Linlin was having trouble gathering his thoughts. Like fish, they swam in the endless ocean. Like fish, they slipped through his fingers each time. Not even his seventh cigar helped in slowing them down. Nor the pervasive, ill-reeking fumes rendering the bolt-hole a smouldering entrance straight to hell.
"Priorities... drink, food, a place to rest. Missed anything?" Our hero muttered quietly as he scribbled something on the ground, his overtaxed mind racing. As a matter of fact, because scheming and reasoning were mostly done by him and Linlin just moved accordingly, issues like these brought him closer to mental collapse than he'd have liked. A glamorous ticket darn straight to psychiatry, so to say.
Linlin fought physically against everything and anything back at home, but he won’t win a contest of wits regardless of how much he invested in distorted struggles. It was simply foolish indulging in such unrewarding endeavours if one went by the name of Linchester Linde.
"Huh... I really do forget. The System. Yet without luck, I'm done for regardless." Recognising reality, Linlin rubbed his throbbing temples in annoyance, snipped away the consumed stump, grabbed a leaf he was about to sloppily dry and rolled himself another cigar.
Drying herbs properly was the lifeblood of a qualified alchemist... and he was thankful for having learned the trick already. "No need to think much. This won't do me any good after all. It never did."
The headache intensified. "But beggars cannot be choosers. It's either that or nothing. Nada." The snake failed to respond to his foot's nudges, so the helpless man gave up on his evil idea of providing himself with quality entertainment.
A circus act wouldn't have helped anyway, now that he came to think about it. As things stood, there was no way to get rid of the bothersome headache anytime soon. And giving in to his urges by passing time while training wasn't an option either. It wasted both limited time and very finite resources.
That much, he knew. Of course, he did. Such foolishness almost took his life in his younger years fraught with untold difficulties. But knowing was one thing and acting correctly upon such thoughts another. "Forget it, I'm better advised to solve problems I know, rather than chasing rainbows.
First water. Water is a matter of luck. A terrible hailstorm crushes vegetation and every single hailstone drops to the ground before ultimately starting to melt.
By then, it has already become useless to stir in the soup, and following an unrewarding quest to extract something resembling drinkable liquid out of the mess isn't doable either. Should I intercept some missiles and let them melt someplace convenient?"
Linlin listened closely to the tree's groans and the many irrefutable cracking noises that bombarded his mind the moment he chose to pay them attention. "Might substitute for a cold burial instead. I doubt there is much left of me if I choose to do so." Nobody spoke in the monkeys' outhouse for a long time.
Our hero was left to ponder over possible solutions whereas the snake was only conscient enough to evade the most unappetising of decorations while panickily pumping harmful air into its revolting reptilian lungs. It wasn't long before it fainted.
"Let's forget about the water and ponder over the next pressing issue. I need food. Preferably meat. Greens alone won't give me the nutrition I need." Linlin flicked away an especially ugly specimen of a cockroach encroaching on his domain. That wasn't what he meant by dreaming of food.
Someplace else he'd have batted an eyelid at its evident toxicity and marvelled over its practical uses. But in this forest, the only things he did not miss were toxic specimens and their immune counterparts. After a slight pause and many puffs on his cigar, he resumed his monotonous monologue.
"If the monkey's taught me one thing, it's that I'm too damn inexperienced in the ways of native life. Right now, my body is in a good condition, I'm well-fed and don't necessarily need water. I'm fit enough to not require any sleep either and have sufficient stamina to hunt. But we are no longer on Earth, so..."
Linlin's confidence waned as soon as he discovered his limits. There was no helping it. Our hero lacked the mind to churn out useful ideas as much as he missed crucial information.
Herbalists had great insights into all that pertained to the world of flora, but fauna wasn't of interest except the few examples useful for stellar judgement when it came to their various employed methods of growing and protecting materials.
"There is only this much I know about creatures. Disregard the utterly unpalatable ones and we are left with less than a third. Deduce from that small number all who play either out of my league, are too conditional to stumble upon, or don't live in forests, then what remains? A handful?"
In hindsight, the problem wasn't really his lack of knowledge–––our hero rectified–––but power and influence. Power made it possible to disregard the weak and simple go after who comes first, whereas influence demanded from others to do the dirty job. Linlin had neither.
"At least the cigs slow down my metabolism and let me keep my head cool. Nicotine is such a useful tranquilliser. Addictive, but useful." It surely wasn't because he loved to smoke or worse. "Sadly, it doesn't seem to solve the conundrum."
Alchemy-related titbits made the man a great alchemist, albeit with no experience. Yet without a cauldron or the proper ingredients, even immortals would fail to create anything presentable. "I could use my instincts as a warning signal, but this will get me killed.
First, I need to be pretty close to the target to feel anything. Second, it's not always reliable, as I have already seen." Even if our hero discovered something uncanny, he'd have long since lost in the race of keeping a safe distance and presented himself instead on a metaphorical silver platter.
There was no way in hell he could scamper away from danger in one piece without moody Lady Luck's timely blessing, so a solution for this wasn't easily found either.
"What I can do, is tiptoe my way around and jump on the first target that meets the criteria. Come to think of it, doesn't that mean I'm still relying on Lady Luck for everything?" Linlin took another deep puff which ended in a coughing fit. Without him noticing, there was nothing left from the cigar beside the unpalatable stump.
Under muted curses, he disposed of the remains and rolled himself the ninth cigar of this rather young day. The big leaves were no more, and he had to do with Harnstinker, a leathery, leaf-like vine that preferably grew in dirty outhouses. And such was the taste.
"Hopefully, the weather is better before I run out of stuff to smoke. It's been raining cats and dogs since forever." Linlin crept closer to the entrance hole and peeked outside. There wasn't much to see. Only thick mist slightly quivering under rhythmical drumbeats.
It didn't take a genius to conclude that hot ground paired with hail was no good for both established vegetation and unsuspecting beasts alike. "That's no hailstorm, but an entire frigging demolition squad scrapping skyscrapers.
Having to overcome the debris later on, what have I done wrong in my life to deserve this?" Linlin questioned ponderingly before he soon forgot about it all.
With no end in sight, our hero could but retreat in defeat and await the onset of better times. Stepping past a spasming juvenile snake, Linlin petted the poor thing in passing as he mistook its struggle for attention-vying shenanigans and returned to the marginally cleaner spot he'd claimed for himself.
"Soo... the last item on the agenda to ponder over was which one?" His sight fell to the ground where he saw three lines of unintelligible scribbles. He'd long since prepared for the drawback of his short memory. To him, it was nothing new after all. Abode was written there last. Then on the same line, cave, trunk, tree, hole, carcass. The latter with a big question mark.
"No matter what angle I look at it, there is no right or wrong solution. I will consider my home whatever I find in this forest, period. Another ungrateful task for Lady Luck..." Linlin exhaled a mouthful of ill-reeking smoke at the thought of how little control he had over his life, and spat out whatever moisture was left in his mouth.
"That's one of the worst cigs I ever had." His headache intensified. "Mouldy pears with a touch of putrid apple." Linlin grabbed his pounding temples with both thumbs and massaged them carefully. "Damnit, why must I have only talents and no skills? I'm but slightly more enduring than a baseline human on Earth with a bit more energy to spare. Totally insufficient in a place where only horrors reside."
Our hero, as he had nothing to do any longer, went to sleep soon after. Sweet dreams lasted till tranquil morning came and his body decreed he'd had rest for long enough.
Ready and raring to go, Linlin collected the sluggish pieces of a drugged, once hyperactive snake now left in shambles and stuck his head out of the hole. What his ears had already suggested, his glittering, abyssal black eyes confirmed at long last. The hailstorm was over and the fog a bother but nothing he couldn't overcome.
Yet a few steps into the fragrant outside, Linlin had to stop abruptly, momentarily unsure of what to do next. Overnight, the world had turned into a hard to cross, muddy sea.
Worse still, the ground was probably interlaced with unpredictable sinkholes one would disappear for good and possibly many more dangers lurking below ground level, well-hidden beneath the slow-moving muddy tide.
The slippery, beaten grass below his feet was soggy, like walking on fresh cement, and as Linlin placed his weight down, the mud it covered relented, clinging up to his bare calves and reluctantly releasing them with each strenuous step he took.
After crossing a little distance with substantial effort, another problem became glaringly obvious. Continuing at ground level was unacceptable.
The barebone forest beyond–––or was calling that a frigging swamp better suited now?–––presented withered, skyscraper trees that resembled more mummies than actual vegetation.
Crushed lumber and some sort of terribly stinging parasitic plant with barbs all over the stony leaves ended up in spades in the unappetizing forest stew surrounding Linlin.
As did some unlucky creatures beaten to death by the gruesome hailstorm. In short, the foul weather had brought mayhem to the forest, even more so than he'd expected.
Linlin's fear of the unknown only deepened. Yet all he could do was to jog alongside a fallen giant tree and climb up the thick branches while pushing his fear for dangerous heights to the back of his mind.
However, before returning to the mess awaiting him above, Linlin waded carefully towards the nearest smashed carcass, intending to take it along for a hearty roast. He soon had to scrap that idea.
Vermin, the likes he’d never seen before, already ate two-thirds of what lay submerged; nasty creatures flaying their black heads around in what looked like a craving for the nearest source of heat.
Whatever the truth was, Linlin did not tempt fate and was on his way upwards. Once up there, progress was much faster, yet by far no less dangerous. On the one hand, there was no mud getting in his way which was a plus undoubtedly, on the other, half-broken branches, thick mist and deadly height rendered this impromptu undertaking especially nerve-wracking.
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For every two steps he took upwards, Linlin slithered back at least one. The struggle up wasn't kind to his already steadily depleting energy reserves, nor to the many vehemently protesting muscles in his body.
Once he made it far enough, the mostly horizontal, mighty patchwork of random branches allowed for some comparatively easy walk under the suns’ dreamy grace. Only two purplish pulsating discs up there gave him an idea of where the twins stood in the firmament.
In this manner, the afternoon went, evening came and night descended slowly with many a horror abruptly appearing in the pale light–––just to emerge as part of the moon’s spooky jokes.
Our hero, though by far less energetic than in the beginning, proceeded to explore this obnoxious world bereft of everything normally linked with virgin forests.
As time passed, the mist ceased to be and his sight returned clearer than ever. Linlin's sore feet had better footing than before, as every bit of moisture seemed to have been sucked out of the air by a greedy deity. Yet an end to the sea of trees was still not in sight.
By the time our hero was on the verge of giving up, tender rays already licked the horizon. Then it hit him hard, a nauseatingly delicious smell he'd been on the lookout for. The scent of a ripe, sickening fruit ready to burst open at any moment's notice rekindled his hopes.
After prying both eyes wide open, Linlin looked around wearily as he balanced forward slowly. After so long, he didn't believe he'd get lucky once again. Yet there was no need to entertain his paranoid nature any longer.
The abhorrent source wasn't that far: a greyish, large, watermelon-shaped fruit with tiny yellow stripes leaking rancid liquid from the rotting underside. There went his snack and all ideas even remotely connected to it... However, rather than dashed, his hope only burned brighter than ever.
Linlin broke out into creepily monotone maniacal laughter for good reason. Be it cooked or raw, Moonsplatter was no fruit palatable for humans–––yet the favourite of many beasts.
The Trioptic Speedster was one of them, a weak creature, numerous yet daringly solitary. A potential target. A messenger from heaven to his revolting stomach.
But there persisted a stubborn problem–––as it always did. Linlin cast a frowning look up and down the tall tree on whose dangerously creaking branch he was unsteadily standing, trying to shake off that unpromising, mad idea popping up in his head. Yet none other came…
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An old boar waded listlessly through multiple layers of forest stew, its ever-rumbling tummy determining the approximate direction. Food was all its little brain could think of.
Food and females, to be precise. Not that it had ever seen enough food to fill its belly to the brim, and the heavens never sent a willing mate either. The boar wasn’t strong, even by a Trioptic Speedster’s mediocre standard.
It could be considered both meek and weak–––qualities that had ruined its cards time and time again. Amidst a world of shredded wooden remains, broken stones, swampy holes and stinky mud, its body stopped abruptly, its twitching nose held high.
Contrary to what its three eyes might suggest to the inexperienced, its race was nearly blind and relied wholly on a superb sense of hearing and smell to carve out their living space in this gruesome part of the world. And hell was doing that hard, all things considered!
Suddenly, it quickened its pace, bursting forth with raw power, its pronounced muscles visible ripping under the slimy fur as they fought against the mud. The boar made it splatter left and right while it unhesitatingly ploughed through the obstacles as fast as it could.
Each stride brought it closer to heaven, each forward jump may separate the losers from the one and only winner. As the mouth-watering smell grew thicker and thicker, so did the blared-out drivel almost covering its whole head until ultimately the contours of a ripe delicacy appeared in its very narrow field of vision.
With an irresistible lure in front of the hungry tramp, the affamished boar sent caution to the wind and spurted forward, grunting and snorting, very greedy for the prize.
The mud parted in waves, stones and wood was crushed under its weight and something light fell onto its back, something not deserving of attention–––or so the dull animal stupidly believed.
Yet mere seconds later, a numbing sensation spread like a flame on an arid steppe, messing with its senses until it breathed its last, still oblivious of the tricky truth.
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Our sweaty hero successfully completed his much-anticipated first hunt in the woods. Though not all played out as he would've liked, the end result was the best possible outcome he'd envisioned. The little snake, though, never truly woke up and, in the end, he’d to use the juvenile reptile as one would a venomous pickaxe.
However, the situation didn't allow for frolicking nor entertaining thoughts about rest and the like. Considering what was at stake, Linlin lost no time as he speedily knotted together many vines he'd collected just for this purpose. Speed was of the essence. The dead game could submerge in the mud at any moment now.
"Now the bindings," he voiced mutely. While following up on the thought with action, Linlin tried hard to erase the existence of the burst fruit from his sensory organs–––especially its fragrance which was worse than taking residence in a certain monkeys’ cesspool.
After assuring himself that the boar was tangled up pretty badly, the hunter climbed up a sturdy vine resembling dried bark, ready for part three of his makeshift plan. On our eager hero’s way up, the lingering smell proved to be really... particular, if anything.
If not for the fact the Trioptic Speedsters’ favourite source of food was the perfect lure, nothing could’ve ever convinced Linlin to draw near that terrible plague, much less grab it with bare hands and prepare a trap in whose vicinity he ultimately ended up waiting longer than he’d hoped.
Hunger sure gave humans the craziest ideas! Well, now a stench worse than a mix of fresh diarrhoea got stuck to his hands like insects on honey-covered paper.
Of course, that hadn’t been part of the plan, but the much too high snake was just such a handful it couldn't do without proper guidance, after all. Linlin believed himself innocent even to this day...
Once Linlin reached the first branch thick enough for his purpose, he pushed down the already prepared counterweight bound to the vine’s other end, and the simplest hoist in history did its magic.
Our expectant hero absentmindedly lighted a strawberry flavoured cigar–––his latest ridiculous discovery–––and waited patiently. Now to the next small problem… how to butcher a boar properly so that his precious stash of as sharp as rare stones he’d found atop a tree wasn’t prematurely laid waste to?
…and how to prepare it freshly? With fire? While standing on dry branches surrounded by even dryer vegetation? If it had been within yesterday's thick mist, that would've been an option, sure. But now?
...and was it even safe to consume poisoned meat given the toxic snake's involvement? Linlin had his doubts. Very justified doubts.
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In the end, after some as long as serious contemplation, our hero only tore the game to pieces by making use of sharp stones, hands, feet and mouth working in tandem–––a decision dousing him in fresh blood from head to toe and stubborn fleshy pieces that didn't want to go away at all.
And even after all that struggle, the meat–––if it could be regarded as such–––was but a coarse-fibred, marbled mess of leather splashed with fresh blood. Too hard for any unmutated, standard choppers, including humanity's basic biters.
The initial idea had been to dry it as he did the leaves, but that had merely turned the meat shreds into pliable steel-like chunks of rancid chewing gum. As for consuming it raw?
Linlin abandoned that absurd idea the moment he took a closer look at how many busy tenants there were in the overcrammed space between skin and flesh… Anyway, the question of poison and the like weighed heavily on his mind for a reason, too.
The critter even dared cheekily laugh him in the face while spewing endless vulgarities with no end in sight. ‘…’ Our hero eventually couldn’t take it any longer and went for a mad dash as if only increasing the distance between the parasite infested game and his unlucky self could make this deep mental scar fade.
'I don't feed on worms. Never.' He stubbornly held dear to his beliefs. 'Even if it means dying of hunger.' It seemed that even after discovering the bloated, half-crushed corpse some hours ago, Linlin's thought process still maintained its naïve and superfluous streak. "Wasn't it obvious...?" He asked himself.
Either way, Linlin still got something out of his troubles. Namely, chewing gum lasting for weeks! Not to forget the turbid Core attracting his instincts like a flame the moth. It wasn't hard at all to identify the thing. Not after Mikaantyar had literally bombarded him with the relevant information.
Linlin also understood it wasn't of high quality either. Junk, in essence, just like the rest of the shoddy remains he'd left behind. Yet where was his choice? There was no such luxury given to him.
At least, chewing on that shit recharged his poor batteries somewhat and consuming the Core had increased not only his bioenergy by a neglectable amount, it also led to a cryptic addition to his still empty skillset he didn't know what to think of.
[Gluttony works overtime. (0.564)]
"... now what? That's totally useless today," Linlin cursed. Due to a moment of inattention–––mostly due to him trying to visualise the System without taking into consideration where he actually stood–––our hero staggered, his arms madly flailing around as he tried to stabilise himself.
Though not falling down straight, our hero hopelessly glided along the winding, polished branches, his feet clumsily jumping wherever needed as his hands clung helplessly to everything in range.
Although Linlin took hold of a plethora of brittle branches and painfully thorny vines digging deep into flesh, it ultimately didn’t help at all in stopping his uncontrolled descent down a splintered crooked tree that'd appeared out of nowhere. At least the everlasting sea of mud seemed to have changed into rockier terrain, thus guaranteeing a far easier time walking on.
Yet depending on which angle one looked at the situation on hand, one might come to the conclusion it was no desirable change–––at least not if the unlucky man high up could pummel down anytime. ‘Jump!’ Linlin responded instantly by straining his leg muscles to the utmost. ‘Fourth vine, rope up!’
The vine in question was easy to make out amidst its plenty of peers, for it was the only one looking sturdy enough to entrust half a life with. ‘Lame, Stupid. Late instructor with tied arms was twice as fast. Ah, I get it, I get it! Say, how does fresh ketchup under a ramshackle treetop sound? ...bad, right?’
‘Pansy’s that you?!’ ‘No, Grandmother Killthee next door wishing you goodbye by waggling a century-old slip. You think stupider than I’m used to, Stupid. It’s me, of course, it's me! The one and only-’ ‘You’re late. Damn late. What were you waiting for?’ ‘Careful, spikes below.’
Linlin soon discovered the not-so-inviting spikes he may meet any time now. The ones threatening to skewer him like a sucking pig no less. Nevertheless, he showed no lasting intention of decreasing his speedy descent–––as that would ultimately be for nought–––nor did he panic excessively.
As far as he was concerned, he was no longer high up a tree, but already down there amidst the spikes. Yet seeing Linlin readily abandon the saving vine in favour of a novel pose he would've been arrested back on Earth if displayed in public, the voice got a heart attack.
Granted, our hero's reaction was by no means unfounded, as in the very next second Linlin secured his survival by taking advantage of the little space between the spikes. However, alongside this choice came other problems too. ‘Stuuuupid!! How the fuck we gotta out?!’
‘No skewer up the arse, no terrible wounds either–––a job well done.’ ‘Well done? You crazy or something? You should've roped up, not down! This looks like the edges of a damn gulf to me, brittle and all.’ ‘Manageable. Now tell me the very good reason leading to you not checking in a century earlier.’
‘You mad, perchance? ...‘right, ‘right, I’ll talk. Eyes on us the whole time, Stupid–––unsettling peepers with intentions unknown. But hell, what was up with you? You were never one to pay attention to subtle details useless for warfare, so this I can forgive. But, the heck? Foolishly waltzing right into a formidable creature’s cell?!’
‘Mikaantyar didn’t seem that terrible a person to me.’ ‘Good Lord. Douchebag, that thing lured you in as effortlessly as it healed us. With but a snap of its fingers…’
Crack, crack, crack.
‘Mmh, you hear that…?’ ‘…served up true dragon meat and did–––hear what?’
Crackkk.
‘Below…? Seriously–’
RUMBLE!!!
The ground underneath our hero’s toes volatilized, and together with too much either sharp or heavy material or both, the man experienced a free fall to hellish depths no sunlight had ever explored.
‘–haven’t finished yeeeeet!’
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End of Part IV