Chapter 13: Déjà Vu

I awaken suddenly to a loud nasally cry near me. I jump up and look to where I heard the sound, only to see an imp face first on the ground. Instantly I'm cautious. The imp clambers back to its feet, looks at me, and lunges. I'm still disoriented by what's happening, and one of its claws stabs into me. OUCH! It digs in a few inches into my lower abdomen.

In a rage, I swing back at it, as my claws scrape through its chest, gouging out a large chunk of flesh. It yelps again, and again tries to hit me, but this time I swing my other claw down towards its arm, and I hear a sickening crunch sound as its arm that was swinging for me loses rigidity. The imp in desperation goes to bite and swing with its remaining claw, and this time I aim my claw for its head.

The imp falls limp on the floor, blood scattered throughout my room. I check my hp, 243/303, and while that isn't that bad, I'm currently bleeding from where I was stabbed in my abdomen, and I don't really have anything good to close the wound, so I just brace it with my hand. However, it looks like a gained two levels from the fight, although I don't have time to look carefully for now.

The real question though, is what the hell is going on? I quietly make my way towards the cavern, and very carefully peek outside, and spot a familiar sight. There are imps all over fighting each other. I notice something new this time though. Up by the exit, I spot a familiar goblin, and a few other goblins with him. The goblin that cast fireball before. He seems to be focusing on something.

After a few moments, an imp appears in front of him. It initially lunges towards him, but is easily kicked down back, and it turns and runs down into the cavern. The Goblin touches a crystal in the floor, then another, and another. After he drains 5 crystals completely, I see him start focusing again. I watch for a few minutes, and sure enough, another imp appears, and again I watch it try to attack a goblin, only to be kicked back.

I re-check my hp, 229/303. Well, I'm definitely still bleeding, so I'm not surprised. I keep gripping my side to try to stem the flow of blood. All things considered though, the wound isn't that bad... I think. It isn't debilitatingly painful at least. For now, I head back into my room, and I grab a few crystals with my free hand, and start closing off my room. I still have the dead imp in here, but I don't want to be attacked while I'm already hurt.

Although it took a little bit with one hand, after I've sealed off the entrance, I go back over to the dead imp. I feel bad. It attacked me first, but I wish I didn't have to kill it, though I'm thankful for a new source of meat. I decide to fashion a knife to improve the amount of meat I can harvest from it. My bleeding has stopped by the time I've fashioned the knife, at an uneasy 185/303 hp. By moving over to the bucket that I moved into the room yesterday, and moving the drying rack here, I go through the process of cutting useable meat off the imp, and moving the innards into the bucket.

As I process the imp, I take note of a few things. Their skeletal structure isn't that different from a humans. Their organs are a bit different though. I mean, after all, I don't go to the bathroom. There are two large chambers in the digestive tract. One is presumably a stomach, and the second occurs at the end of what would likely be intestines. Considering the imp likely hasn't eaten, I don't bother opening them up to see the insides. For now I want to get as much meat as I can, and put it on the drying rack, which thanks to the knife, is looking like I'm going to have even more usable meat than before.

When I'm finished with the butchery and dissection, the bucket is full, and the drying rack has meat on it again. While not a huge amount of meat, it's probably about 50% of what I got from the last imp I harvested from before. At this point, my hp has recovered to 212/303, which means I'd rather not open up the room yet. One thing I can do however is start using magic to clean the blood. I simply fold the blood under a layer of stone, then use the level to ensure that I didn't accidentally shift the balance.

While cleaning, I notice where the imp tripped before. There are a few of the stone marbles scattered about here. I suppose the messiness came in handy this time.

As I sit and clean though, I realize that maybe my accident before was lucky in a way as well. After all, if the campfire was still going down in the cave, those goblins would probably have investigated the cave. I might have never woken up had that been the case. I guess I should consider it a silver lining on the matter.

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Once I've cleaned all the blood I could find, I check my status as a whole.

<EPIC IMP>
Level: 48
HP: 298/306
MP: 78/78
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation
Magic: Stone Shaping

Considering I'm mostly healed now, I check where I was attacked. It's not completely healed, there is still a patch of fur missing, and a lot of scar and scab tissue, but apparently it's close enough. I'm surprised my how quickly I've healed all things considered. It's only been a bit past half a day. Considering my newfound health, I decide to reopen a hole in the room enough that I can go out and check the condition in the cavern.

Imps are still duking it out and fighting each other, but now the goblins have gone from the entryway. That's at least somewhat comforting. Although now I'm faced with a new dilemma. If some of these imps will turn into goblins, and will join with the other goblins, then I should probably hide myself. On the other hand, fighting clearly gave me more xp than every day living, and I get fresher meat this way. I don't exactly want to fight other imps, but after seeing what happened last time, it's not like any imps that are remaining will exactly be spared. The goblins will clear them out, and take the ones that turn into goblins. If they're doomed to die either way, I guess I'd rather them be helping me.

With that I set up a plan. I don't have long. If I recall it was only a day before the fireball goblin came back in. I guess some of the imps evolved quickly after they won a fight or two with other imps. What I want to do is bait an imp into the entryway to my room so I can fight it without others noticing. I'll have to thoroughly clean later, but it's the price I'll have to pay. I grab my bucket full of dissected imp parts, and head back towards the cavern. Once there, I wait until I see an imp getting somewhat close, and then pour the bucket out.

It's quite disgusting all things considered, but the smell and sound seems to have gotten the other imp's attention, and it begins making its way over to investigate. I set the bucket down to my side, and once the imp is close, I make a small noise. It's the first time hearing my own voice. It's not quite as high pitched as the other imps, but it's still the nasally whine. The imp spots me, and begins coming towards me. I make my way back to near my room entrance, and pick up my knife, and prepare to fight it. This time, I'm ready for a fight to the death.

The fight itself goes a little too easy, and I feel a little bad again. Although it's clear that the other imp would take my life if it could, the issue is that if I'm trying, I'm pretty sure that a regular imp simply couldn't. My bigger stature, muscle, and simply put, raw HP, means that the other imp doesn't stand a chance, and I quickly take its life with a stab to the throat with the knife. I then hold it up upside down by a leg near the entrance, and use stone shaping to attach a leg to the wall to let the blood drain from the neck, and make a small bucket underneath the imp to collect the blood. Then I make my way back to get the bucket.

Unfortunately, I'm greeted by another imp that came to look... and eat... the dissected imp remains. Well, I did say I planned on killing a few. I repeat the process of baiting it further in, and quickly dispatch it, and hang it up next to the other imp. Honestly, once the newest imp saw the imp being drained by the wall, it should have run if it had any intelligence. I mean, I clearly just dispatched the other imp without any issue.

This time, I easily retrieve the bucket without being interrupted, and get started butchering my two new quarries. The bucket ends up piled a little higher than I'd like with remains by the time I'm done, but I'll have a good amount of meat for a while now at least. I don't intend to pour these remains out into the cavern though. If I do that, it could attract the goblins attention, and they might wonder why there are a bunch of eviscerated remains. Hopefully one will just pass off as a brutal battle, and one imp feasting on the other after. I take a bit of time to fashion another bucket, in case I find another imp to fight, and then I head back out to watch the cavern and check my status.

<EPIC IMP>
Level: 53
HP: 324/324
MP: 82/82
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation
Magic: Stone Shaping

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