“Tom, time to wake.” With only owning what I was wearing it didn’t take long to get ready and be at the entrance where most of the caravan waited for us. A few minutes later as the daylight began to show Kritin and Krissa joined us. Kritin handed me the halberd shield and longsword I used in yesterday’s duel. “You are to protect the caravan alongside my son and his warriors.” “I will, thanks for everything Krissa.” After some goodbyes between the Murichi we headed outside of Eagles Watch where I saw our caravan. They were the “raptors” from the pens. They were muzzled, about five feet tall, covered in feathers, and missing a big claw on their feet. If I had to guess they are like agile pack horses.
“So how long will this journey to Paradise take?” “Sleep one night. Arrive middle of next night.” It took most of the day to go around the north part of the lake. As we entered The Great Forest I felt a sense of dread coming back here. Until this point the Murichi were all in good spirits. Everyone got serious and no one spoke until Kritin motioned us to stop. He scouted ahead and came back a few minutes later and altered our path. “Mesech, what did Kritin see?” She just shook her head.
Right before night Kritin alters the course again but only a little to a marked tree. The giant tree has a small white stripe towards the base of it all around it. After Kritin says a few words in Murichi he starts climbing it. I see about fifty feet up the tree there is a platform wrapped around the tree. Kritin let down a rope for me and while grunting and pulling me up, other Murichi started climbing like he had. Kritin was grunting something in Murichi when I arrived on the platform. “He said you weigh… like big raptor.” She bared her teeth with a smile. He let the rope down again and the rest of the Murichi down there tied off the raptors and we hauled all three of them up to the platform. It was a snug fit and I was informed I would not be taking a watch which made sense to me. Trust and knowing what I would need to look out for and my lack of night vision outside of just outlines of things.
My mind had been all over the place through the quiet trek today but mostly it was on Maria. Ten years together was a long time. I had to get home to her and I wanted to be there for the birth of our child. Was he even mine? What an outlandish thought. Of course he is. “Scry Maria” I whispered and an image of her appeared. She was at her parents house and I could see her mom Gabriella and her best friend Lisa there as well. They were sitting on the living room floor with a bunch of Photos and Photo books scattered about. They were all smiling and looked like they were having a nice time. Like Maria, Gab was fun and just a joy to be around. She was making Maria smile and at least temporarily smile. Lisa seemed happy as well.
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Looking at the pictures, most of which I recognized were mostly childhood photos of her from before I was taken in. A few had me in them but I seem to be avoided at the moment. Glad she was safe with family, I just stared at the image and listening to some of the purring Murichi I drifted off quickly.
Crash! I woke up sliding as the platform was sleeping on started shifting. While angled downward I hear lots of hissing about a hundred feet away and lots of movement. Kritin and the others are already on the ground and he is leading them towards the hissing. I hear the scraping of my halberd next to me and grab it and ride the platform down to the ground. Right as the platform hit the ground I rolled in an evasion and avoided any serious injury. I started running after Kritin and the others.
As the angry hissing creatures came into view I wanted to die. Twelve eyes stared toward us. The giant spider was larger than a small house with each leg well over a foot thick. The spider was injured. Missing three legs and part of its abdomen was crushed pouring hemolymph everywhere. Next to the spider lay a giant branch covered in webs that lay on top of two of the spider’s legs. Hundreds of small spiders came into view and were small only compared to the big one. They were two to three feet tall. The giant spider retreated and Kritin chased after it. All of the Murichi here were tested and it showed.
The spiders charged, leaped, and spit webbed venom which the Murichi mostly evaded and countered often ending in a quick kill. I was webbed and bitten almost immediately, only having killed three before I had to use my Bowie knife to clear my webs. Some of the Murichi kept the spiders off of me for a time. Once the webs were cleared I went back to the halberd and kept stabbing and slicing. Mesech was dodging everything while casting “Cleanse” and cutting webs.
Four Murichi were already down when a screaming hiss sounded loudly over the battlefield as the giant spider came wobbling in and fell dead with Kritin on top of its massive head. The smaller spiders kept their assault but many of them went for Kritin who looked clearly injured. Two more Murichi down and well over a hundred spiders lay dead. I have been bitten a dozen times by now, not being as agile as the Murichi but my regeneration seems to nullify the effect a bit but still feel exhausted.
We continued to fight the thinning number of spiders and another Murichi fell. Mesech cleansed me at one point and it felt like I just took the most refreshing bath. As the last of the spiders were dispatched or fled I saw Kritin. His injuries were severe. He was missing large patches of fur with burned skin. He had gashes and bite marks all over his body. Mesech, who was tending to another noticed him as well. She ran toward him yelling “Tom help cleanse enhance.” I ran up to Mesech who was already healing Kritin and leaned down and touched Kritin’s shoulder and imagined all the venom and toxins leave his body, “cleanse.” Everything went white.