Quinn awoke to the cool damp soil. He could tell by the lack of constant vibrations of the soil that it wasn't raining anymore. Quinn noticed a kaleidoscope of smells all around him. Most of them were unfamiliar and evoked no reaction from him. Whereas some he could recognize as fellow worms.
How he knew they were worms he couldn't figure out. Something deep inside of his body revealed insight about each and every scent. Every pheromone.
Searching through the smells, Quinn found most of the smells couldn't be identified while others evoked fear. Raw primal fear.
Quinn didn't want to find out the sources of these smells so he headed for where he smelt most worms. The top soil. Heading towards the surface he activated his skill.
[ [Dig] Activated]
The soil tasted a lot better then previous. The soil was more alive, more complex, more flavorsome.
'Still ass' Quinn sneered. The highly engineered food of the 21st century made everything taste awful to him. Even if he was a worm eating the finest dirt, the food from his previous life spoiled the pleasures of this one.
...
The top soil was a lot more alive then the solid dirt. It consisted mostly of organic matter such as small pieces of plant and animals. This was all set with small rocks and roots from all sorts of plants. From grass to trees from bushes to saplings.
Most notably was the all the tiny little creatures eating a bunch of the pieces within the top soil. Quinn was one of them. It seemed that the rain caused a lot of the predators to hide.
But not all of them.
Quinn was sucking on some leaves until he smelt a rather particularly nice smell. A leaf that seemingly radiated power. Activating his ability he headed in the direction of the scent.
However it was not that easy. Quinn struggled to find which direction to go to.
'Are you serious!?? I finally smell something half decent and I can't even find it?? I should go back to eating whatever slop is right next to me... Agh but it smells so good.'
"Rumble rumble"
Suddenly Quinn felt a vibration. He couldn't distinguish which direction it came from. All he knew is that it was getting louder.
"Rumble Rumble!!"
It got louder again. Quinn was sweating mucus. He was afraid.
"RUMBLE!!"
'I'm dead'
Suddenly Quinn felt a similar skin to his own ram into his behind.
He tried to dig to the side but it was no use. He was caught.
But not dead. Not even injured. The creature just dug through him into the direction of the smell. And Quinn recognized it as his own. Then he's appraisal went through.
[Appraisal: Earthworm]
Quinn was fine.
'Phew I'm alive. wait that fucker is gonna steal my meal'
Stealing his resolve, he followed the worm. Like fish to a lure.
...
[Appraisal:Dark pine leaf]
'This isn't bad... not good either but there's something about this leaf that I can't put my finger on'.
[Growth progresses ...]
[You have Aged:
[Juvenile Worm] --> [Adolescent Worm] ]
[Growth completion: 67%]
[Aged body hosts 2 new Racial traits:]
[Racial trait [Tremor sense] [Pheromone detection] Unlocked]
The effects of these skills hit Quinn like a flash flood through his entire tail. The new sensory stimuli opened a whole world of information to Quinn.
He could smell more and even identify more of the unknown smells from before.
Every vibration he sensed now had a direction and a shape. He could make out roughly where every vibration was coming from and could construct an estimated guess of what was making the sound.
Focusing on the worms around him he noticed there seemed to be some kind of order.
Worms would rub their mucus on a piece and then go eat another one. All the other worms seemed to not like eating the mucus covered leaf.
Not that it always stopped worms.
Some worms ate it anyway.
But Quinn instinctively did not eat the leaf with other worms mucus on it. He felt that it was wrong somehow. Like it was the worm thing to do.
And then he noticed something. A worm got caught eating a another worm's mucus covered leaf. The worm that 'claimed' it made a short pulse of vibration. The caught worm made a pulse back. The loudness, length and frequency of the pulses seemed chaotic to Quinn. But it definitely had an order.
One worm would vibrate then the other would rumble back.
And then it came to Quinn.
'It's a language. And... I can vaguely understand it?'
While Quinn didn't understand what they were saying exactly he did understand the raw emotions of the communication. In this case, he felt anger from the first worm and fear from the caught worm. And then it happened again. And again.
Quinn found this entertaining as he unconsciously kept eating parts of the leaf
Until Quinn realized that his piece was also covered in mucus.
And he felt an angry worm looming over his back.
...
"Rumble rumble!!"
Quinn instinctively knew that the elder worm was angry and fear washed over him. From head to tail he shivered.
Quinn hummed with a low submissive tone while also appraising the worm.
[[Appraisal] Activated]
[Appraisal: Greater Earthworm ]
"rumble SCREECH!"
Quinn got the impression that the worm wanted him to scram or it would crush him into a paste.
Quinn wasted no time digging away. He was already eying a giant piece of leaf that had no smell so it worked out well. Digging his way to the leaf he noticed that for some reason the other worms didn't touch it. The piece was ginormous and consisted of more than half the leaf. It was the center and Quinn wondered why no other worm was eating this piece.
He was answered a second later when the single loudest vibration rumbled out. It felt like an earthquake. And not one of those small magnitude ones either. This was colossal.
Worst of all, Quinn's [tremor sense] told him that this came from one entity. One massive worm that was pointing at center of a certain piece of leaf.
That's when it went quiet.
All the vibrations stopped.
Even the elder from before stopped eating.
Their hums matched what Quinn sounded like before.
Fear.
A King was coming.