Wake of the Ravager

***Kurawe Oquv***

The crowd stood there in front of him, spellbound by his oration, their jaws predictably slack. Feed them enough hope and they will forget their misery.

“And that’s why, in the wake of so many tragedies, I, Kurawe Oquv, am bringing the Royal New Years Ball to the people who deserve it most, the good people of Uleis!” Kurawe said, beaming as he spread his arms wide in front of the glass construction.

The arena loomed high over them all, its matte surfaces absorbing the heat of the sun beating down on it, channeling it down into the cool of the earth.

The people standing in front of him craned their necks upward to bear witness to the massive construction.

“For seven days prior to the New Years ball, games and shows will be held in the stadium, and each child who attends will be given a sack with five pounds of rice!”

Eyes widened at that, and whispers began to circulate through the crowd. It was, at its heart, a simple way to ease the transition of several thousand widowed women and orphaned children into their new lives as breadwinners. Not needing to be concerned with food for a few days would give them a chance to reshuffle their lives and find new employment.

The desperation of the poor was good motivation, but too much desperation was a disease that lead to rot. The trick was the balance.

Sure some cunning individuals would try to game the system, but it was by and large, not Kurawe’s problem. All the money of Uleis found its way back to them in the long run, even feeding it to hungry children.

“Waste of money,” Murak muttered under his breath, glancing up at the arena towering over them. “Too many struts. Each of those struts must’ve cost you twenty Stones. The damn place doesn’t need that much support. The contractor was giving you the runaround.”

“I built it myself.” Kurawe said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Huh.” The skeletal moneylender shut up.

“I thought you’d be more concerned with feeding the poor.”

“Why? You’re making them crap at Ghuled’s farm’s aren’t you?”

Kurawe frowned. “No.”

“Well why not? Human shit is valuable fertilizer and in exchange for free food, these simpletons will crap wherever you tell them. Why force Ghuled to pay for his own fertilizer when his profits stimulate ours?”

“Gods, you’re petty. The value here is goodwill and dampening a rise in crime and discontent by giving people food and entertainment.” Kurawe said.

Murak sniffed.

“One of these days, a problem will come along that you won’t be able to solve by having more money than the other guy.”

“I’m still waiting,” Murak said, motioning to himself, looking for all the world like a Terenga Buzzard with no feathers.

Kurawe rolled his eyes and turned back to the crowd, plastering his happy smile back onto his face.

“And, good people, at the end of these seven days, a spectacle unlike any you’ve yet to see! A contest between Legends gathered from around the world! It’s sure to be a show unlike anything you’ve ever seen before! The Royal family will attend, as well as send a representative to compete and showcase the pride of Uleis!”

Kurawe took a deep breath.

“We’re going to have a tournament!”

***Calvin***

+1 stability

Shadowboxing repair 15% complete.

Brrr…what the hell was that? Felt like somebody stepped over my grave.

What does that even mean?

It means my prophetic powers allowed me to see a glimpse of our horrible fate.

“Nah, it’s probably the stalker behind us.” Calvin said, glancing over his shoulder, spotting the creature down the narrow tunnel.

It was black on black, a looming, vaguely humanoid shadowy figure harder to see in the light than the dark.

It’s fine though, since it’s not going to get any closer. It’ll stay at that distance for hours. It’s fine.

Warning, assholes are closer than they appear.

Oh, right.

Calvin’s heart stirring with a bit of anxiety. These were some of the monsters he’d fallen victim to during shadowboxing.

Somehow they convinced Calvin’s mind that they were farther away than they actually were. He still remembered the first time he’d died to one of these, listening to the breathing growing louder and louder, then Crunch! The taste of blood in his mouth.

That had been informative.

But it’s fine. this time will be different. It’ll stay back there. I should focus on finding the Unqua first.

Warning, Assholes are closer than they appear!

Oh, right. Elliot’s my spotter. I needed a spotter for…something. Calvin glanced over his shoulder. It didn’t look like it’d gotten any closer, though, so it was probably fine. The Stalker had just got here. Calvin had time to get some help with it before it became a problem.

Calvin returned his attention to the front, and his plan in general. If he could get Chimera, then he could transpose the magical effect generating organs between his summons to create some truly devastating admixtures. Just imagining a creature that could create the crystal armor of a Lattice at will, or shrink enemies by abusing the Unqua’s ability, Distract them like a lure or make them complacent like a Stalker.

And if he got Survival of the fittest to go with it, he could reslot the cream of the crop from each summon, making their powers even stronger, or altering those powers over time.

That would be hard to deal with, Calvin thought, nodding to himself.

Warning! ASSHOLES are closer than they appear!

Calvin felt some breath on his ear.

Ohshitfuck!

Calvinian Summoning

Heart of the Swarm

Atom Ant

19/20 Bent remaining.

Calvin burst into wasps shortly before something bisected the swarm, cleaving it into two separate masses of wasps.

Why didn’t you warn me!? Calvin thought as he spread out, searching for the creature.

Oh good, it’s backed off. Calvin thought, spotting the looming shadow in the distance. I can go on my way now that it knows it can’t actually hurt me. I can ignore it.

Elliot heaved a sigh.

Warning, he said with more than a touch of sass. Assholes are closer than they appear.

Calvin took stock of the situation. He was a bunch of wasps because something just tried to kill him. The stalker was over there, so – I should just ignore it –

FUCK THAT SHIT!

STING EVERYTHING!

Calvin’s swarm exploded all through the tunnel, settling on every solid surface with his wasp’s vicious stingers, injecting even the stone with deadly venom. Stingers that were twenty times stronger than normal had a fair amount of penetrative power, after all. I’d like to see the walls talk smack now.

There was a guttural huffing behind and somewhat to the left of Calvin as the Stalker began running away.

Too late you fool! Your skin will decorate the assassins of my empire!

Calvin’s wasps grasped onto anything that was moving, and the only thing that was moving was the Stalker.

The swarm followed the wasps latched onto the creature, unable to target it directly, simply using the other wasp’s pheromones as guidance, landing beside them and joining in on the sting-fest.

The Stalker fell to its knees and collapsed, twitching.

Calvin dismissed the spell and landed nest to the stalker, placing a hand on it.

Huh, It kinda looks like a…mantis bigfoot, odd as that sounds.

Consume.

18/20 Bent remaining.

Calvin felt an instant of discomfort as the creature disappeared, a kind of swelling from inside, then the feeling vanished, and a prompt showed up.

Entire creature eaten, would you like to assign it to a slot?

Yes.

Please choose a Skill slot to assign this creature to, or refuse to resume normal biological function. (Warning, three hundred pounds of flesh will cause lethal internal damage.)

I Choose Calvinian Summoning, Calvin thought.

4 Calvinian Summoning slots remaining.

Fever Wasp: Aggressive carnivorous flying insect with highly venomous sting.

Fields industries Micro Construction Bot (Modified): one of the Tech-races formerly enslaved by humans, Knick-Knacks live underground. They are merchantile, peaceful masters of mining and metallurgy.

Fuck’en Stalker, Man. : An ambush predator from beyond the Siphon, the Fuck’en Stalker, Man uses a combination of light-dependant invisibility along with minor illusions and a powerful aura of complacency to secure their prey. Has an animal cunning for hunting.

-Named by the first human to survive an encounter with one, one Loren Hussar.

I think the System messed up the name, a little.

Eh.

Thanks for the assist.

No prob. I like living as much as you do.

One down, one to go.

What?

I still gotta tear one of these guys apart and see what I can get out of them. Could you imagine if I made some kind of complacency gas? I just Consumed this one so I’ve gotta hunt another one.

Please, please just hunt the Unqua as a swarm of wasps. It’s SO MUCH safer!

No can do, Calvin thought, standing up again. They don’t show themselves unless I’m normal.

Ugh, teenagers. Y’all think you’re invincible.

I’m not interested in leaving behind spell components when we leave.

Elliot grunted. I suppose. Just keep in mind you usually die to the second Stalker after you kill one.

Maybe, but I got a secret weapon.

Calvinian Summoning.

Atom Ant

17/20 Bent Remaining.

The Stalker appeared in front of Calvin, emerging from the green smoke in front of him.

Calvin, that might not be a good-

The Stalker disappeared, but it continued radiating anger and hunger through the connection. In the distance, a stalker appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, cool, we got another one already!

You know what? This is fine. Calvin got the impression of someone crossing their arms and leaning back in their seat.

What’s fine?

Calvin got an instant surge of violent urges through the connection between him and the Stalker.

Alright, he’s going after the other one already. we’re gonna get this done quick.

Calvin also felt the violent urge through his skin as something looked at him with intent to harm.

It’s fine, it’s probably the other-Oshitfuck!

Calvin slammed his will through the connection, and the Stalker’s long cutting talon stopped just over Calvin’s shoulder, twitching in place as the huge beast growled menacingly.

…What did we learn?

That complacency Aura is scary effective. Does it scrub my wariness of itself after the fact?

It’d have to, I suppose, or else you would’ve learned your lesson after the first couple times.

...I want it even more.

Elliot sighed as Calvin forced his will through the Stalker, overwhelming it’s animalistic will with his own.

Why is this so much harder? Calvin thought as he brought the creature to heel, fighting the urge to leave well enough alone.

Did you consider that the fever wasp has the intellect of a wasp, and the Knick knacks were literally built to be slaves? Of course this will be the toughest Will you’ve wrestled into submission. Barring Nadia. She’s a special case. A nut case, you might say.

The creature’s mind struggled, slippery and flopping around violently. It felt a bit like wrestling a baby Norlock onto dry land. All squirmy and trying to squirt out of his fingers.

Calvin gripped harder, and mentally socked the thing between the eyes a couple times to get it’s attention. The hulking, furry abomination shuddered in place, claw twitching.

Do not. Hunt. ME.

You know, now that I think about it, these guys would make excellent bodyguards, compared to the wasps. Well, it would be faster to convert them into bodyguards via Survival of the fittest, anyway. They’ve got higher intelligence and a stealth based skill-set.

Concentrating. Calvin thought, ignoring Elliot’s jabbering as he locked eyes with the creature, mentally fixing himself as The Boss. Inviolable.

Finally the creature’s mind went still under his own, relinquishing it’s struggle.

Calvin tentatively let it go, and the Stalker took three steps back and crouched low in submission.

The strength in Calvin’s legs fled, nearly causing him to collapse. Sweet Elani I’m still alive. That thing was twenty times stronger than a normal Stalker! It would have cut me in half easier than an old man passes gas!

Calvin let out a breath. He wasn’t done yet. There was a lot more out there to hunt.

Let’s take this to the next level.

Calvinian Summoning.

Heart of the Swarm.

16/20 Bent remaining

Calvin suddenly filled the tunnels with Stalkers, twenty-five of the large creatures, and he could see through the eyes of each and every one of them.

He selected a single one and focused his attention on it, testing the unfamiliar body out.

The first thing he noticed: they couldn’t see color. Instead they had a strange black and white vision that was starkly contrasted between light and dark, showing them exactly where they would fade from sight and where they wouldn’t.

The next thing Calvin felt was the inflexible face. That’s fine, I’ve had mandibles before.

After that, he tested the scythelike protrusion on his underarm, feeling the oversized muscle that pulled it in with a snip. Probably to hold prey still.

Balance is decent, Calvin thought, lifting himself up and down on the animalistic legs. He wasn’t standing quite as straight as he was used to as a human, but it wasn’t bad. As long as he took a back seat and let the Stalkers drive themselves, it was quite smooth.

Alright, lets go hunt some Unqua.. You know what? Let’s hunt everything!

The assembled Stalkers got on board with that fast, spreading Calvin’s awareness through the tunnels as they loped silently through the pitch black darkness, looking for things to kill.

Now if only we could do something about their mouthbreathing, Calvin thought to himself, forced to listen to it.

In a matter of hours, Calvin hunted down another stalker, refraction spinner, Crystal lattice, finally got an Unqua, and even a lure. They were a lot easier to track down when they weren’t totally aware of his location at all times.

The lures were the hardest to pin down. They looked like exactly what you wanted to find, which would cause you to blunder into them and get tugged into the Warp.

When he was looking for Unqua, he’d find Unqua, then the stalker would be pulled into the Warp and eaten. When he came back with another Stalker, looking for the Lure, of course he didn’t find it, because that’s what he was looking for.

Tricky bastards.

He finally managed to get one when a Lure went after the only solo monster he had: The one who’d tried to kill him. In the space of a breath, the unreasonably strong Stalker had dug it’s talons into the stone beneath it and tugged the Lure out of the warp.

A lure looked something like an upside down piece of seaweed, with a massive bulb at the top, a long, slimy neck that went down into the Warp, and below that, an incredibly long, narrow, wavy body with dozens of mouths it most likely surrounded its prey and ate it while crushing it at the same time.

Gross. Calvin thought as the Stalker put its claw through the creature’s neck, causing it’s goop to spill out. There was a Crunch, and the lure went still.

Now we have to decide which creature we want to have as summons, Calvin thought to himself, musing.

After the stalker, there were only four blank spaces, so each choice to fill a space should be carefully considered –

No! Put that down! Calvin ordered across the bridge as the stalker lifted the limp Lure towards its mandibles, angling to take a bite.

Bad stalker! Bad! Calvin gave the only uncontrolled stalker a mental noogie, making it flinch away from the Lure.

– Carefully considered based on the creatures abilities. The stalker growled at the unseeable force behind its eyes, and Calvin mentally smacked it in the back of the head.

We also have to consider their temperament. Let’s see…refraction spinner is in. it’s unique ability to damage things previously undamageable is useful.

Lures…maybe. I only have one sample though, and I’d like to dissect it for Components before I commit to consuming one.

Stalkers are already taken care of.

Huskers are out. The ability to make animated skin is…meh. I can always just make more summons.

Definitely want the crystal-making ability. Lattices are in.

Unqua… Calvin was much more interested in replicating and harnessing it’s ability to shrink via Abyssal alchemy rather than use them as temporary storage. Even with Chimera, giving his summons the ability to shrink was extraneous.

Calvin could always summon creatures the size he needed them.

The other point toward consuming the Unqua was that one day, he could possibly summon the creature permanently and use it like a storage pocket.

Emphasis on one day.

If I need it, I’ll take one from the village. For now lets cut it down into components.

Mind made up, Calvin’s Stalkers threw their haul over their shoulders and headed back to the village.

Rufe was on watch outside the crack tonight, and his eyes widened when he saw nearly thirty Stalkers appear at the edge of the village, his hand going down to his sling. A moment later, the hunter shrugged and relaxed, going back to carving a bit of scrimshaw.

That complacency aura is nice.

Right, except for how scary it is.

Except for that.

Calvin had his creatures deposit the haul in front of Rufe, then he dismissed them, appearing in a puff of green smoke.

“Agh, what the!?” Rufe whipped out his sword faster than Calvin could quite make out, holding it between them like a protective medallion.

He saw the man’s pulse race as he breathed in and out with harsh huffs. “fucking stalkers, man...” Rufe said, running his callused fingers through his hair.

Rufe held his fingers up.

“You were this close. I almost split you in two. You see one of those things and you realize you’re gonna die, but it’s just like, an afterthought, you know?”

He took a deep breath and huffed it all out at once, his eyes wide.

“Goddamnit, now I’ve got the heeby-jeebies.”

“Hi Rufe.”

“Ooh, a lure. We can make some more wine.” The scraggly hunter perked up at the idea of more booze.

“I’m keeping it for spell components, sorry,” Calvin said, kneeling and using Consume on the spinner and the lattice.

Consume.

16/20 Bent remaining

Consume

15/20 Bent remaining.

Calvin missed what Rufe said while he was assigning the summons to their slots.

“What?” he asked, glancing up.

“I said that’s too bad, we got some new recruits who could use a welcome brew. Well, we still got some left over from last time.”

New people? Calvin thought, perking up. It’s a lucky time to get thrown in an interdimensional hole, I suppose.

The New Years party was only five days away, and Calvin planning on taking everyone out with him before then.

“What are they like?”

“Come see for yourself.” Rufe said, beckoning him to follow.

Calvin used Harvester on the rest of the corpses and loaded up Rufe’s Unqua before they headed back to the village.

Macronomicon