The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  After several minutes of chanting, the glowing red symbols reached the silver goblet. The inside of the goblet retained the red glow while the rest of the platform gradually returned to darkness. The chanting came to a stop and the elders relaxed and gathered near the center of the platform. Jutmaek walked to the goblet and lifted it off the center table.

  “The Blood Moon ceremony has been successfully initiated,” Jutmaek announced. “Everyone line up, drink, then begin your hunt.”

  Ch. 12: Flight

  The participants stumbled around as they formed into a line. Everyone wanted to be first so they could get a slight head start. Even in the best circumstance the head start wouldn’t be more than a few minutes and given that the hunt would last three full days the effect of it would be negligible, but because the importance of the event, everyone was desperate for even the slightest edge. People pushed and shoved their way into a good spot, almost causing several straight up brawls until a couple of the elders sent a few of the worst aggressors to the back of the line. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, in neither an exceptionally good or bad position.

  The line moved quickly and orderly as participants took a small sip from the goblet before heading to the bonfire to make their mud armor. I was about a dozen people from the front when a relatively young beastman elder spotted me.

  “Hey you, I saw that,” said the young elder as he walked over to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I saw you just push your way in,” said the young elder. I glanced to the people around me. None reacted in the slightest. None wanted to offend the elder. “Back of the line.”

  “But-”

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Mai warned. ‘Haters gonna hate.’

  I moved to the back of the line, a bit pissed at the simple injustice of it all.

  ‘It’s not like it’s going to matter,’ Mai tried to soothe me. ‘It’s only a few minutes and just think about how much you’ll be able to rub it in his face when you come back as a badass.’

  “I’m not already a badass?” I said.

  ‘I’m not sure if that question is more funny or sad,’ Mai sighed.

  After fifteen minutes, all the other participants finished and it was finally my turn. Jutmaek passed me the goblet. The glowing red liquid inside was almost gone, but enough remained for me to take a swig.

  Bbrrrinng.

  You just consumed a magic imbued fluid and fall under the effects of: †Blood Moon’s Blessing†.

  †Blood Moon’s Blessing†

  For the next 72 hours, you can acquire a beast’s form by consuming its heart.

  Congratulations! You have completed the first part of †Becoming a Clansman† by acquiring †Blood Moon’s Blessing†. You have three days to acquire an appropriate beastform before the quest fails.

  I rushed to the side of the bonfire and joined the other participants in the large mud pool stationed there.

  Despite my Low Temperature Resistance, I still took my time making the mud armor. I wasn’t immune to the cold and the mud armor was a big help even though no longer absolutely necessary. Furthermore, the mud helped mask my scent from potential prey.

  “I hope you’ve been paying attention,” I told Mai as I held one of my feet over the fire to bake on the second layer.

  ‘When am I not,’ Mai huffed. ‘Why?’

  “I need to know which direction has the fewest people,” I said. One benefit of being the last to leave was that I knew which direction had the least people. Fights between participants were common especially in the beginning when everyone was bunched up.

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Mai as she generated a beam of light that headed north by north-west. ‘I could have told you that even before this thing started.’

  “Really? How?” I asked.

  ‘Three days isn’t long, but it’s warmer south, so that’s where most went. As to why I recommended a slight preference west, it’s slightly uphill to the Northwest so people naturally favor east,’ Mai explained. When the mud boots were solid, I headed straight in the direction Mai had indicated.

  The first few hours went smoothly. With Mai’s guidance, it was impossible to get turned around as I weaved my way around the denser parts of the forest. As I went, I collected a couple fist sized rocks and struck them against one another to sharpen one of them into a spearhead. Although I had some experience in making stone tools from my early days on Tautellus, the teacher Izusa assigned taught me the proper methods.

  I stopped just after sunrise. At that point, I’d been on the move for eight hours straight and was fairly exhausted. I tore down a couple branches from the nearest evergreen and used them to make a simple bed that would keep snow water, liquefied from my body heat, from melting my mud armor.

  “Wake me if something happens,” I told Mai. Even while I was asleep, my ears would still be working so Mai could warn me at the slightest problem.

  ‘You really should find some way to show appreciation for all the things I do for you,’ said Mai.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Stalker, for invading my personal space,” I said. I laid down on the foliage and closed my eyes.

  ‘That’s Ms. Stalker.’

  “Aren’t you ten thousand years old? Shouldn’t it be Senior Stalker,” I wanted to say, but I feared the consequences uttering those words would have on my sleep.

  Sleep didn’t come easy, but it came and for a brief time, conscious obsessions leaked into the unconscious world, I was met by a David Attenborough style nature documentary featuring the peculiar lifeforms of my current region.

  ‘Danger, Isaac Stein, danger… Danger, Isaac Stein, danger,’ Mai repeated several times in a flat artificial robot voice, stirring me from my slumber.

  “I’m awake,” I said, somewhat loudly.

  ‘Ssshhhhh,’ Mai shushed me harshly in a way that reminded me of the first few days of our partnership. ‘Something’s coming straight towards you.’

  “What is it? Is it a wolf, or a bear? Please don’t tell me it’s a rabbit,” I whispered back as I hopped to my feet and shook my head to wake myself up.

  The cold has caused your stats to decrease by 5% 3%

  Until you get warmer, stats will continue to decrease.

  The continuing cold causes stats to decrease by additional 5% 3%

  Total loss due to cold: -10% -6%

  Because of the mud armor and because I’d only slept a few hours, I only received two cold warnings while I was out.

  ‘It’s not an animal, but other participants. Three of them,’ said Mai.

  “Three?” I didn’t like the sound of that. Participants supposedly rarely worked together more people meant more beasts to hunt for their hearts and greater risk of fights over the results. “Any chance they could be monitors following me?”

  Participants weren’t allowed to use items made beforehand so I was told there would be someone watching me to make sure I didn’t use anything prepared ahead of time from my inventory.

  ‘No, there is only one monitor and it is an owl that’s been following us. This is something different,’ said Mai.

  “Which direction are they coming from?” I asked.

  ‘That way,’ said Mai as she pointed south towards where everyone started. ‘They’re roughly three minutes away.’

  “So maybe it’s just a group heading out in the same direction,” I said.

  ‘Uh huh,’ Mai agreed sarcastically. I was the last to leave the village and probably moved a lot slower than most, if not all of the beastmen. I doubt I could have gotten ahead of them.

  “Well, we better go then,” I said.

  I started moving again. In order to get out of the path of the three, this time I moved more west than north.

  “They still coming?” I asked after around fifteen minutes.

  ‘Yes, they stopped briefly where you slept before moving again,’ said Mai.

  “They kept on their way?” I asked, though from the sinking feeling in my gut I thought I alread
y had the answer.

  ‘Kept going your way,’ said Mai, confirming my worst fears. The only reason the trio behind me would have turned my way was if they were after me.

  “Bring up a map of the area,” I told Mai as I doubled my pace.

  ‘Here you go,’ said Mai as she created a floating image that maintained a stable position about a foot in front of my bobbling head. The image was a perfect enlargement of maps Izusa had given me to study. Added to the labels marking mountains, streams, and potential hunting grounds, were a pair of slowly moving arrows, one green and the other red. The green one was labeled Asshat while the red arrow behind it was labeled Three Stooges.

  “Why am I labeled Asshat?” I asked.

  ‘Because it suits you,’ Mai smiled.

  “And the Three Stooges?” I asked.

  ‘Because it suits them,’ Mai shrugged.

  “Yeah. Three Stooges really suits three well-trained, able-bodied giant beastmen,” I said.

  ‘Maybe not now, but when we’re finished with them,’ said Mai.

  “You really think things are going to go that way,” I said.

  ‘I see what you’re planning. I know exactly why you chose to turn this way,’ said Mai, which slightly annoyed me. I’d wanted it to be a surprise.

  “Am I going to make it?” I asked.

  ‘Not if you don’t pick up the pace,’ Mai replied.

  I kept going up the incline. As time passed, the trees gradually became less dense, making the snow on the ground deeper and more difficult to traverse. With every step, my feet sank a good foot and a half and in my struggle to maintain a decent pace, a layer of snow built up on top of my feet.

  This seemingly minor detail was a crucial mistake. As I ran, my body heat melted the snow sitting on top of my feet. The water seeped into the baked mud armor ruining its structural integrity. Flakes of mud broke away with every step and after fifteen minutes, the coverings on both of my feet were completely gone. The cold regained a foothold, literally.

  The continuing cold causes stats to decrease by additional 5% 3%

  Total loss due to cold: -15% -9%

  “Inventory.”

  It was only against the rules for me to use objects prepared ahead of time. Since it was a personal ability, I could still use my inventory to store things. As I continued running, I let the inventory screen sit in front of me to absorb snow and boulders in my path, making my way considerably smoother.

  After half an hour, I saw what I was looking for. The beastmen called it the Tiger God’s Fierce Swipe. It was a series of four thirty-mile long deep parallel canyons. From the air, beastmen with flying forms said it looked like a set of giant claw marks, hence its name.

  ‘Hurry,’ Mai warned. ‘They’re just about caught up.’

  “Don’t worry. This is better, I’ll figure out what’s really going on,” I said.

  I stopped at the edge of the canyon, at the point where a single step would have me regretting Newton’s Law of Gravitation, and waited. It was a sheer edge down into blackness, like the earth had vanished before resuming about forty feet away. I didn’t have to wait long. In less than a minute, my three pursuers arrived.

  One was the blond beastman who’d played a prank on me while waiting for the blood moon to rise, Krill. The other two were presumably the same friends I’d overheard thanks to Mai, a girl with red eyes, Mira, and a bald guy, Ruhl, who seemed to be the leader.

  “So, what do we have here?” asked Ruhl as the three of them came to a stop a dozen feet from me. “Did the stupid human run himself straight into a dead end?”

  “What are you doing here? You know I have the clan chief’s backing. You know there’s a monitor keeping an eye on me,” I said.

  “The monitor’s not going to do anything. Neither is the clan chief. As much as the elders tell us not to go after one another, they all understand the situation. The Blood Moon does not have any real rules. It is kill or be killed as everyone gives everything they have to succeed. I am sure the monitor will report this to the clan chief, but it does not matter. He cannot punish us and besides, Jutmaek will not be clan chief for much longer,” said Ruhl.

  “Is that why you’re doing this? You’re working for Truant?” I asked.

  “Of course. After you fail and Jutmaek is made a fool of, Truant will call for a vote of no confidence and then will replace him. If I knew catching you was going to be so easy, I would have taken half of what Truant offered,” Ruhl stared to either side along the edge of the canyon. “It did surprise me that you detected our approach so early though. How did you do it?”

  “Not everyone is so foolish as to mouth off about everything,” I said.

  “What? What do you have to lose? What do I have to lose? There is nowhere to run and you certainly cannot beat all three of us. Why am I not free to say whatever the hell I feel like saying?” said Ruhl.

  “Because it’s like you said, I knew you were coming from a pretty long way off. Did you really think I came all this way by mistake,” I said.

  Ruhl’s beady eyes flashed open in realization a split second before I turned around and faced the canyon. “Get him,” I heard Ruhl order from behind, but he wasn’t really my concern anymore.

  I bent my knees and pounded my feet with as much force as I could muster, flinging myself off the edge of the cliff.

  The monitor was placed on me to insure I didn’t use any pre-crafted or pre-loaded items from my inventory. I wasn’t banned from using the inventory or any of my powers. The beastmen considered them as part of one’s ability, like being stronger or more skilled.

  As I sailed through the sky, I quickly scrolled to the bottom of my already open inventory and selected one of the boulders I’d picked up during my recent run. When I pressed the icon, I made sure the inventory screen was tilted downward so that when the boulder appeared in that instant it was slightly below and ahead of me. In that brief fraction of a second, it was like the boulder stood motionless, like it was floating in mid-air and it was in that instant I used that boulder to stop myself from falling. I pounded my feet against the unstable ground and kicked off again, maintaining my altitude as I propelled myself onward.

  I repeated the process half a dozen times, bridging the forty-foot canyon before crashing into a snow bank on the other side. I lay there in the snow for a minute slightly stunned that I actually pulled it off before I returned to my feet and looked back towards where I came from.

  “I guess I’ll see you later,” I told the trio of beastmen as they stood on the edge of the other side of the canyon. Only forty feet separated us, yet I might as well have been on the other side of the world. Only a few beastforms would have been able to cross and having set out less than a day previously, the three Blood Moon participants would almost certainly have no beastform, much less one capable of that specific feat.

  “Circle around,” said Ruhl as he started moving northeast along the canyon’s edge. “We will pick up his trail on the other side.”

  Once my pursuers left, I continued on my way. It was only about two hundred yards before I came to the second canyon and I crossed it as easily as I did the first. Then, after another couple hundred more yards, I crossed the third canyon.

  Things were looking up. My plan had paid off and given the distance to go around the canyon, I’d bought at least half a day before my pursuers could catch up.

  It was probably because of this good mood that I grew overconfident as I made my way to the fourth and final canyon. I leapt off, just like all the other times, I summoned boulders to use as lily pads like all the other times, but about four stones in everything went wrong. Remember the missing layer of mud over my feet I mentioned earlier, well because of it the bottom of my feet were exposed to the snow and by this point they were completely numb. I jumped off the fourth boulder but my poorly coordinated feet slipped and I failed to get any lift at all.

  †Sense Jeopardy†

  The warning came too late for me to do anything. I fe
ll into the dark chasm, clueless as to just how far down was the bottom.

  ‘I see dead people.’

  Ch. 13: Fight

  When I came to, I was shivering. Like before, my body heat had melted a layer of snow immediately around me, which in turn had dissolved my mud armor. Fortunately, because of my Low Temperature Resistance I only suffered a great reduction of stats instead of a slow death.

  The continuing cold causes stats to decrease by additional 5% 3%

  Total loss due to cold: -50% -30%

  Despite the cold, it wasn’t my first thought when I awoke. That honor would belong to the fact that I survived at all. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious or how long my body had been recovering, but I saw the health bar in the corner of my vision had fallen to a third.

  ‘Can’t believe you survived that. You were lucky there was so much snow down here. It cushioned your fall. Look, you made a Looney Tunes imprint as well,’ said Mai, commenting on the two-foot deep Isaac impression I’d made in the snow.

  “If I was really lucky, I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place,” I replied.

  ‘If you were unlucky you would have fallen going over the first canyon, when the three guys after you would have seen it. At least this way you still have time to figure things out,’ said Mai.

  “Time?” A thought came to mind. I needed to know how long I’d been down here. Crossing the canyon had only bought me a few hours. Had I lost everything I gained or worse, had I been out for days and already failed my mission. “Quest,” I said, summoning the interface.

  Quest Log

  .Becoming a Clansmen Time Remaining: 48 hours 23 min

  .Acquire a beastform