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CH 13: Progress
🕑 Added 2024-11-21 17:36:56 +0000 UTC~ Marlene ~
Marlene realized Sara was waving a hand in front of her face.
"Sorry, what?"
The girl gave her a questioning look. "What happened? You just kinda zoned out. I've been waving at you for like, a loooong time."
Marlene set her face into a warm smile. "Nothing to worry about. Just thinking we should change things up a bit, maybe get ourselves stocked with some new supplies from camp." She turned to her husband. "James, could you take Toby and Lowell back to get us some more food and weapons? I don't want to run out. Oh! And bring Sara with you - it'll be tough finding us again if you don't have her to point out the path."
James' eyebrow was cocked, but he controlled it when Sara looked his way. "Right, honey. I think Toby and Lowell can also give us a hand with, ah... transporting the rest of the team home."
Toby's face turned green.
Sara gave Marlene and James an unimpressed look. "I'm not a kid. I've heard my mom talk about death. You don't have to tiptoe around it. Two people got hurt. They died. We have to get them back and give them a proper burial or they're going to start to decay. It's the humane thing to do."
Toby gagged and spun away from the group.
Marlene latched onto the misunderstanding. "You're right Sara, I'm sorry. We need to get them back, or it's going to start creating even more problems for us. I can't stop the hunt or it might cause quest issues. But you would be able to lead the group back to Sanctuary, and you'll be able to find me again after." She turned her head to the side where the final two members of her hunting party stood. "I'll keep Louis and Oscar with me, and we can keep focusing on things here."
Louis nodded at her. Oscar continued scanning the woods in front of them, ignoring the conversation.
Sara fidgeted with her hands and stared at the ground. "You'll tell me, right?" She looked back up at Marlene, her face a hard, stoic mask. She wiped away the tears forming in her eyes like they'd insulted her. "If I'm not here and you find my dad. You'll tell me even if he's gone. I know he might be. Pathfinder knows exactly where you are, and where mom is, and everybody else, but it would only tell me that dad's in the forest. So I know he might be d... I just want to know."
Marlene pulled the girl into a hug before answering. "I know you're strong, Sara. I'll tell you whatever we find out." She put her hands on Sara's shoulders and separated.
"But for right now, I need to talk to James for a minute, and then send you all off to camp."
#
They walked for a minute before James stopped and turned back to her. "So?"
Marlene scanned behind her to double check no one from the group had tagged along. "Problem. We're not the only ones out here."
He coked his head. "Sara's dad? Or something else?"
Marlene sighed. "Not Reid. Sara said on day 1 that he was in the forest. You and I both know there's no way he survives the kind of beasts we've been dealing with. Not for this long. And especially not with the salamanders around here... No, this has to be other people. Skilled."
Marlene opened the notifications back up.
Kill 2 Salamanders (2/2) completed! Bonus xp awarded for high performance. Difficulty automatically increased based on performance.
*New Quest Assigned*
Kill Salamanders level 4 or higher (1/5) (47:38:12)
*WARNING!*
Two-day timer automatically applied to quest. If the quest is not completed within the allotted timeframe, a beacon defense quest will be automatically assigned.
She leveled her gaze back at James. "They killed three salamanders, in quick succession - and their kills counted for our quest. That's how I know. It would be odd if other creatures killing the salamanders counted for our progress - and honestly, I'm not sure what else in this forest can kill one of those things."
James was nodding. "But... you said the quest you had was to take down two salamanders. If you know they killed three, does that mean you selected the next quest already?"
"That's the thing. I got the notification for the 2 kill completion, and it had notes we haven't gotten before about high performance. It said that performance increased the difficulty, then auto-assigned a hunt quest to take down 5 of the salamanders, and they have to be level 4 or higher. James, I watched the counter go from zero to one while I had the thing open."
She looked back in the direction of the group.
"And if we don't complete the quest in two days, there's going to be a salamander attack on Sanctuary. I need you to go back and make sure everyone is ready for it if it happens. I need to figure out who else is out here, and decide whether or not they're going to be a threat to us."
James Nodded. "I'll handle it. The way back should be clear, so we'll make good time. And Oscar will be good for you to have here. But we should swap Lowell and Louis. Lowell's a tough nut, I think he'd be better to have if you need to solve a problem. Louis seems capable, but I don't think he's ready to stab somebody."
"I'm working him up to it. I'd rather you have Lowell with you on the off chance you run into someone on the way back. Toby's useless, so take Lowell to balance him out."
Faint bits of conversation drifted over from the rest of the group as they stared at each other for a long while. James broke first.
"Fine, honeybadger. I'll take Lowell. Just be careful. Whoever's out there, they're probably dangerous, well organized, and intelligent."
--
+ Reid +
Reid finished his third round of retching and flopped down. His glorious pecks rose and fell with short, panted breaths.
He'd forgotten that salamander meat was toxic. Or poisonous? Eh, it didn't matter what the term was. Reid had eaten it, and paid the price. It had cooked up remarkably quickly, and he'd swallowed down multiple mouthfuls before his stomach revolted.
He wiped a bit of spittle off his cheek and spat towards the new corpses. His lovely little grassy clearing was quickly filling up with gore and death. Looking back, the fight with the newcomers had been almost anticlimactic.
The trio of salamanders had appeared together, and seemed to signal each other with odd popping sound like dripping water. They'd charged him in unison, and experienced the glory of Reid's rock collection. A few hours foraging for large rocks had netted him a respectable pile that sat close to the still-burning fires. This clearing was going to be his home until he made as much jerky as he could carry, and he'd adorned it with a sitting rock, sleeping grass, and - because he wanted to be fancy - a rock table. Only the smaller rocks in the pile were for throwing.
His thrown stone had torn the first salamander almost in half. Its spinal cord was severed, so he'd known it was out of the fight for at least a few minutes. He'd pitched the second salamander a perfect fastball that connected with - and obliterated - its head. Then he let the third one get in close to test himself.
It had given Reid some cuts on his arm, but they weren't deep. Satisfied, he'd slammed his fist through the salamander's skull to bring it down.
In the walk over to the final living one - the first he'd wounded - Reid decided he may as well test his new bone strength. There didn't seem to be any more enemies lurking around, and he wanted to know what he could expect if he had to take a bite in an actual fight.
He took the crippled salamander's front legs off and crushed its partially regrown spine, then straddled it. He readied his right fist over the top of its head and - with a bit of hesitation - put his left forearm out in front of the creature's mouth.
It snapped down immediately.
Reid swore as the salamander whipped its head back and forth in a desperate attempt to shred his arm. The teeth had sunk in, but not down to the bone. The thrashing agitated the tooth wounds, but failed to shake Reid like it intended. He kept his arm there, still, and waited for it to bite him four more times before he decided that his theory was proven. His arm could survive the bites.
#
When he was convinced his stomach was settled, Reid opened his status screen to check the changes.
-
Level: 4 -> 5
Exp: 399/400 -> 589/800
Control: 23 -> 28
Power: 11.5 -> 14
Constitution: 5 -> 6
-
His newest round of intense and lingering pain had brought with it a confirmation that massively raised Reid's spirits.
He'd been able to increase his muscle density again, throughout his body, and encountered the same hill and energy barrier as the last time. His Power, when finished, was exactly half of his control. The extra points had already been noticeable when he more easily moved around his rock chair, and really showed themselves when he took down the salamander trio.
If this kept working for him, it meant Reid would be able to gain 2.5 points in power with every level. Not fantastic, but it would at least be enough to keep him relevant in the fights going on around him. He ached at the thought of how far behind everyone else he was going to be when it came to dexterity, perception, and intelligence, though.
It wasn't for a lack of trying. Reid had attempted to make his brain function better. He'd attempted to make his ears more sensitive, and tried to visualize himself as a far more coordinated individual. None of it worked. It felt as though he was missing something fundamental and just out of reach - like forgetting the name of a song that was on the tip of your tongue.
He'd saved attempts at bettering his constitution for last. After the poor showings in his three lowest stats, he was honestly glad he'd done so. Reid could feel a kind of synergy there that aligned between the stat and his calcification skill.
When he was confident he wouldn't be upchucking any more salamander meat, he dove into himself.
He focused on the ideas behind durability and toughness as he probed towards the area where his hardening skill resided. He figured it was the best way to get an idea of what he should be doing. As he neared the skill, Reid realized it had its own sense of shape and form that wasn't static. It was like a ball of gas, with ripples constantly moving over the surface. Reid tried to push his way into the ball, but was rebuffed before he could even touch its edge. The feeling was the same as when Reid would hit the hill when he strengthened himself, and he decided to leave it be for now.
Instead, he tried focusing directly on his skeleton. He realized as he directed his attention on his arm bones that there was unrepaired damage there. Unlike the glaring, painful break the salamander had given him, these were small, and some were only visible when he pushed into the internals of the bone. It reminded him of a TV episode he'd watched on metal frame repair. When the frame was subjected to a high level of force over time, or a short burst of force that was far more than it was intended to withstand, the metal would be stressed, and could develop weak points and fractures.
Reid compared it to what he'd been doing. If his skeleton was his frame, then he'd been absolutely punishing it. Flinging large rocks like baseballs and punching through beast skulls were not something normal bones should've been capable of. He started repairing the damage, and was once again surprised by how quickly the bone seemed to grow compared to his muscles. He fused the fractures throughout his body in under an hour.
Then, he focused on the actual structure of the bone. It wasn't truly solid - not all the way through. Bone marrow filled a hollow center, ringed by compact and condensed intricate structures, interspersed by blood vessels and some other things he couldn’t identify. At each end, there was a space far less condensed with its maze of structures.
He willed new bone to grow inwards, towards the hollow center where his marrow sat. A new matrix of boney plates connected to one another in a simple, repeating pattern as Reid struggled to maintain his concentration. The pain and heat had been there while he repaired things, but forging new growth amplified them both considerably. By the time he'd finished the inner growth on a single bone, the pain was bad enough that Reid had to pause to rest and reduce his headache.
The rest of his skeleton progressed the same way. He grew the simple matrix, pulled back and rested, then went in for another. Sometimes he ate something between rounds, and some times he forged ahead and ignored the hunger.
When he was finished, he laid on his grass bed with a beaming smile as he reviewed his progress.
Constitution: 6 -> 12
Health: 108/120
He hadn't found the limit yet on what he could do with his skeleton, but already felt as solid as a tank. He could test more, experiment with different and more intricate ways to make his bones stronger. He would find the hill, that limit, and he would push all the way to it. For all of his stats.
Reid rolled up into a sitting position and looked at the calcification skill again. He'd managed to use it easily to heal and grow bone - so why not try out everything it could do?
It was time to make a bone weapon.
