He put the nails in his inventory and stood, resting his weight on the spear.
Liz was sleeping on her shelf. Felix hated to bother her this early in the morning, but he wasn’t going to leave her. He scooped her up and held her in the nook of his right arm. She chirped sleepily and settle back in.
Felix nodded to Koale and together they headed out the back gates. The one undamaged by the previous night's activities.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Renessa closed the gates behind them.
Felix knew she said they could come back at some point. He even believed her. Still, he couldn't help but imagine a hint of finality in the slam of that gate.
They walked along the sandy coast in silence. Koale walked, anyhow. Felix hopped along, using the spear as a particularly dangerous crutch.
By the time the base had dropped out of sight behind him, Felix was already tired. He called a halt while he tested out his foot once more.
"What happened after I blacked out last night?" He set his foot on the sand with care.
"Renessa and I were able to flank behind the monster. I'm sure you remember that? It was tired, I think from all the running. You humans really are quite good at that. I was hardly able to keep up myself. Anyhow, between the running and the poison, it passed out shortly after it appropriated your foot."
"Poison? Is that what you've been working on, you mad man?" The sand burned and the tiny grains felt like they were stabbing his bare foot. He pulled it back up. More hopping yet, then. Though heat and pain were better than overwhelming and unspecified sensation.
"Yes. Well, no. I mean, poison was a poor choice of words. I coated your bolts and Renessa's spear in a concentrated mushroom extract. Though, yes, I have also been working on concoctions that should more properly be called poison." He tapped a few vials on his bandolier absently. Felix was once again concerned and impressed with his friend's drive.
Felix started making his way down the beach once more. The sand was not particularly as stable a footing as one in his position might wish for, but it was better than the jungle with the roots and things with teeth. "So then," he said between leaps, "My foot?"
"Ahh, yes. That was a bit of a gamble."
"How so?"
"Your foot was gone. Renessa and I, well, we didn't know if it would come back. We were fairly sure if we applied a tourniquet you would live, what with the regen here. We weren't sure on the rest."
"You're hedging. Spit it out."
"We carried you to your bed and then we used that medkit on you. What was left of the medites were injected right into the stump."
Felix stopped and looked at him. "The autodoc was broken! That could have killed me!"
Koale kept walking. "That was the gamble. We figured it might get your foot back, or it might kill you. But, if it killed you, you'd have your foot back."
"That's pretty cold." Felix hurried to catch up.
"Renessa was not exactly in the most merciful of moods after finding Trent, and quite frankly, the reasoning was sound."
"Oh."
The silence stretched out as they traveled. Felix wanted nothing more than to be furious at being tossed out, but every time he got himself worked up, he remembered the nails in his inventory. They, and it was they, despite the animosity between Felix and Trent, had trusted Felix and Koale. And the reward for their trust was failure in the resource gathering, mass damage and death.
Felix sighed. "We messed up."
Koale nodded. "Yes. We did."
By mid-afternoon Felix was able to walk on his foot once more. It wasn't comfortable, but it was a firm improvement.
It was about then Liz woke up. She climbed up to her customary perch, draped across Felix's shoulders. She rest one arm atop his head. Felix reached up to pet her as he walked.
Felix was thinking about dinner, and how he hadn't had breakfast or lunch by the time they found the inlet and the tiny hut. They sat against the wall of the house for a rest. Liz leapt off and scampered into the foliage, presumably for her own dinner.
He opened his inventory and pulled out the bread Renessa had handed him that morning. It was then he noticed a flaw in their exodus. Other than the bread, he only had a few pieces of jerky left from their trek up the mountain forever ago, and no other food.
Koale beside him sat, bread in his claws, staring intently at nothing. Felix assumed he also had his inventory open and was mirroring Felix's own discovery.
The Lisnoir slumped back and sighed.
"Food?" asked Felix.
"Yup."
"We're really bad at this."
"Yup."
Felix leaned back as well and slowly ate his bread. At least Koale had one of his own, so he didn't have to share. Maybe they could stretch their supplies a day or two and then ask for more. Maybe Renessa will be less upset and take pity on them. A problem for later.
"If we are going to be here," said Koale as he finished off the last of his bread, "We might as well be productive, yes? Shall we build a ship?"
Felix nodded. "What's our plan of attack? We could just gather supplies and toss them on the blueprint later, but we're going to need a place to keep it anyway."
"I'm inclined towards-" He was interrupted by Liz's reappearance.
Liz walked up to Felix. She had something large and furry squirming in her mouth. It was the numb squirrel.
"Yeah! Who's a good girl?!" Felix pat his little gal on the head. Finally something went right.
Liz wiggled under his pets, and then froze. A muffled chirp sounded around the squirrel and she shook her head. The numb squirrel went flying loose and ran away.
"Liz!"
She looked at him, mouth open, her tongue lulling out of mouth. Her eyes were wide and she ran towards Felix. She tripped over her tongue and rolled into his lap. Felix held her close.
"Don't worry. That little rat bastard has got me too. It'll fade."
A chuckle escaped from Koale, and Felix glared at him. "It isn't funny."
"I beg to differ," said Koale with a grin. "Now where were we? Ahh, yes. I am inclined toward a dam. It'll be much quicker to make than a drydock and it'll give us more draft to work with than just throwing the materials on a blueprint at the end."
"And we build the dam out of?"
"Wood and vine."
"Of course," said Felix. "Why would I expect anything else?"
By the time it was too dark to work, they had the dam constructed. It was a shoddy affair; nothing more than a line of logs jutting up from the shore. They extended across, and past the path of the river. It didn't need to be fancy. Their plan was to destroy it when the time came and ride the built up water out to sea.
Unfortunately, that was the easy part of the plan.
They slept in the cramped little hut after eating a piece of jerky each. It was not comfortable. They had most certainly not planned on actually needing to stay at this base. A definite flaw in hindsight.
Felix was wedged into a corner. A crate dug into his side and his arm was in the air half resting atop the box. Koale's tail kept lashing in his sleep. It seemed to hit Felix every time he had almost drifted off. Liz was still upset from her encounter earlier and sat on Felix's chest. She was not as light as she once was. They would be fixing this problem before night fell again. He was sure of that.
In the morning, Felix sat groggily, chewing at a piece of jerky. They weren't great by any stretch of the imagination, but all the chewing at least allowed one to pretend they were full, he mused.
Necessities accomplished, the two left a sleeping Liz inside the hut and checked on the new dam.
Overnight the water had accumulated around the new dam. It hadn't risen by much, but a small pond was beginning to form. Felix laid out the ship blueprint in the middle of their budding lake.
First he added the nails he had. It wasn't enough by a long shot, but it was certainly better than vines would be. There was no visible change to the blueprint, which didn't shock him much. He i
magined there was likely a pile of ethereal nails underwater.
While he was adding nails, Koale added the goo to the sealant box. That was a surprise. They had gathered nearly three dozen before they were discovered. The ship only required eight. They had a rather large surplus, which was a new, and rather odd feeling. That didn't produce any visible changes yet either, which again, didn't surprise Felix.
They had used the last of their wood the previous evening on the dam. They plodded into the jungle, axes in hand. Neither one of them was particularly eager to chop down yet more trees.
"If I wanted to be a lumberjack, I could have just stayed on my home planet," said Felix between swings.
"Family business?"
"Well, no actually. I'm from Aohiri; it’s a factory planet. Sounded good though, didn't it?"
Once they were loaded down with all they could carry, they drug their overburdened selves back to the blueprint. Once there they offloaded their haul.
In an instant the blue outline transformed. First, long thick boards were placed in a row along the center of the ship, forming the keel. Moments later frames sprouted from the keel, reaching to the sky like the ribs of a great, wooden skeleton. No sooner had the frames settled than planks began to appear at the bottom of the ship near the keel. They were nailed to the frames and worked their way around the ship from the bottom up.
It didn't make more than a layer and a half before the wood they supplied ran out. Felix and Koale headed back for another load. They were more chipper this time around. It was easy to work with such dramatic progress.
The second haul saw the planks rise up several feet high before they ran out again. As the ship's hull curved out of the water, it was not simply the same pale brown that all the planed wood had been so far. The planks facing out to the water were coated with the sealant. They shone with the same iridescent sheen that the landshark's cave had.
Felix whistled. "I don't know what I was expecting, but this was not it."
Koale looked at him. "You weren't?"
"You were?"
"Well, no actually. Sounded good though, didn't it?" Koale walked off to the jungle for another load, not even bothering to wait for a reply. What was there to give?
Felix rolled his eyes and followed.
The next trip's haul formed most of the deck above the bottom of the ship. The fourth finished the deck and added a hatch. The fifth a stairway down and a few more rows along the outer hull. The sixth added no more. They had hit the limits of what could actually be built with their existing nail supply.
A short discussion saw them filling the bottom deck with crates. They could harvest the rest of the wood and apply it to the ship, but they wouldn't be able to use it for anything else. Wood in a crate could still be used for the ship, or for anything else that came up.
They spent the rest of the day loading the boxes with everything they could think of. Wood was added, of course, but so too were vines, rocks, sticks and anything else they could get their hands on.
After a long afternoon, Felix laid on top of the completed deck. He ate the last of his jerky and watched the sun set over the partial wall. Liz ran around the new ship, exploring it, and Koale leaned against the unfinished frames.
The next morning, they'd return to base for food at least. Perhaps they had even cooled down enough to let them stay. But for tonight, Felix was content on his half completed ship and fell asleep stretched out under the stars.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
By mid-morning, they were well on their way back to the base. The trip was much faster than the last had been. They were hungry, sure, but between Felix being able to properly walk and the excitement of even a partially completed ship, it didn't slow them down much.
Felix carried Liz in the crook of his arm again. She was recovering from her nightly rampages. He wished he had remembered to bring the duffel bag on the way out. It would be a lot more convenient way to carry her.
"Hey, you see that?" Koale pointed at the sky in front of them.
Felix squinted at where his friend pointed. Black smoke billowed up from where the base should be.
"Shit. They need us." Felix took off at a jog.
Koale grabbed his arm and jerked him to a stop.
"Look, I know they were assholes, Trent especially, but we need to help if the raiders are here," Felix said, pulling his arm out of Koale's grasp.
"I don't disagree, but we can't just go running up there. If they see us coming, that's it."
"Fine. You have a better idea?"
Koale nodded. "Follow me."
After what felt like forever, they finally crept up on the base. They had stayed in the tree line rather than the more open shore. It was slower by far, but Felix had to admit Koale was right. At least this way they wouldn't be seen approaching.
The commotion had woken Liz who was now sitting on her favored perch. Felix hated having her here, but he couldn't hardly turn around and drop her off at the ship. He held his crossbow ready as they neared what had been their new home.
They went even more slowly as they neared. It was the wise course of action, and it grated. They had been able to hear shouts for a while. He had almost taken off again at the first shout.
Koale put a hand of Felix's shoulder. It wasn't enough to force him to stay, but it didn't need to be. The gesture grounded Felix and stayed his feet.
Finally they were at the edge of the clearing around the base. They peeked out carefully.
The walls on the far side were on fire. It was slowly spreading, but hadn't reached the gate nearest them, yet. Smoke rose from inside the camp as well, but judging from the amount, the flames had not spread far there yet either.
On the far side of the clearing, Felix thought he could make out bodies laying still on the ground. It was too far to make out details. He hoped it was the enemy.
The walls must have held the raiders for a while. He had imagined a roaring conflagration as they had crept slowly through the jungle. In this head, the base was naught but cinders. That it wasn't relieved him despite everything.
The gates closest to them were slightly ajar. A human woman lounged in front of it. She wore a scaled leather jerkin studded with metal rivets, thick leather pants with boots to match, and a metal skullcap. She had a round metal shield on one arm and held a sword in the other. She leaned back against the closed half of the gate, a foot up and resting against it. Her weapons hung at her sides and she gazed up into the sky with apparent boredom.
Inside a woman screamed. Felix couldn't tell if it was Renessa or not. The guard didn't react.
Felix raised his crossbow and aimed down his makeshift sight. He adjusted until he was aimed right at her heart. His finger was on the trigger, and he slowly pulled back until he had taken up all the slack. And then no further.
He had killed many a creature during his time on this planet, but none of them had been sapient. If he pulled the trigger, he would be killing a thinking being. A being that, at this particular moment, was doing nothing to him.
The sounds of fighting came from within the camp. The guard cocked her head to listen but otherwise didn't move.
Felix shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Everyone would respawn. He wasn't killing anyone, just delaying them. He opened his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The bolt sped away and buried itself into the raider's chest. The impact half spun her as she dropped. Even as she began screaming, Felix raced over, his knife in hand.
His stomach lurched and he screamed in horror inside his own head, but he reached down and drew the knife across her throat. She would just respawn. She wasn't dead. She would come back. He didn't kill her.
Felix shot a look to Koale. The Lisnoir was already at the gate, pulling the opening wider.
The gate lurched forward and a raider darted out of the suddenly wider gap. He charged at Felix, sword raised overhead.
Felix was so startled he fell backward. He held his knife up, as if that would fend off the
incoming blow. Liz hissed right beside his ear and dug her claws into his flesh for support.
He yelped, and to his surprise, so did the raider. A stream of black liquid shot from Liz's mouth onto the raider's face.
He stumbled forward, through the gate, locked on course by his own momentum. He dropped his weapon and clawed at his face.
Felix scrambled to his feet, but before he could do anything more, the raider slumped forward and hit the ground. One of Koale's darts was stuck in his neck.
The dart was surprisingly effective, but didn't shock Felix overly much. The ink, however. He looked back over his shoulder at his pet lizard. Liz looked, at least in his mind, smug. Since when could Liz do that? What was that? Felix mentally tabbed the questions to be processed at a later time.
Felix climbed to his feet and reloaded his crossbow. Koale stood beside him, his blowgun out to cover him as he reset his weapon.
They stepped in through the gates. Inside the camp was hellish. No longer was it the quaint little hamlet that promised future potential. Flames licked and sputtered at the rooftops of nearly every building. Doors had been bashed in, the crates and stores smashed. Some objects were taken, the rest were strewn about the floor along with more than a couple still bodies.
Renessa was on the far side of the camp. She was backed up to the water with two wary raiders facing her. She held her spear- a new one tipped with an obsidian head- with ease. She feinted and jabbed, keeping the raiders from rushing in, but making no discernible progress towards freeing herself from her predicament, either.
To the side Trent faced several more raiders. A few bodies lie on the ground with odd wounds. They had straight lines of punctures about two feet long.
Once Felix looked to Trent and the new weapon he brandished, the source of the wounds became clear. Trent bashed one of the raiders back with his shield. He let out a roar and then beat on his shield with his new weapon. It had much more in common with a short-handled paddle than a club anymore and had what looked like landshark teeth embedded along the edges. The coat of blood on them glistened menacingly in the firelight. The glistening was mirrored in Trent's eyes.
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