Chapter 17

It was getting late, and I was far from completely healed. My mana was only about half replenished so I decided to get back to meditating. I could have gone to the cabin and seen if anyone was there especially the man Feerix, the one Grimlock had tasked me to find. I could have done that, but I decided waiting till morning might be better since that would make the man less apprehensive and I would be fully restored or close to it.

It had not been long before my meditation was interrupted by loud sounds. There were screams and something that sounded like an explosion coming from near the cabin. The cabin was close, but not close enough where I would have been able to hear screams normally. That was likely all due to my higher perception.

I decided to investigate but approached cautiously towards the cabin. The sounds had died down quickly but I could see smoke coming from a nearby fire. I wanted to make sure this Feerix guy was still alive. If he was there to begin with that is. The dwarf had shown me a hologram type picture of him enchanted on a small plate that belonged to Feerix’s wife. Grimlock didn’t seem like the sentimental type that would keep his son in law’s picture on a plate just in case he missed him and wanted a good cry or something.

The cabin was in a small clearing in the middle of the forest. I approached it from the back and slowly came around to the front, stopping at all corners and looking before approaching slowly. There were some obvious signs of struggle outside with splatters of blood on the ground. Bloody footprints led out onto the forest. Multiple pairs of footprints.

“What do you think happened broski?” Jimmy’s voice spoke out in my mind.

I whispered back softly still looking at the ground for more clues, “Somebody came running out the cabin. Bleeding from the way it looks but managed to run into the forest given the trail of blood. Multiple others were following him and at least one of them was hurt from the way one of the footprints are dragging.”

The thick wooden door was broken in two, nearly falling off completely from its hinges.

“Whomever it was that ran out into the forest, clearly broke through the door from the inside and it doesn’t look like it was from a weapon. It may have been from sheer force of some type,” I added further.

I looked at the door with my mana sight and I couldn’t see any traces of a spell on it. This was brute force that broke through the door. There were some tendrils of mana emanating out of the forest. Someone that can use magic ran into the forest, likely not the same person that broke the door.

I peeked inside through the broken entryway. The table had been turned sideways and had two broken legs. There was more blood inside. A lot more, and it did not look like it was from just one person. In a corner, I saw a human arm that may have been ripped off from its shoulder. There was a slight hint of a fire still going with mostly ambers in the fireplace. A large axe was hung on one of the walls. I wondered why it had not been used by whomever was inside. A pot filled with some stew sat on a small table and there was some steam coming out of it. I could smell some burnt food but still smelled pretty good with hints of basil and cardamom. Between the torn off arm and all the blood, I really should have been disgusted or maybe even scared but somehow my stomach was still grumbling as If I was Oliver twist asking for porridge.

“We probably need to get the hell out of here and soon broski! This scene looks like a horror movie and we may be the soon to be dead cheerleader,” Jimmy said.

“The resident of this cabin was interrupted by someone as they were trying to eat their dinner. It happened quickly but there was a struggle and one of the intruders had their arm ripped off. The person inside then made a run for it but was chased. Even the guy with the missing arm is gone so he was likely part of the chase,” I said quietly to Jimmy.

“Why do you think the arm belongs to the intruder?”

“It’s just a hunch.”

There was a small crossbow on the floor further away from the arm that still held the bolt on it.

“The bolt is made of silver.”

“Werewolves you think?”

“Could be. Could also be some type of undead. People don’t normally use silver bolts,” I replied while looking around the cabin.

I found a few papers on the ground. One of them was partially burned as it had been too close to the fireplace. Most were letter written by Feerix to his wife. A few others were documents and on the bottom was a signature belonging to one of the mages at the Order of Tarlus given the accompanying stamp below. I glanced through all of them. The one with the Order of Tarlus signature was a contract between the order and the governor. The contract allowed the Order to experiment and pretty much do whatever they wanted with impunity in exchange for providing protection for the city. There was also some subtle text that indicated the governor could use the mages for his own personal agendas. There was another piece of paper which listed various names. A lot of the names were crossed off and few had other notes about them.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Before I could digest the documents any further, I heard some noise outside. I look up and saw a man half clothed stagger in with fresh blood covering most of his body. He held up his hand against what was left of the door almost to stabilize himself from falling over. Some of the blood belonged to him and much of it didn’t. He was about Seven feet tall, heavily muscled under a lot of body hair. He had an open wound that was still gushing out large amounts of blood from a slash wound in middle of his muscled abdomen.

He was trying to keep the blood from spilling out with a hand over it and he struggled to move in a weakened state. He looked up and saw me, a stranger in his cabin.

I raised up my arms in a motion of surrender in the hopes of disarming him, “I’m Gatsby. And I was sent,” before I could finish, the man’s eyes grew wide and glowed with anger, “ANOTHER ONE!!!” he said in a growl.

He let out another deep guttural growl as his body started expanding. His jaw elongated and his mouth developed sharp teeth. His body hair grew long and darkened to black as his fingers grew out claws. His body widened and changed into that of a bear and a man. This thing was now a good ten feet tall and twice as wide as he was before.

I could feel the angry aura that the werebear let out. I wasn’t going to try and talk to this beast as that was not a possibility any longer. Before the creature could take a step, I let loose a volley of Magic projectile. Sixteen projectiles hit the bear man causing almost 1600 damage. Many into his chest but many others into face and torso. The werebear howled in pain and was taken back briefly.

It looked up at me and I looked back at the creature whose wounds were already starting to heal back up from the projectiles. He snarled and jumped towards me. I let out another volley but this time the werebear did not stop. His momentum carried him forwards towards me despite halving half his body blown off. I just barely leapt back and kicked the thick oak table towards the man beast. The werebear just swung his arm at the table and it was smashed into multiple pieces. As he came towards me again, I cast thunder stun. It did not faze him for even a second. He swiped his crazy sharp claws at me. These things were big as curved knives and would have taken my head off. Luckily, I was fast enough to dodge. I threw up the mana shield just in case for good measures which was good because he next tried to bite my head off moving quicker than I would have expected from someone so big.

Before he could take another swipe at ending me, he was hit by something at the side of his face. A silver bolt was sticking out. Another silver bolt followed that as a tall thin man entered through the door.

The werebear was not able to heal at all from the wounds made by the silver bolts. Not unexpected as lycanthropes were highly susceptible to silver taking extra damage from it. I needed to start stocking up on silver as this was the second lycanthrope I had encountered and far stronger than the one before. The thin man was another Bulgavian. Finding one bulgavian was a rare thing as I did at Grimlock’s bar but finding two was just something that did not happen. Unlike the nice friendly bulgavian who had given up killing this one was obviously not opposed to it. Infact, this one seemed to be an expert at it.

I took a second to assess this situation becoming more and more complicated. First, why had Grimlock never mentioned his son in law was a werebear or did he even know such a thing? Second, why is there this hunter assassin bulgavian after feerix? If I helped feerix, he could easily turn on me still and attack and the same with the bulgavian. What to do? What to do?

I had only a small amount of the beads left. I grabbed a handful and shot them at the bulgavian. Just in time too as he was about to take his sword likely magical and silver and stab the werebear son in law, feerix in the head. The shots took him by surprise and even though each one hit him, he was still standing. Well maybe not standing but more like in deadly agony from getting his head nearly blown off and now on the ground on his knees. Another Bulgavian entered and cast a magical bolt in my direction. I leapt to the corner ending up on the ground raising my mana shield. Multiple other bolts shot out at me and got me in my head, shoulder, and both knees. Missed my toes though luckily. They had all somehow bypassed my mana shield. I was a bloody mess but still alive. No major organs hit, and the head shot was mostly a graze though that also took a part of my ear off. Feerix at this point was looking terminal but still moving. He growled and came towards me, and I could see in his eyes that there was no way I was going to be able to reason with him.

He moved closer towards me though now moving at a much slower pace. The second bulgavian had shoved a potion into the mouth of the first bulgavian and I could see him healing in front of my eyes. I reached out and grabbed the loaded crossbow on the ground. He was only a few feet away when I fired and hit the lycanthrope right where his heart should have been. This time he went down to the ground and was not going to be getting back up.

I took a sigh of relief. And then I realized the two other baddies were still alive. The one who was almost dead had recovered a fair amount and both were looking in my direction. They looked at the lycanthrope and then at me.

I was still on the ground trying to crawl backwards away from them. The first one was still hurt substantially despite the healing potion and commanded to the other, “Kill him first and then we take our mark back.”

The other nodded and was about to move in my direction, when I screamed out at them, “WAIT! I have a question for you?”

They both paused at my obvious feeble attempt to try and stay alive longer. The leader smirked, “I cannot imagine anything you could say or ask that would keep you alive. Nevertheless, go on, ask your question.”

I was hurting but still crawling away very slowly, “What is the safe…” I took a second to catch my breath. The two bulgavians stood there looking at me curiously.

“…the safe distance to not be caught in a chain lightning?”

The two bulgavians looked puzzled at each other and then it hit one of them. His eyes widened as I answered my own question, “right, where I am!”

The arced lightning bolt shot forward into the chest of one of them, then the other and then it continued to bounce back and forth between the two, sparing me and the lycanthrope, Feerix. They both died instantly. Their corpses smelling like burnt flesh.

I gave myself a minute to see if my amazing healing would start to make a difference. It didn’t and I kept bleeding. If this kept up, I was going to die. I crawled towards the dead bulgavians hoping that they would have another healing potion. I lucked out again.