The thorax proceeded much the same way with Gar not bothering to start with the knife and just going in with his hands the points of his fingers more than enough to sever and separate from the exoskeleton.
“Butchery levelled up butchery level 3”
The thorax did produce one object of interest, a small hard stone near the centre of its body. Gar gave it a quick inspect upon puling it out.
Earthen mana core
A small mana core filled with earth mana, the centre of a mana creature and what allows them to function beyond normal biological means.
Uses: endless
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: common
Durability: ????
Leaving the head until last Gar moved onto the legs, they were split at the joints into three separate parts all essentially tubes of carapace. Gar had to resort to using a stick then flushing it with water to remove the insides of the legs. The head was put together slightly differently it was made up of two pieces of carapace the top overlapping the bottom part. By running his small knife between this overlap he was able to pull the two pieces apart, dumping a wet mass in his lap during the process. He thought he could see the ant’s brain in amongst the goop, it was particularly small.
Working slowly Gar was able to remove the ant’s eyes whole.
Mega-ra ant worker eye
The eye of a mega-ra ant worker
Uses: alchemy, witchcraft
Value: ????
Quality: good
Rarity: frequent
Durability: 10/10
It seemed that while delicate the eyes did have some use so they were put to one side. The final pieces to clean up where the workers mandibles which turned out to be solid pieces of carapace not requiring more work. With them done Gar had the whole carapace cleaned and ready, it was time to try again. Laying the pieces of carapace in a pile Gar cast skeletal puppet and waited. Again nothing happened, Gar didn’t understand why wasn’t it working? His only conclusion he could come to was that the ant’s exoskeleton carapace didn’t count as a skeleton so the spell didn’t work. It was frustrating as it had taken a lot of work to get it to this stage and he had already been seeing himself surrounded by an army of puppet ants protecting him from all attackers.
Looking at the pile of ant workers then at the pile of loot (if you could call it that) he had gotten from the first one, he was unsure if it was worth the effort. When he remembered an ability he had all but forgotten about, grotesque his gargoyle racial ability. Like with his skills he just knew how to use it even though he wasn’t exactly sure what it did, he just knew he needed a body to use it on. Before he had needed to eat what he had killed, the pile of ants represented a new opportunity. Selecting another worker body at random Gar activated the ability for the first time he held his hand against the body and waited. The body crumbled to dust which in turn crumbled and disappeared while Gar received a simple message.
“1/22 mega-ra ant workers”
A little disappointing but helpful for clean-up, seeing no reason to stop there with a surplus of bodies in front of him Gar moved to the next one and went again.
“2/22 mega-ra ant workers”
…..
“21/22 mega-ra ant workers”
Gar hesitated before the last one and then plunged forwards.
“22/22 mega-ra ant workers”
Gar didn’t register the message or the disappearance of the body. His face hurt, it felt like something was splitting his cheeks open while they pushed rods out of his face from the inside. He couldn’t move he couldn’t scream he was locked in place as his face ripped itself apart. Gar could do nothing but accept the pain so he did for the few seconds it took before it ended and he gained the message.
“You have been granted the mandibles of a mega-ra worker ant”
“New skill acquired bite level 1”
Gars hands shot to his face and felt. He had a new set of mandibles coming out on either side of his mouth, he was horrified. He had never considered himself to be a particularly vain person but now he was just undeniably ugly. The gargoyle face was bad enough, with a set of insect mandibles just sticking out his face he would truly look like a monster. Just making it even harder to join with any people he found. Gar looked and tried, finding no way to undo the transformation it seemed he was stuck with it. Gar just pushed it all down he couldn’t deal with it yet he still had things to do. He looked at the pile of worker bodies he had used half of them, he did not want to use grotesque ever again let alone on more of these ants, he didn’t want to make it worse. Even so he didn’t know what would happen if he did it again with the same creatures or even if he could do, so this was a rare opportunity to find out. He didn’t want to he had no plans to use the stupid ability ever again, why would anyone want random creature parts attached to them? Even so he tried it once more.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“1/44 mega-ra ant workers”
Same as before the body crumbled and disappeared. Gar was almost relived that he wouldn’t have enough ant bodies to get him a second part it meant there was no decision about whether he should or not. Gar used the ability on enough workers to leave him with only ten ant worker bodies left.
“13/44 mega-ra ant workers”
It was simply a convenient way to clean up the bodies; another ten to butcher would be more than enough parts for him to experiment with. The ten remaining ant workers took the rest of the day to finish butchering, leaving him with a pile of carapace, eleven earthen mana stones and seventeen ant eyes, a few had been lost in the fighting and the extraction process. As much as he needed to get the rest of the ants dealt with Gar was not going to work through the dark wet night.
Rinsing himself off with a bucket of water he crawled into his shelter and tried to get dry for the first time that day. He sat on his bed while eating a few nuts and pods, it was a poor dinner and Gar knew it but it was all he had and would fill his belly. He looked over to where B3 still laid at the end of his bed and felt badly for not paying it any attention, he would fix that right away.
He crawled over so he was sat right next to B3, he could tell that the damage wasn’t as bad as when it had first happened the breaks looking smaller and the bones where all aligned correctly. He used inspect to check.
B3 (skeletal puppet badger)
The skeleton of a badger animated by Gar through the use of the basic death magic spell skeletal puppet, improved by self-taught arcana achievement, slightly smarter and tougher than normal
Uses: puppet
Value: ????
Quality: great
Rarity: common
Durability: 82/200
“Inspect levelled up inspect level 4”
Gar brushed past the inspect notification focusing on its results B3’s durability had increased, although it appeared it was a slow process. Gar wanted a way to speed the process up, he was certain that if there was a way it would involve mana so he activated mana site.
Mana sight on revealed much that he missed before, the grey glow of death mana in B3 was weaker than that in the other badgers, the areas around the damage were slightly brighter while still not the same as the mana in Bodger, for example. To Gar this suggested that the death mana was healing the damage, there simply wasn’t enough of it to do it any faster. This felt to Gar like something he could help with, flipping his vision to his internal mana core he took a hold on some of the mana inside his core then moved it out through the hole for death mana. As it passed through the mana changed it became death mana, Gar wasn’t sure how he knew it would do that he just did, perhaps his death magic skill. Once he had it outside his core he found the stream of cycling mana connecting him to B3 and pushed the extra death mana into it. He both saw and felt as the extra mana travelled along the connection, it hit B3 like a wave travelling through and pooling at damage sites. Gar kept the flow of extra death mana up, able to physically see the damage reducing as cracks healed. After a couple of minutes Gar cut the flow as he was feeling light headed and his mana core was considerably emptier. Bringing up his mana pool numbers he was down to 21/82, he had used nearly three quarters of his total mana pool. Gar was realising his skills were much more flexible in what they could do than he knew. With a thought he inspected B3 again reducing the results to just the durability.
“Durability 143/200”
It seemed each point of mana that he used increased the durability by one, that was useful one more session once his mana pool was full and he would have B3 fully repaired. Morning was soon enough for that though so Gar lay down to sleep.
// Day 33//
Gar rose with the sun checked, his mana pool was full and started another round of repair on B3. B3 had recovered a few points of durability overnight so it only took fifty-four mana points to bring it up to full. This also gave Gar an unexpected message.
“Death magic levelled up death magic level 5”
Swiftly followed by a new kind of message
“You have raised a magic skill to level 5 (death magic) please pick a new spell”
“Death bolt or rot”
This completely shocked Gar he hadn’t expected to just be given a new spell, after accidentally getting his first spell he had expected it to be a long time before he worked out another. He turned his attention to his options, he was given no description so could only guess what each spell would do based on its name. Death bolt sounded like an RPG staple, a bolt of mana of a certain type in this case death shot out to cause direct damage. Assuming he was correct it would be a good option to give some long range damage. Rot was a bit more difficult at a guess Gar would say it was probably a damage over time spell, potentially with some additional utility uses. Although it would not be great for hunting as it is liable to make the meat inedible. With no real information besides assumptions and their name Gar picked rot.
“New spell acquired Rot level 1”
Eager to use his new spell but with his mana low from healing B3 Gar decided to distract himself with work. The first thing that came to mind dealing with the remaining ant bodies, he had ten ant solders and the queen’s guard. Working on the solders first they came apart in much the same way as the workers segmented at the joints then scooped out from the inside. The only problem was the acid gland in the solider ant’s abdomen, which he found when he burst the first one over his hand while scooping out. From then he went much slower and more carefully to prevent any more surprises. From the solider he was able to collect a large pile of carapace.
Mega-ra ant solider carapace
The exoskeleton of a mega-ra ant solider, thicker and stronger than that of the worker it is still a very light weight and durable material. Has interesting property’s when heated.
Uses: alchemy, smithing
Value: ????
Quality: good
Rarity: frequent
Durability: 220
Nine acid glands, a fist sized sack with a nozzle that squirts acid when the sack was squeezed.
Mega-ra and solider acid gland
A gland that produces a concentrated formic acid
Uses: weapon, alchemy, cooking
Value: ????
Quality: standard
Rarity: common
Durability: 20/20
He had gotten ten more earthen mana cores that inspected the same as the ones from the workers despite being larger. The solders eyes did not seem to register as anything useful which is something Gar wished he had known before getting arm deep in ant innards to remove one carefully. The final thing he got where ten pairs of solider ant mandibles
Mega-ra ant solider mandible
For an ant their mandibles are their hands, there tools, even their weapons even more so for the soldiers
Uses: tool, weapon, craft
Value: ????
Quality: good
Rarity: common
Durability: 220/220
