The silence in Borin's tent was a heavy, suffocating blanket, punctuated only by the soft, wet drip of Kaelen's blood onto the packed earth. The adrenaline of the fight was beginning to fade, leaving behind a deep, throbbing ache in his shoulder and the cold, pressing need for a plan. A dead body was a problem. A missing body was a mystery. Kaelen dealt in calculated mysteries, not messy problems.
His mind, a well-oiled machine of predatory logic, began to churn. The camp was asleep, but they would awaken at dawn. He had, at most, a few hours. He needed to create a narrative, a plausible story that would not only explain Borin's disappearance but would also position Kaelen to benefit from it.
First, the cleanup. He couldn't leave a pool of his own blood. Using his good left hand, he scooped up the loose, blood-soaked dirt from the floor and deposited it into the small, cold fire pit in the center of the tent. He then scuffed clean dirt over the area, smoothing it over. It was a crude fix, but in the dim light of the tent, it would pass a cursory inspection. His own wound had already stopped bleeding, the potent essence from Borin's shard having formed a crude, rubbery seal of regenerated tissue over the torn muscle. The pain was still a deep, grinding throb, but the immediate crisis of bleeding out was over.
Next, the body. He couldn't bury it nearby; the ground was too hard, and freshly turned earth was a clear sign. He couldn't hide it in the camp. He had to make it vanish. The Expanse itself was the perfect accomplice.
With a grunt of effort, he hoisted Borin's corpse over his good shoulder. The man was immensely heavy, a dead weight of muscle and bone. Carrying him would have been impossible before his recent advancement to Phase 2. Now, it was merely a grueling, strenuous task. He draped one of Borin's own cloaks over the body to obscure its shape, took up the iron-tipped spear in his left hand, and slipped out into the freezing night.
He moved away from the camp, not towards the open plains, but deeper into the jagged, treacherous rock formations of Redfang Peak. The terrain was a labyrinth of shadows and sharp edges, a place where scavengers rarely ventured at night. His enhanced senses, a gift of his cultivation, allowed him to navigate the darkness with an assurance that would have been supernatural to a normal human.
After a fifteen-minute trek, he found what he was looking for: a deep, narrow fissure in the obsidian rock face. It was a flaw in the mountain, a dark maw that seemed to descend endlessly into the earth. Such crevasses were common in the volcanic landscape, often plunging hundreds of feet. It was a perfect, unmarked grave.
He unceremoniously rolled Borin's body into the fissure. It fell without a sound, consumed instantly by the absolute darkness. There was no echo, no sound of impact. The Expanse had swallowed its own.
But Kaelen's work was not done. A simple disappearance was not enough. He needed to leave clues—false clues that would lead to a specific, desired conclusion.
He backtracked, his eyes scanning the ground. He found a patch of soft, ashen soil near the ravine where they had hunted the Crawlers. Using the butt of his new spear, he carefully impressed a set of deep, chaotic footprints into the ash—a man's heavy boot prints, scuffed and dragged, as if in a violent struggle. He then used his knife to make several deep, gouging marks on a nearby rock face, mimicking the claw marks of a large predator. Finally, he took a strip of hide he had torn from Borin's own tunic and snagged it on a sharp rock near the faked struggle, as if it had been ripped off in a fight.
He was not just hiding a murder; he was creating the scene of a beast attack. A sudden, vicious ambush in the night.
His work complete, he returned to the camp as the first, faint hint of grey began to lighten the eastern sky. He did not go to his own sleeping spot. Instead, he went to the tent shared by Loric and the now-dead Fenn. He slipped inside, his movements utterly silent. Loric was asleep, his breathing heavy.
Kaelen took the crude iron shank—the murder weapon—and carefully, quietly, slid it under the edge of Loric's sleeping furs, hiding it from immediate view but ensuring it would be found if the tent were searched. He then returned to his own alcove, settled down, and waited for the camp to wake up.
The first to notice something was amiss was Loric himself. He emerged from his tent, stretching and calling out a customary good morning to Borin. When no reply came, a frown creased his face. After a few more unanswered calls, a knot of quiet concern began to form in the camp.
It was Elara who finally pushed aside the flap to Borin's tent. Her sharp gasp was all the confirmation needed. The tent was empty. The spear was gone. The camp's alpha had vanished.
Panic, quiet and cold, began to spread.
Kaelen chose this moment to make his entrance. He limped into the firelight, his right arm held stiffly against his body, his face pale and drawn. He feigned a wince of pain.
"What is it?" Loric asked, his eyes wide with alarm. "What's wrong with your arm?"
Kaelen looked at him, his expression a carefully crafted mixture of fear and confusion. "I… I heard something," he stammered, his voice weak. "Late in the night. A scream. I thought it was a night-beast. I was too scared to leave my spot."
His words were a spark in a tinderbox. The scavengers immediately connected the dots: Borin was gone, and there had been a scream in the night.
"We have to search!" Loric declared, grabbing his axe. "He might be injured!"
The search party formed quickly. Kaelen, due to his "injury," was told to stay behind with Elara and the children. It was the perfect position to observe. From the edge of the camp, he watched them fan out, their calls for Borin echoing across the desolate landscape.
It didn't take them long to find the scene he had fabricated. The tracks, the claw marks, the torn piece of tunic. The conclusion was immediate and terrifying.
When the search party returned, their faces were ashen.
"A Manticore, maybe," Loric said, his voice trembling. "Or a Night-Ripper. The tracks were huge. It looks like it dragged him off. There's… there's nothing left."
A wave of despair washed over the small camp. Their strongest protector was gone, taken by one of the Expanse's apex predators. Their chances of survival had just plummeted.
In the midst of the fear and grief, Elara's sharp eyes landed on Kaelen. "The scream you heard, child. Did you see anything?"
Kaelen shook his head, looking suitably terrified. "No. It was too dark. I just hid. I was so scared."
The lie was swallowed whole. He was just a boy. An injured, frightened boy. No one looked at him with suspicion. They looked at him with pity.
The narrative was set. Borin, the hero, had fallen to a great beast in the night. The camp was now without a leader.
And Loric, the second-strongest hunter, was now the de facto alpha. Anxious, less experienced, and about to find a bloody, unfamiliar weapon hidden in his sleeping furs. Kaelen had not only eliminated a target and gained power; he had sown the seeds of mistrust and paranoia that would destabilize the entire camp. It was a far greater victory than a simple, quiet murder in the dark.
[STATUS UPDATE]
Current Realm: 1st - Crucible Foundation (Phase 2)
Void Corpus Stability Timer: 27 Days Remaining