"Do you think," the Traveller mused, eyeing the remaining fish, "that since we killed the others with fish and now feed them to this little fellow over here, we might complete the Banquet of Kin ritual?"
"The magic requires those related to the ritual performer by blood," Lucian replied sharply.
"They're all from the same river. They're bound to be related somehow. It's worth a try, right?" the Traveller said, a mischievous grin forming on his face.
"I can sense the magic on that Ghoul parchment. Bad things will happen if we attempt this. The price is to consume one's blood kin—if that condition isn't met, the price will manifest in some other way. And the price always manifests. Everyone knows that."
"It's worth the risk," the Traveller insisted. "After all, we're not paying the price—you are, in that fish."
Lucian stared at the Traveller in silent protest, but it didn't seem to faze him. With a click of his fingers, Lucian was thrust into the remaining fish, and the Traveller began the incantation.
"Flesh of my flesh, the flesh that shall complete me. Thee of perfection, The Progenitor of Flesh, he who has assumed all that is good, I beseech your power and your favor. Complete me, your child, just as you completed yourself."
Lucian felt a stream of magic flow into the fish, but there was something off—cold, sinister energy poured into him. The Traveller skillfully channeled the dark parts of the magic—the price—directly into Lucian and the pure parts to himself.
The amount of pure magic was less than Lucian expect. But the price was very heavy, the fish was transforming—becoming monstrous. Extra appendages grew from its body, strange parts that didn't belong on a fish. Lucian could feel the twisted magic consuming the creature, distorting it into something unnatural. The price for using a non-kin in the ritual had manifested.
By the time the ritual was complete, the fish had morphed into a half-meter-tall slime-like blob, its body writhing with tentacles and malformed growths.
The Traveller looked at the monstrosity with curious amusement. "I'm genuinely curious—how does it feel to be turned into a tentacle monster?"
"Not good at all," Lucian gagged, clearly disgusted by the experience.
"You know you can't produce soul vomit, right?" the Traveller added, clearly enjoying Lucian's discomfort.
"Not helping."
"Well, no time to waste. Back in there you go—we've got items to forge." The Traveller pointed at the writhing blob, but Lucian protested with an exaggerated groan.
The Traveller dragged Aron's body onto the stove, his newfound strength from the Banquet of Kin ritual making it easier. Without it, he doubted he could lift the ghoul's body.
"This one should be simple. We don't even need to invoke a greater entity to channel magic. All we need is the magic within the living metal itself," the Traveller explained, setting up the ritual. He invoked a small portion of the Flesh to Steel magic to get it started.
"Fire that forges, Metal of my flesh, magic of thee body. I forge thee."
Living metal from Aron's body began to seep outward, consuming the corpse and shaping it as Lucian's will guided it. The metallic form shrank and twisted, reshaping itself into a glistening sword. As the ritual ended, Lucian was forcefully ejected from the tentacle creature, landing with a silent thud on the floor.
"Something's wrong," Lucian gasped. "The creature rejected me. The price of the magic has completely consumed it—it's become the embodiment of the taint itself."
The Traveller quickly grabbed the newly forged sword. This was unexpected. As he gripped the sword, a wave of primal strength and bestial desire washed over him. His senses sharpened, every scale of the tentacle creature crystal clear in his heightened vision.
The creature writhed on the ground, its body in flux. Some parts grew, twisted and monstrous, while weaker parts withered and died. The transformation was incomplete, but it was progressing rapidly.
Driven by the sword's influence, the Traveller charged at the creature, slicing through its form with newfound fury. Each swing of the blade tore into the abomination, until nothing but a pile of flesh remained. But the Traveller didn't stop. He hacked at the remains over and over, consumed by the bloodlust.
"Traveller, stop! It's dead!" Lucian shouted, horrified by the scene.
The Traveller finally stopped, breathing heavily, realizing what had just happened. He tossed the sword aside and collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.
"I think that's the price of the blade," the Traveller panted. "Can you… inspect it?"
"I thought you were going to ask me to use the 'inspect' skill," Lucian teased, trying to lighten the mood.
"I've never hacked a tentacle monster to pieces before," the Traveller muttered, still shaken.
"I thought you'd done and seen everything as the 'Traveller from another world' or… the devil or something," Lucian quipped.
"Are you trying to probe me?" the Traveller snapped, clearly disgruntled. "Go and use the inspect skill on the sword."
"Yes, sir," Lucian said with a playful smile.
Ghoul Sword
Description: A magical sword that grants the user the powers of a Ghoul, along with its terrible price. The blade has a hunger for flesh and must be fed regularly. It can develop additional powers based on the types of flesh it consumes.
Powers:
Strength +10Constitution +10Agility +10Perception +10Ability to consume flesh
Price:
Bestial Madness: The user will gradually be consumed by bestial madness. The effect is cumulative, and part of it becomes permanent. Eventually, the user will transform into a ghoul. Hunger for Flesh: The sword must consume at least 1kg of flesh daily, or it will start consuming the user's flesh.
"I still don't understand your obsession with assigning arbitrary numbers to strength and other traits," Lucian muttered. "How do you even measure something like perception?"
"But you can quantify magic and its effects," the Traveller countered. "This gives us a standard to measure future items by."
"If you say so…"
"Now, how do I pick up the sword without going mad?" The Traveller scratched his chin. "We'll need a living creature—preferably something small and easy to carry around. Oh, and by the way, you can't be more than ten meters away from me. Come to think of it, taverns like this usually keep some meat maggots around."
The Traveller got up and rummaged through the kitchen. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for.
Meat Maggots
Description: Magically produced giant maggots that can consume most organic material and convert it into meat. A staple for the poorer folk in town, though no one likes to think too hard about where they come from or how they are produced.
Price: The consumer will grow unnaturally fat and develop an increased hunger.
Meat maggots were used as food recyclers. Leftovers were fed to them to generate more meat, ensuring the cycle continued. Nearby, the Traveller also spotted a basket of Earth Roots and, out of curiosity, decided to inspect them as well.
Earth Roots
Description: A staple food for the poor, these are an amalgamation of carrots, turnips, onions, and potatoes, created through the ritual Bounty of the Earth. In the ritual, a farmer cuts a piece of their flesh and buries it in the ground. By the next day, the field will be full of Earth Roots.
Price: The consumer's skin becomes dry and earth-like, as though made from the soil where the Earth Roots were grown.
"Meat maggots are perfect!" the Traveller exclaimed, picking one up. "They'll make great price absorbers and emergency food if we need them."
As he stared at the vat of squirming maggots, another idea hit him. "Hey, since these maggots are made in that "way", they must all be related. Maybe they'd work for the Banquet of Kin ritual."
Lucian wasn't convinced, but they decided to test it. Unfortunately, the ritual failed to generate any meaningful amount of magic.
After some discussion, they surmised that while the maggots were related, the sacrifice required for the ritual needed a soul, and the more complex and sophisticated the creature, the greater the magic produced. Meat maggots, as mindless as they were, simply didn't provide enough magic to be useful.
"Let's clean up this mess and get some rest," the Traveller said, picking up the Ghoul Sword and glancing toward the pile of tentacle monster meat. "We've had a long night, and tomorrow's going to be even longer."
He paused, then turned back to Lucian. "What happened when you got kicked out of the creature?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Lucian replied, his voice tinged with unease. "The tainted magic, the price, it seemed to completely consume it. I think it became a Fell—that's what creatures of the Price are. When something is consumed entirely by its price, it transforms. After that, it rejected me. I couldn't occupy it anymore."
The Traveller nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. So, it's a limitation of our power. We need to keep a few living things around and be careful not to pass too much of the price onto weak beings. Otherwise, they might turn Fell, and that's going to be a problem."
He glanced back at the pile of mutated flesh. "This Fell body is definitely going to attract attention if we leave it. Normally, these things need to be burned at the Tower."
Then a grin spread across his face. "Come to think of it, the Ghoul Sword consumes flesh…"
"That's a terrible idea," Lucian cut in quickly. "The Fell's body is filled with tainted magic. We have no idea what price the sword might gain if it consumes that."
The Traveller smirked, twirling the sword in his hand. "I'm not exactly paying the price, though, am I?"
Lucian sighed, "Still… this feels like this could go wrong in so many ways."