He laid in a snowbank, dragged under some sturdy roots, with nothing but flaring pain in his mind. Close. So damn close. Every breath seemed to be a gift, now, a second longer to hold on - to feel and think. He should be dead. By all rights, he should have been devoured whole. The end of a pathetic story. A man not driven enough to make anything out of himself but a raging asshole on the internet.
That was him. A fat slob. An emotional wreck. Never loved, never to be loved until the only thing that was left was cynicism and rage.
That should have ended - and yet he drew another breath. Finally, the stars in front of his eyes calmed their dance, allowed him to see again. To feel again. The air never tasted fresher in his lungs, stuffy hole under the roots or not.
There was a notification blinking at the side of his vision. One of those not important enough to immediately pop up. He clicked it mentally.
[New Wyrd Link established! Your fate was to cross paths with the Thunderclaw. Not every future saw you being devoured by the mighty beast, but most of them did. Yet you have survived. Yet you tangled your Wyrd with the Wyrd of the Thunderclaw. You wounded what was meant to hunt you, yet you got wounded in turn. You are even and yet will meet again. As often as needed to separate your Wyrds.]
What the...he selected Wyrd again, just to refresh his memories, and got surprised with a new prompt.
[Wyrd Links: The threads of life of significant beings can entangle themselves if fate is thwarted. The Norns weave the threads and knot-in the entanglement, causing the Wyrds to be fated to meet again so that their precious tapestry can stay orderly and clean. Legends and tragedies are woven out of these Wyrds, and the highest rewards await those that take the highest risks!]
Yeah. Use more stupid words, you fucking joke of a system! I am dying here. What the fuck was all of that supposed to mean?
Meet the bear again? Well shit. There was no way he could beat him a second time if you could call his desperate flight just now anything close to a beating. Well, he had taken the eye of the beast. That counted for something in his book.
As he felt too drained to even move, he decided to spend the night in his little hole. It was surprisingly warm, and he would not find a better place to rest. There were a couple of other notifications and he looked through them while he searched for more dry meat in his belt pouch. He still had enough for a couple of days if he was careful with his rationing. Which he was not - he was ravenous.
[New Path unlocked! Perseverance. Beaten close to death you will find the will and way to hang on. Prerequisites: Evade death]
[Vitality increased by 1!]
[Strength increased by 1!]
[Resilience increased by 1!]
[Agility increased by 1!]
[Willpower increased by 1!]
Wulf almost spat the beef jerky all over himself as he read the notifications. What the hell had happened there? It had been about damn time for his physical exertions to make an impact, but gods be damned that was a lot at once. Now Wulf was convinced it had to do with the intensity and danger of the situation. Well, that and the fact that he had been a pathetic physical specimen to begin with and had to reach normal human levels first. But willpower? The moments he had withstood the roar and the ghostly voice in his head?
Suddenly, he felt much better. Much much better. It was so satisfying to be instantly rewarded for something...meaningful. felt good. Almost good enough to forget about the pain.
As he was cursed with the Red Fog, there was nothing he could do to help his healing along, but if memory served correctly, he had been wounded in the arena, back on top of the mountain. The wound had been all but closed the next morning, so maybe there was a good chance that there was some sort of regeneration. He would have to sleep and check again the next morning. Maybe that is why I am so damn hungry all the time.
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He had a nightmare. He stood in the woods, darker than he remembered it. Shadows grasped for his ankles, crept into his back, rustled under the branches.
He was running through the underbrush, not registering all the things hitting his face and arms as he wildly fled.
I CAN FEEL YOU. I KNOW YOU.
I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
Meaning without words hammered into his mind, driving him onwards.
Then he tripped over a gnarly root and fell.
Hot breath washed over his neck. He was caught.
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He awoke and immediately felt like he had been buried in a mount of fire ants. His whole body was itching and burning, his breast and face more than anything, and he had the urge to jump up and run and lay down to die at the same time. The dream still shook him. He could almost feel that hot, awful breath again, almost smell the teeth, so used to tear flesh, coated in saliva as the beast opened its maw around his neck.
Fuck that! Reality, Wulf! Stay awake! He shook his head, mentally grasping for the cold around him, the pain, and the wounds. All to stay away from the nightmare.
His wounds were closing up! the mighty gash he had so inadequately bound had scabbed over, although not completely. The flesh around the wound was tender and highly irritated. His face just felt crusted. With all kinds of shit. As if he had face-planted into clay sludge, letting it to dry overnight. Which was somewhat accurate.
Blood and grime even peeled off his face like dried clay. At the very least he felt strong enough to drag himself out of his hole.
The woods appeared to be way too peaceful and happy to his befuddled mind. There were birds chirping, the sun was coming through the branches, there was moss under his feet, cushioning his steps, even the wind was not so much cold but refreshing.
My heart is a battlefield and the world dares to turn…disregarding my struggles? Wulf grinned. Just another day. Another day alive.
He walked a few feet, just to get away from the scene of the crime. There was the cliff the beast had tumbled over, the one he had completely missed in the rain. I should take a look, should I not? Maybe the bear was at the bottom, very dead, and his dream had been just that?
Yeah. I should. Wulf decided, only realizing later that he had just walked away from it. He turned. I really really should.
He gripped his axes, nervously swinging them around, then began to crouch. That is what thieves did in his video games when they were sneaking. Would it actually help to be more silent? He very much doubted that. He stood up again, teetering on the back of his feet.
He finally walked over to the edge, his breathing somewhat shallow. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he peeked above the ridge. There were cracked trees, broken branches, and a path of destruction down into the crevasse. At the bottom, he could see the glistening of strange, smooth, glass-like, black...crystals? Or metal. The material was everywhere, strewn around like a bomb had exploded in a Swarovski-crystal store. The Metal version.
No bear, though. Blood, yes. A lot. But no body. There was no way to oversee a creature of that size, right. Right?
He hastily turned around so fast, that his neck vertebrae cracked, but the forest around was still happy, light, and very pleasant. No sneaking bear right behind him.
Wulf closed his eyes. He knew what to do. He was trained to do it, hours and hours of film and game had it ingrained into him. Mysterious crevasse, unknown crystals. A quest, if you could call this weird Wyrd entanglement that, leading to a place he would have to investigate to find out what had happened to his enemy...
He knew it. He had to climb down there, find the tracks. Find out something. It was the right thing to do.
Fuck that noise. He whispered. Who followed a wounded bear to god knows where? This was no game. This was no story. That train of thought could only lead to pain and death.
What? A chubby introvert with a strange rage ability diving into the bowels of the earth to battle his fated foe to the death? Nonsense! Insanity!
Why though...why did the prospect excite him so? Why was he even thinking about it? He wondered. Because he had not made his decision yet. Part of him yearned for the adrenalin, the adventure, strife, and violence.
The curse boiling in his blood? Or was there something else? The strange Wyrd working its magic?
A quick climb. A quick look. Nothing more.
Wulf put away his axes and began climbing down, carefully placing his steps onto roots branches, and trees. It was a steep decline, but because it was so thickly overgrown, and the path had been cleared by a falling bear, the descent proved to be much easier than he had expected. Even climbing back up would not be difficult, just exhausting.
He reached the bottom, the place clearly wrecked by the impact of the Thunderclaw. Broken, dark crystals everywhere, crusted over with blood and hair. There was a lot of it.
There were some rather large formations of the strange material, jutting out of their little clusters to at least his waist height. Some of them were broken down into multiple pieces. If the bear had fallen onto one or more of those...even the smaller clusters must have hurt like hell.
Wulf surely would have died, but then again, he would not have made it past the first few trees at the edge of the crevasse had he fallen. Only a beast as big and heavy as the bear could have destroyed so much on his way down. He remembered the moment, the exact moment it had been even between bear and man as if gravity had not yet decided whom to take down.
Wyrd indeed.