“It WHAT!” Emil’s shout could’ve taught thunder a thing or two.
Wincing back Ozzy explained what had happened in the dream where he’d met Fauga. Emil listened intently, only interrupting him and scowling when Ozzy mentioned that Fauga had said the blessing came freely.
“Ozzy, my friend, I want you to listen closely to what I’m gonna tell you.’’ Emil leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of Ozzy’s head. “Nothing comes for free, ever. Not food, not shelter, hardly even kindness, and especially not, Literal. Magic. Power!” Emil annunciated each word with a shake of Ozzies head. “Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Ozzy nodded emphatically.
“So when we get to the city remember what I just said. No one is going to give you free food, no one is going to give you a free place to sleep, and no one is going to give you free power. If someone is trying to do anything for you, and they haven’t bled with you, slept with you, or tried to, then they are using you.” Emil said, delivering his words with all the gravity and seriousness of a funeral march.
“I hear you.” Ozzy put his hands up in in surrender.
“Good.” Emil let go of Ozzy’s head. “Now you just need to make sure that when you speak to that god again, that you cut it all off.”
They continued on in silence for a span of time, the swamp passing by in a peaceful procession of green. Emil had just begun to slice off a piece of rat meat to throw into the fuel box when Ozzy finally spoke up.
“Why are the Gods fighting?” He asked.
Emil scoffed. “It’s just what they do, but I’ll give you a little context seeing as you’re new and all. There are three kinds of Gods. The ones that live above, the ones that live below, and the ones that live outside. The gods in the above are always fighting the gods of the below, while the gods of the outside have run ins with just about everyone. This Fauga character sounds like he’s part of the outside. Your rat cores prime concept is either part of the outside or the below but I doubt he’s a member of the above.”
“So they’re both bad cores?” Ozzy asked.
“What? No. They’re just cores, the alignment only matters if you decide on fighting with your god, which you’re not gonna do by the way,” Emil explained.
“What about your cores then?”
“Bulwark, Wortle, and slinger. Bulwark is one of the gods of the above and focused on the defense of the innocent. Wortle is a part of the below and only interested in fighting, eating, and destruction, which is pretty on target for a wortle. Slinger is on the outside and is something of a mercenary god, he’s interested in the perfection of rapid cast combat magics and then using said perfected spells on whatever’s dumb enough to mess with him.” Emil explained.
“But you’ve never interacted with any of those gods?”
“Not a once, and nor has anyone I know, which is a habit I’m planning on sticking with.” Emil said with finality.
Well that was just dandy, Ozzy thought. Not only did he have the attention of a god, but if what Emil said held any semblance of truth then he had been actively recruited into its service against his will. He was gonna have to shove a boot up Fauga’s ass sideways next time he saw him.
***
An hour came and went as they explored the swamp around the wagon, always making sure to stay relatively close in case of emergency. As time dragged on their conversations grew hushed and short, the swamp following in kind as the world around them went silent.
They weren’t alone anymore.
The first clues as to what had joined them in the bayou came in the form of a bloody pile of murk rats. Whatever had attacked the angry rodents hadn’t stopped hacking until most of the pile was little more than ground beef, ground rat, Ozzy corrected himself.
At the top of the pile was a rat head that had been cleanly separated from the rest of its body. Its mouth propped open with a small stick, giving it the impression of snarling on in death.
Whoever had been here had certainly had their fun Ozzy thought, glancing from the severed head to the pile of bloody meat. The pile was oozing enough blood that tiny rivulets had formed, making their way to the water and slowly spreading a bloody haze into the murk around the island.
“Do you think we could loot it?” Ozzy asked, while he was certainly happy to get more loot he was just as interested in disposing of the grizzly pile. A lifetime of hunting and time outdoors had instilled him with certain values when it came to the sanctity of any creature in life or in death, even if they were ravenous beasts. It was clear whoever, or whatever had done this did not partake in his beliefs.
“That screams cultist handiwork, but I don’t see why not. If it hasn’t been looted they’ve probably just left it to rot” Emil shrugged and steered the boat over to the islet, running the dinghy aground on soil that was just as much mud as it was blood pudding.
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Together they parsed out the looting circle in under a minute, and with the rats already piled conveniently together they managed to loot everything in a single go.
There had to be just about as many rats in this pile as there had been in their earlier scuffle, though it was hard to tell with all of the mismatched limbs and chunked body parts. All he had to to go off of was the general size and volume of the pile and he’d never been much for math. It was so gross that even the loot circle gave off a strange red glow as it transmuted the pile of meat. Though the loot pile they received was markedly similar in size to the last one, save for a notable exception. A glowing red shard.
“Guess we’re sowing good karma!” Ozzy said, bending down to scan the pile of loot.
“What?” Emil asked, confusion apparent on his face.
“We took care of the bodies, so we did a favor for the rats, thus the good karma.” He explained.
Emil looked at him like he’d grown wings and taken off. “There’s something off about you.” Emil said, though he jab was halfhearted as he scanned the surrounding swamp space for any monsters and cultists that might pop up. “Just hurry up and scan it, I don’t want to be on this island any longer than I have to, this red mud is creeping me out.”
*BEEP BEEP*
Items identified:
15lbs of Monstrous rat meat
1 murk rat trophy
4 rat tooth shotgun shells
Shard of Ferocity
The screen had been blown up large enough that both of them could view it and Emil stared in stunned surprise at the list.
“Now this is something.” Emil said , crouching to grab the shard. As he raised it glittered and glistened ominously, catching the sparse rays of light filtering through the canopy. Gazing into the shard was like staring into the depths of a red sea, it had an eery infiniteness to it, and the longer you stared into it the darker the colors swirling inside it seemed to become.
Despite his reluctance to even look at the claw shard earlier Emil surprised Ozzy with how engrossed and comfortable he was with the shard. It was like watching an old person watch late night bingo. He didn’t even notice when Ozzy crouched down beside him, staring at the enraptured hunter with raised eyebrows.
“Everything alright down here?”
Emil jerked in surprise, throwing the shard one way as he fell into the mud the other way.
“Guessing that’s a no?” Ozzy asked, extending a hand to help the startled hunter to his feet.
The bastard didn’t take it, glaring at him as he stood and wiped as much of the bloody mud off of his clothes as he could manage. He did a good job of spreading it around and after a few seconds gave up entirely, opting instead to try and wipe the mud off of his hands.
“It surprised me seeing that shard here of all places.” He harrumphed.” It’s a third tier shard, wed’ve been more likely to get a core than this thing.” He picked up the shard again. Rolling it over in his hands, wiping the mud from its surface.
“I’m guessing it’s gives you some crazy abilities and that’s why it’s so rare?” Ozzy asked.
“It’s one of the more common shards formed by Wortles, they’re the bread and butter of wortle core users. I’ve actually already used one, it gave me a battle lust ability.” Emil confessed.
A look of deep concentration crossed Emil’s face as he stared at the shard, visibly aging him. For a moment Ozzy thought he could see the years separating the hunter from the young man who’d been forced into cores all those years ago.
Despite really wanting to understand the thoughts going through Emil’s head Ozzy waited in silence. It wasn’t hard to spot the wound that actively bled whenever he spoke about cores or magic. He knew more than anything else he just needed to sit tight and shut up, maybe then Emil might come to some sort of conclusion and let him in.
“I prayed last night.” Emil started, a note of shame entering his voice.” I sent a request out to any God who’d listen. I asked for help finding something for Norman, I got an answer too. It wasn’t super fancy or anything intense but I felt a twinge of power and I knew that something heard me. Guess I know who it was now.” Emil frowned as he stared at the shard.
“Aren’t you going to have to pay some sort of price for this?” Ozzy asked as the things Emil had explained to him earlier ran through his mind.
“This is it.” Emil gestured down at the shard. “All of the gods push their followers to get stronger, plus we’ll probably just have to fight something big or tough later down the line, that’s how Wram does it.” He shrugged before trudging over to the boat. He sat his shard down on one of the benches and started digging into the sack they were keeping anything of worth in. After a moment of rummaging about he pulled out the claw shard.
“If you say I told you so. If you gloat. If you so much as smirk.” Emil jabbed a lethally serious finger his way. “I’ll shove a bag of rat meat down so far down your throat you’ll have a tail coming out your ass.”
Raising his hands in compliance Ozzy took a single step backwards. “You do you man. I just work here.”
Throwing a final glare Ozzy’s way Emil got down to business.
Taking a deep breath he sat the claw shard down, then swapped it with the ferocity shard, aaand swapped it again before setting them both down in frustration. He glared at the shards with all of the petulance and impatience of a hungry murk rat. Then, throwing all decorum and process to the wind he slapped his hands down on both shards and absorbed them.
Emil sat at the center of a brilliant swirl of red and white. To his left the ferocity shard pulsed a sinister red while the claw shard glowed in a constant white brilliance. The shards gradually growing brighter and brighter until without so much as a flicker their lights winked out of existence and Emil leaned back into the boat and burped.
“I forgot how good that felt.” Emil practically gleamed as he leaned back upright. For a moment it looked like all of the stress and years of struggle had been wiped out of him. Ozzy couldn’t help but imagine him as a teenager brought fresh into magic and the wonder it held, as someone that still held hope for the life that was to come. The illusion was shattered as his eyes sharpened on the water behind Ozzy, and the hunter came back as the swamp behind Ozzy began to roil.
With eyes wide Ozzy watched as a mud crab the size of a gas station rose out of the the mud like a kaiju. This was something that belonged in one of those King Kong movies, or a creepy episode in Dr. Who. It was 100 percent not something he wanted existing in the same swamp as him.
Standing there like a stupid statue Ozzy Gawked. Thankfully, the crab hadn’t clacked its way onto the islet yet. It seemed more than happy to chill in the water and regard the hunters like the horrific omen of death it was, its mandibles and other weird mouth bits clicking and scraping just enough to really sell the terrifying monster bit.
Ozzy swallowed audibly. “We are so boned.”
The crabs hiss sounded like a demonic steam engine, a trait reinforced by the heavy plates and long spike protruding around its shell. Not to mention the bone crunching clack that sounded nearly as loud as a gunshot coming from its massive snapping pincers. Then as it began its ascent onto the islet a long segmented tail rose serpentinely out of the murky red water, terminating its journey to hang poised over the monster.
Of course what could possibly be missing from the giant murder crab, but a giant poison dripping scorpion stinger.
As always if you see any errors or things I can improve on lmk!
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