Ajak was up in the air in a split second.“Ajak NO!” Sata called out. She was furious that her friend was most likely about to die. And sad, of course. She had a lot of feelings, all of them leaving a pit in her stomach. Mostly guilt for yet again putting her group into a life or death but probably death situation. She didn’t even have enough time to put up a good fight! They were just flailing around like a bunch of idiots! And Ajak was being suspended by his ankle, probably just to add insult to injury. She inhaled, and let out a scream, lunging at the tendril and slicing it with her finger blades, Ajak tumbling to the ground. She whipped around, slicing another tentacle, satisfied as it jerked back and thrashed in pain.
“Devis!” she called, turning to her comrade. The blue humanoid gave a thumbs up. “Yeah?”
“Could you… wait, who was I talking to?” Who was she talking to? Was she even talking? She knew she was going to give out orders, but she didn’t remember who she was talking to. Devis, though she couldn’t see or hear him, shook his head, smiling in amusement. Well, what could he do? “Nobody!”
Sata was about to give orders to the members of her group that actually existed, when Jamie, that insane person from earlier that she probably owed her life to, came bursting from where the door used to be, frantically waving Kalia’s blood splattered arm around.
“Hey, creepy little fucker! Want breakfast? Lucky worm! Not everyone gets to have breakfast because some people break into other people’s houses and eats the people their home invader killed earlier and then tries to kill people!”
Sata stared. Wait… what? He hardly knew what he was saying either. Before she could express her feelings of absolute confusion, he chucked the arm at the blood worm, who snapped it up. She glanced slowly at Jamie, eyes very wide.
“…What was that all about?” The worm, done with its meal, began to slither towards them, even more tentacles sprouting from its flesh. Jamie shrugged, doing his best to hide his fear. He collected his breath.
“Well, if my calculations are correct, it should start dying in five-” He was wrong, but not in a bad way. The blood worm froze, its fleshy form beginning to twitch, then convulse. Then it collapsed to the ground, letting out one last shriek before it finally spewed out its innards, slowly deflating into a pile of transparent red skin. Ajak stood up, looking just about ready to throw up. Dorvow backed away. Kalia chuckled absentmindedly. Drevis slow clapped. Sata herself wasn’t sure what to think. She had never seen a blood worm before in her life, but read extensively about them in the off chance of her running into one. They were attracted to the smell of blood, and would attack basically anything that moved, which explains the lack of wild life in this area. With high levels of both life and body Mana, they could recover from just about any injury. She put a clawed hand over her forehead.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“How did you do that?” Jamie caught his breath. “I put a whole bunch of Harrowath berries in Kalia’s arm. Simple as that.” He gave the impression that he didn’t really think what he did was very impressive. And maybe it wasn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that not only did he save Sata and her friends’ lives again, but he also managed to kill a creature that was deemed a threat level ten, and in a way that didn’t even earn anyone EXP. Not that she was particularly worried about earning experience points, but a lot of people were more than willing to risk their lives and try to kill something impossible, even if they had a ninety nine percent chance of death.
Sata swallowed her nervousness, and forced a grin. “Well, thank you, I guess…”
“You… guess?” Truth be told, Jamie didn’t really care, but if he were in her situation he’d think to be a little more grateful. He guessed that his first impression was rather chaotic, and it involved the killing of two threats in a particularly brutal way, and he could see how that could put someone off. Sata nodded.
“I’m sorry, I’m just a little out of sorts. But really, thank you. Right guys!”
It seemed to click with everyone then that the danger was gone (unless this helpful but unhinged stranger was an even bigger threat than the blood worm or their former captor), and as such they expressed their gratitude. Ajak was the most emotional of the group, while Dorvow seemed to not be very aware of what was going on. Kaila and Drevis were more amused than anything, with the former expressing a certain admiration, even though she was currently wrapping her bleeding arm with her jacket. That was mostly her bad, anyway. Sata was… well, Sata was a lot of things, as she was during the fight with the blood worm. Worried, for one, that Jamie might prove to be a threat to her and her group, and as the leader trusting him would put the blame right on her shoulders. But hey, she lived to see another day, and it wasn’t like he seemed particularly untrustworthy. Well, he didn’t seem entirely sane but at least he was friendly!
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Jamie began to prepare some food under the watchful eye of Sata, rendered with a stronger sense of stranger danger since her and her party getting kidnapped.
“Anything poisoned?”
He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he smiled, sympathetically. “You know, it’s not your fault. And hey, all four of your teammates survived. There were four of you, right?”
She shook her head, perplexed. “Four? There are only three members of the party excluding myself.” Jamie sighed in relief. For a second he thought that she was going to say that there were some casualties, but she was only talking about the member of her team who sometimes doesn’t exist. Speaking of, he should look into that. Was he the only one who could see him? Sata sure couldn’t. She smiled, though, in spite of her confusion as well as her suspicion. “But… thanks for your attempt at making me feel better.” Who was she to judge his odd mannerisms, anyways? Kalia was probably just as strange and problematic.