Sunday July 18th, 2240 ATE. Northern SkyHaven Woodland…
Lying to your parents was never fun.
But it was easier when they had time consuming jobs.
What else was he supposed to do?
Claude sat at the table in silence for a span of agonizingly long seconds, weighing the odds. Then he remembered listening to his father cry— battling with the thoughts of being a bad parent. Battling with something more, even.
By telling his father Anubis was scouting him, that would only exacerbate both of Gil's dilemmas.
Hearing him cry the first time was traumatic enough.
But so was lying….
Thankfully, Claude had time alone to process.
….. and a forest to protect.
For the rest of the week, Claude, Frosty and Ray spent their days training and hunting.
He still couldn't bloom a seed, but he was getting a feel for his element and abilities as a beast-tamer.
In fact, his final test before leaving for the University was underway…
He'd be running for two miles. In his peripherals it all looked like a blur of greens and blue sky above, but he had his route memorized. Wolves had amazing directional sense. Almost like they had a memory based compass nestled somewhere in their brains. At least that's what it felt like when he borrowed Frosty's traits.
He moved less with his eyes, letting his nose, ears and feet tell him far more intricate stories. Stories that read like a map.
The river running to his left smelled of billie-beast's further upstream, leading him further north where the species was native. Also where his invasive deer hybrids hailed from. Sometimes Tangents weren't full of monsters from your worst nightmares. Sometimes it was just beasts from a different time…
His footfalls grew louder, crunching on fallen branches and desert stones blown in from the winds to the east. The forest was growing thinner.
Antler fuzz marred the trees, leaving them rotten and split. Nine feet above ground…
The most potent urine he'd ever smelled flooded the air, making his eyes water as he put his wooden spear between his teeth and climbed a twelve foot tall cedar tree. Wolf claws weren't as good as thylacaleo claws, but he got the job done.
He reached the branches and kept a low crouch, resting his hand on the bark. In seconds, the canopy thickened, giving him greater cover behind a new growth of vibrant greenish orange fall leaves.
Frosty found a bush large enough to fit him in the distance. Claude couldn't see him with his eyes, but he could hear everything down to the positioning of his paws in the grass.
Claude ran a self check in the silence. Going over every mistake he made on the previous three hunts.
"Impatience.... Improper positioning— I didn't know how much worse my smell would be when it rained. What else….. oh yea, improper camouflage." Claude looked down at his grass armoring.
It fit him like a second skin. Intricate wrappings and tight binds. Open in all the right places. He made upgrades, covering the openings with tied down bark for extra protection.
The last hunt reminded him a deer kick and gunshot were interchangeable in times of stress.
Maybe that was an exaggeration. Either way, he wasn't blended in well enough.
It was late summer and he was too yellowed.
Claude placed a hand on his armor and another on the leaves. They felt warm— nearly hot, and malleable as anything. The veins were thick and sturdy. The scent was potent— more earthy almost. He visioned the same for his suit and the magic did what it did best.
Maybe too much.
"Dammit!" He said with the wooden spear in his mouth as branches bloomed from his bark armor sections and his wooden spear grew, connecting itself to the trees. "Need more practice."
Claude took the spear out of his mouth and snapped it off the branch.
The silence deepened. Tensing. Reacti—
It came like hell. Harsh and unknown. Up to interpretation. It could've been anything. It didn't matter. All he knew was it hit the tree so hard the whole thing was ripped out of the earth. Roots and all.
The shake blinded him in its violence and triggered a spike in adrenaline that caused his fangs to cut into his bottom lip as he braced himself.
He didn't even get eyes on the beast. It didn't matter ultimately. As the tree fell, he turned and ran up the base, now functioning as a boardwalk to the next tree. A spindly oak. Perfectly green.
"Dammit!"
He focused as he jumped for the tree.
When he landed on its branches, scuffles masked by the previous trees collapse, he looked down at himself.
"Blue….. perfect. The smell of river water probably ruptured my mental imagery. "
He turned around on the branch just in time to see the beast notice him. A speck of blue in a sea of green.
The antlered brute was massive. Over nine feet tall. Murderous. Weeks old wolf and bear carcasses half eaten dangled from its crown. But it wasn't the two species he thought it would've been.
Irish Elk, or white-tailed deer hybrid.
It was.
"What the hell are you?"
The beast charged again with jagged steel antlers that twisted and morphed down into a cruel silver mask.
Another tree uprooted.
Only this time, Claude was already swinging to the next tree.
The buck ripped its horns out of the tree. Claude remembered the shard blast from the snake before and flinched involuntarily. He steeled himself just as the buck spun around.
Spirals of steam rose from its skin where bald patches were instead marked by runes. Ugly, jagged, bleeding and infected things that sparked with magic and fiery puss. Liquid steel dripped and burned, coating its legs in cracked armor.
Claude's confidence waned.
The world could care less. Same went for the buck.
Like a maniac, the beast charged.
Claude jumped to the next tree, moving as if he chose to join the primal-baboons in the Astral Greenwood.
The buck met him on his turf, jumping with an explosive stamp into the earth.
It ripped through the canopy like a nightmarish cannonball aimed straight for him.
Claude scrambled through the oaks branches, flipping and rolling through the wooden tangles before slipping as the buck crashed, destroying everything with its mass.
Claude yelped as one of its bladed antlers ripped open his back with an all too close graze.
He fell to the ground, landing in a lush bed of long grass.
From where he lay, his hand was raised, glowing at the use of his nature element.
Above him, the buck kicked and snarled, fighting against the tree branches it was tangled in. They grew tighter— thicker, like poisonous snakes metamorphosing into constrictors. Even so, the beast was too heavy. Not only a buck, but a magically empowered steel brute.
The woods snapped and the buck fell.
Claude rolled out of the way, bouncing on the quaking earth.
It was on the move immediately. Working to skewer him like the wolf and bear challengers before him.
Their loss was his gain.
They didn't have a pitwolf on their team.
Frosty darted out from the bushes, slashing at the steaming rune on its flank as it chased Claude.
The buck roared and a small explosion of magic knocked it off Claude's trail.
It rolled off in the distance.
Claude got to his feet and steadied himself. His ears flinched at the flapping wingbeats above him. He held his hand out just in time to catch the spear Ray dropped for him.
Frosty took a defensive stance in front of him, standing lighter on his slightly burned paw.
"Good job buddy. But don't do that again."
Frosty side eyed him. He could almost hear the pitwolf saying, "Shut up."
Claude turned his back to Frosty, mind working as his legs didn't. Ears listening as his eyes couldn't.
"Runes are incredibly sensitive magical formulas that perform spells and empower objects. When they aren't written near perfectly, you experience a recoil of incorrectly mixed magics. Of course, Frosty ripping through a rune does the same thing. It changes the shape— makes it incorrect. They're critical points. We hit the runes, we take away its magic and blow the thing to bits. Ok. New game plan."
Leaves crunched in front of Frosty. His ears aimed at the sound. The white fur running along his backside stood on end.
No species of deer or elk was an ambush predator.
And yet there they stood, awaiting an ambush.
Frosty took a step forward, snarling.
Claude kicked his backside, "NO!"
Frosty huffed and remained as Ray perched on Claude's shoulder.
He took the risk and borrowed the hawks traits. His sense of smell weakened. His muscle mass shrank . His bones hollowed and the thousands of pores along his arms and back expanded as jet black feathers bloomed, peaking out of his grass armor as he shook.
[60% MP Remaining]
Sure he couldn't fly, but he could see through the leaves and bushes. He could see for miles.
The buck was like a bull on fire in the distance. With the hawks vision, its magical essence was so much clearer. It's pain, even.
He felt a sort of guilt before he saw the thing stomp out of squirrel hiding in a tree hallow.
"Follow." Claude charged the buck in its cruel distraction.
Now with his avian traits, he was faster, more enduring from the little weight he had to move. He jumped and swung from the trees, gliding through the air until he rounded on the buck. As he lunged with his spear, he grabbed Frosty's traits again.
[40% MP Remaining]
More mass. More power. Born from ultra-lightweight silence.
He may have judged avian beast-tamers too harshly…
He stabbed his spear into the bubbling rune on its shoulder, twisting the blade before ripping it down its leg.
The startled buck jumped as the rune exploded, knocking them both in opposite directions.
[-20 HP]
Frosty ran after Claude as he flew backward, cushioning his land with his furry body.
At the same time, the buck came rushing back, seemingly already adapted to magical explosions.
Claude rolled over and shoved Frosty out of the way as the buck ducked low, ripping up the earth to shred him.
Claude gasped, splitting his legs. They were just small enough to fit between its snout and antlers. At the same time, he grabbed its antlers, trying to stop the beast from shaking and ripping open his face.
That didn't matter.
The buck flung its head upward and threw Claude twelve feet into the air with little to no effort.
[-5 HP]
As Claude came rocketing back down to earth, he could see the beast leaning into its front legs, charging up a kick that would make his head look like smashed watermelon if it landed.
He had no control. No agency as fell into the mercy of a creature twisted by cruelty and magic.
With nothing else to do, he brought his arms up to guard his face and prepared for the worst—
Fangs bit into his shoulder. A body that felt like fur-wrapped metals collided with his. The wind flew out of his lungs as he was knocked away from the bucks outstretched back legs.
He hit the ground, landing awkwardly on his shoulder. The extra muscle-mass saved him from injury as he stumbled to his feet.
Just in time to see Frosty face off with the buck right after shoulder bashing him away.
The pitwolf barked and danced in front of its horns, disorienting and baiting the branded beast.
The buck snorted and rose up on its hind legs to swat with the wolf with its hooves.
"No—"
Frosty dove for its underbelly. The buck came down, stomping the pitwolf into the grass.
The sound of his yelp was terrifying.
Claude was already moving when it happened. So was Ray.
The hawk dove into the bucks face, clawing out one of its eyes. At the same time, Claude threw his spear with a snarl.
The rune he aimed for on its midsection was large. He still hit off center.
Thank the gods runewriting was a sensitive practice.
The explosion knocked the buck off of Frosty. The pitwolf didn't get up.
The buck did.
Claude stood in front of Frosty with his spear raised.
He wasn't angry. He didn't grip his spear any harder or grind his wolfish fangs in some primal rage like before.
Guilt. He felt guilt. He brought Frosty and Ray into something he didn't understand. Frosty was hurt because he didn't approach the situation smarter.
He had no business charging whatever the hell the beast was when he couldn't even use his element properly. Didn't even have a proper weapon. Proper training.
He was level four and literally sick on demon blood.
"What the hell am I doing here?"
The buck snorted. In his minds eye, he saw the plated-snake laughing again.
His adrenaline surged at the memory of being so close to pain and death. The urge to run off and catch his breath was so strong.
The shame of that feeling gave birth to something even more powerful.
A will to fight.
Finally.
Ms. Callisto's words echoed in his mind, "Adrenaline and mana make a terrible mix!"
His aura ignited, flowing like fire as his long-grass armor thickened with new layers, coating him less like a second skin and more like new sections of muscle. Roots and wood vines from the felled tree behind him ripped from below ground, forming around his feet as clawed high-heeled boots that made him taller. Poisonous barbs and knuckle claws adorned his left hand. The wooden spear in his right gained a curved blade of lacerated nature, turning the weapon into a lance of the green.
The memories of him wishing he had a helmet echoed back from the earth.
From the fallen tree behind him, green limbs and roots slithered up his neck and morphed into a flowering multicolored knights helm.
[10% MP Remaining]
"Shut up." Claude swatted away his system screen.
The buck charged— moving slower at the start on its broken back leg from the previous blast.
Claude did the same. Moving on exhausted limbs and a terrified mind.
He was so tired. And scared. And it only got worse…
A cold pulse hit him, knocking him still in his tracks.
[Your mental state is exacerbating the effects of (Darkblood's Kiss). Combined with your current physical state, you risk death…]
Claude looked at his system screen in a daze. The whole world grew sideways. It took him a moment to realize he was laying in the ground.
"The buck!" He tried to push himself to his feet. Nothing.
No movement.
Except for in the distance.
His eyes focused on the felled tree. It was the first tree the buck knocked down. From where it once stood, something crawled out of the hole in the ground.
Something inhuman. Something that looked like it was trying to be human. Shaped woods and plants gave it a human face. Long vines and flowers gave it flowing hair. The fingers that gripped the earth and pulled it above ground morphed into a blade.
It went to battle.
Claude caught his breaths and rolled over onto his back.
Ahead of him— entirely too close, four dryads battled the buck.
The world moved with them. There was no wind but the grass leaned in their direction at all times. The trees bent down to touch them. Flowers de-aged and berries ripened.
It was weirdly beautiful.
A contrast to the violent battle underway.
The buck charged and skewered the largest dryad. It had a beard of dandelions and thick oak limbs. But you would've thought they were made of glass when the buck smashed it into a tree.
The dryads midsection split into a dozen magical shards. The others screamed. An all too human sound.
The dryad held on, its limbs turning to pincers that ripped the remaining runes. Before it could blow up the whole forest, the dryad turned into a ball of wood and vine to swallow the explosion of death.
From the cracks it glowed and spit magical essence and evaporated blood.
[+350 EXP]
The other dryads approached the ball.
Claude watched in silent shock. Quietly, he inched his way towards Frosty. Trying to think of how to get away. Dryads were aggressive.
At their touch, the ball of burnt wood that had become the dryad and bucks grave deaged and disintegrated. Leaving only the steel bones of the dead buck and shards of their kin remaining.
The tallest of them picked up the shards and held them to its chest. It shuddered. It was…. Crying?
Then, the other dryads huddled around before pointing back to Claude.
"No.... No.. no." He placed himself firmly in front of Frosty. The pitwolf lay panting casually in the grass.
The dryad turned to face him. Dress of flowers and vine flowing. It walked over to him. Still, it held the shards to its chest like some haunted bride holding the last remnants of her dead lover.
Claude held his spear to them. "Stay back! Just— please... stay back." His voice sounded so small inside his natural helm.
His virus festered like hell. Literally.
The veins around his neck blackened. His heart cringed— as if it was being gripped by his own negativity spiral and contorted into unnatural shapes.
The dryads crouched around him. The one to his left gently put his spear down. The one to his right put a hand on his armor and it opened like a cracked shell, revealing his sweat covered shirt. Only he was sweating blackness so it looked like he was drowning in ink.
"Please…." Claude said as the dryads grabbed his arms.
The one holding the shards stopped watching him and began sprinkling the shards on the ground, stopping with only one in hand. She had eyelashes of butterfly wings and ears like an elf made of wood.
The shard hummed. He heard the music again…
It looked like wood under sunlight. One side glimmered. The other was just your basic wood. It smelled like pollen, dandelion petals and flowers and river water.
The dryad stabbed the sliver into his chest.
He gasped in shock. Calming slowly— partially, when the pain never came. A green pulse washed over him and settled beneath his skin.
The dryads watched him curiously for a moment. Or maybe considering murder.
Then, they were off.
DING
[You have Leveled Up! You are now Level 5!]
[New Skill, (Impression of Kin (LV1)) Unlocked!]
[You have 5 unspent Stat Points!]
[Darkbloods' Kiss Neutralized]
[New Buff, (Natural Heart), Recognized!]
The moment they were gone, Claude spun around and checked over Frosty, ripping off his helmet to see better as he spoke.
"Hey— hey, it's gonna be ok. Let me see you…" Claude rambled as he gently ran his hands over Frosty's body. He had to blink repeatedly as he looked to stop the tears from fuzzying his vision.
Both of joy and sadness and confusion.
Other than his slightly burnt paw, no limb injuries. No popped joints.
Frosty growled slightly as Claude touched the rib closest to his pelvis.
"Been there…" Claude sighed in relief. "You'll be ok. And I'll be smarter next time. We were way in over our heads... then we got saved by dryads? I haven't had a normal day in weeks."
Ray dropped down onto the ground beside Frosty. The pitwolf turned his head and licked the hawk.
"Nice work, man. You usually don't fight. But you did today. You saved us. That's the second time, I feel like you want my job."
Ray aimed his beady yellow eye at him.
"Of course you don't. You just need me alive to keep feeding you."
Ray squawked in agreement.
Claude sat in silence with Frosty's head in his lap.
His hands still shook. His heart beat with a new boost in rhythm but inklings of negativity remained in the wake of his experiences.
New thoughts spun like freshly greased wheels.
"Why did the dryads save me? How did they know I was sick? And the buck….. What hexade would do that to an animal?"
So many questioned he couldn't confidently say he'd get answered soon.
The University was less than a day away. New challenges— possibly even more bizarre and unhinged awaited.
But there was hope.
He had a good start.
Level five. A new boost in strength from unlikely…. allies? Monsters? All ailments expunged from his physical record. A new perspective on intense battle.
He'd grown.
Only way to know how much was to test his might bright and early.
He got up.
"Come on, Frosty. We're going home."
He helped the pitwolf to his feet. The cracked rib wasn't bad enough that he couldn't walk. It wasn't bad at all. But he'd been dominated. For a pitwolf, that meant something. Where they came from, dominance and physical might was something like a language, culture, life force and power system all wrapped in one. The damage to his confidence was more worrying as he walked with his ears and tail low.
"Been there too…."
Thankfully, that could be fixed faster than broken ribs.