Mathew

"How to be an Alpha?" Clare's ruby eyes shone in the starlight. "The best I can tell, all Alpha's are different. I feel that I need to know more about you."

"Not much to say," Mathew thought about his life. "I grew up spoiled, got a nice education, tutors the whole bit. And uh, I decided to work with my hands instead." He paused to find a better answer. Summarizing his own life always felt like pulling teeth.

"Very sorry, but I mean to learn of the primal side of you," She tilted her head. "Also, what does your successful ascension as an Alpha mean? Actually, hold on that. I do want to know, but first, you said you have never met Doctor Hundle. How are you an Alpha at all?"

Relief at not having to think about himself too much was pushed away for the sake of focus. They were interrupted the last time he began to get answers from her. This time Mathew swore to make the most of what time he had.

Sorting though his past Mathew recognized his memory worked more clearly than he knew it could. Time spent exploring the system during the transition flowed through his mind, with clarity and ease.

"It started when she broke my bones..." Mathew explained his first few days of abduction. All the while, Clare just listened. She'd seemed so forceful and willing to interrupt, to take up space. And now she just listened. Sharing about his origins in this world was helpful in a similar way to writing things down but in a different flavor. Rather than sorting everything to make sense of it the human connection made it lighter.

"Fascinating. Your hybridism is due to organic growth. Do you think that is why you ascended while we surgery hybrids did not?" Clare theorized.

"Could be," Mathew nodded. He wasn't sure how honest he should be about Amber. Without a doubt, Amber's Freedom magic had been a critical element in his advancement. Clare was too desperate and willing to force her demands on others for Mathew to put Amber in the crosshairs.

"What can you tell me about the Carrion Beasts then?" Clare probed.

"From the status description, I was able to experience their lifecycle. They start as... I don't know, spores? Floating eggs? After landing on something dead, they grow inside of it and turn all the material into a trap," Mathew tapped Ripper. "Making a barbed weapon is part of that trap."

"And then what?" Clare asked.

"Uh, I don't know. They ambush whatever shows up?" Mathew shrugged.

"There is not any way that is where their lifecycle ends. You simply must tell me the rest. Let me remind you that you have literally asked for my help," Clare's tone brooked no protest but still landed as gentle.

"Now that I think of it, I never did finish experiencing their life. I really don't know what a Carrion Beast really is," Mathew said.

"You still have full access to the system, yes?" After seeing his affirmative, she continued. "Then do so now."

"Right now? Uh, yeah. Just a sec," Mathew pulled up his status screen, paying the cost from his willpower.

[Mathew Gains Starling ~ Fate Breaker

Otherworld Human/Carrion Beast Hybrid

Carrion Knight 20% to level 5

Health 910/910

Reserves 31,849

Magic digestion:

Digestion points 167/890

Pooling points 225/225 25%/25%

Body Total 79

Strength 17.5

Agility 16.5

Durability 26.6

Endurance 18.2

Mind Total 59

Willpower 13.8

Cognition 12.6

Resistance 18.6

Resilience 13.5

Combat skills

Living skeleton Armorment 28

Bone regeneration 9

Mental resistance 12

Conditional Ambush 14

Mental attack 14

Mental support 9

Crafting skills

Living skeleton Armorment 28

Utility skills

Digestion 37

Class Construction 1

Scan 12]

Focusing on "Otherworld Human/Carrion Beast Hybrid," Mathew probed the system for information. Another draw on his willpower and knowledge flowed to him. Before he'd made his hybrid selection, the system told him the mechanics he should expect. Now it summarized information from his exoskeleton trait and cultivation spectrum to his crafting history. Just like before, after the clear text came unstructured information.

As Mathew reexperienced life as a floating ball of hunger, his growth since the last time allowed him to catch more details. A Carrion Beast started as a sightless floating flesh orb. Beyond the ravenous craving was an ability to adapt. In frigid air, the spore-like being would grow fuzzy insulation. Light enough for travel but insulated to slow down the burning of reserves.

Finally landing on a carcass, the infant Carrion Beast began his infestation. While he could break down and digest material through his skin, he didn't take long to grow sharp spines and tendrils. Wherever they dug into the remains, the corpse was converted. The old dying cells became a house for the will of the ambush predator. Filled with a new life and fueled by the mass that had truly died.

Following instincts, the implanted monster grew a trap. The ribcage became the jagged teeth of a giant maw, and a barbed spike grew inside it. Attached to stranded muscle disguised as intestines, the barbed spike housed a cluster of neurons. The neural mass was crafted with care taking as long as the rest of the modifications.

This was as far as Mathew had seen before. It was disturbing to experience such an alien life as real as his own. Last time the feelings of hunger, aggression and patience overwhelmed the details. For as different as he seemed from a Carrion Beast, he now began to question how much of his actions were instincts that he didn't know he had. The formation of Ripper, and how well he was getting along with people came to mind. Mathew could be a bit of a hot head but lately he seemed better able to control himself. At first he'd thought it was just a higher willpower in action now he wasn't so sure his patience was fully his own.

Mathews intelectus paused while he was distracted with his musings. Telling his intelectus to please continue, Mathew again dove into learning what he now was. This time he tried to be objective and see the vision as a separate entity.

With a mature brain, the Carrion Beast awakens mental powers. Its efforts focus on all the small minds close to it. Flies, birds, worms, no mind is too simple to explore. Each example from nature becomes a catalog of options. Benefits and costs are systematically sorted. Finally, memories are sorted to find a first target. A monster that will facilitate the next and most crucial step in the beast's development.

A human appears in the memory of a songbird. With a living green spear and bone chunks strapped to his body with vines, the man was seen taking down a shadowy dog that all the wildlife fears.

Is this a real history? Mathew wondered.

Driving away all other interested predators, the Carrion Beast only kills a few weak-minded prey to sustain itself. The power to force a living thing to violate its instincts and accept death still brought fear to Mathew's heart. Not because he feared having that power but because he had almost been subject to it in the transition. Focusing he continued.

After some time, the target arrived. Drawn in carefully by subtle manipulations, the warrior stepped right into the trap. This is where the vision split from one event into two.

In the first event, hooked rib teeth dug into the man's unprotected calf and thigh while the lethal bone barb shot into the man's ribs. The death was quick and brutal. Mathew reminded himself that it was just a vision as his mind was inundated with the satisfaction killing an innocent man.

The Carrion Beast ate all the man's flesh and grew the familiar grey muscles and tendon-like thread. Assembling the bones, nearby branches, and rocks into a hunched over form from the creative mind of a killer. Merging the converted trap and the body together the Carrion Beast took shelter in its new home.

A second version of events played in Mathew's mind. This time the warrior had better armor, and the fight drew out. Killing the Carrion Beast, the man escaped severely injured. A barbed bone trailing leftover muscle stuck from his side. Removing the hooked weapon could be lethal so he left it in for now.

Time blurred as the vision jumped forward in time. The cluster of neurons in the barb awoke and finished the job. Growing spines that drove the new Carrion Beast's influence through flesh and into bone. Rather than consuming the man, it converted him.

As the converted warrior removed his blanket and stood, plates of bone began to form on his body. It was grey like Mathew's armor once was. Most disturbingly, the man seemed to know of his past. Looking at his newly formed claws, his past no longer mattered, only finding the Hive. Between instinct and the consumption of his mind, the will of a monster remained in control even with memories of both lives intertwined.

Both sequences blurred, and within each, the Carrion Beast grew more powerful. They were limited by how much food they could consume. Curiously the first monster could not truly eat anymore. Instead, it followed a psychic tether to a Hive Queen. There a menagerie of bone monsters laid meat and high-quality plants as a tribute to the Hive Queen. She would then digest and feed each Hive member some luminescent concentrated goop.

Regardless, both versions of a Carrion Beast/man fusion grew to rival the power of the apex predators and demanded their own slice of Leternum's energy. As they stabilized under the mantle of Alpha, Mathew's intelectus indicated the end of its information and usefulness. Letting that force of will and thought go, he contemplated the significance of this adopted heritage.

"I can feel that you found what you needed," Clare smiled with an authenticity rivaling Amber's.

"How?" Mathew asked. "Can you read minds or something?"

"My title, Tutor, gives me insight when it comes to one on one training," Clare's smile faded into a ghost. "I earned it training a dear friend in The Colony. Anyway, the insight can even be to things I do not know and do not even know enough to guess at. I was always a gut instinct teacher, so the title fits well with me."

She continued. "Something tells me you know more about who you are. The type of cloth your Alpha is cut from. So in your own words, what is that material? Take your time."

Taking his time was good because there was a bit to process. Hunger, patience and violence were tied together in a ball of instincts. That he was familiar with. Underneath that was a drive to mentally connect with a Hive. The curiosity and purpose to research and engineer an ever-evolving body structure.

"An ambush predator, the instinct is in each juvenile and often persists into adulthood. They are oddly social for something that spends so much time alone waiting for prey," Mathew shrugged. This was almost as hard as describing who he was. "I don't know what you are looking for."

"I am not looking for anything just so long as you know. I feel that is the essential portion. Now then, you must know or learn your place," Clare stared him down pointedly. The weight of her gaze was enough to trigger his Territory reinforcement to support him and subvert her influence.

"When The Night Stalker first landed here and made her nest, she gobbled up the vitality straight from Leternum. The land itself is barren. While most of that consumption was directed at the Territory I now call mine, all the ground you can see from this Spire was affected. So the powers that be reorganized accordingly. Are you following?" She asked.

"Land is poor, so those that live here are poor," Mathew said.

With a sharp nod, she continued. "You are below me, and I am below most of my neighbors. This isn't guesswork either. There is a skill to it, but those who command a Territory can learn to feel the relative power of a Territory. The only trick is that it includes armies, weapons, everything. If it is power, the pressure on the Alpha spectrum responds."

Mathew listened intently as he rolled a stone shard of the Spire in his hand. Polishing edges away with a quiet rasping. Behavior he'd seen began to make sense. The Adaraga invasion was when he was without Ripper, Ben and Grant. Conflicts that used the Spire as a crossroads were often in 'chains.' When one invader would then be invaded. Strategy from this knowledge spooled out from his mind.

With a direct connection between armies and the Territory one could command by intimidation. People from Earth would have little trouble unifying within a safe haven and, compared to most species, could grow in scale without fracturing off to form a new Territory.

"Given 'know your place' is rule one. Then rule two is 'know the cost.' Every Alpha I've fought or observed has an emergency reserve of power rarely utilized. Bodily endurance, super chilled liquid, or my storage of vital energy, resource control is the mind of most Alphas," Clare smirked to herself. "Not all Alphas are so wise, but most do not fight outside their league. So when conflicts occur, it is often about willingness to pay the cost. Remember expending a resource makes one feel weaker to their neighbor's senses."

Pausing his work on the rock, Mathew experienced the weight of it all. Sure he knew he was critical to survival in some sense. It usually felt like a theory. Now though, he realized there were no sick days. Even being weak to rest could carry a cost.

I chose this. I will not falter. I will protect, Mathew thought to himself until the burden settled into a familiar place. Heigh-ho.

"I guess mine would be reserves," Mathew said. "I can restore that, uh, high stat endurance. Quickly but it costs reserves and magic to do it."

"Just to make sure we mean the same thing, you mean the tiredness that supports full use of your other stats, correct?" Clare asked.

"Yeah, the muscle fatigue that only seems to affect my superhuman strength," Mathew answered.

"What about the rest of stat fatigue?" Clare said. Seeing Mathew's blank look, she continued. "Reserves feed into all stats performance. Willpower needs fuel to contort the world. Durability needs energy to empower the bonds within our bodies. It makes sense you have not yet felt those limits. They are the result of more extreme situations. Suffice to say that all processes break down without proper support."

She waved the direction of thought away like an offending odor. "You mentioned magic. Let us talk for a moment about being a hybrid. If you have embraced your magic, you now have more burden on your sanity. How does your magic influence you, and how far can we push your mind for the sake of growth?"

"My magic is Digestion magic, and it feels like I'm full of hunger," Mathew began. "When it's used up, I feel an empty satisfaction." His mind churned fruitlessly for an answer on how far he could push before losing his sanity. If he hadn't lost some already. Maybe that was the answer. Not when he'd lose his mind but when he'd lose too much of it. Another thought occurred to him.

"I'd keep my sanity better if I saved more people," Mathew's charming smile felt more like bearing his teeth. "So, how much can your army help me expand my Territory?"

"My teaching isn't enough? Now you barter the lives of my children," Clare showed her teeth in return. Definitely not a smile. "You play a dangerous game mere moments after I tell you the rules. What are you going to offer then?"

"When I get strong enough, I can offer you the human growth rate we enjoy. Plus, you said that army strength is significant. Saving humans is growing that army. This is in your best interests," Mathew said.

"No one gets to tell me what my best interests are but me," She spoke quietly. Louder, she continued. "Know your place. You do not have the strength to hold your own Territory yet. Not with how rich it is. Your only saving grace the veil of obfuscation that continues to decay. Keeping what you have will be your first goal... but we can still look for an opportunity. I promise nothing, and that is the best I can do."

He wanted to argue, but his damned cognition let Mathew see himself too quickly. He was too aggressive, too proud. He'd known that stats compound exponentially and he had less than a week of growth to compete with years of development. Being smart only worked so far because it was paired with luck.

"Fine," Mathew ground out, dropping his rock. "What can I do?"

"Forced growth," Clare said. "Don't worry I have freed up some time to supervise directly."