Ch: 28 A Sticky End
In a quiet seaside inn at sunset, a man floated naked in an outdoor bath, listening to a small, beautiful woman chew him out. This was Gary’s new normal.
“You must think before you act, out here in the wider world things do not work as they do in Wheatford. Things sometimes are less orderly in other domains.” She said, punctuating her statement with a sharp glance.
“Shai told me about the game of insult, I guess it was part of her clan’s lore and it seemed appropriate.” Gary shrugged. “He had bad intentions from the start, I could taste it when he was in my pool. Not a good time.”
Tawny sighed deeply, her golden shoulders deflating a little. “The baron of Port Fallon lost his son and only heir two years ago in a monster hunt. He was apparently eaten entirely.” She had a sour look on her lips.
“Brennan Fallon is a cousin, and the new heir. He would compare unfavorably with whatever is left of poor Edmund Fallon now.” She sighed again.
“Brennan is easily insulted and will hold petty grudges for private slights, as most spoiled children will. If you were to humiliate him in front of common troopers, that would earn you a dangerous and unpredictable enemy.”
“Oh yeah we did that in spades, we were really nice about it too, that should really steam his dumplings.” He said with a grin. “He's a tremendous asshole… I don’t think he’s baron material.”
“Sadly we do not get to make that judgment.” Tawny furrowed her golden brows thoughtfully. “What is done cannot be undone. We Shall see where this leads.”
She poked him out into the middle of the pool, setting him adrift again. “The others are out dealing with a trapdoor and a walking tree you should rest.”
“I wanted to see the tree… I wonder what kind of lumber it will give… walking tree walking bass? Maybe…” He said, drifting into nowhere on wings of sleepy vibes.
#
The walking tree, according to: ‘Wheatford and Environs, Wildlife: a Guide and Manual’, was a stick insect gone monster.
They were not aggressive or quick, just armored and huge. So huge they would climb a tree to ‘stick it out’ and topple it, then climb another tree. Rinse and repeat, it could knock down a whole forest and block the roads just bumbling around.
In reality:
“Gods damn this thing!” Liam shouted as the semi humanoid assemblage of random logs and twigs carried his struggling, armored form up to its mouth and popped him in.
“Liam!” Dannyl screamed, hurling himself forward with his whip spinning in tight vicious arcs, scattering bark and sapwood all around.
The beast stood the height of a good sized tree, thirty feet at least. Its pebbly brown bark was thick and tough. While the corded ‘muscles’ of vines and springy saplings within were resilient as well.
Plum canker giants were the most problematic of all walking sticks, they had a tendency to be feisty. Tallum’s club bashed against the mighty being with little effect. In return it struck him with a kick that appeared slow, until it punted him a half dozen yards.
While the vast leg was ponderously swinging by, having spent much of its force on Tallum, Dannyl leapt. He scurried up the limb like a squirrel, his whip flogging the beast as he ran. “Cover Ivy, I’m going in!” He called before darting up the thing’s torso in hopping bounds.
#
It was on the ground, standing on five of its legs and swatting at the pests with the free appendage. It lurched about, swinging one colossal limb after another at the fast moving creatures harassing it. From its great round ball of a head, a low moaning sound crooned, as though haunted by some dread spirit.
It had neither legs nor arms really, just undifferentiated limbs with grasping hooks and appendages. It swept the area with those woody talons in swaying arcs. Grabbing up the tiny creatures when it could and stuffing them in its maw.
It had eaten two so far!
It was not certain if that was an accomplishment or not, being a wooden headed fruit tree canker. Bug and bacteria, mixed with fruit tree does not add up to much brain power, even when infested with a fragmentary soul from an outside dimension.
The one climbing it was a nuisance though, it knew that. It swatted fiercely at its own torso, sending bark and sticks flying.
#
Tallum was back up, pounding at the legs it was standing on with his club. Dannyl leapt and scampered, flogging away when he could to keep it distracted and furious. “Keep it up buddy! I’m going inside!” He shouted before leaping the creature’s neck and climbing past its jagged, immobile jaw.
“Great!” the giant grumbled, whacking the tree trunk legs one after another. “Feels like harvest time in the nut orchards.” He complained, while sticks and bark showered down.
#
Dannyl tumbled down the tube of smooth, slick, green sapwood that was the creature’s throat, landing in a sticky pool of gunk with Shai and Liam.
“Took long enough.” Liam grumbled. Clapping the small man on the shoulder with a squishy splat. Gooey slop oozed and squelched around their knees. It clung and slowly began to harden into what would eventually become amber.
“It wouldn’t take me, I had to climb in, stupid thing…” He griped, struggling for a little more room in the slowly undulating tangle of humans and sap.
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“Aye, tis a stupid thing an we did need three tries tae get it tae eat the right one o us, nae could we even manage that. Let us finish this ere we be trapped in amber.” Shai said, eyeing the slowly congealing mass clinging to them.
The walls of the space were formed of innumerable roots, vines, branches and saplings all squeezed together into a basket slowly filling with sticky sap. Once fully entombed in amber and solidified, they would be unceremoniously crapped out onto the forest floor.
The group had found a number of animals and insects lying around in just that way. Most notably the small trapdoor they had been searching for. It was now in Ivy’s bag and should fetch a fine price in Port Ellis.
Liam nodded to his kin and slipped the point of his spear into the network of green and springy ‘muscles’ that formed the creature’s stomach. With a heave and some help from Shai’s mighty back, they parted enough of the squirming, ropy tendrils to get Dannyl’s whip looped around a mass of them.
As each one parted with a wet sound and a spray of sap, the creature began to tremble.
With room to move as the cage loosened, Shai began slashing tendrils with her swords. Flicking her blades briskly in the enclosed space, she expanded their territory inside the thing.
Liam’s spear began to take a toll, its enchanted edges slipping into and through the monster’s delightfully scented guts. With short careful sweeps, he was clearing space almost as quickly as Shai.
Dannyl, little Dannyl, was this creature’s nemesis, his chain whip sawed and slashed through its insides, leaving sap and goo coating everything around. He burrowed through it like a parasitic beetle, destroying its ‘organs’ and ‘tissues’ with frightful joy.
Outside, Tallum struck and moved, pounding one leg after another making the thing dance as it moaned in rhythm to his beat. “Gary would have loved this one! It sings when you hit it!” He shouted, while Ivy glared at him from her ritual circle of salt and honey.
Ivy began a slow and careful dance, assuming strange postures while making obscure motions with her hands. She sang out in a liquid tongue with her head thrown back in savage joy and howled.
Somewhere deep in the creature, a wet sloshing sound came. A deep swirling rumble shook its form, as a geyser of sap erupted from its midsection, tumbling the three companions to the earth in a sticky, wet, and now gritty pile.
The tacky trio landed on Tallum in a wave of clinging ick, engulfing him in their tangle. They rolled to a stop in a laughing mess of limbs, mud and forest detritus
Around them, the creature’s limbs tumbled down, disjointed and collapsing as the magic animating them fled. Its colossal head rolled to a stop near Ivy, baleful lights flickering in the near exhausted sockets.
“Sorry guy, wrong place, wrong time.” She said, smashing the desiccated, lumpy thing with her staff.
Like the paper and paste monsters stuffed with candy and toys from the feast of light, it split and burst leaving a large amber colored stone behind.
“Ooo! Treasure! Save that goop! I brought buckets.” She cried, scooping the stone up with a whoop.
“What did you do to it?” Liam asked Ivy, when his mouth was finally clear of tangy, sweet sap.
“It's a ritual the maple syrup clans use up north, makes the sap liquid so it runs fast.” She grinned and laughed, mostly because she was clean. “There were a ton of warnings in the instructions about how easy it is to kill the tree with it…”
#
Annie led the horses over the hill when the thing finally finished falling into a pile of logs and branches. Becky, proudly astride Winslow, called out. “Lets get those logs loaded up, I want to get in the bath!” The girl not covered with sweet, sticky tree goo said to her ‘friends’.
Fortunately Tonk, the draft horse, had worked the lumber trade before and helped Annie guide the fumbling humans. “The poor things would be so lost without my guidance.” He told Estrella, the plowmare.
“Tonk, humans have fingers, fingers are helpful, we train our humans and treat them well so that they can aid us.” Annie gently corrected her.
“Just look at Zeb, do you think he could have gotten that tick out of his ear alone?” She asked, pointing her muzzle at Zeb the semi retired warhorse, currently getting a post removal ear rub from Liam.
“Hmmph” Socks snorted from nearby. “Humans come and go, they're like apples, you never know if it’s a sweet one till you bite it, then it’s too late.” She snorted with distaste. “My last human was full of worms.”
“Socks! That’s not nice! Everyone gets worms sometimes!” Sweet Peony whickered in her ladylike tones. “We shouldn't shame humans for that.”
“It’s a metaphor Peony, he didn't actually have worms, I was drawing a similarity to rotten humans and rotten… Oh, never mind.”
Peony had found a patch of wild oats in a sheltered nook and was busy enjoying a surprise late winter treat.
“There is lumber to haul yet Peoney, don’t fill up.” Annie whickered softly.
#
Trade boat Esperanza was moving well, with three feet of freeboard and a nice nor’west breeze filling her small lateen sail. Falco was having a fine morning, playing his favorite leap the bowsprit game.
“O! Signal ashore!” Dante called, hoisting the green flag of trade and changing course. They dropped sail and Falco took up the bowline, easing them to a spit of land suitable for her shallow draught.
When the plank hit shore, the signaling band was already clustered at the waterside, in defiance of custom and good manners. “Greetings warriors…” Esperanza called to the muddy and bedraggled group. “You wish trade?” She asked, her feet on the lever that would drop the plank into the water.
They had saddles and horse gear, but no horses. Even more suspicious, they looked hungry. “Where is my lord’s baggage train?” She asked the tall blond leader.
“We have no baggage, we wish passage to Port Fallon, for which you will be rewarded handsomely.” The leader said.
“Esperanza is a trade boat, we do not take passengers, not chartered for that. We do trade though, this one has hot bread from Esperanza’s oven, tea and coffee! Spices from …”
“How much?” He asked. “How much to take us to Port Fallon?” At this point Fallon was through with the whole affair and just wanted to go home and be done.
“Esperanza is a trade boat we are not chartered for passengers” She repeated, her voice becoming formal and cool.
“You stinking dockside whore, I am Brennan Fallon, heir to the baronial seat of Port Fall…” With a thump the inviting smile and gangplank both disappeared from view.
A sharp whistle sounded and Falco began towing the vessel out to deep water. “Up sail! Our apologies bandit, Esperanza will not be boarded today!”
#
“Two nights Levin, two nights sleeping under bushes and drinking river water. You owe us each two nights sleeping hard and walking far Levin. Think about how you will repay that debt.” Fallon said as they began walking south down the Coast Road.
Levin staggered, pulling a travois loaded with as much of the group’s gear as he could manage, plus a bit extra. Gods damned kid was still grinning though.
#
With Bandits skulking, Esperanza cut a wider course by day, hauling closer to the coast as the sun began to fall. The sky lit with hues of orange red and gold, shining against the blue as it shaded to deepest indigo.
They kept on, following winds blew fair, as sunset became full dark and Falco took the helm.
As the stars came out and the moon rose, Esperanza danced over the waves, at one with her ship, familiar and herself.
She held the tiller with her eyes closed, as Falco guided her semi-somnolent form. Deep in the second watch, as they began to tire, he scented a familiar magic in the water.
The pair knew the taste of runoff from human habitations, that was best avoided. Someday she would get her hands on one of those aroma bands that were showing up on the market.
When she heard the rumors at first, she was interested, now the rumors were confirmed and she wanted one like nobody knew. First, she would need to even see one. Damned Adventurers were so stingy.
Upriver towns like Wheatford had advanced sewage systems, making for clean swimming, but poor trade since towns were more scattered.
Seaside towns tended to have a less scrupulous attitude, trusting the waters to carry their filth away.
Aquatic familiars were rare, even by the Shallow sea. Anyone who had one, knew the perils of coming too near human cities and towns. Uncounted gallons and tons of ‘effluent,’ ‘waste’ and ‘shite’ drifted in horrifying currents of sickening flavors.
This overflow, sweet and pure, tasting of untamed and unknown seas of chaos was familiar and welcoming.
“Dante, rig for shore running, we have found a friendly port! Falco will lead us in.” The trade captain licked her lips hungrily. She would taste at least a nibble of that treat ‘ere Esperanza took to the shallow sea again.
She could negotiate that at least, only a man on his deathbed could resist her full charms. “If this one is fortunate, that mad boy will be only a starter.”
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