This Confession, thankfully, goes far better than my last attempt at sharing my burdens. There is still the problem that it isn't quite properly done, as I'm hardly going to fit in a confessional, but Father Granfield is a far more professional priest than that tube rat back in the metroplex. When he hears about how I've had to kill people and serve as an executioner, he does not turn judgmental, but his face and stance become suffused with a deep sorrow and a hint of what might be nostalgia. He doesn't even bat an eye as I begin to ramble over how I'm not sure if all of the boarillas I've killed count or not, since they are clearly showing signs of sapience and I was never clear on if killing a non-human sapient was a sin, or if the boarillas even still counted as one of God's creatures.

  When I've finished unloading my many failures and sins of the past several years the father is quick to hand out my penance, a whole rosary's worth of Our Fathers and Hail Marys, a promise to see that those I killed are at least given a tombstone upon my eventual return to the Metroplex, and he is quick to pull me aside and offer me a hug. I awkwardly accept and he wraps his wings around my throat as best he can to whisper to me, "I know how heavily such burdens weigh on you child. The deed is often so laughably easy to accomplish with the proper tools that it can feel wrong. It is easy for one to tie oneself up in knots over the feelings, or lack of feelings, such acts can inflict upon us. Remember that more people would have died had you not acted as you did and that God is always willing to forgive you if you approach him in humble supplication.

  "If you feel you need to talk to someone about it while you are with us. Seek out either my brother or myself and we would be happy to help you out of whatever darkness is threatening to consume you."

  I am very careful in my movements for fear of accidentally crushing or shredding the smaller bird with my living weapon of a body. It's made all the harder with the lump in my throat that seems to refuse to vanish that makes breathing hard as my tongue flicks of its own accord. I still managed to keep from choking up as I pulled away from him, "I- Thank you for the offer father, but for the moment, I'm not sure I'm the one in the most need of aid. I do believe both you, and everyone else here, have gone almost without food for the last two days."

  "Not entirely without food," he defends himself weakly even as his stomach rumbles loudly enough for me to feel from here, "We managed to bring a few of those porks down when we went to get water, but admittedly that was hardly enough for all of us." He looks up at me, "We've already eaten them raw before, you don't have to trouble yourself to cook them for us."

  "Pigs are a banned food in several religions for a reason," I began getting to draw on the knowledge I'd gathered over the last several years when I, accurately, predicted that within the next decade or two something massive would happen that would likely kill off at least half the population of Earth and disrupt supply lines. "They tend to be rife with disease and parasites that make them hazardous to eat when not raised and prepared to modern standards. Even cooking them doesn't mean they are completely safe, though it does render them far safer to eat. I'd just like to try and minimize the chance of finding out what kind of horrors ring worms, hair worms, tape worms, or any of the other horrid parasites that lurk in wait have become in our new magical hell."

  Even through his feathers I can see Father Granfield looking fairly pale as his feathers all stand on end, "Yes, I suppose that is a valid concern, though I'm not sure how many of my people will be willing to wait however long it takes several hundred pounds of pig to cook."

  "I've actually got an idea on how to get them cooked fairly quickly." I admit proudly.

  Leading Father Granfield back towards the parking lot where Damian and Berry are both gutting the boarillas, leaving my little fluffy dino friend coated head to tail in blood and other bodily fluids. Indeed, as Father Granfield predicted, several people seemed very eager to either start tearing into pigs or even try to steal some of the raw organs. Currently they were being held at bay by Matilda and her army of smaller moths, which had a couple people nursing or itching at some seriously inflamed and irritated marks on their faces or paws. Made me glad my thick metal scales rendered me mostly immune to the woman's toxins, it would make traveling with her difficult if I couldn't touch her.

  Approaching one of the pigs the pair had already gutted and skinned I asked, "You mind if I try something with this do you?"

  "You're not going to do some Jeremy type crap are you?" Damian demanded.

  "Nah, I've just got an idea on how to cook these things quickly based on my favorite potentially dangerous way to cook a hot dog as a kid." I admitted.

  Damian stopped working to turn to properly face me with a look of confused curiosity. "Alright, I'm curious enough to allow it."

  Taking both of the dead monster's 'hands' in my mouth and wrapping my tail around its ankles I kicked on the myoelectric mutation hearing the slight cracks and pops as electricity arched across my scales. I kept it running as I saw the muscles on the corpse tighten and fight to contract as the electricity arched through the body. It wasn't easy to keep the power flowing, it felt a bit like constantly clenching your abs as hard as you could, easy at first, then increasingly hard and distracting. I still managed to keep it up for almost a full two minutes before dropping the charge and slicing off a bit of the boarilla's leg, examining the meat for a moment. I sigh and lowered the body down to the others.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "I can't tell if the meat's properly cooked thanks to being completely colorblind," I grumbled, "How's it look to you?"

  Damian examined the meat, poked it with his bloody claws, gave it a sniff before tearing a chunk off with his teeth and swallowing it in a couple bites. "A bit dry but cooked through." He nodded to Matilda who shifted her vanguard to let the hungry begin to quickly start ripping the carcass apart, "What the heck kind of cooking utensil gave you the idea to try tazing the pigs?"

  "You mean you never had a Changeo Hotdogger growing up?" I chuckled remembering the spike filled apparatus that had electrocuted me three times as a kid. "Pass me another carcass would you?"

  I managed to cook the second carcass without too much effort, but by the third I was struggling, the fourth felt like squeezing blood from a stone and was dangerously close to undercooked. Despite my efforts I just couldn't seem to conjure up even a spark, even Focus yielded nothing but a painful knotting sensation throughout my body. Double checking the mutation I found the likely cause, my muscles had the ability to generate and store charge, and it seems that I had squeezed out all the charge I'd stored. Given a bit of time I might be able to get zapping again, but for now I was tapped out.

  "It's cool Joe," Berry waved dismissively as he wrapped up the offal organs in webs and bit the bundle, "I think that the several hundred pounds of bone and meat you've already prepared will be enough for the moment. We can slow roast and smoke the rest, probably best not to gorge ourselves after going hungry for so long anyways."

  I simply smile wearily and let the various people tear into the cooked bodies as my tongue flickers out to catch the tantalizing smell of cooked pork. Honestly what I'd cooked would barely be enough for me, probably just enough to be satisfying. It didn't help that I'd been holding back for almost a week because I wanted to make sure everyone else had enough, Anthony had been right, I needed to be eating more. If only I was like a real snake and needed to eat maybe twice a month, but no, my hunger seemed to build constantly. It was getting to the point that the fact the boarillas were clearly sapient and uncooked was doing nothing to keep them from looking delicious.

  "I think we'll go ahead and keep cooking them in a more traditional manner," I said, my tongue flicking again as my throat muscles flexed, "You got a big grill or something we could cook these things on?"

  Thankfully like many churches in my experience they did have a massive charcoal grill for large events that still seemed to be in good condition. It still meant that I'd be stuck waiting for a couple hours for one pig to be finished cooking, smelling its delectable scent over the nostalgic scent of burning charcoal. Hopefully it wouldn't take my electricity long to build up again and I could gulp down a half dozen of the scores of dead pigs. Maybe, just, one raw boarilla would hurt would it? No! Stop it Joe! Observe patience, it's one of the few virtues you are even halfway capable of! Just need to distract myself.

  "We're going to need more charcoal to cook all of these pigs," I point out, "Damian do you think you could start building a charcoal kiln like I showed you the other day?"

  The absolutely filthy raptor man froze halfway towards the pond he'd been heading towards, blood and less obvious fluids dripping from his now utterly ruined leather clothes. He let out a long suffering sigh, never turning away from the already murky pond as he said, "Yeah, just give me a moment to wash this crud out of my bristles, it feels so much worse than I thought it would."

  Sadly the process of building the mud kiln, chopping up a dead tree, and arranging the branches only took about an hour leaving with over an hour to wait for the food to finish cooking. A quick check of my mutation and I estimated I was only back up to half charge at best, enough for one pig, maybe two, not really enough for me at the moment. Looking for something to distract me, I decided to go ahead and pop open my skill token to see what the loot box had for me.

  –You have received a Random Skill Token: B–

  –Would you like to redeem your Token?–

  Yes dang it! Why do you even ask me!? It's not like this is some sort of quick twitch action game or something. Who the heck would try to activate the token and then select no!? How would you even accidentally activate one of these things! Look, smelling the food cooking and being this hungry is making me irritable okay! So excuse me if I'm getting a bit irritable.

  –SysAutoGen_Skill…–

  –Received Dielectric Breakdown B–

  That... I'm not sure actually. It is obviously something to do with electricity, which is probably good considering my mutation, but breakdown could mean this goes either way. Does it make my electricity break things down? That could be HORRID considering my electricity is generated inside my body. How do you examine a skill again? I hate this user interface so much, give good ol' pen and paper any day.

  |Dielectric Breakdown B: Your electricity flows with such powerful current that it turns the resistance of most materials into a conductor letting it bypass 90% of resistance. Increase the cost of using electricity based skills and mutations. Passive.|

  Bally bad cess Omega! How the heck is that skill only a B!? I ogle the skill for a solid minute. This might be the first time the random system has given me something actually useful and it's a super jackpot at that! I'm glad no one else got this one because I bet that to ninety nine percent of the population this skill is completely useless. Maybe that's why it's only a B? It's a super niche skill that would be sitting as dead weight on the sheet of most people, still it's such a lucky roll for me that I'm borderline suspicious of it. There has to be some sort of catch to it right?

  Oh. Right. I'm currently full up on skills. Thankfully I've got a fusion token, even if it's a minor one. Still this means I'm going to have to do something I try to do as little as possible, open my character sheet. Uhg.