A man walked through a snow laned land, red spear in hand, surrounded by trees on all sides that blocked out the lingering twilight above. The sky had darkened, leaving a purple hue, like than old bruise and stars seemed to rise in the place of the sun.
His feet, covered by purple-blue sneakers picking cautiously through the undergrowth as they grasped from the ground under the snow, laden with crooked roots and stones and hidden sinks just under the crust. Through the canopy, wisps and flakes floated down, landing silently on the ground and melding away into white.
He seemed ill equipped for the environment, at least insofar his gear was concerned.
The cold was biting, indeed, yet the man barely flinched. The chilling winds that blew through the wood, carrying a haunting howl brushed off his clothes and found themselves travelling further to find some other poor soul to torment. Not this soul. A distant howl, a slightest crunch in the branches and the rustling of the leaves accompanied the man.
A haunting melody, turned into a symphony in the ambience of the forest.
It was not too late after that the twilight hours were finally over and black overtook the sky. The stars twinkled above and a half moon began to rise.
In hindsight, travelling at night, especially in such a cold climate was hardly a smart choice. Ethan, of course, understood that quite clearly. His current state of affairs was a result of careful consideration and weighing all the options. He had not eaten dinner when he had been transported; and although he did not quite feel hungry, he knew it would soon turn into a problem. If he waited in place and lit up a fire; something that he would not have much trouble doing considering his recent experimentation with blood sword; he would risk waking up tomorrow and not having enough energy to travel.
In contrast, travelling at night with little idea in which direction he should be heading was plain idiotic. He had failed to see any discernible structures or light sources from all the way up the tree. It was alright to assume that he was far away from civilisation.
Perhaps in the northern parts of Russia or Canada. But considering his past experience, he couldn't even be sure if he was even on the same planet anymore. If he had been dropped into the Fear and Hunger Universe...
Ethan shivered, not by the wind and definitely not by the cold. He stopped his mind from conjuring up different scenarios and trudged through the snow, humming a tune to distract himself from negative thoughts.
His current plan was to find a small animal. He wasn't confident in his ability to cook a fancy meal with minimal ingredients, neither was he confident he could properly prepare the meat to be cooked. But watching hours of Bear Grylls surviving in the wild was a welcome memory at the moment. Animals in the wild could have many diseases and worms in their stomach; so he would need to avoid the digestive organs. In contrast, the heart, liver and leg muscles were fine to eat — or so he had heard.
Now, it was a matter of whether he was able to find anything. Preferably, a deer or a rabbit. But what were the chances such animals were roaming around at night when the predators reign?
Suffice to say, even Ethan did not like his chances.
There was always the chance to meet a predator or even a pack. Wolves were not uncommon in snowy and forest areas. Neither were various species of the Felidae family.
His eyes travelled to the spear at his hand. As he walked, the butt of the spear impacted the ground, melting a small amount of snow around it's hilt. He did not feel any heat from the spear. It was cold.
Momentarily, he remembered the sorry state the tree had been left in. A deep gash, running lengthwise along it's strong trunk, little charred at the edges. A spear was not supposed to cut. It was not made for the motion of slashing. Even if the point was broad like a glaive, as long as it had a sufficienty long length, it was always preferable to use it for stabbing.
But of course, that was his inner weapon nerd speaking. There was no reason for a weapon that contains the traces of an old god to follow through with conventional methods.
It was what gave him his confidence. Of course, there was always the chance he could meet an ambush predator. Snowy areas bred animals who could camouflage. White rabbits, brightly coloured wolves, even snow leopards.
But in the end, he could only steel himself and go forward.
As the night lengthened and the moon travelled overhead, Ethan continued on his journey. He had not paid attention to how much distance he had covered, for there was another pleasant discovery.
His eyes scanned the surroundings foliage. They made out every little detail in the dead of the night. His eyes, unsurprisingly at this point, had also underwent a change.
He could see the in dark!
Perhaps it was because the sulfur pits were also very dark, yet blazing in a never ending inferno all the same. His eyes may have adapted to the paradoxical environment. Be that as it may, it was far from perfect. The shadows were darker, the colours more pronounced and objects seemed to meld into one another. It was leagues better than not having it.
Just then, he noticed something. A sound. Not the howling wind or the rustling leaves, but something moving.
His eyes sharpened and jaw tightened. He felt his muscles stand taut, observing the direction the noise came from. Slowly, he moved. The undergowth seemed to muffle his footsteps and he stopped at the base of a sentinel. The spear at his hand gave him a phantom relief and as his hands tightened around the handle, he peered over the trunk.
There, standing amid the snow was a stag. Its antlers jutted out laterally from it's head, tall and majestic and winding like a river spreading its tributaries. The fur was a deep colour of brown, mixed in with shades of black and curiously, white. It's eyes were blank and it moved cautiously through the wood. Ethan felt his eyes light up as he saw the stag.
His knuckles tightened around the spear, so hard that it would have hurt. He switched his breathing patterns, no longer breathing deeply, but switching to short shallow breaths. The forest seemed to go silent at the moment. The distant owl, the crawling insects, the frozen crackling of an icy stream flowing somewhere along the distance; it all stilled.
Ethan felt his breath hitch in his throat as the stag drew closer. He was not confident in his tracking abilities. If the stag were to survive the encounter and run away, he would not be able to catch up. He had, but one chance.
His heart felt like it would pound out of his chest. His knuckles whitened from the strength of his grip.
If I miss, the stag might even injure me. I need something to distract it. His eyes scanned the ground for a rock. Leaning down, careful not to make a sound, he picked one up and peered again over the edge. The stag drew closer, standing at a mere 10 meter gap. Not enough. He thought. Closer. A phantom memory jogged up his muscles; itching to throw the spear right at the stag.
He felt that he could easily hit the creature from this distance, yet his rational side told him not to take any chances.
He whipped his hand back and clenched the stone tightly. His eyes scanned the leaves and branches overhead. If he made too much noise, the stag would be alarmed. If he made too little, it could easily be mistaken for the trees. He exhaled, and threw the rock.
It travelled in a beautiful arc; and by a stroke of luck, hit only a single branch before it impacted the trunk of the tree right behind the stag.
The stag whipped his head back, scanning the surroundings, and not a split second later, it bolted! It's form was nimble and quick, it's powerful legs carrying it in large strides, enough that it passed the senitnel just after two!
And that was the chance...
Spurt!
His spear stabbed the stag right in the torso as it passed, running through it in a vertical manner to stop the stag from getting split in half. Blood spurted from the wound, as did the entrails that could escape from the cut. A painful wail, and Ethan was swept off his feet from the momentum of the stag.
"Damn!" He reflexively cursed, his body getting flung forward as the stag slumped down some distance away. The spear has left it's body, and blood red as fire flowed into the snow like a river, dyeing it crimson. Ethan looked at the spear. "Holy shit." He said.
Time seemed to resume and relief washed over him. He approached the stag, noticing at it's eyes still held light and the chest heaved lightly up and down. A flicker of guilt sprouted in his heart. He felt bad at not ending the deer in a single strike. The body had been impaled, 2/3rds of the way from the head, from one side to the other and severed the spine to come out from the top. It's organs poured out of it's body as the neck twitched by instinct, still somehow trying to crawl away. The gory scenery was... strangely not as revolting as he had thought it would be.
Closing his eyes, he offered a small prayer to the stag who had given it's life for his own. "Rest now. I thank you for your death, for it will allow me to live another day." With that, Ethan pointed the spear at it's head, and speared it through. Longinus pierced the skull effortlessly.
As he saw the life end before his eyes, a strange emotion overtook his eyes. He had never taken a life before. Well... insects were not to be counted. In front of something as large as himself and one that breathed and ate and ran as did he... it was a large change.
He sighed, deciding better than to lose himself in his thoughts in the middle of the wood. Leaning down, he grabbed the spear and desummoned it. The heat surged through his arm and back into his body and then, his hands grabbed the antlers.
I should drag this to that stream I hear. I will need water anyway. I'll camp there for the night.
He steeled himself for a difficult experience in dragging the carcass over to the source of the sound, yet, it proved to be surprisingly easy. How to say... it felt like lifting a set of 10kg dumbbells in the gym. Of course, he knew that the stag weighed much more than that,.
I've underestimated my own strength yet again... I've been getting more and more surprises today.
...
It was not a long time from the stream; a measly 400 or so meters. But of course, that was only considering Ethan himself. When dragging a large carcass with him? It took about an hour to reach the stream. Walking forward, he came across a ridge. The branches of the trees were especially low here, the gap between them shrinking and pressing towards him. It had been a struggle to get the stag over it. It was hardly a matter of weight, more so the size. The surroundings trees seemed particularly malicious, as if they had suddenly grown brains of their own and permitted him not to venture further - they grabbed at both the carcass and his own body.
Ethan silently thanked sulfur that he did not actually need to carry his spear alongside all this. Lord knows how annoying that would have been.
As he hauled the carcass over the ridge, he saw what he was looking for. Restled in the bosom of the forest was an icy stream, holding fragments of thin ice, breaking and cracking as the water washed over them, roughly 10 meters in width and extending into the forest in both directions. The woods pressed close with high reaching ironwoods and oaks on either side, leaving little space for maneuverability. Right beside the stream was relief from the trees, a slight flatlands, about 5 meters across on either side of the bank.
Smiling at finding the stream, Ethan walked down the ridge and began to set up camp. He kept the carcass on an elevated mound of dirt, it's wounded back dangling down the mound to drain the last bit of blood that was left - if there was any left over after the long journey of dragging it along the ground. He did not understand much of the reason behind it all, but he was fairly certain not draining the blood could cause some issues with the meat.
After that, he resummoned the spears and began cutting some of the branches from the trees.
It was some time after, about 10 minutes later he assumed, that he had enough to cook the meat and keep him sufficiently warm for two hours or more. The ground and the wood were both wet and cold. The snow did not make it easy to make a fire.
Luckily for him, his spear seemed to have some potent drying abilities. Clearing up the ground and removing the humidity and frozen sap from the surface of the wood wasn't too big a problem. After all the preparations had been made, he took off his sneakers and stepped into the stream. The cold water swept over his feet, making him feel a shiver up his spine.
He gathered some large stones and stepped out as quickly as he had stepped in. He did not bother to put on his shoes for now, and made a small circle with the stones. Then, separating the leaves and the wood, he placed them neatly in formation and covered the entire thing with a tuft of leaves. Now, was the moment of truth.
He pricked his finger on the tip of Longinus. A small drop of blood welled up on his finger. "Blood Sword." He softly called out. He felt his entire body boil, as if it were on fire. His heart beat harder, as if it were going to pound right out of his chest; his ears turned red as did his face. The cold escaped from his breath, the snow around his feet melting into water and his body began to steam.
And then, the drop of blood flew.
The heat receded from his body, and the drop of blood expanded. A screeching sound, akin to clashing metal rang in the air; a crimson line traced itself in the air before him, right above his hand- and then it flattened out.
A sword, carved in the most crimson metal, emblazoned with brownish runes and a guard made in the shape of a cross graced his hand. The hilt was cold metal with a prickly sensation and the spell of blood waffed off it in waves. It was a meter in length and then some, the edge of it's blade sharp and cruel, thin enough to seem fragile yet sharp enough to cut through almost anything all the same.
The blood of Alll-Mer still rages and boils, even after his death. A single drop of blood can create a sword to assist in combat... Ethan repeated the exact description of the skill again in his head. It was a broken skill to be sure. Blood Sword was a weapon in the game that did otherworldy and slashing damage and was most similar to longinus in it's mode and power of attacks. Of course, Longinus was simply far stronger than the Blood Sword, but that was a discussion for another time.
Kneeling down with the two weapons in hand, he struck their edges together.
Clang! Skrrg!
A spurt. And an ember.
The science behind it was lost on him. He was pretty certain you couldn't just make sparks with any kind of metal. But he cared very little. He was plenty thankful that the weapons could create sparks to begin with. He knew it was useless to try it with any other weapon. Longinus or Blood Sword would most probably swipe right through them; or, if struck very gently, nick the blade and fail to produce sparks.
Besides, both the weapons were magical in nature. He would not be surprised if somewhere down the line, Longinus could act like a makeshift flame thrower considering the time it spent in the sulfur pits that the traces it carried.
He struggled with the two weapons for a bit, each clash lighting up the surrounding trees for the briefest instance before darkness swallowed them again. He felt like a blacksmith, sharpening the edge of a sword with a whetstone. Inwardly, he felt a bit giddy at the sensation. What man would not want to have a magical weapon of his own? It was a sorry sight that he was using it in the way he was, but he couldn't hope to be stingy.
The environment had gone quiet at the moment. Only the cracking of the stream and the rhythmic clank of metal filled his ears. And then, a flame bloomed in front of him. A small ember quickened in the pile of leaves and thin branches, quickly turning into a large flame.
Ethan smiled, proud of his creation.
Heh. Bear Grylls would be proud that his student is so talented. He nodded to himself.
With that, he desummoned the spear but not the sword. He walked upto the carcass, below which, a small trickle of blood still somehow flowed down from the ridge. It barely made it 5 centimeters down the ridge before the snow soaked it all up.
He grabbed it from the horns and began the skinning process using his sword by the fire.
The woods were quiet, and a pair of glowing eyes watched him from the cover of the trees.
...
Turns out, rendering an animal using a sword was difficult. Not only was the length unsuited for the task, but with his unique sword, each cut was almost too effortless. Unless he met a bone, he felt little resistance, and even bone would crumble with nothing but a light shove, not more than the force he would use to move his own hand.
These two factors, when combined, made for quite a... gory scenery. For one, he was thankful he had drained the blood beforehand, if not, his clothes would be more of a mess than they were. When he was finally done, he could only render less than half of the carcass as useable, clean meat.
Looking at the mess he'd made with his sword made Ethan painfully aware, aware yet again, of the power he now held in his hand. Effortlessly cutting through wood and bone and flesh. He had not even figured out the full capabilities of the weapon.
He fed the fire, dried the meat using the heat properties of his spear and left it atop a makeshift stand atop the fire to be cooked. He had cut the useful meat into streaks of small pieces. He left some to be smoked, other to be cooked in the fire. He was, after all, not the best at cooking with minimal ingredients. Not to mention not being able to control the fire was a bummer.
"Sigh! My priviledged ass and my problems... I wished I'd taken that offer to camp with Jason when I had the chance." Ethan could not help but turn his thoughts to his friend, who had, at one point in time, offered for a camping trip. An organic experience of the wild.
"Wonder what he's up to now..."
He began to hum a small tune.
As he waited for the meat to cook, he felt something. It was a strange sensation, one he was somewhat familiar with. He was being watched.
His eyes cautiously scanned the surrounding area, the trees, the stream, the dark of the woods and over the ridge. He spotted nothing. Nothing but the dark and the snow.
He unconsciously grabbed the spear that he had kept on the side as he sat on a small log. The spear provided him some relief.
A man? No. Why would a person travel so far into the forest at night time. Any logical man would set up camp and wait for dawn by a cozy fire. It's something else.
It was at this point that Ethan noticed his other blunder. And as he did, the colour seemed to drain from his face.
"Fuck." He cursed under his breath, low over the crackling fire. The blood... The scent of blood must've led a predator here. And from the looks of it, it wants more than just the carcass... Ethan assessed his option. I can't spot it anywhere. Is it an ambush predator? A pack hunter? Please don't let it be wolves. Make it something small. Like a fox maybe? O Sweet Vinushka, I swear I will sacrifice a pinecone to you everyday if it's a small predator. No! Better yet, make it not be a predator at all!
Ethan droned on in his own tub of thoughts, all while the sensation of being watched turned more and more prominent. The spear beside him could only be so prominent. Curiously enough, he wasn't panicking. He felt nervous and anxious sure, but hardly any panic.
He scanned his surroundings again, finding nothing. He looked behind him, left, right, even in the branches, nothing. There was nothing. Only himself, the fire, the stream and the wind. "Did I mistake it?" He mused. "...It's better to be vigilant."
Just then, he heard a sound. A low, guttural growl unlike anything he had heard, seemingly made from a beast of large proportions. He recognized some of it. It was a tiger's growl, or at least someone from the feline family. Worst yet? It came from behind him. He turned around, so fast that he felt he might've twisted his ankle.
There, nestled in the snow just a few meters away, enough to be covered in a short few seconds or perhaps by a single leap from the beast, were glowing eyes. Two dots, impossibly small and glowing watched with intent. The flame behind him cast a jagged, undulating shadow on the beast and the trees behind it, making the scenery all the more terrifying. Yet, Ethan saw the real form of the beast through his night vision.
It was, as he had expected, a large feline creature. It was larger than a tiger, almost twice his own size and was laced with black and striped with white. There in the snow, it's slitted yellow eyes gazed into his, while it's imposing body was ready to sprint and pounce. It's fangs, large as daggers and sharp as sin were bared; same for it's claws, large and cruel natural weapons that could gut a man in a single swipe.
As he watched the tiger covered in black fur, he could not help but realize that the beast could simply pounce on him at this distance. And from it's distinct colouration and the knowledge of it's commonly seen orange brethren, it was an ambush hunter. Surely, it held enough force to cover the measly distance in a single leap.
Ethan had never felt closer to death before. Except of course, when he had fallen into the sulfur pits.
Even in the cold, he felt sweat on his back. The sound seemed to dull away, leaving his own heartbeat ringing constantly in his ears. Longinus provided him respite.
He met the eyes of the tiger, refusing to look away. He knew, the moment he did, he would be a goner. Tigers' were mindful not to attack when the prey had eyes on them. He needed to maintain eye contact.
Time passed - a full minute. Ethan did not dare to move a muscle, wary that it would be taken as a sign of aggression, or worse yet, weakness by the tiger. He narrowed his eyes, suddenly feeling a bit ballsy. His grip tightened, but just as he was about to move, a realization struck like a falling axe.
Tigers were ambush predators. Why had this one revealed it's location when it could have ended him with a quick snap at the back of his neck?
The object he was gripping gave him the answer.
It's wary of the spear... Ethan felt weirdly thankful of the tiger's beastly instincts. If not for those, he would be dead.
But now what? I won't be able to move if this keeps up. Eventually, the tiger will grow bolder and may attack. Ethan held no desire to test his increased strength fighting a tiger twice his size. He wasn't the brightest, but he was not suicidal.
"Now what?" He asked, eyes never leaving the tiger. The feline's fur was bristled and erect and it's pupils shrunken.
An idea formed in his head.
He smiled.
His steps retreated closer to the flame. The tiger did not follow.
He sighed inwardly and sat down onto the log, still not breaking eye contact. Then, he extended his hand towards the meat and grabbed a piece.
It was a large chunk of one of the stag's legs. The other leg was still whole.
With a smile, he threw the meat some distance in front of the tiger. The beast eyes him warily for a few more moments before it approached and sniffed the meat. Finding nothing unusual, it bit in.
The sound of ruthless biting rang in the air, mingling with the crackle of flames.
The tiger finished the meat and looked at him again. It bared it's teeth again, this time, significantly less threatening.
Let's go! No one says no to free food!
Ethan cheered with all his heart and gave himself a virtual pat on the back. Then, his hand grabbed the entire unrendered leg and chucked it carelessly towards the big cat.
The tiger sniffed the meat again and bit into it. Slowly, it pulled the meat away. When it was amid the trees, it began to feast.
Ethan smiled warily.
"Well... isn't this how humans first tamed wolves? Maybe I can tame this guy? He does seem to be somewhat intelligent." He scratched his ear. "Maybe not... there's no saying when I might become the next meal." Ethan shuddered at the thought.
His nose picked up the scent of burning meat and took the meat off the fire.
He looked at the tiger again. Similing, he raised meat on a stick towards the tiger as if raising a toast. "To our budding friendship, my cat companion. Let's hope you don't bite into my neck anytime soon."
He took a bite.
...
Donate power stones please.