Chapter 19
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GorMartsen
Advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic
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Location: Hope, A-class planet, D-zone (green)
Date: April 7 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
Standing nude at the pointed end of the island, with the ice-tipped claw knife in my hand, I marvelled at the lake before me.
With no wind in the afternoon air, it was still as a mirror, reflecting scattered clouds from above.
But now and again, I saw dark shadows moving slowly beneath the surface.
Whether it was water beasts or just some play of light, I didn't know. They didn't leave a ripple on the surface, and that kept me on the edge.
As if I needed any extra reason for that.
With the claw knife cold in my hand, I was already busy suppressing a chill born of fear, created by my own mind.
I remembered the cost I paid for the hex-field. I remembered the pain on the edge of insanity, the hunger that all but turned me into a beast.
The loss of communication with Lola.
Raising my arm, I looked at the ice-tipped claw knife in my hand, and as its tip glinted in the sunlight, I tried to guess the price I would pay this time.
And sure, I could just put it away, never to use again, but that was the path of a coward.
And coward I was not.
But neither was I a stupid one, refusing to learn my own lessons.
With a heavy sigh, I crouched down and scooped up a handful of water from the lake.
As it began slipping through my fingers, running down my left palm, I hurried to splash it on the stone beside me.
For the test.
Bringing the claw knife above the small paddle, I touched the surface with the ice-tip.
It didn't freeze.
Furrowing my brows, I pushed the claw knife down—against the stone—and it sank in with a little resistance. As before.
At least that hadn't changed.
Slashing the stone diagonally, I pulled it up and brought it before my eyes.
The ice-tip was still there, clean as glass, distorting the light. And still ice-cold against my fingertip.
But it didn't freeze the water, nor did it affect the cut in stone.
Whatever I felt… it wasn't real—as if not rooted in the normal senses.
Right.
Closing my eyes, I focused on my inner vision.
The core pulsed, the pathways bloomed with the flow of energy, and the active stars of the inertia constellation shone before me.
And for the first time, I questioned what I saw. I never had the ability to see anything with my imagination. But somehow, I had just accepted it, seeing nothing wrong.
It was just another instance when I saw changes to myself, but they slipped past my mind.
Was it how others saw the ARC interface?
Shaking off the thoughts, I traced along the pathway to my right hand, looking for the claw knife in it.
I felt its weight and a slight cold emanating from within, but no image appeared in my inner vision.
It wasn't there.
Opening my eyes again, I blindly looked before me, biting my lip.
If I were right, the ice-tip was a knot, somehow merged with the claw knife. But it was inert, as if it had not been activated.
And I had one ability that might do just that.
Extending my arm before me, I activated the hex-field, and as it stretched over my body, I felt resistance in the flow at my palm.
Frowning, I pushed a bit more—
Whoosh-Splash
—and the icicle, the size of my finger, shot from the tip of the knife, splashing against the lake's surface.
It swelled for a moment, and the ice floe burst up from the water as large as my cooking pot.
As it began to drift away, swaying side to side, I listened to myself, looking for any changes, searching for anything that might feel wrong.
But I felt fine.
Glancing at the ice claw knife—carefully not pointing it at myself—and noting no changes either, I settled my gaze on the ice floe.
How much energy did it absorb? Two megajoules, maybe more?
Twenty needler shots, standard-issue ammo.
It was a lot. A fucking lot.
Standing up, I walked back to where I had left my needler and the pot of the last batch of lard—my emergency kit if anything went wrong with testing.
Switching hands, I picked up the needler and, turning right, looked at the forestline on the other side.
It was a good fifteen metres away, a baby distance for a shooting range.
Raising the needler, I shot at one of the trees. With a loud, wet crack, it blew off a chunk of the trunk in a spray of splinters, and the tree swayed dangerously.
That was loud.
Switching hands again, I levelled the ice knife at the tree next to the previous one and, feeling the same resistance in my palm, I pushed against it. Then a bit more—
Whoosh
—and as the icicle shot from the claw knife, I collapsed on the ground.
Somewhere in the background, I heard a loud crack as if through cotton in my ears, but it barely mattered to me. I was overwhelmed by the sucking emptiness inside my core, a hundred times stronger than any I felt before.
The coldness gripped my spine, twisting my heart, and with a ragged breath, I once again began to draw on the energy around me, counting seconds to not lose my mind.
Fucking shit.
—
With my teeth chattering, I scooped the lard from the pot with my bare hands and hungrily gulped it down.
A deep growl escaped my throat as I felt an urge to sink my teeth into living flesh. I pushed it down by another gulp.
Fucking shit.
Whatever had happened didn't just draw energy from my core, no. It felt as if it had pulled it out of my body—scraping the bottom—and I began to feel the Anomaly's pressure again, along with a rising fever.
At least this time, I didn't burn my clothes.
Chuckling nervously, I scooped the lard running down my chest and licked my fingers.
And didn't lose my mind to the frenzy of the hunger.
Scraping the last lard from the pot's bottom, I gulped it in one go. It was barely enough to sate me, to get back the missing warmth beneath my skin. I needed more.
Setting the pot aside, I looked back at the spot where I had dropped the ice knife, licking my fingers.
If not for the badger's regeneration, I was sure it would have killed me.
It almost did, shutting down all my anomaly systems and draining any energy from my body that I didn't know I had before.
So one shot, huh?
My gaze drifted to the tree I had targeted with it, and I saw the trunk split all the way up, still covered in frost.
That was one hell of a shot, and perhaps it was worth it. All of it was.
Rising to my feet, I picked up the needler and the pot, and—ignoring the claw knife—went back to the hideout for some lard I had prepared for the road to Outpost.
I wasn't going to touch it before I felt like myself again.
—
Sitting on the stone with my back to the sun, I was lazily chewing on some boar meat.
It tasted plain, with no salt or spices, but each piece gave me back the energy I had lost.
The necklace was back on my neck, somewhat shielding me from the Anomaly fever, and I kept the needler by my side.
Just in case.
But most of my focus was on the crystals before me, carefully sorted by type and held away from the orbs.
Two "river-rocks"—one new from the boar—and the white seed were in the centre of the assembly, as they were the only ones whose effects I knew.
The spiky roots and the icicle discharge.
Carefully picking up the white seed, I felt cold biting at my fingers in the same way the ice-tip on the claw knife did.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the feelings without trying to use my inner vision. I already knew it was no help.
The cold. It had a rhythm in it, one I didn't notice in the ice-tip. It was a slow pulse that expanded the cold outward and then collapsed it back into the seed in my hand.
It was like breathing, and I didn't even notice when I matched mine to it.
And for the second time in my life, I saw something without using my eyes or dreaming.
I saw a wolf. I was the wolf running between the trees on snow-covered ground.
Hunting doe.
I felt a constellation inside me, the rush of energy separating into an icicle, the sucking emptiness left behind.
I jolted awake, eyes wide open, and the white seed fell to the ground from my hand.
The fuck.
The feelings were gone, like a dream. No emptiness in my core, nor the icicle lying anywhere around me.
And only a slowly fading memory of the constellation I never had, with stars I never developed.
Imprint. It was a memory imprint, similar to the one I had from eating the moose.
Just less severe.
Was it why those men were carrying the crystals in pouches on their chests? Was it how locals learned new abilities?
Did I need to hold it against my chest, too?
Carefully pocketing the white seed away to its place, I picked up the "river-rock".
I had another plan for it—an idea born of the disaster in the hideout—but now I was curious.
The "river-rock" felt slightly rough against my skin, almost normal. If I didn't know what I was looking for, I would surely miss it.
It wasn't so prominent as a cold sensation. Just a spiky, sharp tingling in my skin, coming out in waves.
Pressing it to my chest, I closed my eyes and began to breathe in the new rhythm, heavier than the one before.
This time, it took me longer.
But eventually, I had a sharp, vivid vision of the boar eating roots.
And again, I was the boar, crunching into a dark root.
I recognised the memory. I knew what would happen before it did.
It was a moment I killed a boar not so long ago.
I tried to jolt, to get away, but it held me.
I heard something shuffle behind me; I saw the shadow falling from above, and I was the one dying in agonising pain with my neck torn open, lashing out with spiky roots.
As the light of life faded from my eyes, I came to my senses, breathing hard and clutching my pulsing neck, the pain already fading.
For ever-flying fuck.
Shivering, I left the "river-rock" lying on the ground where it had fallen.
Even looking at it made my neck pulse in pain.
Glancing at the other crystals, I shivered again.
No, not again.
Perhaps it was enough testing for the day. I needed a break from all this fuckery. I still needed to—
The danger sense flared, twisting, and without thinking I wrapped myself in the hex-field, raising my right arm over my face.
The sharp pain pierced my wrist, and something pointy froze an inch away before my eyes.
It was a beak—long and narrow like a nail—that had slipped through the hex-field on my arm. The weight of the beast bore down on it, dragging my arm with it.
The tearing of the hex-field energy ripped through my senses, and I lashed out at the aerial beast with thundering lightning—charring it in an instant.
It crumbled into a heap of ash and bones, leaving the beak still lodged in my bleeding wrist.
The fucking day…
—
My new pants weren't the best. Neither were they new.
Held together by the laces, they clung to me like a second skin, tightly wrapping my thighs and shins in thick leather.
I felt uncomfortable wearing them.
Clearly, I had no future in making clothes, but I needed some, and it was the best I could do with what I had on hand.
Picking up the vest, I slipped it on and began fastening the laces at my left side. But no matter how hard I tried, I could still feel trapped air between my skin and the leather.
A feeling I had never known before.
Wrinkling my nose, I tied the last lace and looked at the setting sun, once more considering staying in the hideout for the night.
And once more deciding against it.
This day already felt too long, and I didn't want to see what the night could bring to it.
Drifting downstream felt like a better option.
Hiding Lola's necklace under my jacket-turned-vest, I slung the bag onto my back and tugged on the straps resting on my shoulders.
It wasn't my backpack, but the local version I had lifted from the clearing.
Still, it sat tightly when I secured it with a waist belt.
Good.
Putting the needler in the pocket on the vest and the ice knife into the loop attached to the belt, I activated invisibility.
Ready.
Glancing one last time over my shoulder at the masked hideout entrance, where I had left most of my possessions, I turned away and walked to the water, to my fancy modern boat.
I was leaving a lot of things behind, mostly those that could give me away—like a thermal blanket—or were too heavy to carry—like the axe or the hammer from the clearing.
But I had both polearm heads with me. They didn't take up much space, but they might have good trade value. Or at least I hoped so.
Stopping by the boat, I reached for the map once more and unfolded it before me.
I was here, at the end of the lake. I needed to go southwest by west to reach Outpost Eleven, which was over there.
Looking up from the map, I oriented myself properly, towards the forest before me.
It was that way.
But first, I planned to cut some distance by going downriver.
Looking at the map again, I mentally repeated the landmarks along my first leg before leaving the river and only then hid it in my chest pocket.
It was time.
Date: April 7 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
Standing nude at the pointed end of the island, with the ice-tipped claw knife in my hand, I marvelled at the lake before me.
With no wind in the afternoon air, it was still as a mirror, reflecting scattered clouds from above.
But now and again, I saw dark shadows moving slowly beneath the surface.
Whether it was water beasts or just some play of light, I didn't know. They didn't leave a ripple on the surface, and that kept me on the edge.
As if I needed any extra reason for that.
With the claw knife cold in my hand, I was already busy suppressing a chill born of fear, created by my own mind.
I remembered the cost I paid for the hex-field. I remembered the pain on the edge of insanity, the hunger that all but turned me into a beast.
The loss of communication with Lola.
Raising my arm, I looked at the ice-tipped claw knife in my hand, and as its tip glinted in the sunlight, I tried to guess the price I would pay this time.
And sure, I could just put it away, never to use again, but that was the path of a coward.
And coward I was not.
But neither was I a stupid one, refusing to learn my own lessons.
With a heavy sigh, I crouched down and scooped up a handful of water from the lake.
As it began slipping through my fingers, running down my left palm, I hurried to splash it on the stone beside me.
For the test.
Bringing the claw knife above the small paddle, I touched the surface with the ice-tip.
It didn't freeze.
Furrowing my brows, I pushed the claw knife down—against the stone—and it sank in with a little resistance. As before.
At least that hadn't changed.
Slashing the stone diagonally, I pulled it up and brought it before my eyes.
The ice-tip was still there, clean as glass, distorting the light. And still ice-cold against my fingertip.
But it didn't freeze the water, nor did it affect the cut in stone.
Whatever I felt… it wasn't real—as if not rooted in the normal senses.
Right.
Closing my eyes, I focused on my inner vision.
The core pulsed, the pathways bloomed with the flow of energy, and the active stars of the inertia constellation shone before me.
And for the first time, I questioned what I saw. I never had the ability to see anything with my imagination. But somehow, I had just accepted it, seeing nothing wrong.
It was just another instance when I saw changes to myself, but they slipped past my mind.
Was it how others saw the ARC interface?
Shaking off the thoughts, I traced along the pathway to my right hand, looking for the claw knife in it.
I felt its weight and a slight cold emanating from within, but no image appeared in my inner vision.
It wasn't there.
Opening my eyes again, I blindly looked before me, biting my lip.
If I were right, the ice-tip was a knot, somehow merged with the claw knife. But it was inert, as if it had not been activated.
And I had one ability that might do just that.
Extending my arm before me, I activated the hex-field, and as it stretched over my body, I felt resistance in the flow at my palm.
Frowning, I pushed a bit more—
Whoosh-Splash
—and the icicle, the size of my finger, shot from the tip of the knife, splashing against the lake's surface.
It swelled for a moment, and the ice floe burst up from the water as large as my cooking pot.
As it began to drift away, swaying side to side, I listened to myself, looking for any changes, searching for anything that might feel wrong.
But I felt fine.
Glancing at the ice claw knife—carefully not pointing it at myself—and noting no changes either, I settled my gaze on the ice floe.
How much energy did it absorb? Two megajoules, maybe more?
Twenty needler shots, standard-issue ammo.
It was a lot. A fucking lot.
Standing up, I walked back to where I had left my needler and the pot of the last batch of lard—my emergency kit if anything went wrong with testing.
Switching hands, I picked up the needler and, turning right, looked at the forestline on the other side.
It was a good fifteen metres away, a baby distance for a shooting range.
Raising the needler, I shot at one of the trees. With a loud, wet crack, it blew off a chunk of the trunk in a spray of splinters, and the tree swayed dangerously.
That was loud.
Switching hands again, I levelled the ice knife at the tree next to the previous one and, feeling the same resistance in my palm, I pushed against it. Then a bit more—
Whoosh
—and as the icicle shot from the claw knife, I collapsed on the ground.
Somewhere in the background, I heard a loud crack as if through cotton in my ears, but it barely mattered to me. I was overwhelmed by the sucking emptiness inside my core, a hundred times stronger than any I felt before.
The coldness gripped my spine, twisting my heart, and with a ragged breath, I once again began to draw on the energy around me, counting seconds to not lose my mind.
Fucking shit.
—
With my teeth chattering, I scooped the lard from the pot with my bare hands and hungrily gulped it down.
A deep growl escaped my throat as I felt an urge to sink my teeth into living flesh. I pushed it down by another gulp.
Fucking shit.
Whatever had happened didn't just draw energy from my core, no. It felt as if it had pulled it out of my body—scraping the bottom—and I began to feel the Anomaly's pressure again, along with a rising fever.
At least this time, I didn't burn my clothes.
Chuckling nervously, I scooped the lard running down my chest and licked my fingers.
And didn't lose my mind to the frenzy of the hunger.
Scraping the last lard from the pot's bottom, I gulped it in one go. It was barely enough to sate me, to get back the missing warmth beneath my skin. I needed more.
Setting the pot aside, I looked back at the spot where I had dropped the ice knife, licking my fingers.
If not for the badger's regeneration, I was sure it would have killed me.
It almost did, shutting down all my anomaly systems and draining any energy from my body that I didn't know I had before.
So one shot, huh?
My gaze drifted to the tree I had targeted with it, and I saw the trunk split all the way up, still covered in frost.
That was one hell of a shot, and perhaps it was worth it. All of it was.
Rising to my feet, I picked up the needler and the pot, and—ignoring the claw knife—went back to the hideout for some lard I had prepared for the road to Outpost.
I wasn't going to touch it before I felt like myself again.
—
Sitting on the stone with my back to the sun, I was lazily chewing on some boar meat.
It tasted plain, with no salt or spices, but each piece gave me back the energy I had lost.
The necklace was back on my neck, somewhat shielding me from the Anomaly fever, and I kept the needler by my side.
Just in case.
But most of my focus was on the crystals before me, carefully sorted by type and held away from the orbs.
Two "river-rocks"—one new from the boar—and the white seed were in the centre of the assembly, as they were the only ones whose effects I knew.
The spiky roots and the icicle discharge.
Carefully picking up the white seed, I felt cold biting at my fingers in the same way the ice-tip on the claw knife did.
Closing my eyes, I focused on the feelings without trying to use my inner vision. I already knew it was no help.
The cold. It had a rhythm in it, one I didn't notice in the ice-tip. It was a slow pulse that expanded the cold outward and then collapsed it back into the seed in my hand.
It was like breathing, and I didn't even notice when I matched mine to it.
And for the second time in my life, I saw something without using my eyes or dreaming.
I saw a wolf. I was the wolf running between the trees on snow-covered ground.
Hunting doe.
I felt a constellation inside me, the rush of energy separating into an icicle, the sucking emptiness left behind.
I jolted awake, eyes wide open, and the white seed fell to the ground from my hand.
The fuck.
The feelings were gone, like a dream. No emptiness in my core, nor the icicle lying anywhere around me.
And only a slowly fading memory of the constellation I never had, with stars I never developed.
Imprint. It was a memory imprint, similar to the one I had from eating the moose.
Just less severe.
Was it why those men were carrying the crystals in pouches on their chests? Was it how locals learned new abilities?
Did I need to hold it against my chest, too?
Carefully pocketing the white seed away to its place, I picked up the "river-rock".
I had another plan for it—an idea born of the disaster in the hideout—but now I was curious.
The "river-rock" felt slightly rough against my skin, almost normal. If I didn't know what I was looking for, I would surely miss it.
It wasn't so prominent as a cold sensation. Just a spiky, sharp tingling in my skin, coming out in waves.
Pressing it to my chest, I closed my eyes and began to breathe in the new rhythm, heavier than the one before.
This time, it took me longer.
But eventually, I had a sharp, vivid vision of the boar eating roots.
And again, I was the boar, crunching into a dark root.
I recognised the memory. I knew what would happen before it did.
It was a moment I killed a boar not so long ago.
I tried to jolt, to get away, but it held me.
I heard something shuffle behind me; I saw the shadow falling from above, and I was the one dying in agonising pain with my neck torn open, lashing out with spiky roots.
As the light of life faded from my eyes, I came to my senses, breathing hard and clutching my pulsing neck, the pain already fading.
For ever-flying fuck.
Shivering, I left the "river-rock" lying on the ground where it had fallen.
Even looking at it made my neck pulse in pain.
Glancing at the other crystals, I shivered again.
No, not again.
Perhaps it was enough testing for the day. I needed a break from all this fuckery. I still needed to—
The danger sense flared, twisting, and without thinking I wrapped myself in the hex-field, raising my right arm over my face.
The sharp pain pierced my wrist, and something pointy froze an inch away before my eyes.
It was a beak—long and narrow like a nail—that had slipped through the hex-field on my arm. The weight of the beast bore down on it, dragging my arm with it.
The tearing of the hex-field energy ripped through my senses, and I lashed out at the aerial beast with thundering lightning—charring it in an instant.
It crumbled into a heap of ash and bones, leaving the beak still lodged in my bleeding wrist.
The fucking day…
—
My new pants weren't the best. Neither were they new.
Held together by the laces, they clung to me like a second skin, tightly wrapping my thighs and shins in thick leather.
I felt uncomfortable wearing them.
Clearly, I had no future in making clothes, but I needed some, and it was the best I could do with what I had on hand.
Picking up the vest, I slipped it on and began fastening the laces at my left side. But no matter how hard I tried, I could still feel trapped air between my skin and the leather.
A feeling I had never known before.
Wrinkling my nose, I tied the last lace and looked at the setting sun, once more considering staying in the hideout for the night.
And once more deciding against it.
This day already felt too long, and I didn't want to see what the night could bring to it.
Drifting downstream felt like a better option.
Hiding Lola's necklace under my jacket-turned-vest, I slung the bag onto my back and tugged on the straps resting on my shoulders.
It wasn't my backpack, but the local version I had lifted from the clearing.
Still, it sat tightly when I secured it with a waist belt.
Good.
Putting the needler in the pocket on the vest and the ice knife into the loop attached to the belt, I activated invisibility.
Ready.
Glancing one last time over my shoulder at the masked hideout entrance, where I had left most of my possessions, I turned away and walked to the water, to my fancy modern boat.
I was leaving a lot of things behind, mostly those that could give me away—like a thermal blanket—or were too heavy to carry—like the axe or the hammer from the clearing.
But I had both polearm heads with me. They didn't take up much space, but they might have good trade value. Or at least I hoped so.
Stopping by the boat, I reached for the map once more and unfolded it before me.
I was here, at the end of the lake. I needed to go southwest by west to reach Outpost Eleven, which was over there.
Looking up from the map, I oriented myself properly, towards the forest before me.
It was that way.
But first, I planned to cut some distance by going downriver.
Looking at the map again, I mentally repeated the landmarks along my first leg before leaving the river and only then hid it in my chest pocket.
It was time.