Cain opened his eyes, plan in place. He packed up, taking the initial materials he needed.
He checked the surveillance feed and eased up, if only a bit.
"Time to get to work."
Leaving the rest of his gear on the hollow space, his eyes looked around the local plants.
'This better not be the flesh eating tree like earlier.'
He throws a rock... Nothing.
He dripped some blood from the earlier kill — still nothing.
'I guess that holiday tree really scared me to be this vigilant.'
With a tug, the vine resisted and held firm in his grip — strong and flexible. Cain grinned with satisfaction.
With close to a hundred kilos gathered, Cain made his way back to his artificial cave.
He dug through his tools and grabbed the rope-weaving device, built to twist raw fiber into tight, usable cord.
With a click, the magic formation inside triggered, the cube shaped device barely a size of a palm came to life.
A small automaton unfolded, its spider-like design built for one purpose. It looked around and even waved at Cain.
Seeing the fibers, it immediately pounced towards the job it was built to do — as if to show it's weaving expertise.
'It might look a little creepy but it does the job nonetheless.'
Cain was fascinated with machineries since he was a child, he aspire to build a fortress of his own.
"Everyone starts from humble beginnings."
Taking a deep breath, he left the machine to the task, he went outside and crept past the shardlings and dug out the elephant's severed limbs.
Dragging the heavy sacks of meat, he didn't waste time.
He sharpened some rocks along the hill, sliced through trees and gathered them into a pile.
Whenever the shardlings started to noticing him, Cain simply tossed a rock at one of their sensors — and just like that, they'd go back to murmuring among themselves.
'These shardling are so curious to everything that moves. Still, time is ticking.'
"I need to finish someone gets here."
Coming back to the cave, the weaver seemed to have finished up his task as he saw it back to it's cube form.
"Good job."
Cain patted the cube and put it back on his backpack.
Thuds echoed in Cain's ears as shardlings gnawed on ore and stone — feeding like they knew what was coming.
Their sensing crystals flickered to him, but their minds were wired for noise and tremors.
Silent and steady, Cain moved, and they let him pass, fully unaware.
Speakers, explosives and array traps were put one after the other.
Each one formed into the next, as if an orchestra waiting for the conductor to gesture a start.
Placing the last device for his elaborate scheme, Cain yawned as he relaxed for a bit.
'I hope everything falls into place. Let me drink something caffeinated, just in case things get ugly.'
While having his beverage, he scrolled through his playlist.
[Beethoven – Symphony No. 5]
[Gioachino Rossini – The Barber of Seville]
[Schubert – Ave Maria]
"Hmm. Let's pick this one."
A single beat — an intro to something artful.
The speakers flared to life, embedding harmonics in all eight cardinal points — playing the comedic prequel to Mozart's tune.
The shardlings stirred, heads cocked with silent curiosity.
Each raced toward different paths, as if chasing answers only they could sense.
'I just need to wait.'
Cain watched through multiple surveillance feeds, tracking each shardling's movement.
One stood out — too far from it's companions, it approached a tree and began tapping it softly, almost tenderly, as if hoping it would respond.
As the comedic opera surged, Cain started to move.
"Figaro... Figaro... Figaro... Figaro... Figaro!!!"
From his device, a silenced bullet tore through the air, snapping a rope.
A noosed cluster of logs snapped forward, slicing the air in perfect tempo.
The shardling tipped over, limbs twitching as it tried to stand.
It barely felt the hit — just a tickle.
Looking at the trunks of the tree that made it fell. The thoughts of the stone creature was simple — is this vibration helpful to me?
Cain moved in for the kill, his gaze fixed on the shardling's backside where the was exposed.
He drove his blade in, ripped it free without hesitation — steady and symphonically methodical.
Wary of alerting the others, he immediately cast stealth, seeing the rest of the shardlings oblivious to what just happened, he heaved a sigh of relief.
Picking up a sharp stone, he threw it to a knot, undoing the tie. Leaves and vegetation cascaded from the canopy, settling over the corpse in a quiet, concealing veil.
'One down, Thirteen more to go.'
"Let's see what we got."
Cain pulled up the terminal, switching between surveillance, social, and shop — checking the appraisal fast while making sure his situation doesn't get compromised.
He scrolled for a minute and looked back and forth between the image and what he had in his hands.
[Average Quality - Passable] [14 Gold]
[Visual Appraisal: Hairline cracks, small bumps with cuboidal shape, luminosity flickering every few minutes.]
"Not as good as the one earlier but at least it covered the cost, so I won't complain."
Moving back to monitoring the situation through the tablet, Cain spotted another shardling being to far from the rest.
Arriving at the cliff, the shardling pounded the wall with sharp, violent strike.
Seemingly retorting to the music, it's voice echoed like angry piano chords slammed without rhythm, just raw emotion.
Fifty meters above, jagged rocks jutted out.
Heat Wave — a spell that will draw out moisture. Mostly effective to inanimate objects due to lack of protective cells.
The moist clay cradling the stones dried instantly, fissures spreading through its surface.
With sharp cracks, the earth gave way — massive stones, each over two meters, slid free and thundered down one after another.
The arms three-armed shardling lost all its limbs.
"?"
A questioning tone, unable to comprehend what was happening.
All three arms gone, the shardling writhed, its cries sharp and desperate.
"Fortunatissimo per verita!"
Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. With three presses, the volume of the speakers drowned out its pleas for help.
It was a creature with thoughts.
'My legs didn't exist. What can I use to walk now?'
Unable to have visual on the core, Cain used his sword to drill through it's shell.
Shard by shard, inch by inch — the core was torn out of his cavities before his very eyes.
'Respect the prey. The second you don't, you'll feel yourself being dragged six feet under.'
Returning the moisture to the clay above, it cascaded down the shardling's body — it formed a second skin, blurring it's existence to its brethren.
Cain stashed the core, saving the quality check for later.
Looking at the monitoring system, Cain was able to watch something firsthand.
The shardlings crept closer to each other.
Slow, deliberate, like dancers before the final note.
Then they began to sing — discordant, metallic tones trying to imitate the voice from the speakers.
'Those online courses made it sound so simple but I'm getting crept out.'
From their warped bodies, limbs bent and cracked inward, molding into a grotesque sphere.
The shardlings had become dolls crushed into a lump and re-baked with malice.
They weren't just fusing — they were becoming something new.
At the top of its head, light flickered — cores humming in sync, alive with something wrong.
Not one to be deterred by the mystery of this world, Cain acted.
Rotation. Vibration. Sharpen. Harden.
The thin sword spun with surgical accuracy, a literal high-speed mining drill.
As the blade made contact, cracks started forming on the amalgamation.
'I feel like those construction workers on grandpa's storybook.'
Every second bled into the next.
Water ran, hissing against the heat of the drill.
Its rhythm echoed — faint and eerie, woven into the music.
Crack!
The stone shell caved, but the existence held its stance — still, and unnervingly rhythmic with the beat.
The crescendo rose — another Figaro shrieked through the speakers.
Shardlings now produced the same sounds similar to the ones on the speaker.
'I should.. I should be careful.'
He started excavating what seems to be a merging core?
"Not flickering. Hmmm… I bet this is thirty gold."
The rock twitched.
Cain checked the live feed — nothing.
"Maybe just a falling stone."
He kept hammering at the most protruding crystal.
Stone and ores flaked away like brittle pastry beneath his drill.
Cain had seen massive horrors to fear a small fry like this.
'Right... just another small fry.'
The feeling of striking the motherlode brushed away his fears.
Click. Click. Click. Pop.
"Let us see what we have here."
Cain checked his terminal, comparing the core in his hand to listings online.
A smile crept up his face, success.
"Thirty gold in the bag. I just need to cash them out. Hopefully their wouldn't be another trouble along the way."
He dug deeper. The core emerged, its lumen burning into his eyes.
"Another one —"
The shardling formation suddenly shivered.