I was out of the house half an hour after dinner. The night sky was clear and the cold air brushed through my feathers. Silently, I rose. It was time to hunt.
I looked back at the village and spotted the Plains Brigade on their way back into the warehouse. Further south, Dad and my little brothers took off as well for their hunting practice. I knew they would use the forest and decided to leave them to it. My goal was to find something beyond the fields.
I circled a little, looking for something tasty. There was enough food in the tower to forgo the hunt for a few days if I so desired but fresh was always better. On the other wing, I simply wanted to get out and fly.
My eyes scanned the rolling hills below. The grass and dirt were soaked in tones of grey and silver illuminated by the moon. The occasional rivulet bubbled like a moat of black sludge. And in between it all, vermin moved. Prey. Tonight, I wanted to have the juiciest meal I could find instead of just picking off the first big enough thing that moved. My ears were listening for larger disturbances than the mice and hamsters out and about. There had to be something.
After an hour of bathing in my senses, I finally found a promising target. Maybe a kilometre out west from the village just along the forest border sat a group of wild pigs. A mother was resting hidden in a thicket with four piglets sleeping behind her. I ran a [Hidden Identify] on her.
[Identify]
Species: Forest Hog (mature)
Age: 13
Name: -
Gender: female
Status: healthy, vis enriched (minor)
Level: 32
Class: -
Nothing particularly special. It looked like there was another node not too far, probably hidden up some valley. Then again, I was unsure how far hogs wandered from their home. The mother was too fat for just a simple meal so I decided to leave her be. Instead, I would steal one of the piglets. They were just the right size for me. Okay, they were too big to swallow whole but I could just rip off strips of meat. It was better than having to catch two or three rats.
My ears made out another sound in the forest. Located about two-hundred metres east of the pigs, just a bit towards the village, I heard a tiny rustle from a few leaves. If that had been all, I would have dismissed it but when I paid a little more attention, there was a tiny breath. It was too small to belong to the disturbance. Almost as if a mosquito was sitting still and trying not to make any noise.
I lazily circled once more, this time paying attention to the new spot. At first, I could barely see anything. Then, with a tiny shift of my head after a few more metres, there was a glint. Eyes were reflecting the moonlight. And they were human. Now that I knew what to look for it was easy. I quickly made out the head, the torso and even the arms. They were holding a bow and there was a quiver hanging off their side. Another shift in my circular path and I figured out who it was. Cerberos. The [Eagle Hunter] from the Plains Brigade. And he was watching me.
I decided he was not a threat now that I knew where he was and turned back to my target. Dinner. I slowly dropped towards the hogs, making sure to keep [Sneak] active and even [Mingling] with the air to avoid magical detection. It was likely overkill but half a minute later, I was in position on a tree behind my target. I scanned the area one last time. My ears heard rustling further east, likely Cerberos moving out of his cover. Before he could get in the way, I shifted along a tendril of darkness to get right on top of a piglet. My talons silenced it before it woke up. A few drops of blood spilt and disturbed the other hogs but I was already taking off.
As I left the trees, dismayed squeaking sounded through the woods. I ignored it and looked for a place to eat. I spotted the hunter sliding back into the woods and decided to join him.
When I landed in the tree I had chosen, he was still a few metres away giving me enough time to take out my arcane speaker. The hunter was carefully watching his surroundings and moving quietly enough that I had trouble spotting him. The disconnect between the noise of his breath and the weight of his movements still made it quite clear something was wrong.
Just as he stepped in front of the branch I sat on, I hooted. Cerberos jumped and took aim. I was glad I had my shadows spread out and yet I did not need them. Somehow, the man held his arrow. For a minute, he stared at me. His heavy breathing was only interrupted by the occasional drop of the piglet’s blood finding its way to the ground.
“Good evening”, I said.
To his credit, Cerberos did not flinch. He did lower his bow before he spoke, though.
“Yeah. Good evening. What are you doing out here?”
“Getting dinner”, I indicated my hunt, “What about you?”
“I was just getting a lay of the land.”
“I saw that. Do you wish you had wings?”
I spread one of my own for him to admire.
“… sometimes.”
“You could work towards evolution…”
“That’s still far away.”
“Depends on the risks you are willing to take.”
His lips pulled into a thin line.
“Is this it? You’re deceiving people to get them warped?”
“No? Absorbing vis does not warp. At least in my experience. You need to be careful of flux poisoning, though…”
The hunter snorted.
“Now I get it. You just overloaded one too many times. Or more than one. That’s why you’re so badly warped.”
I blinked.
“I believe I was just as warped on the day I hatched as I am now. Maybe it was even worse back then.”
“That’s impossible. You’d be dead from madness.”
“Madness isn’t the same as warp.”
“And how do you know that, [Assassin]?”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
Cerberos sighed and rubbed his temples. I decided to leave him to it and started digging into my meal. A few bites later, he moved again. This time, to sit down on an exposed root.
“Why don’t you come down on my level?”, he said.
I found a suitable place on a rock about two metres away from him and shifted there. For a few seconds, he just stared at me. Then he shook his head.
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“I guess you’re right. I haven’t met many sapient beasts. You’re only the second one.”
“Who was the first?”
He glanced at me.
“Similar yet very different.”
I blinked at him.
“[Eagle Hunter], huh?”
He groaned.
“Since when have you been spying on us?”
“I haven’t done any of that?”
“You must have overheard one of the others talking about my Class. Of course. Your hearing must be insane.”
“It is. But I suppose I should come out. I identified you.”
His head shot up. Wide eyes looked at me.
“Oh, fuck! How do you have an altered [Identify] at two years old? And why didn’t we consider that at all?”
He went silent again and I continued eating. Most of the meat was already gone and I had discarded the waste parts I did not want to consume. The last few strips were the tastiest parts, though. The brain, the heart and a stripe of pure fat and skin.
When I was done, I found Cerberos observing me.
“What?”, I asked.
“You are strange.”
When he said nothing else I motioned for him to elaborate.
“Most of the time you behave like a human. Or maybe a dwarf, I suppose? But from time to time, you show your other side. Your inner beast.”
I eyed my feathers and blood-soaked talons.
“I don’t know… I think my beast side is pretty obvious.”
He laughed.
“Right. I did take you for a monster the first time I spotted you.”
“I guess I’m just acting very ‘human’ around other people so they aren’t scared of me.”
“And why do you want that?”
I tilted my head.
“I want friends?”
His eyes narrowed at that.
“Don’t take me wrong. I do want more from meeting humans than just friends. But there’s nothing malicious. I simply want to learn. And make friends.”
He sighed.
“I’ll have to take your word for it…”
“If you don’t believe me, I literally level my race by making friends with new species or spending time with friends. Discovering magic is also part of it but it’s less important to me, personally.”
He nodded and leaned back. For several minutes we simply sat there in the nightly forest. Cerberos's breathing had turned back to its normal volume. He had probably been using some kind of stealth Skill similar to my [Sneak].
“Would you tell me about yourself?”, Cerberos asked eventually.
I scanned his face. There was curiosity in his eyebrows but I also spotted a hint of cold calculation in the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t trust you all that much”, I said.
“Good.”
“Would you tell me about the other sapient animal you met?”
He leaned back with a sigh.
“Fine. If you tell me where your node is.”
“Which one?”, I smirked.
He palmed his face.
“Of course. Well, I’ll start. Yes. She was an eagle. I met her in the ragged cliffs north of the Cathedral. There was a single major node which had popped up maybe half a year before. It was hidden away in the depths of the ruptured landscape so even the Church was unable to find it before then. I was out with my Master to help their scouts when we fell into one of the gorges.
“Luckily, our fall was caught by a river. Unluckily, it carried us away from our home and we could not find a way out for several hours. Once we landed, we were underground. It took half a day to find back to daylight and when we emerged, there she was. The most beautiful golden eagle I have ever laid my eyes on. She followed us for a day as we tried to make our way back south. In the end, she decided to guide us to safety.
“That was that I thought, but the church had figured out she was vis enriched. They sent out their Paladins and destroyed the node. When I realized, I immediately went looking for her. And when I found her, she had evolved. Her new species was called golden harpy. A humanoid body covered in feathers with wings instead of arms and an eagle’s head. She ended up marrying my Master and taught me all about hunting from the skies. Even though I couldn’t fly. I did get my Skills upgraded to work more like her racial Skills. I’m very grateful for that. But I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“Right, that reminds me”, I said, “Where even is the Cathedral? It can’t be that far if you’re from there.”
“It’s about northeast from here. You travel a week north to Brookfryd, then another week to the capital of this country and from there it’s two weeks northeast.”
“I see… Do you want to go back there?”
“… I do.”
I turned to meet his eyes.
“Then why don’t you come with us? I planned to make the trip with Circe. The more the merrier, right?”
For a few seconds, I thought he would call me insane. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.
“I can’t just abandon my team.”
“Talk to them?”, I suggested.
“I suppose. I’ll think about it.”
I bobbed my head.
“That’s enough for me.”
“Now, what about your nodes?”, he smirked.
“Ah, right. I guess you want to know about what I used to evolve?”
“That’s the most important part.”
“There’s an underground cavern about a day’s flight south into the mountains. In there is the node I used the most. The valley to the south is under ork control. I ended up fully absorbing two nodes from there as well. That’s about it.”
“Right. Thanks. Anything close enough for us to worry about?”
“How close would that have to be?”
“I dunno… a day’s walk?”
“There’s nothing worrisome I know of”, I said. My family’s node might be in range but I decided to keep quiet about it. For now.
Cerberos nodded.
“I think I’ll get some sleep then”, he yawned.
“Alright. Good night.”
He mumbled an answer and walked off towards the village. I decided to take the scenic route and fly some more circles before eventually making my way back to our tower to get some rest.