[You have chosen to ally with the faction: Nature Elves. You are no longer a neutral party. Your actions will now be considered as actions of the Nature Elves and will reflect fully on them. The leader of the Nature Elves has been notified of your choice.]

  Suddenly Dominic was very glad that he’d chosen to ally with the elves – he might have had to do some fast talking if she would have been notified of his change in allegiance regardless.

  [Error: leader of the local party is a lower level than the newly allied leader.]

  [You are a higher level than the current leader of the Nature Elves faction: Elder Alwen. Do you wish to challenge for control of the Nature Elves faction?]

  Despite his words earlier and knowing it was a bad idea, Dominic was nonetheless tempted to say yes. Who hadn’t wanted to rule a town of elves? Though in his post-Lord-of-the-rings dreams, Dominic hadn’t been a lion when doing so. But his point to Leo still stood – he doubted that the System would help make his life easy if the elves decided to make his life a misery because he’d supplanted their beloved Elder Alwen. Besides, how could he look after this territory at the same time as the forest surrounding the Place of Power? Especially if the population wasn’t keen on the change of leadership. They were days of travel apart.

  ‘No.’

  [You have chosen not to challenge the leader at this time. You may not challenge for leadership of the Nature Elves faction again for another 30 days. Elder Alwen has been notified. You may choose to leave the faction at any time. Rejoining it after leaving, however, will require you to be approved by one of the leaders (Elders) of the faction.]

  [You have fought against members of the Beast Wave. You have personally forced the surrender of 4 sub-leaders. As a result, 69 followers have surrendered. Due to trickery, you have positioned your own follower as a sub-leader within the Beast Wave faction. This sub-leader remains loyal and has converted 21 followers to your own faction. Your faction has killed 15 participants.]

  [Benefits calculating….]

  ‘Interesting,’ Dominic noted while they waited for whatever their prizes would be. ‘So it doesn’t take into account the battle we fought when we first arrived here, but it does count Howler and his actions.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because the first battle was before we had made a proper agreement with the elves?’ Leo suggested.

  ‘Possibly,’ Dominic allowed. ‘Or perhaps it’s because the fact that Howler had infiltrated the albuha group on the other side is a big reason for why the sub-leaders agreed to an alliance.’ Before they could converse further, the System finished whatever calculations it was making.

  [For your personal actions, you have earned 355 Challenge Credits. Prey Point Enhancements do not apply to Challenge Credits. Your followers may have gained some Challenge Credits according to their own participation. Continue to work towards your faction’s victory to earn more Challenge Credits.]

  And what are ‘Challenge Credits’? Dominic wondered, focussing on the term in the notification. ‘Information’.

  [Challenge Credits are tokens given by the System during a Settlement Challenge. These Credits are earned by actions which work towards winning the Challenge for your faction. Actions with more impact earn more Credits. Credits can be used to purchase rewards in the System reward centre at the end of the Challenge.]

  ‘Some guaranteed rewards as long as we fight in the Challenge? That’s good to know,’ Dominic said to Leo with pleasure. ‘That makes up for not getting regular doses of Prey Points, I’d say.’ Quite possibly, this was the humanoid’s version of ‘prestige’.

  ‘Wait until we see what the rewards are,’ Leo recommended darkly. ‘They might be useless to us.’

  ‘True,’ Dominic admitted. ‘But even if they’re useless to us, we might be able to trade them to the elves for something we will find useful.’

  Leo had nothing to say about that. It was interesting to see that it was a separate counter for everyone, though – no equal apportioning here. Dominic wondered what the others had earned, though considering they struggled with numbers, he wasn’t sure how they’d even know if he asked them. The System probably wasn’t expecting beasts to be on the side of the humanoids, Dominic thought to himself wryly. But still, not all sapient humanoids can necessarily count – even on Earth some people had been severely disnumerate.

  And yet they might be expected to understand Challenge Credits if they happened to end up in a settlement undergoing a Challenge, assuming this wasn’t some unique occurrence. Dominic thought that rather unlikely. He guessed that the System compensated in the same way it allowed beasts to level up and choose perks without knowing how to read or access their status screens. Still, he should probably put ‘teach the Pride numbers’ higher on his to-do list – it seemed to be increasingly important in this new world.

  It seemed like the System wasn’t finished with them, though.

  [You have completed a Challenge: May The Mightiest Win. You have completed the Challenge by forcing all challengers to withdraw. You have no access to enhancements from the challengers.]

  ‘Didn’t we already see this message?’ Dominic asked Leo, wondering whether he was imagining things.

  ‘We did,’ Leo confirmed, sounding just as confused.

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  [Due to being the opposite faction from the Challengers, you have earned 462 Prey Points.]

  ‘Meaning that if we had been the same faction, we wouldn’t have earned Prey Points?’ Dominic wondered.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Could have been less or more. Have we got enough points to level up now?’ the lion asked with some impatience.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll check.’ So saying, Dominic pulled up his progress. They both huffed simultaneously in annoyance.

  Progress to Evolution: 1077/1090

  ‘Thirteen off,’ Dominic sighed mentally. ‘Oh well, at least we’ve learned that forcing a surrender doesn’t mean losing out on all Prey Points. At least in this Challenge.’

  ‘We’d have earned more if we’d killed them all,’ grumbled Leo.

  ‘And how many more of our own would we have lost?’ Dominic asked pointedly. ‘I’m sure we’ll have plenty of battles in our future where opponents aren’t so willing to give up. It doesn’t appear that we shared the points with the rest of the Pride, though. I wonder if Nyx got any?’ Leo sent a sense of nonchalance.

  In answer, Dominic returned to the Pride status and looked at Nyx’s entry. A pang of jealousy and pride went through them and Dominic couldn’t tell which of them was feeling what.

  ‘That lucky female!’ Leo exclaimed, the same mixture filling his mental presence. Dominic didn’t blame him.

  Tier 2, Level 31 x1

  (Nyx: Sonic Attack, Group Homogeneity, Group Enhancement, Vibrating Body, Pack Defence, Healing Cloud) level 30 -> 31

  ‘Huh, clearly, however many points she got, it was enough for her to level up,’ Dominic commented, dismissing the status. He wondered for a moment when she’d blurred – he hadn’t seen it. Perhaps it had been while he’d been speaking with the elves. He supposed it would make sense to have happened while she’d been healing their new allies – that way she could refresh her resource pools without having to wait.

  They waited for a few moments but no more messages appeared. Apparently that was it for the Challenge. Though Dominic was still a bit envious of Nyx managing to level up, he couldn’t say that they’d come out too badly from it – they’d got a good chunk of Prey Points and some of these ‘Challenge Credits’.

  On that note, it might be a good idea to find out what the elves knew about those. At the same time, it was probably necessary to meet with Elder Alwen again – she must be at least confused, and possibly outright alarmed by the various notifications that she’d received over the last few minutes. It would be good to make sure that there were no misunderstandings going on among their elven allies.

  But first, he’d better make sure that the albuhas were sorted out – he had a feeling that those at least would be joining his Pride and he needed to make sure that Howler wouldn’t be causing any problems for Jenkins now that he’d got to a slightly higher level.

  Dominic pushed himself to his feet, causing some grumbles when the others were forced to move.

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised to the grumpy ladies, rubbing heads with each of the lionesses. ‘Duty calls.’ Nyx raised her own head in clear invitation so he stepped over to her, not needing to lean down to her at all even though he was standing and she was lying down. The quiet rumbles from the three indicated that he was forgiven, but the lack of movement and already closed eyes of Jenkins told him that they were too comfortable to move. He padded off alone towards where the albuhas were relaxing in the limited shade of the hedges.

  ‘Howler,’ he greeted.

  ‘Packleader Dominic,’ the albuha replied, his eyes sharper than Dominic remembered them being. ‘You have come to add my pack to the Pride?’

  ‘I have,’ Dominic replied. ‘That’s…what you want, right?’ he couldn’t help asking, all too aware about just how much the original pack had been whittled down since they had met for the first time. And yes, most of that had happened in the original fight, but the truth was that several of the albuha pack had been lost in the various fights since then. On the other hand, the ones who had survived had gone up multiple levels in the maybe ten days since – at least four each, some five or six.

  ‘Yes, but perhaps it’s better if they’re not added right now,’ Howler replied tentatively, like he might be worried about Dominic getting angry with him for the suggestion. His more fluid speech indicated that he might have put at least one of his perks into Intelligence.

  ‘Why?’ Dominic asked curiously.

  ‘Well, it depends if you want us to return to the matriarch or not,’ Howler pointed out. A very reasonable suggestion, Dominic realised a moment later. Now that he was officially allied with the elves, Dominic didn’t know whether the matriarch would be able to sense that they were spies. Which could be a problem for Howler, Teeth, and Jaws….

  Dominic considered whether it was worth sending the albuhas back at all. Apparently last time, none of the beasts that escaped took news back to the matriarch. They could do the same now. On the other hand, sending the albuhas back meant that they could send false information, and would also have insiders who could tell them if the matriarch was sending another army.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea for you to return to the matriarch, if you’re not opposed to it,’ Dominic said carefully to Howler. He didn’t want the albuha to feel obliged to do so, though. ‘Are you?’

  The canine didn’t answer immediately, looking over at his new pack.

  ‘Will you take our weakest? Our mothers and cubs? If we must escape the matriarch, I do not want to risk leaving them behind.’

  It was a more strategic response than Dominic had expected – he’d underestimated the canine leader. He was already making plans for what to do in case of an emergency. And he was right – the biggest danger to the plan was the matriarch realising they were spies and the whole pack needing to escape fast.

  ‘The matriarch won’t be suspicious?’ Dominic checked with him.

  Howler made an odd chirping noise. ‘I will tell her they were caught and killed. They are weak. She won’t be suspicious,’ he explained.

  Dominic nodded slowly, his mane shifting around his face.

  ‘OK, let’s do that, then. They won’t cause issues because you’re their leader, not me?’ Dominic checked. He’d had his experience with how the albuhas worked.

  ‘They know I defer to you and saw your power. We will need to fight again later, but for now it will do well enough,’ Howler told him decisively.

  ‘Alright, then. Show me who you want me to invite.’

  here!