Chapter 3 - Dispose of Chompy

I ended up throwing the goblin’s corpse from the ledge, not because of the smell, though that was certainly a factor, but because I also needed to gauge the distance to the floor below. I wasn’t about to trust Nali’s estimate of 20 feet, not when I had *science* on my side.

The plan was to count the seconds it took for my goblin corpse to reach the ground below, which would accomplish a couple things at once.

I would know how much a drop from my platform would hurt, for one. Additionally, it seemed that the corpse upset my AI tutorial lady, and I needed to be rid of it to get any answers.

So, Chompy had to go.

Before my little friend took the tumble, I made sure to strip him of the valuables the System didn’t use to make the loot, such as the teeth and claws. The teeth were easy, since they were barely rooted in the gums at all. I’d read somewhere that some types of predatory fish were like that, losing and growing teeth all the time. Maybe goblins were similar.

The claws were a different story. The first one I tried, I simply pulled to get the entire thing, but they must have been an extension of the goblin’s bone structure. They absolutely refused to be separated from their owner without taking the entire finger with it. If my stomach had been anything but empty, things would have been even more of a mess.

Consuming the stuff was a learning experience.

You gain knowledge of material: Goblin Claw [7/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Goblin Teeth [10/10]

Core Ability gained: Detect Goblin [Radius: 10 feet]

Affinity Type: Goblinoid is now level 1

Goblin material now burns more efficiently. [5%]

Apparently, Consuming enough of something gave me bonuses. Good to know. I didn’t know what Goblinoid affinity was. Under Affinities on my Status Screen, it was the only one on the list, which I was sure was empty before.

Consuming additional teeth didn’t do anything for me except adding a couple seconds to my Engine buff, so I saved the rest in a pile to use later.

After getting all I could out of my slain opponent, it was time to dispose of him.

The couple seconds it took for the corpse to reach the ground below felt far too long, and the sound it made on impact was a rolling series of cracks and thuds that told me the terrain down there was extremely uneven. If I tried to make that jump, I’d break an ankle or a leg, and that would just be the beginning of the fun.

The idea to climb up and out of the windows and into the trees had occurred to me, but if the goblin’s initial attack trajectory was anything to go by, he hit me from above. That probably meant he came in through a window, and the thought of fighting another one of them while dangling from a tree just felt like asking to fall to my death but, this time, with company.

No. Chompy Drop told me my original plan was the way to go. I needed to climb my way over to one of the doors that fed into my room and find a different way down, preferably a stairwell.

The distance from my isolated ledge to the nearest exit was about twenty feet, and to make that distance I would need to Shape maybe eight or so rebar handholds like I did before.

I checked my status screen.

Ryan Kotes - Level 0

Type: Artificer (Common)

Class: Animator (Uncommon)

Core: Engine (Unique)

HP: 14/25

MP: 30+/30

Body: 10

Mind: 12

Spirit: 9

Abilities+

Skills+

Affinities+

Current Stat Effects: Engine (Duration: ~18 min)

My HP had regenerated only a point over time, but my MP was back to full thanks to my ‘Engine’ buff. Nali hadn’t had a chance to tell me about that, but if I was going to get mana for destroying my loot, I wasn’t going to argue. It was only right that I be compensated for feeding my hard won stuff to my arm, which I suspected was part of the Core in my status screen.

I was at my cap on MP at this point, so wasted time would be wasted mana.

Okay. Enough stalling.

I got down low on my belly again to reach the first handhold I needed to Shape. The floor had some give to it this close to the edge. It bounced up and down as I slithered forward. Below me, little crumbles of concrete debris rained down into the pit with hollow clacks and snaps as they made their landing.

With a reverberating twang, something gave way as I reached out to touch my first target, and the platform suddenly dipped half an inch. My heart leapt as I experienced the sudden sensation of falling, only for the floor to quickly find its new equilibrium and stabilize itself.

Reason number two it’s not safe to stay here.

I blew out a shaky breath and reached out again, slowly, to grab onto the iron bar. Again, I concentrated on the Shape ability, letting the icy flow of power leave my center and travel down my arm to permeate the metal. Then it was a part of me.

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I didn’t try to physically bend it this time. Instead I willed myself to bend, to become the desired shape. This particular bit of iron had it bad, nearly rusted through on the end closest to me, which made working with it more difficult. The rust was positively manaphobic the way it resisted saturation, so I was forced to work around it. In the end, I folded the weak parts of the bar over on themselves again and again until the good stuff and the oxidized bits mixed together like very unappetizing chocolate. The finished product would be theoretically weaker on the whole, but I only needed it to hold up my weight, not a building.

By the time I was done, my Engine buff duration was down to five minutes. I was breathing hard, like I’d just run a mile or so, and sweat dampened my hair and trickled down my nose. I had a functional handhold to show for my effort, though.

The rebar now had a ridged, ovular shape to it, perfect for gripping.

My MP was still at full, which was nice. Engine seemed like a fantastic way to reduce my downtime. I needed to keep it up as much as I could.

I slid forward and reached for the next handhold, determined to keep at it at least until Engine ran out.

—---

Thirty minutes later I was on my fifth session of Shaping. My metal arm proved downright handy for extended gripping of things, but it did have its limits. Out of curiosity, I’d tried to use my curious prosthetic to Shape like I did my natural appendage, but the mana inside of me didn’t seem to want to travel that way. I would get that cold, fresh feeling in the arm (odd in itself since it probably didn’t have nerves), but when I willed the energy to leave the arm and saturate something outside of me, I got nothing.

Skill Unlocked: Climbing

Your current skill level is 1.

So, the metal left hand served as my anchor while my right did the magic, which made what I was trying to do an awkward job. Traversing the wall to the left like I was, my leading hand wasn’t the one I needed to do the shaping, so I had to do a sort of crossover that diminished my reach to just a couple feet at a time, slowing my progress and increasing the number of Shapings I had to do.

Physical and mental stress were taking its toll upon me. I was down to 9 MP, and this particular rebar was proving more stubborn than the last, practically made of rust as it was. My mind was entirely occupied trying to get Shape to do what I wanted, folding and massaging the workable material and dodging the impurities, but something made me stop.

I paused, drawing my conscious thoughts out of the rebar, letting my senses take priority in my mind. My eyes slid over the moving fingers of the shadows cast by the trees, deeper now that it was later in the day. I felt the chill in the air on my sweat drenched body and soaked clothes.

There was nothing. No birdsong. No insects. The world was practically still. I shuddered.

Then I heard it.

A sound down below, in the pit. Faint, wet, slurping, tearing. The muffled crunch of bone. Wheezing breaths punctuated by basso gulps and grumbles as something was swallowed. The noises echoed through the building, bouncing off the trembling bones of the place.

I didn’t dare move. I held my breath. I hung and waited.

Skill Unlocked: Stealth

Your current skill level is 1.

“Greetings, Chosen!”

My heart sank and the ability to breathe left me momentarily. Slowly, I turned my head to my right, to the platform where Nali stood in all her stupid, glowing glory.

“I apologize for f-frightening you, Chosen,” she beamed with wide, unblinking eyes and a toothy smile. “Integration always causes some dis- dis- tribulations, and I’ve always found it best to get- get the initial greeting out of the way and get to the m-m- – eat of it.”

The ensuing silence was deafening.

I peered down into the pit, squinting to try and get some more use out of my eyes. The contrast between the light levels on the top floor and down below were too great, and my eyes couldn’t adjust. Just a hint of motion was all I caught before a rock the size of my head sailed out of the darkness and smashed into the underside of the floor in front of me.

Unknown attacks you and misses.

The structure groaned and shifted with the blow, leaning sideways and shedding some of the brittle concrete blocks that it had been holding up all these years.

Nali continued, oblivious to my troubles or her own. The smile never left her face as the platform she stood upon gave way with a snap and twang. The slab folded in half as the edges let go of the supporting walls, and the whole thing slid downward, slowly at first but picking up speed quickly.

“I’m sure you have many questions, but if you allow me, I think this tutorial can establish a b- bas base level of understanding so that your quest- questions are more productive.” Nali kept speaking even as she passed by me and slipped down into the pit with her platform. When the giant slab hit the bottom, there was an explosion of gray dust and the entire structure seemed to shift.

I stared down into the pit with horror, mouth agape. My heart skipped several beats.

A monstrous groan shook the building. I could feel it through my hands.

In light of these new developments, I was ready to call the handhold project a success and try for the door. I flexed my flesh fingers and wrapped them around the rusted metal spike I had yet to Shape. It gave slightly, but I had no other options. The time to leave was now.

I let go with my metal hand and swung wide, reaching for the farthest bit of rebar I could, the muscles in my arm and back straining with the effort. My fingers caught one of the bars on the first swing, but when I tightened my fist the brittle iron just came off in my hand. The surprise and my physical weakness almost killed me, nearly making me lose my grip.

The building rocked and swayed around me. The windowed wall to the outside tumbled outward, coming apart in the process. An avalanche of rubble tumbled toward the ground outside, smashing through ancient tree boughs before reaching the bottom with a cacophonous crash.

A deep, ululating cry I could feel in my insides echoed from the pit. There was a crack, and another projectile that probably weighed as much as I did whooshed past me then into and through the canopy of leaves. The air displaced by the flying rock whipped my hair back out of my eyes.

Unknown attacks you and misses.

It was time to go.

I got my hands back on solid holds, braced my legs against the wall, and jumped, propelling myself left with every muscle and new prosthetic servo I could spare. I sailed through the air, reaching, stretching with everything I had. For a moment, mid-air, I glanced down into the pit, and, through the thickening cloud of debris and dust, I caught the reflection of a pair of huge, wide-set eyes.

Then it was time to have the wind knocked out of me. My jump had been good, better than I had hoped, and that had placed me in the awkward position of having my upper body on the level with the doorway and my lower half catching on what was supposed to be the support beam for the floor, just a rusted nub after so much time but enough to ruin my day. I landed on said support beam stomach first, doubling over and feeling the wind leave my mouth with a woosh, but I didn’t fall. No, I was too busy seeing spots and scrambling to get up and out of the ruined room.

Your Climbing skill is now level 2.

I pulled myself through the door and into an adjoining hallway. The imminent collapse hadn’t been kind to the floor of this room either, but I wasn't in a position to go find another way. I only had eyes for the end of the hall. There, above a vine-covered window, in faded, flaking paint was a picturogram of a set of stairs.

My arm ached, and my diaphragm was frantically trying to restart my respiratory process, but I ran. I ran as fast as I could, not pausing as certain bits of the floor gave way under my feet. I tripped and fell on jagged rock, but I was up in less than a heartbeat.

The adrenaline had control of me now. I was an animal fleeing a predator. I felt nothing but the desire to be away. I just kept running, scrambling over all obstacles until I stood next to the stairwell. The door had no handle.

The building shifted again. Giant cracks crawled vertically up the walls, and the floor rippled.

Down. I had to get down.

I paused for two breaths and kicked the door to the stairwell open.

I wished I hadn’t.

The smell of rotted meat, so foul and so strong I could taste it, practically hit me in the face. Even sweating as I was, I felt the moisture in the air like it was a physical thing, thick and cloying. Beyond the little rectangle of light my door allowed into the room, it was pitch black, but I saw enough. Something viscous coated the floor and walls, and stringy tendrils of tar slowly stretched themselves down from the top of the doorjamb. They didn’t rock or sway with the motion of the building. Instead, they reached for me as they stretched, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

The stairwell plan was right the f**k out. No way.

With a groan, the floor below me dropped a full yard before having its momentum arrested by something below.

I looked to the window, now at chest level for me. Beyond was a sea of green. A tree must have grown right next to this place, not as tall as its brethren but tall enough to reach me up here.

Again, the floor sagged underneath me, forcing me to act. I clambered up and onto the window sill and jumped.