A broad smile filled Jutmaek’s face. Everything was going perfectly as he’d planned. As for myself, I was in shock. I didn’t know exactly what the Blood Moon entailed but knew that for many young beastmen, it was fatal. I knew that it wouldn’t be fatal for me, but what would my place among the beastmen be if I failed. I imagined an even darker fate than death, that I’d end up like the rest of my countrymen who’d arrived here, that I’d end up like the ravenous, skeletal, zombie-like New Fallen.
“And if he should fail?” Truant huffed. He knew he’d lost this round, but the fight was far from over.
“Then it could be taken as a different sort of sign,” Adriel answered.
You have acquired a new quest: †Becoming a Clansman†
Acquire a beastform before the effects of †Blood Moon’s Blessing† wears out and be recognized as a full member of Doraga.
Difficulty: *****
Reward: Can continue †Investigating the Permerine Shrine†
Additional effects dependent on the quality beastform acquired.
Business completed, Jutmaek ended the meeting. As people filed out, conversations broke out. There were too many of them for me to make much out, but it wasn’t hard to guess. The Blood Moon was always something people looked forward to. This one had already been special because of the current environmental conditions and because it’d been a few years since the last one. Now it looked like it’d be even more special, there would be a New Fallen human participating and once more, his performance could determine the balance of power within the clan.
As things started to clear, Izusa led me back towards my residence.
“Everything went exactly as father intended,” Izusa smiled, a rare thing.
“As intended. Well, if it was as intended, then the least your father could have done was ask me first. What if I don’t want to do the Blood Moon thing? What if I don’t want to get a beastform and become one of you?” I said.
‘Destiny is calling you, open up those eager eyes and look at the benefits, Mr. Brightside. You’ll be much more powerful with a beastform,’ said Mai.
“You have no choice now. You saw how Truant reacted. If you do not do this, I fear what his faction might do. Besides, this is all for the greater good. Did you not want to end this war,” said Izusa.
I knew she had a point. My unease came mostly from the fact that I seemed to have no choice. I had thought when I first got to this world that I had total freedom, that all expectations and obligations were gone and that I could do anything, but the longer I was here the more limited I realized I was. Apparently, it didn’t matter, the universe always finds a way to constrain you.
“Will the ceremony even work? I am human after all,” I asked.
“It will,” Izusa assured me. “Over the centuries, a few orphaned Xebryan children have been picked up by raiders. Most of them have difficulty slaying a beast and acquiring a beastform but none had any problems with the actual process.”
‘It wouldn’t matter even if it didn’t work on humans. The Traveler interface was designed to help you adapt to this world. It’d help you adapt to beastman abilities as well,’ said Mai.
“When exactly is this thing?” I said, begrudgingly.
“Seven weeks, which means that we have a lot of work to do?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Othans dedicate more than a decade preparing for their Blood Moon, because success means literal life and death. You saw those two young ones going out with their fathers when we first arrived in Doraga. They were still making preparations and they have been at it since they could walk. Even disregarding the fact that you are already at a large physical disadvantage, how will your seven weeks stand up to that?” said Izusa. “To that end, we will start in the morning.”
“What, I thought you beastmen always like to do things at night?” I complained. The constant reshuffling between nocturnal and diurnal was beginning to drive me mad. Had any of these beastmen ever heard of circadian rhythms.
“We do, but for this first bit it is best to do it when your human eyes can see,” said Izusa. Izusa didn’t know I had Mai and consequently my night vision was likely even sharper than hers even in her beastform. “Besides, after the actual ceremony, you will have three days, 72 hours, to hunt your beast. You will be operating both day and night so you need to practice in both.”
Ch. 10: Training
Izusa left me at my residence to rest, but since I’d already done that, only a few hours before, I saw no need and instead spent the evening wandering around the city.
It was interesting watching the beastman city and its people. Most of the time things seemed normal, people going to work and running errands, children playing in the street. But, other times everything seemed inverted. It was strange seeing so much activity in the dead of night and once in a while a fierce looking wolf or bear would trod down the street and no one would go running away in a panic.
It wasn’t until an hour after sunrise, a time when most beastmen had already packed it in for the day, that Izusa finally caught up to me. Izusa wasn’t alone though, Talia, the brunette beastwoman I met in Dewpoint was with her.
“Come on, we are late,” said Izusa. “I did not expect to have to hunt you down. Fortunately you stick out quite a bit.” I wasn’t sure if Izusa was referring to my relatively diminutive size or my human garb.
Izusa led me out of the city, where there was more room and less distraction. Talia followed.
“What’s she doing here?” I asked.
“Talia will be teaching you,” said Izusa.
“I thought you were going to teach me,” I said.
“I will oversee your training, but there are topics others have greater expertise in and if you are going to be ready in such a short time, you should learn from the best,” said Izusa.
“You hear that, brat, remember it. She just said I am the best,” Talia cheered.
After another few minutes of walking, Izusa settled us down in a rather dense patch of the forest, so dense I couldn’t even see the city even though its edge was only a couple hundred meters away. Beside us was a large fire that judging from the charred ash at the bottom, had been burning for several hours.
“I will give you a general overview before Talia takes over. Fifty-two days from now you and all the young beastmen and beastwomen of Doraga who have reached 17 years of age since the previous Blood Moon will gather. There will be a ceremony. All the participants will line up and drink from a blessed goblet. The water will allow you to acquire a beast soul by hunting a beast and consuming its heart so long as you do so within three days. Then all the participants will go out and hunt,” Izusa explained.
“How many participants will there be?” I asked.
“Most Blood Moons there’d be six or seven hundred. This time it will be closer to two thousand,” Izusa answered.
“Can people work together?” I asked.
“They can, though generally they do not. The more people in a group, the more beasts you need to hunt and there is of course the potential for internal conflicts.”
“Participants also fight each other?” I asked.
“Yes, which is why I recommend you pick a direction and spend your first several hours getting as far away from the city as possible. That is what Talia is going to teach,” said Izusa.
“She’s going to show me how to run away in a straight line?” I asked.
‘I don’t know why you’re using that tone, I think you could really use someone to teach you that,’ said Mai.
“I am going to teach how to handle yourself at the beginning, the first few hours are often crucial,” said Talia.
“As for other things you will learn over the next few weeks, there is wilderness survival, tool making, tracking, and perhaps a bit of instruction on the attack patterns of local species,” said Izusa.
“Tool making? Can’t I just prepare something ahead of time and do this?” I quickly summoned the inventory and
extracted a hammer for demonstration purposes.
“You are not allowed to bring any weapons. The only tools and weapons you can use are those made during the three days of the event and then only from materials you can find in nature,” Izusa explained. The beastmen had a warrior/strength centric society that looked poorly upon crafting professions. Of course, they’d limit its utility in a trial of adulthood.
“Usually it is not difficult to ensure participants do not cheat, but given your abilities they decided extra steps needed to be taken,” said Izusa.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“After the meeting, Truant investigated the New Fallen and learned of your ability. He discussed things with Jutmaek and they agreed an impartial monitor will follow you during the Blood Moon and make sure you do not use your abilities to sneak illegal supplies,” said Izusa.
“As for the other skills, the need for wilderness survival is obvious and tracking will be very important in choosing the right beast,” Izusa continued.
“Choosing the right beast?” I asked.
‘Of course you want nab for yourself a kick ass monster so you can protect the world from devastation and unite all peoples within our nation,’ said Mai.
“I just mean, is choosing so important, shouldn’t I focus on hunting anything at all? If I fail to catch anything, that’s it, game over. No expedition to the shrine,” I explained.
“Getting any beast is not good enough. You heard the assembly last night. There is a lot of opposition to you. To help assuage such concerns my father thinks it best if you acquire an impressive beastform,” said Izusa. “In our society much importance is placed on the beastform you have. It determines how useful you are to the clan, what jobs you can perform and frankly, it changes how people view you. A powerful beastform means you are capable and a pathetic beastform means you are not.”
“You can think of it as a tier system,” said Talia. “At the top you have the most powerful predatory beastforms: wolves, bears, wyverns, and the like. Next, you have beastforms that may not be so offensively powerful but have other useful characteristics. For example, my hawk form is not powerful, but it is useful for scouting or quickly relaying messages over rough terrain, or a bull form that has raw strength is good for breaking through defenses. Finally, you have the bottom tier, beastforms that are not really useful for anything. Most of these are the small prey animals, squirrels, rabbits, rats, etc. Because it is seen that only the weak and desperate would acquire such a waste of a beastform, these individuals get the poorest jobs that no one else wants and they are often last in line when it comes to the distribution of clan resources. These beastmen are seen as a drain on the clan as a whole and will be the first dead weight to be shed if the clan grows desperate.”
“Second dead weight, the first are those who fail the Blood Moon in the first place,” I said.
“No, the Fallen are never part of the clan in the first place. Our children don’t earn a position in the clan officially until they get a beastform. Until then, they don’t even have a last name. Everyone chooses a suitable last name once they have a beastform,” said Izusa.
“But you and your father have the same last name,” I said to Izusa.
“I happened to earn the same beastform as my father so in honor of him I selected the same last name,” Izusa explained.
‘It makes sense given their culture,’ said Mai. ‘The emphasis isn’t on the family unit as it is with humans but the clan. That explains the lack of a hereditary name. It also weakens parental bonds, making it easier when children inevitably fail in their Blood Moon.’
A series of animals flashed through my mind: a wolf, a bird, a wyvern, and a gilaphant, the massive reptilian elephant beast I saw bulldoze fifty-foot stone walls. Should I go for strength, speed, or some special ability like flight? It was many men’s dream to soar freely through the skies. I couldn’t do it as a man, but perhaps doing so as a bird was good enough.
“Should I make my top pick a wyvern or a gilaphant?” I asked. It never hurt to get an opinion.
“Neither,” said Izusa. “Wyverns only live in the mountains of Nest and gilaphants can only be found in the eastern plains. Both are too far to reach in three days. Many beastforms can only be found in certain clans who reside close to the beast’s natural habitat.”
“What beastforms can I get?” I asked.
“In the top tier, there are the standard predators, wolves, bears, and mountain lions, or regional specials like polar panthers and ice elementals, though both of those are rarely seen. And in the specialty tier there are iciclimanders, famed for its bizarre ice breath used for refrigeration and shadowhawks, the fastest fliers in the world,” said Talia.
“And your recommendation?” I asked.
“Any one of those would be good,” said Izusa. “Don’t spend your efforts focusing on a particular beast. You will be disappointed and with the current state of things you will be lucky to find anything good at all.”
A long moment of silence filled the air.
“If that’s all, I leave you in Talia’s capable talons,” Izusa said as she walked away, leaving Talia and I alone in the thick forest.
“Okay, well, down to business. Take off all your clothes and before you ask, yes, I do mean all of them,” said Talia.
“Uhh… What do you mean?” I said, taken aback.
‘She just wants to give you another thorough inspection,’ said Mai, looking me up and down like a piece of meat. ‘I’m afraid there’s no accounting for taste.’
“We do not have time to waste, let us begin,” said Talia as she threw off her shift, revealing her lithe thin body.
“Ughh,” I stared around wildly, avoiding the obvious in front of me, until my gaze met Mai’s.
‘Hey don’t look at me. I’m not joining in,’ said Mai.
“Hey, what is the hold up?” Talia asked.
“I don’t see why I need to do this,” I answered.
“Was it not clear before,” Talia huffed. “You are not allowed to bring anything to the hunt and that includes your clothes. Now, hurry up and undress so you can copy what I do before you freeze.”
“But… how am I going to survive… this cold,” I murmured.
It was November, so the weather was still far from its coldest but there was already a thin layer of persistent snow cover. However bad the weather was, it’d be worse in a few weeks during the Blood Moon.
“That is what I am here to teach,” said Talia. “My beastform is a hawk so I cannot bring my clothes around and I often have to find ways to survive without them. That is why Izusa asked me to teach you. Now, get naked.”
I did as she said. Not by delicately removing one article at a time like it was some big show, but instead I simply summoned my equipment menu and unequipped all my clothing. In a blink of an eye, it all disappeared into my inventory.
‘Wow, aren’t you the eager one,’ said Mai. ‘It took you all of 3.7 seconds to disrobe.’
I felt the cold air surrounding me, making my skin pull back in an attempt to minimize itself. All the skin save for the areas immediately around each individual hair, causing them to stand on end.
“I would have thought humans and Othans would be relatively proportional,” Talia commented, as she looked me up and down.
“What… It’s just cold and so it shrunk,” I said as I tried to cover my private bits up. Talia quietly giggled at me before moving on.
“We begin with mud armor. By applying a layer of mud to your entire body, you can greatly reduce the effect of the cold. Of course, this would only apply for dry mud so after the mud is applied you must stand in front of a fire to dry it off,” Talia explained.
Talia picked up a bucket of water sitting next to the fire and dumped it onto a patch of ground cleared of snow. She mixed the water in until the mud had a smooth even consistency then began to lather it across her body. It was more than distracting, watching the beautifully curved athletic woman only a few years
older than myself rub herself across her entire body, getting into every nook and cranny. Watching felt awkward, like it was supposed to be something private, but beastman standards for appropriate behavior was far different than Xebryan or Earth standards. Talia acted as if it were completely normal. In fact, she gave me a sly smile of approval towards my diligence. I was only doing as I was supposed to do and examining every lovely step of the process.
“You do not have to keep staring,” said Talia. In my semi-hypnotized state, I hadn’t realized Talia had finished applying the mud and was standing in front of the fire as she slowly turned in circles to ensure the mud armor dried evenly. “Hurry up, it is your turn.”
I quickly broke my gaze, grabbed the mud, and started slinging it all over. My body instantly revolted. As cold as the air might have been, it had been bearable so long as I remained near the fire. With the addition of wet mud, my body suddenly felt half-frozen. My hands turned into crinkled claws and my motor skills went out the window. I doubled my efforts to cover myself quickly then rushed over, closer to the fire to burn away the chill before it could fully set in.
As the mud warmed and hardened, it staved off the cold quite effectively. My dalliance with comfort was shocked away by a cold slap to my ass. “Remember to fully cover yourself. At the start of the Blood Moon, there will be mud and a fire set up for everyone to use. If you waste the opportunity and your mud armor is poorly made, you will have to waste a lot of time and energy to make another. Melting snow to make mud is not easy and using your urine might scare away prey before you can approach or worse, attract predators beyond your ability to handle,” said Talia as she proceeded to rub mud into more places I’d missed.
“I got it,” I shooed Talia, glad that my face was covered well enough that she couldn’t tell I was blushing.
I finished patching up the mud armor then returned to drying by the fire. While I waited, Talia proceeded with the next step.
“You will want to add a second, or sometimes even a third layer of mud armor to your lower legs and feet. As you move through the terrain, the mud armor will wear out there first. Furthermore, since your legs will be in direct contact with the snow extra protection comes in handy,” said Talia as she doubled up the mud at her feet.
The Ice Lands Page 14
