Mathew

Getting to work on the scavenged carcass, he was interrupted by Harper.

“I’d like to take over after you get it all cut up. I’m grinding out the cooking skill.”

“Sure thing.” Mathew smiled. “I just wanted-” Yawn “-to get this taken care of before turning in. Keep it from spoiling overnight.”

Harper yawed back. “Stop it. But yeah good thinking.”

Having someone grind out cooking skills sounded nice. Getting buffs was almost as nice as not having to cook again. not that he couldn't cook just that he'd usually stick with microwave food for a reason.

Cutting off the antlers with some focused digestion magic took time but saved them from doing the job poorly with the wrong tools. Mathew then delivered the hide to Amber. Something about her just spoke that she knew her way around untanned leather.

Borrowing the kitchen knife, he cut the meat off the bones. After laying it out in strips where Harper had directed him, Mathew had the leftovers in hand.

“Hey, do either of you want this for anything?” Mathew asked.

Two shaking heads left him clear to do what he wanted.

Using Ripper, he channeled purple magic over the mess. Eating bone away took time but it was decently reserve rich and more than paid for consuming it. Little bits of raw tendons and muscle ate away first.

“What’cha doing?” Amber asked. “This corruption magic?”

“Huh, no it’s digestion magic. The notification said it went by that alias but it’s actually digestion magic.”

“So we can’t trust all the notifications.” Amber tilted her head thoughtfully. “I picked up that reading some of my messages. So you ain’t making it some corrupted minion or nothing? Shame that might’ve been useful. Hey, can you remove the fat from this hide then?”

Nodding, Mathew applied his magic. The fat came away and his reserves continued to climb.

“Great work there hoss, can I get the brain out o’ that skull, pretty please?” Amber’s blue eyes sparkled. “When we were in the forest, how did you know the Alpha was there?”

“Mental resistance skill. Has a perk that ramps up my awareness of influence over time. It must have used some mental mojo to aid its stealth.” Mathew scratched the back of his head. “That and I could feel its mind. I guess we should probably cover this sooner than later. Harper, can you hear me from there? Good. One of the perks I got for the skill mental attack lets me read minds. I haven’t tried it yet but I think it lets me manipulate thoughts too.”

“Thanks for keeping us safe with it, hoss. What is this perk thing?” Amber skipped straight over the whole invasion of privacy thing.

“Perks it’s a menu you get for every five skill levels. You can pull it up like a status fixture.” Mathew tried to recover from the anti-climatic moment.

“First thing tomorrow, we put our heads together share all the information we have so far.” Harper smiled. “This place is crazy but I think whatever brought us over here wants us to thrive here. Whatever problems this world may have, there have to be answers. Natives of this world must have figured it out. If we find them, we can copy whatever they do. That includes mind reading. First thing tomorrow, okay?”

His hunger magic had eaten through a ring of bleached bone on top of the deer skull. Prying the plate out with the bone claws of his gauntlet, he handed the skull bowl of brains over to Amber. “Yeah tomorrow. Thanks, both of you.”

Amber yawned and started off another round of passing it around. Adding another log to the fire, Harper retired to the other room of the prison. She stopped at the door. “Uh, I’ve got a bathroom here if you need it. Plumbed and everything.”

“Hot damn!” Amber hopped up and followed her.

Laying down beside the fire, Mathew watched it crackle and dance. The warmth was pleasant…

Opening his eyes to sunlight spilling through a crack, Mathew didn’t feel nearly as stiff as the hours spent laying without a bed should’ve left him.

No one was out in the main space of the Hub when he looked around. Hungry though. Expending his hunger over the leftover bones, he waited for the feeling to lower to something that wasn’t maddening.

Sitting up, he didn’t feel stiff at all. This was his first night of sleep after his second increase in durability. In theory, three times as durable as he was before. The burden on his body that usually made him stiff and sore wasn’t worth mentioning today. Did whatever transferred us want us to succeed?

He would have said his transition was pretty stacked against himself… but he had gotten everything he needed to get out—even some outsider help. After tiring the hamster on the running wheel that powered his mind, Mathew shifted gears. Some answers were just out of reach. What he could do was figure out what information he had to share that was worthwhile. Looking over his stats for the first time in a while, he realized that updating his build was maintenance he’d have to keep up on.

[Mathew Gains Starling ~ Fate Breaker

Otherworld Human/Carrion Beast Hybrid

Carrion Solider 70% to level 1

Health 232/330 (-98 Crafting damage)

Reserves 588

Magic digestion:

Digestion points 156/285

Body Total 25 (+3)

Strength 6

Agility 5

Durability 7 (+2 class, +1 mind over body reflection)

Endurance 7

Mind Total 16

Willpower 4

Cognition 3

Resistance 6 (+1 body mind reflection)

Resilience 3

Combat skills

Living skeleton weapon 19

Bone regeneration 3

Mental resistance 7

Conditional Ambush 11

Mental attack 10

Crafting skills

Living skeleton weapon 19

Utility skills

Digestion 9

Controlled evolution 1

Scan 2]

In the pain and chaos of getting out of the transition, Mathew had forgotten about controlled evolution.

[Controlled evolution

Direct the development of your hybrid physique.]

Wielding an intelectus to understand the skill and translate it to himself, Mathew marveled that this process was so natural he’d done the process time and again without even understanding it. Controlled evolution would give him specific control of how we would evolve and change if he wanted to. Getting a full class was all he needed. Now he could just stay himself. Taking a bit to let it settle, he had to stifle a happy cackling. Collecting himself and wiping an eye, he kept looking. Living skeletal weapon was almost at a perk point level and he had crafted a hell of a lot before the last level up… but he also got ten bonus skill levels. Would that make leveling harder?

Getting to work Mathew started with his right arm. The gnarly wound had closed in some but where he’d torn Ripper out of his arm was still a break in his exoskeleton. Molding bone back over the void in his defenses, he found the process better than he was. Not hyperbole either. Living skeleton weapon wasn’t just handling things like blood flow and connective tissue anymore. It was making structural adjustments to the design. Split-cylinder design gave way to smaller interlocking plates. Ridges like an electronic heat sink filled with blood vessels formed on the underside of his forearm. Decisions he hadn't made expanded from minutia to structural.

Mathew shifted his skills focus to his gauntlets. The small rough plates that he’d put on his fingers refined. Pore-sized hexagon plates with interlocking parts added as needed gave him more full feeling again. Under his eyes, the plates gained ridges and valleys a new fingerprint formed. No doubt this one was unique to him. A tracker to who he was, something that everyone had but he’d lost, returned. This is what he had promised himself, scrounging in the fog-filled wastes. To take back what was his. Survival compacted into a foundation would give him a launchpad to thrive.

Today was a good day.

[New living skeletal weapon ability discovered: Passive Design

Generate a planning intelectus based on building skill level

Skill level 1: Passive design

... ]

[New living skeletal weapon ability discovered: Active Design

Generate a planning intelectus based on building skill level

Skill level 1: Passive design

Skill level 5: Active design

... ]

[New living skeletal weapon ability discovered: Aided crafting

Generate a planning intelectus based on building skill level

Skill level 1: Passive design

Skill level 5: Active design

Skill level 10: Aided crafting

... ]

Aided crafting combined with active design had to be working with his ability now. This time was a bit odd though. It was clear that the notifications came after the ability had been demonstrated.

He hadn’t leveled up his skill yet and still had hundreds of reserves left. Targeting his whole body with the skill, he held it back from doing anything just he wanted to see what it did. To know his options. Resistance mounted and he had to carry more weight on his willpower. It worked though, well kind of. Ideas flowed with single-minded dedication and used some jargon shorthand he couldn’t get yet. Then it wrapped up its thought, a pregnant pause grew out. Took him too long to figure it out but it was a question.

What do I want? Mathew thought. Having given his shoes to Amber, he noticed a deficiency. It was tolerable but sharp points still got to him. Plus he wanted to make good use of his sure foot award. Being skittish with his bare feet would limit him. With only that answer, the other mind of his began spinning a complex web of function. Small precision hexagons, none larger than the opening of a straw, interlocked with limits like his joint locks. He could feel what he stepped on but nothing would feel like a stab.

It was nice but he wanted to stretch the skill. Some type of armor would help a lot as well. His bones were more than ten times more durable than that of an Earth human. That had to be somewhere close to metal, he guessed. The top of his foot would need more protection. Pushing that at the skill, the mental image shifted again. Armored segments built up and shifted. Flat planes of bone rippled into reinforced ridges. Small details like angle and thickness shifted obsessively as the design unveiled itself closer to some perfect state. It looked a bit ugly. Not like awful but the ridges were so pronounced it looked like the emaciated foot of a giant. Grudgingly his skill reduced the peaks and thickened the valleys.

Setting his skill to work, he felt a tugging somewhere around his health. Letting his skill do the work allowed him mindfulness to pick up hints of where his reserves resided. They ticked down as his exoskeleton grew. Slow and without constant attention, new kicks grew around his feet.

Eventually, he heard the two getting around and they came back out to the main area.

Mathew hadn't really been in the frame of mind to really see them. Athletic muscles showed through Amber's string top, the sort of someone who did hard work for a living. Her straight blond hair didn't get in the way but stood in contrast to her relaxed movements. Harper oof. A tangle of brown hair spoke of a bad nights rest and missing hygine tools. Otherwise she was dressed well for the situation, hiking boots and tough jean material.

“Morning, sunshine.” Mathew grinned.

“Uh, you’re one of those people.” Harper shook her head.

“Sure thing hun.” Amber quipped. “But you slept on a bed. You’ve got no excuse to be anything but as chipper as I am.”

Finger raised, Harper stopped. “Fair.”

“Well let’s get started putting all the information we have together.” Mathew invited.

Grabbing a drink and some jerky the girls joined him. Before too long, they found out how to share notifications and pull up a log of notifications they had received. Their big meeting turned into silently reading beside each other and the occasional question.

“Let me get this straight you activated your magic without any skills yet?” Mathew asked.

“Sure did.” Amber nodded. “Oh, made me miss Texas something fierce. Then I remembered Texas is wherever I am.”

“Pretty sure that isn’t how states work.” Mathew chuckled.

“Well, I hadn’t declared it yet. But it could be Texas wherever I am if I want it to.” Amber replied.

Mathew knew when to stop digging. Holding his hands up in surrender, he kept reading.

“Mathew, what was the secret condition to unlock your bone molding skill?” Harper asked.

“I uh, stabbed the Hammer Hand Wraith with my bones.” Mathew heard Amber mutter “phrasing” before continuing. “It broke my arm, so my hand flopped against my arm right here. I couldn’t quite tickle my elbow. So when I punched it with what was left, my bones stabbed into it. That was the secret condition.”

“Sorry hun, I didn’t mean to make fun of ya about something serious.” Amber’s eyes glistened.

“No, no, nothing that big. It was big at the time. But after I pulled my mind back together, it didn’t seem so bad. Plus, now you get to tell a story about how badass I am when I’m not around.”

“Pft, badass? Stumbling out of a space-time bubble and squinting at me.” Amber dropped her voice low. “Monsters?”

Her eyes didn’t lose their concern but she got it. You make light of shit, so it never weighed too much to carry.

“So what conclusions do have we come up with?” Mathew started. “All I’ve got is a question about what the hibernation essence you stole can do?”

Harper sat up straighter and flicked her fingers at each of the others.

[Hibernation essence

Fuse with a fortification to unlock associated powers. Metabolism and stasis.]

“I think that’d be good to add to the hub.” Mathew dismissed her notification.

“Okay, I’ll add an intelectus first. I think it’ll have some useful input.” Harper said.

“So your Alpha phage perk, you said that the Hammer Psycho was feeding on your mind. Can you slot that type of digestion as well?”

[Alpha phage

Wraith ~ Gain the ability to digest mind power and thoughts

Shield Boar ~ Gain the ability to digest shields

Rock tooth slime ~ Gain the ability to digest stone

Field grass ~ Gain the ability to digest radiation]

Willing it over to the others, he waited.

“I can’t see from the text. Can you re-slot them later or is it locked in?” Amber asked. “Kinda think there is plenty of stone you could chomp away at and make the Hub that much bigger.”

“I can re-slot but it has a cooldown longer than a whole day,” Mathew answered.

“Go with the Wraith one. Maybe it’ll help you with detection. That’s my vote.” Harped added.

“I got to be honest, I’m kinda curious myself.” Amber leaned forward. “I’d like to train up this mental resistance skill.”

There was something poetic about taking the strength of an enemy and using it to make yourself and everyone around you immune to it. Pushing his will into the menu and he felt it click into the lens within his throat.

“While we wait for Mr. Guru here. Where did you put them-

Nothing at first but as he ignored his surroundings, he could feel the menus being moved around by the others. That wasn’t exactly right. The menus were where this new food was. Reaching out with his mind, he tried to activate the understanding aspect of his mental attack skill.

Amber’s surface thoughts flowed on the outer edge of a tangled ball. Gripping at a string of thoughts, he pulled on it.

“What was I saying? Sorry lost my train of thought.” Amber got suspicious of him immediately. So he plucked the suspicion away and tried eating it. The taste was, well it was the flavor of honesty.

“You were asking if I’d tried to replant the mushrooms if I get where you were going.” Harper filled in.

“Yeah that was it! So my Uncle George tried his hand at a mushroom farm and- I lost it again.” Amber’s suspicion lashed harder this time and Mathew didn’t really try to squash it. He did dodge before she went to swat him.

“Hot damn, you’re forgiven.” Amber shared her notification.

[Free thinking

Use magic to protect our mind from being manipulated. Freedom zealot powers booyah]

Hours went by this way, digesting what the world Leternum was. Getting caught up to the baseline knowledge of children. They laughed, ate some more dried-out shield boar, and opened up a bit.

Their door was stuck so hard it rattled in its frame. Mathew jumped to his feet and pulled Ripper with him. Amber rolled to her spear and Harper sat paralyzed. Reaching out with his new mental powers, Mathew found two bundles of thought. Holding out two fingers, he passed the information silently.

“Hello? Please, help.”