He’d do this the hard way. Thorn knew the general direction of the fincroc’s core. It was upwards; so he drew a pattern on the ceiling of the stomach and then cut off his Concentrate skill. There was an explosion of gore; a small one, but it still stung his fingers.
He repeated the process. He was quick and sloppy; he didn’t care about precise lines. He looped the quintessence over itself, again and again, carving out chunks of the fincroc one application of Concentrate at a time. Occasionally the beast would roar, and jostle around. The crow would squawk occasionally, then return to its own form of meditation or quintessence gathering, using whatever process beasts used.
Finally realizing the danger, the fincroc began to bunch its stomach muscles and heave, attempting to eject Thorn from its stomach. Thorn wedged himself in, left hand buried deep into its flesh, right hand carving miniature explosions up towards the location of the beast’s core.
Thorn knew he had reached the core when he felt a slick, pitted surface, like a rock, instead of the bloody flesh of the monster.
The core was massive; he could only feel a portion of it, but this single core was as large as his head. Maybe even larger. He’d never even heard of such a large core.
This time, he was careful to angle his explosions away from the core. He layered small patterns, working his way around the outside of the core, cutting it off from the rest of the fincroc, piece by piece.
When a final explosion knocked the core loose, the fincroc let out a bellow of anguished rage. The fincroc’s body was shuddering and shaking, separated from the source of its tremendous power. Thorn could feel its weak tremors vibrating through him, one after the other, until they eventually ceased, and the fincroc was still.
It was dead.
The danger wasn’t over yet, though. He was still stuck inside of the belly of the beast, and he needed to get out.
He went back to the hole through the side of the beast that he had started digging with his knife, and using Concentrate, made the hole both wider and deeper. When he finally punctured the side of the fincroc’s ribs, he gasped at the gust of air and paused just to breathe.
The crow squirmed its way out of the hole. Another few minutes and he was out too, sliding out of the carcass of the dead beast and onto the cold, rocky ground.
The cool stone that he lay on felt like heaven. His skin was smarting from the acidic gastric juices he was still covered in, though he wasn’t burning like before. His skin must have gotten tougher and more durable from the golden pill.
Oddly, he wasn’t feeling any of the effects of glitter-tainted blood either. It was surprising because he had been bathing in the fincroc’s blood, but maybe the lack of symptoms was the side effect of his Meditation sessions, or from the golden quintessence he had absorbed.
Truth be told… he felt amazing. His body felt lighter, stronger and more resilient; his mind was clear and sharp.
More than that, he was alive, and he didn’t expect to be. He luxuriated in that feeling of life, of existence, of winning against all odds. It verged on ecstasy, and the intensity of his emotions brought tears to his eyes. He gave a shout into the darkness, a cry of both rage and relief.
A startled squawk and a mildly reproachful “crrrrk” was the only reply.
He was no longer at the cliffside where he had been swallowed. Wherever he was, it was completely dark, but he could hear the soft inhalations of the crow and the drips of water falling from the ceiling. He was sure they were near a body of water as well, because he could smell it. It was strange, being able to smell water, but that was what his nose told him. Could this be the fincroc’s lair?
He walked over to the water and began to wash himself off. There was a gooey, sticky substance stuck to his skin and clothes that wouldn’t wash off with water; it also smelled particularly foul, even amongst the many other foul smells.
He found handfuls of sand and a few loose rocks by feel, and scrubbed them across his body, getting rid of most of the nastiness. His clothes were a total loss.
After cleaning himself, he began to take further stock of himself and his surroundings.
Thorn felt a rush of gratitude towards his System; without it, he would have been dead. It was alien and uncomfortable, feeling anything other than hate or indifference.
He had more free quints than he had expected; he’d used a lot of quints making those bombs with Concentrate, but he’d absorbed quite a number while inside the belly of the fincroc.
He also shouldn’t forget that his System was ‘offline.’ Thorn assumed that was entirely due to the dead zone, the quintessence void that surrounded them. But it might be why his System was unlocked, why he didn’t have any contracts listed any more. If he could advance his System because it was offline, he didn’t want it to go back online. Maybe ever.
Not being able to execute contracts? No problem, pay in cores or in trade. Not being able to use System comms? Inconvenient, but he could manage. Other people would think it was strange, but he didn’t really care about other people that much. The few friends he had would understand.
Now that he had survived the fincroc, he couldn’t help but imagine a future, a life after the dead zone.
With that issue sorted, one more thing about his status was bugging him.
Thorn flexed his hands. He supposed he felt stronger… but almost twice as strong as before? And five times as strong as before he could level his System? He didn’t feel that way. But physical strength wasn’t the only measure that the Body attribute was intended to capture; it was a one-size-fits-all summary of a host of underlying factors. The body’s resilience to taking damage, its speed in repairing itself, even his muscles’ flexibility and the density of his bones were a factor.
Whatever its effects, the huge jump had been that golden pill, Thorn was certain. If he had only consumed part of it, and poorly at that, considering how much of the golden energy had simply escaped his body… then no wonder the beasts had gone crazy. If they had instinctively understood what it was, in the way that the crow and other beasts seemed to be able to sense quintessence (unlike most other System users), then consuming it was a life-changing opportunity.
His System had warned him when consuming it, however; maybe there was a downside that he was unaware of. If there was, it wasn’t something he was going to worry about right now.
“We need to get that core,” Thorn said. He’d left it inside the beast when digging his way out. The fincroc’s core had been massive. It had to be worth a few hundred thousand quints, at least.
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A little bit of light would help, but he didn’t have a flashlight. Or did he?
A quick application of Concentrate, and a spark shot off his fingers. It wasn’t even close to a flashlight, but it was something. He did it again, getting a few good looks at the space they were in.
The corpse of the fincroc cooled in the center of a small stone shelf about thirty meters wide. Behind him, where he’d scrubbed himself raw, was a pool of calm water. It wrapped around the stone shelf to the far side, where a small stream fed outwards into a small, dark tunnel.
That could be a way out. It wasn’t how the fincroc had gotten in here; it was way too large. It must have swum into the lake, and then resurfaced here, in its hidden lair.
A way out would wait. He walked over to the fincroc, intimidated again by its sheer size. It was about half the size of the turtle-scorpion hybrid, but still about the size of a small dropship. He wasn’t about to crawl back inside to get to the core, so he climbed up the back and attempted to make his best guess on where it would be.
“A little help over here?” Thorn called to the crow. It was still sitting quietly on a corner of the stone shelf, most likely concentrating on absorbing the bits of the golden pill that it had eaten.
He got no answer from the crow, so he prepared to get started. He had no knife, and while he knew where one was inside of the beast’s belly, he decided to do this the messy way. He really did not want to crawl back inside the corpse.
The good news was that he was really getting the hang of using Concentrate to make little explosions. He didn’t even feel the need to redeploy Agent Boom using his Analyze skill to assist him.
By the time he found the core, the corpse of the fincroc was a pulpy mess and he was once again disgustingly filthy. He washed off quickly, then brought the loot over to where the crow was resting.
The core was pitted and fractured, a large crack in the side. Thorn hadn’t thought his explosions would have damaged the core, but its structure was probably weakened from consuming the imperial plums and glitter, just like the other beasts. Thorn slammed it on the ground, breaking off a large chunk. Then again, until he had three pieces. They shone an iridescent green.
Thorn took a chunk and set it next to the crow. He decided to take the largest piece for himself and then wrapped up the last in a piece of fabric he ripped off of his pants (that were now shorts).
Absorbing cores was usually very fast (much faster than Meditate), but it still took some time to absorb this one. Thorn was shocked when he saw how many quints he had.
That was an absurd number of quints. With that amount, he might be able to buy himself a new System.
That had always been the goal, at least when his System was still locked. It was unlocked now, though, and he was leveling it. Things had changed. Did he still want a new System?
His System had been helpful; he was indeed leveling it up and getting stronger. But the Skills weren’t what he had been hoping for. He wanted the things that would protect him: integrated shields, machine tech, flying abilities, and the like. The Skills didn’t need to be rare or exotic, like Gammon’s magnetic controls, but he wanted them to be powerful.
Strong.
Concentrate was useful for making bombs, he supposed, but it had severe limitations. Meditate? Analyze? How was he supposed to defend himself by gathering pocket change in his sleep?
And then there was the whole deal with the cult. He didn’t expect they would like it if they discovered he had found a way around their lockout and was leveling their System outside of their purview. Accepting the contract they had tried to shove down his throat would have unlocked his System for leveling, but it also would have made him the CES’s bitch.
No, long term, assuming he survived long enough for there to be a long term, it was still a much better plan to get an entirely new System.
In the short term, though, why not see what other Skills he might get? His System had suggested there were six foundational skills, and he had enough quints for just a few levels. He’d save the rest for first, getting out of the dead zone, and second, a down payment on his new System.
Thorn settled in, lying flat on his back, and mentally prepared himself.
He’d been greedy, trying for two levels at once.
Thorn clenched his teeth in anticipation of the pain to come, but he needn’t have bothered. He felt an initial warmth, somewhere in his bones, but that fizzled out immediately. A few tingles, a slight headache, and an uncomfortable ache in his shoulderblades were all that he felt.
That was bad.
His Body score hadn’t gone up; it had actually gone down. Thorn vaguely recalled the warnings his System had been flashing at him as he had ingested that golden pill; he hadn’t paid them any heed at the time, but this must be the consequence of that.
Well, he couldn’t do anything about it now. Lief might know more though, so reluctantly, Thorn put off leveling up more for now. If there was a way around this, he didn’t want to waste the quints on a level up that wasn’t getting him everything it should, especially when he might need those quints to buy himself a new System.
He let out a large sigh, but then remembered the reason he’d leveled up in the first place: the new Skill. He’d wanted to see what the new Skill was.
Similarly to the last one, he had a vague sense for what the Skill could do, but it was primarily driven by his System, and not anything he could do himself.
This System was scary, and not necessarily in a good way. He’d never heard of some of these capabilities, and he had no desire to go around installing new Systems into people (possibly against their will). And “infecting” other people? That sounded ridiculous, while at the same time overpowered.
But who knew what these requirements were? A System seed? A Splintered Agent?
See, even his System didn’t know what it was talking about.
At least a few of those functions would be immediately useful though. The interpretation ability was interesting, if Thorn ever decided to travel offworld. The peer-to-peer network was especially interesting; maybe even the System comm node, if he understood it correctly.
Once he reconnected with Lief, he’d be able to set up a direct comm channel without turning his System back “online.” Not having comms had been the biggest downside of remaining offline, and this Skill fixed that issue quite nicely.
Since he wasn’t going to be leveling up again until he talked to Lief, it was time to get out of this hidden lair. There were two potential outs: diving into the pool and swimming out where the fincroc had swum in, or seeing where the small stream led to.
Thorn walked over to the edge of the cavern where the stream entered the low-hanging tunnel. When he got there, a spark from Concentrate showed something whitish and reflective submerged in the water.
It was a piece of fabric with a thick, filmy texture, possibly once part of a habitat suit. Next to it were the shattered remains of a wooden box, similar to the container that held the golden pills. That got Thorn excited, and he began to search in earnest.
He found more scattered trash in the stream. Up against the cavern wall, he found bones, scat, skin, and fur. The fincroc’s former prey.
Thorn thought he saw something further down the low tunnel leading out, so he stepped into the stream and continued forward, hunching over to avoid bumping his head.
A few strides in and he found more of that white fabric caught in the flow between two large rocks. Thorn’s initial guess had been right; it was a habitat suit. Or most of the top half of one.
Thorn flipped it over and stared at the decomposing skull under the clear faceplate. Any features were unrecognizable, washed away by decay and the swift-flowing stream. He had no idea how long it had been down here, but he had an inkling as to who this was.
It was pure speculation, of course, but someone had murdered the other members of this illegal farming operation. It could have been this corpse; it could have been someone else. Whether he was the murderer or he was running from the murderer, this guy had been trying to use this tunnel as a secret exit but had fallen for a certain beast’s ambush and died trying to get away.
That was Thorn’s theory anyways. He dragged the partial corpse back out of the waterway and into the cavern.
It was a bit ghoulish and moderately disgusting, but the water tunnel was very cramped and he wanted to further inspect the corpse. If his theory was correct, then there were only a few motives for what this guy had done, and at the top of that list was the perennial classic human motivator: greed.
He hoped the fincroc hadn’t eaten whatever this guy had tried to steal and run off with. Thorn would strip a single corpse, maybe two, but he wasn’t digging through mountains of beast scat on the off chance something valuable had slipped through its digestive track.
He’d been on the inside of that digestive system; nothing coming out the end of it was going to be pleasant.
No pack, nothing in the pockets or around the neck. No boxes of magical pills. It was annoying to have to pause and flash his fingers, wasting quints to see in the dark, but he didn’t have any other choice. He pulled the gloves off and bingo. He finally found something.
There was a thick, black ring on the thumb. It had the heft and weight of machine tech, and after lighting a few sparks, Thorn could make out the stylized symbol on the inside of the band.
It was a token to a Wayfarers Guild lockbox.
That was a huge find. Or, it could be a huge find. He wouldn’t know until he walked into the branch office and asked to see what was in the box.
With a start, he realized that Lief’s token was possibly in this cavern somewhere. If he’d been wearing it on his left hand, and the fincroc had eaten it, then, logically, it had passed through the digestive track of the fincroc and been deposited against the far wall of the cavern.
And if it was, it was going to stay there. Thorn was done here; he’d absorbed the fincroc’s core; he’d finished looting the corpse, and now he had to make a decision.
“Through the water and back the way we came to find Lief, or do we crawl down this tunnel and see where it goes first?”
The crow continued ignoring him, leaving him to make the decision on his own.