Zeal of the Mind and Flesh: A Cultivating Gamelit Harem Adventure (Spellheart Book 1)

by Marvin Whiteknight

  Just as I had that thought, I felt the hot breath of a large mammal on my back. I spun around to find three sets of glowing red eyes scarily close to me. I jumped and waved my weapon-bearing hand between one pair of eyes. There was a hiss of pain.

  I’d discovered that if I squeezed the mushrooms they would flare brighter, though I was afraid if I squeezed them too much they’d lose their light completely, so I’d avoided doing it while wandering through the caves. I didn’t worry so much now though. Getting a clear view of whatever was threatening me was more important than losing my light source. I threw all the ones on my hand on the ground and stomped on them, causing two of them to explode into clouds of dust that floated through the air, glowing. The rest lingered as an illuminated paste on the ground. The dust cloud landed on the nose of the giant rat I’d just hit, causing it to let out a tiny sneeze.

  “Giant rats! God dammit, scram you ugly little bastards!” I snarled at the beasts, hoping they would see me as something more dangerous than them and run off. They didn’t. Instead they attempted to spread out and encircle me.

  I wasn’t about to let that happen. As they tried to position themselves I struck out at the rat on my right, who I had already wounded with the initial strike on the head. This time I lunged instead of slashed, doing much more damage. The pincer wasn’t the ideal tool for this job, being more curved than pointed, but it was sharp enough to sink half a hands width into the oversized rodent’s flesh. It let out a howl of pain.

  I positioned myself to strike a second blow on its neck, but the other rats were already at my back and prepared to pounce. In my adrenaline heightened state I heard their breathing quicken and spun to face them. Everything felt like it was in slow motion as my mind perceived the events that were occurring at a pace faster than the reaction time of my body. Years of video game swordplay simulations kicked in and turned my half-spin into a tip slash, drawing blood from one rats’ nose. I couldn’t bring my weapon about in time to deal with the second one, so I lowered my shoulder instead and braced. The rat and I were of comparable weight, and I could keep it from throwing me off my feet with its charge.

  As it collided with me, I brought the centipedes pincer up by its glowing red eyes and jabbed with the severed insect appendage. There was a wet splotching sound as an eye burst in a spray of blood and fluid and the giant rat hissed it pain. It squirmed and wriggled as I tried to drive the pincer deeper into the rat’s skull.

  It responded by latching its jaws around my arm, biting with all its might. I felt a sharp pain as the rodent’s teeth burrowed into my skin. I heard a cracking sound and what felt like its teeth scraping against the bones in my forearm. I’d have to worry about infection if I survived this.

  I gritted my teeth and ignored my arm. Now that the rat was latched on to me I could put some solid force into the pincer, driving it into the oversized rodent’s eye socket. I must have reached the brain, because the rat went still, and its jaws loosened.

  Enemy defeated. 10 points awarded.

  Maybe this rat was the alpha of the bunch, because as soon as its comrades saw that the rat I was fighting was dead they scattered. I glanced down at the grizzly prize at my feet. No resources gained from this one. I suppose that meant there wasn’t anything the ship wanted from it. It was too heavy to carry, and I had no tools to break it down into food. In addition, while rat meat was a small improvement from centipede meat, it still wasn’t something I was desperate enough to try yet. I tried to rip my weapon out of the rat’s skull, but my adrenaline filled strength jammed it in far deeper than regular me could pull. I might have been able to get it out if I used both arms, but I couldn’t move my left arm without an immense amount of pain. I would have expected blood to be dripping out of me by the gallon, but really, I was only losing a couple drops a second.

  Still, it was enough blood loss to be scary, so I took off my pants and turned it into a tourniquet and bandage. I would have used my shirt, but I didn’t bring mine with me from the brothel back on earth.

  After dealing with the rats the tunnels I passed through became much more regular in shape and direction. The walls were smoother and looked like they’d been widened artificially. I got particularly excited when I saw what had to be writing.

  It was a block-ish series of chiseled carvings that reminded me of Viking runes. Its creators had inscribed it with a chisel, creating grooves in stone all across a box positioned dead center in the middle of the room. I waved my single remaining mushroom over the intricately carved letters. They were completely unrecognizable. I wasn’t sure if that was just because I didn’t know the language or because the runes were too worn out to be legible, but the only thing I could glean from them was that some sophisticated race had been here. Maybe there was civilization and all its comforts waiting for me just beyond this cave?

  “What’s this?” My eyes spotted a gap under the upper lip of the stone. I smiled realizing what I’d just stumbled into. I heaved at the stone lid, paining my aching left forearm. This type of stone felt porous and was quite light, so I pulled it up easily.

  Inside rested a full set of dirty yellowed bones.

  I whooped with joy. I think this may have been the first time anyone had ever smiled at the sight of a skeleton. I’d never studied anatomy, but anyone could tell that this skeleton looked pretty much like I figured a human skeleton would. On the short and slender side, but it had two arms, two legs, and a head. If this hadn’t been a human, it had been something darn close. Maybe an elf? I wouldn’t be able to study the bones without pulling the skeleton out and sticking pieces back together.

  But even greater than the confirmation that there were humanoids in this strange land I’d found myself in, was the discovery of the rusty bronze dagger tied at the skeleton’s waist. There also appeared to be the rusted remains of a sword on the skeleton’s chest, but that was so old that what had once been the blade flaked into dust at the lightest touch. The bronze dagger was the only thing that survived. The sword had been a primitive alloy that had long since disintegrated to uselessness. It looked like it had been partially iron, but only along the very tip. Strange, if they had iron, why not use it throughout? And why had such a sturdy sheath been built around it?

  Unlike the sword, the dagger was made of bronze and had turned a little green, but was intact and usable.

  Just as I was about to draw the dagger from the leather sheath at the skeleton’s waist, it reached up and grabbed my wrist with its cold, bony hand.

  Nope. Nope. Nope.

  I let the lid I was holding slam back down as I yanked my arm out fast as I could. The stone came crashing down on the bony white wrist, shattering the yellowed bones.

  Big ass bugs? Okay. Giant rats? I’ll deal. But moving skeletons? That was crossing the line. Mostly because this was clear evidence I wasn’t on Earth anymore. Scientists had grown plenty of weird things in recent years and it was possible for them to create the things I’d seen thus far in the laboratory, but this was different. That skeleton was clearly long dead. And yet it moved. It had no muscles, no digestive track. Even if it could get the energy from somewhere else it had no muscles to use it. It shouldn’t have been able to move at all! It made little sense to me, and that’s what frightened me most.

  Until now I’d been able to pretend I’d just been dropped off in some exotic part of Earth, or maybe a theme park in one of the habitation bubbles on Mars. But this was direct evidence to the contrary. No laws of science I’d ever heard of could explain this. There were different forces at play here than those Newton and his ilk came up with.

  Though the idea of a moving skeleton... that wasn’t new to me, oddly enough. Necromancers were commonplace in many of my favorite video games. As were all other sorts of magic. An idea struck me that cut through my downcast mood. Instead of treating this like I did in real life, I should think about it more like a video game! How many times had I been dumped in a strange, exotic land that followed different natural rules? In real lif
e, never. But in video games I did it all the time!

  Suddenly that skeleton was just a low-ranking mob. Given its physical strength, I should be able to squash it. Especially since I was the one on the outside, and the only one who could open the sarcophagus. That meant I could face the undead on my terms.

  I scanned the surrounding area, looking for tools. All I found were some rocks. I had to pick stuff small enough to lift with just my right arm, since my left would be out of commission for a while. Still, it was heavy enough to do the job. When I was ready I pushed the lid of the sarcophagus end-wise to expose just the skeletons head. Immediately it squirmed to get free. Apparently, I’d awoken it from a long period of dormancy. It didn’t pretend to be dead like the first time I’d opened it. Unfortunately for it, the gap I’d given it was too small for it to easily wriggle out of.

  Or at least that’s what I thought. It turns out that with no muscles and ligaments to tear undead are amazingly flexible. It twisted its arms around like writhing snakes and wormed them through the opening. It was about to use its grip to pull its rib cage through, but I made my move before it could do so.

  I brought the big stone crashing down on the undead’s skull, smashing it into a million pieces. It was easy with gravity doing most of the work. As I’d guessed, the monster collapsed into a pile of bones once I smashed the skull. A dim red glow illuminated its eye sockets for a moment before fading.

  “Now to loot the corpse!” I whispered to myself. That was always the best part of beating a mob.

  Enemy defeated. Resources have been added to your inventory. 8 points awarded.

  Previously, I hadn’t seen the resource acquisition happen with my own eyes, but this time I saw a white-ish light seep out of my body and surround something buried in the skull fragments, glowing with an inherent light.

  I sifted my fingers through the fragments for the source of the light. It was an irregular glass bead about the size of a pea. It had a sinister look to it and was black rimmed with crimson. As soon as I touched it I was greeted with another message.

  Resource acquisition manually overridden.

  If game economics had taught me anything, gemstones were valuable in a medieval society. I didn’t know what this was, but I was willing to guess it was magical in nature, and was probably worth something. I’d need items like this to trade if I came into contact with the locals. With a shrug I dropped the little jewel into my pocket.

  Then I dove in and collected the real prize. The bronze dagger. I perused the rest of the remains looking for anything else useful, but came up empty. The little bit of cloth that was intact was so small it would only be of use as a sewing patch or a bandage. I realized either of those might come in handy, so I tucked it into the strap of my underwear, which was my most intact remaining clothing.

  The sheath for the dagger unfortunately was unsalvageable, so I wrapped some scrap cloth around it and stuffed it into my pocket along with the bead.

  After a few minutes of hesitation, I grabbed one of the skeleton’s femurs. It would make a good club. Still, it was a bit of a grizzly weapon, even for me. I shook my head to clear it.

  “It’s just a monster. You loot things like this all the time.”

  Yeah, in video games.

  But beggars can’t be choosers. I grabbed the femur and pulled it free with a jerk. It had a good feel to it in my hands. Good weight with a solid ball of bone on the end for striking. It would make a better weapon than the pincer I’d used before, though I wouldn’t be able to stab anything with a club.

  Next priority find water.

  My stomach growled.

  And then after that, fire and dinner.

  An hour later I finally found an exit. There had been more sarcophagi, but they had all been broken open long before and looted of anything worthwhile. The skeletons inside had also been smashed to bits by someone. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who dealt with these undead creatures by bashing in the skulls.

  The blinding light of the noonday sun made me squint as I left the shade of the tunnels. The heat made me feel every bit of grime and dirt that had soaked into my clothes and on my body. Bits of rat and bug blood had splashed all over me and mixed with dirt. I felt disgusting, but dealing with that would have to wait until I had something to drink. I had broken a sweat during those three fights and lost precious fluid. In this heat I wouldn’t last two days without a water source.

  Why was the sun putting off so much damn heat? Oh, that’s why. The sky above me portrayed a very unusual scene. When I looked up at the sky, I was used to seeing a sun, maybe a moon or some stars depending on the time of day. If you were lucky, you might have been able to spot Mars or Venus.

  This sky was different. For starters, there were way, way more celestial bodies than there should have been. Some of them were orange or gray, but many others were blue and green, like lots of little earths scattered throughout the sky. There must have been thousands of Earth-like planets out there.

  Those celestial bodies were secondary though, compared to the gigantic monster of a… thing in the sky overhead. The sun was massive in the sky, but it had some sort of shell around it. Like a partially built Dyson sphere. It looked like the Dyson sphere lowered the amount of light that could get to this planet from the sun, and that was likely the only thing that kept this place from becoming like the surface of Mercury, judging by how close the local star was.

  Well that settled it. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  The surrounding area was abundant with wildlife. I couldn’t name anything, but it was recognizable. The trees looked like a cross between pine, oak, and maple, and the grass separated into three strands at the tip, but it was close enough to what I was familiar with that I could call it something.

  Then I heard the gurgling sound of a flowing stream and broke into a smile. Water! Just what I needed. I followed my ears until I reached the source of the sound. It was a small creek about as wide as I was tall. The water was crystal clear and flowing, which was a good sign.

  Still, I’d heard about how many parasites there were in unsanitized water. My smartest move would be to build a fire or a sand filter. I discarded the fire idea because I didn’t think I’d be able to get anything lit with no tools and one arm. I tried using the small strip of cloth I’d taken from the skeleton wrapped around some sand to make a crude filter, but the water ended up dirtier than if I’d just taken a mouthful straight from the source. After a few minutes of screwing around I gave up and decided to just risk drinking the water. It might not be smart, but it would be too stupid to die of dehydration right next to a creek because I was too afraid to drink.

  I cupped my hands and scooped up a bit of water. I’d sip a little and then wait. Hopefully that way I wouldn’t screw myself over too badly if the water would make me sick.

  That plan lasted until the moment the water touched my lips. Instantly my entire body felt a hundred times better. I was still smelly, dirty, and covered in bug and rat juices, but I felt like my mouth and throat had been basking in the nectar of the gods for a week.

  Was this really water? It was tasteless, but drinking it felt so good. I cupped my hands again for another mouthful. When that method wouldn’t allow me to drink fast enough I lowered my head into the water like an animal and sipped from the stream.

  I stuffed myself on water from the creek. It took the edge off my growing hunger and dealt with my thirst. After basking in the amazing feeling of drinking the water I washed up. I took the time to unwind my pants from my forearm and wash the wound in the creek water. The stream water was less likely to give me an infection than the rat spit that was already in it.

  It looked much better than I thought it would. In fact, by the time I washed the blood away it looked like the wound had happened days ago instead of hours ago. First I could throw rocks at supernatural speeds and now I was healing extraordinarily fast. Something strange was going on.

  I cleaned off my pants and continued using it as a bandag
e, though I wrapped it looser now that I wasn’t worried about bleeding to death.

  After a few minutes of internal debate, I walked upriver, following the creek. It stood to reason that I’d find a small pond or reservoir at some point, which might have fish in it. I fancied my odds at catching fish for dinner more than testing my hunting skills.

  As I walked, I kept an eye out for a good spear shaft. Eventually I found one and went to work with my worn bronze knife and soon had it shaved down to a point. Then I split the point twice more to make a four-pronged tip. It was a common design I’d seen for fish spears and I planned to put it to the test. Already I’d seen little minnows swimming in the shallows of the creek, but they were too small to catch without a very fine net. And even if I did, I doubt they’d have made much of a meal. But little splashes and the darting forms of startled fish showed there were larger predators in the creek.

  I stopped to drink water several more times as I walked. It kept my belly full, though slowly a gnawing hunger developed that the water couldn’t quench. The water was still as refreshing as before, but my gut would soon demand something more substantial.

  I came to a small waterfall, and I grew eager. The water itself only fell from about head height, and there wasn’t much force behind it, but its presence suggested a more massive body of water behind.

  Sure enough, just past the waterfall was a pond. And inside that pond schools of hand-sized fish were floating about.

  “Fire or fish...” I mumbled to myself as I debated what to work on first. Eh, screw it. Raw bug or rat meat was one thing, but people payed good money to buy sushi made with fresh raw fish. I’d just have to inspect the meat for any parasites or signs of disease before I ate, though considering how well all the water I’d drank had gone down, I suspected that this river was sanitary.