Mark opened a part of the barricade to allow his friend to walk in. The first thing that Hera noticed was the smell. It made her eyes water instantly and her nose to burn. The stench was so overpowering that she wasn't able to identify it. Alex was having the same issue, and the two quickly grabbed some pieces of cloth that were among their first aid kits to fashion something to cover their mouths and noses.
"Sorry for the mess. We weren't expecting visitors," Mark looked away from the two, avoiding eye contact.
The cave where they had created this bunker was much smaller than what Hera expected. They were in a room that was less than five meters deep and only three meters wide. To make things worse, the back of the room was unusable. That corner was used as a bathroom, and the crafters didn't even dig a hole to keep their waste buried. Yet, Hera wasn't sure if the smell came from that area or from the body lying on the air mattress that occupied the middle of the room. Aside from the apparent corpse and Mark, there was another man in the bunker. He had thick brown hair, a patchy beard.
"Are you guys, ok?" Hera asked.
"Yeah, sure, just peachy. Bill is dying, a crazy turtle is hunting us down, and Mr. I-wanna-be-the-boss over there keeps barking orders," the man behind Mark yelled.
"Ryan, can you stop talking for five minutes? And lower your fucking voice. The turtle might know we are here, but we don't need to keep giving away our position," Mark pushed him to the side.
Alex stepped to the side, inspecting the barricade, worried that the turtle might try to charge in here. Somehow they had created a two-meter thick wooden wall. The turtle had some gravity powers, and just stacking the wood wouldn't do much. But they had fortified the structure by planting some logs as support beams. It was an impressive work, especially considering that they must have done it in a hurry.
"Ok, what happened? And… is he…?" Hera pointed at the body in the mattress.
"That's Bill. He's sleeping, but he's in really bad shape. The turtle bit his stomach. We did our best to bandage him up, but he kept getting worse. He mostly woke up just to bring the trees here, and now it's been… two days since he last woke up. But he has a pulse. I checked not long ago," Mark explained. He was covered in dirt and soot. Hera also saw the large bags under his red eyes.
"I'm not sure if I can do much, but let me check," Hera walked towards Bill. The man was deathly pale, his lips were cracked, and his clothes were covered in blood. Lifting up his shirt to take a look at the wound, a foul smell rushed to her nose even with the mask covering her face. She managed to look at the injury before the stench became too much. There were some bloodied bandages with yellow pus formed outside the dressing and getting stuck to his shirt.
"Hey Alex, I know you are doing your thing. But do you have any water on you? Ours ran out in the morning," Mark said.
"Of course," Alex quickly passed her waterskin to Mark. Before he managed to drink it, Ryan grabbed his hand.
"Give me that. You drank the last bottle."
"Dude, there is enough for both. Hold on," the two crafters struggled, trying to drink water.
"Stop that, you two!" Hera called, moving away from Bill.
Alex sent a gust of wind towards the two crafters, who dropped the waterskin, spilling all the water, "Knock that shit off. We don't have time to deal with this."
"Sorry, it's just… This asshole is really getting to me," Mark rubbed his eyes.
"What did you just call me?" Ryan got closer to Mark's face.
"ENOUGH!" Alex yelled, "We are getting out of here and back to the city. After that, you two don't even need to look at each other's face again," she turned to Hera and gestured to Bill, "How is he?"
"Bad. The wound is infected, and I don't think we should move him around. We can try, but that can make it worse," she turned to Mark, "letting him run around to gather wood was a bad idea."
"He never left the cave. He has a short-range teleport tool. He marked the trees and kept sending them here when he had enough mana. I'm not sure how that works, but if it wasn't for him, we would have died," Mark explained.
Hera nodded, "We need to get Runir. He can make sure it's safe to move him."
"He's gone. We should just leave him here and run. We can't deal with that thing," Ryan said.
Mark grabbed him by his already loose collar, "He's the one who saved your ass, and now you want to leave him?"
"It's better to leave him behind than to have the turtle kill all of us," Ryan replied, staring down at Mark.
"No one is getting left behind. The rest of our team is distracting the turtle. Grab your things. We'll get to the healer and bring him here to check on Bill before moving," Alex commanded.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
They stopped fighting and quickly grabbed their belongings, leaving only a bag that belonged to Bill behind. Alex walked off first, followed by Mark, Ryan, and then Hera on the rear guard. Outside, Blue and Tom were doing their best to keep the turtle busy, but it was clear that something had changed. Before Blue could push the turtle back on her own, but now both were struggling just to keep it at bay. They were still going towards the corner of the area, surrounded by the cave walls. It didn't seem like a good idea since it would make the group have trouble running away, but leading the monster in the opposite direction would put Runir and Bonnie in harm's way.
Alex moved quickly towards the trees where Runir and Bonnie were. They were still helping with the fight, flinging spells as they could, but Bonnie seemed more focused on the people coming from the cave than helping against Tu'nia. Hera and her group were about halfway towards the tree line when Ryan stopped moving quietly and just bolted towards the forest. His movement made a lot of noise, especially when he slipped on a stone and gasped loudly.
The sound caught the attention of the turtle, who tucked itself into its shell and switched positions. Now facing away from the corner, towards the group who just left the cave. Tu'nia dashed towards them, leaving Tom and Blue behind. Hera and Alex quickly moved to intercept the monster. Hera flung a poison needle towards the beast, hoping that it would make it stop to dodge it once more. Tu'nia rotated to the side and evaded the spell without changing trajectory. Alex aimed a wind cutter into its head, and the attack hit the turtle's eye.
Tu'nia toppled and rolled on the ground. Surprisingly, it had no trouble to tumble on its back and get back up. It opened its mouth, and the air started to gather around a ball in front of its face. The monster made an odd sound, it was close to a squeal, but it had a deeper note. Following the noise, the ball shot out of its mouth towards Hera and Alex, who were approaching. The two ducked to the side, avoiding the attack, but Mark wasn't fast enough. He jumped forward, evading part of the attack, but his right foot was caught in the blast. Causing him to stumble and struggle to keep moving.
"Hera, get Mark," Alex yelled and ran towards the turtle. Sending another wind slash towards its eyes. The attack was enough to make the creature change its focus, now aiming at Alex, who kept moving around it, not allowing the beast to have a clear shot.
Hera rushed towards Mark and helped him move towards the trees. Bonnie joined in to help carry the crafter while Runir was doing some first aid on Ryan.
"Why is that thing after you?" Bonnie asked.
"We don't know. We found its nest, but after seeing that it had eggs, we moved away. Ryan here said we should get them, and I was worried he ended up stealing the eggs, but I checked his stuff. He's clear," Mark was placed with his back on a tree, facing the fight. If anything happened, he would at least know he should move.
"I should've got those damn eggs. Even without them, we are going through all this shit." Ryan finished drinking the water Runir gave him.
Runir quickly went towards Mark and asked about the third crafter. Hera explained the situation, detailing the wound as much as she could.
"Shit, that's bad. We need to get him to the city quickly. He probably needs some antibiotics, but I don't have any," Runir said while healing Mark.
"I have some in my bag," The group stared at Bonnie, "I'm a little hypochondriac. I have a lot of medicine with me all the time."
"That's not what that means, but thanks, it might help. We'll need to get him out of there first. We need to call one of them over here," Runir pointed to the fight with his head, "I can't carry the stretcher and heal him at the same time."
"I'll go," Mark tried to get up, but the attack sprained his ankle, and he was having trouble putting weight on it.
"Yeah, like you are going to be any help. I'll go," Mark stared at Ryan in disbelief, "I might be a dick sometimes, but I only talked about leaving Tom because we didn't have any other options. They are a new option. We might be able to save him."
"If you are coming, you don't pull that crap again. You walk with us and don't go running off alone.”
Mark kept staring at him but gave up. He wouldn't be able to run if they needed to. Bonnie was going to stay with him. She wasn't strong enough to help carry someone, and they needed a good lookout. Hera took point and led the two men towards the entrance of the cave. With Alex, Tom, and Blue fighting the turtle, the rescue group had no problems walking back into the cave. Hera warned Runir about the smell, and he made a cloth mask as a precaution. Arriving inside, Ryan started gathering the rest of their belongings while Runir and Hera checked up on Bill.
"You guys didn't even clean or change his bandages, did you?" Runir asked.
"Sure, we were going to spend the little water we had cleaning his wound instead of you know to survive," Ryan scoffed while grabbing the remaining bag.
"Urine works. It sucks, but it's better than nothing. And on that note. Next time dig a hole and piss in it. Leaving it there in the open, it's the same as begging to get sick. We need to move him out of here first before I can clean and dress his wound. I don't want to expose it even more here," Runir said to Hera.
"Right, and the stretcher? Should we make it here or outside? I don't know how big it is and if it would pass through the opening," Hera said.
"I'm not sure… HEY! Where do you think you're going?" Runir got up and grabbed Ryan, who was about to leave the cave.
"She said it herself, we can't take him. We should go," Ryan replied, clutching Bill's bag.
"Did you come here only to get this?" Runir pulled the bag. The two struggled for a moment before ripping the satchel open, spilling its contents. Hera noticed a few round shapes, about the size of a billiards ball, with a blue and green pattern over it. Quickly activating her [Observe], she looked at the objects.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tu'nia's egg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She looked back up towards Ryan, and the crafter jumped behind Runir, grabbing him in a neck hold.
"Don't say anything. Put the eggs in a bag and give it here. Baldy here and I are going to leave this place, don't follow us, or he gets it," Ryan said, staring at Hera.
"You should let him go. No one needs to get hurt," Hera said, slowly getting up.
"Shut up, you bitch! Grab the fucking eggs and put them in a bag."
"This will end up badly. Don't do anything stupid," Hera said once more.
"Grab the fucking eggs and put them in a fucking ba... kheukc."
Before Ryan finished speaking, Runir headbutted him on his broken nose, twisted the arm holding his neck, and tossed the crafter to the ground, slamming his head in the process, knocking him out.
"Runir! I told you not to do anything stupid," Hera approached the two.
"Relax, he's still alive. He's just out," Runir replied, still gritting his teeth.
Hera looked back to the area. The contents of Bill's bag all spread around the room with three of those round eggs in the middle. Now, with only Runir and Hera, they had no way of taking Bill out on the stretcher, not to mention the problem of dealing with Ryan.
"What do we do now?" Hera asked no one in particular.