[Congratulations! You survived the nigh....]
[Congratulations! You have reached a survival streak! For five days you have managed to live throughout your adventures! You will be rewarded with a perk fragment!]
[Warning! This boon is transferable to any other Chosen that may happen to end your streak!]
Four days had passed since I made my choice to go for an adventure. We spent most of that time in the grasslands hunting for game and gathering herbs. I had quite the respectable assortment of herbs and flowers hanging and drying on the inside of my hut. A few more bunnies and a doe that took us half a day to chase down. Poor thing, I missed my shot to her heart but she still bled out eventually. I wasn’t able to track her in the least, that was not going to be a skill I was going to master anytime soon, but Pest sniffed the doe out. She had travelled a good distance, and even with Pests determined steps, they were not large steps. I did earn myself a skill up though.
[Congratulations! Archery has increased to Level 2!]
And my aim and control of the bow increased at a steady pace. I only missed a couple bunnies. Pest tried to chase some of them down, but they out distanced him in nothing flat. And luckily for my soft heart, he didn’t bring me anymore babies.
One day was a complete wash, as we found out how it looks when it rains. Like a vertical river. It came down heavy all day. We held up in the hut the entire time with the little stove fire on its exterior blazing away. I got soaked each time I had to feed it. By luck of the draw I had built it in a way that the winds didn’t blow the rain into the fire. However, that meant that the wind blew the rain against my door. I had to conduct some emergency shoring up of the gaps in that wall and a few weak points in the bark shingles, but we stayed relatively dry. I used the time to turn all the yucca into twine and some of that twine into rope. I used that yucca to test experience gaining and auto-pilot vs instant creation. I could indeed choose to create things at will, by auto-pilot or by mundane hand means. The experience gave nearly nothing when done by instant creation, a little bit by auto-pilot, and the most by far doing it unassisted.
It took energy in reverse order. It seemed with unassisted creation I didn't get tired at all, regenerating my energy more quickly than it tired me out to work the twine. Auto-pilot about evened out, losing a little energy I felt. But the single sudden hit of instant creation took the wind out of my sails pretty quickly and after a few bursts I had to take a decent break or reload with snacks. I took advantage of the new knowledge and rainy day to make a lot of twine unassisted.
[Congratulations! Primitive Crafting has increased to Level 2!]
The rope I found harder to create by hand consistently, so I cheated for that and instantly created a good amount of it from the twine.
The day before that Loki had paid me a visit. He paused time right when I was in the midst of crossing the river on my raft to the grasslands side. It was going well because I had strung a rope across the river linking my apple tree to the other side and I just had to pull the raft, with me on it, across.
He went right to it and unzipped my very being without any delay. Cracking open souls was a day-to-day thing for him apparently. And cracked into the rune-code.
He was wearing an open-fronted dark shirt with designs down the edges, nothing underneath it and some tied closed super baggy short pants with a paisley print. The short pants were oddly long ending at mid-calf. It all looked vaguely Japanese, but not enough to be legitimate. He also sported a shell necklace and probably five different bracelets, and two handfuls of rings.
This guy, was all I could think of. I'd have sadly shaken my head if the world around me wasn’t frozen.
“‘Gratz,” he said simply without his normal zest. “You found a legitimate bug.”
A party popper miraculously cracked behind him and shot streamers into the air.
The fuck is his problem today, somebody piss in his cheerios this morning? I thought to myself.
“You good, big man?” I asked instead of outing my more honest thoughts. He blinked at me as he zipped up the rune-code.
“Yes, I am fine, just tired. Big update coming. You better hold onto your ass, it is going to rock the foundations of your tiny hut.” He told me blandly.
“Oh, okay. That’s a good thing I hope.” I would have smiled at him, if my face moved.
“Sure. If you survive it. Tell you what, I will give you double or nothing on your reward for this minor bug. As it stands, I was just going to give you something paltry. But if you entertain me after the update aftershock, I will up the prize to something good. Based on results. If you fail, you get nothing.” He said, finally bringing some spunk back into his speech.
“Done.” I confirmed the bargain. He quickly departed after that. And as always when time resumed, my overextended body crashed to the raft. And that was the wobbly raft's last straw because it quickly broke up after that. I spent a good portion of the remainder of that day scavenging raft bits from along the coast of the grasslands and building a new raft. I named it Raft II: Revenge of Wobbly.
The day after Loki’s visit, I got an odd notification. This one came across differently than the others, it appeared in the sky like a banner for a local town parade. It was followed by brass horn fanfare that seemed more fitting in a renaissance period piece than a Viking one.
[Update 0.0.13 – Darkened Doorsteps, is now live. Enjoy your afterlife, if you can survive. – []_ []_]
It was an ominous message and signed with two leet-speak L’s. He must have written it himself, normally the notes from on high were signed ‘Management’. Only update 0.0.12, this afterlife was newer than I gave it credit for. But then again, how often was he pushing updates? Some games did them weekly and monthly, others only quarterly or yearly. Not to mention, did time even pass normally here? The two leading zeros definitely indicated the System still being in alpha status. All these tidbits I tucked away in my mind. Every piece of information was valuable in my self-appointed quest to muck up this System.
Climbing to the top of a tree on the same day the update released netted me a whole lot of no information. I couldn’t see any sign of civilization, or anything but the same three biomes in all directions. To the north half trees seemed to go as far as I could see, little hills eventually pushing up a horizon line of trees I couldn’t see past. The south east grasslands went for a decent distance before the trees seemed to overtake them again. The only thing that seemed to become something else was to the south west the sandy scrub brush eventually became mountains in the far off distance. I didn’t see any smoke on the wind, or roads cut through the forest. I guess I’d just have to travel far. And the best bet for that seemed to be by raft. I could just ride my raft down the river and see what came to be. If I died, I assumed I would be returned here, to my homebase. Much like Urkel had returned to his. And speaking of Urkel, I hadn’t seen a hide nor hair of him.
I had even finished my fence gate and shored up that muddy entrance in preparations. I may have sharpened some stakes and put them along the bottom of my wall as well, but those are trade secrets as Pest would say. I knew that, because when I shushed him about mentioning the traps aloud, that's what he called them. Trade secrets. Little weirdo, I was starting to think this Ferret was not a Standard Ferret TM.
All that led me to this morning, which granted me another perk fragment. I checked, and it was still greyed out.
[Perk Fragments: 4]
[Claim Perk? - Y/N]
So, I still couldn’t do anything with it at this point. If it wasn’t iterating by threes, I could only assume it was by fives, or nines. I would just have to survive longer to find out. Either five more days… or… twenty five days? Until I had an answer. Numbers and I were never friends. In one ear and out the other, as it were.
And those were days where I needed to survive, and not get ganked by any psychos. Didn’t seem too difficult, which meant that I was expecting an arrow out of nowhere to suddenly strike me down. That’s how plotlines went right? I did a quick cannibal check, looking along the banks of the rivers and glancing along my fence line. No obvious cannibals, but they were tricky. Always had to have an eye open for them.
“Pest!” I yelled. “Megazord!”
Pest burst out of the woods looking a little crazed and dashed straight to me, I scooped him up and he skittered up to stand on the pack and gripped my hair with his little paws, peering around and scanning the area.
‘No rivals!’ He announced after a short time of checking the surroundings.
“Excellent job, Valued Associate Pest!” I commended him, I called him his self-appointed title a few days ago, and he preened for hours. So now I used it to congratulate a good job. We had come up with this drill in our paranoia about the return of Urkel. Well, it as my paranoia against the cannibal, Pest took it as a way to protect his trade discs. It came in handy once when a hawk was surveying the area we were hunting. Just a short time after I called it out and he came bolting to me the hawk took a rabbit that we were stalking. It could have been Pest. I was trying to think of a whole set of maneuvers to ensure our survival. Sure, I would come back after any lost fight, and I assumed the bond would do the same for Pest, but it didn’t mean death was painless and didn’t bring its own setbacks in our progression.
He was extra compliant today, because we were heading out for a multiday journey, and we were going to dig into the sunken boat on the way. The raft, which I made using the Primitive Crafting skill was much better put together than I could do with my own talents, was loaded up with supplies. I had my tools, food, and every bundle of herb I had collected. Not to mention my rucksack with the normal kit of odds and ends.
I even made the spears I had been thinking about, two of them. I hadn’t had the chance to use them, but I couldn’t shake the opinion that they would come in handy. It was just probably my love of having something long, hard and stabby. But what’cha gonna do?
“Okay, Ratatouille, let’s roll!” I told Pest as he let go of my hair and flopped on top of the rucksack. I knew he couldn’t understand what I was saying, it was nearly gibberish to me, but the bond seemed to transfer intent pretty well. I descended a ladder that I had made and placed at the apple tree I docked the raft too. We hopped onto the raft and let it loose. The water instantly started drifting us down river. Pest nagged me until I let him down from his perch on the rucksack and he started to sniff at everything. No matter how many times he inspected something, he had to do it again every opportunity. I had to stop him from tearing into the herb bales. He really enjoyed throwing them everywhere as he burrowed through the packs. We have had words about it previously, but he didn’t seem to take in what I meant by, knock it the fuck off or I’ll pitch you like a flying squirrel.
The raft was a pleasant way to travel. All I had to do was use my long pole to keep us away from the banks and occasional rock or log. The left side held grasslands waving at us with the mellow breeze that seemed always present. The right side was filled with scrub brush and sandy banks not offering much in the way of conventional beauty but still interesting to watch, nonetheless. I totally forgot to assess the low sands along the water for clams. But it wasn’t a large loss, not like I had a pot to boil them in anyway. I did love clam chowder though. Just needed cream, clams, potatoes and crackers, right?
I hadn’t found any of that yet, just some vegetables and herbs in the grasslands. Onions, wild carrots, fox glove, St Johns wart, yarrow, and lavender made up most of my finds from the grasslands. I knew there was more there, but my skill wasn’t leveled up enough to identify them for me yet, even though I did take to chewing on random bits of new plants now and again. It only recked my stomach a couple times, and not nearly as bad as my apple diet earlier this week had.
It didn’t take us long for the raft to reach the submerged boat. I beached it so close I nearly rammed the side of it.
“Like a glove!” I announced as I jumped off and pulled the raft further onto the shore. “Damn good parking space if I do say so myself.”
Pest didn’t deem it appropriate to comment on my good work and dove off the side of the raft. It always looked funny when he jumped off things. His back end would swing around and land at the same time as his front legs. He was a magical living slinky.
‘Loot here? Trade discs?’ He demanded and started sniffing at everything.
“Yes,” I nodded. “That is the hope, we just need to dig this up an’ see what we can find. It may just be rotten wood.” I amended, just in case, but it didn’t matter what I said. As soon as I had said yes, he started digging in the sand like a tiny maniac.
I just laughed and got out my shovel. I still had a hard time calling my stab-axe a shovel, but whatever. I used my Excavation skill to autopilot digging up the boat. I wasn’t sure how instant casting the skill would treat any foreign objects, and I knew it would suck the energy right out of me, so I kept it basic.
Pest tired himself out quickly and took to watching me and jumping into my work area whenever anything came out. Lots of rocks and a whole lot of not much else. It took a few hours on autopilot to clear away a sizable portion of sand, dirt and rocks from the sides of the boat. It looked like it had been sitting here for quite a while. And though this portion of the hull looked mostly intact from the bits I could see; I could tell this vehicle would never return to the waters as it once had been even if the other half of it was present. The wood was old and friable, splintering each time I would nick it with my digging tool. Spirits of archeologists wincing with each strike.
I managed to reach the keel with a crunch and started to explore the area around it with my hands. Pest took this time to invade my dig site and I had to sit back and watch him. He was quite tenacious in his excavation effort around the newly struck boat, so I left him to it and went through the trouble of clearing some ground and setting up a campfire. I had it blazing merrily on some broken loose boat wood and scrub brush. For wood that was buried in sand along a river it burned quite well. Maybe it had been treated with pitch or tar of some sort. Once Pest had tired himself and popped out of our excavation hole, I went back in. He had revealed a bit more of the keel and an old corroded metal ring. It was rusted into place and had more rings connecting to it in a short chain. I followed along it and found a large manacle. Luckily it was devoid of a leg, which I assumed was its purpose. The leg shackles for a slave rower. That soured my joy at the find a little. It reminded me of Viking slave culture. I wondered just how truthful Loki’s vision of his people would be in this tower. Would I find a thane’s hall, bedecked in finery, for it to only have slaves in its fields, toiling away to bring the owners their spoils? How did I feel about that? Would they be an NPC filling these roles, or would it be my fellow Chosen, stuck in unending servitude in this supposed afterlife? What would a NPC even look like in this world, discernible from a previous living person, a crude game-like automaton or a real living creature? If Pest was anything to judge by, I doubted I would be able to tell life from facsimile.
I grunted in irritation and pulled at the chain, the rust making it a solid bar, rather than a flexible rope. It splintered free easily from the rotten ship. I frowned at it. On a whim I tried to Repair it. Miraculously I had a short length chain in my hand, ring on one end, manacle on the other, new as the day it was forged. I grunted again and looked at the rest of the boat. I was tired of digging and a bit annoyed at the slave revelation. I used Excavator and forced it to use instant cast against its wishes. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be able to do this, since the later levels of the skill specifically stated being able to instantly remove dirt, alluding to an inability to do that at lower levels of the skill. But the skill still activated, I designated a zone the entire space that I assumed the boat filled. With a whumf of rushing air suddenly all the earth from the section was gone. The section I was standing on included. That mixed with the fact that the energy requirement was substantial and hit me like a ton of bricks. I fell.
When I came to it was well into night and my fire had died away. I had a splitting headache. I crawled out of the hole I had created and collapsed next to the dying fire. A tired looking Pest poked his nose out of the rucksack and stared at me. A blinking light indicated some notifications were ready for me.
[Warning! You are exhausted! This happens when you use up most of your energy! You must rest to replenish your energy!]
[You have taken Critical Fall Damage!]
[You are knocked unconscious.]
I groaned a little and rubbed my head, my hand scratched away crusted blood. Must have hit my head on top of the exhaustion hit. I got to my feet and peered into the hole I had made. It was a decent hole, the size of my raft if not bigger and at least waist deep. I couldn’t see anything in it besides the shadows of the night. I grabbed a chunk of boat frame that was poking over the edge and tried to haul it over to my fire pit.
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It proved too intact to break a chunk loose, so I activated Deconstruct. My head swam with dizziness and throbbed in pain. My vision tunneled and I sunk to my knees. Too much energy use. But I had some rough lumber in my hands now, which I used as firewood to coax our little campfire back to life.
I decided to lay down and stare at the sky at that point.
It was beautiful, the stars, which I assumed were painted on the ceiling of this place, looked amazing. As my head throbbed my eyes explored the galaxies and nebulas that didn’t really exist, and I slipped to sleep.
[Congratulations! You survived the night! Welcome to a new day in the afterlife. As with all Norse afterlives, you spent all day fighting, pillaging, and plundering. Some lived, and some died. But all those lives lost are returned, to pillage and plunder again until the Ragnarok decides to come and create the cycle again.]
The blue box struck without mercy, knowing my weakness and still aching head. Its brilliant blue color searing my brain as it avoided all attempts of my trying to block my eyes. Too late I remembered through my throbbing skull that I needed to dismiss it.
I rolled over moaning and a loud pitched squeal cut into my brain. It activated the panic centers of my brain and I bolted awake, adrenaline pushing out my grogginess and pain. I shot to my feet and looked around, I shouted.
“Pest! Megazord!” But nothing happened. No Pest and Viktor fusion took place. I scanned the area myself, hearing nothing but a mad scrabbling noise. I quickly skipped over to our hole, my shovel in my hands, ready to stab. Inside Pest was writhing on his back, letting out little squeals. He was tossing things all around. It took me a moment to sort it out.
According to the tickle in our bond, his mood was near ecstasy. The hole which I had dug was filled with lumber and rocks. My Deconstruct must have propagated along the buried boat’s remains and undid the entire thing. I still think it was only half a boat, the other portion having broken loose and been whisked elsewhere on the river’s whims. In the area of where the keel would have been Pest lay in a tiny mound of coins, like a little dragon on its horde. He held and bit at them like he was testing their softness. He let out another joyous little squeal and I just laughed at him, instantly regretting it with a wince. Felt like I had a hangover.
After taking a little time to collect my bearings and pass morning ablutions I collected the coins into the rucksack. There were too many for the money pouch, so I just dumped them all into the sack. Which made Pest giddy, he crawled inside and swam in them like it was a ball pit. I also found some hardware bits, which I assumed belonged to a chest that the coins had once been inside of. But the deconstruct must have taken apart. Or more likely it was a hidden hatch in the boat or something. I Repaired them and added them to my collection of odds-n-ends that the rucksack was becoming. There was also a good number of nails, crude square shaped things that were beaten out at a blacksmith’s forge. They got a shiny new repair too and were bundled with twine then added to the rucksack as well.
The coins came out to around three dozen, it was hard to count with Pest constantly fiddling with them. They were of various sizes and colors, but all had the one relief of a grinning fellow and some variation of runic design on the other side.
Once I had collected them up, I got a notification.
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Treasure Hunter Skill!]
[Treasure Hunter]
Unlock Conditions – Find a lost treasure trove.
[lvl 1] – Get a feeling when around a lost treasure.
[lvl 3] – Get a sense of direction when around a lost treasure.
[lvl 6] – Get a sense of direction and general location marked on your map when around a lost treasure.
[lvl 9] – Know where a lost treasure is when it is in your vicinity and its precise location is marked on your map. X NEVER, EVER MARKS THE SPOT!
Sweet skill, that meant this wasn’t a one off find, there would be more opportunity for fortune and glory. I repacked the raft and secured the rucksack to it. I even collected up the nice lumber from the remains of the boat and stacked it abord. Pest refused to leave the rucksack and poked his head out in a vigil over his new prizes.
“You realize, those coins are going to have to be traded away, yea?” I asked him. I didn’t think a ferret could ever look so offended. It was like I had just bedded his sister and mother in his own bed.
‘Trade discs for trade.’ He said shortly and with finality.
“Okay little dragon, just making sure.” I assured him as I pushed us into the water and restarted our journey.
‘What is dragon?’ he asked after a little while.
“Well let me tell you the story of Vainqueur, the best dragon…” I launched into a provocative tale about a dragon and his adventures with his favorite manling. Who, now that I was thinking about it, was named Victor. Shit. It was supposed to be an uncommon name. Thankfully I chose Viktor. Miles of difference. It was too late to change it now.
About half the day later the grassland and sands biome transitioned into forest on both sides of the river, so I was surrounded with trees again. Navigating the river became harder because more trees and limbs were in the water, conversely it also became easier at points as the river grew, more streams and creeks feeding into it. At one nerve racking section some large rocks had made a small flight of rapids. But we rode through them without destroying ourselves, even though I had pretty much lost control of the raft by the time we descended them all. Shortly after that, with frayed nerves, I decided to stop the raft and stretch my legs. I waited for a nice section of riverbank to make itself presentable.
Once it did, I made landfall and stretched. This would be a fine place to camp for the night. I made use of Frontiersman to clear a camping space, which netted me a skill upgrade.
[Congratulations! Frontiersman has increased to Level 2!]
I was a skill master! I did a quick Kungfu move in the air. Nobody has got what it takes to beat me. I started to set up my little camp. I made a campfire and slung out a deer hide that I was using as a bedroll. It was the second hide I ever got, it is funny how they kept becoming bedding. But a few handfuls of ferns beneath it was all it took to make a nice bed. I plopped down and sighed. This was the life. All I needed was a guitar to strum at. Not that I knew how, but it seemed to fit the hobo aesthetic I had. Maybe a harmonica would be better. I dozed off into an afternoon nap.
A sharp bite to my wrist woke me. I sat up and frowned. Pest had bitten me.
‘Quiet,’ he said, ‘Something comes.’ I became alert and looked around us. Night had fallen just barely; twilight poking through the trees. It seemed eerie out, the faint light throwing long shadows and not a sound was breaking the silence. Not even the constant birds were making their calls. As I strained to hear the birds, I caught a different noise. A low whistle in a warbling tone. A song I didn’t know and was slightly off putting.
A stranger walked through the brush, not rustling the leaves. He was covered in animal skins but didn’t look the dirty savage like me. His leathers we wrought with effort and talent, colored with bright colors and tassels, like some old wild west motif had leaked into the world. He was tall and slender, almost looking stretched, not quite right. His skin was black as coal and his hair a pale gray. He came to stand on the other side of my fire, which was dying out.
“Hail Chosen,” he said in a deep gravelly voice. “Might I share your fire?”
“Sure,” I said, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“Let me just put some more logs on it.” I said as I got up slowly and retrieved some more of the wood, as well as a spear which I made a show of poking at the coals with. He seemed not to care as he unslung a small hip bag and sat cross legged on the other side of the fire, making a show of warming his hands by the newly renewed flames.
“Hi, I’m Viktor,” I offered, and he smiled at me. His teeth were sharp. “I’m afraid I have not pot to cook in so I cannot offer anything warm, but I have some vegetables and dried deer meat.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes going very wide, the whites showing all around his dark iris. “How fortunate, I have a pot here.” He pulled a small metal pot from his sack and placed it on the fire.
“I also have some fresh meat, we could make a stew, do you fancy a stew Viktor?” I nodded; my appetite was completely gone at the way he said my name. He pulled a wrapped portion of meat from his bag. He unwrapped it from the waxed parchment and it looked to be a white meat, likely pork. I nodded again politely and fetched my water skin and some onions and carrots. By the time I returned he had flayed the meat with a knife, which he was currently using to pick at his teeth with. I ignored the creepy spectacle and poured some water into the pot. He closed his eyes and smiled hugely. Like a cat from fairy tales. He slid the meat into the pot, and I offered up the vegetables, he frowned slightly but none-the-less quickly cut them and dropped them into the stew pot. As the water heated, we shared a companionable silence.
“So…” I broke the silence, “What is your name?” He grinned widely at my question, and as he opened his mouth to respond I interrupted with a yelp.
[You have taken Piercing Damage!]
Pest had bitten my wrist again. Not gently. I was bleeding. “Pest, what the hell!” I grabbed the little bastard and shook him. The stranger laughed, a grating ‘ho ho ho’, like a deranged Santa Claus.
“What a cantankerous fellow he is.” He ground out.
“Yes, he is!” I muttered and sat him down, he scampered away towards the raft and the rucksack.
“Please excuse me for a brief moment.” I politely said as I got up examining my bleeding wrist. I swore the strangers nose flared when I brought to showcase the blood. I retrieved a little bit of the yarrow and brought it back. I found a set of flat rocks and pressed the yarrow between them, grinding it down. I added a little water and then applied the mixture to my wrist. Surprisingly the action did not grant me a new skill, it must have been covered under my Basic First Aid skill.
“Fascinating.” The stranger said as he stared at me from across the fire. His complete attention on my actions. I nodded.
“Just a little something I picked up in the grasslands.” I waved a yarrow flower, “Would you care for some?”
“Oh, no thank you, my kind doesn’t need that sort of thing.” He said with a smug expression.
“Oh,” was all I could get out at that. “So how is that stew coming along?” I asked to veer away from that subject. I was itching to ask what his kind were, but I expected if I did Pest would leap from the bushed to attack me again. The bound shared with me a feeling of complete obstinance about this fellow.
“Nearly there,” he said as he took in a great inhale. I sat back at my bed and just stared at the pot waiting. This was a very strange meeting, with a very strange fellow. It screamed like a horror movie meeting, moments before the antagonist whipped out his giant hook and started chasing the unfortunate teenage blonde girl. I was just going to be a nice little boy and wait patiently for the bad man to go away. Or stab him with a spear. Yes. Maybe that’s what I should do. Stab the ever-loving Jesus out of him. Just as I was girding my strength to stab this nightmare fuel of a visitor, lowing my hand to the spear. He clapped his hands. I may have jumped and started. I muttered something about jump scares.
“Yes, it should be ready now!” He announced and pulled a set of bowls and spoons from his rucksack. He grabbed the pot and poured the soup into the bowls in two even potions.
“Thank you, for the meal,” I said politely as he handed me a wickedly hot bowl. I winced taking it in into my hands, if the bowl was this hot, how hot was the pot that he grabbed with his bare hands? I took a spoonful and blew on it to let it cool before sipping some of the broth. It was good. Simple but good.
He didn’t share my same tender care and took a large mouthful of piping hot soup.
“De-li-cious,” He languidly said, stretching out each syllable in a perverse way.
I sipped at the soup as he consumed his with closed eyes, moaning and groaning as if it was the height of culinary delights. Damn son, you sure love your soup. I thought as I fished out a bit of the meat and tasted it. It was light and slightly bitter. Not great, and not quite pork. Maybe veal or lamb?
“What kind of meat is this?” I asked conversationally, chewing slowly.
“Oh, I don’t know the name…” He said with a wicked grin showing all his sharp teeth. “Just something that squeals…”
I swallowed and got a notification.
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Cannibal Skill!]
[You have gained a small amount of experience for the Sneak skill.]
I almost vomited. I quickly wiped my mouth as I held in a gag.
“Bit my tongue,” I made an excuse at my reaction with a goofy smile. I let the notification pass though to the information on the skill, trying to distract myself from what was bobbing around in my bowl.
[Cannibal]
Unlock Conditions – Consumed flesh of your own kind.
[lvl 1] – You chance madness, but you also gain a small amount of the powers of those you consume.
[lvl 3] - You risk madness, but you also gain more powers of those you consume.
[lvl 6] - You are madness, but you also gain most powers of those you consume.
[lvl 9] - You relish in the madness, you absorb the powers of those you eat stealing their very essence. AND THEN WE WILL FEAST! NOT ON THE CHILDREN. WE DO NOT DO THAT ANYMORE.
So. That’s how I learned what human tastes like. And this delightful fellow across the fire gave me that gift.
“Thank you,” I said to the stranger, “this is a very delicious meal.”
“You are very welcome, Viktor!” He said as he rose, putting his pot, bowl and spoon away in his bag. I noticed him sneakily toss away the vegetables from his bowl before he slipped it in his bag. I got up and offered him the bowl and spoon. “Oh no, you keep it, you can finish and enjoy. Thank you for offering your fire and hospitality. Have a good evening.” He offered another wide smile. He looked me in the eyes and started whistling his song again before making his way out of camp. I sat and quietly listened as his tune droned out on the winds until it was gone. And then I waited some more. Once I was sure he was gone, I slowly poured the soup out into the fire.
[Achievement Unlocked – A Brush with Death]
[You have met a volatile creature that was much more powerful than you and survived to tell the tale.]
[A Brush with Death - Benefit] +15% Chance to have no consequences at respawn.
A notification slid into my vision with a tiny trumpet noise, it startled me into action, and I barely took the time to read it. If anything, the description that I skimmed over made me act even faster.
I jumped to my feet and in a burst of energy I grabbed up everything I could and tossed it onto the raft. I made another trip to make sure I had everything.
“Pest!” I called, and he popped out of the rucksack. “Good, stay there, we are getting the fuck out of here!”
The night was in full bloom, black as sin, but I would risk the river to get the hell out of here and away from whatever the hell that was. I snagged the spear I left and shoved off. I let the water guide the raft and tried my damndest to pole away from anything that came close. I was on high alert and nearly, if nearly meant totally and completely, shrieked like a dying goat when the blue screen jumped into my vision.
[Congratulations! You survived the night! Welcome to a new day in the afterlife. As with all Norse aft…]
[Achievement Unlocked – All-nighter]
[Aren’t you a bit old for this? You pulled an all-nighter and refused to comply to your bedtime.]
[All-nighter - Benefit] +5% Less sleep required to feel rested.
I cancelled the window as quickly as I managed to get my heart to calm, and just started to notice the pre-dawn in the sky. It still wasn’t strong enough to pierce the trees, but it was close. I steered the raft gently around a bend and saw a disturbance in the flows ahead, as I got closer, I saw it was a tree fallen across the river. It looked like our recent rainstorm had loosened the bank enough for it to collapse and bring the tree into the river. I took advantage of it and tossed a rope that I used to anchor the raft around a limb that stuck up from it. The raft tugged the rope taut and made the end of the tree bounce some, but it held and we were suspended in the river. I tossed my bedroll hide on top of the bundles of herbs and lay down on it. I had just enough space to stretch out if I let my feet poke over the edge a bit. I decided this was as safe as it was going to get and settled in for a nap.
***
Pest was awake. He has been awake all night with Chairman Viktor. The being that had joined them in camp was not something he wanted to meet again. He could sense the darkness emanating from it, a sense that filled him with dread as if the being would bring bankruptcy upon the business. He had bitten the chairman to dissuade any transferring of vital contact information. He did not want to know anything of that individual.
Now that the chairman had bedded down for a rest Pest came on shift.
Being in the middle of a river was a little problematic for Pest but he had negotiated harder deals before. He would have to risk his musk however. Which was not something he did lightly. Putting a foot on the rope, it seemed steady, but it was a thin rope and vibrated under the pressure of the river as it pulled it taut. Pest was a businessman, not buisnesskit though, so he quickly dashed across the rope, his little claws digging in for purchase. He nearly got completely across it before slipping.
His front feet lashed out and were able to find purchase on the tree as his rear end splashed into the water. He quickly pulled himself out of the river and dashed across the tree and onto the land before scooting himself around in the underbrush and violently shaking the water off. Intolerable.
He scented the area for any leads. Nothing came to his attention, so he started to range out further. This forest seemed strangely devoid of deals. He couldn’t have that, he prided himself on his ability to ferret out a deal. He was amused, he knew Chairman Viktor would be proud of his patriarchal wit.
Time passed and still Pest couldn’t locate any prospects. It was quite odd for this sort of forest to be devoid of negotiations. He looked around closely at his surroundings. He supposed that the forest did have a certain lacking quality. The trees were a little sparser then he figured they should be and the vegetation at this point was nearly non-existent. It was like the ground had been scraped clear of the normal foliage that would live under the canopy of the trees.
He scented deeply of the earth and that was the majority of what his nose brought back to him, earth, dirt and rock. Maybe a flicker of something else, unidentifiable. But he wasn’t sure what it could be. He scented along the stones and boulders of the forest, something was there, something deep and faint. His nose was flickering and taking in all that it could around a round protuberance of a boulder with fine long wires coming out of it when something odd happened.
It opened. The rounded surface in the boulder opened, and it was an eye. Pest stared at it without moving, as he was want to do, when looking someone in the eye. It stared back. With great lumbering care it raised, and the single eye became two, the large boulder raised further and appeared to be a mishappen head, attached to more boulders that formed a large body with squat arms and legs, sitting on the ground. One of the large hands reached down and slowly tried to pick Pest up. His freeze turned into a sudden burst of action as his little legs and long back went as fast as they could. The large rock creature let out a bellow and ponderously rose to its feet, dirt and debris rained away from it in a hail. Its huge footfalls came crashing to the ground and shaking the very earth that Pest raced across.
He risked a stop and glance behind him, the large creature was slow, but its gait was so large that each step was worth a dozen of his. Its rocklike body was covered in bristles that looked like ugly roots but must have been a gross sort of fur. It was no rival or client that pest wanted to deal with. So, he took back to his run, fleeing back to the chairman.
After a short chase he found the tree that led to the raft and dashed across it. The creature was still hot on his heels and began reaching for the tree, to reel him in like some large fish. Pest gnawed viciously at the rope as the creature gripped the tree and began to rip its tangled roots out of the weakened soil. The rope snapped just as the tree began to swing into the air. Pest jumped from the tree as it started to pivot above the raft and missed with a few feet remaining. He scrambled in the water violently and climbed onto the raft, sopping wet, and dove onto Chairman Viktor.
‘Awake!’ He squealed, ‘Rivals big afoot!’ The chairman was up quickly, and gaped at the monstrosity that was waving an entire tree at them. He hesitated for a moment before taking his long pole and pushing the raft faster along the river, which quickly started to outpace the cumbersome creature. It threw the tree after them, but its roots tangled in limbs and the throw went off course, pivoting back as it struck another tree and smacking the creature in the back, staggering it. Soon they were around some bends in the river and no sign of the creature remained but loud screaming bellows on the winds. Pest exalted in their getaway and did a celebratory war dance in another hostile takeover avoided.