The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

WM [17] A Forest Jaunt

It was about mid day before Bjorn noticed an unusual smell in the air. It smelled like mana but also wrong, he didn’t have the words to describe the feeling other than a wound in the mana of the world. The iron tang of blood soon followed and he could tell they were coming up on something. Bjorn and the rest of them were upwind of whatever was ahead of them so he didn’t sense the creatures until they were practically on top of them. Alfred made them all get down low to the ground as they crept closer.

The forest was dense in this area, but Bjorn got a good look at the monster pack. They were exactly as he had described. Small humanoid creatures, but only humanoid in the sense they had two legs and two arms. They were the size of children, but their anatomy was wrong with too many joints and an extended spine that caused their stomachs to droop down. Five of them crunching on bone and flesh in a horrifyingly violent feeding frenzy on something that could no longer be identified.

Identify

Name: None
Species: Crawling Stalker
Level: 12
Vocation: Hunger hunger hunger hunger hunger

The creatures had a head-like stalk between its shoulders, but instead of a skull with eyes, nose, and ears it only opened into a ring of lamprey teeth. The most disturbing thing about the creatures was the complete silence despite the brutality displayed. Alfred had warned them that the creatures were known as crawling stalkers because they had the unique magic of silence. They were able to make themselves and anything in a short range completely silent. 

Alfred waited back as he pointed to a good position for Bjorn and Tanisha. He wouldn’t be helping unless it was absolutely necessary. Bjorn was able to snake his way to the right spot without issue. His use of his three heads to monitor surroundings, watch his step and navigate made him confident in his skill. The fact that everything was completely quiet also seemed to be a downside to the monsters as well. Bjorn wondered how they hunted and knew where anything around them was.

Ah, right. He said they are ambush hunters and use vibrations to see. That’s why we have to strike from outside of their vibration range.

Bjorn got into position on the opposite side of Tanisha and the feeding frenzy. He felt her signal through the bond; she was ready. Bjorn breathed from his right head, slowly letting Poison Cloud seep into the area without alerting the monsters. 

Poison Cloud
Aether Cost: 5
With your right head, you can mix venom into the air using magic, creating a large area of poisonous gas. This gas will rapidly reduce the health of those inside. Allies within your Poison Cloud are unaffected. Gain control over the spread and density of the Poison Cloud.

The cloud swam with aetheric energy which, despite Bjorn’s effort, immediately caused all of them to turn towards him as they sensed the new source of power. Bjorn flooded the monsters with the toxic gas, seeing as they already knew he was there. He had to carefully watch the five of them as they darted towards him on legs and arms that bent and twisted unnatural ways to get them to him as quickly as possible. 

Another big difference between monsters and animals was the instincts for self preservation. Animals would size up an opponent or disengage if it was a fight they didn’t think they would win. Monsters, at least those at that level, attacked relentlessly no matter what was in front of them or how much damage they endured. It was that lack of hesitation and restless charge that caused new monster hunters a moment of vacillation, a moment they rarely had before they were torn apart.

Bjorn was not one to hesitate even while facing the odd creatures. Instead he knew to follow the plan that Alfred told them. When it came to fighting monsters, it was important not to treat them like fighting animals or even real biological creatures. They were essentially masses of corrupted congealed mana, and the more damage they took, the more aggressive they became.

“They are getting awfully close, Bjorn!” Failsafe yelled in his head.

Bjorn jumped over the maw of the leading monster and sank his claws into the adjacent tree. He snaked his long body around the trunk and climbed as the monsters crashed into one another. The toxin in the air did not seem to have any effect on the monsters as they righted themselves and surrounded the tree. They felt the vibrations Bjorn was making and attacked the tree with sharp claws and teeth. It took only a few strikes for them to realize the vibration was not the tree but something that was climbing it.

The first signs of the toxin working presented itself when one of the monsters vomited before it could start climbing after Bjorn. Bjorn checked, and it was the one with the lowest level. It also seemed to have become more feral, lashing out at everything including its own kind. It was the first to start climbing the tree after Bjorn, and it only seemed to be getting faster.

Bjorn was not worried about the creature, and he had not climbed too high. As soon as it was in range, he swatted it with his tail. If not for the silence in the area, there would have been a cracking sound as his tail struck with the speed of a whip. The monster was nearly torn in half by the thagomizer at the end of his tail which shredded the mass of faux-flesh in a red mist. 

As soon as all of the monsters were on the tree climbing up after him, Tanisha appeared, the glowing tattoos shifting around her body as her teleportation power activated. In her hand was her new weapon, the steel voulge. She swung the polearm at the unprotected and unsuspecting back of one of the crawling stalkers; the weapon easily cut the creature in half. Bjorn hit a second with his tail as Tanisha finished the rest.

“Well, that was easy. You or Tanisha could have handled that alone,” Failsafe said.

“I don’t think this was supposed to be hard,” Bjorn said. “It was supposed to expose us to monsters and let us see how they act and how we can attack them in the most advantageous way. If Alfred didn’t tell us they are bad at climbing, and that severing the spine is the best way to kill them, I would have gone for the neck or that weird neck mouth thing. They also have resistance to poison only the lowest level one was seriously affected.”

“Yeah, and it went berserk. Okay, I see your point. Weird little creatures though. Are you sure you want to hunt these things?”

“It will give us experience and…” Something flashed through his bond, grabbing his attention. “Tanisha?”

Bjorn jumped down from the tree and landed next to Tanisha who was grasping onto the body of one of the monsters. She was opening and closing her jaw as if she was going to bite into the creature, but she was holding herself back. Bjorn could feel something through the bond as if she was being compulsively drawn to devouring the creature.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Alfred said as he grabbed the monster and ripped it out of Tanisha’s hand. “If you’re hungry, corrupted monster meat is a fast track to corrupting your mana core. Actually, you’re some kind of demoness, right? You might be able to eat it. Don’t think it can affect maya or whatever. I’d recommend cooking it first at the very least.”

Tanisha shook her head as if coming out of a daze. “Huh, what? Yeah, okay.”

“Well, I was getting ready to compliment you on a job well done, but now I am concerned. You good? Do you zone out like that all the time?”

Tanisha looked around at the bodies of the monsters, then back up at Alfred. “No, it won't happen again, what's next, do we need to do something with the bodies or?”

“Let's hope it doesn't happen in the middle of a fight. Some monsters can survive being bisected, and if you are going to freeze up like that—Just, while you are on a hunt, it is not over until you get back home. Keep your mind sharp.”

“I got it. It won’t happen again.”

“As for these creatures you cut off the right hand and bring it back to the Jackrabbit camp as proof of subjugations. Different monsters have different values for their materials. These Divine damned creatures are not worth anything and the mana that made them is so weak that the bodies will dissipate back into ambient mana eventually.”

“What about animals eating them or undead or something?”

“Monster’s can’t become undead and animals don’t eat them. Watch your familiar.”

Bjorn was minding his own business standing beside Tanisha, but at the mention of his name, he looked at the monster bodies. They did have a quality about them that was unappetizing. He knew he could eat them, but the mana he could taste in the air from them was disgusting. Something about them seemed off or even dangerous.

Alfred pulled a knife from thin air, which Bjorn assumed came from the man's personal inventory item. He then showed Tanisha the easiest way to cut the hands free. After they successfully harvested everything they needed, they left the bloody mess to dissipate as Alfred instructed. They went over more tactics as they looked for a second group of monsters as the contract was for ten. This time, Bjorn would fight alone so Alfred could see his capabilities first hand.

“Some monsters you can actually eat,” Alfred said. “The crawlers are just trash made from the most corrupted mana. Stronger beasts like the chrysalis, for example, are made from far more stable ambient mana. That mana is even purified in their bodies acting as a power source of sorts. The meat is a delicacy in some places.”

“Don’t they dissipate?” Tanisha asked.

“No, once monsters reach a certain threshold they don’t dissipate. We take those monster parts and use them for all sorts of things. It is strange, but I noticed that wendigo don't utilize monster parts for some reason and burn everything. Absolute insanity. They will utilize magic beast body parts, but not monsters.”

Tanisha was silent after that and they just kept walking for a while.

“Wendigo believe monsters are unnatural and an affront to the Forest Father,” Tanisha said.

“Forest Fa—ah, yes, the Divine that created them. I have heard them say something or another like that. It doesn’t matter though. Most of them will never see a monster since the Kingdom’s mana is so stable. However, for us monster hunters, you are going to w…” Alfred suddenly stopped talking and looked around, then finally pointed up ahead. “There Bjorn you're up.” 

Bjorn continued forward cautiously and could taste the moment the monster's magic started to affect him as all sound cut out. They were nearly perfectly hidden upwind from them again. Bjorn wasted no time in jumping into action. This was going to be his hunt so his heads swiveled around until he identified nine of them and confirmed the number with the scent in the air.

“Look for a suitable tree for me,” Bjorn said in his head as he relinquished control of his right head to Failsafe.

“Got it,” Failsafe said.

Bjorn ran out to get distance from his group. Failsafe used Poison Cloud with the right head which instantly filled the area and alerted all of the crawlers to their location. Bjorn already knew that they could somehow track magical effects to the source from his last encounter and was counting on them coming to him. He jumped onto the tree trunk once Failsafe chose a suitable one and he confirmed all of the monsters were after him. This time when Bjorn jumped he flipped in the air so he would be hanging upside down. His tail wrapped around the trunk so he could hang without his claws. His nails began to sizzle with a white-gold aether and a sickly sweet smell.

Poison Claws
Aether Cost: 2
You can infuse your claws with neurotoxic venom, making even small scratches fatal. Venom has resistance to cleansing effects. Allies are unaffected by your venom.

The monsters were more feral than the other, but no more durable. A few of them started showing symptoms of the poison much faster and unexpectedly started attacking and cannibalizing their own in a desperate bid to gain mana. The few that had the strength to climb were slashed by Bjorn's claws or ripped off of the tree by his powerful jaws.

Bjorn found that the venom from his bites seemed to be the most effective method of afflicting them with the neurotoxin. Those he bit would start rapidly losing bodily control and vomit up whatever they had instead of blood. Bjorn after biting a few of them he knew that whatever was in their veins, while it looked like blood, tasted like concentrated ozone and tingled like static electricity. He did his best not to swallow any of the substance.

His Poison Claws were also effective but slightly less so than the bites. He purposely bit one and flung it from the tree at the same time he slashed another with his claws to see the results. They both died, but the one with just the slash was definitely able to survive longer. The entire engagement only took three minutes before they were all dead. The silence ended and everyone could finally hear again but what they heard in the distance were screams that echoed through the forest. 

“Well that doesn’t sound good,” Alfred said. “Gather the hands quickly.”

“Was that what I think it was?” Tanisha asked.

“Fuck, what is a skinwalker doing out here? We don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be. Hurry up!”

“If there is a skinwalker out here, we should put them out of their misery,” Tanisha said.

Skinwalkers were the lesser wendigo, but they were not natural entities. They were what happened when wendigo lost their mind to their magic when they were near death. Wendigo saw it as a tragic rejection of the will of the Forest Father. It was what happened when someone rejected death, and through that refusal, became an apex predator that all wendigo fear. 

Not all skinwalkers were the same. There are some that are mindless, and there is little difference between them and monsters. Although weaker, even these skinwalkers pose a serious threat. So, when one is found, they are killed as soon as possible because they are at their most vulnerable within a day or two of their transformation when their body is still transitioning.

What everyone fears are the self-realized skinwalkers. They are far more powerful, usually the result of a mage becoming one, worse still they are intelligent. They lose most of their magic and it is replaced with agility, strength, durability far beyond anything a wendigo can match. Worst still is they are cannibal monsters that steal the form and some of the memories of those they cannibalize. They will integrate into a settlement and hunt the citizens from the shadows.

“No, we report it. That wasn’t just one we heard. If there were more of us, yeah, I would say we take it down, but with skinwalkers, we never go with this few people. Priority is safety, that's how you live out here. A skinwalker is strong and fast. We go after it and it kills us and takes our form, what kind of damage could it do? Let's say fight it, but monsters hear the battle or feel our magic or prana. Now we are pinned in a fight with unknown numbers.”

“So what, we run?”

Alfred looked Tanisha in the eyes and somehow showed years of experience watching monster hunters go out and die from recklessness.  He was in his early forties, but for the briefest of moments appeared old and regretful. The next words that came out of his mouth were slow and deliberate.

“Yes, as monster hunters it is important that we know what we are fighting and prepare appropriately. Of course, you can’t prepare for everything, but it is important to know your limits. That's how you make it back alive. We can’t save anyone if we are dead. But if we get back to the Jackrabbits we can get a force together that can put this thing down clean. Consider your test complete, collect the hands and let’s go, quickly.”