Blood Shaper

Chapter Seventy-three

Kay sighed as he walked past an interesting-looking rock. He thought it was something Murunel would have commented on. He hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss her. Even though he hadn’t been with her every moment of every day, he’d actually made sure that he wasn’t in order to let her have as much of a social life as possible while she was stuck in the ball, he’d still gone out of his way to see her at least for a little bit each day. And now she was gone. He was ecstatic that they’d managed to free her, and he was happy that she was planning on coming back, but while she was gone, he missed her terribly. Which led him to thinking about his other friends that he missed and had led him down a spiral of not having the best morning.

Eleniah and Ahthia had basically kicked him out to go play with his new toy, so his terrible mood didn’t rub off on anyone else. As a leader, he had to keep his good image going after all.

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Orb of Interesting Locales

- A small enchanted glass orb that locates areas of interest for mapping. Small lights will glow around the interior of the sphere, denoting locations of interest, with the very center of the orb being the holder’s position. Brighter lights mean the location is of greater interest than weaker glows.

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It was ironic that the Quest to destroy a magical glass ball had given him another different magical glass ball. The Orb of Interesting Locales was his reward from his Quest to free Murunel. While they’d been walking away from the clearing, a window had popped up in front of him:

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QUEST COMPLETE!

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And then the enchanted ball had appeared in his hand. Since the Quest had described the reward as a “Class related item (Tier three equivalent)” he was assuming it was related to one of the two classes he had for making maps, especially because the item’s description said it led to points of interest for mapping. He’d decided to head for the closest of the small lights in the ball, even if it wasn’t the brightest of them since it wouldn’t take much time to check out. He was just hoping that “points of interest for mapping” might also be interesting or useful in other ways.

He was north of the settlement again, in the forested area he’d trekked around before. The specific portion he was in wasn’t very thick, and he’d had more than enough space to detour around the coupe of deer he’d seen from a distance. He wasn’t feeling in the mood to fight if he didn’t have to, and the settlement didn’t really need the meat.

He pulled out the ball from the spatial bag he’d ended up borrowing from one of the new people that’d come with Cindy’s group and checked his position. He was close, but he was also off to one side farther than he had been. He turned a bit as he walked to get back on track.

A few minutes later, he stopped and looked around. There was a collection of fruit trees in a small grove surrounded by other trees. He reached up and picked one off of a branch. It looked like a yellow-colored orange. Is it a lemon? He spun it around and looked at it in detail, but it just looked like a yellow orange. I wonder what it is? Wait, I can just use Appraisal.

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Sweetpeel Fruit

- A large yellow-skinned citrus fruit with a sweet taste. The peels of the fruit are even sweeter and are used in various candies. Sweetpeel trees are a rare find, as they only propagate through the feces of one particular species of migratory bird. Due to the strange and unpredictable flight patterns of the birds, plus the uncommon sweetness of the fruit, many believe Sweetpeels are a purposeful creation by someone in the unknown past.

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“Huh.” Kay held the fruit up in front of his face and looked it over again. “A sweet citrus fruit with a sweet peel? I’m definitely trying this.” He peeled it open and pulled one of the slices free. It looked like a navel orange with the internal color of a lemon, and he braced himself, mentally expecting a sour taste just from the color. He chewed a little and did a double-take. “It tastes like lemonade!” It was the tiniest bit sour, but only enough to compliment the sweet taste of the rest of the fruit. “Wow!” He gave the peel a dubious look, then popped a piece of it into his mouth. He shook his head incredulously as the taste of orange candy spread through his mouth. “This is so weird! But really cool!” The texture was exactly like a regular orange peel, but the taste was awesome.

He noticed his notifications icon flashing, so he pulled that up while he finished eating the rest of the fruit.

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- Skill: Appraisal has reached level five!

- New Class Available!

- Class: Novice Item Cataloger Available!

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“Okay, so getting Appraisal to level five is why I got more information than usual from the fruit, which is good. But the Class for Appraisal is called ‘Item Cataloger’? That’s kind of lame sounding.” He minimized the window. “I’ll let that one wait until I can ask for help. I’m pretty sure I don’t want it, but what if I should so that it works with something else?” He paused and looked down at his neck, then sighed. He’d almost asked Murunel what she thought, then remembered she wasn’t there.

He grabbed a few more fruits and stuck them in the bag, then took a moment to note the location of the grove on his growing booklet of smaller maps. I really need to hurry up and make that bigger map already, but I keep finding something else to do first. The fruits were apparently rare and also tasted quite good. If they could start tending them or something, they could not only eat them themselves but maybe also use them as a trade good.

Kay finished drawing and writing then pulled out the orb to look for the next location to visit. As he held it close to his eye to look, he noticed that he wasn’t actually on top of the closest location. He was just next to it, which meant these trees weren’t actually the point of interest. He rotated himself in place to get the right direction, then started walking.

Based on the little bit of testing he’d done on the way here, he was petty sure he was a hundred feet or so away. In that direction ahead of him… There was just an open bit of ground with no trees. Maybe it was something that-

The ground in that spot bulged as something slammed into it from below. Kay startled and took a step back as he grabbed his weapon. Is that a door in the ground?

The double doors bulged from the ground again, and this time Kay heard the sound of something slamming on metal and grunts of exertion, and who or whatever was under there pushed the doors completely open. The two metal doors slammed into the ground on either side of the now open hole with loud thuds.

For a moment, nothing happened, then two figures scrambled out of the hole.

“See? Tells you! Tells you this way surface!”

“Shut up! Don’t matter. Here now.”

In front of Kay stood two arguing bipedal rat-men, covered in dirt and dust and wearing what looked like oddly stitched leather armor. They looked like, well, giant rats on two legs with human hands. Rat-like human hands, with pointed claws and joints that were slightly off, that were each gripping what looked like large stalactites that they’d been using as clubs to bust open the door.

Kay took a few steps back, then raised his hand to greet them. They sure as hell look like Skaven, but I can’t let video game prejudices make me do stupid shit. They’re people too, people I don’t know anything about.

Both of the rat-men snapped to look at Kay before he could say anything. Their eyes lit up with glee. “Food!” They both cheered. One of them turned and called down into the hole, “Food here!”

Well, shit.

Kay brought his halberd up as they both charged at him, one scampering forward like a rat, somehow managing to keep hold of their weapon while the other charged on their two feet, holding their stone club up for a downward attack.

It was easy to deal with both of them; it only took one slash across the back of the neck of the scampering enemy that transitioned upward into a stab into the chest of the upright rat-man to kill them both in one fell swoop. He looked up from the bodies as he drew his weapon out of the dead rat-man.

“Food!”

“Food!

“Food here!”

More rat-men were scrambling out of the hole, pulling themselves up with their claws on dirt and the metal doors. They rushed him in singles and groups as more and more started flooding out of the ground.

Kay fought back, easily killing the attackers as they came at him. None of them were very good fighters, and they didn’t do a single thing to support each other as they attacked. The growing numbers looked dangerous, though, and Kay reached out to the blood from the dead to start making larger attacks.

A claw sliced across his arm, drawing a little blood from Kay as he gagged and staggered back. The same horrendous feeling from the dried blood in that underground room filled his senses, but this time so much worse as the blood was fresh. These rat-men were the enemy that he’d feared among the tunnels of the plateau, and something was terrible about their blood. Something disgusting and somehow malevolent.

A few of them tried to dogpile him as he wretched and gagged, but he managed to batter them off of his body as he drew blood from his flask. He pushed outward, making a wave of blood that bowled over the attacking rat people and pushed them away. He took the moment of freedom to cover himself in his blood armor and start up his Blood Boost. Whatever the hell was going on with these things, they needed to die, now.

A slightly larger and differently dressed rat-man crawled out of the pit as Kay prepared to jump back into the fray. He had tattered robes on instead of armor, and in his hand was a large stone staff. He looked around the area and saw Kay. He screeched loudly, interrupting the incessant cries of ‘Food!’ and ‘Food Here!’ from the other rats.

He pointed at Kay with one outstretched, clawed finger. “Not food!”

Alright, what’s going to happen here? Pay it off as a mistake or some-

“Sacrifice!”

Never mind. Fuck.

The rat-man thrust his staff at Kay, and a tendril of sickly glowing green energy lashed out like a whip. Kay managed to dodge the lash, and then the rat-men went back to rushing at him. He killed dozens of them, but dozens more kept coming. Eventually, he didn’t have the space to move or the timing to block it, and the green energy whip wrapped around his arm. With a yank, Kay was dragged towards the larger rat-man, who grabbed him by the other arm.

The creature looked Kay in the face and grinned. “For ?×|??↓au?!”

Kay lost all sense of reality as the horrible noise that came from the rat man’s mouth drove all sense of reason from his brain. It was like something was attacking his thoughts and feelings. After a moment of painful writhing, he managed to throw off the sensation, or attack, or whatever it was.

That was when he realized he was falling down the pit into darkness below the earth.

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