V – 00001.8 – Getting Started.
I shuddered and tried to shake off the extreme violent sense fatigue and wrongness in my body that was an aftereffect of practically overdosing on epinephrine.
Feeling the muscle bundle in my stomach, I was almost tempted to squeeze it again before one of the voices in my head gave me the mental equivalent to a slap across the face.
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? ARE YOU TRYING TO HAVE A GODDAMN HEART ATTACK?
“Alright… fair enough.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Viktor, sometimes I feel like you’re a toddler with a fork and no parents around. I mean, did you even think this through? Three mutations at once, especially with how fucked up they always make you.”
I started tuning out the voice as it reamed me like an unruly child and started working on something that had been on my mind for a while: making my home livable, not just survivable.
Sitting down with my supplies, I went to work, turning all of my remaining thin and flexible sticks to twine, stripping the bark, and weaving the fibers into rope. Next, I rummaged through my small pile of rocks and selected a large head of flint and another smaller spikey rock. I hammered the flint until the light from the fading sun completely abandoned me, and I was forced to stop.
I returned to my hut’s dirt floor and sat myself down, resting my aching hands and planning to rest; however, sleep did not come as I laid down and closed my eyes. I was far too energized from my meal earlier, so instead I laid there in the silence. My drifting thoughts about my life over the last few days eventually came to center on the cold, icy core in my chest.
Envisioning the core within my mind was surprisingly easy, and it didn’t exactly conform to what I was attempting to imagine. Within my mind’s eye, I saw a pitch black sphere of mist or smoke swirling in on itself as if it were being held by a gravity source not unlike our own atmosphere; occasionally blood-red arcs of silent lightning seemed to flicker and bounce through the mist.
The miniature celestial body of black smoke and red lightning that I saw within myself didn’t feel foreign or uncomfortable in the least; it felt familiar and like me; it was me, and the longer I studied it, the more I felt and saw within the black clouds. There were flickers of cyan and deep blue energies; I could feel shades of green and red, and every other color I could imagine, and some I couldn’t even seem to make sense of; I couldn’t quite see them in my mind, but I just knew they were there, present within the body of energy.
Mentally, I reached towards the living orb of energy, and it responded without question with wisps of black smoke with arcing red streaks stretched out like tendrils coming away from the core. As I focused more on wanting the dark, deathly mana to be drawn to me, I noticed that the red lightning and hints of other energies I could feel in the ball were retreating from the tendril staying within the orb.
Finally, a pure tendril of semi-translucent undulating black was stretched out before me. Studying the smoke-like limb, I noticed that there was more within it than just black energy; this death mana was composed of many parts that seamlessly blended into darkness.
Next I focused on the cold, the freezing chill I’d felt with this energy earlier, and attempted to stretch that out. A headache was beginning to bloom in my mind as I stressed my brain trying to control all these different energies and separate them out.
Extremely thin tendrils began separating from the dense black mist I’d stretched from my core; these tendrils, however, seemed more solid; while still dark in color, they didn’t undulate and shift as I observed them, and they looked more akin to black ice than smoke.
The more I attempted to separate and control the different energies that made up the death mana composite, the more strained my mind became. A weight settled in my skull as I had to constantly focus on my desire to push back all the other energies I could feel while pulling on the particular aspect I wanted.
As the ache in my skull spread from my temples to the front of my head between my eyes, I felt my focus fracture, and suddenly the tendrils all began retreating from me; the solid arcs of black ice that spread from the smoke like the ribs of a reaper attached to an epheral spine retreated backwards into the smoke, and the misty limb crackled almost seeming angry as arcs of lightning tore up and down its surface. The mist pulled back into the orb in my chest, dispersing itself across its surface evenly like clouds of choking smog.
I felt myself begin to fall through the blackness in my mind, as if whatever platform my mind’s eye rested upon while observing the sphere had turned into an open trap door, and I just kept falling infinitely until.
I opened my eyes, sitting up with a start, and saw the rising sun staring down at me, seeming almost judgmental, rising to my feet. I stretched, feeling my joints pop softly as I rose, and taking a moment to enjoy the muted sense of pain. I felt different.
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My hyper-dense musculature was doing a better job of holding my joints in their sockets and keeping them in place; instead of waking up with my usual array of massive dislocations, my joints were only slightly out of place, and glancing towards my status, I saw that my penalties were at minus one again. My recent meal likely helped a lot with how good I was feeling this morning.
I strolled away from my hut towards the lake and kneeled down into the sloping dirt that led to the water-filled earth. Cupping my hands into the water, I brought it up to my lips and drank, relying on my strong constitution, which had been further boosted by my vitality stat, to hopefully handle any kind of dysentery this might give me.
Returning to my hut, I once again began my tedious work of chipping the flint stone into a broad bladed shape. After several long hours of tapping the flint with extreme and frustrating levels of restraint, I finally had a broad axehead of stone. Using the stone head, I cut out a small hole in a stick, placed the back side into the narrow slot, and hit the bladed side against a tree to hammer it the rest of the way in.
I finished by lashing the axe head in place with my twine, wrapping the axe head to the stick.
“HOLY SHIT!” I shouted out loud with a loud huff.
“This is way less fucking fun than the YouTube videos made it out to be.” I looked up towards the sun and saw it had risen by about an hour or two.
Jesus Christ I thought I’d been here for like 6 hours.
I leapt to my feet with a grace that I had thought was lost to me with time and approached one of the thinner, more youthful trees near the lake. I pulled the axe back, gripping it with both hands, and twisted my body back in preparation to dig the flint blade into the wood when a thought occurred to me.
Maybe we shouldn’t put all of our considerable strength behind a flimsy stick with some flint in it.
Mm Good point.
Letting go of the axe with my hand, I angled the blade to dig into the wood diagonally to chip instead of cut and swung with a moderate level of restraint.
The stone axe hummed through the air and bit deep into the wood at an angle, and pulling the axe back to inspect, I was pleased to find it had held up to its purpose before swinging again and again.
I spent the rest of my morning slowly chipping away at the small tree until I felled it; with the tree collapsed and on the ground, I rolled it up towards my hut and spent some time staring at it, realizing I hadn’t exactly thought very far ahead about what to do next.
Maybe I could cut it into planks? Yep, that’s what I’ll do. I will cut it into planks with my dull, shitty axe. I thought sarcastically.
Okay, let’s think about this. I could try to flatten down one side and maybe; no, that’s stupid.
Staring towards the city balefully, I cussed internally, thinking about how many useful tools and materials were just out of my reach. I reached down to my bag and pulled out my last pack of cigarettes, drawing one out and lighting it up. I pulled on the death stick.
“We’re running out of cigarettes too.” I said as I turned away from the city, shoving down my frustrations with a new plan on how to use what I had taking root in my mind, I set to work.
Days passed me by in a blur as I focused single-mindedly on gathering wood, rocks, branches, and anything else I could from the surrounding forest. I spent the mornings cutting down small trees and stripping their branches before setting out to go on daily’s hunts that were largely uneventful; thankfully no more Wulvhund’s crossed my path, only normal rabbits and deer, with the occasional Lepus Fortis mixed in.
During the evenings I would shape flint tools and fit them into wooden handles, lashing them together with twine, and occasionally before I slept I would meditate, returning to the gaseous planet that resided in my chest and attempt to exert more and more control over it before passing out.
A week passed with me keeping up this rote routine until my hunt on the seventh day brought me an unexpected but very welcome notification.
[Congratulations Viktor Bloodstone you have gained a level. you have been awarded + 5 free attribute points, + 1 skill point.]
Pulling up my status screen, I considered where to spend my new found wealth of points.
Name: Viktor Bloodstone
Title: [Dying Breed]
Level: 3
Age: 18
Species: Human [Legacy Beast]
Archetype: Occultist
Classes:
==== ATTRIBUTES ====
Strength: 11 (+3)
Agility: 11 (+3)
Dexterity: 10 (-1 + 3)
Vitality: 8 (-1 + 3)
Sense: 13 (+6)
Wisdom: 15 (+3)
Intelligence: 14 (+3)
Death: 3 (+3)
Infernal 6 (+6)
Glamour: 8 (+3)
==== SKILLS ====
Animal Instinct – 2
Unarmed Combat – 3
Crafting – 2
Mana Sense – 4
Mana Control – 5
==== SPELLS ====
==== ABILITIES ====
Parasite – 1/7
Unbound 1/4
==== MUTATIONS ====
Selfish Gene – Unique
Trait Eater – Rare
Immutable – Uncommon
Mutagen – Uncommon
Crushing Maw – Common
Lupine Pulmonary Enhancement – Common
Bone Claws – Common
Adrenal Vault – Common
Dense Musculature – Common
Stocks:
[Musculature: 188]
[Bone: 83]
[Blood: 36]
[Viscera: 89]
[Free Attribute points: 5]
[Skill Points: 2]
[Legacy Perk: 1]
“Alright I think we should pump up my vitality by a couple points and put a point into both my legacy stats, so they aren’t only supported by my titles... and I guess we can dump the last one into my wisdom; it might make my meditations a little less skull-shattering.”
Confirming my selection, I felt the stat points sink in making my skin, muscle, and bones writhe as hot needles pierced them. The sensation was light compared to when I got my titles and far easier to manage.
The chilling sensation in my chest spread out over my body; freezing tendrils of death sunk into my bones, dropping my body temperature for a moment as my rune-filled tattoos made a reappearance for a moment and then winked out.
Breathing out hard as the stat adjustments finished, I shuddered softly before shaking off the cold and pain. “That one, huh..." that felt pretty good actually.” I chuckled softly. “Still hurts like a bitch, but I feel good.”
I flexed for a moment, working the kinks out of my muscles and relaxing my body.