The jungle was huge. Mark had been moving at a light jog for hours, and he was still a long way from where he expected the camp to be.

“No wonder this place is called Passthrough,” he thought as he moved. “It’s literally in the middle of nowhere. It would likely take months to get here without a boat.” Night had fallen, and he still hadn’t arrived yet. That was ok though, because he could see just as well at night as during the daytime.

The only problem he was having, was that once night fell the predators came out. He held a struggling wild cat in his hands as it clawed madly at him. The trog armor was blunting most of the damage, but claw marks still scored his flesh. Getting a grip on the bobcat sized wild cat he broke its neck. It had landed on his back without warning only a second before, he hadn’t even stopped moving while they struggled.

Now though, he came to a stop. The cat’s coat was really soft, and if he didn’t take advantage of money-making opportunity’s when they presented themselves… well, it was the same as throwing money away. He skinned the cat quickly, but didn’t mess around with fleshing it right now. He could do that later. Rolling the hide up tight, he tied it off and kept going.

Unfortunately, the smell of blood must have acted like some kind of call. Because he was soon swamped by solitary attackers. They never came in at the same time or in the same location, but as he ran, he must have been moving through their territories because jungle cats of all shapes and sizes landed on his back with frightening regularity. Again, he couldn’t let the hides go to waste. Stopping to skin out each one and break the fangs and claws away took its toll on his journey.

Just as the sun was coming up, Mark spotted the flickering of a fire far up ahead on the water. Seeing how close he had finally gotten, he stopped to work his way through the hides. Between his strength and blunted claws, he made short work of the hides. Not even bothering to use a beam and blade. He just got a grip of the meat and pealed it away.

Having finished, he spread the hides out in an open spot to dry. He hoped they would still be there when he came back through. After a quick wash in the river to clean the blood from his armor, Mark tossed the pile of flesh out into the river… where it was snapped up by the largest crocodile he’d never imagined existed.

It was enormous, at least twenty feet long and bigger than the canoes the kobolds had been on. Gulping down the meat, it slowly lumbered its way onto land where it eyed Mark hungrily. With a sigh, Mark grabbed his slingshot. The shot impacted the beast with a crack! Pinging off its scales, which resembled dark green steel plates more than a lizard’s hide. The beast opened its mouth and snapped it shut again, the resulting shock wave it produced rustled the leaves on the nearby plants.

Pulling out another ball, Mark drew back again. This time, he sighted in on the creature’s head. Not firing as it came charging in at him. He waited until the very last second, when it opened its mouth again, to fire. The ball slammed into the crocodile’s throat, disappearing in a spray of blood, even before the beast snapped its maw closed. From there, the croc began to roll. Over and over, back and forth. It snapped its jaws and rolled, blood frothing from its mouth the entire time. Eventually it stopped moving, and lay in the churned-up dirt of the river bank, its own blood mixing into the red soil to create a thick mud.

Mark jabbed the beast with a stick before he went any closer. He did not want to be bitten by that thing. When it didn’t move, he approached and inspected the scale that his first ball had hit. There wasn’t even a blemish to be seen. Grabbing the croc, he gave an experimental tug. It moved, but barely. A war raged internally; between Mark’s desire to complete this quest, and his greed for this beast’s hide. The armor this things scales could make would put even his trog hide to shame.

Greed won out in the end. Tinker said it was going to take him a long time to track down the jungle poppy without his drone. Besides his time in the tutorial was coming to an end. He needed every edge he could get before he entered the unknown that would come afterwards… having thoroughly convinced himself he was making the correct decision, he got to work.

What a job. It took him two hours to skin the beast. The scaled hide was so tough that he had ended up needing to start the job inside its mouth, just to cut past it. By the time he was done, noon was creeping up and he was starving. He hadn’t eaten since he fed his food to the young boys, well not unless you counted a few glasses of moonshine as eating.

Looking at the freshly skinned crocodile, Mark’s mouth began to drool. He looked around, trying to find a spot to start a fire where the smoke wouldn’t be seen. He didn’t need to cook his food anymore; his troll physiology was insanely powerful. He could probably eat rat poison without getting heartburn. Still, it didn’t come naturally.

Not finding a safe place, Mark decided he could give it a try raw. Moving over, he took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the crocodile. Instantly, his troll instincts screamed at him to eat. It surprised him; he hadn’t noticed this feeling while he was skinning the beast. Then again, he hadn’t been thinking about food, rather protection, when he was pealing the hide away. Giving in to his instincts, Mark flipped the Giant croc on its side and reached in towards its heart.

A quick nibble, and he began feeling the desire to consume. It was similar to when he had first tried eating the troll meat, and it scared him. That had almost killed him and Terra had been taken away because she had been forced to reveal herself to save him. Still, he was so hungry, and he was already a troll. He couldn’t resist any longer and tore into the food.

Once he had eaten his fill, the remains of the crocodile were quite a bit smaller. He also felt stronger and more energized. He flexed his hands, the worry again creeping in. this was how he had felt last time. With worry clawing its way into his mind, Mark pulled up his body augmentation tab and looked it over.

Body augmentations

Forest Troll

Your body is that of a Forest Troll. Physical attributes are now standard 20/20/15 (kept mind), will now heal anything short of death near instantly, and must eat to maintain health or enter metabolic rage. Injuries caused by flames are not regenerated and heal at the normal rate.

Continuous regeneration without adequate nourishment will result in self metabolism and permanent attribute loss. Wounds caused by fire heal normally.

Grow by consuming

Forest trolls grow in strength by consuming the flesh of stronger creatures.

Eat beasts bigger and badder then you are to gain one random attribute. progress = 1 of 5

Gift of Terra (improved ocular, control implant)

This implant, (selflessly provided by Terra) reduces mind cost of mind controlled technological devices, increases mind attribute and improves vision. (Terra specially modified your DNA to allow you to keep her present)

Reduce device mind attribute cost by 75%, increases mind attribute by 100% (option locked), provide; night vision, infrared vision, telescoping vision & Terra vision. Video and audio recording feature. (You're welcome, stud)

Cosmetic reset (Used)

You now have, smooth leaf green skin, red eye, dark green shoulder length hair, body builder physique, blunted hand and toe claws, arms slightly longer than average, sloped shoulders and bent knees.

odds are you could pass for human if you wore loose clothing a hat and the person looking at you was blind…but really, everyone gets body augmentations in here, no one will guess the truth from just looking at you

There was a new entry, Grow by consuming. He actually remembered something like that before his troll status took effect. It hadn’t been there afterwards though. Reading it over made him feel better, at least he wasn’t going to eat himself into a crazy mutation again or anything. It also excited him, in a macabre kind of way. He really didn’t want to have to eat stuff like this giant croc, but at the same time, he could continue this practice even after he left the tutorial.

Regardless, this wasn’t the time for that, he needed to get moving. He’d wasted half the day on this beast. Hauling the hide away from the water, he gathered up the rest of his hides too. He no longer thought leaving them this close to the water was such a good idea. Eventually, he ended up spreading them out over tree branches. Clipped in place to keep them from being blown away. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do. That done, he rushed off toward where he had seen the lights the night before.

He slowed as he drew closer to the camp. Stealth wasn’t his strongest area, and he didn’t want to be discovered right away. Thankfully, his Gift of terra left eye came with a strong zoom feature and he didn’t need to get too close. The camp was right on the river, sadly, it was the other side of the river from where he was. Before long though, Mark decided that was probably a good thing. He could see the whole camp from where he hid, and they couldn’t sneak up on him. With a quick look around, Mark settled in to wait and watch.

He sat on the river’s edge all day, watching the comings and goings of the camp. He could see dozens of kobolds milling around; going out on boats to fish, cooking and cleaning kills. They made up the bulk of the camp. There were other creatures there too, including one hulking behemoth that looked like a cross between a man and a wild boar. For lack of a better name, Mark was going to call it a wereboar, same as the wereleopards. He saw humans too. There weren’t many of them but they seemed to hold positions of authority in the camp. Mark counted perhaps twelve of them, moving around with packs of kobolds in tow. The wereboar, stayed by the central tent. It was likely a bodyguard to whoever was inside.

As time passed, the kobolds who had been out fishing returned. They brought their haul out onto the shore and began cleaning it right there. Several of the newly caught fish were fried over a large cook fire and taken by a few of the humans, all of whom were male, towards one of the tents. When they pulled the flap aside, Mark could see several cages inside. They were full of people, but the lighting and the angle weren’t good enough for him to see them clearly. Those were likely the travelers, captured before they made it to Passthrough. Mark wanted to save them, but he didn’t have enough information yet.

As the day moved towards night, Mark wondered at why they were using the river as a trash can. He saw all manner of things being thrown in there, it was being used as a place to gather water, a place to throw the fish entrails and a place to defecate. As gross as all that was, when viewed through a high-quality zoom. What Mark couldn’t understand was why they weren’t afraid of giant crocodiles. Either these people weren’t native to this area, or those beasts were extremely rare. Could be a combination of the two as well he supposed.

As dusk fell, his patience was rewarded with some action. One of the huge crocodiles crawled out of the water and moved slowly into the camp. It didn’t bother with stealth at all, and before its massive tail had even cleared the river it had already snapped up one of the kobolds. The camp came alive like a kicked beehive when the kobolds shrill scream ripped through the air. The kobolds looked like they just wanted to flee, while the humans forced them at spear point back towards the huge lizard.

The battle that followed was one of attrition. The dozen humans essentially feeding the beast kobolds to distract it while they stabbed it with their spears. This continued for close to an hour, the screams of dying kobolds mingling with the occasional roar from the crocodile. Mark watched until shouting and movement from the main tent drew his attention away from the battle.

A young man stumbled out of the tent. He was half dressed, and what he did have on was on incorrectly. He was obviously drunk, to an impressive degree too, if it took an hour of battle to rouse him from sleep. He was trailed from the tent by a scantily clad, battered and bloody wereleopard woman, wearing a control collar. She just stood silently behind the man, holding a tray with a decanter resting atop it.

The drunk young man ignored her entirely while he screamed at the wereboar man who had been standing guard outside his tent. He ended up on the ground, having lost his balance and his wind from screaming, but the wereboar finally moved. Mark couldn’t hear what the kid was shouting but he had been pointing at the fight the entire time, so he had inferred he wanted the beast man to make them be quiet.

Picking up a giant maul from the ground beside him, the wereboar strolled towards the beach, picking up speed with every step. Mark blinked, he’d seen the maul sitting on the ground, but the head was so big that he had mistaken it for a small barrel. With a bellow that Mark could hear from his side of the river, the beast man leapt into the air. He swung the maul around on its long handle, bringing it down with the force of a lightning bolt onto the crocodile’s head.

There was the metal-on-metal sound like when Mark had shot the first one, but unlike then it was the crocodile’s head that gave way under the hammer blow. Blood sprayed from the mouth and the eyes bugged out. With another grunt, the wereboar hefted his hammer back over his shoulder and walked back towards the tent, leaving the lizard to thrash out its death throws behind him.

Mark’s attention was drawn back to the young man, who had motioned the woman over. He grabbed the decanter, spilling half of it, and dealt the woman a backhanded blow for her trouble. The man was so drunk that there wasn’t much force behind that strike, but she flinched anyway. The sight of that encounter made Mark’s blood boil, and a strong urge to kill wormed its way into his being.

If he had seen that strike before the giant lizard had met its end, he likely would have attacked right then. Counting on his ability to regenerate to see him through the kobolds and human guards. After watching that hammer strike smash its brains to paste however, he knew he had to be smart about his approach. He wouldn’t be a match for that behemoth in a straight up fight, so instead of acting, he just kept watching.

Darkness settled in and the young man went back into his tent, followed by the wereleopard woman. The wereboar retook his seat by the tent flap, and the kobolds started dismantling the giant lizard’s body. Mark watched on with amusement as they tried, and failed, to cut into the scaled hide. Eventually they unknowingly followed Marks example, and went in through the mouth. As they worked from the inside out, they pulled no less than ten mangled kobold bodies from the stomach of the dead beast as they worked, causing many of the kobolds to back away.

Mark watched happily as the kobolds abandoned camp in ones and twos. Running off into the jungle, to get away from the humans and the river. Not all of them went, not even half, but it was still several dozen enemies Mark wouldn’t have to face later. One group in particular caught his attention as they fled, because they didn’t flee into the jungle.

It was a group of perhaps ten kobolds, they snuck down to the river, passed the torch carrying human guards who now patrolled close to the river, and onto one of the boats tied up there. The group was led by a hunched old kobold who carried a basket clutched in its hands, as if it contained a treasure. It led the group through the process of launching the craft out into the water. Where they made directly for the opposite bank. It seemed like they were braver than the others, but not enough to want to stay out on the river.

Mark watched with increasing fascination as this group of kobolds worked the boat. They weren’t unintelligent creatures, but the ones Mark had watched fishing the river earlier hadn’t shown this level of dedication to the task, and Mark had to admit that it was all because the instructions the old hunch back kobold was giving them. He moved away from his hiding place. He wanted to get closer to this group, observe this old lizard, and see what was in that basket.

The group docked close to him, and unloaded. They then pushed the boat back out into the river, where it floated away, removing the evidence. Mark was even more intrigued by this, and he followed the group away from the river. They made noise as they moved, but it was less then he might have expected. After perhaps an hour, Mark decided he should act before they got too far away.

The decision was taken out of his hands however, when a snarling wild cat landed on his back. What was wrong with these damn cats? They couldn’t hope to hurt him, yet no sooner had the sun set, and they were already attacking him. He struggled with it, trying in vain to keep the contest quiet. When he had finally subdued the beast and broken its neck like so many before, he looked up to see himself surrounded by kobolds. Pain lanced into his side before he could react, the little devils had taken advantage of his distraction to launch a sneak attack on him.

It was a clever tactic, and against someone without his level of resilience, it likely would have worked. Against his troll vitality however, their attacks hurt, hurt a lot actually, but without fire it wasn’t enough to put him down. After a short engagement, only the old kobold holding the basket was still alive. Mark sighed, he didn’t know what he had wanted to do with this bunch, but it seemed a waste to kill them. Well, might as well go see what the old one has in that basket.

“Great one, please no kill.” Croaked the old kobold in broken English. Its voice was guttural, and it sounded like it bit each word off before it could leave its mouth, but it could speak. Mark was so shocked at that revelation that he stopped right there. Starring at the kobold in a daze, this was the first non-human humanoid he had met since coming here that could actually speak his language. Suddenly he really didn’t want to kill it; soon after that thought he wondered if that’s why none of them could talk, so that the initiates wouldn’t humanize them.

It just stood there, watching him. A resigned look on its lizard’s face, which slowly morphed into hope, when he didn’t immediately kill it.

“Great one, please no kill,” it said again. “Can help” it finished, proving that it could say more than those few words.

After a moment of internal debate, Mark pulled the control collar out of his bag and showed it to the kobold. It raised a gnarled hand to its throat, taking an involuntary step back. Mark’s face hardened at that movement, and the creature must have saw it, because it stopped moving. With an audible swallow, it nodded its head. Setting the basket down, it walked over to Mark its hand spread wide.

Mark almost laughed, it looked like the old kobold was trying not to startle him… he brought his thoughts back on track when they wandered down that path. Every time he had taken something for granted so far, it had come back to bite him, hard. That thought in mind, he stepped forward in a smooth motion and clipped the collar around the kobolds neck. Once the lock snapped into place, a new tab showed up on his interface, Mark opened it up, said yes to all and applied the changes. It now read,

Control collar interface

Setting

Description

On y/n

Harm owner

if the subject attempts to harm the collars owner they will receive pain

y

Harm self

if the subject attempts to harm themselves they will receive pain

y

Disobey

if the subject can understand orders given and till chooses to disobey the are caused pain

y

Run away

if the subject tries to flee, they will receive pain

y

Obedience

if the subject willingly follows an order, they will receive a feeling of euphoria

y

Driven to please

if the subject does things that they know the owner would be happy about they will receive a feeling of euphoria when the owner is happy with their work

y

This thing gave him a lot of control over the kobold. He wondered what the limitations on something like this were. There had to be some, otherwise whole populations would be outfitted with them from birth. Of course, it cost eight mind without a control implant. His was better than most, and his mind was also double human standard. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a normal person might be able to control one person, but not two. If that was the case, beast tamers would find these to be extremely useful, but slavers would find limited utility in them.

Shrugging it away as an academic question that had no current relevance, Mark shared the screen with the old kobold. He didn’t know if the three-foot-tall lizard would be able to understand, but he showed it anyway. He figured that being open and upfront would save the little critter testing its bounds at a critical time. Sure enough, it seemed that the kobold could read, or at least understand what it was being shown, because it bowed deeply.

“Great one, is… generous.” It said, having to search for the words it wanted. “Old Trixy, will earn this.” Mark was at a loss, he had just enslaved this kobold and it was thanking him. Maybe it was because he shared his screen with it?

“Old Trixy, is that your name?” he asked, walking past the bent over kobold towards the basket.

“Yes, Great one, this den mother, is old Trixy.” It said as he reached the basket and flipped the lid back. He didn’t know what he had expected really, but a nest holding four small reptilian eggs wasn’t on the list at all. Also, did this thing just say it was a den mother? That meant it was female. Mark looked back at the stooped over old kobold. He honestly couldn’t tell the difference, not that he had looked.

“Ok, Old Trixy.” He said, looking down at the eggs with a thoughtful expression. This might just work out, he had the trog eggs, and an incubator. What he didn’t have was a plan on how to raise the crocodile faced lizards once they hatched. Maybe he could pawn the job off on someone whose job it was to raise little ones? He flipped the basket closed again and looked back at the old kobold.

“Ok, grab your basket, we’re going back to the river. I still need to observe the camp for a while longer and then find a way across. You can tell me what you know while we watch.” He said, turning away. Before he had taken a step however, he looked down at the nine kobold bodies. “Do your people have any customs about their dead?” he didn’t really care about his enemies but, it just didn’t seem right to kill her people, take her captive, and then walk off leaving them out to rot.

“Take they stuff, don’t join them.” she said with a shrug, eyeing the bodies around her. Mark sighed, wondering why he’d even bothered.

“Have at it, Old Trixy.” He said deciding to skin out this latest wild cat while the old kobold looted her former kin. To her credit, she didn’t take more than she could carry at least.

Once they had finished; Mark packed up and ensuring the kobold wasn’t planning to stab him in the back or something, they set out. It had taken them nearly an hour to reach the point when the wild cat had landed on Mark, so he figured they would make it back in about the same amount of time. They made it perhaps half way back, when another wildcat landed on his back.