Taika Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/REUR9cx.png]
Taika ran as quickly as he could. He had no idea if the trio he could feel ahead of him were any better than his once-friends, but he’d never find out if they were killed before he could get there. He didn’t think that was likely, the hungry lightning and the sea monster were probably far behind him. The sea monster probably didn’t have a way to catch up, but Taika couldn’t count on lightning not being able to travel.
Especially not with the storms that seemed to either follow it around or lead it places. He’d seen that as the duo traveled.
Taika paid only minimal attention to what he was running across, especially as the light began to dim. It wouldn’t be obvious to people who weren’t as attuned to light as Taiks now was, but it was hours past the brightest part of the day and the light, which was definitely not sunlight even if it was a good imitation, was on its way to darkness. They were very close and seemed to be getting closer faster than he was running; surely he could make it to them before nightfall?
When he entered the clearing, he had only a moment to react to finding the carcass of a dead bear in front of him. There was only one thing to do when he was moving at speed, so he bounded up, bounced off the oddly vine-covered body, and bounced down on the other side.
It should have been safe. The bear was dead. That didn’t explain the sudden rush of wind he felt near his tails. Maybe there was something hidden behind the bear he’d missed?
Taika whirled. He kept as much speed as he dared, but he couldn’t turn and run at full speed at the same time. It was a good thing he did, because something shot through space from the now-standing bear and almost hit Taika, even with his dodge. Taike yipped in surprised protest; the bear was dead! It wasn’t supposed to be standing!
Taika barely dodged a distinctly non-playful swat from the bear. He dodged around a tree, then found himself face to face with the bear again. This time, he found the best place to escape was straight ahead, between the bear’s legs.
He couldn’t fight this thing! He could barely fight at all; what he could do was illusions and misdirection and he hadn’t had time to set any up!
The dodge through the bear’s legs gave him a moment; it was slow to turn.He wasn’t quite fast enough to set up an illusion before the bear was on his tail again, so he threw light at the bear’s eyes. It wouldn’t fool anything, but it should at least dazzle it and slow the bear down for a moment.
Takia barely made it out of the way of the bear’s next swipe. It didn’t even seem to notice the light!
“What is a kitsune doing here?”
Taika spared a glance towards the source of the words and was glad he did, because it meant that he saw the fire that came from Sophia’s companion. He’d never seen the mage before, but he knew a mage when he saw one. Whoever he was, his fire blast was aimed at the bear.
Taika scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid the hot embers that splashed from the bear’s hide as it was hit. He glanced back to see which way he needed to dodge next and almost tipped over his own paws in surprise.
The bear was now on fire and had completely lost interest in Taika. It charged towards the fire mage. One of the people in heavy armor slammed into the bear shield-first and pushed it to the side before it reached the mage.
The bear still managed to swipe the mage, but only the tips of its claws connected with an odd shimmer that formed in front of the man. Taika could see that the shimmer was damaged but the mage was not.
Taika relaxed a little. That meant the mage was powerful enough to have a shield, and a mage that powerful should have no problems with a bear, even a bear that could revive itself. Taika retreated to the far edge of the clearing to watch. He couldn’t think of any way he could help, but that didn’t mean he was about to abandon his rescuers.
The bear was sturdier than Taika expected. It also had an odd attack where ropes emerged from its damaged fur and attempted to strangle opponents. Taika watched the fight without moving until he saw that, but he couldn’t let that go unopposed. He also couldn’t hurt the monster. That just wasn’t something he could do.
He circled around the fight and grabbed the foot of the man in the fake bearhug and tugged. Strangely, the man slid back towards him as though the ropes weren’t there at all. Taika couldn’t see if he moved through them or what, but he was free.
He seemed shocked to be free. It took a moment for him to stop struggling and attack the bear again.
There was no other large threat from the bear. The enraged tentacle-bear managed a few swipes, but Taika could see that it was fading while the humans seemed to be concentrating on killing it.
The human Taika pulled from the bear’s grasp was not one of the two it could feel a nascent link to. That was the man in the purple armor and the woman in a green cloak. Purple armor was fighting the bear, while green cloak stood in the back. He could tell she was using magic of some sort, but not what kind.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Taika slipped back into the trees. He’d watch but he wasn’t quite ready to speak yet. Not while they were fighting a bear, even one that they had to rescue him from.
Feather Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/JcKTy4K.jpeg]
The bear finally fell. Sophia relaxed a little, but she knew she wouldn’t be truly comfortable until it was completely burnt.
She glanced around, looking for the twin-tailed fox. It was nowhere to be seen. “Did anyone see where the colorful fox went? I lost track of it after it pulled Liam out of the corpsevines.”
“Is that what happened? I figured it was one of the Quinns,” Liam admitted. “Do you know what it is? You called it something.”
“I called it a kitsune,” Sophia admitted easily. “If it hadn’t somehow made you slip through the vines, I’d think I was seeing things, but maybe it actually is one. They’re foxes with multiple tails, in legend some of the more powerful ones can appear human. They’re supposed to be tricksters. I don’t really know much more about them than that; they’re not one of the real myths I know about. Do you have them here?”
“Most fox monsters are either huge or elemental beasts,” Samuel answered from the side. “Around here, they’re mostly earth, wind, or shadow. That could have been a shadow fox or a light fox, but it would have to be a powerful one, more powerful than we should go looking for. I suspect it’s something a lot more rare than that, an intelligent beast that wanted to help us because we helped it. If it were hostile, well, I’m glad it doesn’t seem to be. I’ve never heard of one with multiple tails, but I’m not sure anyone ever counted.”
Sophia glanced around again. “I can’t find it. Should we search for it, or…?”
Samuel shook his head. “Let’s not invite trouble. Be very cautious if you see a fox, but we need to get started killing corpsevines. You know where the clearings that were already prepared are and you have the firewood, right?”
Sophia nodded. “Same as last night.” The plan wasn’t quite identical, but it was close enough, especially for Sophia. The bigger differences applied to the other two groups. If she weren’t leaving right after this, she’d have considered talking to Samuel about runic traps, but realistically that wasn’t something she could manage in a night. She didn’t remember her runes well enough to build something that would work as a reliable trap without having someone there to trigger it, and at that point the plan they were already working on was just as good and far easier.
The night’s fights were very similar to the previous night, with a couple of very large exceptions. The first was literally large. Shortly before sunset on their way to the third clearing, the noise of something moving nearby made the trio freeze in place. They cautiously moved forward and found a corpsevine-infested human. This one did not look even remotely alive; instead, it looked like a skeletal mask supported by a set of dried vines that imitated bones, with leaves that covered the upper surfaces. It was somehow far less horrifying than seeing the vine extend from the woman’s mouth in the catacombs.
Ambushed Corpsevine Skeleton [https://i.imgur.com/jpPtOt9.jpeg]
It seemed to be on its way to the fire where Samuel was still burning the dead bear. It didn’t take much for them all to jointly decide that they needed to ambush it. The ambush was shockingly easy, easy enough that none of them was certain whether Dav or Sophia killed the vine. They all agreed it went down on the first hit, but even after they looked at the vines they couldn’t tell if the important spot was in the chest or the head.
They were close enough to Samuel’s group that they went ahead and detoured to deliver the dry vines that made up its body to be used as fuel for the fire. The last thing they wanted was for it to turn out that a possible spellcaster wasn’t quite dead and could recover.
After that, it mostly followed the same pattern with hordes of small corpsevine-infested beasts in the early evening and fewer larger creatures as the night went on. There were fewer than the previous night; Sophia had to hope that was because they’d already drawn some out of the territory they were in right now. All of the other reasons for the shortage either didn’t make sense or were very bad for someone else.
The second surprise came in the middle of the night as Sophia struggled to light a fire. She was exhausted after hours of fighting and travel at a time when her body still thought she should be sleeping and the fire just didn’t want to stay lit.
Something small touched the back of Sophia’s leg soon after she actually managed to get the fire going. . She smiled to herself and fed in a small stick a little larger than the tinder that was currently burning, then turned to tell Dav she wasn’t quite ready.
He wasn’t there. She turned and saw Dav with his back to her, still watching the trees for enemies. What touched her leg if it wasn’t Dav?
A little bit more of a turn revealed that the touch on her leg was from a very large rodent. It was larger than a chihuahua but smaller than a cat, fluffy and heavily furred with a wide, bushy tail instead of the skinny tail of a mouse or a rat, but the ears looked just like mouse ears.
It was also shockingly colorful, even in the very low light level, with purple eyes and grayish-blue and purple bands on its face and a multicolored ruff just below its chin.It somehow looked familiar, even though she knew she’d never seen anything quite like it before.
Taika [https://i.imgur.com/at1Liih.jpeg]
Sophia took the time to get a good look at the creature. It definitely didn’t have any vines on it, which was reassuring. There hadn’t been anything this small in the past hour, and certainly there hadn’t been any that were alone, so he could be pretty confident it wasn’t a corpsevine.
Soophia took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. This didn’t seem like something that was going to attack her, even if it had somehow snuck past both Dav and Amy. She raised her voice a little so that both of them would hear her.
She didn’t think the critter would understand her, but her only options right now were violence, offering food, and talking. Violence seemed pointless, her food was in her backpack so it couldn’t be smelling it, and talking would make noise and let her companions know something got past them. It was the obvious choice. “Hello there. Are you looking for something?”