Breakfast now complete, Symon wanted to harvest some more vitality for Atabek before it warmed up too much. With two suns already in the sky and the third still creeping over the horizon, it was inevitable that the blissful cool of night would soon be chased away. His sleep had been quite comfortable, the ground retaining most of its heat while the air cooled down nicely, so he wasn't looking forward to the sweltering heat. Best to start early before it got too bad, he thought.
After letting the others know what he was going to do, Symon began walking the perimeter of the cleared area around their camp, hugging the wall of grass as he went. Doing so, he slowly spiralled outwards, considering what he could do to refill his vitality reserves as he collected a pittance of the energy from the dead grass. Considering he'd gone to sleep fully healed, fed, and watered, he'd awoken with the same amount of vitality he went to sleep with — three units.
He had no concrete idea of exactly how much healing one point of vitality could do, but he figured that ten would probably be enough to heal Atabek. Perhaps not enough to completely erase the injuries, but at least enough for him to safely move around and fight if need be. He also wanted to keep a reserve in case some emergency healing was needed — his newly expanded vessel enabling him to store up to 13 units of the stuff, and he wanted to make use of it.
A larger maximum capacity was great, but Symon still had the same problem he always had; no easy way to get vitality. He could borrow a few points from the healthy adventurers, but he'd prefer to save that for last if he couldn't find another way. The grass around him was barely clinging onto life, meaning they had barely any vitality for him to take. After almost an hour of walking around in a circle draining the grass without even a full extra point of vitality to show for it, he realised he'd need to do something more active.
Hunting the centipedes back in the desert would give him a couple points of vitality from each one, and he could find several each hour. He could run back there pretty quickly if he wanted to, but it was still the opposite direction of where they wanted to be going. Plus, he detested the desert. The thought of willingly going back there wasn't something he was interested in when he still had other options to explore.
There was almost certainly something they could hunt for vitality in this horizon-spanning grassy plain. The others had been trekking through it for about a week without encountering anything particularly dangerous — not including the razor stalker — but that didn't mean they hadn't found any other life at all. The grass grew healthier the further it got from the desert, meaning it would provide him with more vitality, but the fact that Atabek needed to be travel-worthy in order to travel to the source of vitality was a non-starter. They needed another source to get him moving in the first place.
The camp was only a short jog away considering he'd been going in circles around them, so it didn't take long before he was back discussing what they could do with the leader of the Dumosan adventurers.
"We have encountered a few local beasts in our travels. If you wish for a large quantity of life essence with minimal danger..." Aslan considered things, stroking his short beard as he did so. "I know of a good option. My comrades and I have encountered large, flightless birds that gather in herds. We slew a few, but they provided little challenge and made for poor eating, so we have not bothered with them since."
Oh man, Symon hoped these weren't penguins. He really didn't want to kill something if it was so cute, but he'd do what he had to do to ensure everyone still alive made it out.
"Lead me to them," he said.
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After an hour of wandering around, they'd made it to where the creatures nested. Well, from Symon's perspective, they just wandered around, but Aslan must have been following a trail. Thankfully, the monsters — or were they just normal animals here? Symon still wasn't sure how the vernacular worked — were not cute penguins.
A hundred or so metres in front of them were a few dozen creatures, looking a lot like ostriches that had tried to disguise themselves as a bush and failed miserably. The largest of the group, presumably the adults, were a little taller than Symon, although a solid portion of their height came from their long necks. Instead of the large talons he was expecting, their legs ended in hooves like a horse. He found this to be great news. He'd rather get kicked by a solid object than get disembowelled by a massive claw. Their beaks didn't seem particularly sharp, and he doubted their skinny necks allowed them to peck with much power.
The main body was the strangest part of the creature. None of them had any visible appendages such as the wings he would have predicted they had, instead being coated in long, looping coils of what looked like verdant vines and roots. They stood out sharply from the brown half-dead grass surrounding them but probably blended in well with the healthier green grass that Symon and the Dumosi hoped to reach soon.
It was just Symon and Aslan here for the fight, but they were confident. There were only a half dozen of the adult creatures, while the rest of their numbers were made up of their young. According to Aslan and his team's previous encounter, only the largest ones would fight while the others all fled. One of the monsters was noticeably taller than the others, but they had a plan to deal with them all.
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It was inevitable that most of them would flee, so Symon's job would be to run in and go for the legs, crippling as many as he could and ensuring he could safely drain them afterwards. Meanwhile, Aslan would hold their attention until Symon got all of the slow ones, after which they would work together to take down the adults. Symon had felt it would be best to go back for help, or perhaps find a smaller herd to attack, but Aslan hadn't been very impressed by the ostrich monster's combat prowess previously and was confident he could safely hold the majority of their attention.
With a final nod to each other, the duo split up and began circling the monsters in opposite directions. They had chosen to maintain their distance as they weren't very stealthy, especially considering there was always one of the ostrich monsters using their long necks to keep a watch out over the grass.
Leaving a trail of dead grass behind him as he crouched through the grass, Symon didn't feel very sneaky. Maybe it was worth the effort to learn a stealth skill, considering how many vicious monsters there were in this world. If he encountered something too powerful for him, which seemed inevitable, his only option would be to run away.
Ignoring potential plans for the future, Symon refocused on the present. It was about to start.
Aslan suddenly stood up out of the grass on the opposite side of the bush ostriches, loudly talking in his native tongue as he casually strolled towards the creatures. Immediately, the little ones moved behind the adult creatures, their plantlike bodies puffing up like a cat trying to make itself seem larger. They didn't attack, standing their ground and bobbing their heads up and down as they let out deep hooting noises. It must have been their attempt to seem intimidating, but to Symon, they just looked silly.
Taking the opportunity given to him by Aslan's distraction, Symon quickly began creeping closer to them. He had his club slung over his shoulder, while his new sword was sheathed at his side — it would remain there unless his primary weapon proved ineffective. Judging by the creatures' thin legs and necks, this seemed unlikely.
Aslan was still shouting something and banging his sword against his shield — his previously used spear split in half in the fight against the razor stalker — while the creatures seemed content to continue their weird dominance dance. This gave Symon the easy opening he needed to make it the last couple of metres into the clearing.
The creatures were so distracted by Aslan's performance that he could simply stroll right up behind them. It felt so easy that he almost felt a little bad, but when one of the hip-height younger creatures turned around to face him, any feeling of remorse vanished. The thing was hideous, looking more like a crocodile with a beak than the bird-like features he was expecting. He promptly brained the creature with his club before remembering he wanted to keep them alive to drain as much vitality as possible.
Aslan had charged towards the creatures the moment Symon had revealed himself, so he quickly focused on his own task and got to work. He trusted Aslan to be able to handle himself long enough.
Symon crashed into their backline like a tidal wave, his club snapping twiglike legs with every blow. The little monsters made an angry coughing noise and kicked at him in response, but the attacks did nothing more than bruise him, his vessel sending out a tiny trickle of vitality to almost instantly heal them away. They barely even hurt, feeling more like ant bites than anything serious. Stubbing a toe would have hurt more. Symon wasn't sure if this was because of his Pain Resistance or if the attacks were really that weak. The small amount of vitality consumer was immediately returned — with interest — as the grey threads of Seize automatically snapped out to the nearby downed creatures.
The process was remarkably easy, and by the time all the smaller monsters began fleeing he had already knocked down a dozen of them. The runners, despite being half Symon's height, were incredibly fast and practically vanished into the grass. This alone would be enough to fill his vessel and then some, so he turned to help Aslan with the only real threats.
The man was unwounded, playing a defensive game as the monsters had him half surrounded, the largest one standing behind the crescent the monsters had formed as it seemingly observed the fight. As he watched, one of the ostriches tried to peck at Aslan. Instead of taking the attack on his shield as he had with most of the others, he smoothly stepped back and cleanly decapitated the monster with a single quick swipe of his sword. Like a chicken, the headless monster remained standing for a few moments as it began swaying drunkenly, the neck spurting blood as it whipped around like an unattended firefighter's hose.
That left four of the creatures forming a crescent line around Aslan, with a larger one still standing behind as it imperiously observed the fight. Judging by how easily Aslan had just killed one of them, he would be fine against the remaining four. This left the big one for Symon.
It seemed the creature had the same idea, turning around for the first time and laying eyes on him. For the first time, it noticed what had happened to all the other creatures in its pack. Aslan had lured them far enough away and had been a loud enough distraction that Symon had been given more time to act than they'd initially planned for, but his ability to act unhindered while they were busy was over.
The alpha of the pack, standing a little over two metres tall, let out a low, deep noise somewhere between an owl's hoot and a wolf's howl. It advanced slowly towards Symon, clacking its beak together as it did so. While the other creatures had small, blunt nubs in their beaks for chewing through plants, this one had sharp verticle spikes of keratin akin to fangs.
They'd probably hurt if the creature started biting Symon, but he wasn't too concerned. As the creature stalked towards Symon, the coils of vines wrapping around its body began to move. Some of them flopped off and began trailing along the ground, making him think the creature was shedding the strange material — he wasn't sure if it was actual plant life or a part of the creature that just looked like vines. The creature was shrugging off its camouflage to make itself lighter, preparing to defend its flock against the attackers.
At least, that was what Symon thought was happening. Instead of detaching, the trailing vinelike growths started twitching and jerking. Suddenly, they all shot out as they lifted under their own power, spreading out through the air. Suddenly, Symon wasn't just fighting a giant ostrich, but a giant ostrich with vines spreading out behind it like the feathers of a peacock.
Only, instead of being beautifully coloured feathers, the ostrich monster's vine appendages were a dark green, coated with hundreds of dangerous-looking sharp thorns.
Just my luck, Symon thought before he charged in.