Kaelen had been walking for quite a while now while looking around for shelter. He was getting tired now, especially after the death of the Mud Crawler, but he was adjusting slowly to his new surroundings.
'I need to find a place to rest.'
He reminded himself of the immediate goal while holding his new trusty rock, and yet despite having that 'weapon,' he made sure to stay alert around the mud pools.
The world was a monochromatic nightmare—rock, mud, and soil. There was no particular landmark to guide him. The only thing he knew was that when he landed here, he was facing forward, and so he continued in that direction.
Hours passed. The dim light of the bruised sky began to fail, turning a deeper, more ominous shade of violet. The air that was just there was now starting to chill, and getting sick here was a way to weaken himself; he did not want to explore.
'Shelter... somewhere there has to be something nearby.'
And then he saw it.
There in the wall of one of the rock hills there was a cave opening that opened up like a wound. There was just one problem with it. A problem that made his eyes narrow
The cave was not empty.
The mouth of the cave opened up a meter before one of the mud pools, and a few of the mud crawlers were making their way in.
There had to have been more inside the cave already.
'I need to get into that cave even more now.'
What could be the reason that those things were huddling together in a small cave? It was probably another horror, and he was too tired to fight again at night when human vision was limited.
He stood there and watched as the dregs of the group entered and then waited some more to see if any would enter. By now his heart had stopped beating wildly due to the rest, but his eyes still felt droopy, to say the least.
And now night was almost here; a few minutes before this place's sun, or whatever it had for a sun, was leaving the sky.
'Fine,' he thought, having made up his mind.
What did he learn from all those fictional stories? If you wanted something, prove you had the strength to wield it.
He didn't have a plan. He had a rock, and he had something he wanted, and that was enough.
He walked to the entrance of the cave and stood outside and peered into it, barely able to due to the fast-approaching night and lightlessness of the cave itself.
And then he stepped in.
The moment he did, the last of the mud crawlers entered the scene, and he, who was not completely asleep yet, woke.
It was on the outermost edge of their sleeping pile and currently the only one that had any awareness, and so before it did anything
Kaelen struck it as hard as he could. A sickening crunch, and it was dead.
'So I was right.' As he was leaning over the halved corpse of the mud crawler he killed in the morning, he noticed a bridge in the creature's exoskeleton between what could be considered the neck and the head.
Now that theory seemed to be true because instantly the head of the mud crawler separated from the body. The spine is now visible and cracked with blood and something else flowing out.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Mud Crawler.]
Unfortunately the others had woken up. The second beast lunged, and its teeth aimed straight for his neck, and the multitude of legs aimed to penetrate his chest or maybe at least grab onto his shirt.
He sidestepped, and it slammed into the wall and grabbed onto it. Immediately he grabbed the back end of it and swung it around and knocked the other one away, and before the rest moved, he slammed the one he was holding to the ground and used his other hand to bring down the rock and separate its skull and body.
[You have slain...]
He fought like a man possessed.
Before any of the others could come towards him. He went to them; he kicked some to the back of the cave to create some time to deal with the others, and deal with them he did.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Mud Crawler.]
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Mud Crawler.]
[You have slain...]
[You have slain...]
[You have slain...]
It was a chaotic, sickening mess of flesh and breaking bone. Kaelen's leg was bitten, his hand was scratched, but he was alive, and there was one more left.
He wanted to yell; he was seconds away from claiming his second victory, and one step above the last, this one was better than the last.
His rock was a few steps away, and now he was holding the last crawler in his hand.
He dug his finger into the creature wriggling in his eye.
CRACK.
The body ripped with some effort as he pulled, and then the pieces fell to the ground.
The silence returned, heavier than before.
The work of the day had taken its toll, and his vision was starting to fade. The last drops of adrenaline in his blood were used up, and he could no longer move.
He didn't even have the strength to crawl away from the piles of corpses that used to be beasts. He collapsed right there, in the cave, his face pressed into the cold, damp soil.
The last thing he felt was the darkness of the nightmare finally closing over him as he drifted into an unconsciousness that felt almost risky.
But he had an inkling that nothing would enter the cave since it was probably known that the cave was a group home for a group of beasts.
There was a pile of bones in a corner of the cave, and he felt others might not want to find out what the mud crawlers had done with it.
So he slept all through the night, waking up after hours with the sun shining into the cave.
Kaelen stirred, pulling his cheek away from the mud on the floor and the brown blood that seeped out of the creatures' bodies.
Every muscle in his body felt as though it had been replaced by rusted iron. The scratches on his body burned a little bit.
He sat up, his vision swimming. The dim, violet light of the "morning" filtered through the cave entrance, illuminating his kills.
I'm still alive.
He tried to swallow, and he felt the dryness of his throat. It had been a day and a half since he had drunk anything.
'Maybe I shouldn't have thrown that bottle away...'
Now, the biological reality of his new world was setting in.
Water. I need water.
He forced himself to his feet and took in the area around him. His legs felt like jelly. He stepped over the remains of the Mud Crawlers and walked out into the wasteland.
The terrain had not changed. It was still a monochromatic hell.
No dew on the rocks. No sound of a distant stream.
Just the rocks and more dirt.
"There has to be something," He spoke out loud this time; the remaining mud crawlers must have been a distance away since those close to him must have come to the cave yesterday.
"The spell... it wouldn't put me in a world where survival is mathematically impossible. Right?"
But the spell didn't answer. It wasn't a guide; it was a judge.
He spent the next four hours wandering. He tried digging into the lower silt flats, hoping to find a water table, but his fingers only met packed, frozen clay that dirtied his fingernails.
He tried wiping his hands on the smoother stones, hoping for a hint of condensation, but they only felt like sandpaper, bitter minerals, and salt, making his thirst even more annoying.
His thirst was becoming a physical weight. It wasn't just a craving; it was a dizzying, lightheaded fog that made it hard to focus his eyes. He found a patch of dark, damp-looking sand and tried to smash it in his hands to draw out water, but nothing came out.
I have to find something soon. With all the hunting and exploring, I have at least 1 to 2 days left before I die.
He looked at the horizon, his mind beginning to wander. He thought of the kitchen back home—the cold water from the dispenser, the fruit bowl on the counter.
The faces of the people who had betrayed him blurred with the jagged shapes of the rocks.
NO
They wanted me dead, he thought, a flicker of dark heat rising in his gut. They lied so they wouldn't have to look at me. If I die here, of thirst, in a pile of dirt... they win.
The thought was a small spark in the cold dark of his mind.
By midday, the "sun" reached its peak, and Kaelen grew thirstier until he found a water source; for now, he was not going to travel further away from the cave.
He traveled back to the cave and sat outside the entrance; his legs were dipped into the mud with his shoes beside him.
Then there was a light bulb that went on in his head.
The mud crawlers would have needed water and food. If they hunted creatures for food, they would have needed to eat AND drink, and how would they get water with no water around?
'Mud is both water and sand...'
He woke up with a groan and turned, walking into the cave, grabbing his shoes, and taking them with him.
I'm dying. I'm actually dying of thirst in a cave filled with water.
The irony was a bitter pill he couldn't even swallow because his throat was too swollen.
After looking for a source and trying all those little experiments, the night was coming again.
He sat down against the wall, his back lying against it with a corpse in front of him.
"Come on... come on..." he wheezed, his fingers trembling as he began to dig into the gelatinous mass of the creature's "chest" area.
The Mud Crawler's biology was an affront to nature. It had flesh, yes, but under the exoskeleton it had a thin layer that was supposed to act as skin, and inside of it were the real problems. There were organs in it that he could not even recognize.
As he continued to tear through the body, a thick, brown slime oozed out, smelling of sulfur and stagnant ponds.
Then, he found it.
Tucked deep within the central mass was a pulsing, translucent sac.
'A filtration gland'
It looked like a bloated, leathery lung, veined with sickly brown capillaries. In the novel, the bodies of nightmare creatures were often toxic; this was a minor detail, a bit of flavor text about the ecology of the Dream Realm. And now it was going to be Holy Grail or his bane.
Kaelen ripped the organ out with his bare hands.
It was warm, and Kaelen felt it would have been warmer if it had not been from a day-old corpse. He could see liquid sloshing inside, filtered from the surrounding muck to keep the beast's internal "gears" lubricated.
He hesitated for a second.
'If I survive to the morning, then water won't be a problem anymore, and maybe even food...'
He bit into the leathery skin of the gourd. It didn't tear easily; it felt like chewing on a discarded radial tire. When it finally snapped, a jet of lukewarm, viscous liquid shot into his mouth.
It was the most disgusting thing he had ever tasted.
It was thick, like unflavored gelatin, and tasted of old copper, rotten eggs, and bitter alkaline salts.
It coated his tongue in a film of slime that made his stomach instantly heave. His body wanted to reject it, to vomit the foul slurry back onto the cave floor.
Drink it! His mind screamed, overriding his gag reflex. Drink it, or you will die!
He forced himself to swallow. One gulp. Two.
He squeezed the gland like a wet rag, draining every drop of the filtered "water" into his parched throat.
It was salty, making his thirst momentarily spike, but as the moisture hit his system, the dizzying fog in his brain began to lift.
He sat there for a long time, the empty, shriveled gland falling from his hand. He felt sick. His stomach was cramping, and the aftertaste was so potent he felt like he had licked a rusted battery. But the lethargy was gone. His heart beat with a new, frantic strength.
As the "night" truly fell, turning the wasteland outside into a void of darkness where the wind Kaelen continued to take out the sacks and place them aside.
He threw the corpses in the direction where the bones had been and then set the sacks a bit further from him since he did not want to risk popping them if he rolled in his sleep.
His stomach growled softly, and he realized what he was going to test tomorrow.
'Can I eat any part of that thing?'