Chương 3: Chapter 2: Wreckage

It was around the third house that I investigated that I decided that the town had been attacked by something. Maybe an army, maybe a monster? I had no idea if there were monsters in this world or not, but given the world's insistence that I was indeed a Lycanthrope, I found it hard going to think that I was unique in that. And whatever had done this, it had thrown massive, jagged pieces of masonry at stone buildings so hard that they'd buckled from the impact and wholesale collapsed entire buildings.

One stone I found was the size of a semi truck without the trailer and had to weigh tons, which was... more than a little scary if I thought too hard about it. And worse than the crypt-like silence I was faced with were the bones. Once I noticed one grinning human skull laying among the stones, I noticed many... many others.

People in the ruins of armor, people facing away from the direction the stones had come from, splayed out in attitudes like they'd been fleeing, big people, little people, they'd died suddenly, knocked down and killed by something that chucked huge boulders but didn't use... arrows, or even worry their bodies - apart from the occasional bones of people who had been hit by said stones, but those were rare. And the stones themselves - they were...

of a kind of greenish glass, when I touched one and brushed away moss and dust, that glinted like obsidian with a beautiful opalescent sheen that was almost entirely lost on me in that moment. What was this stuff? You have learned a new skill: Inspect Oh! Neat! I thought about what the skill did and got [LIFE] Inspect: Rank F. The ability to discover details about an object or creature. That sounded like something that would slot into Peasant, right? Given the tag, it seemed likely.

I immediately squinted at the opalescent stone, and tried to activate the skill. Squinting did nothing, as did just staring, but just thinking about the skill itself while staring did. Poisonstone Boulder, inert. Poisonstone sounded nasty, but it was... inert was it? I looked at my hand just to make sure my skin wasn't dying and discovered that it was a bit pink where I'd touched the stone, but other than that? No effect. Even so, there was a sort of tic in the back of my mind, a sort of...

gentle probe to my mind, as if something was trying to get my attention. As soon as I turned my thoughts curiously towards it, I was informed that my Bestial Vigor skill had gone up? [MONSTER] Bestial Vigor: Rank F 95% I put my hand on the Poisonstone again, and sort of watched the notification, but it didn't do anything. My hand did start to tingle though, and another notification informed me, when I brought it up into my mind, that Bestial Vigor had gone up another 4%.

It let me heal and recover more quickly, right? So that almost certainly meant that this stuff was bad news. And this was the inert form. Was this some kind of... biological weapon? A poisonous siege weapon that would destroy a structure and poison its inhabitants? How cruel! Even so... the stuff was pretty in its way, and now that I knew what to look for, I'd take care. The buildings were empty. Oh there were some bones, but for the most part nobody had left anything behind.

This inclined me to think that this place had been raided rather than attacked by some monster. Somebody, probably some kind of army with siege weapons, or maybe a mage? I had no idea. They'd pummeled this place, this village, with deadly poison stone and picked it clean afterward. The only things I found were bones, stones, and rot in most of the places I looked, and I tried to be as thorough as I could as I picked my way through collapsing old buildings and dark places, in search for... something. Anything.

On the hill at the center of town was a keep. It had obviously not been spared the barrage of boulders, it was a big target, but the damage to it wasn't nearly as terrible as it was elsewhere in the city. In fact, there were several boulders of poisonstone that had obviously shattered on the walls of the place, and more in town that had done the same - perhaps they'd hit and rolled back down? It did mean that there were sharp shards on the slope leading up though, and strewn about the outside of the wall.

Glittering obsidian-like shards of the nasty stone gleamed to my eyes like broken glass and werewolf or no, I was pretty sure that walking up the hill to step on some of those would not be a life-enhancing thing for me to do. A knife though, that'd be a useful thing to have. Even if this stuff was nasty, it was also very hard, wasn't immediately deadly to me, and it looked like it also snapped into shards like obsidian did as well.

It didn't take me long to find a dagger sized piece of sharp rock, or long to fashion it onto a stick with a bit of cloth and some careful knots. I inspected the result. A crude Inert Poisonstone knife, dull. Ah. Didn't people... shape flints and glass and things into useful forms with a bit of bone? It didn't take long for me to find a bit of bone I could use. I'd seen some videos back home of how this kind of thing was done, but I had no idea it was so tricky!

A couple blows with the bone to the edge to try and break off a bit to make it sharper just cracked the thing in half. I tried again, careful not to cut my hands on the sharp, nasty shards I picked up, and found that striking at an angle while holding it with fabric carefully got better results. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. You have learned a new skill: Knapping [CRAFT, PRIMITIVE] Knapping: Rank F.

The ability to work stone into useful weapons and tools. It got easier after that. Not by much, but by degrees my ineptitude faded and I got into a kind of rhythm with the work. I found myself looking at the bone I'd taken for knapping, and adjusted my grip a little without really thinking about it. The way I held the shards changed, and suddenly I was getting better results with my efforts.

Soon I had a knife blade with an edge that didn't just look sharp, it cut the fabric I used to hold it by -accident-, and I hadn't even tried to cut with it! Oh dang! I lashed it to a stick, and... a bit more shaping made the knife I made hold the wood much, much more tightly. A simple Inert Poisonstone knife, Sharp. Awesome! The knife would be very, very useful to me.

I remembered watching survival shows and stuff, and I remembered that a lot of really hardcore survivalists regarded a knife as almost cheating - you could do a LOT with a good knife. But what about other tools? There was no shortage of this green poisonstone around, after all. Maybe I could make an axe to get some wood? Or a spear, in case I met trouble or wanted to get some food?

I spent what felt like hours knapping more of the stuff carefully, making another knife blade to affix to a spear when I got a notification. Your Knapping skill has improved, and is now eligible for rank up. Rank E is a free rank. Oh, yes please. [CRAFT, PRIMITIVE] Knapping: Rank E. The ability to work stone into useful weapons and tools. You are more skilled at working stone into shape, and the quality of your work has improved. Awesome! I made another knife, taking apart the first one.

I realized that the work I'd done... it was okay, but it wasn't GOOD as such. New ideas occurred to me - new ways to strike, better techniques to sharpen, and it didn't seem to take me nearly as long to make a knife this time, and when I put it together and inspected it, the notification said An Inert Poisonstone knife of Poor quality, Sharp Poor was better than Simple, right? It felt solid in my hand. I'd need a sheathe for it, but now I had a knife, and that was better than having no knives at all!

Another spear was made, and I used my new knife to carve down a branch to make a decent pole for it. It wasn't that straight, but it was straight-ish and the whole thing read A poisonstone spear of Poor quality, Sharp The tool felt very solid in my hands also. By now, the sun was over its zenith, and starting to fall in the sky. Like, six o'clock? I scooped up a couple more shards and the bone I'd used to knap with - sorry, whoever's thigh this had been - and looked back up at the keep in the center of town.

I at least had a means to defend myself now, if anything was out to hurt me in there. Inspecting it, I got... nothing. My skill didn't tell the names of places exactly, I guess that wasn't a surprise. I tried peering at one of the poisonstone shards and it said A shard of Poisonstone, Inert and at the bone I'd used as a tool, and it said Bone knapping tool of Poor quality Your Inspect skill has improved, and is now eligible for rank up. Rank E is a free rank. Easy choice to make, that.

[LIFE] Inspect: Rank E 0%: The ability to discover details about an object or creature. You now learn slightly more. Awesome! I inspected my knife again. A poor Inert Poisonstone knife, Sharp, made by an Amateur - Emily Smith Better than what I'd had before, but not... by a whole lot. I suppose it'd be useful if I found another knife or something but not all that helpful. Your Bestial Vigor skill has improved, and is now eligible for rank up. Rank E is a free rank.

[MONSTER] Bestial Vigor: Rank E 0% - Your cursed body teems with life force! You are resistant to harm, and recover Health and Stamina more quickly. Okay, that made sense. The description hadn't changed, but maybe it was... working even better? It was already really, really close and I'd been working with the Poisonstone to knap it for a while now. I'd been super careful not to cut myself, but I supposed it made sense that I'd exposed myself a little to it, breathing dust or something from the knapping process.

This was nasty stuff I was working with, even if it was so pretty! Not the kind of thing you make jewelry from.

It was time to look at my character sheet again Name: Emily Smith Race: Human, Lycanthrope Class: Peasant [LIFE, MONSTER] Status: Healthy, Calm Skill Slots: 1/2 Skills: [LIFE] Peasant level 0 Peasant skill points: 0 Skills: [LIFE] Inspect: Rank E 4% [CRAFTING, PRIMITIVE] Knapping: Rank E 32% -- [MONSTER] Lycanthrope level 0 Lycanthrope skill points: 0 Skills: [MONSTER, SYNERGY] Bestial Vigor: Rank E 0% -- -- I didn't have many lycanthrope skills just yet, but I'd almost filled my peasant class's skill slots.

It was useful stuff, but I got the impression that that was the nature of the class - it was all about life skills and making things. I got the feeling I was getting close to something with that one - but the Werewolf class, that one was worrisome, and... I didn't feel like I was close to anything. Well. That wasn't quite true. There WAS something happening to me - I could sort of... feel it, as the day wore on. I wasn't getting tired exactly, that was a fact, but... I felt like I should be?

There was also this sensation of something getting... closer, and closer to me, something... building inside my stomache that I didn't have a word for. It was kind of like the sensation of excitement I'd felt once before when waiting to go on a trip, mixed with a knot of anxiety that something bad was about to happen. That wasn't worrying at all!