Randel
Level: 6
Endurance: 5
Strength: 0
Dexterity: 0
Magic: 0
Spirit: 0
Most used abilities: Dark Bond
Most used weapon skills: Dagger Throw, Spear Throw, Lunge
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Five points on Endurance or not, in the end I managed to nod off. When I woke to the noise the others were making, the sun was already up on the sky. The night had gone by really fast, just like a quick afternoon nap.
"With a rough estimation, I'd say that two days on this planet is one day on Earth," Tobias voiced my thoughts. "Which means that we have to hurry if we want to get anywhere during daylight. We will also have to gather or hunt for food, and it would be good if we could somehow get something to sleep on."
Yeah, I could agree with that. We also needed more clothes, in my opinion. Someone put us into these plain-made shorts and shirts, but if the weather turned colder we would have problems staying warm. At least our footwear were good for the moment. Was it just mine, or did everyone's boots fit their feet so snugly? Maybe they were custom-made. If so, how did our kidnappers know our measurements in advance?
There were a few more things we also needed. Toothbrush, a washing machine and maybe a fridge or two with full of food... but nothing was perfect. Just my boots. Those were perfect.
We didn't have much stuff to gather up from our campsite, so we were up and walking again soon enough. Tobias and Dana led the march, setting a relatively quick pace. They were followed by Imaya and Pell, then there was me lagging behind a bit, but not as much as the two Sylven. They were constantly keeping their distance, and not just while we walked. With the exception of Imaya, the others didn't even acknowledge them. As if it didn't really matter whether they were following us or not.
The human part of our group were having some small talk. Mundane things, mostly about their life back on Earth. I listened only with half an ear to their conversation, not bothering to join in.
By contrast, the two Sylven didn't speak much. Their conversations seemed to be polite and succinct. It made me want to find out the reason they were so formal with each other. Was it something personal? Or could it be that every Sylven behaved like this? Or were they tight-lipped only because they had a limited supply of that musical voice, and didn't want to run out...?
My legs were getting tired, but I didn't want to complain. If Imaya, the self-declared gamer wasn't complaining, I sure as hell wouldn't. I made a mental note that I'd need to invest a lot more point on Endurance in the future. At this point I didn't even care whether attributes enhanced ourselves only during combat or not. Don't even let me know, just let the placebo effect take over, please. As I was slowly dying by myself, something happened. Something, that had fundamentally changed everything about our situation.
We have found a road.
Praise be to the Green Lord Above! It would finally be easier to walk. Of course, that wasn't the reason why this revelation was so important, but it came close. The real reason was that this confirmed one thing: there was a civilization in this corner of the universe. The road was made of large stone tiles, it wasn't just trodden earth. Someone had made great efforts in order to provide faster and safer travel, which was promising. The road came from the direction of the prairie on our left, but took a slight curve and became parallel with the river. It was continuing downriver for a while, before disappearing among the trees. There were hints of a forest up ahead.
"I don't think we should stay on the road," Tobias said.
"What?" I asked in shock.
"If there is a road, there can be bandits waiting for travelers. In the woods, they will have plenty more opportunity to jump on us," Tobias explained.
"Let's stay on the road at least till we reach the forest," Dana suggested. "Then we can decide what to do."
"...fine," Tobias agreed grudgingly. I wouldn't have expected him to give up this easily. As a leader, I thought he would be much more bossy. Or was it only because Dana said it? I hadn't been paying too much attention to them in the last few hours, so I didn't know how much they had warmed up to each other.
Our pace increased as we walked on the road, for which my legs weren't thankful at all. How naive I was for thinking that it would be easier to walk if we stayed on the road! My only hope now was to find something to eat. They surely didn't want to walk while eating, did they?
It was also a big question what to eat. Animals weren't swarming around us like the did tibbars on that hill. We saw birds flying here and there — and once even something else that left a bluish trail behind itself — but Imaya didn't feel confident enough to try and shoot something mid-flight.
There were other possibilities, of course. We could gather fruits, provided we found any, but it was much more difficult to determine whether they were safe to eat. We could also try to dig up roots or catch bugs, but I was not that desperate yet. Would that Inspector come down and help if we were starving too much? Or if we got food poisoning? It didn't seem to make sense to let us die to something as common thing as starvation. We were the test subjects, but what was the test? Surviving in the wild?
I was deep in thought about the hundred possible ways we could die in the wilderness, when my nose suddenly measured strength with Pell's shoulder and was found lacking. With a yelp I stumbled backwards, looking around to spot anything noteworthy that could have caused the others so stop. There were trees all around, but the forest was still a good distance away, so I didn't understand why we had stopped.
"What's up?" I asked.
Pell just stood aside, and pointed at the enormous footprints on the ground. They were so large that if I wanted to curl up and lie down, I could have fit in one. Their shape resembled human footprints, except for the heels where it forked as if there had been two more toes protruding from the heel. The owner of the footprints had been travelling perpendicular to our road - going towards the river - so with a little luck we wouldn't meet them.
"I think this is a perfect opportunity to get off this road and head in the opposite direction of Bigfoot," Tobias said. No one argued. Of course we weren't going completely in the opposite direction. We were still trying to follow the river, after all, but putting a bit more distance between us and the source of the footprints seemed like a sensible idea.
We hadn't been walking more than a few minutes — I barely began to wonder how a giant of that size had been able to move unseen across the plains — when Pell suddenly stopped once again. Ha! Fool me once... With my incredible reflexes, I managed to sidestep Pell just in time, only to bump into Imaya right after.
"Hey, watch it, watch it!" she exclaimed.
"Why did we stop this time?" I asked with a bit of edge in my voice.
It was Pell who pointed once again. He was quite good at it today.
"Smoke, over there," he said.
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We have managed to locate the source of the smoke soon enough: it was a caravan's bonfire. They were camping at the edge of the forest right next to the road we had been following, so our former detour was basically pointless. At the moment all of us were huddled behind a large bush so that we wouldn't be seen, even though we were still so far away that only Imaya's enhanced vision could see the caravan properly.
The 'most useful Ability of the day' award went to Teva'ryn, this time. He would keep it until we needed to cook something once again. His Ability was to open portals: two shiny, floating tears in the air. The concept was interesting, but there was a slight problem: the portals were barely bigger than my palm. There would be no travelling through space with these. Even putting a hand through seemed extremely risky: if it suddenly closed off, we would lose a hand most likely. But we could see through the portals and as it turned out, they could be created quite far away from each other. Though the first one always appeared near Teva'ryn, the second one didn't seem to have any range limitations. The Sylven had to be careful so that his portal wasn't spotted, but otherwise this Ability was perfect for spying. It was redefining the meaning of 'spy holes'.
Teva'ryn created them without prompting when we were relatively close to the camp. The caravan had five carts, pulled by strange, horse-like animals — they looked like crossbreeds between bulls and horses — that were grazing at the moment. There were also a few figures hopping on and off the vehicles. It didn't look like they planned to move on anytime soon, at least not today.
"Lizardmen!" Imaya whispered as soon as she spotted them through the portal. Indeed, they looked like men with reptile features. Covered in scales with colors ranging from grayish yellow to dark green, each figure had different shade. They were tall, they had a tail, and their head was more similar to a snake (or, well, a lizard) than to a human one. It was difficult to make out, but the ends of their fingers appeared to be really sharp, claw-like.
"Alright," said Tobias. "They look vicious enough, and they outnumber us. Since we don't know how they would react to humans, I say we circle around, give them a wide berth, and enter the forest from an other direction."
I was still observing them through the portal — my eyes were on two figures who seemed to be basking on the sun, smoking from a pipe — so I caught up only belatedly to what he was saying. The others were already moving on, except Teva'ryn, who was watching me curiously and waiting for me so that he could close the portal.
"Wait, that's it?" I called after them. I couldn't believe they were giving up so easily. "We won't even try to talk with them?"
"Go ahead, weirdo, talk with them all you want," said Dana over her shoulder. "Just don't blame us when you get yourself killed!"
Maybe it was me who had it all wrong, and everything was fine with Dana's and Tobias's reasoning. Maybe I was just bad at following stupid plans. I didn't care. I didn't want to walk even more just because of a few big and ugly lizards were in the way. I was also hungry, hungry for food and hungry for information. Even if the lizardmen chased me off, I could say that it was worth it, that I have learned something.
This also wasn't just false bravado. I fully intended to try communicating with the lizardmen. With my Dark Bond Ability as a backup, I had a chance to escape even if they were hostile. Besides, it wasn't likely that they would chase us down: they had their carts to take care of. Unless they instantly killed me with something from afar, I had pretty good chances of escaping.
Without further comment, I stormed off towards the camp. The others probably expected me to give in and eventually follow them, so they must have been surprised when I went in the other direction. I pulled out Stabby, leaving my newest dagger fixed to my shorts. If it truly was a living weapon, it wouldn't be good if it just decided to plunge itself into the lizardmen in the middle of a peaceful negotiation. I'd have to drop Stabby somewhere close, but not too close. Using Dark Bond with 100 mana, I would have about 4 minutes to test out the waters and teleport away if there was any danger.
There was only one thing which made me uncertain: after what happened last time, I really didn't want to use my Ability again. Logically, I knew that it was supposed to be fixed and the previous incident was just a rare occurrence... but I couldn't shake the feeling that it would go wrong this time as well. I tried to steel my nerves, focusing only what I needed to do and not what might happen. It would be unseemly if I got killed only because I was afraid to use my Ability.
Nearing the caravan, I finally created the Bond with Stabby and hid the weapon in the high grass. I decided to jog the remaining distance, saving as much time as I could. They didn't have any lookouts, so I got pretty close to the camp before I was spotted. I slowed down, then walked up to a pair of lizards who were watching me motionlessly. It was quite disturbing: they didn't move a muscle — apart from occasionally blinking — and their faces were so alien that I couldn't get a good read on them. Both of them had gray scales, and I had the suspicion that one of them was female, but it was hard to tell. The baggy clothing they wore concealed their figures.
"Umm... hello?" I tried. They didn't seem to react.
"Greatingsss," said a third lizard, stepping out from behind the other two. This one had dark green scales and had the air of an older person around him. More importantly, he was speaking our language! With that mouth, it was a wonder he could speak at all.
"What bringsss you here?" he asked because I just kept staring at him. Indeed, what brought me here?
"W-Well, I know it might sound strange, but me and some others like me were just transported, or... carried off into this world," I began.
"Kheh! Doesss not ssound sstrange at all. Happensss all the time," he said.
"Wha- Really? Have you met many humans?" it would explain why he could speak my language.
The lizardman let out a strange strangling noise, which — I realized belatedly — was actually him laughing.
"Khekhekhe, have I met humansss? Humanss are everywhere, my friend. If I had as many copper coinss as many of them are in thiss world, I would be filthhy rich!" He was clearly amused. "Humansss arrive here regularly, you sssee. But not only them, other sspecies too. Kyntark, Sylven, Thardosss...."
My head was swirling. I had so many new questions, I couldn't even decide what to ask first. There was one thing though, which had to take precedence.
"Umm, please don't be alarmed, but I need to retrieve my dagger," I said. I could have also just cancelled the bond, but then it would be really hard to find the weapon later. The elder lizard just cocked his head. "I don't want to attack you or anything," I clarified, "I'll just put the weapon away. Ok?"
By this point, my collar was softly vibrating around my neck. The lizardmen might not be alarmed at the moment, but it was sure as hell that I was. The collar probably tried to warn me discreetly that I was about to run out of mana, but after my incident the day before, I was beginning to panic at the feeling. All I could think of was making it stop. When the lizard nodded, I immediately teleported the dagger back into my hand. The two other lizards jumped a bit, but fortunately they didn't attack me. Even I was taken by surprise. I just had to imagine the weapon being in my hand, and it appeared effortlessly. My fingers were closed around its hilt, my hand holding it in the correct position.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I tucked the dagger away. My shorts came with a strip of leather with which I could fasten them, so if I stuck the dagger between that and the fabric, it wouldn't slide down my leg. It looked ridiculous, but without belt, this was the best I could manage. It had worked before, during our escape from the hill. I just had to be really careful when I wanted to draw it.
Not that it would help against these lizardmen. By losing my only surefire means of escape, I was screwed if they turned on me now. They didn't give me the impression that they would try to harm me without reason, but maybe they were just especially cunning, luring me into a trap. Either way, it was now all or nothing, and I wouldn't back down.
"I sssee you have already learned ssome magic tricksss," the elder lizard said with what I thought was an amused tone.
"Well... yeah. Does every human know how to use magic? Do they all have collars like this?" I asked.
"No, they do not have. There aren't many Playerss in this world. But everybody who comess here from some other place, they have one of those collarsss."
It had interesting implications. If transporting humans had been going on for a long while, it made sense that some of the survivors would form families. Families would mean children, and I didn't think it likely that babies were born with collars around their necks. When those children grew up, they would also have collarless children, and so on, and so on.
Of course, another possibility was that this world had humans from the start, and not everyone came from Earth. I didn't even know which was more likely. A completely new world where humans evolved the same way as we did on Earth, or a completely new world to which kidnappings have been going on for such a long time that collared people had descendants through several generations?
"So... this means you have already met with some of these Players already, right?" I asked cautiously.
"Khekhekhe, you do not have to beat around the busssh, I know what you are thinking. No, we did not kill anyone who doesss not attacked uss first," the elder said. I wasn't thinking that, but it was good to know. "We are travelling merchantss, and we ssometimess find fressshly arrived Playerss. They alwaysss wake up far from the big citiesss."
"I see. Then it shouldn't be a big revelation if I said that me and the others with me need two things: food, and information about this world. Is there anything we could give you in return? Some work to do, maybe?"
"The otherss?" he asked, surprised. "You have othersss with you?"
"Yes," I replied. "I have left them some distance away, but there are six others."
"And you came here alone?" he asked in a disbelieving tone. "You are a ssstrange man. Mossst Players who are in teamss jusst barge in here, sswing their weaponss, and demand ansswers. You have help, but you came here alone. Why?"
"Well, we didn't want things to get violent."
"Neither do mosst of the other Playerss. But they do not trusst uss to keep peace. And we do not trusst them in return." He swayed his head slightly. "Asss for your question, we can sstrike a deal. Khekhekhe, I will give you a quesst! I heard Playerss like quessts." I wasn't really sure how to take that statement, but it bothered me that everyone wanted to take all of this as a game.
"Thank you, but I don't need any of these... quests. Can't we just talk normally?"
"Too bad, too bad! I alwayss wanted to try thisss, sso you are going to get your quesst now." He paused for a moment, flicking his forked tongue in and out of his mouth. "There are sseveral wild raobss in this part of the foresst. They often come drinking from the river. Hunt down one or two of them and bring them back, we can sshare dinner tonight. I would not mind talking then," he offered.
My collar gave off a soft chime.
"Aha! There it isss."
"Sure, I accept," I said sourly. "Do you even need us to hunt for you? I can't imagine you being low on food, being a caravan and merchants and stuff like that."
"Of courssse we need it! Fressh meat is alwayss preciousss!"
I sighed. This wasn't how I imagined my first encounter with an alien race straight out of a fantasy book.
"Alright, but I have two more questions before I go," I said. "What is a raob?"
"Ah, they are these four-legged creaturesss, about waisst high, with sparse brown hair and two white hornss. Watch out for thossse horns, if you don't want to get killed. Oh, and their meat iss really tassty. Now, what iss your other question?"
"What's your name?" I asked with a smile.
"Khekhekhe, forgive me my mannerss. I can never remember human namesss, so mosst of the time I do not bother with introductionss. My name iss Khssre."
Well, at least his name was unique enough for me to remember. I nodded.
"My name is Randel."
"See you ssoon, Randel. Make ssure to return here tonight, becausse we will be moving on tomorrow morning."
"Got it," I said, turning around to walk back to my group. I was hoping that they hadn't given completely up on me yet. I didn't think I would be able to hunt down these raobs all by myself.
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"Basically, that's everything he said about these raobs."
"So they want us to hunt food them," Tobias asked sceptically, "When none of us even tried to hunt animals in all our lives?"
"Well, I don't think Khssre knows that."
"Then why the fuck didn't you tell him that?" Dana asked. She had me there.
"Look, we have to give them something. I asked him whether there was anything we could do in exchange for food and information, and this is what he said."
"We don't have to give them anything," Dana grumbled.
"Yeah sure, first you determine with a look that we should try to avoid them because they would hurt us, and now when it turns out that's not the case, you say that they should help us out for free? Out of their kind hearts, right?"
"No, you moron," Dana snarled. "I'm still saying that we should avoid them! This could be a trap."
I didn't think so. For one, they wouldn't have a trap already set up in the forest, just for the off-chance that a few humans would suddenly show up. The risky came when we returned to their camp, but I had a gut feeling that we could trust Khssre, to a degree at least. We didn't have many possessions they could take, and after we brought them meat they wouldn't have a reason to eat us either.
"I say we hunt these raobs anyway," Tobias said, "Then we can decide what to do next."
"Yes!" Imaya chimed in, "I'm starving and you must be hungry too! There is no reason not to try to get some meat."
"That was what I've been thinking too," Tobias said with a nod. "Randel, from what you told me I'm still not convinced that we should head back to those drakes. You should have tried to ask a few more questions about them, at the very least."
"Of course," I said bitterly, "Next time you try to have a conversation with a man-sized lizard while two others are just staring at you, watching your every movement. See how well it goes then."
After a few more minutes of arguing back and forth, we finally got going and entered the forest. None of us had the slightest idea how to go about this, but we spread out so that we could cover more ground. The forest wasn't too dense here, so we could still see each other quite well.
Basically any animal that we could catch would have been good enough for dinner, but I was still hoping to find raobs. The quest that Khssre had given me was also recognized by the others' collars, though for what reason, I had no idea. I asked Imaya to check her Quest Log, and she had exactly the same entry as mine. Apparently I could spread the quest by telling others about it.
Hunt the piggies!
Objective: Kill a raob, then carry it back to Khssre.
Progress: 0/1
Reward: Dinner and answer to a few questions.
Description: The raobs usually go to the river to drink. How convenient! I bet you will be able to catch one in no time!
I wondered if this was the collar talking, or someone was listening in behind a monitor and typing down these quest descriptions. It looked like someone was having fun, but that someone was definitely not me.
But the collar was right, it didn't take us much time to find raobs. They were heading towards the river, stomping on a well-trodden path. The quest's title was also spot on: they looked like incredibly fat, hairy pigs. There was only a single 'adult-sized' one, the rest was actually much smaller. Mother swine and its piglings? Which wasn't as much relief as it should have been, because all of them had horns as long as my forearm. Each pig had two of them, which meant an awful lot of pointy objects that we needed to avoid.
We watched them trot to the river and lean down to drink, and we took this opportunity to creep closer. I tried not to think about what I was about to do. My palms were sweaty as I was gripping Soul Eater, and I was a bunch of nerves by the time we surrounded their drinking spot. I was the closest one to the leftmost piglet, Tobias was the closest to the rightmost, which was the mother raob. The raobs still didn't sense our presence. Did they have no survival instinct? They were perfectly at ease, just drinking there. Maybe there was nothing in this part of the forest that they were afraid of? I didn't have time to think about it, because Tobias gave us the signal to attack and charged forward.
I was basically two long jumps away from the closest piglet. I dashed forward and before it could even look up from the water, I struck the blade into its neck. It was over surprisingly fast. The raob let out a single, gurgling squeak as it died. I felt horrible, but I managed to keep my composure... at least until Soul Eater let out a content sigh. I jumped backwards in my fright, leaving the dagger embedded in the animal's flesh. I stared at the weapon in disbelief for a few moments, but then I noticed the message from my collar, and I welcomed it as a distraction.
You have discovered a new skill: Sneak Attack.
Oh, the irony. Projecting glowing letters in the air which everyone could see, acknowledging my 'sneakiness'. Had I been doing this in the night, I would have stood out like a bonfire. I reluctantly turned away from Soul Eater — still not sure what to think about that sound it made — and took in the scene around me.
Chaos dominated the riverbank. The little raobs became panicked and were trying to escape. Some of them discovered that they were surrounded from one side, but no one stood in their way if they went for the river. With the water being so swallow, they could get across, but not easily. On the ground however, they were incredibly quick. The others were trying to catch them, but so far couldn't even get a single one. Even Teva'ryn — who was moving with amazing swiftness — couldn't lethally wound any of them.
Meanwhile, Tobias was trying to stab the mama raob with his flaming rapier. He was quite bad with his weapon, and the raob was quite good with its horns, so the match was even. Imaya had already shot three arrows onto the animal's back, but the raob didn't even seem to feel them.
I didn't join the others in their merry pig-chasing. Having done my share, I was happy to observe.
Dana's Ability was called Spear Wall. Her spear became translucent and slightly glowed in an orange light. She could then thrust it into the ground, creating several copies of her spear that emerged from the ground around her in roughly a half circle. I didn't know why she bothered using this Ability, though: the spears were obviously emerging too slow to impale anything. Maybe she just wanted to show off with her new Ability. After a while frustration overcame her and she used Spear Throw, but only managed a grazing hit and remained weaponless as her spear floated slowly down the river.
Pell didn't throw his spear, but was overall too slow to stab anything with it. Teva'ryn put on a great show, but his slashing weapon was too short against such small targets running close to the ground. The piglets he injured became even more frantic and harder to catch than the rest. Devi'lynn seemed to hesitate at the beginning of the fight, but after a brief indecision she went after the piglets. I thought she tried to herd them back, which wasn't a bad tactic, because the piggies were afraid of her as well, even though she had no weapon. But if those little raobs had a sudden change of mind, they could seriously hurt her.
Finally, there was the mother raob, where the situation was a lot more worrisome. Imaya had only one arrow left, and Tobias was on the defensive, his rapier no longer on fire. The raob charged at him repeatedly, and he tried his best to sidestep each time. Why isn't he calling out for help? I quickly shouted for Pell's and Teva'ryn's attention, then pointed at Tobias. Both of them were a bit farther away from him — in the middle of the river — trying to stop at least the last few little raobs to escape. That was when I noticed that the mother raob's horns were becoming more and more purple by each second, from base to tip. As the purple color neared the tip of its horns, I got a really bad feeling about it.
"Tobias, take cover!" I shouted. My shout probably didn't matter, because he would react too late, whether he heard me or not. Teva'ryn was closing in on them fast, but Pell was slower to move. Sparks flew out from the raob's horns, then a second later purple lightning coursed between them. In the next moment, a little bullet of purple energy was shot from each of the horn tips. Tobias reflexively raised the shield and ducked his head. The two purple bullets sailed past above him, leaving two large holes in the upper part of the shield. He was lucky that he ducked so low, even behind the shield.
For a second, everyone just stopped and gaped at the scene, aghast.
But the raob wasn't done with Tobias yet. The lightning between the horns subsided after the shot, but it was charging up once again, even faster than last time. Tobias saw this, and saw the state of his shield.
Then he turned around and ran.
Unfortunately for him, there was nothing immediately near him behind which he could have hidden. As he realized this, he let out a whine full of despair, and threw himself to the ground. If this was a movie, the bad guy's next shot would have surely missed, striking only empty air where he stood only a moment ago. But Tobias didn't have this kind of magic timing. The raob waited patiently until its target was lying on the ground, then fired.
At the same time, Teva'ryn jumped towards Tobias. Before I had time to wonder why he would try to get near the line of fire, he had opened a fist-sized portal above Tobias and a second one near the raob's head. The portals were perfectly placed. One of the purple energy-bullets went through them and hit the raob on the side of its head. The creature lifelessly slumped to the ground, without so much as a squeak.
Tobias wasn't so silent.
"AAAAAAAH!" he let out an agonizing scream. Due to the distance between the raob's horns, the second energy-bullet couldn't hit anything vital, but it had hit his left hand. From what I could see as he was waving his hand in pain, it was ugly and it was a horrible wound, but still not as bad as it could have been. Tobias had only his thumb remaining on his hand as the bullet took off the other four fingers. Imaya hurried to Tobias to treat his wounds, but he wasn't bleeding. The energy-bullet had cauterized the wound.
Tobias was wailing for long, long minutes. I could not even imagine what kind of pain a wound like that would cause. Everyone was just standing around, being unsure how to help. I was keeping a bit of a distance, in case Tobias - once he recovered from the pain - decided to blame me for not informing him about the lightning horns.
I watched Tobias warily, but from the corner of my eye, I also watched Teva'ryn. What he did was amazing. Just who was this guy? It was obvious that he had experience with weapons. He wielded his scimitar like a real swordsman. Was it common in his world to learn how to use the sword? Was he a noble? A soldier? He had amazing reflexes. The thing he did with his portals... well, it was fortunate that Tobias had been on the ground, because the portal could cover more of his vitals from that angle. Still, I could not decide whether it was just a good guess where to place the portal, or Teva'ryn actually saw where the bullet would land. Maybe a bit of both.
"THOSE FUCKING WALKING SNAKES!"
Oh well, here we go.
"I knew they were going to screw us over! I knew it," he shouted, struggling to his feet. "And I still let myself be talked into this idiotic plan! RANDEL! Don't you even dream about giving them this meat," he said while shaking his mutilated hand at me. "They made me a CRIPPLE! If I could, I would kill every single one of them!"
No one talked Tobias into this plan, but whatever. It was a surprise he could even form coherent sentences, because at this point he was basically foaming with anger. At least he decided not to blame me explicitly, most of his rage directed towards the lizardmen. If he could behave this way, his injury surely wasn't life threatening. It was sad that he had lost his fingers, sure, but his anger didn't move me the slightest. He was the leader, he was making the calls. If anyone got injured, it would be his responsibility. All this complaining just made him look more and more inept.
Ah, how easy it is to criticize others who have more responsibilities than I do. It was doubtful that I would have done better than him. This was basically my idea, after all.
"Sure," I said. "Keep the mother raob and cook it. Make sure you keep its hide and horns, they could be valuable."
I walked over to my kill, and picked it up with both hands. Soul Eater was still in its neck, but at least the weapon was silent now. It said something that the dagger creeped me out more than holding a dead piglet.
"Meanwhile," I continued, "I'll be taking this one back to the lizardmen. The big one would have been too heavy to carry, anyways."
"You- WHAT?! No you won't!"
"Yes, I will. I earned this kill, I'll do whatever I want with it. We still need any information we can get out of them. And you don't have to worry, I'll be going alone."
It was true that we needed the lizardmen. It was also probably true that Khssre deliberately didn't mention the lightning horns. He did say that we had to watch the horns, though. I guess that would be his way out, claiming that he gave us a fair warning. However, he didn't specify how big the killed raob should be, he just told me to bring at least one. I couldn't claim that I am an expert on lizardmen behavior, but I had a feeling he wouldn't mind if I only brought this little raob. He might even appreciate my loose interpretation of what he said.
Tobias, however, had other things on mind.
"Don't you dare to go back to them," he said, his words turning cold, but still with a lot of fury behind them. "If you associate with them after what they did to us, you are out of this team," he added slowly. "I don't care what kind of lies they can tell us. We will get our information elsewhere."
I looked at him for a long moment, then I turned my back to him and walked away.
"They will just take the meat and slit your throat!" he shouted after me.
Maybe it was just me, being stubborn once again. Like a rebelling teenager who thinks he would be better off alone. But to be honest, I wasn't sure that they would really kick me out of the team, should I survive my second meeting with the lizards. Maybe Tobias would want to, but only out of spite for my little rebellion. The rest would see my value, or if nothing else, would at least see the value of the knowledge I could share with them. I just had to survive and somehow find them afterwards.
Well, no use to dwell on these things now. I would tackle each situation as they come, and no sooner. With a heavy heart and an empty stomach, I headed in the direction of the caravan.