Beastborne

by James T Callum

  As he stirred, careful to keep a figure-8 pattern, Hal let his mind drift.

  Late at night, the nightly camp of the ringed caravans was quiet. The few dwarves out and drinking had either drank enough to lapse into quiet reflection or they were being exceptionally soft-spoken.

  In either case, Hal couldn’t afford to look away from the mixing and check.

  He was grateful for the quiet and the solitude. Rarer by far those days than any alchemical ingredient.

  No matter how much he turned over the problems in his mind, he couldn’t reach a satisfactory answer. Noth was mortal now and there was nothing he could do about that. Did she hate him for it even though it saved her? What did he actually save when he dipped her into the Manatree’s wellspring?

  If he let her die, would she have merely turned into a Reaper once more, no longer tethered to the physical plane? Did he make the wrong choice in trying to save her?

  If her actions over the past weeks were any indicator, then the answer was a resounding, yes. Noth – even as a non-mortal Reaper – was a grabbag of conflicting actions. She would often say one thing and then do something entirely contrary.

  Hal didn’t even know where to begin with Ashera but for once he had the time to think about it without distraction. So he stirred, and he thought.

  18

  The mixture bubbled and boiled, soft background noise to the stifling silence of the Mirrorlands.

  His mixture had changed from puce to a light shade of pink in the last five minutes, signaling that the [Health Potion] was almost finished. Next would come the most difficult part.

  While he was well on his way to creating a superb [Health Potion], likely a +1 or +2. Even a +3 would pale in comparison to the [Health Injection] he was going for. When the final color shift – to a deep ruddy hue – came, he would have to be quick.

  The longer the mixture was in contact with air or light – though making it at night limited the latter save for the bright line of bandlight that cut the starry sky in two – the weaker it would become.

  As soon as the change happened, and it happened faster than Hal thought it might, he reached forward with the [Vial] already in his hand. The heat of the mixture’s fumes stung his hand, reminding him that he should have worn gloves, but he remained undeterred.

  Carefully, Hal dipped the vial and watched as the rounded, pointed bottom of the [Vial] made contact with the roiling bloody mixture. Tapping the flat end with his thumb, a light-blue magical spike thrust out of the tip and into the mixture below.

  In an instant the boiling liquid filled the tiny vial, the heat already beginning to burn his palm. His HP ticking down 1 point at a time from the minor burns, Hal carefully extracted the item and placed it on a prepared cloth for inspection.

  A thought triggered Assimilation to heal the minor wound as if nothing had ever happened. He didn’t even need to concentrate any more on the ability, it was almost reactionary.

  With more than a little worry, Hal inspected the item before him. A grin spread from ear to ear as the name materialized after a few moments, [Health Injection].

  Still too hot to touch, Hal folded the cloth over it and kept it aside. He did his best not to celebrate. This was the first time he finally made something all on his own. Without supervision or a strict recipe guiding his hand to this exact end. He knew how to make a [Health Potion] but altering it took some skill he wasn’t sure he had until that very moment.

  Your Alchemy has risen to Level 4.

  +1% Crafting speed (+4%).

  +1.5% Toxicity tolerance (+6.0%).

  You have learned the [Health Injection] recipe.

  Hitting Level 4 increased his Crafting Points, and that bump to his CP/hr was welcomed.

  It meant he could make a [Health Injection] in just under 2 hours. While Hal lacked a clock, at his previous CP/hr of 7 and knowing [Health Injection’s] CP requirement of 15, (now that he knew the recipe) it would’ve take him just over 2 hours to make one vial.

  But it was powerful. After allowing it to cool, Hal held it up to examine it in the bandlight and the trio of moons that slowly made their way across the starry night sky amid patches of clouds.

  [Health Injection]

  By infusing this into your bloodstream, you will instantly regain 350 HP.

  CP: 15

  Toxicity: 120

  A normal [Health Potion] healed around 100 HP. Even a [Health Injection] would vary how much HP it recovered based on its age and how well it was preserved. There were other factors as well, VIT scaled the amount of HP you recovered from both spells and items.

  Toxicity was the reason you couldn’t chain-drink potion after potion. Like Giel did, a dark intrusive thought echoed into his mind. Hal tried to push the thought away, knowing it was true from Elora’s account and knowing he could not do anything about it.

  But the point remained. Toxicity would build up in a person using alchemical concoctions. When that Toxicity reached the level of their maximum HP, there would be nasty side-effects.

  The effects varied based on what alchemical mixtures they used and in what order. If the Toxicity built up so high that it doubled the person’s HP, it would lead to life-threatening ailments.

  It was ironic. You could constantly infuse yourself with [Health Injections], using his own base HP of 525 as a benchmark, he could use 4 [Health Injections] before suffering any ill-effects.

  Toxicity naturally went down like any other toxin in the body. Over the course of a day, most toxins would be gotten rid of and there were certain magicks that could be used to speed the process up.

  Everything alchemical possessed some level of Toxicity. It was simply how things worked. There were certain traits that quickened the recovery rate of Toxicity or increased your threshold that, ironically, came from Alchemy perks.

  It was one of his ulterior motives for taking to Alchemy. By increasing his skill with the Profession, he could use his own concoctions more effectively.

  Normally you wouldn’t be using so many at once that it was ever an issue. If your HP was like Hal’s you wouldn’t immediately reach for a [Health Injection] with its high 120 Toxicity. He would instead use a [Health Potion] with its much lower 50 Toxicity.

  It wasn’t common that he’d lose over half of his HP so rapidly that a [Health Injection] would be the only thing to top him off.

  With a few more hours of the quiet night ahead of him, Hal set up to make a second [Health Injection]. It was a lot of work to create even a single item. At 8 CP/hr it was slow going. But the tradeoff was possessing a lifesaving item when he would need it most.

  Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, he thought to himself. A saying his perpetually disappointed mother used to intone whenever he brought up one of his worries to her.

  He found a measure of strength in repeating those words, not as an empty platitude but as a real method of dealing with the dangerous world around him.

  Planning was something he found himself doing more and more. It would be vital if he ever intended on following through with the promises he already made and those yet unspoken.

  Looking over at the dwarves, watching them clean up after themselves and head to bed as the distant eastern skyline began to lighten, Hal couldn’t help but think of Durvin.

  Unlike the rest of the Bouldergut Clan, Durvin would be awake when Hal was. The surly dwarf always managed to be around when Hal needed him. He couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever be as capable a leader as Durvin Bouldergut.

  He had the love of his people, and his every suggestion carried immense weight. There was a measure of trust and faith in him that Hal found blooming within himself toward the bronze-bearded dwarf.

  Everything he thought he knew about dwarves from back on Earth was only half-true. Sure, they were a little insular but what group wasn’t?

  They didn’t hate magic as all the stories said they did. They were definitely capable of sneaking and being quiet. Most importantly, they were surprisingly open
regarding the koblins and even Vorax.

  The stories Hal grew up on, legends of a certain dark elf roaming the wild world set against him because of his dark-skinned heritage, told him that above all else, dwarves hated goblins. Koblins – even if they didn’t admit it – were at the very least close cousins of goblins.

  And yet, none of the dwarves made the slightest grumble when the three koblins joined the caravan, nor when a few more joined after Rondo was discovered as a stowaway. They even welcomed the diminutive gnome and the spare koblins into their wagons.

  Rondo, ever the sociable one, was more than glad to learn from the dwarves and their craftsmanship.

  Hal only saw him every now and again, the recent inclement weather made the wagons rock and sway like a ship. That didn’t settle well with the older gnome, who spent most of his time in bed or with his head stuck out of an open window.

  One of the nearby wagons opened and out came Noth wearing her recent acquired black scaled mail. Made of tiny V-shaped plates of varying sizes, her armor moved sinuously along her lithe body like a second skin. It was remarkably like her Reaper armor.

  Noth definitely had a type.

  Her dark hair framed those brilliant golden eyes of hers as she froze mid-step, eyes locking with Hal.

  For a moment Hal swore he saw a wave of panic flit across her face. He wouldn’t have been surprised – though surely hurt – if she turned around and went right back into the wagon.

  But Noth was fearless, except perhaps by her recent acquaintance with emotions and bodily functions Reapers apparently lacked. She squared her shoulders and made straight for Hal as if he was her destination all along.

  Like him, she was probably looking for some solitude away from the dull avalanche of snoring dwarves. It was still a few hours before the caravan awoke, and the only people out would be the sentries.

  With a flick of her wrist, Noth sent her waves of raven-black hair back across one shoulder. She steeled her gaze on Hal, who was busy stirring up the last of his [Health Injections]. “We need to talk,” she said with such gravity that Hal nearly stopped stirring and ruined more than an hour’s worth of work.

  Hal lowered his eyes to the cauldron, then back to Noth.

  She seemed to realize what he was doing. Color rose high on her cheeks. “I wasn’t aware-” she began before Hal raised his free hand to stop her.

  “I can’t leave,” Hal said, indicating the mixture with that same hand. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk. What’s on your mind, Noth?”

  19

  Hal waited patiently for Noth to speak, though it was several long minutes before she did anything other than stare at what he was doing. Finally, she said, “I need a purpose.”

  That rocked Hal back on his heels. He disguised his nervous chuckle with a cough. “That’s… that’s a weighty task,” he said. “We’re all looking for a purpose, Noth. Nobody can simply give you one.”

  “As a Reaper, all I did was follow another’s purposeful designs for me,” she countered. “You made me mortal.” Noth motioned disdainfully at her shapely body that her well-fitted armor did little to hide.

  “You did this. So, it is only natural for you to give me purpose, is it not?” She started strong enough, accusatory even, but the more she spoke the softer her voice became until it was almost pleading.

  This wasn’t a simple request for a task or a position within the group, Hal understood. Noth was grappling with something every person does, only she wasn’t born a mortal. She was right, he had made her this way when he saved her life by dipping her into the Manatree’s wellspring.

  He had no way of knowing it would change her so completely but that didn’t matter in the end. Noth was mortal, perhaps even elven. Her ears were slightly longer and more delicate-looking than the typical elf’s.

  For a brief, dizzying second Hal felt like a parent.

  It was a strange and disorienting sensation. He wanted to tell her that while he brought her into this world, he wasn’t able to give her a purpose. And that sounded quite a lot like he was taking on parental responsibility for her. Something he didn’t feel accurately described whatever their relationship was.

  “Noth,” he began but stopped suddenly and decided to switch tack. “What do you enjoy doing?”

  Hal had no idea how to help her but he desperately wanted to. And it came to him then, that he didn’t truly know Noth that well. He knew her as a Reaper but that wasn’t who she was.

  The question pulled Noth up short and her eyes went wide as she considered – perhaps for the first time – what it was she actually did enjoy.

  “I like eating and drinking,” she said quietly. “I like sleeping….”

  Hal shook his head, she was describing things that gave her pleasure but not something she enjoyed doing. How to explain?

  “What gives you enjoyment to do, I mean. Everybody likes eating, drinking, and sleeping. It’s part of what sustains us as mortals so naturally, we like it. But that’s not what I meant. What things do you enjoy doing- what were you coming out here to do?”

  Shifting her weight to her left hip, Noth gave Hal a suspicious look. “What do you mean?”

  He motioned to the wagon she came from. “You clearly came out here to do something, what was it?”

  Noth bit her lip and then started to chew on it. “If you laugh at me, I will hurt you,” she threatened.

  Hal covered his heart with a hand. “I swear I won’t laugh at you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hal realized she might have left the wagon to have some privacy and use the bathroom. Something that with Hal’s juvenile sense of humor, would most certainly make him snicker if not laugh out loud.

  “I like looking at the stars, the ring of light around this world, and its moons. It makes me feel… small and I like that. I am part of something grander than just myself and it makes my indecision easier to bear.” Noth looked up at the sky above.

  Hal found himself following her gaze. He quickly caught himself and focused back on the stirring.

  “It feels good to be part of something larger than yourself,” she continued. “That was all I ever knew as a Reaper. It was all I ever wanted. This… individuality you mortals have is confusing, exciting, and terrifying all at once. I have no directive telling me what to do or how to do it. If I chose to run off into the woods and never return, nothing would prevent me from doing so.”

  “We’d try to stop you,” Hal put in. “Only because we care. If you wanted, instead, to be dropped off at a nearby Sanctuary or Sanctum… that would be a different story. I still think each of us would try to convince you to stay, though.”

  She shook her head back and forth, a banner of black hair swaying in the gentle breeze that began to pick up around them. Dawn was fast approaching. “That’s not what I mean. It is hard to explain. A directive is like… have you tried to hurt yourself?”

  Now it was Hal’s turn to be shocked into silence. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you tried to end your life, with a blade or jumping off a cliff or something?” The way she said it, so casually with an impatient rolling of her wrist told Hal that at least she wasn’t self-harming.

  His worries partially eased, Hal shrugged. “I suppose I’ve thought about it more than once or twice.”

  “No, Hal. I’m asking if you have tried.”

  As much as he wanted to lie, to tell her a comfortable fiction, he found he couldn’t. Not to Noth. “I have.”

  “And clearly you’re here still, so you must have stopped yourself from completing the task,” she reasoned.

  All Hal could do was give Noth a curt nod and push away the dark memories as hard as humanly possible.

  Something in Noth recognized whatever emotion Hal couldn’t get locked down and back into its dark little box. Her features softened with sympathy and understanding.

  No pity, no judgment.

  Noth reached over and placed an ungloved hand on Hal’s bicep. “That deep-seated self-p
reservation streak? That’s what a directive feels like to a Reaper. It is hard to overcome. As a mortal, I feel none of that. Well, almost none. Your directive is to stay alive… that’s it.

  “You have no web of rules and directives dictating your actions and how you should do specific things. When I became soulbound to you, many of my directives were broken. That was not something a Reaper should ever do. And yet, I did them. I could have broken the tether at any time if I so chose. I might have died or some other gruesome end may have awaited me but I chose not to.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” Hal said.

  Noth let go of Hal and wrapped her arms around herself. “You don’t get it. I shouldn’t have been able to do that. It’s like if you were able to kill yourself just because you wanted to. There was no directive. No urge deep in my soul to not do it. And the deeper I went, the more those directives of staying impartial, staying out of mortal affairs, began to drift away.”

  “Noth, what are you saying?”

  When she looked back at Hal, her golden eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I’m saying… I forgive you. Because I realize you didn’t make me mortal. I did. Every decision that countermanded my directives was a step along the path to becoming mortal. You may have saved me and bound me to the physical plane but I was already well on my own way to becoming like all of you.

  “I have hated you deep in my heart ever since I became mortal. At first, I didn’t understand it. I thought it was some foolish mortal emotion but the longer I spent around you, I realized I hated you. I blamed you. In my mind, you did this to me. And I hated you for it.”

  Noth’s words hung in the air between them. It was all Hal could do to keep mechanically stirring in a figure-8 pattern. His voice didn’t work. He wondered why Noth was always apart but he thought it was because she was trying to figure things out.

  Not that she hated him.

  It all made so much more sense now. She was distancing herself from him. Back at the Bouldergut camp, he thought they were getting closer, becoming actual friends.