It was finally over. No more clothes shopping. After getting back to Thea, they had gone out clothes shopping. The store they entered looked just like any other clothes store back on Earth. Rows upon rows and aisles upon aisles of nothing but clothes. Briar could feel her energy being sapped just being there.
Thankfully, there were clothes that fit her. It did raise some questions though. She had yet to see anybody else with animal ears, let alone a tail. So, why were there clothes that were made specifically for people with those features?
Briar suspected it might have had to do with how the cashier muttered something like, “Goddamn ferals,” but she wasn’t too sure. It didn’t even seem like Thea noticed the cashier say that, so Briar also ignored it.
Thea had tried to take back the bathrobe, but it was too comfy to give up. That was why, while in the changing room, she had shoved it into her newly discovered spatial storage. This naturally raised some questions, but playing dumb as an apparent eight-year-old makes things too easy. If done correctly, that is.
And that was how they made it to this point in time. Standing out in front of the guild, while the rest of the group was slowly double checking that they had everything. They had all geared back up in the same stuff they had on when they found her, heavily implying that they’d be leaving shortly.
They had decided to clear out the goblin den today, as it was supposedly an easy task. Personally, she had wound up wearing leather armor. It was very uncomfortable, but when she asked to not wear it, she had been turned down. They wanted her to be protected. Probably so they wouldn’t have to put in as much effort protecting her themselves.
It was as they were walking out of town that Briar realized she didn’t know two of the people in the group. She knew the giant was Jorreck, and she knew all of the women, but she didn’t know the two last guys. She would say twins, but it could be a Merry and Pippin situation, where they just look alike, and aren’t actually twins. She tugged on Thea’s arm.
“Who are they?” She pointed at the presumed-twins. Thea followed where she was pointing, and a flash of realization settled on her face.
“Oh, right, you haven’t been introduced yet. They’re twins, Havel and Malik. There’s no easy way to tell them apart unless you know them pretty well, so they often pretend to be each other.” At this point, she leaned down real close and started whispering. “But if you really want to tell the difference, jab them in the ribs. Havel will get angry and try to grab you, while Malik will yelp and jump away.” She chuckled a bit, but Briar duly noted that anyway. That’d be fun to use later. Only if necessary, of course. Obviously.
They had left the town and reached the forest by this point, and, while the party tensed up, Briar felt a knot of tension slowly unknot itself. The woods had always been relaxing, and that seemed even more true now.
The party slowed down as they started bushwacking their way through the forest. You’d think with how much they seemed to come into the forest, that a path would have formed already, but a quick glance back showed that the forest was already growing back to fill in the gaps they left behind.
It was almost uncanny how fast it was growing, really. If she had to guess, she’d say it had something to do with magic, but she didn’t have nearly enough information to confirm that. She turned back forwards, and continued to follow the party.
Things went like this for a while, and Briar was hopelessly lost at this point. She would’ve been concerned about getting out, but they all seemed to know exactly where they were, and where they were heading. She just gave up on trying to keep track of where they were, and instead focused on appreciating her surroundings.
Things weren’t nearly as dense as the part of the forest where she had first met the party, but after around 30 feet or so, you wouldn’t be able to see any further. Almost like someone got a little plant-happy in a sims game.
Strangely, though, there weren’t many pointy plants. No more briars, no more thistle, no more Holly, nothing. While she may not have majored in…plants…and all that…what was it called? Ecology? Yeah, ecology. While she may not have majored in ecology, she still knew that forests didn’t behave this way. It was almost as if they were in a completely different forest.
It was while she was looking around that she thought she heard something. Her ears twitched in the direction the noise came from as she focused harder on trying to make out what it was. It sounded like…her? Well, not her exactly, but it sounded like it was someone like her walking. Small. Slow. Trying to be sneaky.
Her mind immediately went wild with ideas on who it could be. Her thoughts ranged from a kid following them from town, to a demon child out for blood. Her curiosity started to win out over her caution, and she broke away from the party to investigate. Just for a moment. She’d be back soon enough. They wouldn’t even notice she was gone.
She slunk through the underbrush, heading straight for where she had heard the noise from, when she had a thought. Maybe coming at it head on isn’t the best idea. She paused, before angling herself and circling around the origin of the noise.
Now approaching from behind, she peeked out of the bushes to try and get a better look, but was not prepared for what she saw. It looked like a gargoyle had lost its wings, and tried to cover itself in camo paint using its feet. Not to mention the incredibly long nose that would put plague doctors’ masks to shame. In one of its hands was a reed pipe which, again, made no sense being in this forest.
It was staring away from her, in the direction she originally had been coming from. Good thing she had changed directions. It looked intelligent, if how it was standing there and studying something was any indication.
An idea popped in Briar’s head, and, no matter how much her smaller voice of logic screamed how bad of an idea it was, she followed through with it. She creeped up right next to the camo gargoyle, straightened up, and smirked.
“Hi!”
The gargoyle-thing jumped nearly a foot in the air, before it wheeled around, raised the pipe in its hands to its mouth, and blew through it. A small little dart flew out and grazed her cheek, drawing a little bit of blood.
She finally decided to listen to her logic side, and realized how stupid of an idea this had been. She thought about running away, but discarded that idea almost as soon as she thought it. Not because of any reasonable excuse, such as the fact that the gargoyle clearly had a ranged weapon, or that if it didn’t shoot her as she fled, it would follow her, but because she always finished what she started. And if she had started a fight? She was gonna damn well finish it first.
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Her fist curled into a ball, and flew directly towards the gargoyle, hitting it square on the nose. Its nose gave an audible snrack noise, and was suddenly pointed sideways. Apparently having a long nose was a bad idea.
It yelped in pain, before raising its blowpipe to its mouth again. Lunging to the side, Briar dodged out of the way of the dart as it flew by her. She stumbled as she stopped moving sideways, giving the gargoyle the perfect opportunity to punch her back. And oh boy did it pack a punch.
Its fist landed right below her neck, and she choked as her windpipe was suddenly cut off from receiving air. In the moments it took for her to regain her breath, the gargoyle had shot another dart at her, this one landing directly on the back of her hand, where it was still clutching at her throat.
Giving a gutteral snarl, Briar yanked the dart out of her hand, and everything wobbled slightly. She paused for a moment, thinking about that, before glancing down at her hand. Yep. There was a little hole in it.
There was also a bit of something green dripping out of it. She started to get hot, her mouth drying out instantly. Black started to creep in on the edge of her vision. She had felt this before. She was about to pass out. She looked back up at the gargoyle, who was still standing there, blowgun pointed at her. If she was going down, she was gonna take that bastard with her.
She took a step forward. Then another. On her third step, her vision had gone completely black, and there was a ringing in her ears. On her fourth, she tripped over something on the ground. She was unconscious before she could hit the ground.
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When she woke up, she was inside what looked to be a small hut made of dead grass. Though, calling it a hut would be extremely generous. The thing just looked so structurally unstable, that she was sure one good hit would knock it down. The only support for the entire thing was a beam in the middle of the room.
She went to sit up, and quickly discovered that she was tied up. Her ankles were wrapped up in some type of grass rope, and her wrists were similarly wrapped up in front of her. Whoever had tied her up clearly did not know how to tie people up properly.
She glanced around one last time, double checking that there was nobody in the hut with her, before she raised the ropes around her wrists to her mouth. She started to gnaw at the rope with her front teeth, which was rather unpleasant. Slivers of grass kept getting in her mouth, and it started to tickle her face as more and more came free.
When she got down to just a little bit more, she heard footsteps approaching the hut. She quickly put her hands back to how they had been, and hoped whoever it was didn’t notice that the rope was severely frayed.
A small part of the hut wall parted, and a gargoyle thing walked in. This one didn’t have any of the green splotches on itself, and its nose seemed much smaller. It noticed she was sitting up, and paused for the briefest of moments.
“Greetings. You should consider yourself lucky you are not dead. Though, that is likely to change soon.”
It was this sentence that gave Briar pause. The last thing she had expected was for the gargoyle to speak perfect…what was this language? Uhhh…fuck. Aiken! That’s what it was. She didn’t expect it to speak perfect Aiken.
“And, why is that? And, while we’re at it, are you a gargoyle? It’s been bothering me for a while.” Briar decided to just speak her mind. It had always worked for her so far.
“You received a lethal amount of our most poisonous mixture, and all it did was make you fall asleep. And, what is…gargoyle? I do not believe I have heard that word before.”
“Uh, a gargoyle is, um…well, it’s a thing. A stone thing. That comes to life. Or is it always alive? And does things? Fuck, words. Uahhhhh. Yeah. That.”
She had never been good with words. Her mind almost never used them, and she struggled to change her thoughts into words. Oh how great it would be if telepathy was real. She would never have to struggle with words again.
The gargoyle chuckled. “Well, I am not that. Nobody in this small village is. We are all full-blooded goblins, through and through.”
Oh. That was not good. That probably meant that this was the goblin den the party was coming to wipe out. But why? The goblins were visibly intelligent. They didn’t seem all that bad. In fact, this goblin seemed rather ni-
“Wait, you said that my luck might change. Why?” It was just a minor thing. A common thing to say in a sentence. And she had been distracted with the whole gargoyle thing. But it seemed ominous.
“Oh, I suppose I did say that. You see, you survived a lethal dosage of our most poisonous mixture. That means that we cannot kill you with it, and we must resort to more…rudimentary means of killing you.”
It was at this moment that the goblin raised her hand, and a small orb of something appeared. Briar’s flight or flight instincts kicked in, and they screamed at her to get rid of the goblin. But then that little voice appeared, and told her that it was wrong. Killing is wrong. You need to hide it. Hide the urges. Don’t let them discover.
Her internal conflict raged on, all while the orb grew bigger and bigger. And then the orb fired. It launched itself towards Briar, and all thoughts ceased. Her wrists yanked apart, snapping the last thread of the rope, and she flung herself to the side. After slowing a bit, her claws extended and she sliced through the rope on her legs. It cut easily.
The orb flew by her, landing directly where she had just been. The ground lit up in chaos, fire and ice both forming around the impact spot. But that didn’t even register in Briar’s head. All she felt was a flood of anger. That…thing had just tried to kill her.
With fury etched across her face, she launched herself at the goblin. It was evidently surprised, as it failed to react in time to Briar slashing her claws through her throat. It gurgled a bit, before collapsing on the ground. Briar didn’t even give it a passing thought. She was too angry.
She stalked out of the tent, and all eyes turned to her. She had blood spray covering her front, and blood still dripped from her claws. She didn’t make the first move. She didn’t want to. Plausible deniability and all that jazz.
She didn’t need to wait long. The goblins charged at her, roaring at her as they came closer. She answered with a roar of her own, and charged forward to meet them. She collided with the veritable wall of goblins, and started slicing her way through.
Cut after cut appeared on her body, as she was no longer trying to protect herself. She was just so angry. At some point, she was swiping her paws through the goblins, throwing multiple away at a time. The spears they wielded started bouncing off her fur. Her mouth was biting them in half.
She didn’t know how long it took, but at the end of it, she towered over the remains of the goblin den, covered in blood, and not nearly as angry anymore. With a sigh, she looked around. She didn’t know what to do at this point. She didn’t know where the party was, and she was rather exhausted after her rampage.
And that was another thing. Weren’t people supposed to feel horrible after taking a life? The only thing Briar felt after this, besides the exhaustion of course, was confused. Confused over how easy it had been. Confused over why she didn’t feel anything else. Confusion about why there was the slightest of grins, a genuine grin, on her face. She was confused.
It was at this moment that she realized something. The party was coming here anyway. She could just wait here for them. Hey, they might even be happy! She had done their job for them. They wouldn’t have to go through all the effort of doing what she had just done.
Though, she supposed, that might take a while. They don’t know where the den is exactly, so they’d still have to do a bit of searching to get here. She could nap while she waited for them.
She spotted a nice open spot that looked comfortable, and walked over to it. She spun around twice, and lay down, curled into a ball. She drifted off to sleep with her tail tickling her nose.