have stretched, we all need to work on our speed and stamina. Let's do three laps around the leaf to start? Remember to stick with your groups and stay in line. It's very important." So we began to slide at a medium speed around the leaf. As we did some of our other siblings that were on the leaf joined us. I guess it would have been quite a sight. Kind of like a marathon of sorts - a snail-athon.
It was during that sliding that I noticed how much weaker my siblings were. They were much slower and smaller and couldn't keep up with me. After the first lap, some of my siblings had begun to fall behind in pace and slowed down, but still, they kept their formation. I slowed down my pace to accommodate theirs. 'Hmm. I guess I need to train them slowly...' I thought.
By the end of the second lap, their lines had begun to deform and I began to hear some complaints about our speed. "We are almost done everyone, just one more lap!" I called. I called out occasionally to give some other words of encouragement during the final and third lap.
It was after an hour of sliding that we were finally finished. Of course, I finished first so I drew a pseudo finish line into the leaf by eating it. I know right? Aren't leaves great? It's a source of food and can be used in many other ways.
...
Slowly the lines of snails came in and passed the finish line. I congratulated each of them as the crossed. "Good job making it!" I said. "You'll be able to do this in your sleep in a few days," I added. I kept on greeting each and every one of them until I felt a tap on my shell.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was 7.
I turned around to greet him. It looked like he had something important to say as I say it in his eyes, his posture and his shell. 7 then pointed to the Spike-shelled snail colony in the distance and back on our leaf. He moved his body in such a way as if he seemed to say that he hadn't seen 60 and that we needed to get on with our own work.
"I'm sure she's fine. And I need to set up the defence team today, we'll go tomorrow." I told him. It wasn't that I ignored him or didn't respect his observation. No, I couldn't get away from my other siblings at that moment.
7 nodded in with his eyes and slid away, but I think he really wanted me to go with him.
Thinking back now, it was a good and bad decision... Anyways, back to day 16. I'll tell you about why later...
So after speaking with 7, I made the group take a quick rest. Our training that day didn't stop there. No. We did other exercises such as smacking the leaf without feet, bopping one another with our eyes, playing a game of tag and other things. They were good activities to increase their strength, stamina, and waste all their pent-up energy from just eating and pooping all day.
As we did all these activities, I sat silently to the side and observe them. Through observing them "train", some of my siblings began to stand out amongst the bunch. They trained harder and were more active than the others. Well above else, they seemed to listen to me more often and not complain as much as my other siblings.
I trained them for the whole day. Near the end of the day, my siblings who had joined the defence team had begun to appear more and more like well-oiled machine snails of mass destruction. Well, everything except the last bit.
Content and tired we slept in our shells that night.
Thinking back, I was lucky and unlucky on that day because in the next few days...
Summary of Day 16: I started training my snail army and ignored my other duties while my relationship with the Spike-shelled snails hit a new low for some unknown reason.
+ 1 leadership
+ 1 wits
+ 1 humility
+ 1 speed
+ 1 strength
[Title acquired: Snail Army Leader]
+ 1 leadership (passive)
+ 1 wits (passive)
[Quest: Defend the Colony] (updated)
Snails: 86
Adventurers: 6
Diplomacy: 4 (1 M.I.A.)
Army: 61
Defected: 5
[Quest: Diplomacy with the Spiked-shells] (updated)
[Spike-shelled Snail Colony] (updated)
Relationship rating: -4*
Status: Disgusted