Day 9

I walked for a while yesterday, and nothing much happened, and I ended up meditating than sleeping in a small gap in the wall, maybe 3 feet deep, it was better than nothing. I woke up a little groggy, not sleeping well. I took a second to think about how long I had been down here, 8 days, and about 6 of those constantly walking for 12 hours, with intermittent breaks, and I average about 3 miles an hour. I had walked a little over 200 miles... how am I not out yet? I stop thinking for a second, both surprised I've walked that far, and very angry that I hadn't found a way out, did I have to go back to those rattipede's? Since they would need to eat and get water, they must have access to that down the other tunnel. I do not want to walk all the way back there, fuck.

I take a second, “I'm gonna have to go back that way aren't I,” I say to myself. Sighing I get up and stretch, popping my back, and cracking my knuckles, rolling my head I shout back the way I came, “OY!” listening for the echo or any other noise and turn forwards shouting, “IS ANYONE IN THIS TUNNEL!?” I take a gulp of water, my throat hurting from that. Listening for anything at all, doubting I'm gonna hear anything, and then, I'm proven wrong. “ERYAH!” I hear a loud screeching behind me, some sort of guttural noise, then the clicking and skittering of those feet, that familiar noise. “noooo, nooo, nonononononononono fuck.” I say to myself, and I see it, that boulder-sized rattipede. It's charging right at me, I don't know how it got this close without me hearing it, but it was about 30 feet away from me when I tossed my bag to the side, surprised, angry, and resolute. “fine!” I shout, “didn't have to do it this way!” I roll my shoulders and hold the bat at the ready, left side forward.

I smack the cave wall with the bat, it jumps at it, biting the wall, screeching in pain. I swung the bat down one-handed on its back, the bat bouncing back, almost hitting me in the face, its back hard as a rock. It grunts in a high pitch tone and turns, biting at me, I push its head out of the way, not able to muster up the strength for a swing. It bites at the bat, wrenching it out of my hand. I stumble back, surprised it was able to pull it from my grasp. It snarls at me and I fumble for my ax, quickly pulling it out and swing at it with the hammer side down, trying to shatter its skull. The blow lands with a satisfying crunch, it yelps in pain and staggers back, blood flowing out the corner of its mouth. I step forward and swing down with my left arm, and strike its back with the Manaphage, wanting to shatter its hairy carapace like the stones in the wall. I hear it explode, the light fading to a low glow, the sight of a massive splintered mess on its back bringing a satisfied smile to my face.

It roars now, and lunges at me, mouth open, and tackles me to the ground. Unfortunately for it I was ready and I shove the Manaphage in its mouth. “old beast” I whisper and grab its broken carapace, “new trick!” and shove my arm and the Manaphage as far down its throat as I can, “CONSUME!” I shout, rage coming from deep within, willing it to absorb everything it can. The rattipede struggles against me and the Manaphage choking it scratching at me, biting down on my shoulder. I hold it tight with my right hand, feeling a trickle of power coming from the Mp. It starts to weaken, and the power I feel grows, its legs feebly scratching at me, its bite no longer painful. I hold it there, the power I was absorbing from it flowing faster and faster, its struggling coming to a slow and tired end.

I watch as it withers and shrivels up atop me, its legs pulling in to itself. It grows lighter, as all the moisture in its body leaves it. I push it off me then, pulling the Manaphage from its gullet, and lay there panting, I had just fought for my life and won, I had killed this giant rattipede, and I felt better than ever, I was so full of energy, it was like I drank an energy drink and jumped off a building, the adrenaline pumping through making me jittery. 'Fuck yes!, Fuck you!” I didn't want to kill it if I could help it, but I won't lie, getting my revenge felt good. I got up and looked at the damage, there were bite marks on my arm, but they had already scabbed over. My chest was a bloody mess, but after wiping away the blood, I realized all the small cuts had healed over and had left tons of little scars. I looked at the Manaphage and noticed something, it had started to change its shape, it was now smaller, more fist-sized and shaped, gaining hard edges, but the weight of it had grown like it had gotten denser. It was glowing brightly too, much brighter than when I had force-fed the rattipede my entire arm.

I sat there for another minute before getting up, I tried wiping away the blood with my hands before realizing something, and held my magic fist to my chest. The effects where immediate, the blood all coalesced into one spot before being absorbed by the Mp. My jackets and shirt were torn to shreds so I took off the shirt and welding jacket and wore them backward, it was a little uncomfortable, but it beat not wearing any protection. Thankfully my long coat was relatively unharmed and my normal jacket was still tied up. Sighing, I looked over at the rattipede, “one last thing to do” I mutter.

I walk over to the husk and grab the carapace on its pack, and try pulling it off the body. Thankfully it tears away fairly easily from the corpse, and I set it aside, getting three intact segmented plates, and one shard of it that seemed pretty sharp. I opened its mouth and was able to pull out a fang and promptly pocketed my petite prize. I pulled out my knife and started cutting it open, the meat offering up a tough resistance at first, but slowly pulling away. Having helped friends and hunters skin deer I was able to roughly remove some meat. It was odd, there was no moisture in the meat and it didn't smell. It was tough like jerky dried for too long. I got about 10 pounds of usable meat and the rest was covered in hair or bones or cartilage. Getting up I shoved the now desecrated husk of a rattipede to the side and stopped, grabbing a couple of its legs, breaking them off at the joint near the body.

I packed up everything I had looted from the monster and got ready to go, turning back, I looked at it thinking, “guess I'm not a liar, killed it, now I'm gonna wear it and eat it.” Chuckling, to myself “and I guess, I did enjoy that.” with that thought, I shook my head, “I need some company.” and walked off, onward down the tunnel, refusing to turn back.