A Cylindrical Planet

I woke slowly, groggily, with a mouth filled with sand.

I was lying face down, my limbs numb and uselessly resting by my side. My face was covered in a stringy weblike mask of some kind of thick crusty substance that plugged each of my facial orifices. Everything ached as if I was hungover. 

Despite the miserableness of my half-conscious state, I knew that I was on a beach. Slowly, feeling returned to my limbs, and I was able to gradually rise into a standing position. This was unexpectedly tricky and took several attempts as I struggled to find my balance – I assumed it was my hangover.

Feeling about myself, I realised that I was naked with the exception of a pair of unfamiliar boxer shorts. I then turned my attention to my face, liberating it of my mucosal mask.

Blinking away much of the rheum from my eyes, I looked around – the world was too bright for my newly awakened vision. Cupping my hand over my eyes, I was able to clarify my surroundings. Before me was a sea, and behind me was a forest populated by red-leafed flora. Either side of myself, however, I was shocked to see that there was no horizon. 

Whereas the surface of Earth curves downwards, the opposite was true here. East and West curved upwards, higher and higher until they met many kilometres above my head – the entire world appeared to span the interior surface of an enormous cylinder! 

The sun that lit the world was not some distant fiery ball in the sky – instead, it appeared as a beam of light that ran through the axis of the world-cylinder (and like the Sun of my home-world, it hurt to look at for too long). 

“Nope.” I said to the impossible world, before turning and stumbling into the water before me, wading into the sea as if I could somehow swim back to home planet. “Nope. Nope. Nope.”  I said again and again. I stopped when the water reached my waist, at which point I took to flailing my arms about my head with the hope that some passing boat, or overhead plane – somebody– would come to my rescue.

Making Sense of My Surroundings

After realising the pointlessness of calling for help, I returned to the beach. It occurred to me that as I could see the other side of the world from my current position – then I could search for cities, or towns, or evidence of civilisation so as to confirm that I was not the sole intelligent creature in this world. 

For a long while I strained my eyes to scour the land-sky  (despite the harshness of the Axial Sun) for evidence of civilisation. I eventually was able to see some small things that looked like cities dotted along one of the major rivers of the opposing region of the world. Small objects flew between them – I imagined them to be planes.

Although my balance had returned to me, my gait felt improper – lighter, as if gravity was less than I was accustomed to. I knew that astronauts on my home planet’s moon could jump far higher on the Lunar surface than on Earth. If the gravity of this world was less than on Earth, then it would follow that I could jump higher here than I could on Earth like the Lunar astronauts.

I crouched, and propelled myself upwards and came to reach a height equal to the treetops of the forest lining the beach. 

At the height of my jump, I saw a plume of smoke rising up through the forest canopy. To confirm that this was not some kind of mirage or trick of the hopeless mind, I jumped again and confirmed that it was indeed there.

Given the narrow shape of the smoke, it was obviously not a forestfire, and likely originated from a campsite. For a moment, I inwardly debated whether or not to make contact – of course, the prospect of whether or not the aliens that inhabited this world were friendly or dangerous made me hesitant. Ultimately, I decided that the campsite was my best bet at working out what had happened to me, and where I was. 

The Red Forest

Traversing the forest was quite easy, as I could cover a large distance simply by leaping – vaulting myself high into the crimson canopy of the forest, and landing on the soft red grass below. 

Eventually  the light of the Axial Sun began to change, and the midday brightness dimmed into the faint orange warmth of early evening. With daylight fading I set about collecting branches and sticks to create my own campfire to settle down for my first night in this strange world. 

After creating my fire, I selected a large, knotted stick to be my weapon in case that I was attacked by some hostile entity. 

As I made myself comfortable on a bed of crimson moss and leaves, I wondered about the physics of this world – whether its tunnel-like structure was infinite was a particular concern for me (for some reason).

As I sat there, staring up at land where there should have been stars, I felt my initial excitement pass, and dread to set in as I was faced with the horrid realness of my predicament. To prevent myself from going mad with panic, I tried to soothe my nerves by compiling all that I knew about myself.

Starting with the obvious, I confirmed that I was well muscled, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, my limbs were long for my torso, and I seemed to remember being called “tall” in my past life, but of course, I lacked any reference to judge my height relatively. My hair was black and was a mop of messy curls, and a thick, moustachioed beard decorated my lower face.

My mind was devoid of any past details of myself. I had no memories of a family, occupation, or even nationality – my name – Ulysses Carter – surfaced eventually, and to this day I am unsure whether or not that was my actual name or some stitching-together of two disconnected names from my past. 

I knew facts about Earth – its history, geography, and politics. I knew of its countries, the three that came to mind most easily were the UK, USA, and USSR. The fact that these three came to me so easily suggested to myself that I belonged to one of them, and given my name, I seemed to belong to one of the first two.

Some other trait of my person then revealed itself to me — I had died in my past life.

Mr. Radessg

The golden light of morning woke me – I must have either passed out from  exhaustion sometime after realising my undead nature. 

I dismantled my campfire – because it is environmentally  responsible, but also because I did not want to be tracked – and leapt above the trees again, searching for the camper’s signature plume of smoke.

For the rest of the morning, I continued my pursuit and by the time that the Axial Sun was at its brightest, I found myself near the campsite. Armed with my weaponised branch, I braced myself and emerged from the bushes to meet the camper. 

Seated next to a small fire was an enormous humanoid thing, scribbling away in a journal. It had thick wooly fur like a muskox, and a pair of large bull horns that jutted out from either side of his head. He wore nothing besides leather braces upon his wrists, and a pair of loose fitting trousers that were held up by a belt adorned with a series of heavy looking pouches.

“Hello–” I began. 

The man-thing yelled in shock, and reached for some long brass-coloured object resting by his side – something that I immediately registered as some kind of firearm! I immediately braced myself to flee, but the creature quickly dropped it, sending it clattering to the ground.

“By the gods!” he said, “An Earthman!”

I nodded slowly, surprised that I understood the alien. The beastman fumbled about his belt’s pouches for a moment, and then extracted a pair of comically small spectacles that he then rested upon his broad nose. “By the gods,” he said again. 

He then sprang up from his seat and enthusiastically thrust his hand out towards me to shake. “Yunn Radessg!” he said.

“Ulysses Carter.” I said much too calmly for the situation.

I heard somewhere that in computer systems, sometimes, when a number becomes too high to be processable, it flips over and becomes the smallest possible  value — numeric overflow or something like that. I imagine this to have happened with my shock, the insanity of the past day with cylinder worlds, columns of sun, and now this beastman had finally reached “tipping-point” so to speak. 

“Please, join me!” Mr. Radessg said. I did.

Only Humans Reincarnate

Mr. Radessg was a scholar from a nearby kingdom called Anlarn. He told me that he had been sent by a So (a noble rank that roughly equates to a duke) to collect a type of herb that grows in this part of the forest. I was lucky to have reached him, because after completing his notes, he would have packed up and left for home. 

“You must come with me.” he insisted, “It is exceptionally rare for an Earthman to appear in Kuru,” he paused for a moment then clarified “Kuru is the world that we are in, by the bye.”

I nodded, “Yes… How did that happen?”

“Your arrival?” he asked, then chuckled, “Don’t ask me the physics behind it – that only the gods know. But we understand your kind to be quite unique.”

I nodded slowly, “How so?”

“Well, they are the only ones who can cross the sea!”  

I said nothing for a while, “So there are these wonderful things called boats.”

He laughed, “Well, to the best of our understanding: you have Unbound Souls, which means that upon death, your kind – that is Humans from Earth – can appear anywhere else in reality, regardless of whether or not you were born there. This compares to people like me, and all of those who live in Kuru, who have Bound Souls, meaning that we are all linked, tied in with Kuru’s world spirit, and can only reincarnate within this world.”

I nodded again, “Well I have the vague memory that I died. I can’t remember anything with great specificity, however – it's all foggy.”

“That follows. Nobody here remembers details of their past life – its impressive you remember anything.”

I nodded slowly. “I see.” I didn’t. “You said ‘another’ Earthman… are there any more Humans like me?”

“No. None known to be alive – there are people who generally look like you, but no Earthmen. The last Earthman to wash up on that beach came to us centuries ago.”

I felt something grip my stomach, “What happened to him?”

“He died. Moved on, his soul travelled somewhere else in reality.” he looked upwards wistfully.

“Is that what happens when I’ll die?!”

“Maybe. If your soul gets bored, or completes its purpose, then yes. Otherwise, you would just wake up on that beach where you found yourself this time yesterday.”

I am– humans are – immortal. 

Introduction

In the language and culture of the Arzun’Dai people, there is the concept of ‘Onwo’ –  which essentially refers to a living legend –  a Great Man of history.  

At one time, only a few generations before my arrival on Kuru, the martial history of the Arzun’Dai was at its most glorious with their eleven tribes united under a  singke confederal militaristic-political alliance. 

Unfortnately, the alliance rested entirely upon the achievements of a single legendary Dai; and so, just like the empires built by the conquests of Chinggis Khan or Alexander the Great, when the founding conqueror dies, the lands he unified under his iron fist become the battleground for pretender successors and inevitably disband. 

Within a generation, the once unified Arzun’Dai had divided into their eleven tribes once more, each fighting the other over who might claim the greatness of their fallen overlord and create a new union. 

From here, the term Onwo became muddied. Every tribe sought to glorify its own leader by declaring them the “One Living Onwo”, the “Onwo for the Modern Age”, or some other unfounded and grandiloquent title. Soon, all a leader had to do was not start a senseless war, or win a senseless war to be declared by his followers the Onwo. 

In recent years, however, the term has regained its glamour and it is now less common for folk to feed the already oversaturated egos of their leaders by calling them an Onwo... In fact, the term “Onwo” has become something of an epithet to refer to a single man out of the entire world’s population. 

That man is myself: Ulysses Carter of Earth; the Yonderman; the Man from Over the Sea; the Forever King of the Sealand; the Onwo. 

The Beach

The earliest memory available to my mind – both of my life, and of my time in Kuru, is of my arrival in this wondrous land that has since become my home. 

I awoke with a mouth full of sand. My eyelids, nostrils, and lips had been sealed shut by a thick rheumy crust.  I recall that I was incapable of moving my limbs, my body ached as if I were hungover, and my head was buzzing.

Despite the miserableness of my blind, half-conscious state, I knew I was on a beach. I remember that it was shortly after determining my location that I discovered my near-complete nudity, as I was only wearing a pair of unfamiliar boxer shorts.  

Slowly, I felt my limbs regain their strength and I was able to liberate my eyes from their waxy seals. I peeled the slimy gunk from my mouth and eyes, and realised that it covered my face in a stringy, web-like mask that filled my ears and nose with thick mucosal plugs. 

With my senses now unimpeded, I regarded my surroundings in hope of making sense of where I was, how I got there, and how I could return home. 

Before me was the sea, and behind me was a forest; but on either side of myself, I noticed that  there was no horizon and instead of curving downwards like on Earth, the land curved upwards, higher and higher until East met West many kilometres above my head.  

The world appeared to exist as the inner face of an enormous cylinder – as if somebody had folded a world-map into a tube so that its decorated side made up the tube’s interior surface. For an age, I stared up at the insane sight above me. 

Although there was no sky like on Earth, there were clouds, and there was a Sun. The clouds were unremarkably similar to those on Earth, but the Sun appeared as a central beam of light that ran through the axis of the world-cylinder (and like the Sun of my home-world, it hurt to look at for too long). 

“Nope.” I said to the impossible world, before turning and wading into the water before me, marching into the sea as if I could somehow *swim* back to home planet.“Nope. Nope. Nope.”  I said again and again. I stopped when the water reached my waist, at which point I took to flailing my arms about my head with the hope that some passing boat, or overhead plane – somebody– would come to my rescue.

After a while, the light of the Axial Sun began to change, the midday brightness dimming into the faint orange warmth of early evening. With daylight fading I returned to the beach and  set about gathering small twigs and sticks so that I might start a fire to camp through the coming night. 

Making sense of my surroundings

When night had fallen, and the light of the Axial Sun had shifted into a cool dusky purple, I was sitting by my small campfire looking out into the ocean before me. 

I recall my confusion about the bizarre physics of this world, whether its cylindrical structure was infinite, and what could have happened to result in my transmigration here – I had concluded long ago that this was not Earth.

As I sat there musing on my origin, I realised that I had no memories – or at least no personal ones – from before my arrival!

The gods knew that I already wasn't sleeping that night, so I set out to organise all that I knew. 

Starting with the most generic information, I confirmed that I was well muscled, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, my limbs were long for my torso, and I seemed to remember being called “tall” in my past life, but of course, I lacked any reference to judge my height relatively. My hair was black and clung to the top of my head in a messy mop of curls, and hung from my lower face as a thick, moustachioed beard.

My mind was devoid of any past details of myself. I had no memories of a family, occupation, or even nationality – my name – Ulysses Carter – surfaced eventually, and to this day I am unsure whether or not that was my actual name or some stitching-together of two disconnected names from my past. I knew facts about Earth – its history, geography, and politics. 

I knew of its countries, the three that came to mind most easily were the UK, USA, and USSR. The fact that these three came to me so easily suggested to myself that I belonged to one of them, and given my name, I seemed to belong to one of the first two.

Some other trait of my person then revealed itself to me — I had died in my past life.

The Alien

Then came a sound from behind me. 

I had realised I had not encountered any animals so far, and so the knowledge that I was not the sole animal in this world came as a great relief. Nevertheless, I braced myself to engage with some kind of ferocious wild animal. 

To my surprise, the thing that emerged from the shrubbery was humanoid. The man-thing was taller than me and much broader, its body was covered in a thick coat of shaggy brown fur like a muskox’s, and from his head protruded a pair of large horns. The furry man wore a pair of loose fitting trousers, and hanging from a heavy belt was a series of pouches and leather containers. 

“By the gods!” he said in a language I was surprised to understand, “An Earthman.”

The Man from Earth

“Another Earthman!” he repeated, “They’ve done it.” he regarded me with the look of wonder that comes with viewing something both great and terrible. 

The furry man extracted a comically small pair of spectacles from one of his belt’s pouches, then politely extended his hand, “Yunn Radessg.” he said.

“Ulysees Carter.”

The furry man - Mr. Radessg smiled gingerly and clapped the back of his head. “I saw your campfire,” he said, “I confused it for my own.”

I heard somewhere that in computer systems, sometimes, when a number becomes too high to be processable, it flips over and becomes the smallest possible  value — numeric overflow or something like that. I imagine this to have happened with my shock, the insanity of my day with cylinder worlds, columns of sun, and now this beastman had finally reached “tipping-point” so to speak. 

“Would you like to join me by my fire? We can go look for yours tomorrow?” I offered politely in a manner far too calm to be appropriate for the situation.

Mr. Radessg smiled warmly and nodded, “Yes, thank you. That would be lovely.”

Although his appearance was shocking, it was comforting to know that there was other humanoid life in this bizarre world, and even more comforting that they knew what Earth was. Mr. Radessg continued to be enamoured by my Terrestrial heritage.

“You said “an Earthman- they’ve done it.” I asked.

“Oh, yes.” He said, nervously reaching for the back of his head again (an apparent habit of his). “Well, Earthmen are quite a sight!”

I nodded slowly, “Alright. Why?”

“Well, they are the only ones who can cross the sea!”  

I said nothing for a while, “So there are these wonderful things called boats.”

He laughed, “No. Earthmen are the only ones to have outer-souls.”

I stared at him.

“Every living thing in this world is connected by a central, underlying life force that facilitates our reincarnation. Our souls are all a part of one great collective world spirit. We do not leave this world upon dying, just become something new within it. Earthmen are the only ones to wash up on that beach, because their souls sre bound to themselves and themselves alone. Upon death,  they can reincarnate in any world, Earth, or some other reality. The Earthmen, Mr. Carter, are the only race capable of true, unlimited reincarnation throughout time and space.”

“So I died?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“What happens when I die again?”

“Quite the morbid one aren’t you!” He chuckled, “You’ll wake up on that beach just as you did today.”

Introduction

In the language and culture of the Arzun’Dai people, there is the concept of ‘Onwo’ –  which essentially refers to a living legend –  a Great Man of history.  

At one time, only a few generations before my arrival on Sadebba, the martial history of the Arzun’Dai was at its most glorious with their eleven tribes united under a confederal militaristic-political alliance. Unfortnately, the alliance rested entirely upon the achievements of a single legendary Dai; and so, just like the empires built by the conquests of Chinggis Khan or Alexander the Great, when the founding conqueror dies, the lands he unified under his iron fist become the battleground for pretender successors and inevitably disband. 

Within a generation, the once unified Arzun’Dai had divided into their eleven tribes once more, each fighting the other over who might claim the greatness of their fallen overlord and create a new union. From here, the term Onwo became muddied. Every tribe sought to glorify its own leader by declaring them the “One Living Onwo*”, an “Onwo for the Modern Age”*, or some other unfounded and grandiloquent title. Soon, all a leader had to do was not start a senseless war, or win a senseless war to be declared by his followers the Onwo. 

In recent years, however, the term has regained its glamour and it is now less common for folk to feed the already oversaturated egos of their leaders by calling them an Onwo... In fact, the term “Onwo” has become something of an epithet to refer to a single man out of the entire world’s population. 

That man is myself: Ulysses Carter of Earth; the Yonderman; the Man from Over the Sea; the Forever King of the Sealand; the Onwo. 

The Beach

The earliest memory available to my mind – both of my life, and of my time on Sadebba, was of my arrival in this wondrous land that has since become my home. 

I awoke with a mouth full of sand. My eyelids, nostrils, and lips had been sealed shut by a thick rheumy crust.  I recall that I was incapable of moving my limbs, my body ached as if I were hungover, and my head was buzzing – needless to say, I was not in a particularly pleasant mood.

Despite the miserableness of my blind, half-conscious state, I knew I was on a beach. I remember that it was shortly after determining my location that I discovered my near-complete nudity, as I was only wearing a pair of unfamiliar boxer shorts.  Slowly, I felt my limbs regain their strength and I was able to liberate my eyes from their waxy seals. I peeled the waxy seal from my mouth and eyes, and realised that it covered my face in a stringy, weblike mask that filled my ears and nose with thick slimy plugs. 

With my senses now unimpeded, I regarded my surroundings in hope of making sense of where I was, how I got there, and how I could return home. Before me was the sea, and behind me was a forest; but on either side of myself, I noticed that  there was no horizon and instead of curving downwards like on Earth, the land curved upwards, higher and higher until East met West many kilometres above my head.  

The world appeared to exist as the inner face of an enormous cylinder – as if somebody had folded a world-map into a tube so that its decorated side made up the tube’s interior surface. For an age, I stared up at the insane sight above me. Although there was no sky like on Earth, there were clouds, and there was a Sun. The clouds were unremarkably similar to those on Earth, but the Sun appeared as a central beam of light that ran through the axis of the world-cylinder (and like the Sun of my home-world, it hurt to look at for too long). 

“Nope.” I said to the impossible world, before turning and wading into the water before me, marching into the sea as if I could somehow swim back to home planet.“Nope. Nope. Nope.”  I said again and again. I stopped when the water reached my waist, at which point I took to flailing my arms about my head with the hope that some passing boat, or overhead plane – somebody– would come to my rescue.

After a while, the light of the Axial Sun began to change, the midday brightness dimming into the faint orange warmth of early evening. With daylight fading I returned to the beach and  set about gathering small twigs and sticks so that I might start a fire to camp through the coming night. 

Making sense of my surroundings

When night had fallen, and the light of the Axial Sun had shifted into a cool dusky purple, I was sitting by my small campfire looking out into the ocean before me. I recall my confusion about the bizarre physics of this world, whether its pipelike structure was infinite, and what could have happened to result in my transmigration here – I had concluded long ago that this was not Earth.

As I sat there musing on my origin, I realised that I had no memories – or at least no personal ones – from before my arrival!

The gods knew that I already wasn't sleeping that night, so I set out to organise all that I knew. Starting with the most generic information, I confirmed that I was well muscled, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, my limbs were long for my torso, and I seemed to remember being called “tall” in my past life, but of course, I lacked any reference to judge my height relatively. My hair was black and clung to the top of my head in a messy mop of curls, and hung from my lower face as a thick, moustachioed beard.

My mind was devoid of any past details of myself. I had no memories of a family, occupation, or even nationality – my name – Ulysses Carter – surfaced eventually, and to this day I am unsure whether or not that was my actual name or some stitching-together of two disconnected names from my past. I knew facts about Earth – its history, geography, and politics. I knew of its countries, the three that came to mind most easily were the UK, USA, and USSR. The fact that these three came to me so easily suggested to myself that I belonged to one of them, and given my name, I seemed to belong to one of the first two.

A sound from the forest

Then came a sound from behind me. 

I had realised I had not encountered any animals so far, and so the knowledge that I was not the sole animal in this world came as a great relief. Nevertheless, I braced myself to engage with some kind of ferocious wild animal. 

To my surprise, the thing that emerged from the shrubbery was humanoid. The man-thing was taller than me and much broader, its body was covered in a thick coat of shaggy brown fur like a muskox’s, and from his head protruded a pair of large horns. The furry man wore a pair of loose fitting trousers, and hanging from a heavy belt was a series of pouches and leather containers. 

“By the gods,” he said in a language I was surprised to understand, “An Earthman.”

Apologies for the seizure inducing question, chums- this was the best phrasing i could think of.

I want to post stuff to RR- and obvs want the benefits of “meta”. That said, my stuff does not have *all* the meta traits. For example, i’m not that keen on writing gamelit or litrpg (i like reading it! I just am nor interested in writing it). My stuff is usually progression fantasy in some way or another, sometimes has op mcs.

My question is basically, to be considered “meta”, does one *need* to be litrpg?

By trade, Leo was a linguist, etymologist, and philosopher of language, and for the past two years, had been the pen-friend of an alien who he had named Benny. Benny's exact job was unknown to humans, but he was something like a diplomat or politician, his job could be broadly described as a "public organiser and speaker", which was a prestigious profession across his species' society.

This was the first time they had met in person - on the International Space Station, where a module had been designed specifically to be able to provide an environment safe for Benny to inhabit without instantly sublimating.

Benny had only agreed to meet with Leo specifically, and so Leo was dispatched to the International Space Station to make notes on their interactions that could be given to the myriad governments of earth [^1].

The alien made a low rasping noise,"{Questioning} I am called Benny?" said the computer.

"Yes. You are called Benny." said Leo.

The Septipede made another chattering rasping noise - like sawing through wood, "{Confused} This is not my name."

"No, but we do not have the ability to speak like you. Also your hearing is far broader than ours so we cannot process everything you are saying."

"{Understanding} I see. You are Leopold Cohen, yes?"

"That is correct, I am Leopold Cohen."

"{Questioning} Are you going to hurt us?"

Leo noted, 'Suspicious of us?'

The computer's translator had a default text-to-speech voice that had about as much charm as any other text-to-speech voice. Perhaps it was Benny's awkward body language- he raised his legs around himself defensively, or the nervous, mournful tone of his chattering, but Leo could hear the fear in his words.

"No. We want to help you."

Benny was a Septipede. Septipedes were anatomically bizarre with, as the name suggests, seven limbs. Their rough body plan resembled an irregular heptagon, that had been bent and warped in several places to give them a hunched "upright" stance. This upright stance let their four frontward limbs act as arms, whereas their back three limbs functioned as legs, meaning that they were tripodal. Their three legs gave them an awkward gait, with their backmost leg being thicker, and more muscled than their other two legs which granted stability.

Due to their bizarre leg placement, their "walking" resembled something between dragging and hopping, with their front leg moving forwards, aided by its two stabilisers, which would then move forwards to stabilise their body again. Oddly, despite being called "Septipedes", they (did) have eight limbs, and their thick hind leg had been formed due to the fusion of a pair of back limbs aeons ago in their species' evolutionary history.

"{Happy} This is good. You are the only ones who can help us."

Leo nodded slowly, "You keep saying stuff like this man, stuff about a predator, and how you're spaceship is the last one left."

"{Sad} Septipede-Home was destroyed by The Predator. Orbital-Colonies were also destroyed by The Predator. Benny and Benny's Crew is alone."

Leo scrawled 'Berserker Hypothesis?!'.

"What is The Predator."

Benny's large black eyes stared unfocused at Leo. "{Sad} Large, relativistic missiles. The Predator is the one that sent them."

"I see."

"{Sad} Benny and Benny's crew fled Home-Star-System, fled The Predator." He pressed one of his four arms against the glass. "{Scared} Moved through space for long-long time, came across big artificial sounds in space, followed them, lead us to humans. You are the only ones who can help us. You make big artificial sounds like Septipedes, will attract The Predator."

"You think the Predator will come here?"

"{Hopeful} Yes. The Predator will come here. Humans are numerous, and Septipedes have good technology. Help each other to make good survival?"

Leo scribbled 'Give us technology? Help each other to make good survival?'

"{Questioning} What is Leo writing?"

"Nothing buddy don't worry. Just some notes."

"{Questioning} Why does Leo need notes. Leo has good memory yes?"

"Nah, my memory is terrible."

"{Suspicious} You want to share notes to other humans, yes?"

He paused.

"{Questioning} Why do you want to do that?"

"Because I can't help you guys alone. You kind of need all of us."

The Septipede paused. "{Questioning} If Leo shares notes with Humans, then Humans will be more able to help?"

"Yes."

"{Agreeing} Fine. Leo can show notes to Humans. We must fight The Predator - or it will kill us all."

[^1] This is because Benny's species is extremely individualistic and somewhat anti-social. As such, trust, and secrets between friends are of enormous importance.