Up on my tree flesh platform, I'm busying myself with what could generously be called "arts and crafts" if the materials weren't severed limbs and goblin entrails. The light from the two blazing suns filters through the canopy and casts overlapping shadows across my "workshop".
"And now, ladies and gentlemen—well, just gentlemen, I suppose, since all my current audience members appear to be male goblins—I present to you: 'The Adventures of Me!'" I announce to my captive audience of one: a decapitated goblin head impaled on a spike of bone, green fire smoldering in its empty eye sockets and its mouth glued shut.
The flesh puppets dance at my command.
I've fashioned them from scraps of goblin and troll flesh. One is larger, vaguely humanoid but with bulging muscles and a bone helmet that's obviously meant to represent me. The other is smaller with exaggerated pointed ears. I've even attached thin strands of muscle fiber to serve as control strings, even though I don't really need them.
"Scene one: Our hero encounters a pack of vicious wolves!" I narrate dramatically, manipulating the 'me' puppet with one hand while using the other to introduce several misshapen lumps that are meant to be wolves.
"But our hero is mighty and clever! With just a touch of his magic hand—" I make the 'me' puppet extend a thin tendril toward one of the wolf lumps, "—the wolf falls! And then another! And another!"
I smash the puppets together with excessive violence.
"Splat! Squelch! Aaargh!"
The goblin head watches silently, those eerie green flames flickering slightly as if in response to my performance.
"Scene two: A mighty troll appears!" I continue, introducing a new, larger lump of flesh with crude arms.
"Oh no! It's huge! What will our hero do? Oh wait, he just touches it and—BOOM! Down it goes! Because our hero is awesome!"
The two puppets fight against mock wolves and troll figures, moving in jerky spasms as I puppeteer their battle. The goblin's fingers splay wide as I manipulate fleshcrafted glands embedded in its palms, causing them to secrete crimson fluid that arcs through the air—that's mana.
A troll's chest collapses inward when I trigger the carefully constructed flesh-mechanisms within it. With subtle twitches of my will, I activate the pulsating flesh-sacs I'd grown into the "stage floor", creating undulating waves of tissue that rise up to engulf the wolves.
...All right, I might be having way too much fun with this, but communication has proven frustratingly difficult. It would be so much easier to simply speak mentally with my little friend, but for the life of me, I can't control my mana whatsoever, let alone do fucking telepathy with it.
Simply moving it feels like trying to thread a needle while wearing boxing gloves in an earthquake—technically possible, but practically impossible without serious training.
Speaking to the soul directly before putting it inside a body was a complete dud as well. It was like talking to a rock, both inside the soul well and outside of it. The souls just floated there, occasionally screaming, but giving no indication they understood or even perceived me.
So this was my last resort (for now). Puppet shows for the undead. At least the head seemed to be watching, those flame-filled sockets tracking my movements.
"And finally, scene three: Our hero encounters more goblins!" I introduce several small green lumps. "Some with blue marks, some with red marks. But they all fall the same!"
I make the 'me' puppet dance around, dispatching goblin after goblin, adding little little screams and death rattles for dramatic effect.
"And that's how I became king of the forest!" I conclude with a theatrical bow, dropping the puppets. "So what do you think?" I ask the goblin head, leaning in close to its snarling, face.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then I feel the tether of mana connecting us begin quivering stronger and stronger and—
"Vile Spirit! Your torture has no hold on me. My essence belongs to the Forest Gods! Lay thine foul tendrils off of me and eat rotten mushrooms until your guts burst with maggot spawn!"
The voice scratches against the inside of my skull like fingernails on chalkboard, grating and unpleasant but clear. Progress!
"Well, that's not very nice," I reply, keeping my tone conversational despite the headache beginning to form behind my eyes. "After all the effort I put into that performance? Critics these days, I swear."
The voice keeps screeching in my mind, but I ignore most of the creative profanity as I unscrew the goblin head from its spike and take it into my hand, turning it to face me. The flames in its eye sockets flare brighter, almost angrily.
"Your mother mated with cave slugs! Your offspring will be born without bones! The Forest Gods will reclaim your putrid essence and feed it to the worms!"
Forest Gods, huh? Now that sounds interesting...
More profanities pour into my consciousness, and I start feeling the tether of mana connecting me to the head beginning to vibrate more intensely.
It's going to explode again, I already know. The little fucker is somehow getting better at exploding, which is both impressive and annoying.
At first, I thought that not allowing him any limbs would stop his attempts, and it did...for about 10 minutes, then he exploded anyway. Then I sewed his mouth shut, and it worked for a bit, but now it seemed he had found yet another workaround.
The trembling of the tether intensifies, and I can feel how the little bastard pulls on my mana and condenses it within himself. It's like he's creating a knot in the flow, a blockage that builds pressure until—
"Oh no you don't," I mutter, and begin vigorously shaking the head like I'm mixing a fucking smoothie. The flames in its eye sockets flicker wildly, and the voice in my head becomes broken and distorted as his concentration wavers.
"C-C-Curse y-y-y-you! S-s-stop th-th-that!"
This process has become both tedious and fun. Tedious because I have to re-gather the fucker's soul every time he explodes, which means another trip to the soul well and another vessel prepared.
And I also feel like a hammer struck my head every time because I am apparently bleeding mana for a bit every time a tether connecting me to my undead is cut for some reason. The fun is because, well, it's not often you get to shake a talking head that's cursing you out in your own mind.
Unexpectedly, as the mana tether feels like it's about to snap, I hear a commotion from below.
I look downwards and see that a bear of all things has attacked my undead wolves.
It's massive, easily twice the size of a normal bear, with matted brown fur and muscles rippling under its hide.
[Bear - lvl 8]
Clawed limbs lash out with terrifying force, raking through my wolves. It doesn't even slow as it crushes one outright, its sheer bulk cratering the forest floor.
Blood and rotting flesh spray across the dirt.
Two seconds pass and two more are already torn apart, their limbs scattered across the forest floor. The sole remaining one is biting at the thing's heel futilely as the bear advances. The massive creature rises up on its hind legs, standing nearly three meters tall, and lets out a roar that shakes leaves from the trees, and I can't help but feel like this shit would have been quite scary...maybe 3 days ago or so.
As the profanities of the goblin reach their absolute peak and the head in my hands begins to glow with an ominous green light in my perception, I make a split-second decision.
"Let's make you useful for once, huh?" I say to the head, and then wind up my arm like a pitcher on the mound. With practiced precision (or lucky timing), I throw the head like a baseball toward the fight below.
The glowing head arcs through the air, trailing green fire like a comet. The bear looks up just in time. The last thing the creature probably sees is a snarling goblin head flying straight at its face.
Then boom.
A shockwave rips through the forest as the head detonates on impact, shattering everything in a five-meter radius. The wolves are caught in the blast, their undead bodies disintegrating instantly. The bear is obliterated, chunks of fur and flesh raining down like gory confetti. The ground is scorched in a circle, and a nearby tree trunk is splintered, the top half sliding off at an angle before crashing to the forest floor.
Damn, even stronger than last time. Good thing I threw the bastard away, that would have stung like a bitch.
Alas, I can't help but wonder... is this... how mana is meant to be used?
[You have killed a Bear - lvl 8]
[Lvl 9 > Lvl 10]
"Well, that's useful, I suppose..." I mutter as I invest 3 more points in Constitution without a second thought.
Now to gather the bastard's soul again.
I drop from my perch, landing in the remains of my former undead and the thoroughly annihilated bear.
But just as I move forward, something stops me. A new notification appears before my eyes.
[Side quest]
Reach level 10.
Rewards: Trait of your choice
I blink. Slowly.
Since when was there something like this? I hadn't seen it before. Was this always available and I just didn't notice it, or did it trigger based on my actions?
The notification expands before I can ponder further.
[Well done! The side quest has been successfully completed. Please select one of the traits. The traits are based on your actions and performance up until now within the Tutorial.
Be advised: humans are limited to three Traits. Choose with caution.]
I stare at the floating text, my mind racing. This seems important—potentially game-changing, but...
"Uhh, excuse me, but what the fuck is a trait?"
The forest remains silent except for the soft crackling of the slightly-burning ground where the goblin head exploded. No further explanations appear.
"... Fuck you Jim, this is your fault, somehow. I'm fucking sure of it..."