How do you kill a monster that is many times your strength and size?
Liam had three answers: tools, persistence, and knowledge.
Well, knowledge wouldn’t kill the thing, but it sure as heck would help with the other two.
Now, what did Liam know about Crobos that might prove useful? For one, they were fiercely protective of their nests. The shock-alligators would set up shop somewhere, and though they might roam about looking for prey, it was at their nest where they would eat the spoils. A crobo would protect the nest from invaders with the kind of relentlessness that one could get out of an African honey badger (commonly known as “those dog-sized motherfuckers that would throw themselves against lions and scare them off”).
Why would they protect their nests so harshly?
Because the conditions for their young to hatch were extremely specific. The monster needed to carefully control ambient mana, saturating it with its electric power from time to time. And if that saturation was off by even a little, then the eggs would not survive.
So the first step was to find the nest.
“I get why you’d want to find out if it has a mate or not, but why do you need to know if it’s a male or not?” Bunny wondered idly, perched on his shoulder as they followed the river upstream.
“Males spend a lot more time and energy altering the ambient mana; it’s a way to show off how well fed and strong they are.” He might have the best spotter in the world at his side, but she’d intentionally ‘missed’ things whenever she thought him too distracted. “It’d be easier to exhaust it; I’d just need to mess up the nest-prep, and he’ll redo it over and over.”
“And not get caught and killed while doing so.”
“Bingo.”
Bunny sighed, tapping her foot and twisting it slightly, signaling him to turn to the right. “You do realize that, even without magic, the thing is at least a hundred times your weight and covered in razor-sharp scales.”
“One problem at a time.”
Liam still wasn’t sure what he was looking for; maybe the crobo had left tracks, or maybe it would leave a trail of mana that Bunny could pick up on. For now, their path through the jungle felt closer to aimless meandering. They were in no rush, particularly since running around like headless chickens was a quick way to get hunted by something else.
While within Maridah’s domain, Liam could more or less hash out the presence of danger by virtue of understanding the Goddess’ way of thinking. But in the wider jungle, her designs were far more… fuzzy. He could get a very vague sense of where the big stuff was, like knowing the general direction to the nearest “oasis,” but that was as far as his confidence reached.
Bunny had thoroughly proven how quickly he would die if he “followed his gut” where it didn’t apply.
“Left.” Her little voice came out a whisper, tapping his shoulder twice in warning.
He froze, eyes darting around as he slowly lowered his profile. The only sound was that of the river just a dozen meters away, splashing water and rustling leaves. Liam lowered further, sensing something moving somewhere between himself and the river.
“Go back. Slowly.”
With no room or desire to go against the dead serious tone, he turned around, retracing each step with extreme care not to disturb anything. For a full ten minutes, he continued inching his way through the foliage until, finally, she gave him the all-clear tap.
“Found the nest,” Bunny let out a sigh at the same time he did.
“Male or female?” He immediately prompted, sitting down and taking the rabbit off his shoulder so as to begin ‘payment’.
“And how do you figure I’d know that?” she huffed.
Liam chuckled, giving a liberal amount of scratching. “I mean, you’re the sex expert.”
“I-” Bunny glared at him, then huffed. “I am the sex expert. I have every single memory and factoid the bitch-boss ever knew or experienced about it. She’s had more collective fuck-hours than you’ve been alive.” Her foot twitched as he dug his fingers behind her ears. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mistake my knowledge of all the carnal pleasures of the world with animal husbandry.”
“That does seem like a lot of sex-knowledge. I apologize for the slight,” he shifted to scratch under the fuzzy little chin.
“Well, despite what I said, she was a frigid bitch anyway. It’s just that you’re a mortal; she’s spent more time blinking than you have existed,” the little rabbit closed her eyes, nose twitching and leg thumping as she purred.
Liam was mostly thankful she wasn’t fake-moaning, as that had gotten awkward fast.
“Guess that’s the bonus of being hundreds of millions of years old,” he sighed. “Now that we know where it lives, I guess we can start stalking the area to see if we can find other clues about-”
“It’s female,” at her claim, he shot a mock-glare at the rabbit, who was now avoiding his gaze. “I had to make a point,” she hastily added. “Anyway, what now?”
“Any young or eggs?”
“None.”
With a brief nod, he grinned as he looked down at her. “Then… this means things will be a bit more involved.”
Bunny jolted, eyes widening. “No… no, please don’t-” She tried to bolt, to spring away and make an escape, but Liam had pinched the scruff of her neck, holding the struggling lagomorph midair. “Noooooooo!”
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Scurrying through the underbrush was a lizard; it wasn’t a particularly smart lizard, but it was a large lizard. Its dark green scales were dull and had lost their luster, but that only helped it camouflage better between the dead leaves and branches. The creature moved quickly, in small bursts as it traversed from tree to tree, tasting the air, seeking prey.
“Oh woe is me, an innocent bunny lost in the big scary jungle.”
A tiny black ball of fluff bounded across a clearing, wiggling its ears and tail, innocently glancing around, and missing the lizard that was several hundred times larger. It looked at the lagomorph, momentarily watching its odd behavior.
“It sure would be a shame if some big bad predator got its fangs on me. I can barely stand the thought of how delicious of a meal I would make!”
It hopped once toward the lizard, and then thrice away in quick succession.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Not seeing anything out of place, the reptile lunged, maw open.
It only got a mouthful of leaves and dirt.
“That sure was a close call!” the rabbit cried out. “Almost makes me wonder how close my luck was!”
The lizard jumped again, and this time the rabbit screeched, abruptly moving away from the hungry predator. Something was pulling at the lagomorph, and the lizard would not let it escape.
“It’s catching up!” the black ball of fluff screamed with a shrill voice. “Liam, faster, faster!”
The meal kept barely avoiding its tasty fate, the lizard’s mouth watered with toxic saliva as it dug its claws to push further, harder. It was catching up, and the prey’s screams became louder and louder the closer it got. Every snap of its maw would not earn him the succulent reward, yet it got him just a little-
BOOM
A lightning bolt brought a swift end to the lizard before it could even realize what had happened. The creature’s body slumped, sizzling and smoking from its every pore, flesh mostly cooked instantly.
The monster responsible for the attack peered down at the felled intruder with a quiet glare. Nothing stirred under its watchful gaze, and after a moment, it approached the corpse, clamping down on the large creature and dragging it toward its nest.
Once the crobo was gone, the rope holding Bunny pulled, and she was slowly raised up into the canopy.
The aspect of the Goddess of secrets could only sigh in dejection.
How could her existence have turned into this?
Lowered not just to a glorified guide but denigrated into being live bait.
“We’ve made great progress. I’d say we can go at least one more time today,” Liam commented idly, entirely unconcerned for Bunny’s suffering.
Some mortals called the deities that weren’t part of the pantheon demons.
But Bunny knew, she knew without a shred of doubt, that the true demon was right here.
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“I refuse!”
It was the third day of operation ‘bait-and-switch’. So far, they had managed to tire the crobo enough that it had stopped using its lightning as frequently. But it seemed like it would take at least another day or two before it properly exhausted its reserves. The problem was that they couldn’t just put a conga line of wild predatory animals straight into its den; the pauses between “raids” allowed the monster to recharge a little at a time.
But bit by bit, they were wearing it down.
They had set up camp uphill from the river, close enough that Bunny could broadly sense whether the monster was near or around its den, but not so close that it could stumble upon them.
“I refuse! I refuse! I refuse! I refuse!” Bunny decried, hopping mad around the campfire while Liam struggled to tie down the rope as the log inched ever so slightly upward. “Enough is enough, I will not be treated this way!”
Drenched in sweat, shirtless, and with hands covered in boils, he glanced over her way once he had put the knot in place. “I take it you don’t like being bait?”
“OF COURSE I DON’T WANT TO BE BAIT!” she shouted up at him.
“You realize that, out of the two of us, you’re the one that’s practically indestructible.”
“It doesn’t make the prospect of being chewed and digested any more appealing!” she seethed, kicking a hot coal back into the fire pit. “I was tricked! I will not take any more of your worthless bribes. I was not put into this world just so that I could be covered in spit and bodily fluids!”
“I mean-”
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”
He regarded her for a moment, the tiny rabbit doing her best to cross her paws and stamp her foot. She conveyed the anger well, but the fist-sized little bunny was all the cuter for it.
“Okay, okay, I guess I’ve been holding back. I can-”
“Unless you have somehow learned of a way to get me into a human-compatible form, and intend to give me my first time, I am not going to hear another word from you!”
Liam’s eyes lingered on Bunny, feeling slightly conflicted.
She was an aspect.
If a God was an ocean, then an aspect was a bowl that had been used to draw water from it. They possessed full consciousness and sentience, in the exact same way that a human would. But they also had an underlying undeniable link to the source, to the Origin. It was this very link that made them ever-willing participants even at the prospect of their own “death” (if one could call it that), because as far as the aspect was concerned, their termination meant a return to their Origin.
Yet at the same time, the more time he spent with her, the less Bunny felt like some chunk taken out of Maridah.
Maybe it was his mind playing tricks like when you saw faces out of random patterns? Maybe-
“First?”
The rabbit froze mid-tirade, flinched, then turned her glare towards the ground in a huff. “How old am I, Liam?”
“You mentioned… a couple million years old?”
“And how long has the bitch-boss been in this place without people?”
Liam blinked. “Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh’.” She flopped down, staring at the fire. “I was made with all the memories of all the fun she had, of all the times she-” Bunny shot him a scowl. “You get the picture.” She turned the glare back to the fire. “And after giving me all of that, I did not have a single chance to experience it myself. Not even the opportunity to…” Her ears drooped. “To be useful.”
With a grimace, he quickly confirmed the rope wasn’t about to untie itself, and made his way down the tree. He moved over and sat next to her, carefully looking down at the fist-sized fluff-ball. “So I’m the first human you’ve ever talked to? Man, that’s some bad luck right there.”
“Still better conversation than Wolf or Stag, I’ll tell you that much.” She grumbled. “Oh, look at me, I’m a bloated ego with enough power to squish any mortal that dares get close! I will now proceed to snarl, bray, and flex on anything that gets close so they run away!” She added with a nasal whine that definitely did not sound like either of the other aspects. “Not that anyone sane would ever come here because this is a humid, stinky hellhole!”
“What about me?”
“I said what I said.” Bunny pouted, sniffling loudly.
Liam leaned back a little, staring up at the darkness that twinkled past the canopy. What could he do to dispel the weird atmosphere? “Do you want a secret? I’m talking the big sort.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not my thing, that’s the boss-bitch.”
“Don’t want to learn something she doesn’t know and hold it over her head?” He glanced sideways at her. “A secret older than her, by a lot, talking foundational secret kind of stuff. Not many Gods know about this either.”
Bunny hesitated, ears twitching in his direction even though she looked away. “I…” She nervously swallowed. “I’m listening…”
“What is fate? Like, at its core, at the smallest tiniest level.”
“It’s the prospective path that lays ahead.” Bunny answered.
“Not quite.” Liam plopped himself down to the dirt, reaching up at the sky. “At its smallest constituent piece, fate is the negation of entropy and bane of causality.”
“What’s entropy?”
“It’s… the end of all things.” His pale blistered fingers were illuminated by the fire, leaving the green trees overhead a dark shadow only interrupted by stars here and there. “It’s just probability churning out mediocrity. Anything and everything within a system, if given enough time, will average out and become a uniform dead particle soup. Think about it like leaving milk and coffee in a cup; eventually, the two mix into a single unassuming brown.”
Her ears twitched. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I guess it’s not the most intuitive concept around.” He chuckled. “Let’s say you open up gold mines, you extract all you can and make it into coins. Were things to go the normal way, the lost gold would be roughly spread out all over the place. And when the new Age came rolling in, it wouldn’t be economical to mine gold because there are no nodes.”
“Except there are always gold mines.”
“Except there are always gold mines.” Liam chuckled, nodding along. “All because fate made it so that, against all odds, the gold would just so happen to gather up into nodes again.”
“Wait,” Bunny frowned. “You’re… saying that inanimate things have fates. That’s not how it works, even I know that much.”
“Fate isn’t just something that ties people far and wide; it’s a fundamental force much like gravity or electromagnetism. What you see as fate is the large parts, like how humans can only see heat after a certain point,” Liam chuckled, grasping at the sky. “Fate is how this world is guaranteed eternity; it’s what makes it possible that it will continue existing forever… all without it becoming history’s blandest soup.” He shot her a rueful smirk. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
"Get a load of the guy who'd poison himself accidentally ten out of every five times." She swatted his arm with her ear. “I still don’t think you made this world,” Bunny shook her head, then let out a deep sigh. "Fine, let's do this. You said you were going to kill that sparky lizard, right? What’s the next step? More bait work for me?”
“Maybe,” Liam’s gaze shifted to the tangle of ropes and wood that hung just a dozen meters away. “And maybe we can get a bit more traditional.”