Boar

## Description

The "second" main character of Book 1 is the Boar. The Boar (named in Book 3 - Syzygy) is an Olgavelli.

### Early Days

Monty St John rarely gives a long, detailed description, but leaves it to the reader to visualize. Still, with the Boar, we are provided some clues. When the Boar protects the Pon Cloed during a ceremony at the frozen waterfall, Bret says:

> *... gave me a chance to catch occasional glimpses of the boar’s body in the ice.  Seeing the changes to its coat and general size made me estimate that at least a few months or maybe even longer had passed.  I also realized the boar had a grizzled coat for the first time.  Otherwise, it looked like a horse-sized Eurasian boar.*
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## Cultivation

Bret describes the Boar's cultivation in several ways but refers to the energy moving in the Boar's as a "thrumming engine".

> *It was weird, like a combination of a shiver going up your spine and the vibration you feel when you have an engine purring under your hand ... I finally figured out that the ‘engine’ as I was calling it was the fist-sized projection that pushed out of the boar’s skull in the battle*
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Initially, Bret focuses on the Boar's efforts to build and nurture a monster core.

> *It was some stone or hard deposit that the boar’s body had produced.  The stone didn’t quite vibrate or even spin, though it certainly seemed that way*
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> *From what I could sense, the boar seemed to rely on passively soaking up energy from, well, I guess, the environment.  The sensation came from the movement of energy as it moved in or over the hard stone.  Focusing on it seemed to build up an attraction that drew the power into the boar.*
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Watching the Boar cultivate made Bret realize that its 'network' that supported the network was messed up. Bret said:

> *Energy welled up and exploded from its gut.  It smashed into dead ends and dissipated.  Power ran around in circles until exhausted.  Then, finally, it leaked out and was lost.  So little made it from the boar’s stomach to the stone in its brain.*
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>  *Absolutely. The. Worst. Damn. Network. Ever.*
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It was this observation that led Bret to troubleshoot and rebuild the Boar's 'network.

In addition to the truffles, the Boar eats other produce and even absorbs energy from stones that the Pon Cloed woman provides.

#### Ascension

When the boar advances, its body is wrapped in a cocoon of fiery gravity.

> *It was chaotic and dreamlike to me, but I could feel the change.  It happened right after I completed rebuilding the network.  A cocoon of fiery gravity appeared around the boar, as the boar’s gravity and fiery power wrapped around it protectively.  It distorted everything around it, creating ripples that rapidly built into a sucking black hole that absorbed energy and sent it to the boar.*
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## Powers

### Book 1 - Ogygia

#### Early Days

* **Keen sense of smell**. Perhaps the most obvious capability the Boar has is a keen sense of smell, able to discover and pick out scents from a great distance away.
* **Gravity powers**. Early in the story, the Boar's gravity powers are pretty limited, used mainly to enhance its ability to charge and to help flip over enemies. Its ability was very crude and effectively, the Boar wielded its gravity powers like a hammer.

#### After Bret rebuilds his "network"

Bret observes the Boar's 'network' is a mess and rebuilds it. This change allows it to move to the next stage of its cultivation.