Darkness Named

by Riley S. Keene

  “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered to herself, trying to calm her exhausted mind and body. “It’s fine. I don’t need the hammer. That’s the whole point. It’s useless against the carcajou. I don’t need it.”

  But she did. She had no idea how long the spear would take to finish. What if other enemies wandered into her camp while she was crafting? Or the Stick Folk?

  She was defenseless. There were no other weapons. Everything else was stowed in the pot in her inventory, which would take time—and both hands—to retrieve. Since she was unable to keep the chair going with one hand, she wouldn’t be able to avoid attacks if she needed to recover another weapon.

  As long as she only had to deal with the carcajou, she might have this under control, though. Thanks to devouring that purple mushroom, the Stick Folk weren’t a problem yet. And she’d never seen other mobs wander into her camp, much less aggressive ones.

  “I’m fine,” she said, repeating it like a mantra. “Don’t even have to be lucky for this to work out. Just… don’t be unlucky. Easy.”

  The carcajou’s stomping halted, and Tanisha circled around quickly. Her chair hurried past the carcajou’s feet and she reached the metalworking workbench again a few moments later.

  She took the antler out of the coals and followed the blueprint’s instructions, hammering away. The leaf-shaped blade finally came together, becoming more even and sharp. At the base of the antler, part of it had bent and changed shape, becoming something of a cup. Tanisha could only believe that was where the stick was going to become the haft of the spear.

  Finally, the spectral hammer came to rest on the workbench, and Tanisha followed suit. The carcajou’s stomping was approaching, but the next step was to just jam wax in the cup-shaped base of the spearhead. She did as directed, but then put the spear down. There was no use in getting greedy. She could deal with the carcajou, and then return. The spectral blueprint showed driving the stick into place, and for a brief moment, Tanisha entertained the idea of doing just that. But there were likely additional steps after, even if it was only carving away the excess wax.

  She directed her chair to intercept the carcajou and punched it in the leg.

  It should have worked.

  She’d punched the Stick Folk and it reacted.

  But the carcajou wasn’t changing course.

  It still stomped towards the workbench.

  Tanisha cried out in surprise and directed her chair to give chase. She punched it in the leg again, but nothing. There was no red number floating away from the attack, and the carcajou didn’t so much as look at her.

  Instead, it bore down on her workbench, and the half-finished spear resting on it.

  “No, no, no!” She threw open her inventory, tossing her torch to the side. Pulled her tools out. Threw the lid to her lap. She just needed to grab anything. Just needed to hit it and cause damage.

  But it was too late. The lid of the pot hadn’t even landed in her lap before the carcajou’s claw came down. It was heedless of the heat of the forge. The spearhead and block of wax tumbled to the ground, and the spectral blueprint vanished.

  With it, Tanisha’s hopes at beating the boss.

  It was over.

  She lacked the ability to fight it, and the only thing she could do to give herself the ability to do so was just crushed right in front of her.

  As if to punctuate that point, the carcajou stomped on the spearhead, shattering it to useless shards.

  Her camp was lost.

  Chapter 40

  Tanisha watched, distraught, as the carcajou finished destroying her hard-earned camp. It stomped over to her campfire—the new one she’d placed next to her workbenches—and flattened it. Then to her cooking campfire, turning it to nothing but useless splinters as well.

  There was nothing she could do. She had her other hammer in hand now, as well as her torch, but all she could do with it was waste her time. Instead, she watched. Allowed herself to drink in the despair. To follow it, and observe.

  The creature turned from her campfire and stomped towards her last remaining structure—her sleeping hut. The stone walls of her bedroom slowed the carcajou down just a bit, compared to how quickly it had destroyed the chests and workbenches.

  But eventually, it too began to crumble.

  She realized that, when it cracked the final wall, it might not de-aggro. It might come for her next. And that might be the end of her. Maybe she could run far away enough to lose it, but considering how far she drug it away the first time but it still returned to her camp… Tanisha was afraid that if she got its attention for real, it would never stop following her.

  Would that really be so bad, though?

  Tanisha shook her head, trying to dislodge the intrusive thought. It didn’t quite go away.

  Her camp was destroyed. Not just that, but all she had left were the items in her inventory. Sure, she had enough jerky to keep her and Shinji fed for a day. Maybe two. She had plenty of grass and sticks, but she had barely a dozen logs, and not a single rock.

  As she watched the carcajou pause from smashing her walls to stomp at something unseen for a moment, she knew her sleeping mat was gone.

  What was she going to do? How was she going to survive? The carcajou didn’t need to kill her. It just needed to leave her here with nothing. Even if she managed to get all of her stuff together and survive, how long would it be before she spawned it again and lost everything a second time?

  The creature smashed the last wall of her bedroom and turned towards her drying racks.

  Tanisha groaned.

  Of course. The reason the creature had spawned. It was because of her camp. It must have become too valuable. Over the years, she had played so many survival games where enemy spawns were dependent on the value of your base. In theory, it let the developers gauge the enemy strength to match how far along the player should be. But it could have some unintended consequences. If you spent a lot of time crafting things, or if RNG “kindly” gifted you something with high value, your base could spark attacks from enemies that were too strong for you, leading to disaster.

  Like this.

  Tanisha had spent the last few days gathering huge amounts of materials and crafting them into useful items. If something was tracking the value of her camp, it would have been skyrocketing recently.

  The carcajou’s focus on her constructions made sense, in that context. It was a blessing, in a way. The creature was destroying its own spawn conditions. If it didn’t kill her after it was done with her drying racks, she would be safe from it for a little while.

  As the last drying rack shattered under its massive claws, the creature turned. It didn’t turn towards her—which elicited a sigh of relief from Tanisha—but instead stomped out of the ring of light cast by her torch and out into the forest behind her.

  That wasn’t the direction it spawned from.

  Tanisha frowned, but then realized it might be heading back to the tutorial area. She’d left a woodworking workbench there, at the very minimum. It dispelled a brewing thought that she might be able to stagger her camp to avoid triggering the creature.

  If it was going after that workbench, it would likely despawn before coming back to kill her. Or, at least, she’d have warning before it returned.

  She would just have to avoid building anything new for it to chase until it was likely to have despawned.

  “Not ideal,” she said, looking around at her obliterated camp. Shinji chittered softly in response.

  Not a single board had escaped the carcajou’s rampage. After using the rest of her stones to make the metalworking workbench, every piece of construction being reduced to unusable gravel was devastating. She couldn’t craft anything of use. The sleeping mat required boards, and boards meant she’d need a woodworking workbench. She didn’t have rocks for that, and even if it was full daylight and she could see the ground, she knew she’d gathered a lot of the close-by rocks.

  There were other items she could craf
t to allow her to sleep comfortably—like the tents—but they were harder to make. They required cloth, which she couldn’t make without a provisioning workbench. And replacing that workbench required not only stone, but some mob drops as well.

  She’d lost everything.

  Hindsight was 20/20, and she wished she had thought of a backup plan.

  Tanisha opened her inventory and grimaced at the seven empty slots. What else could she have filled them with? She knew that three of the slots had been taken up by the antler, living stone, and fur that was instrumental to her plan, and that one had been the remainder of her stones. But that was still three spots. She could have grabbed some of her food—besides the jerky—and some of the sleipdeer hides and cloth as well.

  Instead, all she could do was sit in her chair, torch in hand, and wait for morning. Unless she wanted to lay on the ground and sleep. With her stamina bar so low, she’d likely doze off eventually, depending on what time it was and how long there was until morning.

  But neither option would be comfortable.

  Shinji chirruped at her quietly, and she looked down to the little mustelan. He had moved from her side down into her lap, and was leaning over the arm of her chair, beady little eyes focused on the woods.

  “We should be fine now,” she said, reaching down to stroke his head. He leaned into the touch, and his bushed-out fur began to flatten down as he visibly relaxed in response to the physical comfort. “That thing won’t come back as long as we don’t build anything for a little while.” She hesitated and frowned. “Or let our camp get that big again.”

  He made a dooking noise and turned to look up at her, eyes questioning.

  “We need to be careful about that.” She opened her inventory again. There wasn’t much left to make constructions. She had that one extra wax she’d happened to grab, and that would let her make a snare trap so they wouldn’t starve.

  There were some other things she would need to rebuild, too, but how much was too much?

  “I could go minimalist. Break down what I don’t need, only keep small amounts of things on hand. We’d live a lot leaner, and traveling would be harder.”

  Shinji squeaked at her.

  “Okay, sure, much harder. But stockpiling wasn’t a long-term goal anyway.”

  The mustelan sniffed at the air, making a quiet snuffling noise.

  She smiled, and then paused. It was nice to have someone to talk to. A comforting presence. Even after being completely demoralized by the carcajou attack, Shinji’s presence had calmed her down considerably.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said, as if the creature had asked her a question. “This is one of Otekah’s tricks. If I can’t stockpile resources, I’m never going to be able to move on. Never going to be able to escape.”

  The mustelan seemed to sense the change in her attitude, and his ears perked up as she looked down at him.

  “I can’t let this stop me. No matter how much they try to push me back, I need to keep moving forward.” She looked back over her shoulder to the forest, where the carcajou had vanished. “To move forward, I don’t want to avoid that monstrosity. I want to prepare for it.” Tanisha looked down at the ground, where the splintered shards of her unfinished spear lay. “I need to kill it.”

  Shinji chirruped curiously, tilting his head.

  “It’s the carcajou,” she continued before opening her crafting menu and scrolling down to the compass. “With its fang, I can get out of here. Now I know how to spawn it. And I have a pretty good idea of how to beat it.” She scrolled back up and tapped on the spear. The little text on the UI indicated that a metalworking workbench was required. Tanisha bared her teeth at it.

  Shinji hoped down off of the chair, and then turned to look at her with a squeak. She turned and looked around, and realized she could see a line of contrast out in the night. The sky was growing barely a shade lighter—enough that it defined the horizon.

  Dawn was coming.

  “I just need materials. A woodworking workbench, but I don’t need it for very long. Just a few dozen boards, and then I can break that down. What I need is a metalworking workbench. And after that…” She switched to her character panel and looked at her sheet. The bottommost skill under the craft section was still at level zero.

  Weaponmaking.

  “I have some skills to grind.”

  Looking for more?

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  About the Author

  Riley S. Keene is a clever pseudonym for a strange married couple, also known as Robert and Kristen. We live in the Pacific Northwest and enjoy the rainstorms, lack of sunlight, and excess oxygen that come with living in that part of the US.

  Our ultimate goal as an author duo is to write entertaining fantasy novels that are inclusive but not preachy. We strive to include as many cultures, settings, and characters as we can without relying on stereotypes or tropes. Doing so requires a lot of research and hard work – and we’re the first to admit that it’s never as in-depth as we would like. So we encourage you – if you find something in our books that doesn’t represent a lifestyle, culture, or setting correctly, please contact us. We’d be happy to be educated. It’s kind of our thing.

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  Acknowledgments

  This book was only made possible by our Kickstarter backers. These fine folks are amazing human beings and we are so thankful for their support.

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