Preston, meanwhile, seemingly glowed with the levels he’d gained. With each passing day his connection to Reginald strengthened, all the more punctuated by the drakeling’s ever-increasing size.
For her part, Eve couldn’t wait until he was big enough to be ridden. Who didn’t want to ride into battle on a gods-damned dragon? Sure, Reginald didn’t have wings, but a girl could dream.
The end of all the harvesting and cleaning and organizing and packing left three adventurers, their backs heavy with loot, graciously bidding farewell to a giant rat who was having absolutely none of it.
“Once ye get back,” Drathis called over his shoulder from where he worked at his cauldron, “I want ye to help me untangle this intestine.”
Preston sighed. “Drathis, the entire point is we’re not coming back. We’re going home.”
“And even if we weren’t, there’s no way I’m helping untangle that intestine,” Wes added with a grimace.
The Scavenger completely ignored him. “And if ye do manage to kill the trellac, be sure to bring me its liver. I hear they can make a tonic to raise yer Intelligence.”
Eve once again looked around the empty cave. “Heard from where?”
“Class knowledge,” Drathis huffed.
She rolled her eyes. “You can still come with us.”
He didn’t reply.
Eve sighed. “Goodbye, Drathis. Thank you.”
Sharing a shrug with her companions, Eve turned away from their rodential host, wading into the pool of water that marked the cavern’s only exit. Wes and Preston followed.
They left Drathis much as they’d found him, save for the heap of organs, bones, sinew, and feathers that’d no doubt birth a generation of tools and weapons for the strange Scavenger.
As Eve began her swim, she couldn’t help but spare a few final thoughts for Drathis, for from whence he’d come and why he so opted for solitude. She supposed she’d never know.
The party journeyed on.
They walked in silence, the familiar cliffside ever present to their right, guiding the way through the oppressive mists. Eve kept her eyes forward. Even now, nearly two months since their arrival, she still found her heart racing if she stared too deeply into the gray abyss.
They passed the boulder Eve had so nearly killed herself against Charging in the fog. She hoped her new class’s improved reaction time could prevent such dangers in their coming encounter. What was she without her speed?
It wasn’t until they’d nearly reached the pass that Preston finally broke the hanging silence. “So—um—” he muttered, “what are the odds we can actually kill this thing?”
“Does it matter?” Eve answered simply. “It’s not like we have much of a choice. The skyswallower exp is dried up, and it’s just a matter of time until some other predator manages to find us. We can’t count on getting lucky like we did with that griffin.”
“We’ll be fine,” Wes said, smiling beneath his cloth and pelsid-ooze mask. “We’ve got an Epic and a gods-damned Unique on our team. Worst case scenario, I can flood the pass with fire and Eve can run us out of there.”
“Assuming the trellac isn’t faster than she is.”
Wes patted the healer on the back. “Then she’ll kill it in one hit with a swing of her mace and a bajillion Strength. Easy.”
Eve wasn’t sure how she felt about Wes talking her up like this. It had taken more Mana than she could’ve survived without a promotion to stop the griffin. She couldn’t do that again. Either way, the Disciple’s tactics did succeed at their intended goal.
“I guess you’re right,” Preston sighed. “Maybe I just need to relax.”
Wes’s eyes widened. “Did you… did you just say you needed to ‘trellax’?”
“No, I—”
“Trellax,” Wes laughed. “That’s brilliant.”
Eve scowled. “No, Wes. No it isn’t.”
“Sounds like you need to trellax,” Wes snapped back.
Eve didn’t know what was worse, Wes’s insistence on the dumb pun or the quiet snort of laughter she heard from Preston’s direction. She groaned.
At least Wes had managed to lighten the mood, even if he did so in his own agonizing way. He and Preston continued passing variations of the pun back and forth as the party traveled, up until they at last arrived.
The mirth ended where the pass began.
Eve drew her mace as the worn cobblestone came into view, the old road slicing cleanly through the familiar mountains. Wes followed suit, unstrapping his staff. Preston placed an absent hand atop Reginald’s head, more to comfort himself than the hound-sized drakeling.
Eve took the lead. “Welp, here goes nothing.” She stepped in.
You have entered the dungeon: The Fallen Pass! Fight well.
The others kept close behind as Eve walked the gentle slope, her feet navigating the uneven terrain of the cracked and broken cobblestones with natural ease. Wes and Preston lacked her grace, but Reginald had no trouble keeping steady.
With every step Eve’s hair stood more on end, her heart rate gradually quickening as they progressed through the road-turned-dungeon. She gripped her club with white knuckles, constantly scanning the obscuring mists for any dark shapes or darting figures. None came.
Seconds passed, then minutes. Still nothing. Silence ruled the foggy sky, itself a stifling presence in the face of imminent danger.
Eve had to strain to hear Preston’s hopeful murmur. “Maybe it’s out hunting, or something else has already killed it.”
“I’d rather fight a trellac than whatever can kill a trellac,” Wes whispered back. “Maybe it moved somewhere el—” He froze in his tracks. His breath hitched. His voice shook, carrying a quiet desperation Eve had never seen in the muscular Disciple. Terror. “We need to leave.”
Eve furrowed her brow. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s out there,” Preston muttered. “Eve, we can’t fight this thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
Wes panted with the shallow breaths of mounting panic. “You can’t feel it? Eve, we need to go right now.”
“Feel what?” Eve asked.
Even Reginald shied back, whimpering as he pressed himself against the cliffside.
Wes and Preston turned to flee, their faces pale and their eyes wide. Eve stopped them. “What’s gotten into—”
And then she heard it.
It spoke not through the air but in her mind. Its question rang through her thoughts, rife with the same quivering fright as she saw in her companions. It was a boy’s voice, a child’s voice.
Why do they always run?
Eve turned to the others. “Did you hear that?”
Wes frantically shook his head, still eyeing the way back.
Interesting, Eve thought. She called out into the mist, “Are you doing this to them?”
I don’t know, the childlike voice answered.
“Can you stop?”
I—I don’t know.
Eve could’ve sworn she heard a sniffle accompanying that last message. “Are you alright?”
Another sniffle. No.
Eve looked back at Wes and Preston. “I’m going to go find it. Stay here.”
They simply nodded, their fear-addled brains desperate to accept the confidence in her tone.
Eve took a step forward. It was a risk, she knew, but her companions were useless in their current state, and the terror in the mysterious voice matched that of her friends too well. Maybe it was under the same spell as the others. She called to it, “I’m coming to find you.”
You aren’t afraid?
Eve silently thanked the gods for Defiant Mind. “This fear isn’t real. It’s just magic.”
A-are you sure?
She took another step. And another. Immune as she was to the magical fear, her heart still raced as she imagined what she might find.
Eve came upon a bend in the road, following the old pass as it swayed to the left.
I’m he
re.
She froze, jerking her head back to scan her surroundings. There, huddled down tight in a corner, was a feathery form. She’d almost walked right past it. “Are you hurt?”
I don’t think so.
“Let me see you.”
Movement slow with trepidation, the creature carefully rose. It stood no more than four feet tall, its head adorned in a mess of brown ruffled feathers in place of hair. In place of arms, two feathered wings wrapped around its torso as if to fend off an encroaching chill. Its legs matched those of a hawk, feathered to the knee and wrinkled, gray skin beneath. They ended in talons.
Eve’s eyes, however, weren’t drawn to the monstrousness of its body, but to the humanity of its face. His face.
Tears fell from yellow eyes, running over boyish cheeks and down a hairless chin. By Eve’s reckoning he looked no older than nine.
Level 4 Trellac Hatchling
Are you a hunter? Mama warned me about hunters.
“I’m not a hunter.” Eve filled her voice with as much comforting softness as she could manage. “I’m Eve.”
I’m Art.
Eve smiled gently. “Pleased to meet you, Art. Is your mama here?”
She’s gone. He sniffled. Hunters got her.
“What about your papa?”
He’s lost. I can’t find him.
“You’re here all alone?”
He nodded.
She shivered, her mind suddenly conjuring images of the urchin child back in Lynthia to whom she’d given her mother’s sweater. “You must be so frightened.”
He nodded again.
“Maybe we can help you. My friends are back there. They’re frightened too.”
Everyone runs away from me.
Eve paused for a moment to think. “I… I think they’re scared of you. I think you’re sharing your fear with them just like you’re sharing your thoughts with me.”
How do I stop?
“I don’t know,” Eve answered earnestly. “I’ve never met a telepath before. The easy answer is to stop being afraid.”
How?
If only I knew, kid. Eve kept the thought to herself. She hoped. Aloud, she switched tactics. “By remembering everything is gonna be okay.” She held out a hand. “That we can get through this. Maybe we can find your papa.”
Art eyed her offered hand for dragging seconds before he anxiously extended a taloned hand of his own and took it. But what if we don’t?
Eve bit her lip, hesitant to make any promises she couldn’t keep. “Then we’ll keep trying. What matters is you’re safe. We’ll protect you.”
Secondary Quest assigned: Lost and Afraid
Help the trellac hatchling find his papa.
Eve reserved her reaction to the notification for later. She needed to stay calm.
The young trellac wiped his eyes with the back of his winged arm, nodding to Eve’s words. The tension remained.
Eve listened, straining her ears to hear Wes’s panicked panting still echoing through misty pass. It wasn’t working. She cursed, wracking her brain for ideas of what to say to comfort a frightened child. Only one came to mind.
Fighting not to speak the words through gritted teeth, Eve spoke. “You know what my friend Wes would say?”
What?
“He’d say you need to trellax.”
A grin blossomed on Art’s face, spreading wide for precious seconds before he erupted into laughter. It was like music, echoing joy through the dismal mists of the fallen pass, until whether by psychic influence, the mounting hope that she might make it home safely, or the unfettered purity of a child’s laughter, Eve couldn’t help but crack a smile of her own.
“C’mon,” she said, “let’s go meet the others.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
These Fields are Significantly Less Dead
THE MOMENT THE first of the viridian treetops came into view, Eve stopped short to marvel at the sight. “Trees,” she muttered. “Actual trees.”
“Um… yes?” Preston said. “Were you expecting something else?”
“Well, no—I just… I guess it feels too easy. After all this time to just… walk home.” Eve shrugged.
“We have your class to thank for that,” the healer replied. “We never would’ve got past Art without Defiant Mind. I just wish we could’ve gotten exp for clearing the dungeon.”
Eve smiled, her pack still bulging with the dungeon core they’d found, its guardians long scared off by the trellac’s fear. “I guess befriending the final boss doesn’t count as clearing the dungeon.”
As one they both looked back at Wes, who carried the young hatchling on his shoulders.
“And what do we say if a stranger sees you and goes ‘aah, a monster!’?” the Disciple asked.
You don’t look so hot either, Art telepathically repeated the quip.
“Or?” Wes prompted.
Aah, an asshole!
Wes grinned. “Perfect.”
Eve scowled at him. “Should you really be teaching him to swear? Isn’t he…” She gestured vaguely, unwilling to say “too young” in front of the hatchling.
Wes held up his hands defensively. “I’m not teaching him to swear,” he said. “I’m teaching him the all-important ability of scathing wit. Swearing is just… a byproduct.”
“Right,” Eve said flatly. “Because you’re the authority on scathing wit.”
“Just like you’re the authority on swearing.” The corner of Wes’s mouth tilted up in a smirk. “I’m not teaching him any words he wouldn’t have picked up listening to you and Preston anyway.”
Eve made a point not to vocalize the string of obscenities that ran through her mind, knowing full well they would only prove Wes’s point. Her restraint did little good in the presence of the telepath.
What’s a ‘hellfucking smartass?’ The innocence in Art’s voice sent Eve’s face white.
Wes laughed, holding up an open hand towards the young trellac. “So now you slap your hand into mine. It’s called a high five.”
Lacking a palm to speak of, Art tapped the back of his taloned hand onto Wes’s. Childish laughter echoed through the air.
Eve put her head in her hands. “A telepathic Wes. Just what I fucking needed.”
Letting out a chuckle of his own, Preston continued on down the worn road. The others followed.
It wasn’t long before the party reached the peak of the mountain pass, exposing the forest canopy that stretched out below them.
“I think,” Preston declared with excitement in his voice, “we’ve come far enough.” With a near-ceremonial reverence, he pulled the cloth mask from his face and took his first unfiltered breath of fresh air.
Wes followed suit. “This is amazing. I never have to smell pelsid ooze again.”
“Don’t worry,” Eve commented. “Once we get back to Lynthia you can smell the sewage instead.”
Wes scrunched up his nose. “Don’t remind me.”
For her part, Eve reveled not in the freshness but in the openness of the air. Unafflicted with the need for pelsid slime to filter the toxic fog, her grip with the Dead Fields wasn’t in terms of stench but of claustrophobia. No longer did the oppressive sky leave a stale taste in her mouth. No longer did the world’s beauty obscure itself behind a curtain of mist. For hells’ sake, she could see further than the bridge of her nose! Eve smiled.
She surveyed the sea of conifers before her, grinning maniacally at the concept of trees. She’d missed trees.
For all the splendor of the emerald view, Eve found her eyes drawn not to the forest itself, but the areas bereft of foliage at all. Other than the usual clearings and strange ruined stone tower she was certain was some kind of dungeon, only one feature stood out.
“That must be the Ilv.” Preston pointed at the winding absence of trees which could only be the famed river. “You can even see the tributaries.”
Sure enough, if Eve looked closely she could just barely make out the gaps in the forest that signified the
mountain streams on their way to join up into the Ilv. “We made it further east than I thought.”
“It makes sense,” the healer said. “We were walking for days before we found Drathis.”
“Right,” Eve replied under her breath. “It’s just… hard to know you’re traveling if you don’t see your surroundings change.” Quietly enough to escape the others’ notice, she continued, “So much for going home.”
“Sounds like we have a destination,” Wes spoke up. “Follow the river until we get to Ilvia.”
Eve nodded. “Easy enough. I’ve always wanted to see the Great Crossing. Maybe we can find a boat heading back to Lynthia.”
“Or Pyrindel,” Preston said. “We’ve been to Lynthia. Besides, all the mercenary guilds worth talking to are based in the capital.”
“You just don’t want to go back to Ayla’s cathedral,” Wes laughed.
Preston snapped his fingers. “You’re damn right I don’t. I’ve had enough religious ceremonies and weird priestesses, thank you.”
Eve furrowed her brow. “You… you do realize there are cathedrals to Ayla in every city, right?”
Preston blanched.
Wes chuckled. “You could just… not show up at the cathedral.”
“Yeah, whatever happened to the whole ‘I’m keeping in the church’s good graces so I always have a place to stay wherever I go’ thing?” Eve asked.
“That was before we looted enough ar-iron to fund a small army,” the former Priestess answered. “Now I can afford a room.”
“Ah yes, the height of luxury,” Eve laughed. “A room.”
Wes rubbed his lower back, sending Art rocking wildly back and forth atop his perch. “Honestly, yes. After two months sleeping in a cave with a giant rat, I would kill for a real bed.”
This Class is Bonkers! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 2) Page 8
