Aragami

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He watched the other creatures approach with great curiosity. He'd seen some weird shit like cats with two tails named Curmin, wearing armor and using some basic tactics to attack, and of course he saw three different Raaketigs, one of which was able to use magic.

The one using magic had scales coloured as sand, with a lot of small talismans and ornaments tugged in between its scales. It also held a sceptre, best described as a tree root holding a green orb with mana floating around it. He already learned that it was a healer capable of taking care of small wounds and extracting what he presumed to be poison from his body, but he could not be sure as of yet.

Then there was the dark green one, that helped him in the last fight against the Curmin. It used throwing knives as far as he knew, but he had a feeling it could do more than that. When he walked behind it to this place, he noticed it was able to find a safe way most of the times, trying not to disturb the various spirits in this forest. It did have a piece of what he presumed was leather, strapped around its neck. He did not know if it was a fashion thing, or had any special function. He could not see any mana around it, so he presumed it was for fashion only. It also had a talisman, made out of a piece of bone with a strange letter on it, tied around its right wrist. This talisman had some white mana float around it, actually circling around it in a circular pattern, like an orbit of white light. On some of its scales, there were some letters and patterns drawn upon them, looking like a cool alternative for a tattoo. 'Thief of the party. Probably'

The dark grey lizard was still in its armour, laying on the ground closer to the lantern.

He looked at the three creatures approaching him, not knowing what to expect, and tried to take a good look at them even as they began to circle around him, which made him a little nervous, to be sure.

The one he noticed first was the fourth lizard. It had a slim build, almost like a stick figure. Clad from head to toe in some kind of green-ish robe with yellow marks of what he presumed was moon cycles on the left side of its chest, only its blunt nose poked out of its cape, with vague shapes of its four eyes being barely recognisable. Its scales had a fiery colour, contrasting sharply with the coat. There was mana floating around it in great densities, orange, yellow, white and even blue in colour. It almost seemed like it was sorting its mana constantly, trying to concentrate it to make room for more mana. 'Groups' mage? It certainly does not look like a frontliner. It would be interesting to see what it can do.'

The next one was the bird-like one. It was about 1 meter tall, with feathers that covered most of its body in grey and black colour. He could not see any wings, but its hands were covered in small and large feathers that probably did not allow flight, and ended with clutch-like fingers with sharp claws. On top of some light armour, it also had a leather belt with several pouches on the side, as well as two small hooks on each side he was not sure what they were for. It also had two suspender-like leather straps coming out of its belt and crossing on its chest, going over its shoulders and probably latching on the belt in the back. There were more of those hooks he could see on those straps, but nothing was on them. It had short feathers on its head, light gray in colour, and a beak of a bird of prey. Sharp and dangerous. Its feet had four claws, one of them facing backwards, all of which were clad in some kind of battle armour thing. It had three blades coming out from the top of its armoured talons. 'That would be helpful for either kicking your opponents, or if someone wanted to step on your foot, trying to immobilise you… That's an interesting idea. That's definitely a warrior. I'm not sure if it would be a frontliner, but definitely a close quarters combat specialist.'

As for the last one… he could find one animal that reminded him of the last being. That animal was an otter. Short fur everywhere he could see, sharp teeth, swim membranes in between its fingers, even the shape of its snout was similar to an otter. It was about as tall as the bird was, with a shirt-like piece of clothing on its chest. It also had leather pants with several leather straps on them. Aragami was not sure about the exact function of those straps, besides looking cool as hell. It had a leather helmet on its head, tied with another strap under its chin. It had marching shoes of older make, and all of its clothes had a lot of wear clearly visible to the naked eye. Surprisingly enough, Aragami was able to notice a not-insignificant amount of muscles underneath its hide. 'A warrior? With an agility based build, it seems… That's an interesting party configuration.

Finishing his evaluation, he sat still, occasionally looking at them when they passed in front of him. The green and sandy Raaketig joined him a while later, sitting to his left, beginning to form a circle. It was now he realized that they have two pairs of arms. A completely alien concept to him. The rest of the camp occupants finished checking him out and sat in the circle one by one, before starting a conversation he did not understand. Having nothing else to do, he focused his senses and tried to read the mood and attempt to read surface thoughts of those around him using the power granted to him by his benefactor.

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Barteool

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Barteool was relieved. No-one tried attacking the thing from the get go, although Maeli was close, ready to cast spells at any sign of aggression. The thing was calm and collected, its eyes locked on his friends and its arms placed firmly on its legs. It was kind of funny, seeing his friends warily, yet curiously circle the being, while being barely higher than it was sitting. Its eyes darted from one to another, not staying in place for more than just a few seconds, until it stopped turning its head to look around and sat still, seemingly allowing everyone to check it out as they pleased.

He glanced at Nhaerria, gesturing to the creature with his head, before walking over and sitting next to it. After a bit of indecisiveness, Nhaerria joined him as well, sitting on the other side of the thing, looking for more wounds or signs of discomfort she could recognise.

'I wonder how will everyone evaluate it. It doesn't seem very capable of violence from the first glance. It might look somewhat threatening due to its size and strength, but it also looks kind of goofy. No scales for protection, little fur anywhere on its body except for the top of its head, proportionally long legs and fingers, no natural weapons he could see…' The list continued on, but he remembered how it fought. 'But it's using tools to fight. That blade and ax… plus the way it moved. It must have a lot of experience fighting with that body.'

Not too long later, everyone with the exception of Virria sat in a circle with the thing, and he was free to speak his mind.

"What do you make out of that?" he asked, eyeing the rest of the members, specifically Daente and Moti, but to his surprise, the first one to speak up was Maeli.

"I can not sense any mana from it, which is weird, considering every being we know has at least a single spark inside. There are two possibilities for this. One is that it is something unnatural, possibly summoned here from another dimension, or that it has such an abundance in mana I'm mistaking it for the mana around us, in free air." Maeli said, crossing both sets of arms across his chest.

"And what do you think is more probable?" asked Nhaerria. As Maeli was about to answer the question, he was cut off by her again. "I personally think it's the first possibility. When I healed its wounds, I did not encounter any mana flows through its body, as well as no crystals or symbols of power."

"I have to agree. When we traveled here, I couldn't see it use any spell to find a safe way, or cast a shield to push away branches and stuff… it walked through the forest, carrying Virria and pushing branches with its arms." Barteool said, humming to himself.

Next one to speak was Daente. "Personally, I wouldn't want to fight it in a close quarter." That got everyones' attention. "Don't get me wrong, I am pretty confident we could take it down if we worked together. I could probably hold it off for a while, buying you time to get away if necessary, but I don't think I'd defeat it. As it is now, it seems like its legs have the most muscle mass on its body. And considering how its legs are almost as tall as we are, I wouldn't want to block its kick. Especially if it was able to kill several Curmin search parties."

Moti just nodded here and there, only saying a few words in the end. "We still don't know how it uses its weapons."

"True. It might fight very differently than we do, using tactics that might evade our defenses completely." Daente continued. "We've seen it holding some sort of blade and an ax, and I'm pretty sure that thing on its waist is a knife," he said out loud, prompting everyone to look at the things waist, and at the scabbard hanging there.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"A bigass knife." Moti laughed to himself, being a bit more wary of the things movements.

Nhaerria was the next one to raise a question. "How do you feel about letting it stay near the camp? Personally, I'm not sure I'd like it to sleep too close, as it has a combat build."

Everyone agreed to that. Having something so big and strong near you when you sleep was not a pleasant experience.

"Why are you even asking this question?" asked Maeli curiously. Daente and Moti nodded for confirmation, not sure how the question came to be. Barteool only needed to think for a while, before his head snapped to the thing. Its head was almost resting on its chest, its eyes nearly shut. He stood up and went to check it, while still listening to Nhaerria.

"Well, the first thing is that when I healed it, its muscles seemed like they had worked overtime. It was on the verge of muscular failure." Nhaerria glanced at Barteool, seeing him trying to get some information out of the creature using pantomime. "The second thing is that Barteool found it relatively early in the morning, shortly after the sunrise. And that it was fighting the Curmin, right? Would it be too bold to assume it also fought for the better part of the night, denying itself any sleep? You can't defeat 40 Curmin in a couple of minutes, plus they'd try to attack you using surprise first and foremost. It had a couple of wounds with poison, which surely deprived its energy trying to kill it…

"So? It woke up during the night and fought. How do we not know if it is nocturnal or not? How do we know it even needs to sleep at all? Some beasts don't need to as long as there's enough mana in the air." Maeli refuted. "How do we kn…

He was interrupted by the thing standing up. Barteool turned to the rest of them with an apologetic look on his face. "Sorry everyone, but I think it has to get some sleep now. I'll try and get it to sleep far from the camp before I come back."

The thing picked up its bag, waiting patiently for Barteool to finish talking, before turning around and walking towards its weapons. "Could you try to borrow one of its weapons?" yelled Deante on a whim, curious if he could get an idea of its fighting style off its weaponry. Barteool just raised one hand in approval, not even turning around, and followed the thing to prepare its sleeping quarters.

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Nhaerria

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As Barteool with the thing left the camp, Maeli turned to his friends with a serious look on his face and asked a question that was on everyones mind. "Why do you think he brought it? Just because he's thankful it saved Virria? Or is there a deeper meaning to it?"

"How could we know," chuckled Nhaerria. "He's always thinking in a ways I can't fathom. He might see some sort of weird potential in it. We'd have to watch it for a long time before we'd be able to properly sort it into a proper category. Is it a magic beast? Or just a normal one? What are its strengths and weaknesses?" She then looked at everyone else, before laughing out loud. "Isn't it exciting? Discovering unknown species and trying to find the balance of how much you can influence its behavior?"

Moti watched her laugh, thinking of what she said, and surprisingly enough, he found out he wholeheartedly agreed with her. "Hehehe. Yeah, I can see your point. I'm nervous, because we have something so strong and unpredictable in the vicinity, yet intrigued by what it is capable of. I'd love to hear Barteools' take on this."

"Come to think of it, he hasn't told us what he thinks about it, besides that he trusts it, " nodded Daente. "It's kind of important to know what the leader thinks."

"Should we confront him about that? When he comes back?" asked Nhaerria, to which she recieved nods of agreement from Moti and Daente.

"Wait a minute!" yelled Maeli, almost hysterically. "Are you all really fine with that?! For all we know, it's feral, only pretending to be a civilized being, waiting for us to drop our guard!"

"I don't think that's the case."Barteools' voice sounded from the dark in the direction he and the thing went. Everyones' head snapped in that direction, greeting Barteool with their gazes. Daente and Moti had their eyes glued to the ax he brought with him. It was the size of a war ax, but with a much thicker handle and a smaller, but thicker and wider blade.

"There are multiple reasons why I don't think of it as a possibility, but I'll tell you the two most recent ones." Barteool sat down next to Nhaerria and placed the weird eax in front of him so everyone could see. "First of all, as you can see, it lended me its weapon for a bit. Before I was able to take it, however, I gestured to it to lean it to me for a while. I think it has some kind of psychic ability, that has something to do with thoughts and maybe even desires. However, it is not skilled at it. It sensed I am interested in its weapons and handed me this one." He pointed at the ax, drawing everyone's attention to it. "As you can see, this is not a normal ax, but a very strange one. The center of mass is barely under the ax head, causing more damaging blows than the normal one. We could learn from that a lot in my opinion.

"The second reason is that it had tools in its bag, specifically for creating a place to sllep in. It took out two bags. One of them had two ropes and a piece of cloth in it. It took the ropes and tied them around two trees, before hanging the cloth in between. The second bag had another rope, and multiple little iron pieces of varying shapes. It tied the rope around one of the trees again, with the iron pieces hanging on the rope. It then hung its bag on one of those pieces, suspending it in the air off the ground. It also took off its shoes and weapons, and hung them on different metal pieces before it lay in the cloth and went to sleep I guess."

"That's a bit interesting, but still not a valid point, proving it's civilized." protested Maeli.

"Oh really?" Daente made a mocking expression. "So if the fact it can tie knots is not enough proof to you, it had everything prepared in separate bags, ready to be used without sorting its things or rummaging through its bag. Furthermore, it suspended its things in the air, preventing them from getting wet, and possibly rot, before going to sleep." He eyed Maeli with a knowing expression before continuing. "Yeah. I think I'll consider it to be civilized. That does not mean I won't keep an eye on it, but I'll consider it as a sentient creature that's willing to communicate."

Nhaerria, Moti and Barteool nodded from time to time during the speech, signaling their agreement.

"Fine!" Maeli said exasperatedly, shaking his head. "But I'll keep more caution than all of you guys combined when I'm in its vicinity."

"Thank you Maeli." Barteool nodded. "I appreciate that."

Everyone then sat in silence for a while, until Nhaerria perked up. "So. Now that this is done with, Barteool, would you tell us what do you think about it and what we're your plans with it when you brought it here?"

Barteool immediately became the center of attention of the entire party, and he was not happy about it. "Yeah, I guess it's only right that I tell you how I feel about it." He thought for a while before continuing, going straight to the topic at hand. "Frankly speaking, I like it. And I'd like it to join our party in time. It's strong and I feel like it has a great potential."

"I won't rebuke it's strong. I don't know about its potential, but I won't question it for now. What I'm concentrating on is the fact that you can't have it join our party the usual way. The Guild would need the information about its species to be registered within the Great Libraries as a sentient species, which takes generations, " noted Daente, intrigued by the idea of new party member.

"I've thought of that, and there is a simple solution to that. It might not be a fair one to the thing, but I thought, now that we have Virria with us once again, why don't we just write it as her familiar?" As Barteool presented his idea, he felt nervous. There was so much that could go wrong. Virria does not have to agree to that. Or the thing. It might resent them after it learns it's noted as a familiar, a lesser being, worse than a slave. But it was the best thing he could come up with.

"I don't think that's a bad idea." Said Nhaerria, a strand of excitement in her voice. "It would be nice to have a new companion. Especially if it's a strong one. And can you imagine someone laughing at us in the streets when this thing walks with us? Maybe we'll be able to teach it the common language and joke around."

"I see, that would not be bad." daydreamed Daente. "Imagine walking down the streets without all those racial slurs coming your way."

Everyone sat there for a whe, wondering what the future would bring if the thing joined them, until an idea struck Nhaerria like a battering ram. "It's a nice idea, but how are we going to achieve it when we don't even know its species or what to call it. Nevertheless, what kind of food it can or can't eat?"

Barteool thought for a while, but he could not find a fitting answer. In the end he simply shrugged and said: "Let's try to see if Virria can get some of that information using her tamer skills. If not, we'll have to take it to the Observer in Draceenville and pay the price."

"You want to take it to the town?" "You know we'd be responsible for the damage it causes, right?" "Can we control it well enough?" These and other questions bombarded him immediately, but he was able to quieten them all by one of his own questions. 'Do you have a better idea?'

With no other things to discuss, Barteool took note of the advanced time and began dividing the work in the camp. "It's almost noon, so I'll ask you to stop for now and focus on the responsibilities of the camp. Who's on guard duty?"

Daente stood up and walked to pick up his weapons. "I still have two hours left, but I'd appreciate it if you could station me somewhere where I can see that thing as well."

Barteool nodded and sent him off to guard duty. He then turned to Moti and gestured to the ax. "Would you take a look at that? I'd like to know if we can make something similar for us as well. The handle is hollow, so the blade can be heavier, but I don't know of any material that reminds me of this one." Moti was a bit surprised, but complied nonetheless. He picked up the ax and went to collect his weapons, before heading to his tent.

"Nhelaerria, could you take care of those two? Virria asked us to get her out of that stupid armor. She also said it's rigged, so have Maeli take a look at it for traps. I'll make something to eat, so don't worry about that."

With their workload divided, everyone went back to their responsibilities, while Aragami lay in his hammock, catching some sleep in the shade of the trees.