chapter 1

Mark woke up cold and alone, that wasn’t unusual as he lived in a tent on the outskirts of the camp whenever they stopped. When he was 16 his dad, the chief of the village, had kicked him out and forced him to stay outside of camp. His mother had made sure he had everything he needed but she still cried soo much that day. He shook himself from his thoughts. He got up and dressed himself for the chilly weather outside his warm tent. It wasn’t a big tent but it was made of thick hide and he had a few heavy pelts to keep warm. He pulled on his heavy fur lined coat and thick boots he’d stolen from a shed a few miles back. He was about to leave when he heard something hit the outside of his tent. He jumped a little as he turned to where it had hit. It was only a few moments later that the smell hit him and he groaned as he tried not to gag. ‘Fucking kid throwing dung on my tent again.’ He thought to himself as he finished getting ready before using a large shard of polished metal as a mirror to give himself a once over.

He wasn’t anything special, average height of 5 '5, average build not too large but not skinny either, average looks too even, the only two things not average about him was his shaggy shoulder length red hair which he’d got form his mother, and his eyes. Unlike both his mother and father who had vibrant blue eyes like all magi, those who could call upon the hidden forces of this world, he instead had two shining golden eyes, the eyes of a beast, a freak. He flexed his arm and he felt the hidden power in his arms as he did. While he couldn't cast magic like a Magi he could improve his body refining it bit by bit. He kept himself average looking so the rest of the tribe wouldn’t notice but he knew he could do more, he didn’t have anyone to teach as beasts like him were just as rare as Magi so they didn’t have anyone to show him the ropes. He could feel he could do more though, but he knew from the stories he overheard from some travelers, that the bigger the change a freak made the more obvious they became. And for some reason his mother had always asked him to keep himself from drawing too much attention.

He sighed and left his tent to check on his tent and start his day. As he exited his tent he heard the laughter of the rats, a group of kids that have been tagging along with the tribe since the last passing winter and being all around brats, or at least thats what he’d call them. The others won’t do anything about them messing with him and if he did act, the tribe would no doubt take the kids' side. He shook his head before going to start his fire with what little wood he had left and melt some snow to help clean his tent, again. He gets a small fire started with the flint and steel he borrowed from that charcoal burner and then scrapes some snow into a pot and starts melting it. After a bit of waiting and a bit of scrubbing he has his tent as clean as he can get it and he heads off to the one place in camp he won’t be bothered, the medical tent where his mother works. He walks through camp doing his best to avoid people and vice versa until he comes to a larger tent with herbs hanging off drying racks in the front. His nose is bombarded with the scent of a hundred different plants, herbs, flowers, mushrooms, and animal parts in all varying stages of drying, pickling, or fermenting.

He lets a small smile slip onto his face as he enters, only for it to immediately fall off as he sees his mom isn’t the only one here. His mom is a tall woman standing at about 6’8 but his father dwarfs her at hi 8 feet and while she is lith he is a wall of muscle. They are talking in hushed voices as he enters and his mother seems upset about something but then notices Mark giving him a smile. His father looks back only to scowl before saying something under his breath to Mark’s mom and then proceeds to leave, not even sparing him a glance. He isn’t surprised as his father disappears. He looks back only for his mother to hug him. He’s a little surprised as his mom isn’t usually the huggy type but he hugs her back and lets his smile return. “Hi mom.” he says as she pulls back. She is older now and it’s starting to show, though not nearly as much as it should. She has her long red hair pulled up into a tight bun as she always does when she's working. “Hey my little cub, you eating enough?” she asks as she gives him a quick up and down. “You doing ok, you look thin.” No he didn’t, he looked perfectly average but he didn’t say that as he just smiled and said “I’m fine mom, plenty of food out there if you know where to look.” and his mother had made sure he knew. “What about you, you ok? Need any help around the tent?” he asked as he looked at all the different ingredients and medicines.

His mother was the tribe's medicine woman and alchemist and she was good at her wsjob. He had pretty much grown up in this tent, as when he was younger his mom kept him as close as she could, helping her with poultices, salves and potions. He wasn’t anywhere near her level but he could still do some basic things. “No, I've got it. Most of what I need to do is deliver the treatments to my patients, but if you want I could use some more haze weed, damned cap, and silver bark if you don’t mind making a foraging run?” she said. He nodded as he understood his presence would only make that part of her job harder. “Yeah I can go grab you some of those.” He said as he pulled up the fur lined hood of his coat and left. “Good luck, and be careful, a few of the hunters said they found Felid Tracks yesterday.” his mother said. He waves back to show he heard her and makes his way out of camp and into the surrounding forest. He always found the woods calming as in nature he doesn't have to watch everything he does and blend in as there aren’t any people to see him.

He walks for a few minutes before he see’s peeking out of the snow a small cluster of Damned caps. Their bumpy caps look like screaming faces if you squint. He brushes away the snow as he picks the largest ones, as they are the ones that have the most toxin to bleed out, turning them from deadly poison to great painkiller is easy after that. As he picks his shrooms he hears a twig snap and turns around just in time to see Brad, one of the hunters approaching him from behind. His eye only just widens before he is hit in the side of his head with the shaft of a spear. “Look what I found bois a beast all by itself.” He laughs his low rumbling laugh. “You think the chief will throw a feast if we bring it back hogtied” One of his cronies says before laughing. “Nah, the old witch will just have us let him go, better to have our fun here, nice and private like.” Mark is slowly getting up after the sudden attack, shaking his head to try and stop the world from spinning. He finally recovers when Brad comes in with another swing of his spear haft. Mark is barely able to duck out of the way but receives a kick to the gut for his trouble. He pushes through the pain and tries to pick himself back up whilst looking for a way out, but Brads friends have surrounded him.

He is thrown to the snow covered ground by a swing at his legs and he watches as Brad brings up the spear shaft and swings it down. If he doesn’t fight back he could get seriously hurt, but if he does and Brad says something the tribe will definitely take his word over marks. Mark only has a moment to think before he readies himself to catch the shat, only for a shreking yowl to cause everything to stop. Brad and his goons look around nervously as the forest goes silent once more. “That was a Felid!” one of Brad's followers says as he grips his spear even tighter. Brad tries to act tough but everyone can see him start to sweat. “It’s your lucky day, freak, we’ve got bigger prey. Come on boys, I think it came from this way.” He said as he wandered in the opposite direction the shrek came from.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Mark lays there in the snow for a few moments before getting up and packing up his spilled mushrooms. He had almost done something that for sure would have had him exiled from the tribe. He didn’t care for most people but he stayed because he knew otherwise he’d worry his mom. At least that's what he told himself. Mark stared deeper into the wood, not seeing the shadow pass above him in the treetops. It took him about 45 minutes to find all the ingredients he was told his mother was low on and his now bruised and battered body didn’t help.

He was about half way home when something jumped down in front of him from the trees. A large lith form on four legs, white scaled skin reflecting the light as it started to circle him. A Felid is an apex predator and a monster to boot, most people wouldn’t stand a chance against the scaled feline. Mark wasn’t most people. It pounced, claws splayed, and fangs ready to deliver a venomous bite. Mark catches the creature by the scruff of its neck and throws its considerable bulk against a tree splintering the wood. It yowls in surprise. Mark puts down his bag filled with plants and walks towards it. “You know, I was about to take out my frustration on Brad and ruin what little good will I have with the only home I know, but then you come along and not only stop that but then give me something I can safely let loose on, and for that I thank you.” He says as steam begins to rise off him, when he is but a few feet from the creature he smiles a smile with no warmth and then launches himself at the monster like the beast everyone thinks he is.

The Felid quickly dodges out the way as Mark's fist shatters the bark off a tree, It only has a moment before it has to dodge again as he continues to rush forward screaming the entire time. The Felid is fast and dodges before lunging for a bite and sinking ti’s teeth into Mark's shoulder, but instead of the sound of agony that usually accompany its poison, It only hears Rage.

The Felid was thrown from Marks form with unnatural power as he roars in rage. He is on it before it an react this time, pounding his fists into it’s body again and again, It’ yowls in pain before there is a sharp cracking sound as something inside it breaks and the noise is no more. Mark stands there breathing heavily as he feels the poison from the field corse through his body. It is like liquid pain, coursing through his body. He stumbles back until he falls to the ground exhausted. He hasn’t had chances like this to let lose often and though he his stronger than most think the bleeding bite on his shoulder proves he’s still learning.

He sits there for almost an hour as he let’s the poison run it’s path through his system. He knows from what his mother had taught him that felid poison on it’s own isn’t deadly, as it’s purpose is to cause pain making the take down for the monster much easier. He grabbed a bandage from his pack and began wrapping his wound. His mother tried to keep him stocked with basic medicine and healing equipment in case he got hurt. He grimaced as he put pressure on the wound but focused on controlling his breathing, a trick his mother taught him when he was little to help deal with his emotions. Breath in through your nose, hold, then out through your mouth. Doing so helped distract from the pain and calm himself down.

He was lucky the felid showed up when it did or it’d be Brad lying there instead of the monster. He shook his head as he got up the poison, mostly having run its course. The body was cold and from the look of the sun he’d been lying there for longer than he thought. The sun was almost setting, his mother would be worried. He grabbed his bag and then looked at the field corpse, wondering if he should bring it along or not. Its meat would be useless as monster meat is always toxic except to other monsters. Plus its venom glands and a few of its organs were good for making medicine and potions. He sighed as he grabbed one of its hind legs and started to drag it behind him. Its eyes are still open but devoid of life, eyes that even when dulled by death shine a brilliant gold. A monster's eyes, just like him.

It was dark by the time he got back to camp, he hid the corpse on the outskirts so no one would see him dragging it. He headed for the medical tent figuring his mom would still be there working on remedies. He got a few strange looks as his coat was torn and darkened by blood, though this made most just keep more distance between him and them. He entered the tent to find his mother sitting on the floor, working with a mortar and pestle as she ground something up and didn’t seem to notice him. He cleared his throat to get her attention. She looked up with a frown before her eyes widened with surprise and then worry as she stopped her work and hurried over to him. “What happened? Why is your coat torn, is that blood? Are you hurt?” She asked in rapid fire as she looked him over. It took a good few minutes for mark to calm her down and assure her he was all right, and he only succeeded because he promised she could give him a once over after they talked.

He told her everything, the encounter with Brad, the fight, and the corpse. She didn’t seem surprised as he told his story, but why should she, he’d told similar ones before, though never with a monster. She was the only one in the village that cared for him and so she was the only one he felt he could talk to. “And I thought you could use parts of it in your work so I stored it on the outskirts of the camp. I know you don’t want me drawing too much attention to myself but I killed a monster, surely that is worth some good will with the village.” Mark said as his mother replaced his bandages with some new ones, but not before rubbing a green paste over his wounds to keep infection at bay. She seemed to only get even more worried as he said this. “Did anyone see you when you entered camp?” She asked with her usual worried tone. Mark nodded and said “Yeah a few but they just stayed farther back than usual.” His mother shook her head and said. “If that body is found they can connect your injured state and the dead felid. If they know you can take down something like that then they’ll exile you for sure.”

Mark was surprised by this, he knew he was disliked by the village due to his fathers own dislike of him but even those who are trying to build good will with his father would have to agree the killing of a monster was only a good thing, right? “What do you mean?” He asked as he put his grey tunic and coat back on. His mom looked at him and seemed to mull something over before sighing and saying. “I was told not to tell you about this because the tribe has had problems with them in the past, but…..we know why you are, they way you are.” he looked at his mom in utter shock, he had asked her before if she knew why he could do the thing he can do but she had always said she knew nothing. “You're what's known to the more 'Civilized people' as a Biomorh, a person who can adapt, mutate, and evolve their body. They usually hunt monsters and eat them to grow stronger as the stuff in them that makes it toxic to most is what biomorphs draw power from.” Mark just stands there and processes what he’s just been told.

“Wait, what do you mean the tribe has had trouble with biomorphs before?” he asks as he stands there not knowing what to feel, the only person he thought cared for him has been lying to him his entire life. “Before you were born your father had a brother, he was a Biomorph like you. He was the greatest hunter and warrior in the tribe and was next in line to be chief. One day he lost it and just went feral, your father had to put him down. We tried to look for a reason why he went crazy but we couldn't find anything in the aftermath.” As she says this tears start to run down her cheeks and she tries to put her hand on Mark's shoulder, but he backs away before she can. “I had to keep it from you or your father would have exiled or killed you, he made me promise not to teach you anything about your powers.” She said as more tears came. “You told me it was to avoid attention but it was so I didn’t learn. You kept me weak so if I went crazy I’d be easier to kill.” Mark says in a low quiet voice that is almost a whisper. She doesn't answer and that tells him all he needs to know. He turns and starts to head out but stops when he hears a call from behind him. “Where are you going?” the panicked, worried voice of his mother asks. “Away.” He says as he walks out not turning to let her see his own tears. He makes it to his tent and packs up everything he can. He doesn't have much but living in a camp that is constantly moving means he can take everything. It only takes him 20 minutes to pack up his camp and then he is on his way out. He stops when he gets to the tree line and looks back to camp one last time. He then takes a deep breath and heads into the woods, and to where ever fate would take him.