Recovery

Rendering fat dripped from hunks of raptor meat and sizzled on the smoldering embers below. Its smokey, savory aroma wafted gently to where John laid by the ancient, wooden gate and roused his empty stomach. Its renewed churning and growling stirred the rest of him from slumber.

Struggling against a stiffness in his limbs, John pushed himself from the ground and crawled over to the hanging morsels. His body ached from lying for too long on the cold stone. How long had he been there? The light passing through the forest’s canopy hadn’t changed, but would it ever? The fire had burned out, but how long did that take? John didn’t know or care. He was exhausted and just wanted to eat.

John plucked a hunk of meat from the spit. It was warm in his hand, almost intolerably so. He cooled the morsel with a few quick breaths then popped it in his mouth. Though unseasoned and unspiced, nothing had ever tasted better. He gorged himself. Even as his stomach began to ache with fullness, he wished for more.

With the food gone and his stomach full to bursting, John laid back onto the cool stone and let himself rest a little while longer. Slowly, his strength returned to him, and his mind cleared enough to worry again.

‘I still have to fight the boss. I nearly died, and I still have the big fight ahead of me.’

John pulled himself upright, removed the shield from his inventory, and flipped it face up. It bore two new dents crusted with a scarlet powder which marked the two holes that would have been punched into his chest. Unconsciously, he reached for his right arm and found the hole in his sleeve, the spike missing, and the wound closed.

“If I had scrapped you, I would be dead right now.”

Running his fingers through the dents, he collected a bit of the dust and ground one of the larger shards between his fingertips. The spike that had penetrated his arm had fractured like glass shards that had sliced his muscle as he moved. These shards crumbled into a fine powder under slight pressure. His Biomancy Skill began to bubble up once again.

‘The tail spikes become frail when disconnected from the body with the effect becoming more pronounced with time. They break off on impact and, disconnected from the raptor’s mana, begin to break into shards that exacerbate the existing bleed and quickens their prey’s exhaustion.’

John reached over to the discarded remains of the raptor tail and retrieved one of the vertebrae ornamented with a bulbous nodule. Wiping away the gorey residue revealed deep pores in the nodule's surface. The same scarlet crystal that formed the spikes filled the pores and seemed to grow from its marrow.

‘They’re made of crystalized blood? That’s a strange adaptation. Lost blood usually takes months to recover. I would think permanent keratin or bone spikes would be less detrimental to their health.’

John stood and began to pace. As his mind tried to process the strangeness of the spike, he began to collect the items scattered during the giant raptor’s ****.

The pile of loot was dominated by a roll of hide that dwarfed those dropped by the smaller raptors. Sending it to his inventory revealed, nestled in a pile of claws and scales, a glass jar containing a ruby colored organ suspended in a thick rose tinted liquid.

“What the fuck is that?” John blurted incredulously.

He picked up the jar by its lid and carefully examined its contents. A single port in the organ revealed a spongy internal structure. Turning the jar around caused wisps of dark red fluid to drift from the port. Revolted, he considered discarding the organ.

‘I should take it with me. It might be useful,’ his subconscious churned.

“For what, raptor haggis? I am neither making nor eating that.”

‘It might be valuable.’

“It’s probably just worthless and gross”

‘Well, cast Observe and check.’

“I’m not going to waste ten mana identifying this thing right before a boss fight.”

‘Then take it with you and check it later.’

“Fine,” he balked as he shoved the organ into his inventory. “I’m arguing with a Skill. This place is driving me insane.”

As revolting as he found the organ, his curiosity towards it would not abate. He opened his inventory and checked its name.

“Sanguine sac, that's a pretty gross name.”

While still in his inventory, John discovered, somewhat accidentally, that the giant raptor hide was actually called a blood hunter’s hide. This small detail stoked the simmering of his Skill even further.

John tried to push the Skill’s chatter to the back of his mind as he searched the area for his missing weapon. The mage-spear, torn from his hand in the attack, lay along the edge of the road, half obscured by overhanging brush. The blast of arcane fire had singed its shaft. A split in the wood began at the blade’s tang and ran half its length. Luckily, the functional components of the spear remained intact. Restoring it to its pre-attack condition would only cost some wood which could easily be taken from local abundance.

Then, it clicked. ‘Blood based spikes can be regenerated rapidly by sacrificing surplus blood. That would give them an advantage over bone or keratin spikes which would have to go through a longer growth cycle. That implies that they might break and regrow spikes multiple times throughout a fight. Of course, with a name like blood hunter, I wouldn’t be surprised if they restored their spikes by draining the blood of their prey and saved any excess in that revolting sac.’

Skill Level Up: Biomancy Level 3
Effect: + 5 HP

‘I’m going to take that as confirmation that I’m right and that they’re pseudo-vampiric. I don’t think that changes my plans all that much, but I guess it’s better to know this stuff now than to be surprised later.’

His curiosity satiated, John began his final preparations. Salvaging the iron spit, he restored his shield to pristine condition. Replacing the shaft of his spear left only a sliver of durability missing.

John dismissed the metal armor he had designed however long ago. His existing boots and the gauntlet and pants designs he reinforced with the blood hunter's much larger, denser scales, sandwiching them between hide layers. With thin cords of scrap hide, he bound them loosely in place by stitching the hide layers together in square blocks which gave the armor a quilt like appearance. Each piece now boasted four Defense, nearly matching his iron armor designs.

The blood hunter’s hide, which composed John’s new brigandine and helm, needed no such reinforcement. The palm sized scales of the larger creature granted it greater durability and raised its Defense to six. What iron could be spared formed a high collar and a reinforced cap for the chest and head, respectively.

Having clad himself in his new armor, John reviewed his inventory and character sheet for any untapped resources. Finding the five stat points awarded by his level up, he brought Endurance up to ten and dumped the rest in Strength.

“OK, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”