Chapter 105: 105: Abyssal Alchemy

“Then you got the refraction spinner,” Rufe said, ticking off another one of his fingers.

“Looks like a floating ball of arms weaving glass between them. Clear glass that diffracts the light. ‘course, the glass isn’t actually there, it’s just the squirrely bastard fucking with reality. Careful not to get too close, those diffractions will tear you to shreds. It doesn’t care about how tough you are, the thing simply makes it a fact that your limbs are separated from your body. No cutting required.”

Calvin nodded, storing the information in the back of his mind as Kala wrote it down.

“Anything else?”

“Oh sure. But other than the Lure, Husker and Spinner, most things aren’t slow enough to run away from, so information about them is a bit…”

The man’s leathery face crumpled as he frowned, holding his thumb and forefinger together.

“…limited.”

“What about a creature that is made of smaller creatures, who are in turn made of even smaller creatures, and they’re all identical? And it can shapeshift.”

“Nope, never seen nothing like that.” Rufe said, shaking his head.

“Any advice for me?” Calvin asked.

“Yeah. Don’t go exploring. You’ve got a long life of fishing for our community ahead of you.” Rufe said with a chuckle.

Seems like the Elder was right about the Fishing Skill being valuable.

“Any actual advice?” Calvin asked.

Rufe chewed his lip for a moment, glancing at Calvin askance, before holding up his hands.

“If I were you…I would make every possible effort to establish the concept of ‘Extreme caution’” He framed the words with his hands. “As a baseline state of mind. Around here, if you see something strange, run away. Don’t poke things with sticks, don’t put your head in strange holes, and definitely, for the love of Elani, don’t ever sigh and say something stupid like, ‘thank the god’s it’s finally dead.’”

This guy would definitely survive a horror movie.

“Understood,” Calvin said, nodding, then glanced at the fist-sized unqua behind him.

“How much for one of those?”

“Kid, you can’t buy those things ‘round here. Doesn’t matter how many gallons you offer ‘em. You gotta catch one yourself.”

“And where would that be?” Calvin asked

What, you want a love shack for you and the princess, or are you just going native?

I’ve got an idea.

You gonna tell me what it is?

What, you can’t read my mind? Calvin thought, suppressing a grin.

“Outside The Crack, head southwest. The Crack being North. walk for a few hours and you’ll find a collapsed section of stone outside the platform, creating a rocky beach. Warped creatures can climb out of the Abyss there, so it’s a common hunting ground for just about everything that live here. Every once in awhile an Unqua will come through. Find it, catch it, and bring it back here. The village will then gather together and help you make it livable.”

“Thanks,” Calvin said, nodding gratefully before limping back to his own fire, struggling to keep himself from smiling like an idiot.

He wasn’t particularly interested in a new home. He wanted the creature’s guts.

Calvin spent the first day in intensive Medi-tate, sipping on water and eating bits of nightmare creature during his short breaks. Sixteen hours, the first day.

Sixteen hours times twenty-five, Or sixteen days and sixteen hours worth of healing.

After the third day, his ribs were feeling like normal again, the bruising and minor injuries from his fight had all vanished. Even the puncture wound on the side of his leg had healed over.

The only thing that remained was Calvin’s stubbornly broken leg.

It takes about six months to heal a femur. You’re lucky it didn’t blow through an artery. About nine more days and you’ll be good to go.

If I have to spend another day lying on my back doing nothing, I’m going to go crazy. Besides, we’re running low on water, so I’ve got to go fishing to barter some. While we’re out, I want to do some hunting, too. I’ve got an idea.

So you’ve said. I’m surprised you haven’t had your Knick-Knacks build you a bigger, better water refining machine than the one they’ve got set up. It’s just a grind, press, filter, and boiler with a steam recollection mechanism.

Watching hollowed out Querda corpses shoved into the massive machine to be ground into sludge was a sight to behold.

I like to think I’ve learned my lesson about alienating people. Calvin thought.

Probably not.

Rufe dropped Calvin and Kala off outside The Crack with their last two gallons of water in leather skins, and plenty of dried abyssal jerky.

It tasted like burnt soap, but it was better than starving.

Together they headed for the fishing spot, Kala carrying the rope and keeping a light over their heads, her gaze scanning the darkness, while Calvin used the bone crutch loaned to him to navigate the bone-littered platform, a handful of dog-sized wasps reinforced by Atom Ant guarding them.

Well, not guarding us so much as trying to kill everything that gets close.

Close enough.

They arrived shortly at the fishing spot and got started right away, ignoring Nadia’s protests as they used her for bait, Knick-knacks hauling her up and down, enticing the Abyssal abominations to strike.

Master Baiter

Come on, Old Salt…

Calvin wanted to raise the Discipline, and by extension, Hunting, Fishing, and Knife-work, but he was also leery of getting an unwanted skill, so he’d just have to do it the old-fashioned way.

The first thing that took the bait was a Toad.

It wasn’t actually a toad, but that’s what Calvin liked to call it. The creature had the squat, rounded shape similar to a frog, but it didn’t have any back legs, muscle-laden front arms, and three heads with long-barbed tongues.

Aforementioned tongues shot out of the Abyss, and wrapped around Nadia suddenly, causing the princess to give a shrill shriek.

“Toad.” Calvin called, looking down at the bait. “Bring it up.” He stood aside, using the crutch to toddle away as the creature was drawn out of the thick Warp mist.

The creature had a fuzzy mane growing out of its back, and skin that seemed nearly impenetrable. Luckily it needed to breathe. Not all Abyssal creatures needed to breathe, and other than it’s rather tough skin, this one was actually among the least reality-warping creatures. It had heads, eyes, tongues. A physical body. It could be killed.

The creature began thrashing with it’s huge arms as soon as it was reeled onto the deck, but that was before half a dozen hopped up wasps pried open the creature’s enormous mouths and crawled down toward it’s lungs.

After a few minutes of struggling, the creature became still.

Of course, unconsciousness was no guarantee something was dead, so Calvin and Kala shared a snack while they waited for it to expire.

Disgusting meal done, Calvin unwrapped Nadia from the thing’s tongues and shoved her off the ledge again.

The Knick-Knacks were uncomfortable with it.

The Toad lay limp and deflated on the platform, and Calvin had his spare Knick-knacks haul it away from the edge so he could work on it.

The creature’s skin was difficult to penetrate, even in death, and especially with the borrowed tools he was using.

That didn’t matter too much, as Calvin circulated Bent to extend the stone blade, the invisible extension far sharper than the stubby skinning knife.

With a lot of elbow grease, Calvin managed to gut the damn thing, making sure not to touch the odd gallbladder looking organ that contained a wretched smelling, toxic chemical.

Any reason you need to do this? These things aren’t worth more than an eighth of a gallon, even with the poison cut out.

Not what I had in mind, Calvin thought, taking painstaking effort to cut off a large swath of the creature’s supernaturally tough hide.

This is what Rufe is wearing, Calvin thought, recognizing the texture as he separated the hide from the skin, enough to make armor for him and Kala. He folded the hide neatly it before slicing a section of intestine and using that to safely contain the poison bladder,  knotting it closed at either end.

I wonder how he managed to kill one of these by himself. Let alone skin it.

Well, everyone is a Legend down here, kid. Practically by default.

Another reason not to alienate people.

“Any reason you need to do all this by yourself?” Kala asked. “It’s going painfully slow.”

“I want to raise my Skill.” Calvin said, cutting strips of intestine in an attempt to create strings to hold together the folded leather, like he’s seen when he’d used Harvester to take the creatures apart. All the while his Knick-Knacks were jigging Nadia up and down.

Yeah, speaking of which, why not just use Harvester on these things?

Because it wouldn’t raise my Skill. I want to get it to ten before I start doing things the easy way.

Calvin was practicing Old Salt’s constituent Skills all at once, as he was fishing while using a knife to disassemble a creature.

I packaged these skills together because they were the LEAST likely to help you become a wizard king, and now you want to raise them?

“Yep.” Calvin said, struggling to hold onto a strip of intestine with his weak, blood-slicked hands, finally packaging together all the bits of the Toad he wanted to keep into something basically neat and portable.

Well, did you make sure to use Master Baiter on Nadia for the second drop?

No, I didn’t… Calvin grabbed his crutch and pushed himself off the ground, toddering over to the edge of the railing, eying Nadia as she was dangled above the Abyss.

Master bai-

Before Calvin could finish the thought, a metallic, crystalline shape shot out of the Abyss and plunged into Nadia’s chest.

Her distant form jerked once, then disappeared in an explosion of green mist. The strange crystal structure stretched all the way back into the Abyss, like a single metallic shard had grown all the way up and into her. When she fully vanished, the green mist of her body was absorbed into the head-sized lump of metal crystals growing in every direction, right where her chest used to be.

“What in the Abyss is that?” Kala asked.

“Like Rufe was saying, when in doubt, run.” Calvin said, tapping Kala on the shoulder. Kala nodded and ran, aiming for The Crack.

Calvin cast one last look at the creature, and didn’t like what he saw. The had sized lump of crystals that had absorbed Nadia’s green mist – probably her Bent -  had grown to the size of her torso, tangled in the hanging rope.

I hope Nadia’s still okay…a little.

Calvin saw the solid pillar of metallic substance crumble away behind the creature, turning into scintillating dust as the pillar revealed itself to be hollow. It grew even more, t oabout double the size of a Guar, tangled in the rope.

What a strange creatu- ACK!

Calvin yanked his head backwards as the crystalline structure grew a jagged metallic beam straight towards his face, drawing a shallow cut across his scalp.

Shifting.

14/17 Bent remaining.

Calvin targeted himself, his crutch, the floor, and the monster with Shifting.

Calvin dumped all the weight he could into the monster, hoping to slow it down, then he started running. Well, crutch-running.

Kill it, Calvin instructed his wasps, intending to use them as fodder while he escaped.

They didn’t seem to mind.

The giant Knick knacks simply moved to get between them.

But what if-

I’m aware!” Calvin thought glancing over his shoulder as he frantically used one leg and his crutch to run.

It wasn’t pretty, but he was moving at just about full speed, taking advantage of his light weight.

He couldn’t see a tangible difference in the monster’s speed due to the Mayfly mutation, but then again, it didn’t seem to move so much as it grew in the direction it wanted to go.

It was lodged in the ceiling, that head-sized mass of silvery crystal, and Calvin saw his Wasps go after it, blurring through the air with speed and strength that would make Legends nervous.

They slammed into the creature, trying to pierce its body with their stingers, to no avail.

Oh, come on! Those wasps could probably pierce Jerrytanium!

Hah, no. Not with just the force of eighteen giant wasps. But it is tough, I’ll give it that.

The creature exploded outward, jagged silver crystal piercing three of Calvin’s wasps, which exploded into green mist, once again drawn into the creature’s crystalline structure.

It immediately redoubled in size.

Fuck. It was just as bad as Calvin thought.

Yep. You’re feeding it. Nadia was probably leaking some of the green stuff, and that’s what attracted our boy here. Your summons are like sugar to this thing.

Two options presented themselves: Use his summons as bait and feed the thing while they escaped.

Or not.

One option left them with a giant death crystal to deal with later, while the other kept it at a more manageable size, except nothing would be between his crippled form and the creature.

Ah, fuck it. Calvin thought, dismissing the summons. They burst into green smoke while while the creature’s trailing crystal dissolved into glitter, growing in size as it readied for it’s next jump.

He reached into his pocket and grabbed a handful of Toad teeth. Three, he thought as he felt them in his hand.

Ballast and weapons.

Shifting

Shifting

Shifting

11/17 Bent Remaining.

Calvin linked each of the teeth to three separate spots on the floor, only interested in maximizing their weight on command.

Then he slid a Toad femur out of its leather wrap, applying the same treatment to it.

10/17 Bent remaining.

Shifting has reached level 12!

Shifting level 12: 60% shift, 12 minutes, targets limited to 1728 pounds in mass.

“Calvin, what are you doing!?” Kala demanded, glancing back at him, halfway back to the Crack already. It wasn’t as if they could get through the crack without an Unqua of their own, anyway.

“I’m gonna kill it.” He said, passing one of the sharp black teeth over to his off hand.

Unless it eats all Bent, then you’re just kind screwed.

If that’s the case, We’ll summon some extra fast Knick-knacks and play keepaway until Rufe shows up to help…Gods I wish I still had my spell components.

Oooh, I get it your plan now. And I approve. Elliot said, followed by clicking noises that echoed through Calvin’s head.

Calvin didn’t have time to say anything, as the creature grew toward him at blinding speeds.

Calvin shifted the weight from the three points in the floor to the tooth in his left hand.

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Suddenly the tooth weighed three thousand pounds.

Before it began to drop, Calvin yanked on it, pulling his lightened body sideways at a similarly unnatural speed, as if there was a solid bar there to pull on. An instant later he returned the tooth to it’s former weight, generating momentum from nothing.

The creature grew through the space Calvin had been occupying, slamming into the ground, but rather than take a moment to rebuild it’s size like Calvin was expecting, it grew a massive, jagged spike of silver crystal toward his chest from the middle of its shaft.

Hah, shaft.

Not funny!

Calvin swung the bone club sideways in an attempt to knock the thing off course. Normally this would be a very stupid move. The force of a sideways blow was rarely accurate or powerful enough to divert a stab sufficiently to avoid damage, but Calvin had a feeling this would turn out different.

He shifted all the weight of the floor into his club at the last second.

The hurtling bone struck with the force of a meteor, and the entire spike of silver crystal snapped off and shattered onto the ground, leaking a scintillating goop onto the ground that rapidly bloomed into uncontrolled crystal growth.

It’s hard, but brittle.

The main shaft was revealed to be hollow, with some kind of goopy appendage withdrawing into the rapidly crystalizing wound, crystalline metal forming like a scab.

Calvin had studied with Karen long enough to know when to press the advantage.

He threw all three of the teeth toward the main shaft, adding the floor’s mass to them, and each impact broke off a massive piece of the creature’s protective shell.

Calvin landed, wincing as his leg tried to bend in it’s splint. He didn’t have time for legs to flex or get his balance, he needed to attack now.

He dumped mass into the club and yanked himself forward, overtaxing the muscles in his arm and shoulder as he lunged forward awkwardly on one leg. He dumped the mass out again, drew the club forward, then injected the weight back in as it smashed down on the rapidly healing shell.

Calvin’s strike smashed the main shaft in half, exposing the entire creature and tearing a large portion of flesh off of it. The monster screamed in pain, a sound that was more felt than heard, a strange ringing in his mind that seemed to beat against the inside of his skull, trying to pick its way out.

“Gah,” Calvin grunted as the creature retreated, leaving a slimy appendage and some ropy guts behind as it shot back up the main silvery shaft, the hole closing behind it.

Calvin swung the club up, ripping his damaged muscles as he put every ounce of speed he could into the throw, then he let go. He put all the mass into the club that he could

The Toad bone shattered straight down the main shaft like an iron rod tossed down the length of a thin glass tube, dislodging the strangely translucent monster, squishing it violently against the wall, before the whole thing came tumbling down to land on the platform with a sickening squelch.

Old Salt has reached level 10!

+1 Stability

Please choose-

Calvin dismissed the prompt and limped forward as fast as he could, trying to beat the crystalline shell that was slowly forming around the dead creature.

He knelt down and put a finger on the creature’s slimy skin, ignoring the pain from his broken leg. There were more important things to take care of, here.

Harvester

9/18 Bent Remaining.

In the blink of an eye, the translucent creature was separated out into all it’s constituent pieces, neatly packaged as if he’d been hunting them all his life.

His eyes landed on a handful of clear sacs, some full of clear goop, others full of opaque white goop.

Excellent, Calvin thought, peeling the crystalline coating off the tip of his finger.

Calvinian summoning.

8/18 Bent remaining.

Calvin summoned an army of tiny knick-knacks to get started making the glass vials he needed.

Show me the list.

Right-O

Old salt has reached level 10!

Please choose a-

Kala smacked Calvin on the back of the head, jostling the list out of his brain.

“I could have helped.” She said, scowling at him.

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t need it, did I?”

Kala’s eyes narrowed.

Backpedal.

Calvin held up a hand. “The fight was over before I thought about help, but I promise that If I need your help from here on out, I will ask for it.”

Kala shook her head and went to retrieve the dangling rope.

Calvin watched her go for a moment to make sure no more head-smacking would occur before he checked the list again.

Please choose an Ability or Mutation for your Discipline

From Knife-Work:

Abilities:

Knife Dancer: 1 Stability per knife.  Imbue knives with a portion of your Bent to move them at will. Dismissable. Stability returns 24 hours after the bond has been dismissed.

Bleeding Strike: 1 Bent. Does what it says. The bleeding will not stop without extreme interference.

Penetrating Strike: 1 Bent. Softens material that comes in contact with the blade. The blade isn’t tougher, everything else is softer.

Edge Lord: 1 Bent. Grants a kinetic field of force that applies an edge to anything for as long as it’s held in the user’s hand. Sharpness dependent on Knife-work level. Anything can be a knife with the right mindset!

MacGuyver: 1 Bent/8hrs Applies a malleable kinetic field to a knife that allows it to be used as virtually any hand-held tool (screwdriver, hammer, saw, socket wrench, tweezers, planer, you name it.)

Knives to Meet You: Apply Knife-work’s correction to the damage of knife attacks performed on an unaware opponent.

Surgeon’s Blade: 1 Bent: Apply Medi-tate’s healing to the patient, with the combined level of Knife-work and Meditate. Lasts during the operation and 1 hour per five levels of Knife-work after Surgery.

Invisiblade: 1 Bent. Makes a knife invisible for 1 hour. Careful you don’t cut yourself with it!

Sacrificial Blade: When User kills with specially prepared knife, that creature’s remaining Bent is drawn from them and given to the User. Overdose may cause Bent toxicity.

^From Lady Killer

 

Mutations:

Grindstone fingers: Sharpen any blade by running your fingers over the edge.

 

Razor’s Edge: User gives off a passive kinetic field that increases the durability of knives, and raises their sharpness when threatened.

Size Matters. Increase size limit of Blade Body’s storage by 1 inch per level of Knife-work.

Stinger: Launch knives using Blade Body at will.

I am the Blade: User may grow knifelike protrusions from their extremities at will.

^Never be unarmed again!

 

From Fishing:

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Pond: Spend one Bent while casting to connect one body of water to any other body of water while fishing. Maximum size fish restricted by the opening of the original body of water. 

^MAXIMUM SIZE IMPOSED: USE AT SEA DISABLED AFTER THE SUMMONING OF LAVASH THE WORLD DRINKER.

Sea of Calm: Meditate while fishing. While fishing, the levels of Meditation and Fishing stack, applying to both their effects and abilities. for example, if fishing is 5 and Meditation is 15, while fishing, both skills will be treated as 20. User can Shadowbox between catches.

^Can't be cheesed by fishing in Shabowboxing, you Munchkin, it's already good enough.

Calvinian Fishing: Creatures may be summoned with a hook and intangible line attached to them, allowing the user to mentally reel in fish.

^Fish with magic!

 

Mutations:

 

Polarized Eyes: Apply the Fishing correction to see clearly through the glare of water.

^Sometimes works on light-based illusions.

Sonar: Allows the user to use high frequency noises to map out areas and detect creatures under the water. May cause Were-dolphin-ism

^eek eek!

Expert Sturgeon: Eating fish applies the Fishing Skill's correction to the body's natural immunity/healing. Lasts 8 hours, requiring three meals with fish a day for full effect.

 

From Hunting:

Abilities:

Agent of Natural Selection: Know which animals to kill and which to keep, raising the quality and health of game over time.

 

Gentle Repose: Harvester now also halts the decay of (level) pounds of organic material for (level) days. From Shifting.

^I got you, boo.

Clean kill: Applies a correction to shots fired upon prey animals, steering them toward their vitals.

Camouflage: 1 Bent/6 hours. Blend in with the environment, lose your scent.

 

Mutations:

Predator’s senses: Pick a sense, (Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, Taste). That sense becomes heightened to match a predator that uses it to hunt.

Blood Compass: after tasting something’s blood, know its exact direction for 24 hours.

 

Damn, that’s a lot of choices.

It nearly turned Calvin’s stomach that he was going to have to wait until level twenty to pick something else, and only one thing, meaning the vast majority would never be chosen.

 I guess we have to live with them.

I choose Gentle Repose.

Calvin twitched for a moment as the Ability seated itself in his mind, then exhaled a sigh, repeating the Harvester ability to make sure the Gentle Repose took.

7/18 Bent Remaining.

Once that was done, Calvin asked Kala to watch over him, sat down and started Shadowboxing.

He appeared in the exact same location he was sitting, with a mess of translucent guts strewn out before him.

Open up the Warp Tank.

Roger.

There was a sinking sensation in his stomach, and sweat began beading on his forehead as he felt the Warp coursing through him.

6/8 Warp Remaining.

In Shadowboxing, he pulled out his borrowed knife and punctured two of the sacs, spilling goop all over the ground. Calvin watched as the two pools of goop slowly drifted toward each other, heart hammering.

When the two fluids made contact, the reaction was far stronger than Calvin had expected. an explosion. Crystals jutted through his hand, into his cheek, burrowing into his stomach and out his back.

I think you were sitting a bit too close.

Calvin reset the shadowboxing, returning to his unharmed state, then began playing with them using dupdomancy.

Aerosolizing them by spreading tiny bits evenly through the air made a beautiful slowflake-like effect, while slamming large amounts into each other made uncontrolled explosions of crystal growth.

Calvin started experimenting with different combinations, different ratios, and even tried adding different fluids from the monster’s body to see if it had some way of controlling the direction of the growth, or altering the properties of the crystals.

After an hour or so of experimenting, Calvin was able to somewhat direct the growth of the crystal making a tube of metallic…stuff, that shot outward in the direction of his choosing.

You have Manifested Abyssal Alchemy!

Abyssal Alchemy: A branch of alchemy pioneered by the King-in-Exile in his later years, in an attempt to use monster parts as spell components. Widely hailed as the true beginning of modern component-based magic.

Abyssal Alchemy level 1: 5% correction to using alchemical means to recreate Warped creature’s abilities, as well as the control, malleability, stability, purity, and strength thereof.

Who in the Abyss is that? Calvin thought.

Idunno. Sounds like a cool guy, though.

5/8 Warp remaining.

Macronomicon

If you're smarter than a rock, you're probably concerned about what's been going on in the world recently. I know I am. You also have heard how to protect yourself six ways from sunday. That's not what I want to say.

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Good luck, you guys.

-Macronomicon

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