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Chapter Type: Society

On a moonless night, it is still a pain in the butt to get over a properly fortified wall during war. Even with night vision, infrared pits in the face, and enhanced smell, it’s near impossible to find a place that isn’t being watched by guards.

In retrospect, I should have just swum around to the ruins of the northern docks, climbed those walls, and started nearer the citadel.

It was something I’d have to remember the next time I broke into an armed fortification.

I’ve said that my pain tolerance is higher than most; I still felt it every time my talons pierced the wall to get a new handhold or foothold.

Move slowly enough, and you could cut down on your noise. Move too slowly, and dawn’s light shows you on the machicolations.

But, if you luck out, you can get a machicolation where people are asleep and not using it as a toilet, and you can literally climb right up it. And, once on top, if you moved quickly and didn’t bother people, you were just another child in rags carrying a message somewhere. As long as people didn’t look too close, and see that your scroll was a piece of bamboo.

And once inside the wall, it was easy enough to ... lose...

.....

Where the HELL were the medical support tents?

They’d been gone for a while, the grass growing back where they had been was a sure indicator of that.

[Evolution set to revert: Infrared Viper Pits. Evolution set to revert: ...]

There were over a dozen of them. It wouldn’t do to be obviously non-human; I might as well just find a soldier and turn myself in for execution.

In the meantime, there may not have been vacant houses, but there were vacant rooms in houses with only squatters as residents. Or, rather, what smelled like squatters. Had water truly become such a valuable commodity? I’d been sweating for four hours solid, and I worried that my lack of ripeness might betray me.

No matter how many times I’d thought about eating people... well, I didn’t know EXACTLY what differentiated cannibals to make them into ghouls or wendigo, but I knew I didn’t want Gluttony that badly. Not back then, and not yet as I write this, but maybe that day will come.

Anyway, rapid evolution and reversion is a nutrient-costly endeavor, and I woke with a hunger that surpassed biomass reserves that had seemed more than adequate for the past weeks. I’d been counting on being able to follow my fellow human dregs to food. The truth was, I was too hungry to wait on them.

One would think there were insects wherever there was grass, or at least worms in the earth. When I checked, those fields looked fairly well picked over.

I found an abandoned stable, but the remaining bales of hay had gotten mold rot, and provided more fungus nutrition (paltry, a single point of nutrition per serving) than the remaining hay itself did. It was a testament to how abandoned the outer area had become that nobody had raided this area for what little profit they could sell those bales for.

Or so I had thought until a man in a horse-drawn cart pulled up near me and stopped. “You look strong enough.” he said.

“Strong enough for what, honored sir?”

“You look like you haven’t been fed in a while.” he said. “How would you like to help gather food, and have more of it than you’ve ever had in your life?”

He had no clue how much food that was. “That sounds very tempting, honored sir, but I lack the paperwork to prove that I exist.”

He smiled like he’d won a ball of gold the size of his belly. “Let me worry about the papers, boy. If I can get you papers, and food, will you be willing to work hard this coming harvest week?”

It would be a chance to gain some Gathering XP, if nothing else. I nodded eagerly, as I had seen other boys do in similar circumstances. “I look forward to working for food, honored sir.”

“Get in the cart.” he said.

He made his offer to several other people, all of them clearly not otherwise employed. He even put on the parking brake so that a daughter could get her family of four. None of it looked suspicious. None of it looked like anything other than what it was.

And then, he bribed the guards. Or rather, he turned over a pouch of leather, of substantial size and weight, when caught. Guards. Soldiers. Taking coins.

But the next day was the official start of Harvest week, and the rulers of the castle would want every single piece of food that could be gained. So, I managed to put my fears to rest until we came to rest, outside a building whose charnel smell was that of a slaughterhouse.

Not a butchery, where the meat was sold. Slaughterhouse, where the actual deed of turning living things into edibles was performed.

Even then, I tried to convince myself that everything was fine. This was Dauria, where order and justice were prized. And if you were going to slaughter people for food, you wouldn’t want the poor, the starving. You’d want someone who had some meat still on their bones.

“This is our stop until tomorrow.” our cartsman said. “Into the basement, where you’ll be shown to your bunks for the week.”

Our cartsman, who had never given his name.

“It has been near a day.” one of the children complained. “Is there food, as well?”

“There is meat below.” he confirmed.

Ugh. I felt in my inventory for my knife. It was a tool knife, but its hilt felt comfortable in my hand. And fool that I was, I left it in inventory.

I wasn’t the last person into the basement, but I was also not the first.

“Yes, yes.” I heard from below. “Beds are through this door. Please don’t mind the mess. This is a slaughterhouse, after all.”

Her voice was friendly, welcoming. I almost put my fears to rest – and then the cellar doors slammed shut behind the last of us, throwing the stairway into darkness.

From ahead, there was a sound like a staff being used to shatter a melon, followed by something large and meaty striking the ground. Some woman screamed, and I pressed to the wall while people instinctively moved toward safety, crushing each other to get to the top of the stairs, and out the doors.

Damn it! Why couldn’t things just go smoothly for once?

I saw the joyous magic, dancing in a messy part of my aura. “Drown Curse!” I said, but far too late to avoid what was coming.

There were two of them, a man and a woman, both strong and both of middle age. They carried poles with both a straight spear at the end, and a meat-hook on the side. Each of them claimed a person with their hooks, and dragged them into the basement screaming.

Idiot that I was, I followed them, knife now drawn, shield in my other hand.

The other four had two among them with cleavers, one with a broad sword, and one with an axe. I was able to come in from the side and slightly behind one of the cleavers, as they in turn began ending the ability of the two victims to scream.

[You have scored a YELLOW hit for double damage!]

That one fell, but not silently, and not unseen, even in the dim light available.

It is said that a soldier fights like two civilians, and a champion like five soldiers. Still, I wasn’t in good shape after finishing them. One of the hook-staves had taken out eight of my teeth on my right side, and another torn open my forehead, where blood was getting into my eyes. The axe had opened a cut that exposed two ribs in my back, and...

And in the end, I had lived, and angry would-be victims made certain our captors did not. We proceeded to the next room, where a fat man in a bloodied leather apron filed various meats into wheeled bins. He screamed and fled upstairs, not even engaging us in combat.

Just a hint, for those who wish to perform such an enterprise. If you are the delivery driver, don’t hang around by the side door after one of the butchers runs past you.

I took in deep breaths, looking up at the stars and trying not to listen to him screaming. The stars didn’t bother looking down at me; why would they?

I coughed up a handful of blood. Was I bleeding?

[You currently have no active Bleeding conditions.] my System told me.

[Unlock of System Logs will cost...]

[You have 24/80 health remaining.]

Well, I’d been through worse. Stupid humans, why are you so violent, when your skin offers you no natural armor rating?

The man in the butcher’s apron returned, his arm held behind him by the guards he had summoned.

They wasted no time encircling, tackling, and tying survivors.

“Please, honored sir,” I said when they came for me, “I will not resist. I am injured.”

They remained enthusiastic as they captured me.