FB | Ch. 5 - Stickler

So… which ones did you guess? If you guessed wood, ding, ding, ding. You won!

Why mess with a good thing? Wood chips were delicious, plentiful, and didn’t try to eat me back. It was the most abundant resource around me. I would have settled for fungi and vegetation, too. The other were gross.

The scent of buried bark bits still danced through the air like freshly-baked pretzels—if the baker’s oven was full of compost.

I didn’t know precisely what adding a skill point to Wood would do, but curiosity got the better of me. So I clicked it.

New skill unlocked: [Timber Tummy].

Timber Tummy

Skill level: 1

Skill effects: You can absorb more ingredients from eating wood. No more diarrhea from chomping cellulose.

Immediately, the smells around me shifted. Things that had previously smelled like “meh” suddenly screamed, “EAT ME!” A nearby stick covered in moss practically started catcalling me with its earthy aroma.

After reading what this new skill did, I finally understood what leveling up this food section did. It made my stomach. Stronger. Tougher. It let me handle stuff that, before, wasn’t exactly edible for me.

With another skill point buzzing around in my head like an impatient fly, I had a decision to make.

Keep investing in wood and become the ultimate lumber-cruncher? Tempting.

But I held off on it. There was a creeping worry. Something bugged me.

(That’s bug humor. You're welcome.)

If the Giants wiped out all the insects on their planet, what happened to the animals that used to eat them? They must be starving. I didn’t want to find out if a human-beetle larva was on their menu.

So, I turned my attention toward the defense skill tree.

I had seen these behaviors in the pests I used to terminate, so I had an inkling of what each upgrade would do.

Camouflage – the classic invisibility trick. Blend into your surroundings like a ninja.

Chemical Spray – like carrying around a squirt gun filled with acid. 

Spines – basically the bug version of a porcupine. 

Shell Hardening – beef up your armor.

Burrower – dig a quick hole and hide.

Startle Reflex – thrash around like a tube man. Some larvae even jump. 

Three of them—Spines, Spray, and Startle—meant I was already face-to-face with something that wanted to eat me. If I were close enough to smell a predator’s breath and use these, I’d have already made several bad decisions.

I was apprehensive about Shell Hardening. Larvae are supposed to be squishy. Even if I gained a hardened shell, I feared that the most it would do was to make me a crunchier snack for predators.

That left: Camouflage and Burrower.

Burrower had synergy with my Wood upgrade. Hide in the wood, eat the wood, become one with the wood. Tempting.

But Camouflage felt like a better choice. I didn’t know where I’d end up wandering, but I knew this—I didn’t want to be a bright-colored snack for anything watching from above.

So I picked Camouflage.

New skill unlocked: [Don’t Look at Me]

Don’t Look at Me

Skill level: 1

Skill effects: Automatically adjust your coloration to match your surroundings. Reduces chances of being spotted, eaten, or asked uncomfortable questions.

My skin started changing immediately. I turned the color of dirt, though on this planet, that meant bright orange. Even weirder, my clothes changed too. My wardrobe now matched my camo-skin like a set of themed pajamas.

If this planet’s version of a hungry bird flew overhead, at least now I had a fighting chance of being mistaken for a weirdly shaped root.

Now that I felt safer, it was time to think about dinner.

I headed for a nearby stick.

Now, I’d eaten things on sticks, and I’d used chopsticks. But this was my first time trying to eat the actual stick. Unless you count breadsticks. Which I don’t. I’m a stickler for proper stick definitions.

Then I hit my first snag: scale.

Ever tried to eat a wall? That’s what it felt like. I couldn’t eat it without dislocating my jaw. I circled the large stick looking for an entry point. Eventually, I found a soft patch where decomposition had done some pre-chewing for me. Jackpot. I bit in.

Oh. My. Goodness.

If bark chips were pretzels, this stick was a candy cane dipped in honey. Sweet, spicy, satisfying. Five stars. Would snack again.

As I munched, my skin shifted again, blending seamlessly into the stick’s red tone. I was now the exact color of my dinner. If I found a few more like me, we could’ve formed the Red Man Group—heavy on percussion, light on visibility.

+2 XP

At first, I thought sticks gave more XP than buried shavings. To test the theory, I dug up a nearby chip and chomped it.

+2 XP

Ah-ha! It wasn’t about the stick. My new [Timber Tummy] skill was giving me more return on every bite.

Despite the XP being the same, I decided to stick around the stick. I didn’t have to move much. I was basically the bug version of a lazy grazer. If any predators were watching, they’d just see a reddish stick with a tiny bump that didn’t move. Certainly less conspicuous than having me running around.

With the 50 XP I’d gained from my first quest, I wasn’t far from leveling up again.

Then it happened.

The ground trembled.

For a second, I thought it was an earthquake.

Then I realized—I wasn’t alone.

Something was coming. Something big.

Looked like I was about to meet my first neighbor.

Hopefully not the kind who invites you over... for dinner.

Ch. 4 - Mashed Peas

INDEX

Ch. 6 - The Malerpzerp