She had light brown skin and blue-green hair, the color of spring’s first triumph over cold winter. Her face was as fair as her form, soft and refined, regal. Or perhaps divine. Long, pointed ears poked out from her wavy mane, and when she blinked her eyes open Helmold saw they were precisely the same shade of verdigris as her hair.
She sat in the fetal position, arms hugging around her bent legs. But when her eyes opened and she began to look about, she stood up and stretched like a cat waking from a pleasant nap.
“Hnnh… Ah… What a fair and beauteous dream that was…” she said, to no one in particular. Then she saw Helmold and smiled, turned gracefully and descended from the petals of the flower that had borne her as if they were the steps of a royal carriage.
Helmold’s eyes had gone wide. Not simply because the girl had a handsome figure, but because she’d awakened from a huge glowing flower.
“I… Who are…?”
She smiled at Helmold. “Doth mine appearance render thee speechless, sir?”
Helmold cleared his throat, returned her smile sheepishly. His cheeks were a bit red. “Ah. Apologies, ma’am. That was quite an entrance.”
The woman looked back at the flower from which she’d emerged. Her eyebrows rose.
“I see… Thus, I am but a tender sprout.”
“And who are you, exactly?” asked Helmold.
The woman didn’t answer. She simply stared at the open flower for a few moments, a contemplative expression on her face. Her gaze remained fixed on it as she spoke.
“I prithee, forgive me, for it hath been so long since I didst employ a name that I can no longer recall it.”
Helmold blinked. He saw a System icon forming beside the woman, so he took a look.
????
Monster Type: ????
Level 1
Never, not even once, had the Magister seen question marks where System information ought to be. Here he was hoping he could win the fair one’s favor by helping her recall her name. No luck there.
Nor had he ever encountered a friendly Monster who could speak, archaic accent or otherwise.
Monsters should not be able to exist inside of a Sanctuary in the first place.
Something was very strange about this.
“Well, we have to call you something,” Helmold said, lamely.
The woman side-eyed him, smiled again, and nodded. “Indeed. What wouldst thou call me?”
Helmold rubbed the back of his head. “Difficult to say. It’s not every day a lady walks out of the flora like she’d come down from heaven.”
She turned to face him again. “What word didst thou use but now?“
“Heaven?” asked Helmold.
“Nay, the other.”
“Oh. Flora?”
She pondered the word for a moment, smiled, and nodded. “Flora. That shall suffice.”
Behind the open flower from which Flora had emerged, two more verdigris buds were already the size of pumpkins.
----------------------------------------
Redmane stood over the corpse of Agneszka the Stitcher, her weapon in his hand.
He took a moment to re-read the Skill description for Rank 4 of Omnivore, to ensure he understood it.
—
(Rank 4) When the Monster consumes weapons and armor with special qualities, it may allocate those qualities to its physical natural weapons, such as claws, bite, horns, talons or spines, if it possesses any. Armor qualities may be allocated as long as the Monster possesses a natural Armor bonus.
Furthermore, if the Damage and Armor Penetration values of a consumed weapon are higher than that of the Monster’s natural weapons, the natural weapons will gain the difference between the two as a permanent bonus.
—
He’d used it once. He’d like to use it again. The description seemed to suggest he could continue eating weapons and adding their qualities to his teeth and claws in perpetuity. Either that, or if he ate a new weapon, its qualities would overwrite the qualities of the last one.
There was one way to find out which version it was, he supposed.
He took a bite out of the Stitcher’s Bodkin, then another, then another. In a moment the weapon was in his belly.
Again he felt the concentrations of Gnosis floating in his stomach, undigested.
Fast felt familiar. Rending was a new sensation, even though he had it on his claws already. In his stomach it felt… Sharp. And malicious.
Once more he decided to split the qualities between teeth and claws. Add Rending to the latter and Fast to the former, to improve the traits they already possessed.
Redmane closed his eyes and moved the clusters of power from his gut toward his claws and jaws, respectively. Another few moments of uncomfortable stiffness came as the magic calcified onto his natural weapons.
He took a look at their updated profiles.
—
Weapon Profile:
Claws
Damage +15
Armor Penetration 8
Corpus damage over time on hit (Rending 4)
Armor +4 while blocking (Defensive 2)
Attacks damage up to 4 foes (Cleaving 3)
Bite
Damage +15
Armor Penetration 8
Evasion Negation 10 (Fast 5)
—
Redmane grinned. His pulse sped up, heart beating against the inside of his ribs in a flush of excitement.
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Nothing was overwritten! The effect was cumulative!
His teeth and claws could become armaments so formidable that no one could possibly stand against them. Every weapon he came across could become part of his weapon.
He had to restrain his body from sprinting out the door to hunt down the next foe immediately. There were a few more things to handle, quality points being first. He chose Grace again this time.
Grace 13 —> 16
Fortitude needed attention as well. Which meant more levels.
Redmane couldn’t think of a more pleasant way to spend a day.
But first he needed Corpus. Agneszka nearly drained him. Unfortunately the cadavers around him weren’t the most nourishing things, but they would have to do. Lifeless flesh had so much less vitality than a fresh kill.
Despite the freakish alacrity with which he could eat, it still took Redmane until the early evening to devour everything.
Corpus: 1772
For the time he’d spent, the rewards were underwhelming. But it didn’t dampen his spirit much at all. There had been more exciting developments.
And it was time to test them.
He bolted out the doors of the Undertaker’s shop and down the street, in the direction the Stitchwork Sentinel had chased after the retreating Powder Kegs. It wasn’t far. The street bent southward and descended a gentle slope, the buildings crowding in against it as it narrowed.
At the end of the slope lay the Sentinel, surrounded by the pulverized corpses of beastmen. The pack of Stitchwork Stalkers had been dispatched as well, they lay in pieces, blown apart by bullets and bombs.
But the Sentinel had some life in it yet.
It heard Redmane charging down the hill and roused with a groan, as if reluctantly rising from sleep, lumbering to its feet and then roaring long and loud. No doubt a cry for reinforcements, if there were any within earshot.
Fortunately their craftsman could no longer make more.
Redmane leapt as high as his legs would propel him, a claw raised overhead. The Stitchwork Sentinel clacked its giant club hands together, as if accepting the challenge, and bounded at its airborne foe.
Claws met bone, and sliced right through.
The Sentinel brought a club-hand overhead to smash Redmane out of the air with a downward slam. Redmane decided he’d strike the offending weapon directly, and the swipe of his claw fractured the mass of bone, split it straight down the middle lengthwise.
The Sentinel howled in frustration, bashed its now useless weapon on the ground where Redmane landed. But it missed again, and Redmane was already running at a dead sprint.
Past its feet. Specifically, past the ankle he’d landed a superficial cut upon during their first engagement.
This time his run-by claw sheared trough tendons like a scythe through soft grass.
The Sentinel tried to turn and fell on its face, slamming into the ground so hard it kicked up a cloud of debris and made the corpses around it bounce. It tried to crawl to its feet, using one good hand and one good leg.
Too slow. Redmane was already upon it again.
A slash clipped its head from its shoulders. A flurry of claws followed, tunneling into the brand new cavity between its shoulders. The body kicked and flailed with what little volition it had left as Redmane severed all its internal stitching, blowing apart its connections and rendering its magic null.
Not enough experience to gain a level. But the flesh would provide a bit more Corpus.
Corpus: 1954
A bit more. He’d still have to be careful.
Fortunately his Prey would be live beastmen again. He could stock up, so long as he took care not to collect too many bullet holes.
Redmane took to the rooftops in search of the Powder Kegs’ home turf.
They would be somewhere in the trademen’s district, or at its fringes. Now that he thought about it he was surprised they weren’t headquartered on Smith Street or Mason Street. But tradesmen were clannish, or so he’d heard. Newcomers may not have been welcome.
Before he went running off in the wrong direction, however, Redmane crouched down and closed his eyes.
He had airborne sentries, better to use their eyes for reconnaissance.
Two were on this side of the river with him, and this side was where they were most likely to be, so he borrowed the senses of the nearest bird to him. It had been perched on the peak of a rooftop. With Redmane at the helm, it took wing and circled to the north to begin the search.
His initial guess that they would be somewhere near the tradesmen’s district turned out to be correct, almost. Their lair appeared to be a big barn built against the town’s north wall, several blocks outside the area where most of the fighting took place.
But there was a fight brewing here as well.
The barn sat at the end of the street, which sloped downward several hundred yards without curving. At the bottom of that slope, a trio of Stitchwork Sentinels, six Stitchwork Spiders, two groups of four Stitchwork Sappers and three packs of six Stitchwork Stalkers had all amassed in preparation for a charge.
And the Powder Kegs were ready for them.
Riflemen perched on rooftops lining the street, all the way up the hill. The barn doors were thrown open, and a trio of cannons had been rolled out and aimed downward toward the assaulting force. On either side of the street, beastmen with bombs, muskets and blunderbusses crouched behind crates and barrels they’d stacked up for cover.
Redmane wondered if the Stitchworks knew the fate of their creator. Perhaps they would act on her instructions regardless.
The Sappers were the first to charge up the hill. They were shockingly fast runners for things that ran on two legs. No wonder they’d reached to Redmane before he could get away, back at the Undertaker’s.
When the charge of the Sappers began, the Powder Kegs let off their opening salvo and the battle was on.
Cannon fire sailed over the heads of beastmen crouched behind cover. The night became a percussion concert, an especially dissonant one, made up of the boom of cannons, the snap of muskets and the popping sounds of bombs exploding. The Stitchworks lent their shrieking, wailing vocals to the effort as their bodies blew apart under the barrage of merciless projectiles.
Redmane peered up the hill at the barn, but he didn’t see anyone who looked like an obvious leader.
Perhaps Pavel hid inside.
He’d find out himself. But through the back door. He’d already been caught between the two sides of this feud once, and once was enough.
Redmane opened his real eyes and set out for the north wall at a dead run, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, meaning to skip the battle entirely and go directly to his target. This would require him to circle around and come at the barn from another angle, so as not to be mulched by projectiles or trampled by charging Stitchworks.
He chose to veer westward when he drew close, skirting along the rooftops out of view of the marksmen perched there. While they did have more urgent concerns in front of them, it wouldn’t do if he were spotted. Even after glutting himself on every last cadaver in Agneszka’s shop, with a side order of half dead Sentinel afterwards, his Corpus still ran a bit lean for his liking.
The sounds of the battle grew closer and closer. Redmane flew across the rooftops, going westward and then back around to the east once he’d reached the north wall, so as to approach the barn from the side. He leapt onto its roof at last, and spied a hatch at its far end he could open.
The hatch’s hinges creaked. Inside, beneath him, was a loft no doubt intended for surplus hay, but at the moment was empty. Redmane silently dropped down onto it, crept to its edge and peered down into the barn.
The whole barn had been converted into a workshop, full of tools and machines he didn’t recognize. But he recognized the finished products, rows of firearms lined up on orderly racks, barrels and boxes full of black powder and ammunition. Between the racks burned well maintained oil lamps, keeping the large interior of the barn amply lit.
The cannonballs and musket balls looked especially nutritious. When this was over, perhaps he’d have an armor bonus for dessert. But that would be after. First there were foes to attend to.
Near the rear of the barn, Redmane found who he was looking for.
There stood a tall, gangly beastman in the garb of a peasant, with an unruly mane of brown hair and a long beard to match.
He stood in front of a long rack of muskets and blunderbusses, loading them one by one and setting them down on a long table behind him when they were ready for use. At the table’s end there sat a wide barrel full of bombs, each the size of a ripe melon.
Powder Keg Pavel
Monster Type: Corrupted
Level 40
Redmane dropped down into a crouch next to the Powder Keg boss.
Pavel wheeled around with a blunderbuss in his hands. He sniffed at Redmane, sneered. Feral eyes blazed from beneath his curtain of wild hair.
“You ain’t one o’ mine,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “Come to get ya dome blown off, aye?”
“Regards from Agneszka the Stitcher,” said Redmane, as he stood from his crouch. “She expresses her regrets, that she will be unable to attend the wedding on account of her untimely demise.”
Pavel’s eyes burned brighter. He bared his yellow teeth in a snarl.
“What did you say…”