Chapter 17: Temper Tantrums

""Temper tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them."

Lemony Snicket

Ha! Take that Lemony Snicket. My temper tantrum worked perfectly. It took having a loud tantrum every time I was about to be put back into my swaddling after each feeding. But it seems to have finally worked. I am no longer swaddled. Although it took them a while to get over the initial confusion that it wasn't food, sleep, colic or unmentionables. Fighting the good fight I finally prevailed.

Not only that but after rolling back and forth in my box to the point that I managed to rock it over. I was no longer merely thinking and looking outside the box I was acting outside the box. I haven't quite managed to get rid of the box though as that is where I wake up whenever I do actually fall asleep or pretend to take a nap.

Now I am free to crawl around the floor of the room.

It is surprisingly difficult to relearn.

I know what I need to do.

I know how to do it.

But actually doing it is challenging. Especially, coordinating all the muscles at the right time. They say muscles have memory and sadly these muscles are new. So remember literally nothing. I shouldn't have to think through each motion for my muscles, they should remember it. But I'm still in the 'teaching them' phase. There simply wasn't room in the womb to practice.

That being said I'm doing it. I now have a couple different methods of getting around. The Classic Crawl, the Crab, the Commando and the Rolling Wonder. Whatever works to get me there. Have to say the rolling wonder is probably my favourite. Many adults forget what it feels like to be a child. But I am having no difficulty remembering. The energy, the spark, the thrill of throwing myself around when nothing hurts or aches and the bruises heal in what feels like minutes. Not that I have managed to pick up enough speed to do anything particularly painful to myself.

Anyway, now that I have wriggled out of the womb, escaped the straight jacket that was swaddling and broken out of the box they put me in, I now have a new nemesis.

. . .

My sister!

. . .

She has been tasked with keeping me out of anything and everything now that I can move around.

She is taking this a lot more seriously than her previous washing and carding of the wool in my opinion.

Having at least 10 years and roughly 25 kg against my 2 months and approximately 5 kg I'm way out of my weight class and lose each battle that we have. I wonder what her strength is at. Does it add to her existing frame and muscle mass or is it a direct representation of who she is?

I can feel myself getting stronger every day, more than is simply represented by my stats, which are still rising. I will have doubled in weight by 5 months and tripled by age 1. But my strength stat is unlikely to have double and tripled by then at this rate.

She is also a lot quicker than me. Longer legs and the ability to walk certainly help but I have similar questions about dexterity.

Although interestingly enough I think I have the stamina to outlast her. It only happened the once and I pretended to nap afterwards but I think she was the one who ran out of steam first.

My other trick is actually that. Pretending to fall asleep. Sometimes if she is in charge of me and I pretend to fall asleep on something soft. I will be left where I am instead of being transferred back to my box. She lets sleeping dogs lie especially if she has to have been chasing after me for a while.

Then when she is recalled back to her washing and carding, I can pay attention to her with my echo location and mana sense while my eyes are shut, until she is fully engaged with her task before slowly and stealthily sneaking off.

The first time I managed this. I made it all the way to the Kitchen and was able to squish a line of ants as part of my experiment on combat experience before I was caught and brought back to the main room.

She is far more watchful now checking regularly so I have yet to make it as far again. Still it is a good game and I have nearly made it once or twice since. 

There were two successes from this first attempt. The first was I gained the skill Sneak. It is only a Tier 1 skill so far but I am hoping it will lead to more rogue like skills later. I will be a ninja baby yet.

The second success although I am unsure how I feel about this is that 1 ant equals 1 experience. That seems small compared to the scale of how much experience I have to get to continue to level up again. Nevertheless it sets a dangerous precedent for what I can expect in this world.

If an hour can gain me 100 experience in levelling up a skill. How many ants could someone kill and how much experience could they gain in the same time? Sufficient quantity of death even insects will have a quality all of it's own. Won't this system support people who like to kill? Ergo won't the more successful people pass on their genes creating an increasingly aggressive and murderous population.

I haven't seen anything like hyper aggressive people here yet but then I have only really interacted with my mother, father and sister to any particular extent.

My father seems happy with me poking his hand in my fingers, my hand automatically grips his and I have to think about it to release the automatic reaction. His main game balancing me on his hand to get me to stand up then catching me when I fall. Is he happy with my strength of grip or my ability to stand on his hand by 2 months old?

He continues to happily half drown me in the sea most days and is responsible for me adding Swimming to my Visible Status. Although I have been careful not to level my humming any higher as it would tip me over into Level 3 and I have yet to gain enough experience to have the 10 extra free points for Level 2! Though I am nearly there.

Name: Kai
Level: 2 Experience: (300/400)
Health: 200/200 Stamina: 133/133 Mana 100/100

Vitality: 20
Endurance:10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Senses: 10
Mind: 10
Clarity: 10
Magic: 10

Free Points: 10
Skills: Humming (Lv 3) Swimming (Lv 1)
Skill experience:100

On my real status the experience of actually swimming in the water each week has been enough to push me up to level 11. It seems to work slightly differently outside the womb and is no longer restricted solely by the amount of time I put in. But I haven't worked out the reason yet. Perhaps it is the fact that my father nearly drowns me each time. So it is a near death experience and therefore worth more experience.

There hasn't been enough time yet for Time sense to hit level 13 but there has been enough time for the rest of my skills to catch up to it in terms of levels. 

Nearly half way there to the next level.

Might need to add a few more stats to my false status but really need to see another baby to compare my progress and align my stats to theirs. I wonder how I can work out what others have? 

Name: Kai
Level: 8 Experience: 21,510 / 51,200 Age: 2 month 1 week 2 days 16 hr 0 min
Health: 990/990 Stamina: 423/423 Mana: 280/280

Vitality: 99
Endurance: 14
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 14
Senses: 33
Mind: 91
Clarity: 26
Magic: 28

Free Points: 0

Skills: Time sense (LV 12) Listening (LV 12) Meditation (LV 12) Sense Mana (LV 12) Swimming (LV 12) Eavesdrop (LV 12) Memorisation (LV 12) Echolocation (LV 12) Recall (Lv12) Composition (Lv 12) Mind fortress (Lv 12) Expel Mana (Lv 10) Absorb Mana (Lv 10) Mana Drain (Lv 1) Pain tolerance (Lv 1) Humming (Lv 5) Sneak (Lv 1)

Skill experience: 4200
Origin experience: 3000
Combat experience: 7

The ants go marching one by one
Hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one
Hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one
The little one is, mmm stuck on my thumb
As they all go marching along the line
To face the end of the line
Doom, Doom, Doom

That's a little morbid even for me.