Chapter 103: The Most Attractive Lure

“I’ve been meaning to ask something, we’ve just been so busy trying to stay alive, or save our country, or fix your mistakes…” Kala said as they approached the fishing spot the filter-dwellers had marked out, just outside their long narrow tunnel, chosen specifically to prevent dangerous monsters from attacking their little village.

“What did you wanna ask?” Calvin asked, ignoring the ‘mistakes’ bit. Elani knew he made plenty.

“What was your deal at the first ball we went to?”

“Oh, that? Botched mutation.”

Kala frowned, lips pursed.

“Explain.”

Maybe you should keep this one under your-

“Elliot modified the System to include mutations as well as abilities, but he didn’t balance them properly, so two ones I had in my eyes conflicted with each other, and when they got sorted out it threw everything else out of whack, so I almost died and turned into an undead.”

Kala looked at him, then presumably at Elliot, her expression cool.

“And you thought it was a good idea to do that at a ball?”

“In retrospect, I think I was unconsciously trying to pass out and wake up when it was all over.” Calvin said with a chuckle as their Unqua settled down on the well-worn platform. There was a huge ragged hole in the railing, where something had taken an enormous bite out of the platform.

Kala shook her head slightly, fixing him with a disapproving scowl. “Please tell me you won’t do that again.”

Calvin’s hand traveled to the faint scar on his chest.

“Oh, I think I learned my lesson.”

“Alright boys and girls,” Rufe said as he stepped out of the creature’s leathery shell, suddenly becoming a giant. “Let’s try not to fall in.”

There were several stone outcroppings that led to tunnels deeper in, studded equidistance from each other on the main platform above the Abyss, but the one leading to the village was none of them.

It was situated through an incidental crack in the stone only big enough for one of the shrinking omnivores to fit through.

The old man, Loren, was one in a long line of people tossed in the hole to be hunted by monsters, when he noticed Unqua moving in and out of a small crack in the far wall.

Things didn’t click until later, when he lost a makeshift spear trying to hunt a big one he assumed was an adult version, then saw a little one with an identical tiny spear. When he plucked it out of the creature’s hide, it became full size again, and the rest, as they say, was history. He used the Unqua to make a cave that most enemies couldn’t get to. With a safe place to sleep between hunts, the population gradually expanded, as people were tossed into the Siphon.

“I should get one of these as a summon, if only for the shrinking ability,” Calvin said to himself as he aimed to step outside the leathery walls. With the survival of the fittest ability, maybe he could make it into something offensive, or breed them to be even better storage devices.

“What about the mimic?”

Calvin shuddered, turning on Kala. “No.” he held up a hand, ticking off facts as Kala looked on with amusement, her full lips curling into the hint of a smile. “First of all, it’s gross, on so many levels. Second of all, anybody with a good area of effect could take it out, it’s not actually that strong. The damn thing could be overcome by a tiny bit of bad air. Third! Roles: what is its role in my summon slots? I assume to kill things and horrify people or act as a meat shield? Giant wasps and huge swarms of wasps do just fine at that.”

“And fourth?” She asked, fighting back a smile.

“Fourth: It’s gross.”

Kala broke into a laugh.

“Okay, okay,” She said holding a hand up.

“And fourth: it would never fool a human eye, so the mimic ability is pointless. It just makes you really uncomfortable when you look at -.”

Kala shut him up with her lips, exhaling as she pulled him in close.

Any thought of arguing fled Calvin’s mind as she pressed up against him, and he could feel the warmth of her body through her dress.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to make out with anyone under a duke.” Calvin said when she pulled away, his limbs turning to mush as she slipped nimbly off him. The thought of keeping her there didn’t even occur to him until after she was gone.

She glanced around the leather hovel before giving him a mischievous grin.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to tell on me down here.”

“Ookaaay Kiidss, Tiime too stoop playing Graabaass aand come ooout.” A booming voice said from above the Unqua. An un-shrunk Rufe.

Kala darted out of the tent while Calvin was still recovering from the unexpected kiss, his heart hammering in his chest.

As his pounding pulse quickly slowed to normal, his fingers traced the scar tissue above his heart. What happens to her when I die?

Obviously the ideal solution was to not die, but the idea that he might kill her shortly after meeting his own demise was something that he wanted to make preparations for.

Calvin took a quick breath and let go of those thoughts, turning his mind on the current situation: he needed to quickly bag a…Querda? So he could get that gallon of ‘water’.

I hope their filtering technique is damn good, Calvin thought sourly as he stepped out of the unqua. And what the abyss is a Querda?

“Nice of you to join us,” Rufe said, the thick leathers wrapped around his torso making him look wider than he was.

“What’s a Querda?” Calvin asked.

“You see that?” Rufe asked, motioning to the bitten-off portion of the platform.

Calvin’s heart started up again as he imagined fighting off something that intensely powerful.

“It’s not that.”

Calvin scowled at the thin man as he chuckled, winding up a massive leather rope from deeper inside the placid Unqua.

“Querda are tentacle monsters,” Rufe said,

Not the fun kind, either.

“And not the fun kind, either,” Rufe continued.

There’s a fun kind!?

“There’s a fun kind?” Calvin and Kala echoed Elliot’s outburst.

“Sure,” Rufus said with a shrug. “Squelch is great fun at parties, but a mutation that makes nightmare creatures fall in love with humans ain’t exactly common, so don’t go thinking they’ll all be like her.”

Hah, it’s a girl.

“Anyway, Querda have long tentacles coming off a tough, elongated, fishlike main body, a dark blueish color. The easiest way to identify them is by the glowing yellow bulbs near the tip of each tentacle, just behind the stinger.”

“Glowing yellow bulbs, got it.” Calvin said.

“Querda are among the safer catches, because their venom only makes you wish you were dead.” Rufe said jovially. “They also have a cornucopia of useful parts. Venom sacs, guts, leather, oily blubber, tough bones, and of course, each of them is worth a couple gallons of water once they’re done being processed.”

“I thought the Abyss doesn’t have any water in it?” Calvin asked.

“It doesn’t.” Rufe said. “People’ve tried for years to scoop some up. No luck.”

“Then how do these things have water in them?”

Rufe scratched his head. “You got me, boy.”

I’ll take this one. The mere fact that they can burn those tentacles we saw when you first woke up means on some level, the creatures from the Warp have been Warped by our reality in return. I don’t think these things even have bodies as we know them on the other side, so just pulling a living creature over from the Warp forces it to restructure to conform to our dimension.

So they become partially water upon being hauled in?

Yeah, basically. And anything that burns releases water, too.

Kala made a note in her book.

“So how do we do this?” Calvin said, clapping his hands together.

“Well, you put some bait at the end of the rope, then you haul in whatever bites.”  Rufe shrugged. “It’s not complicated. I was hoping your summons could be bait, or at least help with the hauling. I mean, we’re all Legends here, but look at me,” He motioned to himself. “I only weigh a hundred and fifty pounds.”

“Nobody has the Fishing Skill?” Calvin asked.

“Kid, We’re in Uleis. Nobody has the Fishing Skill.”

“Hmm, alright, and how big is the bait usually?

We usually use scraps of corpses from the center of the platform, or dead monsters..living ones work even better.

Hmm…which of my summons would make good bait?

…

….

***

Master-Baiter

“Untie me this instant!” Nadia shouted as they began lowering her toward the bubbling maw of darkness below them. The rope around her waist, wrists and ankles was bristling with barbed pieces of alien metal.

“Now, Nadia, I could send a wasp down there, but let’s face it, I don’t think a wasp looks nearly as appetizing, do you?” he spun her around with a kick, her gratuitous cleavage window spinning with her.

“You bastard!” Nadia said, her whole body jiggling enticingly as she writhed on the giant hook with every ounce of effort she could muster. “I’ll pay you back for this!”

“Of course you will,” Calvin said, frowning. “If you’re good, we’ll even do something like this again.”

“Well, that’s…I mean…that’s not what I meant!” Nadia shouted down into Siphon, causing the misty membrane between realities to twitch, her rounded bottom wiggling as Calvin’s giant knick-knacks steadily lowered the Ilethan princess over the edge of the platform.

Kala was watching with a vaguely satisfied expression, her chin on her palm. “It’s not for me, but I think I see the appeal.”

“I think that’s just ‘cuz you don’t like her.”

“Could be.”

Rufe’s jaw was hanging open.

“Umm…was that…”

“She may look like Nadia Ilestar, princess of Iletha, but that’s just her favorite form, she’s actually a slutty, low class demon succubus with poor self-esteem that I summon with Malkenrovian Demonology.”

Rufe glanced at Kala.

Kala nodded, her face completely serious.

“Ah, I see,” Rufe nodded sagely. “I heard about Malkenrovian summoners makin’ stuff like that.”

“You dirt-eating simpleton peasant rube! Bring me back up this instant! The Warp is so strong down here I can touch smells!” Nadia said, her voice echoey and shrill through the distorting effect of the Warp mist.

“Don’t worry though,” Calvin said, putting his elbow on the railing. “She likes it.”

At his signal, the Knick-Knacks released their hold for an instant, dropping her another ten feet closer to the Siphon, drawing out a terrified shriek.

“Wow, haha, that was…FUCK YOU!”

“See?”

“Different strokes, I guess.”

Calvin gave the thousand-pound Knick-Knacks instructions to jig the bait up and down while moving it across the railing, to create the illusion of swimming.

You think my Fishing Skill applies to the things I instruct them to do?

Your guess is as good as mine, Elliot said.

“AAAIII!” Nadia’s shrieking redoubled as she was jolted up and down.

Calvin glanced over the edge, the dim light of the monster-oil lamp illuminating Nadia’s dangling form perfectly clear in his improved night vision. Her hair was hanging down in a water-fall like spill as she thrashed, the rope digging into her generous curves.

Calvin’s mind wandered as he waited for their prey to take the screaming, cursing bait.

I need to raise my Stability far above where Nadia’s Intuition ever was before I give her back the ability to toy with people’s heads.

We also need to get my four new Skills first, before we start raising attributes with the Warp Tank. Calvin didn’t want to wind up learning a Polishing or Gear Maintenance Skill while he was trying to raise Stability. Once all his skill slots were full, he couldn’t accidently learn a new one while he was trying to raise his attributes.

How do the Disciplines work?

They average the values of the three constituent skills that made them, and every ten levels, you get to pick an ability or mutation from the list of all of them. Old Salt defaulted to Stability, and Playboy was Intuition.

Do I still get stat points every five levels?

Yes, but I want to point out that you don’t get the Ability every five, just every ten.

Is the correction on the three constituent skills the same? Calvin asked.

Yes. It’s still 5% per level.

Do the old Abilities and mutations carry over? Calvin used Blade Body, and a bit of glass jutted out of his palm, answering that question.

Yeah, those are locked in.

So, in essence, Elliot had reduced the Ability and Mutation gain for six skills to one-sixth of their original amount, in order to make room for four more slots.

Not a bad trade. Not if he chose to learn some good Skills.

Bent Manipulation, Chemistry, Drafting, and… maybe another magic skill.

You think you could work on a Mutation in Bent Manipulation that could allow me to see or feel Bent accurately in the air? That would be excellent for counterspelling.

I’d have to have the Skill in front of me to see, but yeah, Bent Manipulation would probably be able to host a mutation like that…Oops, something’s eating Nadia.

Calvin’s eyes refocused on the dangling princess bait in front of him, and spotted glowing pods behind wicked looking hooked talons. The tentacles were beginning to wind around Nadia, muffling her screams.

“Wow, that was fast,” Rufe said, eyebrows raised.

“You guys need the Fishing Skill,” Calvin said, eyeballing the Querda.

“Set the hook,” he told the towering Knick-Knacks aloud for his party’s benefit.

The huge metal men yanked the line, hard, and a second later, the rope began to move of it’s own volition along the railing, the tentacle monster struggling to disentangle itself.

Old Salt has reached level 9!

Looks like it does apply. Cool.

Yep. Calvin thought as he stood back while his significantly stronger summons pulled the line in.

They made short work of the hauling, and in seconds, the first glowing pods became visible, wrapped around a struggling Nadia. One of the venomed talons was dangerously close to her face.

When the creature was pulled all the way in, Rufus used a long spear to puncture the thing’s main body and wait for it to bleed out.

“You don’t want all that blood?” Calvin asked, brows furrowed. As the goopy white stuff spilled all across the platform, spreading a horrifying stench.

“Most of its blood isn’t water, but if you wanna risk your life to keep a little extra, be my guest.”

True, the strange blood was already evaporating, leaving nothing but a greasy smear.

That’s really volatile…you should bag some of that stuff. I’ll bet you anything it’s got really weird properties. Flammability being least of them. Could probably use it to learn Chemistry, or make a dupdomancy weapon.

If I had some glassware, I could.

Calvin glanced around.

Sand made glass. Stone made sand, Knick-knacks could crush stone. The cave was made of stone.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

once the monster stopped shuddering, Rufe started hacking its limbs away from its main body, getting the carcass ready to transport, while Calvin stepped up to Nadia.

He removed the tentacle wrapped around her face, and she sucked in a huge breath of fresh air.

“I swear to every god I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you down. I’ll haunt you for nine fucking generations!” she screamed with a crazed look in her eyes.

“Good job,” Calvin said, patting her cheek, and Nadia almost purred, pressing it up against his palm, her eyelids fluttering.

“Time to do it again!”

Her eyes flashed open.

“No, its fine, you only needed to catch one right? Any more is –“

Calvin reached up to the talon oozing venom dangling behind her head and poked it between her shoulder blades.

Nadia began spasming as the venom took hold, and Calvin kicked her free of the tentacles, and off the side of the platform. The rope went tight as the Knick-Knacks caught the slack, before they began jigging again.

Calvin glanced up at Rufe’s wide-eyed gaze.

“These big guys are good for five hours,” he said by way of explanation, patting the side of the towering giant. “Might as well get a full day’s work out of them, am I right?”

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