Neophyte World Builder

SARA (NETHYS)

When Sara—or Nethys, as she thought of herself these days—had decided to hunt a vultark, she really had not anticipated what she’d have to do to catch one.

Oh sure, she’d done all the research and prepared herself. She’d even hired a group who had managed to take a few down before, and they had given her further training. Even after she’d impressed them with her competence, they’d tried to warn her against trying this particular hunt. Competence was fine, but vultarks were dangerous even for well-coordinated hunting parties. They were the equivalent of hunting a large tiger or rhino back on Earth… except the people here didn’t have gunpowder yet, and magic could only even the odds so much.

Mostly because the creatures used magic of their own to fight back.

That was only one reason why vultarks were so dangerous to hunt. The other was the reason Nethys was having second thoughts about the entire thing. These thoughts had come a little too late to change course now. During training, the daring leaps from branch to branch of the towering trees of the Scarlet Pillars had been under controlled conditions. Here, where the vultark could attack at any moment, she was keenly aware of the gambles she made every time she jumped.

She landed nimbly on the next branch and let her climbing cleats dig into the branch to steady her, the claws she wore on her hands catching the nearby trunk to stabilize her. Her Totem was good at leaps, but hadn’t been built for treetop movement, so she was relying on the baseline vaskan simian anatomy… and her tertiary class. The class that allowed her to do so many things in conjunction with her other classes.

It had come with a “Provisional” label at first. Being from a rural town, Nethys had not known what that meant, even if her Earth background had let her suspect. Fortunately, by the time she’d gotten the class, she’d reached larger cities and had been able to discreetly inquire about it… so she knew she was the first one to obtain the class.

That was surprising to her, given she wasn’t a mathematician. She’d never even had much advanced math and had flunked multivariable calculus, and had never needed anything higher than that. That was, in fact, when she’d changed majors and gone into the business school. Yet even though the mathematicians here could solve more theoretical problems than her, she knew enough advanced math that they hadn’t invented yet to introduce a few ideas.

Long story short, her class let her precisely calculate how to use her skills and what little magic she was able to use. That hadn’t sounded like much, at first… but knowing exactly how much effort to put into a jump was incredibly useful when she was leaping from tree to tree. She still had brief moments of terror, but in most cases it was pretty easy. She’d had a mild fear of heights back on Earth, so this felt exhilarating in comparison.

Nethys noticed her safety harness was pulsing and clamped another anchor onto the trunk next to her. The devices were expensive, but if she was close enough to one, her harness would activate when her downward motion passed a certain threshold, slowing her fall. That was the other reason she could jump about so easily. Unless something disrupted the magic, it was basically a safety line that would keep her from taking a fatal fall.

Just because she’d gotten good at this didn’t mean she was going to leap around forty meters off the ground without some kind of safety net.

So much for being an accountant, she thought to herself.

One of the hunters ahead of her signaled, drawing her attention. Nethys ducked down and kept her profile low while she searched out where he was pointing. It took her a moment, but she caught movement deeper in the foliage at last. Her target, a vultark.

It was a large creature, obviously related to the flark used as a flying mount. Not nearly that large, of course, but the size of an old earth pony or very large dog in the torso, but with large winglike “arms” that held hooked claws, and small rear legs with similar talons. Unlike the flark, a vultark couldn’t fly… but it could glide silently, and it could climb trees.

They were dangerous creatures thanks to their hunting method. They couldn’t be hunted easily on the ground due to their hunting method, which had them climbing high above and identifying prey below them. They would then dive down using acceleration magic combined with stealth, like a hawk or other bird of prey from Earth. Except these were much larger, even faster, and used magic to boost their effectiveness. It also had a paralyzing screech that she’d heard some of the rare few who took this Totem could inherit.

Nethys had known immediately that this was the monster she wanted for her next core. It was deadly, swift, had enhanced magical powers, reminded her of dragons, and…

It just clicked with her.

She knew the hunters were positioning themselves around the vultark while she watched. They had to move quietly and carefully, as the beasts were easily-startled, but she’d told them she’d make the first attack. She had no doubt they were resigned to losing the hunt here… she was too small to wield a longbow or bulky crossbow that would have any chance of harming it significantly, and the only other option would be magical attacks. She was clearly not a Caster who threw long-range spells.

Not attack spells, anyway.

Still dug into the branches, she unslung her rifle and took aim, invoking her Compensation Ability to account for gravitational drop, windspeed, and atmospheric friction. Minor spells let her enhance her aim and adjust, lifting the barrel slightly despite shooting at a downward angle.

It wasn’t a real rifle, of course. She’d have thought the vaskan would have something like gunpowder, even if they hadn’t invented guns, but she’d only been half right. Burst powder existed, but it was too unpredictable and nobody had found a way to stabilize it yet. That wasn’t her field, so she’d looked for another way… because she did know how to shoot.

She’d spent most of her money to make this result. A rifle that really only worked properly for her, tuned to her classes and abilities specifically. Custom-crafted for her, it was a work of art… or she liked to tell people. In reality, the bulk of her expense had been paying for the regeneration of the three fingers she’d maimed trying to build the thing. She wasn’t an engineer.

At least it was somewhat affordable to regrow fingers. Nethys had heard that several generations ago, such magic was even more rare. Each generation was getting more potent than the last… and even she’d had to change her idea from a pure combustion one to something more creative, after talking to other Casters and inventors. That’s why the ignition chamber was so small compared to her first try.

Nethys took a deep breath, paused, then let it out slowly… and halfway through, she activated the complex series of powers to let her “fire” her weapon.

The loud *crack* was not from the tiny burst of flame she sent into the chamber, but from the bullet breaking the sound barrier. She gave it that initial boost with flame in a compression chamber, then further enhanced it down the rifled barrier with small pulses of acceleration. She did this with careful applications of Flux that magnetized the barrel, using that to further boost the bullet.

She knew she’d never have been able to invent this without the peculiarities of her [Mathemancer] class.

An explosion of blood at the head gave her an initial thrill that she’d scored a one-hit kill! Sadly, the shriek after told her that she’d missed by a tiny amount. Her intent had been to shoot through the eye, but instead she’d hit the armored brow. A very good snipe from that range, but not quite good enough.

It was still plenty powerful enough for one wing to flail, the jaws of the beak-like muzzle clacking loudly. As she hurried to load another bullet into the breech—thankfully, she’d skipped the muzzle-loading era altogether—she saw a mystically-empowered bolt streak through the air and bury itself at the root of one wing, further enraging the beast. Other hunters took less powerful shots, using whatever ranged weapon they had available.

Unfortunately, the weaker bolts bounced off the armored back. The hunt would only have a brief window of opportunity to hit the beast fatally, and Nethys needed to be ready. Either they target the eyes and hope, or they wait for the instant the more vulnerable underbelly was exposed when it dropped from the tree to retreat. Vultarks would never stick around to fight something that was higher in the air than they were.

Nethys took aim, waited a few breaths… then fired again the moment the vultark let go. She knew she had only a few more shots before the barrel was fouled by the stresses and needed realigned. Fewer still before the creature bolted.

This time, her aim was true. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but the shock knocked the beast unconscious, so its fall to the forest floor was uncontrolled and deadly. It tumbled away, a ribbon of spurting blood spiraling behind it as her kill plummeted to its death.

She ignored the shouts of surprise from her companions. They’d been the backup, after all. She’d gotten lucky, but Nethys was not the most experienced hunter… she might never have found the vultark without them, and if she’d failed they might have brought it down. She didn’t regret the money spent.

As her harness activated to slow her fall, she shoved her rifle into its holster, then yanked out her knife. Monster Cores would dissolve swiftly after too much trauma, and she needed to hurry. She hadn’t even told the hunters that this was her real reason for doing this.

“Wait! What are you doing?!” one of them called out from above. Predictably so, because he’d just watched her plunge the knife into the neck and carve downward. That wasn’t a stroke used to take a trophy or field dress for meat. That was a Core Hunt move. Something even children were often taught, unless they were very important nobility.

The others were right behind her as she tore out the pearl-like organ, still warm and pulsing with mana. The vultark was still twitching, its spine shattered but its body not quite dead even after she’d landed atop it and butchered its chest open. The sight made her stomach turn, even after living two decades in this place where such sights were more common than on Earth. A live core extraction was messy even here.

Before the others could stop her, she shoved the core into her mouth, heedless of the coppery taste of the blood around it. Doing it this way made her want to gag, but she couldn’t risk it dissolving from the trauma. She also didn’t have the knowledge to preserve the core, nor the need to perform the rituals that supposedly made Apotheosis more likely to succeed.

Ignoring the looks of disbelief from the other hunters, she swallowed.

She selected Yes.