SIKE!
I didn’t die, that would just be stupid. I mean, who would finish writing my story? Certainly not me if I were dead. It’s not like there’s some higher-dimensional being writing this and I’m just one of its creations. Now THAT would be stupid.
[So like a god?]
Shut up Literature. My story.
Aaanyway. You might be wondering what happened after that bitch of a goddess literally spawned a star on me. Well, I’m pleased to say that it was indeed still a dream. All it really did was end the dream and cause me to wake up in a cold sweat.
I have no clue if just ending the dream was her intention, but at the time I wasn’t really concerned with finding out. Nah, I was concerned with the fact that Sanon had noticed my sudden awakening and was in turn concerned.
Sanon rubbed her eyes briefly before finding her bearings and asking me just what the hell had happened. “Did you have a nightmare?” Came her groggy and somewhat scratchy voice, likely due to the fact that she’d been awake for a grand total of maybe 2 minutes.
“…I think a god just offered me a nine-to-five.”
“What?”
“A god offered me a nine-to-five and when I said no she tried to kill me.”
Sanon went silent, and after a few seconds she activated pinecone mode. “We need to get on the water. Now.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out why, and despite the fact that the sun was still dormant, we hurried ourselves into the makeshift boat and into the water. Max Jr. had of course joined us, sitting on my head as was the usual for him.
None of us were all too keen to remain in one place after that experience, and when I told Sanon just which god had contacted me, she made it clear we needed to get gone. Good old Goddess of Magic apparently has a sadistic streak, though even Sanon found it strange that I hadn’t been left a fine red mist in my sleep.
So we scrambled ourselves into the boat and pushed off into the river. Unbeknownst to me, Sanon had installed some runes on the boat. What did those runes do? Oh. You know. Zoom.
Unfortunately zoom was short-lived. Limited mana and all that. The rest of our trip was relatively peaceful, save for the occasional howl or screech in the distance, or a glowing serpentine shape following the boat. Inconspicuous and no reason to worry at all. Yep.
But hey, the leftover dunkle we took with us was pretty good, I guess. At least zoom got us some good distance. Maybe taking a boat wasn’t the worst idea after all.
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“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT WHY IS THERE A BIG FUCKOFF OCTOPUS SALAMANDER THING COMEONNNNNNNN,” came my panicked and somewhat out of breath voice as Sanon and I booked and weaved through tall grass and around big trees and tree-like plant things.
We all know the cliché at this point. ‘You must be wondering how we got here’ blah blah blah. To put it simply, the boat idea went well for about a day before shit hit the proverbial fan. This is Helsa. The wildlife is arguably a bigger threat than most people, and I am unfortunately a person. Big fuckoff octopus salamander thing does not care about my feelings.
For clarity’s sake, big fuckoff octopus salamander thing is a weird quadruped that looks eerily like a cephalopod and an amphibian. Its arms or legs or whatever didn’t look like they were all that good at carrying it outside of the water, so we thought we’d be safe once we got out of the boat.
It gallops. Good lord it gallops.
So in my infinite genius I skidded to a stop and gave the… I’mma call this thing a… uhh… wait was there a local name for it? Hold on I need to check the field guide that someone gave me.
[...]
Ok so according to Hollo’s Poporean Field Guide, they’re called freshwater cepherans and they use a complex network of electroreceptors fed by mana absorbed via eating a number of different mana-rich river plants to hunt bigger prey that they then rip apart and eat. Since they’re opportunistic eaters, they tend to go after people. Coincidentally, people also tend to be good sources of mana, so their prey drive is further amplified by this. Their electroreceptor network also doubles as an organ to detect mana, not unlike the sinuses of a dwarf. If one finds themselves in a scrap with one, a good electric spell might short it out.
I always forget that Helsa has experts on this stuff, so I think I’ll definitely be crediting Hollo when I write my wildlife compendium.
Where was I? Oh right. I skidded to a stop and gave the cepheran a nice big hole right under one of its fins, leaving said fin hanging by a tendon. “Accelerate!” I yelled, throwing a small rock I had grabbed.
While I did regret using that much mana, resulting in blood dripping from my nose, the stopping power of the makeshift gun spell was enough to give the creature pause. Or so I had thought.
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“That thing REGENERATES?!” came a flabbergasted Sanon, mirroring my own feelings. The beastie had indeed regenerated the missing flesh with a burst of steam, likely from the heat that such fast cellular growth had produced.
The cepheran let out a weird snarl noise as arcs of electricity danced across the various fins and appendages that adorned its body. The skin on the lateral line of the creature lit up in a bright indigo pattern as it let out a louder, likely angrier snarl. The contrast of the indigo glow with the jet black skin of the creature made it all the more intimidating, especially as the two longer fin-like appendages near the head made increasingly fast undulating motions.
I looked over to Sanon, who had frozen stiff, likely from fear. I didn’t blame her, but I only had a few more big spells like that in me, and I wasn’t about to strand her like I did in Nauphi. I could safely use Stabby to hit it with a number of penetration spells, and I did still have that soft shield, not that I trusted it. I was still a bit of a stringbean too when it came to athletics, so I certainly wouldn’t be winning a battle of attrition with this thing. Did I have a choice? No, not really. If we ran, then it would just run us down and we’d be even worse off than we are now. Fighting, while our chances weren’t great, was a better option than running and still having to fight while being even more exhausted than we already were.
Swallowing what was left of my pride I removed Max Jr. from my head and readied Stabby. The cepheran seemed to sense this, and immediately charged me before I could even take a breath. By some miracle, I managed to sidestep when it swung a claw at me, and I managed to counter with a quick slash, leaving a gash in the side of the creature. The gash of course quickly healed, much to my frustration, but I didn’t really have the luxury of frustration, so I regrouped my effort and attempted a penetration spell.
Nothing was left from the aftermath of the spell, until I looked down at least. The bastard had flattened itself to the ground, completely evading the invisible force of the spell! Credit where credit’s due, this thing is certainly agile on land, especially for an aquatic predator.
Unfortunately, my moment of praise was squandered by a deep gash appearing on my chest, completely shredding my tunic. An effective counter indeed. Just as I thought I was about to become fertilizer for an alien ecosystem, the cepheran was knocked to the side by a bright blue wave of crackling mana, leaving claw marks in the ground as it came to a stop. The creature’s lateral line had begun to flicker upon being struck. The question is, by whom.
By Sanon of course! Sanon had finally decided to enter the fray, her reason for which is still unknown, because every time I ask her she punches me!
In all seriousness though, that was a really weird spell, and seeing her cast in a state like that certainly left me pretty concerned. If casting under stress was rare, then Sanon was either one in a million, or she was desperate. Weirdly enough though, I hadn’t heard her speak at all when she cast that spell. It’s possible she had just been whispering, but I probably shouldn’t be speculating in the middle of a fight scene. This isn’t some shounen battle anime.
Sanon’s efforts, while valiant, only seemed to piss the cepheran off more, though it was clearly getting tired. Even so, Sanon probably wasn’t in any state to hold it off, physically strong as she was. My vision, hazy from the blood loss, told me that she looked like she might shatter into a million pieces at any moment.
It was most fortuitous that such a moment never came. No, instead something else came.
“GREETINGS TRAVELING FRIENDS! YOU SEEM TO BE IN NEED OF SOME ASSISTANCE!” announced a big, meaty hunk of an elf- I mean just some guy yep- as he appeared with a flash of lightning and a loud crack of electricity. He appeared to have bashed the beastie in the ribs with the blunt side of some kind of massive, wide sword, covered in iridescent runes. A greatblade, no doubt. “I HAVEN’T TAKEN ON A CEPHERAN IN QUITE SOME TIME!! BUT ALAS! I MUSTN’T DAWDLE, FOR THIS YOUNG HUMAN SEEMS TO NEED MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AS WELL!! MY APOLOGIES, CEPHERAN, BUT I MUST BID YOU A QUICK, PAINLESS DEATH!”
Alright so maybe this is a shounen battle anime. Fuck me and my realistic expectations I guess.
From what little my fading vision allowed me to see, I could at least tell that the cepheran had been dispatched with a swift whack! and a loud electric crack to the head, the creature falling completely limp, its glow completely faded.
And much like its glow, did I fade as well.
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But like, not dead or anything. I lived. In fact, I woke up in an infirmary… again. Kind of a tradition at this point. Unfortunately my awakening here, much like after the dream, was anything but gentle. Fortunately the circumstances were much friendlier. It went something like this.
“ARISE MY NEW HUMAN COMPATRIOT! FOR I HAVE SAVED YOU FROM A MOST GRUESOME FATE!! I WILL ACCEPT NO PAYMENT NOR GRATITUDE, FOR THE KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR RECOVERY IS REWARD ENOUGH!!!”
Theatrical. The one, singular word to describe this man is theatrical.
“You know he just healed, right?” muttered an annoyed Sanon, apparently in the room with me.
“WORRY NOT, DWARVEN FRIEND, FOR I AM MERELY HERE TO REGALE HIM WITH TALES OF OUR COLLECTIVE EXPLOITS!!” announced the large, heroic-acting elf. I’d finally got a better look at the guy. He was certainly built big, and strong. Plenty of plumage too, a colorful crest upon his head was slicked back, though it perked up every time the guy made any kind of noise, usually loud and rehearsed, but not necessarily in a bad way.
“We… got him food?” Sanon was definitely tired of this guy.
“A MOST VALIANT ACT INDEED!! TO GIVE A COMRADE FOOD IN THEIR TIME OF REST AND RECOVERY!! HEROICS MATCHED ONLY BY THE LATE POPOREO THE FOURTH HIMSELF!!!” the elf flourished himself into a bow, somehow producing a steaming plate of… some kind of steak at the same time. I wasn’t really concerned with what I was about to eat.
Finally, I decided to pipe up. “So uh… thanks for saving us-”
“IT WAS NO TROUBLE AT ALL, YOUNG HUMAN COMRADE!! YOU HAD ALREADY WEAKENED THE NOBLE CEPHERAN!!!”
Good god I am not ready for this guy.
“-yeah… that. Anyway, I’m Max-”
“HOLLOVEO HINALYDONCHA, OR JUST HOLLO, IF THAT BRINGS YOU CONVENIENCE AND JOY!! AT YOUR BEST SERVICE!!!”
“Yeah, well why don’t you keep it down, to everyone else’s convenience and joy!” came the retort of a nurse, who promptly smacked Hollo right upside the head. “Honestly Hollo, you can’t be coming in here yelling like that every time you save some traveler out in the wilds.”
And in a moment of peace, Hollo hung his head in apology. “I’m sorry ma’am.”
“You’d damn well better be. Now get out of here and let this young’un get some rest. You can ‘regale him’ with tales of your exploits when that gash on his chest is healed.” demanded the nurse. “That goes for you too, miss dwarf, visitation hours are up, so come back tomorrow.”
And just like that, Sanon bid me goodbye for the day, and I was left alone with my food. I didn’t even get a chance to ask what town I was in!
“Wait… Where’s Max Jr.?”