Exclusive #1: Young Thrakkar

The rain dropped in spurts over the slums, constantly teasing an end to its incessant torment. Such was monsoon season in the town of Shallow Harbor. The main thoroughfares remained hives of activity, with shopkeepers hawking their products and net menders indifferently weaving their repairs, all beyond caring about the constant precipitation. Out on the water, dugout canoes and poorly constructed rafts carried fishermen too stubborn or desperate to respect the weather.

Thrakkar didn’t give much consideration to any of that as he prowled the alleys. The poor conditions suited his plans just fine. In years past he hated these days when his mother would evict him from their humble hovel so she could entertain rough men in exchange for harsh liquor. No more. The Crab Boys let him join their number after he beat a kid from the rival Shark Gang unconscious. For fear of reprisals, the common riffraff of Shallow Harbor wouldn’t trouble him so long as he wore his necklace of crab legs.

But he didn’t wear the necklace at the moment. As useful as the reputation of the Crab Boys might be for warding off danger, Thrakkar’s current need was anonymity. The many battles between the Crab Boys and the Shark Gang taught him something important about himself. He didn’t mind killing. Indeed, he quite enjoyed the thrill of it. The leaders of the Crab Boys had reigned Thrakkar in after his second incident, explaining the many reasons they couldn’t kill at will. The Shark Gang would retaliate in kind. The town authorities would crack down on gang activity. Folk in general would hassle the Crab Boys more.

Those were smart reasons that Thrakkar respected. If he didn’t intend to rise beyond this impoverished fishing town, Thrakkar would definitely act in the best interests of the boys. Instead… well, he was hunting in the rain.

His first opportunity came not long after daybreak. Though the sun could not be seen through the cloud cover, the dreary day provided enough light to navigate the mud streets. Thrakkar saw the elderly man snoozing in an alley beneath a lean-to fashioned from planks of scrap wood. Only a level four soul, but that was fine. Thrakkar was only at level four himself.

A quick walk around the block verified a lack of witnesses. Perfect.

Thrakkar slowly stalked closer, rusted filleting knife held ready in a reverse grip for a quick downward stab. Though he might not fear the struggles of an aged man, good sense dictated he complete his business quickly and quietly. Amarat law was unforgiving to those caught consuming the core or flesh of another human. Unless you were one of the few lords granted a government patent to make platinum elixirs, of course.

To his great annoyance, the elderly man startled and sat up to squint in Thrakkar’s direction with rheumy eyes. “Who be there?”

He shrugged in and lowered his level to present a more modest silhouette. Then he spoke, pitching his voice high to sound younger. “Uncle, are you able to share your shelter with one in need? It’s cold and wet out here for days.”

The old man made an abrupt shooing gesture with one wizened arm. “Get out a’ here! Get gone now! I has this spot and I ain’t sharing!”

“Please uncle,” he entreated as he came closer, filleting knife expertly hidden.

“If I has to say it again, I gone thump you, child. Get lost.”

Thrakkar continued forward, causing the homeless man to put one hand down on the ground to lever his aged body up. Two bounding leaps and Thrakkar punted his victim in the chin. The elderly man collapsed back, but his body enhancement kept him conscious. Thin legs began to kick at the air to keep attackers at bay.

Rather than walk into the attack, Thrakkar knocked over the lean-to with a bump of his hip, collapsing the boards on top of the old codger. Then Thrakkar jumped on top. His prey had only one hand free of the jumbled boards to defend his head, so it was easy for Thrakkar to seize that wrist and then stab down at the exposed face.

The filleting knife pierced the eye and buried itself deep. Thrakkar cranked it in a circle with his entire arm to shred as much brain as possible. He needed this over quick. After the death, he would still have to harvest a core and escape undetected.

His victim refused to comply. Rather than dying fast, the elderly man engaged his domain to fling Thrakkar away. A flare of his aura prevented the cable of force from gaining purchase on his body. Then the old codger threw the wooden boards Thrakkar crouched upon and Thrakkar was thrown out of the alley entirely.

Thrakkar rolled to his feet quick as a blink and dove back inside. The old man was just rising to his feet, so he tackled him at the knees. Then it was a scramble to mount the man and retrieve his weapon. The blade of the filleting knife snapped as he yanked it free, shortening its length by half. Unfortunate, that. He’d hoped to use it on more than one destitute this day.

With a smooth motion Thrakkar drew the broken weapon across the throat of his victim, opening both carotid arteries to gush bright red, as well as the wind pipe. That should quiet the man while he died. Wiry limbs tossed Thrakkar away and the old codger rose unsteadily to his feet.

The fight in this old man proved strong, given his advanced age and malnourished condition. A savage glee suffused Thrakkar as he rushed forward to slice along the inside wrist of one hand, severing the tendons there. Life was hard in the slums. Hard and hopeless and dreary as the weather. Only in these moments when he risked death for his own gain did he feel alive.

When the old man collapsed, he tried to crawl away. Thrakkar snorted a laugh at the sudden turn of heart. Denied final vengeance on his killer, this destitute fool instinctively sought to hide away in his final moments. Too late for that.

Thrakkar knew the moment of death by the familiar signs. He sensed the soul of the man shatter. The body aperture, welded to flesh as it was, was dragged into the physical world. Though its metaphysical connection spanned the entirety of the body, the aperture’s remains collapsed into a smaller footprint as it manifested to create a core.

In the damn chest, right next to the heart.

With a sigh, Thrakkar began to saw open the upper abdomen, creating a large opening. Then he plunged one of his hands into the viscera and worked his way up under the rib cage. Fumbling in the warm interior of another human, he constantly watched his surroundings, paranoid of discovery. The killing of a nobody could be ignored. Harvesting a human core… that was one of the major taboos of human society. If the town folk didn’t execute him, an agent of the local lord would be along shortly to address the crime.

His fingers wrapped around the small core and he pulled it free, arm squelching in the mess.

Time to run. Thrakkar sprinted away from the scene, zigzagging through alleys until he had some distance. Then he rinsed the core, no bigger than the tip of his little finger, in the runoff from a full rain barrel. After removing the worst of the viscera, Thrakkar popped it into his mouth and swallowed. That wasn’t the proper way to use a core, he knew. It was the method of ignorant animals to eat a core unprocessed. There was nothing for it, however. He could not be caught with such contraband even if he knew the method of making elixirs.

The cosmic energy bound up in the core escaped to join Thrakkar’s flesh. He rinsed his bare arm free of evidence as he consolidated his gains. Most of it went towards his body enhancement, pushing him further towards the peak of level four. A small amount entered his soul instead, getting him a little closer to level five.

He had a few years until he was considered an adult in truth. Thrakkar intended to be level five before that time. If there was one truth he had learned in the slums, it was that the weak stayed weak. The strong were guaranteed no success, but the weak were absolutely forbidden it. That was the way of the world. Once he had raged against the injustice. Now… well, now he thought it best to stop being weak using any means necessary.

Thrakkar cleaned up what remained of the rusted filleting knife as well. He couldn’t keep it for long in case someone found the blade’s tip within the skull of the elderly man. Until he had a replacement weapon, though, it would be foolish to go around unarmed.

No longer covered in blood, he moved back towards his home at the edge of town. His plans to hunt were temporarily delayed while he obtained a new knife. It was a shame. He couldn’t afford to hunt often, only when trade convoys came through town. That way blame for the deaths would naturally fall on the outsiders. In another day, his advancement would have to slow down to normal levels again.

The hovel assembled from a combination of natural stones, tree branches, wood scraps, and woven reeds did not fill him with any warmth when it came into sight. It existed on the very periphery of the town, in an area partly given over to nature and partly used as a garbage dump. It was the constant counterargument to every dream of his: he came from trash and thus would remain trash.

Thrakkar listened for a moment outside the single room building to ensure his mother wasn’t busy earning her liquor still. She was not. He entered to find her passed out half-clothed next to a clay jug emitting a foul odor of harsh distillates. It was a worse batch than the neighbors usually made, which surely was saying something.

He considered the jug for only an instant before stepping outside to dump its contents. His mother would do whatever it took to gain more of the stuff, he knew. The hope was that the next batch would be more alcohol and less poison. The alcohol was poison enough on its own. When he returned inside, he found his mother choking on her own spit and shifted her from her back onto her side.

Brevet brewed the hooch from any scraps of fruit or grain he could find to ferment, then used a clay still to capture the components he desired – and a lot else besides. The setup was cheap for the most part, but it did rely upon a piece of metal at the top to act as a condenser. Brevet used the base of a large bronze pot that he plopped on top of the clay chimney. Without that pot, he couldn’t distill.

Thrakkar thought it was time for the pot to go missing. The last time he did something, his sabotage kept Brevet out of the brewing business for two whole months. Hopefully this would result in a similar outcome. His mother would still drink, of course. But she would be limited to what their neighbors called ‘country wine’. It wasn’t distilled and thus not nearly so potent.

His feet took him past several other hovels, all belonging to people he had a complicated relationship to. They were once known to him as uncles and aunties. Over time his discernment of their predatory behaviors caused problems. As did his own delinquent tendencies, he had to admit. They no doubt looked forward to the day Thrakkar failed to return home. Gutter trash, all of them.

Thrakkar found Brevet leaning against a tree to piss, too unsteady on his feet to handle the operation unassisted. He threw the clay jug at the man hard enough for it to shatter. Brevet stumbled back, head turning slowly to triangulate where the projectile came from. “What you doing, boy? Wanna fight with ole Brevet? Nah, you don’t. Gone be sorry, I guarantee.”

His plan to steal the bronze pot could no longer work. Not with a witness. If the neighbors knew Thrakkar stopped their supply of hooch, he would be dead as surely as if he started a fight on the Shark Gang’s turf. “You trying to kill folk? This batch is garbage, uncle.”

Brevet had about ten years on Thrakkar. Technically he should be a young man. Drink and exposure to the elements made him look older. Brevet’s soul shone with the light of level five, but there was precious little body enhancement. The man didn’t cultivate, he got drunk every day. The runoff of cosmic energy from his self-destructive ways had pushed his advancement forward.

Ironically, the core of this lazy waste of space would be worth more than that of the level four elderly man Thrakkar killed earlier.

Brevet stumbled forward. “Yapping gutter muck. I’m hit you good. Make your mama pay double for next batch.”

Thrakkar never consciously decided to attack the man. He simply did it.

A stab to the gut with his broken blade caused Brevet to gasp and freeze. Then Thrakkar reared back and punched hard to knock the man out cold. That done, his brain caught up with his actions. A quick glance around proved that no one was watching. This neighborhood was more forest than homes to begin with and everyone was sleeping off the effects of the latest batch.

Thrakkar began dragging his latest victim away by his feet, letting the head smack against rocks as he labored. His path took him directly to the nearby harbor, after which the town took its name. Kneeling above the man in shallow water, Thrakkar cut his throat and let the bleeding do its work. When the core formed, it was in the back of the neck near the spine. It was a common core formation spot, so he had experience excavating from that region.

That done, he filled the corpse's pockets with rocks and dragged it further from shore to sink. The core he cleaned good in the saltwater before popping into his mouth. Heat from its cosmic energy spread out nicely, raising his body to the peak of level four. The overflow filled his soul halfway to his next advancement. A greedy smile quirked his lips upward. Whatever the consequences, that had been worth it.

He could never be content to remain gutter trash. Whatever it took, he would rise to become somebody important. One day people would know the name of Thrakkar Shaocheth.