Assassin Crow Evolution

[Task 13 Complete!

You successfully merged with a Sentient Feather.]

[Reward: +1,000 system points]

[Total points: 14,455]

"Feels like I should get more points for this," He said, "I went through hell and back to merge with that feather."

The system did not answer.

As the situation had it, he didn’t care to wait for an answer, and focused on the fairly new task that he had crafted with Gundor.

Jimmy hit the open sky.

The morning sun beat down on him as if he owed it money. He felt hot, too hot.

For a moment he was concerned. He was already burdened by the fact that he was still seeing the world as a bunch of geometric shapes put together to represent trees, ducks, and otherwise, and so he dreaded the fact that he was overheating.

Moments later, his guts whistled, gurgled, and made a bunch of other sounds that he did not recognize. It was as if a world war had started down there.

A moment later, he dropped a large load. His anus clenched, releasing what felt like a pound of poop. He hoped his poop wouldn’t land on anything alive, because from the current height of three-hundred meters, it would become a projectile by the point it hit the ground.

The process was involuntary. He shat against his will.

It was so taxing to his body, that he felt like a malfunctioning industrial machine. His wings stopped working for a short moment, as his world went black. It took quite some effort to regain his senses, but this wasn’t enough to kill him.

About three blinks later, he noticed that the world around him had suddenly gone back to normal.

The meadows around him looked green, instead of red, purple and blue. He no longer saw a gross amount of geometric shapes.

"I shat myself back to my senses?" He took a deep breath, "Can’t say I expected that... hmm... good thing I didn’t drop the orb."

Moments later, his stomach started gurgling. Despite going for nearly a day without food, which was his best guess, he was only a little bit hungry.

"That’s not right," He said, "I should be starving by now."

For a moment, he second guessed if he actually spent a day meditating, but then he asked Virena about it, and she confirmed it.

"I thought you wouldn’t wake up this time," She said, "Your brother looked like he was worried sick. He visited you three times as you slept."

Jimmy thought that it was sweet how his friend, and his brother cared about him so much, but her explanation further added to the mystery.

He thought, ’Either my metabolism slowed down while I meditated, which would be weird, because I almost starved the first time I meditated, or the feather slowed down my metabolism? I don’t fucking know. System, can you help me out here? What do you think?’

[Your metabolism did change, except, you need more daily nutrients to keep up the regenerative abilities the Sentient Feather gave you.]

[As for why you aren’t yet starving, the venison you ate just took your digestive tract longer to process. It was a heavy meal.]

’Ah, that explains why I almost blacked out shitting.’ He thought.

Nevertheless, he kept an eye out for a potential meal, because he was too lazy to circle back to his favored tree, and have breakfast there.

Grasping that pale blue orb constantly reminded him of how interesting the short, weird adventure in front of him was.

"I can’t believe I’m holding someone’s soul," He said, "Just when I thought this world couldn’t get any weirder, boom, Soul Cores. It’s interesting, I have to admit."

"Who are you talking to?" Virena asked, as he heard him caw away.

"Myself," He chuckled, "But I met a new friend when I was asleep. We’re gonna have to fight some weird shit to get to my friend, so when we land, don’t hold back. Shoot everything in sight."

"Sure thing," She said, and then slapped a bug out of the air, "But we shouldn’t fight without having breakfast."

Virena tossed the lower body of the bug towards Jimmy, and he jerked his head to the left, catching it with his beak before he swallowed it whole.

"Very filling," He joked.

"I fed you enough these past few days," She bit back, "You’re awake now, catch a few bugs yourself."

"Someone has the morning grumpies," He said. "I hope we can find you a delicious rabbit to nibble on."

The meadows were massive.

This was Jimmy’s second time traveling further westwards, and he realized that the meadows that the crows took over, stretched beyond the acre or two of space they usually used.

It was hundreds of acres wide, so big that even humans would have trouble crossing it unless there was a paved road to assist them.

There had to be tens of great beasts here that the crows could not even fathom. The more Jimmy thought about that, the more he believed that his community was safer if they stuck closer to the city he left behind.

As for today’s travels, he was looking for an old, ruined city, ten kilometers away from his starting point, in the very heart of the lush green meadows. As per Gundor’s instructions, that was the place he was supposed to visit in order to fulfill his promise.

Jimmy remembered having a small glimpse of the ruined city the first time he flew above it, but he hadn’t cared to explore it earlier on. It hadn’t seemed interesting enough for him to interrupt his prior mission for it.

Now, it was all he could think about. His general hate for the city he had left behind made him hate the idea of exploring other cities, and ruined ones would interest him even less, but Gundor spoke Jimmy’s language. He convinced him with promised treasures.

After idly gliding across the sky for an hour, he made it to the ruined city.

To be safe, he landed tens of feet away from it. He expected a battle ahead, and he’d rather have the upper hand.

"Why didn’t we bring Vorin?" Virena asked, "He has to stick with us if he’s to learn."

"This is not the place for him. It takes a lot of energy to keep him alive, and other than getting traumatized, I don’t think he’d learn anything here." He answered, "Other than that, it’s best if he doesn’t know about this."

"It’s not like I can tell him," She said.

As they approached the ruins, Jimmy got confused as to why Gundor called this place a city. He only saw five old buildings.

"I guess the standard was lower back then?" He said, "Either that, or most of the buildings got wiped out. Doesn’t matter."

The five remaining buildings were made of stone. Moss covered them, thick and dark in color as if it was poisonous.

The buildings were caved in, cracked, roofless. He assumed that the slightest push would have them crumble.

"If the soft weather of the meadows wore it down, this damned city wasn’t meant to last." He said.

A moment later, Virena shot down an eagle. It was a Dry Eagle, one of those massive menaces who had fur instead of feathers.

Jimmy smiled. He remembered a bird like this causing havoc in the crow community, and yet Virena wiped the bastard out of the face of the planet in a blink.

Power truly trumped size.

"So we’re supposed to fight a bunch of big birds?" She asked, and then landed on top of the eagle. "They’re easy to kill."

"I’m glad you feel that way, but no, this attack was random." He answered.

As Virena chowed down on tiny meat pieces that she ripped out of the foot wide hole on the Dry Eagle’s chest, she heard, and saw Jimmy pointing somewhere beyond the ruins.

"We have to try our best to avoid those," He said.

"My goodness, those are some big snakes." She burped.

"They’re Wyrms, technically," He corrected, "They’re basically legless, flightless dragons, and they bite far harder than snakes."

"I can kill them," She said, "Assuming I have enough time to shoot at them one by one."

Jimmy swallowed a mouthful of charred meat, careless towards the indirect cannibalism he performed, and stalked the Wyrms. He couldn’t help but wonder if they were the ones who destroyed this city.

It made sense, because he either hadn’t explored the world enough to see another Wyrm, or every Wyrm in the country hung out here. The latter was less likely, but he still believed that these massive creatures destroyed the city.

They were thirty meters, or a hundred feet long. Certainly not as big as the centipede he saw a few days ago, but they were a threat nonetheless.

"Let’s keep moving," He said, "Dry Eagles don’t have Beast Cores anyway, so we shouldn’t waste any more time on it."

Jimmy walked past the five ruined buildings, and headed towards the Wyrms. He didn’t want to, but to his bad-luck, these beasts were close to the only bit of architecture that still mattered in this place.

"That has to be the Summoning Circle," He said.