Chapter 24: The Nursery

Based on my experiences throughout this new marine life I've had so far, there has definitely been one conclusion that I have now come to.

And that is that I have seriously underestimated the capabilities of crabs!

I mean, up until this point, with the exception of Shelton and his fellow tribe mates, I didn't really consider them anything other than food!

But now that I'm looking at their base, I really do have to say that these crabs know how to use their advantages.

One thing I hadn't put much thought into since I am no longer a human was the use of tools. I know that yeah, technically I used to a rock to pry open the shell of some of my earlier crab victims, but at the same time that's a rock!

Not a god*mn spear!

That, along with hammers, swords, shields, and what I can only assume to be some sort of whip thingy, these crabs really have appeared to have mastered the use of tools for their daily lives.

It's kind of refreshing actually, I mean, seeing all these creatures use tools and talk to each other makes me feel like I'm not alone in the world anymore and that there are actual civilizations out there.

I guess that's not to far from the truth aside from the fact that the residents of these civilizations are all now, extremely intelligent and sentient marine creatures.

As we walk through the enclave of the tribe, I can see many different kinds of buildings and structures made from wood, seaweed, dirt, and other plants. While I can't read what I think is a language written on them, I am kind of capable of figuring out there uses from the pictures on most of them.

For example I think that that dirt place over there is probably a smithy on account of the sword image on the front of it alone with the heat bubbles rising from a makeshift chimney on the top.

I see that and other buildings including things such as a warehouse area, council house, and... a cafeteria?

I guess it's not all that surprising for there to be a restaurant here but it still makes me wonder if there is some of alcohol equivalent for the creatures in this world.

How would they even drink it actually? If were in water, we can't really drink anything per say.

Maybe they have alcoholic food? I know that there were a couple of foods you could eat back on earth to get you drunk but even then most of those were based on using an alcoholic beverage in its creation.

Either way, as we walk deeper into the enclave, not only do we see more and more crabs, but I can also feel more and more eyes watching me.

I get it! I'm not a d*mn crab!

That doesn't mean you have to stare at me like I'm some creature made of gold!

I'm not that exotic am I?

I had considered using my camouflage to get the crabs around us to stop staring at me, but quickly discarded the idea, less some guard like the one at the entrance thought I was trying to sneak in.

While it makes me uncomfortable, I do have to admit that this is not my home, and at the current moment, I am nothing more than a guest.

We eventually make our way over to another crevice which has a wooden sign of a crab holding a smaller crab in its pincers.

When we enter what I can only presume is the nursery, I yet again see a lot of crabs passing by us, however this time most of these crabs don't look particularly threatening and I think some of them even have slightly dulled claws?

I'm not sure, they still look like they could snap be in half based on size alone though so I check my suckers to make sure they're not detaching from Shelton just in case.

As we reach a the end of the tunnel I see that we have arrive din yet another cavern, not quite as large as the first one, but still large nonetheless.

Me, Shelton, the two other red ranked crabs, and my two "guards" walk towards a large, probably around 1.5 meter tall, yellow shelled crab who is currently holding a piece of flattened plant, which looks like seaweed.

Is that... paper? No way! I know that they had some sort of written language from all of the signs around, but they actually can use paper as well?

My little octopus mind was blown yet again we arrive in front of the large shelled crab as it finally set down the seaweed paper, and looked at me first and then Shelton.

"Shelton! It's lovely to see that you and the rest of your group have arrived back safely." The crab says affectionately as I realize that this is a mother crab.

It makes sense, this is a nursery after all.

"And who might your little friend here be?" It says as it looks at me yet again as I squirm in nervousness from being looked at by such a large creature.

The crab in front of me isn't as big as the one who was at the front gate to the tribes enclave, but I still think she's around the height of a normal human in my previous world! She definitely weights hell of a lot more as well."

"This is Oliver" Shelton gestures to me as I can see the mild confusion in his eyes as I squirm on his head.

"I see... Is he a mute?" She asks Shelton while studying me.

"No! A-Ahem sorry I'm not a mute." I blurt out before quickly correcting my tone lest she thinks I'm a threat.

"Oh, I'm sorry then. I see you must be quite nervous around me, is there a reason?" I can see her eyes narrow at me as she continues to gaze.

"Teri, please don't tease my friend." Sheldon mumbles towards the large crab who immediately changes her aura as she hears the word friend."

"Like I said before, this is Oliver. He's an intelligent wild octopus that I met while we were hunting and we became friends during the trip. He's here to join our tribe for the time being."

I feel like the crab named Teri, would have widened her eyes if she could but she simply stared at me without moving for a moment before responding.

"Ohoho! I see! We'll its nice to meet you Oliver. I'm Teri, one of the head nurses here at our Carak tribe's nursery. I take it you and the other's are here to get inspected for a tide mark?"

Her tone is now much gentler, no longer with the underlying hint of bloodlust which I felt from it before.

"Yes ma'am." Sheldon replies, "Just me, Oliver, and the two others. Jayce and Ponto are just here as escorts for Oliver."

"Oliver you're going to allow yourself to be inspected as well?" Teri asks, with surprise in her voice.

Is this crab bipolar? I'm still struggling to understand how the murderous crab I met at the start is now talking to me as if I'm a child however I dumbly nod my head in affirmation.

"That's nice of you to consider for our tribe then Oliver! Well then, follow me and I can lead you to an inspection room. I'll have Mary take over the front desk while I'm gone."

Teri gestured for me and the other crabs to follow her as she led us into a into one of the dozens of smaller holes which looked like it had been dug out nearby.

"Let's start off with Sheldon then." Teri said, as I jumped off of his back.

I slapped his back with one of my tentacles as he turned to look at me, "Good luck then, I hope you're a candidate." He smiles as he and Teri disappear into the hole while the rest of us wait outside.

As we sit in silence I eventually turn to my two escorts.

"You guys are orange ranked, right?" I say to the two of them.

"Yep" one crab replies as he continues, "I suppose we should introduce ourselves since we'll be walking you around until your inducted. My name's Jayce, and this here is my brother Ponto. We're both orange rankers but I'm at the late stage while my brother is only at the middle stage."

"Late stage and early stage?" I ask, unfamiliar with the term.

"It just means that I'm at a later stage of the orange tier. The stages are beginner, middle, late, and peak."

"If someone is a beginner stage it means that they basically just evolved, while if someone is at the peak stage, it means that they're on the cusp of evolution."

'Oh, there's so many d*mned classifications that it's starting to get hard to remember.'

"Well it's to meet both of you as well, my name is Oliver and I'm a w-red ranked octopus."

Cursing the near slip of my tongue, Jayce pats me on the back and giggles. "Yeah we know kiddo, you seem like a good kid, so make sure to do your best for those who help you, got it?

I salute to him with a tentacle to which Jayce laughs from the awkward gesture coming from an octopus.

"Are you guys not being inspected?" I ask as Jayce gradually begins to curb his amusement.

"Us? No, were too old to have been born during the flood. While we can still grow faster and have a better chance of having mutations because of it, it's not possible for either of us to be a tide candidate."

"How old are you?" I ask.

"We're both around 310 days old so we're just shy of hitting the year mark." Jayce says as he cleans his shell.

It's good to know that the calendar of this world is roughly the same, at least in terms of days, and years. Jayce keeps on talking.

"You've got to be around 180 days or younger at this point to potentially be a tide candidate." He says as he confirms my monthly perception is also the same.

"I see, and your not at all disappointed by that?" I say.

"Kid, don't get me wrong, being a tide candidate is good and all especially for the tribe, but they're a magnet for trouble. Some tide candidates are even taken from smaller tribes so that bigger societies like empires and kingdoms can have more powerful forces."

"That's why they don't actually tell you if you're a tide candidate or not when they finish inspecting you. Cause they don't want you to know, and they don't want anyone else to know, especially in a small tribe like ours." Jayce says to me.

I'm surprised that they won't actually tell me if I'm a tide candidate or not, but when he says it like that it clears up the reason.

After waiting for a while, Sheldon comes out none the worse for wear but confused. Ha! It seems like he also thought that he would be told if he was a tide candidate or not, but he seems to be even more affected by the fact that I knew this and he didn't.

As time passes the other two red ranked crabs both go in and come as they're inspected before it's my turn and Teri calls me in.

As I float into the hole, I can see Teri on one side of it with a couple of objects including a stick, a few pieces of seaweed paper, and what I can only assume is a pen for crabs.

It doesn't seem to use ink though, more like it uses a certain rock on the end to rub off color on the paper when applied with pressure so at least I don't have to worry about my time here being put to use refilling writing utensils.

"Alright Oliver, come over to this rock and lie down. This isn't going to be a painful process as I'm only going to be looking over you're body for a mark, but it may be a little uncomfortable." She says to be as she gestures towards a bed of dark green seaweed.

"I brushed up on some Octopus biology just for you so I should also mention that you should try you're best not to camouflage into your surroundings during this, it could make it harder for me to see." I dumbly nod as I wasn't expecting her to use such a big nor complex word such as biology nor that they had books about such a topic here.

She crabs the thin stone stick with her pincer and begins to use it to lift up parts of my tentacle or move me around so that she can look at all sides of me.

As she's inspecting me she begins to speak again.

"You know, I was really surprised when Shelton told me you wanted to join our tribe... Is it true? You really want to join us?"

Confused to why she would ask me this I speak up. "I don't really see a reason why not though?"

She chuckles in amusement as I respond, "It's just that as an octopus you're a relatively high tiered predator, and on the other hand we're only low tiered crabs. I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but it certainly is unheard of."

I open my beak to speak but she cuts in again,

"Even if you are an intelligent wild octopus, most of those of your kind would be arrogant and refuse to see us as anything other than prey." She says as, she puts down one of my tentacles while writing on the paper.

"Open your eyes" She says as I open then wider so she can see.

It's a little unnerving having her stare straight into my eye like this but I'm happy knowing that she's only doing it looking for a mark and not for threatening reasons.

"I should also apologize to you. When I first saw you I though you were either making fun of us, or here to trick us. But from what I've heard from the other crabs you appear to have been nice to be around."

"Open your beak" She commands right after as she lifts me up gently with one pincer and moves my tentacles aside.

After she finishes inspecting that (thank god), she puts me back down and begins to grab my tentacles one by one inspecting them.

"I know that you're less than 6 months old, but could I ask for your specific age?"

I open my beak to reply with "2 weeks", but realize that I'm currently hiding my identity as a white ranked predator. Since I know that Shelton is 3 months old I settle on my newfound "age".

"I'm 2 months old."

"Wow... That's really impressive to become a red ranked predator at the age of 2 months." she says in admiration as she finishes inspecting my last tentacle before writing down on her little piece of paper and then turns around to put the tools she used back.

"Well, I'm finished with the inspection so you are free to go meet with an elder about your induction now. You seem like a good octopus so I'll put my word in with whoever it is. Okay?"

I nod in appreciation as she shoo's me out of the cave.

"Don't get into any trouble now, Oliver! Bye Shelton!"

She calls out to the rest of the group as we all wave goodbye to her as we walk away.

Next stop, the Elder's chambers!