Mathew

After another hour of walking and Mathew came across another two patches of slime. Ever grateful for the sensory separation, his magic gave the gruesome task. This process rewarded him with a net increase of 189 reserves and some time to sort things out.

Spending 150 reserves, he started building a bone gauntlet for his left hand. Building up a living skeleton adaptation took a lot of reserves. His first defensive idea of a slim shield would have been too expensive. Instead, he would build armor. Cost-effective armor looked like covering his hand with a bone gauntlet. Fulfilling his promise to himself, this time more thought went into the creation of additional skeleton. From the many thin rough plates on each fingertip to the raised and short claws, thoughts of how to live with this for an extended future plagued his craftsmanship.

This at least spoke to the skills he had developed bouncing between workshops and garages for his adult life. Think about the end product for the customer. How would it work for them? Time and time again he had run into trouble with making what he knew would work best rather than paying attention to the aesthetics he was asked to create. They were always more like guidelines anyway. Here and now, crafting for himself, there was a freedom to focus on function without fear of reprimand. A half-smile chiseled itself into Mathew’s face while he worked.

Flexing his hand as he focused on slowly adding material, improvements were made gradually. Thicker and denser top plates. Test again that movement isn’t hampered. Kneeling down and striking the gray stone that he had grown to loath caused a grimace. More adjustment to disperse the force and eliminate pinch points. This was how he would stay competitive against the wraith. As it gained power, so would he.

An arms race was a good way to look at his current conflict. Heh, arms race with a hammer hand wraith. Having the ability to stab the wraith from the start should make this next encounter easier than before. He hoped that sending the wraith to wherever it faded too quickly would stunt its growth. While unsure, he noticed that it got better at things it did. Prepare its hammers for a power attack, speed of fading in and out. If he was right, it was his plan to deny as many learning opportunities as possible.

With the allotted reserves spent, Mathew stood to continue trudging into the mist. A new mantle of confidence raised his shoulders. New direction lengthened his stride, and he’d have to gather a lot of reserves for what he had in mind.

As Mathew walked, the regeneration of hunger magic outstripped the need to use it for actual eating. It began to grow into a constant gnawing on his insides. More to get rid of the feeling than to practice, Mathew threw his head back and vented his hunger into the sky. Pushing with his will as hard and fast as he could, the cloud expanded above himself. Weight pressed in on his heart but this was just more training. Embracing the suck, he stuck with it.

Knowledge poured in from the release of magic, moisture within the fog was absorbed along with some of the air itself. What caught his attention was the sudden light. Breaking a line through to the sky, there was a warm light. Even as knowledge with no sensation, he craved that light from the small taste.

Mathew willed the billowing pillar to widen into a cone with the last of the hunger magic that he had planned to keep in reserve. Empty of magic and having banished the hunger, he saw a clear blue sky. Stepping to the side because the sun wasn’t overhead, Mathew bathed in light. Glorious and short-lived, he reached his arms up into the beams as the fog gradually blocked the sun out again. His bleached gauntlet did little to feel the warmth, but somehow it still reached his heart.

Sighing, he lowered his arms. Even from the brief exposure, the fog around him was brighter than before. The mist must be more than water. Something within traps the sunlight and releases it slowly over time. Knowing more was an advantage, but he didn’t know how to place this into survival.

So far, there was no clue on night vs. day. Everything seemed to stay the same luminosity underneath. Or it changed so slowly he couldn’t yet tell night vs. day. Even the temperature seemed to remain frozen at an uncomfortable but bearable cold. Periodically knowing the sun’s position might help with navigation, but at this point, he didn’t even have anywhere to go.

Banishing the scowl that had formed, Mathew kept trudging, eyes roving across the thin sections of fog in search of his immobile prey. He thought about his arms race against the wraith. Making a more complete armor that didn’t interfere with movement would be a challenge of design and costly to boot. The limitation of having the bone continue to be alive and attached to the rest of him seemed to prevent a more general bone crafting.

It was another half hour or so when Mathew came across one of the largest patches of slime he’d encountered so far. Rolling up his shirt above his elbow, he focused on growing more bone. Judging he had just enough reserves to extend the bone armor around one forearm.

All he had to do was figure out how his arm worked. Not just intuitively known but with mechanical precision. Just one of those things he was insulated from ever actually having to know. Understanding made him laugh when he held his wrist and laid one finger down the length of one of a bone. Radius or ulna he knew that, but which specific bone it was he didn’t actually know. The important part was he finally understood the bone with one end by his thumb. That one was more a wrist bone, and the other was more of an elbow bone.

Using this understanding, a plan was formed. Pressing will behind the project, Mathew felt living skeleton weapon take over. Handling the details he didn’t think about, like blood flow and connective tissue. Drawing material from wherever reserves were kept and expanding them into his form.

Thin and unfinished, the work in progress was made of two major sections. One wrapped around his wrist, extending on the thumb side of his forearm to the outside of his elbow. The other was a band around his elbow that grew toward his pinkie finger. The whole effect was like a cylinder with a single cut into two cone-ish shapes that were shrink-wrapped to his arm.

On the plus side, he could rotate his hand. Squeezing his hand into a fist, an unpleasant constriction gave way to the two plates separating. The bulging muscle stretched open the gap between the two plates. A weakness he wasn’t worried about a hammer exploiting. Eventually, he could reduce that weakness almost entirely by overlapping the plates. That would be for another time. Presently the bracer wasn’t thick enough for that hammer attack.

15 reserves left just wasn’t enough to keep working. So much work to do.

[New Skill awarded: Living skeleton weapon 6. Living skeleton weapon 6 overrides Living skeleton weapon 5]

Sixty percent stronger bones should give the wraith more trouble but that bone-breaking aura stripped comfort away. No matter what improvements he made, some uncertainty would remain. Mathew snorted to himself as he took off again. This time he picked up the pace. No longer content with walking, he eased up to a loping gait. Taking care to balance on the slick stone, he adjusted to having less time to search carefully for slime.

“Ahhhh” Mathew challenged the sky as his impatience paid off. Less than ten minutes later, he found another patch.

Slowing to a stop, the silence of his feet no longer pounding the stone highlighted the pounding of his heart. Breathing hard, a moment of fear washed over him. Being weak like this would make him vulnerable to attack. Crouching down to a ready stance, Mathew looked around for the wraith to fade into existence. Pleasantly disappointed, Mathew lowered his guard and got to ‘eating.’

Improving the shape and fit of his forearm armor took long enough for Mathew to catch his breath. A quiet moment after he stopped the growth and shaping… the time spent between tasks where his mind could wander, it demanded to be filled. Mental walls he envisioned, as the fortress of his mind, warped under the pressure. Gripping into a cold, rational mindset, Mathew clawed the image together and silenced those thoughts for later.

Running forward as an outlet to this pressure, this monotony, could have killed me. Mathew thought. I need to be cold, methodical. If it takes repetition, then so be it. I will survive! No colder still. Taking a breath, he tried again. I will survive.

Pleased with his mechanical thoughts, he took off again. This time increasing his speed but watching his stamina slowing to a walk every few minutes. The minutes grew into hours and his armor grew with it. Becoming thicker, denser and more refined, Mathew didn’t stop building the forearm section until he had added a backstop that would lock his hand joint before it could break. Finally, he added an even thicker ridge on the outside of his arm that he could use on purpose to block with.

Breathing hunger down onto a patch of scum, he felt an unsettling sensation. For a moment, he thought his magic had gone haywire. As if some rule he didn’t understand was going to show up and bite his negligent ass for his ignorance. Then he heard the dual voices ramp up volume. A small part of his mind noted that the silky voice always started first. Setting a backdrop to really highlight how corrupted the screeching howl was.

Cutting off his hunger, he lowered into a ready position. Knowing the stone was slick, he spun around at a tempered pace and squared off, eyes searching for changes to adjust to.

Cold, focused, ready. The mantra a list to keep his mind sharp during the testing of the arms race.

His wraith was different this time. Arcing closer, she forwent the straightforward approach. Mathew fought a snarl from his lips and held his focus, but another small part of his mind gibbered away. Using intelligence was for men, and this beast had no right to usurp the tool of the apex predator.

One hammer-tipped arm was raised and ready to use its falling hammer technique. The other trailed behind it as the wraith bobbed close then backed off at the limit of its reach. The effect was something like a pendulum swing blended with the acceleration of a whip. White glow of the trailing hammer bloomed into the prominence of Mathew’s vision. Leaning back to avoid the reverse-umbra, Mathew watched ravenously for an opening. The pre-raised arm, a clear threat, reinforced the cool mentality he tried to maintain.

Mind’s eye watching himself fight with the exaggerated movements of the wraith, he was reminded of boxing. Hands up, quick feet, dodge and weave, look for an opening. His memory worked at emergency speed to bring some semblance of skill together. Fighting his dress shoes, Mathew rocked forward onto the balls of his feet. Stepping back from a telegraphed strike, he readied to jab into the overextension.

Just like he predicted (not that it was difficult), his wraith overextended badly. Jabbing with his right and bowing forward, he really tried to sell it as an all-in attack. Her waiting arm dropped the bone-breaking aura deforming behind its speed and power. Even anticipating it and not committing all the way, he couldn’t totally avoid the damage. Drawing his jab back and letting the strike drive his arm blade down eased the hit from thunderous to a shock that reverberated to his shoulder. Mathew ignored the sliver of health that raced into the chipped and cracked bone of his arm blade, and narrowed his focus to his actual attack.

Both her arms were down. She was vulnerable. Mathew was balanced forward, ready to explode at her while she spun her wheels, fighting her earlier momentum. Something primal stepped into his mind shattering the cold calculations he’d tried to impose. Lashing forward, he felt muscle fibers breaking as he forced them to flex beyond their limit. Stabbing deep into the flowing flesh strips, his arm blade sunk up to somewhere in the middle of the wraith’s chest. Setting the barbs, he tugged back gently while driving his left fist into its skull to stun and disorient. Hunger magic poured past his jaws as he started eating his prey alive.

This time when the wraith faded away, there was no relief, only an angry grudge. HOW DARE MY PREY ESCAPE!

Glaring at his sword blade, he scorned the design. No barbs to tear out the flesh of those who escape. He couldn’t even find the words to express how wrong this was. Adrenaline simmering down with his heart rate Mathew forced himself to his senses. Damn, this has been harder on me than I thought.

[New skill awarded: Mental resistance 1

Resist fear and compulsion effects 2% more effectively. Gain 10% more awareness of mental manipulation]

Mental resistance for a moment gave Mathew hope that the primal monster of moments ago wasn’t really him. But the awareness of the skill effect shined through.

[Fear effect resisted, wraith smoke

Resist wraith smoke buff 10% gained]

Every time his wraith appeared and disappeared, it fucked with his mind. Now he could see it. Even looking back, the signs were there. He had no such ring of truth for this angry primitive mind. It was himself under the trial of this transition. More than the fleeting fear the wraith smoke caused him, the thought of changing irreparably, of becoming the product of his situation, it left a fear that he couldn’t shake.