Artemis Child

Artemis Child Ch59

   Gena and Kaylyn were combining their forces to make a forge of some kind, maybe for weapon repair or crafting. Kaylyn used her arcane magic to harden and shape the soil into a forge shape, metal from the monster blood was brought up to become the main walls and roof of the forge coating the inside with clay made from the soil being packed down so tight. Gena was mostly going to be the fuel, fire and person shaping the material.
   Toni and Geb returned with what looked like a pile of bones wrapped in vines, it writhed and fought against the vines as it was dragged towards us. The name Gashadokuro popped in my head, which was a being made of bones from people that died of starvation. It would eat people and add their bones to their pile. This one had taken in quite a few other humanlike monsters, or maybe people from our world before it was forced here. "This shall do fine." Kaylyn said starting to pick stuff from the pile, the bones that detached from the being seemed to loose their connection after being taken off the main pile. Like magnets that lost polarity by themselves. Soon the unused stuff was in a large bundle still wrapped tight in vines.
  Kaylyn and Gena got to work on making weapons, they worked on Max's Weapon, then Serena, followed by Andrew, Lexi, Toni, Kaylyn and then Gena herself. When it came for me to have a weapon, I couldn't think about anything two handed. The weapons were made of bone and sharpened, coated with metal from monster blood to harden and give it a fine edge, and bound by vines with runes on them sealing them together. Max had a cleaver like sword, Andrew, Serena both had similar straight swords and shields. Toni had some daggers, kaylyn had dagger to match only slightly longer and thicker. Gena had an new axe with the celestial bronze chain added to the back. I took a second to look at the bones where my arm would be. "Gena, Lexi, Kaylyn...I want you to make me a new arm." I said to them looking at the runes and the damaged gruesome meat. They got to work looking over my arm. Lexi mapping the muscles and possible nerve endings. Kaylyn got to work bonding the metal to the bone and Gena started forging. The way they planned to do it was make screws and implant them into the bone marrow to hold them down. Kaylyn took apart my bow and did something with the strings. They had me lay down. "This will really hurt." Lexi said holding the new bowstrings split up into multiple strands. She handed me a piece of fabric that was already falling off of my jacket. I would bite down on it when they decided to start.
   After a while I was in final preparation for what was to come. Lexi punctured the nerve ends with needles attached to the the strings, kaylyn started an incantation as Gena brought over the final parts. The screws borrowed into my bones and my jaw locked again the leather. My eyes were wide and I was staggering in my breath. I was starting to passout. The parts started to assemble and the strings became my missing tendons for the inside of the metal/bone material. I lost vision in my left eye for a second, then ringing in my ears started. I wasn't breathing enough maybe, but I must have passed out or at least blacked out.
  Next thing I know I was waking up from being dabbed on the face by a linen cloth of some kind. "Hey hey." The voice said, my vision was adjusting to my surroundings. It was Lexi at my side. There were new materials in the building and I was on some bamboo pad. "You've been in and out of conciousness for some time." She said and continued to dab my head. She handed me a bowl of water which I spilled on myself trying to inhale it, I was so thirsty. "Where did this water come from?" I asked her, she pointed to some kind of filtration system. "We've been hunting for a while. I'd say days, but there seems to be no way to tell time here." She said continuing to explain that they had been hunting specific monsters for cloth, food, water and Geb has been growing crops or bamboo to make stuff in here.
   My new arm was wrapped in the new cloth and some vines. "While you were out we modified it to not come off and borrowed your knife to add more to it." I went to unwrap it but she stopped me. "Its not combat ready yet, you need to heal more." She insisted giving me a warm smile. I could feel this tightness in my bicep like they moved further up my arm for a better hold. I tried to flex my fingers, it stung with a new pain in my bicep and forearm bones, but the fingers did move. I climbed to my feet carefully, Andrew was already bringing me some food on a wooden plate. Smelled like grilled beef, even though I knew it wouldn't be. "Here, we call this the CowGoatFish." He said glancing at my arm seeing if any blood or anything was leaking through. "Why is that?" I asked him grabbing ahold of the plate. "Smells like beef, looks like fish, taste like goat." He said with a small chuckle. The texture definitely looked like a cut of a salmon or something of that nature. Taking a but only told me what they meant. I hadn't had goat, but I would bet every dollar that this was what goat tastes like.
   What seemed like days was us scouting the area, maping everything out, me doing physical therapy for my hand or reapplying homemade ointment just above my elbow, and cooking while everyone was gone. Every time someone came back we were patching someone up, hauling monsters in traps, or remaking someone a new weapon. We were getting frustrated that we hadn't found anything related to an exit. Geb however didn't really show the same stress as us. "We just keep looking." He would say. He was leading the charges on most if not all accounts.
   Finally it was time for me to take the wraps of. The ointment made by Geb did the job, my skin and the new arm looked as good as it could be, almost seamless from my skin regrowing to connect to the monster bone fused with metal. There was a plate system of parts that combined to make my forearm, my hands on the end was kind of rough around the finger tips and the joints but this was still leaps above any prosthetics that exist back in our world. I could feel a mild temperature difference in between my bones. Thinking about it the part between my bones made a blue light start from the end of my bicep and it illuminated all the cracks and curves inside my hand. The parts shifted and rotated inwards and a my Wyvern Blade emerged ready to slice. "Woah mama." I said swinging it around and doing some stab motions. Thinking about it again it started to shift back into my hand the blad sliding back between my bones. "I see you like the modifications." Gena said giving me a smile. "Got something else for ya." She said tossing me what looked like the staff part of my old spear, instead it was something fairly different. I could feel the weight difference this weapon had compared to my last few weapons.
   The weapon was a three segment bow staff. Out each end came a blade made of of the same material as the bone weapons everyone else had. The segments unscrewed with a click and they separated with a small 4 inch chain each.
   "I have far too many weapons to try to keep up with." I said holding the new segment spear. "Yeah but you get in more trouble then all of us combined." She rebutted. "How is everyone doing out there?" I asked her getting serious. "We are all wanting to give up, this isn't living."
  "Then I have a feeling we should talk to Geb." I said as the man himself returned to the building shutting the heavy door behind him.