As Green Tooth and the other four drove eastward, they came upon a fleet of piece-mealed hoover crafts encircling the dead Deicide. This picture in front of them frightened Green Tooth more than the others. He knew how fierce the creature was, and if this band of people took it down, they must have a powerful weapon.
"What could they have that could penetrate a Construct beast's skin?" Green Tooth wondered.
What none of them knew was Leo killed the beast and these band of hooligans only stumbled upon the corpse. The group felt the ground trembling and flew off to discover what threat was close by.
When they found the dead carcass, they instantly felt like the gods blessed them with food. They dispatched their entire force to hack it up and bring it back to their fort.
Green Tooth had to get answers. Swiftly, he used Lion's Grace to sneak up to the dead beast and grabbed a human out of the other's sight. Grabbing the man, Green Tooth brought him over to interrogate.
Using a soul attack, Green Tooth began asking the man questions in front of the other four.
"Human, how did you kill the beast?" Green Tooth chose to ask simple questions as not to put a strain on the human.
A weird sensation attacked the man's brain, not allowing him to stay quiet. "We didn't. We found it like that."
Green Tooth was surprised. He figured the group of bandits must've killed it. He then wondered what happened to Leo.
"Did you see a man nearby?"
"Yes, as we appeared, a man ran off holding some rock."
Ah, now it was all making sense to Green Tooth. Leo must've somehow slain the beast and forgot which direction we were. Green Tooth had all the information he needed. The most important thing was for them to find Leo and head back to the City of Ra.
"What do we do with this mortal?" asked Geph.
"Hand me some water. I have a technique that erases one's memories called Dream Eater." Sepha told the others. Papyrus and Djed were shocked. Until today they hadn't seen any skill outside battle ones. They were in awe of the cultivators before them.
"Get on with it then." Green Tooth commanded.
Sepha erased the man's memories, and Green Tooth put him back. The five of them loaded back in the craft to search for Leo.
As the memory erased man walked around the creature's foot, someone yelled to the man, "What are you lollygagging there for? Start butching some meat."
"Where am I?" asked the man.
"For fuck's sake, Krieg. Just start cutting the beast before you get gutted."
As the two bickered a holler from the other side silenced everyone. A crew of about five men had ventured inside the beast through its mouth. Seeing as the meat was more manageable to cut on the inside, the men went to work. One of them shined a light towards the beast's bowls to see some humanoid laying there half-dead.
"I think I found someone!" Shouted the man.
"No fucking way! Somone survived in its gut?"
The guy in charge from outside stuck his head into the mouth. Raising both his eyebrows, even he was surprised. "Grab the poor sack and drag his ass out."
"Roger, Boss Cicatrix." The men shouted.
They gathered up the skinless man, wrapped in a cloak, and dragged the poor guy out of the beast. As sunlight touched the hot pink muscle, it sizzled. Even the sheen on his white bones grossed everyone out.
"How is he still alive?"
The boss thought about putting the man out of his misery, but he, too, was once left for dead. "If he survives the week, throw a collar on him and put him into mine. A steadfast soul and body like that should get us a good amount of ore."
Two men helped him to a craft and gave him a bit of water. Then everyone began chopping up the beast's innards. This beast would provide the group meat for at least two years.
After loading up all their ships, the boss yelled out, "Scavengers, back to the fort."
The band of men headed back to canyon nearby. In between the two slabs of earth, a metal fort was forged. This box of metal housed many run-aways and bandits. There were two distinct classes of people here, the scavengers and the miners.
The miners worked the pit below the fort. They mined for ore all day so the boss could sell it to the nearby cities for food.
The scavengers were brutes who protected the fort and raided caravans. Since they never pushed any city's bottom line, they let them continue.
The closest city, the City of Osiris, is a city that prides itself on life and death. It is a city that produces a lot of food, an abundance almost. It uses its deal with Cicatrix to gain access to ores to fuel its army and technologies.
In a shack near the top of the pit, a scavenger dropped the half-dead man in front of a one-armed woman. "Shia, take care of this man. Once he is healed, send him to the mine." As he was about to walk away, he turned around and clamped a collar on the man's neck. "That should do it," he said.
The man left as Shia stared at the flayed man before her. She dragged him to bedding and began to take the coat off. His rapid healing bonded him to the leather which Shia had to rip off on parts. She had no idea how this man was still alive.
A week went by of screams of agony, but the man soon began to scab and heal up. On the eighth day he had finally came too.
"Oh, you're awake," Shia said with a bit of surprise as she cleaned old bandages.
"Where...where am...I?" Leo said hoarsely.
"You're in the Scavenger's Fort. Now quit talking and rest up." She placed clean bandages on as Leo's mind raced. Before he could ask something else, he passed out.