Living with dragons

[Hiver]

"Ohoy there!" a guard called out from the top of the wall as we approached.

I waved to him. He was standing by what looked like a large mounted repeating crossbow, "Hey!"

Wave and be nice to people standing next to mounted weapons. A good policy in general.

"Where do you hail from, Hunters?" He called down, "Looking for work?"

Hunters.

Huh?

"Perhaps," Sheila yelled back to him, "Can we enter?"

"Of course! Lower the gate!"

The gate lowered as a bridge across the moat and allowed us entrance. Sharing a look with Sheila and Ren, we started across it, Sheila taking the lead.

"I'm Tallar. Welcome to Kuraz Village!"

Turning I looked to see a man with short brown hair wearing what looked like a blue robe climbing down a ladder from the wall.

"Thank you. I'm Atreus, this is Sheila and Ren. Why do you think we are hunters?" I asked him.

He grinned and shrugged, "Who else would travel by land? Yet alone survive it!"

I considered the things we ran into in the little while we have been here before I nodded, "Fair enough. You said something about work?"

Sounded like playing along was a good idea to find out more about this world. It would be the better part of a week anyway before I could Walk without crashing again at the other side.

While these people didn't exactly seem like they had a lot of magic, first impressions could be deceiving.

"Always work for good hunters," Tallar said with a grin before he frowned, "You don't seem to be carrying a lot of gear through. Lost it all?"

Ren smiled, "Looks can be deceiving. But more gear wouldn't be a bad thing."

He nodded, "The blacksmith should have some materials left over from the last Hunter coming through here. Come, I'll take you to the village elder. Do you plan to stay long?"

"A few days," Ren said and walked along, leaving me and Sheila to follow, "Seven at most. Then we'll be moving on most likely."

He hmmed and nodded, "I see. Well, there should be some work for you in any case. There are some Monsters causing trouble in the jungle, keeping our gatherers from doing their jobs."

Things were starting to come together now.

Hunters hunted monsters. The normal population stayed in towns and villages behind defences, only venturing out to gather supplies they couldn't get from the sea.

He seemed surprised to see someone traveling by land. Which meant they travelled in different ways, most likely by sea seeing how they had some relatively well developed docks.

The question was how these Hunters went up against the monsters. They couldn't do it using just normal stuff, that wasn't possible. Yeah, sure, my weapon could be used to take the things we've seen so far on, but that's because it can cut through almost anything.

A normal steel sword? If these people even had steel?

That would just be a Jurassic Park re-enactment and end up with plenty of people getting nomnommed. But I suppose that might be why they relied on Hunters instead of militia.

Hunters might have some kind of special skills or abilities.

Interesting. Definitely more than meets the eye in this place.

Looking around, it seemed pretty primitive.

Oh, that butcher is using a nice chopping blade. They have steel at the very least… then again, nobody commented on the metal parts of my armour so it wasn't that unexpected now that I think about it.

Wait, was that guy carrying a gun!?

A guy wearing light leather armour walked towards the wall carrying what looked like a musket on his shoulder.

Guns… not mass produced or anything and a musket is a musket, but still… gun. I've seen those on a total of four worlds so far.

None as 'primitive' as this world.

All but Earth have had magi-tech involved. That's pretty advanced tech for… effectively hunter-gatherers.

Interesting. That thing had a large calibre as well… then again, if it was meant to be used against Wyverns or something, I could see how it would be needed. Still, very interesting.

"Was that a gun?" Sheila whispered.

I nodded, "Yeah. I think this place may be more than it looks," I whispered back, "We'll see what's going on."

Sheila nodded with a smile, glancing around.




AN// Big thanks to Crembo, for betaing this section.

 

[Krazyfan1]

And then a large monster attacks, and all the trained people take it down easily, using barrages of bullets, hammers and insects.
Atreus and his posse are stunned.

 

[Jonnoda]

I would love to see Atreus reaction to a flying wyvern hunt.

 

[finbikkifin]

I am reminded of the truly terrible pun that is the name of the fic Hyphen, if anyone is familiar with that.

Spoiler

Pokémon-Trainer, Monster-Hunter

 

[Mr Zoat]

So Atreus is basically a Titan Shifter?

 

[Simon Buchan]

Cue the reveal that this is actually Attack on Titan

 

[Taejix]

I wonder if Atreus will find out about the Ancient Civilization and their tech, especially their biotech.

 

[Hiver]

That's just… strange.

I turned the sword over in my hands. It was made of bone and hide and was razor sharp. And as hard as metal!

Somehow it had been moulded and fused together in a way that made it an actual weapon. A good weapon.

There was even a matching shield.

It wasn't enchanted or anything, but it was a solid weapon. Lighter and stronger than any metal I had seen so far.

I had no idea how he made it either.

You couldn't quicksmith… flesh.

I looked at the short blacksmith, "Teach me."

He blinked and brushed some soot off his bald head, "You want to learn how to craft weapons, Hunter?"

"I do. I'm Atregos, I want to see how you do this," I said and ran my hand along the bone blade, "It's… interesting. I know how to work metal well, but I never learned this."

Bulek nodded, "Well, if you are interested I suppose I could give you some hints. But the sword and shield as well as the crossbow for your wife took the last of my materials. You have to head out and find some more first. Use some to learn, the rest as your teaching fee."

"…Sounds fair enough," I agreed, "We'll see what we can find."

"I think the village elder may have something for you," he said with a grin, "It should work nicely."

Nodding, I left the smithy and hefted the sword, carrying the shield in my other hand. Still, I hardly thought bone and hide would ever replace metal, if only for the 'I can't believe it's not necromancy!' feeling about it.

Still, interesting… and it felt rather enchantable. Not as good as dwemer metal or adamantium, but better than silver.

Ren pulled the trigger and put another bone and wood bolt into the straw target as I walked up next to her, "Working well?"

She nodded and lowered the crossbow, looking at the wood, bone and hide crossbow, "It seems to be working. Not sure how bone bends like that…"

"Pretty much," I agreed, "Talked with the smith, he agreed to show me a bit on how these things are made in return for materials."

"Luckily, we also got something for that as well," Sheila said as she walked up with a smile, "I talked with the village elder, he was willing to give us two missions. One to gather some sort of mushroom and one to hunt down ten Velocidromes."

I frowned, "Velocidromes?"

"Seems to be those pack predators that jumped us on the way here," Sheila said with a shrug, "I picked up a book from the merchant, it says what parts of them are useful."

Ren grinned, "Wonder how they taste."

"My guess, pretty good," I said, "We should find out."

Sheila rolled her eyes, "We need the bones and hides for the smith so that would be tricky. Can't have you two crush them and then eat them."

Oh poo.

"…That would make hunting them a lot trickier," I sighed and crossed my arms, "Hmh."

Ren pouted and then nodded, "Spells and weapons it is then."

"If we return to where we fought the pack, I should be able to scry for more," I suggested, "Some blood should still remain even if something ate the rest and with that we can find more."

Ren nodded and looked at Sheila, "If you two ride me, we can cover ground a lot faster and still leave Atregos free to scry and use his weapons."

Sheila shook her head, "We need to find those mushrooms too. Can't do that from the air… besides, the forest isn't exactly filled with places to land safely."

I sighed, "So walking it is."

Damn it.

"Well, not like we have anything else to do," I admitted with a shrug, "Almost a week until I dare to try Walking anyway. At least there was something worth learning on this world."

Sheila nodded and dug through her bag before handing over a book, "The mushrooms are on page four and the velocidromes are on page fifty three. The rings have a bit of trouble with the written language, but it's mostly pictures."

"What about you?" Ren asked as she took the book.

"I'm going to track us down somewhere to sleep and some food," she answered, "You two look through the book and I'll find you in a bit. Check out the later pages, there are some… interesting creatures there. Wyverns, Proto-drakes… some kind of sea serpent?"

"Huh," I said and Ren flipped through the book, "You know, this world might be a good one to find summons in."

Ren frowned a bit, "Maybe, but I'm not sure how useful it is. When was the last time you used something other than human sized summons?"

"…Fair enough."

Bigger ones took so much mana and were such big targets, so far, I haven't found any of them really worth summoning.



AN// Big thanks to FPSCanarussia for betaing this section.

 

[Krazyfan1]

is the whole "bigger thing costs more" bit real, or is it "more powerful thing costs more and they just think its the other bit"?

 

[ptbptb]

is the whole "bigger thing costs more" bit real, or is it "more powerful thing costs more and they just think its the other bit"?

Click to shrink...

The way to check would be to track down a new summon that is very big, but completely pointless.

Spoiler: I have an idea for that

Actually, a plane based on adverts would be pretty darn terrifying. Exhibit A: Pretty much every M&M ad.

 

[Itsune]

The way to check would be to track down a new summon that is very big, but completely pointless.

Spoiler: I have an idea for that

Actually, a plane based on adverts would be pretty darn terrifying. Exhibit A: Pretty much every M&M ad.

Click to shrink...

Past a certain size there is nothing that is very big that is completely pointless, On the green side there are living walls that can be tapped like lands for manna, Then there are the things that start small but grow in size every turn they survive. Most of the larger creatures of size generally have the 'Trample' key word if they are land bound. But The Cheapest Wall class single creature is only Four manna.

And we are not going to get into what happens with a deck of Swarm Rats. Or even the problems of multiple Swarm Rat decks in play...

 

[Norgarth]

is the whole "bigger thing costs more" bit real, or is it "more powerful thing costs more and they just think its the other bit"?

Click to shrink...

while a creature doesn't have to be big to be powerful, bigger things do tend to be more powerful.

Creature costs are generally based on it power and toughness, with the creatures' special abilities (if any) usually adding more to the cost. Sheer size usually adds to the toughness if not the power.

 

[Vaalintine]

"I talked with the village elder, he was willing to give us two missions. One to gather some sort of mushroom and one to hunt down ten Velocidromes."

Click to shrink...

Hah, the classic flora/fauna missiond for newbie hunters. I can see you've played MH before then.

On the topic of magic I would say that the setting does have magic, but its almost entirely about inherent properties. Internal stuff, basically.

 

[esotericist]

"Huh," I said and Ren flipped through the book, "You know, this world might be a good one to find summons in."

Ren frowned a bit, "Maybe, but I'm not sure how useful it is. When was the last time you used something other than human sized summons?"

"…Fair enough."

Bigger ones took so much mana and were such big targets, so far, I haven't found any of them really worth summoning.

Click to shrink...

I have to assume this setting has near-human scale pack hunters of note. That would be something both useful and novel for him. (Also every planeswalker should get at least one type of group assault summon type)

Hah, the classic flora/fauna missiond for newbie hunters. I can see you've played MH before then.

Click to shrink...

I wish I'd played MH.

I've only had access to one of the 3DS versions, and that was an absolute freaking nightmare. The controls were terrible, the town navigation was worse, and I had absolutely no freaking idea what I was doing. Plus the 3DS hurts my hands, so that pretty much made them not an option.

I am very interested in MHW, but I don't have an appropriate console. Just PC and Switch here (switch joycons being one of the few console controllers that is genuinely comfortable for my hands). I know they recently announced a US translation of the switch port of the last big 3DS game, but I have no idea on if it'll be even remotely worth the time considering as far as I know, World is the first game in the series to hit the US that actually seems interested in accessibility to new players.

Here's hoping the PC port of World doesn't suck?

 

[JBcristal]

I have to assume this setting has near-human scale pack hunters of note.

Click to shrink...

This is totally a setting to grab summons, tho'- human or otherwise. A solid, experienced G-Rank Hunter can take down massive beasts on its own thanks to its gear, yet also has a degree of 'git gud'ness that simply cannot be ignored. After all, once you hit a certain point, hunts turn into 'dodge or cart'.
...god, my PTSD for that goddamn Hyper Silver Rathalos is coming back up. So, so much carting, man.

On the Monster side, though... Well, see my comment on Elder Dragons. The problem is that the Big Names are solo guys. The only real pack hunters are... Well, mooks, really.

 

[Hiver]

Why did I have to be bait?

Oh yeah, I was the one with the most armour, the one with the most close-range weapons and if anything went bad, I could turn into my real form.

"Come on out, little predators," I said, whistling as I slowly walked in a circle beneath the big tree, "It's just little old me, completely harmless human. All alone."

Not that this didn't go against every single instinct I had. Dragons are apex predators and we didn't hunt like this.

We circled high in the air, picking our prey and then strike them down in a single attack.

This was… made the back of my neck crawl.

Rustle.

I instantly threw myself to the side, pulling my dagger from my belt. A velocidrome pounced past where I had been half a second before.

"Here, kitty…" I said and backed away, shifting my Weapon to a wide bladed spear, "Just keep my attention so your pack can sneak up on me from behind."

The dinosaur looking creature clicked and growled at me, jaw snapping.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm looking at you.

Fire roared and a ring of green fire erupted around the edges of the clearing. That was my signal, the rest of the pack had entered the clearing.

Lashing out with the spear, causing the velocidrome to shy back, giving me some space to look behind me as I let lose a frost nova.

Ice flashed out and covered the clearing, crawling up the legs of the six velocidromes. They were reacting about the way I would have expected.

They were freaking the fuck out.

Rushing forward, I shifted my spread slightly into a halberd, taking the head of the first velocidrome to let me spin around and have the rest in front of me.

…Worth a try.

Shifting my spear into my left hand, I pulled the pistol I got from Alexis and emptied the magazine into the head of the closest velocidrome.

It jerked back and roared, whimpering and clawing at it's head. Clearly hurt, but not dead.

Ah.

That explained the canon calibre the locals favoured on their few muskets. At least their were too boneheaded to go down that easy.

That caused them to break lose though to charge only for the first one to go down with a set of crossbow bolts in the back, courtesy of Sheila and Ren.

Two down. Four left.

I let lose a cone of cold towards them, slowing them down as the ice clawed at them and they shied back.

Stabbing the first one in the chest with my spear, I dove in between them, retracting it into a sword and taking the head of the next one before casting a arcane explosion, blasting them away from me.

The velocidromes went sprawling onto the ground before the two remaining ones rolled to get onto their feet.

They didn't get the chance as they were speared to the ground by a pair of ice spears.

Looking around, I shifted my weapon back to a spear, "We good?"

"Looks clear," Sheila yelled back and the wall of green flame shrunk down to nothing, "Got them."

"That makes twelve," Ren said as she dropped down from the tree, followed a couple of moments later by Sheila.

I nodded and sheathed my dagger, "Yep, that's my count too. Hopefully this will be enough materials for the smith too."

Sheila rubbed the back of her neck, "Glad to be out of that tree."

"Uncomfortable?"

She nodded, "After a couple of hours, yeah."

"Yeah, that took most of the day," Ren agreed and rolled her shoulder, "Atregos, next time you sit in the tree."

"…Fair enough," I agreed, "next time, you be the bait."

Like fuck I would let that happen.

Sheila rolled her eyes and walked up to poke my chest, "Just so you know, you are responsible for backrubs tonight."

"More than fair."

Is this a punishment or a reward?

I stole a kiss before I grinned, "Now then… let's get these things broken down and then set up camp."

Sheila nodded, "We won't get back before dark. But we have everything now I think, the velocidromes and the mushrooms. Should even get us some local currency if we need it. But we shouldn't put it here, all the blood will attract predators."

"You mean dinner?"

A look told me everything I needed to know about what she thought of that idea.






AN// Sorry for lack of beta, forgot to ask.

 

[Krazyfan1]

Wonder if Atreus has found any monsters that taste nice?

 

[Hiver]

As it turns out, the 'smithing' if the velocidrome parts were less smithing and more rubbing of potions, stiches, carving and very little actual hammering.

Bulek shook his head, "Work with the materials! It's not dead metal, it's a living material."

"…Not actually living though."

"No, but it changes as you work it," he said, "Don't rush it, don't force it. Let it shift and move."

I slowly nodded and ran the file against the bone. This was not my kind of think I think, but it was still interesting.

"This is still kind of soft," I said and held up the bone dagger, "The sword you made is as tough as metal."

The short smith nodded, "Indeed. While Monster bones are strong, they might need a bit of a push to go that final distance. This help it do that."

"What is that?"

"A special potion," He explained, "Don't ask what's in it, guild secret."

Secret knowledge.

Secret knowledge had a tendency to get lost to the ages and nothing raised my hackles more than the risk of dataloss.

Okay, to be fair, this wasn't exactly very useful from what I could see, but still. Will have to figure out a way to get my claws on it at some point.

"…I see," I sighed, "Very well," and held up my short bone dagger, "What do I do?"

He smiled, "First, put these on," he said and pulled out a pair of heavy brown and stained leather gloves, "You don't want this stuff on your skin."

Now that made a lot of sense.



XXXXXXXXXX



"So, nothing useful?" Ren asked and looked up from the scroll she was copying down by the small table in our room.

I shrugged, "Wouldn't say that," I said and sat down on the bed, pulling my bone dagger with leather wrapped hilt from my satchel, "This will look nice on the shelf in the bedroom."

This Plane had been interesting.

It might not need a full on Branch, but it sure needed more investigation later. I'm sure there were plenty if fascinating potion ingredients here if nothing else.


"No, it won't," Sheila said, barely glancing up from her book, "I don't want that thing in my bedroom."

"…Yes, Ma'am."

Oh well, at least I got a souvenir from it.

Dropping my bag, I put the dagger back down before heading over to pick up my new sword. Might as well enchant this thing.

It felt pretty enchantable.

Something simple I suppose, have it sharper and more difficult to damage. I still had my new dagger to bring back for testing.

Dropping down to sit with my back against the wall, I put the sword across my lap and closed my eyes, channelling my magic into it.

It felt… weird. I had never enchanted bone and hide before.

So strange.

It was dead, but not dead and both more and less enchantable than at the very least silver. It took the magic easier but didn't retain it.

Not a very useful material to be honest.

Hmm.

Still, you could enchant basically anything with enough effort, even magic resistant materials could be enchanted with enough work put into it.

…But what if you could enchant 'living' flesh…

Actual permanent enchantment, not a curse or temporary spell.

Opening my eyes, I put the sword to the side, "Love, mind throwing my bag over here?"

Sheila glanced over and then reached over and tossed my satchel over. Catching it, I pulled my notebook and pen out before starting to scribble some quick calculations.

In theory…

In theory it should work. I mean, there was plenty of spells that applied to people, the one keeping me in human form was just one of them… even if admittedly that one was dragon specific.

It may be even more variable than the dead stuff, but it also didn't decay as such. But you also needed to compete and adapt to the normal magical field stuff with living beings. That was the kind of thing that broke normal polymorphs after a minute or two, the spell just kind of wore down until it broke. Not sure it would really work into working it into the flesh like a sword of metal either like you did while quicksmithing.

But maybe the way they did it in… we never did get a name for that world, did we? Minas Tirith.

Hmm…

Maybe if I…

Calculations says maybe. I need to test this.

Frowning, I looked up from the book and glanced around, "I need… I need a rat or something? Anyone seen a rat?"

Sheila just kind of gave me a strange look from the bed.




AN// Unbetaed.

 

[Arafell]

This is how you end up hiring an adventuring party to clear out your basement.

 

[Krazyfan1]

"If you're still hungry we can go hunt a bigger deer tomorrow"

 

[aeroprime]

Atregos is getting his Science on. Awesome.

 

[esotericist]

Hmm…

Maybe if I…

Calculations says maybe. I need to test this.

Frowning, I looked up from the book and glanced around, "I need… I need a rat or something? Anyone seen a rat?"

Sheila just kind of gave me a strange look from the bed.

Click to shrink...

You know he's deep in the madness place when he can't recognize the "you're giving up bed privileges with this line of thought" gaze.

 

[Zenbeast]

Enchanting and artifice is definitely white and blue, but with this dive into these living materials, perhaps a little green in the future?

 

[Norgarth]

Enchanting and artifice is definitely white and blue, but with this dive into these living materials, perhaps a little green in the future?

Click to shrink...

Well, the Simic (the Blue-Green Guild of Ravinca) are Bio-mancers...

Looks like Atregos is finally figuring out how to cast Aura Enchantments.

 

[Edifier]

The first step is not indexed.