Aside from the obvious difficulties in us communicating verbally, Tahar turned out to be a good teacher. Only an hour later I had gotten a basic grasp of using the bow. But being able to shoot an arrow was only half of the trouble – to achieve my first ‘level’ in hunting I needed to learn how to track down my prey, and how to extract the needed pieces from it when it was slain.

Happy that I could theoretically shoot and kill our target, Tahar decided to lead us deeper into the plains to try and find an easy start for us. She’d called them Toh-Ran before, and ‘tall’ didn’t do them justice. It didn’t take us long to find one. She pulled me down to my knees and pointed through a bushel of tall grass.

They were huge! The closest approximation was that of a giraffe. A long, lanky set of four legs attached to a wide barrel. Unlike a giraffe, it had a stout neck. A pair of curved horns poked out from a shaggy head of hair; and they had a short golden pelt of fur. I could tell why they were used as such a reliable source of food. Surely slaying one of these would provide enough meat for several weeks’ consumption.

“Aim carefully. Hit side of body.”

Tahar pointed to the flank of the creature. It was the biggest target, and was presumably the best way to disable them with the first shot. I took the arrow she offered me and loaded it into the bow. I could not express the full power of my body with my arm in such a poor condition – I could hear the bones creaking when I did it.

I didn’t need to. If I did I’d snap the cord clean in two. I had to keep reminding myself of that. I had nothing to prove. I needed to keep a close measure of my own strength. I ignored the pain running through my raw nerve and held a deep breath. The creature wandered to a puddle of shallow water and thought about taking a drink from it.

When it came to a stop, I let go.

I didn’t take in a breath. I watched closely as the arrow sailed through the air in a long arc, before planting itself into the monster’s flesh with a thud and a spurt of blood. The creature let out a beleaguered wail and turned to run. It didn’t get very far. I hit something important, as it soon slumped over onto the ground and fell over.

“Good! Good!” Tahar cheered, “Good shot!”

We broke through the grass and approached the body. “Is this enough?” I asked.

“Adult. Male. Well fed. Should buy affix with some to spare.” She withdrew a large knife from her belt and handed it to me, taking back her bow. Now it was time to get down to the nitty gritty, skinning and butchering the thing for transport. Tahar pinpointed the exact locations that I needed to sever. I dutifully followed her instructions, cutting through skin and flesh and peeling it away until the organs and muscles were exposed.

The next part was very messy, and stunk pretty damn bad. We removed as much as we could. Tahar seemed to have need of the other pieces that I didn’t want. The flesh, which was used as a source of food, was kept separately and placed into a beige sack. Tahar wrenched a rib bone away from the carcass with such force that she nearly fell over. She held the blood covered club up to me.

“Bone, sturdy. Make tools.”

“I see.”

The smell of gore was getting to my head. We had everything we came for and the body would be picked clean by predators and vultures in time. I wiped off my hands with a towel and placed it into the ‘dirty’ pocket in my rucksack. Amazingly I avoided getting any blood on my clothes. I put my injured arm back into the sling and said a silent prayer in the hopes that I hadn’t aggravated my injury by moving it.

Tahar carried the bag back with us.

“How often do you do this?”

Tahar took a moment to comprehend my question, “One kill, food for two weeks. Cooked with plants.”

“And storage?”

“Storage?” she repeated.

“Cold. Meat, cold? Covered?” I said, running through a collection of words to try and make my point.

“Oh! Yes! Cover with siar, lasts much longer.”

Siar? If she meant salt, that would mean they dried out the meat to keep it good for a longer period of time. In a place as hot as this, I should have expected that much. Creating a low temperature storage area that was also protected from the elements would be very challenging. I spent the rest of the walk explaining what ‘storage’ meant, using my bag as an example. I also told her several contexts in which it could be used in a sentence and some synonyms to go with it.

“Thank you, good lesson!”

When we returned to the village – things were much quieter than earlier. None of the kids were out playing at this time. Though the affixer was still sat in the same spot. Tahar placed the bag of meat down onto the ground beside him and opened it up, revealing our plunder. He nodded and started to take chunks of the raw flesh for himself. There was still some left over when he was finally satisfied.

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He barked out some more small talk with Tahar. She pointed to me. He looked me up and down – and whatever she had told him he didn’t believe. He sighed and tapped the rune that denoted the berserk effect I was looking for.

“He will affix your armour.”

I had to choose which piece. Giving it to Stigma was a possibility but absorbing a rune into her body was easy. If I changed my mind later, it would be simple to swap them. On the contrary, opportunities to affix my amour would be few and far between. The only rational choice was either my helmet or my chest.

I decided to go with the chest in the end. I removed it from my body and handed it over the counter. The affixer admired the craftsmanship on the metal. Judging by their clothes and bone tools, forging things from metal wasn’t a realistic possibility here.

“Return tomorrow,” Tahar said.

I was a little worried about this guy stealing it for himself. But walking away without the affix would just make my life harder when I attempted to slay the monster again. Benadora was paying me a lot of money to make sure that this expedition went off without a hitch. Come hell or high water, she wasn’t going home empty handed.

We stepped out from the hut. As the sun set the entire village was illuminated by torches and candles; giving it a warm, welcoming appearance. It was a nicer place to live than some of the ‘modern’ towns and cities I’d visited - the ones where waste ran through the gutters and got tossed out of windows.

“Going to camp?”

“Yes, we should tell Benadora what’s going on.”

“Benadora.”

She understood half of that, probably. We waved goodbye to her and headed home.

----------------------------------------

We returned to camp just as the last of the day’s light disappeared. Benadora was waiting for us.

“There’s my loyal bodyguard, how’s your arm doing?”

“Better.” I hopped over the wooden log that had been laid by the fire and took a seat. “We’re working on a solution to this monster problem. One of the people in Tahar’s village is doing something for me.”

“Will that be enough?”

“No. Not quite. A single berserker affix isn’t going to kill that thing. I need to find more, or buy them from the man in the village – but he didn’t have what I was looking for.”

Benadora sighed and propped herself up with her hand, “I sent a few of our men out to map the area. They didn’t find anything.”

“And the digging?”

“Nothing. It seems that killing the monster is the only way inside.”

“I don’t get it. Didn’t any of the previous research teams run into this?”

“They never went this deep and every other room of interest has been picked clean. We’re the first to see it with our own eyes and live.”

“It has incredible regenerative abilities. We need to hit it with as much damage as we can, as quickly as we can. A longer fight will just end with our defeat.”

Cali removed her catalyst pouch and inspected how much powder was stored inside, “I could use one of my more powerful spells. But doing so will render me unable to fight afterwards.”

“Do you have anything to stop it from moving?”

“Hm. A lightning spell may fulfil that purpose.”

It was a start. But we needed something more than a spell and a berserker affix to get rid of this thing. After a meal of meat and soup – everyone split off to their own tents to sleep through the night. Two days gone and we’d only made minimal progress. I could understand Benadora’s frustration.

I slumped down onto my cot and removed what remained of my armour and gear, leaving it in a messy pile against the supporting pillar of the shelter. Just as I was about to grab a sheet and call it a day, Stigma emerged to greet me again. Her face was tense.

“Master.”

“Look what the cat dragged in, finished with the silent treatment?”

Stigma pouted, “I wasn’t ignoring you Master. You should know that I’m always here with you.”

“So what? You didn’t have anything interesting to say?”

“Well, that is true. But now I believe I can offer you some advice.”

“As long as it doesn’t get me killed, I’m willing to hear you out.”

Stigma smiled, “You do know that I’m capable of releasing much more power than you are presently wielding? When you first found me, I gambled using your life force to slay those Inquisitors.”

“Yes. I know.”

How could I forget.

“In truth, there is another safer way of using it. The timer counting down isn’t just a measure of how long you have left, it’s a reserve of potent magical energy. Theoretically, you can store an infinite amount of power within me. Should you request my assistance again – your own life will not be burned away, rather, it will be the energy you have stolen from others. Naturally, this will reduce the time you have left to live, but imagine if you use it to slay a mighty foe; you could gain more power by doing so.”

That was an interesting point. I never placed much faith in Stigma’s words, but it made sense. Stigma was using my body’s energy, and she could take it in from recently deceased foes. Increasing her power output would accelerate that rate of soul-death.

“What’s your honest assessment of this monster?”

“Honest? When have I ever lied?”

“Stigma.”

She giggled, “My apologies Master. While your guile and wit have delivered many surprising victories, this beast is another matter entirely. You are stronger than any human can be at your level. Yet the path you have chosen is the correct one. To win this game, you must abide by the ‘rules’ of this world. To challenge it again now - even with the full extent of my stored power, would be a fool’s errand.”

“I better start scavenging for more affixed equipment then, or find something closer to my level to kill.”

She nodded, “I would recommend that you take every chance to do so. Time keeps marching onwards, as much as we may wish it to stop. Keep a close eye on the time you have left.”

I sighed and studied the scars on my hands. I had months and months banked away from killing those giants, but if I needed to use that power to kill the monster… I could end up in a serious situation.

“One more thing Master. It seems that in the time I’ve spent in isolation, you’ve found yourself surrounded by more lecherous, predatory women. Did I not tell you that I was the only company you needed?”

“…Tahar?” I asked. There was no other person I could think of who fit the description aside from Benadora, “And for your information, Benadora acts like that with everybody. I don’t think Cali even has the capacity to feel that way in the first place.”

Stigma rolled her eyes, “Scarred or not, all women have the same instinct inside of them. As a strong man – they will flock to you for comfort and protection.”

“And is that your professional opinion as a woman?”

“Well, you did ask for my honest assessment.”

Perhaps a little too honest.