Bodies, bodies, bodies. It isn’t a pleasant job, but someone has to do it.
The commander is the last to go into the small wooden hut. Once he’s in and I’ve checked the property for any stray weapons or body parts, I grab some of the hay stacked at the back of the hut and begin arranging it.
As the sun rises higher into the sky, and as beads of sweat form and trickle down my face, I finish arranging the hay. I pour out what’s left of the alcohol onto the outer corners of the hut and equip my fire-starter kit.
It’s not long before the hay is smoking at the back two corners of the hut. I light the front and whistle for Wolf, who won’t come any closer.
“Smart dog,” I say as I approach him.
The hut is blazing fifteen minutes later, the bodies inside fuel for the fire.
(^_^)
I watch the fire for a good thirty minutes, wishing I could stay longer but also knowing the big plume of black smoke will attract attention. Something about the flames, something about the metaphorical implications of fire and the cathartic cleansing it’s known for fails to reach me.
All I can think about is the moment just before Sam’s death, how if we were in any other position, those arrows might have reached me. Or hell, they would have missed her completely, something I could also live with.
“Goodbye, Sam,” I say to the dancing flames.
Wolf and I set off to the northwest, in the direction of Tin Ingot.
The smell of smoke is heavy in his coat as we travel. I try not to think of the fact that some of that smell is Sam’s avatar, that her body’s burning along with a dozen or so Tags and a handful of bandits. A damned funeral pyre if there ever was one.
Rather than try to navigate the bramble, we move further to the west, towards the scree that fills a large swath of land between the brush and the mountains that make the outer shell of Mohar.
It would be nice to go to Mohar, but the cliffside city is difficult to reach from this side of the continent and the enemies up there rival the fierceness of the enemies in the Eastern and Western Splits.
A breeze picks up from the east, moving down the slopes of the mountains in the distance and putting the smoking hut further and further into my past.
“Sam isn’t going to be happy we burned her,” I tell Wolf, “but she’ll get over it. I never pictured us as immolators, but I also never pictured us neologists, so there’s that.”
Neologists? I shake my head at the word.
Maybe if I put more points in MIND, I’ll be able to understand quantum entanglement and how a Proxima dream world such as Unigaea actually works, or how Copenhagen’s Interpretation is a fundamental principle in comprehending the Orthogonal Matrix Inverse Base, the OMIB, the space that binds all Proxima worlds together yet exists behind the scenes of each world independently.
“What the fuck are you thinking about?” I whisper as Wolf slows, trying to avoid sharp rocks.
Where did I get the concept of the OMIB? Did Sam mention it to me? I want to be snarky and quick-witted, not smart enough that my own genius confuses me!
“Damn you, MIND!” I shout, laughing bitterly. Bitter laughter is the only thing I can muster on a day like today. Wolf takes my statement to mean I want him to travel faster so he speeds up, his tongue flapping out the side of his mouth as he kicks up dust and debris.
“Whoa!” I shout as I hold on for dear life, my legs tightening around his body.
Any false calculation on his part will send me flying over his head and face-planting in a cringeworthy, TwitchTube-Red-video sort of way. A saddle would help, but no one rides wolves with saddles in Unigaea and I don’t want to be the first one to offer the handicap or look like an assclown.
What can I say? Male pride is another word for sheer stupidity, but I am what I eat, which means I should be turning into a pretty big hunk of jerky in the near future.
It’s thoughts like these that remind me why I really, really liked having Sam around. Someone to talk to, someone to joke with, to flirt with, to tease – I don’t think I’ll get the same company from Deathdale, but that remains to be seen.
Maybe she’ll talk this time.
She might not even be there, and I don’t know how long I should wait around in Tin Ingot for Sam. Part of me wants to wait until she comes, even if that wait sees the Red Plague descending upon the bustling seaside town.
That’s called a morose thought, Oric.
“Slow down a second.” I pat Wolf on the side and he skids to a halt. Once I hop off, he finds the nearest rock, lifts his leg, and lets everyone know he’s been there.
I crouch and take a big whiff of the cinnamon flowers, enjoying the fragrance.
The flowers grow in the cracks of rocks and only bloom in the morning. I’m surprised they haven’t closed up. They’re known for their smell, which should be self-explanatory, but they are also good for upset stomachs and probably for something else, but I have no idea what this “something else” may be.
Which is why I need a mentor to teach me the fine arts of herbalism.
I start hacking away at the flowers and once I have a bundle, I add it to my list.
[Cinnamon flower x 3]
“You ready, boy?”
Wolf flips around and snaps his teeth as a rock moves. It’s only after looking at it closely that I see this is no rock at all.
[Stone Man, Level 8]
Native to this region, stone men have a sickness that hardens their outer flesh, turning it to a thick, porous rock layer. They can still move, slowly, and it is said that these men can live for weeks and weeks without eating or drinking. To do so, they sit and wait for something to get close enough to catch, the Venus Fly Traps of fantasy petrology.
I brandish my Splintered Sword just as the stone man comes down with both fists, trying to smash me outright. I parry left and swipe my Splintered Sword against his forearm.
-2 HP!
Only two?
The wound bleeds green as I roll to my feet and pivot around, ready for his next attack. Wolf is on the side of the stone man now, growling and dipping in to snap his teeth at the angry bruiser.
The stone man’s face, crusted with rock, is a permanent visage of fury, his eyebrows arching and his eyes black as he releases a throaty shout.
He throws his fist forward and I quickly dodge. I try to come back up for another swing and while it connects, my attack, again, only takes a handful of HP.
-4 HP!
“Shit … ” I mumble to myself as another stone man appears, this one too at level eight. He charges down a steep incline and just barely manages to keep his footing as he meets us. Rather than attack me, he swings at the other stone man, knocking him out cold.
-221 HP! Critical hit!
What the fuck?
Wolf loops behind me and I grab on. We take off, putting some distance between the two warring stone men as the second one drops on top of the first and brings both fists down onto his chest.
Again and again until he’s dead, the second stone man lays into him with his jagged knuckles.
He stands, his chest moving up and down as he breathes in gulps of air. He lifts one finger, points at me, and points to the northwest.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say as Wolf starts to trot. Once he’s clear of the sharp little rocks, he brings his movement up to a full sprint.
What was that all about? I think as the wind whips through my hair.
The thought is like a brick to the face – The Obelisk intervened. I shake my head, ashamed it took me that long to figure it out.
“Looks like we have a fairy godmother,” I tell Wolf. He grunts, his tongue flapping out the right side of his mouth as he continues along a path cut into the soil.
Why did the NVA Seed of Unigaea feel it was necessary to intervene?
Maybe she knew something you didn’t.
“Clearly,” I tell the voice in my head, fully aware I’m talking to myself. “You keep great company, by the way.�
��
I wait for Wolf to snort, only to realize he’s too busy running to pay any attention to my inner ramblings.
(^_^)
The reason we’ve stuck to this particular path becomes apparent when I see an overturned cart about a quarter of the mile down the way, in a wide valley, the northern side of which is covered in tiny white flowers. Sitting outside the cart on a large rock is a man with his arms crossed over his chest.
It takes just a few minutes to reach the man, and as we approach he brandishes a short sword, his hand trembling as he points it at me. “I don’t want any trouble!” he says in a hickish voice. “Keep on ridin’, Player Killer.”
“Guilty as charged.” Wolf slows and I raise both hands into the air. “What happened here?”
“I’m not afraid to use my sword!” he shouts, his hand tightening on the grip.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead,” I say. “Hell, if I wanted to kill you, I would have stood back there…” – I point over my shoulder – “and I would have sent him to kill you.”
“Fuck you and the dog you rode in on!”
“Relax,” I tell him, annoyed now. “We aren’t going to do anything to you.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he says with his weapon still at the ready. “It ain’t often you see a Player Killer in Stater armor.” The man is an NPC, his head completely shaved aside from a braided rat tail that hangs from a spot behind his ear. He has a single eyebrow and a shiny nose ring, which are at odds with his tattered tunic.
“Not often you see a man with a shaved eyebrow and a nose ring.”
“Not often you see an asshole that looks like a muscular barmaid riding a Tagvornin wolf.”
“Are we going to keep this up?”
“I guess not.” He lowers his weapon fully. “I was robbed, dammit. If you want to know what happened here, that’s what happened.”
“By bandits?”
He snorts. “Bandits? Pfft! If it had been bandits, you would have found a few dead bodies on your ride over here. Ain’t no goddamn bandit gonna get shit off me. Fuck. I eat bandits for breakfast!”
“You’re a cannibal?”
“What? Hell no. Who would eat a person?”
I look to Wolf who, luckily for him, doesn’t have to deal with randoms he encounters in the mountains of Unigaea. I can sense a quest in the making, so I take the bait. “If it wasn’t bandits, what was it?” I ask in a voice that screams, Please, get on with it.
“It was a fucking mountain rhino, that’s what it was. Look at the damn hole he tore in my cart! I was sleeping in there and this big piece of shit comes running up with his horn and drives it into the cart. Damn near killed my sorry ass! Luckily, I sleep on my back and it only tore the canvas. But that ain’t all. He destroyed half my shit and ate all my jerky! All my fucking jerky!”
“You hear that, Wolf?”
Wolf nods.
“Jerky theft is a crime where we’re from.”
“Are you mocking me?”
I shake my head. “Actually, no, we eat a shitton of jerky. If anyone stole our jerky, I’d wring their neck.”
He nods in agreement. “See this tree?” He points up at the tree looming over us, the only tree in the meadow from what I can tell. “I ran my happy little ass up the tree – shit, and believe you me, I’m good at climbing trees.” He puffs his chest out. “I’ve got a certificate from Jay the tree climber saying such. Know the guy?”
“Can’t say the name rings a bell,” I lie, remembering the guy I saw fall from a tree at the Tangka militia camp. I don’t know why this guy keeps coming up in my narrative. Maybe there was a quest I was supposed to take but missed somehow.
“Well that’s where I was, in that there damn tree. And the bastard rhino ripped all my stuff to shreds and ate his weight in jerky. These rhinos up here eat meat, just in case you don’t get out much. By the looks of it, I’d say you never get out, but that’s just me. I’m a good judge of character.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Maybe you were dropped on your head as a baby. If that’s the case, sorry to hear that. Bad parenting is rampant in these parts. It’s a real tragedy. Anyway, the fucking rhino ate all the jerky and thrashed my items. You can follow the trail.”
I see a few discarded items, and one in particular catches my eye. It is a sword, but the hilt is the handle of a gun. It’s been smashed to pieces, but whatever it is, it’s definitely not world appropriate. “So you sell jerky and rare items.”
“You bet your player killing ass I sell jerky and rare items. Fucking good jerky too. Comes from Grope the shed guy.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. Wolf sits, and starts scratching the side of his body with his hind leg. “Grope the shed guy?”
“My brother-in-law. Yeah, Grope makes his jerky in a shed outside Tangka. Heard of the guy?”
I nod my head. “I helped him rebuild his shed a few days back. Someone, um, hacked through the door and stole all his jerky.”
“Ha! Grope’s a charity case now?” He laughs so hard he nearly falls over. “Hate to break it to you, but Grope definitely pulled the wool over your eyes. He has a shed closer to the city for looters that he only fills with his worst shit. His real shit is hidden in the bramble about two miles outside the city limits. You wouldn’t find it, trust me. So you rebuilt a dummy shed.”
“He seemed pretty pissed that someone hacked it to pieces.”
“I’m sure he was. Anyway, fuck, how’d we start talking about jerky for the last five minutes? Here’s the deal, tough guy: I’ll give you a pretty good-sized care package from what I have left if you rid me of that goddamn rhino. Revenge is a dish best served by the end of a big ass sword, if you get my drift. You won’t find this stuff anywhere else in Unigaea, believe you me. But I got dibs on the rhino hide and whatnot, ’cause my wife wanted me to bring something home and a rhino hide is something. So, what do you say, Player Killer? We have a deal here?”
Side quest alert!
You have been asked by a merchant to kill a mountain rhino that destroyed most of his goods.
Risks: Death and/or injury.
Rewards: A package of rare items and EXP.
Do you want to help the merchant?
[Yes or No]
“Want to take on a rhino, boy?” Wolf sits on his haunches and yawns. I place my hand on his head and give his ear a good scratch. “Well?” He makes a whimpering sound, licks his lips, and looks up at me with his big blue-green eyes.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Sure, mister, we’ll do it.”
(^_^)
“There he is, right over there,” the merchant whispers. We are crouched behind a couple of bushes jutting out from a small hillside. The rhino, about the size of an aeros minivan, stands with his ass facing us, a trail of loose items scattered to the right of him.
I don’t know if this little side quest was what the Obelisk had in mind for my future, but I can always run away if the rhino gets too angry.
So there’s that.
“I swear to the gods these rhinos are demon spawns,” growls the merchant. “And there’s so many of them up here. I mean, look at that big fucker!”
The rhino’s ears twitch. It turns its head to the right, revealing its beak-shaped lip and set of two horns, each nearly a foot long. Its little tail flaps and it drops a deuce, peppering its digital shit with a spray of urine akin to a fire hydrant going off.
“It’s really big.”
The merchant snorts. “Staring at its pecker, ain’t ya? Yup, I knew you was a wolf-boy fucker, but hey, whatever floats your boat.”
Wolf-boy fucker?
“I’m going to take his pecker too, once you kill it. Sell that shit to one of the dumbass shamans near the coast. You’d be surprised how much healing juju they can strain out of a flaccid rhino penis. What can I say? What they do ain’t my business as long as they help me grow my business. You get me?”
“I don’t, and I wasn’t referring to its pen
is, and I’m definitely not a wolf-boy fucker, whatever the hell that is. But fine, whatever, if shamans will pay you good lira for a rhino dick, who am I to stop you?”
“I like your thinking.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “But the reward for taking this rhino down better be worth my time. I have real shit to do.”
He shoots me a toothy grin that would be toothier if he had more than six teeth. “Trust me, Player Killer, the merchandise the rhino didn’t get is worth its weight in tits and hand jobs.”
“That’s a unit of measurement?”
He nods. “Where I’m from, yeah.”
“And where are you from?” I drop my hand to my side and touch the top of Wolf’s head. He’s crouched next to me, completely immersed in the hunt.
“Karuna.”
“I need to get back there. It’s peaceful.”
“Not the part I’m from,” he says under his breath. Somehow, this comment makes me think of Chicago. Odd the change in scenery and lifestyle just a few blocks over. I wave the thought away and return to the task at hand. “Stay here.”
“Like I’m stupid enough to go fuck with that rhino. Good luck, Player Killer.”
With that, he sneaks back a bit, just to be sure he has plenty of room to get away if things go sour.
I drop next to Wolf and point my hand at the rhino. “Go around the front; distract him. I’ll come up from the back.”
[Mountain Rhino, Level 10]
Wolf gets the gist when I make a sweeping gesture with my hand.
Keeping low to the ground like a cobra, the Tagvornin beast takes his sweet time going the long way around. If the Rhino stops to snort and look in his general direction, Wolf pauses, his dark fur making him no more than a shadow.
This is the type of stalking that takes time, and it’s a good fifteen minutes before Wolf is on the other side of the rhino, directly in front of him but situated behind a few shrubs.
“Easy boy,” I whisper as he gets into position.
He locks eyes onto me and with a loud bark, he bursts from his hiding spot. The rhino takes a step back, gets his bearings and swings his horns forward.
Wolf skids to a halt just in time and jumps back to miss the horns, barking wildly the entire time.
The Last Warrior of Unigaea Box Set: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure Page 24