Eric yawned and stretched, coming out of his meditation trance just before the alarm he had set began to go off. He glanced briefly at the notification window that appeared, smiling wryly as he dismissed it.
You have completed a Serene Void Soul breathing cycle
For 24 hours you gain immunity to Confusion and Fear, and gain 50% Resistance against all Mind effects.
Those bonuses would truly have been helpful during the nearly disastrous battle with the Oroghast Lord three days ago! After painfully experiencing the devastating effects that a well-executed mind attack could do to an unprepared mind, Eric had remembered the breathing skill his Transcendent ticket had given him. Once recovered enough from the battle, Eric had quickly absorbed the crystal and began cycling his aether using the newly-learned technique.
Unfolding his legs and standing, Eric quickly snatched up the towel he had prepared on the bed and walked into the well-appointed bathroom. He and the rest of the team were now housed at the Officer’s Quarters section of the Command Level, courtesy of Luna’s renovation efforts. After more than a week living in the Plunderer, the expansive new accommodations were a welcome luxury.
This section of the Obsidian Moon’s interior was situated opposite the area from where Eric and the rest of the Terran’s had emerged, with its main corridor leading onto the circular antechamber where the team had killed the Sesang broodmother. Luna’s maintenance drones had cleaned and polished everything, taking out furnishings and beddings from a hidden stockpile and making the long-abandoned Quarter’s livable again. When Luna had invited the team down the day after the battle, everyone had been amazed at the improvements.
By the end of the tour it hadn’t taken much convincing for the team to agree to transferring down to the Command Level instead of staying aboard the Plunderer. Within a few hours, everyone had been successfully relocated to the more spacious living quarters. By the end of the day Luna’s drones had even managed to carry down everything from the three vaults on the Plunderer and placed it all within the larger and more expansive Treasure Repository of the Obsidian Moon.
Further exploration had shown several gyms and training rooms, a large kitchen and common dining room, two lounges, an aether-condensing meditation room, a small clinic and laboratory, a still empty library, and several rooms that could be used for workshops and meetings. Eric had been glad to see everyone’s awed reactions and the eagerness everyone had to try out the facilities.
It was a brief period of rest and relaxation that everyone on the team had badly needed after the beating they had taken from the Oroghast.
Unsurprisingly, given the attacks that had been thrown at him, Osar had been the hardest hit among them, and Serra, as the team’s designated healer, had declared the big Urgan should not engage in combat for at least a week to fully recover, despite all the healing magic at their disposal. Cid had fared better, as his injuries were lighter than any other person on the team, needing just a shot of his suit’s healing potion and a day of bed rest. For her part, Serra had suffered a broken arm and a concussion, which she reluctantly agreed also meant she too was off the combat roster.
Eric sighed, idly pulling a single brown leaf with red speckles from his ring and popping it into his mouth, dismissing the identification window that appeared as he chewed on it silently.
He had been exercising his God Tongue ability, identifying the plant matter and other ingredients he had available by reading through various books, and then tasting them in order to add them to his growing catalogue of tastes. It had gotten to the point that he could now identify most of the ingredients that Osar used to prepare their meals. Soon, Eric would have enough knowledge to start experimenting on his own dishes. The pleasant thought made him whistle a bit as he went about preparing for the day.
Washed and dressed, Eric walked out of his room and across the length of the Officer’s Quarters, following the slight curve of the now brightly-lit corridor, heading for one of the larger rooms that occupied the central circle of the Command Level along with the Obsidian Moon’s Bridge. Osar had requested Luna to prepare the room and had invited everyone to witness a sending-off ceremony for the dead people that they had found stored in the spatial chests and rings.
After recovering from his most recent injury and being told that he would not be allowed to fight or even train, Osar had taken it upon himself to go through the already sorted storage crates and begin separating the humanoid corpses that needed to be dealt with and disposed of from the beast carcasses that could be processed for cores and various other materials.
Even now, Eric was still surprised at the number of dead they had in their possession.
Osar had explained that since a vanquished opponent’s body and all that he had on him was rightfully part of the victor’s spoils, it had become a custom for every adept to place the slain, whether opponents or fallen allies, into their personal spatial storage devices during and after every battle. This had a dual purpose: One, it preserved the corpse perfectly so they could be turned over to their loved ones and two, it was easier to properly loot a corpse in a safe, quiet place rather than doing so in the middle of a battlefield. The habit also meant that the stored body was actually dead since living creatures could simply not be put inside storage devices.
However, that widespread practice also meant that many of the rings and spatial storage devices that they had acquired contained a large number of corpses of many, many races and species types. By the time Osar had finished examining the humanoid bodies and taking pics and vids for identification and archival purposes, Luna was able to report having two-hundred odd corpses on their hands. Eric and the two other Terrans arrived at the chamber at the time Osar had specified for the ceremony, and all of them had stopped at the room’s threshold, stunned and appalled by the extent of the carnage that was revealed. The Urgan had been going down on one knee beside every single body, whispering a prayer to Ifni and commending whatever soul remained into the eternal embrace of the Infinite Void.
Everyone kept a solemn silence, in respect for the dead.
In spite of the years he had spent in conflict zones and battlefields, Eric still felt a heavy sadness and a keen sense of his own mortality to see so many dead laid out under the cheap polymer sheets that Luna had provided from her hidden manufacturing facilities.
He walked down the ordered rows, stopping by one of the laid-out bodies that he recognized as one of the adept corpses he had removed from Vashanka’s Ring. It was a fierce human-serpent hybrid, with the wide lower body of a constrictor-type snake and the extensively tattooed and heavily muscled torso of a humanoid male. Three of its four tattooed arms were still attached to its body, while one had been ripped away, leaving a gaping hole in the dead adept’s left side. It’s head too was badly damaged, looking like something had taken a huge bite off the top. Looking closely, Eric could see small, precise cuts on the corpse’s limbs where he surmised spell stones had been cut out.
Eric looked up from the body he had been studying to pass his gaze across the chamber.
The room the bodies were laid out in was very large, with muted lights illuminating beautiful, painted tiles and dark wooden panels. There was a singular construct occupying the end opposite from the door. It was made of a special greenish-blue metal, with a row of ten two-meter wide tubes connected to an esoteric but orderly array of pipes and hoses, while a small army of the larger drones waited quietly by the walls. This was what Luna called the Silent Cathedral, where she said the bodies were broken down into their component materials for recycling and food production.
Stolen story; please report.
Eric and the two other Terrans were familiar with the concept.
During the Terran Diaspora, most of the ship’s that left the Cradle of Sol had had to develop methods to retain nutrients and materials to maintain the closed systems within the massive ships. Over the generations, humanity had adapted and developed new cultural norms, blending the respect and remembrance of the Reverend Dead while also incorporating the practical needs of a society that could not afford to waste any resources within their plated metal hulls.
The Union, as one of the polities that emerged as a heritor of those brave, desperate pioneers retained the lessons and practices humanity had learned during the Diaspora, and in most Union planets and organizations, especially in the military, Body-Recyc was assiduously practiced as a means of honoring the fallen.
After he had examined and prayed over every single body, Osar walked over to the front of the room, raised his hands in the air and intoned what sounded like a prayer.
Ifni waits in her dark halls
Welcome wanderer’s seeking
Ifni takes them all
Fare all well, to journey’s end
Sorrow and life’s ending
Ifni takes us all
And then it ended.
Osar dropped his hands and strode out of the room, the others following behind him.
As he walked out of the room Eric, despite the solemn, and frankly morbid circumstances, felt a queer comfort at the thought that the same rituals of death and renewal were believed and practiced in this System Universe. In a way, it gave him hope that he and the other exiles with him would find a place to make their own.
Half an hour later, Eric and the other Terrans were once more gathered in another large room, stripped to their undersuits, as they listened and watched as Osar demonstrated how to harvest useful materials from the beasts that they had collected. For this lesson the big Urgan had donned a much-stained leather apron and pulled on a pair of leather gloves before producing a set of finely-made carving knives. With an almost theatrical flourish, the big man pulled out the carcass of one of biggest of the Sesang beasts they had fought against, placed it on top of a large metal table and then set about reducing it into its component parts.
Osar spoke as he expertly worked his knives, describing what he was doing and the reasons he was doing them, showing everyone how and where to cut in order to get the maximum value from the carcass. He then proceeded to carve the meat into usable chunks, naming the cuts and giving an idea of their value and what they could be used for. In a little over one and a half hours Eric was looking over a second table, now covered with neat piles of Sesang Beast parts, bones, meat and vials of various fluids. It was skilled, impressive work.
With hardly a pause the big man pulled out another Sesang beast, this one looking to be an immature female, unfertilized eggs bulging from its distended belly.
“You did an excellent job with that, Osar.”
“Ah, this is nothing…” The big man looked embarrassed, raising an ichor-stained glove to brush away the comment. “I am a Darkrunner after all.”
When Eric’s expression remained blank at the declaration, Osar looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing. “A Darkrunner is a little bit like a hunter yeah? I kill beasts and harvest them for parts to sell to merchants… It’s a good living, as long as you don’t get killed on the job.”
Eric barked a laugh at the Urgan’s dry words, before running a hand over the folded, color-changing hides of the Sesang beasts.
“This looks like they’d make good leather.”
“Yes, Jad-Os,” Osar answered even as he cut into the skinned belly of the rather large female. “Sesang hide is valued by crafters for its unique color as well as its protective properties. Not to mention the difficulty of actually obtaining the hide in the first place.”
“Do you cover this with salt and roll it up?” Eric asked, remembering the lessons he had learned while indulging in his hunting hobby after he had been kicked out of the military.
“No need.” The Urgan was now separating several choice pieces from within the animal’s abdominal cavity and either setting them aside or promptly disappearing them into his ring. “The spatial rings keep everything just as they were when they went in, so no spoilage until the materials are turned over to the buyers.”
“Convenient.” Eric said, looking at his own bracelet with appreciative eyes.
“Very,” Osar said. “Especially since Sesang meat spoils so easily.”
“You’re saying we can eat this creature’s meat?” Eric asked, worried about the poisonous nature of the slain beast’s blood.
“Yes, Jad-Os, very much so!” The Urgan was breaking apart the Sesang’s rack of ribs into smaller pieces. “Sesang meat is very good when properly prepared… but it’s the blood and saliva that are the true prize; very expensive!”
Eric had noticed the bottles and vials Osar had been filling steadily as he worked, which were now lined up in rows on a smaller table behind him. There was also a small bloody pile of what looked like blue, elongated eggs.
“There’s a market for this stuff?” Serra, who had been listening and watching intently, looked over the collection with detached fascination, although her nose wrinkled at the smells that Osar’s industry had produced.
“A BIG market!” The Urgan happily exclaimed, wiping a gloved hand on his already stained apron. “The biggest! Aside from cores of course; beast meat, blood, and body parts have many, many uses. Many are good for food and weapons, armor, and decorations, yes? But most important of all is that they are sources of rare materials and ingredients that help advance adepts along the Path, make them stronger, and helps them rise in Tiers! There is much danger in hunting beasts, true… but also plenty of money to be made, especially since we’ll be doing so anyway as we clear the Stage.”
“Would a dragon’s parts be valuable then?” Eric asked as he remembered the carcass he still had stored in his ring.
Osar’s expression became guarded, but his dark eyes twinkled with excitement as he beckoned Eric nearer.
“It is very, very dangerous, and very, very illegal in the Scaled Empire… but the chance to get some Void Dragon parts was the reason I agreed to the Geludan contract.” Then the Urgan’s face fell. “It’s too bad the dragon got away, huh? Would have been a great score too!”
“About that,” Eric said, stroking his ring. “What if I told you I have at least a good chunk of Vashanka stored in my ring?”
Osar was speechless for a moment, then his face flushed with naked greed.
The glint in Osar’s eye died out after a moment though, as he surveyed the tables he had arranged about the room.
“I think we’ll need a lot more tables than this to work on that prize Jad-Os.” Osar said with some regret. “I expect Vashanka was a big dragon.”
“Unfortunately,” Serra interjected, picking up a bottle that contained a still-wriggling appendage… or something. “The explosion that killed him cut him in half.”
“Half.” The big Urgan’s expression clouded over at the news. “It won’t be ideal… and it’ll depend on the damage, but there might be some parts we can salvage.” The last part was phrased like a question, as the big man looked at Eric with something like pleading on his face.
“I don’t know much about the valuable parts of a dragon, friend.” Eric could only shrug in reply. “But you’re welcome to take your knives to what’s left.”
“Yes, yes.” Osar said softly as he opened a plain dark container he brought out from his ring and fished out a dollop of clear gel. Closing the container, the big man then rubbed the gel over his hands. “there should be some good pieces left over…”
A fresh, clean smell arose and miraculously the blood and other gunk on the big man’s hands disappeared. Preoccupied with his own thoughts Osar didn’t notice that the entire room had grown silent. When he looked up, he saw three pairs of eyes glaring at him.
“What is that?” Serra asked, pointing at the ointment bottle Osar had set down on the tabletop.
“What, this?” Osar asked, raising the container so everyone could see. “This is just Butcher’s Cream… Darkrunner’s and butchers use it all the time to clean themselves up?”
“How long have you had this?” Sera’s voice was low, and even Cid could hear the dangerous tone it held.
“I’ve… Since I met you all, friend Serra,” Osar answered, his eyes grown wary and his ears flattened against his head. “I’ve not used the stuff before since I haven’t had time to actually do any of this butcher work before today…”
“Do you have more of this… stuff?”
“I’ve about two tubs left but…”
Serra growled. It was an actual, animal sound of threat, and Osar, experienced Darkrunner and hunter as he was, immediately recognized the danger he was in. The big Urgan raised his hands placatingly.
“Would you like to have one of the tubs to try out? I can always get an order in for more once we make a supply run to a free station.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Serra nodded, and another when she received the tub that Osar gave her and moved slightly away.
“Jakobin really dislikes being dirty.” Eric said as an aside to the big Urgan, who was standing very still as the Terran woman tested the Butcher’s Cream on a finger she had touched onto the bloody surface of Osar’s messy table-top. “I think its best we get a fresh supply of that Cream as soon as we are able.
Osar merely nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat.