by Arthur Stone
The new calluses on my palms were open and sore. Thankfully, I could heal my own minor wounds and abrasions. My primary tool was my ax, my secondary, my spear. At first, I worked on a pit about five cubic yards in size.
I quickly realized that I had woefully overestimated my capabilities. Even with Beko’s help, doing what I intended to would take at least a week. I wasn’t sure enough in my plan to throw so much time into the pit.
So I cut down my initial size intentions to one-third. Both total area and depth. Thankfully the reddish soil was easy to dig away. The occasional rocks were small and offered no real resistance.
My work was not limited to digging. I also dragged over piles of soil from deep layers of the marsh. When dried, this mass formed a dense crust that was quite resistant to water. That was precisely the property I needed.
Using this mud, I carefully covered the bottom of the pit, and then applied another coat once the first had dried. Then, I used my ari to punch holes in the bottom, throughout the whole pit.
I staggered back to camp.
My work was done, and Beko had been productive, as well.
He had used a knife to whittle twelve of the strongest branches I had retrieved from the river into sharp stakes. Their ends were serrated and deadly. These were harpoons, as thick as a grown man’s arm.
It may have seemed like Beko’s work was much easier than mine, but this wood was strong and very dry, and he only had a knife to work with. The ax was, sadly, too noisy for the circumstances. We did not know how the wisps’ excellent hearing might react to continual chopping sounds. They did not come to the swamp on their own, it seemed—but the description of the rukh indicated he might travel anywhere. Thus we knew they were not bound exclusively to the red dirt.
Tiring of yet another meal of fish, I tested the sharpness of the nearest stake. Beko had done an excellent job. Would it be enough, though, for my plan to work? I had no idea. My plan was a blind one, based on some encyclopedia entry and not any experience whatsoever.
Our preparations, such as they were, were now complete. One final touch remained. In order to achieve it, I had to eat a full meal and get an excellent night’s sleep.
Beko watched as I ate. “So you haven’t changed your mind.”
I shook my head in silence.
The ghoul nodded. “I knew it. You’re always like that. You never change your mind. I’m going with you.”
I shook my head again. “Thank you, Beko. But don’t worry about me. I’ve got everything planned out, and I can do it on my own. I could use some help—but you won’t have to take too much of a risk.”
“I’ll fight alongside you.”
I chuckled. “You won’t have to fight. But you may have to take one sting from a wisp.”
“You call that not fighting?”
“The wisp will not be unable to paralyze you for long.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday I developed my Healing talent a second time. I now have the Antidote branch. So, now I have two Healing talents: Cure Wounds and Antidote. Both are tier 3. Now, I’ll take Antidote to tier 4 and pump that to level 10. At tier 4, I’ll be able to remove paralysis effects applied by opponents with an Enlightenment Degree of 5 or below. The wisps have no Degrees of Enlightenment; they have Power of Chaos. But the numbers work out the same.”
“You pumped a talent to tier 4 in 2 days, just to get a rukh,” Beko murmured thoughtfully. “You really do never change your mind.”
“I haven’t reached tier 4 yet, but I will once we’re done eating.”
“It sounds like I need a good night’s sleep, too,” the ghoul replied as he reclined on the tarp.
I had fudged the numbers a little. I wasn’t able to raise a talent to tier 4 yet. Not without adding one Degree of Enlightenment.
Or, without a workaround.
I had been wrong about my Artificer skill. Ordinary talents required 10 chi to boost tier 1 by a single level. This talent required 100. As I was calculating its development, I had somehow missed the conclusion that future costs would be similarly higher. Ordinary talents took 20 chi per level at tier 2, 30 at tier 3, and so on.
So the Artificer talent took 200 per level at the 2nd tier. The full 10 levels cost 2000. The 3rd tier’s 10 levels would cost 3000. In total, that meant I needed 5000.
It wasn’t a hopelessly large number, but it was a multiple of my original expectation.
Forgive me, kotes.
I have wiped you out with such cruelty that fishing has become much harder here. I imagined that scavengers downriver were praising their fortunes, unaware that I was their benefactor.
But I had saved up enough chi for both Antidote and Artificer. It would cost nearly everything I had, but I would get the latter to a full tier 2 and the former to a full tier 4.
I would activate these now—and then, I would sleep.
Artificer was such a difficult talent that I felt nauseous and lost the ability to move for fifteen minutes after levelling it up. Apparently, there was a good reason it took so much chi—but it was worth it.
As I was lying there, I explored the newly available talent branches. I yearned so badly to acquire several of them right then and there.
But no, I didn’t have the chi.
For now.
At this point, Antidote was my focus.
Leveling it up took very little time. Now, I did not have to be scared of wisp stings.
Or at least not as scared. I didn’t know how fast Antidote worked. What if it took 10 to 15 minutes to take effect? While paralyzed, my arms would be barely able to move. Crawling around with them would not be possible.
I had to hope that Beko was serious. It was nasty of me to manipulate my companion like that, but without his help, I would be truly risking my life.
* * *
Come morning, Beko was shocked by my method of preparing for battle. It seemed he thought that we would pray to a higher power and then die with our souls pure. Instead, our preparation was purely physical.
We dragged the stakes to the pit and stuck them into the holes I had prepared the day before. We then smeared the bases of these stakes with mud, in two coats—the same way I had sealed the pit.
As we waited for the mud to dry, we listened to the buzzing of the wisps. I whispered to Beko that I had marked them from a distance and was now watching their paths, ensuring they were really moving in the expected circles. I also told him about how difficult it was to use my navigation talent and Monster Connoisseur talent in conjunction. That had taken me many tries.
Only once the mud had dried did we begin the trickiest part of the plan. We converted the tarp into a large water carrier hanging from a large branch, filled it with muddy marsh water, and carried it to the pit on our shoulders—much like hunters carried carcasses of large game.
Each trip gave us about ten gallons of water. That was a decent haul for our relatively weak attributes and scrawny bodies.
We made numerous trips, back and forth. I counted our steps on one of the trips: 670 in all, which took about ten minutes. The sun was well past its zenith for the day when I finally decided we were done.
Wiping sweat from my forehead, I gazed into the pit. The murky filling resembled the sad product of diarrhea more than water, and filled the pit less than halfway up. Would that be enough? I certainly didn’t feel like diving into that. The rukh would, I was sure, agree with me on that point, after he experienced it himself.
Perhaps we needed more water.
The coats of swamp mud were working poorly, and the water was slowly seeping into the soil. The sooner we made our move, the better. We could continue carting water until the evening, until we were exhausted.
But we were already weary. Making that weariness worse was not a good option. The most dangerous piece of this whole plan was next. It was time.
“Are you hungry, Beko?”
The ghoul was also considering the pit. “For some reason, no. That’s weird. I’m always
hungry. Why did we make this, Ged?”
“The rukh lives there—” I pointed up—”hiding somewhere in the fog. The wisps are his eyes and ears, directing him to food. They seek food and paralyze it, and then report back to their master. Afterwards, the rukh drops in from above. He falls right onto the point the stinging wisp indicates to him. As the hunters know, you cannot let the wisp who stung you get away alive. Unless you want to deal with its master. The rukh will land right here—” I pointed to the pit—”where the stakes should kill him. If they do not, the water will do the job. To a rukh, water is a deadly poison. It eats away at his flesh. Here, it will die.”
Beko shook his head. “You can’t kill a rukh with dirty water and sharpened sticks. I don’t know who told you all that, but that man was lying.”
“It wasn’t a man. Nor a woman.”
“Who then?” Beko blinked.
“It was Chaos itself.”
“Quit joking like that. You shouldn’t joke about Chaos.”
“What makes you think I’m joking? I’m dead serious. No, Chaos does not communicate with me, but I learn from it.”
“No, that’s not possible.”
“You must know by now that there’s something different about me. Why did I dig this pit? That took a lot of work. I could have done something useful with all that time and effort, right? No. You know that I never do anything for nothing. We’re ready, and we’re going to pull this off, because we’re winners.”
“How are you going to lure the rukh into the pit?”
“Simple. I’ll let one of the wisps sting me.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Not even close. The wisp will rush off to tell the rukh about my location. In the meantime, I will cure myself with my tier 4 talent and leave the area.”
“Have you tested this talent? What if it doesn’t work so well? The healing could take a long time.”
“I thought about that. I could test it, but that would take most of my shadow chi. It would not recover by sundown—we’d have to come back in the morning. The water level will drop significantly during that time. This is a pit, after all—not a barrel. That would lose so much time that I’d rather take my chances.”
“What if this doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll go—or you’ll carry me—to the raft.”
“Why the raft?”
“Because the rukh might chase us. If it does, our only hope is hiding out on the river. He won’t be able to go in the water.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Chaos cannot lie.”
“Then let the wisp sting me, not you.”
I had been planning on this, but I didn’t want it to be my suggestion. “Why you?”
“Because I’ve already been stung once. I know that it’s not as bad as I thought. Plus, you’re stronger than me, and smarter. If something goes wrong, I’d rather have your legs working than mine. And even if I die, that’s not too bad. Without me, you’ll be able to get out of here. Probably. But without you, I’ll have to live here forever. You’re a strange person, Ged. But you’re a good person. You’ve done a lot for me, so let me do this for you.”
“You’ve done a lot for me, too.”
Beko shook his head. “There’s no comparison. Don’t argue with me. Plus, me taking the risk instead of you is good for us both.”
“Even if I can’t get you to the raft in time?”
“You can,” Beko said assertively. “I might not be able to, but I know you will. You always succeed. Yes, you take risks, but they’re the right risks. And here—I want you to see this.”
Beko pulled out a round ceramic item bearing a poorly-made representation of a woman’s head. “See this, Ged?” the ghoul said solemnly.
“What’s that?”
“What do you mean?” Beko jumped back, and just like that, the item was hidden again. “It’s mine. Mine!”
“Ah, so that’s what it is. And here I am, thinking you have a gold brick there. What’s so valuable about it? Why do you hide it?”
“It’s an agate. A carved agate. They would take it away from me, but it’s mine!”
“When we get back to the trading post, we can buy ten agates like that for you. Or twenty, or a hundred. You can learn to count with them.”
“No, we can’t buy an agate like this,” Beko said grimly.
“Why not?”
“Because this agate was my mother’s. There’s not another agate like it in the world.” Beko’s voice trailed off.
I didn’t know what to say. I patted my friend on the shoulder. “Thanks for telling me your secret. I’ve always wanted to hear it, and you’ve trusted me. Let me tell you my secret.”
“I know your secret,” Beko replied calmly.
“What do you mean?”
“When you were sick, delusional, you took something off from around your neck. Something invisible. You’re a zero, Ged. You have no Degrees of Enlightenment. None. Yet somehow you’re alive, and you act like a normal person. That shouldn’t be possible, yet here you are. You hide it somehow. But you cannot hide it from the higher powers. They perceive that you are empty, and as they say, the ORDER abhors a vacuum. So the ORDER gives you lots of valuable things. That’s how you reached a 4th tier talent in just a few days. You’re even willing to spend valuable items on me. You’re like that legendary hero who always has everything he needs. Lots of expensive things. That’s why you’re always so sure of yourself. But don’t you think that will save you here, Ged. This is a rukh, and even excellent hunters cannot kill a rukh. We are not excellent hunters. We are nobodies. You’re a degree zero, and I’m a weak ghoul. Today, we die. But it will be a good death. I’m dying with someone I can trust.”
I shook my head at how perceptive Beko was. But he was wrong about one thing. “Yes, Beko, someone’s going to die today—but not us.”
Chapter 41
Wood and Water
Degrees of Enlightenment: 0 (341/888)
Shadow: 341
Attributes:
Stamina: level 7, 350 points
Strength: level 4, 200 points (+50)
Agility: level 5, 250 points (+26)
Perception: level 3, 150 points
Spirit: level 2, 100 points
Energy:
Warrior Energy: 150 points (+6.48)
Mage Energy: 100 points
ORDER Talents:
Extreme Boatman (tier 3): 10/10
Fishing Connoisseur (tier 3): 10/10
Cure Wounds (tier 3): 10/10
Disperse Poison (tier 4): 10/10
Throwing Knives (tier 3): 10/10
Apprentice Navigator (tier 3): 10/10
Artificer (tier 2): 10/10
Chaos Talents:
Mark Monster (tier 3): 10/10
Free Talents:
Spinning Rod Master (tier 3): 10/10
States:
Equilibrium (15.76): level 15
Enhanced Enlightenment (0.98): level 0
Shadow of Chi (0.84): level 0
Measure of Order (3.49): level 3
I had to lure six wisps to death by knife throw before I judged the outer circle of flyers to be reduced to a safe level for us to move ahead. I had killed many in days prior, but their numbers recovered overnight.
They would be unable to recover today.
My lure flew into the mist, but not far enough. It plinked off a cystos column. I didn’t mind this—it had happened to me before. But Beko’s face was growing gloomier and gloomier. The natives were superstitious. He considered my miss to be a bad omen.
I wasn’t concerned. My hands were twitching a little, but not because of the bad luck on my first toss. It was just psychologically daunting, despite my own confidence, to be attempting something that even the best hunters of the trading post considered impossible.
Pfft. “Hunters.” They were just common laborers, here to make money. Camai could have wiped out all of this fog and every rukh within without breaking a swe
at. Commoners looking for gain were no equals to real warriors.
I could do this. I was no peasant. I was last in the line of an ancient clan. My blood ran bluer than the summer sky, and my essence was ten times more dangerous than Camai’s, at least.
Prepare to die, rukh.
The second toss hit the mark. It took most of my line with it and landed about thirty paces from another wisp taking another lap around the circle. The lure fell with a resounding and alluring clink on the dry soil.
The bug’s buzzing changed tone instantly. It had detected the noise source and quickly obtained energy from its master, allowing it to take flight. This disconnected its “seismic sensors” from the ground.