The first thing Cerise did when she was freed was try to get as far from the house-sized gray-brown wolf as possible. It was by no means far enough, but six or seven bow lengths was as far as she got.
One moment, she had been standing up, still laughing. She had a brief flash of something dying a slow death entering her Triage Aura before that self-same something pinned her arms to her side as it grabbed her in jaws wide enough to cover her from her shoulders to her hips.
They were in the woods before she had a chance to start screaming and kicking, but that only made the teeth pierce her clothes and prick her skin.
At that point, Cerise realized she was being abducted, not eaten, and the woods were flashing by at breakneck speed.
When she had reached level 10, Cerise had taken the Tame Monster skill, finding a slight synergy with Animal Handling thanks to the things she had learned about dire draft beasts. She groped for that skill, ready to pour all of her remaining Pools into the active use, but her skill refused to activate. It was as if this monstrous wolf somehow wasn't a monster.
So she tried her Appraise skill. The wolf's jaw relaxed a little, but that was as close to a response as she got. Which was a very scary thought. As far as Cerise had experienced, everything could be Appraised. As an experiment with her Mana Sensing, she had used that before as a way to find something to Appraise and it had worked. Sight wasn't necessary for the skill, and even if it were, she could see the legs of the giant wolf running off with her.
The only skill that seemed to be working was Triage, and that told her the wolf was in the late stages of dying. What it was dying from, she didn't know. If Triage worked, though, maybe Diagnose would, too? It was worth trying.
Mana Depletion: Severe mana starvation has impaired this patient's cognitive functions.
Treatment: Exposure to High Mana sources.
Prognosis: Mild temporary relief. Qualities of the mana source will determine effect on underlying condition.
Sleeping Sickness: Patient is in the late stages of the Sleeping Sickness. This colony disease is widespread throughout the patient's body, and patient is not wholly a physical being. Patient's mana body is being eaten by the disease colony.
Treatment: Heal Disease supported by Greater or Major Cleansing magics targeted at the colonies, until all colonies are destroyed. Palliative care should be administered as needed during treatment to maintain patient's mental faculties.
Prognosis: unknown.
She was hanging from the mouth of an insane and insanely powerful monster. The fear she felt at that overwhelmed the urge she felt from her skills, her class, to Heal.
Then they went from moving so fast the trees blurred by to a gliding trot to stopping under a tree with smooth, silver-gray bark and leaves as iridescently transparent as dragonfly wings. The forest surrounding this clearly magical tree closed up around them and the wolf released her.
It was only a small drop, and Cerise scrambled for distance. When the wolf simply lay down and watched her, she froze, looking for some means of escape. She did not see one.
The wolf lowered his head to his forepaws and just watched, still. His current lack of hostility helped Cerise to calm. She considered what she had learned from Diagnose with one part of her mind while another noted as much as she could of her surroundings.
And she could feel Mykhal. He was distant, but closer than the three others she could feel. That must be the party magic, and the party was still up with the Cousins Treborant. She didn't know what good it would do, but at least she wasn't alone. Separated, that was a yes, but her party could find her if she could feel them.
This wolf was powerful, and it could think, could reason -- when it wasn't mana starved. She still had both her Triage and Cleansing Aura up, so she was leaking mana, but it wasn't attacking her. Alright, well, maybe it had some intelligence left that recognized her Cleansing Aura and the skill it spawned from as something that could help it.
Maybe she could do this, heal this wild, monstrous wolf. She wanted to be a [Beast Healer], right? This was just a really big beast that needed healing.
"Hey, there, Mister Wolf," she softly said, watching his ears swivel and prick toward her. Aside from a greater sense of his focused interest, nothing else happened. Cerise continued. "Do you want me to Heal you? Get that Sleeping Sickness out of you so you can think again? And if I do that, will you be nice to me? Not much reason for me to help you if you just kill me after, now is there?"
The tree shivered in a non-existent wind. «If you heal my guardian, I will bless you.»
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Noblesse Oblige was a passive skill that enhanced Heral's authority and supplemented his attributes and Pools while fulfilling his duties. He had noticed that it also had synergistic effects with any of his Leadership type skills. The teamwork mutation of Identify, for example, gave him a general sense of his teammates' conditions and vague hints of their attitudes.
When he felt terror and trapped from one of his teammates, his head immediately snapped to his cousins. Even as he moved, he recognized the distance -- the rapidly growing distance -- of the weaker team invocation with the Delving Lights.
"Izzy! Guard Maha! Both of you, follow me!" he ordered. The girls, for a blessed relief, followed his orders, and they rode after as he headed in the direction of their fellow hunters. Until the trees and bushes of the forest blocked them. Heral paused only long enough to ascertain that Mykhal was somehow able to keep following Cerise. He didn't have enough information, and charging blindly onward against something that had the forest's protection might endanger everyone.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He turned them, heading back to the caravan. The wagons were circling up into a defensive encampment, and they were halted by two of the caravan guards, identified, and permitted to pass. He found Cerise's mother, screaming that they need to do something!
Heral ordered quiet and got it. Then he started asking questions.
Cerise had been spirited away by a huge wolf, easily as big as the supply wagons. The Quartermaster was the only one who had gotten off a successful Identify.
Guardian of the Silverwood Grove.
"My baby!" Miss Bergin wailed at the telling of how the wolf snapped Cerise up. Grief was bordering into insane rage, and Heral focused his Presence on her, drawing her attention.
"Cerise is alive, scared, trapped, but otherwise Battle Ready -- healthy. Mister Mykhal is depleting his Stamina trying to keep up with the wolf, the Guardian, I presume. We have not undone our hunting team, so I can tell you this with absolute certainty. The woods are impassible without proper skills. Why the Guardian took Miss Cerise, I don't know, but if it meant to harm her, it would have done so already. Forest Guardians are very direct. In all honest, I'm more concerned for Mister Mykhal at the moment. He is not under a Guardian's escort, however unwilling it is received, and he obviously isn't thinking or he would have realized by the growing distance that he's on a long chase and needs to focus on his Endurance, not his Speed. Stay with the caravan, Miss Bergin. Find Mister Rhene and keep him here, too. I'll see if there's a [Scout] among the guard that can get us to Mister Mykhal, at least, and from there to Cerise."
His skills worked easiest for the people bound to his father, and bit less effectively for those bound to other lieges. They should have had little effect for an unbound Freeman, but whatever would help keep the most people safe, he would do. It didn't matter if they were or were not "his" people. It wasn't even just that it was a noble's duty to deal with monsters and more dangerous hazards. Miss Bergin and Mister Rhene, Mister Aldo and his caravaneers and guards, they all helped each other and many others to prosper together. Even if Heral hadn't found himself enjoying their company and good humor just the evening before, they were still doing good and needful work, and so were worthy of his protection.
He felt Noblesse Oblige rouse in him and aid his Oration skill to calm the distraught mother. Satisfied he had done what he could, he went to find the guard captain.
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A pair of fraternal twins in the guard, Casper and Kaspia, volunteered to lead the Treborant cousins through the wood. It would have been much more convenient if they could join the hunt team between Delving Lights and Cousins Treborant, and more reassuring for Miss Bergin and Mister Rhene for them to be so joined up with their offspring, no doubt. Sadly, all members of a team needed to be present for that , or at least the leaders of the teams they were signed with. Heral did establish a team bond with Captain Sorkha, but without Mykhal or Cerise, whichever was the designated team leader, the team bound could not be extended to them.
Izzy made one quiet grumble about wanting her swords back, but Heral didn't trust her not to repeat her idiocy of the morning. He allowed her to carry batons and warned her to be thankful for that leniency.
Both of the girls had their almiraj with them. Heral wasn't happy with that, but if the bunnies died, so be it. As long as his cousins did their duty, he wouldn't waste time arguing about pets.
The [Scouts] couldn't bring their horses, so Heral had entrusted them, their feed, and a promissory note for their care to the caravan master, along with a second promissory note to see to housing Miss Cerise's parents at the next town in the event it took them that long to return.
In Heral's Battle Readiness sense, he felt Mykhal's Stamina bottom out. When he recovered to a quarter of his Pool, the rate at which they closed the distance lessened. Heral felt Mykhal's Stamina bottom out twice more before they caught up to him.
The young man wasn't crying, not now, but the evidence of his distress was plain in the red rimming his eyes. Heral barely slowed, swinging Mykhal onto his back. He gave Mykhal the same reassurance he had given Miss Bergin, and felt the young man calm some. He let Mykhal walk again when his Battle Readiness sense told him the younger [Hunter] was to half Stamina.
Night fell, and they had to take a short rest while they waited for moon rise. Cerise had stopped moving well before they reached Mykhal, and the feel of her in Heral's Battle Readiness sense had lost the terror and some of the trapped sense. Her Pools were lowering at a consistent, steady rate, reaching just about the where the lowness would impede her ability to effectively use her skills, and then recover to near full before starting to drain again.
"She's healing someone, then," Mykhal declared when Heral relayed that observation.
"My thoughts, too," Heral agreed. "She's not an ordinary [Healer]; that may be why the Guardian needed her and not any other [Healer]. Surely, the one among the guard would have been easiest for a forest-bound Guardian to make off with."
The moon was on the descent when they arrived at an impassable wall of briers, brush, and trees, with vines woven throughout. Cerise was near, so very near now. Heral had them circle the wall, confirming that it encompassed their [Healer].
Mykhal was ready to start hacking his way through the brambles, but Heral stopped him. "Do not provoke the Guardian!" he warned. "Miss Cerise is safe enough for the moment. Let us try diplomacy first. The Guardian may have lacked words. That doesn't mean what he guards does, too."
Mykhal's jaw jutted out at a stubborn angle, but he slowly nodded. Then he surprised everyone. He took his knife and cut a thin line on his forearm, gathering blood onto the blade. He wiped the blood onto one of the vines in the wall and said, "Guardian of these woods, I share this, my blood, to you as a token of my sincerity. Cerise is my friend, and I am here to see her safely returned to her parents. Offer her no harm, and I will offer you none."
The leaves in the wall moved without wind.
Mykhal said, "By age, we're juveniles." The leaves moved again, and Mykhal bent his head, tension releasing from his shoulders and back. "Thank you. I, at least, shall wait."
Behind them, plants pulled back, leaving a small clearing. In turning to look, Heral caught sight of Mahayan's rounded expression of surprise.
Mykhal cleaned his blade and sheathed it. He pulled out a small wooden jar of a thick salve and smeared some over his cut, recapped the jar, and returned it to his pocket. Then he calmly walked into the fresh clearing and sat down.
"The Whispers in the Leaves says it'll be a few days, but once Cerise is done healing, she'll be given the choice to leave with whomever stays. We light no fires, cause no sparks, cut no wood. Creatures of the forest won't attack us unless we attack first."
Mahayan came and sat down next to Mykhal. "You understood the magic speech?"
"The Whispers in the Leaves?" he asked.
"Yeah," Mahayan said. "The magic speech."
Mykhal shrugged. "I don't know about magic, but every forest speaks if you listen. Leaf talk is more common than rock or river talk, but they all speak." Then Mykhal looked past Mahayan to Heral and the [Scout] twins. "We're safe enough to rest for now. We will still need a watch in case of goblins, but not even the ants will bother us if they belong with these woods. In the morning, someone should go back to let Mama Bergin and Mister Rhene know that Cerise is safe and I'll be bringing her home to them when I can."