I moved to the entrance of the log again. The hunger was gone, but the drive was stronger than ever.

  I checked my XP bar.

  Level: 2

  XP: 0 / 200

  The cost had doubled.

  One grub was 100 XP. I needed two grubs.

  Or something bigger.

  I looked at the stats of the [Improvised Bone Spike].

  Durability: 8/15.

  It was fragile. If I tried to mount a heavy carcass, like a Rat, it might snap. If the spike broke during fermentation, the meat would hit the ground.

  [The Golden Rule: Prey must hang.]

  If it touches the ground, the fermentation stops. The XP rots.

  So, no heavy prey. Not yet.

  Quantity over quality.

  I needed small, soft targets. More grubs. Or beetles, if I could flip them over and pierce the underbelly.

  I stepped out of the log.

  The air was colder now. Night in the Basin was a different beast. The bioluminescence was brighter, casting long, twisting shadows.

  I activated my senses.

  WIS: 3.2.

  I closed my eyes and listened.

  The wind rustling the iron-leaves. The drip of condensation. The distant chitter of the Wire-Rats.

  And something closer.

  Scrape. Drag. Scrape.

  Below me.

  I looked down from the log. The log sat on a slight incline, surrounded by a tangle of roots.

  Movement.

  A shape was navigating the roots. It was long, segmented.

  Another Mana-Grub?

  No. The legs were too long. The movement was too jerky.

  I focused.

  [Target Identified: Corpse-Weevil]

  [Level: 2]

  A scavenger. It was sniffing around the bloodstain where I had killed the grub earlier.

  It was eating my leftovers.

  My feathers bristled. A warning trill vibrated in my throat.

  It was scraping my root. Licking my bloodstain.

  I checked its stats.

  Armor: Low.

  Speed: Medium.

  Behavior: Skittish.

  It was perfect.

  But I couldn't just dive bomb it.

  I was Level 2, but I was still a fledgling. If I missed, I'd hit the ground. If I hit the ground, I lost my advantage.

  I needed to bring it to me.

  I looked back at the log. The entrance was a choke point.

  I retreated into the shadows of the log, just a few feet from the entrance. I scratched my talons against the wood.

  Scritch. Scritch.

  The sound of a dying animal. Or a small, struggling prey.

  The scraping outside stopped.

  The Weevil had heard it.

  I waited.

  The flutter in my chest smoothed into a cold, hydraulic thud. Beat. Beat. Beat. I analyzed the variables. I organized the steps.

  Step 1: Lure the prey.

  A pair of antennae appeared at the lip of the log. They twitched, tasting the air. They smelled the lingering scent of the fermented grub. They smelled me.

  But I smelled like a bird. To a Weevil, a fledgling bird on the ground was food.

  The head appeared. Bulbous eyes, mandibles dripping with black ichor.

  It climbed over the lip.

  It saw me. I was small, fluffy, huddled against the wall.

  It hissed, a sound like tearing paper.

  It charged.

  Not yet.

  It crossed the threshold.

  Now!

  I jumped.

  AGI: 4.5.

  I launched myself straight up, my wings flapping once, hard. I cleared the Weevil's charging head by inches.

  I landed behind it.

  The Weevil tried to turn, its long legs tangling on the rough wood. Plates ground together. Stiff. Rigid. It carved a wide arc.

  I kicked.

  STR: 2.2.

  I slammed both feet into the rear segment of the Weevil.

  I wasn't meant to be a killing blow.

  The force propelled the Weevil forward, adding to its own momentum. It skidded across the mossy floor, crashing face-first into the back wall of the log.

  Crunch.

  It was stunned.

  I was on it instantly.

  I aimed for the joint between the head and the thorax. The neck.

  My beak, hardened by the level up, struck like a pickaxe.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Snick.

  Blue blood sprayed.

  The Weevil thrashed, its legs flailing, but I was already moving. I hopped back, out of range of the mandibles.

  I watched.

  It twitched. Once. Twice.

  Then it stopped.

  [Target Eliminated: Corpse-Weevil (Lvl 2)]

  [XP: 0 (Larder Restriction)]

  I felt the familiar emptiness of the zero. But this time, it didn't anger me.

  I walked over to the corpse.

  It was roughly the same size as the grub.

  I grabbed a leg with my beak and dragged it. It was heavy, dead weight, but I could move it.

  I pulled it to the clay mound.

  The bone spike stood waiting.

  I lifted the Weevil. This was the hard part. I had to lift it high enough to clear the tip.

  I flapped my wings, straining, using every ounce of my Strength.

  I got it up. I lined up the soft underbelly with the bone tip.

  I let gravity do the rest.

  Thunk.

  The Weevil slid down the bone spike, coming to a rest halfway down.

  It hung there, suspended.

  [Larder Activated]

  [Subject: Corpse-Weevil]

  [Fermentation Timer: 3:59:59]

  I stepped back.

  The blue timer appeared above the corpse, ticking down.

  I wiped the blue blood from my beak onto the moss.

  I looked at the display.

  One spike occupied. Two more spikes needed to fill the kitchen.

  I watched the corpse sway slightly on the bone spike. A drop of black ichor slid down the carapace and hit the moss.

  Plip.

  That sound was a dinner bell.

  The Basin didn't tolerate waste. It didn't tolerate storage. In this forest, if you weren't eating, you were being eaten. Hoarding food was an invitation to be robbed.

  I looked at the dark, gaping mouth of the log's entrance.

  Out there, the Wire-Rats were waking up. The Carrion Crows were roosting, but they would be back at first light. And somewhere, digging through the roots with claws like rusty shovels, were the Badgers.

  One spike wasn't enough.

  I needed more.

  I turned away from the hanging Weevil and faced the back of the hollow log. The skeleton of the unknown beast lay there, half-buried in the gloom-moss. It was my quarry. My lumber yard.

  I hopped over to the ribcage.

  The bones were old. The marrow was long gone, leaving the calcium structures brittle and porous. That was good. It meant I could break them.

  I selected a rib near the bottom. It was curved, roughly six inches long. The perfect size for a punji stick.

  I placed my talon on the center of the bone.

  STR: 2.2.

  A rounding error. I lacked the density to hammer. I was a scalpel.

  I couldn't just stomp on it. The moss would cushion the blow. I needed leverage.

  I wedged the tip of my beak under the rib, digging into the soft earth until I found the root structure beneath. I braced my neck.

  Lift.

  My muscles strained. The tendons in my neck popped. The bone groaned, shifting in the dirt. It was stuck in the clay.

  I flapped my wings, driving my feet into the ground, pushing upward with my legs and lifting with my neck.

  Crack.

  The dirt gave way. The rib came free, flipping over.

  Now to break it.

  I found a knot in the log's floor. A hard, petrified lump of wood. I dragged the rib over it, positioning the bone so the midpoint rested on the knot. A fulcrum.

  I hopped onto the log wall, gaining a foot of elevation.

  I targeted the weak point.

  I jumped.

  My wings pinned against my ribs. No drag. I dropped like a stone, driving my entire weight into my heels.

  Snap.

  The sound was loud in the enclosed space. Too loud. I froze, listening.

  Outside, the wind hissed through the iron-leaves. A distant screech echoed, a Screamer Monkey, maybe. But nothing close.

  I looked down. The rib had snapped cleanly in two.

  Jagged edges. Sharp. Nasty.

  I picked up the longer half. It was serrated where it had fractured. Good for tearing. Bad for piercing.

  The Larder required a "System Recognized Spike." That meant it needed to be able to impale and hold. It needed a point.

  I carried the bone shard to my grinding stone, a flat piece of slate near the entrance.

  This was the tax. The cost of doing business.

  I clamped the bone in my beak. I scraped it against the stone.

  Grind. Grind. Grind.

  Dust coated my tongue. It tasted like chalk and old death.

  I worked with a rhythm.

  Push, twist, pull. Push, twist, pull.

  I wasn't just sharpening it. I was shaping it.

  I needed a needle point. A conical tip that would separate muscle fibers rather than tear them. Tearing caused bleeding. Bleeding wasted the fluids needed for fermentation.

  I checked the System.

  [Skill Proficiency: Thorn Crafter +2%]

  The System was watching. It approved of the geometry.

  My neck ached. My stamina bar ticked down.

  Stamina: 10/20.

  I ignored it. Fatigue was just a variable. The threat of the Badger was a constant.

  Ten minutes later, the tip was ready. I tested it against the moss. It sank in with zero resistance.

  [Item Created: Bone Spike (Common)]

  [Durability: 6/10]

  Acceptable.

  Now, placement.

  I looked at the Weevil hanging on the first spike.

  If a Rat came in, it would go straight for the smell. It would charge the bait.

  I walked to the clay mound where the Weevil hung.

  I didn't place the new spike next to the first one. That was inefficient.

  I moved six inches in front of the Weevil.

  I dug a small hole in the clay with my talons. I placed the base of the bone spike into the hole, angling it outward.

  Forty-five degrees.

  If I pointed it straight up, a Rat might step around it. If I pointed it at the entrance, it became a spear.

  At forty-five degrees, pointing away from the bait, it was a hidden snag.

  An intruder lunging for the Weevil would hit the bait, grab it, and try to pull back.

  When they pulled back, they would back into the spike.

  It would catch a leg. Or a belly.

  I packed the wet clay around the base, stomping it down to lock the bone in place.

  I grabbed a handful of loose moss and draped it over the white bone.

  Camouflage.

  To the casual eye, it was just a lump of green. To the physics of a lunge, it was a crippler.

  One down.

  I went back to the skeleton.

  Lift. Brace. Jump. Snap.

  The process was faster this time. I knew the tensile strength of the bone now. I knew how much force to apply.

  Grind. Grind. Grind.

  My beak felt numb from the vibration. The chalk dust made me thirsty, but I didn't stop.

  I made a second spike.

  This one was shorter. Stubbier.

  I placed this one directly under the Weevil, pointing straight up.

  The "Glutton's Trap."

  If something smaller, like a beetle or a centipede, tried to crawl up from underneath to eat the Weevil's legs, they would have to climb over this spike.

  If they slipped?

  Impaled.

  And if they were impaled...

  [The Larder] would activate.

  Passive hunting. Farming.

  I worked through the night. The bioluminescence outside shifted from blue to a deep, bruising purple as the moon moved.

  My stamina dropped to 4/20. Lead filled my hollow bones. The signal from brain to claw lagged, turning precise steps into heavy shuffles. Input delay. I tripped over a root, my wings fluttering weakly to catch my balance.

  I was burning calories I didn't have.

  I looked at my handiwork.

  Five bone spikes.

  One held the Weevil.

  One guarded the rear retreat.

  One guarded the underbelly approach.

  Two flanked the sides, angled to catch any lateral movement.

  It was a kill ring. A semi-circle of pain surrounding the prize.

  But the entrance was still open.

  I had one piece of bone left. A jagged, ugly shard that had shattered poorly. It wasn't a spike. It was a shiv.

  I dragged it to the lip of the log.

  The wood here was hard, weathered by the elements. I couldn't dig into it.

  I looked at the geometry of the entrance. It was a circle. The bottom was curved.

  Any creature entering would naturally walk along the bottom center, the path of least resistance.

  I found a fissure in the wood, a crack caused by rot.

  I wedged the shiv into the crack. It stuck up only an inch.

  It wasn't enough to kill.

  But if a Rat ran in, blindly chasing the scent?

  It would step on it. It would cut its paw.

  A cut paw meant a limp. A limp meant slower reaction times. Slower reaction times meant I could hit them.

  Math.

  I stepped back, surveying the zone.

  It looked chaotic to the untrained eye. Just a messy log with some moss piles.

  But I saw the lines. The angles of attack. The probability cones.

  I retreated to the back of the log, near the skeleton. I found a dark crevice between the ribcage and the wall.

  My nest.

  I huddled down, fluffing my feathers to trap body heat. The cold of the Basin was seeping into the wood.

  I watched the entrance.

  Blinks lasted too long. My beak dipped, dragging my skull toward the floor.

  [Status: Fatigued]

  I needed to sleep. But sleeping was dangerous.

  I set a mental alarm. I focused on the Weevil.

  Watch the bait.

  Time passed. The timer on the Weevil ticked down.

  [Fermentation Progress: 35%]

  Want more violence?

  I post daily on Royal Road, but the backlog is deep on Patreon.

  Read 10 Chapters ahead of the free release.

  Thanks for the support!