I had been gone for around three weeks and my parents were adamant about having me stay in the fishing village and answer all of their thorough questions about my pilgrimage so far. Because of Sili and the serpents, though, I had to stay outside of the village. Luckily, Gryn's report day was tomorrow so I only had to bear with my parents for today.
After being scrutinized more thoroughly than the drones and warriors by my mother for several hours, they finally went off to go eat at their inn while I dined with my animals. The serpents were all given free leave to fish in the river and after I had confirmed each of them ate well enough I had them all start bringing fish out for Sili to eat on top of the remaining serpent bodies in my voids.
After this, I went to the bridge village an hour or two after the older generation started returning and began making my rounds introducing and explaining myself to the village. To help smooth things over, every household I visited was given large amounts of fowl jerky that I was sure would be appreciated as supplemental food.
The large portions made it great for either re-hydrating in stews or eating while out hunting.
After having been seen with my parents being lectured for hours I probably looked like a guilty little kid. But I was a kid with a giant part-dragon and numerous large serpents telling a story about those serpents and the other life forms in the mountain caves. They took this kid pretty seriously.
I even explained to everybody the number of serpents back at the cave and how to befriend them with food and Sili's help. To those who showed interest in having a serpent for a pet I explained the different traits and diet needs of either species. Adult water terrors can get close to thirty feet and rock terrors go over fifty, they are trashcans for food and fulfill several support and security roles.
There were eight adults and almost as many youths who outright wanted to visit the shrine. It would take them several days to prepare and a couple more to make the trip. I could spend as much as another week at the shrine steppe educating the serpents and preparing to welcome those who would adopt a serpent and spread the word.
Those people and serpents who live in the area would one day be called upon by Sili at the first sign of insect breaching. By then, the village should be big enough and Templeton should be prepared enough to answer the call. I, of course, would hopefully have matured enough to deal with the situation.
I was over five feet tall at eight years old but Jesus if I was ready to handle that without months of effort and a big team minimum.
After returning to camp I slept in Sili's sun warmed tails on a large and flat sun warmed boulder surrounded by stretched out serpents. What felt like only a few minutes after closing my eye I was awoken by the rising of the sun coloring the thin veil of clouds in the sky.
The sun and heat of the past few days higher up had finally started gathering clouds lower down. These were not likely o stay long but they would continue on through the countryside forming into rain or even storm clouds. From here, I could track the wind for a day and predict the weather weeks away.
The serpents were lazily awaiting the inevitable sun on the still vaguely warm rock and Sili was sprawled out on their back amid the loosened coils of her tail. I was now, in fact, sleeping just a few feet away from the bony and scaly growths on her tail. Now was the perfect time to wake up and get to work.
Gryn's team was likely to show up only around the afternoon or evening from wherever they were based. I could personally make use of that time staying busy and out of sight from my parents. Better still, I could now do it without taking natural resources from the area.
First on the list was to hide in- reinforce the local forestry skirting the town and waterway. If insects really did show up here, the only option was to run and report and regroup. Based on the advance troops I had experience with, I made stashes of grass golem cores combined with agates in over a dozen places within half a mile of either side of the bridge.
These grass golems would use the agates as fuel for several years while lying in wait to detect insects with a group-heightened sensitivity. Once one group detected insects, all groups would take individual form and wait on the first group's responses. Depending on the situation, the neighboring groups of a dozen apiece could provide support and so forth.
As expendable units they were perfect for buying as much as five minutes for village evacuation.
A mile or two closer to the ravine I put out similar agate powered golems in several rows across the river for a hundred yards on either side. These alarm units were a combination of enhanced grass golems that used wood as well as basic stone golems. Their job was just to put up earthen walls and layers of outstretched trapping vines.
Placing a self-generating fire golem in the middle and at the ends of each row ensured the vines would be set alight whenever a supporting wall was breached. The fire would alert the town to the presence of the insects- after Sili and her serpents had evacuated. Once insects surfaced at all, she and the serpents should outright retreat to the village.
I considered continuing to lay out grass golems around the ravine but decided against it for fear of disturbing the hunting parties.
By now the sun was high in the sky nearing its zenith and my familiars by the river should all be enjoying the hot rocks. A brief check by expanding my consciousness through distributed crystals in the surroundings showed that my parents were on the riverside looking after my familiars. This included Shade and Grimm.
I soon returned to the bridge village less than ten minutes later simply by draining my mana riding the river. "Chuck!" My father called out somewhat irritably when I whizzed down the surface of the river.
"Yes, Father?" I ask innocently and humbly, pretending that somebody might be watching us right now.
"Where the hell have you been? We've been waiting for hours," he asks loudly but more or less without care, bearing the weight of rock terrors on either arm as if showing off. Then he actually had the gall to remark, "I don't think you take this situation as seriously as you should."
Clearing their throat loudly and covering their lover face with their fist, my mother takes over and says, "Chuck, dear, we contacted our Guild resource officers with what you've said and they're sending out a team to evaluate it themselves. We accredited all of your numbers, estimates, and appraisals as well as verified the spike in your experience pool. They just see what you saw."
Nodding his head slowly, my father slowly relaxes his arms and says, "For you and the sake of your pilgrimage your mother and I have agreed to let them view a projection of your memories. We did not even request this because we believed you but the Guild has taken a serious interest in the matter and this will be the fastest way.
"For the… Sili's sake..." he adds and then amends quickly under my mother's impatient look. "You only have to show everything after their evolution. Now I'm going to ask you something very serious and important, are you willing to show all of us what you actually did down there?"
"H-how much, exactly?" I ask worriedly, cracking up a little as I rushed to think of the methods used to share and display memories. "I might have a few synthetic diamonds on me, can I store my memories in there?"
"Can you use two and store everything you did in one for us?" My mother asks seriously from her seat between spinal ridges on Sili's back.
She looked very imposing as if she had already spent a careful battle assuming control of my anointed familiar.
Could you swear your lives to secrecy? "Sure why not, just… wait until after my pilgrimage to go into detail about what you see?"
My parents shared a look with each other and my father simply shrugged. After a few seconds of quietly playing with the gel between Sili's scales, my mother finally says, "Three. Give us one memory stone detailing everything since you left the village, a blank for us to transfer necessary experiences, and a third full stone to give to Sili. If this creature ever achieve sentience, one of the steps to becoming a true dragon, it deserves to know how it was created."
This issue had only vaguely occurred to me in the past. I anticipated to not be around for their sentience and arrive afterward with a censored- thorough explanation. Now, they were getting the gritty details of their initial capture and my thoughts of their existence.
Albeit noble to some extent, whimsical was the most accurate description for the idea and process. The fact that I used dark elementals for my bidding made it look like necromancy in the beginning. But, this was my parents I was dealing with.
They had something of a right to know. But to meddle? Fuck, it was just what parents do.
"Yeah, no, absolutely," I reply with zero hesitation, taking out three synthesized diamond prisms and spending three minutes reliving the past three weeks into one pure magic stone. I had complete trust that they could handle the censorship and then deal with me later.
Exile of a sort was not out of the question.
*