November 13th
I feel as if ever since father came back, my whole world has been flipped on its head. Even though Father is not here anymore, my life is still rather different. Rereading through my journal, I was once so excited about potentially discovering a new subspecies of rabbit, but look at me now. I have captured a fascinatingly horrid creature, one born of land and sea. What's more, I am on the verge of even more incredible discoveries. Just looking at the length of entries, the days leading up to finding that first beast were empty. Barren of excitement and notoriety. Even after I found the first few beasts, nothing really seemed to change. It was only later that I began to adapt. As I found more and more beasts, and even monsters, the length of my entries had begun to increase, and here I am now, with a detailed recount of the past few weeks, in strange contrast to my life before it all began. Is this a benefit or is it perhaps detrimental to me? I do not know, however one day all my meticulous note-taking will pay off, I am sure of it. One day I will get the recognition long since owed to me, and even more fame beyond that. I will one day hold the world in my hands, I am certain. They will call me Mathew the Great. Mathew the Beast Master!
But... What about Father? I wish he could see me. Perhaps he will. Maybe he knows of my potential, but still why abandon me? I feel as if he has denied me the childhood I was owed. Afterall, he left me alone in the family manor, in the middle of a vast valley, enclosed with mountains, far secluded from any major towns. Growing up was not easy here. If he had been present, maybe I would have had a better childhood. Maryanne was by no means a decent substitute for my parents, and with Father gone, much responsibility had fallen onto her shoulders, and then onto mine. Did he have the decency to even throw any of his copious amounts of money at the problems to make them go away? Barely! It was as if he had forgotten about me for much of the time he was away.
Bah! I am merely making myself mad at this point. It would do well to simply put my journal down and turn in for the night. Griffin and I have a long day tomorrow of picking apart the body of the octopus monster and piecing its pseudo-skeleton back together.
November 14th
Griffin and I spent almost all of the morning piecing the skeleton together. It was rather hard to do, as there were lots of gaps between the bones and branches. Griffin and I are now taking a break for lunch before we get back to work. Once we finish eating we will begin connecting the tentacles. I also would like to collect some of the slime in a jar to experiment with later.
It is a rather incredible structure of tissues and muscles. I find it fascinating how the body would be able to function without proper joints. Although, that does explain the shambling gait when the monster walks. I am beginning to wonder what sort of optimizations could be done to improve its movement, but I suppose that kind of daydreaming is pointless. I need to finish eating and get to work.
I also find it fascinating that the light is still emanating from the orifices of the beast’s face. What is causing the light?
November 14th
Bloody hell!!
Griffin and I returned to the lab and began working on the monster’s limbs. One of the arms was stuck on a slab of wood, so I went upstairs to get an axe, as my knife would not cut through it. I returned and we severed the tentacle from the piece of wood, revealing a piece of metal wedged into it. The piece of metal was like a spike, impaled into the wood. It was unlike any of the other numerous spikes that had been in the monster; we had a few with us to compare it to. It was as if it had been launched at the monster by something else. It had penetrated the tentacle and pierced deeply into the wood.
While Griffin and I were arguing over what could have done that, I heard creaking and snapping from behind me. I whirled around in time to see the cage be torn apart, shredded in fact. The monster had regrown its limbs. Not to the length it had been at before, in fact the tentacles were rather short. It had ripped the cage apart, and was sliding towards us on the floor. Its shiny, short tentacles pushed it with incredible speed towards us, and it shrieked and shook. The glow in its eyes became more intense as it grew closer and closer.
Suddenly it launched itself into the air towards me and I dodged to the side. It landed on the table, knocking off most of our work, and then it began to almost… reform with some of the loose tentacles. It turned towards me, scrambling over pieces of paper and debris laying on the table. But then Griffin embedded the axe into the back of its head. The monster stopped immediately and all of the tentacles went limp. The glow in its eyes also began to fade.
The monster was dead, and Griffin had killed it. I looked at him, and he looked happy. Not just happy, he looked ecstatic. There was vindictive wrath etched in every line of his face. His eyes were alight with fire, burning more intensely than Father’s ever have. He took the glove off his right hand then pulled the axe out of the monster’s head and proceeded to plunge his hand into the innards of the head. I heard a violent ripping sound then Griffin pulled out what was unmistakably the monster’s heart. He dumped the heart into a jar and stuck a cork into it.
“Why would you kill it?!” I roared at Griffin. “And why did you remove its heart after you killed it?”
“It was only temporarily dead. It can regenerate given enough time, unless you take out its primary heart.”
“Primary heart?”
“Yes. Octopi have two hearts. This monster is much the same, just adapted to life above water, although in a rudimentary way.”
“So why did you kill it? Why not just trap it somewhere? We could have studied its ability to regenerate!”
“It is more dangerous than you realize,” Griffin told me. “It could very well have killed you just know. It is not a monster to be trifled with. One wrong step and you would be dead right now, do you not understand that!”
“I could have stabbed it.” I said, sheathing my knife, which I had been holding since the monster had jumped at me.
Blast it! I could have learned so much from that monster. What causes its eyes to glow? Can it survive underwater? There are so many questions that I have. It must be connected to octopuses somehow, but how on earth would it get all the way out here? What do I do from here?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Well… I suppose I should get back to work. While the creature is now dead, I can still examine it, I can take apart the “head” and see what its internals look like.
November 14th
I opened up the creature and what I found was most bizarre. The creature lacked reproductive organs, as well as intestines. It was very odd. The stomach did not seem quite right either. I would guess that it has a highly efficient system for digestion. There were three eyes on the head. Two of the eyes were front facing while the third was on the side. There was also a liver and one kidney. The limbs had more things inside them. The construction was very bizarre. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I have dissected many creatures in my time since I was a young lad, but this has to be by far the strangest creature.
November 15th
I need to get back to hunting the monsters. There is a lot I need to do though, including setting some rules with Griffin. I will not allow him to kill any more monsters unless I say so. I am wondering as to which monster I should aim to capture next. I am beginning to think that I should have more armor of some sort, as the wolf monster is rather large, at least according to what Griffin told me. Additionally, the only knowledge I have about the fog monster is that it somehow creates the fog which surrounds it, although it is possible that the fog was completely unrelated and was not caused by a monster at all, but I doubt that. I have no way to justify my certainty that it exists, so I suppose I should aim to capture the wolf first, as I doubt Griffin would be as willing to help me attempt to track something that doesn’t even exist.
Perhaps I should look into a heavy leather chestplate of some kind. I will need something that is more resistant to bites, which means I would likely want to reinforce it with metal. Of course, I should think about decreasing weight, that goes without saying. Additionally, I should try to design something that is easy to make, as I will have to make it myself, as well as do any and all repairs to it. Maybe only a few metal pieces on the chest will be sufficient, as that area would be hard to bite. I will add metal shoulder plates, though, as well as something to protect my neck. Both of those areas are more vulnerable and I should take care to protect them. Especially because if my shoulder gets injured, it would make it very hard to capture the monster.
I will once again need to acquire the necessary materials, which should not be too difficult, although assembling it may be challenging or time consuming.
November 15th
Griffin and I have made sketches of the armor and we will begin construction once we get materials from town. Griffin has neglected to make one for himself, he said he had something better but refused to show it to me. I don’t really care anyway, because whatever material it is made out of must be hard for me to come by, as it is almost certainly not from near here. I would imagine that Griffin has some sort of armor underneath his clothing, as it is not visible from the outside. I did begin working on shoulder pieces with scraps of metal that were laying around. I have a very basic ability to shape metal, as I have little more than an anvil, hammer, and forge, so it took a while to shape the metal. Even though it was quite cold today, I warmed up quite a bit, and rather quickly, while hammering the metal. By the time I reached the end of the first plate, I was wearing little more than my undergarments and an apron.
When I use the forge to make something, it sometimes reminds me of someone I once knew. Back in 1832, it must have been, when I first met him. He was a scrawny kid, no more than two years older than me, but he could swing a hammer all day. He was the one that really taught me how to use the smithing tools. Most of my very basic knowledge was taught to me by him, and what little more I do know, I was able to figure out from what he taught me. It is not as if I had much else to do at the time, so for a few months, I worked at it very consistently, but after that he one day went missing. I didn’t even know anything about him so I thought he just went somewhere else or something, I’m not sure what I thought had happened. But now, I am thinking that it may have been a monster. No, it must have been a monster. That was twelve years ago that he went missing, so there is no way I would be able to find out what the reason was. That mystery is best left alone, I suppose, as dwelling on it would only waste my time and energy, which would be better used on the current tasks at hand.
November 17th
I am almost done with the chestplate. I did run into an issue where I was unable to tighten it around my body, so I eventually went with a corset like design, with laces in the front which can be tightened, and then the laces are tied underneath the metal part of the chestplate, which folds out to the sides. From that point, the metal pieces are folded back in and held in place, being attached to each other by a strip of leather. I also added significant padding to the back, so that it can easily support the weight of a loaded rucksack for extended periods of time. I do not expect to need to use a rucksack very much right now, but it will certainly be useful eventually. That will make carrying supplies around much easier and could allow me to spend longer amounts of time in the forest or just away from home in general.
Additionally, the chestplate is built to go over padded cloth, which will keep me much warmer during the winter.
November 18th
I have completed the chestplate and shoulder pieces. I was thinking about the wolf monster while I was working and I have come up with several questions that I wish to answer. The first question is how did it get so big? A creature of such size would certainly possess a tremendous appetite. I have yet to find any news of livestock disappearing, so it must either have another source of nourishment or it has not been in this area for long. Out of the two potential answers, I am more intrigued by the first one, as I would like to know what its diet consists of.
Secondly, I must ask myself how I plan to capture the beast. If it is truly as large as Griffin says, and I have no reason to doubt him, then it will be difficult to capture and control. There are many traps that I could make but most are for prey of much smaller size. And, of course it goes without saying, but any traps I could make are stationary and depend on pre-existing knowledge of where the creature will likely appear. This made me begin to think that perhaps I should be looking into ways of hindering its ability to move: ropes, nets, injuries, and poison. Or, more accurately, venom. Many snakes possess venom that induces paralysis when injected. If I can figure out which kind of venom to use as well as a means of delivery, I could easily capture the monster.
The most obvious method would be a bow and arrows, but that would take a considerable amount of skill which I do not possess. Instead, I am leaning towards the use of a crossbow. Using a crossbow would solve that issue, as well as having several advantages over using a bow. It would simplify aiming and I could have it loaded so I could be ready to use it at a moments’ notice. The bolts used for crossbows are smaller than arrows, making it less cumbersome to carry around. A crossbow is also smaller than a bow, so while it is a little bulkier, it would take up less space which would be more beneficial to using in an environment such as a forest, where there are lots of obstacles.
I have quite a collection of snake venom. I have always been rather fascinated by it. I have several samples from North America that could be useful, particularly because of the size of the monster and potency of the venom.
November 19th
What was I thinking! It is not as simple as just putting venom on the end of an arrow! The venom would need to be inside of the projectile otherwise most of it would be removed by the elements before it is able to reach the animal. Additionally, if I am hunting something with fur, like the wolf monster, then the fur will likely wipe away some of the venom. If I did have the venom be inside of the bolt, it would need to be administered somehow. Instead, I should look into making a sort of paste that can be applied to the end of the bolts. Then, when it sticks into an animal, there is a better chance of it getting into the animal.
I will begin working on making a crossbow while Griffin turns the venom into a more usable form. It could take several days to make, but Griffin has agreed that this is a good starting point to capture the monster. I will only be able to make a crude crossbow, it will not be very refined, but that will be good enough for now. I will need to make it to a certain standard though, as I do not want any damage to occur when in the forest.