It took a few minutes to realize Zuss was not with them. “Wait, Klaw… Zuss is gone.”
“Are you sure she isn’t just hiding? She’s been doing that a lot lately.”
Daggat scanned the area, seeing no Zuss or her darkened shadow. Klaw shuddered in the cold. It was windy, but not quite storming. Though that seemed to be a possibility. He was no oracle. Klaw’s eyes unfocused as he fiddled about with his menu. Then, with a satisfying sigh, his hair poofed up into a shaggy coat. Daggat stared at him dumbfounded.
“What did you just do?”
“Insulated coat. For the cold.” He had a satisfied smile on his face.
“And what are you going to do when it gets hot?"
“I’ll… I’ll… ah. Shit.” Daggat rubbed his temples.
“From now on… at least consult me before you make any permanent changes to your body.” Klaw shrugged and was about to reply when Zuss appeared out of nowhere. She had her arms wrapped around her.
“C’mon. Follow me.” Then she ran off. Daggat chased after her only a second before Klaw followed. He was starting to get an idea of what Calion went through.
She led them to a clear patch of forest not far from the bonfire that was Calion’s cottage. There was nothing here. Then, she leaned down and brushed aside some snow.
Someone had laid a tarp on the ground. Stones weighed its corners and snow had made it nearly invisible. With a flourish, Zuss pulled it away.
Beneath the tarp was… treasure. The useful kind. Food, jars of preserves, tools, and trinkets. Pouches of money and, to Daggat’s delight, a few books.
“What… what is this?” Daggat leaned over the hole to get a better count. It was a good haul for sure. He could feel himself salivating over the idea of treasure being theirs.
“You found buried treasure?!"
“I took a little bit at a time. I knew neither of you knuckleheads would think to do it.”
“Wow, good job. This will last us-” Then Daggat noticed her shirt. It was bulging, as though she had stuffed it with more treasures. She wrapped both of her hands tightly around whatever she had. “What’s that?" He pointed a finger at her chest.
Zuss looked away. “I even got you some books, Dag. I know how you like them.”
“Zuss, what’s in your shirt?" Klaw had jumped into the hole and was rummaging around.
“Don’t be mad-”
“HEY! You got us some books! Perfect, nature was calling. I’ll be right back.” Klaw brandished one of the books like a sword.
“Wait!” Daggat leaped at him. Then he copied the book with a touch. "Okay, now you can use it.” That would have been a waste. Klaw wandered off, oblivious to Zuss and Daggat’s conversation. He turned back to her.
“Now. What’s in the shirt, Zuss? Is it more treasure?”
Sheepishly, she opened the collar of her shirt. A bleary-eyed cat head popped out.
“You… You STOLE HIS CAT!”
“Well, YOU burned his house down!” She patted Birdy on the head and she curled back into the warmth. “It’s… emergency rations.” Daggat didn’t believe that for a second. Zuss isn’t usually the cutesy type. The cat must have made an impression on her.
“That cat is going to be your responsibility now.”
“I know.”
“That means you have to feed it. Keep it clean.”
“I'll do it!”
“Why do you even want a cat?” she mumbled. “What?”
“It saved my life, okay? So I owe it one. That old man can’t care for it. He doesn't even have a house.”
“Neither do we.”
“Well… we will. Soon.”
“Fine, fine. While Klaw tries not to rip himself a new hole, I want to make sure we are prepared. Do you have anything to fight this cold?” She shook her head.
They spent the next few minutes going over options for cold resistance. She ended up choosing the same as Daggat: Cold Resistant Skin. Then they tied up their loot in the tarp for Klaw to carry.
Klaw came back with a satisfied grin and tossed the book, sans a few pages, into the pile. Daggat noticed that something was off about him.
“Hey, where did your claws go?”
“Oh, I ran into a bit of… trouble with them.” Ha! Daggat suspected he would have these troubles. “This is more convenient anyway.” He flexed his hand and the claws snapped into being. Then he flexed again and they disappeared as quickly as they had come out.
“Ugh, gross.” Zuss started walking while Daggat giggled boyishly.
As they traveled, Daggat took a closer look at the sword he had looted. It was short, pure white, and incredibly thin. When he tested the edge, he sliced a deep cut into his thumb. It was sharper than anything he had seen. With no sheath, he would have to be careful with it. But there was also a frailness to it. He felt as though he could snap it easily.
He made a note to ask Calion about it later.
Daggat stopped. Right, no more Calion. They were on their own again.
“You okay, Dag?” Klaw asked.
“Yeah, just getting my bearings.”
“Where are we going, anyway?”
“I think I found us a nice, big house to claim. We just gotta get there in one piece.”
Almost on cue, a long, loud wolf howl cut through the night. It was CLOSE. Instantly Klaw and Daggat stepped closer together and watched the trees. Zuss was already gone.
“Wolves…” Klaw unsheathed his claws and growled.
“No. Not wolves.” Daggat’s mind raced with options. It was stupid of them to not consider the wargs. Daggat had escaped them three times, and Klaw had wounded them. Why didn’t they attack with the goblins? Maybe the goblins didn’t know they were out here. “Zuss.”
“What’s the plan?” She appeared out of the dark. He handed his weapon to her. She looked at him with wide eyes.
“Give me the cat. Klaw, you’re our best warrior, stick with me and the cat. We can’t do much. I'll try my best with the gaze... but there is no guarantee it will work. Zuss, take to the trees and keep out of view. A sneak attack from that blade is going to be our best shot to take them down. Watch for an opening.”
“We making our stand here?” A second howl, further away, responded to the first. Two of them. The warg was in a pack of three, and one had died when they attacked Willow.
“No, let's move. Find a cliff, a cave, or something. We can’t let them surround us. There are at least two of them, but wargs are tricky.”
Zuss handed over Birdy, who was almost paralyzed with fear and confusion. Its wing and leg were still bandaged. Daggat held her tight. Then, they started to run. Soon, they could hear the distant sound of crunching snow as the wargs were catching up.
Zuss dropped to the ground and kept pace with them. That wasn’t the plan! Why did no one listen to him? “Improved my vision. Dark vision. There, a tree large enough to cover the rear.” She pointed and was gone again. Well, that was all right, Daggat decided.
Klaw and Daggat turned and raced toward the tree. It was one of the titans, about twenty feet or so wide. It would do. The two goblinoids skittered to a stop and then turned to face their aggressors.
Just in time. Two wargs inched out of the darkness. It was the same deeper shadows that Zuss used, Daggat realized. Their void-black fur seemed to melt into existence around their glowing red eyes. One of the wargs had a slight limp and claw marks across its face. Daggat never did get his name, but after tonight he wouldn’t need it. One way or the other.
Klaw dropped the loot and took a low, bestial stance.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“You guys are REALLY desperate to chase us all the way out here. Did you have nothing better to do?” The wargs growled.
“Congratulations on your regenisis. But I can smell the gremlin still on you. This time, none of you will get away.” The second warg let out a deep laugh.
“If you say so…” Daggat activated Dominating Gaze. He could feel the warg's attention stab at him. “Be good little pups, and SIT.”
The unwounded warg sat immediately, almost casually. Like it was his idea to sit at that moment. The other resisted.
Zuss dropped onto the sitting Warg like a pine cone. She landed straddling it and stabbed the sword deep into its back. The warg gave out one single yelp of pain and then died. Daggat winced. He was glad she was on his side.
The remaining warg jumped back in surprise and growled. Then it lunged at Zuss. But Klaw was ready. He dug his claws deep into the warg's flank and pulled. Daggat knew Klaw was getting stronger. Still, he was caught off guard when the claws tore deep into the warg's back, leaving bloody trenches. Finally, they caught the bone. Klaw pulled the warg back away from the vulnerable Zuss.
“You really underestimated us this time, didn't-" The warg roared in anger and spun around. It brought its jaws down on Klaw. They closed over his wrist, which was pushed deep into the warg's jaws. Klaw grunted from the effort or pain. Daggat couldn’t tell which.
“Daggat! Kill first, GLOAT AFTER!” The warg tried to shake Klaw’s arm off, but the effect was like watching a puppy play tug of war with a rope. Klaw’s dense muscles and rough, insulated fur made him a tough snack to chew on. At some point, he had activated burst of strength. What was that, twenty-two strength?
Daggat gently patted the cat on the head. “Eh, you’ve got this.” Shadows seemed to coalesce at the warg's feet. Daggat had seen this before. “No, no, no! He’s trying to get away!” Klaw grabbed the back of the warg's head with his other clawed hand. He pulled just as the warg tried to hide in the shadows. Was that a skill or a biotrait? Blood dripped from Klaw’s arm.
Finally, Zuss dashed to its side and began to stab and slice. Daggat scratched Birdy under the chin but kept his dominating gaze up. It didn’t have much effect, but he could see the wargs' focus was being split.
Eventually, the shadows receded, and the warg died. Zuss was covered in its blood.
“Good job, everyone,” Daggat called. They looked at him with dour expressions. “What? Did you expect me to throw Birdy at them or something? Klaw, how’s the arm?”
“Good, actually. A couple of cuts. It was weird… I could feel the teeth digging in, but it was like my arm was too hard for them to pierce. Maybe dense muscles weren't a bad choice.”
“Tough fur. Tough muscles. The only thing missing is the bones, and you’d be unkillable, I bet.”
“So, we going to feast on these guys?” Zuss handed back the sword as she asked. He gave her the cat back in return.
“Nah… I think we should start working towards a classier style of living. We're going to be living in a mansion, after all.”
“So… what? Cook them first.”
“Indeed. But, also… I think I want a coat. I bet we could make one for each of us. Klaw has one already.”
These beasts looked unbeatable back when he was a gremlin. Now, he saw that they had more bark than bite. Rather, they didn’t use their skills to their advantage. The wargs underestimated them, and that was what got them killed. They could have easily killed most of the crew if they had just ambushed them instead of trying to put on a show.
They made Klaw drag the bodies along with the loot. He grumbled but seemed pleased to show off his strength. Eventually, they camped for the night. They made a fire with some matches that Zuss stole. Why Calion had that, Daggat couldn’t fathom. The man could throw fire from his fingertips! Who needs matches if you can do that?
The knife made quick but messy work of the hides. None of them had skills in it, but they ended up making it relatively whole. Daggat knew enough that he wouldn’t be able to make a nice coat himself. He planned to hold onto the pelts until he could find someone he could coerce into doing it for him.
He also removed their hearts, their eyes, and their canines. If the wargs were worth anything alchemically, it would likely be in these parts.
The wargs were level six and nine. Not as high level as Daggat assumed. So while they got some experience, the crew did not level up from the feast.
They had growth points to spend. Daggat put his two into charm. Klaw, as expected, put both of his into strength. Zuss raised her strength and will to ten.
Daggat hoped they would have the chance to increase their attributes somehow. They couldn’t evolve again for another nine levels.
Daggat had spent his skills, but he had two biotraits. He decided to continue sitting on them.
Klaw had also spent his skills, but he had one biotrait left. He couldn’t be convinced to hold onto it for an emergency. He spent it on reinforced bones.
Zuss had a skill point and two biotrait points. She had raised her climbing skill to level five, so she was thinking about improving it further. Scale wall, improved grip, and pathfinder (climbing) were available to her.
Scale wall gave her a supernatural ability to stick to flat surfaces for a time. Improved grip did as it implied. Finally, pathfinder (climbing) said it would “reveal a path to a target destination."
She chose path finder (climbing). After a few attempts, she got the hang of it. It would show the best route from her destination to any climbing spot she chose. It seemed to only work for climbing, and Zuss claimed it would speed up her climbing considerably.
The three books Zuss had looted turned out to be notebooks. There was plenty of juicy information about the system. That would need to be combed through over time.
Over the next few days, they traveled through Elderveil. No monsters attacked, but there was plenty of evidence of passing gremlin squads. Daggat had to check his map several times before he was certain they were going the right way.
It was Zuss who spotted it first, naturally.
“What’s it say?” Klaw asked as they stood in front of a board nailed to a tree.
“It says the area beyond this point is condemned.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means they don’t want anyone going in. But we are not going to listen, are we?”
“’Course not.”
The sign led them to an overgrown road, now just a trail, that led them to their destination. The Titanfell Manor.
It was more of a fortress or villa than a manor. Walls surrounded it, with several buildings on the interior. The rusted front gate was chained shut. The gate itself was built out of a massive tree stump. It was so large that someone could have turned it into a decent house. A tunnel was bored through it, and the top was smooth and had a fence around it. The wall was seamlessly attached to the large stump.
It took just a bit of effort to cut the chains with the sword. Klaw was the only one who could reach it, so he did. Daggat shot him a nasty glare when he returned a now-chipped blade. But the heavy chains fell with a crash. Klaw pulled open the gate, which upset the vines that had grown over it.
The tunnel was long and dark. But, as they passed to the other side, they beheld the frozen marvel of Titanfell Manor.
The snow gave everything a pristine, frozen-in-time effect. There was a space for a garden and a stable. Two smaller buildings accompanied the large, three-story house. There was a barn of some sort, or a warehouse, and a servant's house.
The main house itself was a sweeping beauty. Its entrance was mostly glass, once, it had shattered and fallen mostly apart. At either side of the main entrance were curving stairs that led to a balcony. That was where they saw the tree. It had grown from inside the house, bursting its way through the floor of the balcony.
Where it grew, a statue once stood. Now, the statue was being consumed by the wood. It was a woman with plain features, leaning forward as though to accept an offering. The statue itself was at an angle, having fallen slightly when the tree collapsed to the floor before being held by decades of tree growth. Her upper torso was free and one knee peeked from within the bark.
Unlike the surrounding great trees, the tree in the center of the manor did not have black mold or the same slightly red bark. Rather, it had an almost golden sheen to it, speckled with lines of red sap.
Daggat whistled. “Alright crew, this is it! But… let’s not get caught off guard. Place like this… We can’t be the first to try to claim it, right?”
“Maybe, we’re pretty far in the middle of nowhere.”
“If there is someone inside, we can just take the place from them!”
The three goblinoids cackled in agreement and began to skulk toward their new home. Ready to face whatever challenges await them.
—
Hunter was slow but stoic. Anath thought he might have collapsed several times already. But he continued to hobble along with his crutch. She had spotted the manor earlier that day, and they were getting close. Finally, after nearly three days of slow progress, the entrance was before them.
They stood for a moment taking in the grandeur of the stump-gate.
“Hey!” Hunter said. “The gate is already open!”
Anath felt her stomach drop. When she spotted the manor earlier, the gate had been closed and chained. Something had beaten them to it.
“Someone beat us here… I don’t think it’s safe.”
“The ogre won’t last another step. We must face whatever lies within, or die in the woods. There is no choice.”
The three of them renewed their resolve and sneaked toward the manor entrance.
Daggat
True Name: Daggat
Soul: Monster
Genseed: gremlin
Genbloom: goblin
Monster Level: 7
Attributes [0]:
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 11
Intelligence: 20 (+10 from Variance)
Will: 10
Charm: 12
Feats:
Encounter: True Angel
Act: Fledgling Alchemist
Knowledge: System Knowledge
Ability: Mighty Intellect
Act: Devotion [layered feats]
Act: Usurper
Skills[0]:
Alchemy: 1
System Aptitude: 1
System Assistant: 1
Mind Codex: 1 (Skill Synergy; Copy Tome, Mental Notes, 15 or greater intelligence.)
Biotraits [2]:
Base size: Small
Regenerative Teeth
Enhanced Night Vision
Disease Resistance (Rot Resistance)
Hypnotic Gaze (Dominating)
Temperature Resistant Skin (Biotrait Synergy: Heat-Resistant Skin, Cold-Resistant Skin)
Scavenger
Transformations:
Drakeheart Form:
+2 strength
+2 charm
Extreme temperature resistant Scales
Fire breath
Other:
Variant: +10 Intelligence
Klaw
True Name: Klaw
Soul: Monster
Genseed: gremlin
Genbloom: bugbear
Monster Level: 7
Attributes [0]:
Strength: 19 (Skill boost, +2)
Dexterity: 10
Constitution: 11
Intelligence: 8
Will: 9
Charm: 8
Feats:
Knowledge: System Knowledge
Act: Devotion [layered feats]
Ability: Mighty Strength
Skills[0]:
System Aptitude: 1
Burst of Strength: 1
Biotraits [0]:
Base size: Standard
Regenerative Teeth
Enhanced Night Vision
Disease Resistance (Rot Resistance)
Claws (Forged, Retractable)
Dense Muscle Fibers
Rough Fur (Insulating Fur)
Reinforced Bone
Transformations:
Drakeheart Form:
+2 strength
+2 constitution
Fire-proof Scales
Burning Claws
Zuss
True Name: Zuss
Soul: Monster
Genseed: gremlin
Genbloom: Hobgoblin
Monster Level: 7
Attributes [0]:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 8
Will: 10
Charm: 9
Feats:
Knowledge: System Knowledge
Act: Devotion [layered feats]
Ability: Mighty Alacrity
Skills[0]:
System Aptitude: 1
Deep Shadows: 1
Path Finder (Climbing): 1
Biotraits [2]:
Base size: Small
Regenerative Teeth
Enhanced Night Vision (Dark Vision)
Disease Resistance (Rot Resistance)
Improved Body Control (Biotrait Synergy: improved flexibility, improved balance, improved nerve conduction)
Nimble Feet and Hands (Biotrait Synergy: Nimble hands, prehensile feet)
Cold-Resistant Skin
Transformations:
Drakeheart Form:
+2 strength
+2 dexterity
Smoke Aura
Lesser Wings