After Jess had flickered out of my game, I knelt before the tree and levelled up once, using the remainder of my blood-drops to add another +1 in STR.

I looked out from the foot of the black pyramid onto the road ahead. Sloping down at a slight decline from Shonto's pyramid was a little hamlet of winding cobbled streets, lined with mudbrick houses and storefronts.

Rising above the hill that stood at the center of the village was a great thatched roof lodge, its walls covered in vast and rainbow colored geometric murals that were in stark contrast to the earthy reds and sandy yellows of the surrounding buildings.

+ Area Discovered - Village of the Inkists

First, after skipping down the winding streets of empty houses, silent save only for a chilling wind that made the doors and shutters' rattle.

After walking downhill for a few minutes, I found myself at an open shopfront in the middle of the town where I was met by a lumpy, tangled creature that floated around as a soggy mass of pale blue tentacles and slime. I went for a closer look, suspecting it was a friendly NPC I could talk to. At my drawing near, it flew into an irate rage and lunged at me, throttling me with its tentacles for -110 HP. I cut it down with only two slashes of -215 and -212 damage.

Next to the felled watery beast, that now spasmed in a murky puddle on the floor, was a wicker basket filled with squishy lumps.

+ Item Gained - Squid Ink

The lore read: "A bold black ink produced by one of the lesser cephalopod races that dwell within the womb of Ni. Used as black dye for clothes, tattoos, illustration, and culinary flavoring.

In ancient days, the discovery of the ink's uses among the Quingnam fisherpeople sparked a craze for the luxury good among the encroaching Muchik lords, spurring them to harvest or cull most of the producers. Now the ink secreters are reclusive, and the use of the dye ever more precious."

Aw shit... This guy was just trying to get by...

+Blood-Drops Gained - 280

Next I swung down the cobbled streets towards a workhouse. The actual shop was empty, but when I wandered out into the building's courtyard, two feral monkeys, who lingered beneath a fruit tree, began pelting me with some kind of rock or hard nut that hit me twice for -110 and -108 damage.

I charged towards the mischevous macaques, but the clever stone-casters leapt up into the tree, beyond the reach of my blade. They continued to chitter their victory up there, hurling down volleys at me.

Just beneath the monkey's tree, before I left, I managed to snatch a fallen...

+ Item Gained - Uyuchu Fruit

The last stop at the end of town was an open fenced garden filled with cacti. The little colonnade of spiky plants seemed pleasant enough, until something swooped down on me from the sky, some great bird with wide wings drove its claws straight into my shoulders and dragged me straight into the side of one of the cactus plants, spiking my side for a nasty -172 damage.

I looked up across the garden to see a huge bird perched atop a tall cactus. Its body was nimble, its full wingspan a cool grey, the tips of its wings and the smear of its face were marked in stark combatting bands of black and white. It looked at me in jerks of its needle-like beak that suggested a kind of amused curiosity, mocking me with its sheer indifference to my wrath.

I hopped up to my feet and slashed an X down across the cactus, the obsidian blades of my Macuahuitl slicing through the plant for -209 and -204 damage, like it was paper.

The cactus' flesh exploded into pieces like a 'fuck you' pinata, showering me in a barrage of quills for -100 damage as the shrike flew off into the sky, completely unharmed.

What a little asshole.

A few items lay on the ground.

+ Item Gained - Cactus Needles X3

The use description read: "Base ammunition for blow-guns. Can be combined with various other items to produce different effects."

The lore read: "Cactus spines are often used as cheap epidermic needles and quills in ceremonial ordeals. Sages observe that a particular kind of desert shrike that skewers its prey on these needles was likely the inspiration for the standing wands and palisades erected at shrines by adherents to the Cult of Fanged Things."

You don't say.

+Item Gained - Cactus Flesh

The lore read: "A favorite sacrement of shamans across the Yunka coast. The flesh of this holy plant, which bears a bitter and acidic taste, may be eaten raw or boiled down into a beverage. Shamans stress that the sacred fruit must be harvested in complete silence, lest the spirits of power grow angry at their trespass."

The use description was just a series of question marks.

In other words, fuck around and find out.

Now at the edge of town, I bit into an Uyuchu fruit to restore my HP to full and walked up the the long snaking steps up towards a side-door to enter into the Rainbow Temple.

+ Area Discovered - Charnel Parlour of the Skin-Takers

I walked through the door to a grizzly sight. Across the walls of the dark hall I stood in hung the outstretched skins of what must have been hundreds of people. In the chamber's center, illuminated by rows of flickering squash-skin lamps, sat a red and already peeled body, strapped into some horrid mechanism, like medieval stocks but fastened to drill-like blades. The man's bold blue eyes and toothy, lipless face looked out at me with a pained pleading.

Out from the sides of the room emerged two tall men, wearing their funeral shrouds for cloaks, their skin charred and brittle. As they crept towards me from across the torture chamber, I could see that they had no eyes that peered out from beneath their elaborate red turbans, the features of their faces reserved only to snoutless-nostrils and long chattering teeth, In their blood-soaked hands they gripped sharp quills and crescent blades.

I charged at the two torturers starting with a strong slash of -333. One swung at me with his blade and knicked me for -132 damage, the other ran behind me and, having taken hold of my shoulder, drove a needle deep into my spine for -432 damage, knocking the wind out of me.

When I rose to my feet I flew into a frenzy of quick slashes, -233, -212, -222, -219, tearing at the depraved skin-stealers in stripes of red, a geyser of blood flying across the room with every satisfying stroke of the war-paddle's edge.

When I broke from dicing my attackers into even more diminished chunks, I saw that I had managed to break most of the room, including tearing in half several of the skins that had been affixed to the walls.

On a workbench next to the man strapped to the flaying contraption, I found...

+ New Item Gained - Skin-Taker's Scraper

LVL 1 DAGGER WEIGHT - 3.0 DURABILITY - 17 PHS ATK - 40 MAG ATK - 0 FIR ATK - 0 LIG ATK - 0 STR-BON - D DEX-BON - D INT-BON - NA FAI-BON - NA PHS-DEF - 20 MAG-DEF - 5 FIR-DEF - 15 LIG-DEF - 15

The lore read: "After centuries of perfecting the process, the minions of The Flayed Lord swear by their scrapers. The ghoulish taxidermists boast that with one of these bronze scrapers they can cleanly remove the skin from the flesh in shorter time than a hummingbird lingers in the petals of a flower."

I looked down to the skinless man who looked up at me with poor puppy dog eyes. His pupils followed me as I staggered around the terrifying contraption, looking in vain for some button prompt that would free him from his torment.

"Um... sorry?"

+Blood-Drops Gained - 275

I walked deeper into the complex, into the next dark and smoke-filled room. The walls again were ornamented in a vast multitude of skins, only the hides were not mere stretched flesh, but great murals onto which intricate scenes of battles, animals in nature, and courtly banquets had been etched in a multitude of bright and brilliant colors.

All throughout the room, hollow-eyed artisans wrapped in red cloaks sat hunched over, dilligently inking fine details onto freshly dried sheets of flesh. The artists took no interest in me whatsoever as I passed, and continued to elaborate their superbly composed designs.

On a wooden stool sat an item nobody seemed to be using...

+ Item Gained - Stingray Spine

The lore read: "To the cultural disparagement of the Muchik, these spines were first harvested by the Quingnam fisherpeople for use in various genital mutilation rites. Among the rest of the Yunka peoples, the sharpened spines became the premier instrument for tattooing, its fine and sturdy edge favored over cactus needles for inking fine detailed lines beneath the skin."

Ew.

At last I entered into the next room of the temple complex which opened upon a gargantuan balcony, as if a spectator's nest built for giants, overlooking a vast wasteland in which billowed a red sandstorm under a black sky.

Before my view, as tall as several men, stood a red-robed figure, poring over a blood-curdlingly massive outstretched fleshy tapestry that depicted a dizzying scene of men and monsters fighting. The man's impossibly long and bony fingers traced the details of the registers. He froze as I walked behind him onto the center of the monumental balcony platform.

A long HP bar bled out across the top bar of the screen...

Boss: Shipe-Totek, Prince of Skin-Takers

"It is only in its nature for a crab to long for its old shell, but alas, this vessel is no longer yours." The giant in the red robe hissed.