“Legal matters?” I repeated.
“Trade disputes, problems with jurisdiction, that sort of thing,” Trent said. “Now then, on this map, please point to the area where you hunted those Clickies.”
“Kinru,” I corrected him. I scanned the topographical map and shrugged. “No clue. This map doesn’t have giant holes from Mulrand’s stomping.”
Trent dramatically raised his pointer finger and thrust it down on an area inside of the red borders. “Here. Right in our border.”
That made sense, considering that Dette had been rushing home to escape the Kinru that had been following her.
“So?” I asked.
“So…” Trent said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “So, in accordance to the borders that were drawn, you hunted in our territory without our permission. That entitles us to the meat.”
“Is this really still about the meat?” I said, laughing. I glanced at Higgins who merely shrugged helplessly at me. The man saw this was ridiculous too, but he said nothing on account of Trent being both his father and leader. “I straight up kill three Kinru, give you the corpse of one, then I kill a lure beast on your doorstep and now you’re trying to pull up some ancient laws written by people who were way, way too optimistic about the future? Unbelievable.”
Trent’s face darkened. “What other option do I have? My people are starving. That meat feeds us for a week. Two if we ration it as stringently as we have in the past. I must do everything in my power to get more food. Force did not work on you, clearly, so I must resort to…”
“To legal options, father?” Higgins said, leaning forward. “Dad, listen. Avery’s a good person. Yeah, she shot me, but only because we forced her hand. She fought the Helper and killed it, saving the next wave of scouts from the dangers of being tricked by the creature.”
“This situation is beyond good or evil,” Trent replied, shaking his head. “I have tried to pound this into your skull time and time again. Whether or not Avery and the people of Hunter’s Hope are good people is not the issue. The issue is that we are starving. We need that meat.”
I wanted to open my mouth to yell at the old man, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was the dark circles around his eyes, or maybe it was the abject disgust he had for himself as he spoke, but I knew he wasn’t some maniacal villain, waiting to take anything he could get his hands on. This was a desperate man who was candid and fully accepting of what was necessary to lead his people to survive.
“I’m sorry that you are all starving,” I said. “Our own scouts are gone now, lost to the monsters above. I’m playing catch up with my own village, hunting on their behalf for now, but once we have some food stocked up, I’ll be happy to help you out.”
Trent shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, then looked around to make sure the children weren’t paying attention. Once it was clear that they were still engrossed in their books, he whispered. “A Venator cannot be relied upon in the future, for their time is too short.”
“You know of us?” I asked.
Trent nodded, his face hardened and sour, greatly displeased with this admission. “Long ago we had a lone Venator watch over this city. He killed a mighty creature that lurked in this region. And for a while it was dead, sure. The meat was stripped down for food and the bones thrown to the hounds, a reward for their efforts in tracking the creature. We built our city here and we did the best we could.”
“Then it came back, didn’t it?” I whispered, remembering the Ur-beasts that Rashar had spoken about.
“Oh yes, it certainly did,” Trent said. “Two years ago. The bones, ancient and forgotten, returned to the site of the creature’s death and, in an instant, a nightmare was here. It killed the mushroom farmers, devoured the livestock that could survive in the underground environment and anyone else in its path. The lineage of Venators had long died out, with each hunter having a lifespan of maybe a month before vanishing on the surface. No one was here to save us.”
I swallowed hard at the mayor’s story. “What…what happened?”
“We solved it like we solved any problem,” Trent said, shaking his head. “We ran. Now it’s in those stone apartments, lurking, looking for food. Hasn’t come out in some time, but ever since that day…our village has been on the decline. Two hundred years of solid infrastructure development, ruined in an instant, thanks to a so-called Venator.”
“You have to do a ritual with the bones, to stop them from coming back,” I muttered. “Why didn’t your Venator know that?”
Higgins was the one to reply to this question. “Well, there was an unfortunate time in history when there were…uh, how do I put it? Imposters, I guess. Folks who wore the clothes of a Venator and spoke the lingo, even donning weapons.”
“Why would anyone want to lie about that?” I asked. “Seems like a fast way to get yourself killed.”
“Venators don’t work when they aren’t hunting,” Mayor Trent growled. “They don’t pay for their meals and they certainly don’t have trouble making friends. An imposter can enjoy quite a few benefits before having to go out for a ‘hunt’.”
“A false Venator would eat all the food, drink all the beer and then leave for good,” Higgins said. “Only our liar actually ended up in too deep. He came up with a stupid plan to kill the monster and it worked.”
“And we all believed it,” Trent whispered. “For hundreds of years. So, you’ll understand that I have very little love for Venators or people claiming to be such. Right outside of our little village are four buildings, any which of one holds the beast that will drive us to extinction. All because some jackass lied to us, rather than suggesting we simply move somewhere else.”
Chapter 23
While he was a deeply unhappy man who often spoke hopefully about his heart going out, Mayor Trent was well educated on the past. I spent a few hours with him in what he called the Archives, which were a collection of backup books that were preserved in case society needed to start again. When the people were driven out of the stone apartments, which contained many smaller libraries, the only source of knowledge they had was in the archive building.
Rebuilding had been difficult and with the loss of all livestock, the food reserves (which had been the previous function of the village huts) began to dwindle down. In a way, I was a little jealous, listening to the mayor’s description of what the old days sounded like. His village had been large and successful, the product of a genius’ vision to create an underground society. They had food, water and luxuries in abundance. Those apartments were treasure troves, he had told me, filled to the brim with culture, art and history.
The old man had no shortage of words to share. I don’t know if he were bragging to me about his village, or if he was just stuck in the old days, but the fear of the present and the future faded away on his face as he spoke. When reflecting on what was behind, I could see a real man, not a hardened caricature whose only concern was with getting that Kinru meat back.
“But, I digress,” Trent said, finishing one of his long, trailing stories about what happened when the real Venators had arrived to his city. “The short of it is this: I do not expect for you to live very long outside. I have no doubts that you are a real Venator, as you claim to be, for there is a dead monster lying in a hole outside. What I do doubt is that you will be able to fulfill any promises of meat in the future. Because I’ve seen my fair share of dead people walking and you, ma’am, are certainly on the way out.”
I folded my hands and placed them on the desk, looking the old man right in the eye. “What makes you say that?”
Trent sighed. “How much do you know about your own profession? About your own people?”
“Just what my mentor taught me,” I said. “And what I’ve been able to glean from books.”
The old man glanced over at Higgins, who was still sitting with us, blankly listening to the same stories he had no doubt heard a dozen times. “If you would excuse us?” he asked.
“I
thought you wanted me to stay here, in case you died midsentence,” Higgins replied, already standing up.
“If only I were that lucky,” Trent grunted. “Take the kids with you too.”
I waited in awkward silence as Higgins departed, gathering up the children and leading them outside. The thick archive doors slammed shut, just leaving myself and the old man alone.
“Something’s hunting you,” Trent said, his shaking voice piercing through the heavy silence in the air. “And it will find you soon.”
“What?” I asked. Trent merely replied by sliding his chair back and standing, stretching out his string bean arms. He motioned for me to follow to the back and I had the sneaking suspicion I was about to be led to another Venator secret bunker.
“The Archive kept more than just vital information for people,” Trent said. “It also contains some things for your kind. The real Venators from long ago insisted on building a secret workshop.”
My eyes lit up at the word. I could craft the Lure Beast Charm and perhaps even extract ingredients from the corpse. “We have something similar at home,” I said.
The old man grabbed a single, innocuous book from the shelf on the far back and pulled. The book did not come out all the way. Instead, I could hear the click and whirring of gears moving against one another. The bookshelf slid open, revealing a secret stairwell leading straight down.
“Every Venator starts out the same, in the beginning,” Trent said as he slowly made his way down the stairs, taking one step at a time. “Eager and full of life. They consume a lot of some kind of energy or essence; I forget what it’s called. But that consumption…it makes you a target.”
“A target for what?”
“Maybe you can make sense out of what they left behind,” Trent replied. “I sure as hell don’t understand it.”
We reached the bottom of the stairwell and lights suddenly greeted us; white, warm lights that were cast from crystals imbedded in the wall. They were bright as torches and allowed me to see that this room was very different from my workshop. There were no books present. Rather, there were two sections, a distillation and extraction station, complete with preserved tools and alchemical ingredients, and on the other side of the room, a large tapestry.
I took a few steps closer to the tapestry, gazing intently at it. There was a depiction of some kind of skeletal creature, pallid white with many long spines running down its back. These spines formed perfect edges, but looked flexible, as if they could whip out at its enemies. Standing in front of this strange creature was a tigerman, triumphantly holding the beast back with one hand.
“Is that…” I muttered, rushing up to get a closer look. “Rashar?” The tigerman on the tapestry looked identical to the one who had trained me in real life.
“Yes, Rashar’s Final Stand,” Trent said, standing at the entrance. I noticed that both of his feet were inside the hallway, as if he refused to come any further. “He was the last of our tiger allies, from what I could tell. Stood firm against that beast that claimed the lives of so many Venators.”
Final stand? What was Trent talking about? “Rashar’s still alive,” I said. “I met him on the surface.”
“More imitators, more liars,” Trent mumbled. “The fact is, the Dread Beast will find you and it will kill you. My village has laws against hosting your kind for that reason.”
“You don’t allow Venators in?” I asked, turning back to look at the old man.
“Never,” the mayor replied. “At least, not when there were any around. But times have changed. We have a monster here already, so I don’t suppose your presence will make things any worse.”
I looked back at the tapestry. The tigerman was a dead ringer for Rashar. There’s no way the one I met was a mere imposter. Something was going on and I needed to find out what.
“When Rashar fell, the Dread Beast grew stronger and hungrier. Venator after Venator succumbed to it. The ones who built this bunker knew it was coming for them as well. They left behind something of value in the tapestry for those in the future, who would have to rebuild,” the old man explained.
This information was a little overwhelming and I could say nothing. There had been sadness in the eyes of Rashar whenever he spoke of the fate of a Venator. He must have known about this Dread Beast and escaped from its clutches, perhaps renouncing his power in the process. Yes, that would make sense as to why he was still alive.
“I have gone a long way to explain to you our predicament,” Trent said, pulling my attention back to the real world. “And I have been kind enough to reveal your predicament as well, in the hopes that you would understand how limited your time is. This is my last attempt to plead with you for that meat you took from our territory. After that, I will form a war party. We will raid your people.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” I said. “I can’t give you the meat back, I’m sorry. If things are really this dire, I could hunt something else. I know a few more Kinru are in the area.”
As I spoke, still engrossed with the tapestry, half-listening to the old man’s threats, there came a slam from behind, startling me. I spun around and grabbed for my bow, but remembered that I left it back at the front of the cave, as a sign of peace. Standing where the old man had been was a long, smooth slab of stone. I was trapped in this room.
“Very well then,” Trent called from the other side. “If I can’t get you to see reason, I suppose I’ll have to hold you here until we conduct our raid. I’m sure without your protection, they won’t give us a fight and just hand over what is legally ours.”
“Are you nuts?” I shouted. “There’s no way in hell you’re going to find us. And if you did, you wouldn’t stand a chance crossing the surface with so many people.”
“We’re not going to walk, we’re going to dig,” Trent said. “I have the course already charted. I’m sorry that I have to hold you here, but legally I’m in the right. This will set precedents between villages.”
I didn’t bother to reply to the old man. I had underestimated him due to his levity upstairs. He was crabby, sure, but up until now, he had been perfectly civil. Now, he was going to be trying to lead an attack on my own village, just to take more than his fair share. Whether his motives were good didn’t matter to me at this point, I needed to figure a way out of here.
I fumbled around, feeling the smooth walls of the underground bunker, looking for some kind of secret tunnel or false wall. Nothing turned up. I closed my eyes and listened intently, for the sounds of wind blowing through an unseen crack or crevice, but no luck. This place was sealed up tight. There was, fortunately, air coming in through the top of the design, but the domed overhead was nearly 15 feet above me. I didn’t have enough furniture to get that high and, even if I did, I doubted the air hole was somehow able to expand any wider.
I had some time to figure out a plan; after all, Mayor Trent said that they would be mining their way to my territory. That could take days or weeks, depending on how the tunnels formed underground. I pulled out the small piece of black wood in my pocket. I had cut this out of the horrid lure beast and, now, it bristled with green energy, waiting to get back out into the world.
I glanced over at the tools that were sitting in by the alchemy bench. Perhaps there was something powerful within the lure beast’s charm that could help me out of this situation. And if not…well, maybe I could use the chemical stockpile to create some kind of explosion.
With many questions ringing in my head about Rashar and this Dread Beast, I began to work on the charm, treating the wood as if it were bone for the purpose of cleaning and activating. The lure beast itself was a mix between wood and organic material, although it had almost no meat and its skeletal structure was wooden. There were some internal organs that I could use for ingredients, although how much I’d be able to extract was just a guess at this point. I’d need to find some way to get the wooden body back home—once I got out of here, of course.
My hands were deft at preparing the cha
rm and, within twenty minutes, I had a small triangle made out of polished, black wood, hanging from a simple chain. Removing the enhanced perception from the Kinru charm, I took a deep breath and threw the new necklace on.
Aspect of the Fylk
Hardened Mind (0/1): Illusions and Minor Compulsions cannot affect you
Flatterer (0/1): Gain +2 Charisma
Weaver (0/3): Grants wearer access to the Minor Illusion school of magic.
Interesting choices. Magic? I wondered what that would entail. But as I tried to select that option, just to see what would happen, an error came up. No mana appeared in my sight, blinking in black and red letters. Mana…what did that mean? I’d have to ask Rashar about it, in addition to a dozen other questions about all this tapestry nonsense.
“Well, so much for using actual magic to get out of here,” I grumbled, still looking at the other two options. Charisma meant talking smoothly, right? Like being good at convincing people to do what you want? Maybe I could talk my way out of here if I boosted my talking ability. I had never felt particularly inept at talking, but certainly wasn’t a charmer. Perhaps it was time for a change.
“Here goes nothing,” I said, shrugging as I gave the order for the Flatter charm to activate. I couldn’t feel anything at first; no serious changes in my mind or body. And so I thought it wasn’t working…until the ideas began to rush at me. Clear pictures in my mind of body language, tone and exchanged glances. Suddenly, my memories of Trent had changed and I could so clearly see that he had been planning to trap me all along.
As my memories began to change retroactively, I started to develop a greater understanding of the man, of his motives and feelings. He was willing to go to such desperate and drastic measures not because of his ego, but because he was trying to spare his son from having to be the tyrant in the near future. I could work with that.
Monster Hunting 101: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure (Titan Termination) Page 15
