part0018

DAWN WAS JUST barely breaking outside the workshop’s tiny window. It was very early morning, practically still night. But even that weak light was enough to convince me to throw off the coat I’d been using to keep off the night’s chill, and rise from my straw bed. Ow! I’d forgotten how cramped it was; I’d cracked my head painfully on the low ceiling. Sparks danced across my vision. The last remnants of sleep were instantly shaken out of my skull. Not that it was much of a sleep… I doubted anyone in Pan’s Landing slept that night. And not just because of those damn biting midges humming around the ears, keeping you from relaxing for even a second. It was something else entirely; the birth was hard going, judging by the groans and screams that reached me even here. And my little sister Julie still hadn’t come back. She’d stayed by the soon-to-be mother’s side along with the other women of the village.

Yawning and shivering in the morning cold, I opened the door. Looked like I wasn’t the only one up at the crack of dawn. Grip sat on the bench, sleep-deprived and grumpy. He was patching up his leather armor with needle and thread. The hunters’ group was awake too, getting ready for a run, checking their hiking equipment. They were just waiting for the signal from Pan, still sitting by the burning ditch and keeping watch on the night beasts’ siege.

“Go get something to eat, Sergeant,” Washington suggested. “Your dinner is still on the table, we just covered it with a plate so the insects wouldn’t get it. They’re obnoxious around here.”

I thanked the Hunter. True, it wouldn’t hurt to sate my appetite. After dying and reviving, all my stomach problems were gone, but my satiety bar was down to the orange zone — less than a third of maximum.

At that moment, we heard a hammer striking metal twice beyond the gate — Pan’s signal that the night beasts had gone. Soon, the gray-bearded Hunter appeared in the yard. For some reason, he headed straight for me.

“Sergeant, you’re just who I wanted to see! We need to give you work to do so that your character levels up and you can make yourself useful. There are plenty of things that need doing, so choose whatever you prefer. If you plan to become a fighter and defender, then you’ll need to level up Physique and Strength. There are lots of river stones across the bridge on the bank. Take a wheelbarrow, load up some of the heavier stones and bring them to the storehouse. If you want to take that path, then the skills you need are Athleticism, Strong Back, Marathoner. Grab some building skills too — they’ll level up faster. You’ll need to do at least fifty trips a day. A couple of working days like that and you’ll level up your Strength and Stamina a little. And when you level up, you’ll be able to go to the quarry with Yarik and Rumbler. There’s granite there, it’s stronger than the river stone. There’s a rich copper vein too. Plus, the pickaxe levels up Hand-to-Hand Combat, which is the first skill you need as a fighter. We really need that stone — we’re going to build a strong stone wall around the village. Then the night beasts won’t be a problem anymore.”

Well, that sounded useful and good for everyone. Especially since Strength and Physique were my character’s two highest stats. It was like I was specialized for the path of the Warrior. If that progression path would help us solve the problem of the night beasts quicker, then I was all for it! I started to tell him I’d be happy to do what he asked, but the brusque Pan cut me off sharply. He wasn’t done listing the options:

“Washington also says that he’s willing to take you out hunting and gathering berries beyond the rotten stream. Only first you need to get to level eight at least, or better yet, twelve. Otherwise you’ll have almost no chance to survive. There’s plenty of peaceful work to level you up here in the village — debarking logs, cutting up planks, breaking stones. Level up your Item Crafting skill and you’ll be able to set up snares for small prey. The village needs hunters even more than fighters, and Washington is a good leader. He’ll teach you the trade. Also, I saw that you brought all kinds of fish hooks and tackle. You like fishing? That’ll help too! We need fishermen as a back-up for when the hunters come back empty-handed. Your Strength and Physique will come in handy there too, since the water beasts here are big and have lots of teeth. There’s a reason we warned you yesterday. Tick-Tock alone is worth so much!”

“Tick-Tock?” I asked, not understanding who or what the Hunter was talking about.

The old man seemed surprised, looked at me as if I was slow, pointed at the oxbow lake:

“You saw him. The huge and permanently hungry man-eating crocodile. We call him Tick-Tock. Level seventy-eight. Good luck killing that. And he’s a clever beast! He lies sunbathing on the bank, makes like he’s asleep. In reality, Tick-Tock sees everything. He keeps an eye on every single villager, tracks them. As soon as he thinks his prey won’t be able to get out of the water fast enough, he makes his move… In the water he moves faster than a speedboat, and nobody’s escaped his jaws yet! But we don’t try to chase Tick-Tock away. He’s useful. Thanks to him, the night beasts fear to go into the water. Tick-Tock would make an easy snack of them! Varya even specially feeds our defender with scraps and fish guts so he sticks around.”

Holy hell. Even a man-eating monster could be useful, it turns out. What shocked me was that I heard respect and even warmth in the old man’s voice when he spoke of the river beast. And in general, I noticed that the locals didn’t fear Tick-Tock, and certainly didn’t hate him. They just kept the dangerous predator in mind, tried not to carelessly fall into his grasp.

So. What to choose..? I thought a moment, listened to my preferences and realized that I didn’t exactly love the idea of breaking stones and dragging them around all day. It sounded important, but I’d rather walk the path of the fisherman. I’d always loved fishing!

“Good choice,” Pan supported me. “Only if you go fishing in the big river right now, you won’t last long. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. We lost two Fishermen just last year. Their dangerous career cost them all their lives. By the way, one of them left us a good reel. I have it at home. You’ll need to get to level fifteen to use it, and level twenty-five Fishing. Level up and it’s yours!”

So I went fishing. Since I didn’t have enough skills for more right now, and it was dangerous to go straight to the big river, first I was given a small gauze net stretched between two sticks. The crude construction was used to sift through the silt and mud of the oxbow lake to catch loaches — little bottom-feeding fish about two to three inches long. And you know, I didn’t do too badly! I put the loaches and some seashells that I found into a bark bucket on the bank. By sundown, the bucket was half full! With my boots off and pants rolled up, I methodically wandered the shallows and sifted through the brown-green sludge, searching for the life that stirred within. I was told in no uncertain terms not to go deeper into the water. There were spiny venomous creatures that I could run into, and Tick-Tock the crocodile was keeping a watchful eye on me too.

Ooh! Nice, nice! Yesterday, during my suicidal rush to distract the night beasts, I’d managed to level up the Sprinter and Hand-to-Hand Combat skills to 3. Now the Fishing skill, which I’d picked up only that morning, was leveling up at the speed of light — in a mere two hours, the skill was up at level five! And so was my character! It seemed I’d found my calling. I was even starting to like this new world!

I wondered what other abilities I could get by putting mutation points into Fishing. After my second death and my recent promotion, I’d gained ten points that I could carefully spend…

I didn’t manage to finish reading up on the Fishing skill in the game manual. A sudden noise and splash behind me made me turn sharply. Damn! What I saw made me gasp in fear, then helplessly drop my hands. There was reason for despair. The huge crocodile Tick-Tock had crawled onto my bank, using his body to cover the narrow pass to dry land, cutting off my path to the village. The cost of letting my attention slip even for a moment…

☠ Tick-Tock. Level 78 Creeping Crocodile. Male.

The nameplate color was bright red. It was the first time I’d seen that. The skull sign next to the monster’s name also did nothing calm me down. The beast seemed to be in no hurry. He understood perfectly that there was no way I could escape his ambush on this narrow bluff at the end of the island.

What now? Take the Swimmer skill and jump into the water? Not even funny — the river monster swam far faster than I could, and the water was its element. Take out my axe and fight a doomed fight? It looked like there was nothing else to do. Trouble was, I really didn’t want to die…

Not knowing what to do, I played for time before the inevitable finale. I threw one of the little fish at the monster. Tick-Tock deftly caught the thrown offering, its teeth snapping shut like an iron mantrap. But interestingly, the crocodile stopped crawling toward me. He stayed in place, watched me carefully.

A thin sliver of hope glimmered before me. Yes! I want that skill if it makes monsters less aggressive!

Since Tick-Tock was starting to look impatient, I threw him another loach. He wolfed it down! And… a meter appeared just beneath the monster’s name and level:

Over the next half-hour, I fed the entire bucket to the insatiable Tick-Tock. This increased the taming meter to 57%, and the Taming skill itself to level three. There was no more fish left in the bucket, and the crocodile didn’t want to eat seashells. They even lowered the taming meter. Was that it? Was it all a waste? Although… I did have a few pieces of fried fish wrapped up in broad leaves. I’d taken them from the dining hall; my uneaten dinner of the previous day. I’d gotten so carried away with fishing in this new world that I’d forgotten all about eating. Damn, if only I had my backpack with me. There were a few cans of food in it. I’d just have to make do with what I had.

Tick-Tock eagerly munched down the fried fish. The taming meter jumped sharply to 72%, but I had very little food left. Maybe if I leveled up the Taming skill, I’d be able to do something with this monster? Now wasn’t the time to be stingy with my points. I needed them right now. My life depended on it! I put all eleven free points into Taming, leveling up the skill to fourteen. Nothing changed. Shame.

“You’ll have to wait while I catch more fish,” I said in a calm tone. I walked into the river up to my knees and started casting my net through the murky water again.

To my amazement, Tick-Tock didn’t attack, just waited patiently while I caught some tasty loaches for him! The man-eating crocodile even moved aside slightly, allowing me to walk around his long body when the fish ran out in my prior spot. The path to the village was open now, and nothing stopped me from running for my life. But I stayed. I felt that I was on the threshold of an important discovery, and I needed to see what would happen when the terrible beast’s taming bar reached a hundred percent.

When the taming bar reached ninety percent, Tick-Tock suddenly came to life. Without so much as a ripple, he dove into the fast river and swam away. With no more threat to my life, I could leave freely. But how I agonized and tore out my hair in annoyance in that moment! He was gone?! Why?! What did I do wrong? As it turned out, nothing bad had happened. On the contrary, Tick-Tock just wanted to show his gratitude. It was his turn to go fishing for me. Maybe he could see that Sergeant’s satiety level was in the red. A couple of minutes later, the creeping crocodile crawled onto the bank and dropped a huge striped fish at my feet, scaleless, with a big head full of meaty whiskers.

Hell yeah! I smiled and tried to come up with a name for the huge, blue-white fish. A heavy responsibility; centuries and millennia could pass, and people would still know these creatures by the name I gave them… Uhmm… What will we call you..? Hmm, a whiskery fish, no scales. Wasn’t exactly right, but still; I’d call it a catfish! Yeah, that was it! Eight-whiskered catfish! Instantly, the name appeared above the weakly twitching body with its multitude of wounds from the crocodile’s teeth:

Surprisingly, Tick-Tock didn’t seem to want to eat the at least ninety-pound catfish. He was clearly offering it to me. Uhm… thanks, big-toothed buddy! With renewed confidence, I walked up to the crocodile and used my knife to cut off a thick line wrapped around one of his front legs; a parting gift from one of the Fishermen that disappeared before me.

“You need the leeches taking off you too, but let’s do that later!” I told Tick-Tock as if he could understand me.

The fishing continued. Grip appeared from the village first, then ten more villagers followed. I saw my little sister Julie among them. They all silently watched as I stood a mere couple of paces from deadly Tick-Tock. None approached, afraid to provoke the terrible beast. I just kept fishing and tossing my catch to the creeping crocodile. Finally, it happened; the taming meter reached a hundred percent.

A whole cascade of messages, all of them good. But all of it felt like nothing in comparison to the fact that next to me was a twelve-foot-long river monster bristling with teeth. The calming blue color of the nameplate, not to mention what it said, made it crystal clear that the deadly beast was now my obedient pet!

☠ Tick-Tock. Level 78 Creeping Crocodile. Male. Sergeant’s pet.

At that moment, I realized with sudden clarity that this was my calling. There was nothing else I wanted to do in the new world. Never mind hunting and fishing. They were just parodies! True meaning came from taming dangerous and terrible monsters like these! Time for these beasts to stop eating people and start making themselves useful!