Yl’Vael cursed again in his mind. He couldn’t go back to his tribe empty-handed or powerless. That… that demoness from the southern lands; that red-haired fiend who could light herself on fire had stolen his kill from him. That bear had been his, even with his broken ribs, but now, after the kill that had rightfully been his had been taken from him, Yl’Vael had nothing to show for his hunt. Chest aching, his hand placing pressure on his chest to help alleviate his pain.
Yl’Vael’s mind flashed back to his fight with the bear. He’d been ready to pounce, using the panther method that his father, a powerful warrior of his tribe, had shown him, but then that honourless thief had stolen his hunt. So, instead of returning triumphantly with powers that could turn him into a great and mighty warrior, Yl’Vael was now limping through the forest, clutching his broken body, and unable to return home because, if he did so without being triumphant in his hunt, Yl’Vael’s father would kill him personally. Worst of all, Yl’Vael couldn’t even hunt for food unless he wanted to return home in shame, having killed a measly rabbit or bird and consumed them, therefore gaining powers based on a prey animal so, the longer his hunt went on for, the weaker Yl’Vael got and the more his chances to succeed dwindled.
Technically, as long as Yl’Vael didn’t consume most of the animal he hunted, he wouldn’t gain its powers but that was the mindset of someone weak. For generations, his tribe and others had hunted without food as the starvation would only make them stronger; more determined to succeed or die. To hunt for food would be cheating; the path of a coward; and Yl’Vael was no coward, nor was he a cheat, and he was certainly not going to break hundreds of years of tradition by hunting for food during his Trial. Yl’Vael would rather die, something that may be happening very soon.
Yl’Vael’s stomach grumbled, even as a stumbling step sent pain shooting through him and making him snarl as he pushed himself through it. Step after painful step, Yl’Vael’s bare, toughened feet snapped sticks and gripped the dirty ground as he stumbled up the side of the mountain, swaying with hunger and his muscles quivering lightly. It had been three days since the bear had injured him and Yl’Vael had only paused in his search for prey in order to sleep and bind his wounds.
Slowly climbing, focussed only on placing one step after another and any sounds from creatures around him, Yl’Vael noticed absentmindedly when he reached the end of the treeline and, even then, only because he lost the shade of the trees and the sun began to beat harshly down on his bare back and neck. Yl’Vael ignored it. Yl’Vael’s originally clay brown skin had darkened to the colour of tree bark during his years in the elements and only the parts of his body that his loincloth covered retained his original skin pigmentation.
Now that he was out of the tree cover, Yl’Vael switched from looking to find predators like bears, foxes, and wolves to look for others like hawks, eagles, and cougars. Any of those would work and Yl’Vael gripped his stone blade as he thought about how he’d kill each of them. With a hawk or an eagle, he’d wait for night to fall and then he’d trail them to their nest, climbing to wherever it was located and using his knife to bash its head in. With a cougar, Yl’Vael would have to face it directly. Trusty knife in hand, he’d lunge for the beast, taking whatever hits it gave him, and dig his knife into his jugular. Yl’Vael would savage its neck and tackle it to the ground then tear into with his teeth.
In this case, cooking the beast wouldn’t matter and it would only slow him down. When he absorbed its powers, the raw meat wouldn’t make him sick or cause him to throw up so he could just eat the beast directly and, well, that was his plan. Despite the beast’s size, as well, part of their tribal magic ensured that you would never be so full that you couldn’t eat more of the beast, at least until you consumed its entire carcass.
With his mind so focussed on how he’d beat out any of the beasts he might encounter on the mountain, Yl’Vael barely noted the presence of goats and birds in the distance what little attention he did spare the creatures, though, was just enough to ensure he avoided them. Yl’Vael did not want to be delayed by the beasts as he searched for his prey. Two days passed as Yl’Vael climbed above the treeline, during one of which a huge storm opened up in the sky, soaking Yl’Vael in water, chilling him to the bone, and scaring off any potential creatures that Yl’Vael wanted to kill. The rain did, however, allow him to quench his thirst so he just kept climbing. Mud slurped and clutched at Yl’Vael’s feet. Stones stuck to Yl’Vael’s skin and the mud coating it. Ground slipped beneath his soles, tripping him up and exacerbating his broken ribs. Still, Yl’Vael put his head down and pushed on.
Yl’Vael would not be deterred. Yl’Vael would not stop searching. There was only success or death awaiting him. Finally, in the afternoon of his third day climbing the mountain, a brutal shriek echoed across the sky. Terror instinctively gripped Yl’Vael’s bones, shaking them in its iron grasp to make him shiver. Trusting his instincts, Yl’Vael scrambled for the nearest boulder and took cover beneath it, looking to the sky. That shriek had been the cry of a of a true predatory beast and, right then, Yl’Vael was in its domain.
Scrambling underneath the rock, Yl’Vael’s breath hitched as he jammed his ribs against the ground but he kept himself from groaning in pain. For a few tense minutes, Yl’Vael remained pressed on the ground, underneath the rock. When nothing happened, Yl’Vael debated coming out from underneath the rock but decided prudence would be best and stayed underneath the rock, listening to the sound of his breathing. Suddenly, a massive shadow fell over Yl’Vael and, turning his head to the side, he looked up. A huge shadow blotted out the sun.
From what Yl’Vael could see, the creature had a long, thin body and most of its bulk was made up by huge wings. Each wing seemed to connect to the entirety of the creatures body and was split into three main sections, where Yl’Vael presumed the bird had at least three separate bones that would allow it a greater range of motion in its wings. Massive, claw-like protrusions stuck out from the second joint, in between the second and third bone sections, and Yl’Vael concluded that it must use the claws to help it move around on the ground; its bulk was so great that, should it just use the hind legs that trailed behind its body, Yl’Vael thought that the ground would shake with its hops and it would fall over. Huge feathers, or at least Yl’Vael guessed they were feathers from their shape, stuck out from the wings, shaking lightly as the creature soared through the sky.
A long neck stuck out from the front of the beast’s body, swivelling around as the creature took in the land that it ruled. All Yl’Vael could see was that a short neck, short compared to the length of its body at least, suspended the head in the air and a wicked beak, which Yl’Vael knew could swallow him whole, topped the massive head.
Trailing behind its body, a long, thin, feathered tail moved lazily through the air, constantly moving and adjusting as the... bird kept itself in the air. Suddenly, the creature’s wings rose up into the air, so large that the movement felt ponderously slow as they rose to their full height, before the creature brought its feathered appendages down in one massive flap. A few seconds after the creature rose further into the sky, a huge gust of wind buffeted Yl’Vael and nearly shifted the rock he was hiding under. Yl’Vael’s matted, tangled hair was tugged at by the wind and the matted strands of keratin pulled at the man’s skin. Loincloth flapping, Yl’Vael huddled until, as quickly as it started, the massive gust of wind stopped and the creature moved out from where it blocked the sun.
Initially, Yl’Vael was blinded by the sudden sunlight in his eyes but, as the creature moved further away from the burning light, he began to make out more details of the massive beast. Metallic feathers glinted in the sunlight, the bright spots of light rippling and shifting as the bird’s wings rose and fell. The bird’s tail vaguely resembled a long, thin tree… if that tree was made out of gleaming, silvery feathers that looked like they could slice Yl’Vael in half and if that tree was long, sinuous, and wider at the top than its base. As Yl’Vael considered that, he changed his mind about the tail looking like a tree. The feathered whip of death was no tree. Soaring through the sky, the bird banked to the side, allowing Yl’Vael to catch a glimpse of its head.
A small slope of feathers stuck up from the back of the bird’s head, behind its eyes, and created an effect reminiscent of the frills around some lizards’ necks. Instead of those sideways frills, though, the bird’s feathers stuck up and back, more like a ramp than a shield. A massive, yellow eye that must have been the size of Yl’Vael’s torso darted back and forth, eyeing the ground for prey. Yl’Vael hoped that the thing didn’t see him, wreathed in shadow as it was and, if it did see him, that it determined him too small to eat and too inconsequential to kill.
With each flap of its gargantuan wings, which seemed ponderously slow yet Yl’Vael knew must be fast, the creatures climbed further into the sky and travelled further into the distance and it was only when Yl’Vael couldn’t even feel a hint of the air from the beast’s wings that he even dared to think about crawling out from under the rock. Ten minutes later, he couldn’t bear to wait any longer and scrambled out from the shadow underneath the boulder. Crouched down, Yl’Vael scanned the sky until he was sure that, even if he managed to pick out the beast, it would just be a tiny, black, speck on the cerulean canvas above. Deciding to travel further up the mountain, as he could no longer see its peak from his position so it must be getting close, Yl’Vael resolved to climb to the top of the mountain; he might be able to get a better view of the land below from up there.
Step after stumbling step, foot after mechanically-placed foot, Yl’Vael climbed the mountain for another hour before finally, he reached the top. A large shadow loomed over Yl’Vael, which he noticed only because his head was staring at the ground. With his stomach slowly pulling itself into a tiny ball as it tried to eat anything and his ribs in so much pain that his brain couldn’t even feel it properly, Yl’Vael dully noted the large shadow was caused by a nest so large that it was bigger than any hut in his tribe’s village. With walls that came close to twenty metres tall and a diameter of fourty or fifty, the nest was woven of fully grown trees that were bent and cracked in ways that Yl’Vael couldn’t even imagine having the strength to do… yet.
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Suddenly, a plan for how to gain the powers he was deserved began to form in his mind and Yl’Vael began to climb up the side of the nest before he could change his mind. Scrambling up the sides of tree trunks and grimacing every time he stretched his sides to reach for another hand hold, Yl’Vael took nearly twenty minutes to climb up the side of the nest and he began to get nervous as the massive bird from before could be back at any moment. When Yl’Vael climbed over the lip of the nest, though, he knew that the risk he’d taken had been worth it.
Staring down into the next of woven trees, Yl’Vael found himself looking at three glinting, metallic bodies. Each of the chicks was at least the same size as Yl’Vael and he marvelled at just how large they were, even as babies. Yl’Vael grinned savagely; he wasn’t going to die, now. At least not immediately. Yl’Vael began to climb down the inner wall of the nest, sometimes dropping two or three metres at a time and landing with a slight grimace of pain in his hurry to get down the inside of the nest. Within two minutes, Yl’Vael was at the bottom and soft breathing reached his ears. Good, the chicks were asleep; that would make Yl’Vael’s job easier. Yl’Vael drew his stone knife from where it was tucked into the side of his loincloth and began creeping across the floor of the nest. Yl’Vael’s bare feet gripped tightly to the bark of the trees beneath them and he made sure to place every step carefully, so that he didn’t snap any twigs and disturb the rest of the chicks.
Thankfully, the bird had stripped all of the branches off the tree trunks before using them to weave its nest so Yl’Vael didn’t have to worry about weaving around or between them. With each step bringing Yl’Vael closer to the sleeping chicks, Yl’Vael was upon them within a minute and he gazed down at the closest baby bird dispassionately. Yl’Vael only wanted and needed to kill one of them. If he killed any more, the mother would be certain to take revenge and, well, while Yl’Vael might be fine with risking death for power, he didn’t actually want to die.
Yl’Vael raised his knife above his head, fixing his gaze on the chick’s neck. For a split second, Yl’Vael hesitated. Should he kill the bird? Should Yl’Vael kill a sleeping opponent? At any other time, Yl’Vael would have said no. To kill an opponent that had no ability to defend itself was cowardly and just showed that you, yourself, was weak. But Yl’Vael was desperate. Yl’Vael needed to gain the powers of the bird which, as he looked at the creature, Yl’Vael knew would be startlingly immense. The creature was clearly one of the beasts that was born with magical powers; its size was a good indicator of that, but also just how healthy the baby beast’s body looked.
Where normal beasts would still look fragile at the young age this bird seemed to be at, even if they would gain powers later in life, this baby was extremely healthy and sound and, based on its parentage, Yl’Vael was pretty certain it was born with magical powers. The likelihood that the bird had magical powers made the kill, even if it was cowardly, too tempting to ignore. When animals were killed and consumed by someone from the tribes, and not those southern devils who wielded evil powers, the person gained powers based on everything that a beast could do. So, if you killed a normal beast, you would gain enhanced senses, strength, reflexes, and a few other things depending on the animal. If, however, you killed one of the devilish creatures that wielded magical powers, you gained those magical powers as well, at least once you reached their level of strength. What was even better was that, should you surpass their levels of strength, you would gain the powers that they would have had. So, if you killed a magical bear at the lower stages, as Yl’Vael had sought to do, you would gain the bear’s magical ability to shoot earthen spikes, so long as the beast could do so. As you got stronger, though, you would gain more powers like controlling earth or forming armour made of earth.
Reinforcing his need to kill the beast and gain powers that would make him strong, Yl’Vael discarded any hesitation and brought the stone knife down, towards the beast’s eye. Some wild instinct kicked in and the baby opened its eye in a panic but it was too late. With a spray of blood and clear, viscous goo, Yl’Vael’s knife stabbed through the chick’s eye and into the bird’s brain. Instinctively, the baby’s wing snapped out and smashed into Yl’Vael, breaking the ribs on his left side and sending him flying through the air but it didn’t matter; the bird was dead.
Yl’Vael scrambled to his feet and surged for the corpse of the baby bird. With a terrible desire for power and ravenous hunger driving him, Yl’Vael ripped his knife out of the eye and began to consume the bird, tearing desperately at its flesh and pushing it into his mouth to feed himself. As quickly as he could stuff his mouth, the flesh and bone of the baby bird dissolved into energy that rejuvenated and healed Yl'Vael's injuries.
A panicked screech interrupted Yl'Vael's devouring for an instant and he looked up to find one of the other chicks staring at the bloody savage in horror. Yl'Vael immediately began to try and fill himself even faster and the bird began screeching for its mother as he did so. Now, Yl’Vael’s time was certainly much more limited than before. In minutes, Yl’Vael had consumed the bird and felt as the bird’s powers settled into him with a mental click. Yl’Vael shuddered in pleasure as he felt power rush through him and the world slow down. Even without progressing to the first stage, his vision and hearing had sharpened and he felt so much physically stronger, tougher, and faster than before. Yl’Vael grinned, a feral thing that had even the shrieking chicks, the first one now joined by its sibling, fall silent.
Not wasting any time, Yl’Vael ran for the edge of the nest, leaping for the wall and scaling it in less time than it had taken him to drop down from the wall; his new strength, agility, panic at the incoming mother, and lack of injury making him far faster than he had been before. Yl’Vael barely even stood up before he was climbing down the outside wall of the nest.
Landing on the ground within thirty seconds, Yl’Vael began to immediately run down the mountain, just choosing a direction and running as the bird could come from any direction and he wouldn’t be able to know unless he waited for too long. Feet slipping and sliding on loose rocks as he sprinted down the side of the mountain, Yl’Vael found himself constantly balanced on the edge of tumbling and running. Nearly four hours later, Yl’Vael found himself roughly at the same distance away from the peak as he’d been when he’d started the day before; his frantic descent with his unharmed, strengthened body significantly faster than his ascent.
A huge, angry shriek from the top of the mountain, which shook the loose stones around Yl’Vael’s feet and vibrated in the savage’s chest, indicated the return of the bird and Yl’Vael simultaneously sighed in relief, as the bird hadn’t returned from a direction that let it see him, and also began to panic as he knew it would begin to scour the mountainside for the murderer of its child. Yl’Vael began to cast his gaze around for any sort of shelter, preferably a cave, that he could use to hide from the sharp gaze of the bird.
Twenty minutes later, after actively searching for a cave, Yl’Vael found a dark crevice in a cliff-like wall and took the opportunity it presented, squeezing himself into the crevice as deep as his body could reach. The tight confines prevented Yl’Vael from moving and gave him some minor claustrophobia as he couldn’t move any of his limbs but it was better than dying.
Outside of the crevice, winds began to pick up, and whistled into and past the crevice, blowing cold air onto Yl’Vael’s bare skin. Yl’Vael remained unfazed, used to the chilly mountain air, and just held on tight. Slowly, the wind began to pick up from a whistle to a howl and, finally, to a roar. Even in the relative shelter of the crevice, winds tugged hard at Yl’Vaels wild hair, whipping it around his face. Yl’Vael’s loincloth was nearly tugged off a number of times and only a quick hand slapping down on his waist or pushing his hips against the stone walls of the crevice to keep his loincloth on.
Outside the crevice, from what Yl’Vael could see, debris from the ground began to swirl into the sky as spinning columns of air began to form and Yl’Vael grinned as he got his first look at the powers he would gain. A tornado swirled past the crevice and only Yl’Vael’s enhanced strength allowed him to remain inside the crack as he fought against the ripping wind. Deafening, angry shrieks shook the mountainside and small stones were shaken free from the crevice, above Yl’Vael’s head. Every so often; perhaps every few hours, Yl’Vael didn’t know, the man would catch sight of the bird flying around in the sky above, looking frantically for him but its gaze never penetrating into the crevice he was hiding inside.
Two days passed like this, with tornadoes ripping past Yl’Vael’s hiding spot and wrathful screeches promising death from above, and Yl’Vael’s throat became more and more parched as the bird’s wrath showed no signs of abating. Finally, when Yl’Vael was just about to break and run for the forest in order to find something to drink, the bird’s energy seemed to abate and the swirling columns of air died down. One last, despairing shriek rung through the air, hurting Yl’Vael’s ears, and then the world went silent. Not even considering whether it was a trap, desperate for water as he was, Yl’Vael immediately began running down the mountain once more, searching for any water source he could find as he hurtled down the slopes. Yl’Vael didn’t know how long the bird’s rest would last, and he wanted to maximise the time he had.
On his heedless slipping down the loose, mountainous scree, Yl’Vael spied a small, burbling mountain stream and stopped his otherwise unbroken trip only to wet his parched throat. Finally, after night had fallen and only the cold, silvery light of the moon illuminated the terrain, a shadowy figure slipped into the forest proper, safe beneath large boughs of leaves once more.
For the first time since he’d taken the powers of that baby bird, Yl’Vael sat down to take stock of just what he’d gained, instinctively feeling through his new abilities; while he’d had time during his stint in the crevice, he hadn’t been in the right mental state to do so, his nerves frayed and focus shot. Eyesight, hearing, strength, speed, and agility were the things that he’d noticed immediately; it was quite hard not to notice the immediate physical changes that had taken place when Yl’Vael had finished his consumption of the bird; but, as he began to feel around his new powers, Yl’Vael noticed a few more things.
While Yl’Vael couldn’t transform himself into one of those monstrous birds, or even manifest scales yet, his skin had been hardened and would now be more resistant to attack. Additionally, he was able to sharpen his nails on command, as though they were talons, and, finally, had a tiny amount of control over the air around him; just enough to maintain the slightest breeze, as though he was dragging the tip of a feather over his skin.
The most important thing that Yl’Vael felt, though, was that his spirit wasn’t full in spite of absorbing the bird’s powers. Not full yet, at least. A savage, predatory grin split Yl’Vael’s face in half. Yl’Vael was, at the very least, one of the people born every 10 years that had the ability to gain the powers of a second creature. Yl’Vael would have to be careful not to kill and eat any beasts on his trip back to his tribe, which would be difficult as, even with his new powers, it would take a couple of weeks, but it would be worth the effort and time he spent foraging if he could gain the powers of another powerful beast.