When Don woke, he felt refreshed and ready for anything! Sunlight was still streaming through the cracks above him so he contented himself with meditating until the rest of the Refuge woke up. His newest skill took a little getting used to. He was dimly aware of the dome around him. He knew there were plants above him and stone below but any details beyond that were so fuzzy as to be irrelevant. He was pleased when [harmony] leveled up quickly but temporarily disabled the notifications.

Harmony: Initiate 1 --> 2 +4% effect of meditation

+25.5% Awareness of your surroundings while meditating

He sank back into his imaginary and tranquil pond with its new murky view of the outside world until Cel called him. He had her help sort out his notifications so they would wait until he was ready for them instead of popping up all the time. Next, Don lead his tribe out through the meeting hall. Once the creatures were arrayed around him in the jungle, squatting on the ground, perching on boulders, and filling the branches overhead, he addressed them.

"You all did great work yesterday," He began "But no one here knows how to cook the rabbits so all that food went to waste." A little square started blinking in the corner of Don's vision but he ignored it and plowed forward. "There's no reason for us to hunt anymore so I want you to spend more time looking for gourds and alchemical ingredients tonight. Before you go, Kat, myself and anyone else who knows how will make packs for each of you so you can carry more back to the refuge in fewer trips. Does anyone have any questions?"

Several ColoColo started squeaking at once but they were all concerned about the same thing so it was easy enough to understand them. Don raised his hands placatingly.

"Look, I like the way rabbit tastes too, but unless any of you know how to cook, we're going to have to get by on nuts for a while."

There was more grumbling at that pronouncement but no secret culinary experts stepped forward.

"What if I gave you each a piece of Fruit every morning?" That got their attention. The ColoColo were clearly excited about the idea, but they had their reservations too.

"Grey said not to take the fruit, it angers the bad things too much." protested Nap, but her heart wasn't really in it.

"You don't have to harvest it, I'll take care of that. You just have to make it back here safely before morning. Besides, I don't think they can get any more angry at me than they already are."

That turned the tide and the Hesitant ColoColo were overcome with the exciting prospect of eating the literally forbidden fruit.

"In fact," Don continued "I'm working on a plan to drive them off for good, but I can't carry out the plan on my own. I'll need help from some of you." The growing excitement was smothered by a thick blanket of fear. Years of hiding had planted the seeds of that fear and Grey's cautionary tales had helped them grow into a strong, deeply rooted certainty that the 'bad things' were to be avoided at all costs.

"I won't force any of you to fight. I wouldn't even consider letting any of you help me if there was another way. If you volunteer though, I will take you with me to harvest the fruit and you will have as much as you can eat." Don's promise got their attention, but it wasn't enough to override all the horror stories Grey had recounted. He was starting to think his plan would fall apart before it even got off the ground when Kat stepped forward.

"I will fight." He said resolutely "Those beasts won't leave us alone. Grey told us how dangerous they are, but she also believed this hatchling could help us beat them once and for all." Kat glared at Don, showing that he still hadn't forgiven him despite his show of support "I for one want revenge. I want to see the home from Grey's stories, and take it back for the ColoColo! We owe it to her to at least try."

Kat's speech caused a stir among the little monsters. One by one more ColoColo stepped up to the challenge. They shivered, clearly afraid, and Don was touched by their willingness to trust him despite that fear. In the end, only four of the monsters joined Kat but Don wasn't about to conscript the unwilling. If they couldn't decide to face the apes here and now, they couldn't be trusted to stick to the plan when they were confronted with the monsters from their nightmares.

"Thank you for volunteering. I will do my best to keep you safe, we won't challenge the apes until I'm sure you are ready."

He sent his tribe to gather vines and broad, waxy leaves nearly as large as themselves. Don and Kat started folding the leaves around flexible stick-based frames and tying them into place. They weren't very durable but they were light and easy to make. Before long, others got the idea and started helping. As each ColoColo was fitted with a pack, they darted off into the trees. Before they finished equipping the tribe, the first had already returned with a pack full of gourds. Sik took them happily and disappeared back into the refuge.

Now that things were running smoothly, Don took a steadying breath before rolling onto a thorn bush. The little spikes pierced his skin and as he rolled back and forth. his health dropped a few points. It hurt but Don had to endure it if he wanted to unlock the trait associated with CON. Now that he had the Relentless trait he was healing at a rate of 19 HP every hour, that meant nearly 1 point every 2 minutes. It was a huge upgrade from the previous rate of 1 point every 47.5 minutes and would let him injure himself more often. Apparently, that was the only way to increase his Constitution, yay.

Next, he checked his notifications. The small blinking icon in the corner of his vision expanded.

Harmony: Initiate 2 --> 4

+8% effect of meditation

+26.5% awareness of your surroundings while meditating You have banned a luxury the ColoColo are accustomed to

-100 reputation

Reputation: 1021 You have promised to provide a new luxury to the ColoColo

+25 reputation

Reputation: 1046 You have provided the ColoColo with new equipment

+20 reputation

Reputation: 1066

Don was startled to see how much reputation he lost when deciding to take rabbits off the menu. He nearly dropped below a thousand points. That would have taken away his Chief title! He had to start building up a buffer of reputation so that doesn't happen.

It had been a while since he had a skill at such a low level and it was nice seeing such rapid progress. The only problem was that he didn't really understand the utility of this skill.

"Cel, what does meditation do anyway? Is it just for regenerating stamina?"

"Not really, it's mainly used for regenerating mana. While it doubles your Stamina regeneration, it triples your Mana regeneration, but [Harmony]'s real value isn't revealed until you rank it up to a higher tier."

"What does that mean?"

"Every skill grows more potent as you level it up, but they also can gain new effects when they tier up from Initiate to Apprentice and so on. Harmony is special because it will eventually let you meditate while moving around. At it's highest level, you will never have to stop meditating. It's going to be a long time before you get to that point though."

Don liked the sound of that. Meditation always left him feeling light, alert, and capable. If he could hold on to that feeling all the time, it would be awesome.

The ColoColo were just finishing up with the packs and Don turned to his nervous-looking squad.

"Thank you again for volunteering. We shouldn't be doing anything too dangerous tonight. First, we'll gather some fruit, then we'll go over the plan and start practicing. The main goal here is to get to the point where we can fight the apes without putting any of you in more danger than is absolutely necessary. You can leave your packs here for now. We'll train the same way we'll fight and speed is our greatest advantage. There's no reason to throw that away by carrying around supplies we don't need."

The ColoColo dropped their new packs and the group followed Kat into the jungle. It wasn't long before he brought them to a Saween tree. The small monsters watched in awe from the safety of nearby trees as Don casually strolled up to the forbidden fruit, pulled himself into the branches with hardly any difficulty, and plucked one of the blue spheroids.

He tossed the first fruit to Kat who tore into it eagerly. He gave a fruit to all the others in turn before taking one for himself.

You have harvested: Fruit Type: food

Units: 1.16 +0.1% Harvest EXP

Don's first bite actually hurt, but after his mouth adjusted to the sweetness, it was pure ecstasy. Emboldened by Don's success, the ColoColo jumped over to the tree and went to town on the delicacies. It didn't take much fruit to sate the small creatures' hunger and it wasn't long before bulging stomachs and glazed eyes were the norm.

Don ate 9 himself and stored the remaining fruit in his inventory. The 29 fruits only took up 4 inventory slots thanks to Don's high [harvest] skill level. He would need to find another tree to fulfill his promise of a fruit for each ColoColo in his tribe, but he could take care of that later.

He had Kat guide them to a stream where they could wash the juice off themselves. There was no need to make it too easy for the apes to track them after all. Once the ColoColo were fed and washed Don explained his plan.

"So, the apes are dangerous. You already know that, but they are also kind of slow. I have run away from them successfully on two separate occasions and I still can't come close to keeping up with you in the jungle." His troops preened at the praise.

"I will take the most dangerous role. I will distract them and while they're chasing me, burning through their stamina, you will use your [venomous bite] to accelerate the process. They are big but that will work to our advantage. Two or three of you can attack at the same time with such large targets. For now, I will pretend to be one of them, and you will jump on my back and jump away immediately. This is to practice getting into position and getting away safely. Kat, you will go first."

Don pulled two long thin branches off a tree. Then he held the whiplike branches and grunted.

"Me big stupid ape, me bad to ColoColo, me only know smash!" He said in a caricature of stupidity. He was rewarded with a couple of chuckles. That was good, if they were laughing, they weren't scared. He raised his arms, using the sticks to approximate the freakishly long arms of the apes.

"Smash you!" he said bringing them down at Kat. The nimble monster sprang out of the way before the sticks were halfway to him. More chuckles resulted.

"Stay still!" He swept one of the sticks horizontally at the peanut gallery and they scattered into the branches, easily avoiding the blow. Don straightened and congratulated them.

"See? You're incredibly fast. So long as you are paying attention you have nothing to fear. Now, I want all but one of you to hide in the trees, spread out around me in a circle. When I raise my arms like this" Don demonstrated the smashing posture of the apes. "I want whoever is behind me to jump on my back and then spring away immediately. The goal is to hide again before I can turn around. I'll make a special potion for whoever does the best."

Don spent hours lumbering around in a comical impression of the ColoColo's worst fear. They had no trouble spring-boarding off of Don's back and by the end, they were anticipating Don's moves and hitting his back as soon as he started his downward swings.

Cel coached them on how to use the trees as cover, darting behind them for protection against attacks as well as a means of breaking line-of-sight so they could climb the trunk and hide among the leaves again. She also taught them some choice taunts to tease Don with as they bounced effortlessly around and off of the demon with the manic energy that only comes from kids who have had too much sugar.

Once they had mastered the basics of getting into position and getting away, Don had them linger on his back for the one second it would take to activate their bite. He stressed that they were not, under any circumstances, to try and double up the dose they administered. He would even intermittently bark the command 'abort' to signal that they were to disengage no matter what they were doing. They were slow to respond at first but quick to improve.

As the night wore on, Don became more and more confident in his plan. He also realized that he had been a little overprotective. The ColoColo were far better at evasion than Don was. That gave him an idea. With the way the apes roared to each other, it would be easy to tell when more were coming. He could send ColoColo to distract them, leading them away until Don was ready.

After Don made it clear how impressive he thought the ColoColo were, he let the excitedly chattering kids explore the jungle like usual. Kat showed him to another fruit tree which Don stripped in short order, then he brought Don back to the clearing so he would be able to find his way back to the refuge on his own.

Don still wasn't confident in his own ability to dodge the attacks and stepped into the jungle around the clearing to practice. Cel provided something to dodge, and Don tried to emulate the little monsters. He sidestepped behind trees and dove over thornbushes trying to evade the glowing ball of light Cel had become.

It was much more difficult in the uneven terrain of the jungle compared to the soft, flat and open field but he would have to get used to it. The ColoColo couldn't use their [forest walk] unless they had trees to hide in. On the plus side, he had no trouble staying a bit injured even with his enhanced health regeneration. Time and again, he rolled into rocks and roots, bruising his back and sometimes disrupting his dodge. Before the night was out, however, he had made great progress.

When he got back to the refuge, he made a very public display of presenting Kat with his magical stamina potion, explaining that it was a prize for having performed the best during training. He took the potion grudgingly, unwilling to pass up an advantage, but he was happy to accept the adulation of his peers for being the best fighter.

Then Don explained that he was still accepting volunteers for combat training and gave high praise to the brave ColoColo who had participated that night. He finally distributed the promised fruit and let the trainees bask in the awe of their nestmates as they recounted how they boldly took all the Saween fruit they could eat and the ease with which they evaded Don's mock attacks.