7.
Luke continued to practice with his spear as I walked up to him, his broad face set in a concentrated scowl. A thrust. Over and over, he did a single thrust before returning to his original starting place. That drying blood had to be sticky; the stench was unholy, and if he had been fighting all night, he was likely exhausted. Still, every thrust of the spear was crisp, the movements explosive, and he seemed in no hurry to stop anytime soon.Seeing that level of dedication and willpower sent a shiver of fear down my spine. If he wanted to, I had no doubt that he would run our group. Now I just had to see what his goals were, and see if he needed to feed the fish. Literally.
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced, but I’m Billy.” I don’t offer to shake his hand, nor do I drift into range of his spear. Luke didn’t bother to look at me, his repetitive work continuing unabated while I stood there staring at him. Maybe he’s shy?
“Well, I have some work to do cutting open those giant crabs to harvest mana hearts. Want to help me?”
“No.” Luke spoke softly, the word more of an exhalation of air as the spear thrust again. I began to feel self-conscious watching him practice as he ignored me. I don’t think I have to worry about him trying to become the leader of the group. Maybe of murdering us, but I didn’t think he was hiding any type of particular social skills that would elevate him beyond Dan or myself. I turned and left him and walked further to the beach, leaving him to his practice.
Stomach churning levels of stench. With every step deeper into the massacre, the smell grew more wretched. The natural brine smell of the sea mixed with fish. Stronger than any market I’d ever been to, the smell clung to me, invading my mouth and throat, clinging to every shallow breath I took. The ground squelched with every step, blood running rivers over the boots I had liberated. This was the result of the first fight in the tutorial, a level of violence and death that most had never seen. A shiver of anticipation ran through me;it’d only get worse-more desperate, more violent. That shadowy thought, the one that always whispers in my mind to act and act violently, is delighted. Some part of me wants to be like Luke, coated in blood and standing above all, the true master of the world with those who thought they were my equal laid down at my feet. Deep breath, exhale slowly. Deep breath, exhale slowly. Thrice more I inhale the smell of a rotting fish market before I calm down. Cold, I needed to be cold and calculating. I looked like a thug, but I couldn’t act like one, not if I wanted to accomplish my goals anyway.
I continued my walk to the closest of the killed crabs. It was the one that had been used as a ladder, laying in a broken heap next to the corner of the fort. Now that I was closer and had the early morning light to see with, I took notice of the monster. It had eight legs, each long and with multiple knuckles, gray as slate with sharp points of chitin at the end of them. Its body was crab shaped, a rough oval, but its’ now milky eyes resembled that of a fly- round orbs with hundreds of little facets. A half dozen seven foot long tentacles lay limp around its over sized mouth; each of the green-gray slimy tentacles were a foot thick and had vicious, bony hooks that were meant for gripping and ripping before using them to feed on. It didn’t have pincers, so maybe it was more like a sea spider with some octopus attributes?
It was slumped on its side and already its skin was beginning to slough away from its’ hard chitin. I had read that they decomposed incredibly fast. The mana heart no longer powering its’ over sized body caused this mess of fluids and jello like muscle that slid out of its’ shell. Bile was rising up my throat, but I soldiered on, looking around till I found a suitable weapon. Like all the fishmen weapons it is primitive, made of driftwood and sharp stone, but the long knife was better than my hand. My reading had told me how to do this and now I just needed to get it done. A concrete step in my plans to gather power- just cut up a decaying crab. I threw up.
After recovering from my momentary weakness, I started my work. The chitinous shell met the hard muscle of its belly, or at least it had been hard.Now, the simple stone blade slid through with ease. Cutting from the top of its stomach down to the bottom, I bisected it in a single powerful move. Slimy tubes slid free and drenched me in a shower of gore. I threw up again. This wasn’t going well.
Round two went faster and my recovery was easier as I started my search. The knowledge imparted by the stones in the library had indicated that the mana heart would be in the center. It wasn’t an actual organ, but rather a lump of mana that helped reinforce the monster's strongest attribute, which was constitution. I had a feeling that there were plenty of these types of monsters running around the region whose hearts could be consumed for attribute points.
Constitution was a solid beginning choice though. Having a sturdier body would be helpful, though I would have preferred endurance, simply because my own was lacking. Even after working myself to the bone throughout the night, I wasn’t able to get the damn stat up to average. I had plans for that though, just needed time to get to it-time that a few mana hearts could provide.
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After a few long minutes of shoving my arm up to my shoulder into the slimy mess of its belly, my fingers brushed something hard. In the rough center of its body was a rock hard mass. Strings of sinews were still intact, keeping it in place; with a few blind clumsy swipes of my newfound knife, I was pulling it free from the wreck of its former host.
Smeared in pale red blood, I had to rub it clean to see the muddy brown of the mana heart. A lump of crystal would have been a more accurate descriptor than heart. As I got more of it cleaned of grime, I could see the edges of its gem-like exterior. It was dense, only the size of a volleyball, but it had to weigh nearly thirty pounds. I set it down and looked around the beach, counting. I had a rough idea of how many crab monsters had been killed, but the final count of nineteen was depressing. Hours of fighting for only nineteen mana hearts. It would take at least a dozen to get the fort functioning, and a full score to get its automated defenses in place.
To gain stat points from eating it would require at least two for each point, with the cost climbing the higher your points were. It was why I had told my team not to invest; if we could find more of these monsters with different mana hearts, we would be able to raise our stats naturally even if it was slower than using the points we got from our levels. We would be weak and under-strength for a while, but in the end we would soar past those who invested points and ignored the mana hearts…or weren’t told about them.
The thought of cracking the hearts open and using the core of them for healing draughts was there too. Even if I set aside a dozen to get the fort operational, it would only leave seven hearts for my team. To make the draughts, I would need a heart for every dozen doses. The injured who had filled the dining hall and infirmary came back to my mind. I could win monstrous amounts of goodwill if I could provide them with a way to heal their wounds. The recipe I found in the library hadn’t been specific about how powerful the draughts were, but with how weak everyone was, I had a feeling it would be miraculous.
Three hearts for healing would be enough, leaving me four left to do with what I wanted, as long as no one else suspected what I knew. That would get complicated if people started competing with us for hearts. Then again, the fort could always use a few extra corpses to fuel it. I banished my worries of being confronted by someone. Aside from Bobby, I hadn’t seen anyone who had taken an interest in how our stats worked; two hearts would have to go to her. A gesture to build goodwill to build trust, at least until I figured out what she wanted or needed and could use that to nudge her along with my plans. Use the last two for Agatha? She was the weakest of us, the most frail, and the easiest to motivate. The fear for her grandchildren was palpable every time I talked to her. It was clear she would do whatever was needed to rescue them. Building a good rapport,though, would take us beyond and leave her more susceptible to manipulation after we found her grandchildren.
With my plans on how to distribute the hearts set, I began to finish off my gory work. Each crab was further along in decomposition. By the time I got to the fourteenth crab, I didn’t need the knife; pushing my arm through the gelatinous soup of flesh was enough. After freeing each heart, I set them on a slowly growing pile. At some point my work had attracted Luke’s attention, so much so that he left his practice to watch me with his pale green eyes.
“What are those?” Luke asked after I set down the last of the hearts. I was sweating heavily, drenched in gore and everything else that a body holds, exhausted, with the acidic aftertaste of vomit in my mouth. My patience was gone.
“Survival.” I grunted out.
“What do they do?” Luke asked without changing his expression. I was bigger than him. He didn’t have enough levels for him to be far beyond me, even if he had distributed his points. So why was I feeling fear in my belly as I looked at his plain, expressionless face?
“They’ll power the fort. Allow us to rebuild the gates, rearm, even activate golems who will fight for us. We don’t have enough of them for that last one yet though.” I tempered my impatience. I had a lifetime of handling ornery customer social skills to lean on, so switching to my customer service voice was seamless.
“Do they do anything else?” he said, with a hint of suspicion in his tone, his grip on the spear shaft had tightened as he had redistributed his weight. He was armed and I wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to let my edge go over simple fear.
“If we crack open the heart, there’s a liquid inside. We can use it to make healing draughts, get everyone else on their feet quickly. There’s more uses, but I haven’t had time to finish my reading.” I took the lesser of two evils. So what if he knew about the healing, everyone else would know too eventually. I just hoped my lie was convincing enough to alleviate his suspicion.
“I’m taking one.” Luke announced, bending down to scoop up the biggest of them before walking away. A shiver of relief rolled through me as he walked away. Something was off about him, a sense of power that I didn’t like. My earlier thoughts of feeding him to the fish hardened. He was a dangerous person; if he survived to get stronger, there would be no eclipsing him, no suppressing him. I would have to bury him here in the tutorial while we were all close to the same level. Grabbing two of the heavy hearts, I started to trudge up the beach toward the destroyed gates of the fort, my mind swirling with murderous plots.