July 21st, 5 AC
It was a good memory, but one can only spend so much time in memories. The night faded and the dawn arrived to see Timothy and Donald, both with dark bags under their eyes from a late night surrounded by guards and darting between the great trees on their way to safer climes.
But the method of travel wasn't anything a jungle safari tourist could've dreamed of. Not unless they'd seen a George of the jungle Wuxia cross over, if so, he really wished they'd share!
Timothy grinned, glancing around at the loose gaggle surrounding him. Bouncing over 20 feet tall bushes and off the sides of trees in a flowing chaotic net of protection that looked disorganized and almost accidental. It was anything but. This was the military technology of the new world.
How did Arthur put it? Though only when he was half drunk and doing what he called the staff puke impression.
"Utilizing superhuman abilities and sustaining control over key elevations in the battlefield center. Employing rapid response and shock tactics to swiftly engage and disengage enemy forces. Managing sustained conflicts by concentrating firepower across overlapping zones of control to neutralize independent adversaries and prevent uncontrollable escalation. Prioritizing control and elongation of sightlines as a primary objective to facilitate effective command and control."
Yeah.
For anyone without a stick up their ass, that mean bunching up was bad, allowing your sight to be blocked by ground clutter or big trees was dangerous and letting normal human limitations on jumping, moving or stamina interfere was deadly. Stay high enough to see, spread out such that your team could both see and react to what they saw on multiple divergent angles. Kill quickly and move on, before the scent of blood baited in predators from the surroundings in a mini beast wave.
It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. It took some training and a few specialized spells, but once you could redirect yourself mid-jump, it was much easier to avoid ambushes bouncing through the air.
Beast were territorial, they'd jump trespassers, if possible, but on their terms. If you could move through the territory fast enough, there was a good chance of avoiding the fight. If they chased you the next critter over might jump them over you.
Might.
Nothing was ever certain, but it worked often enough to make speed a traveler’s best friend. That and always leave as little evidence of your passing as possible. Traditional travel had a column trampling the same patch of vegetation one after another. Usually on the same route between locations. Path making in other words. Also called suicide.
Trails were where predators went looking for food. Making a path drew them in like flies on shit.
It was a terrible way to travel. In a column only the first person really had a clear view forward, and the last person backward. Unless the attack came neatly from the side, only a few people would be able to participate.
In the old-world, they dealt with that by transitioning between columns for rapid transit, and lines, rows really, for actual battle. And as long as you could make that transition in the right direction before the attack landed it worked pretty well historically. In open territory and against opponents who read the same book on tactics.
Even then it didn’t work too well in Vietnam.
Here? No chance. Between ambush predators, tight sight lines and the dense underbrush it just wasn’t practical.
Old-world thinking rarely was. Adapt and overcome was the name of the game.
And they had. A wide, rotating front of scouts circled the outside of their cloud, both towards the front and sides, but also above and below. Usually focusing on defensive enchantments, detection spells and movement they weren't there to fight the enemies. Just to locate them for the heavy hitters. Heavies who moved just as rapidly as the scouts focused more on firepower. In the slightly denser center, they didn't group up either. But they were certainly closer to it than the scouts. There was an informal assignment of a couple heavies to each scout, but it wasn't anything formal. Massed firepower was the name of the game once a target was spotted. Someone, and hopefully several someone’s, should always have a clear bead on each scout.
Timothy threw a hand out mid-jump, popping a force spell to fling him sideways over a thorn bush as it became visible over a van-sized root. He touched down, another spell reducing his weight to a tenth, then launched himself rapidly forward and upwards, refusing to stay on the ever ambush-prone ground, to perch for a moment on the side of an apartment building-sized tree, then redirected to one of its neighbors’ roots, giving the 100+ foot deep gully created by the interwoven tree roots a quick glance, a smattering of bones and buzzing flies said something lived down there, and wasn't a fan of guests.
Following a hand signal from his close team, all eight of them, Timothy bounced upwards, off one tree trunk sideways to another massive bush, then scrambling upwards on another trunk till he hit the first major branch. Running for a few moments down it before leaping sideways to the next one. The high roads weren't for the faint of heart and they weren't any safer. Just another option. He dropped through the loose-knit kite-sized leaves again at another hand sign. Carnivorous vines it looked like. Bad enough that they'd eat you, but the bees really loved their flowers. And a swarm of 10-inch bees was a nightmare he had no desire to see up close.
Glancing up, a bit fearfully made Timothy almost miss his next rebound. Forced to use another blast of force magic to make up the difference. His skin pinged with attention, highly amused attention at that. It rankled a bit, but he wouldn't let it bother him.
It didn't help that Donald off to his right was bouncing and weaving like Ali on magic steroids. Even his guard detail was more hunting partners and less babysitters. Of course, that was because he did this all the time. Actively hunted the jungle around his Hold of Bloodhaven. An extra source of pocket money and training.
Timothy didn't. He had far too many demands on his time already to spend days hunting in the jungle. For that matter, he made far more staying in his tower.
It still rankled.
He despised being the babysat VIP of the group.
A large group too. Thirty-six people, Timothy mused. Less than the fifty-six who set out to found a new settlement. There should have been a Conestoga wagon in there somewhere. It was right at the limit, or frankly even a bit over it. Thankfully it was a soft limit. The jungle didn't like big groups traveling through the mess of bestial territories.
Humans being decidedly on the smaller side, no group also didn't work very well. Hard to watch your own back or to carry out the loot from even a single kill. The sweet spot was somewhere between ten and fifty. Go over that by too much, and you risk igniting small-scale beast waves.
Of course, with the Cardea and sixteen volunteers staying behind, they'd dropped below the limits. It was safe-ish. At least as long as they weren't slow, stupid or unlucky.
Unlucky they couldn't do much about, but slow or stupid were well within their control. The jungle wasn't a place for extended fights. Too much life and all of it hungry. Once blood and magic started flying about you were on a timer. Take too long to make the kill and someone else would get to eat it, and probably you as well. No, it wasn't 'capture the hill' they were playing, it was a race. Humans ran, and beasts were drawn to the smells and blood left in their wake. Go fast enough and the predators would be happy to feast on the leftovers. If not… Well, Timothy preferred not to think about that right now!
It worked even if the absurd speed resulted in more than a few surprise encounters. Surprise for both parties on the positive side. All twitch reflexes and adapting to situations on the fly. It wasn't his strong suit. Give him a bit of time to scry the path, and he'd clean it up without issue... and more creatures would fill in the gaps before he could walk it.
Oh, it wasn't quite as bad as all that, even on the move Timothy's senses were considerably better than most. His magic was contained and untainted, combined with a decent scent blocker and a camo cloak he was rarely targeted but just as important the aura was a lens for magical sight.
His was clean and uncorrupted by the foreign mana left behind in beast meat supplements and ill-treated wounds.
Even when he wasn't cheating.
He let out another ping. An invisible ripple that expanded outward in all directions many times faster than they were moving, though it began to slow down rapidly as the amount of information it passed over grew ever larger. It wasn't spherical any more than the Wards were and for the same reasons. Without studying the field it was possible for eddies and odd connections in the Field for him to miss things, It was still far better than nothing.
The expanding ripple at first just returned static. Real information, but far too dense to read at this speed. But then bits and pieces of chaos turned to clarity as a metallic bracer on his upper arm reacted. Camo Leopard napping 230 yards to the left, no threat. Rat nest 225 forward and down, his hands rapidly threw out a warning and they moved up to the sky road. A shadow snake sitting in the trees in front of them, its coiled body containing over 8 feet of space and likely over 20 long in a strike, barely tier 2 then, but still dangerous.
Mentally embracing a shrunken piranha head, a bit over 5 pounds of desiccated, preserved meat and bone hanging from his belt, runes lined its scales and teeth and its eyes still staring outward with a flickering dim inner light. With a mental command, a spectral fish lept free, calling other such ghosts in passing as it swam the Field with great speed. Fast in the Field, but in jerking teleports in the physical, they covered the 180 yards in seconds and descended in a feeding frenzy on the unsuspecting snake.
It snapped at them in a rage, but even after devouring two or three in showers of malignant dark mana, it could not stop them all.
Its crumpled form remained lying across the branch like a belt on a clothesline. A belt that was mostly missing its buckle now.
Timothy threw a few extra hands signs to his bodyguards, who again passed them outward, soon the entire hunting party made a slight shift and paused for 20 seconds. Experts slid to a stop beside the dead snake, deftly moving a pair of wands down its length, before wrenching the remaining skin off, now unconnected to its flesh. Like peeling off a stocking, it came off intact except for the missing head.
A few of the better cuts of meat were quickly removed, as well as the gall bladder and a shadowy sinew the length of its spine. Then they were moving again, leaving more of a tier beast than they would like behind for something else to eat. Probably the birth of a new tier 2 as well, but that couldn't be helped.
Still, that was how a hunt should go. Spot it far out, kill it, harvest it. Profit. Never give it a chance to fight back. Too bad it didn't always work that way. Timothy half winced as a Margay, an arboreal cat, 8 feet sans tail of mana-empowered agility and nastiness in a 150lb bag seemed to appear on a scout’s back, ripping and tearing at his suddenly solid aural construct.
It was sent flying, broken and dead, in less than a second, but that didn't leave the scout any less mauled. He'd be spending hours repairing his inner world, and until then he was vulnerable. He filtered back into the center as one of the heavies subbed out a few offensive for defensive enchantments and moved forward as a scout.
Timothy sighed, even cheating had limits. And for a portable filter, he could only tune it to so many different species. He had to reserve it for the main threats. There were a number of other Guardians pulling similar tricks, but none apparently had a ward up for Margay. Not that they should have. Their horrifying speed meant you practically had to have the detection ward up 100% of the time to do any good. No one had the mana for that. Not when there were dozens of more deadly creatures to watch for. The scout survived after all. Margays were fast but they didn't hit that hard. A minor threat and a nuisance really.
All they'd done was waste some mana and time. It was still a loss, but no blood was spilled on the human side, and they were still moving. This time. But every time humans were attacked, instead of attacking, there was a chance the beast would find a flaw or an exhausted defender.
It was like fishing or rolling dice. If you gave them enough attempts, sooner or later there would be a hit. And that was a violation of Timothy's philosophy on magic combat. A fact he'd tried to drum into his students more than a few times...
“How do you win a fight, Hopper? Easy, act while ensuring that your opponent cannot act.”
“Teacher… you might as well tell me that the pointy end goes in the other man! It’s not very helpful.”
“Heh, that was a good movie. And it's true. Kill them before they kill you is a very successful method.”
“Teacher! I mean it, how do you win? I need to know what direction to develop my spells in. So please?”
“Alright, alright. In my defense, your question is pretty damn broad! But, as I am rather fond of you and hope that you continue to remain among the living, I’ll try.”
He cleared his throat. Organizing his thoughts for a few moments before speaking. Some things he'd worked out for himself. Some were cribbed or stolen from Arthur’s font of military trivia. Sung Tsu might sound like a ‘Confucius says joke, but there was some real wisdom there. Then again, they didn’t often field enough people in a single group for strategy, best just talk about tactics… though the difference between the two seemed pretty small at times!
“Let's break victory down into three things. Information, reach, and mobility. Life's more complicated than that, but it’s a good place to start.”
“First let’s talk about information. It's the first contact in any conflict, and it occurs far before most people realize there is a conflict. And it will continue to control the directions and results far after the ‘fighting’ is done.
It’s a different kind of conflict, it's true. One between stealth and detection, spies and disinformation, scrying and obfuscation. If you know your opponent is marching to war before he leaves the city gates then what will you have waiting for him when he arrives?
On a smaller scale, if you can find him in the shrubbery, but he can’t find you on the branches above, then you can rain hell down on him and he'll just have to take it. If you win at the information war, it's hard to lose at the rest. You engage when it is advantageous and if it never is the initiative to retreat lies with you.”
“Next is reach.” and something he made up wholesale. He still wasn’t sure why the masters never talked about it. “The ability to project violence while you remain outside your opponent's ability to do the same. From an old-world gun to traps or melee weapons, and now to magic. If you can locate and strike your opponent at 100 feet out, but he can only do the same at 50, then you have 50 feet unopposed to kill him. If you can kill him at 5 feet of range, but he only has 4 the same applies. The wise wizard creates as large a gap between the two as possible, then makes sure his opponents stay in that gap.”
“The last bit is how you do that. Mobility. But it’s not just about moving fast. It’s a relative thing. Trapping your opponent in a pit while you stand above him? Good mobility! If you can move faster, longer and/or more effectively than your opponent, then he never gets to leave the band of unopposed death your reach offers. If he has better reach, it will let you dive in and actually compete, or run for it if you choose. You, again, decide where and how the fight will occur.”
“Of course, it doesn't always work. Things like food supplies and towns confuse the issue. Objectives you MUST defend can really alter the playing field, but let's keep it simple for now.”
He paused at that, going over the last sentence, “Simple, heh, all of this is easy to say right? It’s not easy to do. Remember this, you win a fight by dealing with your opponent, not by giving him opportunities to deal with you. Act! Don’t just sit around and react. A punching bag, no matter how well made, will only take a beating. Given enough time, even a weakling can wear it down and destroy it. Don't be the bag. Leave that to your opponent. You do the punching!”
“Your way is not very sportsmanlike, teacher.”
He shook off the pleasant memory and dodged around a thorny berry bush, snagging a huskberry in passing. Tasty little bastards just so long as you didn't touch the thorns. They'd leave you itching for hours.
His right hand was occupied with his War Staff, so he wasn't going to be teasing them out of their nut-like shell yet, but it was something to look forward to.
He absolutely hated the inelegance of the pell-mell fight these jungle jaunts devolved into. They'd had no casualties yet, but even with this group of professional badasses, they weren't getting through untouched. A half dozen of the close in heavies sported damaged aura constructs, from a few scored lines and a weakened intent to one Brotherhood Magus with half his spectral boat's port side caved in. Not to mention the rents in his leather back plate sporting a distinctive crimson tinge. Active wards were disappearing as their users refused to risk an overload pop-off. Secondary weapons were coming out as the primaries ran out of stored mana.
It wasn't desperate, nor frankly that unusual. Just the price the jungle extracted from all who passed through it.
Still, Timothy forced himself to let it go as he almost missed another wall jump. The irony didn't escape him. He was the greenie here. Not them. Veteran Jungle Runners to the man, or women. They'd survived doing this so far, he'd best get off their backs about it. Or just not open his mouth.
Ya, that was often the best plan.
Still, nothing stopped Timothy from lending a hand, his own way.
He glanced sideways as a familiar shiver went up his spine. The hunter bouncing off a trunk in front of him had a small rod with a flaring flat cone on the end. Like a small broom where each straw piece in the head was a finally shaped essence wood sensor. A weep, sweep when inside the walls and s's wouldn't carry.
Each weeper, he who weeps, would carry a dozen of the things. One for each of the primary threats, beast, plant or insect. Then they switch between them, sweeping them in arcs to check in whatever direction they pointed them.
Of course, mana being what it was, a spell could have a large area, be complicated, or cheap. Pick one. In this case, cheap. Dropping the range and limiting the complexity to one creature made it affordable... Mostly. They still couldn't afford to have them going all the time. One every 20 seconds or so was the usual pace. It left a good bit to be desired considering the speed of movement. They did the best they could, but timing and Murphy meant that things would slip through. Then it was defensive wards and aural armor that had to take up the slack.
Oh, it was a worthwhile trade-off. It didn’t matter if there were 10 siren parrots within 10 miles, it did matter if one was 250 feet south, southwest. But when you were moving at 25 miles an hour or better, even 500 feet wasn’t much time to react.
So Timothy made it a thousand, in front at least. It was good to be the Giant.
A shriveled bat ear fetish hanging from his belt flickered to life. Symbols mattered, and a bat’s ability to see with its ears was a very useful one. The pulse expanded again, and he felt the flow of information pour over him like a tidal wave. Trees, moss, vines, mushroom spores. Life in a thousand shades and styles pouring through without rhyme or reason. Far too much information for Timothy to pick out more than a few drops at a time.
Given enough time he could parse it. Slowly populating his mind space with translated static, filtering for the stable sources first, then becoming sensitive to new additions. But slowly was a bit of an understatement. Ten minutes for a fairly small area, and that only if he dropped fully into the Field, trance-like and incredibly vulnerable. Not an option here.
So cheating was the name of the game. He spent that slow time elsewhere making an enchantment. Preparation was king.
Blending his will with the metallic bracer inscribed with a bridge in yet more amber. He let the shattered insights and overwhelming amounts of clutter flow through without sticking. Water flowing under the bridge did not affect the bridge. Until pieces of flotsam snared up against the footings and static became life.
Short-faced bear off to the side, fuck no. Redirect. More snakes far enough away not to matter, some acid ferns below, but far enough off their course not to be an issue. Ten or so hogs 300 yards off to the east getting dinner. No threat.
A Leopard some 270 feet in front of them and a little to the right. The image burned through the clutter, clear and precise, more so than if he could see it with his actual eyes. Magical camouflage would have left him seeing little more than fluttering leaves. Here he watched in stereo highlights as the massive, beautiful animal groomed itself, long slow strokes of its tongue removing the detritus of normal life. Or knowing the murder kittys, getting blood out of its fur.
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It was at least mid-Tier 2 considering how close it was without Timothy noticing it. Even more so without the outline his enchantments gave him, he'd have trouble noticing the damn thing.
But he did notice it, and it was too close to their route and far too deadly to ignore. He acted immediately as his killing intent crystallized, clamping down on his aura and will to keep the beast from feeling it for a few seconds, though no more than that. Hiding it wasn't a common skill, nor an easy one, but Timothy managed.
The same piranha head fetish hummed to life. It wasn't his only offensive spell, but it was cheap, long ranged and effective. Mostly. It was the magical equivalent of a hollow-point sniper round. Great at range and for targets without hardened defenses. Not so much against beefier critters. A cat that was built for ambushes was not that.
The first fish formed and swam away, rapidly gaining speed and followers as it darted through the hidden magic ways, practically teleporting as it swam the labyrinthine, Escher-esque Field. The 200 feet was covered in barely a second before the swarm snapped into existence barely three feet from the cat. It noticed them, desperately springing sideways, but far, far to late. The spectral stream dived towards it with fell intent. The first three or four dissipated as they carved through its aura, still in its hiding state rather than defensive, then the rest swam through his head, taking a wee nibble inside it on the way by.
With a choked-off scream that sounded young and human, the beast fell. Slowly fading from Timothy's sight. His filters keyed on life, among other things. The dead were beyond his sight.
Cats were deadly dangerous. But they weren't the only things his filters would detect.
Elemental Wolves, Shadow Snakes, Hogs, Camouflaged Leopards, Siren Parrots, Acid Ferns, Rats, Army Ants, Short-faced Bears. The usual suspects
Four of five deaths in the Dark were from one of them. It was too bad that the last death could take oh so many forms. Too many for Timothy to include them all in something small enough to wear.
Timothy darted forward, closing up briefly to tap the captain of his bodyguards, Sven, on the shoulder, bouncing away a moment later while flipping through several hand gestures, including pointing in the direction of the downed animal. The older, rough-skinned and tattooed sailor gave him a steady glance over the 10 or so yards between them, then reluctantly nodded. Tossing out a few hand gestures of his own that were repeated in an expanding ripple. The cloud of bounding hunters shifted direction slightly again.
Getting close Timothy gestured with his War Staff. The cat's pony-sized body levitated out of a twilberry bush and over to the harvesters. No one was going to brave thorns longer than his hands, not to mention any hiding insects or beasts, to get to the prey. He noped that right in the bud. The cat's body floated sideways and dropped onto an exposed tree root, fully 15 feet wide and more than firm enough for the job.
Four Runners darted up nearby trees for overwatch while Sven and another three divided the ground directions. Out of the corners of his eye Timothy watched two dozen others filter into their own places. Checking overhead, beneath bushes or around the massive boulders that dotted the jungle floor. No surprises so far.
He let out another ping to check for himself as well, getting several returns, but nothing close enough to be a problem. Meanwhile the four harvesters, any one of the hunters around him could do the job, but it was still assigned to a few each trip for convenience, set to work.
Pulling out a series of wands they deftly peeled the fur back from the body, storing the bloody pelt in harvest sacks as soon as it came off and moving on to gut and fillet the creature. All without ever touching it, a waved wand severed the flesh into steaks and roasts even as another cleaned out the organs and separated the bones. A third filled a large waterskin with blood.
With snakes, the flesh was cursed with an acid-like shadow property and almost more trouble than it was worth to harvest. Cat’s meat wasn’t the most popular, but nearly everything else about them was. Cloaks from their hide and ambush weapons from claws and bones. A few meat chunks were quickly wrapped in tree leaves anyway, each leaf several feet long and maybe a quarter inch thick, and distributed into sacks strapped to each hunter's back. Between ten people and enchanted, scent-blocking, rot-denying sacks it was almost like they weren’t carrying a thing.
Everything on a Tier 2 was valuable, but it wasn't just for greed that they'd risked stopping. It was practicality. Humans could eat meat to get stronger, even if most needed a bit of processing to help the process along. Beasts didn't need help. Consumption and growth were core concepts in their existence. To the point that those concepts stuck around after death. That was what made the flesh empowering for humans. Tier 2 meat left behind was a Tier 2 scavenger waiting for them next time.
Unfortunately, it was too early to stuff the bags. They left much of the meat and all of the bones and viscera.
Then they were sealed back up and sprinting away.
The pause was little more than a footnote, 1 cat, harvested, no casualties. If there was a spreadsheet, it would have been a hundred lines deep already. Each line containing some variant of Kill X, harvest X, run. PS. never stop looking.
The rules of the jungle in action. Pay attention or die. Move quickly or die. Don’t bleed, don’t make noise, don't stink and use your head. The Jungle was a better teacher than Timothy was. Teacher, trainer and treasure trove, all in one.
Some men hated it. They rarely survived. Hate precluded understanding. Precluded respect. Some loved it and basked in its beauty. Timothy didn't really hold with that either. It was gorgeous, sure, and if they left it there, he wouldn't object. Them thinking the Jungle loved them back gave him the heebie-jeebies. There were easier ways to commit suicide.
They darted forward, occasional hand gestures or quiet bird calls redirected their path around obstacles and away from conflict where possible, through it at a sprint and massed firepower when not.
And 'when not' was what was coming up hard. Timothy could 'see' the passel of hogs spread out before them, devouring a set of berry bushes he would wager, not that those details came through. Two of the team leads had briefly held a quick discussion via hand signals, but there really wasn't a good way to go around them. The terrain made something of a funnel, from rock walls on one side rising into a sort of mesa (prime terror bird nesting area) on one side and what looked suspiciously like a marsh on the other. Between snakes, insects and a massive variety of poisonous plants, that was a hard pass as well.
The leads agreed. Sven darted back towards Timothy, making a series of exaggerated signs above his head. Prepare for combat, all ahead full. Weapons were switched out or traded while wands and fetishes were produced from bags and under clothing. A few Runners started slow, muted chants, weaving together the complicated spell constructs that took too long for mid-combat but were great to kick things off.
Sven pulled a string of familiar preserved piranha skulls out and started his own chant. Timothy had to hold back a smile. His work, and it still brought a smile to his face to see it used. And it was a common smile. Most hunters out of the three cities of Runehold, Paradise and Bloodhaven carried something of his as a backup. Primaries using their own mana and built from their chosen paths were much more potent, but they only had so much personal mana to use. Timothy's work, on the other hand, had its own mana pool. It just cost willpower so long as that pool lasted.
Still, while they were common, that didn't mean everyone was capable of getting the same performance out of one. And few indeed would or could daisy chain them together. Sven was... Unique. He'd quickly understood that a single piranha was an annoyance or dinner, but a swarm was a nightmare and turned it into his own style. A style Timothy'd copied wholesale for some of his newer weapons. Even if the difference in focus meant his own use was more sniper rifle.
Sven's was a heavy machine gun. One of many reasons he made captain. Oh, he was also wise, responsible and experienced. But finding his own methods and his own understanding of them elevated him above the masses. When you understood what it was you wanted to happen, it was far easier to make it happen. And more potent too.
It wasn't something Timmothy'd really understood at first, despite having said the same words and believed he'd followed them. The first weapons he'd created, somewhat pompously named Essence Light Rifles (ELRs), were a perfect example. Their damage came from a stored, concentrated element. The user just had to release it in the right direction. Simple, easy to use by any guardian, and nearly useless against any tier 2 or better creature. There wasn't any story there worth telling. No understanding to be had. And no multiplier on the damage dealt. The difference between an expert and a novice was mostly their aim.
The truth of successful spell casting was in the opposite direction. Understanding + Willpower = Intent. Intent x Mana = Damage. Simple in concept, not simple or easy in execution.
A truth Timothy expected to see in spades soon because Sven wasn't the only one rocking something he created. Perhaps one of them had thought up something interesting that he could stea- uhum- take inspiration from.
Spectral symbols lit up with mana that pulsed in time with a short chat to his left. A DnDer spell imprint, something earth-related. To his right several Paradisians were dancing in time with their own quiet chants, ghostly forms fading into focus on large donations of mana. Loa, Timothy forced himself not to flinch away, as the Paradisians started plying the spirits with pieces of food and libations from their drinking jars.
Despite the variety and elaborateness of the preparations, none took more than a dozen seconds, and with a readiness check done in hand signals, a wide line of hunters took a rough form, and at the signal moved! Covering the last 100 yards in a full sprint. Timothy held up a rune-covered nautilus shell, chanting silently as the shell absorbed all of the noise for 20 yards while a chunk of charcoal hanging on a lanyard from his staff hand absorbed their scent.
Bouncing high, Timothy saw with his eyes, rather than just his mana, two dozen odd hogs, about half of what should be here. They were spread out over a wide triangular valley, bounded by massive interconnected roots from three great trees and positively covered in a massive berry patch. A patch that already showed some serious wear with wide passages trampled or eaten through it. The hog's thick skin shrugging off the futile defense of thorns.
Contact!
The earth exploded open, throwing some beasts into the air on one side even as it opened up to swallow some whole on the other. A spectral shoal of piranhas collapsed from above in a wave that spun briefly about one panicking pig, before moving on, leaving its flesh intact, but its spirit devoured.
Bright arcs of lightning lit up the forced twilight, leaving bars of black painted across Timothy's vision as they struck a hog, then arced outwards in a growing chain of paralysis and burning flesh. Shadows took form as demons of dust dived into open mouths or through ears to bedevil their prey.
Shock and awe. The first blast of charged-up and overpowered spells did its job, ripping apart the majority of visible opponents. A human force would break in panic. But beasts were not humans, and Hogs even more so than most. A rising squeal of rage and pain started from one unseen throat after another, uniting in a wall of sound and fury that shredded the concealing bushes and shot toward the attackers in a visible pressure wave.
An expected wave. Timothy reversed the Nautilus charm, no longer absorbing but projecting and even amplifying the sound of 40 hunters running, chanting and screaming war cries. It was a massive outpouring, but any one of the Hunters could have done the same, Timothy had to take it up a notch to keep his reputation.
And he did, bleeding into the mix the feral hunting cry of a dire hippo. They weren't common, thank Google, outside of wetlands or rivers but even short-faced bears wanted no part of 10+ tons of thick hide, strong magic and pure meanness. The mixed sounds formed their own wave, carrying fury, killing intent and pure confidence.
The two waves crashed against each other in a cataclysm of sound and destruction. Shredding anything stuck between them, then Confidence and Killing intent washed through and inundated the valley with its intimidating cry!
Cries of pain and rage were overwhelmed as even Hogs froze momentarily at the predatory cries.
It was only for a moment. But a moment that left another dozen hogs dead.
Death stalked the land, but the hogs weren't going to go quietly into the night. Wounded and more than decimated, they weren't all dead yet. The most dangerous moments, because a hog could do a lot of damage while dying.
In the feral suicidal berserker rage that exemplified their species the males and older females turned into the face of the ambush and charged. Releasing stores of motion to turn their bodies into living missiles of enormous weight and power while the piglets and young mothers scattered into the underbrush in all directions.
At the head of the charge was a massive Bristleback Boar, hidden at the start by a minor root and a fold in the ground. His revealed form was half again the size of the next largest minion. The bristling hairs that gave them their name stood up like finger-thick spikes on his reddish hide. Two burnished tusks stood out nearly four feet in front of him like cavalry sabers. A Tier 2 Alpha and he was pissed.
He was also, at only mid-Tier 2, completely outclassed. Donald made a complicated gesture and ripped several gallons of blood out through his eyes, his chant was quiet, but Timothy was close enough to make out a bit. “From leader to led, shared vision of a shared end!” The floating pool of blood exploded into dagger-shaped droplets that visibly curved to strike the eyes of hogs nearby, piercing into the sound of pained squeals and rage.
It seemed like the end, eight or nine blinded hogs in crippling pain out of a pack of nearly fifty. No one stopped chanting, nor lowered their guards. Hogs were an old foe and every man and woman here had fought them many, many times. They'd seen friends and comrades killed before and had learned how not to become them. There was no shock or surprise when even blind they threw themselves forward with desperate rage. A biological imperative to give the young time to get away. Nobility in swine. Ironic but true.
Striking trees and rocks with noises that were more explosions than impact, they bulled forward fearlessly. But without surprise or the shock of a massed charge, all they had was their berserker bravery.
And it wasn’t enough.
The hunting party around Timothy was the cream of the crop. Men with Hog bone staves waved them like baseball bats, reaching out with force magic to play billiards with pigs. Redirecting the porcine missiles into trees, straight up or down into the dirt. Any direction that didn't have a Jungle Runner.
Using their own bones against them struck some as morbid. Timothy thought of it as respect. They were a potent foe, even noble at times. Worthy prey. And a worthy source of power to take for their own. Given the opportunity, they'd do the same in turn, eating humans to gain strength. What goes around...
Respect them, he nodded to himself, mindless hate will get you killed.
The last few, stunned and half-crushed by awkward impacts or large falls were deftly put out of their misery in a flurry of fire, lightning and ghostly blades.
Then it was the same old, same old. A quick scan found the best quality meat, and a pass with an enchanted cleaver made just for hogs, symbolic rather than actually used to cut, removed the prime meat cuts from a few select animals. Blood was quickly siphoned into jars and water skins as any beasts that were tier 2 were singled out for much more thorough harvesting.
Sven popped up next to Timothy lightly tapping him on the shoulder to drag his attention away from the cleanup. He gestured over the alpha, and spoke quietly, “Give us a hand hanging it?”
Talking wasn't encouraged, but considering the noise of the conflict, well that ship had sailed. Still, Timothy didn't bother to make a discussion out of it. He waved his staff through a quick pattern then gestured with it sharply up. The alpha jerked, like a puppet on strings, hanging face downward and stretching out to its nearly 20 feet of length. Two harvesters, having to jump up and hang off the corpse, dragged a pair of wands down from the feet to the head as the hide followed them down, like peeling off wrapping paper or unzipping a sweater. Timothy suppressed his rising gorge. It wasn't a pleasant sight. A skinned pig looked almost human...
He suppressed that thought quickly.
A swipe of a different wand split open the stomach and removed the entrails, bagging even them up this time, hog intestines were useful and, on an animal this size, it was too much to leave for scavengers. Then in less than a minute the breastbone and backbone were split, the legs were disconnected at the joints, hip and knees, and the head was removed. Each piece was quickly loaded into expanded harvest sacks, their scaled leather bottoms rippling with an awakening charm, hoisted onto willing shoulders (sticking above them a good bit) and with a glance at the others, they were off again.
They moved off with little evidence of the increased weight. Seemingly at the same speed as before. Little evidence, but it was there. Enchanted Hovercroc hide dropped the weight of the sacks, but it didn't change the mass and when bouncing from tree to tree that was a real thing. Timothy's belt was made from the same material, and he used it constantly to keep up. He knew its weak points quite well. With filled bags, the Runners would be slower at redirecting their momentum, accelerating and decelerating, not to mention a bit awkward with a shifted center of balance.
Still more tolerable than carrying a five-hundred-pound sack. Even for the seven-plus feet guardians, roided out on beast meat. They'd need to drop them should a serious fight present itself, and the time that took was a risk.
Still, it was a well-known risk. One they planned and trained for.
Within a minute they were hundreds of yards away from the battlefield and Timothy let out a slight sigh of relief. No adds. They'd taken less than a minute to kill the passel and another two to harvest the results. A fourth to get away. Not long really, but that didn't mean it was safe. Hogs were nearly the bottom of the food chain. If something, or multiple somethings, had shown up for their regular dinner, well, bad luck happened and things could get dicey.
It led to an interesting dichotomy in hunting. It was a long trip and you only had so much mana, but when a fight happened, you still had to go all out. Kill everything and kill it fast. Force the fight to an early and mana-wise wasteful conclusion. The alternative was to risk attracting every predator for miles. Too much blood, too much sound. They couldn’t afford to linger. There is no such thing as overkill, Timothy reminded himself, just keep firing and I need to reload!
They'd carried away almost the entire Tier 2 hogs but left the lower tiers behind. The meat and bones were useful, but common and easy to come by. No risk to leave behind and hopefully enough to feed the scavengers and keep them occupied.
Hopefully.
It didn't always work that way. Tiered beasts were intelligent, at least to a degree. Sometimes that intelligence directed them to the easy meal, not risking their life on predators capable of the destruction in front of them. Sometimes they realized that the predators had collected all this lovely Tiered meat, valuable herbs and whatnot. A treasure trove on the move. That's where scent markers and trackers came in. Beasts that were smart enough to tag a hunter group, then try to pick them off on their return to base. They lost a lot of good Runners to them in the past. The cleansing spells each hold and threshold used were proof of that.
Hopefully, they wouldn't have to deal with that this time.
That damn word again. Hopefully.
They moved. Faster than old-world sprinters yet able to keep it up for the entire day. The Tiered meat had changed more than just the surface level. They weren't just a set of tall Arnolds. Magic-backed muscles were stronger pound for pound and could be fed with mana in an emergency to keep up the pace.
Timothy only managed to keep up because he cheated. Maintaining several enchantments to lighten his weight and to lend power to his steps. They were incredibly efficient spells because he understood them. Working off an internal charge that spent mana in driblets rather than a stream. It was still exhausting controlling them for most of a day.
They continued, pausing rarely and fully stopping only for brief bursts when harvesting. Avoid conflicts where they could, hit like the hand of an angry god when they couldn't, but always, always move fast. Sacks were filled to the bursting while minor wounds and bruises accumulated as strikes slipped through here or there.
Welcome to the jungle.