{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/13",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/13",
  "publishedAt": "2022-05-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Once all of that was over, they could resume what was interrupted:\nAwelah passing Makuja the bit of rope she asked for. She needed some\nbits of baneleather too. Then, as they continued their journey vaguely\nparallel to the now-out-of-sight creek, Makuja fiddled with the rope and\ntough fungal patches.\n\nOoliri watches with clear interest, but he's not the one to ask ---\nperhaps on pain of hypocrisy for keeping his own project a secret.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Awelah says. \"I'd prefer it if your eyes were out\nscanning for threats.\"\n\n\"I'm making a sling,\" Makuja replies after a moment. \"Master had planned\nfor me to take after her in use of a bow --- but hers is too damaged,\nand far beyond my strength. Until I can obtain my own, this will\nsuffice.\"\n\n\"And sling what, rocks? Do you think that's going to be any help against\nthat mutt? You saw the armor it had.\"\n\n\"She could imbue the rocks with enervate,\" Ooliri added quietly.\n\nMakuja's tarsi pause at that suggestion. She hadn't thought of it.\n\"You'll have to show me how to do that.\"\n\n\"You've, uh, already done it? Bane blast, but without the louse sign?\nYou performed a simple enervate discharge when we were investigating\nKlepé.\" Ooliri taps two antennae together. Then, perhaps feeling awkward\nat offering nothing, adds, \"Maybe this will help.\" He makes a tarsign\nwith tarsi clasped together, one dactyl interleaving. \"The wasp sign\nis for controlling and measuring enervate. Where louse builds up\npressure for an explosive release, wasp gathers a specific quantity.\"\n\nMakuja picks up a rock while she walks, then halts to try it. She rubs\ndirt off of it, then bites it to hold it while her dactyls are busy\nclapping the focus seal. She makes an approximation of the wasp\nseal Ooliri showed her, adjusting it slightly until she feels the twitch\nof malign coldness shifting in her gut. The rock drops into her open\nhands as she splays one out in release. Enervate drips into her palm,\nlike a small flow through too large a pipe. The enervate seeps into\ncracks in the rock, and it's like rapid erosion. There's a popping sound\nlike the thing was squeezed so tight.\n\nMakuja throws the rock at a tree, and the thing flies off into many\npieces.\n\n\"Maybe you used too little?\"\n\nThe red nymph casts her eyes to the ground for more rocks, but Awelah\nscratches her file.\n\n\"Are we really going to sit around here doing experiments?\"\n\nMakuja stops. \"She's --- right. It's more important we don't make\ntargets of ourselves.\"\n\nAwelah pokes the compass for direction, and they trek further into the\npathless wilderness. Despite all of the metataxites and big ferns with\nhard stems, the largest of the flora remains uncontested. Ancient trees\nwhose branches had the breadth of houses dot the scape like landmarks.\nWhen Makuja confirms that Unodha's dogs (is he still Unodha's, now?) had\ntrouble climbing, Awelah makes the plan to suspend hammocks high in a\ntree, and sleep there. Spring had come shades ago, so there should be\nleaves enough to obscure them.\n\n\"Could the sensor sense us sleeping?\"\n\n\"There's nothing we can do to hide from a good enough sensor-bane.\nSleeping in the tree is fine, or we have no hope,\" Makuja says. \"We have\nan advantage: the older, stronger you are, the easier you are to sense.\nWe are new vesperbanes, and consequently there is little for a sensor to\ncatch.\"\n\n\"I'm not weak.\"\n\n\"How do you know all of this?\" Ooliri asks.\n\nMakuja has a small smile. \"There is a reason I was more useful as a pawn\nthan a full vesperbane.\"\n\nOoliri frowns, and looks away.\n\nThey find their next camp site where a stream intersects with the creek\nthey had been following. The flow of water exposes the roots of a grand\ntree, and the things clung so tightly with its roots that the stream\ncurves around it.\n\nAn hour passes of climbing up and down the tree, securing supplies and\nbedrolls-turned-hammocks with their rope. Awelah falls out of the tree\nat one point, and screams before she lands just fine. Ooliri has trouble\nclimbing, and they fashion a kind of a ladder of sticks for him to reach\nthe lower branches.\n\nThat done, they gather at the base of the tree as the sun nears the\nhorizon. On previous nights, they'd make a campfire, but now the fear of\nrevealing their presence stops them. There are ways to create stealthy\nfires, and they talk for a while trying to recall the details from their\nseparate trainings. They know it involves digging a hole.\n\n\"Do we have anything to dig with?\"\n\n\"I have this,\" Awelah says. It's the trowel they used to gather the old\nlady's clay. Ooliri scowls, and Awelah rubs palps. \"I was holding onto\nit and forgot to set it down before we left.\"\n\n\"You should return it.\"\n\n\"How? She's like a day behind us now.\"\n\n\"It's not important,\" Makuja adds. The conversation ends there, and they\ndo manage a fire whose smoke won't reveal their location.\n\nAfter that, the three separate from each other, focus on their own\npursuits. Ooliri is tying rope around his barrel. Awelah claims she saw\na wild cicindela, and wants to see if it's still around. She leaves, but\nnot before Ooliri calls for her not to go far.\n\nMakuja completes her sling, and then gathers rocks and practices imbuing\nthem with enervate. The rocks needed to be uniform; cracks and mixed\nmaterials meant the enervate would render them unstable. She needed to\nhold the wasp seal for longer --- confusingly, the rocks become more\nunstable the less enervate she added. A small amount, and the rock\nfractures around a hard core. She had better results when she doused the\nrocks in the discharge --- but a few times doing this, and she found\nherself feeling painfully empty; she must be running out. She leaves the\nrocks by the streambed, and that's all she does for the night.\n\nAwelah found no sign of the cicindela, but did find two isopods to\nroast.\n\nThey fold in to sleep, and for once, when night comes there is no\nhowling.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nWaking first, Makuja unrolls the ladder to climb down. She lands softly\nand takes one step. She is not alone.\n\nIt had the size of a large roach, with black and orange patterns\nemblazoned on its elytra. Antennae like a beaded necklace wiggle above\nits dark black eyes. It was an erotyle; more commonly, its kind was\ncalled the pleasing fungus beetle, as a kind of placating flattery. The\nhead is lowered, and the wet palps lick at rocks --- the same\nenervate-laced rocks she had discarded yesterday after her practice.\n\nMakuja bends her knees, heartrate quickening and stance swaying as she\ncalculates. Erotyles are a danger --- they, like a few other beetles,\nare distinguished as one of the few creatures capable of natural\nnervecasting, adapting enervate to defense. Yet it's a still wild thing,\nnonsapient, offering no safety of reason. And lashing out with a spell\nwould be far, far worse than teeth or claws.\n\nFolktales told that the things had some vague way of sensing intent ---\nit's why mantids flatter them. Makuja doesn't know if it's true, and\ncan't rely on that. But the obvious recourse is always available.\n\nMakuja picks up a rock from the ground. She could throw knives, but\nthat's too much threat, and if it fled with a knife sticking out, she'd\nnever get it back. Briefly, she considers imbuing the rock, testing her\nsling. But that would just contribute to the problem, wouldn't it?\n\nShe tries something new.\n\nFocus. Wasp. Louse.\n\nShe holds louse for a moment. If the erotyle could sense enervate, would\nit know to be unsettled by the prepared spell? Would that be enough?\n\nIt lifts a head to stare at her, antennae extended out.\n\nFine, then.\n\nRelease. Makuja performs the modified bane blast after palming the\nrock. The blast hits the rock, and the rock flies out. It doesn't strike\nthe beetle, but it lands with a crash beside it, and the bug jumps,\nstartled.\n\nMakuja raises her raptorials and abdomen, and hisses ---a threat\ndisplay.\n\nThe beetle opens its mouth, wide. What is it planning?\n\n⸢Umbral Body Projection!⸥\n\nAwelah's projection floats down from above them, and the beetle stares\nat it as if transfixed. Taking advantage of the unexpected distraction,\nAwelah's spear strikes down from on high, cracking the elytra and\npiercing through the abdomen. The projectile lands offcenter, missing\nanything vital, but the bug is now pinned to the ground. Enough for\nAwelah to light down in a three-point stance, then kill it with a bane\nblast to the head.\n\n\"Can we eat this thing?\"\n\nMakuja, for once, is the one scraping frustration. \"There might be more\nof them. I wasn't going to kill it.\"\n\nAwelah shrugs. \"It offered itself to us, practically on a plate. Nature\ntakes its course.\" She gives the beetle and its patterned chitin another\nlook. \"Is this one of those spellbugs? They eat fungus, don't they? This\nis probably equal to a plateful of venjaspirals on its own.\"\n\n\"You will be taking care of the body. It's not mine.\" Makuja turns and\nwalks away. She kneels by the extinguished campfire to revive it. Behind\nher, Awelah glances at the rock submerged in the ground, a crater of\ncracked dirt and roots around it.\n\nWhile the three gather around the fire at breakfast, Makuja meets\nOoliri's gaze. \"I have done it,\" she says. \"Shall I show you?\"\n\n\"Hm?\" Ooliri is writing something in a notebook they'd recovered from\nhis team.\n\n\"Your suggestion. The principle works.\" Makuja retrieves a small river\nstone, holds it for a moment as if weighing, then tosses it into the\nair. Focus. Wasp. Release. Enervate surges into her palm, where the\nstone returns to be suffused in the black void. The enervate is sucked\nin, and the stone blackens until it looks to be made of shadow itself\n--- but there's so much enervate that the black still curls off it.\n\nTo demonstrate, she tosses the stone at a fallen log. Despite the\ncracking wood, it impacts silently. It rolls to the ground, but where it\nfirst hit, a black circle of enervate soaks into the wood.\n\nThe key lies in the quantity, Makuja learned. An excess of enervate is\nrequired; ",
  "title": "Two Techniques and a Beetle"
}