To be honest, I find the thought of my three pets evolving more exciting than my own prospect of evolution. I can't wait to see how the three of them turn out. Especially Invidia. The demons are super weird in the way that they evolve, and the little dude has been stuck at tier six for a heck of a long time. His Skills have come along really nicely, since he grinds a heck of a lot more than Tiny, and more than Crinis even.
His mastery of mind magic in particular is stunning. It'll be interesting to see if mind magic turns into anything else as it goes up in rank.
I'll need to settle down and look at my own Skills and mutations soon as well. I've got some big decisions to make, especially in regards to my Nave. Things are going funky in the cathedral, and I need to try and work out a more clear direction. Not to mention the more powerful mutations I've been offered at +35. I'm keen to see what sort of effects I can get on some of my other organs.
I'll have myself fully maxed on mutations way before I even need to think about my next evolution, which will be nice. Geez, my next evolution, heading to tier eight… I have no idea what sort of insane options I'm going to be offered at this point. In fact, I won't have an option to continue my current, multi-part evolution. I might be offered something that finally takes me off the paragon path.
"Eldest, Eldest!" One of the scouts rushes up to me and I see it's Wills.
"What is it?" I ask as she runs over.
"There's something going on up top. They want you up there!"
"Eh? What do you mean 'something'? There isn't any more information than that?"
"I'm not sure. There was some weird activity down on the shoreline that the scouts found suspicious."
"Suspicious? More suspicious than the endless swarm of sea monsters sprinting on their fins at our walls?"
"Different," the scout snaps back, frustrated. "Something different than a horde of sea beasts sprinting at our walls. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was deemed worrying enough that we decided to send a runner to get you."
"And you came yourself because?"
"I'm the fastest scout in the fortress."
"Fair enough, let's go then."
Following along behind Wills, I rush my way up the disconnected central pillar until the two of us reach the walls. The fighting is still constant up here, and the din of battle shakes my antennae as the ant defenders subject the endless press of monsters to a buffet of acid and devastating magic. Without any ceremony, the two of us press through the rows of ants until we reach the front and Wills points with one extended leg.
"Down there!"
I look.
I pause.
I look again.
"That is weird."
"Right?"
There's a flag… a really big one, Standing tall on a long pole formed of some sort of glimmering blue stone and rising out of a frothing, bubbling patch of water.
"Yeah, okay. I understand why you got me now."
"What do you think it is?"
"Well, either someone is playing a joke, or they're trying to make contact with us."
Probably the latter, since I don't think anyone is going to stick their neck out during a wave just for laughs.
"So… should we respond? Do we put together an escort to bring them into the fortress?"
"We do not need this right now. Who is reaching out during the middle of a wave? They've got a lot of confidence, or they're just nuts."
Still, the question remains, what's the right thing to do in this scenario? We have a diplomatic contingent, but there aren't any down here on the fourth stratum at present, why would there be? All we've been doing is fighting and building. We don't need anyone to smooth talk the tree, since she pretty much only talks to me.
Only one thing to do, then.
"I'll take control of this situation. Clearly, I'm in the best position to represent the Colony to… whoever we've got here."
The question is, how do I go about it? Show of force? Humble? I need to get a bit closer if I want to extend a mind bridge, but would they welcome being connected to a monster in this way? There's a lot of questions, but I can already tell that I'm just going to do things in the most straightforward manner in the end.
That means getting out over the wall, stretching out a mind bridge as far as I can, and then seeing what happens next.
So that's exactly what I do. With an empowered gravity domain extended out around me, I can pretty much shrug off what the monsters can do to me, especially when the Colony covers me from the wall.
Surrounded by bellowing, maddened beasts, I approach the oversized flag waving gently in the breeze and stop once I'm roughly five-hundred metres from it.
Using my senses, I try to detect any mana source in the vicinity of the flag, but it's hard to get a good reading. The water itself is so rich in mana, and the monsters all over the place don't help either.
With a shrug of the antennae, I start to weave a bridge and extend my mental connection toward the general area, then start broadcasting.
[Hello out there from the Colony. We noticed your flag and assumed you wanted to have a chat. Can we interest you in tea and biscuits? Are you seeking friendly negotiations?]
Finally, I feel someone latch onto my bridge and it snags onto them, connecting us mind to mind.
[Greetings, ant. I am Olivis, and I come as a representative of the Satrap of the Brathian Island Conglomerate.]
The who?
[Well, hi and hello. Obviously, first contact between new peoples is always a little awkward. It would be helpful if we could figure out what each of us was looking for. Non-aggression agreement? Assistance against the wave? Trade?]
I can feel a ripple of humour from the mind on the other side of the bridge.
[You just said the magic word,] she chuckles.