***Tirnanog, The Old Camp***

***Magnus***

Despite Mark’s friendly demeanour while we were shopping within the settlement’s walls, the man transformed into a taskmaster as soon as we left the camp. I was nonetheless thankful for what he taught me. Especially since I agreed with him that the world outside the camp didn’t allow for lazy behaviour.

He made me aware of all the little things, like stuffing my quiver with dry grass to prevent my throwing spears from creating too much noise when they jostled against each other. How to move without leaving too many traces of my passage, or how to read animal tracks and minimize the risk of an ambush while moving through unknown terrain.

Every day, we left the camp through one of the three improvised elevators which allowed normal folk like us to get past the huge walls that protected the camp’s west, south and east. Then we spent the day hunting and gathering resources.

At the start and the end of each day, the worst things were the elevator’s hand-operated rope winches. They gave me goosebumps every time I was forced to use one of the cursed things. The wonky craftsmanship just didn’t allow me to place any trust in them.

When I had asked about the reason why there was no proper gate, Mark only pointed out that it would be an unnecessary weak point in the construction and left it at that. After all, he hadn’t been involved in the camp’s creation.

After almost an entire week of learning about the flora and fauna of this world, I almost felt safe traversing the forest and the grasslands in front of the Old Camp. But according to Mark, those were safe zones. And despite calling them safe, even an experienced hunter like him avoided camping outside.

Apparently, I had used all my luck for the year when I slept outside two days in a row without being caught by some nightcrawler.

Mark had yet to show me the swamp region to the east which was considerably more dangerous. And according to him, unless we found a large group of very competent people, such a trip was unlikely to happen. The Old Camp had only two or three groups who dared to make regular expeditions into the swamp regions. They were all veterans who had survived this world for years, so it was unlikely for us to join one of their groups.

Today’s trip would take us to the hilly terrain in the north, where Mark had promised me I would find a little surprise.

It was strange to change our schedule after the last three days had been an economical success for us, but he was the teacher and I the student. I had suspected we would go on with our routine for a little while longer, but apparently, Mark thought me competent enough to try something new.

Over the last three days, we had worked out a way to manage my evolutions with just a day’s worth of hunting.

There was no way in hell for me to get the meat for either of my two new evolutions on my own. Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary.

Despite not relying on money, the Old Camp had developed quite an active economy. Trade between various types of meat had caused specialized hunting parties to form. Like in the old world, people tended to stick to a profession once they got good at it.

My throwing ability with the spear made me quite an effective hunter of any mid-sized critters we came across. Since our hunting styles were relatively similar for the moment, Mark had decided our time was best spent hunting aulums, animals which were prized for their sensory mutations.

They were six-legged herd animals of the size of a small pony. They looked like aurochs with two long, tentacle-like feelers which they used to shovel vegetation of all kinds into their maws.

While the head was close to the ground, the creatures actually had their large eyes and ears on their shoulders, which were the highest point on their bodies. The animals themselves were harmless enough, but they had exceptionally good hearing and eyesight which they used to allow no predators to get too close to them. Their creepy physique enabled them to keep watch and eat relatively unimpeded at the same time.

Additionally, their skittish nature meant they would have a sizeable head-start on any hunter trying to catch them.

But neither Mark nor I had to get close.

Mark had his compound bow which he used like a master to deliver poisoned arrows at distances of up to a hundred metres. His mutation allowed him to control the potency of the poison in his spit, which would quickly degenerate and turn non-toxic once it was released into the bloodstream. This ability allowed Mark to make a decent living on his own. Anything he hit with his arrows would go down and leave behind perfectly edible meat. All he had to do was to follow the animal until the poison did its job.

Despite my spears being capable of instant kills, I didn’t manage to keep up with his success rate in the beginning.

First, I had to get used to throwing my spears accurately at these distances. Like with all skills, mastering the art required practice.

Fortunately, the aulums' herd nature meant I had more than enough opportunities to hone my skills. And if I didn’t hit the creature I had aimed for, the herd was often so tightly packed that I had to hit something simply by accident.

Between following aulum herds and taking shots of opportunity at other animals, we gathered edible plants we came across.

And thanks to Mark’s expertise we avoided multiple dangerous situations which I would have blindly stumbled into if I had been alone.

This meant that, by the end of an average day with one aulum kill, I would have made enough in trading goods to pay the Old Camp’s only reliable restaurant for a full meal of starfish soup with slabs of nightstalker-, saherna-, and hornhop meat. If a place which served raw pieces of meat could be even called a restaurant. As I saw it, it was more like a currency trade where you could change one form of meat into another.

Having just small portions meant I wasn’t growing in leaps and bounds, but according to Mark, overeating on a certain sort of meat wouldn’t be good anyway. Raising my mutations slowly and evenly while getting used to them was the best way to go. There was no point in overwhelming powers if I couldn’t control them.

“So, why are we going into the hills today?” I whispered once my inner lamentations were no longer enough to keep me entertained. Mark had hammered it into me to never be louder than necessary while we were in the wilderness.

My companion and teacher looked around.

“We are looking whether we can do something about your primary evolution,” Mark answered finally after he had kept his lips sealed for the majority of our trek.

That made me listen up because trading for zipper meat would have been too easy. The restaurant didn’t have any, nor were there people who had made a profession out of hunting zippers.

He continued, “I didn’t want to talk about it at the Old Camp because there are always listening ears there. And you will keep your mouth shut about it. I don’t want anyone else to cash in on my knowledge.”

“What knowledge?” I frowned. “What could be so important about zippers? The damn things come in flocks as soon as we kill something. Leave a corpse bleeding in the open for a few minutes and you get swarmed.”

I had tried catching one every time Mark and I had made a kill, but the damned things were just too fast. And somehow the fuckers didn’t give a shit about his poison even when he went full out on its potency. It seemed like the Carrion Eater trait meant eating poison was no trouble for them.

Mark stopped walking and looked at me with a serious expression.

I almost bumped into him but managed to stop in time. It took me a moment, but I finally got what he wanted, so I mimed zipping my lips. “If you don’t want it to be known, then my mouth is sealed.”

He nodded and moved on. “It’s a little secret my teacher taught me. And I suppose Gurney knows about it too since he paid me quite handsomely to teach you the ropes.”

“Out with it,” I urged him on.

“Up there in the hills behind the cliff is a zipper breeding colony,” Mark explained. “They fly up into the rocky cliff-sides to lay their eggs.”

“No joke?” I asked. “Why doesn’t everyone have a zipper mutation then? I guess grabbing some hatchling out of a nest should be fairly easy.”

I guessed I should have been more empathetic towards my little friends, but the damned things had shocked me so often by now, sometimes out of mere malice, I seriously couldn’t care about stealing some of their brood.

I just had to think of it more pragmatically, like gathering chicken eggs.

“God, save me no,” Mark replied. “I will not try to steal some of their eggs. Not even the larger predators dare to do so! The little monsters will swarm and shock anything to death that gets too close to the colony. As passive as they are otherwise, they turn into murderhobos when something touches their eggs. But you, I have seen you wrestle with the things over corpses. A shock that makes me jump two metres into the air just has you twitch a little.”

I had noticed that too. My resistance to electricity was a direct consequence of my mutation. Just like I could use my muscles to create an electric charge, absorbing a charge was also possible.

“It’s still damn uncomfortable to be electrocuted!” I complained. The possibility of upgrading my main evolution was nonetheless exciting.

Then I asked, “So how does this knowledge help you then?”

He waved a hand. “For one, I can try to grab a little meat from any predator which tries to rob their nests and succumbs to them. The corpses usually land at the bottom of the cliff and if I am fast and careful, I can go and get some. But what’s more important to me are the eggshells left behind at the end of the year.”

“Eggshells?” I felt stupid to parrot him, but I had to.

Mark nodded. “The zippers throw them out of the nest once the brood is hatched. All the shells collect at the bottom of the cliff, where I just have to shovel them up and carry them back to the Old Camp for trade. They contain large amounts of calcium and some people apparently need it. I don’t know the details, but I can tell you the smiths and those proficient in chemistry will pay a pretty penny for getting a clean load.”

I thought about it, trying to remember some of my physics lessons and what I had read up on before coming here. “I guess calcium can be used in steelmaking as a flux to remove the slag, although the shells would have to be processed beforehand. And some chemical reactions need it as a reagent.”

Mark shrugged. “What’s important to me is that just by running back and forth between the cliff and the Old Camp, I make enough to almost max out my evolutions and to buy myself into one of the more comfortable shelters to survive the winter.”

“Winter, survive?” I blinked.

Oh, shit! That was one thing I hadn’t given a single thought to.

“Yeah,” Mark replied nonchalantly. “Two or three more months and winter will hit hard. The axis of this planet isn’t tilted too much, so it has almost no effect on the seasons, but we are in a very strong elliptical orbit around the sun. The direct effects are very hot, short summers and very cold, short winters with slightly longer tempered periods in between. Everything freezes over and you will have a hard time finding food. If I were you, I would do my best to look good in the arena and gain shelter with a clan. That’s what I am going for now. I have no desire to repeat my last year in the Old Camp, but I want to keep my options open in case nobody takes me. You always need a plan B in this world.”

Well, that sucked.

Maybe I would have to reconsider being picky about which clan to join and just go with whatever opportunity arose. As usual, when planning for the future, there was always a more immediate problem to take care of.

We eventually arrived at the zipper colony, which was indeed a large cliff-side. At first, I thought it to be limestone, but belatedly realized it had been turned white by zipper shit.

I looked accusingly at Mark, who had sat down and was watching me with an expectant expression. “You want me to climb up there? Up that giant hill of guano!?”

He nodded. “I would leave your rucksack here if I were you. Not so much to carry and not all of your equipment will be lost if you fall and break your neck.”

I glared at him.

Mark shrugged. “Hey, it was just an idea. You don’t have to do it. Whatever you decide, I won’t go any closer than this while the sun is up.”

“It’s okay.” I looked back at the cliff and the little, feathery bodies which were scrimmaging around on it. “It’s a good idea. Better than anything I’ve tried till now.” I sighed and loosened the straps of my rucksack. “What a world. And why are those up there a different colour? The ones which always fight for our kills are greener while these here are mostly blue. Is it the light?”

Mark shook his head and smirked. “The females stay with the eggs. The ones who steal our kills are the guys.”

“We should have brought climbing gear,” I commented while I watched the cliff and dropped my stuff next to Mark.

“Tried that.” Mark’s face took on a mournful expression. “That’s how my teacher died, the guy who showed me this spot. He got greedy. Wanted to get a zipper mutation. He built himself something like a Faraday cage and tried to pull it up the cliff, just like they do with the elevators at the walls.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Damned beasties nipped through the cordage when they couldn’t get to him and that was the end of it.” Mark shrugged. “So you would have to freestyle it in any case, unless we manage to find several hundred metres of steel cable lying around.”

“I guess there is nothing like that in the Old Camp?” I cracked my knuckles, trying to muster the nerves to go through with this idea.

“Do I look like someone with an extremely rare evolution?” Mark shot back.

“No need to get cynical,” I mumbled. “So no steel cable.” But maybe I could have the smith make me some climbing hooks.

I sighed and trudged forward. The only thing I took with me was my short sword and a little sack I attached to my belt. I knew I was just trying to find reasons for not climbing a guano cliff. It was already confirmed that my strength allowed me to climb trees like a pro and Mark knew it.

The only thing I had to be concerned about was not slipping when the little beasties started zapping me.

I reached the bottom of the cliff unmolested, where I found a gruesome reminder of Mark’s little tale. A warped steel cage lay at the bottom of the cliff. It was about the size of a coffin and contained a human skeleton which had been bleached white by the sun.

Looking up, I realized some of the lady zippers were already trying to menace me away by flying little dive-bomb attacks. The colony’s squawking was so loud that I hadn’t noticed it.

And then something detached from one of the zippers.

Time slowed for me and I stepped aside, barely avoiding a golf ball worth of zipper shit. Bless Mark for training me, even if the blunted arrows had been a little over the top.

Narrowing my eyes, I looked up and followed the little monster who had disrespected me as it landed on a ledge some thirty metres above me where it had its nest together with several others. “You are first!”

I studied the cliff for an easy route and decided to follow a crevice. About twenty metres up, I would have to climb sideways and follow a secondary fissure up to where my victim had her nest.

Once the plan was in place, I executed it.

Climbing the first five metres was easy, but then something hit my back and I felt my muscles tense up. It was quickly followed by a second attack and a third, making it clear why an egg-thief would have a hard time with these cliffs. Humans without my mutation would already be lying at the bottom of the cliff.

I grit my teeth and kept going, focusing all my attention on having a secure hold.

The zippers couldn’t hurt me, but a bad fall would.

Normally, I would have been up the cliff in just a few minutes, but going slow meant it took me over twenty minutes until I finally reached the ledge with the nests. The zippers kept up their constant attacks, but they got weaker after the first few minutes as the little animals tired themselves out.

I was pissed that there was no way to avoid being shat upon while clinging to the rocks. All I could do was take it.

On the ledge, I found several abandoned nests next to each other. I noted that each had exactly three eggs, and I quickly gathered one egg from each nest as I moved along the ledge. Meanwhile, the zippers squawked their outrage. They had given up on stopping me.

Once I was done, I had twelve chicken-sized eggs. Almost two weeks until I had to do this again. But the next time, I would take a raincoat with me.

On the way down, I was more confident as I retraced my steps, especially since the attacks had also ceased. My strong fingers easily hooked into the smallest cracks, providing me with plenty of holds. It showed having the right body for it went a long way when it came to climbing.

Ten minutes later, I was walking back to where Mark was waiting for me with a stupid grin on his face, though he wasn’t alone anymore.

A woman was sitting on a large rock above him.

I had seen her several times flying around over the rooftops of the Old Camp. The floaty tentacles which originated from her spine made her look otherworldly. Though, tentacles may not be the right word. They reminded me of silken ribbons which drifted in the wind as they quested the woman’s surroundings. Her hair was cut at shoulder length and black on the outside but had a red, scintillating play of colours on the inside where I could see past her neck.

Her face and neck were partly covered in symmetrical, twirling lines which glowed in the cliff’s shade. They reminded me of tribal tattoos. It wasn’t too overbearing, but it looked like someone had been more generous than necessary with a body-painting job while using neon colours. Otherwise, she looked like a normal human, an extremely beautiful human woman, I corrected myself. She didn’t have the largest of chests, but together with her hips, it looked like someone had drawn an idealized hourglass figure.

“Tulkas, you survived,” she stated in a sultry tone before Mark could say something.

That woke me up and I realized I had been staring. “Yeah, thank you?” I looked down at myself, covered in shit. “Though, I will definitely bring a raincoat the next time I try gathering eggs. And who are you, if I might ask?”

I looked toward Mark, but he didn’t look bothered by the fact that his secret spot had been discovered.

She smiled. “Yes, having protection would be best. I am Astra from Clan Aerie. I was interested in how you are doing with your evolutions.”

“Yeah,” I looked once more towards Mark, desiring to know what was going on, but his stupid face was of no help. How did she know about my evolutions?

But then it clicked for me.

Gurney must have given her my information.

Was she here to check me out as a potential partner?

I looked down at my shit-covered self.

What better moment was there to form a lasting impression?

“Fine, obviously. It seems like we have solved the greatest problem.” I raised my sack with the zipper eggs.

Astra nodded with a pleased expression. “Now you just have to master your mutations.”

“I think that might take a while,” I admitted. “So far, I can only do simple movements.”

She frowned and played with her hair. “No, that one you can improve too. I am sure.”

I blinked, wondering what she meant. “I am sorry?”

Astra mimed me throwing a spear. “I watched you at the training yard. When you move an arm there is always the ‘whoosh’ of displaced air. I can hear it. Zippers don’t do that. They can somehow guide the air around them when they move.”

I thought about all the times I had watched them blitz around at speeds which felt supernatural to me. Having it pointed out, I finally realized why they felt so off compared to other animals.

“Thanks for the hint,” I said, not knowing what else I could do. Doing small-talk while I was covered in shit felt awkward.

Astra smiled with a satisfied expression. “I think you have your time cut out for today, but I would like to talk again at some point. Have a nice day.” She lifted off, pulled upwards by her silken ribbons, and flew back towards the Old Camp.

“Dude!” Mark raised both hands and fired imaginary pistols at me. “The ice queen knows your name.”

“Ice queen?” I asked. “Aren’t you bothered that she knows your spot?”

Mark waved the matter off. “As if a clanner would go and steal my eggshells. It would be like stealing dirt. But back to the important topic! From what I know, Astra Frost has been visiting the Old Camp for years to watch the arena battles. She is quite obviously looking for a partner and she knows your name!”

“It would have been nice if Gurney had told me who got my information. Just so that I am not surprised when people show up,” I grumbled. “But right now I am far more interested in a bath!”

Mark wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, you definitely need one.”

We made our return trip to the Old Camp and I used the chance to clean up in a small stream. It wasn’t the bath I had hoped for, but better than nothing.

Back home, we didn’t head directly towards the bunker. Instead, Mark reminded me that the blacksmith probably had my new weapon ready.

And indeed, the gruff man nodded and went into his shop to fetch my new spear.

The only problem was, that what he brought out was definitely no spear.

“What the heck is that!?” I laughed as the blacksmith presented the weapon. “I thought I was supposed to get a spear, not a polearm. It looks like someone forged a longsword onto a staff. Or got the grip and crossguard too long.”

The weapon was about forty percent blade and sixty percent staff. Although, the blade was a sturdier forged version compared to what I knew from Earth. The spine was much thicker, just like my short sword. What I had called the crossguard were two wicked-looking, forward-curved blades which were neither pointing completely forward nor to the sides. They were as wide as my chest. At the end of the grip, the ‘pommel’ had a little spike which was probably a good poking tool.

The blacksmith looked miffed at my outburst. “I will forgive you this once since you obviously have no clue of medieval weaponry. Mark asked me for a spear which works with your ability. The closest way to describe this weapon is to call it a spetum, or a ranseur. And it looks the way it looks because I want to do repair jobs for my customers instead of having them die during the first encounter with something bigger than them. A normal spear might do the job on earth, but it will get you killed in this world.”

He turned the weapon so I could see it better. “The symmetry gives you the option of throwing it, though I would avoid doing so if it’s meant as your main weapon.”

The blacksmith gripped it properly and swung the weapon. “If something gets close, you can wield it like a quarterstaff and use the main blade to slash. The side blades are curved so that if something gets past the tip, they can be used as secondary attack tools. While blocking, the curve still allows you to bring one blade to bear against an enemy while not pointing the other one at yourself. The blunt back further helps to prevent injuring yourself, should it be pressed back into you. Additionally, you can use the side blades to hook a leg.”

Then he gripped the weapon at the pommel, which I now realized was sized perfectly to fit the palm of a hand and angled so that the weapon would automatically rest in the intended position, with the blades horizontal to the ground. Finger-rests along the staff further helped with angling the main blade correctly, should I decide to use it as a slashing weapon.

This grip extended the blacksmith’s reach when he thrust the weapon forward. “Having a long, pointy blade gives better penetration against the larger monsters. You want to get deep into them to hit something vital, but not too deep. The ‘crossguard’, as you called the sideblades, will prevent the crazier monsters from completely running themselves through when they try to bite off your head. They will be kept at a distance as long as you manage to keep your hold on the weapon. To withstand such impacts, the side blades have only one forward-pointing edge. It allows me to make their spines sturdier.

“Try to find someone to teach you how to use it. I would hate losing one of my babies to the wilds, rusting away next to a corpse.” He twirled the weapon and threw it sideways at my chest, forcing me to catch it.

“S- Sorry,” I replied. “I was just surprised. It looks really cool.”

The blacksmith nodded. “I have tested it, but you should try leaning onto the blade with all your gear on. It should flex, but not get any permanent bends.”

I did as I was told and just as the man had promised, the blade flexed a little beneath my weight but didn’t suffer any damage. I tried the same with the staff part and found it could hold my weight without effort. Though, the thing was a weight monster. I had to get used to it.

If either of us broke, then it would be me, not the weapon. “I guess I will have to find someone who can teach me the spetum.”