Born a Monster

518 Don’t Eat the Maggots

“What?” I croaked. I’d tried to speak, silly me, given the damages I had suffered. “What happened?”

Nobody answered me, or told me to shut up, or even acknowledged that I was laying about in the sun.

Memories gradually returned. Something about standing up, and staying up, and some idiot calling for full release of his pain rod.

Oh, he’d knocked me out cold, and done enough subdual damage that it overflowed. Not only had it knocked me out, it had done actual health damage as well.

[You have 96/120 health remaining.]

Wait, only 120 health again? How long was I unconscious?

[Your most recent period of unconsciousness was 3 hours 22 minutes and 18 seconds. To track fractions of a second, focus here to purchase..]

<Dismiss message.>

Raising a hand to the injured side of my face revealed a texture like that of raw sausage. I rolled onto my left side, the uninjured side.

.....

I reached for a bandage...

Nothing.

Not just no bandage; there was nothing in any part of my inventory.

I wiggled my toes; someone had stolen my boots. I scratched my chest, my butt; no shirt, no pants.

Nothing in the coin storage, nothing in system stomachs.

My mana? Okay, my mana, such as I had, was intact.

So, I didn’t have NOTHING.

I made the mistake of opening my eyes, finding the right half of my vision looking much like it had when I’d tried to evolve insect eyes.

[System. Status. Right Eye.]

[Severe injury: Cornea – spiderweb fractures. Detached Cornea. Unable to heal.]

UNABLE TO HEAL? I sat bolt upright, and had just enough time to breathe in before I found myself belly and chin in the sand. I ignored the message saying that I had taken no damage.

What? How? Why?

There is no point in denying it; my instinctual reaction was fear. Not little fear, like when the lightning strikes close enough to knock you off your feet. No, this was deep and lingering fear, the sort that became Nightmare Spirits and set about to make a name for itself.

And then I blinked.

I tried the process slower, and my right eyelid again caught on something moist and flexible.

Oh.

Taking care not to puncture the eyeball, I worked my claws to finish severing the dead flesh of the cornea. Mosaic vision gave way to the uselessly blurred.

<System. Expedite healing. Right Eyeball.>

[You lack the nutrition for rapid healing. Healing will be complete in three days.]

I tried to sit again; my right wrist popped in a way it shouldn’t, and I had to maneuver it back into roughly its proper place.

Memory blurred together, but finally made a more or less complete picture. I’d shrugged off the pain want on setting five. I stood; they didn’t like that. Instead of falling down the way they expected, I just stood there, taking their pain.

Oh, let me clarify that. Resistance to pain just meant my system didn’t assess Sanity damage and put me unconscious; I still felt every blow.

And then some well meaning idiot had panicked and called out “Pain TEN!”

Remember when I told you magic is a wild, living, and unpredictable thing? Press a magic item hard enough, try to funnel too much magic all at once, and it... does whatever the magic feels like at the time. His arm didn’t shatter so much as... unravel. The skin snapped off in curls like finger scrolls. He screamed as though he were the one on the receiving end of that bolt.

I, on the actual receiving end, hadn’t even had time to scream. My bones had remained intact, but the skin just beneath my scales on that side melted like wax. The flesh beneath just came apart in a loosely hexagonal pattern. The damage wasn’t DEEP, but it was thorough.

During the process of wrangling myself into a comfortable position, I discovered my left ankle, the one on my good side, was chained to a nearby rock wall.

[Sandstone.] my reticule informed me. [Strength four, 34/40 Condition, negligible nutritional value.]

Okay, so in theory, I could just rip the chain out of the wall and walk off. I set both hands upon it...

The tip of a billhook tapped my shoulder. <1 >

“That is NOT what you want to do.” a female voice told me in Kamajeen.

I placed the chain back into the dust. “Not at the implied consequences.” I agreed.

“It’s not implied.” she said. “The welcome speech... oh, you missed that.”

“I did. Could you summarize?”

“Not my job.” she said. “I’m just supposed to call for TARANDA if you knock too many of the maggots off.”

“Maggots?” I said. Not the tastiest of meals, but I wasn’t feeling picky.

“Maggots.” she said, nodding at me. “To remove the dead flesh before it putrifies.”

A young girl, perhaps six to eight, came from around the shaded side of my wall, carrying an entire bowl of squirming larva. She wasted no time placing them where she wanted, and they in turn seemed happy to eat parts of me I’d never be using again.

“How bad is it?” I asked Taranda.

“DO NOT speak to it.” my guard said. “It’s just a miner, like any other. We get it back to work, and the Unknowable Father takes care of the rest.”

“Yes.” Taranda said. “I remember, elder sister.”

“We are not sisters.” the guard said. “I am part of the tribe; you are not.”

“Masaad says I show great promise as a healer.” Taranda replied. “When you come to me wounded, you will be my elder sister.”

“No, I’ll still be better than you. When I’m dead and my body dragged out of the camp to be rolled into the snake pit, I’ll still be better than you.”

“Rolled into the snake pit?” I asked.

“It keeps the ghouls and gnolls from eating the body.” Taranda said. “They both fear the snakes.”

“Do not. Talk. To it.” the guard said.

“Would you rather I talk with you?”

There was the sound of air being cut, and several hairs from Taranda’s head blew away on the wind, lost amid the dust.

“Little Taranda,” thew guard said. “I tolerate you for Masaad’s sake. “Do not mistake his protection for your own innate status. Four words from him, and you will be chained in the mines, perhaps next to that former merchant who likes you so much.”

“He’s too fat and lazy.” Taranda said. “He’ll be starved to death before the next full moon.”

The guard shrugged. “Then he dies; it’s not like there’s any shortage of men who don’t care that you’re a child?”

“Try not to move.” Taranda told me. “Maggots eat only the bad things. You won’t get fed today, but if you let the maggots do their job, maybe you’ll get enough salt to be fed tomorrow.”

“Wait, we work without being fed?” I asked.

“Work first, you get fed if you have enough salt. You’ll learn the details in the Armpit itself.”

She glared at Taranda. “Fine.” she eventually said. “You get forty five nutrition per day. You’ll last longer if you sandbag. That’s the limit of kindness you’ll get from me.”

“Sandbag?” I asked.

<System. Definition. Sandbag.>

[To deliberately limit your Might for a day in order to discount nutritional requirements.]

“Learn how little you can mine each day.” Taranda said. She then circled me. “He’s done. If he doesn’t move too much, he’ll be able to mine tomorrow. He’ll need water, though.”

“My orders don’t include him getting extra water. Normal ration, when the jug gets here.”

Probably not a surprise, but “normal ration” at the Armpit is half a tin cup, three times per day. Roughly a third of what’s needed to survive, and I never did learn exactly how much the guards got. Somewhere between no actual ill effects but not enough to take the edge off their cruelty.

I started with the sandbag math. Forty five divided by eleven is roughly four; divide by three for body mass, and I’d have a Might of one.

Yeah, no way that was even going to work. I lay there, sun literally drying my wounds... not closed, but close enough that the trickle of blood loss stopped.

[You have 3/3 Sun mana.] my System eventually informed me.

In the evening, when it would have been too late for a human patient, a blanket of rough flax was tossed on me.

“Cover yourself with that.” the guard said. “You’ll want to keep it; it’s the only clothing you’re getting. Good luck finding an inmate to sew it into usable clothing for you.”

“What do they use for needle and thread?”

“I must have given you the wrong impression. This is the Armpit. You live or you die. If you produce salt, then you get food and water. That’s it; nothing else.”

I moved slowly, so as to dislodge minimal numbers of my guests. “That doesn’t seem like a sustainable labor model.”

“Fancy words.” she said. “You’ll learn not to waste the effort.”

She shrugged. “Or you’ll die.”

While the sun was setting, Taranda returned to pick maggots off me back into the bowl.

.....

“Thank you for your kindness.” I said.

“You’re welcome.” she said. “You seem nice. I’ll miss you after you’re dead.”

<1 > Yes, that’s a real weapon. It’s the polearm equivalent of a skinning knife, and is good for removing limbs... if, for example, your target has no armor.

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