A part of me couldn’t help but wish that David Attenborough were here with us. Watching the giants was quite fascinating. Their behaviour, while animalistic, had some sophistication and subtle hints that they weren’t completely dumb, only mostly. Having Mr Attenborough with us, or rather, having his soothing voice to narrate our observations, would make the entire process of watching these simple, if surprisingly violent, creatures just that little bit more relaxing.

Sadly, there was no soothing voice here, nobody who would narrate the process of a giant violently tearing apart a deer to feast on its bloody meat or that of a giant using a slightly pointy stick to stab salmon in the river before roasting the fish over their fire. That was one curious oddity, the differences in control and usage of fire between the giants. Some of these creatures had not only figured out how to start fires, but they even set up simple fireplaces, with stones to contain the embers and openings above the fire to let smoke vent out. Those fires were then used to cook, or rather char, the meat they hunted and consumed, hopefully reducing their vulnerability to parasites and disease. Other giants ate the game they hunted down raw, quite literally tearing strips of the bleeding carcass, or even off a crippled but still struggling prey without even killing it first; it was quite horrifying.

Weirdly, that horror was at least partially because I instinctively saw giants as something other than animals. It was somewhat of the reverse situation I had experienced with Ylva and Lenore, though back then I had simply accepted their intelligence, thinking it a game’s feature and, a lot more recently, my association with Silva and, recently, with Sasha. For those four, my initial instinct had been more along the lines of dismissing their intelligence, even after they had proven it beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, while the giants? Well, I had repeatedly fallen into the mental trap of thinking them more intelligent than they proved to be, though with them, the situation was even more complicated.

Mainly because the giant’s intelligence appeared to be a fairly wide spectrum, making me wonder just how these creatures had come about. There was no indication that these giants had once been human and were mutated by the change. For that to be the case, I would think that they wouldn’t leave the area around their original settlement behind, but, despite extensive use of my scrying constructs, I had been unable to find any such settlement. Sure, they might have all originated from some distant city and migrated to find territories of their own, but that felt like a stretch.

To make things even more confusing, there was that trail we had originally come across, with the simple markings reminiscent of runes. None of the giants we had encountered thus far came even close to the required intelligence and sophistication to carve those runes, to say nothing of understanding them.

Hel, I doubted that the giants here even had the deliberation to make trails like that one. They might create one by simply walking a certain path repeatedly, trampling down everything they walked over as they did so and thus slowly creating a path, but to deliberately create one that made long-distance travel easier? That didn’t sit right with me, unless one assumed there was some sort of migration involved, with numerous giants all following the same path and creating it like that. Another fairly unlikely idea, at least in my opinion.

There was one truly bright spot amongst the giants, the female I had helped on a whim. That one, whom I had dubbed Naya somewhere in the back of my mind, was quite fascinating. Before my interaction with her, she had been fairly normal, maybe a little on the bright side, as evidenced by her carefully constructed shelter. Granted, she hadn’t completely mastered the use of fire, as she hadn’t understood how to properly vent her fireplace just yet, but other than that, she had demonstrated relatively advanced intelligence. She even had the ability to plan and prepare, using it to store a supply of food for later, instead of completely gorging herself as the other giants did. Now, if only she learned how to make food non-perishable, she could be considered a genius, but after our interaction, I doubted that would happen soon.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Mainly because Naya’s focus, after we interacted, had shifted.

Since then, she had spent multiple hours each day training, working to learn and understand the various exercises I had transmitted into her mind, as well as trying to emulate Sigmir’s fighting style. That didn’t work as well as it might have, as she only had a stick instead of the massive, two-headed Lok’nar that Sigmir preferred, but compared to the rest of the giants who primarily fought with their hands, she was well ahead of the curve. Especially as what counted for a ‘stick’ when judged by a giant was more along the lines of a small tree in the hands of anybody else. I did not doubt that Naya would be able to devastate most enemies with her newly chosen weapon, even if such an encounter had yet to occur.

A part of me wondered if I should try to influence Naya, and maybe even some of the other giants, even further. As things were right now, these creatures were, well, they were nothing but animals. Their intelligence was subpar at best; their only advantage over other animals was their opposable thumbs, a modicum of tool usage, and, at least for some of them, the utilisation of fire. Though if I recalled correctly, there had been some hawks in Australia before the change that had learned to use burning sticks to set wildfires, using those fires to force their prey out of cover. Additionally, numerous animals before the change had been able to use tools similarly to the way the giants did, so could I call that an advantage over other animals?

Not really, but Naya was demonstrating that she was able to learn and advance in ways I didn’t think an animal would. At least I couldn’t believe that an animal could deliberately train using memories transferred to it from an outside source, not that I could back that feeling up with anything concrete. Regardless, Naya could serve as a test subject, allowing me to see if giants could be uplifted and turned into intelligent beings faster than the dragons. It would be fascinating to see which type of creature would prove to be better and more adaptable, the dragons, which I had granted powerful elemental advantages or the giants, who might be capable of learning and advancing beyond their current bestial state. Either of those creatures might prove to be suitable to populate the surroundings of my eventual territory. Both should be hardy enough to withstand the cold my lair would undoubtedly be surrounded by, and, maybe most importantly, if they developed as I hoped they would, either type of creature would prove to be a formidable defence for my home. I would just have to make sure that they knew to respect me, which might be difficult.

“Luna, did you look at those blood samples I’ve given you? What do you think about the potential in these giants? Can they be turned into something more?” I asked my daughter, already considering potential ways these giants could be advanced and upgraded.

“The blood has some affinity to Ice, but you already knew that,” Luna told me, after checking a few things she had noted down. “Other than that, it only demonstrates that the Giants are extremely physically adept, which we also knew before. I mean, it’s not as if that part is easy to miss; they survived the winter up here and even now, in summer, it’s not all that warm,” she explained, getting a nod in response.

“And regarding their potential? Do you think we can take these physically powerful beings and turn them into something more than just dumb brutes?” I pushed, grinning a little at the way she cocked her head to the side, clearly thinking. It was a position I recognised from my own mannerisms, something my daughter had apparently adopted from me.

“It’s possible,” she mumbled, “We wouldn’t be able to purely improve them magically, that wouldn’t do all that much. We’d have to teach them as well, after improving their minds. I’m not sure if it would work, but it sounds quite fascinating,” she nodded, already interested in the potential this project had.

“Regardless of our ultimate success, I want you to keep a close eye on the process. This might be the key to growing a body to house Sigmir’s soul, so, please,” I trailed off, getting an empathetic nod from my daughter, who knew full well just how important that particular project was.

With a shared nod, we began to plan, already considering which giants had the highest potential and which we thought had the most suitable character. This might take some time.