Gilbert and Emilia sat around the campfire, waiting for the fish to cook. Anastacia practiced archery nearby by shooting at King, who'd caught the arrows from the air whenever she managed to actually shoot one close to him - meaning about once every five arrows or so.
Gilbert threw some more wood into the fire. “You know, I spoke with King earlier. I think there’s more to him than he lets on.” He suddenly said to the priestess.
“Really? Can we trust him? What if we need to fight his kind at some point?” Emilia asked while cleaning her breastplate. She noticed a dent in it and was obviously bothered by it.
“He seems to be extremely attached to the lass and didn’t seem to be able to give me a reason why, but made a pretty solid case for his qualifications for looking after her.” Gilbert explained and described King’s story to Emilia. “I got the feeling it’s just that he was made to protect something and now that something is Anna.”
The priestess was overjoyed. “You’re looking at it from a way too practical standpoint. It’s love, as simple as that. He’s saying that he and Anna are one! He will be there to protect Anna when she is at her weakest and can take whatever she’ll become. I didn’t expect for him to be such a romantic!” She explained and enthusiastically clapped her hands together.
Gilbert laughed. “You’re giving him way too much credit. He’s a simulacrum after all. Stones do not feel love and neither does he.” He pointed out.
“Oh? We know a talking tree that’s nothing but a ball of love and lust, but somehow a simulacrum is too far for you? We know next to nothing about them, they might have feelings just like us!” The excited priestess argued and turned to look at the duo in question. “And don’t you dare to ruin this for me. I want to see where they go on their own…”
Anastacia had run out of arrows without hitting King once and threw the bow at him in frustration, when even that didn’t hit, she screamed and began casting fire magic up into the air. Gilbert warned her about starting a forest fire and got a response in the form of profanities and rude gestures. Most of which Anastacia had learned from the other adventurers at the inn and probably didn’t know the meaning of.
“She has plenty of growing up to do before finding romance…” Gilbert pointed out.
“Give her time, I get a feeling she might have not had much in the way of childhood until now. Honestly, she seems surprisingly normal all things considered.” Emilia defended the necromancer’s seemingly childish outburst. “Or she just hides it well… Has anyone actually had a proper talk with her to see how she’s doing since… ever?”
Gilbert scratched his head and tried to think of the last time he had asked Anastacia how she was feeling or anything like that but couldn’t remember if there ever was one. “A lot has happened, and she has always seemed to bounce back pretty well, but I’m not good with this kind of stuff and was hoping you and Rosie would do it.” He shrugged.
“We’re terrible at being friends, aren’t we?” The priestess sighed.
The warm and sunny afternoon turned into a crisp and cool evening as the party did some light maintenance to their gear and boiled water from the lake to refill their canteens. Anastacia hadn’t even used her new spear but decided to sharpen it anyway, ruining the already perfect edge the blacksmith had worked hard on. The spear itself was a bit under two meters long and felt very light to swing around. Throwing it was almost immediately more successful than Anastacia’s attempts at archery so far, albeit more limited in range. As the red sky started to darken, they decided to call it a day and instructed King to keep the campfire lit.
Around midnight, He had used all the firewood that had been prepared and was forced to search for more. He glanced at the surroundings once more before disappearing into the woods.
As soon as the night watchman looked away from the campsite, something disturbed the surface of the water nearby and rose from the lake. Before anyone had woken up, a tentacle of some kind had latched on to the limb that happened to be nearest to the shore. Emilia woke up to the grip on her ankle and only managed to scream before the creature pulled on the tentacle with incredible strength and flung the priestess over itself before letting go. Emilia skipped from the surface of the lake a couple of times as she flew over the water and then finally crashed into it. The creature hid itself back underwater and Anastacia only managed to get a glimpse of it after waking up to Emilia’s scream.
“What the fuck was that?!” The necromancer asked while quickly getting up and grabbing her spear.
Gilbert was already up and armed. “A fisher. They pull people from boats and shores, hoping others will try to save them and then it just drowns everyone who gets into the water.” He explained and started running along the shore. “I can see her floating over there; think she might be unconscious. If we try to get her from that shore over there, we only need to swim for fifteen meters. Keep track of the fisher’s location and we’ll figure something out on the way there!”
The shore Gilbert meant was about three hundred meters away by foot, and the fisher seemed to follow along as they ran, about ten meters from the shore. From what Anastacia could feel, the creature was about six meters long, but she couldn’t see it in the dark water of the lake to get any more details. King had also heard the scream and ran after them from the forest.
Gilbert stopped at the spot where the distance they’d need to swim was as short as possible. “She’s still floating, that means she probably hasn’t inhaled too much water yet, gives us some time… Anna, where’s the fisher?” He asked and kept an eye on the water.
“Between us and Emilia, about seven meters away from the shoreline. It’s moving around a lot, so I can’t really get anything done.” The necromancer reported. “What do we do now? We can’t go into the water, right?”
Gilbert hadn’t been able to come up with anything yet. The usual way to defeat fishers involved peppering them with cannons, which was something they didn’t have. The closest thing they had was Anastacia’s fire magic, but she was still learning, and her spells lacked enough oomph to hit underwater targets. So the only option was to somehow get the beast to lift its head above the surface. “Okay, I think we may need to bait it…” He started but was interrupted by the fisher, who surfaced and let out a deafening yell, forcing Gilbert and Anastacia to cover their ears.
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The creature had only revealed about three meters of its upper body, which was probably a good thing as the visible half was already disgusting enough. It’s slimy, smooth skin appeared pure white against the black backdrop. Its head was nothing more than a hump on top of what appeared to be its shoulders and served no other purpose than to give some more room to its massive mouth. The fisher’s jawline continued well into what would be considered the chest for most creatures and made it look like it was always staring up, which of course made more sense when it was swimming. A pair of muscular arms grew from its shoulders, both ending in three webbed fingers. Arguably the most disgusting part of the creature was the long black hair growing on its back, spreading all the way down its arms and past its fingers, forming two slimy tentacle-like appendages. While Anastacia and Gilbert were distracted by the yell. The fisher used its tentacles like whips to latch onto the two closest members of the party: Anastacia and King.
Perhaps surprised by King’s weight, the creatures first pull on him achieved nothing. By the second one, King had punched his fists deep into the ground and grabbed onto some tree roots, making the second pull just as useless as the first one. In fact, the creature was now stuck as King began pulling it.
Anastacia, on the other hand, didn’t weight much at all and was flung into the air much like Emilia before her. Using necromancy on hair was somewhat iffy and slow, so Anastacia relied on a simple fireball to burn through the tentacle. It worked surprisingly well, but all it meant that she was released earlier in the swing than what the creature had planned, resulting in a higher arc that carried her well over Emilia. While flopping through the air, she bombarded the surface of the water with a few more fireballs, hoping to slow down her fall, but couldn’t tell if it actually did anything. Nevertheless, she hit the water in a fortunate angle and didn’t hurt herself nor lose her weapon. The trapped creature wasn’t able to give chase to its new prey, but she had been flung past her friend so far that swimming to Emilia’s rescue would take far too much time and the small necromancer probably couldn’t do much to help her anyway. So instead Anastacia headed to the nearest shore where she could hopefully help in some way or at least run around the cove back to her party.
“Good thinking, laddie!” Gilbert encouraged the simulacrum as he kept pulling the creature closer to the shore. The adventurer ran into the waist deep water and as soon as the fisher was within his reach, he began bashing its arm with his mace, losing his shield to the other tentacle In the process. But breaking the creature's arm wouldn’t really do that much in the end; what he needed was something long and sharp. Unfortunately, Anastacia still had her spear with her in the lake and King’s sword was back at the camp. Knowing that their time was extremely limited, Gilbert took out his knife and charged the fisher. Shrugging off a couple of glancing blows from the beast’s other arm, he poked holes into its stomach. Eventually he got to its side and was able to grab onto the thick hair on the fisher’s back, allowing him to continue the stabbing with a little more peace.
Anastacia had reached the shore and peered at the action on the opposite side of the cove. Running there would take time and her fire magic didn’t reach as far. Without her daggers, she had no material for necromancy at hand and there was no way she could throw the spear far enough. Suddenly, her train of thought was interrupted by an angry hiss. A couple of meters from her was an upset snake, clearly preparing for an attack if she were to go any closer. The necromancer glanced at her spear and then at the snake again. “I am so sorry about this…” She explained to the animal and closed her eyes before the snake’s skull caved in on itself. “Ew ew ew ew…” Anastacia repeated while rolling the dead snake around her spear and fastening it on with her drenched socks. Avoiding having to look at her work, she prepared to cast a small pillar of fire in front of her when the moment was right.
Gilbert’s strength was running out and he found his grip weakening. He looked over at the other shore where Anastacia was, just standing still. At first he though that the necromancer had given up, but realized that she wasn't unreliable like that. Even in the worst case, she'd lash out in panic. This had to be something else, she must have come up with a plan! He decided to trust the necromancer and let go of the creature. If whatever she was up to failed, he could always swim to Emilia and then to some other part of the shore, assuming the simulacrum’s grip was still holding.
As soon as Anastacia saw Gilbert fall into the water, she cast her spell and launched the snake-spear through it with all her necromantic might. As a beam of fire, the spear darted over the lake at the fisher and then through it, and then through the treetops on the other side of the lake before burning up and dwindling down. On its way, it punched a half a meter-wide hole into everything it passed, including the fisher. The lifeless creature fell into the water and released its grasp from King. Not having expected quite as much from her plan, Anastacia just stared over the lake blankly for a while, before realizing that she should probably run over to help.
Gilbert was just as surprised by the sudden end to the fight but knew that saving the priestess was what mattered now. With his less than impressive swimming skills, he fetched her and carried her to the shore. “She seems to be breathing at least… Probably just hit the water bad and got done in by the impact.” He guessed and turned her on her side.
The lights around King’s body had turned brighter than ever before and Gilbert wondered if that somehow signaled that he put all he could into pulling the creature closer. Gilbert patted him on the back. “Good job there, it would have probably gone a lot worse If it wasn’t you who got grabbed.” He complimented the simulacrum, not knowing if it actually mattered to King at all or not. In return, he received a blank stare as the lights on King’s body slowly dimmed to the usual level.
It took Anastacia a while to get to her party and when she did, she could barely speak through the heavy breathing. “Is… she… okay?” she asked and fell down next to Emilia.
“You tell me. All I know is that she’s breathing.” Gilbert shrugged.
“I… don’t feel anything weird in her… but I’m not good at this…” She responded after trying to check for broken bones and the like. “King, can you make a fire to warm us up? I don’t think we’re supposed to move her too much.”
The simulacrum obeyed and went out to gather some more firewood again.
Gilbert sat down to rest. “Say, Anna, what was that?” He asked and pointed at the hole in the treetops.
“My spear, a snake and my socks.” Anastacia said and wiggled her toes.
“Of course it was.” Gilbert laughed. “It’s pretty rare to see fishers in a lake like this - usually they live in seas and the big rivers that lead to them. This one must have been starving and that’s why it got so impatient with us. Normally they don’t attack people who know they’re there and haven’t stepped into the water to save the unlucky sod who got tossed over. I should have told you to move the camp further away from the lake, it’s never a good Idea to sleep right next to one.”
“Don’t blame yourself, I should have felt it coming. Coquelicot is always telling me that I lower my guard too much.” Anastacia admitted. She tried shaking Emilia a little but didn’t get a response.
King returned and began to set up yet another campfire while Anastacia pushed the fisher’s corpse away from them before it would start to smell worse than it already did. With the waters cleared, she found a piece of tree bark and piled some leaves on it. After setting it on fire, she lowered it into the lake and let the breeze push it away. With no waves to push it over, the little raft sailed towards the middle of the cove before finally snuffing out and disappearing into the dark waters. The necromancer followed it with her gaze the entire time. “Rest in peace snake… and socks. You had no part in this conflict but are still among the fallen… I forgive you for being an asshole and hissing at me earlier; you did not deserve to die like this… And socks, I am glad I was able to help you with your dream of becoming the warmest and most comfortable pair of snake holders out there…” She said and shed a single tear.