Finding the corpse of the dead chicken was easy. Finding the rope-circlet was a bit of a challenge, but its effect of sucking the light out of its surroundings made it easier. Reaching the rope circlet was not as easy. And even less easy was getting the corpse back to the camp.
“You know, for a ‘hunt’ that only took an hour, I didn’t think it’d take me the rest of the damn day just to get this thing back here.”
In the end, he’d used his handy knife to dismember the shimmer-chicken (it was the species’ new official name as far as Liam was concerned), making the transportation less of an impossible task and more of a prolonged one.
“And to think, you were fortunate to get it so close to your little corner of safety too.” Maridah had shown up in her wolf form, overlooking his work with a fair amount of amusement.
“What’s fortunate is that the Maridah-apes didn’t show up to kill-steal.” He removed his bloodied clothes, using the spring water to wash off the blood. “Which makes me think those berries are special in some way.”
She didn’t answer, her flickering flames eyeing the bounty of flesh and shimmering feathers. “What are your thoughts on the ones that were left behind?”
Liam spared a glance at the carcass. “I killed their parent, so I guess their fate and mine have touched. Or at least that’s what I’d think if we were under normal circumstances. They might attack me next time around, or maybe even search for me directly.”
“You think their fate and yours are so deeply connected they’d seek revenge?”
“I know they’re smart enough that it wouldn’t surprise me if they understood the concept.” He growled, shaking his head. “Little fuckers were trying to lure me into a trap.”
“Does this bother you?” She asked, her tone curious and devoid of judgment.
“Should it?”
“You speak with a Goddess, Liam, my thoughts on morality should not match your own.” She carefully sat down. “The scope of our existence and influence is just too different.”
“I mean, agree to disagree on some of that.” He waved her off. “Yeah, sure, if I try to conceptualize a plan that will take a few thousand years to fulfill, my brain just gives up. But I don’t think that just makes our views inherently incompatible.”
Maridah shot him a flat look. “By the very limitations of your flesh and blood, you cannot imagine my existence.”
Liam chuckled. “I can imagine enough, at least.”
She became quiet. “Surprise me, then.” Maridah puffed her shoulders slightly, sitting straighter, her shadowy fur calming down to a perfect stillness. “See if you know me well enough to catch me off guard.”
The two stared at one another for several long moments. Liam considered her challenge carefully. He knew a great deal about her, so much so that he was certain the Goddess wouldn’t be very comfortable with it. Who would enjoy a stranger showing up to tell you he knew your deepest secrets and desires?
As much as he wished to show her up, he also didn’t want to push too hard or too far. Maridah had spent millions of years without a single person to talk to, a self-imposed isolation that had turned the Goddess closer to a hermit or a feral huntress.
Turning his gaze towards his “loot,” he focused on the bag of rust-moss. Liam approached the bag and dragged it along until he’d come face to face with the shadowy wolf.
With a deep breath, he knelt down in front of her, gave a respectful bow, and pulled the moss out of the bag.
“Though I currently lack the tools and skills to extract it as aether, this moss contains mana.” He proclaimed, extending his arms towards her. “I give this humble offering in tribute to the Goddess of Secrets, to Maridah.”
How long ago had she received prayer? Liam carefully put the moss down at her feet, doing his best to stick to protocol.
“To the spirit of the well, may her life be filled with truth.”
Her eyes had gone from wide to bewildered. The Goddess nearly took half a step back as if she’d tripped over herself. But age and experience made such slip-ups easy to hide, and the divine darkness let out a small cough, pretending she needed to clear her throat.
The wolf touched the moss, and it vanished into a swirl of darkness. Maridah stared at her own paw as if unsure she had just done that.
“That… was an acceptable tribute… for your first time,” she hesitated before giving him a quick nod. “May your day be blessed without falsehoods.” The response to the tribute came out stiffly, the divinity giving a second hesitant nod before looking around as if only now realizing this was not a temple. “I-uh… you successfully hunted. For your next lesson, you must perfectly weave a spell-knot using the rope circlet,” she hastily added one last sentence, vanishing the next moment. “Do not underestimate this task, it will take you many days to fulfill.”
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Liam didn’t comment on her abrupt departure, not wanting to ruin the moment by putting words to his grin. There was a tiny pang of guilt that tempered the expression. The path Maridah had set for herself had not been an easy one; isolation was not healthy for a divinity in much the same way that it could mess up a human.
It was a road she’d used for the sake of survival, and one that would’ve led to a dead end.
Whatever part of him was certain of the events to come, this was one of the futures he hoped he’d change.
Whether he was succeeding or not was another matter entirely.
That was a concern for future Liam; right now, he was barely surviving what was an extended teaching session as it was, and he needed to step things up. His plan to find a way to get around his body’s limitations was still very much in place, but to do so he needed to create some cheap-grade aether since the good stuff wasn’t available. Then he’d need to kill a proper monster… but those steps felt so far off that he turned to the next immediate thing: tools.
The shimmer-chicken had some wicked claws that could be turned into knives or daggers or somesuch. The shimmering feathers almost looked metallic, and Liam had a faint hope he could figure out how the “camouflage” had worked, but wasn’t holding his breath. For all he knew, the bird had some internal muscle that let it carefully change the angle of the feathers.
Both of those were really just the easier and more immediate uses he hoped he could get out of the corpse.
“Well, honestly, if I had a chance I’d rather kill things with spikes of ice or fireballs,” he lamented, carefully using the knife to separate the corpse into its constituent components. “But gotta have a plan B when there’s no aether available… or a plan A as things are right now.”
Making a crossbow was not going to be easy. It was a piece of mechanical engineering that required several moving components. Most everything he needed could be extracted from the shimmer-chicken’s corpse; its bones were sturdy enough to work as the base frame, while the sinew could work as the bowstring.
Yet as he worked, trying to figure out what he might need or might be missing, the task ahead became a cascade of requirements. Looking at the tangle of sinew as he washed the blood off, Liam was becoming increasingly certain his plan was not something he’d be able to accomplish in a single day. It wasn’t impossible or monumental in scope, but it was certainly a series of smaller projects, each potentially taking from one to several days to fulfill. And that was also under the consideration that he only knew the broad strokes of the steps, ones he’d either studied or read about, yet had not practiced once.
In short, there was a large amount of trial and error ahead.
That thought made him frown a little.
“I… think I’m lost here,” he spoke out to the jungle. “I know you did that dramatic exit, but could I confirm something with you?”
He heard the huff before he saw the wolf. Maridah stared at him unamused. “I am not at your beck and call, I do have my own work to do.”
“I understand that, and I don’t want to make it seem like I’m assuming you’re just waiting for me to call for you. I just feel like I’m maybe taking the wrong step,” he gestured at the sinew he was washing. “You want me to hunt, but also to practice knot-weaving. Yet, I feel like if I try to go through the steps of making a crossbow and other necessary tools…”
“Elaborate.”
“Well, I need a pot to boil water. To get the pot I need metal. To get metal I need an oven. To get the oven I need bricks. To get the bricks… well, you get the idea.”
“I see. You misunderstand and underestimate the lessons ahead,” she raised a paw and slowly drew a circle in the air. “You said you need metal, would you know where to find it?”
“Dirt works, it’s got iron all over the place, just mixed in with other things,” he pointed at the ground under him. “Though getting some carbon would also help.”
“Correct,” she began tracing a circle in the air, a slow strand of blue light followed the gesture. “As I told you once, you hold knowledge, but not the experience.” As the circle completed, it split, and began very purposely forming a knot onto itself. “Spellcraft allows us to more easily bridge between theoretical and practical than any other path.”
Once the knot was finished, its pattern began to shrink, its bluish color becoming brighter until it was almost blinding. With a soft “pop,” it vanished, and the ground around Maridah shuddered. Silver hairs began to rise out of the soil, coalescing into a sphere where the knot had once been, growing in thickness until it was about twice the width of his fist.
“Modern mages work looking into the extremes of magic, they build upon a frail foundation for the sake of reaching further faster, forgetting their roots,” she slowly drew a second circle, one that repeated the process of slowly becoming a knot. “Once upon a time, mages were the seedlings from which civilization sprouted.” The reddish spell was quickly accompanied by a second blue spell. The metal sphere began to grow hotter, quickly taking a red glow. “A single mage could supply everything necessary to start a village within the span of a day. It was from these humble beginnings that you will learn.”
The sphere rose into the air and flattened under an invisible force, slowly twisting and bending to take shape, carefully taking shape under the Goddess’ magic. Within merely a minute, an iron skillet dropped, steam rising from the dirt as it began to quickly cool down.
She was using primal spells, the stuff that was only economically viable during that brief period of time after an Age began where there would be an abundance of aether. The fall of a pantheon and the establishment of a new one was a cataclysmic event where Gods fought for their very lives, one violent enough that most civilizations would either get erased or blasted back to the stone age. It was at these times where the remnants of the divine battle would linger, eventually coalescing into either spirits (that would eventually become the new Gods) or aether.
Liam felt apprehension at this plan Maridah had. It meant he’d almost assuredly need to hunt with the knife and rope-circlet again, neither of which were tempting prospects. He'd barely escaped the shimmer-chicken once; it'd been a fight he would've rather not repeat.
“You hunted successfully once,” she declared as if reading his thoughts. An amused grin appeared on her lips. “The sooner you learn magic, the less risk you will take when hunting next time.”
He gulped.