Tawnie pov:

We were so close to the river! So close! Selling this Greenbul kid to the kingdom of Macedor would get all of us enough money to retire in luxury for the rest of our lives. An entire year of preparing: collecting intelligence, buying illegal and very expensive drugs, and assembling high level warriors. It was going so smoothly as well, nobody expected a thing, all we needed to do was lay a false trail and reach the river.

The biggest weakness in the defenses of the elves of Honeywood was their reliance on the mother bees. Mother bees aren’t active at night. Normally that wouldn’t matter, it took weeks to travel through the forest to reach any of the cities. However, if you didn’t look like an invader than the mother bees would not attack you, just alert the elves of your presence. Since we had posed as merchants to smuggle in the drugs and unassembled boats we could easily be prepared for our escape.

Who would have thought that we would be attacked as soon as we left the city walls. The information broker had warned us of all of the magic beasts, warriors and mages this city had at its beck and call. This thing was not on the list.

It was some kind of monstrous tree monk, impossibly large and incomparably ferocious looking. That hiss it made set my skin crawling. Its hard shell was an evil black and covered in cruel spikes as well as brutally sharp ridges. It was also way too fast and strong.

The three of us were selected as the infiltration team because we were skilled warriors specializing in speed and stealth. I was no fresh fish among bandits, I had gained a decent reputation and a high bounty. My comrades were no different. It didn’t seem to matter.

That thing managed to sneak up on us and get close enough to grab Derek before we were prepared. Then it somehow bit through hardened moss boar leather and steel chainmail like beef jerky. This is why I hate fighting magic beasts.

When Langley offered himself as a sacrifice to let me get a poisoned throwing knife in its eye I was afraid it would just ignore it. Luckily it let go and he managed to stab it with his drugged dagger. We didn’t wait to see if the poison would finish it off, since one of Greenbul’s pets had found us, it was only a matter of time before the others tracked us down.

We now were headed for the river directly instead of leaving a false trail, we no longer could afford the luxury of trying to fool the elvish trackers that would inevitably be sent after us.

We were almost at the river when I heard Langley scream behind me. The branch I had run under had come to life and skewered him, as I looked closer I saw it was another tree monk monster. It took a bite out of his skull and looked at me. I had thought it was another one of those freaks, but when it looked at me it suddenly grew larger and turned black. It was the same one from before.

I ran. There was nothing I could do, poison didn’t work, I could barely fight that thing with Langley and now that thing had taken a bite out of his head like it was an apple. I could only hope it would be occupied with his body long enough for me to meet the others.

I broke through the trees and reached the riverside a bit upriver of our encampment. They caught sight of me immediately, I waved for them to finish preparing to cast off.

“What happened? Where’s Langley and Derek?” (Cromwell)

“They’re dead. The broker messed up. We were attacked by some kind of bug monster. It ate them.”

“What?!?” (Cromwell)

“We need to cast off now! I want us headed down the river before the rest of them get here!”

Cromwell looked from me to the kid and back, then seemed to come to a decision. Next moment he was shouting and we began casting off. We had about a dozen strong warriors and four skilled mages for defending the boats.

We had been prepared to leave this night so the boats were already assembled and ready. We had to abandon the carriages but that had already been the plan.

We kept to the center of the river, that way we would only have to deal with archers and the Greenbul’s flying magic beasts.

I sat in the boat next to the sleeping kid. I tried not to picture the monster eating Langley and Derek again. I need a drink.

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Yup, I can’t fight that… I had carried the second kidnapper’s corpse while following the final kidnapper. I had eaten the legs and part of the torso while chasing her as well. I didn’t really notice with the first one because I was focused on my injuries but this guy is amazingly tasty. I wonder if food with lots of magic or whatever is better than food without any. It would explain how tasty the meatball mice were.

By the time I caught up with the girl she had met up with her conspirators and they were in boats going down the river. This river is stupidly wide so getting at them is tricky. They had seventeen people in three boats, not including the kid. Each boat had one person rowing, from the way their strokes forced the boats forward they had the super strength I had seen from the three before.

As I was surveying them one of them saw me, he shouted and most of them looked towards me. I was back in my edgelord form and holding what was left of their buddy so it’s no surprise that some of them went pale. A couple were swearing and retching but one man reached down and grabbed a massive recurved bow and nocked an arrow.

*Tsshzzzz*

Nnnnope!

When he shot at me I barely managed to dodge it, that arrow was fast. I climbed back into the trees and began finishing my meal, this would be trickier than I thought.

At first I had decided to save the kid on a whim, I had figured it wouldn’t be too difficult. Now I couldn’t see myself living through an attack on them. Looking at their preparations, they seemed ready for the elves and their magic beasts. The river and the bows meant that they couldn’t be attacked by land and attacking by air was risky. Elves have bows too but I can only think that these kidnappers are ready for that too.

I had a choice right now, give up my humanity or my life. Honestly I had been embracing my bug side pretty easily, but leaving this kid to their fate would mean abandoning my morals as a person. If I could find a way to get on the boats I might be able to kill some of them, But I was almost guaranteed to die.

I was wondering what to do, then it occurred to me, This entire scenario was the kind of thing that Lady Luck would find ‘funny.’ This kind of hero’s choice was just the sort of thing She seemed the type to set up for giggles. The poor kid was dragged into this for Her entertainment.

Fine then, it doesn’t matter why, I just have to stay me. I don’t know why she made me a bug, but I will stay true to myself. That means these punks are gonna die for pulling this stunt.

I ran downstream till I found a tree of the right height and distance from the riverside. My shapeshifting meant I could turn my claws into decent saws and I had the power to make quick work of the job of sawing through the thick trunk.

I rushed as quick as I could, I was racing the boats which were speeding along quite fast. I am a bug, not a lumberjack, so I wasn’t quite sure how to cut a tree down so it fell a certain way. I just made a diagonal cut and hoped for the best.

Timing the cut was difficult, but I managed to be ready to finish the cut as the boats moved into position. If all went well, I would topple the tree so it fell onto the first boat and blocked the others from getting past. This was a narrow section of the river and a tall tree, so it should work.

As the first boat came into position I finished the cut and set the tree toppling.

*Crrk*

*Krrrrrrrrr*

“What’s that!”

“The tree!”

The tree didn’t fall the way I wanted it to. It slid of the stump and twisted as it fell, taking longer and falling at an angle. It still hit one of the boats, but it was the one in back rather than the one in front.

*Smekash*

The tree hit the boat and the water with a loud noise punctuated by yells and screams. I ran up the tree as it was falling weaving in between the branches and into the boat. I wasn’t going to let the people get their bearings.

I had shrunk down to my natural, waist high size. It was perfect for squeezing between branches. The people in the boat were mostly pinned by thick tree limbs, the few who weren’t still had to cope with being trapped in a cage of leafy branches. They go first.

I can only imagine what my attack looked like to the other people in the first two boats. A falling tree, a shadow shooting into the mass of branches pushing the boat into the water, then the screams intensify and the shaking leaves show the struggle.

The fight was easy, The men were blinded and injured, and the close quarters prevented them from swinging their weapons properly. Some of them could only scream as I finished them off. When they were all dead I crawled up the branches and pulled myself into view of the retreating boats. Time for a little more psychological warfare.

I grew back into my spiky xenomorph look and glared at the pale faces of the kidnappers.

“HHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSHHHHAAAAAHHHH!”

After hissing at them as loudly as I could I shrank and crawled back into the foliage in time to avoid another arrow.

I decided to eat some more, the others would get ahead, but I wanted the boost to my strength as insurance. I was under no illusions as to the effectiveness of using the same strategy again, much less twice more.

I ate as quickly as I could. Stuffing the meat into my jaw parts as fast as possible without choking. Six adult humans disappeared into my stomach, leaving behind little but scraps of cloth and blood in the water. I could participate in some really horrifying eating contests.

After my meal I ran down the riverbank, trying to catch up with the boats. They had gotten farther ahead than I thought they were going to. I guess fear makes you better at rowing.

It took over an hour to finally catch up, and when I finally did it was well past midnight. This time they were ready for me.

Both of the boats had people watching the shores. They also had smoke pouring out of the boats. What are they up to?

The smoke on the water spread quite wide. I was a little nervous about entering it, but I decided I had no choice. I entered the smoke that had drifted onto the land, making sure to keep out of sight.

Gak! That’s foul!

I ran away from the wisps of smoke as quickly as I could. Evidently they had industrial strength pesticide or something. That would make things tricky. I had no clue how to bypass it.

In the end I decided to try and wait it out. The forest was massive enough that there really wasn’t any danger of escaping the forest for a few days.

For the time being, I decided to continue my psychological attacks. The river was too wide for me to successfully block off the river with another falling tree but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t slow them down. Plus there were more subtle ways of messing with the kidnappers. Let’s see, I can’t make too many noises but can I make the Friday the Thirteenth one?

“Chih Chih Chih Hhha Hhha Hhha”

Perfect.

I didn’t dare try to drop a tree directly on the boats again, the risk of hitting the kid was too high. I could go far ahead and make navigation hazards and scary noises too my heart’s content though. And I did.