NOVEL NEXT 1.58: Tooth
“[Okay. It should work this time. Fifth time’s the charm.]”
Henry slowly worked his improvised bone-crowbar behind one of the bottom teeth, then wrapped three arms around the other end. This time he made sure to make the bone as thick and dense as possible.
“[What if we can’t break it, though?]” Maurice asked from the other end of the crowbar. He was right next to the tooth, ready to send an empowered imploding bubble at the base of the tooth to help tear it off the ground. One large white-blue claw was resting against Henry's crowbar, ready to push.
“[If this doesn’t work… then I don’t know. We could try to dig into the rock of the other chambers. Actually, we should have done just that…. Probably would have been easier. But a tooth’s cooler. Anyway, we’ll see. Ready? 3… 2…1… GO.]”
With his remaining arms against the roof, Henry pushed the lever down while Maurice did the same from above. The pressure quickly began to build in the bones that made the crowbar, and the stone beneath it cracked–but the tooth didn’t nudge.
“[Bubbles!]”
Henry pulled as hard as he could while the mini-implosions kicked up enough dust to where he couldn’t see anything. But the lever was still in place, and hopefully the vibrations would make the tooth crack.
A few seconds later, he activated Krakenbane’s Wrath. The red corona spread against his limbs and down the arm-crowbar, but it didn’t feel as intense as it had when the Trickster had been around. Still, it gave him a boost. Slowly, the bone began to bend.
“Ah f–”
A loud crack echoed into the chamber and Henry braced for pain–but it didn’t come.
He approached, and both himself and Maurice waited for the dust to settle an. When it did, the tooth was out of the jaw.
“[Yes!]”
Henry held it up, closer to some of the moss, and began turning in his arm to examine it. It was conical, with a bit of a curve to it. Thicker base. Not serrated, but from the shape of it, it looked good for both piercing and crushing. A bit of broken jaw was still stuck to it.
“[What even is this?]”
“[A tooth.]”
Henry stared down at Maurice and resisted the urge to bop him with it. “[I meant what monster did this belong to. I wish I had X-ray vision, I could maybe see the skeleton. But considering the vague body shape and specifically the tail, I can’t think of much. Not normal fish, at least. Well… No, that can’t be it. Can it?]”
An image began to form in Henry’s mind. From visiting some museums. Prehistoric ones, specifically. He hated that possibility.
He tried identifying the tooth next.
[Tooth]
“Jee. Thanks. This Skill needs to be upgraded as soon as possible… I guess Maurice wasn’t being sassy.”
Henry gave the crab a begrudging look. Maurice was waiting for him to finish his studying the tooth as he rubbed his pincer and scuttled around him in a semi-circle.
“[What is it?]”
Henry looked closely at the tooth, then tried to see the arrangement of the others better. To visualize the shape of the jaw. “[Aw man… this sucks. It’s amazing. But it sucks so bad…]”
Maurice stared at him, waiting with bated breath, then threw his claws up when Henry kept studiously staring at the tooth. “[You’re not saying what it is?]”
Henry enjoyed the crab’s annoyance for an extra couple of seconds before summoning an image of what he thought could be the owner of this jaw.
A reptile-like being appeared. A rendition. A re-imagining of what certain giant reptiles had looked like, millions of years ago on Earth.
“[Something like this, maybe. Or a giant crocodile, but I’m not sure about that one. Could also be something else altogether. The tail’s what is throwing me off, along with the teeth. So I guess… we’ll figure it out when we encounter this type of monster, if ever. I hope we do. But also not really. I don’t know.]”
Maurice stared at the different images Henry was summoning. A few mosasaurs, ancient crocodilians. A giant monitor lizard.
Could be anything, really.
“[You think we could beat something like this?]”
Henry dismissed the illusion and picked the crab up. “[Not yet. It took us five tries to crack one of its teeth, Maurice. If this thing was alive and it wanted us dead, we’d be dead.]”
It was really worrying that they might be sharing an ocean with things of this caliber… but it’d been weeks and Henry hadn’t seen anything like it. For all he knew, they might be extinct.
Or this might not be their territory.
With that, Henry began heading back to the other chamber. He didn’t feel like fighting the jaw for another tooth, but he could examine the walls and the roof. Maybe he could dislodge a rib out of the wall, if he found them. Or a phalange.
Those would be a lot easier to swallow.
Henry was pulling the third vertebra out of the hole he’d blasted into the ceiling when Maurice called for him.
“[Henry, I found something weird!]”
He finished pulling the vertebra and sent it into his Maw. These were for collecting. They were, unfortunately, a bit too large to swallow. And in any case, it wouldn’t matter; he tried ingesting some tail-end pieces that’d been near the entrance, but Magic Mimic got nothing.
It might be worth a try if he somehow managed to break off a piece of the vertebra, but in the meantime, he’d collect a few. Maybe carve a shell out of one of them for Maurice once he was capable of cutting into the incredibly tough bones. The crab’s Skill might have a better chance at recovering abilities from long-dead beings.
The kraken lowered his chisel-shaped arms and swam closer. In front of Maurice was a claw-sized object. Henry lowered his rock-lantern, and light reflected off the surface of a brown, polished ball.
Henry leaned closer, eyes full of disbelief.
“[Wait… is this metal? Let me see… Damn it.]”
[?]
Henry frowned. “Again? Is the Skill broken?” Henry looked to Maurice, and triggered the Skill.
[Shelled Nomad (D) - Lvl 32]
“Nope. It works. I guess it can’t handle magic turtles or shiny metal balls.”
Again, Identify didn’t fail to disappoint. Henry picked up the ball with the extremities of an arm. He wasn’t sure whether it was the general capability of krakens or if it was his +30 in Perception, but he was almost sure it was metal. He tried pressing it, rolling it against his skin, and even tasted it through his suckers. The tang was familiar.
“[This is metal. I’m 99% sure of it. Is this the egg of something? Is there something out there that lays metallic eggs?]”
Henry looked up and around. What’s with this cave?
Maurice looked up. “[Eggs are tasty. This doesn’t look like one. And what’s metal?]”
Henry rolled the metallic ball in his arm as he considered Maurice’s question. “[If this isn’t an egg, and if this is really metal, it means this had to be worked with tools. Metal doesn’t appear like this naturally. Someone–or something–made this. And it’s not easy. Which means this thing has absolutely no business being here, in this cave, in the middle of the ocean.]”
“[Ooh. Do you think it’s connected to the turtles?]”
Henry shared a look with the crab. “[Maybe. Maybe not. Right now, it looks like there’s too many weird coincidences happening in a relatively small area. There’s a decent chance a lot of this is connected, but it might also still be random… We’ve got no ways to tell. At least, not until Identify starts giving answers we can use.]”
Though there was a Skill that might help them here. If it actually worked, for once.
“[Maurice, let’s try Find the Path on this. Try to find where it came from. Where it was made.]”
Henry’s hopes were below the ground they were resting on. Over the last few days, ever since they’d gotten the Skill out of the turtle shell, they hadn’t managed to get it to work for anything actually useful. A few small and obvious tests had worked, such as ‘which direction is the sky’ or ‘where is Maurice’. That last one had been when Maurice hid behind a boulder literally twenty feet away.
But everything else they’d tried, especially if it had even a hint of complexity, would make the golden light fizzle. The Skill would fail, and the golden trail that should take them toward the goal would never form.
So, when the light appeared in his sight and traced a path toward the exit, Henry was gobsmacked.
“[Aw… It didn’t work. Maybe when the Skill… Henry? Wait. Did it work? Henry? Tell me!]”
Henry blinked. Nope. The trail was still there.
None of this was making any sense.