New World Day 32

I spent the rest of the day and night training to restrain the mana leaking from my body and working on developing the strength necessary to create a spiritual body. I made progress in both areas, but I was much closer to realizing my goal on hiding my mana versus creating a spiritual body. When I ended my training for the night, I followed the nightly ritual of updating my journals and wiping myself down before I headed to bed.

The next morning I roused myself from bed earlier than normal and geared up for an extra long supply run. Part of my preparations was to add an extra layer to my clothes for this trip. The sun was out, but I noticed a bit of frost on the ground outside. I brought an extra backpack and all of the water bottles that I possessed. The weight of the additions didn’t bother me, but the awkward positioning threw off my balance. Nevertheless, I took the risk and set off determined to gather enough food and water to last several days in case I was stuck inside for awhile again. Before I went to the ponds, I walked over to the old fire pit and transferred over enough wood for a couple of weeks. I headed towards the road once I finished with that task.

I ran into an issue right as I entered the front field. I saw three forest coyotes wandering through the grass of the front field. When the crunch of gravel under my feet reached their ears, they turned, barked a challenge, and charged. I returned the favor and charged them back. My lack of fear puzzled them. They skidded to a halt and took several steps backward uncertain of what to make of me while I continued my rush towards the lead coyote. It recovered from its confusion and fear in time to slash out with its right paw, but I slid around the strike to its left side and chopped down with my axe. The blow severed its spine, but my movements caused the two backpacks to continue swaying to the left. Their momentum made me stumble a few steps to the left along with them. I managed to keep my grip on the axe, but the unintended movements left me open to attack by the the last two coyotes.

The remaining two coyotes lunged forward and attempted to snap at me with their powerful jaws. In the moment before they could reach me I drew the pistol from its holster and fired off four shots. The two bodies bowled me over and drenched me with what I hoped was only blood. I hadn’t wanted to use any of my dwindling ammo, but I didn’t have much of a choice there. My saving grace was the fact that I always kept my enhancement and vision skills activated throughout all of my chores. That boost to my physical attributes gave me the precious few seconds I needed to defend myself. I pulled the knife out of its sheath on my belt, cut out the mana stones, and carved a number of steaks out of the three coyotes. I ran them back to the refrigerator in the basement before I headed to the nearest pond.

I caught a glimpse of three other small coyote packs along the way, but they retreated rather than face me. I kept my head on a swivel as I prepared to hunt a few crayfish. When I arrived at the closest pond, the first thing that stood out was that its shoreline was as full of life mana as the Little Lake. Maybe I could figure out what was going to hatch from those eggs. Four rocks, six bullets, and three crayfish later I walked down the incline to the shoreline.

I twisted around to check for any enemies before I examined the eggs. The larva rigging within the eggs were not anything I recognized, but they possessed a distinctive blood red color. I knew enough about insects to realize that what they resembled as larvae didn’t need to look like their adult forms, but I felt chances were good that they were blood mosquito larvae. At least I hoped so. I knew how to handle those little bastards.

I decided to plan on the fact that they were blood mosquito larva and ran back up the hill to grab all of my water bottles. The whirlpool bass were so busy darting around eating the eggs that I didn’t need to provide a distraction this time. I worried that the suction caused by the water entering the bottles would pull in some eggs, but I needn’t have worried. The eggs were stuck firmly enough to the bed of the lake that I managed to fill all of my water bottles without drawing any in, and I verified that was the case with my mana vision just to be safe.

At the top of the incline, I chopped off more than just the tails from the crayfish. I cut off their claws as well and stuffed everything in the other backpack. Crab claws were a delicacy, and I could kick myself for not trying the crayfish claws earlier. As I prepared to make a quick trip back to the house, I heard the sounds of fighting from just up the road. It sounded like some birds and coyotes were fighting over something. The conflict interested me enough that I snuck up the road and crouched down in the ditch alongside the road to watch what was going on.

The corpse of some great beast laid in the middle of the road not one hundred feet from me. The bones of the massive rib cage rose out of the torn hide and enough flies buzzed around the corpse that I could see them from my hiding place. The corpse had only a slight smell to it at the moment which combined with the relatively intact corpse led me to believe that it died in the last day or so. The faded blue fur and horns indicated that it was the corpse of a thunder bison. I couldn’t help but wonder what had killed it. Maybe the earth swimmer took a chunk out of it before it escaped from it.

A half dozen forest coyotes stood defending the rotting corpse from a flock of four steel ravens. I guess the birds wanted to be close by for the feast after the blood mosquitoes life cycle came to an end. The big birds banked through the air and darted down at the forest coyotes to peck at them with their sharp beaks. When one raven dove at the head of a forest coyote, another dove at the same coyote’s back in an attempt to dig its talons into the coyote’s spines. The coordination between the ravens was exquisite, but the coyotes held their own. They jumped into the air and swatted the ravens out of the sky with their paws and tore them off the backs of their comrades with their fangs. The ravens still held the edge though thanks to their armored bodies.

I waited and watched until both sides were on their last legs before I made my move. I left the backpacks behind and crept along the ditch until I was hidden just behind the fighting. One of the ravens was killed by the forest coyotes, but three of the coyotes were killed in return. I saw my opening when a coyote sprung into the air, caught two of the ravens under its paws, and pinned them to the ground underneath it. Their metallic feathers protected them enough that the blow only stunned them, and they struggled free from the coyote’s grasp before it could do any real damage. Forcing them to the ground was all I needed though. I rushed out of the ditch onto the road and slashed at the two ravens flapping their wings on the ground. The rune axe’s keen edge slashed through the feathers like it was nothing. The strike tore through their chests and they fell still without any chance of retaliation. My experience parrying the axe when it was in the hobgoblin’s possession led me to believe that it would cut right through them, but I was still satisfied to see that I was correct.

The forest coyote that knocked them out of the air in the first place turned on me and snapped at me with its jaws. I rolled to the side, came up on one knee, and chopped through the coyote’s front right leg. The loss of support sent the coyote tumbling to the ground, and I finished him off with one quick slice to the neck. The fact that I dispatched three of the combatants in just moments made the remaining raven and coyotes wary. The coyotes glared and barked at me, but backed away and fled to the edge of the forest. Likewise the raven cawed at me, but flew away to perch on the top of a nearby tree. Neither group traveled far, but they gave me first dibs.

My first task was to inspect the thunder bison’s corpse. The mana stone was missing, but the horns were still there. I chipped away at their base until I cut them loose and stuffed them in the pockets of my jeans. I chose to cut out the mana stones from the four coyotes and three ravens next. I bundled them along with the bodies of the three ravens in a makeshift basket I fashioned out of my outer shirt. Everything else I left for the scavengers. I could tell that the raven and coyotes were getting anxious for their turn so I hurried back to my backpacks, slung them over my shoulders, and jogged towards home. Along the way, I stuffed the mana stones and birds into the backpacks and put my top shirt back on. I still had a clip of pistol ammo, and I gathered more food than I had hoped to acquire. Things turned out better than I expected.

Survivor © * leveled up!

Horde Killer © *** leveled up!

Beast Killer © * leveled up!

Risk Taker © * leveled up!

Repeated Risk Taker © * leveled up!

Repeated Risk Taker © * evolved into Repeated Risk Taker (UC) *

Curious Fool © * leveled up!

Stupid Fool © ** leveled up!

Basic Gun Mastery (B) * leveled up!