Mined Games chapter 33 (Patreon)

Maddie didn't let me move onto the snake hunt again right away. She insisted that if I kept going the way I was I would get myself killed. Instead, she called a halt to the mission short term to work on my knife skills right away.

Handing her one of my knives, I stood across from her on one of the islands as Cece watched from a nearby stump. Maddie looked at me solemnly, seeming unsure where to start, before finally saying."Alright, first thing, tell me what you know about using a knife."

"Pointy end in the other guy?" I said glibly. Though honestly that was most of my knife knowledge in a nutshell.

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?" She held up my single edged dagger. "This knife? Because this isn't a knife made for stabbing. It's a knife made for slashing."

I shrugged. "It's still sharp enough for stabbing to work. But you're being too literal. It's pretty self explanatory."

"No." She said firmly. "It isn't. A knife is a useful tool, but like all tools it needs to be applied properly or it goes to waste. If you stab someone in the head it might break on their skull, in the torso it might deflect off a rib, and those problems become more pronounced when dealing with crystal beasts, which can be many different shapes and sizes and even evolve strange characteristics."

Looking over at the snake corpse I nodded. "Fair enough. But I kind of knew that too, like I tried for its eye. The mouth was just a matter of opportunity."

She rolled her eyes. "The point, kid. Is that if you know how to use a knife you can make BETTER opportunities. Snakes, for instance, have a weak spot on their head, just above the nose. You could also have tried shoving your blade under the scales, maybe pried some up."

Flipping her knife dextrously, she rolled it along her fingers. "Some people will tell you knife work is some martial discipline, and more power to them, but people like us aren't duelist. Poison, instant attacks, these are weapons of surprise. Assassins weapons. How do you think that effects what we do?"

"We have to make them count?" I guessed hesitantly. "Because we can't fight them off safely for another attack?"

She grinned. "Sort of. And close. We do have to make an attack count for those reasons. But I was looking for how more than why. The how is that we fight more like butchers than duelist. A good assassin needs to see the weak spots. Know exactly where to hit to end their target with the least pain and resistance. That means knowing how they work."

"So you're going to teach me anatomy?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

"Sort of." She blurred, appearing in front of me, knife lashing out in a series of terrifyingly fast strikes that never landed. One stab over each eye, one at the junction of both arms, then a series of slashes across my belly. I shrieked and fell back onto the swampy dirt.

She clicked her tongue at me. "Eyes, guts, muscles just inside the shoulders. A few of the weak points on the human body that we can exploit. The trick is knowing which creatures have which weak points. Cooking helps."

I blinked at her. "Cooking? I mean, I could see how it might improve my knife skills in a way, but for combat?"

"Meat is meat." She shrugged. "Learn to take apart a cow, a deer, a rabbit, and so on, and eventually you develop a feel for it. Most of your opponents should be animals, so learning how to take apart animals is your best bet. Plus knowing how to cook in the wilderness is always useful."

It made me a little sick honestly. I liked animals. I ate meat, sure, but it was meat we bought. Still, crystal beasts were dangerous, and hesitating could get me or my friends killed.

"That said, now you're going to dissect THAT." She pointed at the snake. "You're going to skin it and remove the meat. Find out where the hide is weak, find out the weak spots in the muscle. Figure out where it would be easiest to cut to the bone." She paused. "Then I'll show you a recipe for snake filled. Which is actually surprisingly good."

I looked at Cecily, who gave me an encouraging smile, small as it was. Nodding to myself I walked over to the snake.

This would be no problem. The snake was a monster. It tried to kill me, plus it was already dead. "Don't forget the crystal in the brain." Said Maddie helpfully. "That would kind of defeat the purpose now wouldn't it?"

Scowling I brandished my knife at the corpse…and realized I had no clue where to start. I thought over what she said about snakes and figured I'd begin with the weak spot she mentioned. Above the nose.

The snake was big, and it took me a bit to find the soft spot on the head. After that I stabbed my dagger in, and I grimaced as even this relatively easy to injure spot took a lot of energy to perforated.

I'd expected the blood and meat to be the worst part, but it really wasn't. The worst part was the smell. The reek of copper coins and sewage as I tore into the head. I had to dig through the brain for a bit to find the crystal, and once I did, and stored it in my inventory, I stumbled to the side of the island and dropped to my knees, vomiting up everything in my stomach.

Maddie nodded thoughtfully. "That was better than I expected. You're not done by a long shot, but you did OK to start. Now. Calm down and take a breath, then get back to work."

And I did. Maddie stood to the side, watching dispassionate, giving me tips and telling me when I missed something. She pointed out muscle groups, tendons, ligaments. As mages, we had to have a decent grasp of at least human anatomy, since we imbued every muscle and joint with mana. Because of that I understood the basic concepts well enough.

Or thought I had. By the time I finished, I had a mostly neatly butchered pile of snake meat, a mostly intact hide, and a long sinuous snake skeleton all laid out in front of me.

"So." Said my teacher. "What did we learn about killing snakes?"

"Everything." I said bluntly. "The locations of the muscle groups, the weak points in the hide. I could take one apart in my sleep."

She giggled at that. "Cocky. I like it. Let's find out how right that is. I'm going to find you another snake, and I want you to kill it. No help from your spitfire sweetie. Just you and a knife."

I nodded, though I carefully didn't look at Cece when she made that sweetie comment. People always had to make things awkward.

Maddie led us off the island, hopping to another, then another, until stopping on a seemingly unoccupied chunk of land in the swamp. She pointed up into one of the trees strewn with glowing vines.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward as she stepped back. Remembering all the practice I just got, I gripped my knife tightly, trying to move silently as I approached, while also knitting together most of my Blink spell, to be completed at the last second if needed.

Which it was. The snake flashed down from the tree, and I triggered Blink, appearing down the length of the beast. Hauling back, I jammed the knife up under a scale at an angle, aiming through the flesh and into a spot where I knew I'd find a vital muscle group.

To my alarm, the knife skidded off, and I was forced to dive for cover as the snake tried to bite me. I saw her point now. Cutting limp muscle on a stationary corpse was NOT the same as trying to cut into a squirming, pissed off Moon Viper.

Despite that, I didn't let myself lose my cool. I kept my distance and did my best to apply my hard won knowledge. The weak spot on the head was out sadly, the snake ALSO knew about that spot, and it never gave me a chance to exploit it.

Still, the slippery bastard was just a snake. Aside from knowing how to cut, I knew how it could easily move too, and I did my best to place myself in spots where it had trouble reaching.

Without even wasting any more mana, I managed to finally find an opening and kill it, collapsing to the ground in exhausted triumph.

"Not bad." Said Maddie approvingly. "Rest up and we'll find your next one in a few minutes. Once you can do that more easily we can start pulling groups of the things."

I stared up at her in horror. "Groups?" I asked in disbelief. "I barely survived that first one."

She just rolled her eyes at me. "Yes." She said slowly. "That's how training usually works. You do it over and over until you aren't terrible anymore." She gave me a challenging smirk. "Some people say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I just call that practice."

Ignoring my groan of worried pain, she let me rest another ten minutes and then dragged me to fight another snake. Despite being tired, I actually did better this time, having somewhat adapted to the snake’s combat style, as much as a snake could really have one.

The second fight ended much faster, but I had to take a break after that to recover. Luckily I was packing some stamina potion, and a quick sip after I’d had a moment to recover (I didn’t want to strain my muscles too badly, even if I did have the energy). I engaged the next one, and this one I managed in about a minute, minimizing my movements and taking advantage of a few patterns I’d seen the snakes share so far.

“Seems like you’ve got that down.” Said Maddie approvingly. “Of course, Moon Vipers are non-sentient and freakishly predictable, which is why they give this job to newbies to begin with, but still, three of them in a half hour is nothing to scoff at.” She turned to whistle at Cecily. “Hey! Red! You down to join in on the next one? I’m going to find a pair and I want you to help.”

Cecily nodded purposefully. “Of course. I’ve learned quite a bit from watching.” I had no doubt, considering how talented my friend was, and I was a bit jealous she got to learn all this without being covered in bruises and snake blood (which honestly was starting to burn a little bit where it was touching my skin).

Maddie led us to the next island, and I prepared for the attack, deciding to use Blink again. I crept forward to lure them out, preparing for the attack. When the first one lunged I forced myself to remain still until I sensed the other, then I triggered my spell, flashing forward ten feet as the two snakes passed each other in the air.

As the landed, a burst of flame blazed up between them, and they flinched back. I used my third Blink, appearing on top of the snake while it was distracted and slamming my dagger into the soft spot on its head as Cece kept the other off me.

Diving forward at the other, I brandished my knife and tried to aim for the same weak point, but this one had already seen me kill the other. It twisted away, trying to escape, and I wove a spatial arrow, aiming at the soft spot. It lunged at me, but I hopped away, a fireball intercepting it even as I released the spell. There was a flash and the snake froze, falling dead on the island floor. I dropped onto my ass right after, panting hard. I really hoped we were done for the day.