The Land: Predators

by Aleron Kong

  Richter selected “Yes” on the quest thread. He and Elora walked back towards the Quickening and she told him everything else that she knew about her lost children. She had never actually encountered any sakeru pixies. They had been scary stories some of the other pixies had told her when she was young, before the plague had killed everyone but her and her mother. None of it was very helpful, but luckily, he had an entire village and an allied army at his disposal. Before they made it back to the silver tree, Futen floated up.

  “How may I serve you, my lord?” the remnant asked in his deadpan voice.

  Richter told him to find the village hunters and have them equip themselves with Soul Trap arrows the next morning. It occurred to him that he should designate a lead hunter so he would be able to communicate with them more effectively; he told Futen to relay that note to Randolphus. He was sure the chamberlain would already know who the best candidate was. Elora said she would fly to find Hisako and relate the story personally. Richter thanked her and asked her to also relate that the sprites could pick up empty soul stones and Soul Trap arrows from the Forge as well. There was no doubt in his mind that the Hearth Mother would take the matter very seriously.

  In the morning, he wanted his hunters, his meidon sprites and as many wood sprites as the Hearth Mother could spare to search for these meidon’sakeru. Futen began to float away and, as an afterthought, Richter told him to tell everyone to be on the lookout for a new pet he could Tame. Ideally, another high-level reptile, seeing as how he had received a substantial bonus when he had made one of them his pet. The remnant asked if there was anything else. If Futen had a superpower, it would be his ability to magically communicate sarcasm and disdain with absolutely no inflection at all. Richter just batted the floating orb away like a volleyball, and the remnant moved off.

  When Elora looked at him now, he could see there was a bit less stress in her face, “It brings great ease to my heart to know that you will try to bring my children back to me, Lord Richter.” The deference and respect in her voice was clear. It was further accentuated by the curtsy she performed while hovering in midair.

  “I will do my best. There is one other reason I have come to see you though. If you and your children will be in combat, I want you to start training.” The pixies’ Battle Form ability greatly improved their chances of survival in a fight, but from what Richter had seen so far, it was an involuntary reflex for the pixie children. He wanted to change that.

  Their other offensive ability, Force Blast, also needed to be developed. Richter had seen how Sapir had fired a blast of Air energy earlier, but the pixie had seemed worn out after that. The second attack had faltered. Richter didn’t know if one shot was all a pixie could manage. That might be the case if the attack was mana-dependent. If Force Blast was more like a muscle though, the more it was used, the stronger it would get. He intended to find out either way. Alma was proof that the size of a creature wasn’t a reflection of its power. His little familiar was a killer through and through.

  He told Elora that he wanted her to take all of her children to the large rock on the east side of the village every day. It stood fifteen feet tall, solitary in the grass. Its location inside of the village walls made it safe for training, and it was also far enough removed from any of the buildings that other villagers shouldn’t be put in danger. The only thing nearby was the spot where the hunters dressed their kills, also distant from the other buildings for obvious olfactory reasons.

  That rock was where Richter did his own skill grinding. He would unleash his offensive spells in quick succession until he was mana-depleted. Then he would run through his sword forms, or fire arrows at target rings he had set up, until his stamina depleted. At that point, the cycle would begin again. The mana headaches were horribly aggravating and vomiting from exhaustion wasn’t fun, but after doing it for weeks he was finding his tolerance for both mana and stamina depletion was improving. Richter intended for the pixies to push themselves in the same way.

  “It will be done, my lord. Before you go, you should know that the Quickening fruit should be ready tomorrow or, if not, the next day.”

  Richter’s eyes widened in interest. “There is no chance of them being ready now, is there?” One of the things he had been waiting for impatiently was for the celestial tree to bear fruit. When it had first grown, a prompt had said that the fruit was one of the things that gave celestials their great powers.

  “Oh no,” Elora replied, almost affronted. Her voice indicated Richter had suggested something thoroughly indecent. “It would not be right to harvest such a wonderful fruit before it was ready. As a pixie, you can believe that I know my own bonded tree.”

  “Yes, well I suppose,” Richter grumbled, a bit disappointed. He was sure she was right though.

  He left her company with a bow. The pixie children had grown a bit bored chasing Alma so she was able to escape with her master. A quick check showed that he still needed more time to finish learning his latest enchantment. Richter thought about what to do, then a smile crossed his face. It was time to visit the skaths.

  CHAPTER 31 – Day 142 – Kuborn 32, 0 AoC

  Richter stopped by the Dragon’s Cauldron on his way to the skath pen. Tabia was hard at work and she wasn’t alone. He was pleased to see that some of the other villagers were helping out. He had let each of the village leaders in crafting, combat and magic assess their fellow villagers and gather whomever would be useful. Krom and Tabia got first dibs as they were both in charge of his Core buildings. Finding more smiths had been easy as many had worked in forges before leaving Law. There had only been one or two, however, who were trained in alchemy. Luckily, Tabia had found a few villagers that possessed enough affinity in Alchemy to start learning the skill. They were apparently given the dirty jobs of harvesting body parts from the beasts and monsters that were downed by the hunters every day. But hey, shit always rolled downhill. It was gravity.

  Some of the lesser alchemists nodded and saluted with their hands to their chests. Tabia was entirely engrossed in an experiment though. Richter had been around when one of those had gone “wrong” so he had no desire to distract her. Explosions were not the worst-case scenario. The stink from one accident had made him immediately start vomiting in disgust, and touching a powder residue had made orange warts appear in a most “unfortunate” location. It was always best to let the village’s Alchemist work uninterrupted.

  The purpose of his visit wasn’t social anyway. He needed to retrieve a powerful ingredient. Searching the many cupboards might have taken a long time, but being master of a Core building had its perks. One of them was that he had a link to the building interface. After accessing it, it was the work of moments to find the item he was looking for.

  You have found:

  Egg Sac of an Assengai Spider Queen

  Durability: 22/27

  Herb Class: Unusual

  Possible Uses: A spider queen can birth any type of assengai spider. As such, the hormones and enzymes in the sac are extremely nourishing. The contents of this sac may be used to create growth potions. It is also highly coveted by other monsters as it will make their own offspring grow stronger. This egg sac can also create strong web traps.

  Weight: 11.2 kg

  The egg sac was a gooey, and quite frankly gross, malleable sphere about the size of a bean bag. Even though it had been sitting in a cupboard for months, the outside was still slightly sticky. He could feel baseball-sized globes inside of it. The white sac was speckled with black dots and smelled faintly of vinegar.

  Richter left the Cauldron and started walking towards the lake. The sun was beaming down but there was also a nice breeze, so it wasn’t unpleasant. It was almost a mile to the lake’s edge so it took him several minutes. Unfortunately, the egg sac attracted a large number of flies and mosquitos. He was soon cursing under his breath because he couldn’t even swat at them with his hands full. Alma, for some reason, was more than amused. He glared up at the dragonling swooping abo
ve his head but she just trilled happily in response. Luckily, something occurred to distract him.

  Congratulations! You have learned the enchantment Life Defense, Level I, Rank I

  Enchantment Size: 3

  Enchantment School: Life

  Effect 1: Life Defense – Each rank gives +1 Defense*

  *+100% vs Death

  Even the stinging insects couldn’t take away his joy over his new enchantment. The +2 vs Death creatures might save the lives of many of his people. It also meant that he didn’t need Alma near him anymore. He sent the dragonling away, telling her to hunt. Specifically, he told her to go drain some creatures. Her killing a few a day would help him pay back his XP deficit that much faster. She was nothing if not a savage hunter, so she didn’t complain. In fact, she shot off into the forest like an arrow. He guessed he wasn’t the only one who liked a little alone time occasionally.

  He started investing his mana into learning the Life Aura enchantment.

  You have started learning the enchantment Life Aura, Level I

  Enchantment Size: Unknown

  Enchantment School: Life

  You are currently at 0/4000 of the mana cost to learn this enchantment.

  Effects: Unknown

  Richter was only a dozen yards from the lake’s edge when he heard a soft singing. Walking closer, he saw what had initially been hidden by the embankment. Deera, one of the twins that looked after the baby skaths, was standing in the river. Both she and her brother were skilled in Animal Husbandry and the subskill, Exotic Beasts. The skaths were thriving under their care. Both of the sexually ambitious twins had… other notable attributes as well. Deera’s were in full view.

  The brunette was standing naked in calf-high water. She was singing about a girl dancing through flowers. Her eyes were closed and her head tilted, as she gently wrung water from her hair. Her pink nipples stood erect on her apple-shaped breasts. She was still wet from the swim she had just finished, and the breeze had raised goosebumps on her wonderfully shaped body. Her skin was flawless and her facial features were so perfectly symmetric that she looked otherworldly. This was no surprise, as both she and her brother had a Charisma of thirty-six.

  Richter was so enthralled by the vision before him that he didn’t see her brother, Derin, until the twin spoke. There was amusement in the man’s voice, “It is quite good to see you again, my lord. And perhaps, it is good for”

  “you to see us, as well,” Deera finished for her brother. The same easy joy was in her voice as her twin’s. The two of them were both born with an ability called Empathic Knowledge. The greater their Charisma the better able they could intuitively understand the wants and needs of others. Because of that, they had both invested heavily in the stat.

  From his own reaction to them, and the reaction he saw in everyone else, Richter definitely saw the advantages that a high Charisma could bring. Deera had revealed to him that taking care with your appearance and making others like you could increase Charisma naturally. All information was valuable, but seeing as how the twins had spent years in “pleasure” houses making people happy in order to gain those bonus points, Richter didn’t see a way to immediately apply the knowledge to his own life.

  No matter how they had gotten the points, there was no denying that both Deera and Derin were insanely attractive. Their Charisma also made them both extremely enjoyable in bed. There was this thing that Deera did with a half-eaten melon… Richter shook his head. He needed to stay on track.

  The point was, their ability increased their understanding of others so much that they could even finish each other’s sentences. He had a feeling they got a perverse pleasure from seeing how it freaked people out. Of course, they could also just be weirdos. Either way, they were hot enough that it didn’t matter.

  Deera had walked towards the water’s edge and extended her hand to Richter. He put the egg sac down and wiped his hands on his pants. Then he took her hand and helped her up the few feet to the embankment he stood on. Whether by accident or design, she fell forward into him. Her body was still a bit wet. That moisture transferred to the thin tunic he was wearing and softened the material. It made it that much easier to feel her bare breasts on his chest.

  She spoke in a breathy voice, “You saved me, my lord!” Her tone might have been damsel-in-distress, but her eyes showed a fierce playfulness. The kind of look that communicated hunger, but also let him know that she was fine eating or being eaten in turn.

  Richter looked down at her and a feral grin came onto his face in spite himself. The egg sac had definitely made a mess of his shirt, and left a bit of a smell, but Deera didn’t seem to mind at all. That, of course, just aroused him even more. He was filthy. She liked it. That made her filthy, and he fucking loved it.

  Derin’s laugh broke the spell, “Now now, sister dear. I don’t think Lord Richter came to play.”

  Deera pouted and looked up at him, but her brother was right. There was work to be done before the feast that night. After though… He shook his head again. Focus man, he thought to himself. Focus! He disengaged her arms that had somehow magically made their way around his neck and stepped back, picking up the egg sac again. She frowned at him for a second and mumbled something about how it wasn’t fair that when she was almost dry he had gone and made her wet again. But then the tantalizing creature just looked down at his bulging breeches and knew that she would be seeing him again that night. With a coy smile and a flick of her hair, she turned and dove back into the lake.

  Richter stared after her for another second, then hopped down into the mud along the lakeside. Only a few feet to his left was the skath pen. The entire thing was made of high steel bars and rose at least five feet off the ground at every point. Half of it extended out into the lake, allowing the skaths to swim. Every part of the fence, land or water, was tall enough that it could be embedded a further five feet into the earth. Richter doubted the enclosure would contain a full grown skath, but it was more than enough for the babies.

  He realized that “baby” wasn’t quite the right term anymore though. It had been almost thirty days since the skath young had hatched. The change was obvious. When first born, the skaths had moved in an awkward waddle, but now they were scampering around quickly. Some were milling around Derin’s legs, who stood in the middle of the enclosure, and others were wrestling or chasing each other. They would have been completely adorable if Richter didn’t know that they would grow into deadly monsters capable of dragging off a large horse.

  The chaos seed had little to fear, however. He had been present at the birth of every one of the fourteen baby skaths. Though his own Animal Husbandry skill was meager, his Dragonkin and Psi bond abilities had allowed the skaths to imprint upon him. That had formed a measurable bond between him and the baby monsters. He could actually feel the life in each of the young reptiles. Apparently, the consequences of the imprinting were far reaching, but one of the effects was that it made it much more likely for the monsters to actually be domesticated.

  Though cute and young as of now, these were still wild, vicious creatures. It was only the imprint and the twins’ high skill levels in Exotic Beasts that kept them from being attacked. That was the reason that Derin and Deera spent hours with the babies every day. According to them, if the skaths could achieve Domesticated status, then they could start being trained to be of service to the village. Others with some skill in Animal Husbandry might even be able to use them for battle like war dogs. The key was to get the pack leader, the bull skath, to be domesticated. Then the rest would follow.

  As Richter got closer to the pen, all the skaths stopped what they were doing and ran up to the fence. They were as excited as ducklings following their mama. A bit of a fucked-up thought, Richter realized, seeing as how he’d personally slaughtered their mama. Then again, he’d eaten their mama too, so in a way, she was still part of him.

  “What is that you have there, my lord?” Derin asked. He looked through the bars of the fence i
n curiosity.

  “This, my good man, is the egg sac of an assengai spider queen,” Richter replied.

  “Truly?” Derin asked excited. “That would greatly accelerate the growth of the skaths!”

  Richter pursed his mouth in surprise, but for only a moment. The days and nights he had spent with the twins had shown him that they were surprisingly well read. They may have been whores while they were in Law, but their high Charisma and ability had earned them a place in one of the best whorehouses in the city. When they weren’t working, reading was allowed and even encouraged. Apparently, wealthy clients often enjoyed intelligent conversation before, after, or even sometimes during the sweatier parts of their liaisons. The twins had educated themselves on many topics, but both had devoured everything they could find regarding animals, beasts and monsters.

  “That’s the idea,” Richter told him. He took out his belt knife and made a small incision in the sac. Then, massaging the outside of the fleshy white bag, he worked one of the lumps out. A new prompt appeared in his vision.

  You have found:

  Stem Cell Egg of an Assengai Spider Queen

  Durability: 2/2

  Herb Class: Unusual.

  Possible Uses: This egg was contained inside of the egg sac of an Assengai Spider Queen. Each egg could create any type of Assengai spider or even more eggs. As the Queen is now dead, specific spiders cannot be grown, but each egg retains much of its undefined power. If fed to other monsters, it may increase their stats. If fed to immature monsters, it will greatly accelerate their growth in addition to increasing their stats. There is a very small chance of the creature evolving to a stronger form. Given proper care, this egg could grow into an assengai spider. The specific spider birthed will be random.