Common Clay

As if summoned by his thoughts, the day after his family visited brought a rainstorm. It started a little after dawn, driving him back inside as rain pelted down. Once inside, he quickly figured out that his patch job on the roof hadn’t been entirely effective; he had just enough bowls and buckets to put under the leaks, but he only had so many rags to stuff into the holes.

It took him an hour or so before he was confident that he’d kept his small home from being flooded barely a week after he moved in. The rain showed no signs of giving him any mercy, either; it continued in a constant deluge that threatened to turn the newly cleared part of the field into a muddy quagmire. Clay sighed at the thought of how much work it would take to clear any of the stumps he’d been working on with the rainwater filling up the holes he dug and shook his head.

Fortunately, he’d hit the maximum for [Might] and [Fortitude] the day before; he’d really just been hoping for another [Will] before he declared himself ready to try the forest again. As it was, he was mostly left to himself.

He tried to keep busy. Improvising new patches for the leaks took some more time, and he spent a little bit more practicing a few stances with his spear. Going over his notes and adding a few additions consumed another bit of time, as did making a few small repairs to his clothing.

Clay glanced outside. He couldn’t see the sun, but he’d had a candle burning its way down. It hadn’t even been an hour.

Throwing his hands in the air, he gave up. Clay put his cloak on, made sure the water wouldn’t ruin anything in his absence, and stepped out into the rain. He tried not to hear his mother’s knowing laugh as he headed into town.

“Welcome, traveler.” Olivia gave him a formal bow. Her expression was just as neutral as it always was, and Clay inwardly rolled his eyes at his mother’s assumptions. Clearly, she hadn’t exactly been waiting for him to show up. The very idea would probably have been offensive to her.

“It is good to see you, Novice.” He smiled. “I hope I’m not interrupting your work.”

“No. I was actually wondering if you would come today.” She gestured to the rain outside. “Do you have more questions about our books?”

Clay nodded. “In a way, yes. Did you happen to notice if that training manual had anything in it about what a Lair is?”

Olivia paused, her eyes looking back as if she was reading out the words in front of her. “Actually… perhaps. I can read it for you, to be sure.” She paused, as if hesitating.

“That sounds great! Thank you.” She smiled a little and made the formal bow again. Then she led him back towards the Rector’s study. Clay followed, trying not to get mud all over the floor. He’d tried to knock as much of it out on the steps and had even shaken out his cloak a little before he came in; after the first day, he’d learned that Olivia was the one who cleaned most of the shrine. The last thing he wanted was to give her even more work.

When he walked into the study, it seemed a bit different somehow. The place seemed somehow… neater than it had before. Someone had tucked away the loose pages that had been stacked on top of the desk somewhere, though he didn’t know if that meant the Rector had finished with his latest manuscript or not.

To his surprise, the adventuring manual was already waiting on top of the other desk, along with a stack of notes and two other books. Olivia walked over to the chair and sat rummaging a little among the papers. “I have assembled a number of notes for you. They are my attempts to summarize the parts of the journal that may interest you.”

Clay raised his eyebrows. He started to shuffle through the notes, pausing as he recognized the names of common monsters. Spiders, undead, even demons of some kind… “Thank you, Olivia. This must have taken you a long time.”

“It was no trouble.” She bent over the adventuring manual, her eyes intent on the old parchment. Her cheeks seemed a little red for some reason, but he told himself he was just imagining it. “I did not expect you to ask about Lairs, however. I believe there was a passage here…”

Her voice faded away as she read the text, her lips moving silently. Clay waited patiently, occupying his time with the notes she’d made. Olivia’s penmanship made a mockery of his own humble scratching and made for a far easier read. When she spoke up, he almost jumped in surprise.

“A monster is created or spawned at the center of a Catastrophe. Most of these spring from poor judgement, from foul conspiracy, or from dishonorable murder. These places, if not consecrated or cleansed, become Lairs for a Curse that creates monsters after its own kind.”

“To stop a Lair, the Curse must be located and purged. Destroying the Lair is impossible in any other way.” She paused. “A Lair which exists too long may grow in on itself, and bend reality to the whims of the wretched Curse within. These, in time, become known as Dungeons, for they are all that contains a Curse so powerful that merely purging it once is not enough to remove its stain from our world.”

How long had Tanglewood been home to a Lair? The question filled Clay’s mind. It had been long enough that he never remembered a time that didn’t mention the place as a danger to those living near it. Was that long enough for it to become a Dungeon? “What is a Curse? I’ve never heard of that before.”

Olivia frowned. “Nor have I.” She turned the page, studying the tightly scrawled words. “It doesn’t say. It only mentions that the Curse is rarely found outside the Lair or the Dungeon it calls home, and that only the bravest adventurers should attempt to defeat it. As this manual belonged to a new adventurer, it recommends that such a task be left up to the senior members of their Guild.”

Clay grimaced. The Guild wasn’t exactly going to support his actions, yet he couldn’t exactly ignore the danger a Lair presented, either. Maybe he could just weaken the monsters around it until a band of actual adventurers arrived? It wouldn’t be quite as heroic, but it would mean fewer people would die. There would be less danger for the adventurers, too.

He suddenly realized that Olivia had stopped reading. She was looking back and up at him, her eyes studying him. Feeling awkward, he drew back slightly. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“About what?” The question caught him off guard, and he was still searching for an answer when she continued. “You have never really explained why you want to know these things. Why are they important to you? You are not an adventurer. You never will be.”

She said the words almost without inflection, except for a curiosity so genuine that Clay couldn’t manage to take offense. He struggled with an answer for a moment, and then shrugged. “I’m not, no—but that doesn’t mean I have to be blind about these things. These monsters exist, Olivia, and they are closer than we like to admit. Am I supposed to just stay ignorant until one of them knocks on my door?”

Olivia blinked. She turned in her chair so that she faced him. “Are you worried they will come for you, Clay? I know that you live in a dangerous place, but if it is too risky, perhaps you could leave it. You could go home, or live here.” It seemed like she regretted those words as soon as she said them; she turned back away, folding her hands in her lap. “You do not have to risk your life for a dream. Not when you have other options.”

Clay shook his head. “It’s not just for a dream, Olivia. It’s for the people I know. This world can be so dangerous… How many times have we all waited for someone to come and rescue us from a threat? How many would survive if someone had just been ready to act?”

He stepped back and shook his head. “I’m… sorry, Olivia. I don’t mean to upset you, I just—this is something I have to do.”

She looked back up at him, and he was shocked to see her green eyes more animated than he’d ever seen before. “You have not upset me. I am at peace.” Then she turned back to the book, her face stern. One hand grabbed at a nearby quill, while the other dragged over a sheet of parchment. “I will search for more information and let you know what I find. You may go.”

Uncertain now, but fairly sure he had just been dismissed, Clay gathered the pages she’d written and quietly walked to the door. He paused at the exit, and then turned and gave her a bow. “Thank you, Novice.”

She did not look up from her work, though her quill did pause for a moment. When he left, the thing was already scratching along again.

Clay carefully tucked the parchment away inside the folds of his cloak, hoping that it would be kept out of the damp. He’d need to be fast if he wanted to get home with them intact.

The excuses he’d given Olivia still echoed in his mind as he made his way through the downpour. It seemed like she was worried for him; that made sense, given where his house was located. Yet she didn’t know what he was capable of. Nobody knew. As far as he was aware, he was the only one that had ever gained a level in [Commoner]. He was the only one who’d even bothered trying to explore the Tanglewood, and the only one he knew who’d killed a monster, let alone dozens of them.

None of those facts helped his mood as he stomped back to his home, the mud quickly coating his boots. He got back to the farmhouse with the parchment more or less dry; he quickly put it with the rest of his notes, in a place that none of the leaks would reach. There were a few bowls and buckets that needed to be changed out, which he did with an appropriate amount of grumbling. After that, he settled in to read over the notes again and again, trying to commit them to mind.

The details on each of the monsters seemed so sparse. A zombie resisted wounds, and had an infectious bite, but how did it fight? Where did it feed? Walking bones were vulnerable to blunt weapons, but how did they remain standing without any flesh? Did they even need to eat? Clay felt a mounting frustration that only had a little to do with the information itself, but he forced himself to stay at the task for another hour or two.

It was a short while later that the notification arrived.

{Memory increased by 1!}

Clay let out a sigh, thinking that at least he had gained something that day. Yet it seemed like he hadn’t done enough. The rain was still falling outside, but he could almost feel the spiders in the Tanglewood multiplying, encroaching ever closer to town. Could he really avoid hunting them for even a day?

He stewed over his thoughts as he ate a brief, unsatisfying lunch. Finally, he came to a decision he was sure that no one would have approved of. With short, jerky motions, he strapped on his weapons, minus his bow—the string wouldn’t have done well in the damp. Throwing on his already-sodden cloak, he swept out of the door and into the rain once more. The Tanglewood was waiting, and no matter what anyone thought, he was ready for it.

The moment he stepped into the Tanglewood, he received another notification.

{Valor increased by 1!}

Clearly, the [Gift] agreed with his decision, at least. Perhaps that was a sign that he was making the right choice.

It took him only a few minutes of walking for the doubts to creep in. The rain had transformed the Tanglewood, covering some sounds he made while hiding so many others as well. An ever-present patter of raindrops meant that he would have trouble detecting the occasional clack of a troll spiderling’s feet, and the mud meant a mantrap’s burrow might remain hidden in the mire. At the same time, it would slow him down and make it tougher to move and fight if it came to it.

As a result, he was more cautious now than he had been before, moving a bit more slowly through the underbrush. His eyes were more alert for signs, searching for the traces which were now half-concealed by mud and moving leaves.

His extra caution paid off a while later, as he caught sight of a mantrap burrow. It was a new one, dug into the side of a small hill. He approached it, staying behind the opening, and then tossed a rock.

It splashed into the mud outside the burrow, and he frowned in sudden realization. If the mantrap reacted to something landing on the ground in front of their burrow, would they not be able to sense things when the ground was wet? Or had this particular spider simply learned to be more cautious?

Clay waited for a few moments more, just in case the spiderling was just slow to react. When it stayed hidden, he grabbed another couple of rocks. Thinking back, he remembered that the thing usually struck on the second hit, not the first. So he tossed the stones again, one after another, and prepared himself.

The mantrap came out of the hole on the second splash, and Clay was ready for it. His spear flashed down, taking it completely by surprise.

{Mantrap Spiderling slain!}

He stepped back, considering the kill. The rain really would make the hunt more difficult for him, but he supposed it had its advantages as well. It wasn’t like he would need to clean his spear off, at the very least. In fact, he really wouldn’t have to worry about any of the mess…

Clay frowned. The bodies of the spiders he killed always vanished. He’d never really questioned it before, but now that he thought about it, the whole thing couldn’t just dissolve. After all, he needed to clean the ichor off his clothes; it didn’t somehow just vanish. So what had been happening to the bodies?

His eyes narrowed, and he stepped further back. Clearly, something was eating the bodies, or taking them away. Yet it wasn’t like there was enough wildlife to have other creatures scavenging the kills. If a fox or a wolf wasn’t carrying them away, what was?

He made the decision a moment later. With the rain still coming down on him through the trees, he made his way to a tree trunk just a short distance away. Gathering his cloak around him, he settled in to wait. Whatever was coming for the dead spiderling, he was going to see it soon.

It took something close to an hour, but Clay remained determined. There was something going on here that he didn’t quite understand, and what he didn’t understand could get him killed. It didn’t matter how long he spent in the rain, it would be worth the cost to have at least some idea of what he was facing.

He wished that his certainty remained that strong when a brand-new monster appeared in his sight.

Clay didn’t see the thing at first; even with his senses boosted by [Forrester], [Slayer], and [Spiderbane], the thing moved too carefully and too smoothly for it to register at first. When he realized what he was looking at, it took everything in him to stay where he was.

It began as a thin shadow, slinking through the trees. He saw it glide out of the branches like a ghost, seeming to step out of the shadows to lurk over the fallen mantrap. Limbs that stretched as long as his height reached down, carefully, delicately, silently. Silvery thread stretched from the tips of those limbs, unfurling in a shining net. With movements that could have almost been gentle, the troll spider wrapped the corpse into a bundle.

Then, still silent, it lifted the package of broken limbs and ichor-stained carapace and stole back into the trees. Clay watched it retreat for a few more moments, trying to keep sight of it as the rain fell in a tattered curtain through the leaves. He stayed there, still watching, long after it vanished. Only when he was absolutely sure it was gone did he dare breathe.

So. It appeared the monsters held even less loyalty to each other than he had expected. Where they found a dead companion, they simply feasted on it. For that matter, did they even wait to see if it was actually dead? Or had the spiders been hunting each other from the start?

All sorts of things suddenly seemed very clear. It explained how the monsters of Tanglewood managed to survive despite the lack of prey. With them feasting on each other, it meant only the most clever and deadly of them survived to become a higher version of themselves; if those higher versions ate the lower, then that meant he’d been serving up the small ones for the real threats all along.

It also meant that he might have an opening to kill them. Clay felt his hard-beating heart calm slightly. He’d been afraid that he’d have to hunt down the greater abominations in their holes and hunting grounds, on territory they knew and controlled. If he could lure them out instead and fight them on his own terms…

{Insight increased by 1! Valor increased by 1!}

Perhaps it said something about his state of mind that he dismissed the notifications about his [Stats] with something close to irritation. If the adult troll spiders hunted mantrap spiderlings, was the reverse also true? What kind of trap could he lay for something that moved and acted like that?

He supposed that there was only one way to find out.

An hour later, Clay watched the dead troll spiderling with the same, if not greater, intensity than he had watched the last corpse. Olivia’s notes had revealed how the troll spiders hunted from the branches, but it had only mentioned mantrap spiders acting defensively. Would a larger mantrap even appear? Or would it just be a troll spider again, coming to feast on its junior?

He blinked the rain away from his eyes and tried to remain focused. Even with his cloak, being out in so much rain had soaked him to the skin, and despite the warmth of the summer, he was feeling cold. Despite that, his hands on the spear were steady, and he felt like he was ready for when an enemy might appear.

Clay blinked again and felt his heartbeat quicken. There was a mound of leaves on the ground that hadn’t been there before.

It was irregularly shaped, as if it were a rock that was speckled with a few bits of foliage. If he had not memorized every piece of terrain around the spot, Clay might very well have missed it. Was the thing even colored grey and brown, like the dirt and rock around it?

He resisted the urge to lean forward to get a better look. Mantrap spiderlings might not have shown signs of good eyesight, but he wasn’t willing to risk his life on the possibility that the older versions might have improved the trait. The thing was already bigger and quieter; for all he knew—

Clay’s heart skipped a beat as he blinked and the thing was suddenly closer, hunched up next to a tree like a pile of debris. It might have looked like a batch of windblown refuse to someone walking by. The thing was fast, though it didn’t seem to have the unnerving grace of the troll spider. He could easily picture it jumping a target from twenty strides away.

Again, he resisted the urge to hunker down and shake. If he gave away his position now, before he was actually ready to fight it, he wasn’t sure how well he could deal with something that could move that fast. Better to watch and wait.

One more lightning-fast lunge, and the mantrap spider had reached the corpse. It struck the body as if it were alive, biting into it and dragging it backward with such vicious strength that one leg came off. The mantrap shook the thing once, twice, and then settled in to eating it. Unlike the troll spider, it showed no signs of wanting to retreat to a safer place; instead, Clay had the joy of watching the spider feast over the course of the next hour.

The experience did not make him wish for the chance to enjoy his own meal any time soon.

As the mantrap finally withdrew, it did so in the same jerky manner in which it had approached. Clay kept his eyes on it, not wanting to lose sight of it, of how it moved through the terrain. It didn’t so much skitter as it did travel in a series of leaps. Every motion was a predatory lunge, followed by a careful, patient stillness, until it finally vanished from sight.

He nodded to himself and then moved back towards his home. The rain was already starting to threaten his health, in more ways than one; he couldn’t exactly afford to sneeze inside the Tanglewood, especially not now. Besides, he had plans to make. Clay knew what he was up against now, and he had a chance to start making sure he was ready for it. As ready as he was ever going to be, at least.

The rain continued the next day, but Clay didn’t feel any frustration with it at all. After all, he had a job to do.

Every formerly empty parchment he’d had was now half-covered in sketches and writing. Clay had reached back in his memory and tried to adapt every trap his father had taught him, back when he was still learning how to set snares for snakes and birds. He’d even gone over the ones they had set for rats, wolves, and bears.

None of them seemed to fit. Wolves and birds didn’t have armored shells that could resist axe strikes; rats and other vermin couldn’t kill a man with a single vicious bite. Bears might be large and strong, but they weren’t silent or able to strike from the trees. As clever as the natural animals could be, none of them approached the intelligence these creatures could display. How could he trap something that was deadlier, smarter, and faster than anything he’d learned to plan for?

It was a frustrating problem, and one that had occupied him much of the previous day. He’d almost started scribbling before he had even taken off his rain-soaked cloak. It had been a terrible inconvenience to stop long enough to make himself a hurried meal, and even then, he’d been picking away at new ideas as he ate.

He’d finally come up with something he could use in the later hours of the night, before finally falling into a long and troubled sleep.

Of course, now he needed to start putting some of his plans into action—and for that, he needed help.

“Clay! So good to see you again!” Adam’s smile was back in full force, though there was a little bit of uncertainty lurking in his eyes. “I’m afraid that it is a little too soon for the bed to be finished, but I am sure I could interest you in some of the foodstuffs that I have prepared for you…”

He gave the shopkeeper a warm smile, partially helped by the fact that he was sure his requests would surprise the crafty merchant this time. “Thank you, Adam, but I’ve already eaten well enough. Perhaps later.”

A slightly knowing look came across Adam’s face. “Then perhaps a few more pieces to help with repairs for your roof? The past few days may have put your new home to the test.”

Clay opened his mouth to refuse again and stopped. “You know, that actually would be helpful. In addition to the other things I came for.”

Adam had been nodding in apparent satisfaction. “Then of course I will help you—wait, what?”

He grinned. “I need some extra rope and a good number of nails. More than what you were going to give me for the roof. A nice net would be good too.”

“It would?” The shopkeeper’s eye twitched a little. He shook his head. “I…can help you, but why…”

Clay raised his eyebrows, and Adam cut himself short. He shivered like a dog shaking off water. “I have what you need over here. If you would follow me?”

Clay made his way back home, loaded down with the things he’d bought from Adam. The rain was lessening as he reached the farmhouse, but it still was coming down.

He pushed his way through the door and laid everything out on the old table there. He was so eager to begin that he nearly didn’t hang his cloak out to dry.

First, he took several of the nails and hammered them through part of the rope. Once there were enough nails shoved through the fiber, he laid it into a coil by itself. After that, he turned his attention to the net. He took a brief trip outside to gather some leaves and mud, which he then spread over the net, using a small bit of twine to fasten the leaves to the thing. When he’d created a rough carpet of them over the tool, he set that next to the rope.

For the next bit, he took up his woodaxe and some small bits of firewood from the place near the chimney. Clay spent a couple of hours trimming a set of wooden stakes, hardening the point of each in the fire. Once he’d had a rough dozen, he lay them with the net, making a loose pile of them. After a moment’s search, he picked up his shovel and added it to the batch.

His tools prepared, he stepped back and rummaged through the drawings and scribbles he’d made the night before. He selected the ones he needed and reviewed them carefully. The work would be hard, and dangerous too. Sound would carry in the Tanglewood, and who knew what it would draw to him if he wasn’t fortunate enough? In the rain, it would probably be impossible.

So all he had to hope for now was that the storm would be over soon.