Turning her head around and staring into the darkness, she saw nothing. No surprise there. Maybe Isatha could’ve seen something, with her owl eyes. As a falcon type, Rethia was blind without a good light.
“Something is coming,” muttered Stooge into the silence. “I can feel it.”
Kaska let go of Sven and held her hands behind her ears, listening in every direction. “You’re right. There are no ambient sounds. Only a faint scratching on rock coming closer.”
“Who would’ve guessed. A night raid during the search event,” sighed Thomas, readying his bow.
Sven scurried up Rethias legs and curled around her neck, tembling uncomfortably. His shivering made her even more nervous.
“Something bad is coming…” whispered Rethia, puffing her feathers in distress. And I can’t even fly away! Why is the moon only a sliver today?!
“If it looks bad, you run away, Rethia,” mumbled Kaska, taking up a position next to her, a heavy looking staff in her hands. Thomas was in front of them both, an arrow on his bow.
Stooge was further in front, a sword and shield raised.
Rethia laughed nervously. “If we had a full moon, I would’ve been gone already. Like this, I can’t see anything.”
“Oh, that’s bad… can you try, though? Without you, finding the caravan will take too long.”
“And what about you three?”
Kaska grimaced. “We’re Wanderers. We can’t die, remember? Hush, it’s closing in.”
The trio gripped their weapons tighter, turning from bumbling Landbound into… something else. An aura of decisiveness and… and eagerness, for lack of a better word, enveloped them.
Rethia took a step back, trembling, eyes wide and fixed on the white stuff that billowed out from the left-hand path.
Kaska’s staff glowed briefly, then the glow jumped to her eyes.
“First enemy, left side, five meters away, body about half a meter in width. Stooge, you’re up. Second enemy, middle, seven-three meters away. Thomas?”
“On it,” mumbled the archer, pulling the arrow back to his ear. “Little more guidance? I’m shooting blind.”
“Over Stooge’s right shoulder.”
Taking aim, Thomas let the arrow loose. It vanished into the white mist, followed by a wet squelch and a shriek.
“Not dead yet,” muttered Thomas, shooting a second arrow in the same direction. No sound followed. Not even the clattering of wood on stone.
“It moved back. Third enemy approaching, two hands right of the second. First enemy is still waiting. Wait, no, it’s moving strangely. Stooge!”
“I got this.” Stooge moved his feet apart a little, putting his weight behind his shield and waited, scanning the billowing mist.
Something jumped out of the mist and over Stooge. It floated over Thomas and landed neatly between him and Kaska with clacking mandibles.
Its polished white carapace glittered in the light of the flickering flames. Its eight translucent legs were barely visible, two raised for an attack on Kaska.
Rethia saw the disgusting creature in all its horrible details in a single second that seemed to stretch: eight glowing eyes, translucent legs with strange webs between them, a gleaming white carapace with light-blue stripes and those terrifying, clicking mandibles.
She froze, a terrified, high-pitched, ear-drum-ripping screech escaping her throat.
The three Wanderers covered their ears with their hands, specially Kaska, who was only half a meter in front of Rethia.
The spiders screeched back in terror, curling up as best they could.
Sven added his own panicked chitter to the cacophony, and everything echoed back from the stonewalls of the path, adding volume and depth.
Kaska fell to her knees, bleeding from nose and ears, gagging to keep the sounds from overwhelming her.
Thomas plugged his ears with his fingers, all thoughts of attacking spiders forgotten.
Stooge did some disoriented steps, then tugged his helmet off, throwing it as far away as he could, covering his bleeding ears with his hands before he tumbled to the ground in a clatter of metal.
But the three Wanderers took only half the brunt of the sound. The sensitive spiders were subject to the full tone spectrum of the harpies screech and the echoes. The sound traveling through their thin carapace.
Those still lurking in the mists fled without anyone noticing that they had even been there.
The three closest spiders frantically weaved cocoons to shut out the cacophony, too close to it to survive by fleeing.
The cacophony echoed up and down the paths, reaching through half the mountain and down to the mine-village. The people hid in the guild building and whispered about an angry spirit of the mountains. While others whispered of the mountain itself waking up. The resident Wanderers listened in with gleaming eyes.
Kaska clawed her way over and stuffed Rethias mouth with a pink round-ish object, effectively cutting of the screech.
Startled by the object – and its sweet scent – she clamped down on it.
The echoes were thrown back for many excruciating minutes, before they, too, died down, leaving the camp in blessed silence.
Only the mist clinging to the walls of the left-hand path and the half-cocooned, curled up spider in their midst hinted to any kind of altercation.
Stooge whimpered on the ground, ears still covered. Thomas was brought back to reality by Kaska poking him with her staff.
“Are there still any spiders?” he almost shouted, looking around for any approaching spiders.
Kaska gave him a confused look. Then poked him again.
“Hey, stop that!”
Kaska touched her lips, then her ears, then shook her head.
“Huuh?”
“Uhm… sorry?” said Rethia, feathers fluffed and claws holding the other half of the sweet fruit. She knew she had done something, but she didn’t know what. And they ignored her.
Making weird gestures, Kaska then raised her staff, ready to hit the spider with it, while Thomas poked it with an arrow. It remained unmoving. With a bit more force, Thomas pushed the arrow through the carapace. And still the spider remained inert.
They smiled brightly at each other, Thomas drawing a line across his throat, then pointing at the spider.
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Kaska gave him a thumps up, pointed at Stooge and walked over to the flailing man.
Curios, Rethia stalked closer, catching Thomas’ attention.
“Is it dead?” she asked, pointing a wing at the spider.
Thomas shook his head with an apologetic expression, touched his ears and shook it again. Seeing that she didn’t get the message, he said loudly: “I can’t hear a thing you say. My ears are busted.”
Rethia grimaced. That’s why they ignored my apology. But why their ears? Mine are working just fine.
“Be it god or devil, I don’t care who listens. Take my mana as payment to heal this fella before me!” shouted Kaska, hands – and staff – raised above Stooge. A grey light bubbled down from her staff, flowing into the man. Instantly, he stopped flailing and sat up, rubbing his head.
More grey light clung to Kaska’s staff. She touched her own ears with it, then walked over to Thomas, touching him with the grey light, too.
“Want me to heal your monkey, too?” asked Kaska towards Rethia, staff raised.
“Why? Sven is fine.”
“Seems to me he’s close to dying…”
“Utter nonsense. Sven is made of sterner stuff than you Wanderers. A little noise won’t kill him.”
“Just saying. Maybe you should check? You have…” Kaska glanced to her right, then refocused on Rethia. “30 seconds left to decide. I won’t force you to accept.”
The conviction in Kaska’s voice did throw her off a little. Sven is stronger than some Wanderers. But… checking won’t hurt, right? It’s a sensitive choice. Not because some Wanderer told me to. They are more weird than simple Landbound. Don’t trust them.
Nudging Sven with a claw didn’t elicit his usual twitch and purr. Worried, she pulled him from around her neck, cradling the unconscious monkey. Same as the Wanderers, blood trickled out of his ears and nose.
Kaska touched him with a grey glowing hand.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help it. The spell was running out and…” Kaska trailed off, leaving her sentence unfinished and went to check on Stooge.
“Feeling better there, buddy?” (Kaska)
“Yeesh. I guess. What was that? Do you know? I remember a spider jumping over me and then I was knocked out by that abysmal noise. My whole armor was ringing. Happy it finally stopped. Do you know what it feels like to wear a ringing plate armor? Wuuh. It goes straight into your bones and drives you crazy. Took most of my health out of me. I was so short of dying again in two days!” Stooge shivered at the memory.
“Ahem. Well, yes, that noise. The spider landed half a meter in front of me. Rethia, who was behind me, was so terrified by it, that she screeched. For lack of a better word. The sound echoed back from the walls, the spiders added their own terrified screams and everything mixed together beautifully,” grinned Kaska. “Thanks to that, we got one dead spider here, and I can’t see any more living enemies inside that mist. They are either dead, unconscious or have fled.”
“I can tell you that mine is not dead. There was no not-”
“Yes, yes. No need to go into details.” Kaska interrupted Thomas, sharp eyes boring into him. “Say, Rethia. Can you push the mist away with your wings? Like, flapping really strongly towards the mist?”
“I can try?” What details? What ‘not-’? They are getting stranger by the minute. And why did she glance sideways before telling me how long her spell was going to keep? Is that a mage thing? Healer thing? Must look for some magic user and check with them. Celia could know…
Cuddling a disoriented Sven, she sat him back around her neck and walked up to the mist. Well, not too close. Keeping a wingspan distance from the nefarious stuff that hid such vile creatures, she raised her wings and pushed.
The mist moved unnaturaly slowly, as if clinging to something. With a snort, she moved her wings again, strong enough that she was pushed away a little, the stone ground too hard to anchor herself properly.
The mist opened up about half a wingspan.
Thomas closed in with a torch, inspecting what looked like fine silver threads in the flickering light. Already, the mist was crawling back along those threads.
“I’ve never seen something like that. Looks like filigree wrought by a silversmith.” He touched it with a finger, then pulled it away. The thread stuck to him, stretching a bit before breaking. Curious, Thomas held the short thread stuck to his finger close to his eyes. “Sticky stuff. A bit of elasticity. I guess the crafters would love to get their hands on this stuff. Seems like these are your ethereal fingers, Stooge. Spiderwebs.”
“Hrmpf. You run blindly into mist, get wrapped by the stuff and then tell me what you felt.” (Stooge)
“Touchy~” (Thomas)
“Guys…” sighed Kaska. “We don’t have time for this right now. The mist is crawling back in, as if attracted to the spider threads. Must be something other than normal mist. Can you try burning it?”
The torch touched some still-exposed threads and they went up in flames. The fire raced along the lines, until it met with the returning mist and getting extinguished.
“Huh. Interesting.” Thomas blinked his eyes at the sight. Then held the torch straight into the mist and pulled it out again. The torch came out unlit.
Rethia took a step away from the mist with wide eyes. “It devours light… It’s… it’s cursed! This whole range is cursed!” Fluffing her feathers, she stalked around the merry campfire, mumbling: “It was a mistake to accept that request. It was a mistake to come here. Giant spiders! A curse that devours light! I’ll leave right away. If I survive the night. Great Sprites, please let me survive the night! I still haven’t reached the coast! What about my delivery? And I want to go home again! I don’t want to die here. Please, please, please let me survive.”
She never saw the trio roll their eyes at her, nor hear their whispered discussion.
Kaska turned back to the task at hand, calling her group closer: “So we have flammable spiderwebs that attract some kind of magical mist that extinguishes fire.”
“What do we do about her?” muttered Stooge, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.
“I will do something later. Just act normally and please try to stop with the gamer slang.” She explicitely looked at Thomas. “It won’t take much more to have her ask questions that we can’t answer her. You all know the risk. Play it chill and watch your words. I can’t always interfere.”
“Easier said then done…” muttered Thomas.
“Do it, or bear the consequences. Remember the story about Alolar and Macoere? How many quests suddenly became unsolvable?”
Thomas made a grimace. “Everyone knows that story. Poor chaps down south. I’ll try harder, I promise.”
“Now, if none of you got a fan to get rid of this mist for a new experiment, I’ll try to calm down her. Dunno what even got into her.”
“The way she’s keeping close to the fire, I would guess fear of the darkness,” said Stooge.
“Really? Why would she, wait. Now that you mention it, I guess she said something about being blind at night? Maybe? It was just before the fight started, so I’m not sure. Haah, wish me luck.”
“This is bad. Terrible! How long until daybreak, I wonder? Or should I just leave right now? Circle until the sun rises with her blessed light? If only I had bought a lantern! I thought a firestarted would be enough to get a campfire going. Who knew I would ever have to fly at night! Wish I had Isatha with me. She would be able to see. Probably tell me I’m overreacting. Heh. … But what a dumb idea this request was. From an unfriendly town, no less. Well, that one guild employee was nice and friendly. But most of the others were decidedly not. Is it a plot? Did they know about this curse and lured me here with a request for help to get rid of me? Get rid of one more non-human? What a devious plot! And they’re having success, too! I… I… I’ll survive! Somehow, I’ll survive. Just have to wait for sunrise and fly away as fast as I can. I really hope there are no more spiders tonight. And that that cursed stuff stays over there. And what if more spiders come? What if it closes in? Then… then… sniff… I’ll just have to fly at night. Mabye Sven can be my eyes. Oh Great Sprites, what did I get myself into?”
Stalking up and down, gnawing on her claws and muttering to herself, Rethia kept as close to the campfire as was possible without burning herself.
“Sorry to interrupt your very important self consultation, but-”
Rethia jumped with a shriek, then cowered under her wings.
“Aish, didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Slowly, Rethia pushed her head out of her protective wing cover, looking at Kaska who stood on the other side of the fire. For just a moment, Kaska looked at her as if she had gone crazy. Then then moment was gone, replaced by a crooked smile.
“I really didn’t want to surprise you.”
“I… uhm… sorry. Didn’t hear you coming. I was… was… uhm…” neatly folding her wings around her and standing up, Rethia scratched at the ground.
“We need your help with that mist.”
“NO!” shrieked Rethia instantly. “I’m not going near that cursed thing ever again! It devours light! If we go near it, it will eat our eyes and ground us forever! I’ll not go near it and neither should any of you!”
Kaska scratched her head at the outburst. “It’s not… hum… how do I explain that? It’s got some magical properties that extinguishes fire. Since none of us can produce magical light, we can’t check if it is also extinguished, but I guess it won’t. We just need you to push the mist away, so that we can burn those spiderwebs.”
“I refuse!”
“You don’t have to go anywhere near it. Just close enough to have an effect?” begged Kaska.
“No!”
Taking deep breaths to calm down, Kaska tried again: “Please?”
“No! I refuse to get any closer to that cursed stuff!”
“What’s your problem?! It’s not like it will kill you! There are no living spiders anywhere near us, there are two warriors right next to you, who will kill any stray spiders before they can reach you. Why won’t you help us?!”screamed Kaska, her patience worn down.
“I can’t see anything at night and you want me to get close to the cursed stuff that eats the little light we have? I refuse! And don’t you dare kill this fire!” hissed Rethia, raising her wings to look bigger and more threateningly than she actually was.
“Just because of that you refuse to help?! If we can’t get rid of that mist and the webs inside, we’ll never get to the caravan! Their provisions will run out and they’ll die!” shouted Kaska back, staff grabbed tightly.
“Oh, so it’s because of visibility! Then how about we do it in the morning? You won’t have a problem if you can see without the fire, yes?” interrupted Stooge with a friendly rumble. The tone threw the two angry women more off than the contents.
“I… don’t know… I… guess? I… well…” stuttered Rethia, wings lowering in confusion.
“Hadn’t thought about that… I’m sorry…” mumbled Kaska, looking to the side.
“Now, be good girls and shake on it.”
“Shake?” asked Rethia, confused. “Shake what?”
“You don’t know? You grab each others hand and shake it. Depending on the situation, it’s used for greetings, affirmations or offering congratulations. Hum… I think there was more, but I forgot about the rest. But mostly, it’s for that,” explained Stooge.
“Hands?”