Born a Monster

Chapter 21

Clanmoot

Anyone who studies centaur culture becomes aware of Clanmoot, held every four years. It is a huge meeting of every clan that can gather, usually at the highest hill in a region, or around the base of the largest mountain.

It is a time to swap goods, exchange stories, arrange betrothals, for marriages to accept new mares, for contests of bow and rhyme and riddle, and of course to drink enough to make even a centaur tipsy.

And – it means weeks of dull labor, preparing for the long travel. Cooking, mending tents, making carts and wagons, polishing trade goods – I’m sure I could remember it all, given time, but why bother?

My tiny hands made people think I was agile, and that meant sewing. Well, to be fair, I was a Manservant, and that’s one of the things the class is supposed to be good at. But everyone and her daughters wanted a new dress, and it had to fit just so, and oh, wouldn’t a butterfly carrying a spear and quiver look beautiful just here?

.....

I also made the error of smoothing out a wooden wheel. Carts need wheels, and the clan wanted carts. Authors make cart-building seem easy. They’ve probably never had to affix a wheel immobilized by a peg on either side.

To be fair, I’ve also built a cart with glue and nails, which makes the process much more painless.

For myself, I made a stone cooking bowl. Technically, it was owned by the clan, and I lost much sleep roasting seeds, cooking fish, or even just mixing salads. (Yes, you can make salads without cabbage or lettuce.)

Oh, and the firewood. Cut down a few trees to make carts, use the stumps and branches for firewood, load the firewood in a cart, realize you need more carts, repeat.

I also learned much about which plains grasses produced the best rope, although honestly, we must have foraged every such plant within half a day’s ride of the camp. Even the fibers underneath bark were woven into those endless miles of rope.

Harnesses to pull the carts, nets to supply the cargos, endless coils of rope for children to pile atop exhausted slaves and then plop themselves down upon.

Honestly, if I’d been able to mix the tasks up a bit, it would have seemed less unpleasant, but eventually, we had a caravan. The doors of the longhouse were barred and roped off to keep out dust and animals, and off we went.

It was a week and a half of travel, at a pace so slow that I had time to forage. Not just auto-forage, but to actually look and find new bugs, examine new plants – I even unlocked Plainwise, a cultivation method that paralleled Woodwise.

I also got my first [This discovery is beneath your current threshold (too easy), no XP awarded.] message.

Just emptying my meters was no longer enough for my Physical Training Regimen. I had to mix up exercises, actually pay attention to muscle groups. Similarly, I expected to hit a wall with my mystic training as well.

In short, I had hit my first plateau.

#

“Yeah.” Said Ptholemon. “Sounds like you’ve reached a plateau. You’ll get those every time your cultivation methods level up to two or more. Tasks that are too simple no longer grant XP. And, you’ll find that many of the things you need to do involve components that don’t in and of themselves give you cultivation benefits.”

“Like how I still exhaust my fatigue meters performing my physical regimen, but now it’s the actual exercise sets that count.”

“Right, or how none of us gained construction XP for sawing wheels out of the tree trunks, but we got Construction XP for the wagons.”

“Holy four. So to keep advancing, I’m going to have to do more and more challenging things?”

“Yeah, that or you just develop a hobby.” He produced a bundle of feathers from one of his belt pouches. “For example, using fishing flies.”

“I admit I haven’t seen a fly with feathers yet.”

“Nor have I, but this one looks tasty enough to the fish, and getting fish to bite is the true measure of success.”

“I thought catching the fish was the measure of success.”

He chuckled at that. “Some day, you will feel with your heart instead of just your stomach.”

“Do I also feel with my liver and gall bladder? What about my kidneys?”

“I’m not talking about humors in the blood, I’m talking about the artistry of matching oneself against the cunning of nature, to outwit millennia of instincts. Fishing is the art of melding oneself into the invisible background, of luring fish by pretending to be their food.”

“And using that desire for food to make them your food?”

He shook his mane. “It is difficult to be unappreciated at one’s artistry.”

“Okay, when did you know when you were going to be fishing for your hobby?”

“Why, the first time a fish got away from me, of course. Once I understood that fishing was a contest, that the fish could win if I wasn’t doing my best.”

“I don’t understand.” I said.

“Ah, that’s because you don’t have all the details.” He began.

Hermocrita snorted. “He’s got you on the line, young Rhee. I’ll be scouting up ahead.”

By the twelve Achean gods, Ptolemon could talk about fishing. For hours, and make it sound like the labors of Heracles.

My System did warn me that I was 24/100 complete with gaining the Fisher class of Gatherer. I decided that my divisor was high enough.

On a lark, I tried to filter that XP by how I’d caught the fish. The ones I’d caught by bite attack didn’t seem to count.

Or ... was the XP going elsewhere?

I figured out how to ask that, but was again given a message that more DP was needed to make that query. Stupid System.

#

This is the point where my shadow familiar had grown to the size of about half my finger, and had begun exploring on its own.

I wondered what its stats were, and was surprised when my System listed them.

[? (unnamed) level 0 Spirt (Shadow)

MIGHT: 0

AGILITY: 0

VALOR: 0

RESOLVE: 0

INSIGHT: 0

LORE: 1/0

This spirit is unbound.]

Hrm, I’d had two teachers for what a Shaman was supposed to do, but neither had taught me the benefits of binding spirits. Why DID people form spirit pacts?

Or maybe I should look toward advancing one of my other classes?

Pankratios seemed to be some manner of unarmed fighter, specializing in grapples and holds.

Hunter was self-explanatory. Although the title Squirrel-Slayer beckoned, I don’t think I had the weapons to do this class right.

Water Adept seemed to gain XP as I used any manner of elemental array that had Water in it.

Shaman WAS going slow, maybe I should focus on that?

Herbalism had reached a plateau, which was odd considering it hadn’t leveled yet, but I was getting XP every time I discovered a new herb or spice.

Lumberjack, although I’d gained it as a Labor class, was also on the Gathering classes list. Weird.

It was linked to the Carpenter Crafting class, which was over halfway gained.

Cook was developing nicely, but I wasn’t ready to put in the kind of effort needed to unlock the dozens of recipes I had access to see.

I really didn’t want to develop any more abilities for Manservant, at least not just now.

Truthspeaker seemed more like a curse than a proper class. I mean, it had abilities like Detect Lies, so it wasn’t without any worth at all. But a lot of its abilities seemed tied to reputation, which I just didn’t have a lot of.

The Scientific classes I could unlock were led by Naturalist, closely followed by Biologist and Botanist. A quick glance revealed that Naturalist had abilities for revealing the properties of newly discovered animals and plants, while the other two specialized into their fields.

I guess the biggest problem I had focusing was that it just wasn’t real to me yet. I had six and a half years of increasingly hard work to look forward to.

And then – did I even have a plan? Had I had one with the goblins? With Eihtfuhr?

About the only plan I had was to get this Path of the Polymath achievement, but what then?

HUNGER.

“Yes, yes, little black snake. Here, have some mana.”

[Name accepted! You have gained 5XP for Spirit Pact. After divisor, 1XP has been awarded.

You have gained 5XP for Mystic Research. After divisor, 1XP has been awarded.

You have just infused your first spirit! You have gained 5 XP for Shaman. After divisor, 1 XP has been awarded.]

Wait, what? One action gave three different rewards? Three XP was a good day for me, and just a random naming had done that much?

Black Snake hugged my finger, and slipped into my palm to digest, or whatever similar thing spirits did.

#

Where there is smoke, there is fire; in that sense, it was the fires that we saw first. I had thought the carts of firewood excessive, but it seemed that they might be needed.

The noise, overlapping voices, songs, music, and undertone to it all a stampede of hooves.

.....

“Are we going ahead?” Ptolemon asked his eldest wife.

“Myraenac and his wives shall announce us this year.” Replied Hermetocrita.

Ptolemon leaned his torso back, stretching out his arms. “It is good that duties among the tribe are shared.”

“You need not worry. The Clanmoot is on a river, I’m sure there will be a fishing contest, if only an unofficial one.”

“There wouldn’t need to be a contest if they’d just wise up and admit that my techniques of fishing mastery surpass theirs as the eagle surpasses the sparrow. Maybe a hawk, for Kardenesthenus.”

“Yes, you throw that mere hawk down, show him his place. Show him his acclaimed victory was a fluke!”

“I need not your encouragement for that, wife.”

She whispered a number of words into his ear. As she backed off, he shook his mane, a quiver that migrated down his back to his swishing tail.

“Well, then. That settles that. It is time for this eagle to surpass the mere hawk.”

The term “tent city” does not match the sheer scale of a Clanmoot. The camps sprawl, with pole stalls and sales tents lining the areas between each camp. There were vast areas set aside for athletics, and multiple archery ranges.

The entire ground was scattered with woven hay mats; it actually seemed like a matter of pride or an informal contest. Behold how clean and level our campsite is, enjoy your passage through here, or something like that.

“Take note of those mats.” Said Ptolemon. “Unless I miss my guess, you’ll be weaving those until you can’t help but do them in your sleep. By tradition, they’re only made once the camp is in place.”

“I stand so warned. Agility/Crafts/Weaving/Wickerwork skill primed and ready, master.”

“What?” asked Hermetocrita in mock worry. “Don’t you start encouraging him, too. His ego will explode and kill everyone nearby.”

Go ahead and ask master enchanters where they got their start; not one of them will say Infuse Grass. Yet I began gathering grass even as the carts got parked and positions of tents were negotiated. The mats were just two grass pads woven together with a filling of unwoven grass, very much like a pillow in texture, if not in size.

I’d like to say the entire clan made these, the children and I gathering grass, which the adults sorted, wove into pads, and assembled into mats, but the truth is it was more disorganized than that. Two families were charged with taking a cart upriver and filling all the empty water pots, and other miscellaneous tasks were also doled out by the chieftainesses.

Adults wandered off to find one tribe or another, or an artisan they had plans to trade with later. The children were encouraged to play athletic games with children from neighboring camps.

It was a time of joy and celebration, and a fateful time for me as well.

#