I’m roused from a mercilessly peaceful sleep free of Lightborns and Pale Men by a rather intrusive thought…
What if Myra just shivs you in the night?
And as my eyes gradually open, her face is staring down at me.
Fury burning in her eyes…
Waiter, cheque please…
“AH!”
I bark, roll away, and would’ve drawn my sword too if I didn’t see the hot flush of shame painted on her face.
“Wha-“ I stammer. “What’re you doing?”
“N-Nothing!” she stammers back, equally flustered, rising and marching over to her own mat by the fireside.
It’s only then, adrenaline sapping from my veins, that I feel the cotton cloth of a blanket draped over my shoulder.
I eye Myra across the fire as she does everything she can to avoid my gaze.
“Were you…trying to give me a blanket?”
She looks away. Her normally harsh voice fades to barely a whimer.
“It’s not like I didn’t want you to be cold or anything…”
I blink.
“What was that?”
“Nothing!” she yells again, turning her back to me and throwing her own blanket over her head. “Goodnight!”
I watch her armored torso rise and fall as she probably pretends as hard as she can to go to sleep. Then, feeling the deep drowsiness of sleep come upon me once more, I roll back over the blanket and snuggle into its warm embrace.
I peek at Myra just before I drift off. She’s now still as a rock.
Either this was all a dream, or reality just got a whole lot weirder…
…
The next morning brings an altogether different awakening.
CAAAAW!
No…pls…no more birb…pls…
CAAAAAW!
“Raziel! Raziel! Awaken!”
I rise with a snort and a sputter. Seems the cold really did have a knock-on effect on me.
But more importantly there’s a ringing in my ears that I can’t quite shake.
“That’s some alarm bell,” I cough. “What was that sound?”
Myra grimaces, standing to watch the skies above. “Our quarry,” she says. “It has returned to its nest. Come. We must pack up quickly and follow its trail.”
Myra barely gives me to time to even get my bearings before dousing the smoking embers of the fire and shouting for me to follow her deeper into the woods.
“Alright, alright! I’m coming…”
CAAAAAW!
“Down!”
As soon as she shouts the word I fall prone in an instant. Maybe it’s the doggie-instincts kicking in – obey thy trainer and all that. But when a winged shadow moves overhead, large enough to block out the rising morning sun, I realize how thankful I am for Myra’s teachings.
I’m probably gonna need them…
CAAAAW!
“Okay,” Myra whispers once it’s passed overhead. “Let’s move. Slow and steady. Follow my lead.”
“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”
We crawl towards our screeching, cawing monstrosity, and slowly I begin to see just how dangerous this job really is.
The greenery of the forest and its twinkling charm gives way to…stone walls?
Eh?
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I’m looking around me and [Snooping] just behind Myra, my eyes unbelieving as the tattered stalks of tree barks that now rise all around us are painted grey…and peppered with cracks along their stonework.
[Object Identified]
Common Forest Shrub
Status: {PETRIFIED}
Petrified…
“Hey!”
My eyes snap back forward and see that my snout has strayed into regions where the sun don’t shine…
“S-sorry!”
I dislodge my twitching nose and prepare myself for a bonking, but thankfully another call from the monstrous Cockatrice keeps Myra distracted.
“N-never mind,” she murmurs. “We are close now. You see how the trees have been warped?”
I nod. “It would be hard not to…By the way, what’s ‘Petrified’ mean?”
Myra stops and points gravely at something twinkling in the distance, past the bushes we emerge through.
“Look, Raziel, and tell me what you think it means…”
My eyes cast themselves over a wide glade of steel-coated grass peppered with statues of various different humanoids. One guy’s standing with a a rapier raised in the air. Another one looks like a wizard, hands raised to launch some projectile spell into the air, and yet another looks as big as an ogre, one eyed and grizzly, suspended in the middle of drawing the massive club he holds on his great back. Dozens, dozens of these statues littler the whole expanse of the glade like a modern art gallery.
But there’s one thing all these statues share: a look of pure terror.
“Wait a minute…”
Those statues look just a little too lifelike.
“Yes, Raziel,” Myra whispers. “Witness the strength of the Cockatrice: with a single billow of its clouded breath, it can turn its even the hardiest flesh to raw stone.”
I give a little gulp, noticing that Myra isn’t moving a single inch, instead scanning the environment for movement.
But there’s nothing out there but the statues and the dead winds.
“So it’s kinda overpowered, huh?” I muse. “Alright. What else is new? But last time I checked, that kinda power comes with a drawback, right? It’s probably a scrawny big thing, pretty much cries at a single drop of its blood, rig-“
“Get back!” Myra shouts as the earth rumbles beneath us both and we retreat into the bushes.
But I linger and see the thing as it touches down, screeching with a maddened, almost rabid intensity:
It dives and flaps its great wings as it hovers over the center of the field. It’s neck is like a long, stringy rope of feathers, belly full and bulbous, probably filled with recent prey. Its eyes are framed by a wreath of flower-like skin-flaps that gyrate with every beat of its great wings, and its beak opens again in a cry that pierces both our ears.
“YOUNG’UNS!” it calls. “MUMMY’S HOME!”
I hadn’t even seen it before, but – yes – there’s a tiny nest composed of thatched flax and branches. And that means – you guessed it – chicks. Little baby versions of the mother bobbing up and down with teeth just a little less sharp than hers.
No less creepy though.
I then notice the animal mumma-bird is holding in the sharpest of the two talons that serve as its feet: an oxen thrashing around wildly.
“Tsk’Thalak!” Myra snorts beside me. “It is confirmed: the creature has been stealing the livestock of the humans below. It will not be long before it threatens Glenheim, too.”
I watch the thing with icy focus as it drops the oxen into its nest into the mouths of its babies.
“Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou mummy!” their little beaks croak as they start tearing into the poor creature their mother has so generously procured for them.
“EAT UP, EAT UP, LITTLE DARLINGS!” the screaming Cockatrice calls
“Now Raziel,” Myra says as she pulls me back into the bushes with her. “Now is the perfect time to strike, while the beast is vulnerable.”
“I…uh…”
“Now, listen,” Myra goes on, totally unperturbed by my hesitation. “The bird has three major attacks. 1) it’s Petrifying Breath – a gas that instantly turns one to stone. This breath is short lived, however, and can be avoided if you are quick. 2) it’s wings, which can generate a huge gust of wind and knock back even the most stoic of warriors. Be careful when it rears up and exposes its belly – that is the sign it seeks to push you away. Finally, 3) it’s claws, normally it’s last line of defense, and its only melee weapon. They look powerful to the naked eye, but rest assured, they can only barely pierce iron armor.”
Great. Well, isn’t it nice that ONE of us is wearing armor then…
“The plan shall be thus,” she continues, using a broken stick to draw out each of her instructions in the mid that lies between us. “I shall distract the beast, drawing it away from its nest. You shall attack from its left flank, using all that I have taught you. If you should fail, I shall counter with my own assault from its rear. Together we shall bring the beast down and make it back to Glenheim by nightfall.”
I bristle, biting my lips.
“Uh…listen, Myra…”
“Ready?” she asks. “Good, then let us –“
“Hey! Hey just, look, wait a minute, yeah?”
She looks down at me, her blade already half drawn.
“What? We waste time here. The beast will not be staying long to feed its younglings.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” I bark back at her. “Look, I get that its dangerous. But…she’s a mom, right?”
Myra blinks at me.
“Isn’t this…I dunno…it just feels…wrong…”
She bends down and, even though I see it pains her, strokes the side of my neck.
Chills, man. Chills.
“Raziel,” she whispers. “I understand your hesitation. But a warrior must act in defense of their home, even when the one that threatens it has good reason. Did the Cockatrice think twice about the oxen’s young, or those of the farmer who raised it?”
I look at her feet. “It’s not your home,” I say.
“What?”
Suddenly the faces of all the elves in Glenheim flash through me, ending with the watchful eyes of the dragon herself who looked over them all.
“You said it yourself: it probably won’t try and attack Glenheim for ages,” I reply. “Why do you care about these human villages who don’t even know you exist?”
And when she rises, looks down at me, and gives me her answer, I feel like a weight has just been dropped on my small-brained skull.
“Because Arwyllis my home,” she tells me with pride. “I thought the Lightborn might understand this.”
“I -I do, I-“
“Then stop moping around and FIGHT!”
Myra douses her blade in the Ambergrut Extract and then tosses the bottle to me without even acknowledging my incredulous stare. Before I can protest further, she’s already run off to execute her plan, and my stupid, dumb, silly, moron paws start moving of their own accord.
Look, I know you’re meeting idiots all the time, the tiny, tiny smart piece of my brain tells me. But that doesn’t mean you need to ACT like one, too!
It’s too late for that, I think as I come face to face with the oversized chicken-terror. If I’d thought like that, I’d never have broken free from that goblin cage…
[Ambergrut Extract: Applied]