It was quite lucky that the whole school of red mercreatures got spooked and fled from us. It seemed that their species was conflict adverse. Swimming up stream, we all were left alone. I went up to Larl. "Are you okay?" I asked him. He looked at me and said "It kind of hurt a little. I felt like he was upset and scared I hit him. His gurgling was in my head for a second too." That was pretty interesting to find out. His nose was bleeding at bit. Pointing it out to him, I said "It looks like they have both telekinesis and telepathy. I believe that this group are passive if they could project thoughts in your head and see your hostile intent, but still decide to flee instead of engage us." I did not want to genocide the creatures on the planet. Haroon and the others approached as well. "If they attacked, we should follow and respond in kind." he said. I rolled my eyes. "Technically, Larl struck first. I am really impressed that it worked out so well though. We have gathered crucial info about a new species on this planet." I said to the group. Alyas pat Larl on the back. "We are finally doing it!" he shouted.
As explorers and potentially conquerors, this was a good start. I wanted to go down stream to see more about the ecosystem of the planet. I was outvoted 5 to 1. There was a dogmatic view that we should be fucking over every sentient creature we saw just because we were superior. I really did not like it. Still, we had to keep going. The bank of the river was not dangerous and we seemed able to walk without any interference. After an hour of walking together, we say a different group of merfolk. This time, they were pale skinned with black scales. When they saw us, they looked concerned. As we attempted to go further up, we found that we were blocked. It was if an invisible wall was erected. They were still 10 yards from us. Frowning, I said "The red ones must have warned these black ones about us. We are going to have to move around the barrier they set up if we still want to follow the red ones up the stream." "Or we could try blasting these ones. What's the difference!?" Dolan grumbled. Corey shrugged his shoulders. "If these cowards won't engage us, we'll come back."
Black scaled merfolk watched us as we felt our way around the barrier. It seemed to be a perfect 10 yard circle around them. Once we had cleared it, we all were able to continue to follow the river. That was nice. None of them seemed to actually be acting aggressive or hostile to us. It was promising that we were, at least for now, leaving them alone. They probably would try to attack them later, but the focus was getting revenge on the red scaled merfolk. The walk did not seem to be a problem for them. It should not be when they were all so fit and internally motivated. We made it for about another hour and a half before we encountered another group of merfolk. They were sporting white scales. Unlike the ones with black scales, these ones had a very aggressive disposition and stance. They were gurgling at us and either frowning or glaring at us. There was still a big barrier though. "They have some nerve glaring at us like that. Once we deal with the reds, these white ones need to be dealt with." Larl said under his breath. Haroon agreed with it. "Wait until we get intel." I said.
Corey shrugged. "We shouldn't try attacking things we don't understand blindly. I get that. But we need to take this planet over. How are we going to gain resources from the river with these creatures blocking us with their minds and throwing things!?" I rolled my eyes. "Listen. We're going to get a larger understanding of them. We learned there are at least 4 different colors with different temperaments. We might get to see more. I bet that we might even see a group that is aggressive to the point that they go hostile and attack. It will be impossible to complete the mission if we get killed by some creatures with powers we don't understand. That is why we all need to take a more passive approach to observing and cataloguing these creatures." I told them for what felt like the 10th time. After yet another hour of walking, we saw something crazy. There was a lot of high pitched whining and gurgling. We picked up the pace. The red scaled merfolk were being attacked by blue scaled merfolk. Some of the red and blue merfolk were knocked out in the water. We were stunned for a bit.
