In our hour of need, the mine saved our lives. We froze on instinct when the barrage of flame bore down on us, peppering the ground with explosions and whipping the air into chaos. We had put the pillar between us and the beast, though, so the attacks that had been aimed at us struck its’ cerulean face. They failed to penetrate, cracking the crystalline rock formation with a loud tinkling sound, and sending fragments of hot blue rock flying into the distance. But the pillar held, and we were unharmed in its’ shadow.
Once the bombardment was over, we immediately rushed out from cover and further away from the monster that was attacking us, making our way into the northern hills of the region. We weaved around and through the mounds of earth, desperate to try to put obstacles between us and the relentless barrage. We heard a second volley land home on the hills behind us, shaking the earth and rattling our teeth. But we were lucky enough to be behind enough cover and out of range now. We kept fleeing for several hours, though there was no third barrage, and I was forced to carry Lynn when she could run no further. After another hour or two, our pace had slowed, and Victor had started to heave in exhaustion as well. Since we hadn’t been shot at in a while, we finally took a break.
Julia was the first to speak up and lighten the mood:
“I’m surprised you are so tough, big bro. Have you been sneaking into Fighter training when I wasn’t looking?”
This earned some strained laughter from all of us, including Victor who responded:
“A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and sound body. I try to build muscles when I can. Nothing like you wilderness monkeys, but I’ve gotten pretty tough.”
Ann interjected, growing serious now:
“More importantly, what was that thing? Why did it attack our home and why is it chasing us?”
All eyes turned to Victor now, who hesitated before answering:
“I think that was a Narbacor. An ancient gargantuan creature that was worshipped as a deity by some in olden times. It is a distant relation of the Neidyr and another descendant of the mythical Se’sheth. Not all Narbacor breathe green fire, but they typically have elemental powers. Or had, before they supposedly went extinct. This specific Narbacor was said to have disappeared in this area many centuries ago. The primary prey of the Narbacor is humanity, specifically the Giftseeds inside of us.”
“How do you know all of this?” I couldn’t help but ask. “How does our village have records and knowledge of all of this?”
He shrugged a bit, before saying, “As you know, there are many stories and legends of a world beyond the Mist. My personal theory is that our clan was originally from those lands, but we came to isolate ourselves in this region for unknown regions. Our distant ancestors brought many records and books with them, though their method of navigating the Mist was lost long ago, only hinted at in wives’ tales and legends. Before now, of course.” He indicated the glowing rock in his hand before continuing, “That is the best explanation for why the knowledge base of our village is so large, despite our remote status.”
“But if you knew about the Narbacor, why didn’t you say anything?” Ann was speaking angrily now, glaring accusatively at Victor, “You could have saved the village if-”
“No,” Victor cut her off, shaking his head, “nothing I would have said could have made the difference. I didn’t even hear about it until I read about it recently and remembered Corona’s warnings. I tried to tell people that there was a disaster coming, just as she did. The only people who took that warning seriously are either standing here now or dead after giving us a chance to escape.”
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The silence after that was a heavy one as we all frowned mournfully. It was only broken by the soft and mournful cries of baby Eithan. He had been wailing during the attack, of course, but he had eventually settled down to sleep after tiring himself out. Now, though, his cries were not the healthy cries of a child who was afraid. They were softer wails, the cries of a kid who was getting steadily weaker. Lynn comforted him but anyone could see that he was moving less and growing increasingly pale.
“What’s wrong with him?” Julia asked, going pale herself. Lynn had set her pack down and was rifling through it as she responded:
“He’s freezing.” She pulled out one of the animal skins and swaddled the babe in it. But her words had sent us into silence again. I spoke up first, trying to hammer out a plan of action:
“We need to get closer to safety first, so do whatever you can to keep him warm for now. But we have something that can fix this if we can find the opportunity to use it. We just need to put more distance between us and the Narbacor before we do.”
Victor, Al, and Ann nodded at that, with Julia and Lynn looking more conflicted. Lynn eventually got Eithan to warm up a bit more and his cries grew slightly healthier before he went back to sleep. Once he did, we hit the road again and did our best to increase the pace. Ann and I were taking turns carrying Lynn at this point, but we were moving as fast as we could. Despite our handicaps, we covered a lot of ground in the resulting hours, and everyone besides Julia and I were practically dead on their feet when we decided to make camp in the shadow of one of the hills. Julia was fine because she was physically gifted and wasn’t carrying anyone, unlike Ann, while I had noticed that my endurance was quite excellent when I wasn’t recovering from poison.
When we finally made camp, I explained what Victor’s observant planning and our most recent underground scuffle had earned us. I uncorked an empty waterskin and held it up next to the one that was filled with the Chillpool water. Eventually, a few of the drops leapt obediently from the full skin to the empty one, and I quickly closed it before any more could do so. I then began to recite from a lesson I had learned quite recently:
“’Simply ingesting the water of the Chillpool will allow it to bond to your Giftseed, slightly strengthening it directly. But the real benefit is the physical changes, wherein your body is subsequently remolded to be more temperature resistant. The most marked boost is in cold resistance, but some protection from the heat is also offered.’”
I looked over at Victor, “How did I do?”
He nodded back sagely:
“You have done well to listen to the master, young grasshopper.”
Both Julia and I rolled our eyes as Lynn snickered slightly. I guess someone needs to appreciate his jokes. I then held the skin with three droplets wriggling around it up toward baby Eithan:
“This will work even without an awakened Gift, and he will need it more than any of us. I’m not sure he can handle more than three droplets, but they should do more for him than for any of us. He needs to drink them.”
Lynn looked over at her husband, who confirmed my words, before holding Eithan up to help him drink more easily. He had woken up now and was more curious than anything else about the suspicious looking man trying to feed him strange substances.
When I finally got him to put his mouth up to the skin, I felt him suck and the three drops leapt happily into his mouth as if they were waiting for their chance. Eithan’s eyes went wide, and he involuntarily swallowed, but he let go of the skin and began to cry again. His skin had turned pale, almost a silverish white now, and he had started to shiver. Lynn swaddled him more deeply and brought him closer to the fire, which seemed to help. We all watched with anxiety as he began to calm down again and slip into a deep slumber. We all let out a collective sigh of relief and turned to ingest our own share of the stuff.
“The Fighters and Al should take their share first. Don’t have more than around 25 drops each.” Victor warned. “It takes the body a while to process this stuff and 40 drops at once could even be deadly.”
I did as he said, careful to only drink around slightly more than half of my remaining supply. I felt it slide into my stomach like I had just guzzled a mouthful of snow, but the snow was somehow filled with tiny jumping fish that were having a dance party in my organs. I shuddered as I felt the liquid being drawn up and towards my Gift. It quickly traveled through my veins and throughout my body before it made its’ way to my heart, bonding with my Gift. I began to shiver even more as my Gift pulsed, sending shockwaves of cold all throughout my body.
Victor had added more logs to the fire as the four of us convulsed, seeking to ameliorate our suffering with the heat. We basked in the extra warmth gratefully. He also took the opportunity to heat up dinner. I vaguely perceived his voice through my haze of discomfort.
“We’ll be going to bed early today, guys. Eat to your hearts content then go right to sleep. There are long trails ahead of us yet.”
We did precisely as we were ordered, grateful for the relief brought to us by the warm food and roaring fire. We didn’t bother with the tents, instead choosing to huddle together in our blankets by the fire. I closed my eyes groggily and tried to get some rest.