In Awakening, the protagonist ('Myself') lacks any significant ancestral memory, but possesses grasp of many advanced concepts and ideas.

In terms of mathematics, thanks to being aware of the concepts of such things as Zero, division, multiplication and etc, Myself possesses an innate ability for calculation but lacks any knowledge of theoretical mathematics.

Myself also uses Hexadecimal or Base-16, meaning that whereas humans use Base-10 (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), she counts 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15.

*Skuts can eat just about anything! So long as it's not an inert lump of rock, glass or sand, they can generally extract SOME form of nutrition from it, even if it ends up tasting horrible. This also renders them immune to most ingested poisons (though not all).

*Skuts have highly acid bodily fluids and extremely corrosive blood. While this generally means that their sexual fluids and saliva have a sensation of citric acid, their blood causes chemical burns to non-Skut on contact

*Skut breed and grow up RELATIVELY quickly. In Earth terms, their gestation period is significantly shorter than human, they have litters of three or more young at a time, and they grow to maturity in approximately eight years. Commensurately, their biological lifespan is far shorter.

*Skuts have adorable twin nose-horns, six eyes and a cute wiggly tail and it is SO CUUUUUTE

Skut individual consciousness is sustained by the number of bodies connected to their hivemind and maintained by keeping the population of Skut in the hivemind continuous.

This means that a female Skut giving birth to a pup will be connected to her young via the hivemind, whereas a male impregnating a female of any Skut's hive will not possess a direct connection. The Hivemind connection is Matrilineal rather than Patrilineal.

Skuts of different Hiveminds CAN NEVER be connected, whether by close contact or wanton breeding. Only Skuts born to females already within the hivemind can become a part of it.

Separating members of the hivemind by extreme distance will cause their mental processes to fail and their minds to eventually shut down. Doing this suddenly will in all likelihood completely shatter their link to the hivemind permanently and render them feral and animalistic.

I'm already loving this.
Please keep going.

The planet Melora is on now at present is known to be a sphere orbiting a large and heavy ball of plasma called a 'sun'.

The planet itself is called many things by the varying peoples that inhabit it, but the generally accepted term is "Apex". Thanks to its axial tilt and large oceans, as well as an anomalous moon, there are four seasons that correspond roughly to Earth's.

Stars are currently held to be distant celestial objects such as planets, many of which have been identified with primitive telescopes by the various nations of Elz.

>>117638
Fascinating!

I'm glad this is back. I love skut.

>>120655
Happy to hear! The plot should be more coherent from this point onward, and I've gotten more confident writing actual dialogue.

Due to a shortfall in medication, I may be delayed in getting today's update up in a timely fashion. Sorry!

Alright, today I'll be grabbing pills and finally be able to focus again! Sincere apologies for missing those days.

Mildly curious,... what's the weather like around the village from season to season? Temperate? Kinda chilly from the mountains, or do the mountains act like rain catches? Is the forest evergreen? Do hot winds blow in from the eastern desert? Who cares about the terrain to the south? And how's the earth the village is built on, I'm assuming it's not sandy or something if they can grow food reasonably well, so is it like more loamy soil or clay or something? Methinks I'm going to be doing some city planning.

>>120995
The mountains create a rain-shadow effect, meaning that generally it's hot and rainy at the foot of the mountains and gets dry and cold further north. The plains to the west are somewhat cool and dry due to cold air, and the jungle to the east eventually turns into temperate fores.

Generally it's either moderately raining, somewhat cloudy or sunny, without a real winter.

Apologies for the sudden drop off in posts, I've been feeling under the weather for the past few days. Later today I shall post a proper ending for the thread.

>>121294
Get Well Soon!