Chapter 48: Chapter 48: The Third Trial: Beast Core Tango

Nay was devouring the biscuits from her inventory to Buff her Strength, Dexterity, Stamina and Spirit when she saw the red glowing dot on her mini-map begin to move.

Her mouth was dry like she had taken the Popeye’s Biscuit Challenge and was seeing how long she could go without drinking anything. She opened her water skin and guzzled, moistening her mouth with instant relief.

I have to adjust the recipe on these things so they’re not so damn dry, Nay thought.

She set off towards the red dot on her mini-map, making her way across the terrain with caution. She kept low and studied the landscape and crag walls near her for the forms of ice imps, using the geography as camouflage.

Soon she was descending a slope and making her way into an ice dune. There were ice pillars, jagged ridges and frozen sea spray. All in all a turbulent topography frozen in place.

That’s when she saw him.

Caraxus stood about eight feet tall. His limbs were long and muscular. His skin was the color of arctic ocean water and white tusks curved out of his face. Long green hair fell onto his wide shoulders like kelp. He was clothed in seal skin and there was a stone battle-ax on his back.

He stood on a ridge, studying the ocean. He sniffed at the air and turned to look behind him.

Nay stepped behind an ice column and held her breath, hoping that he didn’t have some kind of super sniffer and had caught a whiff of her. She realized her hands were tightening into fists and she was clenching her jaw.

She made herself count to ten before she took another peak from behind the column.

At ten, she exhaled then looked.

Caraxus’ back was to her. He dove off the edge of the glacier into the sea.

/////////

Nay tracked the troll’s movement on her mini-map. He hadn’t gone far from the island, but he had dived below, heading deep into the water.

After a few minutes, he was ascending again.

Nay watched the edge of the glacier.

Caraxus burst out of the sea in an explosion of water and landed on the ice, a massive blue crab in his hands. The claws were the size of bulldozer buckets. They snapped at the air, trying to reach him. There was so much force powering the claws it looked like they could cut a person in half with ease.

The ice troll spun and threw the giant crab like it was a discus. It smashed against a pillar of ice, cracking both the crab’s shell and the ice structure. Ice crystals rained down on it.

The crab landed on its back, on its ruined shell, its pincer legs and claws pumping and snapping at the sky.

---

[Marrow Detected]

[Claw Meat Marrow of The Caraxian Crab]

---

There was a Marrow on that thing.

Caraxus swaggered to its prey, pulling the massive stone axe off its back. He swung, the stone blade bisecting the crab down the center in an explosion of juice and shell.

The thunderous crack of the axe splitting the crab and ice echoed across the island.

The troll crouched near the dying crab, waiting for its death throes to pass. After a few minutes, he picked up the halves of the crab, slung them over his back, and began the journey back to his cave.

Nay was pressed against her own pillar of ice, her back to it, hiding. She swallowed. “How am I supposed to fight that?”

As she obsessed over this thought, a prompt and chime interrupted her.

---

[Delicacy Detected]

---

“What?”

A gold dot appeared on her minimap. It was to the East, and according to the map, it wasn’t on the island but in the water just off the island.

If it was a Delicacy that unlocked a martial or combat skill tree, then that was the answer to her problem. The plan formed in her head. She would go scout and see what the deal was with the Delicacy. Then she would acquire it, consume it and hope the skill tree would be helpful when it came to slaying Caraxus.

She was getting up to head east when her mini-map alarmed her. The red dot was right on top of her.

Caraxus emerged from behind the column of ice, leading with his swinging axe. The flat of the blade hit her in the face and then there was darkness.

/////////

Nay awoke with her wrists and hands tied together. She was hanging sideways from the ceiling from hooks that were snagging the rope binding her wrists and ankles, embedded in the ice ceiling.

She was hanging with the rest of the food Caraxus had stored up here. The carcasses of giant fish, what looked like a skinned seal and other oddities that he had caught in the cold sea.

Caraxus crouched near his camp fire. He held Thorn, and in contrast with the size of his blue-skinned troll hand, it looked like its namesake for once.

“Very nice shiv,” the troll said, his voice deep and guttural, a gravel baritone to it like crushed ice in a rock tumbler. Her Worldtripper passive seemed to even translate troll. His gray eyes glanced up at Nay.

Next to him, Nay saw the halves of the giant blue crab. He had a cauldron over the fire. He was preparing to boil the crab meat.

“I could smell you before I hunt,” he said. “You should have ran while you had chance. Now I save you for meals later.”

“You’ve got me all wrong, Great One,” Nay said.

Caraxus seemed startled by the way she addressed him. He cocked his head up at her, puzzled by the use of the honorary. “Great One?”

“I come here to your island to serve you,” Nay said. She was taking a gamble with this approach, but she felt it was worth trying. She’d at least be able to back up her bluff.

“Serve Caraxus?” the troll said.

“Sure,” Nay said. “You see, Great One, I am an Epicurist. I saw you catch that crab,” she nodded at the halves of the shell. “And I’m here to tell you it contains a Marrow.”

His gray eyes widened and he looked at bisected blue crab. “Marrow, you say? It is true?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Nay said. “But, if you want me to prepare and activate it so you may consume it and gain power, you should right this wrong and get me down from the ceiling. I know you didn’t know I was an Epicurist, so I hold no ill will towards you.”

The troll’s eyes narrowed then and he stood to his full height. “How do I know you don’t lie to Caraxus?”

“Tell you what,” Nay said. “Let me down so I can cook for you. If you eat the Marrow and nothing happens, then you’ll know I’m a liar. Then you can proceed to do what your previous plan with me was. You can eat me. That’s simple and fair, right?”

“But if you are telling truth,” the troll said, “I eat Marrow and I gain power. Then what Caraxus do with you?”

“I come here to serve,” Nay said. “I’d be your Epicurist, so I could cook all your meals. And whenever you find more Marrow, you have your own personal chef who can activate it for you. You do realize you have a great deal here, right?”

“But why me?” Caraxus said. “Why you come all way out here? Middle of frozen ocean?”

He had her there. It made no sense why a human Epicurist would come out to a glacier way up north in the middle of the Caraxe Strait. A cook venturing out into an icy desolation? It made no sense unless the cook was committing suicide.

“Because Veritax sent me.”

“Veritax?”

“To be a witness for Verity so that you may know truth.”

“Truth?”

“Yes. Truth. It is said that Verity reaches even the most loneliest places. So, here I am, a faithful servant.”

Caraxus shrugged.

“We will see truth either way. Caraxus see if you can cook Marrow or not. If yes, then good for me and you. If not. Well, bad for you.”

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The troll cut her down from the ceiling.

/////////

“That is Marrow?”

“Yes,” Nay said. “It’s in these legs.”

“Not in claws?”

“No,” Nay said, lying. “I’ll cook claws after. For now, we cook the legs because that’s the meat containing the Marrow.”

“But claw is tastiest.”

“You’re not wrong. Which is why we’ll save the best for last.”

She kept the claws off to the side.

Each crab leg was easily two of her lengths. She cut them down at their joints with Thorn. Caraxus had given her the dagger back, not concerned that she might use it against him.

She realized he didn’t perceive her as a dangerous threat. She could use that to her advantage.

The cauldron was large enough to accommodate the legs.

When Caraxus wasn’t looking, Nay accessed her inventory and grabbed her Old Bay seasoning she kept in her spice kit there along with some salt. She put a liberal amount of each into the pot.

While boiling the crab meat, she imbued the legs with every Debuff she had access to it. When Caraxus consumed it, not only would he be astounded by the flavor, most of his stats across the board would be weakened.

Strength. Dexterity. Stamina. And Spirit.

And just for the hell of it, she put in a Debuff to give him an unquenchable thirst.

Hopefully the Debuffs would even the playing field enough for her to slash his throat with Thorn.

While they waited for the legs to finish cooking, Nay noticed a troll skeleton lying on the floor near a darkened wall. It was decorated with seaweed and sea-shells. It was a shrine-like presentation.

“Who was that?” Nay said. “Someone important to you?”

Caraxus nodded. “My mate. She died, a sickness from bad shell fish. I could not help her. She was a good mate. I keep her here to remember her. Otherwise I miss her too much.”

Nay grimaced. She felt sympathy for the troll now. She did not want to feel sympathy for the troll.

Dammit.

The legs seemed to be done cooking. She was careful to pull them out of the pot, grabbing the ends sticking out of the boiling water.

She laid them before Caraxus. “I present to you, The Marrow of the Caraxian Crab.”

Impatient, the troll grabbed a leg, snapped it in half, and began sucking the meat out of the shell with his mouth. He chewed on the ends, crunching into the shell and making smacking sounds as his tongue searched for the seasoned crab flesh.

Nay cringed at all the mouth noises, but Caraxus didn’t notice because he was in a trance of pleasure. Working his way through the legs like a Southern preacher at a barbecue. He was a troll possessed. Driven by the pleasure areas in his brain.

Nay saw the Debuff icons begin to pop up over his head.

It was time.

Now or never.

Nay’s hand tightened around Thorn. She casually approached him and he didn’t seem to notice.

But he looked up at her before she could get behind him.

So she slashed at his throat horizontally.

The troll jerked his head up and there was the sound of steel scraping across bone.

Instead of his throat, Nay had slashed one of his tusks.

Shit.

She jabbed forward this time and felt Thorn open up the skin on his cheek.

Caraxus howled and rose up, swiping at her with his hand. The clawed fingernails slashed her thigh and she felt a sting as her flesh opened.

Nay rolled backwards, crashing into a wall.

Caraxus went for his stone-axe and Nay used her Chef’s Thermometer ability to conjure a ring of heat around the weapon. It wouldn’t be as effective if the weapon was metal, but the troll still bellowed when his hand touched hot stone.

He recoiled and looked at her in a new light.

Nay used the moment to grab a crab claw, The Marrow of the Caraxian Crab, and blink it away into her inventory. With her other hand she began conjuring her temperature rings.

It was obvious Caraxus had a resistance to cold.

So, she conjured several heat rings. One on top of him. And then several around him, so no matter what direction he moved in, he would be in the heat longer.

He winced at the sudden flare of heat around him.

Nay ran.

She stumbled out of the cave.

His bellow came from within. He was in pursuit.

She had to get away.

She conjured a ring of cold the circumference of the cave entrance. Ice crystals formed in the air and the moisture in the atmosphere froze.

A sheet of ice stretched across the entrance, materializing and then solidifying, trapping Caraxus inside.

He crashed into the ice door. It shook, but did not break.

He snarled and drew his stone battle axe and began wailing on the wall of ice.

Nay fled.

/////////

Nay had two problems.

Well, she had a lot of problems, but these were two immediate ones.

One, she was leaving a blood trail from her wound. Caraxus would be able to follow the droplets of her blood in the snow like they were breadcrumbs.

Two, she felt the approach of Vigor Sickness. Freezing over the cave exit with the Chef’s Thermometer had taken too much of the little vigor reserves she had at Base Rank.

When Caraxus found her, she would most likely be unconscious.

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