Chrys had her first proper look at Skaia in the morning. Her tall athleticism reminded Chrys of Kosohona, a pang of memory, but the snub nose, ebony skin and tight curly hair were all Dravish. The first order of business next morning was finding her something more to wear than a cloak. Aitonala donated some underclothes, Cardnial a shirt and Bajur a pair of loose cotton pants. Skaia fashioned some foot-wraps to keep her feet from scorching and gladly shared their breakfast. She looked at the bodies lying in the courtyard and confirmed they matched what she knew of gruyush. She knew quite a lot, having been a diligent student. Gruyush were, she said, immune to magic, even though sustained by it. They could sense the use of magic, and its presence drove them to a frenzy. They would attack all humans, but were most aggressive to magic users of any kind, and would destroy any Items they sensed.

“Cardnial said you knew an old story,” queried Bajur, who was sitting cross-legged in the relative cool of the early morning. He had performed a healing on Deyilan on waking, and the latter was now basking in the view, the curls and lines of ink on his face reminding Chrys of tattooed Rai shamans.

“Were you not told the story of the children and the ape-king when you were young?” asked Skaia.

“We are not Dravish, so we missed that one,” Chrys said. “Please tell us.”

Skaia settled herself cross-legged, took a sip of water and began.

At a certain time, and not very far away, a wicked magician forced an Earth Spirit to enter into the body of a great ape, thinking that he would gain a powerful and intelligent servant. But Earth Spirits are cunning and full of malice. This one soon killed the magician and from his castle ruled all the ape-kind. To keep his powers the ape-king drank the blood of two human children each month. He sent his ape soldiers far and wide to capture children.

Skaia broke off here to say that, at this point, there is usually a moral inserted on children who do not eat their dinner and go to bed or who say rude things to their parents. She resumed:

The ape-king also took ape wives, and from him come the horrid gruyush. At last a brave man and woman defeated the king. The woman was a powerful magician, and she changed the man so he looked like an ape, and changed an ape soldier into a small child. The man took the ape-child to the king. The seeming child tried to cry out and tell the king of the trick, but the king only thought the child was crying from fear. It ignored the noise and drank the ape's blood. At once the king lost his powers, and the man ran him through with his spear. Then the ape-soldiers fled in fear, and no-one had to worry that their children would be taken to feed the ape-king.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Of course it is just a children's story, Skaia said with a worried look at the courtyard. Chrys went to the immediate question.

“What kind of treasure would an ape-king have?”

Rakt was more practical. “How do we get past the gruyush to find out?”

Skaia had some advice. “Lure them with a stronger Item. It is in their nature to destroy magic. Or go down into the courtyard. It is their territory and they will attack.”

“If we do go down, someone could take Sizing and grow bigger than a gruyush,” proposed Aitonala.

“You just want to try your potions,” said Chrys severely. Aitonala grinned.

“Twice the size, with hands too big for weapons. No,” said Rakt.

That left the first option. They went through their Items, rejecting nearly all as either too weak or too useful to be risked. Chrys refused Rakt’s proposal that they use Hassani’s spirit jar. An argument over whether to use the Camp Cooker or the spell rod was halted when Chrys came up with an alternative. They made their preparations, then put her plan into action.

Aitonala daubed the rock lure with Unrot, then threw it near an entrance. Low growls came from the dark, and shifts in the shadows as gruyush moved uneasily. Aitonala played with the line, moving the rock in little jerks. The growls rose in pitch. Aitonala pulled the line back, threw again, a little closer, teasing. At last a gruyush could contain itself no longer, and lunged out. Aitonala snatched the lure back, bringing the beast into the courtyard, and Skaia threw a ball of grey putty at it, hitting square on the massive back. At once, Chrys’ mother’s Liquid Massage went to work, spreading a cleansing pink foam into the fur with a vigorous pulsing action. The gruyush gave a shocked roar, spun around, hurled itself onto its back, then rushed within. There was a cacophony of roars, howls and snarls and the thump of huge blows. Chrys later swore that she saw the masonry tremble, and there was certainly a great deal of dust. A rent and bleeding gruyush staggered forth, to fall to Deyilan’s crossbow. A piece of another landed on the stones.

Silence finally fell. The dust settled slowly. The lure and a crossbow bolt into the shadows provoked no sound. Rakt smiled.

“Massage with a happy ending?” he said. Chrys punched him.