Twelve days until the Duel with Edbert
High Noon
Wade’s Crash Site
Bedevere and I stayed on opposite sides of the leifiathan, with the bee monster which was my partner in this endeavor, surprising me with how instinctively he took to the uptake. He wasn’t even a month old! Despite that, every time the symbiotic sentient leaf pile shark rushed at me from the undergrowth of the marsh, Bedevere was on its flank with a bite of his mandibles or a blast of biting wind summoned by the Breezecall technique.
I was trying to get some distance. If I could, I could throw a reliquary or set up some of the reliquary traps I had in my backpack. However, the leifiathan was not at all interested in Bedevere when my beelebian partner was not attacking it directly. Its focus was on me, and it even endured minor hits to keep that focus on me.
After the sixth dodging roll from me of its charge, and the fifth all out attack from Bedevere to steal the foliage formed shark’s focus from me, I realized I had forgotten something from the analysis and the monster bible entry it had awarded me with.
Like some sort of homage to the myths about real life sharks, blood attracted the leifiathan. I had several cuts from the fall.
“I guess you’re after me because of the blood. So let’s make you a snack.” I said, launching myself up onto one of the nearest trees. I might have been in a body that wasn’t even a teenager yet, but I had plenty of experience on Earth and here rapidly hauling myself up trees.
As soon as I was safely on a branch and Bedevere launched another attack at it, I dug into my backpack. It was a one handed operation, with my arms through the straps of the backpack as I held it rested against my belly. The other arm? It was used to steady me on the branch against the random tree shaking impacts made from the hammerhead- or was it a great white?- leaf shark’s blows. Each of the strikes that the “New England Autumn DLC” palette swap shark monster down below made rocked it from root to stem.
With urgency and caution in equal measure, I rifled through my backpack until I found what I needed. One of the caltrop reliquaries I had commissioned. When it was in my hand, and I had shuffled the backpack back into place securely on my back, I looked at my cuts. Finding the largest, a scratch on my forearm, I rubbed the caltrop reliquary against it and let some blood and blood scent get on it. Then, with a toss to the ground, I laid my trap.
“Bedevere, give it some space!”
The caltrop tumbled behind the leifiathan, and it eagerly spun around to chase it. Quicker than our battle had even begun, it ended. The caltrop reliquary swallowed the monster as soon as its bulk hit it. As the reliquary captured it, I laughed down to my beelebian partner, Bedevere, as the bee monster tried to clamber up the tree to me.
“I guess our caltrop had sharper teeth than the leifiathan.”
It didn’t matter if it might not even have any bark. Sometimes you have to let your dad's jokes flow, even the ones old as a roman aqueduct.
Before we made our ways back to the ground, I asked Bedevere, “Do you have any of that healing honey that beelebians are famous for?”
It let out its customary chant of “Bzz, Bzz, Bzzao.” a few times, before hopping on me and putting its antenna and little fluff ball face against each of my cuts. Suddenly there was a honey like material there and I couldn’t even feel the sting of the wound. Instead, it felt like they were knitting themselves shut.
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“Did you just use the bee monster equivalent of lay on hands on me, Bedevere?”
It chirped confusedly and unintelligibly at me. Probably didn’t know what I meant.
I thought about it as I climbed down the tree and Bedevere simply fluttered down behind me.
***
Alek, Calvin, and Moriah’s crash site within the Dragon’s Fang Bog Dungeon
Once again, Calvin, Moriah, and Alek found themselves assailed on all fronts. While the carpenter tried to shield his friends with a kite shield created from a set of specialized wooden bracelets on his left arm and a technique, the three fought a battle against a superior foe.
In contrast to their previous encounter in the Tidewarren Dungeon, a tribe of Cobluchins who had strength simply from numbers had assaulted the party. Now, the trio found themselves at the mercy of stealthy attacks from the sky. Eerie chirps and cheeps dominated the local sound scape but were not alone as the battle which was born shortly after they landed went on.
Calvin’s partner flew through the sky in the hunt of a flying monster, which was peppering them with strafing blasts, and had kept them locked down where they had landed. Which was why Calvin had used the “Woodsman's Aspis” technique.
Moriah and her cindnutum partners were trying to use fire blasts as anti-air defenses. Alek’s craytipult was using blasts of water bubbles to assist Moriah and the cindnutum. Alek himself was attempting to analyze their attackers and give a strategic lead to the others.
"I swear, Wade is cursed," Calvin said to the others.
“Maybe duck is, or maybe he’s just too cocky. My family suggested we just try the Tidewarren Dungeon again. Most adults don’t even come here.” Moriah remarked in between launching blasts of fire.
“It’s a matter of knowledge, that’s all. Most who enter dungeons know how to do it properly. I’m convinced now that Wade… does not.” Alek remarked. “Doesn’t mean we should berate him. I hope he’s okay.”
“Enough talk, you idiots. Focus on the threat at hand,” Moriah commanded the boys.
***
Elsewhere in the Dragon’s Fang Bog Dungeon
“He would think that a bog was a fun place to run to for readily available power.” Remarked one voice.
“He obviously wasn’t tormented enough by that scene in Artax and Atreyu,” came another.
Mysterious figures moved through the dungeon with greater ease than Wade or his friends.
***
Wade’s Crash Site
When Bedevere and I got back to the ground, I gathered the caltrop shaped reliquary that the Filigree clan had forged. As I held it in my palm, it went from Caltrop sized to that of a regular reliquary. That was surprising, as it was not a part of the request I had made when they began the design. Had the Filigrees added that? Was it something that smiths could do, make size changing steel?
Either way, it went into my satchel. Leifiathan would be a useful addition to my team later on. With it dealt with and my wounds almost fully healed, I was confident that another of its species of monsters would not ambush me.
I needed to find my friends and return to the plan, so with Bedevere on my shoulder, I continued on my path. I was not sure it’d be the right direction, but it was not as if the system provided a dungeon map.
That was right, wasn’t it? I tried to think of the word ‘map’. The map of the greater Tidewarren region appeared in a system window in front of me.
“Dungeon Map.”
Suddenly, the map window transformed into a map, which was what any video game player might expect. In fact, I could see a smiling bee face token and a token of me holding a sword over my head on the map window. Out of the distance I saw a token of Moriah–clearly shown by a blown up image of her angry face–Alek with a wide grin and a shepherd’s crook, and Calvin letting out an exasperated sigh. I clearly saw about six tokens rapidly moving around them as the trio and their monsters stood still. I could not help but think it meant my friends were being attacked.
“So the map thinks you are adorable, Bedevere. Which is correct.” I remarked to my bee monster partner and then stormed forward and towards my friends.