Sixth Chapter of the Royal climber (Patreon)

Chapter 6

The Lashinear

Kat felt the icy cold feeling of getting a new power for her attributes and asked the Tower to assign it to her Vitality. She felt her Vitality stomach grow when out of nowhere she was blasted by the coldest wind she had ever felt. Opening her eyes she found herself standing in a white tundra. She hunched over as the cold stole her breath before her healing ability kicked in. Still freezing, she was at least able to breath, now.

Still curled over, she looked around. The only thing she saw in the never ending whiteness was some smoke rising in the night sky lit up by a really big moon. Smoke meant, or rather she hoped it meant, civilization. Seeing what could be her only means of survival, she started to run towards it with her arms hugging her body for warmth.

Her teeth started to chatter involuntarily as she ran. If she wasn’t so cold she would have thought it was funny. Now, she just wanted to be warm again. Shivering, she tried to run faster, but her feet kept sinking into the snow. It was only a few inches, but it slowed her down to the point where she wasn’t really running. Instead she was walking really fast.

She would blame the cold weather for what happened next. She ran past a small mound that was covered in unmarked snow unable to smell anything because her nose was too cold when the mound exploded. Kat spun around as the snow hit her back. She then blinked in surprise as a huge white bear, that she had mistakenly thought was a mound of snow, stood up on two feet and let out a very bone chilling roar. The bear was twice her height and very wide. It’s arms, which ended in four thick black claws, were as long as she was tall.

Kat dropped her staff, and acting on instinct overcharged two musket balls of vitality in both of her hands. It swiped at her, and Kat dove backwards into the snow. As she was in the air she threw both balls which struck the bear. The first one hit, but the second one missed. As soon as she felt her vitality connect with the bear’s she yanked her hands back pulling it’s vitality into her. A river of vitality came rushing through the ribbon that connected her to it. The vitality that was coming from the bear was much larger than what she had gotten from the Direwolf.

The bear, now on all fours, swung its arm at her. Kat leaned back trying to avoid the claw, misjudged the distance and got hit in her chest by the things huge paw. She had been hit many times by her father during their training bouts, but this was nothing like that. It was like getting hit by a runaway horse. There was no pain at her, she felt like she was floating as she sailed backwards. It was only when she landed on the snow and kept on going did she find she couldn’t breath, then pain exploded as she tried to force her ribs to expand so she could take a breath.

Thankfully her healing ability kicked in, and she felt her broken bones knit back together again. Unfortunately, she lost her connection to the bear and she could feel her vitality drain away, like a beaver dam had broken and the pond behind it was rapidly draining away. Even though it had taken seconds to heal her rib cage, almost half of her vitality was gone. She rolled over and got to her knees to stand up when she looked up.

The Bear was barrelling down towards her, running on all fours. She rolled to her side as the bear took a small lead and came down on all fours once more, but this time right where she had been only seconds ago. She rolled to her feet and sent overpower musket balls of vitality into its side even as she backed up away from it. The monster spun around and tried to bite her, but it fell about six inches short. It lunged at her, but she jumped back at the same time. Once more its snout landed only inches away.

It roared at her even as she sucked at its vitality. She was sucking so much vitality that any other beast would have been dead by now. Not the bear, it was still going strong. It climbed to its feet and stood over her, dwarfing her by nearly three times her height.Then it swung its right paw at her.  This time she was ready and she stepped back. The right paw missed her, but she never saw the thing’s left paw. It hit her and the world went dark.

She woke face down in the snow. Nothing made sense as she struggled to figure out why she was laying down in the snow. She heard a high pitch whine in her ears, as she struggled to push her face away from the biting cold of the snow. In the background she heard a roar, but it sounded muted. It didn’t seem to be important though. What was important, at least to her, was getting out of the biting cold.

She  saw up and looked around trying to figure out why she was out of her cottage in the middle of winter. Was she in the middle of one of her fathers training sessions? That didn’t make sense though. Her father was dead, wasn’t he?

Things got fuzzy for a couple of seconds, and she looked down confused as she found herself on her hands and knees with her face only inches away from the snow. She heard a high pitch whine and some roaring behind her, but nothing made sense. Why was she out of her cottage in the middle of the winter? Was this one of her fathers training sessions? But that couldn’t be true, he was dead. Wasn’t he?

Her stomach also felt oddly empty. Like it used to be full of water, but now it felt almost empty. Which was weird as she thought about it. Her stomach never felt that was, and it felt deeper inside her, impossibly deeper. It was like there were layers of herself and her flesh was just one layer of what she considered herself.

A wave of dizziness passed her, but unlike last time she didn’t lose her memory. In fact she felt like she had a cloud surrounding her head making it hard to think, but now it was clearing up. She leaned back until she was sitting on her legs. She did it mostly to get her hands out of the biting cold of the snow. She turned her head and saw the oddest sight. A giant bear standing on two legs fighting a group of what looked like a group of walruses who were standing on two feet holding very long spears.

Like coming in from the dark, her memory returned. She still didn’t know who the walruses were, but she remembered the bear. As she stood up, she took stock. Her body felt fine. The vitality in her felt very low. She hadn’t felt it be this low since her fight with the direwolf. Without looking she pulled one of her sticks from her fake belt and stuck it in her mouth and started sucking on the sweet tasting vitality inside it.

The fight between the walruses and the bear was not that far away, but too far for her to throw a musket ball of vitality at it, so she ran to get closer. Her feet sunk into the snow which slowed her down again, but that was okay as the walrus seemed fine. They kept the bear at a distance with their spears. No, they were spears, she realized as she ran towards them. They were harpoons.

As soon as she was close enough she sent two overcharged musket balls of vitality at the bear, but landed. As soon as she felt the connection she yanked her hands back and started sucking as much vitality as she could. One of the walruses turned to it’s head towards her, but it didn’t stop fighting the bear. She had just enough time to realize that the walrus was wearing a coat before the bear turned its attention towards her.

The bear had taken a few wounds while she had been away. There were patches of red all over it’s coat where the harpoon had struck it. She even spotted the two red spots where she had hit it with her musket balls of vitality at the start of the fight. If it felt those wounds it certainly wasn’t showing it. It roared and swung its massive paws at the walruses. Then her musket balls of vitality hit.

It dropped to its feet and charged her. Kat kept pulling on the ribbon of vitality as she prepared for the bear’s charge. She faked diving right then dove left. The bear swerved to the right, fooled by deception. She could see it try to stop, but the snow was too slippery and it slid a few feet past her. It speared it’s paws out to try to slow it down, but it still took a few feet for the slide to stop. In the meantime Kat kept on draining it’s vitality.

It’s vitality dropped to a smaller stream and Kat yanked on it with both hands to pull it faster as the bear reoriented itself and came at her again. From her right, a harpoon came flying out of the dark and hit the bear in its side. The bear paused and roared in obvious pain. Kat felt the things vitality flow slower, and desperately she yanked on it as hard as she could.

The bear stumbled as the vitality started to flow faster again. It didn’t last long and it slowed to a trickle once more. She yanked on it, getting it to flow faster, and the bear stumbled once more. It fell to the ground as she pulled more of the vitality from it. It got to its feet and Kat pulled hard once more on the ribbon. Then all of a sudden the flow cut off and the bear dropped to the ground, dead.

A burning sensation, which started in her chest and spread out through her body. Her muscles started spasming for a few seconds then it was over.  The sensation was replaced with an overpowering feeling of strength. It was similar to the feeling she got when her skill stole from the mountain lions, but less gratefulness and more simple blunt strength. She nearly laughed at the feeling. Then she heard something behind her.

Kat spun around as she remembered the walruses. She saw them only ten or so feet away. They were clumped up in a group. All but one of them had harpoors in their hands. The only reason why she didn’t attack immediately was that none of them had their harpoons pointed aggressively at her. The one without a harpoon, which she guessed was still stuck in the dead bear, raised its hands.

“Peace, climber. We mean you no harm.” The lead walrus said in perfect english. “We wish to barter for your kill.”

Kat turned her head to look at the dead bear with a harpoon sticking out of it then turned back to the group of walruses. “You helped.” She told him. “It’s not all my kill.”

“We just distracted it long enough for you to kill it.” The walrus told her. “It would take an army of my people to kill an elder polar bear like this one. We didn’t know such a beast was this close to our village until we heard you fighting it. Once it woke up, it would have slaughtered my people, and there would be nothing we could do except delay it so hopefully some would get away. The Tower can be a right bastard sometimes.”

Kat chuckled at the Tower residents' comments. Her father had talked about the people who lived within the Tower. Remnants of past peoples who had climbed the Tower long before Humanity was given its turn. For the most part, they were friendly. But her father had warned her that some, especially in the higher floors, could be hostile. He also told her that the Tower would allow climbers to attack them, but it was almost always best to stay friendly with them. If they were friendly they could almost always be counted to help the climber clear the floor.

Kat, shivering in the cold, lowered her hands and relaxed. “What do you want for the bear, then?”

“Free lodging for a season. We will feed and house you until you’re ready to move on. The bear pelt is yours, but we can, if you allow it, fashion it into some clothes that are more appropriate to this weather.” It told her.

“Deal.” Kat muttered trying to prevent her teeth from chattering. She was really feeling the cold now that the fight was over.

“They will butcher the beast.” The lead walrus told her. “Come, I’ll take you to someplace warm.”

Kat early nodded and followed the walrus. His walk was odd. It was sort of a bounce and slide. It was like it was throwing his head forward and his body followed. While it looked like a very odd way to get around, it could move pretty fast. Kat didn’t care all that much because he was leaving a trail of packed snow for her to walk on.

Their village fascinated Kat. The houses were small mounds of snow and ice with chimneys that allowed smoke to flow out. The entrance of the houses were small tunnels that had leather over them to, she imagined, protect the inhabitants from the cold. The village also had slick roads that the walrus who led her slid on to make itself go faster.  Kat’s Tower granted grace, gave her the ability to walk on without slipping.

The walrus  led her to a larger looking house. It didn’t even pause as it turned and slid into the tunnel past the leather that was blocking the opening. Kat sighed and got down on her hands and feet and followed. Inside the snow covered dome was a very warm round tent. It was made out of some kind of leather that Kat didn’t recognize. There was a small room that was closed off with leather creating rooms. There was a small flat bone in the middle of the tent that had some kind of oil on it that was burning giving the tent warmth.

There was an obvious female walrus sitting amongst fur lined leathers, sewing two pieces of leather together. She wasn’t looking at her hand as she sowed. She was watching her as she came crawling into the large tent. The male walrus, as the one who led her to this village must be, lay slightly ahead of the other walrus looking at her as she came in.

“You are welcome to our home.” The female walrus said, nodding her head. “If I may ask, and not be rude, but how far are you from your species' collective floor?”

“This is the fourth floor for me, so another six.” Kat said as she got comfortable and sat down.

“So ten, like the tentacles on your paws.” The woman said, nodding.

“Yes, and we call them fingers.” Kat said with a slight smile. She had never considered her fingers to be tentacles before. It made sense, kind of.

“We too place a significant social emphasis on our from appendages.” The female walrus told her.

“We count our appendages on our fins.” The male walrus told her, holding up his fin. His front arm fin was split down the middle on the front part leaving him with two finger-like fins. He wiggled them at her. “Our species’ floors were on the fourth floors.

“So you had four sets.” Kat said, nodding. At their confused looks she explained. “Every fourth floor you had access to your species’ floor.”

“Yes, that is correct.” The female walrus said, nodding her upper half. “We are the children of those climbers. You are a female of your species, correct? Take an old woman’s advice, do not birth your children in the tower. We are forever trapped in it and it will not allow us to climb any floors.”

“I won’t.” Kat said seriously. “It’s against my species’ laws to do so.”

“That is good to hear.” The female walrus told her. “You may call me Ann. I am the matriarch of this village. You may stay here until you are ready to continue on. Once you are ready, I will have my hunters show you to the exit. It is some ways away, but is unguarded.”

“Thank you. I’m Kat.” Kat said, bobbing her head.

“Welcome, Kat. You must be tired.” The matriarch said to her. “You may rest your body in that room. I will have someone come with food in a few hours once our cooks are finished with their meal prep. I thank you for your generosity with the bear. It will feed us through these summer months. It will allow our young time to get fat for the winter.”

“This is summer.” Kat asked, surprised.

“On yes. It gets much colder than this.” The matriarch told her.

The room they gave her was a five by five room that was separated from the rest of the tent by hanging leather walls. She was able to lay comfortably flat on the pile of fur covered leathers that filled up the entire room. In the past she hated how short she was compared to other kids, but sometimes, like now, she was grateful to be so short.

She curled up into a ball pulling a soft fur blanket over her. She quickly fell asleep. She was woken up several hours later by the Matriarch calling her name. She pushed a plate of fried meat into Kat’s room past the leather door. Thanking the Matriarch, Kat grabbed the bowl that was made out of bone and sat down to eat. They didn’t give her any eating utensils, but Kat was too hungry to care. Her dinner was a huge slab of fried meat.

She picked the meat up with her fingers and took a large bite.It was warm to the touch, but not hot. The meat was amazing. She found herself licking the bowl of all the juices when the meat was gone. Before she knew it she had devoured the meal. With a full stomach, Kat lay back down and quickly fell asleep.

She woke in the morning to the need to relieve herself. It was the first time she felt the need since the first floor. She quickly crawled out of her room, and found the Matriarch still sitting in the outer room sewing another piece of leather. The matriarch looked up and seemed to smile at her. It was hard to tell as the walruses didn’t have the most expressional faces.

“I need to...uh relieved myself.” Kat told the female walrus, feeling very awkward.

“We go outside.” She was told.

Kat nodded and crawled out of the tent and went around the back of the snow covered tent. It was daytime, but it was lightly snowing. There were no walruses outside their tents that she could see, but then again she wouldn’t have expected them out in this weather. She quickly did her business and went back inside, but not before washing her hands in the icy cold snow. With no other option, she wiped her wet hands on the sides of her pants before returning to the tent.

In the time she had been out someone had brought breakfast inside the tent. There were two bowls of steaming soup sitting in front of the Matriarch. From where she was standing, she saw that the soup was filled with some kind of white meat, but no visible vegetables. Which was odd to her, but after thinking it over, it made sense. If this was their summer time then she highly doubted that they had the ability to farm these lands.

She took a small sniff of the air as she stood up and smelled cooked fish. She hardly ever had fish back home even though her village was situated right next to the Merrimack river. The river was mainly used to funnel wood products from Lowell’s massive mill to Newberry which was on the coast. From there it would be sent to the capital where it would be loaded onto the airships to be sent up and down the coast of the New World.

Taking a bowl from the Matriarch, Kit tilted the bowl and took a sip. It tasted amazing. The fish chunks were fluffy and light on her tongue, and the broth wasn’t too fishy tasting. There was also something green in the soup, and while it wasn’t her favorite thing, it wasn’t bad. Whatever it was they had minced it up and it floated just underneath the surface. It had a salty taste to it, so Kat imagined it was seaweed or something close to it.

She was halfway through eating the soup when she realized that the drain in her vitality had stopped. She had been so used to the constant trickle that she hadn’t noticed when it stopped. Until now that is. She guessed the trickle had been because she hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the first floor and even then it had been a while even on that floor. A good night's rest and some food, and her vitality seemed to stop it’s steady leakage. In fact, she was nearly full after the battle with the bear.

“Excuse me if this is considered rude, but are you young for your species?” The Matriarch asked as Kat put her bowl down in front of her. She had eaten the whole thing in a matter of minutes. It was, in her opinion, one of the best soups she had ever eaten.

“No it’s not rude.” Kat replied, puffing up some fur covered leathers behind her before leaning back feeling satisfied. “I am an adult. I guess you could consider me a young one though.”

“You are very powerful for one so young.” The Matriarch replied. “How many times have you entered your species’ floor?”

“This is my first ten set.” Kat replied, shrugging. “So, to answer your questions, none. Or at least not yet.”

“To fight an elder polar bear and while at so low of… what do you call it. Ten set?” The Matriarch asked.

“Yes.” Kat replied. “Do you know if it’s normal to face such monsters this low in the Tower? This is the second monster that I have faced that is much stronger than I expected.”

“The Tower tests you on your first march to your species’ floor.” The Matriarch told her. “You must have found a very powerful skill to be tested in this way.”

Kat nodded, not wanting to talk about her skills. You didn’t tell anyone about your skill or you’ll give them an advantage over you. After all, there were no laws inside the Tower outside of Massachuttes city. As a climber and a female climber at that, it was alway wise to keep what she had to herself. At least that was what everyone of her fathers friends had told her. She could see the reason and had to agree. She may be strong, but there were always skills out there that could counter whatever she had. The last thing she wanted to be was at the mercy of anyone. Thankfully, she didn’t have to lie about it as the Matriarch didn’t ask about them.

“You have family?” She was asked.

“My father died climbing the Tower.” Kat said feeling the pain of his passing once more. She hadn’t felt it that much while on the other floors. Mostly, she had been too busy trying to survive to think of him.

“Your Mother. Does she still live?” The Matriarch asked.

“No.” Kat lied, and left it at that.

The Matriarch must have gotten the hint as she changed the subject. They talked about her people, both the ones stuck inside the Tower and the ones who were outside. “We still see a few coming through the floors, but they mostly stay with the camps down south. It’s not much warmer than here, but the weather is nicer.”

“I didn’t think…” Kat said surprised. “I thought only our people were climbing these Towers.”

“Oh no, many species climb the Towers.” The Matriarch told her. “It’s just, the Tower only allows one climber or a group of climbers on a single floor world at a time. At least these Towers. Once you get to the harder Towers, you’ll interact with them with many species and their groups.”

Kat hadn't known that, and her father only spoke of the denzing of the tower as those races who had gone before. She was not surprised, now that she thought about it, that he hadn't known about them. After all there was only one, as far as she knew, person who defeated this Tower, and that was the King’s mother, the former queen. There might be more people who defeated this Tower out there, but she hadn’t heard of any. She imagined that any those who had would have shouted it from the rooftops of the capital.

They talked a bit about the difference between their two species’. The walruses, or Lashinear as the Matriarch named her people, were tribal wanderers. They had different places they called their home during the year. This was their summer camp where they fished what they called the summer fish. During the fall, they would travel to the coast and hunt large whale like creatures for their oil and meat. Just before winter set in, they would travel to their winter grounds and icefish until early spring where they would wander around hunting land animals until summer time.

Their talk was interrupted several times as several tribes people came and went throughout the day. There always seemed to be some question that needed to be answered or some complaint that needed someone to meditate. It was the same thing her father used to do when he was home except there was more here than what her father had to deal with. What Kat found funny was no matter what she was doing or who she was talking to, the Matriarch was always sewing something.

Kat had planned on leaving that day, but stuck around for more food as well as to spend some time around the Matriarch. She was fascinated by the female walrus. The woman, while awkwards sometimes, was a good converstalist. She had many funny stories about her people, more specifically about her tribe's follies. People, not matter what their species was, apparently did a lot of stupid things.

Before she realized it, a tribe’s woman came in with dinner. It was another dish of fried bear meat she had eaten the night before. It tasted just as good as the night before. She sat with the Matriarch and ate her dinner, but begged off soon afterwards to get some sleep. As she laid down with fur covered blantes, Kat realized aside from her skills this had been the best day in the Tower so far. Fighting was fun, but sometimes just relaxing with some good company was better.

She was woken up sometime during the night by shouts and angry cries. Jumping up, she grabbed her staff and ran out of her room. Just past her leather handing door she found the room full of female Lashinear and their young. The Matriarch was at the center directing everyone. Kat looked over at the tunnel that led out and saw more and more Lashinear women and their young sliding into the tent. She could hear the sounds of battle just outside the tent.

“Let me out!” Kat shouted as she stood by the tunnel. One last child slid through, before Kat jumped and slid on her belly down the tunnel. She found a small crowd of Lashinear outside standing in the white and greys of her stolen night vision. They were all standing by the tent trying to get in. As soon as she was clear, they started to jump down the tunnel again.

Past that she saw what looked like a mostly humanoid shape that had gills fightin the men of the tribe. They had white bellies while dark blue almost black backs. They had claws on their webbed hands and feet, but were fighting with three pronged tridents. The Lashinear were fighting their foes toe to toe with their harpoons.

Kat didn’t hesitate. She planted her staff in the nearby snow bank and started throwing her musket balls of vitality at the white belly humanoids. They didn’t have a lot of vitality and most went down after a couple of seconds. There were so many of the humanoids that Kat didn’t have the time to do anything but throw out musket balls of vitality one after another. Her contribution seemed to help though as she killed the humanoids  it freed up the Lashinear to gang up on the others. Soon the fight was winding down.

A burning sensation hit her throat. At first she thought she had breathed in some kind of poison, but the burning sensation was too similar to the power up feeling she got whenever her skill stole from an enemy she had killed. It went away pretty fast. Feeling better she started to walk towards a group of Lashinears who were fighting what looked like the last batch of white belly humanoids.

Kat stepped on something that was not snow or ice. Looking down she saw a baby Lashinear at her feet. It was a tiny thing that was covered in black and white skin unlike the older tan colored adults. It had huge wide black eyes that begged her to help. There was three holes in its belly from what must have come from a trident. It was, Kat realized after a few seconds of staring at it, whimpering in pain.

She bent down and remembering the mice in the first floor sent a very tiny sharp of vitality into the child. She made sure to make it as small as she could, afraid of what might happen if she sent too much in at a time. To her relief the baby Lashinear didn’t explode. As soon as the pin drop shape entered its skin Kat sent a small droplet of vitality down the ribbon and into the child's body. To her happiness the child’s body accepted it and started to heal. She sent a slightly larger droplet creating sead and left it inside the baby's body to be used to heal itself.

She glanced down as saw the large ugly gash close in on itself and the baby started to wiggle around. Looking around, she saw the fight slowly dying down with the Lashinear the clear winners. Seeing that it was clear, and not wanting to leave the baby alone where people were still fighting. Grabbing the baby up in her arms, she raced to the tent and slid the baby down the tunnel. Once he was gone she turned around to see where else she could help.

The Lashinear were still fighting, but they now had overwhelming numbers instead of the humanoids. There were, she saw, many of the tribesmen and a few tribeswomen laying on the ground clearly hurt. She ran to the first down lashinear and touched it’s skin only to find it was already dead. Ignoring the dead male, she went to the next downed body. This one was still alive so she repeated what she did with the baby. The tribesmen required more vitality, but Kat was nearly full from the battle as well as recently eating good food so she had plenty to spare.

Leaving him a drop of vitality, which she hoped was enough for his body to heal him, she moved on. She was on her fifth or maybe sixth downed Lashinear when she heard the tribespeople start calling out warnings. Looking up she saw a bunch of tridents being stuck up from the ice in the middle of the road near the Matriarch’s tent. She quickly dropped a seed of vitality then ran to where the ice was breaking up.

She got there just in time for the first shark to burst through the ice. She had seen pictures of a shark when she was growing up, later when she was around twelve or so she saw a fisherman pull one out of the ocean. This was shorter than the fishermans shark but much fatter. It also had four legs that ended with webbed claws. What was worse was on it, riding it like a horse, was one of those white belly humanoids carrying a trident.

Kat didn’t hesitate and started throwing musket balls of vitality. Without planning it, the first one sailed right into the open mouth of the shark. Even as the second one hit its rider she felt it connect to the shark. She yanked both her hands back and a flood of vitality came to her. The white bellied humanoid died first while the shark lasted about a second or two longer.

Kat didn’t have time to look at her handiwork. More of the humanoids broke through the ice with their shark mounts. Kat lost herself in tossing musket balls of vitality and yanking back their vitality to herself. She had to dump all the extra vitality through her feet and into the ice, but she didn’t come across any problems doing so.

At one point, a tribesmen had found its way in front of her with a large thick bone which it was using as a shield to protect her from thrown tridents. Kat didn’t have time to spare to thank him, as she kept tossing her balls as the sharks and white belly humanoids kept jumping up from the now wide hole in the middle of the village road.

The sharks, she found, went berserk when their rides died. She was too far away for them to attack her before they died to her skill, but they were close enough to surrounding tents that they were crashing into them. It took a few sharks to damage the snow covered tent, but that was more than enough to take a few down.

The rest of the Lashinear stood near the Matriarch tent and held the rampaging sharks off with their harpoons. They stood side by side forming a forest of sharp pointy harpoons for the sharks to stab themselves with. They even had runners coming in with more harpoons for the front line to replace their broken or occupied harpoons. The runners Kat noticed out of the corner of her eye looked like juvenile members of  the tribe. Both male and female members to be exact.

One second Kat was tossing out musket balls of vitality, and the next there were no more white belly humanoids or sharks to kill. She let her arms drop to hersides as the tribespeople relaxed. The enemy never stopped or retreated, Kat realized. They just kept coming until she killed the last of them. She knew they had to be somewhat intelligent because they had domesticated those sharks enough that they could ride them. What she didn’t understand was why when it was obvious that they were losing didn’t they retreat?

Kat mentally made a note to ask the Matriarch when she had the time. Now was not the time for deep thought. There were many wounded, and she was overflowing with vitality. There were many more injured Lashinear waiting for her to heal.

She did stumble over the male tribesmen she had left to fight the white belly humanoids with the sharks. Her seed was gone, but it hadn’t been enough for it to heal him. She also noted that without her seed, his body wasn’t healing like al climber’s did.  It was like he didn’t have the fuel to use his healing ability. Or maybe, she thought as she felt her seed slowly break up inside him, that maybe he didn’t have a healing ability. Maybe that it was her seed of vitality that was what was healing him. The next person she healed she looked closer and saw that she wasn’t healing as a person who had a healing ability would have. It was only after Kat sent a seed inside her that the tribeswoman started to heal.

Once Kat was done healing the last Lashinear she looked up and saw that the rest of the tribe were cleaning up. They were dragging the dead white belly humanoids into a pile near one of the undamaged tents. Then as she watched, the Lashinear started to butcher the dead bodies and to her horror cut them up like one would butcher a cow.

Her father had talked about this. He explained that food was precious, and that you ate what you had too. If a monster attacked you and even if it could speak like an intelligent person, food was food. You did what you needed to survive. The only thing that was off limits according to her father was pale meat as her father called cannibalism. In other words, you didn’t eat your own unless it was the last resort. While he never ate pale meat, he and her uncle had plenty of stories of people eating their dead just to survive. Feeling sick, Kat decided not to partake in any more meals with the Lashinear.

Looking away at the butchering of the dead bodies, Kat found the rest of the tribe out and about fixing their tent village. Even the Matriarch was out helping out. Kat signed and started walking to get her staff which was still sticking out of the snow bank she had put it in. She was starting to wonder why she kept it around. Sure it was a good source of food if or rather when her fake belt ran out of sticks, but there were still a lot of them left. Still, for whatever reason she couldn’t give it up.

“Kat!” The Matriarch called out.

Kat turned to see the older Lashinear slide down icy street. She arrested her movement with her front fins and stopped a few feet shy of where Kat was standing. Kat was impressed. First at how well the Matriarch moved, and how nimble she was despite her age and weight as she was the fattest Lashinear in the tribe.

“Please stay the night.” The Matriarch pleaded. “They won’t be back, but it will calm my people down to have such a powerful climber such as yourself around. I promise to have your clothing done in the morning.”

Kat nodded. She didn’t have any plans to leave during the night anyway. While she remembered the clothing no one had talked about it during the day. She just assumed that she wasn’t going to get it or that it would take too long to create. She was fine with it. She was very aware that without the Lashinear she would have died after getting knocked out.

The Matriarch’s tent was full of children of the tribe. They watched silently as she entered from the tunnel, and then went into the room the Matriarch had assigned her. She was tired, but didn’t want to use vitality to keep herself awake. Healing the tribespeople had cost a lot of vitality and she was down close to half her maxim.

She woke in the morning and had breakfast with the still sewing Matriarch. Despite her promise not to eat with the Lashinear, she did. Mostly because she recognized the fried bear meat. It was just as good as the first time she ate it. Once she was done, the Matriarch informed her that her clothing would be done in a few hours. She left the tribe leader to her work, and went back to her room to try and get some more sleep. She woke up a few hours later to find the Matriarch waiting on her.

Before the tribal leader sat Kat’s new clothes. There was a long coat that was sitting beside a pair of pants that was the same color as the coat. There were also boots that followed the same color scheme but had tufts of white fur sticking out of the top. There was even a very thin but long belt. There was no shirt however, but then again the Lashinear didn’t wear shirts. Well, they didn’t wear pants or boots either so that argument wasn’t valid in Kat’s mind. Still, they were beautiful and Kat was happy with them.

“I enchanted them so that they are all weather clothing. They will stay warm in almost all cold environments, and cold in warm ones. They are not perfect, so don’t expect them to keep you alive if you fall into an elemental plane of existence. They will self repair but not as fast as your Tower given clothing. They are designed for you to wear over your current clothing.” The Matriarch told her, eyeing the clothing she had created.

“Thank you.” Kat said happily.

“Horatio is waiting to take you to the floor’s exit.” The old tribes leader told her. “Thank you for your aide. Without you our entire tribe would have perished.”

“You’re welcome.” Kat said, running her hands down coat.

It was much thinner than she expected, but it was lined with white fur from the bear. The coat went all the way down to her ankles, but they flared out a little bit around her knees giving her greater movement. The coat’s buttons were some kind of large teeth that might have come from the bear or not. She was not sure.

She was about to tie the belt around her when the Matriarch stopped her. “That is for your staff. You can tie the ends on the staff and keep it on your back like our hunters do with their harpoons. If you would give me your staff, I’ll tie the loops on it.”

Kat handed her staff over and the Matriarch adroitly tied loops around the ends of the belt and slipped it over the staff. She motioned for Kat to move closer and when she did slid the whole thing over her shoulders. It fit amazingly. Now she didn’t have to hold her stuff, she was very happy she hadn’t thrown it away the previous night.

The same hunter who led the group who saved her life led her to the exit. It took all of the day, plus a few hours into the night to reach the floating dark oval of the exit. The hunter wished her luck in climbing the Tower. She wished him and his people well, and stepped into the darkness that was the exit.

This time she found herself on the next floor with her eyes open after spending the second and all of eternity between floors. She felt the icy power flow into her and she bid the Tower to give her Vitality the boost. It did as she asked and she found her vitality stomach grow once more. Then the Tower spoke to her again. It told her that she had earned a power coin for helping feed and protect the Lashinear tribe. Kat smiled at her rewards, but lost it when she realized that she was standing in ankle deep water to make things worse it was raining out.